DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CRIMINAL MINDS OR ANY RELATED CHARACTERS

A/N: So I'm back. Not sure how frequent updates will be but I'll do my best! This story has been floating around in my noggin for some time so here it is. Set in series 7, after all the who-ha but before Prentiss leaves (again!) The story will focus mainly on Reid, Morgan, Prentiss and Hotch (but mainly mainly Reid). Hope you enjoy!

LABYRINTH - Chapter One

"What do we have?" Hotch asked as he walked into the round room, Morgan and Rossi close behind him. The rest of the team sat at the table, except Garcia who stood in front of the screen, ready to present the case.

"It's not good, Sir." Garcia said as Hotch and the other sat down. "A mass grave was discovered this morning just outside of Manassas." She pressed the clicker in her hand and the screen showed a picture of a wooded area. The ground had been disturbed and several human remains, all at varying stages of decomposition could be seen.

"How many victims?" Prentiss asked, picking up her tablet to have a closer look at the photos. Several of the remains were now skeletal while others looked relatively new.

"Twenty." Garcia replied, simply. She pressed the clicker again; glad to have rid of the grim grave picture, replacing it with snaps of the victims when they were alive.

"Twenty?" Hotch asked, looking up from his file. "How long has this been happening for?" Twenty victims. Twenty murders and nobody had noticed.

"The oldest remains date back to four years ago." She glanced at the screen behind her, sadness filling her as she thought about how all of these twenty, smiling, happy people had had their lives taken from them.

"The bodies were grouped in fours." JJ said, herself looking at her tablet, then around the rest of the team. "Does each group have a connection to one another?" She asked, leaning back in her chair a little.

Garcia nodded. "The first group, Macy Wickman, Trevor Hampton, Sarah Lewiston and Michael Smith all attended the same squash club. They were all reported missing within three days of one another in February 2008." She pressed the button and the four mentioned victims photos appeared together. "Then Sarah Jonas, Garry Hartman, Joanna Pine and Kelly Murray all used the same grocery store and where reported missing within days of each other in March 2009." She pressed the button again and the photo changed to four new faces.

"Grocery store?" Prentiss asked, looking at the faces. It was a bit of a tenuous link, but it was a connection none the less.

"The third group," Reid said, reading aloud out of his own paper file, "Matthew Hodge, Jayson Richards, Micah Roberts and Alan Davey frequented the same bar and were acquaintances of one another." He turned the page. "All reported missing on the same day, April 2010."

"He's taking them thirteen months apart." Hotch said, noticing the pattern.

Garcia nodded. "Jennifer Kindle, Ralph Johnson, Kerry Bannister, Sean Harding all missing in May 2011. Their kids went to the same playgroup. Then there's the last group, Caitlin Myers, Harry Williams, Hannah Reims and Lucas Yates. All reported nine days ago, discovered this morning."

"Does that mean he won't kill again till next year?" JJ asked.

"We need to find him before the case goes cold." Hotch said, not looking up from what he was reading. "Again." He added, raising his eyes to look at JJ, before returning them to his tablet.

"All the victims were aged between twenty five and forty five." Morgan said, after looking at each victims profile.

"The injuries are extensive," Rossi said, reading the file. "But they seem erratic. They don't seem to match on any one victim." He flicked to look at the next page. "Electrical burns, laceration, crush injuries." He read aloud.

"Wait," Reid said, turning the page in his file. "Each group of four has the same injuries within it." He said, not looking up.

"Yea, but they're all over the place." Prentiss said, not looking up from her tablet, trying to piece together what had happened to these people. "Two groups show no signs of any crush injuries at all while one group, three victims do, and the other two groups all had them."

"That true, but look," Reid said, looking up. "Out of the victims that were able to be autopsied and had enough remains for lab tests, two in every group showed signs of hypothermia. One of those two also had the electrical burns." He looked back down at his file them at the team. "One of the remaining two suffered the lacerations to their arms."

"So they may be separated?" Hotch asked him, still unsure of the pattern of injuries.

Reid shrugged. "I don't know." This case seemed to be making little sense. Working out what had happened to these people, and who had done it would prove more than challenging.

"Could he be pitting them against each other?" JJ asked, looking at the victims faces on the large screen. Some of them were so young...

"Like a competition?" Rossi suggested. "Teams of two, putting them through a trial?" He looked around the room and shrugged. This case was baffling. The injuries made no sense. The victimology was all over the place. "But why these people?" He asked, also looking at the photo.

"Maybe they have to work together, rather than against each other?" Reid suggested. Looking from the large screen to Rossi and back.

"Makes sense." Morgan said, nodding. "If they know each other, even if it's just from the supermarket, it would make the stress of having to watch them get hurt trying to help you that much worse." He looked around the group, settling his gaze on Hotch. "It's physical and emotional torture."

"There's one more thing!" Garcia said, pressing the button again. "Each group was found with a note, wrapped in plastic." She indicated the picture behind her which had five plastic wallets, each with a scrap of paper inside. "The first two were too degraded to get anything off but the last three were all the same." She pressed the button again.

"They didn't learn. They lost."

"What the hell is that suppose to mean?" Prentiss asked, looking at the picture. It was the same handwriting on them all. Even the same colour pen. Red.

"We'll find out." Hotch said, standing. "Manassas PD is waiting. It's a fairly local case so we'll drive. Reid, Prentiss and Morgan, you come with me to the station. Rossi and JJ, stay here with Garcia, go through victimology. Backgrounds, lab results, everything." He looked at the screen and sighed. "He picked these people for a reason."

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I know it's short but it's really just an intro to what's going on. The fun will start to happen soon : ) Let me know what you think.

I looked it up, and from what I can find, Manassas is only 35 miles from Quantico so they could drive it in less than an hour. Hope that's right... Sorry if it's not!