The unthinkable had happened. How had they gotten into this situation? Morgan watched in horror as the situation unfolded before him. There was a man and a knife and his friend.
The case had taken the team to Florida. There had been a string of serial murders involving postal workers in a large county. There had been three deaths, each involving mail carriers that had their throats slashed in broad daylight while making their everyday rounds. Somehow there had been no witnesses so far and the local police had no leads to run with. The team efficiently took up the challenge, breaking up to look at the crime scenes. They were simple and barbaric murders, appearing to be personal crimes. Garcia quickly ran background searches on all of the victims and revealed they all use to work out the same postal office years before. The link was easy enough to see.
Upon converging, the team easily came up with a profile. They narrowed the focus on a worker rather than a customer due to the targeting of multiple carriers all killed in a very personal way. The next day, the list of possible Unsubs was narrowed to two disgruntled employees: Lee Watkins and Thomas Bell. After further digging, Lee Watkins was revealed to be their guy and the team moved in. Upon entering the post office, Watkins grabbed the closest customer and ran into back of the mail warehouse. The team pursued cautiously. They moved through the rows of boxes, looking for the unsub and the victim.
"Watkins…come on. You aren't going to be leaving here. You have no reason to hurt that man. He did nothing to you, not like the others." Hotch called out across the warehouse.
Hotch signaled for them to split up. He and Rossi went down the first section. Prentiss and Reid made toward the back of the warehouse. Morgan headed toward the middle rows of the warehouse. All had guns drawn. As Hotch moved down the aisle, he caught sight of a foot behind a box. He looked at Rossi, who nodded and they moved in unison toward it. Hotch jumped suddenly in front of the box to find the customer cowering behind the box. He pulled him to his feet and Rossi took him toward the exit quickly. Their unsub was still in the room somewhere and was armed with a knife.
Morgan had made his way down another aisle, keeping his eyes open from anything. He had to be here somewhere. Suddenly there was a commotion from the back of the warehouse. Morgan took off in the direction of the sound.
Prentiss and Reid had started down the back of the warehouse. Suddenly a cart had slammed into Prentiss, leaving her sprawled on the floor, as her gun bounced and slid under a shelving unit. When she looked up, the unsub was behind Reid, the knife to his throat.
Morgan rounded the corner with Hotch and Rossi on his heels and stopped at the sight of Reid with the unsub. His hands were slightly raised and his gun still in his right hand.
"Drop the gun," Watkins stated coldly. Reid let it fall and slid it away from them.
"Don't come any closer," cried Watkins, desperation in his voice. "You are going to let me out of here, or I will kill him. I don't have anything against him, but I don't have any choice."
The air between the rest of the team and the unsub was static. They all stared, guns still raised, but waiting to see where this would go. Prentiss had gotten back to her feet and moved behind Hotch.
Morgan knew this was bad. How had this happened? He knew Reid was going to be terrified. He was not built or trained for this type of situation. Morgan know when he looked into his friend's face, he would see terror. He pulled his eyes towards Reid's eyes anyways. Surprisingly, Reid looked calm. He stood there quietly, as if he was thinking of something really hard, as if he were doing some sort of calculation. Morgan didn't know what to do. He expected his friend to fall to pieces and make the situation worse, but Reid just acted like there was no problem.
Watkins carefully eyed the team. Hotch, Rossi and Prentiss on one side of him, and Morgan on the other. Finally Hotch was the one to break the silence, "Ok" and he held up his gun, "There is no reason to hurt our agent."
As the unsub looked toward Hotch, that was all the opening Reid needed. His hand shot up faster than anyone could have thought possible. He grabbed the unsub by the wrist on the arm with the knife at two pressure points, pushing the weapon outward. Watkins screamed in pain. A short elbow to the ribs with his other arm sent the suspect doubling over. Reid then took advantage of this by kicking the man in the back of the knee and he folded to the ground. The team stared dumbly. Somehow in less than three seconds, Reid had the unsub on his back on the ground howling in pain. Reid's knee was in his stomach, and a cold look of determination was on his face. The knife was still in his hand, with Reid's hand still around his wrist. With a quick motion, his hit the man's hand against the shelf behind him and the knife fell to the floor.
Morgan and the rest of the team stood there in shock. They lowered their weapons and simply stared at their friend.
"Um…" Reid looked around at his team, "Is anyone going to help me?" he asked innocently.
As if the spell was broken, they all rushed forward to help secure Watkins.
"Reid, are you ok, man?" Morgan asked quickly, looking the kid over. There wasn't a scratch on him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Reid said quickly. He had moved off the suspect now as Hotch and Rossi cuffed the man. He glanced around and found his gun across the aisle and went to re-holster it.
Morgan exchanged glances with Prentiss. She just smiled and shook her head. No one knew what had just happened.
