"𝙶𝚒𝚊 𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚜"
ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ

"WE HAVE A NEW CASE. Briefing in five minutes." JJ announces to the team as she rushes to the briefing room.

"What do we got?" Hotch asks as him and the rest of the team join JJ.

"A series of murders in Seattle," JJ begins as she pulls up some photographs on the TV, "Beth Bray, Lily Henry, Emma Holland, and Amy Vaughn. The latest one is Gia Collins. All the women are mothers. They were all found dead under a bridge a couple miles from all of their homes."

"The most interesting one was Gia Collins. The first four mothers were killed by asphyxiation, but Gia was stabbed multiple times." JJ mentions and pulls up individual images of Gia's condition, "She's a single mother to two kids. The Seattle PD said that the neighbors saw the youngest walk home from school the day after Gia was killed."

"How long until she was found?" Morgan asks.

"Time of death shows that all of the women died the night before they were found." JJ answers.

"And the youngest kid didn't say anything?" Emily questions.

"Uh, no, but she was definitely at school." JJ confirms.

"What about the oldest?" Hotch asks.

"He was present at all of his classes at college." JJ states, thanks to Garcia looking up the school's attendance earlier.

"Show me the kids." Hotch demands.

"The oldest is Nick. He's nineteen and a student at South Seattle Community College." JJ speaks as she shows a picture of a boy.  Nick has curly blonde hair, hazel eyes, and you can tell he is tall and quite strongly built.

"The younger one is Noah. She's fifteen and in the tenth grade." JJ says and shows a picture of a young girl.  Noah has a beautifully unique bone structure, long black hair, and bright blue eyes.

"Woah, a mini Prentiss." Penelope says as she enters the room and sees the photo of the young girl.

"Oh, c'mon, we look nothing alike." Emily says, thinking that Garcia only thinks so because of their matching hair.

"So, the police have no leads?" Morgan asks.

"They didn't wanna say it, but I don't think so." JJ says and looks at Hotch.

"Wheels up in 30." Hotch reports and goes to his office to collect his things.

—
𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘦𝘵

"I still don't understand how the youngest didn't say anything about her mother being missing." Emily wonders out loud.

"Maybe that happened often...?" Morgan suggests.

"We won't know until we talk to someone." Rossi adds.

"A social worker has visited the house a couple times, should I get in contact with her?" JJ mentions as she reads through some documents Garcia had sent through.

"Yeah, let's see if she can lead us toward anything." Hotch agrees.

"On it," JJ says and walks to the back of the plane to make the call.

"So, focusing on all of the women found, someone had to of been on the move that night." Rossi slowly goes over the file again.

"Five people killed in one night." Morgan says, astonished.

"You think it's two unsubs?" Reid suggests.

"I think it's more than two." Morgan replies and looks up at his team.  They all share a knowing look.  Teams are always hard — you may find one, but you may never find the rest.

"Morgan, call Garcia to give us some pinpoints from the women's houses to the dump site." Hotch demands and watches Morgan pull out his phone.

"Hey, baby girl, I need you to pinpoint some locations for me." Morgan tells Garcia.

"Anything for you, chocolate thunder." Garcia chuckles.

"I need to know how long it would take for one person to collect all these bodies and drop them at the dumpsite." Morgan requests.

"That's impossible.  The time of deaths were all the same.  There's no way this person could have done all this at the same time." Garcia points out and Morgan looks up at Hotch.

"What if it was five separate unsubs?" Hotch asks.

"It would..." Garcia trails off as she pinpoints all the locations on her computer, "...line up perfectly." She states.

"Alright, Garcia we're gonna need that map." Hotch says.

"Sending it over shortly, my loves." Penelope says and hangs up. Derek turns back to the file and thinks about what could have caused all of these mothers to be targeted.

—
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵

"Hi, I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner.  This is SSA Rossi, Prentiss, Morgan, and Dr. Spencer Reid." Hotch introduces his team to the Chief of Police, "And I'm sure you talked to Agent Jareau on the phone."

"Yes. It's nice to meet you all.  This case has been hard for everyone.  It's a big town, but it's a lot to take in." John Forest, the Chief, says to the team.

"We understand.  We're gonna need a small group working on this case.  It will keep things tight and help us collaborate better." Hotch tells the man.

"Anything you need.  I'll send some people home." Chief Forest says and walks out to talk to his officers.

"The one thing that's bugging me is Gia Collins.  Why was she killed differently?" Rossi asks.

"We need to gather lots of victimology." Hotch says, "They're examining the Collins' residence now, we should see if we can find anything." Hotch says and everyone follows him out to the cars.

—
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘴' 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦

"Hi, I'm Sarah Harmon — the social worker for the Collins family." A chirpy, blonde woman says as she shakes all of the team's hands.

"Thank you for joining us," JJ replies, "We were wondering if you could run down all the things that went on in the house?" She asks.

"Yeah, I mean, not too much.  The kids are hard to get through and Gia tried everything she could to make them talk.  They were very quiet, even when she was begging them to talk to me." Ms. Harmon explains how the kids are, "The oldest complied every now and then, but the younger one has some problems that we were trying to work through.  I kept telling Gia to take her to a therapist, but she never budged."

"Maybe Noah knew that Gia wasn't letting her go to therapy and she got too angry?" Hotch suggests.

"What about their father?" Prentiss asks Ms. Harmon.

"Nick's father left when he was three, but Gia met a man shortly after. He ended up adopting Noah with Gia and took care of her and Nick until Noah was twelve." Ms. Harmon informs the team.

"Adopting?" Hotch asks.

"Yes, she's adopted, but she doesn't know that." Ms. Harmon tells the taller man.

"Why'd he leave?" Emily asks.

"Gia claims he buckled under the pressure of being a father. She said the kids started to become a handful, so he walked out. Still pays a check to her every month for the kids." Ms. Harmon explains and seems to frown at the fact.

"That's a trigger for the kids." Morgan states and looks at Emily.

"I'll check out Noah's room." Emily says and walks upstairs.

"Alright, search the house, find anything that could lead to aggression towards the mother." Hotch orders and everyone disperses.

Emily walks into Noah's room and is horrified at the mess of it.  The bed is unmade, you can barely see the floor, the bedside lamp is on the floor with the bulb shattered, and a bunch of posters have been ripped off the wall.  Emily walks to the nightstand and opens the drawer, finding a book, an empty chapstick tube, headphones plugged into a CD player, and some random CDs.  Emily opens some drawers of the dresser and finds tons of highlighters.

"This is Noah's room?" Emily asks as the social worker appears at the doorway.

"Yeah," The woman says as she enters the room as well, "She, uh, does this often." She adds as she points to all the posters being ripped down.

"She did all this?" Emily questions as she looks around at the mess.

"Yeah,"

"It looks like there was a fight in here." Morgan remarks as he walks in.

"She gets angry — destroys everything in her path.  She's like a tornado.  She storms in here, pulls all the posters down, knocks everything off the table and dresser.  She smashed that window with the desk chair once." The social worker tells them as she points to the window, which is now boarded up.

"If she can do this often, she could've gotten really upset and snapped." Morgan says as he looks at Prentiss, "Has anything set her off recently?" He asks Ms. Harmon as Hotch walks in.

"Not that I can think or know of.  I mean, once you get to know her, she's one of the nicest kids you'll ever meet.  But if you tick her off, you might as well back off." She informs them and looks back at Hotch.

"What do you mean?" Emily asks, needing more information.

"One time, her foster brother kept teasing her and she gave him a black eye."

"A black eye for a bit of teasing?" Morgan asks.

"She has a lot of pint up anger. Again, I tried to get her into therapy, but Gia refused." Ms. Harmon repeats and shrugs her shoulders.

"You said she doesn't know she's adopted?" Morgan asks as he looks at the posters of music artists on the floor.

"Yes," Ms. Harmon answers and looks at all the agents.

"She could've found out," Morgan says and looks over at Prentiss and Hotch.

"Where's Noah now?" Hotch asks.

"School." Ms. Harmon replies.

"Morgan, Prentiss, go to the school and find Noah.  She needs to be brought in ASAP." Hotch says and walks out of the room to finish looking through the house.

"On it," Morgan says and walks out of the house to the car.

—
𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭

Morgan and Prentiss make their way into the school.  They walk into the front office and hear the school bell ring.

"Hi, can I help you?" A woman asks.

"Hi, I'm Agent Emily Prentiss and this is Agent Derek Morgan.  We're with the FBI," Emily says and shows her badge, "We're looking for a Noah Collins." Emily adds and notices that the woman's face seems to fall.

"Yeah, follow me." The woman tells the agents and walks out of the office.

"Are you the principal?" Morgan asks as they walk down one of the hallways.

"Yes.  And all of her teachers are here on the tenth grade hallway." She answers as she shows the agents the sign that shows the way to the tenth grade hallway.

"You seem to know your students pretty well." Emily mentions as she notices that the woman knows exactly where she can find Noah.

"Well, I know Noah.  She's a bit of a troublemaker.  I've memorized her schedule from the amount of times teachers have called me down to have a chat with her." The principal explains.

The school bell rings and suddenly students are flooding the hallway.  Morgan and Emily walk up to a teacher with the principal and greet themselves.

"We're looking for Noah Collins." Emily asks as she holds up a picture of the teen and Morgan scans the hallway.

"She just left my class," The teacher says as she points down the hallway to where the teen had left. Morgan notices a teenage girl grabbing something from her locker.  She is wearing baggy, brown pants with a navy green quarter zip.  She has long, straight black hair and piercingly blue eyes; she fits the profile perfectly.  The girl looks at the picture in Emily's hand and quickly slams the locker door. As Morgan grabs Emily to follow the girl, she turns around to see them coming after her.  Out of fear, she runs.

"Hey! Noah Collins!" Morgan shouts as him and Emily sprint towards the kid.

The girl runs out of the doorway that leads to the side of the school. She darts towards the school's courtyard and quickly makes her way to the street. Morgan and Emily burst through the door and scan the area.

"Damn, she's fast!" Morgan exclaims.

"Morgan," Emily says and points towards the teen running across the street. They both bolt into action and go after the teen.

"Shit!" The girl mumbles as she runs towards the park that is across from the school. She swiftly jumps over the fence and looks behind her to see Morgan catching up to her. The girl takes a sharp turn towards some buildings. She sees the woman split from the man and heads for an alleyway.

As Noah sprints down the alleyway, she takes her jacket off and throws it into her book bag. She ties her hair into a ponytail and pulls out her glasses case. She quickly puts her glasses on and walks out onto a different street. The teen calmly walks down the sidewalk and heads to the train station.

Morgan and Prentiss run out of the alleyway and look down the busy street. Neither of them find the girl and realize that she is probably long gone. Morgan calls Hotch and tells him that the girl is gone. JJ decides to put out a statement to the press that they are looking for Noah Collins.

—
𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦

"Noah?" Nick sighs as he sees his little sister standing outside of his dorm room, "What're you doing here?!"

"There were some people at my school looking for me. Do you think it's about Mom being gone?" The teen quickly rambles.

"Mom's always disappearing, why would anybody care now?" Nick asks.

"I don't know,"

"Exactly.  What?  You don't know what they wanted, so you came here?" Nick questions his sister.

"Yeah, I took the train." Noah answers.

"Did they see you?" Nick says as he gulps.

"Yeah, I had to run to the station." The girl tells her older brother.

"Noah," Nick sighs as he shakes his head.

"What?!" The teen exclaims.

"Who were they?" Nick asks.

"I don't know, they weren't police officers, they didn't have a uniform on."

"Shit." Nick mutters under his breath.

"What?"

"Noah, go home—" Nick warns his sister and walks to the door.

"Why?" Noah asks as she watches Nick show her the way out.

"Because it's probably the social workers. If you and Mom are missing, they could take you away!" Nick tries to explain to his sister.

"I don't wanna go anywhere else—" Noah pleads.

"Then, go home, Noah!" The boy shouts.

"Nick—"

"I'm serious. You shouldn't be here. Go back and tell them you got scared. That you thought they were gonna send you away because of Mom." Nick gives his sister an explanation for her running away.

"Okay," Noah gives in.

"If anything bad happens, just call me." Nick says, feeling a bit guilty for shouting.

"Okay." Noah mumbles and walks out of the dorm.  She heads to the street and begins walking home.

—
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵

"JJ, any word on Noah Collins?" Hotch asks as the team meets in the briefing room.

"Uh, no, no one's called in." JJ replies.

"I have Morgan and Prentiss staking out the house in case she decides to show up." Hotch says and looks up at the evidence board.

"I feel like there's something obvious that we're just not putting together." Rossi complains, "There's something significant with Gia Collins.  She was brutally murdered compared to the other four women." He goes on.

"It might have something to do with the kids." Reid suggests.

"What makes you say that?" Hotch asks.

"That's the one thing that separates these women apart." Reid states, "Gia Collins couldn't get her own children to speak a word to their social worker.  The house had no pictures of either of her children, which shows that their mother never really acknowledged them much." Reid explains and looks at the other women's photos, "These women weren't like that.  From the interviews with the kids, these women were present in their children's lives.  They were almost too present — that's why the kids found them annoying." Reid goes on.

"The kids thought they were annoying." Rossi repeats and realizes that they may have found the missing piece.

"Keep an eye on the older kids of each victim.  I want Noah and Nick Collins in the station as soon as possible." Hotch says and everyone goes to fulfill their duties.

—
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘴' 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦

"You think she ran from us because she's guilty?" Morgan asks Emily as he watches the house from their SUV.

"I think she's scared." Emily answers.

"She's trouble.  I used to know some kids just like her when I was in school." Morgan says.

"What kinda kids?" Emily asks.

"Runners.  They run from everything bad in their life.  They avoid it as much as they can and use drugs or alcohol to escape." Derek tells Emily, "Did you see that drawer full of highlighters?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Emily asks.

"A couple of the officers thought it was weird, and they were right.  They found marijuana stuffed into each highlighter." Derek informs his partner.

"Seriously?" Emily gasps.

"I told you — an escape." Derek sighs and sees a figure walking towards the house, "Prentiss." He nudges Emily and nods towards the person.

"That looks like Noah." Emily says and gives Derek a knowing look.  They both get out of the car and walk towards the girl.

"Noah Collins!" Morgan calls out.  The girl walks into the street light, giving Emily a good look at her.  The girl has her hair tied up into a messy ponytail and she is still wearing her glasses.  Emily glares at the girl and realizes that she did see her walking down the sidewalk earlier.

"Hey, woah!" Derek calmly speaks as he notices that Noah wants to run away again, "You got nowhere to go, kid." He adds and sees the frightened look on the girl's face.

"Are you Noah Collins?" Emily asks as she slowly steps towards the girl, "I'm Agent Emily Prentiss with the FBI. We're not gonna hurt you, Noah. We just want to ask you some questions about your mother." Emily explains and steps a little bit closer. Morgan comes closer as well and watches the teen put her guard down.

"We can make this real easy, kid." Morgan adds and shows that he is not going to hurt Noah. Just as he thinks he has her under control, Noah tries to run past him.

"Not so fast!" Morgan exclaims and catches the girl's arm. He pulls her in as she struggles to get loose from his grasp. Emily takes the other arm and walks the teen to their car.

—
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵

"Hotch, we found the kid." Morgan says as he comes from sitting Noah in the interrogation room.

"Noah Collins?" Hotch asks as they enter the viewing room beside the interrogation room.

"Yeah, she gave me and Prentiss a run for our money." Morgan chuckles as he watches the girl through the one-way glass.

"Literally, she ran from us until we lost her and apparently hopped on a train." Emily adds.

"Yeah, the little sneak pulled a quick change in an alleyway." Morgan says, honestly impressed with the teen's getaway plan.

The team stands in the observation room as Hotch enters to question the teen.

"Noah Collins." Hotch says as he closes the door behind him, "I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner."

"Can you please tell me what I'm doing here?" Noah pleads.

"You're here because you're a suspect." Hotch lies.  He does not have enough evidence to make her a suspect, but he wants the teen to sweat.

"For what?" Noah defends herself.

"The murder of your mother." Hotch growls, feeling as though the teen is trying to play him.

"Which one?" Noah asks and everyone behind the glass realizes that the teen knows about her mother adopting her.

"Gia Collins." Hotch says and shows Noah the pictures of her foster mother's dead body.  Noah furrows her brows as she leans over the pictures.  She takes one of them in her hands and realizes that her mother did not disappear — she was murdered.

"These pictures don't make you uncomfortable?" Hotch asks as he watches the teen stare blankly at the gory images.

"Do you know what she did to me?" Noah asks as she hunches over the table.  She leans in closer to show Hotch how serious she is.

"She has dragged me up the stairs by my hair, put my hand on a hot burner just 'cause I said a curse word, has slapped me across my face multiple times, once kicked me out of the house and forced me to sleep on the porch in the middle of December, and deprived me of dinner every time I talked back." Noah tells Hotch and looks down at the images, "She was batshit crazy and a drunk.  So, no, these images don't disturb me." She says and pushes the pictures back towards Hotch.

"When my agents went to your school, why did you run?" Hotch mentions, needing to move on.

"I was scared that they were from CPS. They've threatened to take me away before." Noah lies about being scared to be taken away.  If they had, she would have thanked them.

"And where'd you go?" Hotch explains and watches Noah freeze up a bit — a classic sign of fear.

"You have nothing on me!" Noah deflects the question, "And I don't have to answer any of your questions. Before you blame my deflecting on me being guilty." She makes her point and Hotch knows she is right.

"I know I'm young, but I'm not stupid." Noah snaps, "Your agents never said they were from the FBI. Last time I checked, running from strangers holding my picture isn't a crime!" She says and Hotch instantly gets up and leaves the room.  The team watches as Noah rolls her eyes and folds her arms.

"She's not budging." Hotch says as the door shuts.

"She's scared." Reid informs.

"Doesn't look scared." JJ mutters.

"Her face shows microexpressions of fear and she's slouching with her arms crossed; almost like she's trying to hide herself. Her foot has been twitching ever since you left the room. She also raises her voice every time you accuse her of something." Reid explains as he eyes the girl through the glass, "When you asked her where she went, she froze for a second.  I think she knows something, but I don't know what."

"Let me talk to her.  Maybe she just needs a woman." Emily suggests.

"If she killed her foster mother, how would a woman make her more comfortable?" JJ asks.

"It won't make her comfortable, but it might make her sweat a bit." Morgan states as Hotch allows Emily talk to her.

"Hi, Noah.  Do you remember me?" Emily asks the teen as she sits down across from her.

"How much longer will I be here?" Noah asks.

"Depends on how much longer you're not gonna talk."

"I have nothing to say.  My Mom disappeared a lot.  It was nothing new that I hadn't seen her in a couple days." Noah explains, subconsciously opening up to Emily.

"And the blood stains all over your mother's room?" Emily asks.

"Wait, what?" Noah instantly becomes fidgety, "I'm not allowed in her room.  The door was closed, I wouldn't have seen any of that.  Sh—She was killed in the house?" Noah asks Emily.

"Yes," Emily responds and watches the teen's face crumble, "Did you love your Mom?"

"I guess," Noah answers with a shrug. The teen's hand starts subconsciously shaking as it rests on her thigh, not going unnoticed by Reid.

"Despite her not telling you about your adoption?" Emily questions the teen.

Noah simply nods.

"Was she nice to you sometimes?" Emily asks.

"She only did those things to me when she was mad or drunk." The teen replies, referring to the things she told Hotch about, "It didn't get bad until two years ago."

"When your father left." Emily states.

"Yeah," Nosh sighs and seems to become sad.

"How long did this go on?" Emily wonders as she feels the teen opening up.

"As long as I can remember." Noah answers.

"Was she abusive towards your brother?"

"Yeah, but she was harsher towards me."

"Why?"

"Maybe because I'm not a part of her." Noah says as she shrugs her shoulders, "There was always this tension in the room between her and me.  Sometimes, she acted like I was a stranger in her home.  She would ask me why I am the way I am.  She used to ask me why I was always reading or why my humor was so dark sometimes."

"When did you find out you were adopted?"

"It was after Dad left. The social worker tipped me off a bit too.  We never told anyone about what Mom did.  A social worker randomly showing up was weird.  I kind of just put the pieces together." Noah explains how she found out, "She also never talked about Dad. And when she did, she talked as though he wasn't my Dad."

"I'll be right back," Emily sweetly says and stands to her feet.  She walks out of the room and stands before her team.

"Guys, I don't think she's scared of what she's done. I think she's scared of what someone else could have done." Emily states.

"You think she thinks Nick did it." Reid immediately understands what Emily is trying to say.

"I think she knows Nick did it." Emily corrects him.

"You really don't think she's guilty?" Morgan asks.

"I'm confident that that little girl in there didn't kill her mother." Emily says and looks at Noah. She cannot imagine the girl carrying out such a brutal act of violence.

"You don't think she could've snapped?" Morgan pushes his opinion.

"After watching her behavior and seeing most of the well-known symptoms, I think Noah has IED." Reid says and makes everyone turn their heads to him.

"IED?" Emily asks.

"Intermittent Explosive Disorder." Reid says and looks at the teen through the glass, "It doesn't usually form this much in teens, but if you don't have proper care of IED from a young age, it can get out of control. When you have IED, you literally have random, explosive moments of anger." Reid explains as he watches the teen's hand continue to shake.

"She's an angry teen, Emily." Morgan states.

"She's angry for the right reasons." Emily fights for the girl, "She was mentally and physically abused."

"And that can lead to major aggression—" Hotch backs Morgan up.

"Question her and I walk out that door." Emily threatens, "She's been through too much; she doesn't need to be framed for a murder." Emily says and storms out of the room.