Better days (JJxOC)

Small talk

Each of us went to interview different people. Took a while but we managed to talk to every single one of them. Now we were sharing our thoughts.

"So the killer is one of the members," I said.

"Talk about a needle in a needle stack," Rossi said.

"Yeah," I said, "But at the same time, it isn't anyone we talked to. Any ideas?" I asked.

"Wait, there are kids. Where there are kids there has to be adult supervision, right?" Jennifer said.

"The UnSub is watching the children," I nodded and got up from my seat.

"Good work, JJ, little Prentiss," Hotch said.

JJ and I went to where we figured the children were kept. I don't usually like being paired with her but this time I volunteered. I wanna keep an eye on her.

We got the kids and one of them told us the location of the house they live in. That's were our UnSub was. We got in a car and JJ drove us there. JJ calling the rest of the team and telling them what we found out.

She gave them the address, "Okay we got it.  Owned by Jon Kanak," Derek said.

"Tell me," JJ said.

"According to the police report, he and his parents went hiking in the wilderness and got lost. When temperatures fell below freezing, they had to do some godawful stuff to stay alive," Derek said.

She didn't respond. I looked at her and she was breathing rapidly. Her hands squeezing the steering wheel hard.

"Jennifer?" I said. No reaction, "Jennifer," still nothing.

"JJ," Aaron said over the phone, "Did you hear that?"

"Uh, yeah," she said.

"Wait for backup," Hotch said.

"I'm already here," she said and ended the call.

I knew she wasn't okay, but she won't admit that and I'm not gonna push. I wouldn't want anyone to push me, so I'm just gonna let her be. She busted the door open and we went inside. I looked through the rooms and she went to the basement.

When I was done I followed her but stopped some distance away when I heard her talking to the UnSub. I didn't wanna interrupt. They were in a freezer with a victim, so no mistakes allowed.

"That's acetylene gas coming out of there, you know what that means?" I heard him ask.

I do, it's gonna go boom as soon as she pulls that trigger. Then we're all dead.

"Okay. Let's talk about this, Jon," she said.

"It means, you pull that trigger and we all die," he said, "Okay? I spark this and we all die."

"Okay. Okay," she said, "How cold is it in here?" She asked.

The UnSub laughed, "It's eighteen below. How long do you think he has?"

"Enough," she said, "Because at this temperature the flashpoint of your gas won't ignite."

She's right, but she doesn't know that for sure. To anyone else she'd sound confident right now, but I can tell that she's simply taking a guess. The UnSub will probably give it away with his reaction but still. It's dangerous. A shot was fired.

"Jennifer?" I asked, going there.

"We need a medic, get a medic. Do you have a knife?" She asked.

I called the medics and the rest of the team arrived. We saved the victim and reunited him with his son. It was a happy ending. Well, it's the best we can get so I'll take it. We gathered our things and drove to the jet.