heart like yours (jennifer jareau)

2. thirty six

AN: happy halloween!!

surprise update because it's delilah's birthday today🫶🫶
(and dylan's, and ziggy's)

but yeah so i'm posting two chapters bc why not

i don't think there's any massive trigger warnings except like murder bc it's criminal minds y'know?

i will give you a heads up tho that next chapter is jj and delilah. alone.

do with that what you will.

but yeah i'm in the birthday spirit for my trauma baby so here we go🫶🫶

•

"i fear i will be ripped open and found unsightly." - anne sexton

•

Delilah stood in the woods later that afternoon after delivering the profile to the forest rangers, glancing around the trees as she, Emily, Gideon, and Derek talked to Lizzie about another potential victim, Bobbi Baird.

"It's been three days since they killed Alex Harrison. Why'd they take another victim so soon?" Lizzie asked.

"This is their hunting season," Delilah said.

"Then they can't waste any time. Only two days before it gets crowded around here. They won't have any more privacy," Derek said.

"If Bobbi Baird is their next victim, she could be on her way," Emily said.

"This is Evans, I need road blocks now," Lizzie said into her walkie.

Gideon sighed and walked further into the trees, the others following him to get back to the SUVs.

"I didn't know you could hunt," Emily said to Delilah.

"I don't do it anymore," Delilah said. "And I never enjoyed it."

"You still understand it, though," Derek said. "You knew the unsubs were hunters before we even got here."

"It just made sense," Delilah shrugged. "Nothing special."

"It is special," Derek said. "You're a good profiler."

"Thanks," Delilah said. "Black bear over there," Delilah said, pointing through the trees up a hill where a black bear was walking away from them.

"Jesus," Derek muttered, stepping to stand on Delilah's side away from the bear.

"Seriously, how do you just know where they are?" Emily asked.

"Instincts," Delilah said. "They're pretty much the only thing you can rely on in the woods. Come on. We don't want to lose Gideon."

•

•

Delilah, Gideon, Emily, Derek and Lizzie stood on an open cliff that looked out over the rest of the woods below them, Derek peering at a map as Delilah looked through the trees.

"We're standing in the middle of a million acres. She could be anywhere. We've only got two murder sites, miles apart. There's no pattern yet," Lizzie said.

"Both sites are low lying, they could be tracked from above," Derek said.

"Maybe there are blinds built into the trees, or at least access to them," Emily said.