nina cried power [SPENCER REID]

four.

CHAPTER FOUR:
GOODNIGHT NEW YORK

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Nina holds her breath when the door to the apartment opens, mostly to maximise the drama of her first sob when Patrick Sullivan opens the door. New York Senator, minimum security, easy job -- he's tall, but slim, and where she has sturdy muscle twisted around strong bone, he has wrinkling, dimpled flesh and probably doesn't get his daily dose of calcium, that's for sure.

There'll be no challenge with this one, not like Lebenov, who'd been built like a whale and had fallen like a tree -- but she likes to get creative with these ones. Let the artistic juices flow whenever she has the chance. And, well, for this one, she's gone the full nine yards.

Patrick comes to the door rather quickly, alarmed by her shouting for help and pounding of her fists, and her chest is pressed to the door so that when he opens it she almost falls into him.

"What's happened?" he stutters. Then, from squinted eyes behind coke-bottle glasses, he sees the blood on her. "Oh, crap!"

"My-my boyfriend," Nina says, holding her nose, where more blood is coming, staining her shirt. It's in her hair, on her shoes. She almost feels sorry for whoever's going to have to clear that up. "I-I live next door. Please, he'll be here in a second, I -- please. Just five minutes...until he's gone."

Patrick looks past her, then knocks his door open further with his hip and hurriedly motions her inside. "Come on, come on, missy, let's get you cleaned up, huh?"

Still weeping, Nina nods, holding her nose and trying not to grin as she slips inside the apartment and the door shuts and locks behind her. The bolt slides across -- even better.

Even for a Senator, his apartment isn't huge. Ah, New York. Paying three-thousand dollar rent on a box, when that cash could get you a mortgage in Europe. Nina grimaces absently; this tiny apartment is another reason on a long list of why she wants to get out of New York. On there too is, of course, the risk of being investigated, but most prominently is the rancid smell of street vendors and trash and piss that seems to never cease.

She has her eye on Paris next, where she'll stay before her job pulls her elsewhere. Of course, Florence had its charm, but when E[redacted] told her about her visitors -- and, even worse, when that agent spotted her at the cafe -- she knew she couldn't go back there. Although, the thrill of eye contact with that agent, the risk of getting caught (and the good looks that made her blood rush), is excruciatingly tempting.

"There's a first aid kit in the bathroom," Mr Sullivan says, following her in, and she turns. "You said you live next--"

Then he looks up and sees the knife in her hand: eight inches of silver blade, slipped out of the sleeve of her black trench coat. And he's gone white as a sheet even before his eyes raise to hers and see her smiling -- smiling even though her face is stained black with running eyeliner and a bloody nose.