This is my Last Resort by Lexikal

Spoilers: None, really, but there is a brief mention of Tobias Hankel but no spoilers for that episode.

Warnings: Depictions/descriptions of severe child abuse and physical/mental torture. I am told I am a rather "dark" (not emo, just too much Stephen King or something as a preschooler...) person, so please don't read if this may trigger you. However, because this is ff dot net and MA (aka NC-17) entries are not allowed, its not nearly as dark as the stuff my brain usually concocts.

Summary: Spencer Reid, third season-ish, is taken hostage and abused along with a host of other "unwanted" children. Partially inspired by the movie "People under the Stairs", although only in spirit so it isn't a CM/People under the Stairs cross-over (there is no Alice, "Fool", Roach, etc in this story). People may think that Reid is abducted too easily, but he was taken hostage pretty easily (as far as I am concerned) by Tobias Hankel in season 2, and this is fan fiction, not real life. Also, even though Reid is intelligent and "book-smart" he does sometimes make some rather, uh, dumb errors in judgment when it comes to "real life" (at the very least, he definitely doesn't always go by the book and has quite a bit of that 'scatter-brained professor' vibe going on). Hell. Come to think of it, he gets himself into sticky situations quite often and statistically is probably "in danger" directly more than the other agents, if I had to guess; not just in "Revelations", but also in "L.D.S.K.", "Derailed", "Somebody's Watching", "Minimal Loss" etc... just to name the most obvious Reid-in-danger episodes.

Author's note: The title comes from the Papa Roach song of the same name. While some people may think this is similar to the episode Moseley Lane (I've only seen parts of that episode) the initial idea for this story came long before I'd seen or heard of that episode.

Please feel free to distribute, just let me know where it's going, okay? Also, I don't have a beta reader so if anyone ever wants to take on my stories/beta them for me... that would be great. On with the show...

Cause I'm losing my sight/Losing my mind/Wish Somebody would tell me I'm fine...- "This is my Last Resort" by Papa Roach

"Where's Reid?" Hotch sighed, glancing around wearily. The young agent had been just behind them seconds ago. "Morgan?" Hotch inquired, glancing over at the younger man. Morgan squinted and glanced around. Shrugged.

"He was just here." Morgan said uneasily, removing his sunglasses. They'd been canvassing a local amusement park, handing out flyers with a drawing of a young man believed to be responsible for several child abductions in the last few months, and if not responsible, at least associated with the disappearances.

Hotch scowled and spun slowly around, scanning the grounds, looking for the young agent. Reid was tall, he was stronger than he looked and he was a trained FBI agent with an IQ of 187. What the hell?

"REID!" Hotch yelled, but there was no reply. Just the chatter of children and the cloying amusement park calliope music. Someone distantly was telling a child that they couldn't have any ice cream, and even more distantly, some child was whining because they hadn't won the right "prize". But no Reid, none of Reid's chatter as he stopped parents and asked if they'd seen their potential UNSUB, no sign of Reid period. Here one minute, gone the next.

"It is pretty packed, here." Morgan said nervously, scanning the crowd too. Maybe Reid had just gotten lost in the crowd, had wandered off to distribute more of the flyers. Today was the "BIG DAY"- the UNSUB was scheduled to take another child today, and based on Reid's predictions (which were usually accurate) from this very amusement park. And this wouldn't have been the first time Reid had taken off by himself like a puppy let off its leash, especially if excited.

Hotch grit his teeth in annoyance. When he found Reid he was going to give him one hell of a lecture. Too bad his job didn't permit more than just lectures...

"Excuse me," the voice was very small, almost hesitant. Hotch glanced down first, instinctively, the behaviour of a father. A small girl of about 6 was tugging at Derek Morgan's sleeve. Morgan looked down, surprised. Bent down so that he was eye level with the little girl.

"Can I help you?" He tried to smile, but his worry for Reid was making it hard to focus.

The little girl smiled back at him, tilting her head slightly, as if replaying something in her mind.

"I have to give you this." The child said darkly, tone changing from shy to playful in the span of a few short seconds. She handed Morgan an envelope and before he could grab her, she had bolted. Morgan lunged, but the kid was squirrelly and dodged through the crowd, under legs, and was gone.

Morgan chased after her, saw her red sweater disappear around a corner, but when he finally managed to wade through the swarm of civilians, she was gone.

"Morgan!" Hotch barked quickly, running up to his agent. Reid was missing; he didn't need Morgan getting sucked into the same trap, too. Morgan came back, breathing hard.

"A six year old girl outran me," Morgan said miserably. He grimaced and shook his head in disbelief.

"You didn't know she was going to bolt like that," Hotch said sternly, holding out his hand for the envelope Morgan held in his fist. Morgan nodded and forced himself to slow down his breathing. His stomach and chest felt tight, like they had when Hankel had first taken Reid.

But this was worse, somehow. A 6 year old had just delivered a message from the UNSUB, a small child. Whoever these people were, they were using small children as decoys. They were making tiny children accomplices to kidnapping... and possibly much worse.

Derek Morgan, at 6, had still been riding his big wheel and his biggest fear in the world was of the occasional monster that sometimes lived in the closet. That little girl, at the very least, was distributing a known serial killer's taunting messages to the FBI... at the very least. Morgan shut his eyes. They all knew that children had been taken, that some of them had been found tortured to death... but not all. Did the ones who...the ones who had obeyed... Morgan felt a little ill, but he couldn't shut his mind down, couldn't stop himself from profiling. Profiling was in his blood.

Reid wasn't one to obey, especially if it meant putting others in danger. The children who had been found murdered, according to their parents, were all very independent, even described as rebellious by some of their teachers. The children who hadn't been found had all been described as trusting, obedient, quiet. Malleable.

"None of the other parents reported seeing or being stopped or spoken to by a child or children, only teenage boys. This is the first time a little girl..." Prentiss was trying to make the situation better, but Morgan wouldn't hear of it. He should've just grabbed the child. Why hadn't he? If she was innocent, she wouldn't have bolted, and if she was under the UNSUB's control and he had managed to restrain her... damn it!

"Morgan, you couldn't have known." Prentiss said again.

"Let's just get back to the station. I want to describe this kid to a sketch artist while her image is still fresh in my mind," Morgan's throat felt tighter. Reid had only been gone about 5 minutes now, but time was beginning to stretch. 5 minutes without Reid meant it was less and less likely that he had wandered off or gotten lost. Especially in light of the girl and the envelope.

"We all saw her, Morgan." Hotch interrupted.

"Yeah, but I got the best look. You going to open that?" Morgan cast a glance over at Hotch. Hotch was still holding the envelope. Ideally he wanted to wait to get back to the station, to test for fingerprints, to comb over the envelope and its contents with a fine tooth comb, but if this envelope was anything like the ones that had been sent to Quantico for the last three months, there would be no evidence. Just a message.

Hotch glanced down at his watch. "It's 3:17 now. I checked my watch when I first realized Reid was gone. That was 8 minutes ago." Hotch tore the envelope open. Morgan and Prentiss gathered around.

There were a few photographs of Reid taken with a telescopic lens, real stalkerish. There was a piece of brown butcher's paper, waxed on one side. The non-waxed side had sloppy, childish printing on it, the message written with indelible black marker.

It's time Spencer joined our family. We need a big brother.

"All this time we've been assuming that an adult UNSUB has been writing these notes... but these have always looked like notes written by children." Morgan said.

"The little girl today confirmed they are at least using children in the abduction process." Prentiss added.

"Let's just hope they only paid that kid to drop off the envelope to the adults in the dark trench coats," Hotch said stiffly, a chill running down his back. The idea that a child might have led Spencer Reid away to his...whatever was waiting for him... was unnerving to say the least. Or that the child was under the UNSUB or UNSUBs' direct control and was now returning to them? Hotch blinked the thoughts away. "It wouldn't be the first time an UNSUB has used a kid to deliver a message to us." Hotch said curtly.

"Let's get back, get this kid's face on the news." Hotch was already leading them towards the gate entrance. "If she isn't under the UNSUB's control, she was paid or coerced to deliver that message, which means we've got a good shot at finding her."

Reid's heart was racing. He was gagged and handcuffed and sitting in the back of a van. He'd stopped at a water fountain for a drink as Hotch and Morgan and Prentiss had continued on ahead of him and then had felt a sharp, burning pain in his thigh. At first he thought he'd been stung by a wasp, but then the world seemed to tilt sideways. His team members had turned a corner and there had been a man standing over him, helping him to his feet.

"Your friend okay?" A man had asked as the UNSUB steered a very drugged Reid out of the park.

"Yeah, just a bit sick, is all." The UNSUB said. As if on cue, Reid crumpled to the ground and vomited a little onto the pavement. Distantly, Reid heard the UNSUB speaking to the good Samaritan.

"Look, he is diabetic. Need to get him to a hospital..."

"Shouldn't I just call an ambulance?"

Reid couldn't talk. His mouth couldn't form the words.

"Nah, I have his insulin back at the van. You think you could give me a hand with him?"

The man must've nodded because Reid felt himself being pulled to his feet and gently steered out of the amusement park.

Then they'd loaded Reid into the back of the van, and now they were sitting, waiting, the van idling. The UNSUB had apparently injected him with something else- Reid wasn't sure what- but he heard the stranger wish the UNSUB "good luck".

The UNSUB thanked the man for his help, and the door closed. Reid felt like puking again, but he knew he had to stay alert, focus on his environment.

The teenage boy from the flyer was sitting across from Reid, his eyes dark and sunken, hair greasy.

"What if she gets caught?" The boy asked the driver nervously. "She's a little kid, Dad."

"That's why she won't get caught. Nobody suspects a little girl," the man said, and yawned. Reid tried to pay attention to the conversation, knowing that it might be important. All of this might be important. But his mind kept blurring, the need to sleep was so strong.

"They're FBI, right? If they notice he's missing, they..."

"She'll just look like a lost little girl. We went through this, Connor. She gives the black one the envelope, before he can really respond, she bolts."

"And he's what? 35 or something? And in good shape? If he chases her..."

"The park is packed. That's where being little comes in handy. When you need to duck under legs and between hoards of people. She'll be fine. Stop worrying." The UNSUB was chuckling, as if he found the boy's anxiety funny.

"But if she does get caught... she knows too much."

"If she does get caught, which she won't, she won't say a damn thing..."

Reid tilted, then righted himself, registering dimly that he had almost passed out on the stripped van's floor. There was the sudden sound of hands slapping on the side of the tinted van door's window.

"What did I tell you?" the driver said, smiling. The boy, Connor, reached back and unlocked the door. A little girl jumped into the van, breathing hard, cheeks flushed. She glanced over at Reid, then back towards the driver.

"He looks sick," the girl said warily, and touched Reid's shoulder lightly. Reid moaned into his gag.

"He's fine," the driver said brusquely. He pulled the van out into the street.

"His eyes look funny and his face is really white. And he is sweating." The girl settled down beside Reid and stared at him. She felt sorry for him, gagged and scared, his eyes both sleepy-looking and frightened. He looked like all the new kids, when they first came, but she still felt bad.

"Did you give them the envelope?" The driver asked, ignoring her comments. The van had sped up now. Reid tried to gauge where they were but he felt disoriented, as if they were driving in circles. His head was spinning. Indeed, everything was spinning; vertigo.

"Yeah, just like you said. But the black guy chased me."

Black guy? Reid struggled to think. Black Guy. Morgan! Morgan had... Reid forced his eyes to open and hazily focused on the small face. The girl was about 6, but small for her age. However, she acted much older.

"But you lost him right? He didn't see the van?"

"No. I darted through a crowd of people waiting for the tilt-a-whirl, underneath that... he didn't see."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah," the girl inhaled loudly.

"Well, good... not that it matters anyway."

Reid was floating somewhere where time seemed to being playing tricks on him. He felt high, really high. He'd smoked marijuana once- and only once- in college once when he'd been 13 and had a horrible panic attack, but time had also distorted itself like this.

The van stopped and the door slid open.

Reid squinted against the sudden bright sunlight. He felt two pairs of strong, male arms yank him from the van and escort him to another vehicle. He could hear the little girl following behind, her shoes soft on the rocks. Where were they?

Before Reid could make anything out, they were back in a van again, except this one smelled older- mustier, tinged with old blood, maybe- and Reid blinked and struggled against the cuffs on his wrists. The metal bit into the soft flesh, but the pain woke him some. When he glanced up the little girl was watching him, warily, mouth half open. Reid watched her carefully.

"What's going on back there?" The driver demanded as the "new" van started up. "I hear movement."

Reid stared at the little girl. If only he wasn't gagged, if only he could get her alone, talk to her. "What's he doing, Elle?" The driver snapped louder when the girl failed to respond.

"Not sure. Hold on!" The girl shuffled over to Reid and studied his wrists, studied the bloody lacerations. "The cuffs are too tight. His wrists are bleeding a little."

"I heard movement. Is he struggling?" The driver's voice was stern, angry. From laughing to pissed off in less than ten minutes, Reid registered dimly. Not a good sign. Elle glanced at Reid and sighed. Swallowed.

"I don't... I don't think so. I think it's just they are too tight or something. He's pretty out of it... I think they cut when we went around that bend."

"You watch him," The driver snapped at the child, and Reid could feel the van speed up. "You know what to do if he gets out of line?"

Reid watched the girls' head duck, eyes lowered. She sighed softly. "I know."

"I expect you to do your duty. Teach the younger children."

There was another sigh, and the 6 year old glanced over at Spencer Reid's 27-year-old pale, dazed face.

"I know."

"Well?" The UNSUB's voice was challenging, but also coaxing.

"But he didn't do anything wrong yet!" The little girl protested, glancing over at the drugged agent. The UNSUB craned his neck around and glanced at Reid, gagged and bound and lying miserably on the van's stripped floor.

"He's awake. And you said you weren't sure if you heard movement from 'im. I think I did hear movement. So punish him-"

"Daddy..." The little girl's voice went up an octave.

"Elle, you can punish that boy, or I can punish you both. It's your choice."

The little girl sighed. Looked at Reid sadly. Reid stared at her hazily, watching, barely comprehending. She crawled over towards the back of the van and Reid heard metal clinking as she rummaged around. She came back with a large mag-lite, sighing heavily.

"You don't move until you get Daddy's permission, and you never try to get out of your bonds," the girl said blandly, eyes not meeting Reid's. She raised the flashlight. Reid shut his eyes, but was still stunned by the shockwave of pain that radiated through his head as the flashlight was brought down on his skull. The brilliant shockwave and stars of white, hot pain.

"I didn't hear anything..." the UNSUB cooed delightedly from the driver's seat.

"She hit him, Daddy, I saw it..." the boy, Connor, offered softly.

"I don't believe I was talking to you, boy... Elle? I didn't hear anything!"

"I hit him Daddy. I think I knocked him out." Reid kept his eyes shut. Was the girl trying to give him a way out? He didn't know. But he kept his eyes closed anyway.

She hadn't knocked him out but the child had one hell of an arm. There was laughter from the UNSUB.

"Maybe you did, then," the UNSUB chuckled, and Reid could more sense than see that the man was looking at him again. "Hell, that's going to be one hell of a bruise, Elle. Good for you."

"Thanks..."

"Like this?"

"No!" Morgan snapped, and rubbed at his eyes. "The forehead was higher, and wider. Eyes were bigger, a little more almond-y. You have the nose right. Bigger lower lip."

The sketch artist blinked and nodded. He was using a computer to get the details down... but even this process was taking too long.

"You said her eyes were blue?" The technician clicked on a few buttons and the virtual child's irises flared a bright robin's egg blue.

"Yes, but darker. More gray-blue." Morgan sighed. "Hair was a bit redder. Blond, but redder. And lighter."

A few more clicks. The technician looked at Morgan. "Like this?"

"Sort of." Morgan said flatly.

"Did you see her teeth?"

"Yeah, she smiled right before she gave me the damned envelope. Baby teeth. None missing. No adult teeth yet." Morgan admitted. Damn it. A kid who hadn't even lost a single baby tooth had had something to do with Reid's disappearance.

"Then your mystery child is probably no older than 7, probably closer to 5 or 6," the technician informed unnecessarily. Morgan nodded stiffly.

"Red sweater, buttoned up. Bangs, hair in pig tails, pink ribbons, dark blue cords, didn't see the shoes..."

"Clothing, even hair, is easy to alter. What's important are the facial features themselves, eye color, eye shape, things that can't be altered easily." There were a few more clicks. "This look like the kid you saw?"

Morgan stared at the image and nodded once. It was pretty damn close.

The drug was wearing off, and as it did Reid realized he'd been stripped naked except for his boxers. His hands were tied with rope above his head and he was sitting on hay. Bands of early morning sunlight arced across his body, but he couldn't tell where the light was coming from.

His head was pounding. Throbbing. He moaned and leaned his head to the side and vomited again.

The little girl from the car- Elle- was sitting across from him. She had changed clothes, and was now wearing jeans and a jacket and canvas lace-up sneakers. The gag had been removed from Reid's mouth, and the kid was holding a doll, staring at him appraisingly.

Reid woke all the way up then. He wasn't dreaming.

"I was on the TV this morning," the little girl told Reid proudly before he had a chance to say anything. He stared at her, not sure what to say in response to that. Profiling children was sometimes harder than profiling adults, especially for Spencer Reid, who had very rarely spent time with children growing up and didn't have any nieces or nephews to compare "abnormal" children to. Children, as a general rule, also weren't UNSUBS. He decided to wait, and watch.

"Not really me, actually. A drawing of me. Your friend was on the TV too. All three of them. And you, too, of course."

All three of them. That meant Hotch, Morgan and Prentiss, as JJ and Rossi had been distributing flyers in another part of the park with some local law enforcement officers and Garcia had been tracking stuff down on computers all day back at the Quantico field office.

Reid tried to get more comfortable, but couldn't. The ropes were tied too tightly, pulling harshly at his chest. His breath was coming out in sharp, short bursts.

"You must be cold," the girl said, scooting closer to Reid. She left her doll in the straw and sat beside him, just close enough that he could sense her body heat. "I was cold at first too, but if you're good you get out faster. 'Cept you're lucky this is summer. I was down here in winter. It was really cold then."

"Where are we?" Reid croaked. Good? Get Out faster? Did that mean they didn't intend to kill him outright?

"The oubliette," The girl said softly, stretching out each syllable, gazing around indifferently as if she were in a WAL-MART. She leaned closer to Reid, small face just a few inches from his. "Wanna know where you go after this?"

Reid wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he nodded anyway.

"Dungeon," the child said simply. "That's where they test you. It's kind of scary, but you either pass or fail. Right now you are just supposed to think about how bad you've been."

"I haven't... I haven't been bad." Reid said simply. His voice was quivering. The child crawled back over to her doll and picked it up, brushed the plastic doll face soothingly. Picked bits of straw out of the synthetic hair.

"That's what I thought, too. At first. But you'll learn. And then you'll be grateful..." The girl was cradling the doll now.

Reid nodded slightly, head spinning. He'd never been good at talking to kids, but now... he had to.

"M-My name is Spencer Reid. I work for the FBI. I can help you..."

"I don't need help, silly." The girl laughed, still staring at the doll's face, refusing to meet his desperate eyes. "And I already know who you are."

"The people who took you... they are bad people. If you help me, we can stop them."

The girl's head arched up. Her eyes narrowed. "Bad?"

Reid nodded. "They took you, right? They took you from... your real Mommy and Daddy?"

"My real parents didn't want me anyway. That's why they took me. And that's why they took you." The doll that had, just seconds ago, been cradled in the small arms was tossed angrily towards Reid. It hit the wooden wall next to him and lay in the dusty straw, apparently abandoned.

"Can I at least ask you your name?" Reid asked hesitantly. The girl stared at him harder.

"You already know it." The girl snapped, crawling away from him. "You know it because you're smart. A genius. And they called me it in the van so I know you know it."

Reid remained silent. He knew the child was a victim, just like him, just like the tortured bodies they'd found in runoff ditches. He knew she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome, at the very least. He ran through the missing kids who were associated with this case. None of them matched this girl's age or physical description. How long had this kid been here?

"A word to the wise," the girl said stonily, sounding much older and sinister than she looked, crawling backwards through the straw. The oubliette was only about four feet tall, but the girl was short enough to walk around without crawling or walking hunched over. So why was she crawling? Reid peered and could see her crabwalk until she reached what looked like a small, wooden staircase he hadn't noticed before.

"You'll never get out of here if you lie. And if you lie to me... I'm supposed to punish you." There was a sing-songy quality to the voice that made Reid flinch. She'd picked that up from the UNSUB, obviously.

"Elle, wait..."

"I have to go, now. You lied. You're a liar. That means no water for you."

Reid suddenly realized that his body was screaming for water. How long had he been here?

"Elle, wait!"

"You better start behaving Spencer, or you'll never last the dungeon." He heard her shoes on the stairs, and what sounded like a door being slammed. There was the heavy turning of lock tumblers falling into place.

"Julie, what are doing down here?" It was Elle's voice. Reid didn't have to open his eyes to know that voice. He'd tried wriggling out of the ropes binding his wrists but Elle hadn't tied him apparently, and eventually he'd fallen into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

"The man looks bad." If possible, the new voice was even... younger. Reid forced his eyes open. Since his transport in the van, he hadn't seen an adult, not even an adolescent. The corpses they'd found had all shown signs of extensive torture, and the knife wounds had been delivered by an adult, the coroner had been certain of that, from the angle and the strength required. The smaller, more delicate "cuts" had been performed with a scalpel and been too neat and meticulous to have been the work of anybody but a professional. A doctor or surgeon had delivered the incisions, the coroner had said.

God, what if the man had been wrong?

Elle was standing near the stairs with a flashlight, but a tiny little girl was sitting cross-legged near Reid. The smaller girl looked about four. Reid shut his eyes wearily.

"If he catches you down here, Julie, you know what'll happen."

"The man looks really bad," came the tiny voice again, high and chirpy, like a chipmunk's.

"He looks bad because he is bad. And he isn't a man; he's a boy, our new big brother."

Reid felt small hands on his feet, surprisingly warm hands. "He feels cold. He feels dead."

"He's not dead," Elle said sharply, and walked forward. Reid kept his eyes closed. Felt the older child prod him lightly in the ribs with the flashlight. When he failed to respond there was a sharper prod to his ribs. Reid slit his eyes open.

"See? I told you. Not dead. Now get out of here."

"He needs water," the smaller girl persisted.

"Get out of here!" Elle grabbed the smaller girl by the shoulders and wrenched her back towards the staircase. Reid heard the younger child burst into tears.

"He's gonna die," the younger voice howled.

"Shut up, he won't die."

Reid tried to force spit into his mouth. "I need water, Elle. Julie is right. Do you know what happens to a human if they go for more than 3 days without water?" Just the sentence had him panting, like he had run a marathon, and he could no longer feel his feet, much less his arms.

Elle momentarily let Julie go, who flinched away, crying less pronounced.

"Yeah, but you've only gone 2 and a half days." Elle said flatly.

"But do you know what happens?" Reid begged. If this little kid was in charge of his life, he had to get through to her. The girl sighed heavily, as if bored, and redirected the beam from the flashlight. Reid arched his neck and followed the beam.

A small skeleton dressed in overalls and a striped t-shirt was tied with rope to bolts in the wall in the corner of the room, about 20 feet from him. It had been so dark, he hadn't seen it before. Reid gulped and shut his eyes.

"You die," Elle said simply and swung the flashlight beam away from the skeleton. Towards the little girl Reid had only gotten a dim look at previously.

"But I get you water after you've been bad and maybe she dies," The little girl, the one who had cried for him, was covered head to foot in dark bruises, the most prominent of which were a set of finger print bruises around the tiny neck.

"She's closer to dying than you, and I have had her as a sister longer than I have had you as a brother," Elle said simply, as if discussing a math equation, algebra.

"Elle, if you untie me, I can help you... and your sister. Julie."

"If you keep saying bad things, I really can't get you water."

Reid shut his eyes. Be good. Act good. But what was good to this child? He had no idea.

"You're right," Reid croaked, pulling on the ropes weakly, hoping he was saying the right words. "It was bad of me to call your new Mommy and Daddy bad. And to lie. And to pretend not to know your name."

Elle looked at him warily.

"I guess I was bad. I guess... I need to be taught."

"Your parents never taught you to be good," Elle said simply, almost sadly, as if she felt sorry for Reid. Reid tried to school his features to look as innocent and vulnerable as possible.

"No, you're right. They didn't. But I want to be good."

"Julie, go back upstairs," Elle said, shoving the younger child towards the stair case. The little girl was still sniffling but finally nodded and disappeared into the dark.

"If you want to be good, that means you can't die," Elle said simply, studying Reid, the flashlight beam on his face. Reid nodded. His hair was limp, sweaty. It was hot down here, and his cells were screaming for water.

"That means I am going to need water, right?" Reid said weakly, not bothering to act weaker than he actually felt.

"Yeah," the girl aimed the flashlight towards the corner again, where Reid knew the child skeleton was tied to the wall.

"What do you have Garcia?" Hotch barked into the computer. "You're on speaker."

JJ, Prentiss, Rossi, Hotch and Morgan were seated around a conference table. It had been 3 and a half days since Reid had vanished, but no children had been taken on that day.

Because Reid had been the target.

"Well, like you guys guessed, no adult fingerprints on the envelope or the letter inside, nada. But there were the child's fingerprints... Here's where it gets interesting."

"What've you got baby-girl?" Morgan asked anxiously.

"Those finger-prints belong to a ghost. Well, not really-"

"Garcia," Hotch said sternly, his tone conveying his message: get to the point.

"Yes sir. Three years ago Boston PD found an abandoned car, parents dead inside. Murdered. The police ran the plates of course, discovered the identity of our murdered couple. Also found the baby seat in the back, minus the baby. Their three year and a half year old daughter, Lise was missing, but her finger prints covered the inside of the car. However, a third blood type was found within the car, believed to belong to the child, and the police decided that due to the quantity of blood the child was dead... she was officially declared dead over 2 and a half years ago."

"Was the blood tested to see if it was a match to the parents?" Hotch snapped.

"Yes. DNA testing revealed that the third blood type found in that car belonged to our murdered couple's child, and the CSI techies found over 2 litres of it, so considering the age and size of the child-"

"Thanks Garcia. Do you have a photograph of Lise...?"

"Lise Miller. Faxing it to you now. Also a police age-enhanced image. Along with the fingerprints...it's the same kid, sir. I'll let you know if I find out anymore."

Hotch nodded and the computer screen when blank.

"Well, at least we know they don't have to kill," Prentiss sighed. "They've had this little girl for over three years."

"This changes everything...we've been going on the assumption that we simply haven't found the bodies of the other victims. But if they are keeping some of these kids around for extended periods, they are going to need more space, more room..." Hotch was up, pacing, looking at maps.

"Last 3 kids were taken right here in Virginia, Lise Miller in Boston, Connor Stephens from Queens, New York." Hotch was pulling out push pins, inserting green push pins into places on the map where missing children who hadn't been found yet had been abducted.

"Reid was taken here." Hotch pushed a green pin into a suburb of Virginia. Next came the red push pins. Hotch quickly pushed 8 pins into the map, all eight scattered over the north-eastern seaboard.

"Those are where 8 of our known murdered victims were abducted from," Hotch said sternly, eyes glued to the map. Very carefully he removed 8 black pushpins and held them cupped in his left hand.

"Someone read out to me where the 8 murder victims were found."

Morgan quickly read out a list of locations. All in New York.

"New York is the safety area for these UNSUBS," Hotch muttered. "They feel hidden there, protected there. Invisible."

"Which probably means their actual residence isn't anywhere near the dump site," Morgan added, getting up. Hotch gently removed one white pin from the small plastic case of push pins and inserted it into the map, right next to Reid's green pin.

"And the white one means...?" Morgan trailed tiredly. He had barely gotten any sleep since Reid had been taken.

"It's where we saw Lise Miller. She was abducted here, and spotted here." Hotch's finger's trailed over the map.

"Anybody thinking what I'm thinking?" J.J. asked tiredly, draining the last of her coffee and approaching the map. Morgan nodded and turned to her.

"Yeah- that the best person to figure this out is Reid."

"Well, yeah," J.J. said pensively, before turning to face Morgan head on, "but what I was really thinking that never before in my life have I hoped so much that the next pin we're going to push into a map is white instead of black."

Morgan nodded stiffly.

"Elle?" Reid croaked hoarsely. His head felt like it was being crushed- not only from the blow the little girl had delivered in the van, but dehydration, no doubt. "Elle?"

He could hear soft feet on the stair case. A flashlight clicked on and more shuffling. What sounded like crying. A very small child.

Reid squinted in the darkness.

"Julie?"

"Daddy found Elle trying to sneak water down," the smaller child said mournfully. "He got really mad, and now Elle won't move!" The child coughed and hiccupped.

"Julie, do you think... do you think you could untie me? I could help. I could help Elle."

"She won't get up," the little girl lamented and continued to walk towards Reid. "But... but Daddy didn't notice. I got this..." Reid squinted even harder. The girl was holding something rectangular.

"What is that, Julie? A juice box?"

The child nodded fervently. "Is it okay? It's my juice box so he won't know it's missing."

Reid nodded back. The child sniffled and clumsily pulled the straw off the side of the box, then stabbed the straw into the box and carefully approached Reid. She stuck the straw in Reid's mouth, watching carefully as he quickly drained the tiny box of fluid.

"Thank...you," Reid gasped, licking his lips. It definitely wasn't enough fluid, but it was something. And the sugar would help. He hadn't eaten in days, either. He tried to focus on the situation. C'mon Reid, focus.

"Julie... you said Elle won't get up. What happened?"

"Daddy... he got really mad. Said she was disobeying him by trying to get water for you."

"What happened then?" Reid coaxed, pulling again on his ties. He wanted to scream in frustration.

"Julie, do you think you could untie these?" The girl looked hesitantly at Reid, sucked in her lower lip and stumbled over to one of his wrists. He could feel her tiny fingers picking at the thick rope, to no avail. Finally Reid sighed.

"It's okay. That's okay."

"What about Joey's knife?"

Joey's Knife? Reid's mind swirled with a million questions.

"What do you mean, Julie? Who is Joey?"

The child shot the flashlight beam over to the corner of the room, where the skeleton was. "He has a knife?"

"He does? The skeleton?"

"Yeah. It's in his ribs. But I could maybe get it?"

Reid nodded quickly, excitedly. "Yes, yes, you go get it, okay? Go Julie!"

The child stared at the skeleton for a moment, looking uncertain. Finally she shuffled over to the corner. Reid heard her breathing hard, probably out of fear, and then the shuffling of her shoes as she returned.

The knife was rusted to hell but...

"Julie, how did Joey die?" Reid asked carefully.

"He wouldn't admit to being bad, so Daddy stabbed him." Julie said simply, and held the knife towards Reid like a present. "How do I do this?" the child was staring him in the face, her own face pale with fear. Based on her behaviour Reid guessed she'd only recently "arrived". She was rightly terrified, but didn't seem brainwashed like Elle.

"Julie, how old are you?"

"Um... what month is it?" She scratched her head, deep in thought as she counted the months mentally.

"July."

"I'm five now, then." The girl said proudly. Reid smiled back encouragingly.

"Julie, have you ever cut anything before... like, say, bread or..."

"I can cut bread... and a long time ago, with my old Mommy and Daddy, play-doh, but that was only with a plastic knife..."

"Okay," Reid exhaled tiredly. "Think of these ropes like Play-Doh, okay? You're going to have to cut fast, though, and harder than with play-doh..."

The girl nodded and began to saw, tongue sticking out as she worked. Reid smiled, eyes darting through the darkness to the stairs. If the UNSUB came downstairs now...

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Reid' right hand was free. Julie tried to start on the left bind, but Reid shook his head. "No, it's okay, I can cut the other one now, okay? Good job." His heart was hammering. "Thank you."

He sawed at the rope crazily, adrenaline flooding him.

"You're good at cutting stuff," Julie said, staring up at him. Reid tried to smile back, but it felt forced.

"Julie, tell me, how many kids live here?"

"Besides you and me and Elle?" Julie asked softly. Finally Reid had the other wrist free. He flexed his wrist softly, testing his strength. Finally turned back to the little girl and nodded. "Yeah, besides you and Elle... and me."

"There's Connoooor. He's 15, I think."

Reid scuttled forward and gently pried the flashlight loose from the girl's hand. He smiled and nodded, encouraging her to go on. "There's Bradley, he's 9. There's Ruthy... I don't know how old she is. She's new here. There's Mark, too. I think he's 12."

Reid ran the names and ages through his head; Connor and the last three kids she'd listed had all been reported missing and fit the UNSUBs' M.O., but Elle and Julie... their disappearances hadn't been linked to this case. At least not that Reid knew of.

"How about your parents... how many parents?" Reid questioned, trying his best to sound calm.

"There's Daddy. And Mommy." The girl said the words simply, as if Reid were daft for asking.

"Okay, thank you. You sure there's nobody else?"

Julie shook her head no.

"No grandparents? No aunts or uncles or grown-up friends?"

"Of my new Mommy and Daddy?"

Reid nodded.

"No. Just them. And the kids like us."

Reid nodded again. Kids like us. Made no sense. All the other kidnap victims had, indeed, been minors. He was 27 though...

"Okay." He held out his hand for the small child, and she took it. Groaning slightly Reid crawled through the small space Elle had referred to as an "oubliette". Reid kept the flashlight beam focused on the stairs and gently eased onto the first one.

Nothing. No traps. He eased onto the next step, and the next, and finally was at the top of the stair case. Julie reached out and grabbed the door handle and yanked the door open.

They were swallowed by darkness. Reid felt his stomach tighten. Darkness. He could remember his colleagues- his family- asking him about his fear of the dark once. Yeah, Reid, why are you afraid of the dark? Reid angled the flashlight beam into the black, cavernous room and swung it around. Shivered. The walls were cinderblock with an ungodly assortment of tools hanging from them.

If Reid hadn't known better, he would've thought he was in a high school shop class after hours. The room contained, from what he could tell, many large, wooden tables with vices, clamps, cupboards, tools (both electric and hand-held). Reid felt Julie's hand tighten in his a bit.

"Elle's over here..." the girl said solemnly, leading him by memory through the dark.

"Julie, where are we?" Reid asked hesitantly.

"This? This is the dungeon."

"Can... can we get out of the dungeon?" Reid glanced down at the young face, trying to see the expression in the relative gloom. Julie shrugged.

"Sometimes. But I tried after Daddy put Elle down here and the special door is locked again."

"Special door?" Reid inquired, feeling his heart begin to beat faster again.

"Metal door." Julie clarified and pointed. Reid turned and aimed the flashlight. There was another staircase, and at the top of it, like the child had said, a thick, steel door. The type of door commonly associated with panic rooms.

The irony of that door keeping them locked in a state of panic wasn't lost on Spencer Reid.

Chapter two coming (relatively) soon, guys. Want to see how this fares, if it's even worth continuing, and also want to work on some other stuff and let this one percolate a bit. Haven't really seen CM in a long time, been staying away from TV in general, and it's hard to keep the characters' voices and personalities in mind if you go too long without watching them on the idiot box.

-Lexikal