Special Agent Angel (Criminal Minds fanfiction) [Season 1]

Compulsion [5]

"This is crazy. Hey, Matt, get over here. You gotta see this. The building's on fire,"

"Bro, you getting this? Two of 'em, man,"

"Get out of the way! We should call campus security."

"Relax, man. There are always fires during rush week,"

'Yeah, but that's pretty big."

"Dude, over here. Check this out. What is it?"

Sam hit the keyboard and rewound the tape.

"Dude, over here. Check this out,"

"What is it?"

"I don't know,"

Samarra rewound it again.

"There's always fires during rush week,"

"Dude, over here. Check this out."

"What is it?"

"I don't know,"

Sam paused the video and zoomed in the doorknob as it jiggled. "Three times,"

***

Samarra hurried through the ashen hallway until she came to the end and rubbed off the soot that covered a sign revealing the number 3.

***

Sam entered the second scene where the professor had died. Opening up drawers and notebooks. Until she found a binder with his schedule on it "Professor Wallace. Tuesday, 3:00,"

***

Samarra entered the office where the team was "I know why the profiles never fit. You were right to tell Morgan not to rely on precedent. The fires thus far have been completely task-oriented,"

"So once they're set, the unsub is done?" Hotchner asked

"Exactly. The unsub is not a classical serial arsonist. He's someone who uses fire because of a completely different disorder,"

"Which is?" Gideon asked

"An extreme manifestation of OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. He does everything in threes. And if I'm right, he'll have to kill again,"

***

"There's a form of OCD called scrupulosity," Samarra explained to the group

"Religious obsession and compulsion," Agent Hotchner said

"An obsessive fear of committing sin, which creates so much anxiety that he's compelled to do something to ease that anxiety,"

"Like setting fires,"

"Where's the behavioral evidence?" Gideon asked

Sam moved to her laptop that had the video on it "Right here. All right. Remember the night of the three fires? We saw the doorknob turning against the lock." she played the clip "But he's not trying to get in. He's compelled to turn the doorknob three times,"

"Well, what about the fires? The first ones were single fires. If the unsub was OCD, shouldn't they have all been in threes?"

"They were in threes. A trinity of threes. The first fire occurred on March 3rd,"

"3:00 P.M. Third day, Third month,"

"It's that convergence of threes that causes overwhelming anxiety. Obsessive compulsives ease the anxiety by performing the compulsion,"