Untitled7

Started: 05.28.2025

Last Updated: 12.09.2025

Total Works: 1

Criminal Minds

Aaron Hotchner

One Chicago

Matthew Casey

Harry Potter

George Weasley

Stranger Things

Steve Harrington

Some Author Notes!

06.01.2025

It was just after 9 a.m. when the team pulled into the snow-dusted parking lot of the small regional precinct tucked between a shuttered post office and a strip of gray diners that hadn't changed since 1993. Northern air cut sharper this time of year, but the real chill came from the facts Garcia had rattled off from D.C., three young men, all college-aged, all found within a twenty-mile radius, all murdered in ways the ME hesitated to detail over the phone.

The last victim, Luke Anders, 22, had been found two days earlier behind a decommissioned campus library, naked from the waist down. The bruising suggested restraint. The lack of cleanup suggested something else entirely.

JJ was the first out of the SUV. “She said the town’s called Bellbrook,” she muttered, glancing around. “But it feels more like a ghost that hasn’t made up its mind.”

Emily followed her gaze. “How many colleges are in the area again?”

“Two campuses,” Wren answered quietly from behind, already scanning the empty sidewalks. “One private, one community. Separated by three miles. That’s how it was when I grew up, anyway.”

Hotch turned to look at her, just briefly, but the look was enough. He’s kept the detail to himself until now. And by the way Emily’s eyes flicked toward them, Wren knew someone else noticed, too.

Morgan shut the SUV door. “This killer knows the area. He’s not just picking up random kids in dark alleys. These bodies are being left in places someone knows.”

Rossi nodded, stepping onto the icy sidewalk. “Which means He’s not hunting in a frenzy. He’s choosing.”

Inside the precinct, the walls were lined with dated wood paneling and faded wanted posters. A lone desk sergeant, gray-bearded, unimpressed, waved them through to the back where the sheriff’s office had set up a temporary war room. Maps, pinned reports, and printed yearbook pages were scattered across tables, like a grim college fair gone sideways.

Sheriff McLaren was waiting. Sturdy. Mid-fifties. Looked like he still worked the ranch on weekends. He stood up when they entered. “You’re the Feds?”

Hotch nodded. “Aaron Hotchner. These are Agents Jareau, Morgan, Rossi, Prentiss, and Bennett. We’ve also got tech support and another agent back in D.C.”

Wren gave a small nod. McLaren held her gaze a second too long. Recognition flickered.

“I knew your mother,” he said. “She used to bake for the church events, right.”

Wren nodded once. “She passed some years ago.”

“I heard about that. My condolences.” McLaren’s voice softened briefly. “You’re back under dark circumstances.”

“That’s usually the only time the Bureau gets called in,” Emily said, stepping in with a diplomatic smile.

The sheriff exhaled, then motioned to the board behind him. “Three boys in thirty-eight days. Each one found nude, exposed, and… violated. But no evidence of actual sexual intercourse. No semen. No foreign DNA. And we’re stumped.”

“Cause of death?” Rossi asked, stepping closer.

“Blunt force trauma in all three. Different objects each time. The ME thinks the killer improvises with whatever she’s got.”

“She?” Hotch asked. 

McLaren hesitated. “No prints. But one neighbor caught sight of someone walking away from the second dump site. Tall, dark hood, long stride. They assumed it was a man. But they weren’t sure. And one of the campus security guards says he saw a woman near the north trail the night before the first body turned up.”

Wren’s voice was low. “What’s the student population like?”

“Mostly local kids. Some from the cities. The private school pulls in athletes and scholarship students. But Bellbrook’s not a big destination town. And winter break’s about to hit, which means everyone scatters. If you don’t find her soon, you may not find her at all.”

Hotch nodded slowly. “Then we’d better move fast.”

⸻

By noon, the team had split to cover ground.

Morgan and Prentiss headed for the second victim’s drop site; a crumbling community center behind the old football field. JJ and Rossi went to speak with the local ME. Wren and Hotch took the newest crime scene.

It was cold. Wind tearing off the river. Clouds low and ash-colored. Wren stepped out of the SUV and pulled her coat tighter. The spot where Luke Anders had been found still had police tape flapping weakly from a bike rack, and salt stains crusted along the curb.

“Don’t think she brought him here,” Hotch said, scanning the alley behind the shuttered library. “There’s too much exposure. No drag marks. No tire tracks.”

Wren nodded. “She left him here. On purpose. Like a message.”

She crouched near the metal bench where the body had been staged, her gloved hand brushing over a dark stain in the concrete. Dried blood. The rest had been scrubbed, but not well.

“She stripped them down but didn’t pose them,” Wren added. “That’s not exhibitionism. That’s degradation.”

Hotch knelt beside her. “And she takes nothing?”

“No wallets. Phones left at home. The first two had blood under their nails, maybe from defensive wounds, but Luke… Luke didn’t even try to fight. His tox screen came back clean. She didn’t drug him. So either he knew her—”

“Or he trusted her enough to follow her,” Hotch finished.

They stood, slowly, both quiet for a beat.

“She’s not a thrill killer,” Wren said. “There’s no escalation in the violence, no chaos. But she wants us to see these men; how vulnerable they are in death. And I think… I think she’s not killing to dominate.”

Hotch glanced at her. “Then why?”

Wren hesitated. “To punish.”

He studied her. “You’re not just profiling, are you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I went to school with someone who went missing our senior year. A boy named Tyler. He was a scholarship student. Pre-law. Went running one morning, never came back. It wasn’t considered a crime. They said he probably left.”

Hotch didn’t speak for a moment. Then, “Did they find a body?”

Wren shook her head. “No. Just his shoes.”

“Same town?”

Wren nodded.

That was all Hotch needed.

“We’ll dig into it,” he said. “Quietly.”

She looked up at him, grateful. “Thank you.”

⸻

Back at the motel that evening, the air was sharper, the clouds breaking in strips of bruised lavender.

Rossi and Emily passed a bottle of motel coffee between them while the team filled the conference room with notes, pins, photos. JJ updated Garcia while pacing, and Hotch stood near the window, reading over Wren’s timeline of the victims — now expanded to include two potential cold cases from the last ten years.

He didn’t say it aloud, but the pattern was emerging.

Only here. Only men.

All between 19 and 24.

All around the same 6’ range. All athletes or high performers. The kind of guys who dated easily. Smiled easily. Probably didn’t lock their doors.

Wren scribbled something on a sticky note. Emily watched from across the table.

“You knew one of them,” she said softly. Not accusing. Just fact.

Wren glanced up. “A few. Not well. It’s a small place.”

Emily’s tone didn’t change. “It makes you better at this. Not worse.”

Wren nodded once, but didn’t speak.

Across the room, Rossi looked at Hotch. “She’s closing ranks.”

Hotch gave the barest nod. “We watch her. But we trust her.”

Morgan’s voice cut through. “One of the first victim’s ex-girlfriends said something weird. Said he’d been talking to someone online for a few weeks before he was killed. Never met in person. Wouldn’t give a name. Just said he ‘felt understood.’”

Emily frowned. “Catfishing?”

“Possibly. Or grooming,” JJ added.

Garcia’s voice crackled over speaker. “I’ll dig into chat logs and dating app metadata. Even fake accounts leave trails.”

Rossi tapped the table. “We need to look at faculty, too. Anyone who would’ve had access. Women who left under duress. Women who were in relationships with high-profile students that turned sour.”

Hotch glanced toward Wren.

She was staring at the timeline.

Then she spoke. “I think she’s watching them before she makes contact. I think she stalks them first, finds their soft spots, and then builds a version of herself that they’ll trust.”

JJ nodded slowly. “That’s how she gets close.”

“Then she tears that version away,” Wren said. “And she punishes them for believing it.”

Rossi’s voice was low. “She’s reliving something. Or rewriting it.”

Hotch met Wren’s eyes. “Then we find out what.”

⸻

The engine sputtered twice before going still.

Wren let her forehead fall against the steering wheel.

She didn’t curse — not out loud. But her fingers curled around the wheel just tight enough to blanch the knuckles. In her periphery, the garage light flickered, then buzzed, casting long shadows across the near-empty concrete. Her breath fogged faintly in the air.

It was nearly ten. Everyone else had already gone home.

She sat up, slowly, as if moving too quickly might make the whole car collapse in on itself. She tried the key again — once, then again — but the engine only gave a dry cough and a low, mechanical groan.

“Perfect,” she muttered, shutting the key off entirely.

The Taurus had lasted longer than it had any right to. She’d been driving it since her final year at Columbia — it had survived the cross-country haul to Quantico, the long weeks on the road, the punishing mountain passes of their Utah case. But clearly, this was it.

This was the end.

She popped the hood. Climbed out. Opened it.

The smell hit her first. Hot metal and something burnt.

She backed off, sighing, and leaned against the fender with her arms folded.

“I was wondering who else stayed late.”

The voice was low, familiar.

Her head turned, heart hitching.

Hotch.

He stood a few paces behind her in the garage — coat still on, file in hand, briefcase slung over one shoulder. He looked like he hadn’t slept much. His tie was gone, shirt unbuttoned at the collar. The lines around his eyes were sharper under the garage lights.

“Didn’t expect company,” she said, trying not to sound as rattled as she felt.

He stepped closer. “Car trouble?”

She nodded and gestured at the open hood. “Died the way people do in Shakespeare plays. Loud, slow, and full of regret.”

A faint flicker of a smile touched his mouth.

He moved beside her, peered under the hood. “Battery?”

“Nope. Alternator’s been whining for a month. And the engine’s been threatening to secede since Utah.”

Hotch studied the engine compartment for a beat longer, then straightened and met her gaze. “You need a ride.”

Wren shifted. “I can call a cab.”

“It’s almost eleven,” he said gently. “Let me drive you.”

She hesitated.

Not because she didn’t want to accept.

But because it was *him.*

She wasn’t ready to name the thing between them. The quiet regard. The moments that stretched too long in silence. The instinct to look for him in a room. The way his voice seemed to settle something in her.

But it was there.

It had been there for a while now.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Thanks.”

He nodded once. “Grab your bag. I’ll pull around.”

⸻

His car smelled like cedar and old leather. Not unpleasant. Familiar.

Wren folded herself into the passenger seat carefully, setting her messenger bag between her knees. The warmth of the heater hit her skin like a soft exhale.

Hotch pulled out of the parking garage without saying anything.

She appreciated that.

They drove in silence for the first few minutes — streetlights casting brief halos across the windshield. The quiet wasn’t awkward. It never was with him.

She glanced sideways after a few blocks. “You always stay that late?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “The quiet helps me think.”

She nodded. “Me too.”

Another beat passed. Then: “Emily brought me coffee this morning. Helped with the paperwork.”

His brow lifted slightly. “That’s rare.”

Wren gave a faint smile. “I think she knew I needed something to do.”

Hotch didn’t respond immediately, but she saw the shift in his expression — something quieter, more watchful. The car turned onto the road toward Old Town, headlights catching the white siding of narrow rowhouses and closed shops.

“You don’t always have to bury it in work,” he said eventually.

Wren looked down at her hands. “I know.”

He pulled to a stop at a light. The red glow painted the inside of the car in bruised color.

“I do it too,” he added after a moment. “When it gets too heavy.”

Wren didn’t look at him, but she nodded. “It’s the only thing that still makes sense.”

A silence stretched between them.

Then, softly: “Where do you live?”

She blinked. “Uh—Garden Street. Near the river. Top floor apartment above a tailor’s shop.”

Hotch turned right. “I know the area.”

Wren rubbed a hand over the side of her neck. “It’s quiet. Which I need. Though my radiator sounds like it’s hosting a war between rats and the pipes.”

He gave a short, amused breath.

They turned again — this time onto the street where her building stood. The tailor’s storefront was dark, the iron gate pulled halfway down. One of the apartment windows glowed faintly upstairs.

He eased into a spot along the curb and killed the engine.

She didn’t move right away.

Neither did he.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

Hotch nodded. “Of course.”

Her hand touched the door handle.

But she didn’t open it.

Instead, she turned, met his eyes in the dark cabin.

“You didn’t have to wait. Or offer. Or—”

“I wanted to,” he said simply.

The words hit harder than she expected.

She studied his face. The furrow between his brows. The slight tension in his jaw. The way his eyes didn’t shift away, even when she held the stare longer than she should’ve.

She reached for the door again.

This time, he spoke first.

“Get the car towed to a shop near here. I’ll send the Bureau mechanic a note. He’s discreet.”

Wren hesitated. “That’s not necessary.”

“It is,” he said, voice soft. “You’ve done more than enough for us lately. Let someone help you.”

The words settled in her chest like something warm. Steady.

“Okay,” she said. “I will.”

She opened the door and stepped out.

Then leaned down, fingers gripping the edge of the door.

“Hotch?”

He looked over.

“Goodnight.”

His expression didn’t change much. But his voice did.

“Goodnight, Wren.”

She closed the door gently and walked up the steps, the echo of his voice still in her ears.

⸻

Wren stood in the garage staring at the empty space where her car had been.

It was early — not yet seven — and the concrete was still slick with condensation. Her boots echoed as she stepped forward, as if the closer she got, the more likely her car might materialize from the shadows.

It didn’t.

Instead, she found something else.

Folded in half and tucked under the wiper blade of a nearby Bureau-issued Suburban was a plain white envelope. Her name was written in a neat, blocky hand across the front.

Wren.

She recognized the handwriting immediately.

Her fingers felt cold as she unfolded the paper inside.

Towed to Gable & Sons. Mechanic’s name is Vince. Call before lunch, and they’ll walk you through the estimate.

 The radiator’s dead, but the car isn’t.

 Keys are at reception.

 — A.H.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

There was no flourish, no embellishment. Just facts. Just calm efficiency.

Just… him.

She held the note a second longer before folding it crisply and sliding it into her coat pocket.

Her fingers curled slightly around the edge as she walked back toward the elevator.

⸻

By the time she got to the BAU floor, Emily and Reid were already there — both standing at the whiteboard, debating ink colors for something they were building out for a case summary. Reid looked half-asleep. Emily had two coffees in hand and offered one to Wren without comment.

Wren nodded her thanks, took the cup, and settled in the conference room alone.

She liked it quiet in the morning.

It gave her space to breathe, to exist without expectations.

The file pile in front of her was thin — leftover debris from the Utah case, half a dozen reports flagged for internal review, a post-mortem outline that still needed someone to edit.

Wren took the most boring of the batch and opened it.

She barely made it two paragraphs before her phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

She frowned.

Then answered. “Hello?”

“Miss Bennett?” a male voice replied. “This is Vince over at Gable & Sons. Agent Hotchner said you’d be calling about the Taurus.”

Wren blinked. “I — yes. I mean, thank you for calling.”

“No problem. We’ve got it on the lift already. Alternator’s shot, and your radiator looks like it got hit with a grenade. But it’s all fixable. Ballpark for parts and labor is about twelve hundred.”

She paused. “Okay.”

“We’ll discount some of it under the Bureau’s service agreement. Agent Hotchner said you’d need it fast.”

“Right,” she said, voice catching just slightly. “Thank you. Please go ahead.”

“Will do. Should be ready in a day or two, latest.”

She hung up slowly.

Set the phone down.

Then just sat there for a moment.

Staring at nothing.

Not because of the cost — or the car.

But because of what he’d done.

Quiet. Unobtrusive. Behind the scenes.

No recognition asked.

No spotlight needed.

She got up fifteen minutes later and headed for the elevator.

⸻

The diner was barely two blocks from Quantico — one of those no-frills spots with cracked vinyl booths, faded specials on the wall, and the same three people behind the counter every day. The coffee was bad and the eggs were worse.

Wren liked it anyway.

She didn’t expect to find him there.

But she did.

Hotch sat near the back, alone, a coffee steaming in front of him. His coat was folded beside him on the bench. A file lay open next to his plate, untouched.

He didn’t look surprised when she slid into the booth across from him.

“Did Vince call?” he asked.

“He did.”

A pause.

“Thank you,” she added.

He met her eyes across the table. “You needed a hand.”

Wren hesitated. “You didn’t have to be the one to give it.”

Hotch leaned back slightly. “You’re part of this team. That means something.”

Her throat tightened. “It means something to me too.”

They didn’t speak for a while.

The clatter of dishes and hum of conversation filled the space around them, but the air between them was still. Weighted.

Wren broke it first. “You always come here?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “When I need space.”

She looked around. “It’s not exactly five-star.”

“That’s why it works.”

She smiled faintly.

A waitress came by, dropped off another cup for her without asking. Wren added sugar. Stirred slowly. The spoon clinked against the ceramic.

“I didn’t think it would hit me like it did,” she said finally.

Hotch tilted his head slightly. “The Utah case?”

“Coming home,” she said. “Trying to fall back into something normal after what we saw. What we nearly became part of.”

He nodded slowly. “It’s not easy.”

“I had a dream,” she said, almost to herself. “Last night. I was in the canyon again. But it wasn’t them chasing me. It was my mother. And the twins. Just… standing there. Watching.”

Hotch didn’t speak. He just let her keep going.

“I know what it means,” she added quickly. “I’ve read the textbooks. It’s displacement. Unresolved trauma. All of it. But it felt *real.*”

Hotch’s voice was low. “Because it is.”

She looked at him sharply.

He continued, eyes steady. “It’s not just a case file for you. It never is.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not.”

He set his coffee down. “I can’t take that weight from you.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“But if you ever need someone to hold it for a while,” he said, “you know where to find me.”

Wren’s breath caught.

She didn’t answer right away.

Then: “You’re a good man, Hotch.”

He looked down at the table for a long moment.

When he finally met her eyes again, there was something in his expression she hadn’t seen before.

Something unguarded.

“I don’t always feel like one,” he said.

She reached across the table, fingers brushing his just once — enough to anchor, not intrude.

“You are.”

They sat in silence after that, the world moving around them.

Neither of them moved to leave.

⸻

The bullpen was empty.

Not completely—agents filtered in and out of the upper levels, the soft hum of conversation drifting down from the mezzanine, but the heart of the BAU, the desks and corkboards and cluttered whiteboards, sat in quiet disarray. Evidence boxes half-packed. Chairs askew. A single legal pad left behind on Reid’s desk, covered edge to edge in notes too small to read.

Wren stood at the threshold for a moment longer than necessary.

She hadn’t meant to come in. Not really. They’d landed late the night before. Debrief had gone long. She could have gone home. She should have. But the thought of returning to the quiet hum of her barely-lived-in apartment, the fridge with its half carton of oat milk and a single egg, had felt like too much.

So she came here.

The building still smelled faintly of printer toner, burned coffee, and whatever cologne Morgan had used that week. She crossed to her desk—her corner, her nest—and set her bag down with a soft exhale. The lamplight cast everything in amber.

It was only eight a.m.

Technically, she didn’t need to be back until Monday. Hotch had made that clear. "Take a few days." She’d nodded. Said yes. But she hadn’t promised anything.

And now she was here.

The case had ended with headlines—two unsubs in custody, one rescued victim, national coverage—but the quiet after was always louder than the noise.

She sat slowly, pulled a file out of her bag, and opened it on her desk.

Alissa Rae Young. The last victim. The one they couldn’t save.

Her photo stared up at Wren—eyes bright, soft smile, the shadow of something else lingering at the edge. Wren closed the file gently.

Outside the glass walls of the bullpen, Quantico moved like it always did. Agents, analysts, techs. Wren sat still, one hand cupping her coffee, the other drawing aimless lines across the edge of a notepad.

She didn't cry.

She hadn’t in a long time.

⸻

The drive home was brisk. The December air cut through her coat as she crossed the street to her apartment building. Wren climbed the three flights on muscle memory, her mind still back in Utah, back in the canyon, back in the echo of footsteps that weren’t her own.

She unlocked the door. Kicked off her boots. Turned on the lamp near the couch.

The apartment was… fine.

It wasn’t sterile. Not anymore. She’d lived here almost nine months. There were plants now. A few mismatched dishes. A pile of laundry in the chair she never used.

She tossed her keys into the bowl near the door and stood in the middle of the living room, unsure what to do next.

That’s when she saw the cookbook.

It had fallen off the shelf during the week, probably during her rushed packing before the jet. It lay open on the floor, one page dog-eared—Apple Spice Loaf, p. 113.

Her mom used to make that.

When Wren was six, maybe seven, and the twins were still babies. It filled the kitchen with cinnamon and clove and the sound of Nina Simone drifting from the old stereo. Her mother would hum while she mixed the batter. Sometimes sing.

Wren crouched, picked up the book, and ran her thumb across the page.

She moved without thinking—tied her hair up, changed into sweats, turned on the oven. The kitchen light hummed overhead. She lined the counter with ingredients.

Flour. Sugar. Apples, peeled and chopped. She always kept apples around.

By the time she found the cinnamon in the back of the cupboard, her hands were moving on instinct. Scoop, stir, mix. The scent was the same. Warm. Old. Full of ghosts.

Halfway through pouring the batter, she turned to the stereo in the corner of the room.

She hadn’t used it in months.

It still had the last CD her mother ever gave her inside. Burned, labeled in black ink: Sunday Morning, Mom x.

Wren hesitated, then pressed play.

Crackle.

Then: “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.”

The music settled into the air like a memory.

She exhaled and slid the pan into the oven.

⸻

It started slow, the spiral.

A scent. A song. A blink in time.

Wren sat on the kitchen floor, knees pulled to her chest, watching the oven light flicker against the metal rack. The cinnamon smell filled the apartment. But her hands were cold.

She remembered the last night her mother baked. Three months after the twins disappeared. The house had been dark by then—quiet. Her mother moved like she was walking underwater.

She made the same loaf. Left it on the counter. Didn’t eat.

The next morning, Wren found her in the bathtub.

The stereo was still playing.

It had taken Wren years to remember what song was on.

Nina Simone. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

⸻

The oven timer beeped. Sharp. Loud. Jarring.

Wren startled to her feet, her heart racing. She pulled the loaf from the oven with shaking hands and set it on the counter.

The crust was golden. The scent—perfect.

But her appetite was gone.

She turned the music off.

Silence rushed in.

⸻

Later that night, she curled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The lights were off. The apartment glowed only from the streetlights outside.

She hadn’t answered any texts.

There was one from JJ: Just checking in. Let me know if you need anything.

One from Reid: Found that article you mentioned on forensic pathology. Will send it tomorrow. Sleep well.

And one, hours after the others, from Hotch.

You did well. Rest.

It was simple. Bare. But something in it made her chest ache.

She stared at the words until her eyes burned.

Then she set the phone aside and let the darkness keep her company.

⸻

The morning came gray and still.

A winter haze blanketed D.C., softening the skyline into watercolor smudges and turning headlights into floating orbs. Wren walked the block from the Metro with her coat pulled tight, boots muffled by salt-stained pavement. Her breath curled in front of her in slow drags.

She hadn’t meant to come back to Quantico so soon. Again.

But her hands had needed something to do. Her mind even more so.

The front desk guard gave her a nod—she must have looked a little rough around the edges, because he didn’t even ask for her badge. She scanned herself in and took the elevator alone. The silence was a hum. Familiar.

When the doors opened, the bullpen was still empty.

That suited her just fine.

She turned left instead of heading to her desk—down the hall, into the conference room. It was quiet, colder than usual, the lights still on low from the night shift. A stack of paperwork sat untouched near the far end. Case file spillover. Evidence logs. Cross-reference sheets that someone—probably JJ—had left for follow-up.

Wren shed her coat, folded it over the chair, and pulled her hair up with a pencil.

The chair creaked when she sat.

She flipped open the top file.

It was Alissa’s again.

Of course it was.

But this time, she didn’t flinch. She picked up a pen and got to work.

She lost track of time—wrote notes in margins, flagged photos for further forensic review, drafted a timeline cross-section that mapped the Utah unsubs’ movements against cell tower pings and missing persons reports. It was tedious, meticulous work, but it was something.

Something she could control.

⸻

“You always show up before the sun?”

Wren looked up, startled, to find Emily standing in the doorway with two coffees and a lopsided smirk.

“I—” Wren blinked. “I wasn’t expecting anyone in yet.”

Emily shrugged and stepped inside. “Didn’t sleep much. Thought I’d beat the traffic. Found your coat at the front rack. Figured if you were here, you could use this.” She handed one of the cups over.

Wren took it without thinking. The heat seeped into her fingers.

“Thanks.”

Emily pulled a chair across from her and sat, folding a hand beneath her chin as she looked over the scattered pages. “What is this—victimology overlay?”

“Trying to line up movement paths with case file timestamp inconsistencies,” Wren said softly. “There’s a half-day gap between when one of the victims was last seen and when her burner phone pinged. I think she was held somewhere closer to Moab before being dumped.”

Emily nodded slowly, scanning the page. “This is good work.”

Wren looked down. “Just trying to stay ahead of it.”

Emily’s voice was quieter now. “You mean keep it from creeping back in.”

Wren stilled.

The silence hung a beat too long.

Then: “Yeah.”

Emily leaned back slightly in her chair. “After my first field case, I didn’t sleep for three days straight. I stayed at the office. Blew through ten red pens and four highlighters before Hotch finally sent me home. I thought if I could just keep reading, or connecting, or fixing... I wouldn’t feel like I failed.”

Wren’s eyes lifted. “Did it help?”

Emily gave a dry smile. “No. But eventually I started feeling something again that wasn’t guilt.”

Wren exhaled, long and slow.

“I baked last night,” she said quietly. “An old recipe. My mom’s.”

Emily didn’t ask. She didn’t need to.

Instead, she reached for one of the files near the edge of the pile and opened it. “Alright. Let’s see if we can chase this timestamp anomaly down. My guess? They stopped for fuel or food. Elwin has a habit of using rural chain stations. See if any charge logs pop.”

Wren blinked. “You’re helping?”

“Don’t get too excited,” Emily said with a mock grimace. “I draw the line at printer jams.”

Wren smiled—small, but real.

The two of them worked in silence for the next half hour, punctuated only by the rustle of papers and the scratch of pens on legal pads. Occasionally, Emily would hum under her breath or mutter a curse when a page stuck. Wren worked through it all—methodical, focused, quietly grateful for the presence across from her.

By the time the rest of the team filtered in—Rossi with his espresso, Reid with a lopsided satchel, and JJ on her phone—Wren had re-charted the victim movement overlay and flagged three more anomalies.

Emily stretched her arms above her head and said to no one in particular, “Looks like someone beat us in today.”

Rossi smirked. “Not surprised. She always did like to make us look bad.”

JJ leaned in and squeezed Wren’s shoulder gently. “We’re ordering lunch later. Your pick.”

Wren nodded, cheeks warming faintly. “Thanks.”

Reid stepped in, flipping through the papers with a faintly impressed frown. “Did you do all this this morning?”

“She did,” Emily answered before Wren could deflect. “And she’s right—there’s a quarter-day gap that might help us locate another dump site.”

Reid’s eyes lit up. “Then we should cross-reference with the BLM reports. I’ll pull the soil pattern data Garcia found.”

The team began to bustle again—papers passed around, voices rising and falling.

Wren sat back slightly, still quiet, coffee now cold beside her.

But for the first time since returning from Utah, she felt… centered. Like the storm had passed, at least for now.

She didn’t say much for the rest of the morning.

She didn’t need to.

Sometimes, the silence said enough.

⸻

The air inside the sheriff’s office was heavy with residual adrenaline. A kind of tension that lingered, even after the danger had passed.

It was just past ten in the morning. The canyon raid, the rescue, the arrests — it all felt both seconds and lifetimes ago.

Now, the entire BAU sat gathered in the large briefing room, which smelled faintly of coffee, copy toner, and pine disinfectant. Files were spread across the table, alongside a laptop connected to Garcia’s video feed. Her bright face on-screen was a stark contrast to the drawn expressions surrounding her.

Hotch sat at the head of the table, posture rigid but composed. To his right, Wren kept quiet, a pen balanced between her fingers. JJ and Prentiss were across from her, Rossi next to Hotch, Morgan beside Reid. A handful of local deputies lingered in the back, silent and wide-eyed. Sheriff Langley stood near the board, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Let’s walk through what we know,” Hotch began. His voice was even. Measured. “And then we’ll discuss charges, transport, and any support we can offer for victim processing.”

“Thank God we have victims to process,” Langley muttered. “Didn’t think we’d see that girl alive.”

“We nearly didn’t,” Wren said softly.

Hotch gave her a brief glance — not sharp, but weighted. She didn’t retract the statement.

Garcia cleared her throat over the laptop speaker. “Starting with the data drop: Jared Elwin and Russell Decker — two men with previous misdemeanors but nothing violent, no psychiatric holds, and nothing that would’ve flagged them prior to this week. They both lived alone, but Elwin had a history of bouncing between relatives’ homes. The house they were squatting in? Owned by Decker’s great-aunt, who passed last year.”

“Squatting’s a generous term,” Prentiss said, flipping through a crime scene photo. “That place was a shrine.”

“Delusions of grandeur,” Reid said. “Religious psychosis. Shared control fantasy. They weren’t building a home, they were constructing a temple.”

“Lambs for the fire,” Wren murmured.

All eyes briefly flicked toward her.

She looked down at the notes she hadn’t touched in ten minutes.

“Each kill followed the script,” she continued. “One designed the ritual, the other administered it. They worshipped their own mythology. The initials carved into victims’ skin were less identifiers than markers of possession.”

Hotch nodded. “Until the end. Until they fought.”

“That fracture is what gave us the chance,” Rossi said. “If they hadn’t started to diverge…”

“They didn’t just diverge,” Reid interrupted gently. “They rebelled. Against each other.”

Garcia’s voice chimed in again. “There’s also this: In the email draft Elwin wrote — the ‘scripture’ — he references a ‘lamb not yet ready,’ and how the fire ‘must be shared by both.’ My read? Decker took Jasmine too soon. Against plan. That’s why they were fighting.”

Morgan leaned forward. “So Jasmine was never supposed to die?”

“She was,” Wren said plainly. “Just not then. Not like that. And not without Elwin’s approval.”

The silence that followed was thick.

JJ spoke next, her voice clear but kind. “Jasmine’s in good hands. Her sister’s staying with her, and the Bureau’s victim services is flying in a specialist to help with trauma intake. But it’ll be a long road.”

Langley exhaled slowly, nodding. “I’m grateful she’s alive. And for what you all did here.”

Hotch sat straighter. “She survived because Wren bought us time.”

Wren shifted slightly in her chair, uncomfortable with the attention.

Langley looked toward her. “Hell of a thing, walking into that canyon. You okay, Agent Bennett?”

She gave a small nod. “Yes, sir.”

Morgan looked over. “You sure?”

“Yes.” A pause. “I just… need a little quiet.”

Garcia’s eyes softened through the screen. “You’re owed that and more.”

Reid nodded once. “We all process differently. It doesn’t mean you’re not okay.”

Hotch’s eyes lingered on Wren for a long moment, then he turned back to the team.

“Let’s finalize our evidence reports and get the chain of custody prepped. JJ, Prentiss — go over the scene reports with Langley and make sure the ME has all data points. Morgan and Reid, help transfer digital files to Garcia’s drive. Rossi, with me — we’ll speak to the DA.”

He paused.

“Wren — you’re with me after.”

She blinked. “Sir?”

“I want you present when we review the final behavioral report with Langley. And with Jasmine, if she’s willing to speak.”

Wren nodded, quiet. “Yes, sir.”

The team began to disperse, files in hand, fatigue etched into every face.

As they left, Hotch glanced back at her.

She was still seated, pen rolling slowly between her fingers.

“Take a minute,” he said softly. “Then come find me.”

⸻

It was nearing 2 p.m. when Wren stepped out into the mild sunlight behind the station.

The air was crisp. Cold, but not biting. She leaned against the railing of the back stoop, letting the silence settle into her lungs.

No sirens. No screams. No static.

Just the wind in the trees and the ache in her bones.

Footsteps sounded behind her.

She didn’t turn.

“I used to think the end of a case would feel cleaner,” she said quietly. “Like resolution.”

Hotch came to stand beside her, hands in his pockets. “It rarely does.”

Wren didn’t look at him. “The first time I realized that, I thought maybe I wasn’t cut out for this.”

“You are.”

The certainty in his voice pulled her eyes toward him.

He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to.

After a long beat, she asked, “Do you think they’re actually sorry? Elwin or Decker?”

“No.” He was firm. “They’re not capable of it.”

She nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

Hotch studied her face. She looked tired. But clearer than before. Like she’d come through fire and emerged a little more forged.

“Jasmine asked for you,” he said.

Wren blinked. “Me?”

“You’re the one who pulled Decker off her. She remembers.”

There was something unreadable in Wren’s face. Not pride. Not shock. Something quieter.

Acceptance, maybe.

“I’ll go see her,” she said, and moved to head inside.

Hotch reached gently toward her arm. Not grabbing. Just… touching.

“After,” he said, voice low, “we’ll take the evening. You don’t have to rush.”

She met his eyes.

He didn’t look away.

“Okay,” she said.

Then she slipped back inside.

⸻

By five o’clock, the BAU’s files were logged, evidence transferred, and the suspects in custody awaiting federal transport. Jasmine had given her statement, fragile but strong, and Garcia’s final system sweep had confirmed no other victims in the immediate radius. Two counties over were opening cold files for review, but the active threat was contained.

The team was packing up.

The sheriff’s station buzzed with quiet closure.

Reid stacked files. JJ helped the local liaison with notes. Prentiss and Morgan were loading the SUV. Rossi leaned against the front desk, recounting half a war story to a deputy who looked like he might faint.

Hotch stood near the exit, coat in hand, watching Wren as she zipped up her go-bag.

Her movements were methodical. Neat. But she paused every so often like her body forgot what it was doing.

When she stood to lift the strap over her shoulder, Hotch stepped forward and gently took the bag from her.

“I’ve got it.”

She looked up. “You don’t have to—”

“I know.”

There was something about the way he said it. Like it meant more than just the bag.

She held his gaze a moment longer.

Then, quietly: “Thanks.”

⸻

The inn was warm when they returned — orange light glowing through the windows, soft hum of a heater rumbling beneath the floorboards. Wren dropped her coat in her room and changed into the only warm sweater she’d packed, a soft charcoal knit that hung past her hips.

Downstairs, she found Rossi, Reid, and Prentiss huddled over takeout on the inn’s long dining table. JJ was already curled on a couch in the corner with a thick fleece blanket, Morgan nearby, feet up.

Hotch stood by the fireplace, back to her, watching the flames.

She joined him without speaking.

They stood side by side in silence.

Eventually, she said, “You should sit. You’ve been on your feet all day.”

He glanced at her. “So have you.”

“I don’t mind it.”

Hotch looked at her sweater, then at the faint shadow of healing bruises on her wrist from the canyon fight. His voice lowered.

“You did more than you had to out there.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

Wren turned her face toward the fire. “Then I chose right.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then he said, “I’ve never had someone match the steps of a case the way you do. You see the turns before they’re obvious. It’s not just profiling. It’s… empathy. Discernment.”

She didn’t answer right away.

Then: “It doesn’t feel like a skill. It feels like a scar.”

Hotch looked at her, something flickering behind his eyes.

“Sometimes they’re the same thing.”

Another silence.

Then she asked, “How do you sleep after this?”

Hotch blinked. “What?”

“After a case like this. Do you just… go home? Turn off the lights? Pretend the world isn’t full of knives?”

He didn’t answer for a long time.

Finally, he said, “You don’t. Not at first. But then you learn how to carry it differently.”

She nodded slowly.

“I’d like to learn that.”

Hotch didn’t reach for her. Didn’t touch her arm or shoulder.

But he said, “You will.”

And Wren, for the first time in days, let herself believe that might be true.

⸻

They left Utah the next morning.

Wren sat across from Hotch on the jet, a folder open on her lap, though her eyes weren’t moving across the words. JJ was asleep. Morgan had headphones in. Reid was typing something rapid. Rossi sipped coffee near the window, squinting at cloud cover.

Hotch said nothing for the first half hour.

Then, just as the pilot announced their estimated arrival into Quantico, he leaned forward slightly and murmured:

“You were right, back in the canyon.”

She blinked. “About what?”

“They weren’t playing a game.”

Wren looked out the window, eyes distant.

“No,” she said quietly. “They thought it was holy.”

Hotch nodded once.

Then he added, “But we reminded them what justice looks like.”

Wren finally looked at him.

And this time, she smiled.

Small. Earnest. Worn.

But real.

⸻

The shadows were longer in the canyon.

Daylight bled away slow, seeping down between high ridges of rock and scrub, casting the narrow service road in dusky gold. A chill rode in on the wind. Too early for the season, but fitting for the mood.

Wren adjusted her earpiece with one gloved hand, then pulled the hood of her windbreaker up higher against the air. She stood halfway down the slope near a dilapidated trailhead sign, pretending to be on her phone, her back to the rusted camera pole Garcia said had pinged their target.

Across the road, a small camouflaged sheriff’s cruiser idled quietly, hidden behind sagebrush and boulders.

The trap was set.

She was the bait.

Hotch’s voice crackled softly in her ear. “Team One, check-in.”

“Set,” Morgan replied from the upper ridge, rifle over his shoulder, spotting scope slung to his side.

“Set,” Prentiss followed, positioned across from Morgan with a better view of the switchback trail.

“Station confirms traffic still low,” JJ added. “Reid’s with them monitoring satellite feeds. Still clear for now.”

Wren took a shallow breath. “I’m ready.”

There was a pause.

Then: “We’ve got you, Wren,” Hotch said. “Keep your head up.”

She nodded even though he couldn’t see her.

From where she stood, she could see the curve of the trail leading down toward the reservoir — one of the locations marked on the unsubs’ map back at the nest. It had felt theoretical then. Now, it pulsed with anticipation.

Any minute now.

She shifted slightly, letting her jacket catch the fading light. Her stance was loose. Unthreatening. Lost hiker. Local girl. Easy pickings.

A radio crackled too loud somewhere uphill.

Wren’s spine snapped straight.

Then silence.

Ten seconds passed.

Fifteen.

Hotch’s voice came through low. “Movement. East approach. Single figure, on foot. Hooded. Can’t make the face.”

Wren didn’t turn.

Another voice: Prentiss. “No vehicle. No light. They’re walking the way locals do — like they’ve been here before.”

Wren’s heart knocked twice against her ribs, then settled. She reached down and retied her boot, deliberately turning her body to expose her profile.

If they were watching, she wanted them to think she didn’t see.

Thirty yards uphill, Morgan’s voice came again — quieter. “They stopped.”

A rustle in the trees.

“They’re circling,” Prentiss murmured.

Then: “We’ve got a second figure. Approaching from the rear slope.”

Hotch’s voice changed instantly. Sharper. “They’re flanking. Wren—don’t move.”

Wren didn’t. But her jaw locked.

“They knew,” she whispered. “They knew we’d try this.”

Morgan cursed under his breath. “They’re testing the perimeter.”

Hotch’s voice came again. “Pull back, now. Morgan, Prentiss, cover her. Do not engage unless provoked. JJ, notify Langley.”

Wren moved — slow, casual, back toward the trail sign.

A rock snapped behind her.

Not a bird. Not a squirrel.

Boot. Heel. Heavy. Male.

She spun around, one hand brushing the grip of her sidearm.

But no one was there.

Just wind in the brush.

Hotch again: “Wren. Now.”

She turned on her heel and jogged uphill toward the parked SUV where Morgan had eyes. Her feet crunched on gravel, heartbeat thudding, ears ringing with adrenaline.

When she crested the ridge, she caught a glimpse of Morgan rising behind a boulder, rifle ready.

“Eyes on,” he said tightly. “They backed off. No contact.”

Prentiss arrived seconds later. “We spooked them.”

“No,” Wren said, breathless. “They wanted to be seen.”

⸻

They regrouped at the station less than an hour later, tension rippling through the room like static.

Rossi paced near the map. “They split up. Classic pincer move. You never flank unless you know your target is being watched.”

“They didn’t strike,” Reid said, typing furiously. “They watched. They tested. They measured.”

“Which means they’re escalating again,” JJ added. “But also means they’re nervous.”

Wren stood near the board, hands wrapped around a fresh cup of coffee she wouldn’t drink. “They know we’re close.”

Hotch nodded. “Close enough to draw them out.”

“They’re still following the script,” she said. “The game. The dance. They could’ve taken me tonight, but they didn’t. Why?”

“Because you weren’t the right sacrifice,” Reid murmured. “You didn’t match the pattern. Not alone, not young enough, not off the grid.”

Garcia’s voice chirped in. “Agents, our creepy besties just popped up again.”

Everyone turned.

“What do you mean?” Hotch asked.

“One of the unsubs used a burner to ping the cell tower near the canyon trailhead,” Garcia replied. “One text sent. No recipient. Just… a message.”

She read it slowly.

She is not yours to give.

Wren went very still.

Hotch’s voice dropped. “What time was that sent?”

“Three minutes after Wren returned to the SUV.”

Silence wrapped around the room.

Morgan’s mouth tightened. “That wasn’t about her. That was for the other unsub.”

Prentiss looked toward the map. “They’re arguing again. Just like before. One tried to take a victim, the other shut it down.”

Reid scribbled something down. “They’re spiraling. Their system is breaking.”

Wren looked toward Hotch, something colder in her voice now. “Which means someone’s going to die soon. Just to make a point.”

Hotch held her gaze. “Not if we stop them first.”

⸻

The game had changed.

That much was clear from the moment Garcia’s voice crackled through the speakerphone the following morning.

“Okay,” she said, flustered and fast. “The burner that sent that creepy not-a-text last night pinged again. It hit two towers in rapid succession just after three a.m., then shut down completely.”

Wren, now at the sheriff’s station whiteboard, turned. “Route?”

“It’s moving east. Tower hits suggest they followed Highway 6 toward the Nine Mile area. That’s Bureau of Land Management land — no patrols, no permanent rangers. Total isolation. No cameras except for one—” A click of keys. “—positioned at the mouth of the Slot Trail Preserve.”

Reid leaned forward. “Did the camera catch them?”

“Sort of. The footage is grainy as hell, but there’s a figure walking down into the brush. Alone. Carrying something.”

Hotch, who’d just walked in with a fresh file from Sheriff Langley, set it down. “When?”

“Three forty-two this morning.”

Hotch opened the file. His voice was flat. “And at four fifteen, a hiker’s dog found a body near the river bend.”

Silence.

Garcia swore under her breath.

“Female victim,” Hotch continued. “Early twenties. No ID. Not in the system yet, but the ME is pulling prints now. Lacerations to the limbs, initials carved into both calves. L.D. on the left. E.B. on the right.”

Wren’s hands curled into fists. “That’s the first time both sets of initials appeared together. Until now, it was one or the other.”

“They’re sending a message,” Rossi muttered.

Reid nodded slowly. “This wasn’t a kill site. It was a statement.”

Hotch looked over at Wren. “And I think it was meant for you.”

Wren blinked. “Me?”

“The burner was activated just after the press conference ended yesterday,” Hotch said. “The text — She is not yours to give — followed our decoy operation. Now they leave a body in their own shared code.”

Reid tapped the edge of the whiteboard. “They’re reacting to our pressure. The press, the bait. We disrupted their dynamic. Now they’re retaliating.”

Wren’s voice was quieter. “They’re reminding us they’re in control.”

“Or trying to,” Hotch added.

JJ had been silent until now. “They dumped this victim like garbage. That’s not ritual. That’s rage.”

Prentiss crossed her arms. “So who’s angry — the dominant or the submissive?”

“Could be both,” Rossi said. “Could be fear. Their religion is falling apart.”

⸻

By midday, the BAU convoy had arrived at the Slot Trail Preserve — a jagged, wind-carved valley cut into the desert, just shy of ghost town territory. The terrain was sharp and unyielding, narrow trails and towering red rock. Beautiful. Brutal.

The victim’s body had already been removed, but the scene remained cordoned off. Bloodstains darkened the dust near a boulder shaped like a broken jaw. A shattered flashlight lay nearby. A set of partial footprints — one large, one small — trailed into the high brush before vanishing in the rocky slope.

Wren crouched near the scene, gloved hands sifting through the dust. “They were in a hurry.”

Hotch stood behind her, scanning the ridge line. “Rushed, yes. But not random.”

She looked up at him. “You think this was intentional?”

“I think they needed to prove they could still kill,” he said. “That they weren’t losing their edge.”

She looked back at the footprints. “You think I spooked them.”

He didn’t answer right away.

Then: “I think you changed the rules.”

⸻

The walk back to the SUV was steep and narrow. Wren’s boots caught loose gravel, and Hotch instinctively reached out to steady her when she slipped. She caught herself with a hand on his arm, glancing up.

His grip was firm but not tight. Protective. Warm.

“You alright?”

“I’m good.” Her voice was a little too breathless. “Just... terrain.”

He let go slowly, his hand brushing hers a moment longer than needed.

“Don’t underestimate how far they’ll go to reclaim control,” he said.

“I’m not,” she replied quietly. “But it still feels like they’re always one step ahead.”

Hotch looked at her. “Then we change the rhythm again.”

She nodded. “And when they break rank?”

“We’ll be waiting.”

⸻

Back at the sheriff’s station, Garcia patched into the state crime lab.

The victim’s prints had just come back.

“Name’s Alissa Rae Young,” Garcia said softly. “Age twenty-two. Colorado ID, last seen by a friend three days ago at a bus stop near Grand Junction. Said she was trying to get to Moab to meet someone she’d been chatting with online.”

“Backpacker?” Rossi asked.

“Yeah. Had a bag, trail boots, emergency rations, some cash. They found her cell back at the trailhead, battery yanked.”

Wren sat down slowly. “So she wasn’t random. She was hunted.”

Reid murmured, “And they’re casting the net wider now.”

Hotch turned to Wren. “They picked her up en route. Same MO as the others. Same control pattern.”

“She was bait,” Wren whispered.

Hotch paused. “How do you mean?”

“She was bait… for me.” Wren stood slowly, her voice low, controlled. “They knew we’d find her. That we’d find the initials. It’s the equivalent of carving my name into her skin. Saying, ‘We saw you. We see you now.’”

Rossi’s jaw tightened. “And they’re drawing her into the narrative. Making her part of the myth.”

Garcia’s voice came again. “Guys… I did a deep dive into Jared Elwin’s online habits. Found a cached email draft from a month ago. Never sent. It was titled ‘Lambs for the Fire.’”

Wren went very still.

Garcia continued. “It’s a manifesto. Pages long. Talks about sacrifice, purification, dual devotion. I’m emailing it to you now, but… it reads like scripture.”

Reid, already scanning the file, muttered under his breath. “It’s not about the victims. It’s about each other. They’re proving something to each other with every kill.”

Hotch looked across the table, eyes sharp.

“Then we make them prove something to us.”

⸻

The canyon air was different tonight.

Heavy. Pressed low against the scrubland, thick with the scent of creosote and something more feral beneath it. Moonlight slashed across the mesa ridge line, but in the valleys below, it was darkness that ruled.

Hotch signaled with two fingers, his flashlight beam flicking across the dirt trail. Beside him, Wren crouched low, her breath steady despite the adrenaline rattling just behind her ribs.

They weren’t supposed to be here.

The original plan was to let the ranger team scope the lower wash after the body dump near Slot Trail. But then Garcia caught another trail camera ping — that same rust-colored truck — idling for too long near a restricted service road. The vehicle was gone by the time the ranger got there, but the gate had been left cracked. Fresh tire tracks cut into the hard pack.

Hotch made the call.

No backup. No waiting.

Just them.

Wren moved alongside him, the .40 Glock in her grip low and ready, eyes sharp beneath the brim of her borrowed USFS cap. Her braid was tucked tight, her vest zipped, and every inch of her body moved with tension — not fear. Purpose.

“You think they’re on foot?” she whispered.

Hotch nodded once. “The truck wasn’t visible on the camera again after that stop. They parked somewhere. Probably close.”

Wren tilted her head toward a low ridge just ahead. “That saddle’s shallow. If they moved through it with gear, there’ll be a trail.”

Hotch motioned for her to lead.

She took the rise like a ghost — quiet, sure-footed, practically gliding through the underbrush. Hotch kept close behind, scanning the horizon.

Then Wren stopped cold.

“Hold,” she said, low. She knelt and brushed her gloved fingers through the dust.

Tracks.

One large. One smaller. Close together. Almost overlapping.

She looked back. “Moving fast. They weren’t cautious here.”

“Impulsive?” Hotch asked.

“Panicked,” she replied.

They followed the prints deeper into the canyon for nearly twenty minutes. Each bend brought a new pocket of silence, broken only by the crunch of gravel under boots and the faint hiss of wind in the pinyon trees.

Then Wren froze again.

Her hand shot out across Hotch’s chest, stopping him in place.

Voices.

Low. Male. Maybe thirty yards ahead — echoing faintly through the rock cut.

“…wasn’t supposed to bring her here…”

“…you left the knife…”

“…shut up. It’s done…”

Wren’s mouth went dry.

Hotch leaned in. His voice barely audible: “Do we move in?”

She hesitated. “Not yet. Listen.”

Another voice rose — younger, higher-pitched. Panicked. “I want to go home!”

A victim.

Still alive.

Hotch’s jaw tightened. “Split or flank?”

“Split,” Wren said immediately. “I’ll loop left. You keep their attention.”

Hotch gave a tight nod. “Be fast.”

She peeled off into the trees like a shadow.

Hotch stepped forward, weapon drawn, and called out.

“FBI! Drop your weapons and step into the open!”

The reaction was immediate — crashing branches, shouted curses, and the unmistakable sound of someone running.

A shot rang out — a warning, not aimed.

Hotch ducked behind a tree, scanning fast — then he saw him.

Jared Elwin. Eyes wide. Shirt streaked with blood. Not his own.

He ran.

Hotch chased, but before he could follow far, another figure emerged behind the tree line — taller, broader — sprinting in the opposite direction, dragging someone with him.

The girl.

Hotch pivoted.

Then—CRACK.

A shot echoed, far left.

Wren.

⸻

The underbrush clawed at her arms, but Wren didn’t stop.

She’d spotted the girl — maybe nineteen, duct tape around her wrists, eyes wild with terror. The unsub had her by the upper arm, yanking her toward a steep drop behind a line of trees.

He wasn’t Elwin.

This one was older. Meaner. Decker.

Wren didn’t shout. She didn’t warn.

She ran.

Full speed, full tilt, her lungs burning as she cut through the clearing and collided with Decker just as he turned to look.

They fell hard.

The girl screamed and scrambled back, tripping over her own feet.

Decker recovered faster. He grabbed Wren by the shoulder and slammed her into the dirt, but she twisted, jamming her elbow into his ribcage and drawing her weapon with a single smooth motion.

He reached for something — a blade maybe — but Wren kicked it away and pinned him, one knee on his chest, gun leveled at his eye socket.

“Don’t move,” she breathed.

His lip bled as he smiled. “You don’t belong here.”

“I’m exactly where I need to be.”

“Then you’re part of the offering.”

She didn’t reply.

Boots thundered behind her — Hotch.

He reached them seconds later, gun drawn, taking in the scene in a single sweep.

“Wren—?”

“I’ve got him,” she said, breathless but composed.

Hotch immediately turned to the girl, gently cutting her restraints.

“You’re safe,” he told her. “You’re okay now.”

She collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

Decker was still smiling.

Hotch looked down at him. “You’re done.”

“No,” Decker hissed. “You don’t get it. This… this isn’t the end. She was the pivot. She was the start of something.”

His gaze flicked to Wren.

Hotch stepped between them.

“Get him up.”

Wren stood slowly, eyes never leaving Decker’s face.

He looked up at her. “You saw it, didn’t you? You felt it.”

She said nothing.

But her silence was louder than any answer.

⸻

By the time the cuffs were snapped into place, backup had finally arrived.

Elwin was caught a mile north, limping and sobbing into the dirt. Neither of them resisted. Neither seemed afraid.

And Wren knew why.

Because they thought they’d already won.

⸻

Back at the sheriff’s office, the girl — Jasmine — was examined, debriefed, and reunited with her older sister. She had minor lacerations, bruises, and a sharp mind that wouldn’t stop asking: “Who were they? Why me?”

Wren answered what she could.

Then she slipped away into the side hallway, leaning her head briefly against the wall, letting the silence wrap around her like armor.

Hotch found her there minutes later.

He didn’t speak right away. Just stood beside her.

She broke the silence. “They were trying to make her me.”

Hotch nodded. “I know.”

“She was the offering,” Wren whispered. “But she survived.”

“You made sure of that.”

Wren finally turned toward him. Her eyes were tired. But steady.

“Do you think we’ve stopped it?” she asked.

Hotch’s answer was slow.

“No. But I think we’ve broken the spell.”

A long silence followed.

Then he said, softer: “You saved her life.”

Wren gave a small, tired smile. “We saved her.”

Hotch looked at her, the weight of the night hanging heavy between them.

Then he nodded once, eyes lingering a beat longer than necessary.

“You’re exactly where you need to be.”

⸻

Hello, my little lovely cherubs,

I haven't been very active lately, and I am so sorry.

I was just recently in a really bad accident involving a drunk driver. I was seriously injured and my friend who was driving the car had fatal injuries and passed away shortly after the accident. I'm finally able to type again with both hands (I was attempting to manage typing with one hand in the notes app of my phone which just made me more depressed.

Shortly after the accident, my aunt, who was the most lovely person in my life and like a second mother to me passed away after a long battle of cancer.

My world has flipped in the matter of about two months and I am working through the heartbreak, losses, and looking forward to sharing my stories with you all.

Over the next coupe of days I am going to work on editing and posting a couple of chapters of The Mind's Eye and hopefully break ground on a couple other ideas I have.

Love & appreciation

The overhead lights in the Carbon County sheriff’s office dimmed slightly after ten. Motion sensors, maybe, or just the building settling into itself. Most of the deputies had gone home. The rest of the BAU was scattered—Reid curled into a corner chair with Garcia still in his ear, Morgan and Prentiss arguing softly over an evidence log in the hallway, Rossi long since retreated to the inn for sleep and scotch.

Wren remained.

Alone in the small map room just off the main conference space, she stood before a massive topographical map tacked onto the far wall. Red pins marked confirmed dump sites. Blue flags marked possible sightings. Yellow notecards were taped along the edge, each scrawled with victims' initials, dates, and brief case details. Somewhere along the organized chaos, something was missing. Out of step.

She shifted on her feet, arms crossed tightly against her chest, jaw working with quiet frustration. Her hair was pulled back in a low, tired bun, strands falling loose near her temple. The sharp scent of dry-erase markers still clung to the air.

She didn’t hear him until he spoke.

“You’re looking for symmetry.”

Hotch’s voice was quiet, low enough that it didn’t startle her—but enough that she turned.

He stood in the doorway, jacket draped over one arm, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbow. No tie. His eyes were tired, but still sharp. Still watching.

Wren straightened slightly. “Something’s wrong with the pattern. That last girl… the highway victim. She’s all wrong.”

Hotch stepped inside and let the door fall closed behind him. The room, suddenly, felt smaller. Warmer. Less sterile.

“She disrupted the ritual,” he said, coming to stand beside her. “They rushed her. That throws off the structure you were building.”

Wren nodded, then pointed to a section of the map between two of the earlier kill sites. “Here. This path—this bend near the ridge. Two victims were found less than a mile apart, but six weeks apart in time. They shouldn’t have repeated location, not if they were trying to create something balanced. Unless…”

Hotch moved closer, his gaze narrowing as he followed the arc of her hand.

“Unless they didn’t mean to repeat,” he said.

“Or one of them did it without the other knowing.” Her voice was low now. Focused. “What if we’ve been assuming they’re always working in tandem, but sometimes they aren’t?”

Hotch considered that, his arms crossing loosely over his chest. He was close enough now that Wren could smell the faint cedar of his aftershave and the ever-present hint of black coffee. His presence didn’t crowd her. It steadied her.

“They trust each other enough to kill separately,” he said. “But not enough to deviate from the message. The carved initials are the constant.”

Wren looked at the whiteboard beside the map. Her notes, layered and messy and desperate, filled the space. She hated how rushed they felt now. “I keep thinking it has to be more than communication between them. It feels like… permission.”

Hotch’s brow lifted. “Elaborate.”

She looked over at him, her voice quieter now. “Maybe the letters aren’t just calling cards. Maybe they’re giving each other permission to take a victim. Maybe that last girl didn’t have permission.”

The silence between them deepened. Not uncomfortable—just full.

Hotch stepped closer, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and studied the overlapping territory on the map. “You think the submissive partner made a move without consent.”

Wren nodded, feeling the tension of it settle into her chest. “And the dominant one will want to correct that.”

Hotch tilted his head slightly, considering. “Then the next victim will either be clean and calculated—back to their ritual—or missing entirely, hidden. A punishment.”

Her lips parted, a shiver running down her spine.

“I don’t think they’re just partners,” she said. “I think they believe they’re something more.”

Hotch’s eyes shifted to her then—really looked. “What do you mean?”

Wren hesitated, then reached up to trace a line across the map with her fingertip. “Not romantically. But ideologically. They’re building something together. A belief. A legacy. These bodies are steps. Sacrifices. And the initials… they’re sacred.”

Hotch’s jaw tightened. “So what happens when someone defiles the sacred?”

“They fall apart,” Wren whispered. “Or they double down.”

The quiet stretched between them. A clock ticked somewhere in the distance.

Hotch shifted slightly, his voice more personal now. “You’ve been working this too hard. You didn’t sleep last night.”

Wren gave a quiet, tired smile. “Didn’t realize you noticed.”

“I notice.” His voice was even. But warm. “You don’t have to carry the weight alone.”

She turned to him—really turned—and for a second, her guard slipped. “If we don’t stop them now, someone else dies. Maybe someone like me. Or someone younger. Someone who doesn’t get found.”

Hotch’s eyes searched hers. “We will stop them. You’re not alone in this.”

She swallowed, nodding once.

And then the space between them—barely a breath wide—became filled with something else. Not romance. Not comfort. But understanding. A moment suspended in shared burden.

Hotch looked back to the board. “You have something here, Wren. Keep going.”

And then he stepped back, quietly, giving her space to breathe. To return to the work. But the closeness lingered.

She watched him go, the door whispering closed behind him, before turning back to the map.

She wasn’t alone.

And neither were the monsters they were chasing.

⸻

The coffee in Wren’s cup had long since gone cold, but she hadn’t moved to refill it.

She stood at the far end of the conference room, eyes tracking between victim photographs and the timeline pinned across the whiteboard. Morning light filtered in through the blinds, pale and gray as ash. Another body hadn’t turned up — not yet — but the tension made it feel inevitable.

Then Garcia’s voice chirped through the speakerphone.

“I might have found the pumpkin in this patch of crazy.”

Reid looked up from his notes. “Go ahead, Garcia.”

There was a rustle of papers, the clack of a keyboard. “So, remember how we were looking at familial ties for both Elwin and Decker? The two have no shared blood, no common addresses, nothing too juicy — but! I expanded the search to properties formerly associated with extended family members.”

Wren tilted her head. “Extended how?”

“Great-aunts, distant uncles, that sort of thing. And bingo. Jared Elwin had a great-aunt named Meredith Burch. She died four years ago and left behind a totally unremarkable two-bedroom ranch in a tidy little subdivision near Helper. It's in a trust, no utilities in use, but the taxes are current.”

Hotch stepped forward. “Has anyone been seen at the property?”

“That’s the thing — nothing overt. No power, no water on record. But the neighbor’s smart doorbell caught someone walking up the driveway at 3 a.m. two nights ago. They assumed it was a raccoon until I enhanced the footage. It was a man. Average height. Hood up. And then last night? Same thing. No car, just footsteps. In and out.”

JJ leaned in, frowning. “How close is this to the last dump site?”

Garcia didn’t miss a beat. “Eleven miles. Suburban enough to blend in. Isolated enough for no one to look twice.”

Morgan shook his head slowly. “Perfect little hideout. The type of place you’d never think to look.”

“They’ve got a nest,” Rossi muttered. “And we just found it.”

Prentiss was already pulling on her coat. “Let’s go pay a visit.”

Hotch glanced around the room, calculating. “Emily, Morgan, you’re with me. Reid and JJ, stay here and monitor traffic cams with the Sheriff’s team. Wren, you come too.”

Wren’s brows lifted just slightly. “You want me at the house?”

“You know their pattern. If anything in there breaks it, I want your eyes on it.”

She nodded once, already gathering her notes.

—

The drive to Helper was short, the scenery deceptively peaceful — rocky hills, open sky, rust-streaked road signs. The street in question was a quiet cul-de-sac lined with boxy mid-century homes, all beige vinyl and trimmed hedges. Lawn ornaments and faded American flags. One driveway had chalk drawings. Another, a bird feeder swaying in the wind.

But the house at 118 South Alder Lane stood still.

No car in the driveway. No signs of life. Just a dusty welcome mat and a mailbox stuffed with flyers.

Hotch parked two houses down, and the team approached on foot.

Morgan took point at the front door, gloved hands already out. “Doesn’t look forced.”

“No signs of tampering,” Prentiss added, checking the windows.

Hotch motioned to Wren and crouched near the side flowerbed, where the soil was darker in one corner. “This patch — freshly disturbed. Recently dug.”

Wren’s eyes narrowed. “Buried supplies. Or something worse.”

Morgan jimmied the lock open with practiced ease, and the door creaked inward.

They entered slowly, the air dry and faintly musty — but not abandoned. There was a subtle trace of sweat, woodsmoke, and something metallic. A folding table stood in the center of the living room with a gas lantern and paper maps spread across it. A cooler sat nearby. No furniture. No beds. Just gear.

Prentiss swept left, weapon drawn. “Kitchen’s empty. No fridge, just canned food in a duffel.”

Hotch moved toward the hallway. “Back room’s boarded shut.”

Wren lingered at the table. The maps had scribbles all over them — red lines, circles. “These are trail systems,” she said softly. “Campgrounds. Reservoirs. There’s a rhythm to the markings.”

Morgan joined her, pointing to a section near Dead Horse Point. “That one’s circled twice. Think that’s the next site?”

“Or the fallback if they’re discovered,” Hotch replied.

In the hallway, Prentiss knelt near the floorboards. “You’re going to want to see this.”

They followed her into the smallest bedroom — where the air shifted again. Wren’s chest tightened.

Along one entire wall, childlike drawings were tacked up in rows. Crude figures. Poses matching the victim scenes. And in the center, two interlocking letters: L.D. and E.B., etched over and over in charcoal pencil.

Wren’s skin prickled. “It’s like… worship. Like they’re documenting what they think is holy.”

Morgan grimaced. “That’s not art. That’s scripture.”

Hotch crouched beside a small wooden box on the floor, opening it with care. Inside were tokens—twine, carved initials, tufts of hair. “This is where they stage the kills. Plan them. Prepare.”

“They’re nesting,” Wren said, softly horrified. “And this… this is their church.”

Hotch looked at her. “And now they know we’ve found it.”

—

By the time they left the house, the wind had picked up, scattering leaves across the lawn. Wren lingered behind the others for a moment, staring at the ordinary siding, the neighbors’ Halloween decorations across the street.

“You okay?” Hotch asked, his voice low behind her.

She nodded slowly. “It’s just…”

“What?”

She glanced at him. “I grew up in a house like that. Beige. Quiet. Flowers under the window.”

Hotch waited.

“You never think about what kind of darkness can hide behind a white picket fence,” she said.

He looked at the house too, the curtains still swaying from their sweep.

“That’s why we’re here,” he said. “Because they do.”

Wren said nothing more as they walked to the SUV, but her grip on the door handle lingered just a second too long.

⸻

The podium was too small for the number of microphones clipped to it.

Each one bore a logo — local news, state news, even a national affiliate or two. Reporters clustered in the front row, pens poised, cameras rolling, their energy eager and vulturous. Beyond the makeshift press box, half the town had shown up — murmuring civilians, coffee cups in hand, parents holding children’s hands tighter than usual.

The Carbon County Sheriff's Office had rearranged its parking lot into a controlled space, and a backdrop of tall white sheets fluttered gently behind the speaking area, already decorated with the sheriff’s seal and a banner that read:

"Public Safety Briefing – Joint Investigation”

JJ stood just off to the side, reviewing her notes one last time.

She looked calm. Controlled. Every blonde hair in place. But Wren, standing a few feet behind her with Hotch and Rossi, could see the set of her jaw. She was used to these things. That didn’t make them easier.

The crowd shifted as Sheriff Langley stepped forward.

He cleared his throat. “Thank you all for coming. We appreciate your patience during this difficult time. I want to acknowledge the concern we’ve all been living with over the past several weeks, and I want to thank the citizens of Carbon County for their continued cooperation.”

He gestured behind him. “As you know, we’ve invited the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI to assist with our investigation. Today, we’re making a public appeal and sharing information that may help move this case forward. I’ll now turn it over to Special Agent Jennifer Jareau.”

JJ stepped forward, taking the podium with practiced poise.

“We’re here today because we believe the public can help us,” she said, voice steady, clear enough to cut through the breeze. “Our investigation has revealed that multiple offenders may be responsible for a pattern of abductions and murders targeting young women across southeastern Utah.”

The cameras flashed. A few gasps from the crowd.

“These individuals are calculating. Mobile. They’re familiar with outdoor terrain and capable of surviving off the grid for extended periods of time. Recent evidence suggests they may also have access to a suburban property once owned by a deceased relative of one of the suspects.”

Wren spotted a local news reporter furiously typing on her iPad, lips pressed into a tight line.

JJ continued. “We’re urging anyone who may have seen a rust-colored Chevy pickup, model early 2000s, in the area of Route 191, or near Helper, to contact the sheriff’s office immediately. Any detail, no matter how minor, may be relevant.”

A hand shot up from the crowd. A reporter with a flannel coat and large notepad. “Are you confirming that there are two suspects? Can you give us names?”

JJ didn’t flinch. “We are pursuing several leads. At this time, we are not releasing suspect names to the public, but we are confident that they are connected by a shared history and a deliberate pattern of behavior.”

Another voice chimed in. “Can you speak to the nature of the killings? Is the community in danger?”

JJ nodded solemnly. “We believe these offenders are targeting victims based on perceived vulnerability, often individuals with limited ties to the local area. There is an active risk, and we are working around the clock to stop them before another life is taken.”

Wren glanced sideways at Hotch, who stood impassively, hands clasped in front of him. The wind caught the hem of his suit jacket, but he didn’t move.

“Are the killings ritualistic?” came another question.

JJ hesitated. “There is an element of repetition in their methods, yes. The behavioral markers suggest a shared belief system — one that may be escalating.”

“Do you think they’ll strike again soon?”

JJ paused.

Wren knew the answer was yes.

“We’re doing everything in our power to prevent that,” JJ said instead.

After a few more questions — controlled, curated responses — Sheriff Langley returned to the podium. “We will be releasing a tip line and providing composite sketches if deemed necessary. In the meantime, please remain alert and report anything unusual.”

The press conference wrapped with scattered applause — a reflex, not celebration. People began to murmur again, their faces unsettled.

The cameras shut off.

JJ stepped back, exhaling slowly as Hotch moved to her side. “Nice work,” he said quietly.

Wren offered a small nod. “You handled them better than I would’ve.”

JJ gave a tight smile. “Years of practice. You learn how to tell just enough of the truth.”

They walked toward the edge of the parking lot, where the BAU team had parked just behind the rows of patrol cars. The morning sun was climbing now, pale but persistent. People were still lingering — asking deputies questions, reading the poster boards that had been set up with hotline information.

Wren glanced back toward the crowd, a flicker of discomfort moving through her.

“You okay?” Hotch asked, low.

She blinked. “Yeah. I just… don’t like how normal it all looks.”

Hotch followed her gaze.

Parents bundling kids into minivans. A man buying a coffee from a food truck. A local news anchor laughing with her cameraman.

“We’re chasing men who believe they’re doing something divine,” Wren said. “And the world just… keeps turning.”

Hotch was quiet a beat. Then: “That’s why we do this. So it keeps turning.”

She looked at him — really looked — and for a moment, the noise behind them dimmed. Not gone. Just… softened.

Then Rossi’s voice called from across the lot. “Garcia’s got another hit. Same Chevy pickup — spotted on a game camera three days ago, south of Price.”

Hotch was already moving. “Let’s go.”

Wren followed, the words of the press conference still echoing in her ears:

They’re escalating.

⸻

The room was too quiet for how full it was.

Reid sat at the small square table in the corner of the sheriff's office conference room, his lanky frame folded neatly into a chair meant for someone with fewer limbs. Beside him, Wren Bennett leaned forward, one elbow on the table, her fingers absently tapping the spiral of her notebook as she stared at the scrawled initials on the whiteboard.

L.D.

E.B.

The rest of the team had spread out. Morgan stood near the cork board with his arms crossed. Prentiss and JJ took a corner by the window, low murmurs trading theories. Rossi nursed a black coffee with an expression that said he wasn’t hopeful. Hotch lingered closest to Reid and Wren, his brow creased, eyes flicking between them and the evidence wall behind them.

“We’re all thinking about this like it’s linear,” Wren murmured, as much to herself as to Reid.

Reid nodded, rubbing his hands together. “Right. Names, identities. We keep assuming the initials are markers for who the victims are. Or maybe who they were.”

“But they’re not connected to the victims,” Wren said quietly. “We’ve checked. And re-checked.”

“So they belong to the unsub—or unsubs.” Reid tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “Which makes it symbolic. Or personal. Or both.”

Garcia’s voice chirped over speakerphone from a bureau laptop. “Still here, still digging. Just in case you forgot your favorite techno fairy was on the line.”

“We didn’t forget you, Penelope,” JJ called.

Wren stood and approached the whiteboard. “What if these aren’t initials as in names, but as in… titles? Roles?”

“Like military designations?” Prentiss asked, frowning.

“No,” Reid said, springing up with sudden urgency. “More abstract than that. Something behavioral. Philosophical.”

“Okay,” Morgan muttered, “they’ve launched into code.”

Hotch stayed quiet. Watching.

Reid moved beside Wren, the energy in him unmistakable now. “L.D. and E.B. show up in different combinations, right? Sometimes one token at the scene. Sometimes both. But never the same order.”

“Sometimes neither,” Wren added.

“Because they’re not consistent identifiers. They’re identifiers of presence.”

Morgan raised a brow. “English, please.”

“They're signatures,” Wren said. “But not like a signature left for recognition. They’re signatures between the two of them. Markers to say: ‘I was here.’ Or ‘this one was mine.’”

Rossi lowered his cup slowly. “You’re saying there are two killers. And they’re taking turns.”

Wren nodded. “Exactly. And they’re marking their presence—or each other’s absence. These aren’t trophies. They’re… coded correspondence.”

Reid’s eyes lit up. “Think of it like chess notation. Or spy drops. One leaves a token to prove their move. The other knows the meaning when they find it.”

“Or a way to keep score,” Wren said. “We’ve been looking for one unsub with a singular pathology. But what if it’s a shared delusion? A constructed belief system between two people.”

Hotch finally stepped forward. “Like a folie à deux.”

“Exactly,” Reid said.

“But what kind of belief system justifies posing bodies and leaving wooden initials in the wilderness?” Prentiss asked, skeptical.

Wren walked back to the table, flipping through pages of her notebook before pulling out a hand-drawn sketch—rough, but precise. The angle of the body placement. The carved initial in the dirt. The position of the limbs.

“They think they’re offering something,” she said. “The way the bodies are arranged, always with care. Almost reverence. They’re not killing out of rage. They’re killing out of ritual.”

“Like the killings are a form of… worship,” Reid said, suddenly pale. “Or devotion.”

“Devotion to what?” JJ asked, her voice low.

“Or to  who, ” Wren said. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

Silence settled in again, heavier this time.

Garcia’s voice piped up. “I… may have something?”

Hotch turned to the laptop. “Go ahead.”

“So I dug through the employment records, looking for shared work history between Elwin and anyone else flagged for odd behavior, isolated employment, or outdoor familiarity. One name popped up twice. Worked with Elwin at a backcountry maintenance program eight years ago, then again at a trail repair co-op up until four months ago.”

“Name?” Rossi asked.

“Lawrence Decker,” Garcia replied. “And before you ask—yes. Initials: L.D.”

Wren felt the room lurch slightly beneath her feet. “Do we have a photo?”

“Sending it now.”

A moment later, the ancient computer in the corner dinged. The screen blinked. A grainy DMV photo loaded slowly—a white man in his forties, narrow-faced, hollow eyes, close-cropped hair. Forgettable. Until you looked at the stare.

“That’s him,” Wren whispered.

Garcia’s voice faltered a beat. “There’s more. Decker hasn’t had a registered address in two years. No bank activity in six months. The last time he popped up on grid? Purchasing old forestry maps at a surplus store in Monticello.”

“Does he have a vehicle?” Hotch asked.

“Registered to a beat-up Chevy pickup. Also last seen in Monticello. But if he’s with Elwin, that explains why he disappeared off radar.”

“They’re hiding together,” Wren said. “Trading kills. Communicating through symbols.”

Reid looked at her. “What kind of person agrees to that?”

Wren didn’t answer right away.

Instead, she closed her notebook, her voice quiet as frost.

“Someone who doesn’t think he’s killing.”

Hotch nodded once. “Let’s find them before they pick again.”

And with that, the chase narrowed. Not just a predator.

But a pair.

⸻

The meeting room at the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office buzzed with restrained tension.

Sheriff Langley stood at the head of the long wooden table, arms crossed, his face a mask of skepticism and wear. Around him, deputies filled in the remaining seats, notebooks out, pens ready, some chewing gum to hide their nerves.

At the far end, the BAU took their places — Hotch standing, the rest seated or perched on edges. Wren sat near Reid, her notes precise, her mind still processing the fractured pieces of the case. JJ kept her phone close, coordinating with the press officer. Morgan leaned back, always alert. Emily and Rossi flanked Hotch like a practiced rhythm.

He began without fanfare.

“We’re looking for two offenders,” Hotch said. “Male. One likely in his mid-to-late forties, the other younger—thirties. They are not just accomplices. They share a belief system, one they’ve developed over time and reinforced through ritualistic violence.”

Several deputies shifted in their seats.

“They’re nomadic,” Emily continued. “We believe they’ve been operating for several years. Possibly meeting during a backcountry forestry or maintenance program. They are familiar with the terrain, able to live off the grid, and deliberate in their movement.”

Wren rose and crossed to the whiteboard where she’d drawn a simple map, pinning photos and victim timelines along it. “The earlier victims were posed, left in increasingly remote areas. The signature tokens—carved wooden initials—indicate that the kills were likely shared between the two. They communicate with one another through these signatures. Almost like moves in a chess match.”

“They’re trading victims,” Reid said. “Or at least keeping score. The placement of initials—L.D. and E.B.—helped us identify one of them: Lawrence Decker. Garcia is working to tie him to Jared Elwin, an art instructor with a trail of questionable behavior.”

Hotch nodded to Wren. “The tokens serve two purposes. Internally, they’re a message to one another. Externally, they’re part of a constructed mythology. These men don’t see themselves as killers. They see themselves as keepers.”

Rossi stood. “Keepers of what?”

Silence for a moment.

Then Morgan answered: “Control.”

“Each victim is carefully selected,” JJ said. “There’s no racial or socioeconomic pattern. The common denominator is vulnerability. They’re chosen for their perceived malleability. Young women without strong local ties, recent transplants, loners. That’s not coincidence. These guys aren’t just abducting—they’re recruiting.”

“To what end?” Sheriff Langley asked, voice low.

“To keep them,” Wren replied. “As companions. Or disciples. Or worse.”

Reid leaned forward. “In delusional pairings like this—what we call  folie à deux —one is the dominant personality. The other is submissive but emotionally dependent. Together, they form a self-sustaining belief structure. One that justifies heinous acts in the name of purpose.”

The room fell still.

“They’re escalating,” Hotch said. “Their kills are closer together. The tokens more elaborate. They’re either preparing to move, or preparing to make a statement. We need to find them before that happens.”

The sheriff looked around the room, jaw tight. “What do you need from us?”

“A list of anyone who went through the summer wilderness programs connected to Jared Elwin or Lawrence Decker,” Wren said. “Anyone who filed complaints. Anyone who quit abruptly. And access to all outbuildings, cabins, and off-grid structures in the surrounding region.”

“We also need to find that Chevy truck Garcia flagged,” Emily added. “If we can find the vehicle, we may be able to triangulate their last known movement.”

“And we’ll need local eyes,” Morgan said. “Deputies who know the area like the back of their hand.”

Langley nodded. “I’ll pull the records. And I know who to assign to you. We’ll keep you looped in with updates every hour.”

As the meeting broke, quiet tension followed the agents out into the corridor.

Wren walked beside Hotch, glancing down at the notes still clutched in her hands. “It’s like chasing ghosts.”

“They’re not ghosts,” Hotch said. “They’re men. And men make mistakes.”

She gave a small nod. “We’ll find them.”

He paused, then added, “You did well in there. Clear. Concise.”

Wren glanced up, surprised by the praise. “Thanks.”

“They’re starting to listen to you,” he said, his voice low. “Keep going.”

⸻

It was past 10 a.m. when the radio crackled at the Sheriff’s station.

Hotch, Rossi, and Wren were huddled near the map board, revisiting the spatial layout of previous dump sites, when the deputy’s voice came through.

 “Sheriff, we’ve got a DB. Female. Eastbound shoulder of Route 191, near mile marker 87. Truck driver called it in—saw a body down the embankment.”

Langley answered sharply, already moving. “We’re en route.”

Hotch’s eyes met Wren’s in the space of a single breath. The team was already grabbing their coats.

The highway stretched under a bleak, grey sky. Winter hadn’t fully taken hold, but the wind sliced through the trees like a warning. The flashing blues of two patrol cruisers lit up the overcast morning as the BAU SUV pulled to a halt just behind them.

Morgan and Prentiss were already crouched near the body, which lay in a shallow ditch beside the tree line—partially obscured by weeds and an abandoned tire. The victim was young, probably early twenties. Blonde. Dressed in jeans and a hoodie. One shoe missing. Her arm twisted unnaturally beneath her.

“Jesus,” Morgan muttered, rising to meet Hotch and the others.

“She’s fresh,” Prentiss added. “Less than twelve hours. No drag marks—she wasn’t moved far. Probably dumped here from a vehicle.”

Wren pulled on gloves and stepped down into the ditch. The air down there was heavy, damp with rot and earth. She knelt beside the girl and carefully peeled back a section of the jeans.

There it was.

Carved into the flesh just above the ankle—two sets of initials, one on each calf.

“L.D. and E.B.,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried.

Hotch crouched beside her, eyes narrowing. “Both signatures. Crude. Rushed.”

Rossi looked over the scene, lips tight. “This doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“No placement,” Wren said. “No symbology. No staging. Just… dumped.”

“She wasn’t hunted,” Reid added from above. “She was grabbed.”

“Victim of opportunity,” Hotch confirmed, standing. “They’re either desperate—or unraveling.”

JJ moved to the top of the ditch, holding a camera phone steady for Garcia on the other end of the line. “Penelope, can you start pulling missing persons reports along this route? Young women, last seen in the past 24 hours.”

“You got it, Jayje. Already building the net,” Garcia replied, her voice a thread of brightness in the grimness.

Prentiss gently turned the victim’s head. “Petechiae,” she murmured. “Strangulation.”

“Same as the others,” Wren said. “But there’s panic here. No posing. No post-mortem fixation. They didn’t have time.”

Hotch surveyed the tire tracks along the shoulder. “They rushed it. Probably dumped her at night. They’re trying to stay on schedule… but something’s disrupted it.”

“Or someone,” Rossi added. “Maybe there’s tension between them.”

Morgan gave a low exhale. “We know one’s dominant. If the submissive partner panicked or chose this girl himself… that could explain it.”

“Impulse,” Wren said, rising slowly. Her knees ached. “He broke rank.”

“And now he’s compromised them both,” Reid added.

The team stood there a moment longer, staring down at the broken pattern. The wind kicked up, scattering dead leaves along the shoulder. A passing truck thundered by, rattling the metal bones of the guardrail.

Rossi was the first to turn back toward the SUV.

“Let’s head back. Garcia’ll ID her. And when she does—we start digging.”

At the station, the atmosphere was heavier than before. The hope that they had the profile locked down had begun to flicker with this kill. Wren sat alone at the whiteboard, eyes darting between the photos of the posed victims and the girl they’d just left behind.

“There’s always symmetry,” she said aloud, though mostly to herself. “This one—she disrupts the ritual. It doesn’t make sense.”

Hotch approached quietly, watching her work. “That’s what makes it useful.”

She looked up, brows furrowed.

“If they’re spiraling,” he continued, “they’ll make mistakes. Emotional ones. That’s when we find them.”

Wren nodded once, glancing back at the timeline. “Then we better hurry. Before they hurt someone else they weren’t planning to.”

⸻

The wind had picked up by nightfall.

Wren sat outside her room at the roadside inn, shoulders hunched in a borrowed Bureau windbreaker, her coffee long gone cold between her palms. The plastic chair beneath her creaked when she shifted, the only real sound in the dark beyond the occasional groan of the ice machine and the rustle of dry brush across the gravel lot.

Carbon County was quiet. Too quiet. Like the land itself was listening.

The team had scattered after the profile briefing. Rossi had lingered to talk with Tomley. Morgan and Prentiss headed out to review terrain maps with Brewer. JJ was on the phone with Quantico, relaying the day’s findings. And Reid—Reid was probably still bent over Garcia’s data stream, a blur of caffeine and near-genius connectivity.

Hotch, as always, had disappeared to the periphery—driven, quiet, unreadable. He’d said something about needing to update the Bureau’s liaison. Wren suspected that was only half true.

She wasn’t waiting for anyone. She just couldn’t go back inside yet.

The room was too small. The thoughts were too loud.

From where she sat, she could see the edges of the highway, and the deeper dark that loomed beyond it. Pine-covered ridges layered like ink drawings, each more obscured than the last. Somewhere out there, a man was preparing. Carving wood, maybe. Watching the wind for the weather.

And someone else—a woman—didn’t yet know she was being watched.

Wren blinked hard, pushing the thought aside. She rubbed her thumb over the lip of the coffee lid, chasing old warmth.

“Mind if I sit?”

The voice came from the shadows. Familiar. Low.

Wren glanced up. Hotch stood a few feet away, still in his black overcoat, tie loosened. The porch light caught a dusting of salt at his temple, cast sharp shadows over the angles of his face.

She gestured to the second plastic chair. “It squeaks.”

“So do I,” he said. And sat.

They were quiet for a while. Not awkward silence—just… stillness. Mutual.

The sky above them was choked with fast-moving clouds, but no snow yet. Just cold. Just waiting.

“You ever get the feeling,” Wren said finally, voice low, “that the longer we stare into these cases, the more we start to mirror them?”

Hotch didn’t look at her, but she saw the corner of his mouth shift slightly. “Explain.”

She drew in a breath. “We map his moves. We trace his rituals. Try to understand how he justifies it. What he feels. What he doesn’t. And eventually, it starts to feel less like study and more like… reflection. Not in motive. But in stillness. In solitude.”

Hotch was quiet again. Then: “You’re not wrong.”

She glanced at him, surprised.

He leaned back slightly, hands resting loosely in his lap. “Profiling requires empathy without surrender. We imagine ourselves into someone else’s thoughts. The danger is when we stop climbing back out.”

Wren nodded slowly. “And what happens when we don’t notice we’re still inside?”

He looked at her now. Direct. Not cold.

“We notice,” he said. “Eventually. The team does. You will. You’re not alone in this.”

Wren didn’t answer right away. Her breath fogged in the air between them.

She wanted to believe that. She did.

But nights like this—when the wind howled and silence pressed in from the woods—it was harder to hold onto things. The lines blurred.

“You did well today,” Hotch said after a moment, quietly.

Her head turned toward him, uncertain. “You don’t say that often.”

“I don’t say it lightly.”

She blinked, a strange tightness catching in her throat.

They both turned back toward the trees, the wind lifting bits of gravel in the parking lot.

Wren broke the silence this time. “You ever get used to it?”

Hotch didn’t ask what she meant.

“No,” he said. “But you get better at carrying it.”

Another silence settled—comfortable this time. Full of unspoken understanding.

A door creaked nearby. Footsteps on gravel. Rossi’s voice, murmuring to someone. Distant laughter from Morgan and Prentiss as they came back from the sheriff’s office. Life. Barely, but it was there.

Hotch stood slowly, the chair legs groaning in protest.

“Try to get some sleep,” he said.

Wren offered a faint smile. “I’ll try.”

He hesitated a moment longer, then stepped off the porch and disappeared into the dark.

Wren stayed behind.

She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just sat there, listening.

Somewhere in the mountains, the storm was still building.

But here—on this quiet porch, in this narrow slice of night—it wasn’t yet unbearable.

And that, for now, was enough.

⸻

The sheriff’s station smelled like coffee and cold metal when the deputies brought him in.

Jared Elwin. Forty-eight. Single. Lived alone on the north edge of the county, a narrow strip of leased land bordering national forest. The kind of man neighbors described as “kept to himself.” Always a red flag. But not a crime.

Sheriff Tomley stepped into the BAU’s borrowed conference room, his breath fogging slightly from the front doors. “One of my patrolmen ran into Elwin this morning. Said he was hiking out of bounds with a compound bow and a camera bag. Claims he’s a wildlife photographer.”

Hotch nodded. “Background?”

Tomley handed over a slim file. “Forestry work, trail maintenance until about five years ago. Since then? Spotty. Odd jobs. Seasonal work. A few boundary complaints about him staring at hikers, but no charges.”

Reid took the file, already flipping through the thin pages. “He’s got land in the same grid as the last three victim recovery sites.”

“Let’s talk to him,” Hotch said, already heading toward the interview room. Wren followed without needing to be asked.

Inside, the man sat with his shoulders squared and eyes fixed on the blank wall ahead of him. Jared Elwin wore an old parka, the sleeves frayed. A tangled mess of blond and gray hair hung over his ears. His boots were mud-caked, pine needles still clinging to the soles.

He didn’t look up when they entered.

Hotch sat across from him. Wren remained standing, notebook tucked to her chest.

“Elwin,” Hotch began evenly. “You know why we asked you to come in?”

Elwin finally looked over. His eyes were pale blue. Watery.

“I assume you think I’m some kind of predator,” he said calmly. “You people usually do.”

“No,” Hotch said. “We think you were on land near an active investigation.”

Elwin snorted. “There’s always something ‘active’ in those woods. Missing hikers, dumb tourists, girls chasing the next Instagram picture off the trail. I didn’t take anyone.”

Wren stepped forward. “Why were you hiking out of bounds this morning?”

Elwin’s eyes shifted to her. “Because I know the terrain better than the signs do. I’m not a visitor. I grew up in those trees.”

“Were you photographing wildlife?” she asked.

He paused. Then nodded. “Birds. Elk. There’s a pack of coyotes up near Pine Hollow that tracks close to the old fire tower. If you sit quiet, they don’t even see you.”

Hotch leaned in slightly. “You photograph them often?”

“When I can,” Elwin said.

“You sell the photos?”

“No. I just… like to keep records. Reminds me who else lives out there.”

Wren jotted a note. “You keep those photos in your cabin?”

His jaw twitched. “Some. Most I keep on flash drives. Safer than print.”

“What about the women who went missing?” Hotch asked. “You ever see them out there?”

“I see a lot of people,” Elwin said. “Some I remember. Some I don’t. You’re assuming I’d stare long enough to recall.”

“You’ve been cited twice for loitering along trailheads,” Wren said. “Both times near known victim sites.”

“They were wrong about the timing. I wasn’t there then.”

“But you were close,” she said gently. “Close enough to see.”

Elwin looked at her again. Longer, this time. Like he was studying something behind her words.

“I see everything,” he said, voice softer now. “That’s the trick. They don’t know they’re being watched. People think silence means no one’s listening. But in the woods, everything hears you. Breath, bootstep, zipper. A girl alone out there… she’s a scream waiting to happen.”

Wren felt the chill spread along her spine.

Hotch’s expression didn’t change. “Is that how you see them?”

Elwin blinked. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“But you watched them?” Wren asked. “Which ones?”

He shifted in his seat, suddenly uneasy. “You’re twisting this.”

Hotch didn’t flinch. “Then help us untwist it.”

The room grew very still.

Elwin’s hands flexed in his lap. “Look,” he said finally. “If I saw someone out there… and I did, once—I saw a woman jogging past Miller’s Loop about six weeks ago. She didn’t look local. Blue jacket, short braid. Headphones in. I only watched long enough to see she was taking the wrong trailhead. The old service road. Leads nowhere now.”

“You didn’t stop her?” Wren asked.

His eyes dropped. “I didn’t think it was my business.”

“What did you do after she passed?” Hotch asked.

Elwin looked up again. “I left.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer.

Hotch leaned forward. “Because someone else was out there?”

Elwin’s lips parted, but he said nothing.

Wren’s breath caught.

Something changed in his face—a tremble beneath the surface. Fear. Or guilt. Or something worse: complicity.

“She was the third victim,” Hotch said quietly.

Elwin blinked hard.

“I didn’t see who took her,” he said quickly. “I didn’t. I swear to God, I just… I heard something. Branches. Like someone running. But I was already moving down the slope. I don’t know who it was.”

Wren’s voice was steady. “But you knew something had happened.”

He hesitated again. “I just wanted to get away. That trail’s wrong now. Things go quiet down there. Birds don’t even land in those trees.”

A beat of silence passed between them all.

Hotch stood. “We’ll need to search your property.”

Elwin didn’t protest.

As they stepped out of the interview room, Wren exhaled sharply. The cold air of the hallway felt strange after the thick tension of that room.

Hotch was silent beside her, reading something she couldn’t name on her face.

“He knows something,” she said. “He’s not our guy—but he saw something. Or someone.”

Hotch nodded slowly. “Then we follow that trail.”

And behind them, the door clicked closed on a man who wasn’t a killer—just someone who knew one had passed by.

⸻

The snow had started to fall by the time they reached the Elwin property—a slow, flaking descent that softened the hard lines of the road and swallowed sound before it could travel. The house was set back from a gravel lane nearly swallowed by overgrowth, the structure itself slouched into the trees like it was trying to disappear.

Rossi shifted in the front seat of the SUV, eyes narrowing at the slatted wood siding and the dark, shuttered windows. “Charming,” he muttered, voice flat.

“Looks like it hasn’t been lived in for years,” Prentiss said from the back, already pulling on gloves. “But according to property records, it’s still Jared Elwin’s primary residence.”

Reid, beside her, had his tablet open, fingers scrolling through public data. “He inherited it when his father died six years ago. Worked trail maintenance for three seasons after that, then dropped off the grid. No active credit cards, no phone—just sporadic grocery receipts, all cash, mostly canned goods and dry rations.”

“Guy shops like he’s expecting the apocalypse,” Rossi said, stepping out into the cold.

They approached with caution, sheriff’s deputies lingering back near the road in case backup was needed. No lights on inside. No heat visibly rising from the chimney. Still—Rossi’s hand rested near his holster as he moved to the front porch, the boards groaning under his weight.

He knocked once.

Twice.

Nothing.

The third knock echoed through the trees, loud against the snow-muted quiet.

Still silence.

“Let’s go,” Prentiss said.

The door creaked open beneath Rossi’s hand—unlocked.

Inside, the air was dry and heavy, smelling of cold ash and old wood. Dust particles floated in the beam of Reid’s flashlight as he stepped in behind the others, scanning quickly. The cabin was small—just one open space with a wood-burning stove, a narrow cot, and a worn table littered with yellowed papers and knives in various states of sharpening.

“Not abandoned,” Emily muttered. “Just… deliberately empty.”

Rossi walked toward the stove and touched the side. “Still warm. He was here recently.”

“Too recently,” Reid added, crouching beside the table. His flashlight beam found the edge of a leather-bound journal, cracked and curling from years of use. He flipped it open carefully. Pages filled with strange sketches—trees, rock formations, vaguely human outlines. Symbols. Initials.

“He’s mapping his thoughts,” Reid said quietly. “Recording where he’s been. Who he saw.”

Emily glanced toward the walls. A few faded photos were pinned near the window—no faces. Just wilderness. Trails. Footprints.

“They’re staged,” she said. “No animals, no people. Just the aftermath. The traces someone leaves when they think they’re alone.”

Rossi crossed to a metal cabinet in the corner. It took a moment to pry the door open, the hinges groaning with resistance. Inside: more notebooks. Cans of food. A single, folded flannel shirt. And resting on the top shelf—a line of wooden tokens.

Each one hand-carved. Each one marked with two initials.

“Jesus,” Emily breathed.

Reid stepped closer, eyes flicking across the carvings. “None of the initials match our known victims.”

“Then we’re looking at more than we thought,” Rossi said grimly. “Early targets. Predecessors. Maybe attempts that didn’t go as planned.”

Outside, the wind picked up, scattering snow across the porch and covering their footprints faster than they could make them. Inside, the stillness shifted. Not from movement—but meaning. Presence. A sense that they were no longer just investigating a crime scene, but trespassing into someone’s private mythology.

Emily’s radio crackled suddenly.

Hotch’s voice filtered through, crisp but low. “Anything?”

Rossi pressed the button. “The place is a shrine.”

A pause. Then, “He’s escalating.”

“Yes,” Rossi replied. “And he’s not done.”

⸻

Back at the station, the tone was different.

Wren sat at the long table, her pen tapping lightly against her notebook. Garcia’s voice came through on speaker, a rapid cadence of updates that barely let anyone breathe between bullet points.

“I’ve got three Elwin sightings from a general store south of the county line,” she said. “The clerk described him as ‘quiet and polite, but with eyes like a damn bear.’ His words. Elwin’s vehicle matches the one parked behind the cabin, no plates. I’ve got Utah Forestry filing an internal complaint from five years ago—apparently he refused to take trail markers down, said they ‘interrupted the silence.’”

Morgan exchanged a glance with Hotch. “The guy’s got a reverence problem.”

“More like a god complex,” JJ murmured, pulling up another report. “He filed letters to the editor of the local paper a decade ago. Obsessive about the idea of ‘pure’ land. Claimed modern hikers didn’t deserve it.”

Wren didn’t look up from her notes. “He doesn’t just hate them. He believes they’re tainting something sacred. That taking them is restoration.”

Hotch nodded once. “And he’s likely watching the area for his next ‘cleansing.’”

The radio buzzed again—Rossi’s voice breaking through.

“Tell Wren she was right,” he said. “There’s a carving here with a new set of initials. Fresh. Dated last week.”

Everyone stilled.

Wren felt her pulse tighten in her throat.

She reached for her pen and wrote the initials down without hearing them fully.

Because she knew—whatever came next, it was already beginning.

⸻

The sheriff’s station had quieted, save for the low murmur of computers and the occasional creak of floorboards beneath tired boots. The air was dry with heat from the old radiator in the corner, but it still felt cold somehow—like the unease in the room cut deeper than the wind outside.

Wren sat cross-legged in a battered rolling chair near the conference table, a legal pad perched in her lap. Across from her, Hotch leaned over a trail map, marker in hand. Morgan paced behind them, arms crossed over his chest, and JJ stood near the whiteboard, sorting through a timeline that now felt... off.

Garcia’s voice echoed through the speakerphone in the middle of the table, quick and caffeinated. “Okay, I’ve been going through Elwin’s history again, and yes—he’s a weirdo in the capital-W way, but I don’t think he’s got the bandwidth to be doing this alone.”

JJ frowned. “Define ‘bandwidth.’”

“Well,” Garcia said, “he’s awkward, a little predatory, and he once posted a manifesto-length Reddit thread about why trailhead fees are part of a government conspiracy—so, socially he’s a danger, but he doesn’t fit the entire behavioral profile. Too reactive. Too sloppy.”

“Too obsessed with being seen,” Wren said, more to herself than the others. She turned her notepad and pointed toward a name she’d underlined half an hour ago. “His ego gets in the way. Everything Elwin has done points to someone who wants attention, or at least validation. But our unsub’s MO is about control, about clean disappearance. No signatures. No scenes.”

Hotch nodded. “Which means he’s not acting alone.”

Morgan stopped pacing. “You think we’re looking at two?”

Wren’s pen hovered over her pad. “Possibly. Or—one learning from the other. One escalating with help.”

Garcia sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, hold that thought. Because... remember that carving I mentioned, the initials L.D. left on one of the victim’s tokens?”

“Yes,” JJ said. “It didn’t match any victim.”

Garcia’s typing sounded like a flurry of rain. “Exactly. And Elwin doesn’t have those initials. But cross-referencing that with hiker permit logs from last season led me to a Lawrence Deller—sixty-one, ex-forestry service, worked backcountry patrols until a disciplinary leave ten years ago. He’s not online. He’s not employed. He’s... a ghost. But he did own land not far from where the first body was found last year.”

Hotch’s eyes narrowed. “Where is he now?”

“I pulled property records. He sold the land two years ago, but guess who bought it under a new LLC?”

The silence hung, heavy and electric.

“Elwin,” Garcia confirmed. “Your creep bought Deller’s cabin.”

JJ looked at Hotch. “What if he didn’t just buy the cabin?”

Hotch’s jaw tightened. “What if he inherited a mentor.”

Morgan exhaled a quiet curse. “That would explain the split in behavior. The inconsistencies. Elwin’s the student. This Deller guy... he’s the original.”

Wren scribbled a box around both names and began mapping victim drop sites again, realigning timelines to see where the methods diverged. “That would explain the change in patterns between last year and this year. The first three bodies were colder, posed with ceremony. This year’s were quicker, messier.”

“Deller teaches Elwin,” JJ said slowly, “then disappears. Elwin keeps going. But he's not as careful.”

“Or,” Hotch offered, “Deller’s still around. Instructing from the shadows.”

The phone buzzed again.

“Garcia, loop Reid into this,” Hotch said. “Tell him to check for any sign of a secondary structure on Elwin’s property. A second footprint. A pattern of supplies moving between buildings.”

“You got it, bossman.”

As the line clicked off, Hotch glanced at Wren, who had stopped writing and was simply staring down at her notepad. Her expression was pinched, haunted. The kind of look he’d come to recognize on her—when the pieces were finally settling in place but the weight of them was too much to hold silently.

“You okay?” he asked, voice low.

Wren nodded once, tightly. “This whole time we’ve been looking for one man who thought he was preserving something. But if there’s two of them... it’s not just about preservation. It’s about legacy.”

JJ looked over. “A belief system.”

Wren looked up, eyes meeting Hotch’s. “They’re not collecting. They’re passing something on.”

⸻

The air was thinner here, the cold sharper.

Rossi, Prentiss, and Reid stood outside the barn behind Elwin’s cabin, flashlights arcing over the weather-beaten structure. Snow crunched beneath their boots as they moved slowly around the building’s perimeter.

“There,” Reid pointed, voice hushed. “Two distinct sets of footprints in the mud behind the cabin. Different treads.”

Rossi crouched low, inspecting them. “Not boots from the same brand. One's heavy—logger style. The other... lighter. Worn down at the edges. Like someone older.”

Prentiss moved toward the side door. “It’s unlocked.”

They entered carefully.

The inside of the barn smelled of dry rot and sawdust. There were old crates, a disassembled trail bike, jars of hand-whittled tokens. A wall of faded maps. And in the corner, beneath a tarp, a second cot.

Rossi pulled it back. The blankets were still warm.

Prentiss moved to a makeshift table littered with trail permits, laminated terrain maps, and something that stopped her hand cold mid-reach.

Carved tokens. Dozens. Each one initialed. L.D.

Rossi’s face turned grim. “Looks like the student’s not the only one still at work.”

Reid’s phone buzzed. Garcia’s voice filtered through.

“Reid,” she said, breathless, “Elwin didn’t work alone.”

He glanced at Rossi and Prentiss, expression already saying what they all now knew.

“I know.”

⸻

The sheriff’s station buzzed low and tense when they came back in from the woods, boots leaving damp prints on the worn linoleum floors. The air inside felt warmer, but only barely—the kind of stale heat that clung to coats and made the smell of burnt coffee linger in every corner. Outside, dusk had settled like a heavy blanket, the mountains disappearing behind a slate-gray horizon streaked with the last fading threads of light.

Wren peeled off her gloves and flexed her fingers, still stiff from the cold. Her notebook was tucked under one arm, pages damp at the edges where snow had melted through her coat. She moved quietly behind Hotch into the small conference room the sheriff’s department had set aside for them. It was cramped and utilitarian—an old whiteboard stained from decades of use, cork boards pinned with trail maps and victim photos, a stack of mismatched chairs, and a single lamp that buzzed faintly every time the heater kicked on.

Rossi and JJ were already seated at the table, their faces drawn, exhaustion settling into fine lines around their eyes. Morgan and Emily came in a moment later, dropping down into chairs across from Reid, who hadn’t left his station all day. A thin scattering of candy wrappers surrounded his laptop, and Garcia’s voice chirped softly over the speakerphone, carrying a strange comfort despite the grim setting.

Hotch stood at the head of the table, flipping open a thin folder. His gaze swept over the group, steady but heavy with fatigue. “We’ll debrief quickly, then decide our next move.”

Wren slid into a seat near the end of the table, her notebook open, pen poised but her fingers tight around it. She glanced up, briefly meeting Hotch’s eyes. It wasn’t reassurance she found there—but focus, unwavering, anchored in determination. It steadied her enough to take a breath.

Rossi began first, voice low and even. “Scene one’s gone to weather. Any trace evidence has long since been stripped away. The only thing notable is the access point—easy to reach from the road, easy to leave without being seen. No tracks. No signs of a campsite nearby.”

JJ added, “Local hunters said they noticed a man alone in the area two days before the last disappearance. Mid-forties, tall, beard, camo jacket. Could’ve been anyone—no one got a good look. No vehicle noted.”

Morgan leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Scene two’s the same story. This guy knows how to move without leaving a trail. No prints, no fibers, nothing. He’s using high ground, though. Prentiss spotted a bluff with a clean line of sight to the trail where he could’ve stalked her for hours without anyone knowing.”

Emily nodded, pulling a folded map from her pocket and sliding it onto the table. “If this guy’s hunting, he’s skilled. Patient. He’s not stumbling on these women. He’s tracking them.”

Hotch listened in silence, eyes on the map, the only sound the soft scratch of Wren’s pen as she wrote. When the room fell quiet, his gaze shifted to her.

“Bennett,” he said. “Observations?”

Wren swallowed once, then looked down at her notes. Her voice was soft, but steady. “There’s a ritual to it. Not religious—personal. The positioning of the bodies, the removal of personal items, the tokens left behind—it’s deliberate, controlled. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t panic. He knows he won’t be caught out there.”

Reid pushed his hair back from his forehead, speaking quickly. “Garcia and I cross-referenced missing hikers within a 200-mile radius over the last five years. Three women who were never found fit the same profile. They could be early victims, but there’s no evidence—just patterns of absence.”

“Which means,” Rossi said grimly, “he’s done this before.”

Garcia’s voice filtered through the speaker, softer now. “We’re working on narrowing suspects, boss man. Cross-matching anyone with wilderness experience, survival training, prior boundary complaints with women on trails. It’s… a long list. But we’re getting there.”

Hotch nodded once, eyes still fixed on the maps. “We need to think like him. He’s selecting these women for a reason. He believes there’s something about them worth… preserving.”

Morgan’s jaw tightened. “Or worth taking away from everyone else.”

Emily tapped the map. “He’s familiar with every access point. Every spot to watch without being seen. This isn’t just about power. It’s about possession.”

Wren’s pen hovered over her notebook. She didn’t realize she’d spoken until the words were out: “He doesn’t think he’s killing them. He thinks he’s keeping them.”

The room stilled for a beat. The weight of the idea settled heavy, like new snow.

Hotch’s eyes met hers again. There was no judgment there. Only that quiet, intense scrutiny he carried when someone had hit close to the truth.

He turned to the group. “Tomorrow, we’ll widen the search grid. Check every unofficial campsite, every off-trail shelter in a fifty-mile radius. Sheriff Tomley will have a list of names by morning—we’ll work through them, one by one.”

He closed the folder in front of him, the sound soft but final.

“Tonight, get food. Get some sleep. We start at dawn.”

The meeting broke apart slowly, agents rising from their chairs with the weight of fatigue clinging to them like extra layers. Morgan clapped Reid on the shoulder on his way out. JJ murmured something to Rossi about calling her family. Emily rubbed her eyes, muttering about the lack of real coffee in Utah.

Wren stayed seated for a moment longer, staring down at the words she’d written: He thinks he’s keeping them.

Hotch paused as he passed her chair, his voice low enough for only her to hear. “Good work today.”

She looked up, startled by the softness in his tone. He didn’t smile, but something flickered in his expression—something closer to acknowledgment than approval.

She nodded once, quietly. “Thank you.”

He left the room with the same even stride, his shoulders squared, already carrying the weight of tomorrow.

Wren closed her notebook, sliding it under her arm as she stood.

Outside, the Utah night was dark and cold and endless.

But for the first time since they’d landed, it felt like they were starting to close the distance.

⸻

The sheriff’s station smelled like burnt coffee and damp wool when the BAU filed in the next morning. The sky outside was washed-out gray, heavy with the threat of snow, and the air inside held a quiet, restrained urgency—the kind that sharpened every word and movement.

Wren carried her notebook under one arm, a second cup of coffee clutched in her hand. She hadn’t slept much—maybe two hours, broken into restless scraps. Nightmares had churned just beneath the surface, faces of women she didn’t know blending into tree lines, disappearing before she could reach them. But she’d forced herself up, pulled her hair into a neat knot, and walked into the station determined not to show the weight in her bones.

Hotch was already standing near the whiteboard, sleeves rolled, a marker in hand as he outlined the day’s approach. JJ stood beside him, coordinating a list of locals provided by Sheriff Tomley. Morgan and Emily leaned against the table, scanning through background sheets on each person. Rossi and Reid hovered near the far end, their voices low over topographic maps.

The sheriff and his deputies occupied the other side of the cramped room, faces lined with fatigue. A wall clock ticked steadily above them, filling the pauses between conversation.

Hotch looked up as Wren stepped in, eyes flicking briefly toward her before returning to the map. “We’ve got eight names to start,” he said to the room at large. “All men, all with prior encounters with hikers—ranging from minor complaints to repeat appearances near isolated trails. No charges. No patterns on paper. But they’re the kind of names that come up when you ask the right questions.”

Tomley’s mouth tightened. “They’ve all been spoken to before.”

“Not by us,” Rossi said simply.

Hotch nodded once. “We split into pairs. Reid, you’ll stay here and coordinate with Garcia, keep cross-referencing. JJ and Morgan take the first three names in the north sector. Rossi, Emily—two on the west. I’ll take Wren and the remaining three.”

Wren felt the weight of his glance then—not questioning, just including. She gave a small nod and flipped her notebook open.

The sheriff gestured toward the small bullpen. “We’ve got an interview room ready.”

⸻

The room was plain—just a table, two chairs on either side, walls bare except for a clock ticking loud in the silence. The first man they brought in was mid-forties, unshaven, a baseball cap pulled low over his brow. His jacket smelled faintly of wood smoke, and his boots tracked dried mud across the linoleum floor.

He looked harmless. He looked tired. But Wren didn’t miss the way his eyes darted between the two agents as he sat, assessing, defensive.

Hotch started, his tone calm but firm. “Mr. Larson, you know why we wanted to talk today.”

Larson shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “Because some lady went missing again. Same as before. And you think I saw something.”

Wren flipped a page in her notebook, eyes scanning the sheriff’s notes from two years ago—Larson had been cited for repeatedly approaching female hikers on a popular trail, offering unsolicited “safety advice.” No charges filed.

“You hike alone a lot,” she said softly, drawing his gaze to her for the first time. “In the same areas the women disappeared.”

“I like the quiet,” he said flatly. “That a crime now?”

“No,” Wren said, her tone even. “But you watch people. You make them feel watched.”

Something flickered in his face, a hint of irritation.

Hotch stepped in smoothly. “We’re asking for information, Mr. Larson. If you know these trails as well as you say, you’ve seen people others might not notice.”

Larson grumbled something under his breath about “Feds wasting time,” but Wren stayed focused, watching the twitch of his fingers against the table, the way he shifted when she mentioned the victims’ names. Nothing about him rang like the killer they were hunting. He was intrusive, perhaps, but not ritualistic. Not the kind of man who planned and staged.

When the interview ended, Hotch closed the door behind Larson and glanced at her. “Thoughts?”

Wren shook her head. “Not him. He likes attention. Our unsub doesn’t. He takes it, but he doesn’t want to be seen.”

Hotch’s gaze lingered on her for a second longer than expected, and she had the sense he was filing away more than just her words.

⸻

The second man was younger, mid-thirties, with a gaunt frame and a sunburnt neck. A drifter type, known for camping without permits and cutting his own trails. He was soft-spoken, hands clasped together as though praying.

He swore he hadn’t seen anyone matching the victims, eyes downcast most of the time. But when Wren asked what made someone “worthy” of backcountry hiking—alone, unguarded—he looked up sharply, lips parting like he’d been caught thinking something he shouldn’t say.

Hotch leaned forward slightly. “Do you believe not everyone belongs out there?”

The man hesitated, jaw working. “Some people don’t respect it. The land. The quiet. They don’t deserve it.”

That word again.

Deserve.

It made Wren’s pulse jump.

But something in his demeanor didn’t fit. He spoke in ideals, not obsession. There was no possession in his tone, no personal claim. He was an angry purist, not a hunter.

As they left the room, Wren whispered, “He’s close to the ideology, but not the ritual. The real unsub doesn’t just judge—they believe they’re keeping the women. Claiming them.”

Hotch gave a faint nod. “Good distinction.”

⸻

By the time the third interview ended—a ranch hand with a record for trespassing on park grounds, but no history of violence—the room felt stifling. The clock ticked louder. Fatigue pulled at Wren’s shoulders, but her pen still moved across the page, sketching behavioral fragments and scratching out others.

Hotch stood beside her, scanning the notes.

“Patterns are forming,” he said lowly, almost to himself. “But we’re still missing the center.”

Wren looked up, meeting his eyes. “Whoever he is, he’s already out there watching someone.”

Hotch’s jaw tightened. “Then we find him before he moves.”

For a moment, they just looked at each other. The noise of the station dimmed around them, leaving only that shared understanding—a quiet, unspoken urgency.

Then the door opened, and another deputy stepped in with a new name on a slip of paper. The next man to rule out.

And the clock on the wall kept ticking, each second a reminder that somewhere in the mountains, a hunter might already have chosen his next trail.

⸻

By mid-afternoon, the sheriff’s station was steeped in a tense kind of stillness. The morning’s interviews had ruled out more men than they’d expected, leaving fewer viable suspects but no clear answers. Outside, low gray clouds hung heavy over the Wasatch Range, promising snow but delivering only biting wind. Inside, the hum of old fluorescent lights and the hiss of the radiator filled the quiet.

Wren sat at the long table in the makeshift briefing room, her notebook open to a two-page spread of behavioral fragments. The words blurred at the edges from where her pen had hesitated too long. Solitary. Reverence. Ownership. Tracking behavior. Choosing, not chasing.

Hotch stood at the whiteboard, jacket off, tie loosened, crossing out names from their morning interviews. Morgan and Prentiss were on opposite ends of the room, trading phone calls with Utah field officers, while Rossi leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, eyes half-closed like he was thinking two steps ahead of everyone else. JJ sat beside Wren, working quietly on victim family notifications, her voice low and steady when she made calls.

The shrill ring of the desk phone broke the hush. Sheriff Tomley answered, glanced over his shoulder, and said, “It’s your tech analyst.”

Hotch crossed the room in three long strides, taking the receiver. “Garcia.”

Her voice was a rapid-fire burst of energy even over the staticky line. “Okay, my crime-fighting sugarplums, you’re not going to like this, but it’s relevant, it’s creepy, and it’s making me clutch my unicorn stress ball for dear life.”

“Go ahead,” Hotch said, tone clipped but patient.

“I’ve been combing through state forestry employment records like a woman possessed,” Garcia continued. “And I found a gem—or more like a moldy fossil. A man named Warren Koenig, age fifty-two. Former forestry worker, spent fifteen years on trail maintenance and fire watch assignments. Was dismissed quietly seven years ago after multiple complaints from hikers—mostly women—that he followed them, took photographs without permission, left little carved trinkets at their campsites.”

Wren’s head snapped up at that. Her pen stilled on the page.

“What kind of trinkets?” she asked, leaning closer to the phone.

Garcia didn’t miss a beat. “Wooden carvings. Sometimes initials, sometimes shapes. One woman described finding a small token with ‘L.D.’ carved into it. The complaint went nowhere—no arrests, no charges. They moved him to another district before eventually letting him go.”

Hotch’s expression hardened. “Current location?”

“That’s the fun part,” Garcia said grimly. “He lives in an unincorporated area near Fishlake National Forest, off an old logging road. He’s on disability now, isolated, barely uses a bank card. The kind of off-the-grid guy who thinks mail is a conspiracy. He only pops up for trail permits or gear purchases, always in cash.”

Morgan straightened, crossing the room. “That’s our guy.”

“Possible,” Hotch corrected sharply. “Not confirmed.”

“But close enough to check,” Rossi added, his tone flat with certainty.

Garcia sighed through the line. “He’s got a cabin on leased land, no utilities listed. If you go out there, I’ll send you coordinates, but don’t expect Wi-Fi or friendly neighbors.”

Hotch glanced toward the map pinned to the wall, his gaze calculating terrain and distance. “Send the exact location. We’ll move before dark.”

“I’ll package everything I’ve got,” Garcia said. “Be careful. This one feels like the wrong kind of quiet.”

Hotch hung up, turned back to the team. “JJ, coordinate with Sheriff Tomley for a search warrant and backup units. Morgan, Prentiss, Rossi—gather field gear and maps. We’ll split again. JJ, you stay here with Reid and keep Garcia fed with updates.”

He looked directly at Wren. “You’re with me.”

Something flickered in her chest—not nerves, exactly, but that sharp, tense awareness that came with moving closer to something dangerous. She closed her notebook with deliberate care and rose to her feet.

Morgan arched a brow. “You sure you want to take the rookie out on this one, Hotch?”

“She’s not a rookie,” Hotch said evenly. “She’s the one who connected the initials. We’re not ignoring that.”

That settled it.

⸻

The convoy rolled out forty-five minutes later, two black SUVs following a sheriff’s truck down a narrow, frost-coated road. The landscape changed quickly, town giving way to rolling desert foothills, then steep inclines that climbed toward the forest’s edge. The sky darkened early, clouds stacking thick over the peaks. Snow threatened but held, the world brittle and expectant.

In the passenger seat beside Hotch, Wren gripped the door handle lightly as the vehicle rattled over rutted gravel. A folded map rested on her lap, coordinates circled in red, trails drawn like veins across the expanse of wilderness.

“Koenig fits the profile,” she said softly, eyes on the paper. “Solitary. History of watching, choosing women on the trail. Tokens. Dismissed, isolated, building a world where he makes the rules.”

Hotch kept his eyes on the road, hands steady on the wheel. “He also knows this terrain better than we do. If he’s escalating, he’ll know every blind spot between here and his cabin.”

Wren glanced over at him. His jaw was set, focused, but there was something else beneath it—an edge of tension she’d only seen in a few other cases. He didn’t just want to catch this man. He needed to.

She looked back to the map, pen hovering. “If he has someone already, every hour we wait…”

Hotch’s voice was quiet but certain. “Then we don’t wait.”

The SUV climbed higher into the trees, headlights cutting thin beams through the gathering dusk. The cabin was still miles ahead, but Wren could feel it—the slow tightening in her chest, the weight of proximity. Somewhere out there, a man like Warren Koenig believed he was choosing his next story.

And tonight, the BAU intended to rewrite the ending.

⸻

The Utah sky was ink-black by the time the Bureau jet touched down, the air outside sharp with mountain cold and desert quiet. Snow hadn't yet fallen, but the wind carried its promise, brisk and biting as it whistled across the tarmac.

A single sheriff’s vehicle idled near the edge of the small, regional runway—lights dimmed, a lone figure waiting beside it. Deputy Lars Knowles, the department’s liaison, offered a tight nod as the BAU descended the stairs with tired precision, each of them layered in dark coats and heavy bags.

“Welcome to Carbon County,” Knowles said, his voice rough from the wind. “Two vehicles—keys in the consoles. The station’s got you booked at a place a few miles west, off Route 6. Nothing fancy. Quiet.”

Hotch took the lead with a quiet “Thank you,” and directed the team to the two black SUVs. No one said much—just the sounds of boots over pavement, bags hitting trunks, doors creaking open.

Wren found herself climbing into the front passenger seat of the SUV Hotch drove. JJ and Reid slipped into the backseat behind them. The vehicle was already cold inside; she pulled her coat tighter, fingers trembling slightly as she clicked her seatbelt into place.

The convoy moved silently through the dark Utah roads, headlights cutting twin beams through the wide, empty landscape. Everything outside the windows was shadows—low, rolling hills and patches of trees, an occasional mailbox or frostbitten fencepost. The town itself was a quiet spread of lights in the distance, scattered like distant embers.

Hotch drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting lightly against the gearshift. His posture was composed, as always—shoulders squared, eyes forward. The soft glow of the dashboard lights caught against the angles of his face: sharp cheekbones, faint lines from fatigue, the deep shadows beneath his eyes more pronounced under cabin light.

No one spoke for most of the drive. They didn’t need to. The exhaustion was shared. Felt in the way JJ leaned slightly into the window, her breath fogging the glass. In the way Reid fidgeted silently with a worn corner of a case file. In the way Wren sat stiff-backed in her seat, fighting the rising pulse of adrenaline in her chest—too tired to act on it, too wired to let it go.

The inn was a small, older building tucked just off the highway—log-cabin siding, a lit neon sign that flickered against the snowless gravel lot. One long, single-story structure curved like a horseshoe around a few parking spots and a soda machine. The vacancy light buzzed quietly in the cold.

Check-in was brisk. The front desk clerk handed over seven brass keys with worn plastic tags and directions written in looping cursive.

Room 3 for Agent Rossi. Room 4 for Agent Bennett.

Room 5 for Unit Chief Hotchner.

Wren registered that fact—the placement of their rooms—but said nothing.

Everyone was too exhausted to linger. They parted in a quiet shuffle of luggage wheels and mumbled goodnights.

Inside her room, Wren dropped her go-bag near the foot of the twin bed and sank onto the edge of the mattress. The radiator in the corner clanked faintly as it came to life. The air smelled of cedar and dust.

She sat still for a while, coat still on, scarf still wrapped.

Then—motion returned. Coat off. Boots undone. She padded into the small bathroom and turned the shower on hot, steam spilling out over the mirror. She peeled herself out of her layers, stepped beneath the water, and let it burn her skin raw in silence.

The silence didn’t follow her out.

Wrapped in a towel, she sat on the edge of the bed with damp hair and stared at the wall, the thought looping louder now, pressing in beneath her ribcage.

He’s picking someone. Right now.

A woman, alone. Maybe in her tent. Or her truck. Or halfway up a hiking trail that no one else will walk until spring thaw.

She pictured the tokens again—hand-carved pieces of wood, initials that didn’t belong to the victims. Carefully placed. Purposeful.

“He believed he knew them.” She’d said that in the briefing.

And now she could see it. Him. Walking the trail behind someone. Patient. Unhurried. Confident in the belief that he had been chosen, not the other way around.

Wren lay back slowly, pulled the rough wool blanket up to her collarbone, and stared at the ceiling.

She didn’t expect to fall asleep.

And she didn’t.

Not really.

Instead, she drifted in and out of it—flickers of dreams that felt more like static. Snowfields and blood against bark. Tree branches folding into arms. Someone calling her name, distant and warped.

Every hour or so, she woke up—chest tight, breath short, eyes wide in the dark.

She never cried out. Never made a sound.

The alarm never had a chance to go off.

At 6:03 a.m., she sat upright, hair mussed from sleep, her mouth dry. The room was freezing again. The radiator had shut off in the night.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pulled her sweater on in one motion, moving as if to outrun the weight pressing in around her.

Outside, the wind was quiet.

Inside, she was already halfway through brushing her hair before she realized her hands were shaking.

But she kept going.

Because today, they would move.

They would build a profile. They would search. They would walk those trails before he could find someone else.

She would not let this become another file.

Wren grabbed her go-bag, her Bureau jacket, and her notebook. The room’s mirror caught her reflection just before she turned to the door—eyes hollow with too little sleep, jaw tight.

Between Room 3 and Room 5, she paused briefly.

Rossi’s door was still dark. Hotch’s light was on.

And that, for reasons she didn’t try to name, steadied her a little.

She headed to the SUV.

The Utah sun had not yet risen.

But it would.

And so would she.

⸻

The scent of burnt coffee greeted them before the cold had fully left their coats.

The sheriff’s station sat at the edge of town—a low-slung brick building with frost feathering the windows and a dented flagpole that clanked gently in the breeze. A handful of cruisers were already idling in the lot when the BAU arrived just after 7:30 a.m., their breath visible in the air as they crossed the parking lot.

Inside, the station was cramped but warm, the kind of place where every creak of the floorboards announced movement and every nameplate on the wall had been there for at least a decade. The desk sergeant nodded them through with a murmured, “They’re waiting in the briefing room.”

Deputy Brewer met them at the threshold, holding a thermos and looking like he hadn’t slept since the last body was found.

“Coffee’s awful,” he said, deadpan. “But there’s plenty of it.”

“Can’t be worse than Quantico vending machine sludge,” Morgan said, brushing snow off his shoulders.

The team filed in—Hotch first, then JJ, Prentiss, Reid, Rossi, Morgan, and Wren at the rear, her notebook already in hand. The conference room was barely more than a long table surrounded by mismatched chairs, maps pinned to the corkboard and an old CRT television wheeled into one corner. A box of donuts sat half-open near the edge of the table.

Sheriff Tomley stood at the head of the room, sleeves rolled and hands wrapped around a Styrofoam cup.

“Morning,” he greeted. “We appreciate the Bureau’s presence, even if it means our last six donuts are about to disappear.”

Reid, already mid-bite, gave an unapologetic shrug.

Hotch moved beside the whiteboard. “Let’s get started.”

They didn’t waste time. This wasn’t a media-facing briefing. No grandstanding, no introductions. Just facts.

Wren flipped open her notes.

“We believe the unsub is male,” she began, voice clear despite the buzz of the heater. “Likely between thirty-five and fifty. Physically fit, with intimate familiarity of the backcountry terrain. We’re considering a history in the military, forestry service, or ranger work.”

Tomley gave a slow nod. “That fits.”

“He’s not choosing victims randomly,” JJ said, placing crime scene photos in sequence along the table. “Each woman traveled alone. All were hikers—capable, independent. They used their experience to keep a low profile on the trail, which tells us the unsub was watching them long enough to know their patterns.”

Rossi picked up the thread. “There’s no forensic evidence left at the scenes. Phones smashed. Personal items removed. But bodies are found in similar conditions—posed with care. Arms folded. Resting against natural elements.”

Hotch added, “We’re not seeing sexual motivation. This appears to be about ideology—ritual, or personal philosophy. It’s not an impulsive killer. It’s a methodical process.”

Brewer crossed his arms. “You think he thinks he’s doing something good?”

Wren glanced at Hotch, then answered. “We think he believes he’s preserving something. His use of carved tokens—initials left behind—suggests he views the victims as part of a larger narrative. Not trophies. Markers.”

Reid leaned forward, pointing to a map of the Wasatch Range. “All three bodies were found near elevation markers—between 6,200 and 6,500 feet. The positioning near rock formations or shelter suggests the unsub values control over the discovery. It’s possible he watches search efforts from a distance.”

“We need to know who camps up there often,” Morgan said. “Especially in the shoulder seasons. Who’s comfortable in that terrain when it’s quiet, cold, and empty.”

“Locals can’t think of many,” Brewer said. “One or two recluses up near Torrey, maybe. Few ranchers with old cabins, but they’re known to us.”

“Someone’s hiding in plain sight,” Prentiss said. “Blending with hikers or claiming to be one.”

Hotch turned back to the group. “Sheriff, I’d like your team to compile a list of all individuals cited in the last five years for off-trail camping, illegal fire use, or trail obstruction—no matter how minor. We’ll also need backcountry permit data from the Parks office.”

“I’ll get that to you by noon,” Tomley said.

Hotch gave a curt nod. “Good. Garcia is cross-referencing permit logs with missing persons and previous suspensions in state employment. If someone was let go quietly, we’ll find it.”

The room fell silent for a moment. The heater clicked on again, humming like a tired old engine.

Then Wren spoke, quietly.

“We don’t think he’s done,” she said. “We believe he’s already chosen his next target. The time between kills is shrinking. This is someone who escalates when the weather holds.”

Brewer exhaled slowly. “Then we need to move fast.”

“We will,” Hotch said.

He straightened, gaze sweeping the table. “We’ll split up and visit the last three crime scenes. JJ, coordinate with Garcia for air support on terrain surveillance. Reid, stay here and map victim pathing against access points.”

Hotch turned to the rest of the team. “Let’s meet back here at 5 p.m. to build a working profile.”

Everyone nodded. Coffee was drained. Notebooks closed.

Wren followed Hotch out of the room, her stomach coiled tight. The buzz of adrenaline hadn’t faded since she’d woken from her last dream.

But here, in this small station with the scent of cheap coffee and wet boots hanging in the air, they were finally moving.

And they had a chance—just a chance—to stop him.

⸻

The forest didn’t offer answers.

Only frost.

Only silence.

Reid remained behind at the sheriff’s station, hunched over a laptop and an unfolded trail map that spanned the full length of the desk. Coffee sat cooling beside his elbow, untouched. The line to Garcia stayed open on speakerphone, her voice an energetic counterpoint to the hum of the fluorescent lights above.

“Okay, so I’ve cross-referenced everyone cited for illegal backcountry fires in the last four years,” Garcia said, typing rapidly. “Fourteen names, narrowed to six with more than one citation. None of them live in town, but three are still in the area—one works at a gear shop near Torrey. I’m digging.”

Reid nodded to himself, marking a red circle at the edge of the Boulder Mountain range. “Focus on people who live alone, few digital footprints, limited vehicle records. Anyone who uses cash more than cards.”

“Oooh, that’s a deliciously suspicious filter. On it.”

He murmured a thank you and adjusted his scarf. The heater struggled against the mountain air, but Reid hardly noticed. He was already scanning the curvature of hiking routes, imagining how long it would take to drag a body to the tree line—and how easily one might disappear again.

The most recent scene was the most remote. It required a thirty-minute drive down a gravel forestry road, then another twenty-minute hike across uneven ridgelines. Wren and Hotch walked in silence behind Sheriff Tomley, who’d insisted on accompanying them himself.

Pines creaked overhead as they moved, the trail barely visible beneath snow and deadfall.

“Victim three was found four weeks ago,” Tomley said, glancing over his shoulder. “Same pose. Same weathered clothes. She’d been missing five days.”

“What’s the elevation here?” Wren asked, breath catching in the cold.

“Sixty-three hundred feet.”

Hotch moved steadily beside her, eyes always moving—terrain, trees, visibility angles.

Wren glanced toward a narrow rock ledge just off the path. “He carried her over that?”

“Had to,” Tomley said. “Unless he had help. But we’ve got no evidence of another person.”

They reached the spot where the third victim, Harper Lane, had been found—back against a tree, eyes closed, hands folded neatly across her stomach. The ground was bare now, only an evidence marker still staked nearby.

Wren crouched, brushing gloved fingers across the frozen leaves. “She was left facing the sunrise.”

Hotch tilted his head, considering. “That wasn’t random.”

“No,” Wren said. “Neither is the silence. There’s always a natural buffer—no wildlife. Like even the animals don’t want to be near him.”

Hotch looked across the hollow. “Where would you watch from?”

Wren stood, turning slowly. “There,” she said, pointing to a split in the tree line above them. “High ground. Enough coverage to see anyone approach but stay hidden.”

They scrambled up to the outcrop but found only old pine needles and a rusted canteen half-buried in the dirt. No prints. No new evidence. Just cold wind and the echo of something too calculated to be accidental.

As they made their way back to the SUV, Wren kept glancing over her shoulder—expecting to see someone watching, just out of reach.

But the woods remained still.

The team regrouped just before dusk, the air turning sharp again as the sun dipped behind the mountains. Boots tracked snow into the tile floors. Coats hung damp near the radiator vents.

Wren sat beside Reid, her notebook open and chilled fingers curled around a mug of hot water.

“No new prints,” Emily reported, shrugging off her coat. “No fibers. No tire tracks. Just more silence.”

“Like he’s fading behind every step we take,” Morgan muttered.

Hotch moved to the cork board, tacking up updated photos of each scene. “We may not have physical evidence,” he said. “But we have something more important. Pattern.”

JJ joined him, pointing to the map. “He’s circling. Not in a loop, but a spoked radius. It’s possible he returns to one central place—maybe a cabin or shelter we haven’t found.”

Rossi nodded. “The unsub values the terrain. It’s part of his identity. We need to find the place that makes him feel in control.”

Reid lifted a trail overlay he’d mapped earlier. “If we follow his elevation range and eliminate areas within visual proximity to maintained trails, we might narrow it.”

Wren added quietly, “He doesn’t hide them because he doesn’t see them as crimes. He sees them as necessary.”

The room stilled at that.

Necessary.

The word landed harder than any weapon might have.

Hotch looked at her for a long beat. Then said, “We’re close. But not close enough. Keep pushing.”

The heater rattled again, coughing warm air into the corners of the room.

And the hunt continued.

⸻

The sun hadn’t quite made it over the horizon by the time Wren pulled into the Quantico parking lot. The sky was a muted blue-gray, the air sharp with frost. Her breath clouded against the inside of her windshield as the car idled for a few long seconds before sputtering off, the engine groaning like a wounded animal.

She exhaled, long and slow, watching her fingers tremble slightly as she slipped the key from the ignition. The dashboard clock read  6:21 a.m. 

She’d left her apartment at five, layered in fleece-lined leggings under her slacks, a turtleneck beneath her wool coat, her scarf wrapped twice around her neck. The car had taken three tries to start. She hadn’t been sure it would make it the full commute.

But it had. Barely.

And she was on time.

Inside the BAU bullpen, the lights buzzed overhead with that soft, early hum. Stillness clung to the room in the way it always did before sunrise—quiet enough that the sound of her boots over tile felt like it echoed.

Only one other desk lamp was on—Reid’s, unsurprisingly. His coat was draped over the back of his chair, but he wasn’t at his desk. His notes on geographic clustering were spread out like wings, overlapping topographic maps and state records from Utah.

Wren unwound her scarf and sat at her own desk, pulling her notebook close. The one with Utah marked at the top of the page. She uncapped her pen, clicked it once, and resumed where she’d left off last night:

  Victim 1 – Mia R. 

 Last seen: November 18. Found: November 21. Trail marker: Timpanogos Basin. 

 Token: carved “L.D.” found in left boot. 

 Hands folded. Back to a tree. Minimal trauma. 

She frowned, underlining the initials again.

The heater kicked on somewhere in the wall. It did almost nothing to shake the chill. Wren rubbed her hands together, then continued writing.

Victimology (emerging): self-sufficient women. No partners, no pets. Frequent wilderness travelers. 

Possibly chosen for lifestyle. Pattern of solitude? 

She was so focused on her notes, she didn’t hear him come in.

Hotch appeared like he always did—without announcement, without rush. One moment the bullpen was still mostly empty, and the next, he was there, stepping quietly across the tile floor, a paper coffee cup in each hand.

He wore his usual charcoal suit and navy tie, but the top button of his coat was still undone, and his gloves were tucked into his back pocket. His hair was damp from a quick shower—he must’ve arrived just minutes ago, but somehow already looked like he’d been here an hour.

Wren looked up when he stopped at the edge of her desk.

He held out one of the cups.

“Thought you might want something hot,” he said.

She blinked, surprised, before accepting it. Her hands wrapped instantly around the warmth. “Thank you.”

“It’s black,” he added, like an apology.

“That’s fine. I wasn’t picky at this hour,” Wren said, and took a sip.

It wasn’t great. But it was hot, and it burned down into her chest like something necessary.

Hotch’s gaze flicked down to the open notebook. “Utah?”

She nodded. “I’ve been reworking the victim timeline. I think the gap between the first and second bodies is important. Longer than the others.”

He leaned forward slightly, scanning her page.

“He was waiting,” she said. “For the right location. Not just anyone. The exact right target.”

Hotch straightened. “JJ’s already flagged your report. She’s preparing to send the findings to the local field office in Salt Lake. She’ll offer our consultation to the Utah PD. If they agree, we’ll take lead.”

Wren’s breath caught. “They might let us take it?”

“If they’re smart, they will.”

She nodded, lips pressed together against the flicker of something warm and a little proud rising in her chest.

Hotch didn’t say anything more. He just gave a small nod toward the files on her desk and said, “Keep working the timeline. If they call us in, I want a full behavioral sketch ready.”

Wren sat straighter. “Yes, sir.”

He paused again—just a second longer than necessary. His gaze skimmed her face, thoughtful but unreadable.

Then, almost casually, he added, “You came in early.”

Wren hesitated. “Didn’t want to risk the car not starting.”

“You left an hour and a half early to make sure you weren’t late.”

“Yes.”

He nodded once. “Noted.”

And then he walked away, back toward his office with that even, purposeful gait. Wren watched him go, the cup of coffee still warm in her hands.

He hadn’t smiled. He rarely did. But something in his voice had softened.

It wasn’t approval. Not exactly.

It was something steadier.

She turned back to her notes, pen in hand, and wrote two more lines.

 4th victim window likely approaching. 

 If we’re right—72 hours max. 

She stared at the words. Let them sink in.

And then she got to work.

The bullpen remained quiet, but slowly, lights blinked on. JJ appeared at her desk with her hair still slightly damp from the morning rush. Morgan trailed in five minutes later, rubbing his hands together against the cold and muttering something about broken thermostats. Emily arrived next, still in her wool coat, coffee in hand, raising a brow at Wren’s already-filled cup.

“Hotch?” she asked.

Wren just nodded, and Emily gave the faintest grin before settling into her chair.

The day was beginning, in its quiet, methodical way.

And at her desk, already pages deep into the Utah profile, Wren felt something shift.

The cold still clung to the windows. Her car would still groan tomorrow.

But here, inside, something warmer had begun to take hold.

She didn’t just belong in the room anymore.

She was building something within it.

⸻

By late morning, the bullpen had settled into its usual rhythm: phones ringing at uneven intervals, agents crossing paths with coffee cups and case files in hand, a low hum of motion beneath the fluorescent lights. The scent of printer toner and burnt coffee hung faintly in the air.

Wren sat at her desk, focused on cross-referencing victim geography. Her notebook was flanked by open files and a weathered trail map she’d printed from the Utah Department of Natural Resources. A red pen tapped lightly against her notes as she scanned the elevation lines.

 Three bodies. All recovered at mid-range elevation. All near natural rock formations or overhangs. Sheltered spaces. Chosen terrain. 

She circled a cluster of coordinates. If there was a fourth, she’d wager it would be here—somewhere between Fishlake and Capitol Reef. Isolated, but not inaccessible.

“Bennett.”

Wren looked up. JJ stood a few feet away, tablet in hand, her coat draped over one arm.

“Hotch wants us in the conference room.”

Wren blinked. “Is something happening?”

JJ smiled faintly. “Salt Lake called back.”

⸻

The conference room door was already open when they arrived. Hotch stood near the far wall, a laptop open in front of him, speakerphone dialed into the center of the table. The screen displayed the official seal of the Utah Department of Public Safety beside a small, flickering webcam feed: a local sheriff’s office, two men in buttoned-down flannel and tactical vests seated side by side.

Sheriff Tomley, late fifties, weathered, sharp-eyed. Beside him, Deputy Brewer—maybe ten years younger, face tight with fatigue, as if he hadn’t slept well in weeks.

JJ greeted them first. “Sheriff Tomley, Deputy Brewer—thank you for making time.”

“Appreciate the Bureau’s interest,” Tomley replied, his voice low and clipped. “We’ve had three of these now. All quiet, spaced out, easy to miss. Your analyst flagged it before anyone else did.”

JJ turned slightly. “This is Agent Bennett. She brought the pattern to our attention.”

Tomley’s eyes shifted toward the camera. “Agent.”

Wren offered a small nod. “Sheriff.”

Hotch stepped forward, his tone even. “We’re prepared to offer formal assistance. If you allow us jurisdictional access, we’ll deploy a full team to coordinate efforts and assist in offender profiling, search pattern logistics, and public messaging.”

Brewer shifted in his chair. “You think it’s one guy?”

“Yes,” Wren said quietly. “The posing, the terrain choice, the repetition of initials carved into tokens—those elements aren’t coincidental. They’re ritualistic. That consistency means we’re looking at the same unsub.”

Tomley didn’t speak for a beat. Then, “We’ve got more hikers coming through this time of year than usual—weather’s been mild. If someone’s watching trails, he’ll have opportunity.”

JJ stepped in. “That’s why we’d like to move fast. The profile suggests an offender who believes he’s on a personal mission. He’s escalating.”

Brewer nodded slowly. “You think we’re close to another?”

Wren’s voice was soft, but sure. “Yes. I think we’re within a week—maybe days—of a fourth victim.”

The line went quiet.

Tomley finally leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “All right. You’ve got my cooperation. If your team can be on the ground within forty-eight hours, I’ll push the coordination request to the DA’s office.”

Hotch nodded once. “You’ll have a full team brief in your inbox by the end of the day. We’ll dispatch as soon as we’re cleared.”

The sheriff gave a curt nod. “We’ll be ready.”

The screen went dark.

Wren let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Hotch was already moving to close the laptop. “JJ, draft the interagency coordination packet. Coordinate with Garcia and local press to avoid leaking specifics.”

“On it.”

“Bennett.”

Wren looked up again.

“You’re riding point on the geographic profile. Start with known hiking paths, ranger-station-accessible trailheads, and high-traffic vs. low-visibility routes. Coordinate with Reid.”

Wren stood. “Yes, sir.”

Hotch paused briefly, then added, “And send me your full victimology timeline by the end of day.”

Her chest tightened, but only slightly. “I will.”

JJ gave her a quiet smile as they exited the conference room together. “Told you it was a good catch.”

Wren offered a small smile of her own. “Let’s hope we’re still ahead of him.”

The conference room door shut softly behind them.

And just like that, the next case had begun.

⸻

The jet lifted off just after sunset.

Through the small round windows, Quantico was already behind them—its skyline softened to silhouette, the horizon painted in deep navy and burnt orange. Inside the cabin, overhead lights glowed dimly, casting soft halos over open files and half-zipped go-bags.

Wren sat near the front, her notes spread carefully across the fold-down table in front of her. A line of red dots traced Utah’s southern trail systems, elevation stats tucked beside each victim photo in her tidy script. Her tablet sat to the right, loaded with ranger station reports and trail closures from the past year. The hum of the engines steadied her focus.

Hotch stood behind her for a moment longer than expected, scanning the victimology timeline she’d assembled.

“Clean work,” he said quietly, folding his arms.

Wren looked up. “Thank you.”

“You caught things most wouldn’t,” he added. “That kind of pacing—positional detail, object placement—it’s easy to overlook when there’s no signature.”

“I don’t think he wants a signature,” she said. “He wants the moment. The silence around it.”

Hotch gave a faint nod, something thoughtful passing behind his eyes.

Then he turned, stepping toward the rear of the plane where the others were settling in.

“Garcia,” he said, tapping the control panel near the onboard screen.

A second later, the monitor lit up with Penelope Garcia’s face in mid-ramble—wearing oversized headphones and a pink hoodie, her background wall cluttered with string lights and cat calendars.

“—and I told him, no, sir, your password cannot be ‘password123’ in the year of our Lord twenty-twenty-freaking-three—”

“Garcia,” Hotch cut in, just enough edge to catch her attention.

She blinked, straightened, and beamed. “Ah! Jet squadron reporting in. Hello, beautiful crime-fighters.”

JJ, Reid, and Emily leaned forward as Morgan rolled a file toward the edge of his knee. Wren turned slightly in her seat, her pen still tucked behind one ear.

Hotch remained standing as the jet leveled into cruising altitude.

“We’ve confirmed full jurisdictional cooperation with the Utah field office and local law enforcement. You’ll stay on this case full-time until further notice.”

Garcia nodded. “I’ve already flagged their digital records. No previous suspects stand out, but I’m digging into hiker permit logs, park service complaints, and trailhead camera feeds going back two years.”

“Focus on remote campsites and any known vehicle traffic that overlaps park boundaries,” he added. “We think the unsub is transient—mobile, experienced in navigating off-path.”

“Already ahead of you, sir,” Garcia said with a wink. “And Agent Bennett’s field packet? Exquisite. Seriously. I haven’t seen victimology that neatly structured since Reid’s phase of labeling his folders with planetary orbit patterns.”

Reid lifted a finger from behind his notebook. “Which was a very organized phase.”

Wren felt heat creep into her cheeks but kept her eyes on the notes. JJ gave her a quiet smile across the aisle. Emily passed her a travel mug of still-warm tea, murmuring, “You’re on a roll.”

Hotch continued, stepping toward the whiteboard at the back of the cabin.

“Let’s focus on developing an initial behavioral profile. We’re dealing with three victims, no signs of sexual assault, no theft, no digital trace. All women, late twenties to mid-thirties. All solo hikers, all experienced in backcountry terrain. Each body found days after disappearance, but all within relatively easy reach of remote roads.”

Reid spoke first. “That suggests familiarity with the area, or at least repeated observation. If the bodies were staged, even subtly, he wanted them found eventually.”

“Or he didn’t care,” Emily added. “This isn’t about hiding them. It’s about control.”

JJ leaned forward. “They were all folded—arms across the chest. Not dramatic, but intentional. Could point to reverence. Or restraint.”

Wren flipped a page of notes. “There’s something about the pose that reminds me of historical mourning traditions. Almost like a burial preparation.”

Morgan frowned. “So what, he thinks he’s honoring them?”

“Or preserving something,” Hotch said.

Reid tapped his pencil. “It could indicate ritual—but not religious. More personal. Like a practice he's created for himself.”

Garcia’s voice returned from the screen. “Also, we have initials carved into those little wood tokens—‘L.D.’ and ‘E.B.’ I’m running those through missing persons cases, cemetery records, even regional yearbooks. If those are initials of previous victims, we might be looking at someone cataloging.”

“Or grieving,” Wren said, almost to herself.

Silence followed. The hum of the plane filled in the gap.

Hotch turned back to the team. “Right now, we assume he’s male, early thirties to late forties. Physically strong. Emotionally isolated. Likely former military, ranger, or outdoorsman—someone trained, but either rejected or removed from structured systems.”

“Which means he knows how to avoid cameras,” Morgan muttered. “And people.”

“Exactly,” Hotch said.

JJ flipped through her copy of Wren’s notes. “And we think he’s already hunting the next one?”

Wren nodded. “The timeline suggests he operates in mild weather. The longer he waits, the less daylight and accessibility he has. I think he’s already picked her.”

Hotch looked toward the front of the cabin, where the light from the cockpit flickered faintly against the metal walls. Outside, stars had begun to emerge—pinpricks against black sky. They were flying toward mountain country now, toward snow and open silence.

“Then we stay ahead of him,” he said.

The rest of the team nodded. Coffee was passed. Files were reshuffled. The whiteboard filled with sketches and bullet points. The kind of controlled chaos that meant they were in it now—fully, completely.

Wren let her pen still.

Hotch glanced at her from across the aisle—not an order, not a question.

A kind of acknowledgment.

She didn’t smile.

But she didn’t look away.

They were getting closer.

And this time, she could feel it.

⸻