Hello again. Here's the next chapter, and more of where this is going...
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine. Though they could use this story as a plot bunny if they so desired.
The world swam. Brown mixed in with black and spots of orange as Reid tried desperately to open his eyes.
It was cold out, and dark—night had fallen, and there were sounds of a crackling fire somewhere nearby. He could feel the dirt covering his arms and feet, and he tried to reach out for his shoes, but it was useless. The young agent's hands were bound behind his back, not tightly but enough to keep them in that state. He moved his feet, which were unbound, around a little in hopes of touching upon his shoes.
They were nowhere to be found.
Instinctively, Reid curled his toes into a ball, not wanting to injure his bare feet. Whoever had abducted him had not only taken his shoes but his socks as well.
He lay on the dirt floor, hoping to work the thick fog from his system. His eyes were slowly beginning to focus, and his hearing began to grow sharper as the minutes ticked by.
There were voices outside the wood walls that seemed to make up the small structure he'd been tossed in, harsh and fast and furious ones.
"What the hell were you thinking?" came one voice, the cold one Reid remembered from before.
"I was thinking that maybe we don't want this to end up like it did last time," replied the other voice, the one who'd managed to knock Reid into this state. "Everyone knows the story…"
"Yeah. A story. This isn't like then, genius—everyone knows enough now to stay away. Doesn't the fact that they brought in outsiders tell you something?"
"Still, those outsiders don't know better," argued the younger voice. "This way we keep 'em out—maybe for good."
"Just what are you gettin' at, boy?"
"Well, we all know what happens when people are determined…"
"Yeah. The Campbell girl," said the older, harsher voice."
"The Campbell girl," the younger affirmed. "Now there's no way those outsiders will come in—they'll hear the story, and they'll know what'll happen if they do."
"The Elder isn't gonna like this one, that's for sure."
"He knows what happened before…"
The voices grew fainter as their owners moved out of earshot.
Reid willed himself to pick up his head, but to no avail—it was still too thick and tired from all the drugs that were working themselves out of his system.
This happened before… he thought. Happened when? To who?
And who is this "Campbell girl?"
"There was a family that lived here, once, 'bout that long ago," Tom began. "Name was Campbell. I knew them; they were once my neighbors. Young couple, Sean and Sarah—they'd just had their little girl not less than a month before she went missing.
"That man was heartbroken. People tried telling him all sorts of reasons why she'd left—depression from having the baby, change of scenery, you name it, but he knew that something was wrong, just like you all know your friend is in real trouble."
"What happened?" asked Rossi, now completely interested.
"Well, they never did find her, poor thing. Sean was heartbroken. He raised the little girl, best he could, but he never stopped trying to find out what happened to his wife. He simply knew Sarah didn't just leave him, not willingly, anyway.
"A few months later, another woman went missing—a younger woman, but she looked an awful lot like Sarah Campbell. They never found her, either.
"And that was how it went. Every few months another woman would go missing; sometimes, a little girl vanished as well. It was like they simply walked off the face of the earth."
"What happened to all those women?" Emily asked, now interested herself.
"No one really knows, but they say up near Kite Country you can hear the screams of some of those women."
"'Kite Country?'" asked Morgan.
"About 40,000 acres all belonging to one family---the Kites. Mean, ornery, backwoods lot, the Kites. Put a person in mind of clans and survivalists, those folks."
"What about the Campbell girl?" prodded Hotch.
"Well, Sean Campbell realized that every time the Kite boys came down to the bar, a girl went missing a few days later. Followed the pattern for months, he did, and eventually he challenged them in front of everyone in the bar. Said he knew what was going on, and he meant to put a stop to it."
"So what happened?" JJ asked.
"That night, there was a fire just outside his house. Everyone was so busy trying to put it out that no one noticed Sean's daughter, Kate, had gone missing—just like her mother some twelve years earlier."
"Jesus," said Emily. "And he probably went after the Kites."
"By himself, no less. He managed to get his daughter back, but at a terrible price."
Six agents waited with baited breath to learn what happened next. If there was truth in this story, there might be hope for Reid and the other girls."
"And that it, folks. I only know that the only person to come out of there alive and tell the tale was Katie Campbell. She was a mess, too—burned, beaten, shoeless, and starving, but she made her way out. Local authorities swarmed the place, arrested the Kites on site for a whole number of things; they won't be getting out of prison, that's sure, but no one ever knew what happened to Sean Campbell. Katie, she wouldn't talk about it. Not to me, not to anyone."
Each agent fell into a contemplative silence. They knew that whatever fate befell Sean Campbell, it couldn't be good.
"My advice to these folks was to go after the Kites, and head on, but everyone knows the story. There's not a soul in all of Michigan that will go on that land. Too afraid of what might happen to them."
"So you called us." said Hotch.
"No, the town called you, Agent Hotchner. I called the only person that can go in to get these girls—and now, your friend."
"Who did you…" started Emily, but her sentence was cut off by the sound of a door slamming and an instant hush that fell over the entire building.
"How many this time, Tom?" said a voice. It belonged to a girl that couldn't be much older than Reid.