A FRACTURE IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS ✓

JOSH

The moment Josh and Tyler stepped back on the Behavioral Analysis floor after three months away, they barely had time to get situated before they were back on the plane and headed to Missouri. A serial killer back from the dead, it seemed like.

"This unsub is known as the St. Louis Strangler," Jenna explained on the way there. "He attacked twelve people in total, killing only five of them. He was active in the late fifties and early sixties before he disappeared. They never caught him."

Tyler, who was reading the Art of War for some ungodly reason, raised his hand without looking up at them. "According to the profile made of the potential suspects, the Stitcher would've been in his mid to late thirties, right?"

"That was our theory, yes," Brad said.

"Well, no matter how we old we think he was, he'd be too old now to be committing these murders with the same intensity as he did before."

Mark rapped his knuckles against his pullout table. "He's right. It has to be a copycat."

"If he is, he's a damn good one." Brad held up a picture of a dead woman with ligature marks on her neck. Her eyelids had been cut off. "Because the eyelids weren't public information.

Tyler looked up curiously. "Interesting."

"Maybe he has a son who's killing for him," Sarah said sleepily. She was curled up in a seat farthest from the others, wearing a long sleeved collared coat despite the hot weather.

Dallon, whose face appeared on Jenna's computer, waved his hand across the screen. "Or he's immortal."

"He is not immortal," Tyler scoffed.

"Don't be rude, Ty," Josh scolded him. "He's just trying to help."

His posture changed, and he snapped back defensively, "and I'm just being realistic."

Jenna shot Josh an uneasy look. "Weekes, any more info on what we're dealing with?"

Dallon easily went with the change in conversation, despite Tyler's obviously annoyed expression. "This guy was a true nasty, like seriously disturbing. He only targeted single mothers with infant sons, breaking into their homes and strangling them with cable wires and drowning the boys. The Metropolitan Police Department of St. Louis suspected him to be scoping out the victim's homes beforehand, but they could never find a pattern beside single mothers with babies."

"It could be a display of abandonment issues. The mother leaves him, possibly in a bad environment," Jenna suggested, folding her arms.

"Or she could've been abusive," Mark added.

"These women could be surrogates for his own mother," Judah said. "If she was abusive, then he could killing them so he doesn't have to deal with the real threat head-on."

"Maybe cutting off the eyelids is a way for him to force the mothers to watch as he drowns their children."

"Yeah, but if the woman are surrogates for his own mother, that would suggest the infants are meant to represent himself." Tyler said it almost like a challenge. "Why would he kill the kids?"

"Dally Darling over here may be of some assistance," Dallon chime.

Josh watched as Tyler rolled his eyes at Dallon's response. Out of the seven of them, Tyler was the most tolerant, if not the most confused, one when it came to Dallon's flirtatious ways. Now he looked almost angry at him.

"Cut to the point, Weekes," Tyler snapped.

Brad blinked, taken aback. Josh wasn't the only one to notice his drastic shift in behavior.

"Oh... kay." Dallon clicked something on his side of the screen. "With the first three mothers, he left the babies alone, they all survived. The police even found evidence of him caring for them while there."

"That's different," Josh mumbled.

"Here's where it gets even more demented. When the fourth mother was killed, neighbors reported hearing the baby crying for half of the night, before it suddenly stopped. At first, they thought nothing of it, brushing it off as the mom finally getting him to sleep-"

"-but it was actually the killer drowning them." Brad shut the folder in front of him. "Alright, thanks for your help, Weekes. We'll talk to you when we land."

"Oui oui, mon ami, talk to ya later, sweet peas."

Josh watched as Jenna and Brad sat back down and everyone else settled in his seats. He grabbed Tyler's hand, who looked up, half startled and half annoyed.

"Tyler, what the hell was that?" He hissed.

"What was what?" Tyler asked innocently.

"Your fucking outburst. What's going on with you? You've been acting weird since that night you snuck out of the hotel room."

Tyler visibly bristled. "You know?"

"Of course I do. Tell me. What's going on with you?"

He could see Tyler's internal struggle, a flurry of emotions flitting across his face before he went robotic. "Nothing is going on with me.'

"Yes, there is. You're being rude to your friends and you're hiding shit from me. If this is about whatever fucked up thing you think you did-"

Tyler closed his book with a snap, making Judah jump from across the aisle. "Leave. It. Alone. I would rather not discuss my personal issues with such a profane and mentally infantile human," he said coldly.

Josh didn't know how to respond to that- or if he even should- so he leaned back into his seat and put his headphones in, closing his eyes and pretending to sleep to avoid talking to Tyler. Something wasn't right, but he didn't know how to fix it, only that he had to try.