CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: RIGHT WHERE WE LEFT OFF !

9x01

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      SEVEN MONTHS HAD PASSED AND THE TEAM HAD BEEN PLENTY OF CASES SINCE THEN. Casey was about ready to pop that baby any second but that didn't stop her from going on cases with the team. Speaking of cases, they were supposed to be taking a break from one when all of sudden... surprise, surprise — they were called in.

Spencer and Casey had been on the elevator ride up with JJ and she was telling the story of how she got called in. "We were this close to going to Ocean City, and I get the text." JJ tells. "Ugh, that sucks." Casey comments.

"I was in the middle of calculating force times distance times the co-efficient of friction to determine how fast I can make a hairpin turn in a Prius." JJ gives a look to Spencer and furrows her brows. "You don't have a hybrid, Spence." Spencer shrugged, "I know, but if I did, I'd want to know."

"What were you doing, Case?" JJ asks. "Napping," Casey looks down at the bulge forming in her stomach. "Or trying to, at least."

The elevator door dings and Garcia and Morgan walk in next. "Hey." JJ greets. "Hey." Morgan greeted back. "Weren't we just here?" JJ sighs, "Did your date understand?" Morgan shrugs, "Ah, luckily we're neighbors."

Garcia looks Casey's way. "You must be peeved." Casey nods, "Of course I'm peeved, I've got pregnancy hormones and I gotta pee every five minutes. Make it two." She gives Spencer her bag and makes her way to a nearby bathroom and meets everyone else in the roundtable room and gently sits down.

"Sorry you guys had to come in again." Hotch apologizes to the team. "Garcia?" The woman nods, "Yeah. Two women, Sarah Beck and Jill Elks, were found in a park in Glendale, Arizona, within the last 3 days. Both of them were single, in their late 20s, and following their normal, low-risk routines when they were abducted." Garcia explained.

"Where were they taken from?" Blake asked. "Sarah was on her way to a theater group rehearsal, and Jill was abducted from her apartment. The unsub broke in through a window." Garcia explained. "Well, clearly, he's hunting a specific type." Reid stated. "He left the jewelry untouched." Morgan points out.

"Yeah, it's not about robbery." Hotch told. "Both women were sexually assaulted, and then they were shot in the heart and left in that prayer position." Garcia tells. "That's odd." JJ points out. "Maybe it's religious. It looks like they're leaning on a cross." Rossi tells. "Their hands are tilted forward." Casey pointed out. "He could have made them supplicate and their hands clenched in rigor mortis." Reid tells. "So they're possibly praying to atone for their sins." JJ adds.

"I doubt that," Blake told. "Both women have pretty clean backgrounds." Reid looks at the file. "Since the posing was done postmortem, maybe it's a representation of the way in which he made them beg for their lives." Reid explained. "We've definitely seen that before." Rossi nods. "He's getting off on the power." Casey finishes.

"Let's head to Arizona. Wheels up in 30." Hotch orders.

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On the jet, Spencer had his hands on Casey's belly and a ear right near her stomach, as well. "Come on... come on... come on." He muttered to himself. To elaborate, nearly everyone had felt Casey's baby kick... everyone except for the soon-to-be father himself, Spencer Reid.

Casey could tell that Spencer had been upset at the fact that the baby wouldn't kick for him. It would kick for everyone except for him. He didn't know what to do. "Face it, babe. It's just not kickin'." Casey sighed and Spencer removed his hands. "Why isn't the baby kicking for me?" It was constant and honestly, it was also making Casey sad to see Spencer sad.

She knew that Spencer was beginning to doubt himself as a father now. If the baby wasn't kicking for him, it meant the baby didn't like him and the baby didn't like him even in the womb and it was beginning to worry Spencer and it reminded of his own relationship with his father and he swore he wouldn't turn into his father.

"Just give it time," Casey looks down at her stomach. "I'm sure it's just teasing you!" She speaks loudly.

"All right, let's go over victimology." Hotch speaks. "Both of these women were professionals, young, single, blond, both in their late 20s, and petite." JJ adds on: "And besides appearance, there's no apparent connection."

"The prayer position is unique." Blake points out. "Both these women were left in parks," Morgan tells. "The dumpsites could be symbolic. I mean, a lot of religions are based in nature, celebrating the outdoors."

       "Pilgrimages are often made to parks," Reid starts. "Believers say they're closer to God in places like that." Rossi continued, "Maybe he believes they're surrogates for a woman who cheated on him or rejected him."

Casey shrugs, "Either way, the unsub participates in high-risk behavior. He abducts and controls the victims, takes them to secluded locations, rapes them and kills them, all within twelve hours. He's quick."

      "His yet to be determined ritual leaves no outward indicators." JJ tells. Well, we know he has a gun, the ability to abduct his victims, take them to a lair, and discard them in a park." Morgan explains. "So he probably has a van or SUV." Rossi tells. "And he's planned things out. He abducted one victim on her way to a theater, another one from her apartment." JJ tells. "So he stalks them." Blake adds.

"The consistency of the disposal sites and methodologies tells us that he has no known or identifiable connection between any of the victims and in fact wants them to be found in order to convey his posed prayer message." Reid explains. "Well, the parks will give us behavioral clues to help us fill out our profile." Casey adds. "All right, we should split up when we hit the ground. He's probably already chosen his next victim." Hotch orders.

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       Word had been spreading within the group that Hotch had been up for the new director position ever since Strauss died. The group would be supportive of his decision no matter what. After discussing the topic and delivering the profile, Reid had left the room for a moment but not before asking Casey if she needed anything.

        Casey watched as he left and JJ smiled at the couple. "Aren't you two cute?" JJ said as she grabbed another file. "Yeah. I know." Casey sighed as she rubbed her belly. JJ looked at the girl. "At least show some enthusiasm." She jokes.

       "Oh, were my pregnancy hormones getting in the way?" Casey asks with a smile on her face. Spencer had been talking to Hotch outside and getting another file and Casey leaned towards JJ. "I need advice."

      "Spill." JJ nods.

      "Every time I tell Spencer the baby kicks, he stops everything he's doing and goes to me and by the time, he gets a hand on my stomach, the baby doesn't kick. And I'm starting to think that he's freaking out about it." Casey explained.

      JJ furrows her brows. "The baby never kicks for him?" She asks. Casey shakes her head. "He hasn't felt it kick once. And I think it's really getting to him."

     "How so?" JJ asked.

      "This is one of the only times he's left me alone in a month. And the baby's kicking now and if I tell him it is, he's gonna come in here and never leave until it does. And don't get me wrong, I love Spencer but he's..."

       "Clingy to you now?" JJ guessed. "Yup." Casey nodded. "Will was the same way. And sometimes when you're pregnant and hormonal, you just need..." Casey takes a deep breath. "Space." Casey finishes.

        Spencer had almost immediately come back in the room with Hotch and JJ had stated that she was hungry and volunteered Spencer to go with her. Reid had been adamant on staying but Casey insisted he'd go and so he did.

       As they got a snack and a drink, Morgan called JJ with the news they had received. "So, that parolee the sergeant had a lead on turned out to be a bust." JJ stated. Spencer had been doing some deep thinking in line and had then come clean about what he was thinking about. "What do you think about Hotch?" He asked.

       "I think it sucks." JJ admitted. "What do we do?" Spencer asks. "Uh, nothing." JJ answers. "What do you mean, nothing? I don't want him to leave." Spencer stated.

       "At least he'll still be around." JJ assured. "Yeah, with his name on our reports." Spencer told. "Look, I'm sure it's been hard for him on the road. He's not going to admit it, but a desk job would be easier on Jack." JJ explained. "You just don't get it, Spence." Spencer looks up. "Why? Because I don't have kids? I'm going to. I'm about to, actually."

        JJ knew Spencer and she knew he was dealing with something internally and didn't know how to get it out. "Okay, something's bugging you. This isn't just about Hotch, is it?" Spencer looked down before trying to figure out how to explain it.

        "What if my kid hates me?" Spencer asks and this catches JJ off-guard. "What if I'm away at work all the time, something that I really love doing and my kid hates me for it? I can't just think about myself anymore, I have someone else to think about now."

         JJ sensed Spencer's pre-baby jitters and knew that he had been holding onto this for quite some time now and with Casey mentioning that the baby hadn't kicked for him, it only heightened the fear. Before she could continue, their conversation was interrupted.

       A police officer came over and delivered a file to Spencer. "Dr. Reid, the ME just emailed this over." He looked at the file and figured it out and rushed back into the conference room.

      "Guys, I think I figured out why our unsub's obsessed with the human head. The DNA reports are back in. All of the human remains found in the victims' stomachs are from the same person."

       Blake looks at Spencer in confusion. "So what does that mean?" Spencer looks at everyone in the room. "It's a long explanation, so bear with me. When Pheidippides ran a marathon, he had faith."

       "He also died," Hotch added. "Go on."

       "True. If you take the fact that our unsub performs forced sexual acts with his victim, then add to that the force-feeding of a human head and the posed prayer position, I know this sounds crazy, but I think our unsub is obsessed with the praying mantis. That also explains why he poses the victims' hands like this instead of like this. The praying mantis can kill any of a multitude of creatures, but the most interesting fact is that oftentimes the female mantis engages in sexual cannibalism, meaning she'll bite off the head of her mate once copulation is complete, sometimes even during intercourse, actually." Spencer explains.

        Casey puts on a disgusting face as well as her coworkers. "I think my baby just threw up."

       "So that's what someone did to our unsub." Blake tells. "It also explains why he shot his victim through the heart." Spencer told. "But the center of our unsub's anger didn't bite off his head." JJ told. "No, but she hurt him so badly that she got into his brain." Casey adds.

        "So he's flipping the script." Blake tells. "He's completely taking it over. He basically sees the victims as the praying mantis out to destroy him, so before they can get to him, he rapes them, forces them to engage in cannibalism, thereby taking away their control of the situation. He's essentially walking them through the mating behavior of a captive praying mantis, only entirely on his terms. He even mirrors the decapitation of the insect by forcing them to eat pieces of a human head, only it's not a male human head, it's a female human head." Spencer explains.

        "The woman that's the core of his rage." Hotch tells. "Exactly," Spencer nods. "Now all women are his enemy. They're his predators, and he believes they're out to get him."

        After this newfound "fun" fact, Morgan and Rossi had gotten back and Hotch had called Garcia for more info. "Garcia, how are we doing on the missing persons reports?" Hotch asks. "There are six women that have gone missing in the Glendale area in the last month."

       "Any of them from within the comfort zone?" Casey asks. "One, but she's a kid in the middle of a custody battle." Didn't fit the victimology. "What about surrounding areas?" JJ asks. "That adds eight women." Garcia tells. "See if any of them have any connections to the area." Rossi says.

       "There's one lady, Heather Clarke, from Phoenix, Arizona. She went to school in the area fifteen years ago." Garcia tells. "She fits the age." Blake adds. "And here's a thing-- uh, she went missing two weeks ago, and six days prior to her missingness-ness-ness, it was announced in the paper she was to be married."

       Casey looks over at the group. "Unsub must have seen that and it triggered his anger." Morgan tells. "That would explain why he threw away the third victim's wedding ring." Rossi tells. "Guys, Heather has a DNA sample on file." Hotch nods, "All right, pull that and let's compare it to the tooth we found in the latest victim's body."

       After getting the sample, Spencer came back with the news. "Heather's DNA sample matches the tooth found in our victim's stomach." Hotch grabbed his phone and dialed Garcia's number. "Garcia, Heather Clarke is the victim that our unsub's been feeding to the others." He informs.

       "Yikes." Garcia comments.

       "See if she has any enemies." Garcia looked into it and answered with: "No. She was her company's top regional manager. She--she looks loved." JJ continued, "Well, the unsub's rage has probably been brewing for a long time." Blake added, "And he most likely expressed his disdain for her long before he killed her."

        "Baby girl, check middle and high school records." Morgan tells and Garcia does her stuff and then answers with: "No, zero, zero. There's nothing there." Garcia tells.

        "There's got to be something." Casey mutters. "See if her parents ever filed a restraining order." Rossi asks and Garcia then perks up a bit. "Oh, creepy bingo. When Heather was sixteen, she broke up with a guy named Wallace Hines. Wallace did not take the breaking up well. He went into an emo downward spiral."

        "What happened to Wallace?" Casey asked curiously. "He was hospitalized. In fact, he's been in and out of institutions for over a decade. He suffers from acute delusional disorder."

        "Where is he now?" Hotch asked. "He was living with his mom until very recently. He moved two miles away from her, right smack in the middle of the hunting zone."

       "So, Wallace kills Heather, and when that didn't alleviate his rage, he began kill other women." Morgan explains. "Send us both addresses. Blake, you, Casey and Reid notify Heather's parents."

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          After Wallace tried to kill customers at the place he worked in, he ran off and an APB was on him and then JJ and Morgan had chased him down and made the arrest. After the arrest, the team was on the jet on the ride home but no celebrations were made, more like everyone was on the edge of their seat, quiet. 

        Casey had noticed JJ and Morgan's faces and then Blake did and she had been the first to say something. "Hey, what's wrong?" Blake asks. "Yeah, for two people that made a pretty big arrest, you look pretty unsettled."

        "Something was off about Wallace." JJ answered. "The--the restaurant shooting was so chaotic and disorganized." Morgan nods, "Yeah, it was. But when we arrested him... he was controlled. He was together."

        "Well, Richard Farley was like that after his rampage." Rossi told. "Yeah, so was Edward Tallaway." Blake added. "Everyone has a different reaction to being caught," Reid said. "You guys did good." He assured.

         Even though everyone had been assured that everything was okay, there was some part of Casey that just wasn't so sure. It could've been the whole-wheat pasta she had earlier today but her gut feeling was engaged and was throwing her off. Much like the case with Floyd Feylinn Ferrell. Something was wrong.

         And he gut feeling was deemed true when Hotch had gotten off the phone, stood up and walked towards the team. "We got the wrong guy." He told and Casey's eyes widen and she looks at her boss in disbelief. "What?" JJ questioned. "What?" Casey asked in the same tone.

        "The fingerprints at the restaurant don't match." Hotch answered. "Hotch, how is that possible?" Morgan asked.

       "It was the same guy and everything, you caught the right guy. How could—?" Casey then stopped in her tracks and believed the one thing that could've been even remotely possible in this case. It would explain the calm Wallace had when he got arrested, why it was throwing the whole team off.

        "Twins."

me: surprise bitch i bet you thought you'd seen the last of me😎

HEY LOVELIES
I KNOW ITS BEEN MONTHS AND IM SORRY AND SCHOOL AND FOOTBALL AND IM SORRY
i literally left y'all hanging for forever and i apologize so much for that. i hope y'all do realize i have a life outside of school and i'm always so busy with extracurriculars and stuff

anyways i have missed writing about casey and spencer and this new baby they are about to have and i have just missed writing in general because it's my happy place and i forgot what that has felt like but i am back RIGHT WHERE WE LEFT OFF🤭

now s9 lol
be in for a rollercoaster
also peep the new gif lol

anyways i am back and hopefully i will be able to write some more but since it's winter break i probably will be writing more lol

also literally so much stuff has happened like i think this is the first chapter of this book i'm writing an actual adult now lol

anyways let me shut up
i love you all and hope you've stayed for the ride and are continuing this journey as i continue writing it♥️
thank you so much for reading
IM BACK BABY
-mya </3
p.s. have a happy holidays guys lol