5:43 AM
Quantico, Virginia

[i]It is difficult to begin to describe what one sees when looking at the to-be-mentioned photos. The setting, the least personal of the components, is a dingy motel room. The walls are of questionable design, green in color, furniture sparse and dull. The bed is undone slightly, it is drenched in blood. There is also blood on the floor. The floor. The floor is where the girl is. She is contorted into an unhuman shape; her spine is broken, her legs come up and over her (she is laid on her stomach) and are tied to her arms which come up and behind her. Around her bound form is a circle of bedsheets, like a nest, or a spotlight. Most importantly, and most horrifyingly, the girl’s mouth is stuffed with pink, fleshy parts, the autopsy report shows it was her own mutilated reproductive organs. It was a sloppy job, says the autopsy physician, complete amateur work, brutal. One of the photo’s gives the impression of a roast duck on a macabre Thanksgiving day, or a bloody mother hen in ghastly roost. [/i]

This is the scene that Mitchel Green, Co-Chief Investigator of the BSU, found in a small bound folder sitting on his desk, early in the morning. He passed it off to his assistant, Kaily Hitchens (as he is known to do), and she passed it on to the desk of Thomas Wakefield. She was a little stand-offish. Everyone in the office had all sorts of ideas and impressions of Mr. Wakefield, none too kind. She placed it on his desk, just as he seemingly stared off into space, and cleared her throat for attention. 

“Mr. Green wants you to take a look at this, he needs a profile. He mentioned you might need to head to New York.”

---

Jay watched Mark intently, his dark blue eyes narrowed as Mark dissected the photos. He could tell, by the way he flitted from one piece of information to the next, that he was [i]impressed[/i], for lack of a better word. He knew precisely who this was. 

Josh lifted the room temperature cuppa he left on the desk earlier, he drank from it as Mark read. He felt like he was waiting for blood test results, his anxiety was at a height. Then Mark spoke, and Josh had to wait some more. Josh damned all those people who said Mark didn’t have a personality, that would be preferable to the bullheaded runaround Mark was giving right now. 

J.L followed up quickly, seriously, “I want you to see the truth, I only want you to see what’s there.” J.L’s finger pressed to the center of the dossier, it tapped furiously. “I want you to get in there, and come out with a profile.”

Josh put down his cup and cleared his throat, he agreed with J.L’s words, he thought that he ought to speak up before he was thrown to the side, “I know my way around a gun, I know how to take care of perps, I can give you a basic profile of any simple killer. But this one is different, you have the only kind of brain that can create a profile of such a skilled, and meticulous hand.” Josh sat upright, angled himself at Mark, “I don’t care what you see, as long as it helps me catch this guy.”

J.L nodded as Josh spoke, he glanced down at his hand and noticed a freckle of glitter on his thumb. He removed the sparkling dot and tossed it aside, disturbed by the memories it conjured. The bearded man rejoined the conversation, “He’s called the Buffalo Butcher.” Then J.L stopped himself, he looked down at his desk then back up at the couple in front of him. “But first, Mark, since you refuse to answer direct questions,” J.L opened the top-most drawer of his desk, took the standard issue pistol from it, along with the temporary special agent badge, and placed them both side-by-side in front of Mark, “if you’re in, take them.”