I do own Marvin, Sarah and Elena Reese, plus a few unnamed victims, but CBS can feel free to borrow them if they want.
Some violence but nothing worse than the show it's based off of.
They hadn't known at the beginning that it would be such a brutal case.
There were two victims when they were called in to rural Ohio: male, Caucasian college students. Neither was particularly athletic. Both were far too young to have endured the kind of tragedy they had died of.
The unsub spent 24 hours assaulting them with various weapons, beating them into pulps. Then another 24 hours sexually assaulting the victims- repeatedly and horrifyingly. The third day was spent exsanguinating the victims. At each 24-hour mark, he would send an untraceable video call to the victim's family, jeering about his victory. The third and final video would show the dead body.
The team profiled that the unsub was a male in his mid-forties who had recently suffered a stressor. The unsub was also likely using a stimulant to keep himself awake long enough to complete his sadistic ritual, as well as male enhancement medication on the second day.
It was Rossi who pointed out that an emotionally disturbed, drug-addicted unsub could devolve from his usual pattern at any time.
The team had absolutely no leads.
/
"Remind me again why we're re-interviewing this guy?" Alex Blake groused.
Morgan shrugged. "Partially because he was the last one to see Marvin Reese alive. Partially because we've run out of other things to do and Hotch wants to at least look like we're making progress so the press don't eat us alive."
"Right," Alex sighed, knocking on the door. There was a pause, then a muffled scream.
Morgan promptly broke the door down. The two charged in, guns drawn.
/
Hotch rubbed his temples. "Where are Morgan and Blake?"
"Still off on the interview," Rossi grunted without looking up from the file.
"It's been two hours," Hotch pointed out.
Rossi looked up. "Maybe they've got something."
"I doubt it," Hotch grunted, speed-dialing Morgan. It rung and rung before eventually going to voicemail. He frowned and stared at it. "He didn't reject my call, or answer it. It rung out."
Rossi frowned. Hotch speed-dialed Blake and received the same response.
"Okay, you and I can go check on them," Hotch said in a low, worried voice. "Tell Reid and JJ we're leaving."
/
When they arrived, the door was hanging off its hinges. Hotch and Rossi exchanged a glance before pulling their respective weapons and slipping through slowly.
"FBI, come out with your hands in the air!" Hotch shouted threateningly.
"Hotch! Over here!" Alex shouted. They quickly made their way over to find their newest agent handcuffed to a kitchen table. "He's gone, Hotch, he took him, there was nothing I could do!"
She was panicked, her wrist bloody from pulling at the cuff. Across the room, the witness was on the ground, dead, with half his face blown off.
"Where's Morgan?" Hotch asked.
Alex tugged violently at the cuffs. "I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't listen, he wouldn't-"
"The unsub has Morgan?" Hotch asked, his stomach dropping into his shoes.
Alex nodded tearfully. "I tried, I really did, but he took him anyway."
Rossi knelt beside her, taking her hand and rubbing it soothingly. "There was nothing you could have done. What happened?"
Alex gulped, trying to steady herself. "We heard a shout. When we came in, the unsub was there with a stocking over his head. He had a gun on the witness. Morgan and I pulled our guns, but he made us drop them and kick them toward him. Told me to cuff myself to the table or he'd shoot the witness. I did it. He told Morgan to cuff himself to the oven, but Morgan refused, tried to talk to him. The witness tried to pull away and make a go for it, and the unsub shot him. He went crazy. Started rambling about the routine and how it wouldn't work now, how it had happened too soon, how it was wrong and he needed a replacement to finish on schedule. He was walking all over the kitchen, had his back to us. He still had the guns but Morgan tried to sneak up on him, to take him down physically. The unsub heard him and spun around at the last second. He hit Morgan on the head with a cast iron skillet."
Rossi sucked in a breath. "Did he look hurt?"
"He dropped like a rock," Alex whispered. "He was bleeding a lot too. I tried to talk him down but he didn't listen. He dragged Morgan out."
Hotch was dialing his phone. "JJ? Get Reid and a CSU. We need all hands on deck over here… The unsub has Morgan. Bring bolt cutters" He hung up and looked at Alex. "What did he look like?"
Alex shrugged weakly. "He had a stocking over his head. His skin was pale, probably Caucasian. He was huge. Nothing we haven't already seen from the video calls. It didn't seem like a struggle for him to drag Morgan out the door. Hotch, I didn't see enough to help our profile much. We've got nothing… and he's got Morgan."
/
"Jureau," JJ said. "Please, please tell me you've got something."
"JJ? Get Reid and a CSU. We need all hands on deck over here."
"What? What's going on?" JJ asked worriedly.
"The unsub has Morgan. Bring bolt cutters." Click.
"What?! What do you mean he has… Hotch? Goddammit!" JJ cried, throwing down the phone. She was breathing heavily, choosing to be pissed at Hotch rather than freaked out about Morgan. After all, it made no sense. Morgan couldn't be kidnapped. He'd never let that happen. He was far too strong.
"JJ? Jayje, what's going on?" Spencer Reid asked worriedly.
JJ shut her eyes and paused. "Call in for a CSU, tell them to bring bolt cutters. We need to get over to the witness' house. Something's happened."
Reid walked over and put a hand on her arm, staring at her, concerned. "What's going on?"
JJ swallowed. "He has Morgan," she finally whispered.
/
Blake was freed. The CSU swept the house. They didn't find anything promising. Rossi shuddered as he watched them bag the bloody skillet.
The whole team was in stunned silence. They couldn't understand how something like this could happen. Morgan did all sorts of crazy things- generally involving explosives- but he was usually the victim of his own recklessness, if he was a victim at all. They couldn't imagine someone getting the upper hand on him. It just didn't happen.
"Has anyone called Garcia?" Hotch asked in a low voice.
"Oh, god," Rossi said, burying his face in one hand. "That won't be a pleasant phone call."
"I'll do it," Reid volunteered quietly, walking out of the house and dialing.
"What can I do for you, baby genius?" Garcia asked, her voice bubbly as ever.
"I have bad news, Garcia," Reid said quietly.
Garcia immediately read tragedy in his voice. "Is everyone okay?"
"I don't know. It's not good."
"What do you mean you don't know?" Garcia asked worriedly. "Sweetie, what's going on?"
"The unsub took Morgan," Reid told her finally.
There was a long pause. "No," she finally whispered. "No, that's not possible."
"I know it seems crazy, but it happened. We need you to stay focused so we can get him back as soon as possible."
"Oh, god," Garcia said, tears clear in her voice. "We have a three day timeline."
Reid sighed. "I hope it doesn't take that long."
"Oh, god," Garcia said again, letting out the first sob. "How bad is it gonna be, Reid? How long will it take to find him?"
Reid felt sobs start to shake him too, but he pushed it back. "I don't know."
/
"It's not your fault," JJ said, sitting beside her.
Alex grimaced at the ground. "I couldn't help him."
"No one could have. You were cuffed to a table."
Alex shook her head. "I couldn't save him… do you realize what could happen to him?"
JJ was trying to avoid thinking about it, but she sighed. "I know. And I know it feels like you could have done something, but you couldn't. Look, I get it. I've been where you're at now."
Alex looked up, curious.
JJ sighed. "I guess you haven't heard the story, at least that part of it. A few years ago, Spence got taken captive by an unsub in Georgia. He nearly died- actually, he did die, briefly. I was his field partner when he was taken. Now, I realize that there was nothing I could have done differently, that it wasn't my fault. At the time though, and afterward, I blamed myself. I kept thinking that we might never see him again, and it would be because of me. It didn't happen, and even if it did, it wouldn't have been my fault. It's not your fault now. It's the unsub. So stop blaming yourself and buckle down on who's really at fault."
/
It was slow going on the case, despite the frantic nature of their searching. Hotch gave Alex a cognitive interview, tried to get as much from her as possible. She gave them more details, but nothing helpful to the profile. He was large, white, frantic, probably high. Working on some sort of timeline.
Garcia ran everything she could think of running into her magic box, but couldn't find anything meaningful. She sat alone in her room, far away from the team, tears running down her face.
"Please, please find him," she whispered into the silence.
The rest of the team searched constantly, taking no breaks, following every lead. Still, with no tangible evidence and not nearly enough of a profile, there wasn't much they could do.
Through it all, every single one of them kept an unspoken eye on the clock, measuring the suffering of their friend.
/
JJ dialed the number, her hands shaking. She'd made calls like this before, but rarely so personal, so difficult.
"Hello?"
"Hi, is this Fran Morgan?"
"Yes, who's this?"
"My name is Jennifer Jureau."
There was a gasp and a pause. "W-what is it?"
JJ closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ma'am, I'm afraid I have bad news."
The voice trembled. "Is he dead?"
"No ma'am, we don't believe so," JJ said, taking a deep, shaky breath.
"You don't believe so? What's going on?" Her voice simultaneously took on a worried and relieved tone.
"He's being held captive by an unsub."
There was another pause. "How much can you tell me?"
JJ bit her lip. "I'm afraid that's about all I can tell you." This, while untrue, JJ considered a mercy. The additional details would do Fran Morgan no good at this point.
/
"Go back to the hotel. We'll be more efficient after we get some sleep," Hotch said dully.
Nobody moved.
"Right then. Carry on," Hotch said, turning back to his file. It was past midnight. They had nothing, and if he was sticking to his 24-hour schedule, they were halfway through day one.
/
Reid was staring, frustrated, at his geographic profile.
"The map giving you trouble?" Rossi asked tiredly from behind him.
"It's not the map's fault," Reid replied. "It's as useful as it can possibly be with so few data points."
"And how useful is that?"
"Exactly not useful at all," Reid said honestly, staring at the map. "He lives somewhere in this area. That's… something we already knew. You got anything?"
"No," Rossi said. He patted Reid on the shoulder. "We'll get something eventually."
"Eventually isn't good enough. We have six hours until the start day 2."
None of them wanted to think about day 2, and none of them could help it.
/
"Have any of you got anything?" Garcia's voice was desperate over speaker phone.
"We're working on it," Hotch said diplomatically.
"Need me to search anything?" she begged.
Hotch sighed. "Not right now. Standby, Garcia."
"Guys, you only have a few hours left before… before the twenty-four hour mark," Garcia said quietly.
"Yeah, we know," Hotch said quietly. It was evident in his tone that he knew they had no chance of finding him before then.
Every member of the team alternated between increasingly desperate bids for information and defenseless, horrified staring at clocks as they ticked steadily down. Soon, either they or Morgan's family in Chicago would receive the first video call. The first twenty-four hours were coming to a close.