❝you're in danger here, spencer.❞
❝we'll worry about that later. right now all that matters is you and me.❞
hazel finley is afraid. afraid of being alone. afraid of losing the people she loves. afraid of making mistakes. afraid of falling back into...
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❝I am bathed in tears of grief and despair.❞
MARIE ANTOINETTE
✩
3.1 : power
(tw: death, blood, mentions of SA)
FIN TURNS AROUND JUST IN TIME TO SEE BAUER'S BODY CRUMPLE TO THE FLOOR WITH A DULL THUD. Something warm and wet hits her face and shirt. She knows before she touches her face that it is his blood, the same dark, almost black blood that pools beneath his head now.
Lars is hyperventilating behind her, her whole body shaking. Fin wants to reach behind her, to comfort her sister, but Esther is still holding Bauer's gun, still pointing it at his prone body.
She looks over at Fin, eyes cold and searching, and Fin resists the urge to shrink away, the way she would have done fourteen years ago. She is stronger than that.
"You didn't think I'd leave him alive, did you?" Esther raises her eyebrows coolly. "What was I supposed to do with him, just let him go? Let him tell your BAU friends where we are? That wouldn't be smart, Hazel-O. We both know better than that."
Fin's stomach churns. She hasn't been called Hazel-O in a long time. Her father used to call her that.
"And anyway, he's a man." Esther says the last word like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. "You can never trust men. He was a loose end that needed to be tied up in a neat little bow."
Loose end. Fin closes her eyes, promising to herself that she will never let Adrian Bauer's memory be forgotten. She will fight tooth and nail to get his pension for Melissa and their baby, she'll make sure he has the best funeral, that his picture goes up on the FBI wall–
Something metal scrapes against her chin, forcing it up. Esther leans down close to her, Bauer's gun gripped tightly in her hand, the barrel of it cold against Fin's skin. "What's the matter, Hazel-O? Cat got your tongue?"
"What do you want from me?" Fin hisses, staring into Esther's steely hazel eyes, forcing herself to stay completely still.
"Why don't you tell me, little miss profiler?" Esther yanks the gun out from under Fin's jaw harshly, and Fin feels her skin tear open as the metal scrapes beneath her chin. "Tell me and Clara, if you're so good at reading minds."
Fin shifts slightly on the floor, and Spencer's phone presses into her stomach. She could keep her mouth shut and risk getting herself or Lars killed.
Or she could talk and give the team time to find them.
So she takes a deep breath and begins.
"I think you want control. I think you hate the fact that Lars and I kept you from killing more people. That we sent you to prison. I think you felt powerless for fourteen years and that made you uncomfortable. So now you want to feel power over us again. You want to threaten the things we love and see us afraid of you, because you're a sadistic psychopath who craves power and control."
