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The group of agents stared at the letter displayed before them. The letter was neatly typed on plain white paper. It had been delivered in a large envelope so there were no creases in it. It was in pristine condition, not a single mark, crease, or bent edge. It was somehow taunting the remaining team members, as if to say, 'This is the condition Dr. Reid is in now, but he won't be for long.'

The room was deathly silent. An explosion could occur right next to them, and no one in the room would even blink. Nothing else mattered at the moment. Everyone had noticed Reid's absence, yet none of them were overly worried by it. Late night, alarm clock not going off, oversleeping. It happened to everyone. Though extremely rare, not even genius Reid was an exception to that.

As soon as the letter had been received, though, everything changed. The normal, pleasant mood that filled the offices suddenly turned dark. The extreme seriousness of the situation was made known quite quickly to everyone as they gathered at the table in the conference room. The air of gathering in this room was never good. No case that they received was ever good, but the atmosphere was different this time. The horrid realization of what was happening provided for an ominous silence. Prentiss was the first to break it.

"What do we do?"

"We can't play into his game," Morgan answered without taking his eyes off the letter.

"What other choice do we have?" she responded back. "We can look for Reid all we want, but do you honestly think there's going to be any evidence to help find him?"

"He's obviously studied us," Rossi commented. "He's smart. He's got this all planned out. He wouldn't have left any evidence behind."

"How was the letter delivered?" Morgan asked.

"It was sitting on my desk along with my other mail," JJ answered. "Why'd he give it to me, though?"

"The unsub probably knows you're the one who gives us our cases," Rossi suggested. "Maybe he wanted this to be done the same way. We have to be careful. He may have been watching all of us. And who knows for how long. He's got every detail of this planned out. He had to have known you'd find the letter before the deadline."

"I just wish I had decided to look through my mail sooner."

"It wouldn't have made any difference, JJ," Morgan said, trying to ease her obvious guilt a bit. "It only would have given us a little more time, and I don't think we'll be able to find out much with the two hours that we do have. Garcia, maybe you should look at any security footage for JJ's office. See if the mail deliverer brought it or someone else stuck it in. I highly doubt whoever has Reid delivered it in person."

"Wait, how do we even know he has Reid for sure?" Garcia asked, obviously trying to hide the worry in her voice. She, like everyone else, didn't want to believe this was happening.

"Because of this," JJ answered as she pulled something else out. It had come in the same envelope as the letter had. It was a photo, and on the photo was a bound and unconscious Reid, lying in what looked to be the back of a van. It was all the proof they needed.

"We can't let him hurt Reid," Garcia pleaded as she forced herself to look away from the picture, from the seemingly peaceful Reid.

"I know we can't, baby girl," Morgan said softly. "But we can't let him kill innocent people either."

"Then how are we supposed to decide?" JJ asked.

"We don't decide." Everyone turned to Hotch as he spoke for the first time since they had come into the conference room.

"But if we don't decide, he'll just kill someone and hurt Reid, too. That will just be worse."

"I didn't think it could get any worse," Garcia mumbled quietly.

"That's not exactly what he meant," Rossi said. He was the only one in the room who seemed to understand right away what Hotch was trying to say to them.

Hotch sighed as he looked at everyone sitting at the table. The undue amount of stress that was suddenly thrust upon him was showing slightly on his face. Anyone else may not have noticed, but the team surely did. They all felt it, too. The day that had started out normal was now turning into a nightmare.

"I know this is hard, but we have to think of Reid here," Hotch explained carefully. "We can't deny that it's going to take time to find him, so we're going to have to play into the unsub's game until we do. Reid wouldn't want innocent people to die because of him. He couldn't live with that. I don't think any of us could. We have to consider what he'd tell us to do."

Everyone now understood what Hotch was getting at. Morgan sighed sadly as he closed his eyes. "He'd tell us to choose him."