Title: Red Riding Hood

Author: Sara Nublas

Characters: Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, all team involved

Rating: T

Warning: violence and creepy scenes

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds, its characters or the tale of Little Red Riding Hood

A/N: Many people to thank for this story: withouttracelover996 for the prompt, Nix1978 for patiently listening to my ideas, freddlerabbit for the beta reading

Thanks a lot for all the reviews and alerts! Keep them coming please! :)


Dusk is approaching rapidly as the sky turns red and purple, and the outline of the trees gets somewhat menacing.

Hotch stares out of a window at the precinct house, searching the horizon with a searing look, his expression a frown of concern.

"Hotch," JJ recalls his attention, "Garcia looked into everything she could about Sylvia Parker, but nothing of what came out matches with this woman. And by nothing I mean not even a birth certificate."

Hotch turns to her, not surprised by the update. He now regrets sending Prentiss into the woods without more back up; this case is turning into a farce and now one of his agents is potentially missing.

He ponders for an instant and then he walks back to the rest of the team, where Morgan has also joined them.

"Morgan, what did she tell you?" Reid asks, raising his eyes from a pile of documents he's reading.

"Nothing substantial. She talks and behaves as if she hasn't any clue of the real world. She lives out of a fairy tale. But definitely this legend of the people from the Outside is a popular story around here," Morgan answers frustrated and pissed, because in someway he feels like he's being played, "What's going on?" he then asks, hoping for more helpful updates from the rest of the team.

"According to Garcia, that woman doesn't even exist and Prentiss hasn't gotten back yet," Hotch responds coldly.

"What do you mean, she hasn't gotten back yet?" Morgan asks tensely.

"She's not picking up her phone." Hotch explains curtly.

Morgan hisses a curse, his eerie fears being confirmed.

"It could be a problem of reception, these woods are really secluded," Reid comments worriedly, trying to avoid the worst thoughts.

"But it's been over two hours and the house wasn't supposed to be so distant," JJ objects, "Emily would have updated us."

Hotch takes a deep breath, "JJ, why don't you try to talk to the girl? Maybe with a woman she will open up and give us more details," he suggests and immediately the liaison officer takes off, glad to have something to do instead of just waiting for a call from Emily to come through.

"Sheriff," Hotch then recalls the officer's attention.

The man trots toward the profiler with a lost expression, and despite knowing he's doing his best to cope with a situation out of his league, Hotch reckons he's running out of patience.

"Sheriff, have you heard anything from the officer you sent in the woods with my agent?" He strives to keep his calm.

"No, not yet." The man widens his eyes, mentally reviewing his tasks' list and feeling overwhelmed.

"Would you please try to contact him?" Hotch lowers his voice and for some reason his tone comes out even more threatening.

Sheriff Cormack has proudly been responsible for 12,000 heads over the last thirty years. He never failed the expectations of his citizens; he never faced anything he couldn't cope with, and for sure he has never dealt with anything like this. He now regrets the boring days in which he had to deal with occasional shoplifting and brawls at the tavern on Friday nights. This case is like a boulder pressing on his chest, devouring him from the inside and not doing any good service to his ulcer.

Zealously he grabs the radio and starts calling agent Madison, mortified for not having thought about that before. A mix of exhaustion, despair and panic turns his face into a wax mask, as he doesn't get any answer. He waves haphazardly at the profilers' sere expressions, searching for words and not finding a suitable apology "I'll put a search party together!" he offers.

/

When JJ enters the interrogation room, Sylvia welcomes her with a disappointed and almost resentful look.

"Where's Derek?" she immediately asks as the liaison officer offers her a glass of water.

JJ looks back surprised and smiles friendly, trying to ignore Sylvia's hostility, "Special Agent Morgan is busy right now. But I thought we could talk a little bit more…" she tests the waters.

"What do you want to talk about?" Sylvia asks annoyed.

The fact that the young woman hasn't asked even once about her grandmother doesn't escape JJ's attention. Even though her behavior appeared definitely unwonted since the beginning, JJ is stunned by the sudden change in her attitude; sweet and harmless one moment, haughty and uncooperative the moment after. Suddenly Emily's suspicions about Sylvia come back to her mind and as they do, JJ doesn't see anymore a frightened and disoriented girl, but an extremely determined and ruthless woman, who has a precise plan and is ready to do anything to enforce it.

"Why doesn't he want to talk to me?" Sylvia suddenly breaks the silence with a pout.

"Who doesn't want to talk to you?" JJ asks dumbfounded.

"Derek," Sylvia explains, staring at the glass of water in her hands, "He sent you back in here in his place. Did I do something wrong?"

JJ shifts on the chair uncomfortably, she doesn't know if it's the delusion Sylvia is nurturing or the prospect of what else is brewing in her twisted mind that unsettles her most.

JJ is not a profiler, but she has spent enough time with the team to detect some patterns and learn some tricks. Enough to know that, despite some victims of systematic sexual abuse tending to offers themselves to any man they encounter, this doesn't usually manifest immediately after the aggression. Enough to know that the way Sylvia fantasizes about Morgan is symptomatic of a rooted misconception of the relationship with the opposite sex. Enough to listen to her instinct, right now screaming at her that whatever plan Sylvia has got in mind, she definitely is not a victim.

/

"We don't have that kind of time and we need qualified agents," Hotch responds brusquely to the Sheriff's offer, as he realizes it's time he takes over the lead of the case. "We have two officers potentially in the hands of a serial killer. We have to know what to search for."

"Then let's go!" the Sheriff raises his voice almost in despair.

"We can't just start running through the woods blindly!" Hotch turns at him and for a moment the rest of the team freezes, barely recalling the unit chief loosing his temper.

"These woods are extensive, there's one unsub, maybe more, who is clearly one step ahead of us." Morgan jumps in, trying to keep his calm and to soothe the sheriff's anxiety "if we go out right now, we will lose time and probably will be back empty handed."

"So we wait and hope nothing happened to my officer and your agent?" Cormack asks, despair turning into rage.

"No, we work out a profile. We put together all we've got so to understand what this unsub wants and what's his next move," Derek explains, "Agent Prentiss is one of the most capable profilers I know and she's able to handle herself in stressful situations," he concludes then, needing to say it out loud, needing to convince himself about it, even more than the others.

Rossi doesn't fail to notice Morgan's tension; again he can't help thinking that there's an awful lot of unspoken words and unfinished business between Derek and Emily, so thick and complex that it will explode in their face unless they deal with it. But obviously this is not the most appropriate moment to focus on personal relationships within the team. Right now the priority is to get Emily and officer Madison back safe and stop this killer, "I will go and see how's JJ doing," he finally resolves and turns on his heels as he receives a nod of approval from Hotch.

/

"Sylvia, we are trying to catch the man who assaulted you," JJ tries to play along with the young woman, "Derek is working on that too…That's why he's not here." She has to make an active effort to soothe the anxiety in her chest.

At every blink, at every word Sylvia says, she feels like she's missing a whole world of clues and nuances that a real profiler would get. That Emily would get. Instead she's here, trying to get some information from a possibly mentally unstable woman, while one of her friends is out in the dark with a serial killer on the loose.

Sylvia seems reassured by JJ's words and a timid smile surfaces on her lips, "I like him…" she admits with a half giggle, "He's pretty. And I'm pretty too…"

This time JJ's staggered expression is noticed and Sylvia immediately frowns, "You think I'm not pretty enough for him?" she asks almost accusingly, "Or is it because of the agent who went into the woods?" Sylvia urges pressingly.

"Why do you think Agent Prentiss has something to do with your relationship with Agent Morgan?" JJ asks, while a creepy thought starts to morph in her mind.

"Well, obviously she's jealous!" Sylvia turns brusquely, "She wants him and she knows that she can't have him."

"Is this the reason why you asked that a woman would go into the woods to check on your grandmother?" JJ asks, her voice getting lower, "To have Agent Prentiss out of the way?"

"It wouldn't make a difference if she was here…" Sylvia comments boldly, "he was holding me, not her. He chose me!"

"Sylvia, where's Emily?" JJ's tone has become sharper and more demanding now, in her eyes fearless determination to get her friend back home.

"She's got a handful right now," Sylvia smiles maliciously, settling on the back of the chair and finally taking a sip of water.

JJ stares at Sylvia, tempted by the sudden impulse of throwing her against a wall and punching her until she gives up the truth. Instead she gets up and darts out of the room; she's relieved when she finds Rossi out, waiting for her.

"Did you get it?" she asks, fighting a surging sob.

Rossi stares at her with his usual unruffled expression, then he puts a hand on her shoulder and reassures her "You did good, JJ. Very good."

"I'm not a profiler, I… I can't do this…I don't get all the signals and hints that you or Emily would gather from her behavior," she objects.

"JJ, you have great instincts. And inside there, you were able to push some buttons that neither I or Morgan or any other team member would have been able to… And this transcends your job qualifications."

JJ nods, a bit reassured and takes a deep breath.

"Now, I want you to come with me and tell the team what's your feeling about this woman. We have a profile to deliver."


Emily wakes up on the cold floor of a dark room. It must be a cellar or a basement, she judges as she rolls on her back and notices few shards of light filtering through the wooden planking over her head.

Her hand softly probes the bump on the back of her head and she twitches in pain as she touches the swollen part. She feels drowsy and weak, her mouth is dry and an acute pain at her left arm is bothering her. There's an irony smell in the room and she soon realizes that it comes from her, a bandage has been applied over a cut on the inner part of her forearm. She shifts the bandage and follows with her finger the rims of the cut. It's an approximately five centimeters long, neat, cut, caused probably by a knife. Somebody cut her and took her blood while she was unconscious.

She takes a deep breath and she tries to make order in the hazy confusion of her thoughts, sorting what is a priority from what is not, what is fact and what is emotion.

As the eyes get accustomed to the darkness, she starts making out the profile and the shapes of the room she's kept in. It's definitely a basement, and the door leading to the upper level is locked from the outside; that's why she's not tied, it would be a useless measure since she can't get out anyway.

The walls are made of concrete, and against one wall there's an entire collection of tools. Knives, axes, saws, hammers, scissors, and then a metal bed with cuffs chained to the borders. She swallows, realizing that the cut on her arm is just the beginning of what she's going to face.

She paces again around the room, counting her steps and focusing on staying calm. Aside from the various multi-legged creatures she has glimpsed crawling on the floors and the walls, she's the only guest; which makes her wonder what happened to Madison. She can't stop thinking to him and his family, praying that Celeste still has a father and that he will be able to take his wife to France one day.

Her musing is suddenly interrupted by the noise of steps over her head. Two different sets of feet, two different voices, both males.

"When can we bring her back?" a younger voice inquires.

"When it's time. Don't be impatient. What did I teach you?" the older voice reproaches dryly.

"When you get impatient you get sloppy," the younger repeats submissively.

"They're getting closer to us, and we can't afford to get this one wrong. So we'll do what we need to do to."

"Yes, father." The way the younger says the words, throws Emily on the memory lane, as she remembers of herself as a terrified child, staring at a maze of trees and struggling to keep the pace with her grandfather. She shivers as she fights back that memory.

"So, stop thinking about your sister. She'll be fine," the older voice orders.

"What if she's not? What if they fill her with lies as they did with Mother? What if that cop gets to her?" the younger can't help letting out his fears.

"She won't. And they will be too busy searching for their colleague, to think about Sylvia," the older quickly closes the subject, "Now go down and check on her."

Emily can't help a grimace of victory. She knew it. She knew that Sylvia was lying and that she's not a jealous paranoid. Her enthusiasm, though, is soon curbed by the noise of the trap door being unlocked. As she squints at the light coming through and hears the steps approaching, she takes a step back into a dark corner and is overwhelmed by the memory of his grandfather's words, "A day will come when you have to face someone bigger and tougher than you. When it happens, never back down. Grow harder, grow stronger."

Those words resound in Emily's mind and her breath becomes faster and shallow; she remembers how helpless and scared she felt back then, and as she swears she's never going to let fear overwhelm her, she finally meets one of her captors.


"Okay, what we've got so far?" Hotch starts making the point of the situation.

"A string of homicides going on for 40 years, but not happening regularly," Reid starts.

"Which supports the theory of the ritual," Hotch continues.

"And of the family business, or at least of a team," Morgan reprises, "definitely only one person cannot put up all this alone."

"What do we have in terms of timing and geography of the abductions?" Hotch asks again.

This time it's Garcia's voice coming through the loudspeaker, "Sir, I cross-referenced all the abductions dates with the news," this time her voice is not characterized by the usual chirp, it's low and trembling, as if she's doing her best to keep the tears from falling.

"What did you find babygirl?" Derek asks softly.

Garcia takes a deep sigh and then starts, "Between the 1970's and the 90's this area was in full economic boom. The town was expanding and the timber industry was flourishing. The extensive amounts of untouched woods became also a popular attraction for tourists and hikers seeking a refuge from crowded beaches and cities," she explains, fumbling through the pages of the different newspaper articles she has on her screen.

"It's true." the sheriff confirms, "The problem started when the demand for timber increased. The logging became more intensive and involved deeper areas in the woods. We had a lot of protests and then the killings started. Every time the logging would involve a new sector, two people would disappear."

"Protests?" Morgan pressures keeping his temper at guard, "and you didn't think it was relevant to inform us about this before?"

"We questioned all the people involved," the sheriff defends, "they were all clean, and then they got what they wanted. The government suspended the logging in the area and declared it a national park, killing the economy. So we abandoned that lead…"

"Maybe your killers were not among the protesters, but definitely the timing between the invasions of the woods and the abductions is not casual and might be the unsub motive," Hoctch explains.

"Is there any foundation to these legends about the people from the Outside?" Reid asks.

"Ehm, there was a community of hippies, living in secluded area of the forest, but they're long gone by now…" the Sheriff answers, "except one of them. He lives in town now and he works as a gardener. But I'm sure he's your man."

"Anyway I'd like to talk to him." Hotch reinforces and then exchanges a glance with Morgan who is nervously pacing back and forth.

The Unit Chief is about to say something when JJ and Rossi join the party.

"What?" Hotch asks, seeing JJ's grave expression.

"Turns out our victim is not a shy damsel as we thought in the beginning," Rossi comments, then he motions to JJ to carry on.

"When she speaks about Morgan, she refers to him as if he was her Prince Charming. In an almost childish way, like you would expect from an inexperienced teenager," the liaison officer starts, "but then she turns into a pathologically obsessed woman, claiming he's hers. She seemed so concerned about her grandmother when we found her, but since then she hasn't asked about her once. And when I asked her about Emily, she told me she was intruding between her and Derek and that 'she's got a handful right now'. "

"Do you think she purposely sent Emily into a trap?" Reid asks.

"Definitely she's hiding something," she confirms.

"But she's not the brain," Rossi jumps in, "her ways are truly naïve and when she plays the tough girl, she seems doing it out of some brainwashing she received."

"You think she's been used as a bait to distract us." Hotch states.

"I think she's been told exactly what to do and that whoever told her has a precise plan." Rossi confirms.

"Then they've been watching us for a while. They knew our team dynamic and they knew how to strike," Morgan angrily comments.

"What do you mean?" Reid asks.

"Think about it. If Sylvia hadn't cornered me, I would have gone into the woods with Emily…"

"And they needed to rule out someone who could have fought against them," JJ finishes his sentence.

The Sheriff looks at the profilers, slightly confused and trying to catch up with all their deductions, but before he can say something, Hotch and Morgan head with fast strides toward the interrogation room.

"Where is my agent?" Hotch demands entering the interrogation room and cutting to the chase.

"You'll never find her," Sylvia challenges him, and then gives Morgan a mischievous, victorious grimace. "I won" she chants, mocking the group of profilers staring at her, "I knew if I played the part of the damsel in distress you would have believed me," then she turns specifically to Morgan "It was so easy to get your attention and to fool you. Your friend instead, she didn't trust me since the beginning. But now it doesn't count anymore, it's too late for her."

"Where is she?" Morgan growls back, and for a moment Sylvia squints, surprised.

"You care about her…" she comments, as if it was an upsetting discovery.

"I'm not going to repeat it again," Morgan takes a step closer and he swears he's going to forget his mother's teachings about not laying a hand on a woman, if he doesn't get the answer immediately.

"Exactly where I sent her, at the cottage. Even though I doubt you'll find her by now," she now looks at him seriously.

Both of them are determined in getting what they want to achieve, both of them are ready to go to any extent to get to the aim.

"Who has her?" Rossi intervenes, breaking the increasing tension between Morgan and Sylvia.

She shakes her head, "You don't get it. We've grown up in these woods, we have protected them and in change we get protection from the Gods. You started this when you crossed the lines, now you have to stand the consequences." she defends, avoiding the answer.

"You've been watching us, haven't you?" Reid asks, "Why Emily? Why choosing her?"

"E-mi-ly.." she toys with the name, "your friend is special, that's why we chose her."

"Why is she so special?" Reid continues.

"You want to know what I see when I look at her?" she asks challenging, and receives a nod from the young profiler.

"She's tough and independent, but there's something dark and deep inside her. Something torments her, but she keeps it hidden, from all of you." Then she shifts her gaze to Morgan, "She's close up, but when she's with you, she's less tense and she privileges standing at your side more than any other person on your team. She's confident in the woods, but when it gets dark, she's more jumpy and her breath is shallower."

Morgan clenches his fists and takes a step forward, but JJ stops him, a hand lightly posed on his shoulder.

Then all of a sudden Sylvia's attitude changes again. Her arrogance replaced by serious affliction and dejection, "She likes it when you ask her if she's okay, but she's careful not to show how much she appreciates your company. At least as much as you try to hide how much you care for her. I would die to have something like this."

Derek is too tense to respond in anyway, so JJ tries another time to breach Sylvia's walls, "Sylvia, where is she?"

Sylvia finally holds her gaze, now devoid of any emotion and she lightly shrugs, "you'll never find her alive."