✓ | 𝗔𝗣𝗛𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗘 · ͟͟͞͞➳ spencer reid

CHAPTER 7 ━━━

# ! | CHAPTER SEVEN
- they tie up loose ends and open
the door to new possibilities

━━━ "ALRIGHT, SO," MERYL
begins, holding the door for Spencer when they leave the morgue, "No residue, small, clean incisions. It doesn't take a genius to make a keyhole incision. All girls school, a lot of competition."

Spencer picks up what she's getting at. "Another student?"

She shakes her head, the wind sending black hair across her face. Murph rakes her hand through it, the multiple iron rings on each hand managing not to get trapped. "The rape doesn't make sense. But no semen? Could've been done with something like a strap on. Think about it, you're a person who may be struggling with your orientation or gender identity and you get sent to a school full of hyperfeminine specimens."

Spence nods. "So if the stresser was the school, then we need to look at enrollment in the month or so before when the murders started.

Meryl quirks up the corner of her mouth. "Bingo. I'll call Garcia, you call Hotch?"

He agrees and her phone rings only once before Garcia is there. "New recruit! How can I help?"

"Hey, sugar. Could you pull enrollment records in the time span of, eh, forty five days before the first murder?"

"Easy peasy. How's your first proper case going?" Penelope asks, already liking the fun, stylish new team member.

"Peachy keen thus far. Could you isolate anyone with a single mother and strong religious ties?" Meryl leans against the SUV, head whirring.

"Two matches."

"Either with previous enrollment in a conversion camp?"

"Checkmate! Everly Dawson, seventeen, single mother. Ran away from a conversion camp a few months ago and then got transferred to this school."

"Thanks a bunch, amore mio. Phone you can track?"

Penelope laughs. "Location already sent to your phone."

As Meryl slides behind the wheel of the car, she smiles. "Remind me to buy you a pair of shoes when we get back."

"Don't think I'll let you forget. Garci out!"

Spencer updates Hotch and then hangs up. "We're closer than they are. How do we play this?"

"If I try to talk them down, they might feel like I'm trying to shove them back into a box. You go on, I'll cover you. Just be kind, but firm. As fatherly as possible." Meryl takes one hand off the wheel and clasps his shoulder. "And be careful."

Spencer scoffs. "That's me. The peak of masculinity."

Meryl takes a sharp left and then turns to look at him. "Why do you say that? Conventionally, you're tall and have a slim build but you're still muscular. You have a strong jaw and cheekbones, your eyes are a complimentary color to your hair. By the definition, you're gorgeous." She says this easily, like it's just known information. It stops Spencer right in his mental tracks. He fidgets with his watch and focuses on her hands against the steering wheel: strong, pale, with greeny prominent veins running up her forearms.

"Um, thank you," Spencer blurts out, taking a deep and steadying breath as they pull off to the side of the road near where the signal from Everly's phone is triangulating. There's a confidence in his stride as he surges forward. A chemical reaction, he thinks, the creation of seratonin acredited to someone you feel is attractive complimenting your own appeal.

He walks into the building, an abandoned warehouse at the edge of the campus, probably used for storage at some point. Everly circles a girl who is bound and gagged, blonde hair spilling down her back in matted tangles. Jenna, another student who had gone missing this morning. In the unsub's hand is a knife.