Chapter 3

Hi everyone!

Well finally it took me a little less than ten days to update this story. I had my exam this morning and I worked on this chapter all afternoon.

In this chapter you won't see the rest of the team much; I concentrate more on our poor prisoners. If I am making too much grammatical mistakes, please tell me.

Enjoy!

They had taken their spirits back slowly after the torture inflicted on them. Now they were feeling sore, but at least they could think clearly. Prentiss talked first:

"Are you feeling better, guys?"

She didn't ask 'Are you okay?' she would have felt stupid; none of them were really okay. JJ murmured a weak 'yes', tear tracks still visible on her cheeks. Spencer nodded.

"I am sorry, really."

The two women looked at him astonished so he explained:

"I shouldn't have fought like this. That's why they kicked you before whipping you."

"Spencer if you hadn't fought, we would have done it. None of us could have won; we were alone against them each time. At least you showed yourself strong, and we have to continue like this. I love you, you know that."

Reid nodded at Prentiss' words, knowing she was right and felt a little better at hearing her say 'I love you'. JJ took her turn to speak.

"I should be the one to apologize. I should have kept myself from crying like you two did."

"JJ it's okay... You didn't beg or scream, did you?" asked Spencer

"No."

"Then it's fine. Some tears are nothing."

She smiled and tried to straighten her stance, but winced and muffled a cry of agony at the waves of pain through her wounded back. Prentiss looked at her worriedly. She knew that in contrary to Spencer and her, JJ never took torture and was never kidnapped; the situation was completely new for her.

"Take it easy JJ", she said.

"We should make the profile while they aren't around" suggested Reid. "They have suffered both physically and mentally from the inbreeding. They must have done it for generations, which show that they live in isolation. So wherever we are, it's certainly somewhere in the wild, and we shouldn't be able to see anyone else but them around."

"People are certainly afraid of them. I wouldn't try to approach them either" Confirmed Emily.

"They are able to hurt people, but I wouldn't say they are sadists," continued JJ "They weren't showing any pleasure from hurting us, even if there was no remorse either. They believe they are doing the right thing for us and themselves. So it will be hard to convince them not to hurt us without complying with their wants. Maybe they see the punishment as some kind of initiation for their children. I noted the three of them participated, the sons whipped you two, and the daughter whipped me. They share as much 'activities' as they can."

"They live too isolated," said Prentiss, "They don't have the same notions of good and evil like the rest of the society, and they are proud of it. They have strong family values. They will protect each other. The parents clearly have the younger's obedience. The good thing is they see us as human beings. The mother doesn't want their kids to just reproduce with us, and the father agrees apparently. I think they want them and us to be…real couples. "

JJ and Reid nodded, quite frozen for a moment at the idea of spending their lives here.

"By the way, Spencer, I don't think we should tell them we are together."

Reid bit his, lips but knew she was right. He couldn't bear the thought to see one of those monsters touching his girlfriend, so he went on, eager to forget.

"Yeah, they could have chosen anyone else in good health but they still know we are not toys. If we got tortured it will be a deserved punishment to them. Also, I noticed something which makes me think they have at least some contact with the exterior world at least occasionally, through the mother."

The two girls frowned, silently encouraging him to continue. He cleared his throat and went on.

"I noticed they express themselves with simple and short sentences. Remember how the father spoke to us? This is one of the consequences of the isolation; the lack of instruction, and the effect of inbreeding. The mother made longer sentences, still simple too, but less than the rest. Plus they understood that incest was the reason for the death of all the babies they produced. They may have gotten this knowledge from outside. Due to their appearances and wild behavior, they must not have a good relationship with people outside and it's only from obligation they interact with civilization."

"Then…Maybe we have really been chosen."

JJ and Reid looked at Prentiss, and she explained her new idea.

"The town isn't that big. They certainly know who the natives are, or at least they think they know. If their relations with people in the towns around are bad they were certainly disgusted at the idea to refresh their blood with people from here. They are some kinds of enemies to them. So it would mean we are slightly more precious than we assumed, because we are foreigners."

"Yeah, maybe they spy at the inhabitants. After all, when you are isolated like this, you have a tendency to become wary and with their mental instability, it's highly probable they see enemies everywhere. Maybe that's how they know we aren't natives. Do you think they are linked to the murders of these men?" JJ asked

They all thought about it, and Reid shook his head to say no.

"I don't think so. The ones who committed those murders took precautions they wouldn't think about. Plus the victims were attacked in town, I don't think the Peacocks would go there much and there was male rape, and…Well, it doesn't seem like they feel any attraction for men."

He stopped himself from saying: 'you attract them' even if they already knew. The women agreed to this.

"That doesn't mean they never killed anyone," Emily reminded them "After all, they seemed organized in kidnapping us. I think they already hurt people, but we still have to know how it ended each time."

"We need to understand their dynamics…"

The sound of the door opening interrupted Reid who blessed the fact that he was talking quietly. They saw the siblings come downstairs, carrying water and what looked like washcloths. Wilma went to Reid while the brothers went to the women, each one before his/her 'fiancé'.

"What are you doing?" Prentiss asked.

"Cleaning wounds. Don't want you to catch any diseases. My name's John." said the brown haired guy who claimed to be JJ's future spouse.

"Mine is Michael."

Prentiss threw Michael an 'I don't care' look. He didn't unchain her, but made her bend her back as well as she could without hurting herself and then began to clean her wounds. Wilma and John processed in the same way with Reid and Jennifer.

"We still don't know your names."

Reid sighed, but answered Wilma, knowing they couldn't show too much hostility for now. Plus, giving their names would be a way to remind them they were human beings, in case they forget it later. He gave Prentiss and Jennifer a 'whatever' look before answering.

"It's Spencer Reid."

"Mine is Jennifer Jareau."

"And I am Emily Prentiss."

The three monsters looked satisfied at this.

"Soon, you will all be named Peacock!" giggled Wilma.

The idea was far from pleasant to the agents, but they remembered that they should wait to be healed before going on with fighting. Simple survival will. Reid jumped a little in surprise as he felt a hand in his hair. Wilma was feeling it while cleaning his back with the other hand.

"I know Ma' and Pa' would say it's impolite, but I like your hair a lot."

He didn't know how old the woman was. She was certainly around the same age as him, but she expressed herself like a young girl. Reid felt uncomfortable at the way she was touching his hair even though it wasn't really perverted or intimate. It was because of her rough, ugly and malformed hands, unlike Prentiss's ones. Thinking about his girlfriend made him loath the girl even more. He saw Emily throwing a death glare at her, and he moved his head to make Wilma stop. She looked disappointed, but she didn't insist.

He saw she was slightly hurt and somehow he felt a little guilty for her, remembering how he had been treated at school, rejected by the others, and he wondered for a moment if he was acting like them here. However, he heard a hiss of pain coming from his blonde friend and then remembered Wilma whipping JJ as violently as her brothers whipped him and Emily. He couldn't forget they were tormenters and nothing more.

He didn't know that Prentiss and JJ were as confused as he was, feeling almost thankful for the care the brothers provided after the earlier violence. Their gestures were almost tender and they weren't trying to touch them in a dirty way. Prentiss knew this thankfulness could be the beginning of Stockholm syndrome, bonding with a tormentor or kidnapper to make sure they wouldn't hurt you. When she had a relationship with Ian Doyle, still working with Interpol, she several times stopped herself from forming real bonds with him. She lived in fear of being discovered by him and she had wished sometimes that in this case, he would be too much in love with her to hurt her. He was in love with her indeed, but it hadn't stopped him from hurting her. She wouldn't forget it. She heard a hiss of pain from JJ and glared at John who wasn't gentle enough with her.

Once they were done, the siblings gave the agents water to drink. They accepted it gladly; all of them had their throats dry. After that, the three monsters joined each other and began to talk in low voices. The agents tried to catch the conversation, but in vain. They would know soon what it was about. They looked at them, and Wilma spoke first:

"We will put you in our rooms tomorrow, so you can rest. But tonight you'll stay here, it's the punishment."

"We will come back soon. Think about it."

At Michael's last words they left, leaving the agents here. They waited in silence, thinking they could be spied on, but they heard their captors walking away and decided to talk again.

"Okay, so it seems they are not stupid enough to ignore the fact that our wounds could get infected," began Prentiss.

"They have a whip for big animals, which makes me think we're in a farm. They are certainly used to heal themselves and their animals and by their own ways." continued Reid.

"I wonder if they were trying to "seduce" us or something by healing us. What do you think will happen when we go to their rooms?" wondered JJ with apprehension and fear.

The two others didn't answer immediately, quite scared about it. What was making Prentiss more uncomfortable was the fact that they would be separated, because even if this basement wasn't a nice place they were at least together. The worst was that Reid would be in that Wilma's room. She could have killed her for touching her man earlier.

"I don't know," she said "but we better find ways to communicate secretly when we'll be apart if we want to escape."

JJ and Reid nodded, knowing she was right; they would never escape if they didn't work together. Of course, each one of them would have been able to escape on their own, but none of them would have been willing to leave and let the two others behind. They would make it together or die together. Reid sighed, feeling quite tired.

"Let's rest a little, okay? We need to give our bodies a rest so we'll have fresher minds."

"Okay with me."

"Have a good nap, guys."

Each of them closed their eyes and silence befell on the basement. They were only half-sleeping, but it was good to close their eyes to rest and not because they had been knocked out. They thought about their team, wondering if they had already realized they were missing.

Meanwhile:

The team was back to the station immediately after examining the scene. They had found nothing that could hint the location of their colleagues. It was now afternoon and they were even more eager to find the killers who certainly had their colleagues. The cops in the Station got the news and none of them were showing hostility anymore, feeling like Travis and Parker. The one among them who worried the most was officer Crowley, the red headed cop who linked with the team.

Garcia was maybe the most affected in the team. When Morgan phoned her and announced the news, he didn't even need to be around to know her face crumbled and paled. She had held herself from sobbing with difficulty and told Morgan to find them, to make the SOB who attacked them suffer. He knew the only thing which stopped her from breaking was the hope to find them.

Hotch and Rossi knew they would need the press and they were preparing a conference. It would be more difficult without JJ, but they could still manage it. Morgan was giving instructions to Garcia while searching in the different suspects files with help from Miriam. The profile hinted for people who grew up into a machos' environment, in which they had been taught to hate gay people and protect their virility whatever happened. They certainly claimed their hatred for homosexuality before everyone. Due to the fact that the murders occurred mainly at late hours or during the night and that the Unsubs weren't noticed by anyone, they were sure those guys were people having normal lives, the kind you would not imagine as murderers.

"Search for hunters, Baby girl, or people coming from the army too. Hotch think they could be soldiers or from a civil patrol, any empowering environment."

He continued to give her instructions. When he hung up, he saw that Miriam was frowning, and looked preoccupied.

"What's up?"

"You said they could be from the army?"

"Yes."

"Well, I know a family. They are not friends and I don't like them, but they lived near my house before. The father was in the army and he raised his sons strictly as far as I know. They live near their parents' home if I remember well and they don't deny they're homophobic. I remember now a gay couple went to us because the brothers were harassing them."

"Okay, can you tell me their names?"

"The…Leeds! Yeah, the Leeds."

Morgan called Garcia and told her to research the Leeds immediately, before he and Miriam went to talk to Hotch and Rossi.

Okay, I know, no tortures here, it will come later. I wanted to focus this one on the profile they are giving on the Peacocks. Plus I won't put all my ideas in the first chapters; I intend to make this one long.

Please, review!