𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀 𝙂𝙊𝙀𝙎-ˡᵘᵏᵉ ᵃˡᵛᵉᶻ

four

THE WHOLE TEAM WAS BACK IN the middle of the office. "You can't analyze a fugitive's actions on the outside without taking into account what he did on the inside," Luke stated.

"So what did Peter Lewis do on the inside?" he asked. "Nothing. He was a model prisoner," Spencer replied. "No, it goes further than that," Luke insisted, making Sadie nod. "You're right. He had no contact with other convicts. He didn't join or get pressured into a gang. When he gets out, he picks up as if no time had passed," Sadie added.

"So he had the resources in place before we arrested him," Jj observed. "A safe house to stay in, backup supplies of his drugs," Rossi noted. "He could have gone anywhere in the country. I mean, anywhere in the world, probably," Luke said. "Then he came here. To Tempe, Arizona?" Luke questioned with a dry chuckle.

"He had the highest concentration of targets with DID here," Spencer stated.

"You said he wouldn't reveal himself until his plan was fool-proof. Right? This isn't fool-proof. Brian and Chelsea have been failures. But what part of his plan has worked?" Luke then asked. "Us," Sadie said softly. Luke nodded. "You see where I'm going with this? Most fugitives, they do everything they can to stay on the DL. He's courted our attention from the beginning. Where I keep hitting a wall is why," Luke explained as he finished.

"Especially if he already has a list of all the kids that went to that camp," Tara added.

"Maybe we need to re-evaluate our presumptions. When Peter Lewis needed information before, he hacked Quantico," Hotch stated.

"Well, he can't do that again," Jj said. "So maybe he's going to get his information from us," Hotch suggested. "And we're compiling the very same list he would want," Rossi said as Sadie then looked at Tara. "We know all his tricks. We're not gonna give him the list. The police aren't. How is he gonna get this?" Jj questioned as Sadie then frowned. "Brian," Sadie and Tara said at the same time. "I asked Officer Dewey to go over the list with him once Garcia had something. Oh, God, Hotch, I'm so sorry," Tara apologized.

Hotch called Penelope immediately. "Yes, sir," Penelope said as she picked up. "Garcia, don't distribute the list," Hotch instructed. "But... I just hit send," she replied.

Tara got her phone out and called Officer Dewey, but he didn't reply.

It was too late already. Brian had killed Officer Dewey and carved out BYE on his forehead.

"Well, now we know who the copycat is," Rossi said. "What's scientifically revolutionary is that Peter Lewis isn't just inducing an already existing alternate, he's actually creating one. Brian thinks he is the Crimson King. That's undocumented in DID literature," Spencer explained as Sadie stared at the table.

"It is possible with the right balance of drugs and torture," Tara explained.

"Peter Lewis never tortured before," Jj said as Sadie thought back about that day. "He does mentally, by hypnotizing his victims into self-harm. It explains Brian's shallow wounds," Sadie said, still staring at the table.

"You're telling me he cut himself?" Luke asked, making Sadie look up at him. She nodded softly.

"It was all there in the story that he told me. I just didn't see it," Tara said, blaming herself. "DID is usually the result of trauma. If Peter Lewis could build an alternate like this through hypnotic suggestion, it means that Brian had some propensity for psychopathy in his past," Spencer explained.

Sadie looked at the case file again and sighed softly. "Lewis, did you locate the parents?" Hotch asked. "Yeah," she replied.

"All right. See what kind of history you can get from them. The rest of us need to look at every clue, again, through the prism of Brian as a Trojan horse," Hotch said.