Consume Me Like a Fire

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." -Confucius

“Shiloh? Are you there?” the blonde looked up at the hand that was being waved in front of her face. Her roommate, Katie, had been trying to get her attention for the last few minutes.

“Yeah, sorry. I just have a lot on my mind lately…” Shiloh mumbled. Katie sat down next to her on her bed and leaned back.

“Do you mean the murders?” Shiloh looked at Katie and nodded. She couldn’t get the image of Melissa’s dead face out of her head. Ever since she saw her picture tacked to the board in the FBI conference room, it has haunted her. Melissa may not have been the nicest person, but she didn’t deserve to die.

“I called Melissa’s mom earlier and left a message. She’s probably devastated…” Shiloh whispered hearing her voice crack. Katie stood up and looked down at her friend.

“Why are you getting so sad? It’s not like you two were close. She was the school slut. Whoever killed her must have had a good reason to,” Katie said exasperated. Shiloh looked at her disbelievingly before shaking her head and standing up too.

“Katie, no one should have a reason to kill anyone. It’s wrong. And Melissa and I were close… We used to be best friends until she developed her infamous reputation,” Shiloh snapped. She liked Katie. When she first found out that Katie was her roommate, she was happy. Katie was new to the school, just transferred last semester and she didn’t know anybody. She wasn’t a partier and liked to study like Shiloh did. They got along great, but she couldn’t stand it that Katie didn’t feel sympathetic about Melissa’s murder.

“You two were friends?” Katie asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah—“ Shiloh was cut off by her cell phone ringing. Seeing that it was Melissa’s mom, she waved to Katie and walked out of their dorm room. Once she was away from the dorm students, she answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Shiloh? Hi, it’s Melissa’s mom,” the woman said with a crack in her voice. Shiloh felt her heart drop again and tried to remain as composed as possible.

“Hi Mrs. Taylors. I wanted to call to say that I'm so sorry about what happened to Melissa and if there is anything I can do, please let me know,” she said softly.

“Thank you, Shiloh. I wish you and Melissa were closer friends before she… passed on, but I know what happened. Thank you for calling and I’ll let you know soon about Melissa’s… funeral arrangements,” her voice cracked again at the end. They said goodbye and hung up. Shiloh sighed heavily and slipped her phone into her pocket. What was she going to do now? She didn’t have any more classes today and she didn’t feel like talking to Katie again.

She walked around the campus to kill time. It was nearing the dorm curfew hours, but the last thing she wanted to do was go to sleep and end up hearing about another murder.

Shiloh sighed and ran a hand threw her hair before heading toward the library. She has an exam coming up in Mr. Fritz’s class, her psychology class. She went inside and felt warmth spread through her body; winter was fast approaching and the cold was beginning to set in everywhere.

She gathered all the books she wanted and found a small cubicle near the window to sit at. She buried her nose in her books for what seemed like hours until the old librarian, Ms. Stevens, walked over to her and told her she needed to leave. She checked her books out and began the walk back to her dorm. Hopefully Katie was already asleep so they wouldn’t get into another tiff.

It was dark and a few outdoor lamps where lit to show the way. Shiloh suddenly felt vulnerable and cursed herself for losing track of the time. She picked up her pace not wanting to be out in the cold much longer, but her newly borrowed books made that more difficult than it seemed.

Maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her, but she thought she heard someone walking behind her. When she looked though, no one was there. Feeling even more freaked out, Shiloh began to jog back to her room. She quickly rushed inside and locked the door behind her. Katie was asleep like she hoped. Letting out a deep breath, she set her books down and got ready to go to bed. She had a bad feeling about that night.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The next morning she was woken up abruptly to her phone ringing right next to her ear. She fumbled trying to pick it up quickly. Glancing over, she saw Katie was already gone for the day, but paid no attention to it. Katie usually left before her on most days.

“Hello?”

“Shiloh, this Derek Morgan from yesterday. Can you come by the conference room as soon as possible? We need you to look at something for us.” The girl gulped but told him she would be there in a few minutes. She had a bad feeling about what they were going to show her…

When she arrived at the room, Derek let her in immediately. She took a seat next to Spencer and waited to be told what to do.

“Shiloh, listen to me carefully. We just want you to look at this man’s face and tell us who it is. You don’t have to look at the rest of the picture,” Spencer said gently. Shiloh’s heart rate picked up speed, but she nodded softly anyway.

“Do you know who this man is?” Spencer held up a picture. Shiloh looked directly at the face as instructed and gasped. Her eyes glanced at the rest of the picture to see what happened to him and she wanted to throw up. Spencer quickly put the picture away and rested a hand awkwardly on her shoulder.

“Sorry about that, but can you identify him?”

“Yeah, that’s Brandon Adams. He’s Melissa’s latest boyfriend…was her boyfriend…and he’s my ex; we just broke up last month because of Melissa…” she whispered feeling tears prickle in her eyes. Aaron Hotchner stepped out of the room to make a call and Shiloh stayed seated with Spencer. Derek was out in the hall talking to whoever was on the phone with Hotch.

“Who did that to him?” Shiloh asked softly wiping the tears away; she knew something bad was going to happen last night. Spencer looked at her and sighed knowing that she looked at the rest of the picture.

“A person not in their right mind.” Even he had a hard time stomaching what happened. The poor guy was stabbed multiple times and then had his genitals hacked off. Like the hearts of the girls, his genitals were missing as well when the police showed up.

“Good evening officers, is there anything I can help you with?” Shiloh looked away from Spencer and over to a man standing in the doorway. He had short brown hair that was starting to gray, an average body, and he was dressed in a police uniform.

“Thank you Officer McDaniel, but I think we still have everything we need. This is just taking longer than we expected. Whoever is doing this knows how to clean up after themselves,” Morgan answered as he walked back into the room with Hotch. Roy ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“Sorry to pester you, but a lot of parents have begun to call and they want us to evacuate the school before anyone else gets hurt…”

“That isn’t necessary as of now. If we can’t figure out who the unsub is within the next day or so, then we can think about evacuation, but right now, that is on our drastic measures list,” Hotch replied. Roy nodded and took his leave.

“We might evacuate the school?” Shiloh asked softly once the others began to get back to work again. Spencer looked at her and shrugged his shoulders a little.

“We’re usually pretty fast at solving these cases, but if it begins to take too long, we do want to get people to safety. What Hotch is saying though is that if we evacuate people now, the unsub may leave too and then we’ll have no means of finding him again,” he added.

“I think I get that, but what’s an unsub? You’ve said that before too, but I don’t know what that is,” Shiloh whispered.

“It’s just short for unidentified subject. The killer is an unsub,” he explained. Shiloh nodded understanding and stood up.

“I’ve figured out that the killings happened at night in the early hours of the morning. That means your unsub might strike again tonight, right?” she asked playing with her phone in her hands.

“…That’s correct,” Spencer hesitated because he didn’t want to scare her, but if something did happen he wanted to be truthful with her and keep her trust.

“Um Spencer, can I have your number? Just in case something else happens… It would make me feel better,” she whispered. Spencer gave her a tiny smile and told her his number. He showed her to the door and reassured her once more before telling her goodbye.

“Looks like someone has Wonderboy wrapped around her pretty little finger,” Derek said smirking while looking through a folder. Spencer sent him a glare and sat back down at the table.

“Hey no teasing him. We already did that yesterday,” JJ said with a smile. Aaron glanced at everyone and hid a tiny smile behind a photo he was studying.

“Enough, let’s get back to this. Why would the unsub target a man? We thought they were just after the girls that turned on them,” Spencer said glancing over papers again.

“Maybe the unsub and Brandon were involved before Melissa took him from her?” Emily threw in.

“No, Brandon and Shiloh were going out and then Melissa showed up. Shiloh isn’t our unsub so that rules out that idea,” Derek replied. The team stood around the table trying to brain storm.

“Could the unsub consider Brandon a friend of Melissa’s and count him as someone who betrayed her?” Rossi asked.

“Maybe… There are too many possibilities,” Aaron added softly. The rest nodded in agreement.

“Reid, did you find out about Jennie Way?” Aaron asked after a moment of silence.

“Yeah, but she checked out fine and had an alibi. It was just a normal cat fight over boys. She couldn’t have killed those three girls,” he replied handing him his notes about Jennie. Aaron scanned over them and nodded. They were coming up with a dead end.

“What do we do now? Wait for another killing that might give us another clue?” Emily asked feeling somewhat desperate.

“No, we get back out there and do what we do best. Profile,” Derek said walking out the door.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Shiloh sat down in a chair near the window with her coffee in hand. The school campus coffee shop was moving slowly today. Nobody wanted to be outside where a killer was running around. Word got out about the murders and everyone was starting to panic.

Shiloh blew on her coffee a little before taking a small sip as to not burn her tongue. Her talk with Spencer that morning made her feel a little better. Having his number put her at ease. If she was ever walking alone again at night, she’ll probably call him and stay on the phone with him until she gets back to her dorm.

She glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost time for her afternoon class. Taking her coffee with her, she walked back out into the cold winds of Virginia. She pulled her coat tighter around her body and trudged to her class with Mr. Fritz. When she walked into the classroom, she tossed her coffee away and walked over to Mr. Fritz’s desk.

“Mr. Fritz, can you please take my essay and grade it. I know it was due yesterday, but can you make an exception?” she asked. The young professor looked up at her from behind his square glasses. Mr. Fritz, Matthew Fritz, was only 32, had messy styled black hair, a runner’s body and bright blue eyes. A lot of the girls found him nice too look at and Shiloh wasn’t any different. She definitely liked having a class where she didn’t get bored watching her teacher.

“Can I ask why you weren’t in my class yesterday?” he asked with a light smile.

“I was actually running here yesterday, but ran into an FBI agent. He stopped me and had me answer a few questions about… what’s been happening lately with the murders,” she whispered the last part, “And then when I checked the time again, your class had already started and I knew the doors would be locked.” She looked at him with puppy dog eyes.

“Okay, okay. How can I say no to a face like that?” he joked with a small laugh. Everyone liked Mr. Fritz because he wasn’t a hardass like the other professors.

“You’re the best! Thank you so much!” she wanted to hug him but stopped because that would look inappropriate.

“Speaking of the FBI, they got here yesterday, right? Why were they asking you questions?” he asked turning a little more serious.

“Yeah, they got here yesterday morning and they’re asking the students questions about Melissa and if they’ve seen anyone acting strangely,” she replied. Mr. Fritz nodded.

“Be careful, I don’t want you to get hurt…or anyone else for that matter.”

“Thanks Mr. Fritz, I will be,” Shiloh said smiling before going to take her seat.