'reflections'
act one.

chapter fourteen: smart cookie

"she's never where she is, she's only inside her head."
- jane fitch

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AFTER TWO DAYS THAT FELT MORE LIKE TWO YEARS, THE HAIR FROM THE BOX CAME BACK FROM THE LAB.

Everyone had hoped this was just a harmless prank, and that they could just continue on with life as carefree as they could for being involved with the FBI.

As much as they tried to believe it, they all knew deep down that it was indeed not a prank.

Of course it wasn't.

The hair came back as a match for the UNSUB's latest victim.

"I'll accept gifts as a form of apology." Lia tells Locke. "anytime now is fine."

Locke said nothing. Everyone was in Briggs's study, though Sloane was nowhere to be seen.

Vienna had been anywhere but the present lately. She had been stuck in her own head, replaying every thought she had had about the UNSUB. after he made contact with Cassie, her entire perception of his MO had been skewed.

Why change now? Did you grow impatient? If all of the victims were stand-ins, does that make Cassie just a more important stand-in?

She racked her brain trying to come up with a logical reason as to why this could be happening, but she couldn't think.

You sent her a piece of hair. Vienna couldn't help but use her amateur profiling skills now. Did she scream when you cut it off? Did you use the scissors to cut her? Was it even about her at all, or did you have someone else in mind?

Vienna's view flickers to Cassie, who was stamping her foot on the ground anxiously. The same way Vienna does now, a nervous tick she had picked up years ago, she recalled doing it while in the waiting room after her father had died.

She looked scared, though she was attempting to hide behind a mask of cool. Vienna knows what that is like, after years of doing that very thing.

"Am I in danger?" She looks at Briggs.

"What do you think?" Locke interrupts, her voice sounding rather short. Vienna had noticed that she had been acting quite different lately, she had been more short than she usually is, and honestly kind of rude.

Vienna thought it was just due to lack of sleep or stress, but she seemed too out of character at this point, even under these stressful circumstances.

She thought it was strange that Locke was using this moment out of all the other opportunities as a teaching moment, but she couldn't object.

Briggs also seemingly agreed, judging by the look of shock in his normally cold and reserved eyes, but he let Cassie answer nonetheless.

"I think that the UNSUB wants to kill me, but he doesn't want me dead yet." Cassie answered after a moment of thinking.

Locke nods with a strange look of near satisfaction on her face.

"This is insane." Vienna finally says. "Cass, do you even hear yourself?" She makes brief eye contact with Michael who was sitting two chairs away from her. He picked up on her anxiety just by scanning her face for a moment.

"She's in shock." Michael continues. Vienna narrowed her eyes at him, giving him a scrutinizing look.

"not you, Vi." He adds.

"She is sitting right here." Cassie interjects. She didn't object to the rest of Michael's assessment on her current state though.

She sat with her thoughts for a moment, Vienna wondered if Cassie was aware that everyone present's eyes were glued on her. She had to be, right?

Vienna felt someone's eyes on her, she looked up, half expecting it to be Michael, but it was Locke.

Vienna looked at her for a moment, wondering if the agent would say something, anything, to her.

She didn't. She simply gave her a cold stare for what felt like hours but was merely a few seconds, then looked back to Cassie.

That was odd, to say the very least.

"You kill women." Cassie says aloud, she was clearly profiling the unsub. "Women who remind you of someone. Women with red hair. Then you see me, and for some reason, i'm different from the others. You never needed to talk to the others, you never needed them to go to sleep at night thinking about you, but for whatever reason, you needed me to do those things. You sent me a gift, maybe in an attempt to scare me. You wrapped the box with care,you wanted it to be special. And when you kill me, you need that to be special too." She turns to Dean. "Am I wrong?"

Dean considers this, then proceeds to profile as well. "I've been killing for a while now." he slips into the killer's mind as smooth as butter spreads on warm toast. Vienna was in shock that he was able to do such a thing at such ease, though the reason why he could do these things weren't as great as the abilities themselves. "And each time I kill, it's a bit less than the time before. I don't want to get caught, I like the risk, the thrill, the challenge." He closed his eyes for a minute, and when he opened them, he stared at Cassie as if they were the only two people in the room.

"You're right, Cassie."

No, not the only ones in the room, the only ones in the world.

"This is sick." Michael's voice rises at the end of his sentence as he looks to Dean. "There's a psycho out there with his mind set on Cassie, and you're both treating it like a game.

"It is a game, in a way." Dean replies.

Vienna could tell that Dean wasn't enjoying this. Getting into a killer's mind wasn't what he had chosen to do, she knew that much. It had been nothing more than a burden forced upon him from a very young age.

But Michael didn't get that, he only heard Dean's words. "You sick son of a-"

"Michael!" Vienna snaps, staring daggers into Michael.

Michael looks at Vienna briefly, as if deciding whether or not to continue insulting Dean. The look in Vienna's eyes were enough to get him to stop. Despite this, he  gave Dean an almost murderous stare.

"I never said it was a game to me." Dean clarifies.

"He's right. It's a game to the UNSUB, and i'm the prize." Cassie breaks her silence.

Vienna nods. though she wasn't as good of a profiler as Cassie and Dean were, she knew that in order to beat a killer, you have to think like one. "What are we going to do now?" She asks.

Briggs looks her sternly in the eye, pointing his forefinger at the girl. "You will not work this case anymore, do you understand?"

She nodded, swallowing the stress-induced lump that was now rising in her throat.

"None of you will for that matter." his eyes scan the group of teenagers. Vienna makes brief eye contact with Michael, and she can tell that even he wouldn't continue snooping around now. "Especially you, Cassie," The man's eyes land on the redhead, who nods quietly.

"I've now assigned a team to watch the house until this UNSUB is caught. I'll introduce you all to Agents Starmans, Vance, and Brookes shortly . From now on until this is resolved, none of you are to leave the premises, and Cassie is not to be left alone."

Vienna sighs, knowing that pulling rank on them wasn't going to get them closer to the unsub, but she knew that she just had to let it happen.

She wasn't an agent yet, so unfortunately, she had to do what they say rather than calling the shots.

"You should take me with you. if i'm what the unsub wants, we should use that. Like a trap or something?" Cassie offers,

"No!" Everyone present except for agent Locke says in unison.

Cassie stares at Locke. And for a  moment, Vienna thought  that maybe the woman was going to agree with Cassie's suggestion, but at the last moment, she bit her lip and shook her head.

"The UNSUB has only made contact once, and whether you're here or out with us, he'll try again. At least if you're here, we'll get the home court advantage."

Cassie nods, sighing just slightly.

"The unsub is breaking pattern," Locke reached up and touched her hand to Cassie's cheek. "It may sound scary, but this is good." her voice was calm and level, she had a knack for staying seemingly calm in stressful situations. "we know what he wants now, and we just have to keep him from getting it. The more freaked out he gets, the more likely he is to slip up." the agent finally drops her hand from Cassie's cheek.

"I can't just do nothing." Cassie mutters.

"You can do something. make a list of everyone you've spoken to, everyone you've met, place you've been, every person who has so much as looked at you since you arrived here."

"The unsub mailed the package." Lia reminds everyone present. "He doesn't necessarily have to be local."

Dean jams his hand into his pockets. "He'd want to see her though." his eyes flicker to Cassie, just for a moment.

"The package wasn't able to be tracked though." Michael adds.

"Yeah. Busy day, crowded post office, less than observant mailman. The unsub paid cash, and the return address is a fake. Sloane and I tracked the address yesterday, it's not real." Vienna cringes, looking at Briggs. She knew she wasn't supposed to be working the case, but she couldn't help herself.

Briggs didn't have a reaction, and Michael began  talking. "This guy is incredibly good, and he's playing with us,"

Vienna nods. "I wouldn't rule anything out,"

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FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS, Cassie could hardly go to the bathroom without somebody right on her heels.

It was a strange time. In the two years that Vienna had been in the program, they had never had anything like this happen. Briggs and Locke often kept their cases far, far away from the kids, but now clearly that was impossible.

Every time Vienna looked out the window, she saw the backs of the heads of the FBI agents carefully guarding the outside of their house, hoping and praying that the killer would try again.

It was weird, scary feeling. Vienna could only imagine how Cassie must feel.

Vienna swings her legs back and forth as she sat atop the counter, one of her favorite places to sit. Judd was in the kitchen fixing his latest favorite quick and easy lunch, a tuna sandwich.

Michael sat in the corner of the kitchen, reading over Judd's halfway finished crossword puzzle.

"Edible breakfast ring?" Michael scowls at the blank row on the sheet of paper. "Bagels, Judd. Come on."

Judd sighs, smashing the tuna to his bread with a small fork, which caused the intense fishy aroma to fill up the entire kitchen. "Should've known that one."

"Hogwarts mail-carrier?" Michael pursed his lips at the next blank column. "That's got to be a Harry Potter question, Vienna?"

"Owls." Vienna answered absentmindedly.

"Owls. That works, but makes absolutely no sense." He filled in the blank on the crossword.

"It's a book series about wizards who fly on brooms and go to a magical school. it's not exactly meant to be realistic."

Michael scoffs at her. "We're kids in the FBI. That's not realistic either, is it?"

Judd lets out a light chuckle. "That, my friend, is true."

"Judd, isn't it shocking that we've been in this program for years and this our first real life risk?" Vienna asks, looking at the greying man.

"Yes, quite lucky." The man bites into his sandwich.

"Well, as they say, there's always a first time for everything." Michael winks at Vienna, causing her to do a very dramatic eye-roll.

"This is no time for jokes, Michael."

"That was no joke, Prescott, it was a-"

"No sexual references either. Remember that Judd is here, you could give the poor old guy a heart attack." Vienna says.

"Hey!" Judd mumbled, mouthful of tuna and all.

Suddenly, Lia entered the kitchen. "My darling Vienna."

"Lia!" Vienna grins as her dark haired friend entered the kitchen.

"I've got just the distraction for Cassie, come on."

"Can I come?" Michael questions.

"Sorry, girls only." Lia crossed the kitchen and pulled Vienna from the kitchen counter by her arm.

"No fair." Michael grumbled as Lia and Vienna left the kitchen.

"What is it?"

"Nothing is quite as good a distraction as a makeover. And Cassie's been a bit...off, given the circumstances. I want to cheer her  up. I've got just the idea. Come on!"

They walk up the stairs, Vienna moving two steps at a time.

"Knock knock!" Lia announced as she entered Cassie and Sloane's room.

"What do you want?" Cassie was not in the mood to sugarcoat her words, clearly.

"Someone's feisty today." Lia observed. If looks could kill, Lia would most likely be dead on the floor, and Cassie would be on the stand for murder.

"I thought you could use a distraction." Lia grins, trying to break the ice

Vienna silently hoped that this time Lia's plans wouldnt be similar to the last time she'd 'given them a distraction'

Because last time Lia dictated their plans as a group, it had resulted in Cassie kissing Dean, and a strange tension between Michael and Vienna.

And now, Vienna had a strange pit in her stomach when she sees him. Sometimes as she's falling asleep, she recalls how he looked without his shirt on, sometimes she thinks about how soft his lips would be on hers-

'NO!' Vienna scolds herself. She cannot be having these thoughts, not now, or ever.

Lia tossed the small bag she was holding onto Cassie's bed, and she peered inside.

"Did you rob a cosmetic store?"

Lia shrugs. "I like makeup. And what says distraction like a makeover?" She sits across from Cassie on the bed, Vienna next to Sloane on the opposite bed.

Lia pulled a fresh tube of lipstick grim the bag, and twisted the base. "This is so your color, Cassie."

Vienna eyes the lipstick curiously. It was a dark color, in between brown and red, it was quite a sexy color.

"What do you think?" Lia asks.

"It's a bit dark." Cassie says.

"Mmm, I think it'll look great, just hold still." Lia reveals more of the lipstick as she twists the tube further and holds it to Cassie's lips.

"Sloane, tissue." Lia orders.

The girl hopped up, causing the bed Vienna was sitting on the shake just slightly. She retrieved a tissue from her and Cassie's shared dresser, and handed it to Lia.

"Now blot." Lia ordered Cassie, and she did just that.

Lia smirks in victory. "I knew this would be your color, look at her guys," She grasps Cassie by the shoulder, pulling her around to face Vienna and Sloane.

Cassie looked gorgeous, as usual. Her skin was not pale, but a stunning porcelain color, which was usually a packaged deal with redheads. The lip color was dark, yes, but it was a nice contrast against her skin.

"You look beautiful." Vienna grins, and Cassie nods in agreement.

Lia and Cassie walked to the mirror on the wall, and Cassie froze in place as she looked at herself. Het mood instantly shifted, and though it wasn't noticeable, Vienna picked up on it.

"Lia, where did you get this from?"

"What does it matter?" Lia asks.

"Can you just tell me where you got it from?" Cassie squeezed the tube of lipstick in her hand, a suddenly unsettled look present in her face. "Rose Red...."

"Yes, it's a popular color. Why does it matter?"

"Because it just does. Can you tell me?"

"Fine, I bought it from a store, with money. As a part of our capitalistic exchange. It's a gift, Cassie. Just say thank you and move on."

"Thank you." She murmurs.

"You're welcome. Now, if you'll excuse me, i've got to use the lady's room." Lia exits the room at once.

"Vienna?" She turns around, tears welling in her eyes.

Vienna stood up, crossing to Cassie, instantly gripping her hands in hers.

"What's wrong, Cass?"

"There's someone I remember who used this exact lipstick shade." She says, her voice uneven and shaky.

"Who's that?" Vienna rubs her hand along Cassie's arms in a soothing-like motion. She remembered her mother comforting her like that when she'd wake up with nightmares after the landslide that killed her father.

"My mother."

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YOU:

"Hold still."

The girl whimpers, her large eyes filling with tears as her bloody wrists pulls at the bindings which you had so carefully tied.

You backhand her, and she falls to the ground with a loud thud.

She's not Lorelai, she's not Cassie.

She's not even a proper imitation. But you had to do something, you have to show them, those stupid FBI agents, that they could never get between what truly is yours.

"Hold still." you repeat.

This time, the girl obeys.

But you don't kill her, you don't even hurt her, not yet.

Instead, you leave her on the floor and cross the room to your desk. You take out your pretty, lacy stationary, and you begin to write.

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"JUST BECAUSE I WATCHED one romcom with you doesn't mean I'm now your personal romcom buddy." Michael's dark hair flaps in the wind as he and Vienna exit the house to go to the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

"You've watched two in the last month with me, 10 Things I hate about you and How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days, just admit that you like them." Vienna retorts.

"No, I won't."

Vienna narrows her eyes at him.

"Fine, I like the ones with the number 10 in them."

"If you wanna stick to the number trend, we could go the 27 Dresses route." Vienna opens the mailbox, removing three letters.

They begin walking back to the house.

"Fine, maybe just one more."

"Romcoms are one of the most popular genres in movies, due to their universal appeal and feel-good factor. There are only 10-15 well-known romcoms with numbers in the name, which makes our watching pool very small if we're just going by numbers. They reached peak-popularity in the early 2000's, but now, they're seeing a decline due to Marvel movies, superhero's, and fantasy franchises."

"See, now we're talking. Superhero's, specifically Spiderman. Those are good movies." Michael hops in front of Vienna to open the door for her.

"Let's make a deal. I'll watch a Spiderman movie if you'll watch 27 dresses with me, alright?"

"Deal-" Michael cuts himself off as Vienna dumps the mail on the kitchen counter. "Vi, that one's for you."

She looked at the letter, and it did in fact have her name on it. It wasn't from Mabel, because she didn't have the address at which Vienna lived. It wouldn't be her mother or Ronan, because they'd just call or text rather than writing a letter.

"Christmas card?" Michael asks, a playful smirk on his face.

Vienna scowls at him as she runs her finger under the envelope's sticky part, cracking its tight seal. "It's October."

She opened it, and a pretty lacy piece of stationary fell out.

Vienna looked at it, and began to read its contents.

Her face went pale as she read it. She scanned it again.

"What? What is it?" Michael looked at her.

She didn't say anything.

"Vi!"

Nothing.

"Vienna Maeve Prescott, what is it?" Michael demands.

"I-It's from him."

Michael furrows his brow. "Who?"

"Him." She hands him the letter with shaking hands.

Michael's eyes fill with concern, and then fear as he read the words.

"Dearest Vienna,

I thought you were smarter than this, truly. I've made myself very clear, I thought this would be a fun riddle for you to solve, but clearly even you can't figure me out. I've been watching you for quite some time, and you are a smart cookie.

You are a caring girl, but you can't protect Cassie forever. I'll get to her soon enough, and you'll know the truth.

You're not as smart as you think you are, Vienna. Keep guessing, but I guarantee you will come up with an incorrect conclusion each time."

"Oh, God." Vienna covered her face with her hands, tears filling her eyes.

"Vienna, it's ok." Michael attempted to reassure her, though even he was freaked out.

"No, it's not. He's watching me too."

"He thinks it's a game, a game he wants you to solve Vienna. I swear we'll figure it out, you'll be fine."

Vienna shook her head. "No, he's right. I'm not as smart as I think I am. I'm losing it, and now-" Her voice breaks as a quiet sob tore through her throat.

"Hey, no, it's fine." Michael pulls his arms  around Vienna, pulling her into his chest. "You're going to be just fine, we'll figure this out." He runs a hand through her hair, holding her comfortingly close against his body.

"Everything is falling apart." she mutters, her voice breaking again. "And now-now this is-" her words were slurring into one another, and her sentences were hardly making any sort of sense.

"Hey, it's okay, sh, sh." Michael quiets her down, squeezing her impossibly closer to him.

Even with his comfort, she still couldn't deny the true fear  she felt, something that even being held like this couldn't help.

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cam's notes!

we're so so close to them finding out the truth omg.

i'm really proud of this chapter and the little addition of Vienna's letter at the end, lmk what you think :)

michael is such a sweetie i love him sm.

cassie and vienna are such babies, i love how vienna calls her cass 🥲

qotd: do you have a nickname? cam is actually my nickname!

see you in the next chapter, and I love you all so much!