* * *

"Between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow. This is the way the world ends."

- T.S. Eliot

* * *

His body had started to shake uncontrollably since seeing that barrel pointed at him, all sense of confidence having long left him. Reid watched with horror as Merryl continued to stare at him coldly before saying in the same manner as one might talk about the weather,

"Put down the gun."

Reluctant as ever, Reid simply stood where he was, still shaking, and watched as Merryl's eyes narrowed a fraction.

"I've read your files. You're not the best marksman, are you, Dr. Spencer Reid? I, on the other hand, can guarantee that I'll hit my mark. Would you like to take your chance at a game of target practice, agent?"

And looking into her cold eyes, Reid knew that firing a shot wasn't a chance he could safely take. Keeping his left hand raised, he slowly took his right finger off the trigger of his firearm and then crouched down just as slowly, setting the gun on the hardwood floor before standing up again, both hands raised and even with his chest. His heart was still pounding in his chest as the realization he was completely defenseless started to set in, and Merryl said once more, her voice still as cold as ever,

"Kick the gun toward me."

Taking a small breath, Reid bit his lip as he moved his foot forward, scraping it along the floor as he moved his only form of protection out of reach.

"Good. Now step forward and close the door behind you."

Staring at Merryl's expressionless face, Reid slowly did as he was ordered to do, continuously aware of the still sobbing Scott behind her.

* * *

Fighting a yawn, Hotch tried to keep himself within the lines of the road even as he increased the speed, his heart hammering in his chest. The sirens were blaring and blue and red lights were lighting up the night as Hotch, Gideon, Prentiss, Morgan and J.J. literally flew down the road, Morgan's cell phone flipped open and on speaker phone as Garcia rambled off the location of Reid's cell phone.

Imaginations were running wild; hearts were thundering and sweat was dripping.

It was a race against time.

Why was it always a race against time for Reid?!?

* * *

How could five words send such chills up the spine? How could a simple sentence set Reid's body to shaking and shivering worse than he had been as he curled into a tighter ball, sitting in the corner Merryl had directed him to?

"I'll deal with you later."

She had confiscated his gun, which now lay on the coffee table beside where Scott laid sprawled out. Scott's arms had been tied with the scarf that had previously been wrapped around Merryl's neck, and bound over his head to the leg of said coffee table. Reid wondered if she'd have even bound him at all if he hadn't leaped up from his position while Merryl had been talking to Reid after he'd closed the door, but he was bound now, and would be almost no help.

Reid's mind was working overtime, trying to figure a way out of the mess he had foolishly gotten himself into. What was up with him lately? But of course, he already knew the answer as he watched with profiler eyes while Merryl bent down, resting the barrel of the gun against Scott's cheek. The way she stroked his cheek with the gun was almost affectionate, but her facial expression was anything but loving, which lead Reid to believe that she was putting on another show. She knew how to press people's buttons and she was utilizing that information.

"You really should have thought twice before you slammed your car into Danny's… shouldn't've you?" Merryl said softly, the gun making slow, torturous strokes along Scott's skin as the tears continued to slide down his cheek.

But the man knew better than to speak. It had startled both Reid and Scott when he had tried to answer her; tried to beg for his life and received a bullet in his leg. In fact, Reid dimly noted, the wound on his calf was still bleeding. Not as much as it had been, but enough to still be deemed life-threatening. Inwardly, Reid cursed whatever had possessed his supposedly smart mind to come here alone without alerting anyone. Reid knew that unfortunately, there was a high probability he wouldn't make it out of this situation alive. Taking a deep breath, Reid knew that he had to at least stall. Find some way to divert her attention for however long was possible…

"C-can I just ask a-a small question, Miss Landman…?" Reid stuttered out, cringing slightly when she turned around again, her cold eyes coming to rest on his own brown eyes.

The gun was lifted and for a second, Reid thought she was going to shoot him like she had Scott. But instead she simply rested the gun against Scott's hip enough that she'd feel him move if he tried to get away, and said softly,

"It depends on what the question is, agent. If it's how long you get to live, I'd say a few more minutes, with the way you're antagonizing me."

Resisting the shiver of fear that came with the threat so calmly uttered, Reid then asked,

"Where's… the Sarin…?"

Merryl's brows furrowed then as she slowly responded,

"So you know about that then."

"Y-yes, actually. It wasn't all that hard to figure out when Wallace told me the name of the person who contacted him. H-he said her name was Leram… Th-that's Merryl… only backward…"

Then a small smirk found it's way onto her lips as she then took the gun away from Scott's hip completely, resting it on her leg while pointing it at Reid, causing his heart to skip a beat, then instantly try to make up for it by pounding a tattoo against his chest. In fact, his heart was racing, beating so loudly in his ears that it was a wonder she couldn't hear it. Of course, scientifically for her to hear his heartbeat without some kind of sound amplifier was just about physically impossible, but did that even matter at this point…?

"I'll tell you a little something agent, but it will come with a price. I'll tell you where my Sarin is… but as soon as I finish telling you, my gun will put a bullet in your head, right then and there. Or…" using the gun to emphasize her point, she moved it from Reid's head to point it at Scott's head. "You can let me finish up with this life wrecker, and live for five, maybe ten minutes more. Of course, don't think for a second I would cheat you out of the information you have so foolishly pursued."

A small chuckle escaped her lips as she then moved the gun back onto her leg, pointing it at Reid.

"Choose, honey. I won't wait all night."

Reid swallowed, knowing in his heart he couldn't let her kill Scott.

* * *

"How close are you?" Hotch asked anxiously to Deputy Richardson, who had called just a second ago.

Once again, the call had been put on speaker out of simplicity.

"We're about five, maybe ten minutes away. What about you?"

"A lot further away than we'd like to be," Gideon mumbled but Hotch spoke up quickly after that.

"We're about three minutes from Karrel's place," Hotch glanced over at Gideon, who was riding shot gun, then quickly glanced in the mirror at the other agents who had been sitting in shocked and horrified silence in the back of the black SUV.

Returning his eyes back to the still dark road ahead of him, he made a last minute decision and shut off the sirens and lights, increasing his speed more as he said tersely,

"But we'll be there in two."

* * *

"I placed my load of Sarin in the air ducts at the Clarksville county courthouse just before I came here. It should have enough time to spread before morning, and when those despicable judges and lying lawyers come into the building after sunrise, I'd say it would take about… oh, maybe ten? Fifteen minutes at most for them to start dropping like flies."

Reid opened his mouth to ask something else, but Merryl shook her head, chuckling and raising the gun a bit higher.

"I know what you're going to ask now. Why escalate? Why not just be satisfied with the people I've already killed and let it go? Believe me, that was my intentions to start out with. To rid the world of people who were too loathsome to keep around. But there's just so many of them… and so many of those horrible people work in the government, did you know? So why not? I mean, how easy it was to sneak in there as a member of the cleaning crew, slip the Sarin in the vents and walk out…"

She then shook her head.

"Sometimes it makes me wonder if there aren't others out there who haven't done the same thing, or at least thought about it to the point of it becoming a necessity to carry out, though they must have been unable to up until now. But maybe my attack will spark several others. Maybe it will help those true victims to take matters into their own hands."

Merryl smiled then, but it was far from a normal smile. It was sick and twisted, her eyes hinting at the insanity Reid knew to be prominently present. And then the gun was leveled at his head.

"You have been a very silent audience, my dear agent. Tell me before you die; was it worth the information you now have? Was it worth the price of death?"

Licking his lips, Reid opened his mouth once more to stutter out some kind of rhetorical question, hopefully to stall a bit more and buy him some more time when the door was suddenly kicked in and the clicks of safety being removed off of hand held guns sounded out around the three of them already in the room, followed by a cry of,

"FBI, don't move!"

"Hmm." Merryl's brows furrowed, but she ignored the cries from behind her, telling her to drop the weapon and put her hands behind her head.

Instead, she continued to watch Reid, and he could see it in her eyes that she was fully calculating her next move. Then, she said with deafening clarity,

"The price of information is high, agents. Nothing in this world… is ever, ever free."

Two shots rang out.

Blood was splattered against the wall.

Panic set in.

* * *

"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate."

- Socrates

* * *

A/N : Oh god I'm so evil. xD One more chapter to go, folks. Keep those reviews coming!