How Dare You [ReidxReader] - 2nd Edition

(10) Stray Bullet

The next two days are rough. You hit the ground running, new bodies turning up every evening. While still fighting your hangover, you desperately try to do your work. It's been going alright. The only thing that throws you off balance, are the worried and sad looks Spencer shoots in your direction. You don't sleep. At all.

Only on the second night, exhaustion takes over and you finally close your eyes. But not for long. A few hours later, you get woken up by Hotchner banging on your hotel room door to let you know another body has been discovered. You're too disorientated to realize that you're only wearing a long shirt and panties. Hotchner's eyes dart over your sparsely clothed body and clears his voice to tell you that you need to leave now. You're too tired to be embarrassed and simply shut the door to put on more clothes.

When you step outside, you can barely walk in a straight line. Hotchner shoots you somewhat worries looks but simply informs you that you and he will head to the crime scene while the others work on the profile, adding the new information of the latest victim. You don't understand why you're the one that needs to go with him, but you cannot be bothered to start an argument now.

The ride to the crime scene is dead silent. Your eyes get heavy and your head droops to your chest. Incoherent thoughts are on your mind, random crime scene pictures flashing before your eyes.

Your body is falls forwards when the car suddenly stops.

"We're here." Hotchner declares and gets out. You need to channel a lot of strength to unbuckle your seatbelt and follow him. The flashing lights of the police cars parked on the side of the road hurt your eyes. Your head feels heavy.

The body is in a ditch a few feet to the right, and Hotchner is already climbing down. With a groan and wobbly legs, you follow him.

The moment you see the corpse, however, you are wide awake.

"He's getting sloppy." You observe. "Throwing her away like that is risky. He's escalating." Hotchner looks around without commenting on what you just said. You put on your gloves and turn to the crime scene technicians: "Are you done with the body?"

They nod at you, and you step closer. The victim is lying face down, slightly rolled onto her side. You kneel down and push her over. Her face is frozen in a grimace. Carefully, you brush the strands of hair out of her face. It's hard to look at her with her eyes still open. But she deserves to be looked at, taken care of. You examine her hands. She definitely put up a fight. There is dirt under her nails. Maybe also some skin of the unsub. "Strong girl." You mumble. It makes Hotchner look at what you're doing.

You palpate the wounds in her chest. There are three of them. You roll her on her side again and look at her back. "No exit wounds." You tell Hotchner. "He's using a different weapon." The other victims didn't have the bullets in them. Only holes.

Hotchner squats next to you: "You don't need to do that. We have a medical examiner for this."

You want to be offended by his words, but for a change his voice is kind. "Yeah, but we'll have to wait on the report, and we'll lose another day." Despite being fatigued, you're energized enough to keep examining her with focus.

You trace your fingers over the entry wounds. Hotchner observes you with irritation, but lets you go on. You take a deep breath and push your finger inside one of them. It makes an unpleasant sludgy sound, and you swallow hard. Hotchner flinches.

Your index finger isn't even fully inside when you feel the bullet. Carefully, you grab it and pull it out. You hold it up and Hotchner points his flashlight at it. "You're right." He tells you.

"From what I can gather, she fought back harder than he expected. He could not use the revolver he used on the others and shot her with hollow-point bullets."