Elle's apartment building appeared in my headlights at 11:47 PM.
I'd broken half a dozen traffic laws getting here, the system's warnings screaming in the back of my mind the entire drive. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong since I left the BAU, a crawling sensation at the base of my skull that grew stronger with every mile.
[DANGER SENSE: MAXIMUM ALERT]
[THREAT PROXIMITY: IMMEDIATE]
[FOCUS: -8]
The parking lot was quiet. Too quiet. Elle's car sat in its usual spot, lights off, engine cold. No surveillance team—Hotch had said within the hour, but bureaucracy moved slower than monsters.
I drew my weapon and approached the building.
The lobby door was propped open with a brick. Not unusual for older buildings with lazy residents, but tonight it felt like an invitation. An opening in a trap.
I took the stairs instead of the elevator. Fourth floor. Apartment 4C. The hallway stretched ahead of me, fluorescent lights flickering, casting shadows that moved wrong.
Elle's door was ajar.
No.
I pushed through, weapon up, already knowing what I'd find.
Blood on the hardwood floor. A trail leading from the entrance toward the living room. Furniture overturned—the coffee table we'd sat at, shattered. The lamp she'd bought at that antique store, broken.
And Elle.
She lay near the couch, one hand pressed to her abdomen, blood seeping between her fingers. Her face was pale, her breathing shallow, her eyes—
Her eyes found mine.
"Ethan." Her voice was barely a whisper. "He said... you'd come."
I was beside her in an instant, hands pressing over hers, trying to stem the bleeding. The wound was low, left side, the kind that could be survivable if treated fast enough.
"Don't move. I'm calling—"
"He's gone." Elle's hand gripped my wrist with surprising strength. "Tall. Scarred. Talked about... knights and quests. Said I was the sacrifice. The wounded king's offering."
"Save your breath. Help is coming."
I had my phone out, dialing 911 with blood-slick fingers. The operator's voice was calm, professional, infuriating in its distance from the horror in front of me.
"Gunshot wound, abdomen, conscious but losing blood. Fourth floor, 4C. FBI agent down. Get here now."
Elle's grip on my wrist loosened.
"Stay with me," I said. "Elle. Stay with me."
"I shot him." A ghost of her usual fire flickered in her eyes. "Before he got me. Hit his arm. He ran."
"Good. That's good. We'll find him."
"I knew he was coming." Her voice was fading. "Felt it. Like you said—patterns. Should have listened."
"Don't. Don't do that."
The blood kept coming. I pressed harder, felt her wince, kept pressing anyway. The system offered data I didn't want—blood loss estimates, survival probabilities, cold numbers that meant nothing against the warmth draining out of her.
[MEDICAL ASSESSMENT: GUNSHOT WOUND, LOWER LEFT QUADRANT]
[BLOOD LOSS: SIGNIFICANT]
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 78% WITH IMMEDIATE TREATMENT]
Seventy-eight percent. Twenty-two percent chance she dies on this floor.
Because you weren't fast enough.
The EMTs arrived in eight minutes. Eight minutes of holding Elle together, talking to her, watching her eyes flutter between consciousness and something darker.
They pushed me aside with practiced efficiency. IV lines. Pressure bandages. Medical jargon I barely processed. Then she was on a stretcher, then in an elevator, then in an ambulance with lights that painted the night red and blue.
I followed in my car, blood on my hands, blood on my shirt, blood everywhere except where it belonged.
The hospital was a blur of fluorescent lights and antiseptic smells. Waiting rooms. Forms. Questions I answered mechanically while the system catalogued everything and I felt nothing at all.
Morgan arrived first, then Reid, then Hotch. Gideon came last, his face unreadable, his eyes finding mine across the waiting room with something that might have been understanding.
"She's in surgery," I said when Morgan approached. "Bullet missed major organs. They think."
"You were there?"
"Not soon enough."
Morgan didn't say anything. Just sat beside me and waited.
Hours passed. The team cycled through—checking in, coordinating the manhunt for Randall Garner, dealing with the bureaucratic aftermath of an agent being shot. JJ handled the press. Garcia ran traces on everything the Fisher King had ever touched.
I sat in a plastic chair and stared at walls I couldn't see.
[FOCUS POOL: 30/75]
[DREAD METER: 15 → 23]
[WARNING: EMOTIONAL CAPACITY COMPROMISED]
At 4 AM, the surgeon emerged.
"She's stable." The words cut through the fog. "The bullet passed through without hitting any major organs. She lost a lot of blood, but she's young and strong. Barring complications, she should make a full physical recovery."
Physical recovery. Not full recovery. The distinction was a knife.
"Can I see her?"
"She's sedated. But yes. One visitor."
I walked into her room alone.
Elle looked small in the hospital bed—smaller than I'd ever seen her. Tubes and wires connected her to machines that beeped steady rhythms. Her face was pale, peaceful in a way it never was when she was conscious.
I sat in the chair beside her bed and took her hand.
"I'm sorry," I said to no one. "I should have been faster. Should have known. Should have—"
Should have told you everything. Should have warned you properly. Should have found some way to change this.
The hours crawled by. Night became morning. Morning became afternoon. The sedation wore off slowly.
Elle's eyes opened at 2 PM.
She looked at me for a long moment—recognition, then confusion, then something else. Something harder.
"I'm not coming back from this," she said.
Her voice was raw, rough from the tube they'd removed. But her eyes were clear.
"Elle—"
"I felt him in my apartment. In my space. He violated everything." Her hand found mine, gripped tight. "That doesn't go away. That doesn't heal with stitches."
"Then we'll find a new direction."
She didn't respond. But she didn't let go either.
The system displayed something in the corner of my vision:
[RELATIONSHIP STATUS: ELLE GREENAWAY — TRAUMATIC BOND]
[NOTE: SHARED CRISIS CREATES CONNECTION — NATURE UNCERTAIN]
I dismissed it.
Some things weren't for systems to analyze.
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