Freedom
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.
My
angel, - his name is Freedom,
Choose him to be your king;
He
shall cut pathways east and west.
And fend you with his wing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"You need to try to walk. I will help you, but we need to go now." Taki took hold of Reid by his shoulder and started to guide him towards the door way,
"I don't want to Taki. You go. Get out of here, but I can't go with you." Spencer pulled back away from him and dropped his head back down again. He had no idea how long he had been in this place. It felt like weeks. The times he had awoken tied to post or to the floor were legion. The humiliation of the whole situation was beyond him now. He couldn't leave. He couldn't face his friends again. Not knowing that they had seem even a small amount of what had happened here and the horror of actually finding some of it almost enjoyable; even though he was drugged at the time. His friends didn't know he was drugged. What must they think of him? Dr. Spencer Reid, Porn star.
"With me! You need to come with me now! I have put my plan into play. If we don't leave now we never will. They will sell you into prostitution and they will kill me."
"Let go of me!" Reid was pulling back into the cell which was now his home.
"They will kill Floyd."
Reid stopped pulling and looked up at Taki. "What do you know of Floyd?"
A raised eyebrow. "You will be amazed what we have found out about you."
"What is your plan?" Spencer was scowling at Taki.
Pulling on his shoulder again. "My primary concern is getting you onto your feet again. It's been long enough. You are healing, so get out here stand up and walk with me."
"The plan?"
"That which you do not know cannot be torn from you if it goes wrong. Just walk behind me." Spencer felt the chain being clipped onto the leather collar he was still wearing and hands under his arms pulling him to his feet. "Stand. Please Spencer just stand and follow me."
Once out in the corridor Taki pulled him up to his feet and leaned him against a wall. He wrapped a blanket around Reid's too thin half starved shoulders and bent down to remove the grubby dressings off his feet. The mess underneath was not nice to look at, but thanks to the skills of the torturer Andanatchi nothing had been broken. Cracked, scraped and bruised maybe but not broken as such. Reid still keeping his head down stared at his blackened toenails and the funny colour of his toes, and wondered how long it would be until the needed to be amputated. He watched Taki Otikami put a pair of leather sandals on his battered feet and feeling the pull of the chain he walked limping in silence down the passage to wherever it was Taki was taking him.
Eyes watched from a distance and as the two of them started to move away, the eyes followed smoothly and silently.
……………………………..
It was cold.
It was very cold, and even though it hadn't started to snow yet, it wasn't going to be far off. Reid shivered as he stood in the long winter grass in his sarong sandals and blanket. His hands still behind his back. He hadn't asked for them to be removed and Taki hadn't offered.
They had been walking for hours. Reid's legs hurt and his feet were bleeding. He kept stumbling and falling in the grass, the chain around his neck pulling suddenly and the collar digging in. He kept his head down and his mouth shut until the final time he fell.
It was more of a gentle collapse than an actual fall. He moaned softly. "Taki please stop. I need to rest now."
"Five minutes. We need to keep going. It will snow. I don't want to be out here still when it is snowing." He knelt down in the grass next to Reid and watched him roll over onto his side. Maybe he should remove the bindings on his hands now that they were away, but it bothered him still. He needed to be the one in control. Taki wrapped the chain tightly around his hand and lay down next to Spencer and looked up at the clouds skidding across the cold blue sky. "This is a beautiful place to die. If I was going to die today, I would choose here."
Spencer didn't like the sound of this. It sounded too final. Too defeatist. "I want to die in the desert. I don't choose half way up a mountain wearing a skirt and collar, so just five minutes Taki, and then we move on."
Taki grinned.
…………………………….
Garcia passed the photograph around to Hotch and Derek. "It's a mug shot from a short while back, but the most recent one I could get my hands on."
Each in turn looked at the picture of Otikami. His long hair partially tied back away from an obviously good looking face. "Personally," Garcia continued. "I don't think I would be able to pick him out in a crowd of samurai, but he is cute."
The pulled up into the parking lot of a small motel in the middle of nowhere. It felt l like it was going to snow. There was a slight frosting on the ground and the air was hard and cold.
They walked over the icy ground to the rooms they had pre booked for the night. Tomorrow they were going to meet with Otikami and see if they could retrieve anything which was left of Reid. They had watched every posting of Reid they had been sent. They has watched as he was beaten and touched and manipulated into doing things he wouldn't normally have done. It made them angry, it made them sad, it made them feel lost. Now they were going to get him back again.
………………………..
"We need to move Spencer. We can't stay here. It is too open, I need to find you somewhere safe for the night."
"I don't want to move. Just leave me Taki. Get away and find my friends. I am too tired to move on." Spencer closed his eyes and wished he could have his arms back to wrap around himself to feel that safety he so badly needed.
"I will carry you." And Otikami lifted Reid over his back and began to carry him off out of the long cold grass and into the cover of the trees up ahead.
In the distance someone was watching. He pulled knife from his belt and looked at his reflection. "Soon my sweetness soon. They will both regret the day you chose to mess me around."
……………………….
As Hotch, Morgan and Garcia settled down for the night, looking again at the picture and trying again to get a call through to Otikami. There was either no signal or something had gone wrong and there was no way for them to know which right now.
Otikami pulled Reid close and wrapped his arms around him. He lay behind him and held him tightly.
As they slept someone crouched behind the trees and watched.
The snow started to fall. It fell slowly. meandering it's was from the sky to land gently on the two sleeping forms, and the one awake one. Crouching waiting his tern.
………………………
When Taki awoke Spencer was gone. He looked sideways at the mess in the snow. There was a small amount of blood and lots of disturbance. Slowly he rolled over and looked in the direction the messed up footprints went. He sat slowly and looked over at Otsu standing in the now heavy snowfall with Spencer standing in front of him. His hands still behind his back and his blanket fallen to the floor. His head was down looking at the gentle drip of blood dropping into the snow at his feet.
Otikami leapt to his feet.
"Leave him alone. It's me you want." His had was going for the hilt of a weapon he had at his side.
"Otikami San I want you both."
"Leave him Tokado. You and I. The Two of us. Leave him." Reid's headwas still down and his body, Taki now saw was hanging from the collar Otsu had a tight hold of. As Otsu let go Reid slumped forwards onto his face into the deep snow. Spencer saw through the snow and greyness of loss of air the sword Taki pulled, and he heard a yelp of pain and a hiss as a knife flew through the air and embedded itself deeply into Taki's thigh.
He heard a moan of surprise coming from himself as Otsu's katana dropped and impaled him through his back into the snow.
……………………………….
