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"Elia!" Derek hollered as his daughter was pulled backwards into the black van that was driving along the street the precinct was on. He hadn't even seen the car slowing down as it passed Elia on the street. Her face was covered in terror, eyes glued to Derek as the man in the ski mask clamped his hand over her mouth. As the van's door slammed shut and it started to speed away, Derek broke into a sprint down the middle of the street, chasing the van even though there was no human way he would reach it on his feet.
The few people who were on the street looked shocked at him and that a girl was snatched in front of them. They watched as if he were a lunatic trying to catch a speeding vehicle. None of them mattered, though. All he could focus on was Elia.
"Stop!" he roared, even though he knew the van wouldn't hear. "Stop!"
His lungs burned as he ran. His worst fear just came true, his daughter was caught in the clutches of someone who would hurt her. Not a scrape in the knee hurt, not the hurt of backstabbing by a best friend, but physical harm that could end her life. Both his feet flew across the asphalt, pounding like thunderclaps.
The van began to disappear down the street, no license plate, no back windows to allow him a view of the inside of it. As he ran, he approached an intersection, not even paying attention as he thundered into it. He didn't glimpse the car driving through that sent him flying to the ground. The vehicle slamming into him sent his body into shock. He felt like a ton of bricks was being thrown at him and crushing him to the pavement.
As he lay on the asphalt, stunned and staring up at the night sky that was illuminated by the lights of the city, he could vaguely make out the form of the driver standing over him. Her lips were moving, but her words weren't reaching his ears.
All he thought about was Elia. He could only imagine what she was feeling. His feelings were replaced entirely by hers. She must have been consumed by fear, alone and shaking.
Hot Stuff….
"Penelope?" he grumbled groggily. His vision was blurry, but behind his eyelids he could see Penelope's silhouette, her face concerned and gentle.
You have to get up, Baby. Elia needs you.
"I need….I need…" But before he could say anymore, Derek fell into darkness, his mind losing all consciousness.
XXXXX
"Derek? Derek, look at me!" It was JJ's voice breaking through softly.
With his head rolling back and forth, Derek ignored the pain in his body. His vision was swimming, and he felt groggy as hell. Sputtering, he tried to sit up, but his body was too stiff and sore.
Derek…Hot Stuff, get up…our baby needs you…
His eyes snapped open, and he began to breath in deep gasps. He was hearing his wife's voice in his head, but even as he looked around wildly, he couldn't find Penelope anywhere. "Penelope?" he choked.
"Morgan, hold still," Hotch's voice broke through. "You were hit by a car. Stop moving."
Adrenaline raced through his veins. Derek leapt to is feet, staring down the street where the van had disappeared. His mouth fell open, and his eyes began to burn. He began to shake, fear filling his body and panic striking his heart. The words his hallucinated Penelope had spoken in his head were ringing in his ears still.
He needed to find their daughter.
"Elia," he choked out, looking back at Hotch and JJ. "They took Elia!"
JJ looked like she was fighting to stay calm as well, even as she was trying to keep Derek from moving too much. Her limbs were shaking, and her eyes were dancing with panic at the mention of Elia. Hotch was the one who spoke first. "Morgan, we need to get you to the hospital," he said firmly. "You were just hit by a car."
"Absolutely not," Derek hollered, straightening up. "I'm not going to any fucking hospital. I'm going to find my daughter." He looked at them desperately. "Hotch, please. I need your help to find her. We have to find her!"
Hotch shook his head. "Morgan, no —" he began.
"Hotch, I helped you when Foyet went after Haley," he growled, not caring he was going for a low blow with his boss. "I need you to help me find Elia!"
With a hard jaw, Hotch exchanged a glance with JJ and Reid, who had now shown up at the scene. JJ seemed extremely skeptical, Reid hesitant. None of them spoke though as they thought about whether or not to grant Derek his request.
"I'm sorry, but what the hell is going on?" the driver of the car that hit Derek demanded. "Are any of you going to call the police, or —"
Hotch glanced over at the driver and shook his head. "No, you can go. He's not going to let us take him to the hospital, and there's no damage to your car. Just go." He motioned for the team to follow him out of the middle of the intersection and onto the sidewalk. Derek winced as he walked, but he was buzzing with anxious energy.
He stumbled unsteadily, tripping on the curb as he walked onto the sidewalk. Reid went to his side to try and support him, but he was shaken off. Derek rubbed his face. "Guys, we need to find her," he croaked. "We need to find her friends and see if they saw anyone following her. There's no way they would have just come up the street like that if they weren't planning to take her. This isn't a prime location since it's right outside a police station. He must have seen her somewhere and followed her."
"What did you see?" Hotch asked calmly, his voice commanding Derek to steady himself without even saying the words. "You saw her get taken, what did you notice?"
Taking a deep breath, Derek began to pace. He couldn't banish Penelope's voice from his head, and he shook his head swiftly trying to snap out of it. "I — I saw that they just drove up next to her, grabbed her, and pulled her in. The guy was…he had to be six feet, but he had a ski mask on. So did his partner in the driver seat. There was no license plate, no windows except the front so I couldn't see anything in it, there was —"
"Derek, slow down," JJ said firmly. "We're going back to the station, and we'll send someone to pick up the kids to bring them down here. But you need to get inside."
"No! I need to find my daughter!" he roared.
JJ's face hardened. "We all want to find Elia," she snapped, forcing him to look at her. "But right now you're acting irrational. If you want to find her, you need to calm the fuck down and work with us. You will be the most help to her if you do what you do best: profile the bastards to get her back."
Derek stared at JJ, panic bubbling through his heart once more. Tears pricked the back of his eyes, tears he was refusing to allow fall. If he did, he would break down completely. And right now that wasn't an option.
XXXXX
"What the hell?" Elia's best friend Sarah demanded as she and the rest of the group Elia had come to New York with were shuffled into the precinct. It was an hour after Elia had been taken, and the team had only just now managed to get the group into the precinct. They'd sent two SUVs, JJ and Reid being the team members who picked them up with the help of two officers. "Why did you bring us here?"
"Get them into the conference room," Derek ordered, staring hardly at all his daughter's friends as they were led in. He'd managed to calm down on the external side, but inside his emotions were a raging hurricane that had yet to calm. Until his daughter was back and safe, he didn't think it would come to a halt.
Sarah's eyes found him when he spoke, and she glared at him with a frosty expression. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she screeched. Based on the way she was stumbling, it looked like the group of them had been drinking. "Why did you drag us down here? You already took Elia out, now you wanna take us out?"
Not saying a word, JJ and Derek went into the room with the group of frightened teenagers and closed the door. Hotch was already waiting for them, already observing each and every one of them as they filtered inside. "Everyone, we need you to sit down," JJ said, crossing her arms over her chest. "There's enough chairs for all of you."
"You wanna tell me why we're all here?" Sarah complained. "Other than the fact that Elia's asshole dad hates us?"
Ignoring Sarah's outburst, Derek reached into his pocket and pulled out Elia's fallen phone. A crack had popped up on the screen, but he'd been able to look at her recent calls. When she'd been taken, she'd been on the phone with someone.
"Which one of you is Kyle?" Derek growled, holding up his daughter's phone and glaring hardly at the four boys in the group.
The only member of the group who didn't seem drunk at all was a handsome young man with blonde hair and glittering blue eyes. Gulping, he stood up. "I'm Kyle," he said. "I swear I wasn't trying to get her in trouble, I just wanted to see if she was okay. She seemed really upset when —"
"Where the fuck is Elia anyway?" Sarah slurred, interrupting Kyle. Her gaze was unfocused as she glared at Derek. "Did you lock her up in a jail cell like the dictator you are?"
"You're going to shut up right now!" JJ snapped, planting both her palms on the table and shooting Sarah a scathing look. It seemed to shut Sarah up, at least for the moment. JJ could be frightening if she put her mind to it, and by the looks of it, the girl was terrified of her. "I don't care how much you've had to drink. Keep your mouth closed."
Once Sarah was quiet, Derek turned his attention back to Kyle. "You were talking to her on the phone when they took her," he growled. "Did she say anything about who it might have been, anything about what they looked like?"
Kyle's face paled. "Wait, what?" he sputtered. "What happened to Elia?"
"She was kidnapped as she was talking to you on the phone," Derek said, his fists clenched around his daughter's phone. "Did she say anything that might have —"
Kyle looked deathly afraid as he interrupted Derek. "No!" he panicked. "Nothing. She…she just said something was going on and then the line cut off. I thought she hung up on me because you were calling her name!" He threaded his fingers through his hair. "Oh, God! She's —"
"Wait, wait!" Sarah said, holding up both her hands. "Elia was kidnapped?" Her eyes were blurry and bloodshot, and it didn't appear as though she or anyone else aside from Kyle could comprehend what was going on.
Rolling his eyes, Derek ignored Sarah and kept his attention on Kyle. Derek was keeping his attention on every angle of the boy's body language, and what he saw was pure anxiety. He was genuinely concerned about Elia. In fact, he was terrified for her. "Mr. Morgan, I'm sorry," the boy said, rising to his feet. "I'll do whatever I can to help. I don't —"
Derek held his hand up. "If you want to help," he interrupted, "come with us. The rest of you, stay here and sober up. We'll be calling your parents, and if you stay put, we'll make sure you don't get arrested for underage drinking. If you stay here, no officer will have to know."
"Hey, hey!" Sarah said, leaping to her feet. "She's my bestie, I want to help, too!"
"Stay there," JJ muttered, pointing to Sarah's seat as she headed out of the room with Derek, Hotch, and Kyle. They reached the table where Sanders and Reid were set up. Seaver was there as well, checking in on what they were planning.
Hotch frowned as he watched Sanders speaking hastily into the phone. As they waited for both to be off the phone, Derek turned to Kyle and crossed his arms, attempting to remain calm as possible. He was unbelievably grateful that at least one of his daughter's friends cared about her. But it did little to quell his churning stomach. His hands were twitching, and he had to hold his elbows tightly to keep anyone from seeing. He remembered the words JJ had spoken; he had to do his job and profile if he wanted Elia back.
"What can I do to help?" Kyle asked, wringing his hands together.
"There's probably not much you can do other than tell us if you saw anything," JJ admitted. "Did you see anyone following you? This man who took Elia would have been following her for at least several hours." As Kyle furrowed his brow, attempting to remember anything he possibly could, JJ continued. "She was grabbed into a black van, and —"
Kyle shook his head, frustrated. "I - I can't remember," he interrupted, rubbing his face. "I'm —"
"You've got nothing?" Derek muttered, beginning to pace once more.
Shaking, Kyle looked around the station wildly. His frantic body movements and shaking were an exact replica of how Derek felt. Hotch, who had been observing the behavior of all of Elia's friends, was back to focussing on Kyle. "Kyle," he said. "Would you be willing to do something for us?" Seeing that just his voice wasn't going to be good enough to truly draw the boy's attention, he added, "It may help us find Elia."
Swallowing hard, Kyle finally looked at Hotch. "Yes," he breathed. "Anything."
Looking at Reid, Hotch nodded. "Set up a cognitive interview with him. Let us know immediately if something comes up." Reid motioned to Kyle and lead him to an empty room down the hall. As soon as they were gone, Hotch turned to look at Derek square in the eye. "He isn't going to give us much. Even if he remembers a van, it won't give us anything."
Derek's heart clenched in his ribcage; what Hotch was saying was true.
"Guys, I have a thought," Seaver murmured. "It has to do with another case our team's tech found."
"What is it?" Derek croaked. His whole body was tense, like a live wire ready to explode at the slightest spark. He didn't dare hope for anything, but he couldn't stop himself from wishing Seaver had something to help. "What did you find?"
She met his eyes before pulling out her tablet to open a file. Handing it over to Hotch, she began to explain. "It has to do with crimes similar to Veronica Drake. All of them happened within the last five years, all teenage girls snatched between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, all dead from exsanguination."
"You're trying to talk to us about the case right now?" Derek thundered. Hotch shook his head at him, wordlessly telling him to calm down. When he was confident Derek would remain quiet, he returned his eyes to the tablet.
Seaver didn't blink. "Hear me out," she urged. "On that file that Hotch has are twelve girls; all in the age range, all spread out throughout the city, all with slit wrists, all varying ethnicities and body types, all virgins. These girls are all around Elia's age, all taken and dumped with at least one severely sexually assaulted woman." She looked down at the table a moment. "Is Elia…"
Derek blinked. His eyes drifted to the hall where Reid and Kyle had disappeared. He didn't have an honest answer to Seaver's question. "I don't - I don't know," he stammered, embarrassed. This was something he hadn't prepared for, and Elia herself had said she'd rather learn about sex from a woman. Naturally, she'd turned to JJ, her godmother.
"Yes," JJ whispered, frazzled. "She is." She rubbed his forehead, hands shaking.
Feeling like he might vomit, Derek put his palms on the back of a chair to steady himself. Elia fit the victimology of all the previous girls. If that was the case, they had to find her fast. He didn't know what he would do if his daughter ended up like them.
Seaver's face softened with pity. "Elia fits the victimology," she murmured. "Is it coincidence that Nikolai Kelinski's wallet would be found at the scene of a girl who fits the same profile?"
Derek felt the blood drain from his face. His limbs went numb, and his gut began to churn, vicious as a storm. Something inside him broke, like the ends of a rope fraying and unraveling into chaos. All at once he felt like he was getting hit by the car again, the force hitting his body stronger and shaking his innards like a can of soda. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he attempted to take a deep breath and fill his lungs with fresh air. Every gaze was focussed on him, searching for a reaction.
Elia needs you, Baby…
The second Penelope's voice filled his ears once more, he couldn't control his body's physical reaction. Shaking his head, he dashed to the nearest trashcan and did something he never did on a case, no matter how gruesome or horrifying it was: he retched up the contents of his stomach.
XXXXX
Penelope sat curled up in the corner of her cage, her knees pulled up to her chest as she shivered in her satin shift. The slaughterhouse was bitterly cold, and she was nursing new bruises. One of the girl's she'd been sharing a cage with had struggled when she was getting fetched for one of Lilith's customers, and Penelope spoke up, resulting in a vicious beating for her.
As she sat curled up, trembling from the cold, her ears heard the sound of a struggling girl being dragged down the hall toward Lilith's room. It reminded her of Veronica. She'd been there for a mere three days, then she was gone, vanished from the face of the earth. Penelope couldn't fathom what the girl's fate had been.
Thinking about Veronica hurt Penelope worse than any bruises could. It wasn't even Veronica herself that crunched her ribs together around her heart; it was what the girl represented. Veronica was sixteen, only a year younger than Penelope's own daughter.
When Penelope had a few precious minutes alone, she would imagine what her daughter's life had become. Was she reserved and private like Derek, did she want to go to college or spend her years traveling, had she been in love? Did she know who her mother was?
She had a recurring, yet flickering memory of her Elia, but it was one she held onto like she would hold onto a ledge she was dangling from. She was the most beautiful baby in the whole world; every mother thought that about their child, but Penelope knew it was true about her baby girl. Derek told her every day after Elia was born that she would look like Penelope. She held on to the image of her beautiful baby, her cheeks and eyes holding her infant giddiness and her bouncy mahogany curls wiggling as she giggled.
It was all she had of Elia. She would never hear her speak or see her grow up, so she had to keep her memories alive.
With dry eyes and a hemorrhaging heart, Penelope leaned her head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. She needed to banish the thoughts of her daughter from her mind before she became too overwhelmed with pain, both physically and emotionally. It would be useless to try and sleep; Derek and Elia would only invade her dreams. Instead she was going to focus on her breathing, the one and only thing she could control.
As she stared at the darkened ceiling, counting the seconds of her inhales and exhales, a rattling came from her cage door, and her head snapped in the direction. The shape of one of Lilith's goons was at the door, unhinging the padlock and entering. She stared at the darkened form, not moving an inch, even when he stood towering above her.
"Up, doll," a smooth voice spat.
She rolled her eyes. Someone in the universe had it out for her to send Fynn to her door. He didn't give her even a moment to react before he leaned down and yanked her to her feet. Wincing, Penelope stumbled unsteadily on her bruised legs. "Fynn," she grumbled sarcastically. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Move, beautiful," Fynn growled, grabbing her behind her purple and yellow bruised neck. "Lilith wants to see you."
"Little late for her to be making people come to her lair, isn't it?" she muttered as she was pushed down the hall. They stopped in front of the door where Brutus knocked to gain entrance to Lilith's tiny frozen kingdom for them. As Fynn increased the pressure on her neck while they waited, she gritted her teeth in pain and shot her elbow backwards into his gut to get him off of her.
He grunted as the door was opened wider, and they were allowed in. "Get in there!" he snarled, shoving her inside until she tumbled to a heap on the floor. Before she could lift herself up, his foot connected with her already bruised gut. Sliding his boot up her sternum, he rested it on her nose and pressed down until she felt a small trickle of blood slide down her upper lip.
"Fynn!" Lilith snapped. "That's enough. We don't want to bruise up her face anymore than you already have. Let her up, then get the hell out."
Snickering, Fynn removed his foot and started to stalk out of the room. Penelope lifted herself unsteadily and rose to her feet, closing her eyes as the aches hit her body full force. She bent her head, and her hair fell in her face. When she wiped her nose, the back of her hand came away covered in blood. Chuckling bitterly at the crimson streak, she looked up at Lilith and arched a brow. "What do you want, Lilith?" she muttered. "I'm tired."
"Don't lie, sweetling," Lilith said with a cluck of her tongue. "We all know you don't sleep often." She grinned at Penelope, earning herself a scathing glare in return. "However, we're not here to discuss each other. I've got someone for you to meet."
Penelope moved her hair out of her face. She hadn't even noticed someone was in the room with Lilith. It was a teenage girl, around sixteen or seventeen years old, with extremely beautiful features and a head of wavy mahogany hair. Her face as she took in Penelope was one of pure shock. It didn't surprise Penelope all that much; the state Lilith and her predecessors had left her in would make any normal human being quake with fear.
However when she looked at the girl for a moment, something stirred inside her, something…well, she couldn't place her finger on what it was. The girl wasn't even afraid as she looked at Penelope, merely shaken. Her face became pale, and her mouth was agape in shock.
Finally tearing her eyes from the teenage girl, Penelope returned her gaze to Lilith. The other woman was smirking, tilting her wine glass to her lips as she observed both Penelope and the girl. "Why am I meeting her?" Penelope asked softly.
"I wanted to test a theory," Lilith mused, setting her wine down and walking around her table to stand between both Penelope and the girl. "And based on what I'm seeing, my theory is correct."
"What theory?" Penelope growled, hate radiating from her gaze as she stared at Lilith.
Lilith giggled, her laugh coming out like the twinkling of tiny bells. She clapped her hands together devilishly. "It would make sense for you to not recognize someone you haven't seen in almost twenty years," she purred, going over to the young girl's side and resting her chin in the crook of the girl's neck. She blinked her almond eyes innocently at Penelope. "Look closely at this beautiful girl. Don't you see anything familiar?" Lilith moved a lock of the girl's hair out of her face and smoothed it down her back. "Does anything stir in you when you look at her?"
Penelope met Lilith's newest captive's gaze once more, the same feeling washing over her that had run over her when she'd first looked at her. The girl's brown eyes were overflowing with tears, and she looked dangerously close to collapsing with all the blood that was drained from her face. There wasn't an ounce of fear in her features, just stunned silence.
As Penelope scrutinized the girl more closely, exploring the indescribable feeling raging in her, Lilith spoke again, her silky voice sliding through Penelope's ears like an eel. "Oh, Penelope, how could you not know who this is? I know you were taken a long time ago, but surely a mother would recognize her own child."
Eyes ripping away from the girl, Penelope stared at her captor in horror, her mouth and gut dropping until she felt like she would retch. Tears flooded her eyes, and she closed her eyes tightly, desperately hoping she was dreaming. All her physical pain from the bruises and bloody nose disappeared, filling her heart until it overwhelmed her. A strangled cry escaped her throat, and she covered her mouth with her trembling hand.
"Elia?" she gasped.