Copycat//Criminal Minds FanFic

Victims

Reid ran through the parking garage. He led the girl toward the exit into the mall. She had barely escaped from the unsub and now he was chasing them down. The rest of the BAU was on their way, but Reid couldn't wait. He dragged the panting girl into the mall. It was empty.

"Go that way," he told her. "I'll distract him."

The girl nodded and ran off in one direction. Reid watched until she had safely founded the corner, then he took off in the other direction. He made as much noise as he could, hoping to draw the killer after him. He had lost his gun earlier, so his only hope was to run.

He heard the unsub coming after him. It's working, he smiled to himself as he ran down the hall past all of the closed stores. He noticed an arcade that had just opened. A phone. He went faster.

A teen stood at the register.

"I need to use your phone," Reid gasped.

"What?" the teen looked at Reid like he was insane.

"Your phone! I need to use it!"

"Dude, chill." The teen reached below the desk.

"Hurry! He's going to kill us!"

This radical statement only earned Reid another You're crazy look.

Footsteps sounded right out in the hallway.

"Just call the cops!" Reid said as he spun around to run away again.

He was too late.

The killer was in the arcade. Before Reid could react, the killer ran at him and stabbed Reid in the arm with a needle. Reid pulled away and tried to run. He wasn't quick enough. The unsub grabbed his arm again and jabbed the syringe back into Reid's forearm, breaking off the needle as Reid again yanked his arm away.

Reid stumbled, but got away this time. He somehow made his way to a bathroom. He yanked up his sleeve. Spidery blue veins were snaking their way up his arm as he watched in horror.

I've been poisoned. As the thought entered his head, Reid's vision began to blur. He dropped to all fours and coughed. He tried to keep consciousness, but it kept slipping away from him. Just as he was about to totally black out, Morgan and Hotch rushed in.

"Don't worry, kid, we're going to get you help," Morgan said as he crouched down next to Reid.

Reid gasped for breathe. You're too late, he thought in vain. You're too late...

____________________________________

Reid sat straight up in bed. He sucked in air as he tried to calm down. His head hurt like no other, and it wasn't helping that Morgan was banging on the door.

"Reid! You awake? Reid?! Answer me or I'm comin in!"

"I'm awake," Reid called as he scrambled to open the door.

He caught Morgan in mid-knock.

"Did you sleep in your clothes?" Morgan asked as he looked Reid over.

"I guess I did." Reid looked at his wrinkled clothes.

"Reid, Reid, Reid. What am I going to do with you? Go on, get dressed. I'll get you a coffee. You look like you need it." Morgan gave Reid another worried look.

"Thanks, Morgan," Reid tried to smile as he closed the door.

Reid leaned against the door and closed his eyes. He was more tired than he had been yesterday. He forced himself to move. To shower, to get dressed, to face life.

____________________________________

Reid yawned again as he left his room. He knew he had dark circles under his eyes, but he couldn't do anything about it. He had always had some type of nightmare, but they hadn't been this bad for a while. He felt like he couldn't get any sleep anymore. He knew that he wasn't able to concentrate like he should be able to. He could only imagine what everyone else was thinking about him.

Prentiss and JJ were in the lobby. They both took double takes of him. He smiled and added a little bounce to his step to look a little happier. He couldn't tell if it really worked. Morgan walked in right after Reid's entrance.

"Here ya go. Nice and hot," he said as he handed Reid one of the coffees he carried.

"Thanks." Reid sipped in enthusiastically as the team left for the police department.

____________________________________

Hotch and Rossi were already hard at work. Garcia had sent over Silvano's case file.

Hotch glanced up as they entered. "If you wouldn't mind, you could start looking through the background checks Garcia sent over."

Reid, Morgan, and JJ all picked up a stack of papers. Prentiss seemed to hesitate, but it was so quick that Reid couldn't be sure.

"Garcia also sent over records of the last purchases they made with credit cards. There could be something drug related that they bought for bringing on the aneurysms." Hotch flipped another stack of papers onto the table.

It didn't take long for it to become apparent that this wasn't working.

"Nobody here fits the profile," Morgan said as he threw his last file on the table. "All the priests from this area are old and don't have enough strength to do a lot of the things done to the victims."

"Plus, none of the priests ever were connected with the law enforcement," Reid added as he shook his head.

"We have to find him," Prentiss said as she picked up Morgan's discarded papers and started going through them.

"What if the unsub was just visiting here?" Rossi asked. "We've had plenty of cases where the killer moved in or just visited a place in order to find victims. If that's the case, then we wouldn't have records of him in this town."

"Good point," Hotch admitted as brought a hand to his forehead. "I've already ordered police to go around to every house to check on the homeowners." He sighed. "I don't know what we're going to do about this."

"We're going to do what we always do," Rossi said. "We're going to catch this guy."

"Unfortunately, we have no idea of how to find him," Reid pointed out. "We have the profiles of the original killers but they have nothing in common with one another. The first victim was a sixty-two year old grandma, like the victim of the original killer. The Zodiac killer never seemed to have a specific type of victim, so we can't pinpoint anything. Garcia was able to find out that the Jack the Ripper victim had actually worked as a prostitute as a teenager, even though she had given it up a few years ago," Reid said as he flipped through some paper, looking for the history of the Frank killing victim. "Shelley Riis didn't have much connecting her to the kill. She was recently married, she never did anything to stand out, she-" Reid froze midsentence. He stared at the word on the paper, willing it to change.

"Reid?" Hotch looked up from his paper. Everyone else was staring at him with a worried expression.

Reid cleared his throat and looked up at his friend's faces. "Shelley Riis-" Reid swallowed. "Shelley Riis used to be Shelly Gideon."