❝The rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but, having fallen, it was blood.❞

EDGAR ALLAN POE

✩

3.0 : midnight

(tw: death)

FIN STARES INTO THE BATHROOM MIRROR, HAUNTED BY WHAT SHE SEES. The woman staring back is pale, teartracks staining her face, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. But there is a little girl there too, one who remembers better than Fin what pain feels like. The little girl's scars haven't faded yet: They are red and ugly and raised up above everything else. She is not innocent anymore, but she yearns to be. And so does Fin.

 Penelope has still found nothing on her database of cameras, and Spencer's working on a geographical profile, canvassing abandoned warehouses and properties in Esther's comfort zone, hoping to find something viable, somewhere they can look. They are all in the conference room, and Fin is sure they are talking about what happens if they can't find Esther. What happens if Fin does something stupid.

It is just past eleven-thirty. They are down to half an hour. Fin turns the cold water on with a shaking hand and splashes her face, hoping that somehow this will make her think clearly. She feels so powerless, and feeling powerless makes her angry. And anger makes her an asshole.

She yelled at Penelope. She pushed Spencer away. They should not forgive her. They should make her pay for her sins.

That is what Esther would say.

But she refuses to let Esther conquer her. 

So Fin dries her face with a paper towel and leaves the bathroom, heading back into the bullpen. It is entirely empty, the only light coming from the conference room windows, where she can see the entire team around the table. Spencer is staring at the map on the evidence board, Penelope is bent over her laptop, and the others are talking, all looking concerned.

Fin walks over to her desk and opens the drawer, pulling out Esther's file, the one with the photocopies of the letters she wrote in prison and all of her Internet history. Maybe, just maybe, reading it for the thousandth time will reveal something new. It is a hopeless task, but Fin has to find hope somewhere.

She glances over at Spencer's desk, out of habit mostly, and notices his phone lying there. Spencer has a nasty habit of leaving his phone everywhere, which is odd, considering the fact that he never forgets anything. Fin thinks perhaps it's not that he forgets it, it's that he doesn't consider it important enough to remember short-term.

Even so, she shoves it into the front pocket of her jeans. She'll give it to him when she goes back into the conference room.

Adjusting the hefty file in her arm, Fin pats her back right pocket, again out of habit, just to check if her own phone is there. She is not forgetful like Spencer, but perhaps it's because she checks so often. Very rarely does she lose it.

But today is one of those rare occasions where her pocket is empty.

"Shit." Fin closes her eyes, racking her brain for the places her phone could be. She doesn't remember having it in the bathroom or even before that...

And then it comes to her: She texted Blair and Ethan on the way back from Lars's safe house. She must've left her phone on the seat or something.

So Fin drops the file onto her desk, runs her hand through her hair, and heads toward the BAU doors. She resists the voice aching to whisper stupid stupid stupid stupid in her mind. There's too much of that already.

Blair and Ethan should be here any minute. Fin didn't tell them everything over text, but she couldn't bear to hear their voices over the phone. She was afraid they'd tell her the same things she was thinking: that it was obvious, that she should have seen it. But Hotch will brief them.

Not that it matters. They have twenty minutes.

The elevator dings softly, opening onto the ground floor. There is a single security guard sitting in the lobby, and Fin waves to him before heading out into the parking lot. All the government-issue SUVs look the same, but Fin thinks she remembers where Morgan parked.

It's raining lightly as Fin walks all the way down to the corner, spots the SUV they took, and pulls open the passenger door. Sure enough, there is her phone, sitting on the seat of the car. She's not sure how she forgot about it, but then again, she's been through a lot the past few hours.

Fin opens her messages and sees that Ethan responded half an hour ago: On my way. Don't do anything stupid. Blair's w/me. Brief when we arrive.

If she were not sick to her stomach with worry, Fin would be offended at Ethan saying "Don't do anything stupid", but at the moment, she doesn't really give a damn.

"Fin."

Fin's hand flies to her gun. She whips around, ready to fire, ready to run–

But it's not Esther.

It's Adrian Bauer.

Fin's shoulders drop in relief. "Oh, thank God, Adrian–"

She was going to say, "You're alright," but he doesn't look alright. His suit jacket is torn in several places, his pants are dirty, his hair is falling in his eyes, and he looks pale and sweaty, as if he might vomit.

"Did you get away?" Fin's heart immediately jumpstarts into action, pounding double-time in her chest. "Is my sister okay?"

Bauer swallows hard. "Yeah, she–she's fine."

"You left without her?" Fin's confused, wondering why he's standing here and Lars is not. Why she's still with that monster.

"I'm so sorry, Fin," he whispers. "But she said she knew where–where my girlfriend lives, and if I didn't do this, she'd kill her."

And he pushes his jacket back a little, so she can see his shaking hand resting on his gun.

The wheels in Fin's brain are beginning to turn the right way. "Adrian–"

"Melissa's pregnant," Bauer says, almost sobbing now. "Please, I have to keep them safe. Please."

Fin refuses to let more people die for her. She must take responsibility for her actions.

So she inhales slowly. Nods. "What do you need me to do?"

"Leave your phone and your gun on the ground. Then–then get in the back of that SUV and lay down until we stop."

"Okay. I'm gonna do that really slowly." Fin raises her left hand in the air, while reaching for her gun slowly with her right. She unfastens her entire holster and lays it on the asphalt at her feet, then pulls her phone from her back pocket, making eye contact with Bauer as she does it.

As she bends down to put her phone next to her holster, something hard and rectangular presses into her hip. And Fin remembers: Spencer's phone.

Esther wants her unarmed and untrackable. She wouldn't be expecting Fin to have two phones. And Bauer's terrified, and this makes him likely to make mistakes.

Fin just has to make sure that Esther doesn't find out. That way, Bauer won't be punished for it.

She stands back up, hoping that the darkness conceals the phone in her front pocket and the lie on her face. "Okay. In the back seat?"

Bauer nods. He watches as she opens the back door and climbs into the SUV, then shuts the door behind her.

Fin presses her cheek against the floorboard, feeling her heart hammering against her ribs, her hands shaking violently. The drivers' door shuts and the engine rumbles to life.

As Bauer pulls out of the parking lot, Fin raises up slightly and says, "Adrian, I'm so sorry about this. It's all my fault."

He doesn't respond, but Fin knows exactly how he feels.

"I can promise you that she won't hurt Melissa. But I need your help."

There's a pause, a pause that Fin hopes means that Bauer is considering this.

But then he whispers, "I can't. I can't risk it. Now lay down."

So Fin curls up on the floor once again, her heart sinking, and when she's sure that Bauer's not paying attention, she pulls Spencer's phone from her pocket and tucks it into the waistband of her jeans, adjusting her shirt until she's sure that it's fully hidden.

All that's left for her to do is pray. Pray that someone notices she's gone. That someone realizes she has Spencer's phone.

And that they do all of this before it's too late.

Because as hopeful as Fin is, she knows that Esther is not patient. Nor is she forgiving. There could be three more bodies by dawn if she is not careful.

It is all on Fin's shoulders.

Lying down in front of the seats, there is no air flow, no visibility, and the combination of fear and winding Virginia roads makes Fin extremely nauseous.

After a few minutes, she lifts her head up again. "Adrian, I'm getting carsick. Can I sit up?"

Another long pause. Then: "Do–do you think you're gonna throw up?"

"Adrian, there's no way for anyone to track me." Liar. "There's no way for me to tell anyone the way to wherever we're going. What good will it do you to make me puke back here for no reason?"

Bauer sighs. "Alright, I guess so. But–but lay back down when I tell you to, I don't want her to think I messed up."

Fin climbs stiffly up from the floor, sitting in the middle seat and staring forward at the road, the only thing visible in the darkness of the northern Virginia countryside. They are surrounded on all sides by trees and cornfields. Even if she were trying to map the way there, it would be nearly impossible.

"Adrian, I'm going to get her," she says quietly after a little while. "Even if you don't help me, she's not going to win. I swear to you that she's not making it out of this place alive."

"Just promise me that whatever happens, Melissa's gonna be okay," Bauer whispers.

"I promise." And Fin means it. This is a promise she will not break.

They sit in silence, the only sound that of the trees outside swaying in the wind and the low rumble of the engine. Fin does not know Bauer very well; she's only met him twice, and their conversations were brief and work-related. But in this moment, he is her closest ally, and she is his fiercest protector.

And then the road turns to gravel, and Bauer takes a sharp turn left. "Lay down," he says suddenly, and Fin moves back down onto the floor, her heart rate spiking again as the SUV rolls to a stop. She prays once again that someone will notice she's gone, that Spencer will notice his phone missing, that Penelope will think to track it–

The door opens and a hand reaches in to pull her out. Her feet land on grass and she stares up at a large barn, surrounded on all sides by trees and overgrown weeds. It has clearly not been taken care of in quite some time: One of the front doors is missing, and there is a pile of splintered and rotting wood along one side.

Bauer pushes her forward, toward the barn. "Go on."

In the back of Fin's mind, a little voice says the thing she has been trying not to think: What if this is where you die?

So Fin forces herself to think of Spencer. Of his cologne, apple and vanilla. The way he always tastes of coffee. The way his arms feel around her. The way his lips feel on her neck.

The way she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, no matter what it takes.

And she thinks of the team. Of her family. The people she would do anything for. The people she would die for.

She thinks of Jorge and Juana Vasquez. Of Nick. Of Mrs. Wu. The innocent people Esther has killed to get to her. The blood on her hands.

This ends now.

Fin uses these thoughts to strengthen herself. These are the things she has to live for. It is hard to die for things you love, but so much harder to live for them.

She climbs a staircase at the back of the barn, Bauer right behind her, strangely calm as she walks toward death, hope pressing against her stomach, smooth and firm. It smells sickeningly of mildew and hay and rot, the heat and the still air making her feel closed in, trapped.

It is almost entirely dark at the top of the stairs, except for a small hole in the roof, which lets in a little moonlight, illuminating a figure tied to a chair, bent over and shaking with dry sobs. Her red hair is matted with blood and her right ankle is bent oddly, and Fin freezes in place, forgetting for a moment what she's doing here, what her plan is. All she can think about is her sister.

"Lars!"

Lars' head jerks up and her eyes, bloodshot and red-rimmed, widen. "Fin."

Fin lunges forward to hold her sister, to keep her safe, dropping to her knees in front of the chair, but Lars shakes her head fervently. "No, no, don't, she's–"

But she is interrupted by a cool voice, a familiar voice, one Fin has not heard for fourteen years. And unlike Fin, this voice has not changed. It is still the same Mississippi drawl, the same slow cadence, the same tone that made Hazel Cameron shrink away in fear all those years ago.

"Well done, Adrian. I half figured you'd take off and forget about me."

"You–you said if I did what you asked, then Melissa would be safe," Bauer says, his voice trembling.

"I did say that, didn't I? 'Spose I have to keep my end of the deal, now that you kept yours. Give me your gun."

Fin does not move. She stays on the floor, her knees digging into the splintering, rotting wood, listening as Bauer unholsters his gun.

"Good. Now we can begin."

Fin knows without a doubt it is midnight. It is August 27.

And then there is an ear-splitting BANG and Lars screams.

~

........

welp.

i did warn y'all. but since the next few chapters are seriously intense, i figured i'd give you this one early. 

this feels like the *wrong* time, but i just made a big announcement post on my profile, so head to the "conversations" tab and check that out for a chance to read an exclusive chapter of an upcoming fic of your choice :) think of it as an "i'm sorry" for this chapter