𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 — hostage

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 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐀'𝐒 𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐒𝐄 go-bag hung limply from her hand, swaying with each step she took through the station. Gideon was at her side, tossing his own to the ground beside a desk stacked with papers and a collection of coffee-stained mugs.

 Elle and Hotchner had been awaiting their arrival... It seemed that Elle Greenaway had her own delightful confrontation with their unsub; Mr. Walker. Though... Selena supposed it was less of a confrontation with Walker, and more of a mad dash away from his revving car as he sped away like a coward, leaving his wife in the dust.

 What a gem of a man he was.

 "So," Selena breathed, stashing her go-bag snug beneath a table to avoid tripping on it later when she decided the knowledge of its whereabouts was clogging her brain and decided to wipe such wisdom away. She planted her hands on her hips, attention on Elle, "Walker was forging coins?"

 Elle nodded as though still in a daze, "Son of a bitch was selling them off; high prices for fake dates... and then he ran over his wife —" Her eyes narrowed, lips curling in utter distaste as she imagined the many ways she could have planned for a better outcome but as Hotch had said; they simply hadn't known at the time, "I can't wait until we slap the cuffs on this guy."

 Selena hummed her agreeance even despite the churning of her stomach that always arrived when this part of a case arrived; this was the moment that decided the outcome of their efforts. Would Walker grow desperate and play his final move? Would he risk it all for a checkmate? Or would he quiver and quake until his shaking boots found the doorstep of the police as he held his arms out and awaited his punishment?

 Selena found that while the latter option was quite favourable, it so scarcely happened in their cases. She had only known the worst of the worst — kidnappers, rapists, bombers... those were the kind of people that made their most vile of plays in moments of desperation, not pitiful ones.

 Gideon skirted around a desk, swiping up a bottle of unopened water, as he twisted the cap he asked, "What do we know about Walker?"

 Selena felt her brow hike higher atop her forehead. It has been known that her tongue, while sometimes silver, was also flooded with venom — what she had wanted to say was 'We know that Walker is a coward who would much rather hit his wife with a car and blow people up than take accountability for the fact that the only way the miserable man could make money was by etching numbers onto coins', Of course, this bout of insults stilled on her tongue when Gideon shook his head, acting like the telepath he certainly could have been.

 Instead, the detective tailing them answered on her behalf, "He's a quiet career criminal. Spent four years in prison for a series of forged checks when he was in his early twenties..." The man trailed off, shaking his head as he caught a glimmer of the faces Selena, Reid and Elle had previously pinned to a board — the faces that Walker had decided to blow up all to ensure his own ass was covered. 

 The man hung his head for a moment, shoulders bunched in shame but there was nothing to be done. There wouldn't have been any tells, no questions that could have been asked because, unfortunately, Walker had kept himself quiet and out of the limelight, until everything started to go tits up, of course.

 The detective sucked in a hearty breath, air whistling by his teeth as he puffed out his chest all in the effort to coerce himself into swallowing any guilt and shame he still held. They might have had Walker's name — their bomber's identity — but they hadn't wrangled him yet. 

 He turned to face the rest of them, "He's now forty-six, and for the past eighteen years he's owned a store which sold coins, maps, and historical documents. We raided the place as soon as Agent Lucas gave us Walker's name..." The man scoffed, "Most of the inventory was fake, forgeries valued in the millions."

 "But the walls started to close in on him," Hotchner added, "We talked to some of his clients; he was in debt up to his ears and promising things he didn't have the time to forge."

 Selena watched as Gideon twisted on his feet, fingers plated upon his chin, rubbing at the greying stubble sprouting atop his skin, "So he had to shut her up?" He asked incredulously, hands flinging out as though that would, at all, help him understand how the hell one woman could have possibly been the catalyst to so much chaos, "He planted all of those bombs just to kill one little old lady?"

 "Let me guess," Selena drawled as she approached the board smothered in papers and information. She trailed an almond-shaped nail over the face of Barbara Keller, the one woman who had uncovered the truth, the one little old lady who had sniffed him out, "He did all of this," She flung a hand at the board, to their numerous victims, the images of a smouldering car and dilapidated home, "Just to throw us off; to make it look bigger than it ever actually was?"

 Phrased like a question, and yet Selena knew the answer well enough. She jabbed a stray red pin into the board, narrowly avoiding an article JJ had printed, "What a prick."

 Selena turned, finding her audience still surveying each of her movements, as though waiting to say something more... but her eyes, they sailed over Gideon's shoulders, widening enough to have her mentor twisting at break-neck speed.

 It only took a beat for shouting to erupt, for hands to fly towards police officer's belts — there, at the entrance of the station stood a lone man. Selena took note of the small lines by his eyes, scratching against his bronze and sweat-laden skin. The roots to his unkept black hair had traces of grey; he looked to be in his mid to late thirties... But that was hardly useful information.

 The man, despite the heat choking them all like a tightening noose, was swamped in an oversized black coat. The hems traced his calves, the sleeves hung loose over his hands... Selena cocked his head, his waistline didn't at all match the rest of him — his legs were thin and fit, his face structured and sharp, and yet his stomach was rotund and rather... lumpy.

 "Please..." He sobbed, finally making Selena aware that it wasn't just sweat dusting his cheeks, but a floodgate of tears. They tricked until droplets gathered at his chin, topping pitifully into his overcoat. His voice shook as he raised his hands to part his coat, "...Help me."

 Selena's eyes remained upon the man as a sob wracked his body, as the police officers surrounding them withdrew their guns, faces becoming taught as they yelled and cried for the man to leave.

 Selena approached, falling in line with Gideon as she surveyed the sight laid before them — here it was, Walker's final play. He, like so many others, did not fall into the pile of vicious little people that gave up after a glaring red arrow pointed at them and labelled them a criminal, no, Walker was one of the ones to move his final piece on the board.

 He'd wrapped a metal collar around this poor man's neck... one laden with scarlet wires as deep as blood, and blue wires as cold as ice. They trailed down his throat, slithering over his black shirt like a gaggle of vipers until Selena's eyes found the bomb strapped to his chest. It was obscenely easy to tell that it was one of Walker's, and by extensions, Bale's — there, glowing beneath the spotlight crafted by glinting pistols and beaded eyes was the telltale stamp of approval that both men gave their creations; steel reinforcement rods.

 "Everyone back, now!" Detective Morrison ordered, his own gun trained upon his target, not a single shiver wracking his fingers, "We need the bomb squad in here!"

 The man encased in wires slumped, his shoulders sinking as he sputtered, "Please..." He did his best to raise his hands, showing each of them his indented palms, "It's not me."

 "Do not come any closer! Put your hands up and slowly back out."

 Selena grimaced as the bomb flashed — a red light blinking like a set of eyes amidst the darkness of a nightmare. There wasn't a chance in hell that Walker, now likely aided by Bale, would allow his final play to fail. The chances were that he'd taken his place somewhere nearby with a rifle in hand, ready and waiting to detonate the bomb himself should his victim even try to scuttle free.

 Her thoughts were only confirmed when the man shook his head, snot trickling past his lips, saliva dribbling over his chin while tears caked his face like a mask, "I can't. He'll kill me!"

 "Who will?" Gideon asked, his voice no higher nor lower than if he were simply asking if the sky was blue. He mimicked the man, palms high in front of him.

 "I don't — I don't know. He held a gun on me," The man shook violently, eyes whipping to and fro as though he was a wild animal trapped in a cage. His eyes trained on the police offers, on Gideon and Hotch, then the board of faces behind them. For a second he looked to Selena... anywhere but the bomb weighing him down, "He put this on me. He said — he said that you'll know who he is."

 Selena registered the softness of Jason's voice as he took a tentative step forth, it was soothing, one he'd tried to use on herself numerous times — but while softness could soothe a terrified soul, it had done nothing for her back then, it had only aggravated her.

 "Well, what does he want?" Jason questioned the trembling man, eyes surveying every ounce of him for something that could possibly help — he came up empty, finding only mangled wires scaling him like veins.

 The man quivered, "A helicopter, a passport." The man swallowed, almost gulping down his own tongue. His eyes smeared over the ground until they were placed upon the very doors he'd crept through, "He's watching. Once he gets what he wants, he'll send instructions to defuse the bomb."

 No, he won't. Were the first words to pulsate through Selena's mind — Walker was a coward. He'd taken to blowing people up simply because he couldn't get what he wanted. He ran when his trail had been sniffed out — severely injuring his own damned wife — and now he was sending a snivelling and innocent man to deliver his message. Walker wasn't going to share any instructions, no he'd wait with a grin on his face as the entire street erupted in flames from the blast.

 Selena cocked her head to Morrison, eyeing the gun still clutched within his hands, "Walker is close by, watching, waiting. Get your people on the roofs; he's likely found a perch of sorts — high up, hidden, low traffic and with a perfect line of sight to this very station..." She cinched her eyes shut momentarily, words flowing like water from a broken tap, "In line of sight... A diner less than half a block away, a hotel right across the street.... No, no, no... too busy, to overpopulated, he's panicked and — A storage unit."

 Morrison took no convincing and no further explanations, he signalled to his people and within a few words spoken into a walkie, they were on their way.

 "Please," The man smothered in wires and metal pleaded. His eyes were flooded with tears, glistening over the dull yellow lights stationed above their heads, "Take it off."

 Selena took a step, bypassing Agent Hotchner who held out a hand, trying to keep her back — he was very obviously taking his job seriously, trying to keep his team safe... but Selena wasn't part of that team, she didn't need his protection nor his instruction. She ran with her gut, with logic and intuition above all.

 Perhaps she could have been gentle like Gideon, but Selena couldn't see how that would help the man rattling just ahead. She scoured the contraption clinging to his chest, "We'll have to figure out how it was built first —" With Morrison's instruction, his trusted bomb tech approached with a camera in hand, stealing pictures of every inch of the bomb from wires to collar; the man entangled within flinched with every click, "— If we can figure out how it's made, we can figure out how to take it apart, alright?"

 The man didn't offer any audible response as his adam's apple bobbed, his eyes slammed shut at the sound of the camera shutter, and tears trickled down his cheeks, gathering at the line of his jaw.

 He followed without a word when a gaggle of officers led him towards a saferoom at the far end of the station, but he did bring his gaze higher when the door was closed, and it was then that the man could see who had stayed with him. Before him were both Gideon and Selena, waiting without words as the glass room was left alone.

 Eyes pooled upon its walls, waiting with bated breath as though the bomb would splutter and explode at any moment.

 Selena remained silent as Gideon spoke to the man, maintaining that soothing tone he always plastered on to wade away his gruff demeanour. She couldn't offer the same comfort, but she could stare through the room, through the glass in which Hotchner and Greenaway were waiting. Hotch seemed to have forgone the art of blinking as he stood there, waiting for any word that the bomb could be torn apart like a bunch of legos... that, however, was not the case.

 Selena wasn't at all qualified to give her opinions on bombs and the like, she had never set her mind to understanding their mechanisms and inner workings, but even an idiot could easily tell what the glaring red numbers on the bomb had meant — a timer. If they could find a way to pull apart the bomb without dousing themselves in fire... well... it would come all the same just three hours later. It would be inevitable.

 Selena shifted her weight from one foot to the other as the bomb technician approached Gideon's team members. She couldn't hear his words as his lips barely moved, but from the way Elle dropped her head and walked away, and from the way the barest hint of remorse flooded Agent Hotzer's eyes, Selena knew. The twitch around his lips, the way he had swallowed carefully enough that his throat was barely disturbed — Hotchner was good at hiding his reactions, but not good enough.

 There was either no way to pry the bomb away from their victim, or they simply wouldn't have enough time to do so.

 Neither Gideon, who had also latched onto the way Hotch's face showed the barest micro expressions, nor Selena made a noise. Not a single peep of recognition was uttered, and their faces remained perfectly plain — crafted as to not allow a single shred of emotion through the cracks of their masks.

 Their only option was to find Walker.

 Selena Hayes had never been the one to back out of a plan; not when she knew a bomber was waiting just paces away, not when she knew that the entire storage building behind her could blow itself into a million cindered pieces within a second... She might have often been deemed the brains of the operation, but that didn't mean she couldn't be the brawn.

 Selena readjusted the navy FBI vest smothering her chest and abdomen, tightening the velcro until she was positive that a lack of oxygen would sooner kill her than the bomb Walker was likely clutching like a golden egg. She shifted in place, fingers reaching for the earpiece sitting uncomfortably in her right ear.

 Selena, Agent Hotchner and Agent Greenaway all stood stationed by the rusty old door, while SWAT were scattered and awaiting Hotchner's command. There was an odd twist to Selena's gut, and it was never one to which she'd ignore. This sensation was the one she'd been born with, the one she'd coddled and allowed to prosper with every year that had passed her by; her sense of danger. It was like a drug, like morphine pumping through the veins, numbing oneself to everything else around them.

 Something was... off. She'd known that from the moment they'd arrived. Hell, Selena had sensed it like a bloodhound even before she'd slipped out of the station. There was a question to be answered 'Why would Walker allow himself to be caught so damned easily?'

 He'd been cautious and quiet, he'd taken so many steps to ensure he'd come out on top... and now? Now Selena was supposed to believe that the man was simply waiting inside to negotiate? That was Hotchner's conclusion; that the man wanted an out, that he wanted to coerce them all into some kind of deal.

 But no. No that couldn't be it. It wasn't. If there was one word muddled within the dreary depths of an untouched dictionary that was never used to describe Selena Hayes, it was stupid. She could be rash, she could be reckless and angry, volatile, even... but never, ever stupid.

 This, however, was beyond dumb. Selena shook her head, planting a palm against the door that Agent Hotchner had moved to open. His fingers stilled upon the handle, eyes narrowed, lines beside them deepening with question.

 "Hayes?" Hotchner drawled in that baritone voice that would send anyone else scuttling at the mere thought of getting in his way. His lips were downturned just ever so slightly.

 "Wait."

 "We need —"

 "What we need is to wait. Shut up. I'm thinking."

 Selena could almost hear Agent Hotchner's eye twitching as she clamped her eyes shut, fingers at her temples as though she'd suddenly become a telepath capable of reading Walker's thoughts. She wasn't — a telepath, that is, but while she couldn't read his thoughts, she could certainly read his actions. He was no longer Walker; with what Doctor Reid and Garcia had sent through regarding Bale's recent escapades on the prison computers, it was clear that he was involved.

 He had to be feeding information, he had to have been telling Walker exactly how he had felt when everything had come crumbling down... If it wasn't Walker through that rusted door, if it was, in fact, Adrian Bale all over again... what would he do? Selena knew. Of course she knew. The whole point of acting like a damned infatuated idiot in front of him was to extort his ego and let his arrogance part his lips and spill all the information she needed.

 "When you said it would be too overwhelming to pass up the opportunity to press the button, did you mean that?" she had said to him back in that dreary little room, and his response was all she needed right now, it was her answer.

 'Yes.'

 If that were truly the case, — and Selena believed it to be the unfiltered truth — if it were Bale and not Walker behind the door, he wouldn't give up and give in. He'd sooner let his flesh burn and sizzle. He'd rather go down with his explosive ship than watch metal cuffs shroud his wrists once again.

 Bale, well, he was Walker's idol, wasn't he? And now the two were conversing like children whispering on a playground; passing information to and fro all to satisfy some desire buried within them. Walker was no longer making his own decisions, he was making Bales. He was no longer the puppeteer, but the puppet. They were not chasing Walker, they were chasing Bale.

 "He won't negotiate," Selena muttered, her fingers clasping around the door handle. The chilled metal sent a shiver down her spine, and her palms already itched from whatever unknown germs resided upon the dull surface, "He won't make a deal, he won't tell us how to deactivate the bomb."

 Elle was the one to approach, her fingers inched out as though to grasp Selena's shoulder, and yet they never did. She could recall Gideon's warnings to them all, the small burst of rules he'd told them all to follow when it came to his protege. No touching was the biggest of them, especially when her eyes couldn't follow the action. So instead, Elle cocked her head, tucking away her cropped hair, "How do you know?"

 "Back in the prison, I had some time alone with Bale." Selena let out a shallow breath, eyes leaving her fingers to instead drift between the agents at her side, "I acted as though I agreed with him when it came to Gideon — I said that he was wrong, that he let those agents die without a care simply because he wanted to solve the case. I said I didn't trust him with my life... It was enough for Bale to talk to me, properly. He said that if the situation ever arose again... He would press the button. He wouldn't be able to hold himself back."

 Hotch furrowed his brows. It was a sound argument but it wasn't exactly enough to go by. Bale could have been lying, riling them up. Before he could voice as much, Selena carried on.

 "He wasn't lying. He was comfortable with me. He leaned back in his chair, uncrossed his arms, made eye contact and smiled... He's been communicating with Walker for a while now and Walker idolises him. If Bale told him to bark, he would... if he said that it would be better to die and take as many people down with him, than to give himself up and rot in prison... I think — I know Walker would roll over and agree."

 "If you're wrong?"

 Selena scowled, and Elle couldn't help but grimace; it was the most emotion they'd seen settle on her face. Selena had drifted between stoicism and monotony, hardly smiling even as she teased Gideon, even as she joked with Spencer... Elle couldn't have imagined how something so cold could possibly gather upon such a pretty face.

 "Listen," Selena grit her teeth, words whistling between them, "I'm not arrogant enough to say I'm never wrong, but the statistics show that my calculations have a ninety-four point six percent chance of being right. I trust those odds, and I trust the information that has granted me this conclusion."

 "If we can't take Walker alive, we can't undo that bomb."

 "He might not tell us how to dismantle it anyway, but fine, let's follow your lead. Let's go inside and hear what he has to say... but the second I think he's going to press that button — and believe me, he will — I'm dragging the two of you out of there by your ears."

 Elle held up her hands, palms on display, "I'm with you."

 Hotch kept her gaze, noting the way her eyes had darkened with something more than determination; she really did believe that she was right. He couldn't argue, her logic was sound and evidence backed her up... but... but he didn't want her to be right. If she was, then there was no chance of getting that bomb out of the picture.

 "Gideon has only ever said good things about you," He said, "He trusts you, and I'm making the decision to do the same. We'll enter, just the three of us with SWAT standing by, if you think the situation will take a turn for the worse, give us the word."

 Selena blinked, entirely unacquainted with men in power agreeing with her. Gideon was the expectation, one of the only people she'd encountered who hadn't raised a brow at her words, or smirked and guffawed when she'd said her peace. It wasn't enough to ease the waves of nausea in her stomach, the very sensation that had her senses on high alert; would her word be enough? Would he really stick to his own?

 Selena felt her head dip, and then her fingers pressed down on the handle.

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DATE: 25/12/2023

:･ﾟ★ i am LOVING writing Selena, ngl <3

merry christmas to those who celebrate, and to those who don't... I hope this makes your day a little brighter <3

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