CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: BULLETPROOF !

6x01
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       CASEY WILLOWS ALWAYS QUESTIONED WHY EVERY TIME SOMETHING BAD WITH UNSUBS HAPPENED... SHE WAS ALWAYS WITH MORGAN. The first time was when they were in an ambulance full of bombs in New York, the second time being when Foyet took Morgan's FBI credentials and the third time being this incident. The universe was definitely saying something.

        This unsub had tied Morgan, Casey and Kristin up before leaving with Ellie. Luckily, the team had gotten the same idea about Santa Monica and arrived at the scene, an ambulance, news reporters and police officers following behind them.

Doctors had currently been checking Casey and Morgan out... but the two kept arguing with the doctors, they should be out there, trying to look for Ellie. The doctor checking out Casey was looking down at her grazed arm, trying to clean the wound.

Emily, Rossi and Hotch had spotted the girl in the kitchen, next to Morgan, who was refusing to be checked out, as well as Casey.

"Casey..." Emily started as soon as she looked at the girl. "Bastard shot me, but I'm okay, ow—!" Casey glares at her doctor. "Sorry." The man apologizes. "Seriously, I'm fine, just put a bandage on it." Casey tells.

"Casey, you've just been shot." Emily tells. "I'm fine, I'll live." Casey assures. "Casey—" Hotch tries to engage but the girl glares up at the man. "It's just a graze." She stares. "Please just put a bandage on it and leave me alone." Casey tells the doctor.

Hotch then looks over at Morgan and his doctor. "How is he?" He asks the doctor. "It's nothing, Hotch." Morgan assured. "He needs a CAT scan, stitches, and a lot of rest." The doctor stated. "She's right, Morgan." Rossi said.

       "Guys, I'm not going to any hospital until we find that little girl. Now, please, just put a bandage on it." Morgan told. "Ditto." Casey spoke.

        Hotch takes notice of what's in Morgan's hand. "Morgan, what's the notebook?" He asks. Morgan hands it to Hotch. "I asked the sister to tell me everything she could remember about the unsub."

       "And what's her condition?" Rossi asks and Casey and Morgan exchange a look. "It's pretty bad." Casey admitted. "I'll go check on her." Emily excuses herself from the conversation.

        Morgan looked over at Casey. The girl had expected Morgan to talk to Hotch about Casey's panic attack on the field. Clearly, she still wasn't in the right state of mind to be on the field if she was acting like the way she did tonight. Casey avoided the gaze and just waited for Morgan to just tell him as the doctors bandaged both of them up. The doctor had given Casey an arm sling for her wound so she could still do her job and make sure her arm would be fine while doing so.

         After they did, Reid and JJ had arrived just in the nick of time and spotted Morgan and Casey. "Derek, Casey." JJ spoke. "I'm all right." Morgan assured. "We both are." Casey stated.

       "You don't look all right." Reid pointed out.

       "Reid."
       "Reid, drop it."
       Both Casey and Morgan said at the same time.
       "Sorry." Reid apologized.

       "The local bureau office found us these satellite phones. It should bypass any outage problems on the ground." JJ informed and Hotch nodded.

        JJ looks at the team as she asks: "Any word on Ellie?" Morgan gave the woman a glaring look as he walked out of the room. JJ had been confused on what she did. "I was just--" She tried. "It's not you." Casey assured.

        Minutes passed and Casey had decided to go and talk to Morgan but Hotch had already finished talking him. Before Casey could go back in the house, Hotch called the girl over to a have a private conversation with him. Casey's stomach dropped; she didn't feel like arguing with Hotch right now. She knew her attitude would get the best of her.

         Hesitantly, the girl walked up to him. "I know you and I are not on the best of terms right now, but... Morgan just told me about what happened when he left with Ellie. If you're sure you're okay, you can walk away now and pretend we didn't have this conversation or if you need to go somewhere else, just let me know." Hotch told.

         Casey looked over at Morgan and then looked back at Hotch. "I'm fine. If that's what you're so worried about, about me being a problem, I'm fine." Casey walked away and back into the house with everyone else.

         Afterwards, everyone had gone back to the PD, to discuss things they may have missed regarding the unsub. "All right, what we have is an unsub in complete behavioral chaos." Hotch told. "Meaning?" Kurzbard asked, looking at the file.

        "Serial offenders, especially long-term, successful ones, don't just suddenly change what they do or how they do it." Rossi told. "Going after a high-risk target like a police detective and then all of a sudden abducting a child is fairly unheard of." Reid explained.

         "Fairly?" Kurzbard asks. "Sometimes they devolve as they know we're getting closer to them and their time's running out." Hotch adds. "But this unsub doesn't appear to be devolving. Devolution generally means loss of control. They find it harder and harder to keep the outside world from noticing them." Morgan told.

          "Maybe he's becoming more controlled." Casey said. "He spent a lifetime murdering seemingly random victims, then out of nowhere sought out Spicer, recreated his parents' murder, lured him into a trap, killed him and took his daughter. The behavioral spectrum is alarmingly different." Reid told.

         Morgan's cell began to ring and he picked it up. "Yeah, Garcia..." Garcia spoke on the phone and Morgan had a distraught look on his face. "Sorry's not helping anybody. I need results." He snapped and then hung up. Casey had never seen Morgan blow up at Garcia like that before. Everyone noticed, as well.

       "Garcia's got nothing on the partial plate." Morgan said. "Maybe Kristin's wrong. It's not surprising considering her situation at the time." Rossi guessed. "So how the hell are we supposed to find this guy?" Morgan asked. Emily had immediately walked in the room. "We can contact him." She told.

        "What do you mean?" Casey furrowed her eyebrows. "Kristin remembered in the ambulance that the unsub listens to news radio incessantly. He would even stop assaulting her if the broadcaster said anything about The Prince of Darkness." Emily explained. "Makes sense for a narcissist." Rossi commented.

         "Oh, no." JJ spoke. "What is it?" Hotch asks. "The LAPD just put all the information they have out to the press." JJ answered. "What do you mean?" Morgan asks. "A spokesperson at the crime scene was talking about the RV and about Ellie." Reid told.

       "So this guy knows exactly what we know." Morgan says. "That might force him to dump the RV." Rossi adds. "Or kill--" Reid immediately stopped as soon as Morgan and Casey looked at him.

       "No, I don't think so." Rossi cleared. "Why not, Rossi?" Casey asked. "Well, he could have killed you, Morgan and the sister. He didn't. He kept you alive. He can't be surprised that we know what he's driving and that he has a hostage." Rossi told.

        "But how many news radio stations are there in Los Angeles?" Reid questioned. "I don't know, 20 or so." Kurzbard answered. "We can't just guess which one he listens to." Hotch replies.

       "What about the emergency alert system?" JJ asks. "It would be a way to communicate over all the stations simultaneously." Emily looks at JJ. "How do we do that?" She asks. "I don't really know. How hard could it be to work out?" JJ walks out of the room.

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       A young boy had woke up his neighbors and told them that he had escaped the unsub. The neighborhood was ballsy and tried to stop him but unfortunately, didn't succeed. The RV was found and Morgan, Reid and Casey had decided to stop by and checked it out.

       It smelt foul, putrid. Almost as if the place was rotting. It looked messy, as well as that. Reid took notice of the bed and a pile of hair on it. "He cut her hair." Reid told.

       Morgan and Casey looked down at the hair. "I swear to God, when I get my hands on this son of a-- " Reid interrupts Morgan. "That actually might be good. Why disguise somebody you're gonna kill?" Reid questioned, giving both Morgan and Casey a bit of hope.

      Casey began to examine the cabinets and found a pipe. "Here's how he stays awake all night." She told. "Smelt on him from a mile away."

      "Look at this article on Spicer." Reid hands the paper to Morgan and Casey takes a look at it, as well. "We already know he was obsessed with all the attention Spicer was getting." Morgan pointed out. "Yeah, but look what's underlined three times." Reid told.

       "'Eight-year-old, Ellie, bright, happy child.'" Casey began to think. She remembered the words the unsub said right before he took Ellie and Morgan had remembered, too. "'I don't normally take to kids, but this one's just special.'" Morgan told.

       "What?" Reid questioned. "That's what he said back at the house." Casey informed, looking at Reid. "Ellie was his target all along, not Spicer." Morgan left the RV and Reid and Casey stayed behind as he walked out.

        "Is he alright?" Reid asked and Casey looked at Morgan as he walked away. "Would you be?"

       Casey had decided to stay behind with Reid as he was reading through the old articles he had in the RV. Most were Spicer and his family. Casey's pain in her arm suddenly became excruciating to handle. Reid had taken notice.

       "Are you okay?" He asked. Casey took a deep breath. "I'm fine." She assured. "Are you sure?" Reid asked. "Reid," Casey snapped her head up. "I said I'm fine." Casey looked away from the man and felt terrible. She had been snapping at him, all day.

Casey took another deep breath and opened her eyes. "Fifty-six days," She said and Reid looked at her, confused. "What?" He asked.

Casey faces Reid. "It's been fifty-six days since I was taken and every time, I close my eyes and I go back to that night and it's still clear as day. And I don't know if I'm going crazy, but... I think I'm going crazy." The girl admitted.

Reid had just stared, seeing himself back when Tobias Hankel took him. He knew what Casey was going through. Her fear was reeling. Just as his was, years ago. He knew what it was like to be afraid of your own mind. And Casey was going through that stage. "I'm sorry, I just needed to tell someone." Casey sighed.

Reid nodded and Casey continued to look around for anything to help. Reid was going to say something to Casey but he decided that maybe right now hadn't been the best time for a pep talk. Finally, they had found an article that could help them. The murders in Orange County weren't the first.

The two had gone back to the house where the unsub had been in before. They were standing around, waiting for more news to come. Reid had gotten a call from Garcia. "Yeah, I'll put you on speaker." He put Garcia on speaker and then laid his phone down.

"Okay," Garcia started. "Let me preface this by saying that a 40-year-old murder in a suburb of Los Angeles is an absurdly impossible request. Having said that, yours truly happens to know that the Pollack Library at Cal State--"
"Garcia." Hotch interrupts, wanting her to get to the point.
     "Yes, sir, sorry, uh... anyway, this murder was quite the scandal."

"For Southern California in the sixties, that's saying something." Kurzbard commented. Garcia paused: "Okay, I don't know who was talking right then, but... word."

"So, Nora Flynn was a prostitute and a drug addict living in a desert community just outside of Los Angeles. It appears bikers were her stock in trade, rough bikers, and one fateful day, she and her client were murdered by her 13-year-old son, Billy. Shot to death. The customer, ironically named John, was able to tell the police before he died that Billy made him beg for his life and then shot him anyway." Garcia explained as she sent the picture of the article.

"That's him." Morgan stated, looking at the picture.
"And he was convicted, but..." Casey interrupted: "He's a juvenile." Garcia continues: "Bingo, fair maiden! So at eighteen, he was released in 1973, never heard from again."

"Oh, he was heard from." Emily told. "And he never released a statement as to why he killed them, although it does appear his childhood was horrific. I'm sending you a picture of him on the day he was released to your PDAS."

"Make sure you send the files to JJ." Hotch said. "Of course, my liege. Garcia bids you ad--" Garcia is interrupted by Morgan. "Garcia, wait a minute." Morgan takes the phone and takes it off-speaker to talk to her for a minute. Casey had pieced it together that he was apologizing for being a bit hazardous to Garcia earlier.

The team waited around once more on any news. JJ had gone on the air to speak to the unsub through the radio. And Casey knew that she did a damn good job.

Emily had suddenly gotten a call and she immediately picked it up. "Agent Prentiss." She spoke. "Yes, hello, doctor." She was speaking with Kristin's doctors, causing Morgan and Casey to pique their interests up at her. "Yes, sir. Thank you."

Emily paused before looking at both Morgan and Casey. "Both of Kristin's lungs collapsed. She died a few minutes ago." Emily broke the news. "Poor Ellie." Casey commented, holding her hand to her chest. "She's got no one now." Morgan added.

Another cell phone rang and it was Kurzbard's. "He let her go." He told the team. "Where?" He asked the person he was on the phone with. "He got out of the car and he just let her go. She's in a house about six blocks from here."

"Where is he now?" Morgan asked. "He's in another house, up the street." Everyone left the house they were near.

In the end, Ellie was found safely and Billy Flynn had now been dead. Casey didn't ask for the details. The team went back to their homes after dealing with this case. Reid drove Casey back to her apartment complex.

"You know, you seriously don't have to drop me off at my apartment every time something bad or traumatizing happens to me." Casey told. Reid shrugged, "Well, who else will do it?" He asked and Casey smiles, "Thanks, Reid." As she gets out of the car, Reid begins to talk once more.

"Hey..." Casey stops and turns her attention to him. "If you ever... uh, need anything... I—" Reid tries to get out but Casey got the hint. "I know. I can talk to you." Before Casey leaves, she stops in front of the car window. "Hey, Reid?"

Reid stops and looks at the girl and Casey opens her mouth and she almost says something but stops herself completely. "Never mind." She tells. "Have a good night." Reid nods, "Goodnight."

        Casey's small smile fades as she heads into her apartment complex. She enters her apartment and sets her things down. She opens her refrigerator and grabs a beer from her six pack and goes to the counter and grabs her bottle of Jack Daniels and a glass, heading over to the coffee table in front of her couch.

       Casey hesitates and bounces her leg up and down in anxiety. She debates on whether or not to drink. She doesn't know whether or not she should drink because she knows that if she does, she'll never stop.

        The girl walked away from the couch for a minute of two but from the corner of her eye, she saw the beer and the bottle calling her name. Casey takes a deep breath and heads back over to her couch and stares at the bottle.

         Casey clears her throat and pops open the cap of the bottle and she stares at it and she takes a drink from it. Afterwards, she pours herself some Jack Daniels in her glass and begins to drink her heart out.

        She didn't care... she just wanted to drink.

hey, lovelies!
not me updating twice in one day
anywaysss
sorry i ended it off like that :( it's kinda sad
and between you and me...
it's gonna kinda sorta get worse-😶
anyways thank you for reading
i love you all 🤍🤍
-mya <33