Shadow | Aaron Hotchner

Prologue

Hope is the last to die.

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"Ever has it been that love knows not its
own depth until the hour of separation."
-Kahlil Gibran

"Conference room in five." Aaron Hotchner said sternly towards his coworkers.

"What the hell was that?" Derek asked as he looks at the pissed Unit Chief. "Am I wrong or today was supposed to be a paperwork day?"

"You're not wrong, but an important case has showed up." Garcia said as she walked past them and head towards the conference room with a tablet in the hand. "And before you asked me, I have no information about this case."

"We should follow Garcia, I don't want to deal with an angry Hotch." Emily said and she along with Morgan, Rossi and Ashley leaves the bullpen and head towards the conference room.

"Please, take a sit." The Section Chief, Erin Strauss, says while motioning to them to accommodate. They all greet her as they sit down. "I know that yesterday you have returned from an exhausting case and that today was supposed to be paperwork day, but an important case has showed up this night."

"This night?" Morgan exclaimed, "why were we only informed now?"

"Because this is top secret and international." The Section Chief explained.

"Then why they called us? Usually, the S.G.A. deals with this type of cases." Reid said as his brain evaluates all possible responses.

"Spencer is right unless this case is FBI-related." Rossi spoke for the first time since the beginning. He looks at the profilers faces -he focused especially on Hotch who is strangely quieter than usual. David thinks at all the reasons for his strange behavior when he finally realized.

Today it's exactly a year since Melanie's disappearance, he thought as he glanced concerned at his best friend. Hotch sensing someone's gaze on him glance around and he meet Rossi's brown eyes.

"Could you please tell us about the case?" The Unit Chief asked, annoyed with the fact that they're losing important time.

"The victim, Abigail Banks, is a twenty-six woman from Sault Sainte Marie, Canada. She moved to Washington where she worked as a primary school teacher. A patrol has found her beaten and covered in blood near the Prince William Forest Park. She has told the officers to call the B.A.U. before passing out. Now she's at the Inova Fairfax Hospital." Strauss explained and showed Abigails photos to the team.

"The wounds and bruises indicate that Abigail was most likely raped and then repeatedly abused." Ashley spoke while she looks at the photos from her tablet.

"She was reported missing two months ago." Strauss confirmed the team suspicion.

"The typical abduction victim is a single female, between 15 and 30 years old. The abductors are likely to be outside her circle of friends and family and it's not rare for them to be part of human trafficking or sold as slaves." Reid said recalling some data he read a while back.

"The victim is a single primary school teacher from Canada who has been abducted two months ago. Does the S.G.A. has a lead?" The brunette profiler asked.

"I spoke to their team leader, Special Agent Kinsley Grant, and she said that Abigail Banks is probably a victim of a what they believe to be a notorious slave traffic." The profilers exchanged a worried look -human trafficking are always tough cases, and most of the time they couldn't save all the victims. "However, this is also a federal ongoing investigation and we're gonna cooperate with them."

"Morgan and Seaver I want you to go to the hospital and speak with Abigail, and remember to record the conversation, it may be helpful later. Prentiss and Reid you're gonna speak to the agents that has found her, Garcia I want you to find everything about the victim. Me and Dave are going to starts working with the S.G.A. team. Erin could you please get the S.G.A. to send us all the information's that they have about this traffic?" Hotch instructed the team, and everyone begun to leave to do their work. Strauss nods at his words, pulls out her phone to call SA Grant. The only person left in the room are Aaron, Garcia and Dave.

"Uhm, I think I go sir, uhm... searching information about the victim." The tech analyst said rambling, and then she leaves the now full of tension room.

"Aaron, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine Dave." He gave David a short and sharp answer.

"Aaron, seriously, how have you been?"

"I miss her Dave. I miss her every day." Aaron sighed, losing himself in memories of her, of the two of them. In the last period Melanie has become a steady thought in his head -every night he reviews their moments together, of when they were happy and in love. And then the dreams change, they become nightmares. And Aaron feels it, the feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed him the moment he was told she was missing. A silent tear slides Aaron's cheek, he took a shaky breets before continuing. "I thought that after Haley I wouldn't have been able to love someone else or to have someone love me, but she proved me wrong. She was there for me, she was there for Jack, but I wasn't there for her."

"It wasn't your fault Aaron, she knew the risks of the job and you couldn't know how the situation would develop." David word's may be harsh, but he knew well enough how Aaron was. He always took the blame, but it wasn't his fault.

"I feel like it was my fault, I told her to take the job. I didn't know the details, but I knew that it was a dangerous job. Hell, undercover jobs are always dangerous, and I know that, but jet I told her to accept it because I knew that she missed doing undercover cases."

"Aaron!" Rossi exclaimed. "I saw Melanie as a daughter, I still see her as one. Have some hope, Hotch. It may have been a year but, fortunately, they never found her body and we know that Melanie is a hell of woman." He puts a comforting hand on Aaron shoulder.

"I hope that you're right Dave, I really do."

Truth to be told there is not a single day that Aaron does not hope to hear from her -even a small signal would be enough, and he would move the whole world to find her.

In the end, hope is the last to die.

───  ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽♕☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅  ───

S.G.A. (Government Secret Agents) is a government team that I created. They deal with top security and top secret domestic and international cases.This team includes Kinsley Grant, Yukimuro Naoya and Dimitriy Antonovich. My main character, Melanie Marshall, was also part of this team.
Don't forget about them because they will play a pivotal role in what Mel's career was and in the development of the story.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽♕☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

Hi little shadows, how are you?

Here we go with the prologue of Shadow, I really hope you'd like it. As I wrote in the informations , English isn't my first language so you find any mistake don't hesitate to tell me.

I don't know when I will upload the next chapter, but I hope it will be soon.

Until next time little shadows,
With love, Lexi.