August 6, 2015
Manhattan Midtown Hilton

It's six-forty in the evening when I check into my hotel room. After, I find Hotch already in the bar, with JJ and Reid. I pull up a chair at the table and greet them like somber friends who would greet each other when someone they cared about was missing. This is a critical piece; there are cameras here, and I'm in an overly-diligent mood.

"Where's Rossi?" I ask.

"He's currently accompanying Peter Daniels on a wild goose chase for a spotted police vehicle, orchestrated by Garcia. We have two hours or so," Hotch replies with his head bent towards to the table.

I raise my eyebrows.

"When your cryptic text came in it took me about a second to realize that things were likely not what they seemed. Garcia was getting ready to board a plane and head to New York, and I called her off. Thirty minutes later, Reid took notice of a box of belongings from Ari's bedroom, and a log that had been tampered with. There should have been five sketchpads in the box, but there were only four, and a log in different handwriting only said four. It was at that point that I realized we just needed to bide our time until you got here."

I nod at Hotch. "I'm in room 324. Let's head on up. As a group. It will look worse if surveillance shows you all coming up separately."

They nod at me, their eyes red and tired and so deeply concerned.

We quietly make our way up the elevator and into my room. I throw my go-bag in the corner and close and bolt the door. I take out my phone and face it towards them as I turn it completely off. They follow suit. I place my phone in the bathroom and turn the shower on full blast and they mimic me, leaving their phones in the bathroom.

When we're gathered back in the bedroom with the bathroom door closed, I start talking. "That's probably unnecessary, but I'm not taking any chances that your phones are being bugged. This is serious business, not some small-time pedophile. Daniels, I'm pretty sure, is one of the people working for someone I only know as the Minotaur, and his job is to provide children for sex, children who are used and then sold to the highest bidder at the end of every August. Except for two children, one boy and one girl, who are considered the purest and most innocent; they are saved for their purchasers. They go for millions, and, given the time of year, I currently believe Ari Bogorahz is being reserved for that fate. Derek must have asked the wrong questions and was taken. He's going up for bid on the auction block in a week."

I reach into my bag and place the picture of Derek on the table. Reid flinches and JJ tears up, but Hotch just stares.

"How did you get this?" he asks.

"I have an informant in London. Don't worry. When people start bidding on Derek, I'm going to be in there to buy him."

All eyes turn to stare at me in horror and disbelief. I blink a few times. "I've been in with them before, kind of. In 2004, I went in. I made it through a few trials in sex clubs, but before I was invited to be part of any purchasing, Interpol pulled me and started prepping me for Doyle instead. When I went in initially, I was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman from Russia name Katarina. Interpol made it look like Katarina died in a horrific boating accident after they pulled me. I'm intending to go back in as her sister."

Hotch clears his throat. "I can't imagine you can just waltz back in there."

I shrug at him, keeping up a cool exterior I in no way feel in my heart. "I know more than I did then. I have an informant, and more money to work with as the head of London Interpol. Derek's going to go for at least a million dollars; I intend to walk in there with three." I pause and look at the faces staring at me. "Three million, that is. I've spoken with Clyde." I pause again and pull out my burn phone as evidence because they're all looking at me like this can't be real, and I totally understand where they're coming from. I can't believe it myself. "Clyde is flying here with an assumed identity on a commercial plane later tonight. He's going to show up tomorrow morning and we're going to lay this all out."

"Lay what all out, Emily?" JJ asks.

I tell what I know of the Minotaur, every last detail to three of the people in this world whom I trust. I tell about how me going in means that I'm going to have to stay in until the end of August, in order to strike a bargain with the highest echelon of Interpol. They'll give me the money I need, and, at the end, I'll deliver them fourteen children and the people who put them up on the auction block. And The Minotaur.

They stare in silence when I'm done. "Minotaur," Reid finally says. "Half man, half bull, said to roam the labyrinth built by Daedalus."

"Think of him not in the context of traditional mythology, but in terms of Dante's Inferno, Reid. He was said to be delivered seven female and male youths, and it was one of the reasons Dante created the circle of lust in his circles of hell."

Silence descends on the room again. JJ manages to clear her throat, "You can't go in there alone."

"I won't be at first. I'm going to be Irina, the sister of Katarina. A rich, Russian woman, buying a gift for my husband, who will be played by Clyde. I'm not sure what name he'll choose, but he's working on all of that now. Tomorrow, we're going to get everything ready. And by everything, that means we're going to tape me walking around as Emily on a green screen so that you can splice me into conferences and in pictures as necessary as you film things that are broadcast about the hunt for Derek. This hotel room will be mine for the duration. It needs to look like I'm in the states helping you search for Derek. The reality is that tomorrow evening, I'm going to board a plane to Moscow, with a few detours and several identities, and then I'm going to board a plane to London with Clyde under a different identity, as Irina. Once I get in and get Morgan back, Clyde, my husband, will have emergency work in Russia. He'll take Derek with him. Derek will lay low until the end of August, and I'll bust the trafficking ring as Irina. And then we'll all go back to our regular lives."

More stares directed towards me, and it's finally Hotch who laughs bitterly in disbelief first. "That sounds impossible. Whose going to be listening to your chatter?"

I shake my head, "No chatter. I'm going in with no wires. I know you all can't probably grasp this, but tomorrow, when Clyde shows up, you're going to see two people who can entirely remake each other. You're going to see two people who can make our fingerprints and DNA disappear temporarily and come back to our aliases. You're going to see two people who can conjure up three million dollars in midair, and you're going to see a woman, me, who looks very little like the Emily you know. You're going to see Irina who can pound alcohol and suck up cocaine that won't effect me because I'll be taking pills that block its effects. I'm going to wield a whip and orchestrate submissive people into doing what I want, because I can become that person. I'm probably going to have to sleep with people I'd rather not sleep with, and I'm going to have to say things that make me nauseous on the inside. I'm going to have to talk about pedophilia like it's the best thing on the planet, but I'll be fine. I'm going to do it in order to get to the end result. That's the Emily you don't know, and it's who I'm going to become to get Morgan back."

JJ is not buying my calm exterior for one second. She stands up and bangs her fist on the small table in the hotel room. She puts one hand on her slightly protruding stomach as if by instinct. "You are not going in there without one of us!"

My eyes flutter. I wasn't expecting this. Before I can say a word, she continues, "There is no way in fuck, Emily. No way! They don't know!," JJ yells while pointing at Hotch and Reid, "They don't know what that kind of undercover work did to you, but I do. Don't you forget that! You told me all about it on a plane to Paris. You're not going in there without one of us!"

I blink rapidly and try and gain control of my tears. I find myself yelling and crying, which is the last thing I wanted to do. "What that did to me is nothing compared to what this could to to Morgan! Nothing! Think about it!"

Hotch and Reid have been looking between the two of us, like spectators at a tennis match. JJ deflates at my stare and the tears streaming down my face. I brush at my tears angrily and Reid pipes up, "Daniels hasn't seen Garcia."

At that, both Hotch and I look at Reid and I shake my head. "No way," I say.

I expect Hotch to back me, but instead, he says, "It's not a terrible idea. She doesn't have to be in the thick of things, but she can monitor things from afar. She can research and provide information and covers as they become necessary, and she'd be a direct, secure link to us."

I'm scared as hell, but I cave a bit. As our emotions calm down and we talk a more, I watch as Hotch uses my burn phone to call Garcia. I find myself calling Clyde a couple of hours before he's supposed to board his plane. I don't like the idea, but I'm also comforted by it. I tell Clyde to prep for one more person, his sister, my sister-in-law, who will be played by one Penelope Garcia.

Of the most breakable of us all, Penelope Garcia is probably it. And, yet, with vehemence and determination, she wants to go in with me.

I don't like it, but I should have known better than to think that the BAU was going to just bend to my plan. For the same reason I trust them with my life, they trust me with theirs. Which mean we leave no man on his or her own if we can help it.

It's Reid who finally utters what I tried not to contemplate for about six hours on my flight: "I believe you'll get Morgan back. But what happens when you do, and he won't let you go back in alone?"

Hotch chimes in with, "Savannah left him. He's going to think he has nothing to live for here, which means he's only going to fight harder to go back in with you."

It's unfathomable to me, what Reid and Hotch say. But I know it's probably something I'm going to have to contend with.

"I don't know," I say. Because I honestly don't. In the deepest part of me, I know I can handle this, no matter what comes my way. But I can see Derek Morgan breaking. It's absurd on a surface level to see myself stronger than Derek Morgan, but when it comes to something like this, I could run circles around his emotions. Its the reason why in the spring of 2012, I was able to just walk away from him when he was proposing something greater than I'd ever seriously allowed myself to contemplate between the two of us.

His heart is like an ocean, and mine is like a wall, with layers upon layers of brick and mortar. And I can't let his ocean go into this situation willingly, because I can see myself continuing to stand tall, sturdy and strong, but I can only see Morgan being washed away in the end.