[Criminal Minds] years before love

Rossi ordered Lash a burger, fries and a large Coke.

Lash poked the Coke with a straw, stared at his hand, and sighed after a long time.

Hotch stared at the hamburger in her hand, and spoke first, "Is Harry Payne your friend?"

"I used to think we were friends." Lash let go of the straw in his hand, and pushed the cup hard, "I met Harry a few months or more than half a year ago. At first, a friend and I met him on the street. He borrowed some money to spend."

"Borrow?" Rossi didn't quite agree with her description.

"He beat up my friend." Lash snorted nonchalantly, "It's okay, we misjudged the person, he looked so thin and didn't expect to be so good at hitting. But he didn't touch me, maybe I'm a Girl, it's ridiculous. I thought it was going to be another mess... I didn't expect him to ask where we were going and if we could go together."

She laughed at herself, "I thought he wanted to fuck me."

"Looks like he didn't?" Hotch swallowed the chips he had just stuffed into his mouth.

"No, Harry doesn't seem to be interested in this kind of thing." Lash shook his head, "Sometimes we do it around him, and he just drinks like that, he doesn't even turn his eyes, he just looks like he's just wandering around interested in."

Hotch frowned, "You just said once?"

Lash was stunned for a while, and said softly, "He left us. Can you tell me how he died?"

"Suicide." Hotch hesitated for a while, but still found the photo from the folder and handed it over.

Lash stared at the photo until the corners of her eyes were wet, and she took a swig of Coke, "About about a month ago. He would have been in our activities a lot, and wandered around with us. Three or four weeks ago, he It started to appear less often, I went to him twice, and he didn't say why... Harry is very strange, he always rarely talks, but I can feel that he is very happy when he is with us, even if we don't Do something good. I thought he decided to retreat into his containment, you know, normal life. I was pissed at the time, but my friend told me he shouldn't be messing with us in the first place Together. Yes, they were right, I always knew he was not like us."

"So you had a fight?"

She touched the lifeless boy in the photo and sighed, "No. I saw him on the road last weekend and there was no one around him, but he didn't even say hello to me, he just looked at me and then turned around suddenly Run away. But it felt like, like there were invisible eyes on him and he was about to break down. I wanted to catch up to him and say something, but he was running too fast."

"Lash, think about it, did anything happen a month ago, before he wanted to change?" Rossi shoved more photos of the scene under her nose, "Remember, everything you saw and heard Something that makes you feel wrong."

"Something's wrong..." Lash lay on the table thinking for a long time, scribing fingers on the photo, and finally she raised her head, "I know it sounds ridiculous, but one day I saw him reading a book."

"Reading?" Hotch asked suspiciously, "Is he reading something weird?"

"No, it's just a math, maybe English, just a textbook. But you don't know about Harry." Lash shook his head, chuckled, rubbing his eyes on his arm, "he never read, at least I never in the fortress I saw him read a book."

"fortress?"

"This house, he called it the Fortress. He said he lived there when he was a kid, and he loved those days, but then everything changed." Lash took the tissue that Rossi handed her. Take us."

"Didn't you go to him afterwards?"

"Agent, listen, Harry is nice to us, we can really understand if he wants to leave someone like us." Lash stared at Hotch, "We didn't bother him, although we feel a little sorry, I like it his."

Her gaze focused on the photo again, "Maybe we should go."

Then she lay down on the table and started crying.

Rossi looked at Hotch, and both of them shook their heads slightly, not interrupting immediately, just looking at her, waiting for her to release her emotions.