'reflections'
act one.

chapter thirteen: the rush of blood

"i get this anxious feeling, but it goes away for a minute when im with you breathing."
-cry baby, the neighborhood

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YOU:

The box was black, paired with a simple was a nice, elegant touch. The present itself was black and sleek, unsuspecting. You smirked as you gently laid it in the tissue. You placed the lid on the box, using your best scissors you cut a simple yet gorgeous silk ribbon, fastening it to to the package at once.

The ribbon was special, just like the girl was. You'd seen her, you'd interacted with her on plenty of different occasions.

No, you thought as you ran your thickly gloved hand along the present's edge. You don't have to call her the girl, not anymore, at least.

You've seen her, you have watched her for that matter. You're positive, no more copies, or phony imitations. It was time for her to know you like how you knew her mother. You placed the card across the package. You scrawl her name across the top of the package, each letter was carefully thought out, a labor of love.

C-A-S-S-I-E.

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WANTING TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS CASE WAS EATING VIENNA ALIVE. She laid on Sloane's bed, her legs draped over Sloane's as they both read various books. Vienna was reading The Hunger Games in French. It was her favorite book, so she had practically the entire novel memorized. She was trying to learn French, and she figured that reading an entire book in the language would help her understand it better. That, and she wanted to forget about the current case, and her longing to know more.

Sloane was reading-no-she was doing math. And Cassie was on her own bed reading her mother's case, it seemed as if it was also haunting her, probably worse than it was Vienna.

Suddenly, another figure materialized in the doorway, and it was none other than Lia. Her dark eyes were trained on Cassie, as she spoke. "You've got mail." She says, causing the redhead girl to peel her eyes from the case file.

"What?" She sat up at once.

"Yes, and I took the liberty of opening it for you. there is indeed a box within a box."

Cassie furrows her brows at this. "Who's it from?"

At this, Lia merely shrugs. "It's in the kitchen, come along." She motioned for Cassie to follow her. And of course, being as nosy as they are, Sloane and Vienna of course followed the two of them from the bedroom to the kitchen.

When they reached the kitchen, Cassie crossed the room at once, looking at the strikingly dark box and card with her name written in bold letters across the top of a card.

"Mmm, someone's got a secret admirer, perhaps?" Vienna perches on the counter, crossing her feet together at the ankles.

Cassie gives her a look as she looks back at the cursive writing.

"Since it wasn't any of us, maybe it's Michael or Dean?"

Cassie shook her head, along with Vienna, who spoke first. "No, Michael wouldn't-"

"I wouldn't what?" Michael walked into the kitchen as if on cue, leaning against the counter upon which Vienna sat. His eyes wander from Vienna to the package on the counter. "Who's got a package?" He asks curiously.

"Cassie. And Lia thought maybe you sent it." Vienna answers.

"Mmm, not from me, Colorado." He mumbles, looking to Cassie.

Vienna averts her eyes from Michael and his... face, and looks back to the box. It was matte black, the box and lid perfectly aligned and matched with one another as if they were two pieces of one perfect puzzle.  A black ribbon was wrapped around the box not once, but twice, which formed a nice cross shape on the front of the box.

"You didn't send this?" Lia asks, looking to the brunette boy.

"No, honestly. I wouldn't send someone who lives in my house a gift."michael confirms.

Michael didn't send it, neither did Lia. Vienna didn't send it, and Dean wasn't the gift-giving type.

"Nobody in my family would send a package wrapped with silk ribbon to me...." Cassie says aloud.

"You sent this." Cassie looks to Vienna, who threw her hands up in the air to show innocence.

"Did not. I love a good joke, not this though."

"Yeah, Vienna isn't the silk ribbon type either." Michael looks to the girl, who glares at him in return.

Lia reaches for the card atop the package, and Cassie attempts to swat her hand away. "Don't-" but her comment fell on deaf ears.

She plucked the crisp white envelope from where it rested on the package, and cleared her throat. "From me, to you." she arched her brow as she read the very short message. "How romantic."

A chill ran down Vienna's spine. something about that letter, though short, felt off.

"something isn't right." she murmurs.

everyone present looked at her, some with more concern than others. "Yeah...:" Cassie agrees, eyes scanning the parcel in front of them.

"Well." Michael speaks up, eyes flickering from Vienna, to Cassie, and to the box. "Open it?"

Cassie glanced to Vienna, who nods with only a bit of uncertainty. She looked to Lia, who, for the first time in a very long time, didn't have anything to fire back. Everyone was looking at Cassie, so, she trained her eyes on the box.

She brought her hands gently to the box, tugging ever-so slightly on the ribbon. As she pulled, the ribbon fell in a graceful black heap upon the crisp white kitchen counter.

She hooked her fingers around the box's snug lid. It was clinging tightly to the box, so she had to shimmy the lid back and forth a few times in order for it to loosen only a bit.

White tissue paper, folded in a neat meticulous fashion laid inside.

"What is it?" Lia asks.

Cassie avoids her question, continuing to unwrap the tissue paper, staring at the box as if it was the only thing in the world.

Besides Lia's unanswered question, the whole kitchen was silent. As Cassie unraveled the paper, everything else hung in the balance.

It was so quiet you could hear a hairpin drop, that is, until Cassie screamed.

She pulled her hand out of the box, and Vienna looked at what was nestled within the tissue paper.

Nestled within the box, sat a single lock of red hair.

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IT TOOK AGENT BRIGGS an hour to get to the house after receiving a panicked phone call regarding the hair being sent to Cassie. Though, it only took him only five seconds to get from the front door and into the kitchen. 

"Still think i'm jumping to conclusions about this being tied to my mother?" Cassie looks at the rather stressed out agent. He ignored her questions and began to bark orders at the other team of agents accompanying him.

"Bag the packaging, box, ribbon, all of it. if theres even a bit of evidence, we have to know. Starmans, track the box. how it was shipped, where it was mailed from, who paid for it. Brooks, Vance, we need a DNA match on the hair, and we needed it yesterday. I don't care who you have to threaten in the lab, just get it done. Locke..."

Agent Locke, arms crossed over her chest, gave Briggs a look of disapproval. He then lowered his voice to a more appropriate volume. "If this is our UNSUB, it changes everything. we don't know if he's ever made contact with a victim prior to the killings.This may be our chance to get ahead of him."

"It's red hair, for all we know it could be a prank." Locke's eyes shift to Lia when she uttered the word prank.

Everyone turned to look at Lia, she was a human lie detector after all, maybe she did prank everyone this time.

"This is a bit much, even for me, Agent Locke." The girl tosses her black hair over her shoulder.

"Alright." Briggs accepts. "Tell me again how you found the package Lia?"

"I went to get the mail, I saw that Cassie had gotten a package with her name on it. I opened it, and saw the black box inside. I brought Cassie downstairs, Vienna and Sloane followed, of course. And Michael came in, Cassie opened said box, then we called you in a panic. The end."

Briggs turns to Locke once again. "If the DNA comes back as a match to one of the victims, we have to rewrite the entire profile, if it doesn't..." he glanced back to Lia for a moment.

"Why does everyone keep looking at me?" Lia accuses. "If you want to talk to someone about the case, talk to Cassie and Vienna!"

"Why me?" Cassie asks, though everyone present knew the answer.

"Why me?" Vienna echoes Cassie.

"I'm just saying, you both wanted to be involved in this case so bad, and then the killer contacts Cassie out of the blue. Isn't this what you both wanted?"

Vienna gives Lia a dirty look. Did she really understand the severity of the words she had just spoken? Of course she wanted to be involved in the this case, she usually did. But now the stakes were higher than ever before. And Cassie was in danger, neither of them had ever wanted that.

"Lia, seriously?" She looks to the girl.

"Just saying." Lia shrugs.

"Vienna didn't do this." Michael defends, throwing daggers at Lia with his eyes.

"Cassie wouldn't do this either." Nobody had noticed Dean standing in the corner of the room until he spoke up. "She's not the type to play games, especially with this case. The only reason she wanted to get involved in the first place was because she thought it was tied to her mother's murder. Why would she divert manpower away from the case at hand with a useless prank? Now, if this is a prank, it's a stupid one that's going to result in somebody dying."

Vienna smiles at Dean defending Cassie. She then looked to the redhead girl next to her, and it was as of the knot in her chest physically loosen as she looked at Dean.

"Dean's right." Locke nods.

Briggs runs an anxious hand through his hair. "Cassie, did you or did you not drop this case when I told you to? Vienna too. We need to know if you did anything to attract the killer's attention. Any detail can be crucial, especially since the killer knows where Cassie lives."

"No, all I did was read the case file-" Vienna starts.

Cassie shook her head, though she was seemingly speechless. Dean intervened again. "All Cassie did was give me a copy of the case file. I read it, profiled it, I think cassie's right about this."

"You've never seen the Lorelai Hobbes case." Briggs says, finally dropping his hand from his hair back to his side once again.

"I did see Cassie's mother's photo. i know that she looks like the victims."

Vienna shakes her head. "No, the victims look like her. I read the case also, and for what it's worth, i think Cassie's right too. I'm not as good of a profiler as she and Dean are, but I think that it's connected, I really do."

"You're still not working this case, Vienna." Briggs says sharply. "None of you are authorized to do so." he then looks to Dean and Cassie as well.

"We know."

"I am going to pretend this conversation never happened."

"Liar." Lia spits.

"You may leave the room now, Lia."

"Oh Mother may I?" Lia clasps her hands together in a mock-plea.

Dean made a chocking sound, which Vienna was pretty sure was his attempt at stifling a laugh.

"Now, Lia." briggs prompts.

After a moment, and one glare that was aimed at everyone in the room, Lia left the room. Once he was sure she was gone, Briggs turns back to Agent Locke. "do you think that this case is tied to the Lorelai Hobbes case?"

Locke scanned the room anxiously, making brief eye contact with Cassie and locks eyes with Vienna for a moment.

"I don't think it matters whether they're tied. Cassie has red hair, so do the victims. But she is a bit younger than the other victims. and more importantly, this UNSUB is escalating. If we're assuming that the last victim's hair was dyed red as a message, he's playing with us. that means that he's watching us." Locke plays with her hands, almost anxiously so.

"If he's watching us, maybe he followed us here, and saw Cassie." Locke looks at the redhead girl carefully.

Briggs's phone rings before he can reply to Locke. And by the time he had hung up, Vienna  already suspected what the call had been about.

"We've got another body."  

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YOU:

The FBI agents scurry around your precious crime scene like a group of flailing ants.

This corpse wasn't your best work, by any means. you used scissors rather than your precious knife. But that wasn't the point. the only thing that mattered was the gift you had sent to Cassandra Hobbes.

The lifeless pathetic slut lying on the pavement was only one minor bit of your plan.

Did you scream when you opened the box, Cassie? did you think of me?

And that pathetic little Vienna, so smart yet so dumb. she has not caught wind of any foul play, yet that was how you liked it.

So much, you wished for the truth to come out.

The world wouldn't ever understand the inner-workings of your brain. The FBI couldn't ever decode your mind.

They'll never know how close you truly are.

No matter how much you longed to hurt Cassie, and even Vienna for that matter, they would never measure up to precious Lorelai Hobbes.

Soon they'd know the truth. Though you couldn't get to her mother in time, Cassie was her mother's daughter, and that was as close as you would ever get.

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cam's notes!

i loved writing this chapter, and i've been looking forward to it, so i hope you enjoyed!

we're getting so close to everyone finding out the truth!

qotd: what is your favorite christmas movie? mine is elf!

see you in the next chapter my loves!'