❝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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❝No human being has ever stood so close to my soul as you stood.❞
JAMES JOYCE
✩
4.0: hope
(spoilers for seasons 9-12)
FIVE YEARS LATER
IT IS UNUSUALLY WARM FOR AN EARLY APRIL DAY, BUT NO ONE INSIDE MILLBURN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY WOULD KNOW THAT. It is always cold here, and not just in temperature. The atmosphere is chilly, tense, the way it feels before a bomb goes off. Some people inside Millburn have personal experience with that feeling. A few of them are proud of it.
It is also quiet. Unusually quiet.
A good time to break the rules.
Footsteps echo in the empty hall. It is not visiting hours. But that doesn't matter.
"Ma'am, excuse me," says the guard at the end of the hall, holding his hand up in warning to the woman approaching him. "But it's not–" And then he frowns curiously. "Hey, I recognize you. You're that gal, who wrote that book! Hey, Frank!"
Another guard, taller, with graying hair, hurries down the hall. "What?"
"Look at who it is!" The first guard beams.
"Well, I'll be damned." The second guard's eyes widen in surprise. "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am. I gotta say, I sure did love your book."
"The pleasure's mine," says the woman with a polite, practiced smile. "And I appreciate that."
"Is everything in there true?" asks the first guard, his mouth wide open. "I mean, did the Mercy Killer really–"
"Hey!" The second guard nudges the first sharply in the ribs, frowning. "She doesn't want to answer your questions."
But this is not true, for two reasons: First, because she is used to these kinds of questions, and second, because answering their questions will help her get what she wants.
So she just raises her eyebrows at them. "You're asking if my mother actually stabbed me and left me to die, right? That really did happen. Everything in my book is 100% true."
"Damn," the second guard says, all politeness forgotten. "That's messed up."
After a moment of awed silence, the first guard stumbles into asking, "What's a lady like you doing in a prison?"
"I'm here to see Spencer Reid."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but visiting hours are–"
She pulls out her badge, displaying it for both guards to see. "It's official FBI business."
