Authors Note!

In case you haven't noticed, this will be Reid-centric. Why? Because I love to cause him pain of course! This takes place sometime during season six when Prentiss and Seaver are here. I love JJ but I thought it would be interesting to have Seaver's character in here. I tried to make the characters as close to what they usually are but hey, we arn't all Criminal Minds script writers. Oh, and this is my first FF so please be nice!

I don't own anything! But if I did... Also, this is un Beta'd and all mistakes are my own.

Dr. Spencer Reid walked into the BAU bullpen in an annoyed daze. The electricity shut off in his apartment building in the middle of the night while he was sleeping so his alarm clock didn't go off. This caused him to oversleep by an hour. Then his coffee machine decided it would be a good day to break, making him more irritable than he already was. Then the metro had rail work going on so he couldn't ride the train to work. So he had to walk the ten mile distance from him apartment building to work.

He had considered calling Morgan or someone to come and pick him up but then decided against it. Morgan would probably already be angry at him for being late and asking him to come and pick him up would do more harm than good.

So he finally made it to work. He made a quick trip to the coffee machine and then walked to his desk. He saw that Morgan and Emily weren't at their usual spots at their desks and he silently cursed himself.

He glanced up at the conference room window and saw the whole team already in there. He sighed and set his messenger bag down at his desk.

Now or never, he though bitterly. He quickly made his way up the steps and down the cat walk. He had hoped to silently slip into the room, unnoticed, and that life would go on. Yeah, like that would happen.

He walked into the conference room with his head down. So far so good. Just a few more steps….

"Nice of you to finally join us, Reid," Hotch said loudly.

"Uh, sorry," Reid said as he felt his cheeks warm, "My alarm clock didn't go off and-"

"Reid." Hotch cut him off. Reid looked up at his bosses face. Hotch didn't look angry; he actually looked slightly relieved. "I was joking."

"Oh." Reid said. His cheeks felt really hot now. He walked quickly over to his seat and ignored the amused look everyone was giving him.

Hotch cleared his throat and nodded his head at Garcia to continue the briefing.

"Anyway," Garcia began again, "We have three dead. Each of them were found with the throats slashed and with heavy amount of torture."

"One of them had seven fingers missing, signs of rape, and numerous lacerations that seem to be done by a whip," Morgan read from the file in front of him.

Garcia winced and nodded, "And that's not even the worst…." Garcia trailed off and everyone got quiet.

Rossi cleared his throat, "The victims?"

"Oh," Garcia said and clicked the little remote in her hand. A picture of a vibrant, smiling blonde filled the screen next to a picture of a mangled body that Reid assumed to be the remains of the beautiful girl.

Garcia cleared her throat before beginning, "Victim one was the beautiful Shannon Felder, 24, she was a college student studying to become a physical therapist for children." Garcia stopped and looked like she was about to say something but didn't.

Emily sensed her distress and read the rest of Shannon's report. "She was raped repeatedly, had signs of being electrocuted-" everyone winced, "had two toes missing, and…. It says here that her appendix was removed?" Prentiss looked up confused.

Reid cleared his throat, "He probably did the procedure while she was awake and fully aware. This type of surgery without narcotics would be… intensely painful."

"Well then," Garcia said and clicked the remote again and a photo of a buff red-headed man filled the screen along with a picture of something that looked like a hunk of meat, "Victim two was 32 year old lawyer named Jason Hoffman" Garcia made a point of looking anywhere beside the pictures on the screen.

"Says here both of his arms were removed, along with eleven teeth, his intestines were basically ripped right out of him with rusted boating hooks." Morgan interjected. Everyone at the table looked particularly green.

"It says that he had a combination of Morphine and Dilaudid in his system," Seaver said, speaking up for the first time. Everyone lapsed into an awkward silence and looked everywhere but Reid. They all knew about his past drug addiction. Well, except Rossi and Seaver who just sat there looking confused.

"So..." Rossi began, "why use the drugs? He didn't use then on the first victim."

Morgan was the first to recover. "Well, Hoffman is certainly stronger than the first victim. Maybe he used them to subdue them?"

Reid ran a hand through his hair, "Or maybe it was used as torture."

Everyone looked at him curiously. Reid swallowed and decided to elaborate, "Well, if Hoffman had a past addiction of some kind then injecting him with the drugs would be a very… painful kind of torture. More mentally than physically."

Everyone, minus Rossi and Seaver, looked at him sympathetically and dropped the subject. Well, everyone except Seaver who decided to ask, "How so?"

Morgan glared daggers at her, which she chose to ignored.

Reid shifted uncomfortably in his chair, "Well…" he cleared his throat, "when a person overcomes a drug addiction, they would do practically anything to stay clean. Overcoming it once is hard enough, but doing it twice in nearly impossible."

He paused thoughtfully for a moment and then added, "When a person becomes addicted to a drug twice, all they can think about is how they failed themselves and their self esteem level drops. So it is torture. Torture of the mind."

Seaver stared at him for a moment. Then Garcia cleared her throat and continued the briefing, "The third victim was 27 year old Faith Dooley." She clicked the remote again and the screen showed the picture of an exotic looking girl with bright pink hair and green eyes. "She was raped repeatedly, had seven fingers missing, and had a lot lacerations that seem to be done by a whip." She paused for a moment and then said sadly, "She was also pregnant."

"So where are we going, exactly?" Reid asked.

"Tampa, Florida." Rossi answered.

"Alright, everyone, get your go-bags. Wheels up in 30," Hotch said and left the room. Reid's team members slowly trickled out of the conference room but Reid remained seated.

Morgan noticed this and came over to the man he considered to be his little brother. "You okay, kid?" he asked and laid a hand on his shoulder. Reid nodded and said, "I just… have a bad feeling about this one."

Morgan nodded in understanding, "Yeah. But hey? At least we're going to Florida. Home of sunny skies, beaches, and let's not forget those sexy ladies in bikinis."

Reid gave a half-hearted laugh and followed Morgan out of the room.

If only he knew what awaits him in Florida.

R-r-r-r-r-r-review! :D