Post by silentSKIES . on Apr 26, 2009 16:04:12 GMT -5
TITLE: The Butterfly Effect
FANDOM: Criminal Minds
CRITIQUE: Yesh!!!
STATUS: Work In Progress
SUMMARY: The team is surprised by the abrupt-- and unnecessarry-- addition of SSA Middleton to the unit. She brings along her quick wit and knack for the dramatic, as well as a mystery revolving around her ambiguous past. In addition, the team has to face some of the deadliest serial killers they've ever encountered. No pairings; Case-fics.
OTHER: This is the first draft of the first chapter. I'm trying to figure out if there's anything I should change, since I'm so OCD. *is nervous, as this is first submission* But critique away! Even if you have nooo clue about the fandom. Just look at it as a piece of fiction.
FANDOM: Criminal Minds
CRITIQUE: Yesh!!!
STATUS: Work In Progress
SUMMARY: The team is surprised by the abrupt-- and unnecessarry-- addition of SSA Middleton to the unit. She brings along her quick wit and knack for the dramatic, as well as a mystery revolving around her ambiguous past. In addition, the team has to face some of the deadliest serial killers they've ever encountered. No pairings; Case-fics.
OTHER: This is the first draft of the first chapter. I'm trying to figure out if there's anything I should change, since I'm so OCD. *is nervous, as this is first submission* But critique away! Even if you have nooo clue about the fandom. Just look at it as a piece of fiction.
The Butterfly Effect
chapter one - victimology
chapter one - victimology
“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.”
-- Douglas H. Everett
-- Douglas H. Everett
THE FIRST REFERENCE to an elevator dates back to 236 B.C. It was probably an ingenuity at the time, even if it was just composed of cabs on a rope, powered by animals or people. Nowadays, people just walk into a building and head straight for the row of waiting elevators.
Despite their commonness and useful function, elevators present a certain downside, especially for those who can safely be called impatient.
SSA Beth Middleton was one of these people. Her routine was fluid, as it is customary for routines to be. She got up in the mornings at a relatively early hour, had a cup or two of coffee, and commuted from her house in Georgetown to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. She usually paid no mind to the wait in front of the lifts, but this time, nothing could bother her more immensely, for something — something she could not precisely place was lurking in the back of her mind. She had gotten up with a sense of conviction, purpose, anxiety even. Now, she was completely lost when attempting to recall the reason why.
A ding was heard, followed by the sight of the elevator’s two polished panels meeting in the middle, and sliding open laterally. The brown-haired agent stepped into the lift, promptly followed by another woman with a darker shade of hair.
“Which floor?” the latter asked the first woman, whom was standing farther away from the chamber’s panel of call buttons.
“Level ten,” Beth responded. The doors slid closed, followed by another soft ding. Suddenly remembering why she had awoken with a sense of anxiousness— “Wait, no; not level ten” — she swiftly corrected, just as the other woman was about to press the call button. “Sorry, my mistake. Level six.”
The other woman, Emily Prentiss, smiled amusedly. “First day?”
Beth nodded and faced the woman next to her and sheepishly responded, saying, “I’m just transferring four floors down.”
For some reason escaping Beth, the other woman donned a slightly amused expression. She’d soon find out why.
“Level six,” Emily repeated, rocking back and forth on her heels somewhat. “The Behavioral Analysis Unit.” She pronounced each word slowly, clearly, mischievousness lacing her tone.
Beth contemplated the other woman’s spreading grin in puzzlement. “Yes. What about you?”
Prentiss looked pointedly at the call buttons, Beth’s gaze following hers.
Only one button was alight, indicating that only one level had been requested. The elevator’s two passengers shared a single destination — level six.
Senior SSA David Rossi knocked the wooden door in front of him twice before opening it and walking in.
“Did you sign off on a transfer?” he asked the man in front of him, his voice incredulous.
Unit Chief Hotchner, whom Rossi was addressing, looked up from the files on his desk, baffled, not only by his colleague’s sudden outburst, but by the mere suggestion of such an accusation. “No, I did not. What would give you that idea?”
“Prentiss met her.”
“Her?”
“You had no idea, did you?” Rossi asked him in realization.
Agent Hotchner nodded, still in as much relative shock as his impassive disposition would allow. “Strauss has been hinting at the possibility of something like this happening since the case in New York, but I never thought she’d actually go through with it,” he explained, mentioning his superior.
“I still don’t understand why she would classify the investigation a ‘near catastrophe‘...” the other man mused, thinking back to one of the cases they had tackled a month before. Of course, it had been difficult, and the team had made a couple mistakes along the way. An agent had died, and Hotchner had near lost his hearing in an explosion. Agent Morgan had displayed behavior that, despite being brave, could almost be called suicidal. In his opinion, however, ‘catastrophe’ was too strong a word to describe what had happened. It did not justify their Section Chief Director’s paranoid theory that the unit needed a babysitter.
Agent Hotchner stood, interrupting the other man’s reverie. He walked past Rossi, and paused in the doorway. Catching the inquisitive look on Rossi‘s face, he explained, “I‘m speaking to Strauss about this.”
“Why? Chances are she’s already signed off on this agent already,” Rossi rationalized.
“True,” he paused. “But this is still my team.”
“Helen Talbot, a twenty-nine year old secretary, was found dead in her home in Bedford, Ohio,” Jennifer Jareau started, clicking a remote, so that the picture of a blonde woman appeared on the screen before her. “The cause of death was reported by the medical examiner to be major blood loss, inflicted by seven stab wounds to the upper body.” Again, the blonde liaison clicked the remote, and a gruesome picture of the victim— this time, lifeless— pulled up onto the screen. Crimson tainted the victim’s blue sweater, as well as the sheets on her bed. “A week later, Marcy Reeves, thirty-two, was found in her apartment in Walton Hills with the exact same wounds. A week after that, the same occurred with Dana Pollock, this time, in Oakwood, Ohio.” Each time she mentioned the different women, their pictures appeared on the screen. “This pattern was followed twice more, with Gretchen Welles and Rebecca Ian, both from Maple Heights. In none of the cases was there any sign of forced entry. The victims were, however, all tightly bound to their beds, although there was no sign of sexual assault.”
“The M.O. in all these cases is identical. It’s definitely the same unsub; and from the looks of it, he’s not all too fond of women...” Emily Prentiss commented, studying the case file intently.
“The brutality of the wounds suggests we’re dealing with a misogynist. Maybe he knew all these women; decided to kill them as some form of revenge,” said Agent Morgan, looking up from the case file, his gaze resting on the projected screen in front of him.
“It’s a possibility in the cases of Gretchen Welles and Rebecca Ian, but the rest lived in different cities in the county,” Dr. Reid mused. “It’s strange. None of these victims seem to have anything in common. The first was a secretary, the second a lawyer, the third a waitress... We don’t know the specifics of their personal lives, but from this standpoint, there isn’t a very clear pattern in the victimology.”
“What we do know is that the unsub is extremely organized. He’s followed the same pattern five times. The victims may not have much in common, but the M.O. has remained the same. It’s proved effective for him. All things considered, he must have previously had contact with these women. If there were no signs of a break in, it’s possible these victims knew him, and trusted him enough to let him into their homes. Once there, he stabbed them seven times, and fled the scene, only to murder another woman again exactly one week later,” Rossi commented, his expression thoughtful.
Agent Hotchner looked at his team gravely. “The unsub hasn’t showed any sign of escalation yet. He‘s still following the same pattern, which means he’ll be finding his next victim a week from the date he killed Laura Reese.”
“Laura Reese was killed last Friday,” Prentiss stated urgently.
Hotchner nodded. “Which means we only have twenty-four hours before he murders his next victim.”
