Hi Friends!
This is just a one-shot that got into my head the other night when I was watching a rerun of Rabid. I've never done a one-shot before so I figured why not give it a try before I begin my new story.
Anyways, this is exactly what it says - a rewrite to the ending of Rabid that is more Reidcentric.
Enjoy!
Reid felt panic rush through his veins as he tried to find a clean shot of David Cunningham, the man currently fighting with Morgan in the middle of the desolate animal shelter. The dark agent had dropped his gun after a vicious blow to his face and was now applying all of his self-defense techniques to take down the unsub. Usually a mere mortal wouldn't stand a chance against Morgan's fists, but Cunningham had an unfair advantage with an obscenely large cattle prod. It was after the criminal delivered a particularly vicious electrical jab to Morgan's midsection that the genius realized that a clear shot wasn't going to be in the cards.
The two dueling males suddenly turned a corner during their fight and were momentarily out of Spencer's sight. The younger agent sprinted down the dark hallway and around the corner just in time to see his best friend get shoved against a bookshelf and jolted with electricity once again. The amount of voltage transferred to the agent must have been larger than before because Derek just sat listlessly on the ground, twitching from the aftereffects of the charge. Worried for his friend's wellbeing, the genius didn't even giving himself time to think, the agent holstered his weapon and took an uncharacteristic leap over the table and tackled the distracted assailant.
Reid felt his body push against the other man's larger frame as they crashed to the floor in a heap of limbs. Somehow Cunningham got the upper hand in the chaotic moments after their landing and the young man found himself on the receiving end of a thunderous punch to his left cheek. The blow knocked him back to the ground, scratching the right side of his face at the upper corner of his eye.
The brown-eyed man was in a state of dazed confusion when he opened his eyes and saw the sideways tilt of the floor. He felt a warm substance oozing down the side of his face as he pushed his hands against the concrete, trying to lift himself up off the ground. He let out a huff of annoyance when his scrawny arms gave way beneath him and sent his torso back down to the surface.
Reid, undeterred by his body's insistence on being uncooperative, began to steady his hands on the floor in order to try again. Unfortunately, Cunningham didn't give the kid a chance to try. The unsub quickly straddled the young man's back and grabbed his wiry wrists. The man made quick work of binding his hands together behind him using the pair of handcuffs off of his belt.
Realizing what was happening, the genius started bucking his hips, trying to dislodge the massive man. His struggles were useless as David finished using his zip ties to fasten Reid's ankles together tightly.
"Wha-what are you doing?" the agent sputtered out as he was flipped over onto his back.
Cunningham let out a growl and said, "You guys ruined my experiment. So now I've gotta start all over."
"What? No! Look just let m-," Reid's protest was cut off by another fist to his face. His head snapped to the side, flush against the cool concrete.
"Shut up!" the other man shouted, leaning down to pick up the lanky body.
Spencer's eyes blinked rapidly as he tried to banish the blurry vision that had overtaken his sight. Across the room from him he noticed that Morgan was starting to come around and in his earpiece he could hear the other members of his team yelling. He opened his mouth to respond, regardless of the man's order, when he felt an overwhelming jolt of electricity pass through his body. It seemed to last an ungodly amount of time, eventually turning Reid's blurry vision into absolute darkness.
Upon seeing that his newest victim was about to speak again, Cunningham decided to use his favorite tool to knock the agent out for a few minutes. He then leaned over and slung the boy's body over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He heard the other agent moan in pain and decided to give him a swift kick in the head to buy him some time as he walked out of the rear exit.
Once outside Cunningham was pleased to see that the dark agent had been bluffing when he said the place had been surrounded. There were no other law enforcement officers in sight. He walked as quickly as he could with the added weight over to his van and threw the agent's gawky body into the back. He slammed the doors shut and sprinted around to the driver's side.
Luck seemed to be on his side because right as his keys were housed in the ignition the back door opened revealing a trio of agents. He could hear them shouting out for him to stop and give himself up but he paid them no heed. The van lurched forward the second the engine turned over, tires grinding in the dirt of the ally. Once he turned onto the main thoroughfare he made a beeline for the highway. He needed to make his way back to the one place where this all started.
Hotch lowered his weapon in defeat after shooting off one more round into the back window of the van. Rossi and Blake were crowding out of the door next to him, each of their guns smoking as a result of letting off their own rounds. Unfortunately, none of them had been able to incapacitate with their shots.
"Damn," the unit chief muttered, spinning around quickly and jogging back into the abandoned shelter. He made his way into the room where JJ was seeing to Morgan, "How is he doing?"
She looked up from her position on the floor next to the other agent, "He's coming around. It looks like he sustained a blow to the face and –"
"And some high voltage shocks," groaned Derek as he shook his head and pushed away JJ's concerned hands.
"What happened in here? Where's Reid?" Rossi asked, looking around for the genius.
"What do you mean 'Where's Reid?' He was right here with me. Didn't you guys get Cunningham?" the muscular man asked, confused as hell after waking up from the vicious electrocution.
The remaining profilers passed looks of worry around before Hotch said, "Rossi, Blake…go search the grounds for Reid."
"No, no, no! Not again! Hotch, man, he was right here with me. He wouldn't have left unless –"
"We'll find him, Morgan. Now tell me what happened," the older man instructed.
"Um…well…Cunningham, he took off running when we came upon him in the kennel. Reid and I chased him down the hall, but we split up momentarily. He was clearing another room when the bastard jumped out and shocked me with that damned cattle prod. We fought. Cunningham nailed me with another jolt and I pushed him in here. Reid…I think Reid was trying to get a shot…but after we crashed in here it all goes blank. What I do know is that he got me again with that prod and knocked me out. I…I don't know what happened after that," Morgan explained, hoping he hadn't forgotten an important detail.
"So he knocked you –" Hotch started before Blake interrupted him over their earpiece.
"Hotch, there's no sign of Reid," she reported gravely.
The unit chief sighed, "Alright, Rossi and Blake get back here. We've got to figure out where Cunningham is headed."
Morgan started to get up off the ground but was quickly pushed back down by his boss's gruff hand, "Sit down. You're in no state to keep going."
"There's no way I'm sticking around here when pretty-boy is out there with some lunatic," Derek responded harshly, brushing off the grip on his shoulder.
"Derek, you've just been electrocuted with who knows how many volts of electricity. You need to go get checked out at a hospital," JJ said, trying to make him see reason.
"Hell no! There is no way I'm abandoning him," Derek refuted.
"Morgan – " Hotch began to scold.
"Look, I'll go to the hospital the minute Reid is found and that bastard is apprehended, but not a second before," the agent said with finality.
Realizing that Derek was going to do what he wanted regardless of what he said, Hotchner acquiesced, "Fine. But the moment we find them you are going to go get checked out."
"Deal," Morgan said just as Rossi and Blake rounded the corner.
"Okay, so where would he take Reid?" the unit chief asked his teammates.
"There's only one place that I can think of that makes sense," Blake announced.
Derek, locking his gaze with the female profiler, said, "The forest preserve."
Reid woke up to a loud roaring noise and the unpleasant smell of exhaust fumes. His cheek was pressed against a cold metal floor and the air surrounding him was hot and cloying. He coughed, trying to expel the vapors from his lungs, and rolled over onto his back.
The genius winced as he trapped his hands between his back and the floor. He took in his surroundings and noticed the animal control equipment that was fastened on the walls around him. One of the two windows on the back doors was shattered. The tinted glass was littering the space around him, jingling every time the vehicle hit a bump. He tilted his head back to catch a glimpse of the front of the van but his sight was met with more equipment.
Grumbling in pain, the profiler was going to try to sit up when the van slowed to a stop. He could feel his breathing start to speed up as the driver's side door slammed shut. Reid could hear the crunching of gravel beneath Cunningham's feet as he walked around the van and started jiggling the backdoor handles.
A gleam of sunlight passed through the open space where the door once was and shined right into Reid's big brown eyes. The hulking man smirked, reaching out to grab his prey's legs.
The genius, trying to stall the inevitable, quickly spit out, "Where are we?"
"We're at the forest preserve where my family used to camp when I was little," the man shared, pulling the agent's bound body out of the van.
Reid felt himself freefall down into the dirt below the van. He hit the ground with a resounding "Oof," and rolled over onto his side. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked even though he had his suspicions.
"Like I said earlier…you guy's disrupted my experimentation. Now I've got to start all over and you're going to help. It'll be easy…this location gets a ton of bats. You should be infected in no time," Cunningham explained nonchalantly, climbing into the back of the van to gather up supplies.
The intellect in Reid couldn't be contained the second he heard that last statement, "That's not necessarily true. Only about 6% of captured bats have presented with rabies which means 1% of bats in total actually have the virus. There are only 1-2 human cases of rabies a year and most of the time the bat responsible was in their home. We could be out here for weeks and I could never catch the virus."
"Well, if it takes weeks than it takes weeks. We'll see how many getcha tonight and we'll go from there," the man said unalarmed at the new information.
"You aren't going to get away with this. You don't have enough time. My team is right behind us. Just let me go now and I'll tell them you cooperated with me," Reid tried, knowing that this man was beyond rational thought at this point.
"They might be…but they don't know these woods as well as I do. They could be searching for days. By the time they find our location we'll be long gone and you'll be infected," the man taunted, grabbing the struggling genius in his strong grip.
Reid tried to kick out with his bound legs but was unsuccessful at landing a hit. He felt utterly helpless as the man carried his squirming body deep into the wilderness.
Cunningham walked for twenty minutes before he dumped his newest victim in a copse of trees. The junipers seemed to close off the area from the rest of the forest, giving the location a hidden feeling to it. Directly above the two men was a starry moonlit sky, meaning David had driven for at least two hours to get here. For it had been dusk when the team had invaded the shelter.
Breaking through the agent's thoughts, Cunningham said, "Now I'm going to undo your feet. If you move or fight you get the stick. Do you understand me?" The criminal pulled out his cattle prod and pressed a button, lighting it up in order to get his point across.
"Y-yes," Reid responded instantly.
The other man just nodded at his answer and set to work.
While David was fiddling with the binding securing his feet, Reid's mind was going a mile a minute trying to figure out some way to escape his fate. He turned his head back and forth looking for any sign of life, but nothing jumped out. His hand, once again trapped beneath his body, scrabbled at the ground looking for a worthy weapon. Unfortunately, the only thing his nimble fingers found was grass, dirt and pebbles. Deciding that the soil was better than nothing, he gathered a large fistful of the dirt into his right hand and waited for an opportunity to present itself.
Meanwhile, Cunningham cut through the zip ties at the agent's feet. He then attached a new one around each sinewy ankle and fastened them into the ground using tent ties. When the stakes were hammered into the ground they hooked the thin plastic strips and took them deep into the dirt with them. David patted the prone man's leg as he stood up and admired his handy work, "You can yank those all you want. They aren't coming up out of the ground."
Testing his kidnapper's words, Reid pulled on his feet as hard as he could and the ties didn't move a millimeter.
Grinning, Cunningham walked around to his captive's head and said, "Now I'm going to do your hands. Same rules as before. Repeat them to me."
"What?"
The cow prod sizzled to life, touching the exposed part of Reid's stomach where his shirt had pulled out of his waistband during his earlier struggles.
The genius cried out in shock and pain at the sudden attack. He was left panting in agony when the prod was drawn back from his body.
"I said, repeat my instructions," the man said, looming over the writhing body.
Coughing in pain, Spencer uttered out the words his captor said earlier, "If I move or fight I get the stick."
"Good, now hold still," David ordered, pulling the agent's body upright to get at the bound hands beneath it.
Reid felt the cuffs unlock and the left one fell away from his wrist. Cunningham shoved him back down to the ground and stretched his arm diagonally above his body. He then gave it the same treatment as the two legs.
While his arm was being secured into the ground, Spencer spied the discarded prod off to his left side, out of reach of his right arm. A plan whirled through his mind as his heart started thumping in anticipation.
Reid took in a deep breath as David came closer to him in order to grab his last free limb. Knowing that it was now or never, the genius let go of all the dirt that was in his palm and threw it straight into his captor's eyes. The larger man cried out in surprise and turned off to the side, wiping at his eyes like crazy. Taking advantage of the man's temporary disability, the genius tipped his torso to the side and extended his right arm toward the prod. He felt his fingers touch the cool metal but they couldn't wrap around it. Grunting with effort he stretched his body to its limits in hopes of breaching the tiny centimeter gap that was keeping him from his freedom. With a final heave of strength the long elegant fingers expanded far enough to reach the stick and grasp it tightly.
"What do you think you're doing?" Cunningham roared when he finally noticed what the agent was doing.
Not missing a beat, Reid flung his body back down, depressed the trigger of the prod and thrust it right into David's midsection.
The man's body sizzled and popped as it convulsed from the hit of electricity that Reid delivered. The genius didn't let up his attack until his captor was face down in the dirt, passed out cold.
The profiler allowed his body to relax back down onto the ground for a few minutes as he steadied his breathing. As soon as he had his body under control again, he focused on releasing his left hand from the ground. Unfortunately, his body had been abused and tested beyond its normal means and was not cooperating. He couldn't gather enough strength to make a dent in his bindings.
He was just about to give up when he heard a voice calling out to him from the distance.
"Reid?"
"Reid? Can you hear me?"
"Guys! Guys! I'm over here!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Reid? Where?" came Morgan's voice through the trees.
"Over here! Hurry up! I'm stuck and Cunningham could wake up any second!"
Minutes later the crashing of footsteps emanated through the clearing as his teammates came thundering through the ring of trees.
"Reid!" Morgan shouted when he saw his best friend immobile on the ground.
"Morgan! You're alright!" was the younger man's first reaction upon seeing his friend.
"Yeah, a little bit of electricity isn't going to get me down," his friend grinned as he knelt down.
Reid noticed a wince in Morgan's movements but decided not to address it, "Cunningham! You guys need to cuff him while he's still out."
Morgan turned to look at the body lying next to his friend. Hotch and Rossi were busy restraining the guy, but the unit chief called out, "Reid, how are you?"
"I'm fine," he said quickly, tugging at his wrist. "But I would like to get up now."
Morgan smiled as he moved to analyze the bindings, "I'll get you out of these in no time." The darker agent removed a knife from his pocket and set to work on breaking the plastic ties.
"How did you guys find me so fast? This forest is huge," Reid asked curiously.
"Your cell phone. Garcia was able to track your exact position," JJ explained as she worked on his feet.
"Oh, I forgot all about my phone," the genius murmured, sitting up and rubbing his wrist.
JJ continued, "That and we knew that the only place that made sense for him to take you was where his brother contracted the virus in the first place."
Once his legs were free Reid took JJ's proffered hand and stood up. His legs felt a little wobbly and he felt his body sway back and forth.
"You alright to walk, pretty-boy?" Morgan asked, coming up next to him.
"Yeah, I think so."
"Good. But I'll be here if you need a shoulder," his best friend assured.
"That's not going to do me much good if you're injured too," Reid snorted.
Morgan frowned, "Well, at least my good looks are still intact."
"What?"
"Yeah I can't tell in this light but hopefully he didn't mess up your face too bad. You know it's your best asset," the muscular agent teased.
The ribbing went right over Reid's head as he responded quickly with lanky fingers flitting over his features, "Luckily I think it's just some superficial nicks and bruises."
Out of nowhere Hotch's voice range out, "It doesn't matter what you think. You are both going to get checked out at the hospital."
Morgan chuckled at his boss's words and wrapped his arms around the boy's shoulders, "Come on. Let's get going before you find yourself in some more trouble."