Criminal Minds Series Rewrite: Season Four

Conflicted: Part One

"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." - Terry Pratchett

"Agent Y/N?" You look up to see another mailman walk over to you with a letter in his hands. "This came for you."

You grab the letter and notice the date on which it was sent.

"This was mailed two weeks ago and you're just now giving it to me?"

"We're really backed up."

He walks away just as Spencer comes back from the break room with coffee in his hands.

"What is that?" You open the letter and see it's an invitation to your other high school reunion that's happening this weekend. "Are you going to go?"

"After what happened last time? Yeah, right," you scoff and put the letter into your purse.

"The probability of that happening again is very slim. You should go see your classmates."

"Spencer, baby, I don't know how to get it in your thick head, but these people mean nothing to me. Why should I give them the time of day when they didn't care about me?"

"I'll go with you again."

You can't resist the look in his eyes. All he wants is for you to heal from that part of your life and move on. He figures if you can confront those people, you'll be at peace with your past.

"Fine. If we have the opportunity to, then we will."

"Okay," he smiles.

"You're going to be the death of me."

"I love you, too."

You two head to the briefing room to join everyone else while JJ gets ready to present the case.

"Daniel Keller, a junior at Benjamin Franklin University, was killed last night while spring breaking in South Padre Island by asphyxiation. He was the second victim to be murdered there in the past three nights. The first was William Browder, also on spring break, by asphyxiation. They were both sexually assaulted prior to death."

"Men being raped and murdered on spring break? Well, that's a twist," Emily comments.

"So far the deaths have been localized to The Hudson Street hotel. Initially, the hotel was filled to capacity but lost twenty percent occupancy overnight."

"We should get a list of everyone who works there. There's a good chance one of them is the unsub, or at the very least, has interacted with him."

"Yeah, Garcia's already on that," JJ says. "Both victims were discovered by hotel staff after an online checkout indicated the room had been vacated."

"So, he wanted the bodies discovered sooner rather than later. Look at the way they're posed—naked and cowering in the fetal position. He's sending a message. Something about this is important to him. We just need to figure out what."

"We need to do it soon," Hotch says. "The police suspect the unsub could be another vacationing student, though I'm not willing to rule out local involvement."

"That makes sense. If the killer is a student, they could be halfway across the country by the time we're onto them. If he's a local, we could lose him as soon as his victim pool dries up. Either way, we're almost out of time. South Padre spring break season ends this weekend."

The conversation continues when everyone is on the plane so you can get to Texas as soon as possible.

"The national media has picked up on the story. We're gonna have to make a statement when we land," JJ says and settles into her chair. "I want to make people aware without obviously causing panic, you know, the whole buddy system. I'm all over it. I just don't think anyone is going to listen to that."