Something New

Prolouge

"FBI! Open up!" Derek shouted as he pounded on the door.

After a minute, there was no response. He took a step back and slammed a foot into the door, sending it flying open.

He pulled out his gun and held it in front of him, the rest of the team following closely. Slowly they stepped into the apartment, walking around to try and find their unsub, or unknown subject.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

Voices shouted from around the apartment, and the team finally realized they were alone.

"Damn it!" Derek growled, putting his gun away.

This had been their only lead. The only thing they had to try and catch the allusive serial killer they had been chasing for months now.

"The place is completely empty," Special Agent Olivia Prenton observed, putting her gun away.

Derek groaned in annoyance before slowly walking around the apartment. Olivia was right. The place was deserted, no furniture, no dirt, nothing remotely out of the ordinary.

"Did he know we were coming?" Asked Ryan Howard while inspecting the walls.

"Either that or this was a setup," Special Agent Jake Desmond responded in disappointment.

"Did we seriously fall for this guy's tricks again? I was sure we had him this time," Agent Margaret Webbs shook her head in disbelief.

"We all were," Derek responded, "There's nothing here. No new leads, absolutely nothing,"

The team took off their bulletproof vests and gathered in the main room of the apartment.

"So what's our next move?" Ryan questioned.

"I think we have to get back to the station. We know this guy keeps his victims for seven days before he kills them, so we still have two more days to find this woman," Olivia responded.

Kathryn Black was the seventh woman to go missing in the past four months. The first six bodies had been discovered in different places, but each had the same signature- something the killer did that was always the same, so they knew it was the same person.

This killer was terrorizing Seattle. Derek was the leader of this FBI analysis team which had been called in just over a month ago when the local police department finally found a connection between the first three victims and realized they had a killer on their hands.

Usually, his team was good. Great, even. The six men and women, including their technical analyst Vanessa Lohan who was back at the station, worked extremely well together. There was an FBI field office in Seattle, which was where they spent most of their time, but that was kept on the low. Since joining this case, they centralized their efforts at the police station in order to work more closely with the locals. 

But this killer was always just one step ahead. He enjoyed playing games with the FBI, tricking them, and sending them on wild goose chases while he tortured his victims.

Derek looked around at the people he worked with every day. They were not going to rest until they put this killer away. And this killer was not going to stop until they put him away.

Olivia had been working in the FBI for almost as long as Derek had, the tall dark-haired woman with electric blue eyes was competitive, sarcastic, and strong. Margaret, or Maggie as they called her was a smaller dark-skinned woman with curly and unruly black hair. She was witty and quick thinking, always ready to rise to a challenge.

Jake was a tall, bulky blonde man with blue eyes, he and Derek often competed about who was more attractive, but the man was great at analyzing criminal details someone else might have missed, not to mention he was a great shot.

Ryan on the other hand was tall but scrawny, he had light brown hair and a nerdy look to him. He was the newest member of the team, but incredibly smart and great at noticing and picking up on small things and making connections that often resulted in the team finding their suspect.

"Let's go back to the station and try to do some more digging, maybe we'll get something," Derek suggested, heading back to the door to exit the apartment.

The air that followed the team out was disappointed and angry. Everyone was dejected that once again, they had come up empty handed.

Derek led the way, his mind not focused on what was happening in reality in front of him, but more going over every detail of the case, trying to find something he missed.

They were outside, heading back to the black cars they had left parked on the side of the road when a light blue Honda rolled up in front of them.

"Watch out!" Someone suddenly yelled.

Derek turned back to his team, watching as each one pulled their guns out.

Shit.

Derek turned to face forward again, the tinted drivers window of the Honda was rolled down just enough for a gun to point out of the top.

They couldn't see into the car. All their focus was on the gun. Derek reached to his side to pull out his own. The rest of his team had taken cover behind their cars, and Derek started to make a run for it.

He wasn't fast enough. He crouched, but it was no use. In a split second, there were multiple loud bangs, the yelling of his team members, the squeals of the tires as the Honda sped off.

Then there was the pain. Scorching, searing, stabbing right through his body, radiating from his abdomen.

Derek felt the sticky liquid begin to seep through his clothes, and the power from the gunshots sent him feeling backward, knocking him down.

He laid on the concrete, gasping for breath, well aware of his blood pooling around him.

Ryan's face appeared above him, blurry.

"Shep! Can you hear me?"

"Stay with us," Sounded someone else.

The words streaming from his friend's mouths began to jumble together and Derek couldn't differentiate who was who.

"Call 911!"

"Did we get a license plate?"

"No, we got nothing,"

"Derek needs a medic ASAP!"

"Ambulance is on its way,"

That was the last thing he heard before his entire world went black.