" The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. "

— Friedrich Nietzsche

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

2.4 ; COMPULSION.

HOWEVER, THE ENDLESS KAREN interview eventually did come to a close. Derek and Caroline interviewed dozens of Karen and not a single one had a clue or suspicion about someone in their life who had an obsession with fire. Which brought them back to square one, with no leads once again and no idea what the unsub means by "I do this for Karen".

After the interviews, Caroline snuck out to the Chemistry building. For some reason, she felt drawn to there. She wandered the halls aimlessly, desperate from some clarity.

Today was Caitlin's birthday, and she wasn't there. She hasn't sent her sister a text to even wish her a happy birthday, not because she didn't want to or that she forgot, but because she knew that it would only make the situation worse. There wasn't one thing that Caroline could say to her now sixteen-year-old sister that could fix what she was feeling, to relieve the pain and hurt she felt.

She was just stuck here in Arizona where she had no leads on a serial arsonist and a sister who hated her guts. Her life was beginning to sound like a cheesy Tom Cruise movie.

She walked along the halls, her heels tapping as they touched the tile, echoing down the empty hallways. As she was walking, something on the bulletin board caught her attention.

The board was covered in multi-colored graphs and equations. She glazed over it, but her main focus was the title. In bolded text, it read: THE THREE BODY PROBLEM — Computing the mutual gravitational interaction of three masses.

This was that project the annoying boy from the chemistry lab was talking about last night. Him and his other classmates were working on it for their final project. She simply stared at the board, unsure what the tugging feeling in her chest was trying to say.

Suddenly, she wished Reid was with her. If he was here, he would be able to tell her something more about it. And, if she was being honest, she felt better when he was around. Less afraid, less paranoid. She felt more like herself, and not some useless shell of who she used to be.

Then, the sound of the door at the end of the hall creaked open and she whipped around, startled.

The patrol officer from last night stood in the doorway, watching her. He was even wearing the same bright yellow shirt and brown khakis. He gave her a friendly smile.

"Hey. I didn't scare you again, did I?" He chuckled. "Um, sorry. This is one of the buildings on my patrol."

Caroline took a deep breath, calming herself down. With everyone so frazzled about the arsonist, she was starting to feed off everyone's nerves. She was far more jumpy than usual. She shook her head and peeked through the corner of her eye at the bulletin board.

"I was just looking at the board." She replied, deep in thought. "The three-body problem. You know what it means?"

The guy scratched his head, glancing at the board in confusion. "Uh, no. No idea."

"It's physics. It's one of the great mathematical mysteries." She explained to him. Curiously, her eyes wandered to his neck and she noticed his necklace was missing. She frowned and nodded towards his bare neck. "You broke up with her. No more necklace."

He chuckled darkly, crossing his arms across his chest. "Yeah, I kinda wanna date someone else."

"What's her name?"

He smiled a little, amused. "Brian."

"Oh." Caroline said slowly. "That's a pretty good reason. She take it all right?"

"Yeah." He nodded, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, other than telling me that, um, homosexuality's a sin, and that I'm going to incur the wrath of God."

She laughed lightly, amused at the girl's word choice.

Then, it hit her.

"The wrath of God." She repeated, no longer laughing as she began to think.

What if the unsub didn't fit the profile because he wasn't a typical serial arsonist? What if he was the one just outside the box?

How did she not see it earlier?

Before the patrol officer could say anything else, Caroline turned and took off down the hall, sprinting as fast as she could towards the command center.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Caroline burst through the door, panting slightly from the sprint across campus. The large steel door banged against the wall with a loud CRASH!, causing the BAU to swivel their heads in her direction, alarmed.

"Charown." She blurted out, her blonde hair bouncing along with her body from adrenaline. She had planned to say something more elegant than that, but she was too wound up to have control over her words.

"Charown?" Reid repeated slowly, his face contorting into a confused expression. He approached her carefully, taking note of her jumpy state before reaching for her arms, making her face him. The rest of the team began to gather around, interested in what the youngest member of the team had to say and why she was so riled up.

"Charown. 'I do it because of Charown'." Caroline told him, trying to slow down her heart rate "The unsub isn't saying Karen. He's saying Charown."

"It's Hebrew for--"

"God's burning anger, I know."

Elle frowned in confusion at the young agent. "The motive is now religious?"

Caroline didn't reply as she watched Gideon pulling out the blank whiteboard someone had pushed into the corner. He grabbed one of the dry-erase markers on the silver easel and uncapped it. She suddenly smelt the strong scent of something between diesel fuel and paint thinner coming from the marker as he began writing down everyone's ideas.

"Well, you know, in a lot of religions, God is related to fire." Reid pointed out as everyone gathered around the whiteboard.

"Well, Agni is fire in Hinduism." Hotch stated. "And the Jews see God as a pillar of fire, and Christians worship God as a consuming fire."

As discussion began, Elle started passing out lunch Derek had picked up for them earlier. She handed Caroline a chicken salad, which she immediately passed to Spencer, completely uninterested in eating at the moment.

"Okay, so we're looking for a theology major." Derek reasoned as he took a sandwich from Elle.

"Or maybe he's punishing the other students for their sins." Caroline suggested as Reid inspected the salad she handed him. His nose scrunched together and he passed the package back to Elle, simply replying with, "I don't want this."

"What--what's the most sinful place on campus?" Elle asked as she took the salad from Reid and set it on the table beside her.

Derek scoffed. "Come on, Elle, when I was in college, that was everywhere."

"A fraternity?" Hotch said. "A campus bar?"

Caroline shook her head at the ideas. "No, because those aren't consistent with the previous targets."

"What abut the idea of baptism by fire?" Derek suggested. "Aren't we all supposed to be tested through fire in Revelations?"

Gideon, who had been writing every idea everyone had been saying on the whiteboard, stopped and looked across the room, addressing everyone.

"Look, it's good, it's good, but let's please do not jump to conclusions. Religion might be a part of it, but it's not necessarily the prime compulsion."

"Gideon, rush to conclusions, jump to conclusion!" Derek snapped. "Who cares?"

"We are running out of time!" Elle muttered, running a hand through her black hair, clearly in distress. "We don't have time for second-guessing."

As much as Caroline hated to admit it, Elle was right. They didn't have the time for thinking. It was a new day, and given the unsub's escalated timetable, there could be another fire any minute now. Someone else could die.

And no one, not even she, knew how to stop it.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The smell of stale coffee and ink pens occupied the silence while the team ate their respective lunches. Gideon had opted to sit alone, eating slowly with a look of deep thought plastered across his face. Derek, who sat beside Caroline, watched the older profiler with narrow, unsure eyes as he forcefully took a bite out of a sandwich. Hotch was too busy on his phone checking on his pregnant wife to say anything to him and Elle simply didn't care about the looks being exchanged. As for Caroline, she picked at her salad absently, stabbing the purple and green lettuce leaves with her fork, but never bringing them up to her mouth to eat them.

After Caroline revealed the religious angle to the profile, Reid had locked himself in the command center, rewatching the video of Matthew Rowland's death over and over again. She was tempted to go in the command center and eat with him, or if he was even eating, but she stayed rooted in her seat.

Besides the imposing threat the arsonist held over her mind, it had dawned on her what today was. It was Caitlin's sixteenth birthday, and she was a hundreds of miles away from her sister. She had wanted to send her a message, at least wishing her a happy birthday, but she knew it wouldn't be well-received, especially right now.

Caroline wondered if Aunt Guinevere had taken her family out to see Charlie's grave yet. After all, it was his sixteenth birthday too, technically. He was still Cait's twin brother, even in death. She also wondered if her aunt would show her their parents' graves too, resting beside Charlie's. That was supposed to be Caroline's job, just her and Caitlin going out and showing their family how beautiful and wonderful their little Caitlin turned out. They even had thought about bringing Cass along, but Caroline thought it was unwise because of the endless questions it would bring up.

Cass wasn't even born when their parents and Charlie died, and she had absolutely no idea how she would explain what happened to a five year-old without scarring her for life. She still had a couple of years of complete ignorance and bliss, there was no need to rush it.

How was Caroline to explain that she was the one who had to watch as her sweet little ten year-old brother who couldn't harm a fly was shot point-blank in the head, powerless as she watched the life drain out of his emerald green eyes. Caitlin's eyes. How their father, a Marine Coprs General who had spent decades fighting at sea and trained in every combat technique known to man, had his throat slit and the man who did it made Caroline clean up the blood. How their mother, the one person who truly understood and supported her through everything, killed herself because the man who murdered her son and husband wanted the child she was nine months pregnant with. Their mother killed herself in order to protect Cass, and with a gun pressed to her head, the monster who decimated half of her family made her cut open her own mother and deliver her baby sister.

How was she ever going to explain that? How was she to explain what happened to herself? How was she supposed to protect her sisters if she could barely protect herself from the horror she relives everyday?

How could she ever take away the gift of not knowing from her sisters? The act in itself would almost make her as vile as the man who murdered her family. Almost.

Caroline felt someone gently tap her shoulder and she broke out of her reverie, looking up with wide eyes. Elle had rested a delicate hand on her shoulder, her face a look of concern.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asked her gently. "You just zoned out there for a minute."

She rubbed her eyes quickly, trying to bring herself out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking, that's all."

She was well-aware of Hotch staring at her from across the table with a far-more concerned look on his face. She didn't meet his eyes because she knew once she did, he would know exactly what she was thinking. She refused to let him worry.

Caroline rose from her chair and tossed her uneaten salad in the trash, keeping her head down as she walked. Her blonde hair created a shield across her face, hiding it from Hotch's observing gaze. She didn't glance back as she walked quickly down the hall, attempting to hold back the tears that threatened to expose themselves.

How was she supposed to help anyone when she was like this? How could she continue life like this, constantly stuck in the past?

Before she had time to turn the corner and run into the girls' bathroom, she bumped into somebody, almost falling over. A steady pair of hands caught her shoulders, keeping her from toppling over.

She glanced up at the person who caught her and Spencer Reid looked down at her, smiling.

"Jeez, Care, where are you off in such a rush?" He asked her, his hands still on her shoulders, rooting her in place. Her hands had instinctively latched on to the nearest possible thing to balance herself, which happened to be his forearms and she gripped them tightly.

Instead of responding, she changed the subject. "I suppose I could say the same for you. I thought you were in the command center?"

Suddenly, both of them seemed to realize they were still holding each other and almost immediately they both released the hold on the other. Reid dropped his arms to his side awkwardly as she folded her hands in front of her. She felt the immediate calm when she was with him, the fear and panic being replaced with soothing peace. She wished she hadn't let go, but a small voice inside her told her that it was the right thing to do.

"I was..." Spencer Reid admitted. "But I think I figured out why the profiles never fit."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

After her scene in the hall, Caroline composed herself and, more or less, dragged Reid to the command center along with Hotch and Gideon, all curious what the young boy-genius had to say. Piling into the command center and closing the door behind them, all three profilers turned to Spencer, their faces expectant.

Reid's gaze shifted towards Gideon. "You were right to tell Morgan not to rely on precedent." He explained him. "The fires thus far have been completely task oriented."

Caroline frowned, unsure of Reid's train of thought. "So once they're set, the unsub is done?"

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

"Which is?" Gideon inquired.

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

Caroline rubbed her head as the pieces of the profile started to fit. Of course! Why hadn't she thought of this sooner? "It's a compulsion. He has to set fires."

Reid rushed past her and pulled out the small silver laptop setting behind her. He opened the lid and was greeted to the FBI home screen. He clicked on one of the video files and the video of Matthew Rowland's murder popped up on the screen.

"There's a form of OCD called scrupulosity--religious obsession and compulsion." He explained as the video buffered. "An obsessive fear of committing sin, which creates so much anxiety that he's compelled to de something to ease that anxiety."

"Like setting fires." Hotch remarked.

Gideon rubbed his temples and sighed. "Where's the behavioral evidence?"

"Right here." Reid turned to the computer and started the video. Except, instead of starting in the beginning, he had started towards the end, before Matthew catches fire. As much as she wanted to shy away from the video, she focused in on the screen, listening and watching intently. "Remember the night of the three fires? We saw the doorknob turning against the lock."

A couple of more clicks on the keyboard and he zoomed in on the door, panting in on the doorknob. He played the video and, like before, the small knob turned a couple of times, churning and clicking as it rotated against the lock. The lock clicked three times.

"But he's not trying to get in. He's compelled to turn the doorknob three times."

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

"They were in threes. A trinity of threes, in fact." Reid explained, pausing the video. "The first fire occurred on March 3rd--"

"3:00 P.M., third day, third month." Caroline confirmed, backing up Spencer's theory. It all made sense now.

He smiled at her as he nodded his head. "It's that convergence of threes that causes the overwhelming anxiety. Obsessive compulsive ease the anxiety by performing the compulsion."

"What about the other fires? Professor Wallace?" Hotch asked.

"Office number 3." He replied. "I checked for more patterns of threes. His class was on Tuesdays, the third day of the week. Matthew Rowland was in that class. It was his third class of the day." Reid's hand tapped against the desk anxiously as he explained. "If we looked into each of the fires we'd find a lot of patterns having to do with threes because our minds are so incredibly adept at seeking out patterns. But to the unsub, once that pattern hits, bam--he sets a fire."

Caroline began to pace as the wheels in her mind began to turn. Reid had said it himself--the mind was adept at finding patterns. So why did the number three register so familiarly with her?

"But if the target was always people, why did no one die in the first few fires?' Gideon asked Reid, his face pulling into a slight scowl.

His face began suddenly very somber, lowering his voice. He didn't look away from his hands when he spoke. "They were failures. Up until Matthew Rowland."

Failures. . .failures. . .failures. . .

What a weird way to describe attempted murder. A failure.

Everything is a compulsion for the unsub, something he can't control. The OCD would takes over his life--his schedule, his social life, even his actions and his speech. He wouldn't be able to control himself.

Then it hit her. The one person who had a knack for fires had been right in front of them.

The moment Caroline had realized who the unsub was, her eyes popped wide open and she locked gazes with Hotch, who immediately knew that she's discovered something big just by glancing her way.

"What is it?" He asked her, her big blue eyes focusing on him with absolutely clarity.

"I think I know who it might be." She said. "And it's not a he. It's a she."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

Clara Hayes was just a normal nineteen year-old chemistry student. But, upon further searching done by none other than the Great Garcia, Caroline quickly learned that there was more to the college student than that. Of more immediate focus was her failing grades this semester. She was flunking out, making this semester her last. There was the stressor, if she ever saw one.

She tried to conjure up a picture of the girl in her mind, the nervous one in the back of the classroom when Hotch, Reid and her went to talk to the chem students last night. She wasn't very memorable, but she could remember the mousy, brown-haired girl that almost cowered away from Caroline when she would ask her a question. What could've turned such a young and seemingly sweet girl into a killer?

After identifying the arsonist, Hotch sent Morgan and Elle to search Clara's room. There had to be some clues or indications of her next plans. Maybe, if they were fortunate enough, they'd catch her there. But that wasn't probable.

Gideon was on the phone with the dean of students, setting up more security and checkpoints across campus. Everything was being set into motion. Wherever Clara was, she was going to be found, sooner or later.

"How did you know it was her?" Hotch asked Caroline as Gideon hung up the phone. Reid inclined his head towards the conversation from the paperwork he was scanning through, curious.

"When I was talking to her and her classmates, I noticed something—a ring on her finger." She explained to them. "She kept turning it."

"At intervals?" Reid inquired.

She nodded. "Of three. And she counted off the ingredients of a lightbulb bomb."

Clara Hayes popped up in her mind, holding up three fingers, smiling nervously, like she was almost scared of getting something wrong. She kept repeating the ingredients over and over in her head, like a broken record. Potassium, sulfur and sugar. Sugar. . .sugar.

She never seemed like a killer.

Hotch nodded as he started to remember the girl. "The word 'sugar'. She kept repeating it. Almost like once she started, she couldn't stop."

"Yeah, it's palilia. It's the involuntary repetition of words." Reid commented, setting his stack of paperwork to the side. "Howard Hughes had it when his OCD worsened."

"Clara and her classmates were working on a project about gravitational pull." Caroline told them, almost grimacing as she talked. "The three-body problem."

It went silent. No one spoke after that, but she could tell they were all thinking the same thing.

How could they not have known?

Not in the sense of they should have known, that they should have figured it out, not that they weren't capable. It was their job to protect people—people like Matthew Rowland, and even people like Clara Hayes. It was her job to protect those people. All Caroline has ever wanted was to help others. To be able to help and protect others from going what she had to endure. And if she couldn't do that, what else could she do with herself?

The sound of the fax machine beeping broke Caroline out of her deep thought and she glanced over the piece of black-and-white print paper Garcia sent over. As she carefully took the new and warm piece of paper out of the machine, she thanked the Lord above that He had given them Penelope Garcia.

"16-year-old survives inferno," Caroline began to read of the old newspaper article, "The mother Ellen Hayes called it a miracle. 'My daughter was tested by God. He tested my child and she same through blessed'." She glanced at the photo of Clara's burnout childhood home attached to the article and shook her head warily. She offered it to the other profilers, pointing at the picture.

"Look at the house number." She said. "333."

As the night went on, so did the search. Ellen Turner, dean of students, and the rest of her staff moved to the command center with the small group of FBI profilers. Elle and Derek had reported back on Clara's apartment, and from what they described, obsessed didn't even begin to describe the girl. Derek Morgan himself called it "a horror movie room on crack" with the works—newspaper articles, religious quotes about fire and burning and plenty of materials to make at least twenty more homemade firebombs. They had yet to find the ones she had made previously.

"Security is checking the science building." Ellen Turner told the FBI agents as she got off the landline in the command center.

"Where else would she be?" Gideon mused, clearly agitated by the lack of results. It had been two hours since they first started the search—two hours they didn't have. They couldn't have much more time before she struck again.

The sun had already set and the night was getting darker and darker by the minute. If they wanted to catch Clara, this could be their last chance.

"We need to find the next pattern of threes." Caroline said.

She began opening drawers, searching until she finally found what she had been looking for in the bottom desk drawer—a map of the campus. She spread it out in front of her, staring at all the different compartments and crannies she could hide in. No, she couldn't worry about those. Everything the unsub does is a compulsion. She'd have to find the pattern of threes. And the key was somewhere in the building.

Reid leaned over her shoulder after a while as Hotch discussed things over with Morgan on the phone. The whole time, her eyes never drifted off the map. She couldn't find it. She was missing something.

"Any luck?" He asked her, leaning in so close she could feel his breath tickle the top of her ear.

She shook her head. "I'm getting nothing."

Suddenly, Hotch raised his voice, sounding alarmed and concerned. Everyone's head swiveled towards him.

"Morgan, seal off the building and evacuate everyone!" He demanded into the phone before hanging up and turning to all the wide eyes that were watching him.

He grimaced at all the anxious stares. "Agent Morgan found at least 30 homemade bombs hidden in Clara's closet."

Everyone went into defcon one. Gideon began barking orders over the bustling security, trying to maintain some order.

If there were that many bombs, there could be more. And Clara could have them.

"We need to send our people into every building and have them start pulling fire alarms!" Gideon announce to the office, guiding the security to the door. "Go! Go!"

Everyone started sprinting out the door spreading out like frantic ants until eventually it was just Gideon, Hotch, Caroline and Reid that remained.

And yet, the same thought she had since the moment she heard the word "compulsion" plagued her thoughts, riddling her with doubt. She couldn't stop thinking about it.

"What are you thinking, Care?" Reid asked her, seeing her fine eyebrows pulled together and her lips puckered together in concern.

She had captured the attention of her co-workers, all of them staring at her, wanting answers that she didn't have. Just doubts.

"Clara Hayes is very likely a good person." She murmured. "Someone who ever wanted to do anyone any harm, like any other rational person. But there's nothing rational about obsessive compulsive disorder."

Reid nodded in agreement. "Research suggests OCD involves problems in communication between the frontal part of the brain and the orbital cortex, plus the deeper structures like the basal ganglia."

Caroline grimaced. He wasn't getting the point.

"We won't be able to reason with her." She clarified. "We won't be able to reason with her because you can't reason with a physiological problem. She's not setting these fires because she wants to, but because she has to."

"What are you trying to say, Agent Lucas?" Gideon asked her.

She glanced up at him, her head feeling light. "We can't try and convince her to stop, because we won't be able to."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

It was silent across Bradshaw campus. Eerily quiet, almost too quiet. Students that had once been lounging outside on the stiff grass out in the courtyard, gazing at the stars, had scattered, running away in a panic when they heard the evacuation alarm. No one dared to question the alarm, not now. They all simply ran for their lives.

Except for one.

Caroline felt the crispy night air hit her skin, sending shivers through her body. She tugged on her blazer, hoping to preserve some warmth, but it was of no use. She couldn't be warm, not until they found Clara. Not until it was safe.

After hours of thinking, she had finally decided to take a walk and clear her head before joining up with Derek and Elle, the leads of the search team. She couldn't stand to be in command center much longer, not when everyone kept looking to her for answers. When her family is looking to her for answers. . .

She had taken the easy way out when she left her sister back in Virginia. Caroline had done the thing she has always been good at: running away. She ran from the questions she was ultimately going to have to face, the expectations of normalcy and the crippling fear and panic she felt daily. She didn't have a fear of the past; she had a fear of remembering, of having to relive all the memories that haunt her rising up and stifling her so deep in terror, she would never be able to breathe again. She had a fear of letting her sister down, her family. Would Caitlin blame Caroline for what happened six years ago? Would she grow to hate her, like Caroline had done to herself?

Sometimes, she was still just that sixteen-year-old girl that had been violated and tortured for weeks in her own home. Sometimes, that was all that kept her from detaching herself from life—the pain. It reminded her how she existed, that she survived.

But how could Caroline go back home to her family and explain how she felt? That she truly never got over it, that there was no "getting over it". That there wasn't an easy way out from the trauma they'd insured. She hadn't let her past go, she was too afraid to.

Somehow, she'd have to find a way to let go of the past. It wasn't fair to her sister, because she deserved answers. Maybe she wouldn't get them today, or tomorrow or a year from now, but one day, she'd get them. Caroline swore to it.

Even if it was the last thing she does.

Her phone cut through the dead silence of the night, ringing and vibrating against her leg. She didn't bother to check caller ID as she answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Caroline?" Gideon's voice came through the phone, even and calm. In the background, she could hear Hotch and the dean of students discussing matters in hushed tones. "Where are you?"

She slowed to a stop, pausing on the sidewalk as she listened intently to the phone. "In the courtyard. Why?"

"We need you to head to the science building and check it."

"But I thought security checked it. Are they sure they've cleared the science building?"

"The guards made sure all floors are empty and no elevators are in service." The dean, Ellen, assured her.

Elevators.

Suddenly, she recalled a conversation she had earlier with that snotty boy on the elevator after the interview.

"You need a key to get the elevator moving past 10:00 P.M."

Which meant so long as there's a key, there was a possibility Clara could have control over the elevator. That includes the potential hostages trapped inside.

She glanced down at her watch on her wrist and checked the two gold hands that showed it was 10:05 P.M.

Her breath caught and before her brain had time to register what she discovered, her feet were moving and taking off towards the science building.

"She's in the science building!" Caroline panted into the phone as she ran. "I need to know where she'd go!"

"Gideon's meeting you there." Hotch told her as she sprinted, her hair flying behind her like a madwoman.

She heard a rustle of paper and the sound of the phone being changed over hands. Reid's voice came over the phone, sounding almost frazzled as he spoke.

"I'm not seeing much. She was a researcher at the lab, but all the floors were cleared--oh." There was a pause.

"What? What is it?"

"The third floor of the science building is under construction."

With that, Caroline didn't bother with a goodbye. She hung up the phone and hastily shoved it back in her pocket as she burst through the emergency exit to the science building.

The door hit the brick wall with a bang, but she was in too much of a rush to care. She ran up the emergency stairs by two steps at a time, her heels slamming against the glossed over stone. She past floor one, then two. . .

Please don't be too late. Please don't be too late.

She hauled the third floor door open, shoving with her shoulder. It was eerily quiet on the floor. She had slowed her pace, her heels softly thumping against the boarded up floor. She carefully walked around the scaffolds and random tools lying on the unfinished floor, not daring to say a word. She unsheathed her gun from its holster and held it out in front of her, her eyes focused in front of her.

The wind from a nearby open window billowed the plastic covering over the unfinished walls. The pink and yellow insulation trickled down the plastic and tumbled across the floor as the wind blew. The plastic slapped against the wooden beams as each gust of wind came and went. She ignored the unnecessary sounds as she walked, completely focused.

As she rounded the corner, she could suddenly hear the terrified whimpers and cries of the students, begging for someone to help them. She stiffened as she peered over the corner, raising her gun at eye-level.

Then she saw Clara, resting back on her haunches, her knees pressed on the floor.

Caroline smelt the familiar scent of gasoline and her attention was immediately drawn to the lighted road flare in Clara's clasped hands, giving off blue and gold sparks. She was rocking back and forth, humming something to herself as she clutched the flare in front of her, waving it around. Clara was sitting directly in front of the shut-down elevator, with door pried open and three terrified kids, including the smug boy from yesterday, were huddled in the corner, soaked in gasoline.

"No, no, Clara, please stop!" The kids cried out to her, begging for their lives. "Please! Don't do this!"

She couldn't focus on them, she needed to keep her attention on the unsub. Anything else would distract her and it would be too late.

"Clara." Caroline said gently to the girl over the shouts and pleas of the students. She lowered her gun as Clara's head whipped towards her, her eyes alight with a crazed madness.

She had pulled her mousy brown hair taut against her skull. Random tuffs of hair were sticking out, illuminated by the lighted road flare in the dim room. It casted shadows across her face, dangerous ones that lit her wide, crazed eyes.

Caroline took another soft, gentle step, her arms raised above her head with her gun held loosely in her right hand. She gave her a comforting smile, trying to assure her.

"I have to do this." She whispered to the agent, her fingers tightening on the flare in her hands.

Another step closer. Her eyes shifted towards the flare in the unsub's hands before settling back on her face.

"You know it's not rational, Clara." Caroline told her softly, like a mother trying to soothe her child. "You were trying to tell me."

"God chose me to be tested and now He's chosen them." Clara focused her attention back on the lighted flare, her eyes dancing along with the sparks. "If I don't do this, something terrible will happen."

"What's going to happen, Clara? A flood? An earthquake?" She reasoned with her, her voice pleading. "You know this isn't rational."

Deep down, Caroline knew there was no use in trying to reason with the girl. But she couldn't give up on her so easily. There had to be another way.

Clara grimaced, bringing the flare closer to her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to rock back and forth even harder. "I know, I know, I know," she chanted.

"Then resist."

"I can't." Clara cried out as Caroline got closer to her. The pleas of her classmates grew louder, knowing she was on her breaking point. They were begging her to stop. "They must be tested. God's wrath. . ."

Caroline slowly brought her gun down and leveled it on the unsub's leg. Please, don't let it come to this. "Clara, you told me it was a chemistry student, remember? You left the message about Charown."

The flames flicked and danced as Clara began to shake and rock. She began chanting, "Charown, Charon, Moloch," the names of ancient forsaken gods, in an endless cycle, ignoring Caroline.

"You want to stop, I know you do."

"Father, Son. . ."

"Clara, please, don't do it."

"Holy Ghost," Clara raised her hands high above her head, ignoring her pleas. "God chose them!"

And before Clara could throw the flare into the elevator, Caroline pulled the trigger, hitting the girl right in the leg. She cried out and the flare dropped to the ground, the cylinder of pure red and blue sparks rolled towards the opened elevator slot.

The students screamed as the flare rolled towards them in the elevator, but Caroline ran forward and crushed it with her sharp heel, effectively putting out the flame before it ever reached the door.

The screams stopped the moment the students realized it was out. That they were safe. The screams were then replaced with whimpers and tears of relief.

Gideon, who had been watching the exchange between the unsub and Caroline behind a wall, came over beside the young agent and focused his gun on a moaning Clara, whose hand was shakily feeling the wound where she had been shot. She was in shock, but she'd live.

"I thought you said not to reason with her." He told her, never taking his eyes off of Clara.

Caroline didn't say a word as she took her foot off the burnt-out flare and kicked it away from the elevator of traumatized students.

She knew what it looked like and she knew what she had said earlier. There wasn't any reasoning with her. Caroline knew it and Gideon knew it. But her job wasn't to give up on people. The profile may have said it was pointless, but to her, she tried her best. She could live with knowing she tried to save the girl.

She would later tell him that she was just stalling, waiting for the right time to disarm her. But, for now, Caroline told herself that she had tried, and that was all she could have done.

She didn't need to answer to that.