Welcome to the B.A.U. Boy's Club.

“Welcome, I’m Emily,” a pale dark haired woman said, holding her hand out to me.

“Hi, Emily,” I said back to her hesitantly, offering her my hand. She shook it energetically.

I looked around.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her, “but I think that I might have the wrong person. I was looking for a group of people. I’m supposed to be joining the B.A.U.,” I said, my voice trailing off at the end.

She smiled.

“It’s eight o’clock. We have a meeting every morning at eight to review different cases and decide on which one to take. Hotch—our unit chief—thought that it would be a waste of productivity for all of us to miss having the meeting to come down here and get you. He’s kind of a stickler for staying on track. They’ll fill us in when we get there,” she said with a smile.

I didn’t return it.

“It sounds like your chief told you that I wasn’t important enough for him to come and meet personally. I’m only going to be newest addition to his team,” I said sarcastically. “But no, he decides to send his lackey. No offense,” I added as an afterthought, as her smile disappeared.

She actually looked hurt.

“None taken,” she said with a small voice. “We’d better get going. They’ll be headed out soon and we’ll miss them if we don’t hurry.”

She led the way to a black SUV, hopped in and started the engine before I’d even gotten my bag in the backseat.

She peeled off as soon as ass cheeks touched leather, and the ride there was one of the
most uncomfortable of my life.

“Good morning, Emily,” I heard from my left as we walked into the conference room. A tall, sexy, well dressed black man stood against the window stirring his coffee. She smiled wide and returned the greeting before dipping her head and continuing to a chair.

He looked at me.

“Forgive me,” he said, extending his hand. “Good morning, I’m Derek Morgan. You must be our new addition. Ms. Nevaeh D’Gorleau I presume?”

“Mrs,” I said, ignoring his hand and taking the chair the farthest away from the door. He retracted his hand, and went back to stirring his coffee, his face perplexed. I didn’t feel bad.

In my experience, any man that looked as good as he did was either extremely conceited and expected the rest of the world to voluntarily kiss his ass, or he was a power hungry asshole with a knack for using the women in his life as nothing but pawns in his game of world conquest. And if there was going to be any ass kissing around here, I planned on being the one dropping trou.

“Allow me to introduce you to the rest of the team,” Emily said, with a small frown.

Pointing to another woman, this one plump with rust colored red hair, she said, “This is our technical analyst and our new communications liaison, Penelope Garcia.”

She smiled genuinely, tapping away on a device in front of her. She had exotic taste in just about everything, and as I looked at her I couldn’t help but think of her as one big abstract picture: I could comprehend if I looked at small pieces of her at a time, but as soon as I tried to take in the whole picture at once, I became hopelessly confused.

Next to her, Emily pointed to a man with dark hair, a moustache, and goatee. He was Italian by his olive skin tone, and he stared at me with the exact same intensity I was giving him, and didn’t release eye contact with me until he blinked after several minutes. “This is our founder, David Rossi.”

Across from him, she pointed to a man with short cut, chocolate colored hair. He was tall, but skinny; he looked more stretched than anything. He looked no older than twenty-six, max.

“This is Dr. Spencer Reid,” Emily said, and he flashed me a quick smile before dropping his head back into the files sitting in front of him. Every few seconds, he would look up to sneak a peek at me.

“You’ve met Derek,” she said bitterly, and he tossed up a sorry attempt at a wave. I didn’t even deem it worthy of my attention. Instead, my focus immediately went to the man standing at the front of the room.

If circular tables had a head, that’s where he would be sitting. He was clean shaven, and well dressed, with dark hair, fiercely set eyebrows, a matching scowl, and a gaze that meant no nonsense. Immediately, I knew that this was Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotchner.

“And this is our unit chief, Aaron Hotchner,” she finished. The room was silent for a brief second, before Hotch said, “We start this meeting every morning at eight o’clock sharp. I expect you to be on time. You may wear anything that you like, but you must be able to work in it. The slightest scent of trouble and you’re fired. Am I making myself clear?”

I smirked and said, “Crystal.”

We stared each other down, until finally Rossi coughed. Hotch stood up straighter, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Did you have a case for us to review, Garcia?” he asked, his eyes still glued to mine.

She looked back and forth between the two of us for a moment, and then said, “Yes, yes. It’s been emailed to you. Three victims were found buried in a landfill. And, well…” she trailed off.

“What, Garcia?” Hotch asked, looking up from his PDA.

“Well, here’s where the real ickyness comes into play. Let’s just say if this was Harry Potter, all three of them would be missing their wands.”

The male population of the room groaned and reached between their legs.

“Any ID?” Rossi asked, his face still twisted up in a grimace.

“No dice, the coroner hasn’t gotten back dental records yet. He should have them by the time we arrive. And speaking of no dice, our victims were minus those too,” Garcia said, as she paced the front of the room. From my right, I caught a glimpse of Dr. Reid crossing his legs under the table.

“How were they killed?” Morgan asked, setting his coffee down on the windowsill.

“Well, the castration was performed perimortem, but it seems more for a show of power than for sexual gratification. Anyway, afterward, the blade of a pocket knife was present. It was shoved in their hearts. The handle was broken off, so they couldn’t have removed it,” she said, and her face looked sad.

“That sounds like a prison technique. So we’re possibly looking for a unsub that’s been to jail before. They’d have seen or been involved in the stabbing of another inmate,” Morgan chimed in from the window.

“Not necessarily just prison,” I said, causing everyone in the room to jump. “They teach that in the armed forces too.”

A cell phone rang, and Garcia made an apology face to Hotch as she answered it.

“Hi, I’m in a meeting can I call you right back?” she asked, as she answered the phone.

There was a muffled mumble on the other end, and then Garcia’s face immediately changed.

“Oh, I apologize Dr. I didn’t know it was you. What were you about to tell me?” she asked, and then was quiet. “Thank you, that’s definitely helpful. We’ll see you in a few hours, Dr. Thank you.”

“Good news?” Emily asked.

“Very. The coroner just got the records back on our three John Does. The first was Micheal Roberts, aged 38. He was killed a month and a half ago. The next was Jeremy McGregor, aged 36, killed two weeks ago and the last was one Walter Patters, aged 39. Time of death was placed at three days ago.”

“The cooling off period seems to be getting shorter and shorter. At this rate, by the time we get there we’ll have another body,” Hotch said, scrolling along on his PDA.

“Taking victimology into consideration, this unsub was after a very specific type. Tall, mid to late thirties, one hundred eighty to two hundred pounds, and white with blue eyes,” Dr. Reid said, as he scribbled down notes.

“The only differing factor is the hair color. Roberts was a brunette, McGregor a blonde, and Patters was a red head. And to top it all off, all three were convicted of the same crime,” Garcia said, aiming her remote at the flat screen.

On the screen at the front of the room, she quickly pulled up files on the subjects.

“Roberts was sentenced to five years in Ricker’s for the rape of his eight year old niece, can you say yuck? McGregor got five but only did three and got time off for good behavior. Three years’ probation and still somehow managed to rape a sixteen year old. He’d just gotten released a few weeks back. And Patters got fifteen for kidnapping and raping his thirteen year old son.”

She placed the PDA on the table, took off her glasses, and rubbed her temples, quietly mumbling “Happy Place” to herself.

“Sounds like we’re taking it,” Hotch said, standing. To Garcia , he said, “Let Cambridge PD know we’re coming.”

Immediately I was on the defensive.

“What?!” I said, my tone a little sharper than I’d originally intended. The entire room looked at me.

“You got a problem with that?” he asked, his voice stone cold.

“Yea. I just came from Cambridge this morning. If you knew that you were gonna take this case, why didn’t you just save me the trip and I’d have met you there? I could have already started on the profile, talked to some people, followed some leads, made some connections. Instead, I spent the last three hours of my life on a plane just to fly out here for you to tell me to turn around and go back. Hell yea I got a problem with that!”

Hotch stood completely still.

"We don't know exactly what cases we'll be taking from day to day."

"But you do have some idea though, right?" I pushed.

He nodded.

“But the fact remains that you are already here, and there is a case that we are handling in Cambridge. Now you can either choose to come with us as a member of the B.A.U., or you can go back by yourself as a bitter cynical has-been. The choice is yours. Wheels up in thirty everyone. Garcia, that includes you.”

He stormed out of the room, and I could feel the smugness of the people around me.

“And that,” Emily said with a smile as she stood up to leave, “was Agent Hotchner.”