heart like yours (jennifer jareau)

3. thirty six

AN: hey guys!! happy monday!! welcome to the last chap of season three wooo!

TWs
mentions of child abuse
mentions of violence
murder
several counts of daddy issues
internal spiralling
delilah being delilah about everything
hotch

please let me know if i've missed any! i hope you guys all have a wonderful feel and i'll be back next monday! <333

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"he calls me izzy. he strokes my hair with his ice cold hands and smiles at me with his fanged teeth, tongue as red as blood. i can feel him on me even when he leaves. i can't escape the ice settling under my skin. i wear his touches like i wear my father's bruises." - I.M, entry 47I

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Of all fifty states, New York didn't rank in Delilah's top ten. It was in the top twenty, but it was far from a favourite. It was just a lot easier for her to fit in there than other states. She could hide more easily when there were so many fucking people packed into a concrete labyrinth of broken dreams.

Delilah hated the smell of New York, but she loved the chaotic streets. The city never slept. It was the perfect place for an insomniac like Delilah.

It was the perfect place for Nate McDonald to blend right in amongst thousands.

Delilah and Evie landed on the fourteenth. By the same night, they were staking out McDonald from an opposite apartment building to his last known location where a scout had spied him an hour before they landed.

He was still in there. They could see him through the gaps in the blinds. It was a surveillance night so Evie could learn his routine, so she could pick the perfect time and place to murder McDonald for his crimes.

Strauss had mentioned he was onto his fourth victim, too. They knew, based off the tapes, he kept his victims for about a week to two weeks, depending on the age. The toddlers lasted longer than the nine month old he'd hurt.

Delilah had asked their scout about the latest victim. She shook her head and Delilah just knew the kid was dead.

Four babies. Four.

They alternated between sleeping in shifts. Delilah slept first, as Evie ordered, and was woken up four hours later to Evie handing her a book to keep herself occupied as she put the headphones over her ears and sat in front of the computer they were using for the stakeout.

When Evie woke up, Delilah had no updates. Evie told Delilah to get changed and be prepared to head out. The moment they saw Nate getting ready to leave that apartment, Delilah was to head out and wait for him. She would stay ahead of Nate, and Evie would stay behind him.

It was the best way not to lose him, considering they'd have their earpieces to stay heading in the same direction without Delilah having to turn back and catch Nate's attention.

Nate was boring, to say the least. Aside from his criminal activity, the man was fucking dull.

He got a plain scone for breakfast from a cafe, and a bottle of water. He read in the coffee shop for forty minutes before catching a train to Brooklyn and heading to an over expensive grocery store. He took the train back home an hour later with his shopping, and then he was inside watching TV for the rest of the day.

Delilah didn't think he'd do much during the day, nothing they could use to their advantage, anyway.

They likely could not kill Nate in his apartment. For one, they didn't know what he had in there that could harm them, or if he had cameras that would alert the people he was now working with. He also had very active neighbours, including teenagers, which meant that they may be casualties if he got a bit trigger happy on them and started shooting through the thin New York walls.