The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.
- Chinese Proverb

There is nothing left to do but run.

Run or curl up and admit defeat, and that, frankly, is not an option. So, there is a bag. It's packed with a few things.

An escape is made quietly. In the dead of night. With no one watching. With no one the wiser.

This is how JJ escapes.

Out a window, left half-up, with a ragged screen.

She plunges into the woods, crawling with creatures she can't identify - she only hopes they aren't angry or hungry. Hopes that she can somehow get in contact with her team. But everything is gone. Her credentials. Her gun. Her phone. She doesn't even have her vest now.

But looking over her shoulder at the house, she steels herself, knowing the truth:

She doesn't have her team anymore either.

They didn't need an occassion to get together. They liked seeing each other. And the promise of Derek cooking anything had them all curious enough to show up late one night after a stressful case. They had done it once in a while. For Garcia's spaghetti, or Haley's chicken and rice. Derek had promised homemade, Chicago-style pizza.

At the last minute, Emily almost backed out, but JJ had made sure to pick her up on the way, knowing she was down about a recent case, and sure that time alone wasn't about to improve her mood - but time with friends might.

JJ would think later that one of them should have seen something, but no one had. She herself had walked in with her guard completely down, and found herself being strangled with something she couldn't place.

She hadn't been able to call out and warn Emily, who was dragging behind, having insisted that she would be right there. Then JJ lost consciousness and things came in spurts.

Derek knocked out and tied to a rolling office chair.

Garcia, shaking in a corner, with a gun pointed at her.

Emily handcuffed to the leg of Derek's table. Spencer, bound and gagged on the floor.

Hotch was alert, though blood ran from a gash at his temple, and JJ watched him fake unconsciousness so he wouldn't be found out. He was in another corner and kept raising his eyebrows at her in some kind of a signal, but JJ was still too woozy to figure it out.

Strangling had to be her least favorite way to go...ever since her sister.

JJ glanced again at Spencer, doing a double-take at the sleeves of his shirt, rolled to the elbows - fresh needle-marks in the crooks of both elbows.

How long had she been out? Minutes? Hours? How long had this unsub been in Derek's house?

No, she needed to focus. She needed to think like a profiler, even though she wasn't one.

The better question was how did this person know so much about them? To know that Garcia hated guns and Spencer had a history with being injected with drugs? That Derek hated being powerless more than anything? That for Emily, with all her fierceness and bravado, being cuffed to a table leg was torture. Not only was she made a prisoner, but she was being put on the same level as the offender. And Emily hated identifying with the unsub. And, worst of all, that JJ had developed an inherent fear of being choked or hanged, after her sister's suicide when JJ was eleven.

But JJ knew there were ways for unsubs to get that kind of information. They could have hacked computers. Stalked them. Anything.

The only one of them who didn't appear to be here was Rossi. That could mean a couple things. He was there with them, but being kept in a different room. Or he hadn't arrived yet and was running late.

JJ's stream-of-consciousness thoughts were cut short when the unsub approached her, dressed in all black, his face obscured from her view.

"You're the voice, right? For the victims?"

Wordless, JJ nodded, fighting not to back away. Not to show fear, as he subtlely brandished the wire coat hanger he had used to garrote her, inside his long, black coat.

"I want you to give them a message. The message is this: I'm going to kill them. And you. It's just a matter of time."

She knew then that Rossi wasn't there yet. That he was the missing piece. That the longer he took arriving, the better chance all of them had of surviving. Deftly, she checked her pocket, and found it empty. JJ tried not to let anything show. Instead, she took a deep breath, steadying herself, and went to Garcia.

"He says he's going to kill us," JJ told her loud enough so he could hear, and then dropped her voice. "Do you still have your phone?"

"Yeah. Yeah. It's right here," And like magic, Garcia produces it from her brassiere - the one place this unsub has not thought to look. "But I don't know if - if the buttons will work, because I'm shaking," Garcia managed.

"Listen to me. You need to tell Rossi something. Give him a heads-up. Tell him we're stuck at Derek's. It's trouble. Whatever you can," JJ managed, squeezing her shoulder.

"Move," his voice said behind her and she obeyed, with one last desperate look at her friend.

Silently, she made her way to the others. Emily had been hobbled, by a blow to the knee, so even if she could get out of the cuffs there was no chance she could escape.

JJ worked quickly, going to everyone else, and trying to give and take as much information as possible, but sometimes, like with Spencer, there was no point. He wasn't himself, still talking incoherently about how he didn't want drugs when it was obvious he'd already received them against his will.

"You'll be okay," she reassured, kissing his forehead.

"You've got to get out, while he's letting you move around," Hotch urged. "Pay attention. When you see an out, take it."

"He's going to kill us," JJ reported calmly. Only Hotch caught the slight nod she gave at his words.

Derek was mumbling and JJ almost didn't stop to talk to him. But she heard it. "The window, where the screen's bad...and take my bag. Don't get lost in the woods. Just look for the lights on the road, and then..." he trails off, losing conciousness again.

It isn't much, but it's enough. Derek's house only has one window with a bad screen. His bathroom.

JJ spends a few moments watching their unsub. The way he avoids Derek at all costs, and Hotch, too. But, no, it's not them he's avoiding. It's the blood.

He's squeamish.

JJ meets Garcia's eyes and she's able to catch a ghost of a nod.

Rossi knows. Good.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," JJ says, convincingly, too, because it was true.

"Go. Three minutes."

The bag is lying behind the bathroom door like a gift. She doesn't know what's in it, or why Derek wants her to take it, but she doesn't question it. The window in the bathroom is already open and, like Derek alluded, it doesn't have a screen.

Somehow, JJ gets out with the bag. She hits the ground running and does not stop until she is in camouflaged by the woods. Even though her lungs are burning. Even though her airway still feels like it's being squeezed.

She does not hesitate. She does what Derek says. She runs for the road.

JJ almost collapses on the shoulder. There are no red-and-blue lights signaling freedom and rescue. There is nothing but darkness.

After several minutes pass and JJ's heart is in her throat, a vehicle slows. She sees upon further inspection that it's Rossi and the local law enforcement. She is taken into the SUV.

Hours pass.

Slowly, more are released, with Rossi acting as head negotiator. First Garcia. Then Spencer. Then Emily.

For Hotch and Derek, they move in, because their unsub has made it clear that these two aren't making it out alive.

They do, though.

Whether, bruised, bloody, high, unconscious, traumatized, or chained, they all emerge.

And JJ breathes a sigh of relief.