NO SURRENDER
Chapter
2
True Love and Tenderness
I plead insanity – song by Belinda Carlisle
I had really loved Mase – that's what I called him!- although he didn't even know I existed. I watched him from a distance, and took the photographs that I have stuck into a big scrap book with all the newspaper cuttings of his crimes. I touched him once, you know, but he didn't know it was me. It was in the supermarket. I had followed him there and watched as he put things in his trolley. I went up close because I wanted to see what he had bought, and just as I got there he took a step back and trod on my foot. It really hurt, but the thing was, he touched my bare arm, and sent shivers through me. I was more careful after that though, in case he remembered me.
Yes that was the only time we ever touched, in my waking hours at least. When I sleep he visits my dreams – he still does even though he has died.
I can't believe he has gone. There isn't even a grave I can visit. I don't know where he is. Now I'm starting to cry again.
But the man responsible for the death of my lover will pay – my god will he pay!
I planned it carefully. I killed random people in an arc shape, with some obvious spots where I would hit next. I knew that the one responsible for his death would have to be involved, and I profiled him! Yes, me! I'm not so stupid, and I calculated the most likely place he would wait, and got it down to two. I struck lucky when he turned up. Shooting him was such a joy. A point two two in the chest – just enough to slow him down, but not kill him. Oh god no. I don't want him dead. Not yet anyway. We can play games first, and have some fun!
-0-0-0-
The cars were recalled at eleven ten. There was no drive by tonight, and most of the returning drivers were confused by this.
"The UnSub knew we were here." Reid said to Morgan as they made their way back up to the incident room. "Maybe they will hold off until we go."
"If that's true then good. The city is safe while we are here." He answered. "But I have a feeling there's more to it than that."
"I agree. It was just a thought." Reid said. "Where's Hotch?"
"Not back yet. I'll try and contact him."
Going up the stairs they were met by Detective Mercott.
"We can't get in touch with Agent Hotchner." He said. "We tried to recall him, and he's not answering."
Reid and Morgan glanced at each other. "Where was he waiting?" Reid asked, entering the incident room.
"Just here." Detective Mercott said indicating one of the coloured dots on the map. "The place we thought to be the most likely target."
"Let's get back there." Morgan said. "Please continue to try to recall him. We'll go and check he's ok."
"Probably he's in a cold spot. There are a few in town."
He's not..... we were talking to him up to ten fifty five.....
Reid and Morgan drove silently to the place where Hotch was staked out. The car was still there. As they drew closer, they saw that the driver's door was open, and there was no-one in the car.
"Crap!" Morgan said, pulling up beside Aaron's car. "Where is he?"
"Hotch wouldn't leave the car while on a stake out." Reid said worriedly. "He must have had a good reason to leave."
"And there's the reason." Morgan said, leaning into the car. "Blood on the arm rest." He pointed to a broken crutch in the gutter. "Blood and hair. Dark hair."
"What is that there?" Reid said, reaching in and taking a sheet folded of paper off the passenger's seat. Unfolding it, he said, "It's a photograph."
Morgan shone a torch onto the picture.
"Oh my god........ Look who it is!"
"It's either Mason Lowe or someone remarkably similar." Reid said.
"It's Lowe. But he's dead!"
"So who has done this?" Reid said. "Did he have any family?"
"Only the older sister, and I can't imagine she would be able to kill all those people, from reading the report she was a little slow."
"Well, someone wants revenge" Reid said "There isn't much blood, so he's probably still alive. We need the CSU on this."
Morgan took out his phone.
"I'll call Mercott." Reid said. "Then I'll call the team together. Rossi will want to be on this."
"No question." Morgan said, stabbing at his phone. "Come on, answer!"
-0-0-0-
I watched him claw at his chest. Not a great deal of damage, but enough to incapacitate. He slumped sideways in the seat across the centre console.
"Hotchner." I smiled. "If you hadn't been the cause of my Mase's death, I could almost love you!"
"Mase?" was all he said. "Who ......?"
I showed him the photograph. "This is my lovely Mase." I said and folded the picture up and put it on the other seat. Then I removed Hotchner's seat belt, and dragged him out by the feet. I got one of his crutches out of the back and broke it across his head. He went to sleep then. My van was just around the corner. I thought there were probably security cameras around, so I had covered up the licence plate and kept my head down.
Hotchner looked like he was asleep, sitting in the gutter leaning on his car. If it wasn't for the blood on his chest that is. I checked for the bullet, but there was no exit wound, so I was safe there.
I pulled him up against me and dragged him to the van. Anyone seeing the security tape would have thought he was drunk and I was taking him out of his car.
He smelled of shampoo and after shave, and for a moment there I felt a rush of betrayal because I quite fancied him really. That was when I decided I was going to keep him alive for a long time.
There was a blanket in the back of my van, and I wrapped him in it. When we get back, I thought, I would stitch his wound, and hang him up ready to play.
Ahh but he did look lovely lying there in the back of the van. I wanted to play right away, but I'd have to fix him first. It shouldn't take long
-0-0-0-
Hotch didn't wake up when she probed the wound trying to find the bullet. She tore the hole bigger, and he twitched in his unconscious state. He moaned in his sleep as she pushed the tweezers into the hole. The bleeding increased as she poked around inside him. She wasn't able to reach the bullet – it was too deep in his chest, so she pulled out the tweezers and stitched the little hole in his chest. She caressed him gently, liking him more and more, wishing she didn't have to kill him. She took his glasses off him and threw them into the corner of the room, then she tied his hands together and using a hook in the ceiling of her basement as a pulley, hauled him up off the floor so that his feet were still touching the ground. Then as she poured iodine on the wound, he woke with a scream.
Slowly Hotch realised what had happened. The burning in his chest recalled to him the firing of the hand gun through the window. His head throbbed and he assumed he had been hit, and his shoulders ached since his legs were still not strong enough to take his weight for long without excruciating pain, and the weight was being taken by his arms.
"What do you want me for?" he asked the woman standing in front of him with the iodine bottle in her hand. She smiled and Hotch tried not to recoil from her. Her teeth were rotten, and her breath was foul. "Why have you done this? Please release me now because I am a Federal Agent, and you could be in a lot of trouble. If you release me now, I'll say you were co-operative."
"I can't release you." the woman said. "I brought you here to kill you because you are responsible for killing the man I love. But now, I think you might love me. I can't let you go though. I need you here."
She was a small woman, and to reach his lips, she carried a chair and placed it in front of him. Standing on the chair she pressed her lips hard on his, probing his mouth with her tongue. He tried to pull away but she held him around his bare chest and sucked at him. When she pulled back and smiled at him, he heaved and desperately fought off being sick. He wasn't so shallow as to dislike fat women, but this woman smelt and tasted as if she never washed. Her hair smelled of grease and dirt, and he sucked in clean air to try to rid himself of the taste and odour of her.
He coughed, and he couldn't stop it as his stomach twisted and he was sick on the floor in front of him. The stitches in his chest tore as he heaved.
She looked at him in anger, and smacked his face as hard as she could. He bit his tongue and his teeth caught the inside of his mouth. Blood ran from his lips in a thin trickle.
"Look what you have done!" she yelled. "Now I have to clean it up. Don't offer to help! I'm not untying you. You can stay there tonight. I was going to take you to my bed, but as a punishment you can stay there. I'll clean up this mess in the morning. And I have to sew you up again"
She picked up a thick sewing needle and heavy thread from the table. He looked on wide eyed with horror.
"No no please, leave it!"
Breaking off a piece with her teeth, she threaded the needle and holding the sides of the wound proud of his skin, stuck the needle through and back. He cried out as the thread pulled through his flesh and she stuck it through again.
"Oh god, please stop!" he begged but she ignored him, and pushed it through again.
Aaron fainted.
She Bit the thread off close to the wound and hit his face again. He woke up as she stalked furiously out of the room up the stairs into the house.
Hotch spat blood out of his mouth.
I was going to take you to my bed.....
In the name of all things holy, who was this woman? Her bed?
Oh god oh god oh god he had to get out of here. He didn't dare shout for help. She could easily kill him if he upset her. He pulled at the restraints on his wrists, twisting and pulling, but she knew how to tie knots – the more he pulled the tighter the restraints became, and after a while he was afraid that the blood to his fingers was cut off. He hoped they would loosen again as his fingers tingled and stung.
-0-0-0-
It was a long cold and miserable night. He could hear the wind wrapping itself around the house, and the banging of an open basement window. If he could untie himself escape would be easy. He wanted to take in the room he was in, try to profile her, but she had left him in darkness, and it was black down here. He tried jerking then hook in the ceiling, but without a lot of use of his legs, he knew he was wasting his time.
There was no way he could sleep, although he did black out at one point when he tried to stand and the pain through his knees sent a wave of agony up into his abdomen. His chest felt like a fire was burning inside. The dirty thread and needle, and her biting it, it was sure to become infected. He thought there was no exit wound and he was concerned about the bullet being still inside him. He needed a hospital. In the morning he would ask her if a doctor could come out to see him.
He hung in wretched silence through the night. He saw light creep through the basement windows, and heard the birds singing.
He passed out from sheer exhaustion
