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gryfflepuffinthetardis · 3 months ago

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Natural Born Killer

Season One Masterlist

The Fox

Derailed

Summary: The BAU is called in for a brutal triple homocide of one woman and two men which turns into a rescue mission for a missing undercover federal agent and a hunt for a misanderist serial killer who moonlights as a hitman with Antisocial Personality Disorder and Paranoid Personality Disorder who was brutally abused by his father in his childhood but he finds out that not all those who were unfairly abused turn out like he did.

Warning: Mentions of abuse; Hints of main characters being abused in childhood; Mentions of Torture; Rats (Yuck!! I bet Nonna Rossi also said “I no like-a the rats"—This is a reference for Season Thirteen’s Dust and Bones—also I feel to point out that I am part Italian… we think… just in case someone wants to shout at me.); Zoe being kind of mean/sassy to Garcia; Mention of real-life famous unsolved case of Room 1046 or the murder of Roland T. Owen also known as Artemus Ogletree

"Hurt people hurt people. That's how pain patterns get passed on, generation after generation after generation. Break the chain today. Meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness. Greet grimaces with smiles. Forgive and forget about finding fault. Love is the weapon of the future.”

November fourteenth, 2005

Zoe and Morgan met the team at a Baltimore crime scene, Morgan was teaching an in-service at the Baltimore Field Office while Zoe had been called with a possible tip on Zarah's whereabouts and just as always it ended up too good to be true.

Zoe spoke to the witness and immediately had a feeling that she wasn't going to be totally reliable when she knocked on the neighbor's door and a woman in her fifties with those stereotypical oversized overnight hair-curlers in her hair. This woman had many, many cats and Zoe felt like one had nestled in her hair by the time they actually got to the case.

"Helen and William are usually such a quiet couple. But last time, it must’ve been around eleven at night, I was trying to sleep but there was loud music coming from their house. It had been on for a while but finally, I got fed up with it. I am a mild-mannered lady. I don’t get involved. But I told myself, Evelynn, you need to shut it down! So I marched over and I knocked on the door, shouting ‘Helen, do you know what time it is?’ But no one answered, I called again, still no one answered or turned down the music, so I reached for the doorknob but it was wet and when I looked at my hand, it was red and sticky and then a man pushed past me and the door, he knocked me over, down the steps, must’ve been hopped up on those damn drugs.”

Zoe pursed her lips together and nodded, "Okay. Now, Ma'am, did you get a good look at the man?"

"No. It all happened so fast."

"Can you remember any specifics?"

"Well, he was White. I'd say he was older than you, twenties, thirties, maybe forties. And I bet he was hopped up on those damn drugs."

—————————————————————————————

Zoe re-entered the DiMarco household as Morgan brought the rest of the team through the house.

“Just finished, interviewing the neighbor and her fifty cats,” Zoe said.

"How'd you get here so fast?" Elle asked.

“I was out for a drive.” Zoe said, vaguely.

"At ten in the morning?"

"I've been out since five-thirty."

"When do you sleep?"

"Who says I sleep?" Zoe asked. "I had a lead on Zarah's whereabouts. Didn't pan out." She started up the stairs, "The neighbor says the suspect is a white male from twenties to forties fleeing the scene, and I quote 'hopped up on those damn drugs'."

"Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable." Gideon said.

"So far, sounds like a standard double homicide. Why are we here?" Hotch asked.

They entered the upstairs bathroom where the murders took place. There was blood splattered up the walls on the ceilings and on the lights, there was a steady blood stain in the tub where it seemed that someone bled out in until the stopper was pulled out, and blood stained around the drain. Blood all splattered in the shower, on the glass, on the shower rug outside the glass, still wet blood on the shower floor. On the vanity, it looked like blood just spurt out of somewhere, on the chair and the floor below it.

"Massive overkill." Morgan said.

"You know I always imagined the hotel room 1046 where Artemus Ogletree was murdered would look a bit like this." Zoe said.

"You've imagined that?" Morgan deadpanned.

Zoe just looked at him.

"I can see that." Spencer said as if this were a normal thing to converse about.

Morgan shook his head, incredulously at the pair and got to the case.

"Helen DiMarco was found here tied to the chair in front of the vanity. No defensive wounds. Ligature marks around the wrists. One clean laceration from ear to ear."

"Looks arterial. Probably the carotid." Zoe remarked. "She went quickly."

"The husband William was found in the shower, but he wasn't quite as lucky." Morgan said. "Ligature marks on the wrists and ankles and one long laceration up the abdomen through both layers of muscle."

"Evisceration? That's typical of disorganized behavior." Spencer said.

"It looks like the prison after Maze was done. Despite all the blood, this crime scene shows method, order, control. I'd say it's pretty organized. Whoever did this, knew what they were doing and I'd say this wasn't their first time." Zoe said. "Was there torture with the husband?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I just know." Zoe said, mutteringly.

"Burns, contusions, lacerations. You name it, this guy tried it." Morgan confirmed.

"If torture is the UnSub's signature, the methodology's usually unique. A person who burns someone doesn't normally use a knife." Spencer said

"So maybe we have more than one killer, or we have one killer with more than one personality." Hotch said.

"And three victims." Zoe said.

"Hmm?"

“Blood on the vanity, wife’s body was found there. The husband was in the shower. I’ve seen an evisceration live, all the blood in there belonged to the husband, and he wouldn’t have much left to spare. So why is there a ring of blood in the tub, if there were only two victims.” She crossed the room to the tub, “It looks like whoever was in here, lost their entire blood volume."

"Approximately ten-point-six pints." Spencer said.

"Which means the victim was dismembered." Elle said.

"It looks like our guy took all the parts with him." Morgan said.

—————————————————————————————

Hemingway wrote, "There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never really care for anything else."

They moved to the living room—the light was better—the smell was also much better.

"Okay, what do we know about the UnSub based on the two bodies we do have?" Hotch asked.

"Typically, torture falls into two categories, sadistic and functional. Functional torture is used to extract information or to punish. It's measured, impersonal, completely disinterested.

"Like a military tactic."

"Exactly. Then there's sadistic torture which is used to extract some sort of emotional need."

"Yeah, that's always fun." Zoe sassed.

"But sadists are sexually deviant, yet there's no evidence of sexual contact." Elle said.

"That we know of." Hotch said.

"What do you mean?" Spencer asked.

"Well, we don't have the third body yet."

Zoe's phone rang.

"Sorry, let me take this." Zoe said and excused herself. She answered the phone call.

————————————————————————————

The next victim was found last night and it took a while to gather up all the pieces.

"Third victim was positively ID'd as a low-level Mob guy, Frederick 'Freddy' Condore. He was the nephew of the older couple. Body parts were found in seven different trash cans two blocks from the crime scene." Morgan said.

"Were they able to completely reassemble the body?" Spencer asked.

"The killer didn't keep any trophies."

"Is there any evidence that he got off?" Elle asked.

"No."

"Garcia has a number of unsolved murders in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland over the past fifteen years. Many of them have ties to organized crime. All different MOs." Spencer said.

"What's the connection?" Elle asked.

"Torture." Zoe said, bluntly. "Marks on the bones are consistent with the same cutting tool. Tortured victims, most tied to organized crime, no signs of sexual sadism. We're looking for a hitman."

"No, a hitman doesn't need to torture to get the job done." Morgan said.

"Hitmen have baggage too. If I were an UnSub and I liked to torture people before I kill them, a hitman is a perfect way to turn that hobby into a career." Zoe countered.

JJ entered and said, "Two things—Baltimore just forwarded a sketch of the man running from the scene. And you've got some agents out there who think that you're poaching on their turf."

"I'll handle it." Gideon said and he got up and left. He and Alexander came back a few minutes

"Are we dropping it?" Zoe asked her father as Gideon wrote on the whiteboard in red pen.

He looked at her, "I'm sorry, who raised you again?"

Zoe's face split into a wide grin.

"These guys don't know what they're dealing with." Elle said,

"Our UnSub is male, intelligent, organized, and methodical. He has the confidence of a man who's been killing for a long time. The only victim removed from the scene is Freddy Condore, indicating some tie to him. Elle, you, Zoe, and Reid stay on Condore's background with Garcia, dig deep, see what turns up."

"Condore worked as a supervisor at a scrap metal yard in Baltimore. It's owned by a guy named Michael Russo, boss of a small Mob crew. I'm going to grab Hotch and go check him out." Morgan said.

Spencer leaned over Zoe's shoulder, watching her type like the wind on her laptop, she sat in her own chair with her legs out. Her fingers flew across the keyboard like they had a mind of their own, proving to be just as talented in the world of hacking as she was profiling. Garcia sat at her desk, typing.

"You're breathing on my neck." Zoe said.

"Um, sorry." Spencer cleared his throat, pulling away, realizing that once again he was feeling a bit light-headed from Zoe's spiced vanilla perfume. "Sorry for that."

"You three having fun?" Elle asked, entering the room.

"Oh, yeah. Sifting through the life and times of Freddy Condore with Doctor Reid and Zoe Noble-Valdez, MD here is a party I wouldn't want to miss. Credit card receipts show Freddy loved crab cakes, preferred light beer, and used to spend his thursday nights with a woman in Fells point." Elle leaned over, placing her coffee cup near Garcia's equipment as Zoe kicked her chair to roll over to look at the screen as well, engulfing Spencer once again in her unique perfume. Garcia irritatedly moved Elle's cup away from the equipment. "An, uh, expensive woman."

"What about his associates?" Elle asked.

"Most of them have criminal records." Spencer said.

"That much I guessed."

"But one of them is particularly interesting." Spencer said.

Zoe brought her laptop on the small bit of Garcia's desk that wasn't covered in colorful knick-knacks that were so pink they made Zoe's eyes feel like they were melting.

"This is James Baker's rap sheet. He spent time in juvenile detention for attempted murder, was released at age twenty-one, and then subsequently arrested for—and this is in order—armed robbery, petty theft, burglary, narcotics sales, and rape."

"But there's no other sexual assault complaints in his file." Elle said.

“Absolutely nothing. I told you it was interesting.” Spencer said.

"What's so interesting about that?" Garcia asked.

“You need to read a profiling book. Uncle Rossi’s got more than he does ex-wives if you can believe that.” Zoe deadpanned.

"When it comes to psychological behavior, anything is possible, but this criminal history—it just isn't probable. I mean, as a minor, he began with attempted murder and then devolved into pettier crimes? It's the criminal history of a fractured schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder. It just does not make sense."

"Unless someone made that rap sheet up, and they weren't thinking about the behavior—they just plugged in whatever sounded good." Zoe said.

Garcia’s computer beeped and Zoe took her laptop from the desk. “Hold on. His mug shot’s coming up.” Spencer took the sketch and held it beside the mugshot.

Elle took out her phone and said into it, "I've got an address for you to hit."

—————————————————————————————

It turns out James Baker was an undercover federal agent working for Organized Crime and Hotch and Morgan went to talk to Michael Russo while the others waited.

Gideon left his office, "Success. Hotch and Morgan just shook Russo's confidence in his hitman."

"Well, he'll want to bring him in and get a read on him." Elle said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"What if by playing them against each other, we've made Russo as paranoid as his hitman?" Spencer asked as Spencer, Elle, and Zoe followed Gideon and Alexander. "What would stop them from trying to kill each other?"

"Well, if that happens, then we'll never find Jimmy Baker alive." Elle said.

"We've got a surveillance team outside of Russo's office. Stay on it." Gideon said.

"Bye, Angel." Alexander called to his daughter through the closing elevator doors.

—————————————————————————————

Zoe and Garcia worked on the phone tap.

"Is this gonna work?" Elle asked.

"The beam is reflected from the window pane according to the law of optics." Spencer said.

"Yeah, the angle of instance is equal to the angle of reflection." Zoe said before Garcia could.

Elle held up her hands to stop them from talking about things she didn't understand. "Uh-huh. Is it gonna work?"

"Yes, Elle, it'll work." Zoe said, "I've got a friend in Paris who does things like this and she's not been caught."

Russo's voice came on over the tap, "Hey. It's me. I need to see you tonight. I'll call you from a secure line.

"Apparently." Garcia said.

"Criminals think they're so smart." Zoe grinned.

"Hey. Listen, you brought a lot of heat taking down Freddy like that. What—I'm dealing with the Feds! Listen, meet me here at the office. They don't know nothin'. I'm dealing with them. Stop being paranoid, Vinny.

"Bingo." Spencer said.

"No. Vinny."

—————————————————————————————

"Russo's got eleven associates named Vincent." Spencer said.

"No, make that ten. Vincent Chiletto died last summer." Zoe said.

"You know, here's something," Elle said and placed her coffee cup down on Garcia's desk who glared at it like was a personal insult to her. "What can you tell me about Vincent Sartori...?" Garcia had grabbed Elle's cup and threw it in the trash. "I was still drinking that."

"Not only is this equipment expensive, it's also extremely sensitive." Was Garcia's excuse.

“Yeah, that's the reason. Not that you overcompensate the gore of our work by living in a world of denial and cupcakes and unicorns and stains ruin that fantasy and also you touch my cup and I will hack your technological world to bits... or we'll just have to see how hard it is to hack with broken fingers.” Zoe deadpanned with a death glare and then she causally continued, "I used to have this set up before you, it's not that sensitive. I used to eat lunch at this desk. If you're done, who's next?"

"Vincent Sartori." Elle said.

"Currently doing six at Dannemora for racketeering," Garcia said.

"How about this 'Perotta'? There's not much on him." Spencer asked.

"Can you get into those records?" Elle asked.

"Despite the fact that they were probably expunged, Zoe or Garcia can find the faintest echo of deletion and successfully recreate the file, thereby sending us all to prison for computer felony fraud counts. " Spencer said, sarcastically.

"Eh, my dad's got connections." Zoe said, shrugging off jail time.

"Can he do that?" Spencer asked and Zoe looked at him.

"Do I look like I was a well-behaved child?" Zoe asked. "I just threatened to break Garcia's fingers if she touched my hot chocolate."

"Yeah, well, not everyone's daddy is the future head of the FBI." Spencer muttered.

“The Valdezes also have a lot of connections… and death threats.” Zoe said, typing on her laptop, "You've met Maze. Why do you think she only got kicked out of the FBI rather than arrested for massive overkill and mass murder despite in self-defense."

"The rest of us can make bail. Garcia?

"Already in." Zoe called, rolling over.

"You know, hacking is kind of my thing." Garcia said, annoyed.

"And overachieving to distract myself from my lifetime of survivor's guilt is mine." Zoe said, "And it is now on your screen."

"Alcohol addiction at fourteen, violent outbursts, assaults. Once threw a Molotov cocktail at someone sitting in their car." Garcia read.

"Several notations for aggression. He once scheduled a visit to an infirmary to gain access to a boy who looked at him for too long?"

"I've done something like that." Zoe muttered and Spencer gave her an incredulous look.

"No fear, no remorse, quick temper, and he was smart enough to stay off the radar as an adult. Paranoid personality, could be our guy." Elle said.

"There's absolutely no information on him as an adult. No driver's license, no utility bills, nothing. It's like he became a ghost."

"Let's just hope they can catch him." Spencer said.

"I think they need my help for this one. I've dealt with hitmen before."

—————————————————————————————

Zoe was given permission to join them catch Vincent and she joined them on her motorcycle, dressed in black. She moved through the Russo's junkyard slowly with her gun in her hand.

"Remember, we need this man alive." She heard Gideon say through the comm.

"Copy that." An officer said.

"It's all clear." Morgan said.

"Nothing." Agent Josh Cramer, a friend and co-worker of Jimmy Baker said.

Zoe kept to the darkness, avoiding the light, her small stature and dark clothing she had changed into helped. Hotch, however, wasn't as lucky.

Zoe froze when she sensed something. Someone was moving in the darkness, not wanting to be caught. Then she heard a thump and the sound of someone being attacked. She ran towards the sound, going stealth mode, jumping and sliding across the hood of a broken car as Hotch hit the ground and fumbled to grab his ankle gun when Vincent started to strangle him with a garrote.

Morgan arrived and pointed his gun, "Hotch, let me take him!" Hotch shook his head as he struggled to breath, not having the training that Zoe had on how to avoid this.t

"Gideon, I've got a headshot. That's it."

"Don't take it. We need him alive."

It was a tense moment before there was a metallic swish in the air and a knife flew between Hotch and Vincent's bodies, cutting the wire and releasing Hotch, cutting Vincent’s skin.

Vincent got up, turning, ready to attack but he faltered when he realized Zoe was a woman as she jumped down from a car hood. She raised her eyebrows at his hesitation before she raised her taser and tased him until he fell. She got the sense that he hadn't wanted to fight back even then.

"Well, that was interesting." She remarked.

"What was so interesting about that?" Cramer asked.

Zoe ignored him and went to Hotch's side along with Gideon as the others restrained Vincent.

"Hotch, you okay?" Zoe asked as Hotch coughed. "Yeah, garrotes' never fun."

"Take your tie off for once in your life, huh?" Gideon said, helping Zoe loosen Hotch's tie.

—————————————————————————————

Zoe arrived at the BAU first.

"Did you get him?" Elle asked.

"Yeah, he tried to choke out Hotch with a garrote." Zoe said.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, I threw a knife, cutting it." Zoe said as they reached her desk. "They'll be here in like ten minutes."

Zoe took her black beanie off as Elle walked off to meet them when they arrived. Zoe's hair tumbled out of her beanie and Spencer got a whiff of Zoe's vanilla-y perfume again.

"Uh, did-did you change?" He asked, nervously, looking at her all-black outfit.

"Yeah, I have a change of clothes for every occasion. Stealth. Running. Climbing. You name it."

They brought Vincent into the interrogation room and chained him up real good.

"We don't have time for this little show." Cramer complained to Hotch. "Interrogation techniques say make the guy comfortable, make him your friend, give him a way out. That's how you get a confession."

"That may work with a common criminal. It's not going to work here." Alexander said.

"Why is that?"

"Because anti-social personality disorder means never trust anyone with anything at any time." Hotch said.

"Then what are you supposed to do?" Cramer asked.

"Make him uncomfortable." Alexander said.

—————————————————————————————

There were several boxes of stuff taken from Vincent's van.

"This was all in his van?" Spencer asked.

"Yep." Morgan said, once he had joined them from chaining up Vincent. "The guy wasn't exactly neat."

"Classic antisocial personality." Spencer said, "What are these tapes?"

"I don't know. Why don't you, Zoe, and Garcia go take a look, let us know, alright?"

"Yeah! Movie night. I'll make popcorn."

“Are you the equipment’s not too sensitive for that?” Zoe deadpanned as Garcia walked off.

—————————————————————————————

Gideon, Alexander, and Hotch looked at Vincent through the glass.

Gideon turned to Hotch, "Go home."

"I'm fine. He's got a little slack."

"Morgan says he's secure, he's secure. Zoe recommended those chains and she'd know." Alexander said as Gideon put his gun down and went to enter.

"Uh, Jason." Hotch called.

"Yeah."

"Let's not give him a weapon." Hotch said and took Gideon's pen in his breast pocket, "He's kind of strong."

Gideon went back to go in but pulled back, "Hey, Hotch?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll be okay."

Gideon entered the interrogation room, I'm Supervisory Special Agent, Jason Gideon. Federal Bureau of Investigation."

"You afraid of me, Jason?" Vincent asked.

"You were advised of your rights?" Gideon asked.

"Take these off and we'll really talk." Vincent said, referring to the chains.

"Were you advised of your rights?" Gideon repeated.

"I know my rights." Vincent answered.

"You want to talk?"

"I got nothing to hide." Vincent said, shaking his head.

"Good."

Behind the glass, Cramer and Morgan re-entered, "How's it going?"

"Don't turn your back on him, Gideon." Hotch muttered.

"Hotch, you know how he is. He's just trying to show him that he's not intimidated." Morgan said.

"Yeah, it's not about fear, it's about being dismissive." Hotch explained, "Perotta could assume that he's disrespecting him."

"Why don't we turn these cameras off? I'll get him to tell us where Jimmy is." Cramer suggested.

"That wouldn't work." Hotch said.

"You sure about that?" Cramer asked.

"Yeah, he was probably abused by one or both of his parents. He's learned to take the pain." Hotch explained.

"And that's why he has no compassion for anyone else's." Alexander said.

"You've got to trust us." Morgan said.

Back in the room, Vincent said, "You're not organized Crime."

"No." Gideon said, "We're Behavioral Analysis."

"What's that mean?"

"Well, we study how you think, why you do what you do." Gideon said, sitting in the chair across from Vincent.

"No kidding?"

"We have a word for you." Gideon said.

"You've got a word for me?" Vincent asked.

"Oh, yeah, actually we have a few." Gideon smiled without mirth, "Psychopath. Paranoid personality disorder."

"That's quite a mouthful, Jason." Vincent said, unbothered.

"Yes, it is."

Vincent leaned forwards, "Michael Russo set me up, didn't he?"

Gideon took out a picture of Jimmy, "Do you recognize this man?"

"Nope."

Gideon looked across the room to the board with the three recent victims on it. "How about them? Anyone look familiar?"

"Wait a minute. The third guy over." Vincent said, referring to Freddy, the one he dismembered. "I think he does those late-night commercials for the dead worms. You know, softies." Gideon chuckled, again without mirth. "That's funny to you?"

"It's just interesting that you'd choose that expression." Gideon said, "You have problems performing?

"Not me."

Behind the glass, Morgan asked, "Where's he going with this? There's no evidence this guy can't perform.

"I know. Gideon knows that. He's just pushing his buttons." Hotch said.

Back in the room, Gideon asked, "Does murder excite you? Is that the only thing that can give you a sexual release?" Gideon crossed to the board. "Vincent," So the hitman looked over at the agent and watched Gideon flip the board, revealing it filled with Vincent's other victims, all men. "I believe you are an extremely impotent man."

Vincent suddenly jerked, the handcuffs rattling when they were pushed to their extent. "Take these off and we'll see."

Cramer suddenly barged in, "Where's Jimmy, you son of a bitch?" He grabbed Vincent by the sweater, "He's a federal agent!" Morgan came in and pulled on Cramer as Gideon pushed him out. "I will personally execute you! Personally!" Gideon slammed the door shut but Vincent had already heard and he was smirking.

"Baker is a federal agent. I knew it." He said.

"Where is he, Vincent?" Gideon asked.

"Hey, Jason! Is it still called 'paranoid' if I'm right?" He asked and Gideon left the room.

————————————————————————————

Garcia held up one of the tapes.

"Ten bucks says this involves naked coeds and a plumber." She said.

“What?" Spencer asked, incredulously.

"Never mind." Garcia sighed, remembering who she was talking to.

“Aw, you’re just so innocent.” Zoe cooed.

Spencer’s cheeks burned, “No, I’m not.

“Yes, you are. You were twelve when he went to college."

“Fourteen.” He muttered. "How old were you?"

“I started taking college classes when I was five. Zarah and I agreed to go through high school together but you know, life happens. But we all can’t be Morgan and good thing too or I would’ve given up on men altogether” Zoe said, blankly and Spencer blushed at the subtle compliment that she thought he was better than Morgan, “Give me that.” She put the video evidence in and it started to play.

There was a man with dark hair, screaming in pain but the camera was too close to really see anything distinct other than that.

"Okay, who's that?" Garcia asked.

"I have no idea." Spencer said.

"I'm guessing someone about to be butchered." Zoe said.

Spencer cleared his throat, not wanting to verbalize the torture to Garcia, "Put another tape in."

Garcia did so and the next tape had screams coming from it.

"Oh my god." Garcia muttered with disgust and horror.

“Well, that’s a form of torture I’ve never experienced,” Zoe said, tilting her head at this rarity.

"I'll be back." Spencer said and left.

"Well, I'll leave you to this." Zoe said, clapping Garcia on the back and leaving her alone to follow Spencer.

—————————————————————————————

Gideon stormed over to Cramer, "What the hell is wrong with you?" He growled.

"We don't have time for this, all right? My friend might still be alive out there somewhere." Cramer snapped.

"You just told him Baker was a federal agent. He may never tell us now."

"I told him to hang tough." Cramer said.

"What?"

"Jimmy. When he called me, I told him to stick with the assignment, that we didn't need to bring him in right away." Cramer confessed and Gideon turned his back to him to walk a little ways away. "Hey, I had too much invested, all right? Too much time. And I wanted Russo. So we waited twenty-four hours to go in for him. By the time we got there, that maniac..."

Spencer and Zoe entered, interrupting Cramer, "There's a chance Agent Baker's being tortured. And I think we know how."

"Rats." Zoe said.

—————————————————————————————

You needed me?" JJ asked when they called her over.

"Yeah. These are the faces of new victims off the videotapes we found." Hotch said, handing the photos over to JJ, "Check with local, see if they have any open homicides or missings that might correspond."

"Are those rats?" JJ asked.

"Yeah."

"Fun, right?" Zoe asked, sarcastically.

"What are we going to do?" Cramer asked as JJ walked off.

"Well, we looked at all the stuff in the van and besides the videotapes, there's nothing that interesting."

"I got Garcia going over the sound on the tapes, trying to isolate the background noise. Maybe something there will help."

“The good news is, it seems like they were all filmed in the same space,” Spencer said, fiddling with a bent-out paper clip. “It could be some sort of home base for him.”

"Yeah, but where is it?" Cramer asked.

"What do we know about Vincent Perotta?" Gideon asked.

Ah, he was doing that teaching thing.

"He's off the grid. Garcia can't find a registered phone utility bill, or home address on this hump."

"Come on, everybody lives somewhere. There's gotta be a paper trail." Hotch said.

"If there is, we can't find it." Spencer said.

"In this day and age you can't live without leaving some sort of trace." Hotch said.

"Unless someone pays your bills for you." Elle said.

"What about Russo?" Morgan asked, "Could he be taking care of him?"

"No. No, no, no. Russo's not paying anybody's bills but his own." Cramar said.

“Well, he has to have a weakness. It’s in his crime. It’s in his behavior.” Gideon said all while Zoe remained silent and for once completely still, the gears in her head, turning.

"You know, something's just been bugging me." Morgan said, "Freddy. Wasn't he easy to find? He cut up the body. He removed it from the crime scene. But then he leaves it a couple of blocks away where's he's gotta know we're gonna find it. It's the whole reason we were able to connect Perotta to the crime."

"He made a mistake." Alexander said.

"Yeah, he did. He went off script."

"What does that mean?" Cramar asked.

"Something knocked him off his game." Gideon said.

"That's right."

"His behavior." Gideon continued, "Well what does he do?"

"He tortures." Cramar said

"Always?" Gideon asked, "Zoe, you've been awfully quiet."

"The difference is Mrs. Dimarco. All his victims except her have been men and she was the only one who died quickly." Zoe said, "And when I fought him, he hesitated when he realized I was a woman. His mother didn't physically abuse him but his father did, she just did nothing."

"How is that better?" Cramer asked.

"To most people, it's easier to hate than to love when there so much reason to hate, but some people don't want to accept that they were ever loved any less than they should've been." Zoe said. "All the men were surrogates for his father, the brutality indicates that he was violent with his abuse, so he tortured them before killing them, but Mrs. Dimarco who reminded him of his mother... she didn't beat him. He doesn't hate her; he loves her because she was the only one who showed him kindness in his house."

"You want to finish this?" Gideon asked Hotch.

"Yeah." Hotch said and walked past them.

"Keep working." Gideon told them and he and Alexander followed him.

Hotch entered the interrogation room. "Hey, look who's here. My old friend. Feeling better?" Vincent said with no emotion. "Where's Jason?"

Alexander entered. "Who's this?"

"I'm the father of the girl who caught you." Alexander said, sternly.

"You grew up in a house that looked normal and happy, didn't you, Vincent?" Hotch said.

"Did I?" He asked.

"But your father beat you every chance he got."

"He smacked me around some. Didn't everybody's old man?" Vincent asked.

"No." Alexander and Hotch said.

"Well maybe if yours had, you would have learned to fight."

Oh, the irony.

—————————————————————————————

Zoe sat in Garcia’s lair as she, Spencer, and Garcia listened to the audio. Zoe was leaned back in her chair with her arms across the armrests and her fists balled up and her ankles crossed, making her knees slightly open, she had her eyes closed, this was the position she was put in every day. When she would have rely on her hearing to know what was happening around her.

“There. Do you hear that?” Garcia asked. There was a distant engine sound.

“What is that?” Spencer asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s like it’s moving. Getting closer.” Spencer said.

“Airplane.” Zoe said, “When I was captive for those eight months, I would try to figure out where I was, see if I heard any airplanes, I remember explictedly listening for airplanes, specifically but…” She shook her head. She had been frequently moved until the last few months but she did recall when they would throw her in the back of some van, in the rare occasions the drugs didn’t knock her out more so at the end once she built up a tolerance, not only was she blindfolded but she had noise-canceling headphones on.

—————————————————————————————

"Paranoid personalities develop in childhood." Hotch told Vincent.

"You know you're saving me thousands of dollars in therapy bills?" Vincent said, mockingly.

“You learned to take the beatings, the abuse. You learned to smile.” Alexander said, he remembered when he saw Zoe go through that. She smiled through her pain. More and more as she had more pain to hide. He did the same thing. For his sister. He made her think he was strong. Zoe inherited that. “But in the back of your mind, you probably thought, 'One day… One day, when I’m big enough…’”

"So you were bullied and abused, and you became an abuser and a bully. It's a logical progression." Hotch said.

Alexander was immensely proud of the fact despite all the pain his daughter has been through in her life, she has not become like them. She may be a little mean but she had a good heart. It was only her way of protecting herself.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Your father beat your mother, too, didn't he?" Hotch said and Vincent finally looked at them.

"My mother's got nothing to do with this." Vincent said.

"She's got everything to do with this." Alexander corrected.

"Your mother knew. She knew that he beat you every day and she did nothing to help you. And you still loved her. Even though she let you get hurt, you loved her. And I wondered why, why you didn't hate her. Then, of course, I realized that he beat her as much as he beat you." Hotch said.

"Don't talk about my mother."

"You killed all these people. Hundreds of them, and only one woman. That's what made you get sloppy, isn't it? Killing Mrs. DiMarco was hard. That's why you did it first and you made it quick. We thought it was to establish dominance but it wasn't." Alexander said.

"He was a bastard, all right?" Vincent said, finally unnerved.

"Your father?"

"I call him Frank. He was a mean son of a bitch. Is that what you want to know?"

Alexander understood. He called his father, Cain. So did Isobel and so did Zoe.

—————————————————————————————

Morgan and Elle found a certain pizza place Vincent frequented.

"Gideon, I think we got something here." Morgan called him over.

"He's got a bunch of pizza boxes from Franetti's Pizza." Elle said, "It's in Glen Burnie, a suburb that backs up right to the airport."

"Which makes sense since we can hear airplanes in the background of the video." Spencer said.

"Check property records for Frank Perotta."

"Who?

"His father?" Zoe assumed.

"Yeah,"

"Yeah, sounds an asshole." Zoe said.

"He still lives in his father's house." Gideon said.

"He still lives in the house his dad brutally beat him up in?" Zoe scoffed.

"I'll get Garcia on it.

"That's why nothing is in his name."

"If it were me, I'd distance myself as far as I could from the jackass." Zoe said, darkly as Morgan left.

Gideon patted her on the back and she looked at him with a steely look and then she spun away going to her phone.

"Garcia just sent me the file. It says Jackass Perotta did live in Glen Burnie, before he died in a hunting 'accident' with his son thirty years ago, because it's a great idea to take the son you brutally abuse to isolated forests with a loaded gun in his hand." She said, sarcastically. "The only thing more idiotic than men are abusive men."

—————————————————————————————

They entered the house and found Jimmy in the basement, tied up being feasted on by rats which Gideon kept kicking and shouting at them.

"Jimmy. You all right, man?" Cramer asked his friend and turned to Zoe who had immediately gone to check on his well-being. "Is he okay?"

“He’s going to live.” Zoe confirmed. "He might wanna get tested for rabies, just to be safe, and remember, several tests, no single test is sufficient."

—————————————————————————————

Hotch and Alexander still sat across from Vincent.

"You were just responding to what you learned, Vincent. When you grow up in an environment like that, an extremely abusive, violent household... It's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers." Hotch said and he stood up and headed to the door as other agents came in to arrest Vincent.

"Some people?" Vincent asked.

"What's that?" Hotch asked, turning.

"You said some people grow up to be killers." Vincent repeated.

Hotch and Alexander exchanged looks and then Alexander said, "And some people grow up to catch them."

They held eye contact before the two agent fathers, once abused by their own fathers but would never dream of doing the same to their children, left.

Carl Jung said, "The healthy man does not torture others. Generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers."

——————————————————————————

Note: They don't mention it a lot but my head canon is that Hotch was abused by his father and perhaps even took the beatings for his younger brother which makes it more amazing how Hotch turned out as a father.

*Evlynn is based off a SNL character played by Kate McKinnon in one skit.*

*I feel like there's another reference in here but I can't remember what.*

*I feel like I know a song that would fit but I can't think of it right now but if I find it, I'll add it to this.*

*If anyone doesn't know about the murder of Room 1046, I recommend watching Buzzfeed Unsolved's twenty-minute video on it (Ryan and Shane add a bunch of humor to a dark case and make it easier to learn about it) or Infographic's ten-minute video on it (they have a bit more information on the case). If you search "Room 1046" on YouTube, it's some of the first ones that show up*

*Edited October 21, 2024—I have Grammarly but on Tumblr, it's kind of hard to see when something is misspelled and I have my screen on dark mode, so the red line is kind of a darker gray that's hard to see. Also sometimes I kind of feel like Grammar is at times a sort of change with the person (another reason I think it's stupid that Grammar that changes depending where someone is from is on standardized tests). I am actually from Virginia, actually from a town they have never ever mentioned on the show and I'm not surprised, we're basically nobodies, so I speak with slightly southern slang but I don't have an explicitly southern accent, sometimes I'll slip into one, more so when I was younger but it comes out sometimes like if I say "southern", but Virginia is the most northern southern state, if I lived one state down, it's most likely I'd have a southern accent. (Like I say words like "Flordia" "Forest" and "Orange" with a kind "are" instead of "or" so I say these like "Fl-ar-da", "Far-rest", "Ar-enge".) But the point of the that was, because of that I've kind of gotten into the habit in not checking when the red dot appears beside a paragraph in Tumblr but I'm adding these to Archive of Our Own which actually shows the red line under the word that's flagged as incorrect.*

*Hotch gifs are from @lihiominaa*

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