Unknown- A Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 29- Up In Flames

We went to the humane society--lucky for us it was open until nine--and I picked out a German Shepard that had been a trained guard dog for a security firm, at least until the firm was bought out a few months ago.

I'd have to wait until tomorrow after work to pick him up though, because Reid insisted that under no circumstances was I allowed to go back to my apartment tonight.  Which meant crashing on his couch.  Again.

We stopped at an Indian restaurant on the way back to his apartment, but not a lot of eating was going on.  My stomach was hollow with fear, not hunger, and he just spent the whole time trying to convince me that I should tell the police, or at least let Hotch know what was going on.  If only he knew how much I wasn't even telling him...

"McDowell, you are going to get yourself killed!  You're a profiler, you've worked a fair amount of cases already, and you know how guys like this think.  He will not stop until he hurts you, and the longer you wait to get help, the less likely your chances are of coming out of this unharmed," Reid tried to reason with me.

"I am getting help.  I told you, didn't I?" I asked him bitterly.

"That's only because you were scared and thought you could trust me," he reasoned.

Infuriated at what he was implying, I jabbed an accusing finger at him and snapped, "Reid, don't profile me!"

"I can't not profile you.  You may not believe it, but this unsub, whoever he is, is targeting you, which makes you a victim.  You know how this works, one of the first things we look at when we're on a case is victimology," he explained evenly.

He almost sounded sympathetic...I was too mad to care, though.  The illogical part of me that didn't want to believe him was fueled by fear stronger than the rational part of me that knew he was right.

"I.  Am not.  A victim," I enunciated, glaring at him.

"Yes you are, Charlie!" he exclaimed.

The one other customer in the restaurant glanced judgingly at us.  I suppose it was ten-thirty at night, but still.

I clenched my fists at my sides, keeping them hidden under the table and strongly resisting the urge to punch Reid as I gritted my teeth and repeated stonily, "No, I'm not."

He heaved a sigh, viciously stabbing his fork into his food.

"You're wrong, but either way, you're not safe," he answered, making it sound just like another one of his statistical facts.

"Oh, and doing the opposite of what the guy who's threatening my life told me to do is how you make sure I'm safe?" I retorted.

"No.  Yes," he contradicted his own answer.

I gave him an incredulous look.

"How can you not trust the people we work for?" he asked instead, again trying to reason with me.

"Because we work for them! Our job is literally finding out things about people that they don't want us to know, I'm not about to make it any easier for them," I countered. 

"McDowell, we do that to help them. You're being threatened and possibly stalked, you need help, and the rest of the team can give it to you," Reid reasoned.

I wasn't surprised he had stated I was being stalked, but I was disappointed.  It was hard to keep a secret when you kept confiding in the same person over and over again.

"No," I answered evenly.  I clenched my fists harder, I could feel my short nails digging crescents into the flesh of my palms.  "We are done talking about this.  I am not telling the team, or anyone else, and if you tell the team or anyone else, I will go back to my apartment by myself tonight," I threatened him.

"McDowell--" he started, almost pleadingly, but I stopped him by repeating, "We are done talking about this."

I fished my wallet out of my pocket--purses, though good for smuggling weapons, were more inconvenient than anything--and then grabbed the bill sitting on the table and went up to the register to pay for our food.  The few bites I had managed to choke down were probably good, but my taste buds were as numb as the rest of me so the supposedly delicious flavors of Indian cuisine had gone unnoticed.

Apparently Reid had taken my threat seriously, though, because aside from asking me what I planned on naming my dog, to which I didn't even have an answer yet, there was no other mention of the subject on the drive to his apartment.

Around midnight he insisted we go to bed, and after quite a bit more arguing, he made me take his bed and opted for the couch himself.  Something about how he could tell I wasn't sleeping well so the least he could do was let me sleep in an actual bed, I think, but he was the one who's arm was still in a sling so I'm sure the couch wasn't any more in his favor.

It felt weird sleeping in his bed, but at least it was comfortable.  Like when you go to a hotel, but more awkward.  Though I'm sure the fact that I was wearing a pair of his flannel pajama pants and one of his T-shirt's helped contribute to the awkwardness.

I listened carefully until I couldn't hear any noise from the other room where Reid was settling down on the couch, and then I grabbed my phone off the wooden nighttable where I had set it and opened the voicemail left by the unsub.

"Working late?  What a shame.  I'll be waiting for you to come home, Charlotte," the voice on the other end of the phone said.  His tone was even, it sounded almost...placating.

It literally sent shivers down my spine.  I shuddered and turned the phone off, carefully but quickly setting it back on the nighttable.  It was like a lit match.  It'd burn you if you held onto it for too long, but if you dropped it, the world around you would go up in flames. 

My world was already going up in flames, but I blew it out with a heaved sigh, flopping back against the pillows.  Two minutes or two hours later, I fell into a fitful half-sleep.

I opened my eyes, peering sideways at the strange surroundings of Reid's bedroom, but a flash of movement in the dark caught my attention.  I froze, my body stiffening under the blankets, as the door  creaked open.

"Reid?" I called his name, one hand slipping out of the blankets and scrabbling frantically across the smooth surface of the nighttable, in search of the solid handle of my gun.

My eyes were glued to the door, safety shrinking as the crack between the door and the wall widened, and I still couldn't find the gun.  A shadowy figure, much larger than Reid, advanced, and I jerked upright and scrambled backwards, pressing my back to the headboard and trying to keep my breath from stopping before this man stopped it.  The light from the window shone along the length of silver raised in his hand.  He kept coming, leaning over me.  The gun wouldn't help me now, and I opened my mouth and screamed. My voice matched the screaming sirens wailing outside, but one of the screams stopped as red smeared in my face, adding it's color to the lights flashing along the walls.

The man disappeared.  Only his smile lingered in the dark, the white teeth as shiny as the crimson liquid dripping down the front of my gray shirt, like the tendrils of flames descending from my burning eyes.