I Know What Its Like To Be Afraid Of Your Own Mind

Take an Angel by the Wings

Description: When a case goes wrong, Reid must deal with the fall out of the tragedy

Tags: Triggering, major major character death, gruesome

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"It is not death a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

-Marcus Aurelius

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Gun fire hailing down on them, bodies drop like flies, vests completely useless, they aim for the head and the throat. It was an easy case, they profiled the unsub as a town local, killing off neighboring locals for fun, sport even. He was named Angel Reaper, because of the children he murdered and the pregnant women gutted on their front porches, left for their husbands to find their wives dead, baby slayed on the porch. They never profiled a pack though, they never thought of the sheer amount of bodies they found couldn't possibly be pulled off by the same person in such a small amount of time. Hotch believed their unsub was fast moving, unraveling faster than the case could come together, the MO was all over the place, they profiled it as sadistic, the need for blood and for pain, no matter what way it was created. It was all about who the victims families would find them, in the most gruesome way possible. They were right around the MO, but wrong about who was involved. They were all wrong. Reid was wrong.

Taking cover behind an weed overgrown truck with no wheels, Reid holds a hand to his thigh, hissing through clenched teeth. Looking down, two holes, one right above the other, burrows deep into his thigh, no exit wound. Taking off his belt, Reid ties off the more serious one, hoping he doesn't bleed out in the time it takes backup to arrive, but there's little hope left. The sheriff and most of the local police were the first line to fall, taken by complete surprise, none of them stood a chance at running back to their cars, simply gunned down from seemingly no where.

Reid hadn't seen any of his team since being shot and dragging his injured leg behind the truck to check his ammunition. He didn't fire off a single shot, but still, his ammo is low and the stakes are high. Checking his pockets for extra, Reid finds two clips secured in a side pocket, remembering Prentiss being the one to tell him to always be prepared for a shoot out and slipping the extra two clips into his vest... That was so long ago now, yet no one ever switched out vests with the young doctor. He wonders if she's okay, he didn't see her or hear anything of FBI being gunned down when the first shouts rang out, but it's quiet now, they're waiting for someone to make a move.

Keeping his head below the glass, Reid flattens himself to the ground, crawling towards one end of the truck to survey survivors and make a plan, if there's even time for one. The first thing Reid sees are the cruisers and their SUV's, shot to hell, two cops, never made it out of their vehicle before being gunned down, another, hangs lifelessly from his door, the window having been shot out, streams of blood flowing over the emblem he stood by, served and protected, until the bitter end.

Swallowing, Reid turns to the graveyard of people, the entire department had come out to see this bastard go down, be dragged out and through a line of officers, each with a promise worse than the other in their eyes. Only two out of the dozens are left, tucked behind a cruiser, one nursing a bullet wound in his arm, the other attempting to radio a warning over to the coming county.

Where's his team? Against better judgement, Reid scans the sea of bloodied bodies and fallen guns, searching for a face he hopes he won't know, but Reid has never been that lucky. Laying on her side, as if she were only asleep, weapon still clutched tight, finger on the trigger, Agent Emily Prentiss, the woman who practically became a sister to Reid, stares blankly ahead, lips slightly parted, allowing blood flow to travel into the ground. From the looks of it, she'd taken a bullet to the throat and forehead. She didn't suffer.