The Ghost of Princeton ||Spencer Reid||

MacGyver

SPENCER

"Okay, so there's four of you, and you all had a name of one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Rossi said, I looked at Cressida who was sitting next to me, her mouth full of food. She nodded as she tried to finish her bite of beef and black bean. "Can you match the faces to the names?" He asked next, she nodded again as she stood up and walked to the glass board.

"Obviously Pestilence is me..." she trailed off, pointing to the picture of herself that was already underneath the word 'Pestilence' on the board. "I was Pestilence because that was the only Horsemen that didn't have a specific penchant, so giving that name to the tech hostage made the most sense." She said, then picking up the marker and moving to the youngest looking man on the board at the top left. He had an olive complexion, was maybe Latino, the lighting in the room wasn't bright enough to be able to tell.

I watched her write one word over his picture; War.

"He was War, all I really know about why he was given that name was he was in the military, dishonourably discharged." She said, turning to look back at the table. Now that she was in clean clothes and had taken some time to reset herself, her confidence seemed to have spiked. Although that could be because she knew the Horsemen weren't watching us. The clothes she was wearing were Seaver's, but they hung off of her body. Since she had pointed out to Morgan each piece of herself that showed how little the Horsemen had cared for her health, it was all I had been able to see. The worst was her cheeks, and I couldn't look away from the hollows of them.

"How did he act?" Morgan asked, his pen at the ready... well, everyone's was.

"He didn't speak much, none of them did around me. War kept his distance from me too, like he avoided me at all costs. I could never figure out if it was because he didn't like me or if he felt guilt." She said, I watched as her eyes flicked around the room before she turned back to the board. "This was Famine. Again, I don't know much about who they really are but I'm pretty sure this isn't his first time holding and torturing people. Whether he did that professionally or as a hobby I couldn't tell you."

"So he..." Prentiss trailed off, realising she didn't truly want to ask the question she had started.

"He spent the most time with me and made the plan to keep me submissive." Cressida answered as she wrote Famine over the man who may be in his late forties. "While he didn't speak much, when he did it was like he constantly had to prove he was better than me. That he had to prove he was smarter and stronger than me, which he was neither. Well, maybe stronger but that's only because of the lack of food. Could have also been because he felt he should have been in charge because he was the oldest." She said before going to the last picture, a man in his thirties with blonde hair and blue eyes.

"But he wasn't in charge, Death was." Cress said as she took a step away from the board. "He made all the plans, kept everyone focused. He's also the only one that I don't really have any inkling about his past. All I know is that he was professional, there's a reason all of his plans worked."

"Anything else about him?" I asked, her pale blue eyes landed on mine.

"Just that he was confident. It was his call to leave me alone at the base, so I have no doubt that will create tension and inspire Famine to try and take control." She said, I nodded.

"Did you get the feeling that they all came from a military background, or just War?" Seaver asked, Cressida kept her eyes on me.

"They all could have, yes." She finally looked away to Seaver. "All of them had self-control and War and Famine both listened to Death without argument, much like how I imagine soldiers follow orders." She said.

"So potentially we have a group of ex-military. If they have the experience you're saying they do they were high-ranking or in covert ops." Rossi said. "If one was dishonourably discharged, what's the likelihood they all are?" He asked, and I think I watched Cressida's breath leave her body. What if Rossi was right? If all three were dishonourably discharged then we had a whole different issue depending on the why.

"What about likelihood of the same team?" Prentiss asked. "We have no reason for why they want to hit Fort Detrick. We don't know exactly what's in there aside from bio-weapons and the like, what if there's something there that they had to do with?"

"That could explain it. Stiel, do you think that even without you that they will try to break in?" Rossi asked as Cressida put the marker down and walked back to her seat next to me.

"It is highly likely. Death has a plan, and all three of them seem invested in this. They all have a determination to see this through, it's why they left me by myself, to have the best chance at starting the plan." She explained.

"What was the first step?" Morgan asked.

"Just some recon. They were looking at train stations and where the highest concentration of people who work at Fort Detrick were. I think they planned on blending into the crowd to get there, I assumed the next step would be getting me to make them fake identifications to get through security, but we weren't there yet." She said before shoving another mouthful of food into her mouth.

"So what would their backup plan be?" I asked, she finished her food and looked into my eyes.

"Outsource. Their plan is detailed to every minute, the only time I got a glimpse it was on paper, handwritten. I guess they didn't want me to access it. If they didn't have a backup to do my parts..."

"Did they think you were going to run?" I asked next, she shook her head.

"If they thought I would run they wouldn't have left me by myself. I think they might have started being suspicious about my actions. That I was sending out information to help bring them down. So I don't think they thought I would run, I think they were preparing to stop me from stopping them." She said, her lips in a thin line.

"You think they were preparing to kill you?" Morgan asked, Cressida nodded as she looked towards him. "Why would they leave you alone if they were suspicious?"

"There was an urgency in me needing to run... that urgency was that they were stupid enough to put spyware in the computers to follow every click I made. It had only turned up yesterday morning before they left. I think they left me alone to see what I would do without supervision, thought that I wouldn't find the spyware and send more information out. I deleted every trail that lead to Reid so they couldn't catch me that way. They would have to catch me in the act." She said.

"They weren't betting on you running..." Prentiss said, to which Cressida shook her head.

"How did you get out? Didn't they lock you in?" Morgan asked next, still seeming sceptical of the situation. I was about to argue to save Cressida's time and sanity but she cut in first.

"About a year and a half ago they upgraded the locks to fingerprint scanners instead of key locks. I couldn't override them to get my own fingerprint in but tricking the machines was still easy enough. They left me access to the kitchen, my room, the bathroom and the computer room. They're men, I didn't do cleaning because I was on the computer constantly, and they didn't do much cleaning either. They left tape and glue and dirty fucking glasses everywhere. I MacGyvered my way out." She said.

"MacGyvered?" I asked, she looked at me with wide eyes.

"You... you don't know who MacGyver is?" She asked as if I was the one who was in the wrong.

"The kid only knows books and horror movies." Morgan said, I wanted to argue back but he was kind of right.

"You need to watch MacGyver... I promise, it's great." Cressida said with a smile. A genuine smile.

"How about we catch the Horsemen first?" I asked, realising that since she had entered the room my migraine had stopped. Her smile faltered before it disappeared entirely.

"We can do that."