come down soon | s. reid

ii ~ a solid start

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two:
a solid start

❝ Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. ❞
—Edward Everett Hale

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HARDWICK SIGHED AND THREATENINGLY quirked his head at Hotch. "While you were doing your research, maybe a question or two about security tones would have been a good idea."

"I heard the tones," Hotch said.

"So you planned to be locked inside with me," he rubbed his knuckles and paced around the room, "with no guns or weapons."

"I won't need a gun."

"Hotch," Scout warned.

Hardwick smiled. "There's no way they're gonna execute me next week, not after I kill three FBI agents. You saved my life by coming here."

"But unfortunately for you," Hotch said, "I'm not a five-foot-tall, 100-pound girl."

Hardwick glanced at Scout, a sinister smirk twisting his face. "She is."

"I am five-foot-five, thank you," Scout said to herself. She and Reid distanced themselves from the two older men, who stared each other down like gladiators in a ring.

    Hotch began to take off his suit jacket, then his tie. He was preparing to fight back. "All your life you've gone after victims who couldn't defend themselves."

    "What do we do?" Scout whispered to Reid, who looked just as wary as she did.

"We have to get his attention off of us, distract him somehow."

"The rest of the time you spent looking over your shoulder, worried about the knock on the door, scared that somebody like me would be on the other side waiting to put you away." Hotch pointed an accusatory finger at Hardwick. "At your core, you're a coward."

    "He's a narcissist, right?" Scout asked.

"Yeah, but—"

"Chester, do you want to know why you killed those women?"

The killer's eyes flickered to Scout. She had barely stopped him from attacking Hotch. "What?"

"Earlier you said that you wished you were different, normal. I..." She glanced at Reid, praying he could pick up what she was putting down. "We can tell you why you killed them. Why you are...what you are."

"You can tell me why I did the things I did?" He scoffed. "I thought you were just eye-candy."

"That's what this personality project is all about, really," she bluffed, ignoring his last comment. She tried to recall what she'd read about him. "Your mother's bipolar and probably an undifferentiated schizophrenic. Your father suffered severe shell shock in the war, what we now refer to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most serial killers have a history of mental illness in their family."

"Fifty-three percent," Reid added, his hands gripped tightly around the strap of his satchel.

Scout nodded. "Both of your parents suffered some kind of severe psychological disorder, which they largely took out on you. You grew up surrounded by violence, and it became the only expression of love you were capable of. I...I can't remember what it's called but the most primitive part of the brain that controls our instinctual desires–"