The first of a three-to-five parter. Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.
"Okay, guys, just…stay calm! I've got this figured out…"
"You sure about that, kid? I've been seeing us pass the same white house for the last two hours."
"Oh, come on, Morgan—that's not the same house."
"Yeah, it is—the blue shutters and lime green trim do kinda make it stand out over there," Emily said, peering out of the tinted window again. "I mean, even in this weather…"
"Face it, Reid. We're lost."
"No. No, no, we're not." A long finger pointed towards a half-covered highway sign. "Look there—M-32. Cross road is…"
"Um, they make GPS for a reason." Morgan began fiddling with the navigation system's buttons, causing the little device to shriek and whine as though it were dying on the field of battle. "What the…?"
"You killed it, remember?" Reid said, in a 'see-I-told-you-so' tone. "Forgot all about how you got mad and missed the wheel, obviously…"
Suddenly, the SUV came to a grinding halt.
"Now what?" Morgan sighed, staring out the passenger window.
"Well, the traction seems to be decreasing due to the giant quantity of snow that's fallen over the last…"
"So how do we fix it?" Emily asked, anxious to get out of the backseat and be useful for a change of pace. The poor woman had spent the last two and a half hours listening to her two friends and colleagues bicker about how to get back to the airstrip, argue over the speed they were going, and fight over which way they were supposed to turn at every single corner.
"Honestly? Wait for a salt truck." Reid snapped off the ignition and let the SUV sit in the piling snow.
"Kid, you grew up in Vegas. What do you know about salt trucks?"
"Morgan, there's only three logical ways to get the SUV out of the snowdrift—using salt, using sand, or digging it out from the snowbank. This is Michigan, where they don't use sand as a traction device, and I seem to have forgotten my shovel. You have one in your bag, perhaps?" The slightly smug tone in the young agent's voice made Emily stifle a snicker.
"You forgot 'dial some help on my cell,'" Morgan retorted, pulling out his phone.
"Ah, Morgan…" Emily said, watching as her colleague punched a familiar series of numbers into his phone.
"What?"
"Already tried that." Emily's phone wiggled in her hands as she waved it like a flag of surrender. "There're no towers around here." As soon as she said it, Morgan's cell phone bleeped and flashed a warning—No Service.
The snow outside began to fall harder. A shiver crawled up Emily's back. "Reid, it's been two hours," she said. "Turn on the heater, will you?"
"And risk carbon monoxide poisoning?" Reid's face looked aghast, as if he'd been asked to slay a dragon or a phoenix.
"I'll crack the window. Fire it up!" Emily's hands were getting colder by the second. What happened to the wet, rainy weather we were supposed to have? she wondered.
"Fine." The ignition started to turn over, then sputtered and died.
"Reid, what'd you do?"
"Nothing! I turned the key, and..."
"You turned the key, and the car dies?"
"Morgan, if you think you can do a better job, have at it!" Reid yelled, his patience reaching its limit. "Good luck!" he shouted as he tore the door open and pitched the keys into Morgan's lap."
"Reid, where are you going?" Emily called out, cracking the backseat door a little. Her teeth were still chattering.
"I'll walk!"
"Kid, the nearest house is over a mile!" Morgan shouted. "Come on, get back in the car…"
"Well, someone has to let the others know where we are. No one's coming out in this, I guarantee you…"
"Reid. Come back," Emily said. "In like twenty minutes they'll send out sled dogs or something to find us. You know how anxious everyone gets when someone doesn't call in…"
"Look, there's a house back there," the youngest agent replied, pointing his arm towards a large barn. "I'll go there, see if I can't just ask to borrow the phone and let Hotch or someone know where we're stuck. It'll take a minute at most."
Morgan looked at Emily. Emily looked at Morgan. "Well?" the man asked, looking for the help he hadn't been finding throughout most of this godforsaken trip.
"All right. If you're not back in an hour, we're coming to find you," Emily called back. "And hurry!"
Waving a hand in the air, Reid turned and began walking towards the old white house—the one with blue shutters that they'd passed about a million times today…