So…I know you all want to know what happens to Reid, but that will be next chapter. In this one, I absolutely need to focus on what remains of the team because you all know what sort of envelope they are all going to get.

And for everyone who cares, the epic composition of awesomeness we all like to call Criminal Minds and the amazing works we like to call the characters are not in any way owned by me.

So, let the story begin…or continue…whichever…

Chapter 8

Prentiss backed through the door of the conference room, grunting under the weight of an evidence box that she carried. She set it down next to another just like it and leaned against the table. She looked at the clock over the door. It was just after three o'clock.

"Is that the new crime scene evidence?" Rossi asked without raising his head from the photos he had scattered at his end of the table.

"Yeah. The call came right on time." Prentiss pulled from the box a professional picture of a teenage boy with his arms around a much younger girl. "Michael Anderson, age fifteen, sophomore at Tri-County. Stabbed to death, feet removed."

"Feet, huh?" Rossi picked up the photograph and looked at the boy. "Who's the girl?"

"His little sister, Jessica."

Michael Anderson was a good-looking kid with a slightly crooked nose and a small, almost invisible scar on his chin. His hair was blonde, and even though it was grown out slightly, Rossi recognized the slightly uniformed cut that kept his sideburns neat and his hair a safe distance from his ears.

"Is he a military kid?"

Prentiss looked up. "What?"

"Are either of his parents in the military?"Rossi repeated. "His hair is to code."

Prentiss shrugged as she opened a folder. "Christine Anderson is a sales manager for the Toyota dealer on N Main Street, and his father…is in an alcoholism rehab center in New York," she explained. "But it says here that Michael was in Tri-County's JROTC program."

Rossi looked at the picture one more time before he slid it back across the table and resumed his study of the material on his own case, both from what the kidnapper had sent and what he had managed to dig up at the police department. So far, nothing fit. They all looked like random kidnappings.

"Rossi?"

"Hm?"

Prentiss slid the picture back toward him. "I thought you might want to know that your 'brown-eyed men' theory has just been proven incorrect," she said.

Rossi glanced back at the picture, and surely enough, Michael Anderson's eyes were some of the bluest he's ever seen. He sighed. "So there's no connection."

Prentiss took the picture back again, watching as Rossi rubbed his face tiredly. "Did you interview the parents of the victims for our kidnapper's case?"

Rossi nodded. "None of them are him, and according to both mothers that have remarried, they haven't seen their ex-husbands in years. I even looked at pictures. None of them are him."

"So…what connection does this man have to the four kidnapped girls? Why should he care so much?"

Rossi shrugged.

Garcia spoke up. "I ran crosschecks for the guy, but I couldn't find him. As far as I can tell, all of the parents of the girls are accounted for."

"And on top of that, these kidnappings look so random, I honestly don't believe they're related at all," Rossi said.

Prentiss shrugged. "Do any of them live close to one another?"

Rossi rummaged around in his unsightly stacks of pages until he brought to the surface the victim information. "None of them live on the same street," he said, "but that doesn't mean anything. Garcia, could you plot a map with these four addresses?"

Garcia looked over at him with her big brown eyes and gave him a mock frown…but somehow it lacked its usual bravado. "Oh, and see what he thinks of me? But of course I can—uh—aw crap!"

"What?"

"I can't think of a single charming thing to say," she said, and her nose started to turn red. She jerked back to reality and snapped her fingers. "Map. Right. Addresses?" Rossi gave them to her, and after thirty seconds of typing, had the results on her laptop screen. "Rossi, you're going to want to see this."

Rossi walked around to the back of her chair and leaned over Garcia's shoulder. The screen showed four red dots…all within the same dead end neighborhood. "That's our link," he said, and he stood, walking toward the door to leave. He stopped as he realized he knew more about Prentiss' unsub than she did and turned around. "I have thoughts on your unsub if you would like them," he offered.

Prentiss nodded. "Good, because I'm lost."

"Your unsub is a college-aged woman that lives permanently nearby both schools. She attended Tri-County High and is targeting boys that resemble those that remain unpleasantly in her mind. Old boyfriends, perhaps?"

Prentiss and Garcia looked at each other. Rossi turned back to the door and was reaching for it at the same moment it burst open, and JJ rushed into the room.

"Guys, he was here again," she said, and she held up another yellow envelope.

Rossi shut the door and hurried back to the table as JJ ripped the envelope, which was considerably smaller and lighter than the previous one, open and pulled out several photographs and another note. The four of them leaned in.

What they saw shocked them into silence. The first photograph depicted Hotch and Morgan leaning over a third body that they recognized as their own beloved boy genius. Reid was lying on his back on the concrete floor. They could see that his beige pants were stained in blood, and a lot of it. But more horrifying, however, was the fact that Hotch was pressing a completely blood-covered into Reid's shoulder.

"Oh my God," Garcia whimpered. "Reid…"

JJ lifted the first photograph to show the second. She blinked back tears and Prentiss covered her mouth in worry as the second photo showed Reid, in very much the same condition as before…but his neck was arching backwards, his face a mask of intense pain, his shoulder far more exposed to show a dark spot spread across the whole upper left area of his sweater vest, Hotch's hands overturned in the air above him, covered in the dark stain they all knew to be Reid's blood…

None of them wanted to see the rest of the pictures, but at the same time, they had to. How many had he gotten? JJ slowly set aside the second and stared at the third.

It was a closer shot of Reid. He was looking directly at the camera. His eyes were rimmed red. His mouth was hanging open as he gasped for air. His brow was wrinkled in pain. In his eyes, they could not help but interpret a his pleading for help.

JJ dropped the photographs on the table and turned away, crying into her hands without shame. Prentiss resumed walking in circles. Garcia had streaks of mascara down her face. Rossi didn't know what to do other than to pick up the note.

" 'Agents of the BAU,' " he read aloud, " 'The photographs I have enclosed, as I am sure you have discovered, are of the three missing members of your team. I the event that I have not provided enough incentive and motivation for you, young Dr. Reid has been shot.' "

Garcia gulped quietly and Prentiss cursed. "That sick son of a…" She stopped up short. "Sorry."

" 'He has received a gunshot wound to his right leg and his left shoulder. He will need medical attention quickly, and I cannot afford to allow him to leave until I know that my case will be solved. Until that time, rest assured that Dr. Reid's time is running out.' "

Rossi finished reading the note and laid it gently on the table. He wandered through the room with his hands on his head for nearly a minute, thinking through the facts, calculating the possibilities, and hoping for the rest of the team. He looked at the white board. He looked at the piles of papers and clues on the conference table. He couldn't work the case alone. Prentiss couldn't work hers alone. The press was yet to get a statement…so much to do, and so obviously too little time.

Rossi lost his temper—something the other three had rarely ever seen—and punched the wall beside him, leaving a hole in the sheetrock. Ignoring the blood dripping down his fingers from his knuckles, he stormed out the door.

The three women of the team stood around for what seemed to be ages, crying together silently, until they each returned to their jobs individually. JJ left the room, mumbling something about calling a press conference to talk about both all three of the cases. Prentiss settled to closely examining all aspects of her new victims life. Garcia pulled up the best pictures she had of Hotch—their fearless leader—of Morgan—her witty, caramel man—and of Reid—the youngest and, she knew, the one they all worried most for.

Nobidy worried about SSA Dave Rossi. They trusted him. They knew him well enough to leave him alone. But if you had asked any of them, no one knew where he had gone.

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