Verecund (Criminal Minds)

Chapter 4

Spencer walked back into the hospital room with a deep breath, looking down at the corner Ash sat in. The corner was now empty, and the girl was nowhere to be seen.

The doctor looked around, knowing she had to be in the room. He peered around the hospital bed on the floor. Ash held a sharp scalpel from a tray of tools, blood dripping down her left wrist. Her eyes were red and watery.

"Hey, hey, Ash!" Spencer kneeled down quickly, pulling the blade quickly from her hands. Her breath hitched quickly and she pulled away from Spencer. "Hey, it's okay," his voice softened. He kept the sharp tool pressed to his palm near the ground as he used his free hand to carefully grab the girl's wrist. She tried to pull away from Spencer, but he held tightly to her hand and turned to face her forearm to the ceiling.

The scarlet blood dripped down her wrist, three deep cuts overlapping over old white scars. Ash tried to pull her hand away again, but Spencer kept it towards him.

"You need medical attention," he told her gently. "We want to help you, okay?" He looked over her arm again. "I don't see any broken veins, but you could still bleed out."

Knowing he had no authority to give Ash proper medical attention, he helped lift her onto the hospital bed and pressed a white hand towel to her wrist. "Doctor! I need a doctor in here!"

The doctor led his team in and rolled a hospital bed down the hall with the small teenage girl, gripping her hands into the bed harshly. Spencer sat on a bench with his fingers interlocked and his elbows resting on his knees, bouncing his leg almost anxiously.

The doctor waited for what seemed like hours until his phone buzzed. He picked up the call from Derek.

"Hey, kid," his voice came from over the cell. "We need you to get to the station. We think we've found something."

"Okay," he agreed, "Ash is receiving medical assistance."

"You convinced her to get help? Good job, pretty boy."

"She needed it," Spencer replied with a hint of solemness. "She could have bled out." There was a pause, and Spencer knew that Derek understood. "I'll be there, I have to get a taxi."

Spencer was hesitant on the idea of taking a dirty public transportation with a stranger alone, but had done it enough times that he had to get used to it. He called the taxi and sat in the backseat, giving his address.

Once he arrived at the police station, Spencer walked immediately to where his team stood. "What'd you find?"

"We need you to take a look at this, Reid," Derek handed a notebook to him. It was a regular notebook, a black and white composition book.

Spencer took the notebook in his hands, opening it. "It's in French, couldn't Prentiss have just read it, since she's already here?"

"There's two of them, and nobody reads faster than you, kid."

Spencer gave a small smile, knowing for a moment it was true. However, his mind ran to Ash- he wondered how fast she could read. She was a child, a young teenager, but she had corrected him in his science notes. He knew there was something off about it, Ash obviously had a high IQ and high academic standards, but usually she would be known and be claimed.

"They were found by the clearing Ash was found in," Derek interrupted Spencer's train of thought. "Might be hers or the unsubs."

Spencer began reading over the handwriting- it was messy, but easily read.

Il pense que c'est Laelaps.
La pièce??
Il m'appelle Europa.
Les crétois viennent pour lui?

These paragraphs and notes went on off pages and pages like a note journal. The notes talked about 'him' hating beef and owning old art and the author being kept in a basement. It seemed that Ash had to have written the books, but not everything could be put together very well. Pieces were missing, there were fragmented sentences.

"Hey, I think I have something here," Spencer piped up. The team turned to him as he leaned back in the computer chair he sat in, and he began making hand gestures as he spoke. "The writer- who I can only assume is Ash- is writing about the unsub, she's talking about what he does, it has to do with Greek gods. It talks about his actions and how he talks... I think we might be dealing a man with schizoaffective disorder. It's similar to schizophrenia, but more closely related to psychosis. She talks about his dog, who he calls Laelaps. Laelaps was a hunting dog in Greek mythology given as a gift to some of the goddesses. Here's another sentence she wrote: 'He calls me Europa, tells me Cretans are coming we must move.' Europa was a goddess that was kidnapped, and her kidnapper gave her Laelaps as a gift. He gave her a javelin that would never miss- here, Ash talks about a long kitchen knife he gives her. She also talks about an old bronze coin- similar to the Talos, another gift."

"Then if he's following the fantasy of a goddess, why has he taken male children, also?" JJ pointed out.

"Well, Europa was like a shape-shifter, just like Zeus was. He could have thought Europa was disguising herself."

"What would have been him go into this break now, though?" Emily shook her head.

"Maybe a loss, a breakup," Derek offered.

"And then he could have turned to what he knows, Greek mythology, and his schizoaffectiveness or psychosis became worse."

"We need to call Garcia and ask her to find all hallucinatory disorder patients that have been released from hospitals nearby in the past year," Hotch instructed, "Then go through their histories and see who has any connections to Greek mythology."

"He could perhaps be a professor, or had a parent tell him stories that he held on to," Emily suggested.

"I'll call Garcia," Derek volunteered.

"Go to the hospital," Hotch instructed, "Call her there, take Reid with you."