"Alex!"
Chapter Nine: We Can't Keep Doing This
1x11: Blood Hungry

*Trigger warning*

Eden had just sat down in the bullpen she was running rather late, it wasn't her own doing of course. A friend from the old days found out where she lived and decided to pay her a visit this morning. Alex Karev. Eden had to basically toss him out the door at the last minute. It was sweet of him to check on her. But it wasn't Sweet making her late for her current job, she promised to call him tonight and explain everything.

For now she would stick to her day job of catching Serial Killers and constantly hating Derek Morgan. It took a lot out of her to hate him. And she had to make sure that was in the best shape to step into the lion's den. She takes a quick Seat next to Reid and he gives her his file picking up one from the middle of the table.

"Hope everyone had a restful weekend."

" That sounds ominous." Elle replies as Eden smirks.

" Harringtonville, Tennessee, population 5,000. 64 years since they had a homicide. They've had 2 in the past 48 hours. First victim, 57-year-old widower and grandfather Paul Thompson. Ambushed in his yard, 18 stab wounds to his chest and his neck. No forced entry into the house and the only item taken was a shotgun." JJ explains. She turns to the screen pulling another photo. "Last night, Annie Stuart, 39, was also ambushed and it appears bludgeoned to death in her home with Thompson's stolen shotgun. In this case, the unsub apparently stole CDs, DVDs, and a little jewelry."

" This is a little extreme for a burglary."

"That's an understatement." Elle sasses

" As you can see, Annie's throat was eviscerated." Hotch says as everyone looks over the photos.

" Yet the first victim wasn't eviscerated and the unsub seems to have used a different weapon at each crime scene."

" 2 different M.O. S."

" 2 different killers?" Eden suggested.

"Or one very psychotic individual."

" What happened to you?" Hotch asks as everyone turns to Gideon who was on crutches.

" I got a list of things I want to try before it's too late."

" And orthopedic surgery, one of them?" Eden jokes as hobbles over to the chair.

" No, skydiving. Apparently it's all about the landing." Everyone chuckles.

" How long on the crutches?"

" Just a couple days."

" So you can't go out in the field?" Eden asks.

" Not on crutches, no."

" Don't worry. I'll find a way to be helpful here. Got a blitz attack. No effort to remove the body, clean up evidence." Gideon was going through the crime scene photos.

" With organized killers, we see a pattern. we're able to predict their behavior but with psychotic killers, they're guided by a given delusion."

" Ok, until we understand the nature of the delusion we can't predict his next move." Derek says.

" That's nearly impossible to do."

" Actually, I think we might have a clue. These rings at that crime scene might be some kind of signature?" Reid places a few photos with the rings onto the table.

" I can work this angle. I'll see if there's any significance to the patterns."

" Psychotic killers are normally not that difficult to catch because they don't try to hide." Eden explains as Hotch nods in agreement.

" Does that make your job easier?"

" Oh, no. 'cause until we do locate him he'll keep doing that." Gideon points to the photo of Anne.

//

Eden was paired up with Morgan and Hotch. as usual they had gone over to the first crime scene. After not finding anything they go to the police station where Reid and Elle were sitting at a spare desk. Papers strewn about Reid had the Team's laptop open, in front of him.

" Hey, you guys find anything?"

" Yeah. Elle found an eyewitness, a little boy who saw someone in the driveway."

" That's more than we got at Thompson's." Eden mutters, hanging her coat up on the coat rack.

" We got 2 suspects. Judd Franklin and Domino Thacker." Deputy Clemmons comes over to the group she hands Elle the files.

" I know Domino. He's bad news. Serious tweaker. Cooks his own stuff."

" Does he live near the crime scenes?"

" Almost directly between them." Sheriff Whittaker replies

" Robbery, armed robbery, possession, possession with intent. This guy's been hospitalized for overdoses and attempted suicide."

" What do you think?" Whittaker asks.

" I think we need to find Domino."

Sheriff takes Hotch and Derek over to Domino's house with a few deputies and before long they bring the man. Putting him in a holding cell Domino is freezing, shivering like a leaf in a windstorm.

" I'm freezin'."

" We want to know what you were doing at Annie Stuart's house." Hotch was inside the small holding cell, it was basically just a few yellow bars and a lock and key, this was a small town in the middle of nowhere so they didn't have much.

" I didn't do nothin''. I got the flu. I'm sick is what I am." He shivers already wrapped in a warming blanket Elle, Derek and Eden were watching.

" We know you were there, boy."

" In the driveway. I was lookin' at that car, but I never stoled it. I was thinkin' about it, but I left. I seen that kid."

" The blood found on the bottom of your boot is Annie Stuart's. The tread from the bottom of your boot is the same as the tread found all over the crime scene. Inside!" Eden explains.

" I didn't do nothin'."

" Come on now, Domino. How do you think that's gonna hold up in court, huh? Tweaker with a record, blood of the victim all over. Think about that."

" I... I...came back. I came back to her house. But he was leavin'."

" Who was?" Hotch asks.

" Some dude, man. I don't know."

"What was he wearing?" Elle asks.

"He had a hood."

" What color was it?"

" Black. Black hood."

" Deputy. Coming out." Elle says as the Deputy opens the door. Ele leaves.

" Hey, Domino. Come here. It's ok. I just want to talk to you. Come here." Domino stands up and walks over the bars. "Look at me. You didn't do this, did you? Ok. Hey, if that's true you gotta help us out here. Talk to me. You left. You saw him leave. And then what?" Eden's voice was calm and soothing. No one had ever heard her sound so nurturing or soothing.

"Went in and... And she's lying there. You know, um, I needed money real bad so... she was already like that."

" She was like what?" Hotch asks.

" You know. She was all cut up."

" She was all butchered up and you robbed her anyway?" Derek asks

" It ain't right! It ain't right!" Domino begins beating on the bars, Eden jumps a bit startled by his reaction. "I'm sorry! It ain't right. Oh, god, forgive me. Oh, god... It ain't right! I'm sorry!" Hotch leaves as well as everyone else as Domino is still shouting and crying.

The sheriff walks over to the gun box and pulls out their guns, handing it to them.

"He didn't do it, sheriff." Hotch takes His and Eden's he hands her to her.

" What makes you so sure?"

" He was pretty freaked out just thinking about what was done to Annie Stuart." Derek explains.

" People pretend."

"Anybody delusional enough to eviscerate Annie Stuart would not be lucid enough to recount it the way he did." Eden continues.

" All right. I'll have him taken to detox and then I'm gonna arrest him for robbery."

" In the meantime, I'd have your men canvass the neighborhood again to see if they saw a guy in a hooded sweatshirt." Hotch says as Sheriff Whittaker nods.

" Will do. Long." He nods to the deputy

//

"We are looking for a 20- 30-year-old male. The unsub engages in anthropophagy. It's a psychotic conviction that he must drink human blood and possibly eat human flesh."

" For Richard Rrenton Chase, the vampire killer, he drank his victims' blood because he believed that aliens had invaded his body and were slowly drinking his blood." Reid babbles spinning side to side in his chair.

" And if he didn't get the blood he needed... He'd die. Anthropophagy suggests such an extreme level of psychosis and disorganization that he couldn't have ventured very far from home to commit these crimes."

" This guy lives or has lived in this town. He knows the territory. You've all seen him. Maybe at the ballpark. Or riding his bike home from the grocery store. He wasn't always a threat. He could have been your neighbor. He might have been your friend. We think something about his delusion is keeping him here in town." Derek explains.

" So we're gonna start at Annie Stuart's house and we're gonna spread out there in quadrants. We're gonna eliminate all of his hiding places."

" Paul Thompson's funeral is this afternoon. A lot of his neighbors are gonna be there."

At the funeral Derek and Morgan were keeping watch JJ, Elle, Eden, arrived after the funeral started. They were talking with Hotch.

" So, we got some names of unsubs." JJ opens the file so everyone can see. " Farrell Belvedere, 23. He, uh, took a little too much Lsd and flipped out in a Winn Dixie and tore up a cheese counter."

" Show Mark Ward." Elle nods to JJ who opens a different file. " He's 21. Five counts of petty larceny. Attempted suicide, committed for a year but now he's living back with his parents"

"And the last one is Oley Maynor. 25. He was institutionalized for severe manic-depression. He has violent mood swings. When he was 18, he got arrested for, um biting the heads off chickens." Eden explains while Reid is writing down license plates behind

" Like a circus geek?" Hotch says as the women chuckle.

"Mhm" JJ replies.

There was another murder it was at the little boy's grandmothers house. After they talked with Oley Maynor they concluded he was innocent. And were now at the boy's grandmother's house. His parents were there.

" The neighbor across the street heard a car screech out of the driveway about 25 minutes ago."

" Well, whose car was it?"

" The grandmother's, Annette Giles. It's a gold '72 buick. I already put the APB out on it. The parents just got home from work." Deputy Clemmons says.

" I wish to god I'd never spoken to you! I told you I didn't want him involved!"

" I assure you we're doing everything to find your little boy."

" I want my baby back! " The mother was screaming in Elle's face and Eden felt bad for Elle. the sheriff leads the family out

"The little boy was at both crime scenes."

" The unsub might have been after him all along." Eden suggested.

" I'm sure that's what Mrs. Brisbane thinks."

Hotch turns to Elle. " I want you to talk to her when she calms down to see if she can come up with any leads."

"She's not gonna want to talk to me."

"Persuade her." He orders as Elle scoffs and walks off. " You found the body, right, deputy?"

" Yes, sir. If you don't mind, I'll wait out here."

" That's fine." Hotch says as He and Reid go and look at the body Eden already looked at earlier.

" Do you think this lunatic was after Wally?" Clemmons turns to Derek and Eden.

" Psychotic mind... It's hard to predict. Maybe the kid being at both murder scenes was just a coincidence."

" He's only 7 years old." Clemmons shakes her head.

Hotch, Reid, Eden, and Morgan go back to the station, they set up a voice call with Garcia and Gideon.

" He took the heart? Hotch?"

"Yeah. The heart has always had incredible symbolic significance. I mean, aside from just banal romantic associations. The Egyptians left the heart in mummies because they believed the organ ensured eternal life." Reid babbles.

"Something I read...'' There's a lot of fumbling happening. "There was...there was an article by a cambridge professor. It seems that, uh all the organs the unsub's taken... Stomach, liver, now the heart... Were thought to be the seat of the soul at one time or another." A photo with the article appears on the screen in front of them.

"Then he drinks their blood?" Eden asks, trying to follow on.

" So when this man drinks his victims' blood..."

" He believes he's encountering the divine." Reid continues.

" Wait a minute. None of this explains why he took the kid."

" Well, the, uh, unsub made the victim into an angel. Maybe the kid's a messianic figure."

" Let's just hope he doesn't feel the need to sacrifice him." Hotch replies.

There was a call from Deputy Clemmons about the latest victim, Annie's husband Dave, finding a strange container on the inside of his door. It was a human stomach. They assumed it was Annie's stomach. Reid and Hotch had a theory about the unsub feeling remorseful that's why he returned the stomach and that maybe he would also go to a church. It's just the town they were in. There were fifteen churches just in that area alone. They were all paired up into small groups Eden was thankful that she was with Elle not so much that Derek was in their group.

"4 churches in 4 blocks. Ever feel like we just stepped into Mayberry?"

" Mayberry with a psychotic killer running around." Derek chuckles.

"There's that." Elle replies and Eden rolls her eyes. She hated women who threw themselves at Morgan. Elle had a slight crush on him and tried her best to make it known. Eden would rather barf but, everyone has different tastes.

She watches the road before sitting up when she thinks she sees something.

" Hey, guys. Does that look like a '72 Buick to you?"

" Yes, it does." they watch as the guy gets out of the car he stares at the angel statue that was sitting in front of the church, Elle turns on high beams blinding the unsub.

"Hold it right there! FBI! Don't move! Don't move! Get down! Get on your knees! Get on your knees! Get down! Hands on your head! Let's go! Hands on your head! Don't move!" They were all shouting now. Derek is cuffing the unsub while Eden looks in the bag he had. It had a container in it which had red like substances in it.

" Derek. I think we got our guy." Elle says, looking at the container with Eden.

//

" His name's Eddy Mays, 21 years old."

" Do you know him?" Hotch asks.

"Yeah. I just can't believe a boy like Eddy would do something like this. He was the nicest kid you ever saw."

" He's mentally ill, sheriff. A boy like Eddy Mays could truly use an insanity plea in a court of law." Reid explains as Eden watches Eddy he was screeching like a dinosaur, his hands were covered in blood, along with his neck and face.

" You know, the ironic thing about psychotic illness is generally they're less violent than the rest of the population."

" By the nature of psychotic delusions, when they do get violent..." Elle continues.

" We're never gonna get anywhere with him. Not like this. Look at the guy. You can't read him is rights. You can't even process him." Derek nods to Eddy who was rocking back and forth and muttering to himself he was twitching as well. Eden felt sorry for him.

" I better call his mother. It's a damn shame. His daddy died just a couple years ago. This is gonna fall awful hard on her."

" What's the family like?" Hotch asks.

" Dad was a doctor and Mary Gwathmey Mays comes from one of the oldest families in Tennessee."

" I'd like to meet her. "

"We already have." Eden says she explains how she was the only woman at the funeral with a fur coat on, in the middle of Tennessee. Hotch and JJ take Mary into the Sheriff's office to ask her questions to see if she was willing to sign a medical release form for them to give Eddy an injection of anti-psychotic medication.

Eden was tasked with going by Mary Mays house and of course she had to do it with Derek. She was scanning the coat rack at the door when he appeared.

"Hey."

" Dude!" She jumps as he laughs.

" Dude? Ok, you're way too tense."

" No, I'm not."

He chuckles more. " Yes, you are. You got anything?"

" Yeah. Mrs. Mays definitely has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Her house looks like a home decorating catalog. You?"

" I checked every nook and cranny, all 8 bedrooms, and the fireplaces. Nothing. No evidence of murder, no sign of the boy. If Eddy Mays did come here, he was very careful not to leave anything behind." Derek explains as the pair walk further into the house.

" Do you smell that?" Eden sniffs the air.

" Yeah. It smells like bleach."

" A lot of bleach.'' She opens the fridge and its so white its sparkling. "Uh.. Derek."

" Okay, it's just way too clean." Derek closes the fridge door and begins looking around the fridge. Eden opens the freezer not seeing anything, while Derek turns on his flashlight and shines it on the floor. "Eden." he shoves the fridge back

" Looks like somebody missed a spot." Eden comments seeing a circular indentation on the floor that was covered in blood.

"Yep."

The pair report back to the others only to hear that Eddy Mays hung himself in his cell, which was not fun to hear at all. Hotch goes and talks with Mrs.Mays again, Reid going along with him.

"She's definitely lying. I don't know exactly what she's lying about, but she's lying." Hotch takes a seat in the empty chair.

" You don't think she'd let that boy die to save her son, do you?"

" I don't know." Hotch sighs, running a hand over his face. '

"She drives a Cadillac, right?" Derek asks.

" Yeah."

" They got GPSs in them."

" So..." Elle says as Eden pinches the bridge of her nose, there was no way Elle was this stupid right?

" So let's go see where she's been."

Derek, Hotch, Eden and Elle go to Mrs. May's car began clicking through her GPS and Elle was in charge of writing down the most recent stops.

" It's got every stop she's made and how long she spent there."

"You know, these things could cause more divorces than internet porn." Derek says as Eden grimaces.

" Hey, look at that. That's interesting."

" She stopped at the same place on route three like 6 times." Eden notes as Elle writes it down.

" Hey Elle, let's get Mary and take her to her spot on route 3. We can tell her that we're going to visit Eddy in the hospital." Hotch explains from outside of the car.

" Ok." the pair leave. Hotch tells the others to send some officers to that location and they send some search dogs out with the officer. There they find out where Wally is, he was locked up in a storage shed.

Harriet Beecher Stowe once said "the bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. "

"Good job. Nice work, everybody, by the way." Hotch says as everyone is walking into the bullpen.

" Thank you. Now I have to go back to the 15 folders on my desk."

" Wait a minute. 15? I have 24."

"That's 'cause I slipped you 4 of mine. On Friday." Elle says, causing Derek to laugh.

"What?" Reid scoffs as Eden smiles at him leaning in close.

"Relax, I switched back and added a few of mine to the stack." Eden murmurs as Reid laughs. They walk over to their desk before Eden decides it is time for coffee. She places her bag down and heads over to the coffee station mug already in her hand.

"You know.... I saw you put those four files back into Elle's stack."

Eden shrugs "So.."

"So if i didn't know any better, I'd think your sweet on Reid."

Eden just pours her coffee with a smirk, as Derek's smirk fades. "Whatever you say Morgan." she pats him on the shoulder grabbing a few sugars and creamers. Eden just walks away.

"Oh wait a minute hold on...wait....Red?"