overload (reid x fem!reader)

Part One

Unit Chief Emily Prentiss was sitting in her office with a list of names in her hand, chewing the end of her pen. It was a bad habit, yes, but it was better than picking her nails, which is what she used to do when she had a big decision to make. And right now, she had one hell of a big decision to make. It had been nearly two months since Penelope Garcia's send off, and the BAU was still without a technical analyst. They hadn't quite realized how much they relied on her for finding an unsub until they lost her. They still had the algorithms that she'd created, but without her deft touch they were way out of their depth. Emily was snapped out of her thoughts by a knock on the door. She looked up, noticing it was an older man with a receding hairline.

"Hello? Agent Prentiss? I'm Harold, Harold Kravski? From cyber crimes?"

Emily nodded, and motioned for him to enter. "Yes, I remember you. You were interested in the technical analyst position?" She set the list aside, Harold Kravski would be the fifteenth person she'd interviewed in the last two weeks, and she wasn't confident he'd be the last. He was clearly a self conscious man who, judging by the state of the ring on his left hand, was having problems at home. He was nervous and stuttered when he spoke, clearly not cut out to be staring at pictures of dead bodies all day. He finished up with... whatever he was saying, and Emily smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Kravski, we'll be in touch if we feel you're a fit." He opened his mouth but before he could say anything else, Emily's phone buzzed. Saved by the bell she thought to herself, standing up and shooting him a polite smile.

~~~

The team met in the bullpen, all seated in their usual spots, save Emily who was stood in front of the table with the clicker in her hand. She sighed, and clicked. The image of a young woman, athletic and blonde, appeared on the screen. She had been cleanly and completely enucleated. "This is Nora Janice, she was found twelve hours ago in a shallow grave just outside of LA, COD has be confirmed to be blunt force trauma to the head. She is the second victim discovered in the last month, the first being a Jane Doe." She clicked the button again, and another image appeared, this time a thin woman, also blonde, also missing her eyes.

"The enucleation definitely speaks to the unsub's pathology, was in para or ante mortem?" Dr. Spencer Reid spoke up, thumbing through his paper copy of the case.

"With the Jane Doe the ME said ante, but they haven't been able to confirm with Nora Janice." Emily answered, taking her usual seat at the round table.

"Nothing about this says sadist or rage, it's almost... methodical?" Dr. Tara Lewis frowned, swiping through the images on her tablet.

"They're both blonde, they could be surrogates." Matt Simmons pointed out, shrugging.

Luke Alvez shrugged. "Maybe they both interacted with the unsub in some way, did something to piss him off?"

"Until we ID the Jane Doe, there's no way of knowing." Emily sighed, standing up. "Either way, LAPD has asked us to help out, wheels up in twenty."

~~~

The team sat around the room that the local PD had provided for them. They hadn't been there a day and already another body had dropped, another blonde by the name of Martha Feathers. The first victim still hadn't been identified. The enucleation seemed to be an impulse the unsub couldn't control, but despite this he was organized and criminally and forensically sophisticated. They hadn't been able to pull any prints or DNA from the scenes, which either meant the unsub was in the system and knew it, or he was just being careful. The tox screens of all three victims had come back clean, leading the team to believe the women were likely blitz attacked then taken to a secondary location where the unsub could complete his ritual without being interrupted. They had a partial profile already and had determined it'd be pertinent to present it to the police as soon as possible, but despite this, no one had come forward claiming to know or have seen the unsub, so they were basically at a dead end. The one thing they were counting on, was the unsub returning to the homes of the victims, where the team believed he stalked them and learned their routine before attacking them when they were most vulnerable. There were plainclothes unit posted outside of the homes of the two identified women, and cars patrolling the streets around where the Jane Doe had been dumped. Emily rubbed her temple, bemusing the fact that if Garcia was here, she likely would've already found out the Jane Doe's identity and if or how the victims had interacted. As it stood though, the BAU was stuck relying on local authorities and good Samaritans. They had reached a point where as it currently stood, their job was mostly just waiting. But, they didn't have to wait much longer.