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DECODING THE MESSAGEdidn't take nearly as long as it did all those years ago. Odessa was able to crack the code within fifteen minutes; and during five of those minutes, Spencer had taken it upon himself to make her a cup of coffee and a glass of iced water. As Spencer was doing God's work, and Garcia was cross-checking each sentence Odessa decoded, the rest of the team pestered her about making sure she was telling the truth.
I thought the interrogation part was over, she had muttered under her breath. She was growing increasingly irritated with her new coworkers by the second—partly caused by her lack of sleep, and the other part caused by their lack of respect for her as a human being.
When Spencer came back everyone else seemed to back off the girl a bit, only reminding her to stay truthful once every three minutes as opposed to three times every single minute.
It was nearing about seven o'clock in the evening when the team had been formally dismissd by Hotch, although he held Odessa and Spencer back to reveal the big news that Odessa would be staying with him until the case was closed, at minimum. Odessa was relieved to hear that she wouldn't have to be sharing quarters with anyone else—although Garcia wouldn't be all that bad, but she was close to Morgan, which meant that Garcia would be forced to worry about Odessa at all times.
"Thanks for the coffee, roomie," Odessa smiled as the duo made their way past the fancy glass doors she was introduced to only five hours earlier. In all honesty, the coffee wasn't even good, but in hindsight, it did do the job of greasing the gears in her brain.
Spencer only shook his head with a smile on his face as he pressed the elevator button. He shoved his hands into his pockets and upheld an awkward stature. He felt stupid and immature for being nervous and giddy—like when the teacher had paired him up with his seventh grade crush on a project. Odessa wasn't as simple as a gradeschool crush—she was a criminal and one of his cases. Well, he wasn't sure if she was one of his cases anymore, but she was at one point—which was frustrating.
The elevator was a sleek, metal box of death to Odessa. Ever since she was little she had a fear of elevators, and she had no idea why. She figured that the fear was evolutionary, because maybe somewhere in her ancestry someone died in an elevator accident. Over time, Odessa rationalized her fear of elevators. Her palms still got sweaty, and her breath still became short, but she didn't kick and scream at the idea of going into one like she did when she was little.
"We can go down the stairs," Spencer said from beside her. He managed to pick up on the small movements she made that lead him to believe she was uncomfortable.
Odessa shook her head at the tall boy and laughed. "No, no it's fine. The elevator's faster." She felt a bit childish, being afraid of elevators; but she couldn't help the way her mind floated into ideas of them breaking down and falling down tens of floors and plunging everyone to their death—
