✓ | 𝗔𝗣𝗛𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗘 · ͟͟͞͞➳ spencer reid

CHAPTER 1 ━━━

# ! | CHAPTER ONE
- they get sent to the big apple

━━━ THE BRONX HAD
never been this bad and that was saying something. A blonde averts her eyes as a clicker on her remote reveals twenty images in a grid, all headshots of people with - wait for it - head shots. Execution style, one wound to the center of the forehead at point blank range.

"Alright my pretties, you guys are headed to New York, New York. Except I really super doubt you are gonna want to be a part of it," she quips, the Frank Sinatra reference not lost of the greying man who sits in one of the cushy black chairs around the table, hands folded in front of him. It's heinously early, just past the halfway mark of five in the morning on October 16, 2011.

"How long has this been going on for, PG?" asks the only non-blonde female in the room, one Emily Prentiss. She smooths down the fabric of her dark red turtleneck, resisting the urge to shiver in the lofty room.

Penelope bites her bottom lip, coated in a bright red lipstick. "That's the thing, it's been two days."

"Statistically speaking," A wavy haired man pipes up, "crime rates in New York City skyrocketed in the eighties and nineties due to the crack cocaine epidemic, but since then it has really quieted down. In fact, only about five in one thousand people will be victim to some sort of attempted murder. However, arson rates are pretty high but that's usually because of teen vandalism."

"Thank you, Dr. Reid," a dark skinned man replies sarcastically, smiling with one corner of his mouth. He turns back to Penelope, popping a brow. "Any rifling on the bullets?"

"Nada."

"We don't have any more time to waste," comes the authoritative order of Aaron Hotchner as he stands and shrugs his black suit jacket over a grey button down, "wheels up in twenty minutes. Garcia, I want you with us on this one."

All seven of them trickle out of the room aside from Rossi and JJ; the latter of which looks confused and a little anxious, her sharp brows furrowed together, both hands fidgeting with the sleeves of her beige sweater. "Have you seen anything like this before?" she asks the older man.

Dave shakes his head. "I've seen a lot of ugly in NYC, but never this clean and never this quick."

With that, they go their separate ways and retrieve their go bags, thinking about what waits for them in New York.

On the plane, they buckle down on trying to nail victimology, which proves to be next to impossible.

"We've got people from all over the map here," comes the voice of Derek Morgan, the leather of his jacket crinkling as he rests his elbows on the table, "both physically and otherwise. In state, out of state, poor, rich, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, old, young."

"An opportunistic killer, then. Unless these are all people in our unsub's personal vendetta." Hotch's voice is calm, monotone, a far cry from his thoughts. He can't let his team know, but this case might not end the way they hope. Reid's next batch of statistics only further that.

"You know, with a population of almost eight and a half million people and an annual visitation of about sixty six and a half million tourists, finding a pool of common interest in all of these victims is going to be highly implausible." The youngest member of the team rakes his hands through his hair and then picks a bit of lint off his navy cardigan.

Penelope taps her coral painted nails against the arm of her seat. "This is one of those rare moments where I'm so sad boy genius is very right. Three of the victims are John and Jane Doe's, but the other seventeen have zilch in common. Bank statements show most of them probably were never even in the same room."

"So," JJ speaks up, blue eyes wide, "we've got an unsub on our hands who is organized, quick, meticulous, clean, who has no personality in their kills and leaves no trace behind?"

They sit in silence after that, dread settling low in their stomachs.

ೃ⁀➷

At this same time, Aphrodite is just beginning to think about sleeping. The sun will be rising soon, as will a whole new day of ordering around the pack of greased up rat men that came with the job. She'd heard about the murders; of course she had. Not a lot of news in this underground world slipped past her ears. She had friends in high places, and some low ones too.

Aphrodite puts away her paperwork and slinks off to the spacious bedroom in her modern apartment, plugging in two phones by her bed. One for business and one for business. She then steps into the shower and washes out her thick, wavy locks of black hair that reach just about the middle of her rib cage when wet. Donning a pair of black cotton shorts and an equally anticlimactic t-shirt, she lets her dog out, a big tan and black bloodhound by the name of Dion.

After he does his business, they both flop onto the bed and fall asleep to the sound of Santo & Johnny's "Sleep Walk".

At promptly 6:45, a buzzing on her phone sends Aphrodite clawing for it, seeing she has a text from her right hand man, Raven.

bird brain
Feds are crawling all over this place. Get here when you can?
Read 6:46 a.m

aphrodite
be there in 15
Delivered 6:47 a.m

She dresses quickly in a pair of baggy grey pants, a loose fitting black t-shirt, and a leather jacket, Popping on a pair of black combat-esque boots and clipping a leash on to Dion's collar, they're out the door and headed toward home base.

Olympus, as it had come to be named, was the base for her gang. It was made up of her, Raven, and five other guys. New people would come and go every now and then, usually craving the hardly romanticized life of drug dealing and bourbon drinking. Sex, money, the whole nine yards of a less than famous rock star. Things didn't work like that in their posse. They were the watchers, the listeners, quiet observers until someone stepped out of line. They knew everything about the goings-on of New York after dark, and yet somehow no one knew what was up with the recent murders.

As Aphrodite walks in through the heavy doors of a large colonial style house on the outskirts of the city, she's greeted with all her men gathered around the table. It was funny to see half a dozen meatheads, all over 6'3 and rippling with muscle, stand immediately at the entrance of a woman no less than a foot shorter. She noticed, however, that one of her beloved minions wasn't present.

"Where's Coop?" she asks, already knowing the answer.

"Police brought him in for questioning about two hours ago, stormed his lobby." The reply comes from the tallest of the bunch, Curly, aptly named based on his extremely bouncy red hair. The green-eyed woman bites down on the inside of her cheek. "Figures."

Raven taps his foot. "He's a talker."

The three remaining gremlins, Spot, Jackal, and Bob, all nod their heads in agreement, looking to their leader for what to do next.

"Well," Aphrodite says, grabbing a seat on one of the lush purple cushions of the circular couch, "suppose we better get to waiting, they'll come looking for me soon enough."