Limerence

Recrudescence

Content Warning!

Mentions of blood, death, and torture from this point on. Although the details in this chapter will be fairly tame, if any of this bothers you, please do consider a different story! Thank you! :)

"Wait, you need my help? Why?" Anya inquired.

"Anya," Cohen began, "do you know who Jillian Harris is?"

Did she know who Jillian Harris was? Yes, unfortunately she did. She was one of the few female snipers that worked in SWAT. Anya despised her. The woman had a superiority complex that surfaced whenever her group had to work with Anya's.

In her mind, what the NDO (or, Anya's place of work) did was "barbaric" and "subpar" as if the agents there didn't have to go through the same, if not more intense, training as her. Anya personally believed that it was because Jillian thought that they were amateurs who killed people for fun. After all, she never took the time out of her day to actually look into what the group did. Anya herself liked to think that the NDO was basically homeland security on adderall.

The agent finally spoke, "Yes, I do know her sir. Why do you ask?"

"There is no easy way to say this, Agent Provost, but she's dead. After some deliberation and research, we strongly believe that she was killed by the same person who abducted you."

Holy shit, she's dead? Anya's head began pounding. A lot of emotions came over her unexpectedly and her facial muscles were struggling on deciding which one to portray to her bosses. The young woman was shocked, first and foremost, but fury and confusion (and just a smidge of happiness) were quick in succession.

After she could process what she was just told, the anger kicked in. "Wait so you think that it's the same person that tortured me?" she asked, eyes narrowed on Cohen.

"Well, yes-"

Anya stood up abruptly. "So you put my case on hold, but now that one of your own was killed, you suddenly want to catch this bastard?"

Liam released his hands from their folded position and stood up as well. "Anya no, I don't think it's like that. It's just that if we are talking case priority..." Liam's voice trailed off and he looked as if he'd wished that he had held his tongue.

Anya glared at him and dug her fingernails into her palms. Trembling, she tried to remember those "grounding" exercises that her therapist worked on with her. Find five things you see, four things you can feel, something like that, all the way down to the one thing you could taste.

Well, considering that blood from biting down on her tongue was what she could taste, she decided to ditch the exercise altogether and just take a few deep breaths instead.

Okay

Anya reopened her eyes and looked towards Cohen, who had taken a few steps back so as not to get in the way of any potential breakdown. "I'm sorry," the agent spoke, "I know you didn't purposefully ignore my case. I just don't understand why you decided to seek my help now instead of earlier."

Cohen sighed and motioned for Anya to sit down. "Anya, I couldn't imagine what you went through. Not even in the slightest. But I need you to know that we didn't have enough information to pursue this unsub yet. Until Agent Davis' death, we only knew what you knew."

In this case, Anya knew nothing of her captor, meaning of course, the FBI knew nothing of her captor. When they had found her body, it had been clean of any extraneous DNA. Whoever he was had made sure to maintain complete anonymity while doing whatever he wanted to do to her.

The girl shifted in her seat. Liam — who was glued to his position — was looking intently at his acquaintance. After all, this was news to him too.

"I need to share important case details with the both of you that I need my whole team for, but I'll give you a summary for now. Anya, will you be okay if I share some of this? The last thing that I want to do is pour salt in your wounds."