Unknown- A Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 35- Safe Place

I jerked awake when my phone went off next to me, blearily grabbing it and checking my notifications.  A text from Hotch and a missed call from an unknown number.

My stomach clenched, not because I had to get up and do my job after approximately three hours of sleep but because even when I was on a case all the way across the country I wasn't safe from his taunts.

JJ headed out with Morgan and Rossi to go check out the farmer's market, and I went with Prentiss to go talk to all of the families of the victims again to see if we had missed anything in relation to the farmer's market lead.

Nothing came up, so we headed back to the station.  We were in luck though, when JJ, Morgan, and Rossi got back, they had a hit.  All four of our victims had purchased fresh cuts of meat from the local butcher's stall at the market, to be delivered at a later date.  Most plausible assumption was that our unsub used delivering the meat as a ruse to get invited into our victim's homes and then chop off their limbs and head.

"What's interesting though is that butcher's don't chop off an animal's head and extremities right away, usually they cut them open and  disembowel  them first," Reid commented.

"Interesting isn't quite the word I would use for it, kid," Rossi remarked.

"He's right, though. The weapon implies our unsub is a butcher, but the way he treats his victims doesn't," I pointed out.

Either way, we called Garcia to see what she could dig up about the local butcher shop, and in under two minutes she had sent us the address of Kellin's Cuts.

Less than ten minutes later we were inside the shop, and though no one was there, it was definitely the right spot. The back freezer contained five pairs of hands and five pairs of feet.  Two of the bags, one of hands and one of feet, were fogged over, which means the fifth victim we hadn't found yet had been killed very recently. 

I pulled out my phone to let the chief know what we had found, and then grabbed the bag with the most recent...parts in it to take back with us. We needed to ID the latest victim as soon as possible, this unsub was escalating even more.

Rossi wasn't the only one to raise an eyebrow at the two bags dangling from my hand as we walked back outside, but I just shrugged and replied casually, "At one time I wanted to be a mortician."

We ran the prints of the dismembered hands but didn't get anything, which means our latest victim had never been in trouble with the law, or bought a gun, or worked in a government office or anything of the sort since his prints weren't in the system.  His because Reid had determined from the size of the hands and feet, and the calluses on them, that it was a male who most likely worked in manual labor and was on his feet a lot.  The M.E. confirmed Reid's findings, so now we just had to wait for a body and the severed head to identify who the hands and feet belonged to.

And work on finding the Kellin family because everyone else in town we had talked to said they had left to go pick up some animal carcasses and wouldn't be back until later that day.  We'd be ready when they did, though, because Hotch and Morgan were still at the butcher shop on a stakeout while the rest of the local cops processed the scene--and the body parts--in the back freezer.

A little after seven Morgan called Rossi, the Kellin's had returned to their butcher shop, and we all hurried over to provide back-up, only to find that by the time we got there, it had turned into a hostage situation. When the Kellin's--father and son--had found out the police were waiting for them, they'd barred themselves in the truck with the remains of victim number five and the still-very-much-alive sixth victim they had taken the farmhouse they'd gone to to pick up more product.

Victim number six was a very scared teenage girl, she'd been the only one home when the Kellin's had gone to pick up meat from their farm which made her an extraordinarily easy target.  After a very tense half hour of negotiating, the father finally agreed to let the girl go.  Shaking, she climbed out of the truck and I rushed forwards to grab her and get her out of the way before she collapsed from shock.

I had barely gotten her into an ambulance parked behind the police  when I heard a yell, and I whipped around to see the son slicing a blade across his throat.

"No!" the father shouted, but it was over before any of us could do anything.

The plane was near silent as we flew back to DC, everyone exhausted.  JJ and Morgan were sleeping, Prentiss was reading Kurt Vonnegut, Reid was reading something I couldn't see the title of, and Rossi was talking to Hotch as they both did some paperwork. 

I was sitting a little ways away from everyone else, flipping through the file from the case we had just solved.  It didn't seem like we'd solved it, though.  We had barely saved the last victim, and considering what had happened, both Mr. Kellin and his son were lost, at least figuratively.

We got back late enough that I couldn't go pick up Chocolate from the kennel where he'd been kept while we were gone so I had to wait until tomorrow, so I headed home.  I didn't even bother turning on the lights when I got inside, I dropped my go-bag and jacket by the door, kicked off my shoes, and went right over to my desk.  I pulled out the transcripts of all the threatening messages I'd received from the man who frequented the café two blocks from my apartment, going into my bedroom and spreading them out on the covers around me.

As much as I didn't want to fall asleep, I did anyways, waking up with a start when I heard a consistent beeping sounding through the apartment.  My stomach plummeted the second I realized what it was.  The security system, going off because it was disabled.

I grabbed for my gun, but it wasn't on my nightstand, and it wasn't still holstered on my belt--terror struck me when I realized I had taken it off on the plane and it was stashed in my go-bag, in the other room, where I could hear heavy footsteps nearing my open bedroom door.  Shit, why was I so stupid?  God, I wished Chocolate was here!

I lunged out of bed, slamming the door to my room and locking it and then glancing around my dark bedroom for any sort of weapon.  Maybe I could grab a shoe from the closet, but that wouldn't help if he had a knife like I so often saw in my nightmares, and especially not if he'd found my gun in the other room. 

A low chuckle sounded from the other side of the door, and I instinctively backed away from it, my hands shaking, my breathing ragged and shallow.  I jumped back another few feet when something slammed into the door, shivers sliding up and down my spine when I heard a voice I recognized all too well threaten, "Charlotte, I'm so glad we could finally meet."

I opened my mouth to yell, but all that came out was a harsh noise that sounded like a cry of distress when an animal got caught in a trap.  I didn't want to die today.

I'm not going to die today, I thought as I whipped around and flung open the curtains, prying open the window and clambering out onto the fire escape, slamming the window closed behind me.  I dashed down the fire escape, hoping he couldn't hear the rusty metal creaking under my weight.

And one I reached the pavement, I ran.  I ran to the only safe place I knew.