Double Crossed

He Has A Bathroom ... Right?

His hand grips my wrist as he pulls me to the other side of the make-shift campsite, away from the others. The last words he said to me keep repeating in my head as I scramble to figure out what he could possibly need to talk to me about. My eyes dart around the woods, searching for something I missed in my observation while looking out for Hecate. Maybe Ryan saw something that I missed.

Instead of comforting me like I had hoped, that only makes me more nervous. Ryan was one of the ones who taught me everything I know. If I missed something then he would have failed his job to teach me. It’s the thought of disappointing him that makes my heart beat faster and worry to set in.

We stop walking and Ryan turns to me, his earlier resolve fading and a strong burden filling his eyes. “You’re a profiler Erin,” he starts. “I’ve taught you everything I know and so have Red and Cadwell.”

My own anxiety over this situation begins to fade as I take in Ryan’s unease, I suddenly want to hug and comfort him even though I know I can’t.

Shifting weight from his left foot to his right, he says, “You also have picked up on this a lot faster than any of us expected.”

“What’s up, Ryan?” I say softly, “I know you didn’t drag me out here for a pep talk.”

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. Ryan looks up at me and with a blank expression on his face, he says, “You need to profile me.”

Shock fills my face and I stare back at him with my mouth hanging open. A part of me wonders if I heard him right, he couldn’t possibly want me to profile him could he? Why would even need me to?

“Why?” I ask.

I mean sure, I can tell he had a bad night. The bags under his blood shot eyes and the way he drags his feet slightly is basically screaming it at me, but that doesn’t call for any serious profiling. He goes on to tell me every small detail of a dream he had, as gruesome as it is. After he finishes I’m a little stunned. I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been.

My shock doesn’t last too long though as my mind begins to analyze and scrutinize everything he said. Missing limbs where the people were allegedly hurt, the ground moving in the opposite direction you want to go paired with the blood on his hands all stand out in my mind. And thanks to grade eleven English, not that I understood any of it, I can immediately give him an answer. “Did you ever read Macbeth in high school, Ryan?”

He starts nodding, “I’m not guilty,” he says defensively. “I didn’t pull the trigger and I tried everything I could to stop the bleeding.”

I raise my eyebrows, it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “I didn’t say you were guilty. I was going to say that in the play, Lady Macbeth felt guilty and she was constantly trying to wash the blood off her hands while sleep walking, even when there wasn’t physically blood.” Ryan’s leg starts to twitch slightly, a tell tail sign that he is getting angry. “I’m not saying you’re guilty, I’m saying you think you’re guilty whether you want to believe it or not. The moving ground is your doubt. You want to go save your sister and help her, but you don’t want to see her so injured. You don’t want your last image of her to be weak and bleeding.”

“This is all basic, obvious stuff, Erin. What else do you see?” His voice is tense and tight. It’s clear that he’s trying not to get angry with me but that he’s finding it quite hard.

“Well, I’ve got to say, it’s hard to profile a dream.” The air around us grows solemn. Our eyes meet and regret fills Ryan’s eyes as we are both thinking the same thing. “We both knew that not all of us would be walking away from this.”