Childish| Criminal Minds

20

Penelope and Emily watch in horror as a campus supervisor escorts Cat and JJ away. There's blood on the tile floor. The fight couldn't have lasted longer than five minutes, but many punches were thrown.

"I know what I need to do," Penelope finally says.

"What?" Emily asks, but Penelope is already following in the direction that JJ and Cat went. It only starts to hit Emily when she's about to go back to class.

She was going to confess.

-

Spencer's jaw drops when he sees a campus supervisor dragging JJ and Cat into the principals office. JJ's nose is bloody, and her face is littered with bruises. Cat's injuries are slightly worse, and it looks like her nose might even be broken. Cat flashes Spencer a sick smile as she's led into Principal Barnes's room.

"What happened?" Spencer aks. The campus supervisor shrugs.

"They got into a fight."

-

Emily immediately rushes for Aaron Hotchner, the only person in their friend group not incarcerated besides Derek Morgan, who is in the nurse's office due to a football injury.

Emily races through the hallways until she finds the boys locker room. She takes a deep breath as she prepares for what she's about to do.

Thankfully, Aaron was late to P.E. today. He's about to take his shirt off when Emily jogs over to his locker. "Emily? What the hell are you doing in here?"

"It's urgent. A lot of shit is going down and you need to come with me."

A few guys that are undressing give Emily a weird look. Aaron grabs his backpack and follows Emily out of the locker room without hesitation.

"What's so important that I'm gonna miss the mile?" Aaron asks. Emily stops walking and looks up at him.

"Spencer is being framed as a drug dealer, JJ and Cat got into a really bad fight, and Penelope is about to tell Barnes that she started the fire."

"Shit," Aaron mutters. "You're right. This is urgent."

"Yeah. So stop asking questions. It's a five minute walk. We need to hurry."

Emily and Aaron walk as quickly as they can without arousing suspicion from the campus police. However, they don't get there in time.

Penelope takes a deep breath as she pushes open the door to  Barnes's office.

"Principal Barnes?" she asks. Cat and JJ are sitting in chairs in front of Barnes's desk.

"I'm kind of busy. Can it wait?"

"No, ma'am," Penelope says. Her voice is shaking, but she knows she has to do this. "I started the fire in the shed. It was my candle."

Barnes takes off her reading glasses and sets them down on her desk. "Girls, wait here for a minute."

JJ and Cat roll their eyes. Barnes leads Penelope over to the police officer.

"This young lady says she started the fire. Deal with her," Barnes snarls. Penelope has always thought about their principal as a bitchier version of her AP Computers teacher, but with shorter hair. She's like a chihuahua without the ability to empathize.

"No she didn't," Spencer says, trying his best to look confused. Emily and Aaron almost fall into the cramped office, both extremely out of breath from practically running there.

"What?" Barnes asks.

It's starting to hit him; all of his friends are going to be seniors next year. He only has one year left until they're all going off to college in different states around the country.