Grayson Brass stared up at the black ceiling as she lay in her bed. She could feel the zipper of her leotard pinching at her back, and her tights rubbing against her skin and the cheap bed sheets. She glanced at the digital clock on her desk; the luminescent green numbers read 11:30. I t was time to make a break. She carefully slipped out of her bed and crept toward the wall, Grayson pressed her ear against it. The thin walls gave an easy listen to the other side. The TV was off in the other room and she could hear the shallow breath and soft snore of a deep sleep escaping from the person in the bed, her mother. Grayson scooped up her dance bag, slipped on her boots, and wrapped herself in an old sweater. She tiptoed to the window and lifted it up slowly, and then she maneuvered onto the ledge and leaped onto the lawn, dodging the shrubbery that lined the house. Thank God she lived on the first floor.

"He's at it again; they took a girl this time, discovered thirty minutes ago"

SSA Hotchner threw a folder on to the table in front of SSA Dr. Reid and SSA Rossi. The folder released pictures of a tangled and twisted body as it hit the table. Dr. Reid picked up one of the pictures and read the bloody murder victim's name of the bottom of the photograph.

"Delilah Brass"

It had been one hour since Grayson had reached the dance studio. She had finished her stretching, deep breathing, and warm ups, and now she was able to dance. The stereo was set to an alternative rock music station, so Grayson decided to try a new routine. She thrusted her chest forward to the music. She waved her arms to the rhythm and leaped and swayed with passion. She glanced at the wall mirror and watched her slender body conform to different shapes according to the music. It was a good night. Grayson twirled and then crouched close the floor, planning her next move; it was going to be the night she landed a jump she was working on. Grayson crosses the floor with swift glides, and then she prepared her landing spot and sprinted to the middle of the wood floor. She leaped in the air with amazing athleticism and grace. A few arm movements and a couple turns added to the difficulty of the move. It was almost time to return back to Earth, when a gunshot rang into the air and a deep raspy voice shouted,

"Get down!"

"I guess we are going to Ocean City."

The BAU team evacuated the room and prepared to board the jet.

Grayson crashed into the mirror and felt the shards of glass ripping her skin. She heard the crash, and then the footsteps of a heavy man coming closer to her. She saw a blotchy image of the pool of blood that surrounded her, mixed with broken pieces of mirror and the laces of her ballet shoes that had come untied. Then all her senses ceased and the whole world faded to black like in a Hollywood movie. Grayson had a feeling this one was not going to end well.

Dr. Spencer Reid took a good hard look at the picture of Delilah Brass. He has seen a lot, but this one truly hit him hard. Delilah was tied to a chair and drugged, then was shot in the head twice and the unsub had her skin ripped up. Then Reid moved to the next picture, a view of Delilah's back, the unsub had crudely scrawled a message into it.

"The girl WILL be part of my show"

Grayson drifted back into consciousness. She was in a cold dark warehouse. It reeked of rotting meat and mold. She drifted her eyes to her body. It was bloody. Very bloody. Her ankles and her wrists where shackled and chained. The chains were long so she could not see where they went, but Grayson was not thinking about that because she heard footsteps. They were coming close like in the dance studio, but this time she did not black out, she could see his face. Clearly. It was a mask, white with red circles around the eyes and a disturbing smile was painted on. The lips were lime green and purple and between them there were bright yellow teeth.

"Time for the show"

"Rachael Caraway, six years old, Caucasian, blonde, blue eyes, taken from her home"

"Jessica Lynch, eighteen years old, red hair, Caucasian, hazel eyes, taken from public park"

"Paul Dowry, forty- two, African American, brown hair and eyes, taken from a grocery store parking lot"

"Franklin Barnes, twenty- five, Hispanic, brown hair, green eyes, car was found on the side of the highway."

"Grayson Brass, fifteen, Caucasian, blonde hair, green eyes, taken from her home and mother was murdered."

The BAU team read the hostages' names of the growing list. They knew they were all connected because of a signature of the unsub, Hotchner explained.

"Each time the killer takes a person, he leaves a message that says that they will be part of his show. Caraway's was written in finger paint on her easel; Lynch's was scrawled into a tree; Dowry's, was written in blood on the grocery store window, Barnes' was written in bones of road kill and twigs in his truck bed, and the most brutal, Brass's was carved into her dead mother's back." The team glared at Hotchner, wondering what else he was going to say, and then he said the worst, "We have nothing so far."

The man in the mask pulled hard at the shackles making Grayson whimper. She was paralyzed. She could not feel anything and, she could not move a muscle, but the man in the mask was doing a fine job of moving her himself. He threw Grayson onto a stretcher and then, dragging the chains, pushed her into another part of the warehouse. When Grayson looked up next, she could see what he was doing holding up a thin metal rod and a surgeon's knife. She tried to scream, but she did not have the strength, and her mind was going a million miles a minute, thinking of what she could do, but the answer was- nothing.

Morgan and Reid were talking with the spicy tech girl Garcia via webcam. "Besides the city and the message, all of the victims had something else in common, they all were into the performing arts, and they were all noted as extremely talented actors, singers, etcetera. Little Rachael is only six and she has performed in high school plays with her big sister because of her singing talent, she also does pageants, such a cutie. Jessica Lynch goes to an acting academy in the area and has been in countless shows and she has been accepted into the New York Performing Arts School, Mr. Dowry is an established actor, having been an extra in several Broadway musicals, off- Broadway plays, and is a dancer in a local company. Frankie B., aka Franklin Barnes is a drama teacher at a local high school and he has had a good run in show business himself. And finally Grayson Brass, man she has a beautiful face! Anyway she is a dancer and actor in her high school, also dances outside of school, well she used to anyway, after her father passed away she stopped taking lessons, I guess money reasons."

"Thanks baby girl, at least we have some sort of connection" sighed Morgan and he looked at Reid with a questioning look.

"No problem sugar.", Garcia smiled and the laptop screen went dark.

They were taken too. A girl no older than seven, a read head in her late teens, a younger Hispanic man, and a middle aged Black man. They were looking up at Grayson, as if they were saying welcome to hell. All of their faces were painted with an array of bright colors, and they were dressed in disturbing and theatrical costumes and gold jazz shoes. They were all hanging from shackles, their feet resting on a grand stage, it was big, creaky and was painted like a funhouse. They were not dead though, they were very much alive. The read headed girl was facing the opposite way and Grayson saw her bare back and a line of crude stitches traveling down it. Grayson looked at her own arms and saw similar stitches lining her up and down the length of them. She glanced at her legs. Same thing. Thick stitches, like a shoelace. She could not bend her knee nor could she bend her elbows, and there was a brace on her neck impairing her from looking anywhere but forward. She was stitched up like a doll or a puppet. Wait. That's it. Puppets.