one, after the song!

THE DRIVE FROM WASHINGTON to Quantico was about a forty-five minute drive, on a good day. Billie Jean was late, by a good twenty minutes, but traffic was nearly unbearable. Still, she made it to the sixth floor of the Federal Academy and kept her professional stature, and she smiled at the tanned man that held open the glass doors for her. Billie glanced back and politely thanked him before she kept going her way.

Ever since Emily Prentiss became Unit Chief, it was no surprise to see agents in and out of her office. Billie had knocked on the door, and opened it once she'd been invited in. She gently laid her bag on the leather couch before she sauntered towards the desk.

"I'd been here way earlier," Billie Jean apologized and shook her head, "Traffic was a nightmare today."

"It's alright," Emily shook it off as she stood up and gathered her files. "Let's get briefed, shall we? I had Garcia wait."

Billie nodded and followed Emily out of her office, shutting the door behind her. She called for her team and for someone to fetch their technical analyst. Agents headed up the platform and entered the last room, which Emily had called the round-table. Billie Jean sent her a look, and was responded by with a tell you later look. She nodded.

Emily motioned for Billie Jean to take the last seat, which normally would been for the unit chief. Her agents glanced at Billie before they glanced at Emily.

"Are we getting a ninth member?" The tanned man, from before, had asked as he furrowed his brows. Billie Jean simply smiled.

David Rossi, she knew of him, had spoken up. "I'm just offended that I wasn't let in on the loop."

Emily shook her head and began to pass around the files. "We are not accepting any new agents at this point in time. You seven are enough to handle on a good day," she joked with her team. "This is Dr. Billie Jean Austin, she's an entomologist at the Roosevelt Institute in D.C., and her expertise is going to be beneficial on this case." Emily looked up to the blonde on the other side of the room, "Garcia, please?"

Garcia, their analyst, brought up the photos of six bodies, deceased and living. Billie Jean glanced at the digital photographs and wondered why it took six bodies for the police to call the FBI, but she shook the thought away. Garcia pressed another another and the amount of photos decreased to three, rather than six.

"Cause of death was exsanguination, but they found the bodies after this." Garcia shuddered as she pulled up a picture of a small, but red lake. "It's only assumed that it's the victims' blood in the lake."

"Did they collect samples?" Billie Jean questioned as she glanced up. "We may be able to confirm DNA if I can send it to my lab."

Garcia nodded, "They have, Dr. Gorgeous. But it's sitting in evidence." She pulled up the pictures of two more bodies, merely discarded in a marshy area. "They were found with frogs living underneath them. It's a bronze frog, native to the area, but the sheriff says that the population typically isn't that large."

Billie Jean hummed softly in thought.

"That seems something to note about," the tanned man commented with a slight shrug.

"And lastly," Garcia sighed as she pulled up the last picture of a man. "He was found invested with lice," she shuddered visibly and grimaced, "Like invested. Where there's hair, there's lice."

It clicked, and Billie had a ah-ha! moment, and that was evident in the small squeak she made and her expression. Each agent glanced towards her, eyebrows up in question, and she simply grinned.

"It's the first three plagues!" Billie exclaimed, "Like the biblical plagues of Egypt."

"You mean, like the killing of newborns and locust infestations?" Garcia questioned with a frown.

Billie nodded, "Yes!"

"Plague one was the Nile River turned to blood," another man spoke, and made Billie snap her head towards him. "Plague two was the infestation of frogs, and the third was the bringing of gnats or lice."

"Huh," David Rossi muttered. "So, if this theory is correct, then the next will be wild animals or flies. This ought to be interesting."

"Either way," Emily began, and held up her file. "Wheels up in thirty. We're heading to Alabama."



ONCE THE PLANE HAD taken off, and it was stable in the atmosphere, Billie Jean had pulled a jar of Maraschino cherries and a plastic spook from her. She had received some strange looks from the agents, but Emily merely laughed. By now, she knew the names of the agents, having been introduced formally minutes ago, but then ushered to their flight.

"Billie Jean?" David Rossi asked, and the doctor looked to the older man and she nodded. "Like the Michael Jackson song?"

"Yeah," Billie nodded. "After the song, my mom loved MJ. Unfortunately, I did not."

They laughed, and she smiled as she ate another cherry off the white plastic spoon. It didn't take long for Emily to rope up her team and get them focused on the case. They tossed around theories.

Billie Jean focused on her expertise for the case, and that began with the frogs. She was going to get to as much as possible in their two hour flight to Alabama.

However, the further she got into her research, the more she learned that the frogs were just ordinary frogs native to the area. There was nothing special, and most likely just convenient to the UNSUB. It was the same way with the lice, somehow able to extract the parasite from a human host to place the parasite in a new environment and it didn't take long for the parasite to spread.

It gave her a theory, and she quietly sent a message to Dr. Morgan Esmond back at the institute. She wanted his opinion about the theory first. Once she got his opinion back, she glanced back up at the agents.

"So, there's nothing special about the frogs." Billie Jean started, "They're native to the area and like warm, damp and dark areas. Same with the lice. It's common head louse, but I'm thinking the lice may have been torture because how invested the victim was. That takes a few days, and head lice is terrible and itchy. It seems they didn't find damaged skin on the victim, but I'd like to see the body for myself."

Emily grinned and nodded, "Good. You and Dave can head to the morgue as soon as we land. Tara and Luke head to the recent crime scene. Matt and Spencer, head to the lake, we need to know about that. JJ and I will set up at the station."

Everyone nodded and seemed happy with their roles, and continued to go over the case.

a/n → I am so excited for this!! 😁 but im not excited about returning to school tomorrow ☹️