Side by side || Emily Prentiss

12.

«you change the composition
of my heart and then you leave.»

It had been a week since Daisy had basically kicked Emily out of her apartment. The two women had gone back to not speaking to each other and their relationship was identical to the one they had in Daisy's first days of work.

Everyone understood that there was something wrong between the two women, but no one dared or wanted to ask what was happening. No one yet suspected everything that had actually happened and most of them were convinced that the two women hated each other because of Emily's too hostile position towards the newcomer.

Meanwhile, the two women had managed to calmly avoid each other for an entire week, until, that Monday morning, finally, a case appeared in their hands and everyone was called into the conference room to discuss it before leaving.

"My rays of sunshine, the next case will take you to Chicago. A series of cocaine overdoses is infecting the city and so far sixty people have already died in the course of three months." - Penelope announced when they were all seated around the round table

"Shouldn't my old team be taking care of this? Sounds like it has something to do with organized crime to me." - Daisy asked while reading the files

"Yeah, for you two of the three cases you collaborated on with this team shouldn't have been your responsibility." - Emily said furiously, but maintaining a stoic tone of voice

Daisy didn't even think it was right to give her enough importance to look up from the files she was reading. She didn't accept that the first words Emily spoke to her after a week were to spit shit at her and discredit her professionalism and her work.

However, none of the other profilers adopted her strategy. They all turned towards their boss in shock, not understanding the reason for so much hatred hidden in her voice: Emily could deceive anyone but not the people present in that room.

"That's what Chicago police thought until recently, but they found some strange similarities among some of the deceased that threw their theories to pieces." - Garcia said to ease the tension and to validate Daisy's intervention

"Many victims had never used drugs before that time. None of their friends and family had noticed strange changes in mood and personality before their deaths: nothing seems to point to an overdose death in many of these victims." - added JJ

"How much has the rate of cocaine use increased? Do we have data on other accidents caused by people taking it?" - asked Daisy

Drugs were definitely her strength, not only did she know them perfectly scientifically and professionally, but also personally. Daisy was sure that she was one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about drugs.

"That's the other strange thing, the incidents you're talking about haven't increased in any way." - said Penelope showing a statistic of those data from the last two months compared to the months before the start of the drug epidemic in Chicago.

"All these deceased are mostly young people, almost all under the age of thirty-five, with the exception of a few. It could be a sign of clear victimology." - Tara intervened

"But how do we explain the fact that some victims do not fall into this category?" - Luke asked

"Because drugs exist outside of this situation and dying of a cocaine overdose in a city like Chicago is not uncommon. The first step is to discard which of these deceased are victims of our unsub and which are not." - Daisy explained

A knot immediately tightened in her stomach. Drugs and kids were a historically and inevitably perfect combination and it disgusted her how someone was using that fragility to kill innocent souls who probably had nothing to do with cocaine.