7 Seconds Criminal Minds Novels & Stories

“But I have to prove something to myself.” Then she pressed the button. A soft beep. The screen next to the panel lit up. T-minus 10:00 The numbers began to tick down. Nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds left. Jake's breath caught in his throat. It was real. It was happening. Lila stepped back, her jaw clenched, eyes locked on the countdown as if sheer willpower might bend time itself. Jake’s mind reeled. With every tick of the descending numbers, images burst into his brain—screams, the smell of burnt metal, crimson pooling under broken bodies, sirens that came too late. The past flashed like broken glass through his memory, jagged and raw.

I've only been here a little over two weeks and I feel like I'm losing my mind. I actually lost my mind a long time ago, but now, I was just falling deeper and deeper into insanity and I think it has to do with the fact that I was becoming obsessed with Kitty. I had created this entire thing in my head that I knew wasn't normal but I couldn't stop it. "Because of Kitty," I repeated to Mason once again and he shook his head as he chuckled and moved away, his hands covered in my blood. "Kitty will be the death of you, Prisoner VII," Mason said as he washed his hands in the basin, "you really going through all of this for her? Who's running the drug industry if you're here in this place?"

Each second stretched out agonisingly, each one a reminder of the danger we were clearly in and each one a reminder that I was now dealing with one very pissed-off demon, who didn't appreciate being blackmailed one little bit. After a while, he dropped his hand from my mouth, but didn't let go of me, and I swallowed, trying to control my breathing. Three minutes felt like a lifetime. Three minutes was like a prison. A clock chimed, its lyrical steady beat striking twelve times and filling the room beyond with a pleasant, resounding echo that seemed to reverberate in my ears long after it had stopped. Still, Ethan didn't move and on the other side of the curtain, I could hear the sound of shu

She looked at him. “So is certainty.” Silence fell again. Sirens from Sector 7 echoed faintly through live feed audio. Chanting. No violence. Yet. Her chest tightened. In the previous cycle, this is where she chose control. She could feel it. Like muscle memory. The Break in the Pattern She lowered her hand. “Delay response.” Director’s expression hardened. “For how long?” “Two hours.” “That’s reckless.” “Or necessary.” The system recalculated again. Risk Index: Escalating

Seven renewal certificates. Every single one had my signature and Corbin's. A note from Maya was clipped to the top: "He thought collecting all seven would summon you back like some kind of twisted fairy tale." I stared at the documents, and a slow smile spread across my face. Fated mates? If seven rejections could still be called fate, then nothing in this world was an accident. I gently pressed the call button on the phone. "How may I help you?" the bellhop asked, returning quickly.

"Blind spot opens in ninety seconds." Ethan's heart hammered against his ribs. He gripped the PSS pistol at his hip, forcing his breathing to stay even despite the adrenaline flooding his system. "Looping the feed now," Kim murmured, fingers moving across her screen. "You've got your window in fifteen seconds." They moved.

After returning home, I went straight to the basement without uttering a single word. When the last bit of light above my head disappeared, all I could see was darkness. According to what I'd read, a person could only be driven to the brink of death after going seven days without food or water. Thus, I hoped they would lock me up for seven days. That way, I should be able to bypass the system and finally die. Every day, I relied on the voices outside to determine the time. By the sixth day, I was already so weak from hunger that I could barely move.

His hand flat against my back and his other hand at the back of my head and the specific warmth of a man who is not performing anything. We stood in the middle of my apartment. The city outside. The forty days behind us. I thought: I came back to this life to survive it. I thought: I did not plan to want it. I thought: Here I am. Wanting it anyway. We were still standing there when my phone rang. I did not move immediately. Neither did he. Then I pulled back enough to reach the desk. Sebastien. I answered. He said: "The criminal investigation has been formally opened. They moved faster than forty-eight hours." A pause. "It's done, Mireille. It's done."

"Tell me honestly. How bad was Riverton?" The question hit something in me instantly. Images flashed through my mind before I could stop them. Cold interrogation rooms. Blood under fluorescent lights. The echo of screaming thoughts that weren’t mine. One memory surfaced harder than the rest. A suspect sitting across from me in tears while his mind replayed the murder over and over again. I swallowed hard and forced the images back down. "Bad enough." Mercer took one look at my face and didn’t ask for details. I was grateful for that because I really didn’t want to talk about it.

The guard studied me for a long moment. Then he reached for his radio. I stood at those gates and I did not fidget and I did not look away and my wolf stood straight inside me for the first time in seven years. The radio crackled. The guard looked up. Alpha Rhys says to bring her in, he said. He did not sound surprised. And that was the part that should have reassured me. It did not.