Garcia's cookies were still warm when she placed them on the conference table.
"Homemade fuel for the brain trust," she announced, beaming at the assembled team. "Chocolate chip. My grandmother's recipe. Scientifically proven to improve profiling accuracy by at least twelve percent."
"That's not how science works," Reid said, but he took two anyway.
I grabbed one myself, letting the sweetness ground me in the moment. Normal. Ordinary. Just a team starting their morning with sugar and caffeine while crime scene photos loaded on the screen behind JJ.
Except nothing about me was ordinary anymore.
The dinner with Elle had happened three nights ago. We'd talked for hours—about work, about us, about the careful dance of maintaining professional distance while something deeper grew underneath. She hadn't pressed about the changes she'd noticed in me, and I hadn't volunteered explanations. Some things were better left unspoken.
But the changes were real.
[ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS: ACTIVE]
[THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL — CONFERENCE ROOM SECURE]
[TEAM STRESS INDICATORS: ELEVATED (NEW CASE ANTICIPATION)]
Phase 2 hummed constantly now—a background process that never fully shut down. I could feel the conference room's dimensions without looking, sense the positioning of every team member, read micro-expressions that would have been invisible to me months ago.
Keep it controlled. Don't let it control you.
"Philadelphia," JJ began, clicking to the first slide. "Three victims in forty-eight hours. No apparent connection between them—different ages, different backgrounds, different neighborhoods."
The crime scene photos appeared. A woman in her thirties, found in an alley. A man in his fifties, discovered in a parking garage. A college-age student, killed near a subway entrance.
[PATTERN RECOGNITION: ACTIVATING]
[ANALYZING VICTIM LOCATIONS...]
[GEOGRAPHICAL CORRELATION DETECTED: ALL VICTIMS' DAILY COMMUTE PATHS INTERSECT AT SINGLE POINT]
[FOCUS: -3]
The pattern crystallized in my mind like frost on glass. The three victims had nothing in common except geography—their morning routines all passed through the same intersection at roughly the same time.
Wait. Don't show it yet.
I forced myself to sit back, to look contemplative rather than certain. Reid was already pulling up maps on his tablet, running the same analysis through traditional methods.
"The kill sites are spread across different districts," Morgan observed. "No clear hunting ground."
"Unless the hunting ground isn't where he kills," Gideon said quietly. "It's where he selects."
I let two minutes pass before speaking.
"What if we map their commute routes instead of just the murder locations? If the victims were strangers, the unsub had to find them somewhere. Public space, regular schedule, predictable behavior."
Reid's fingers flew across his tablet.
"I can run that analysis. If their daily patterns intersect anywhere..." He trailed off, lost in data. Thirty seconds later: "There. One intersection—Market and Twelfth. All three victims passed through within a fifteen-minute window every weekday morning."
"That's his hunting ground," Hotch said. "He watches them there, selects them, follows them to isolated locations."
The briefing continued, but I was acutely aware of Gideon's attention. He'd been watching me more than the presentation—those paper-colored eyes cataloguing every reaction, every moment of stillness.
After the meeting broke up, he caught me in the elevator.
"You seemed very certain about that geographical angle." His voice was casual, but his eyes weren't. "Very certain."
"Pattern recognition," I said. "I've been reviewing cold cases in my off-hours. You start to see how victims intersect even when they seem random."
"Cold case review." Gideon nodded slowly. "Useful hobby."
"You recommended it yourself, sir. Back when I first joined."
A flicker of something crossed his face—acknowledgment, maybe, or the recognition of being outmaneuvered.
"So I did."
The elevator doors opened. Gideon stepped out without another word.
[SOCIAL INTERACTION: CAUTIONARY]
[GIDEON SUSPICION LEVEL: ELEVATED]
[RECOMMENDATION: REDUCE VISIBLE ABILITY DEMONSTRATION]
I know. I'm working on it.
The jet took off at noon, carrying us toward Philadelphia and whatever monster was hunting commuters at Market and Twelfth.
I sat in the back, case files open on my lap, using the flight time to practice control. Phase 2 abilities wanted to be active constantly—Pattern Recognition trying to analyze every conversation I overheard, Environmental Awareness mapping the jet's interior in unnecessary detail, Lie Detection pinging whenever someone spoke.
Leash it. You're not a machine. You're a person with tools.
Morgan dropped into the seat across from me.
"You good?"
"Fine. Why?"
"You've got that thousand-yard stare going. The one that says you're thinking about three things at once."
"Just running scenarios for the case."
"Uh-huh." Morgan studied me with the casual intensity of a fellow predator recognizing the hunt in someone else's eyes. "The geographical thing—that was good work. Reid said the probability of spotting that pattern without data analysis was less than fifteen percent."
"I got lucky."
"You've been getting lucky a lot lately." Morgan's tone was light, but his eyes were sharp. "Marsh in Seattle. Webb in Fredericksburg. Now this. Starting to think luck isn't the right word."
"What word would you use?"
"Instinct. The kind that takes most people decades to develop." He leaned back. "I'm not complaining, mind you. Results are results. Just curious where it comes from."
[TELL DETECTION: ACTIVE]
[MORGAN — GENUINELY CURIOUS, NOT SUSPICIOUS]
[UNDERLYING EMOTION: RESPECT]
"CID," I said. "Three years of tracking killers in places where the rules didn't apply. You learn to see patterns fast or you don't come home."
Morgan nodded slowly.
"That tracks. War changes people." He stood, clapped my shoulder. "Just don't let it change you too much. The job needs humans, not machines."
He walked away before I could respond.
Elle caught my eye from across the cabin. A small nod—checking in. I nodded back.
Humans, not machines.
I'm trying, Morgan. I'm trying.
Philadelphia's skyline emerged through the clouds as we descended. Gray towers against gray sky, a city built on history and reinvented for commerce. Somewhere down there, a killer was selecting his next victim.
[PHASE 2 STATUS: OPTIMAL]
[ALL ABILITIES: READY]
[DREAD METER: 5/100]
The hunt was waiting.
I just had to make sure I remained the hunter instead of becoming something else entirely.
To supporting Me in Pateron .
with exclusive access to more chapters (based on tiers more chapters for each tiers) on my Patreon, you get more chapters if you ask for more (in few days), plus new fanfic every week! Your support starting at just $6/month helps me keep crafting the stories you love across epic universes .
By joining, you're not just getting more chapters—you're helping me bring new worlds, twists, and adventures to life. Every pledge makes a huge difference!
👉 Join now at patreon.com/TheFinex5 and start reading today!