Note: So... this is a little late, but at it's still Sunday... at least where I am. We did lose power for the last few days though, so I wasn't able to write or work on anything really. Then I was out all day today and so didn't get this chapter proofread and edited until late. Sorry about that.
A very big thank you to our reviewers: Spxxxxx, Sherryola, Prolific Reider and Annamarie Joane Lynwood.
Please enjoy!
Awareness came in bits and pieces.
The voices he heard were muffled, indistinct along with the sensation that he was currently underwater.
He wasn't.
Or at least… he didn't think he was.
And that in and of itself was concerning.
Reid needed to be aware of his surroundings.
He remembered his time with Hankel, when situational awareness had been paramount to his survival.
Nothing was currently impeding his ability to breathe.
He wasn't underwater.
But that didn't mean he was in a good place.
Reid took a deep breath, counted to three in his head, and listened.
It didn't seem like anyone was in the room with him. Or… at least, he couldn't hear the voices anymore.
He squeezed his eyelids shut even tighter, before allowing himself to open his eyes.
No. Now was not the time to be doubting himself.
Slowly, he tried to shift his position, move, anything, but couldn't. His wrists were throbbing, fastened behind him with what felt like some kind of thick cord. A leather strap was wrapped around his chest, looped under his arms, holding him to the chair.
He was in a basement, the only light filtering in through two grimy windows. It was empty for the most part, save for several cardboard boxes that had been neatly stacked in the dead center.
Organization, he thought dimly. It was all in its place.
That fit with the profile, although, he realized, he didn't really have much for a profile.
Still… the girl-the woman-whoever she was-had been waiting. It hadn't been a spur of the moment decision. She'd had abduction in mind when she was waiting in the parking lot.
This had been planned.
That revealed at least some degree of organization.
Reid closed his eyes again, taking in another deep breath. He needed to hold himself together.
Most of his team was in California. And, with no way to know how long he'd been missing, JJ and Garcia might not even be aware of his disappearance yet.
Which meant Reid was on his own for the time being. He needed to keep his head clear.
He scrunched his brow, letting his head hang as he processed everything that had happened.
The killer, he'd carved up his victims.
BAU.
The unsub wanted them to come to him, but... not all of them.
Only four of them.
The rest had to stay behind.
And this woman… she'd known. She'd recited the note, word for word. And the only way that was possible was for her to be involved.
Two unsubs across the country. That was a first.
And the team had no idea.
That meant… the murders, those innocents, and his kidnapping… there was a bigger picture here.
One he couldn't see.
But that was his problem here.
There were too many questions. Not enough answers.
And, trapped here, he wasn't sure how he was going to get those answers.
He heard voices coming from upstairs and instinctively cringed against the back of his chair.
They seemed to be female voices, and they were fighting judging by the volume.
He wondered if the argument had anything to do with his abduction.
Had the girl at his apartment acted without the other's knowledge and permission?
And then the door creaked open, light spilling down the basement steps. The voices suddenly became more audible.
From his angle, Reid couldn't see who it was at the top of the stairs.
Not until two small figures descended. They stayed on the stairs, huddled together, watching him.
"Lookit," came a hushed whisper. Reid recognized the voice of the boy from earlier.
"Andi, what… I don't see anything!" It was a girl's voice. By the sound of it, she was older than the boy, but still young.
Children.
"Over there," the boy, Andi, whispered. "Tied up on the Hurting Chair."
"Mother doesn't like it when you talk like that, Andi. You know that. And I still don't see any-" Her voice trailed off suddenly.
For several minutes, the children just stood there, staring. At last, the little boy took a step down, leading the girl with him by the hand.
"Look," the boy whispered again. He sounded frightened and… maybe even a little awed. What exactly was it that went on in this house? "There he is."
Reid licked his lips, deciding that talking to them, or at least trying to might be his best bet at this point. "Andi," he started, picking up on one of the only things he knew about them.
The two of them startled, visibly shocked to hear him address one of them by name.
Andi turned, tugging on the girl's arm. "He knows my name!" he hissed in an audible whisper. "Is he magic, Corrie? Is he?"
"No," Corrie whispered, not taking her eyes off him. Her eyes seemed glazed over with some form of shock. But then, there wasn't enough light for him to see her expression clearly.
"Hey, Corrie," Reid said gently, smiling and trying to look as inviting as possible. "Is this your brother?" Any information he got out of the two could be instrumental in helping him escape and, in turn, getting them away from here when the time came.
Corrie shook her head mutely, still staring at him with her wide gray eyes.
Reid wasn't sure if that meant that the boy wasn't her brother or if it meant that she didn't want to answer him.
He tried a different approach. "What's going on? Can you tell me? Why am I here?"
Corrie still stared, not making a sound.
It was the boy who finally said anything, but when he did, it made no sense. "You've been bad," he whispered, and something in his tone, in his whole demeanor changed, and he seemed more like a hunted animal. It was clearly a line he was parroting.
"What does that mean?" Reid asked. He tugged at his bonds, but they were tight. Too tight. He'd only succeed in rubbing his wrists raw.
The little boy seemed like he wanted to reply, but the girl was already upon him. "No!" she said, a frantic urgency in her voice. "We're not supposed to talk to him! Don't be stupid, Andi. You're always getting us into trouble! She'll use the…" She stopped and, even in the poor lighting, Reid could see her quivering like a rabbit with the hounds on its tail, full of nervous energy. "The you-know-what. You heard what she said. Listen to Mother. Let's go and leave him here." She sounded a little less sure of herself.
"I can help you," Reid tried again. And he would. If he could get out of here, the first thing he would make sure of was that these kids were taken away from here as soon as possible. Whatever was going on here, these children were clearly just as much victims as he was. If not more so.
The woman had threatened the boy with a gun to get him to comply. If they were subjected to regular abuse… that made it all the more important that he get all three of them out of here.
Two pairs of eyes stared at him from the darkness. Reid had to admit that maybe, tied to a chair as he was, an offer of help coming from him would sound ridiculous.
"I mean it," he said, trying to sound like he did.
Corrie shook her head then. "You're the one who needs help," she said."Save it for yourself. We don't need a stranger meddling in our 'll be just fine, wont we, Andi?" Her tone was dark, brittle; carrying the scars born from years of conditioning.
"Corrie, stop." The boy tugged on her sleeve again. "Don't be mean."
She was about to give a retort when something crashed upstairs. Reid, along with the two children, flinched, and, before he had a chance to say another word, the girl had grabbed the boy's hand, saying something to him in a hurried whisper that Reid couldn't catch. She released his hand then and the boy scrambled soundlessly up the stairs.
The girl cast one last look at him before she too had hurried up the stairs, as silently as a mouse.
The door shut, the pool of light on the basement floor vanishing, leaving Reid alone once more in the dark, figuratively and literally.
The children had vanished like specters, as if they had never been there in the first place.
Maybe, Reid wondered, dazed as he was, they hadn't been.
"Selene," the old woman spoke softly, timidly.
Selene ignored her, bustling through the kitchen in a rush of frenzied activity.
"Selene!" The woman was still timid, but louder this time.
"What!?" Selene whipped around, slamming a plate just hard enough on the kitchen counter to make the old woman jump. "I don't have time for this, Mother," she hissed, her voice deadly soft. "Can't you see I'm working? I have things to do! I don't have time to listen to every little thing you have to complain about."
"He needs water," the old woman whispered.
"What?" Selene froze for a moment, jaw locked, eyes fiery.
"The boy in the basement." The old woman looked away, wiping her hands together nervously. "Water?" It was no longer a suggestion, but a small plea.
"No," Selene said shortly. "He's being punished. He needs to be punished."
Punishment.
It was a fixation for her. Punishing people for their misdeeds.
"Selene…"
"Don't think you can tell me what to do, Mother!" Selene snarled. "Is that hard for you to grasp? Is that so hard for you to understand?"
The woman took a step back. "Selene…"
"Stop using my name!" Selene screamed, rounding on the elderly woman and backhanding her hard enough to knock her backwards.
She stood, posture locked, in front of the old woman, chest heaving. "Might I remind you, 'Mother', that you are here by the hospitality of my husband and I. Do you really want to go back on the streets, you useless old hussy?"
The woman shook her head silently, eyes clenched shut.
"Then don't question me." She turned away, fingering the hilt of a kitchen knife she had picked up off the counter. "You can't tell me what to do anymore, Mother." Her voice was softer now, almost gentle. "I won't let you."
"Of course not." The woman had made no move to get off the floor. She kept her eyes down, didn't raise her voice above a murmur, in the hopes that she wouldn't set Selene off. "Of course not," she repeated.
"Do you remember?" Selene spun back around. The knife was still in her hands. "Do you remember everything you did?"
The woman pushed herself up till she had achieved a sitting position. "Selene…" she whispered, eyes glued to the knife. "What…?"
"I told you not to use my name!" Selene snapped, but her eyes were distant. Her heart wasn't in the reprimand.
The woman flinched. "I'm sorry."
Selene didn't seem to hear the apology though. Or if she did, she didn't acknowledge it.
She ran a finger over the blunt side of the blade, almost caressing it. "You should remember," she said. "After everything you did…"
"I didn't…"
The woman saw it coming. She desperately tried to bring back that moment of recognition in Selene, when the young woman would recognize her for what she was; a homeless woman she had kidnapped five years ago.
Not her mother.
"Selene, I didn't do anything to you. I'm Bess, remember? I'm not your mother. You took me in, and it was so, so kind of you. Do you remember that?"
Selene gave her a mirthless chuckle. "Always lying, Mother. Just another thing you put me through on a daily basis."
"I didn't do anything! That was your mother! That was Edith, not me!"
"Yes, you did!" Selene had raised her voice again. "You know what you did! How could you lie to me like this?"
She threw the knife in a fit of anger.
Bess closed her eyes, flinching back. She didn't even have the time to throw up her arms to defend herself, before the knife thudded harmlessly against the wall and clattered to the floor.
Bess' heart skipped a beat.
"Near miss," Selene murmured, staring wide-eyed at the knife, almost shocked. She stalked closer to Bess, who instinctively shrank away.
By this point, she had grown used to Selene's frequent temper tantrums.
She was unpredictable during her episodes.
Dangerous.
Selene sneered at Bess without looking at her, brushing past her. She had one of Blake's looks on her face.
"I'm better than you," his expression always said. Bess honestly couldn't decide which of the two was worse.
Selene ran her finger along the length of the knife, staring at it curiously, in almost childlike wonder.
"You aren't her," she said, as if realizing it for the first time. "You aren't her."
Bess shook her head, tearfully this time, though her tears were of relief.
"I'm not," she gasped out.
And then Selene jerked her head up, eyes focused on something beyond Bess. She looked shocked, furious.
Slowly, Bess turned her head, afraid of what she might find.
Andi and Corrie, the children, stood there, hand in hand. Corrie's eyes were wide, locked on Selene. Andi was cowering at his sister's side.
It wasn't hard to determine where they'd been.
The basement.
Garcia worked with a sense of life and death urgency not entirely foreign to her, but to a degree that she seldom felt.
All victims deserved justice. All predators deserved to face the consequences of their actions.
That was the mindset she took to work each day. She tried equally hard to find the information they needed to save any life.
But it was different when the victim was someone you knew, someone you cared about.
"What are you doing?"
She jumped a little, having been so involved in her search that she hadn't heard JJ come in.
Recovering herself, she addressed the blonde agent. "People knock for a reason," she said, giving the woman a pointed stare.
JJ offered a tight smile, one that didn't reach her eyes. "Sorry."
Garcia sighed, realizing the stress was getting to her. "It's fine." She rubbed at her forehead.
JJ stepped closer to her desk. Considering the situation, she was doing a remarkable job holding herself together. "What are you looking for?" As far as she knew, they had nothing to go on. There was nothing for her to be looking for.
"Getting into the CCTV cameras in the parking lot at Reid's apartment," she answered, keeping her voice low. There was no one there to eavesdrop, but she still didn't want to run the risk of being overheard. "There aren't any positioned close enough to the scene to actually… get a look at what happened. Or… who was there," She'd been nearly giddy with the idea that they'd get a look at Reid's abductor. That she'd have a face to run through her computer, only to be disappointed to learn that the cameras were positioned at the exits, monitoring who came and went. When this was over, she'd make them change that, "but the cameras only caught seven cars entering between the time Reid left and you went to check on him. And out of those seven, three left several hours later. And the cameras don't tell us which one has Reid. If, you know, he was taken by car and not spirited away through some other means." She cringed internally. "But…" This was where the real genius of her plan lay… or at least where she felt it did… "if I can match the license plates to the owners, see who has a record, or who might be most likely to take our boy…"
It was a long shot. The car could have been stolen, the person might not even have a record (though she doubted that that was the case), she might not be able to catch the license plate, but… if they knew, or at least had an idea, who'd been on the street at the time of the abduction, then it would be easier to find a suspect when the team had a profile.
Someone who fit that profile.
JJ's brow crinkled. "Is that even legal?"
"Please." Garcia gave JJ her "you know me better than that" look. "This is Reid we're talking about. And since when have I shied away from bending the rules a little before?"
JJ had to admit she had a point. She took a seat. Maybe this way, she'd feel like she was contributing somehow. "Do you have anything?"
Garcia smiled, feeling a bit more like herself in spite of everything. "Oh, sweetheart, did you even have to ask?"
They had a list of names. That was all they had.
Seven names, to be exact.
Seven names of seven different people, all with varying backgrounds, because even though only three had left, Garcia had insisted that they would need to check all of them.
Just in case this was some elaborate scheme with two or more people involved.
Which… honestly, at this point, JJ wouldn't even be surprised anymore.
She sighed.
This was a breach of privacy. One she wasn't exactly comfortable with.
But the chances were that one of them had taken her colleague. Her friend.
And, right now, that trumped any doubts she might be having.
"I'm not even sure what we're looking for," she muttered. They weren't profilers.
She was a liaison. Garcia was their tech analyst and, magic or not, she didn't profile either.
"We're not looking for anything," Garcia reminded her. "They're going to make a profile when they get back. And we'll have this waiting for them. They'll find out who the profile fits."
Somehow, JJ doubted it would be that easy, but she refused to put a voice to her worries.
She took another look at the names.
Only two of them stood out, but in this business, that didn't mean anything.
They spent an awful lot of time chasing after people who wouldn't stand out in a crowd. Obscure; nameless, simple. Your grocer, your best friend, your sibling, your parent, your grandparent, any one of these could be a predator, an abductor or a serial killer.
You just… never knew. It made it hard to trust normal people sometimes, especially if you were new to the type of job that the BAU provided.
"Tyler Macomb," she said aloud, " lives in the neighborhood and has a previous criminal record. He was arrested on several counts of shoplifting a few years ago." She sat back and frowned. "Would someone go from shoplifting to stalking and abducting a federal agent?"
And to threatening his entire team?
She might not have been a profiler, but it didn't sound like their guy.
Garcia blinked at her. "How should I know?"
JJ sighed again and moved on to the next name. "Melissa Crawford and…" Her eyes widened. "She doesn't even live in Virginia. Garcia, this car is registered in California. Bakersfield, California!"
"Where the rest of the team is," Garcia finished, breathlessly. They made eye contact.
There was no way these two cases were unrelated.
"There are two of them!" JJ exclaimed. Two working together. Which meant… "We need to call Hotch."
Garcia nodded. "Affirmative, sugar." For the first time in days, her voice carried with it a faint glimmer of that oh-so-elusive emotion... hope.