Blood and Battle | Criminal Minds (gxg)

Chapter 52

TW: description of violence

I hold up the police tape as Elle and Morgan duck under it. I follow, pulling latex gloves over my hands.

The front door of the house is wide open as police officers move back and forth through the entrance. I follow the others into the house and stop short in the doorway.

The place is a mess. Completely trashed. I can hardly tell what's from the party and what's from the murders. Red solo cups litter the floor along with pizza boxes and broken beer bottles. And blood. There's blood everywhere, the floor, the walls, some splattered across the ceiling.

My eyes pass over everything, taking it in. Two wooden chairs sit in the middle of the living room, facing each other. Dried blood paints the wood in a dark color, a puddle of red on the carpet beneath each seat. I step to the nearest chair, leaning forward for a closer look.

"That's where the first two bodies were," one of the officers says behind me, confirming my suspicions.

Our first two victims are 19-year-old Jacob Martin and 19-year-old Sarah Jeffrey. They were brutally beaten and tortured before dying from blood loss. They were skinned alive.

"They were facing each other," I mumble to myself.

"Forced to watch." Elle leans forward beside me and I watch her out of the corner of my eye. She keeps her gaze on the evidence in front of us.

I sigh, standing up straight. "Where's the stake?" One of the victims was impaled on a sharp pole, still alive when it happened.

"This way." I follow a couple of officers through the house and out the back door. Elle stays inside, Morgan on my heels.

In the center of the sandy backyard is a stake in the ground, the end coming to a sharp point. The tip gleams in the sunlight, darkened by blood. The ground around the stake is soaked in a burgundy color.

The man killed here was impaled through the back, his chest towards the sky. He was still alive. They left him to bleed out over the next hour or so.

"We know there has to be more than one," Morgan says beside me.

I nod in agreement. "I'd say at least four. One in the living room, one upstairs with the other two victims, and two here."

I inspect the stake in front of me but realize there's not much to see. No identifiable marks, nothing odd, it's simply a sharp metal pole. The unsubs could have gotten it anywhere and sharpened it to a point.

After consulting with the police for a few moments I head back inside. I follow Elle to the second floor, leaving Morgan with the police.

There's more people upstairs, CSI canvasing the master bedroom where the other two victims were killed.

Blood is splattered everywhere, the carpet and bedspread soaked in a deep crimson. Elle turns to talk to the CSI agent in the room.

I step forward and squat down to the floor. A knife sits in a pile of blood beside an evidence marker. The handle is intricately carved, the blade curved and sharp like a claw. I pick it up, examining the knife.

I hear Elle and the other woman talking behind me. "There's not much here besides the blood and the knife," the CSI agent informs her. "Confirmed to be the two victims' blood. We haven't found traces of anything else. The knife is wiped clean."

"Thank you, we'll take another look around."

Their conversation fades as something on the weapon catches my eye.

"Babe-" I start to say. I immediately stop myself. "Better come look at this, Elle."

I step to her side, briefly glancing down the hallway. CSI is in the room over. No one heard.

"Nice save," she teases with a slight smile.

My eyes flicker to the floor. "Sorry," I mumble.

She cups my hands in hers, holding the knife between us. She flips it over in my fingers, examining it but keeping it in my palm.

"This is definitely tribal. And old," she adds. "It's hard to believe anyone would actually use this anymore."

"Unless you're trying to direct attention to the tribes."

She glances up at me, her gaze meeting mine. For a moment I see a flash of emotion in her brown eyes. We still haven't had a real conversation about earlier.

She pulls her gaze away. "What did you find?" she asks.

I blink and return my attention to the blade, remembering why I came over. "This isn't an authentic knife."

Elle looks up again, her eyebrows furrowed. "Looks pretty real to me."

I smirk and grab the blade of the knife, careful to avoid the serrated edge. I pull it from the handle.

"These weren't made to fit together," I explain as I show her the hilt. Where the blade meets the handle is an ineffective glue job used to fuse the pieces together. I turn the blade over, showing her the five digit product number stamped into the metal.

"This handle is authentic," I conclude. "But the blade was most likely taken from a different knife."

"Which means they must've taken the handle-"

"In order to make it look like a tribal weapon-"

"So they could focus the blame somewhere else," Elle finishes. "The Native tribes had nothing to do with this. They're a scapegoat."

The corner of my mouth turns up into a grin. Elle returns the smile but it falters. I glance over my shoulder, making sure we're still alone.

"What's wrong, Elle?" I ask quietly. My left hand reaches forward and holds onto her fingers.

She gives me a sad smile. "Not now, C." She pulls her hand away and turns toward the door. "Come on. We have a job to do."

My eyes follow her as she walks away. I want to call her back to me, wrapping my arms around her waist in a hug. I want to talk to her. I know something's bothering her. I just want to hold her hand.

But I can't.

I look one last time at the knife in my hands, a cruel replica of something beautiful. A fake. A lie. A secret.

I stare at the intricate carvings, knowing the unsubs used this knife to kill four innocent people.

Beautiful, sure. But dangerous.