someone to love • spencer reid

the tribe

the team and i sat in the conference room as jj handed out our latest case.

"terra mesa new mexico, five dead, all from mesa university. no signs of sexual assault and no sign of theft."

morgan started to read off the facts,"five nineteen year olds, minimal defensive wounds. one of them was impaled in a 6-foot wooden pole."

my mouth opened wide as i looked at the photos. this was gruesome.

"who would wanna kill a bunch of college freshman?" elle asked, looking at the case grimly.

"they weren't tied up and no one escaped?" hotch questioned, finding that aspect peculiar.

i shook my head, looking at all the bodies this case produced at once,"no single unsub could have done this."

"so you think there were more than two?" elle asked the room.

gideon nodded, flipping through the file,"i think we're looking at a pack."

jj knit her eyebrows,"a pack?"

"three or more that kill in unison, as in nature of the group dynamic dictates, the pack survival is depending on their ability to hunt successfully. and, as in nature a pack will keep on killing until it runs out of prey or is stopped." spencer explained to the press liaison.

"stopped by what?" she continued to inquire.

"a stronger pack."

•

gideon, reid, hotch, and i stepped out of the car, the sheriff anticipating our arrival. he stood in the front lawn of the crime scene, waiting for us to walk up to him.

"sheriff, i'm special agent hotchner, these are agents reid, gideon, and harris-tran." hotch introduced us to the man.

he smiled politely,"i was hoping there'd be more of you."

"the other agents went straight to the station to look at the victims' files." hotch explained as we walked up to the yellow tape that guarded the entryway.

"has forensics had any luck?" gideon asked as we were all handed blue surgical booties for our feet, so we don't mess up the crime scene.

"the county csu went through for prints and trace evidence, they said with all the work, by tramping here looking at footprints would be a waste." the sheriff explained, lifting up the tape to let us enter. i slipped the boots on over my docs and walked in behind gideon.

we walked to the living room and i glanced around at the blood covered surfaces. i had pictures in my hand to place exactly what happened and where it happened.

hotch looked at the scene with a confused expression, "bodies were almost completely skinned, but there's so little blood."

i sighed as i flipped through the disgusting visual of skinned teenagers,"the unsub's avoided places of the neck and wrists, where the carotid and radial arteries lie just under the skin."

"why would they do that?" the sheriff questioned.

"they didn't want them to bleed out."

i looked at the bloodied walls, feeling sick to my stomach,"these kids were skinned alive."

silence crept into the main room, suddenly suffocating everyone in it. we made our way to the downstairs bedroom our blue surgical booties sliding against the carpeted floors.