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𝑬 𝑽 𝑬 𝑹 𝑮 𝑹 𝑬 𝑬 𝑵
❝ 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚜𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚎𝚐𝚘 ❞

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ㅤ"𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐍, 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘, 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓!" A male voice exclaimed from inside the room the BAU ladies—plus Gideon—were supposed to enter. It made May raise an eyebrow and purse her lips, but she didn't say anything else as the lady that guided them there opened up the door.

"Good morning, doctors!" The woman cut the conversation off, a scolding tone obvious in the way she spoke. As she entered the room, the rest of them trailed after her. Elle at the front, JJ after her, then May, then Gideon.

"Forgive us," the same man who exclaimed apologized, lowering his tone. "We were just reviewing the cases at hand."

May hummed to herself and moved towards the end of the 'line', moving Gideon towards the front. She crossed her arms and tried not to make a face at the obvious tension in the room.

The woman nodded and turned to the FBI agents. "This is Dr Neil Erstadt, Chief of Surgery," she gestured to the older of the two, the one that was rather loud at scolding his subordinate. Then she gestured to the other man, with hair that May can compare to a mop. "And our trauma specialist, Dr Barry Landman." Talking to the doctors, she introduced the team. "These are the FBI profilers, Agents Gideon, Jareau, Greenaway, Black."

"How are you?" Gideon politely asked, offering his hand up to Dr Erstadt who shook it. But when he offered his hand to Dr Landman, he refused.

"Forgive me," the man said, I don't shake. My hands, you understand?"

Gideon nodded, and from May's line of sight, she could tell he had a bit of a smirk. "Of course."

"So, as psychological profilers, what exactly are you looking for?" Dr Landman asked.

"How the victims were shot," Gideon answered with no hesitation. "That could reveal the shooter's signature behavior."

All heads turned towards Dr Erstadt when he began his explanation, pointing towards the x-rays of the victims that were on display. "These separate wound channels blossom from the entrance wounds. You can see the trauma's extensive."

"You performed the surgeries?"

"On patient Miller. I consulted with Dr Landman on the others." He pointed at a particular x-ray. "The intact slug lodged between the L4, L5 vertebrae. Any attempt to remove it would likely leave the patient paralyzed."

"In your opinion?" Dr Landman cut in, a hint of resentment on his tone.

"In my opinion," Dr Erstadt firmly repeated.

"Disagree?" Gideon asked the younger of the two doctors.

"With the right surgeon, there is no risk," Dr Landman answered.

May bit her lip as she shared a look with Elle, whose expression immediately turned sour, rolling her eyes at Landman's tone. JJ turned to them and held back a snort at their annoyance. May only winked at her as they tuned back in on the conversation.

"There's always risk," Erstadt stated.

"What significance does the bullet have in building a profile?" The woman that led them into the room cut in, severing the conversation between the two doctors that would no doubt end in a drawn-out argument.

Gideon turned to her. "Well, even if we can't get a ballistics match, we can get a rifle type, and the specific type of rifle the suspect uses. That could be very significant to the profile."

The woman then faced mop-haired doctor. "You believe you can safely perform the surgery, Dr Landman?"

"I know I can."

The team was now left alone in the conference room as the doctors attempted to remove the bullet lodged in the poor victim's spine. Gideon was set at the very end of the table, May on his right, Elle on his left, and JJ beside May.

JJ continued her job as the communications liaison, writing down what she thought she needed, while the three profilers read through what they know. May was taking down notes like the blonde, noting her observations.

"If I'm the unsub," Elle suddenly spoke up, "why do I shoot my victims between 2:55 and 3:15?"

"That's when I'd do it," Gideon replied. "There are fewer cops on the street."

"Why is that?"

"Well, the police overlap shifts. So there's always someone minding the store."

"Second shift starts at three, first shift walks at three thirty," May added.

JJ turned to her. "Wouldn't there be twice as many cops on the street at that time?"

"In theory," she shrugged. "First half-hour of your shift, you're in roll call. You're not on the street."

"At the last half-hour, you're at the station," Gideon continued. "You're finishing reports, you're booking prisoners. So the twenty-five minutes around the first second shift, that's a bad guy's golden window."

"How many people outside of law enforcement would know that?" Elle wondered, a hand on the side of her face and her elbow on the table as she leaned slightly while thinking. She turned to Gideon and spotted his expression. "But the unsub does, and you've already thought of this."

"I had considered it," he admitted, exchanging a look with May.

Elle hummed and turned to May with a questioning look. "Okay, but how do you know so much about cops?"

May chuckled and shrugged. "Godfather's a cop. Spent a lot of time at his as a child, even spent time at the station back when my dad was still working. You tend to learn a few things."

Before they could converse any further, Dr Landman was pushing open the door. Walking up to the table, he dropped the little zip-lock bag that carried the fully in-tact bullet.

"Hope you find it useful," he said, rather pompously.

He then turned away. But before he could leave, Gideon called out to him again. "Dr Landman, how's Mr Middleton?"

"Patient will make a full recovery, as I told you he would." Unexpectedly, he sent a wink towards Elle as he turned and finally left the room. May couldn't control herself from grimacing and fake a barf, pretending to stick a finger down her throat.

JJ laughed, shaking her head before speaking. "Radiology is set up to take photos and e-mail then out for consults."

"Call Hotch," Gideon stated, and Elle was quick to pick up her phone. "We're gettin' the bullet to Garcia. Fill him in on the shift change theory."

Eventually, after the bullet was identified, they've all come to the conclusion that the unsub had specialized training and that all he does and all that he's done is deliberate, making underkill a signature. But since they didn't have enough for a geographic profile, all they could do is wait.

And they didn't have to wait long, as the unsub made a scene outside of a café. This time, it was Gideon, May, Elle, and JJ who headed to the scene, while the rest remained at the police department.

"Three more victims with non-fatal wounds and it's only been forty-eight hours since the last shooting," Elle observed, looking towards Gideon whose face was pulled into a frown, eyes squinted.

"The media attention and the FBI presence will only escalate his desire to shoot again," he concluded.

"Meaning?" Detective Calvin, who was with them, asked.

"This is gonna get much worse."

His words made May let out a heavy sigh of frustration, crossing her arms as she leaned back against Elle—who supported her by wrapping an arm around her shoulders—and looked down at the ground.

"Then we need to give the police a profile immediately," JJ remarked. "You ready?"

May sighed again before looking up and immediately spotting new players in their twisted game of hide and seek. "State troopers," she pointed out. "This is the second time the unsub's crossed jurisdictions."

"Yeah," Gideon answered JJ's question. "They're not gonna like it."

The day after delivering the profile back at the department and getting the chance to recuperate, the team and a few officers were now at the park where the earlier victims were shot. They were trying to figure out if any one of the victims could've possibly seen the unsub without even realizing, each carrying their own camera to pinpoint each victims' line of sight.

May was wearing a black oversized t-shirt under a green knit vest, paired with dark gray denim jeans. On her feet were black sneakers, and on her head—placed on her straight hair—was a ball cap. She frowned as she stood by Spencer, watching everything unfold. She wasn't handed her own camera, as her only job was to monitor everything at close range.

On the edge of the park stood Hotch with his binoculars, monitoring the entire reenactment, this time from afar. "Elle, Jerry Middleton was facing a little further south. Can you give us that?"

The woman quickly shifted her position. "How's that?"

"Perfect. Hold your camera right there."

From the mobile command center, Gideon spoke. "It doesn't look like Jerry Middleton had a clear view of the sniper's vehicle when he was shot. The tree branches were in the way."

Spencer, who was stood in another victim's position, said through their comms, "I do have a clear view of the vehicle from here. Tim Riley would have seen it if he'd looked down from the kite."

"Good," Gideon responded. "Have the unsub pop the trunk. See if Reid can see it." The officer who was 'role-playing' the unsub—Scott McCarty—opened the trunk of the car, where he was hiding.

"No, sorry. I can't."

"Nothing from position one," Gideon added.

"Okay, everybody, move to position two," Hotch instructed.

Things would've gone smoothly if not for the sudden news report of the leaked profile that they'd specifically asked to keep on the downlow. Not only was it wrongly leaked, but the information wasn't even correct. They quickly searched for the source and found that it was Scott McCarty himself that leaked it.

They even got SWAT involved in the man's arrest, fearing that he might actually be the unsub himself. But before he could even be escorted out of the park, he was shot in the head.

Before the officer was even shot, both May and Spencer were shoved to the ground by Derek when SWAT was quietly picking the guy up. But when he was taken down by the LDSK, May couldn't stop herself from shifting and keeping Spencer underneath her, using herself as a shield. While she protected Spencer, Derek protected her, practically picking the both of them up from the ground and dragging them behind a tree.

Eventually, they congregated and figured out why McCarty even leaked the information in the first place. But his death still weighed heavily on their shoulders, so with the help of Penelope's geographic profile, they've figured that the unsub operated within the hospitals. They figured the case was something that was called a 'hero homicide'.

And their first suspect was Dr Landman. Despite May's general hatred towards his attitude and the fact that she disliked his face and hair, even by looking at him, she knew he wasn't their guy. But they still had Derek get a warrant to search his house.

Soon, she was stood with JJ and Elle as Gideon talked to him alone—after Hotch and Spencer left for the ER—inside the operating room. The three women watched the exchange, sharing grimaces.

"He needs some help," May muttered. "Like, seriously. Someone needs to forcibly shrink his ego."

JJ giggled. "Yeah, well, it's gonna take God to do that."

Elle scoffed and playfully rolled her eyes. "Not even God will touch him. Not with that hair."

"I'm gonna have to agree with you on that," May snorted.

The conversation was cut short when Gideon finally walked out of the room, looking weirdly exhausted. "He has the worst narcissistic personality disorder I've ever seen," he admitted, "but he's not our guy."

"Then who is?" May wondered out loud. "If he's not in the PD, not a surgeon, then what is he?"

"We know he's had training," Gideon pointed out. "Military."

"Intelligent," Elle added.

"So what could a guy like him end up as?" JJ asked rhetorically.

"Well, he's a thrill seeker," May mumbled. "Shooting that many people at once in broad daylight. Probably doesn't get enough adrenaline in his 'regular' life."

"And probably doesn't get noticed as much as he wants," Elle continued. But before anyone could make another sound, there was a commotion. Gunshots and screams were heard, and all four of them rushed into action.

But even through all the noise and ruckus happening around her, May could only stare at the wall in horror when she realized that Spencer was stuck in the emergency room with the unsub. Her hands shook, and she felt herself beginning to sweat profusely at the thought of her best friend being in danger.

She nearly socked Derek again when he gently touched her shoulder. Luckily, he expected it and was able to grab her clenched fist in midair. "Hey," he consoled in the softest voice he can muster. "You need to calm down."

"Spencer..." She trailed off, breathing heavily as her heart pounded heavily in her chest.

"I know, we'll get him back."

"But he...I need to--"

"What he needs is for you to stay level-headed. Okay?"

"Derek..." She finally looked him in the eye as her shaking got worse. "I need..."

"Yeah," he swallowed, holding himself back from making any sudden movement. "Come on, let's get you some air."

As they walked towards a more secluded spot, Derek—who let go of her fist and slung an arm around her shoulders—felt May's temperature rise through her clothes. He pursed his lips, forcing the question away, only focusing on calming the woman down.

And with all her chaotic emotions, May didn't connect the dots. She didn't realize that all her 'symptoms', now including the rising temperature, only means one thing.

That she was about to shift.   

author's note: so yeah.

hehehe. 

so, to explain, as i've said in previous chapters: may's been groomed since she was a kid to become a member of the tribal council. she knows all the legends, and obviously knows the signs. but, as well know, there are no recorded female shifters ever (not until leah). so she assumes that she's just got some disease or something. 

will expound more eventually!

hope you guys liked this chapter :>