"If the hurt comes, so will the happiness"
-Unknown-

Maya, Derek and Tara wait for the elevator door to open up so they could head up to the rest of the team to speak about the case. "I was wondering when you'd finally come work with us" Maya states as she looks to Tara, who chuckles. "I had some business to attend to, but I got this job and wasn't going to lose it now" Tara explains, Maya nodding her head understandingly when Derek gets a test from Reid about his mother.

Just then, the elevator door opens and the three of them walk inside. "You'd think this kid would learn how to text by now. Anyway, he says he misses us, and his mom is doing well-" Derek suddenly stops as he notices JJ laying up against the wall of the elevator, obviously exhausted.

"Well, good morning to you too" Maya greets, looking over to JJ, who lets out a tired yawn and looks to the three people standing in front of her. "What's going on, a little morning-after blues? Wait, let me guess, let me guess. Date night. Romantic dinner and a movie" Derek states, trying to guess why JJ is so tired and can barely keep her eyes open.

"Hm, I don't think that's it" Tara says, shaking her head as Maya does the same thing, not agreeing with Derek's guess. "Come on, come on. There was probably a little wine involved to set the mood and then you finished it off with a little hanky panky" Derek declares and Maya's jaw drops as she hits his shoulder, causing JJ and Tara to burst out into laughter.

"Are you just describing you and Maya's night?" JJ asks tiredly, her hands resting in her pockets as she looks between the happy couple. "Besides the wine, dinner... and movie. Yes, that was our night" Maya answers, Tara raising her hand so Maya can give her a high five, which she does.

"Amen to that" Tara says as JJ chuckles softly, shaking her head before JJ explains the only action happening at her house at 3 am is a colicky baby.

"Gas? I'm guessing a lot of it" Tara states while JJ nods her head and Maya cringes her face into disgust as the elevator door dings and finally open. "Colicky. I knew that" Derek says as he's the first to walk out, Maya following after him and the two women, JJ and Tara, thoroughly introduce themselves to each other.

"Hey, Rossi. Natalie. Where's Hotch and Garcia?" Derek asks as him and Maya look around with their eyebrows furrowed while Natalie and Rossi stand in front of them, already knowing the news. "Yeah, I thought we had a case" Maya states, knowing that's the reason they were called back to the office.

"We do, but they're behind closed doors" Rossi answers as he motions towards Hotch's office where the blinds are closed, as is the door.

"Is this about the network of hitmen?" JJ answers to which Natalie confirms her question with a nod. "Any update?" Tara wonders and Rossi simply shakes his head while his hands rest on his hips. "Nothing yet, but Hotch has pulled out all the stops" Rossi answers while Maya sighs sadly, whist shaking her head.

"How's she doing?" JJ wonders to which Maya scoffs, "She's got 4 hitmen targeting her, so she's not doing good."

"Yeah, I also heard something about witness protection" Natalie states. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Now for the case. It seems that a guy, Steven Jackson, was found dumped in a ditch five days ago, tortured to death. Then three days ago another man, Lance Coleman, was supposed to leave on a business trip, but never made the plane. "Their preliminary M.E. report shows deep ligature marks and lacerations on Steven's wrists. He was likely restrained for an extended period of time" Maya declares while Rossi suggest that the unsub must have a secure secondary location where he holds them captive and is able to perform these murders.

"It says here Steven suffered repeated burns and contusions all over his body" Natalie realizes as Hotch sees that as extreme torture meaning the unsub has found an outlet for his aggression. "But there's no obvious signs of sexual as*ault.

The torture could be what's getting him off" Maya declares as she reads through the files thoroughly, trying find any clues of why the unsub does what he does.

"Maybe it's about revenge. These two crossed the unsub, now he wants to make them pay" Tara states, providing valuable information that the team can use for the case. "It's possible he was testing to see just how much torture Steven could take before he'd break" Derek says and Garcia's breath hitches as she realizes that the recent man kidnapped, Lance Coleman, has been missing for over 72 hours.

"If revenge is the unsub's motivation, he could already be dead" JJ states, "Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, we have to assume Lance Coleman's alive, and we need to find him. Wheels up in 20."

_____

On the plane, Maya and Derek are pouring a cup of coffee when JJ comes by. "You want a cup?" Derek asks and Maya looks over at him shaking her head and that's when he realizes. "Oh... right the whole-" Derek stammers over his words as his hands hover over his chest.

"Yeah. I'm still nursing, but there's only 45 days, 3 hours, and 6 minutes left, but who's counting?" JJ states and Maya chuckles softly as Derek looks to her in shock.

"You're really not messing around" Derek states to which JJ scoffs jokingly, "No, you don't stand between a woman and her caffeine" JJ says and Maya raises her cup of coffee before she takes a sip of it and watches JJ walk to her seat.

"Hm, maybe we shouldn't have kids" Derek says, making Maya furrow her eyebrows in confusion while looks to Derek. "And why is that?" Maya wonders as she sets her cup down and crosses her arms over her chest. "Because you're already hard to deal with when you drink coffee. Imagine you without it" Derek jokes as he leans in closer to Maya, who shakes her head, trying her hardest not to laugh.

"That wasn't funny" Maya says as she shrugs and tightens her jaw, not wanting to laugh at his cruel, but slightly funny, joke. "Oh, come on. You know you want too" Derek says as he places his hand on the side of her cheek and pulls her in for a kiss, which she happily gives back before it's time to go over the case again on the plane.

"Where's Natalie?" Hotch asks as the team looks around. "I think she's in the bathroom" Rossi answers and Hotch nods his head, suggesting they can get started without her.

Meanwhile, Natalie is in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror as he grips the sides of the small sink. Sometimes the memories of being kidnapped hit her at random times. They never go away, but Natalie has been getting help and taking medication for it... maybe too much. Natalie dogs in her bag and finds her pill bottle that was given to her by a psychiatric doctor.

The pills are supposed to help with her nightmares, but Natalie looks down at the bottle, wanting to take just one to calm her down. "Just one" Natalie mumbles to herself as she roughly opens the bottle and places one in her hand. She looks down at the pill and proceeds to bite her lip eagerly before popping it into her mouth and using the tap water from the sink to get it down. She catches her breath and places the bottle back into her bag and heads out of the bathroom to revisit the team and insert herself into the case conversation.

As Natalie joins the team, the team is just learning that Garcia can't find any connection between the two victims. One was single, the other married. One was a security guard, the other ran a business so Hotch suggests that she check if one did security work for the other's business. Maybe there's a connection there.

"Victim went missing while traveling at night. That speaks to the unsub's knowledge of their schedules" Derek says as Natalie soon becomes aware of the topic they're talking about. "He may have stalked them over an extended period of time. Which is how he knows the most opportune moment to strike" Natalie declares as Tara closes her file stressfully.

"There are no witnesses, no cameras. They're simply gone. He targeted these men for a reason" Tara declares, as Hotch nods his head and looks around at the team. "The sooner we find out why, the sooner we find Lance."

Maya, Derek, Tara and Natalie arrive at the morgue, and they realize only two of them can go in. "Nat, want to come with me?" Maya asks and Natalie is too busy staring out the window, not listening to a word Maya is saying to her. Maya knits her eyebrows with worry before she calls out to Natalie again, this time Natalie jerks her attention towards Maya and finally registers what she's asking her for.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's go" Natalie says as she rushes out of the car. "She, okay?" Derek wonders and Maya shrugs her shoulders, "I-I'm not sure" Maya says before she exits the car and finally catches up with Natalie who holds the door open for both of them to walk in.

_____

As they walk in, Maya looks over at Natalie and watches as he fingers twitch and grip the sides of her pants eagerly. "Hey, are you alright? I know you must be tired of hearing it, but-". "I am so how about you don't ask" Natalie exclaims rudely, causing Maya to be taken back by her sudden reaction to the question.

"Okay..." Maya trails off as she opens the door to where the ME is waiting to give the information about the recent dead body found. Natalie waltzes in with Maya following behind her until the two of them stand next to the metal table where the dead body of Steven Jackson lies.

"The brutality the victim experienced was immense. He suffered facial fractures, burns, and extensive bruising" The ME doctor informs as Maya crosses her arms over her chest. "What about the cause of death?" Maya wonders, but the doctor shakes her head and tells Natalie and Maya that she hasn't been able to finalize it, but preliminarily she'd say he died from cardiac arrest induced by electric shock.

"This is complete overkill" Maya realizes as she looks over at Natalie. "Yeah, the fact that the unsub is stepping up his method of torture could mean he's getting frustrated" Natalie explains while Maya nods her head in agreement as she comes to think of another solution.

"What if he's ex-military? It would explain his knowledge of multiple torture techniques" Maya says.

"Or the guy used Google. Trust me, I've seen all sorts of crazy stuff" The ME doctor states as Maya looks back down at the body and thinks you could find these types of kills on the internet or even in some documentaries about killings. Also, Steven's eyelids had been stapled open.

Was this a metaphor because the victim had 'looked away' from something that affected the killer, or is it just generically cruel torture?

_____

Later, Garcia phones into the office with another piece of info. The missing guy, Lance, rented a car using his company credit card. After missing his flight, he decided to just drive home and turn in the car in Phoenix. The team decides that it's likely that both men were kidnapped while driving somewhere.

Could the killer be posing as a hitchhiker, or guy with a damaged car, and murdering people who pick him up?

"That would explain why the victims are completely unrelated," Maya starts off as takes in what Garcia informed her, "they actually were random."

_____

The next morning, Lance Coleman's body was found on the side of the road. After noticing that there was less pain in the death than usual the team knew it was time give the profile which states the unsub is a guy who's sexually aroused by interrogation and the fact that he's fixated on torture might suggest that he's a vet with PTSD.

The team then continues with their assumption that he has no social skills because he's abducting people at night.

Garcia gets the GPS for the second victim's rental car, and we discover that, as they guessed, it went along the highway linking Phoenix and Tucson. They point out that this is the same route that the first victim used to go to work. "Lance wouldn't have even been on that highway if he hadn't missed his flight" Natalie realizes as she walks up to the map that is taped to the board with the other evidence and information they've gathered.

"But look- this is one of the most traveled roads in the country. It goes all the way from California to Florida" Maya states before Derek has Garcia check through their profile once again and find any suspects connected specifically to the route I10.

Meanwhile, the team knows whatever the unsub is looking for is somehow connected to this highway...

_____

Later, Natalie is in the bathroom looking at herself in the mirror. Her hand wanders to the scar on her stomach and she slowly lifts up her shirt and travels her fingers along the cut that was put their unwillingly. Natalie feels her breath hitch as her hands touch the scar and she quickly puts her shirt down and tucks it back into her pants.

"Ahh!" Natalie screams as another sword pierces through the wooden box. She looks down at her stomach and notices blood leaking from her white buttoned up shirt, indicating one of the swords has slightly sliced the lower part of her stomach. "Please! Just let me go!" Natalie screams as two fit he swords are brought out of the box, giving her more room to move around.

"Ugh!" Natalie cries out as she places her hands on top of her head and sniffles in her tears while pacing back and forth in the empty bathroom. "Come on, Nat. Come on" Natalie begs, wanting the horrid memories to go away and that's when she looks to her purse that rest on top of the sink. Pills. Pills. Pills. Natalie covers her mouth while she contemplates on two choices. Take the pill or don't.

Just then, Natalie snatches her purse off of the sink and frantically looks through it, heading the sound of pills rattling in the bottle which only makes her more eager to take them. Once she gets ahold of the pill bottle, she opens it and is about to get the pill out of the bottle when her phone rings and it startles her, causing her to drop some of the pills onto the tile floor in the girls' restroom.

"Shit, shit" Natalie mumbles to herself as she grabs her phone out of her pocket and sees it's Reid calling her. Her breathing starts to slow down when she sees his name and she immediately hits answers. "Hey, Reid" Natalie talks as she uses her shoulder bone to keep the phone near her ear while she frantically grabs her pills off of the floor.

"I'm doing- Uh, I'm doing just fine" Natalie answers as she places the bottle back into her purse and stands to her feet, continuing to talk to Reid as she exits the bathroom. Suddenly, the toilet flushes and the stall door slowly creep open, and Maya is seen exiting the stall with her eyebrows furrowed.

Maya walks to the sink and proceeds to wash her hands when she notices a small white pill on the ground and remembers hearing multiple things drop on the ground when Natalie was in the bathroom panicking. Maya quickly dries her hands and bends down towards the pill before retrieving it in her hands and knows her sister is in fact... not okay.

Maya enters the conference room where Tara, JJ and Natalie are and immediately locks eyes with Natalie, but to not seem suspicious she looks away and takes a seat across from her. The women talk and turns out, JJ checked with the ME only to find out that the victims had huge amounts of caffeine in their systems.

So, the torture isn't about his anger, it's a reflection of what he's going through. He wants them to stay awake.

_____

Later, the whole team gathers together after finding out the newest abduction, and ask the big question- how much of the highway is isolated enough to manage abductions? The answer is that there's a few gas stations and diners, but not much. They restate that I-10 must be significant to the killer if he's willing to take the risk of grabbing victims from it.

Derek gives Garcia a call and asks her to look for any accidents involving male drivers on that stretch of highway because they know the unsub's keeping his victim awake, so they need Garcia to look for any accidents where the drivers fell asleep at the wheel.

It starts to get hard for Garcia and she isn't able to find a certain case that relates to what they're asking so she widens the search and looks for any accidents that occurred between 1:30 and 2:00 am and that's when she found a report citing sleep deprivation, but it's not an accident, it's a child abduction.

43-year-old William Taylor was driving I10 near Chandler, Arizona. It was late, around 11:30 and he was with his 5-year-old daughter Tatiana. They were returning from a dance recital, along with William who just worked a double shift at the salvage yard which he owns.

He was super sleepy and decided to pull off around midnight to a rest stop. He attempted to close his eyes for 10 minutes, woke up hours later and his daughter was missing.

"A parents worst nightmare.." JJ says sadly as she shakes her head, not wanting to feel what William could be feeling. "Yeah, but there's your trigger" Maya states, bouncing her leg up and down whilst sitting her spinning chair.

"He's torturing them for answers about his daughter's abduction because in his mind, he believes his victims were involved" Natalie adds.

"According to Taylor, there was a man with a skull tattoo on his hand who knocked on his window moments before he fell asleep. The guy told Taylor... he just wanted to let him know his taillight is out." Garcia informs and the team realizes that Taylor might have been suffering from sleep deprivation himself and It's likely he was in a micro sleep, and he imagined the man with a skull tattoo.

So, now in his delusional state, he believes each of his victim is that man with the skull tattoo.

Garcia proceeds to sends the work and home address. The work address is over at a junkyard so half of the team, Natalie, Maya, Derek and Tara head over there while the rest of the team heads to his house. Maya is driving the SUV, and they are just about to approach the junkyard.

"Wait, have we thought about why he's just started killing now?" Maya asks as she comes to a stop, just arrive at the junkyard while Hotch and the rest of the team is still on the phone.

Just then, Hotch explains with the trigger for his psychotic break is because they found his daughter's body a week ago...

"Let's go" Derek orders and Maya, Natalie, Tara and Derek swiftly exit the car, immediately pulling their guns out of their holsters. They search most of the junkyard and haven't found William yet until they come across a truck that is about for exit the garage.

The team proceeds to surround the truck, making it harder for William to escape. "William, it's time to give it up!" Derek informs as they remind him that he found his daughter's body last week, but he refuses to believe so.

"William just get out of the truck and we can talk about this" Tara states.

Meanwhile, Natalie's finger moves to her trigger while gripping the gun tightly in her hand as she stands at the back of the truck.

"No! No! No!" Williams shouts out as he revs the engine and begins to back up until... BAM!

The car comes to an abrupt stop and Maya, who is in the front of the truck sees William has been shot in the back of the head. Maya and the rest of the team head to the back of the truck and see Natalie is the only one holding up her gun because she's the one who fired the shot. Just then, Natalie lets out a sigh of relief as she places her gun back in her holster and calls for the paramedics.

"We need a body bag."

"Natal-" Maya calls out, "What?! It's not my first kill and it won't be my last" Natalie states abruptly before she walks off, her fist balled up tightly as she continues to walk away.

Case Closed...

"Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place"
-Unknown-