A/N: Thanks x infinity to everyone who wrote those wondrous reviews, everyone who is reading this story. I'm completely blown away by the response, so I dearly hope I don't disappoint any of you! I sincerely apologize for this improbably late update. My internet went bonkers and it almost drove me to bash my head against the wall. Huh, and speaking of wall...

"Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!" ~ Charles Dickens

Chapter X

"Just how far is this place?" Morgan asked impatiently, tossing a quick glance to the side. He shifted around in the driver seat as restlessness swept over his body, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel every so often, trying in vain to find the satisfying positions for his hands to settle on. "We've been on this road for almost forty-five minutes."

"The Sheriff says it normally takes about an hour and a half, but the circumstance is different for us. We don't have the luxury of daylight, it's really dark out there," Hotch replied, his voice calm and controlled, his expression dark and determined, a stark contrast to the agitation that Morgan was showing. He was in the passenger seat of the SUV with one hand grasping the grab handle above the window to keep himself steady on the bumpy ride as the vehicle zipped through the shadows of darkness and silhouettes of nature that surrounded it.

The two of them were trailing the Sheriff and his deputy who drove in their cruiser in front of them, leading the way to Mullins' manor, while Rossi rode alone in another SUV behind them, following close.

"So what? You're telling me it's gonna take another forty-five minutes for us to get there?" Morgan questioned incredulously, his volume raised to unleash his slew of emotions. "That's unacceptable, Hotch!"

Hotch turned sharply to face Morgan. His forehead was creased with a deep frown and his jaw was locked in place, exhibiting a look of disapproval at the fiery attitude Morgan was firing at him. In spite of that, he knew it wasn't intentional on Morgan's part. It wasn't done out of disrespect or insubordination, it was out of sheer frustration and overwhelming worry. Truth be told, he was experiencing the same upheaval of emotions, one that was a great deal more turbulent than Morgan's, and was battling hard within himself to rein them in and squelch them down. After all, he was the one who sent Emily and JJ to the manor, he was the one who practically handed Emily and JJ to the unsub.

It was unacceptable, indeed.

Letting the outburst from Morgan slide, Hotch brought the two-way radio he held in his hand to his mouth, pushing on the speaker button before saying, "Sheriff Sheridan, how much further are we?"

"I don't know, Agent Hotchner," came the immediate reply from the Sheriff. "I'm going as fast as I can, but I can hardly see the road ahead. The headlights aren't exactly much of a help."

"Give me an estimation then," Hotch said, his statement coming out more as a demand than a request. "How much longer is it gonna take us?"

The silence in the SUV was strained as the two agents waited for a response, stretching on uncomfortably until the Sheriff's hesitant voice broke through the radio. "Well, we should be nearing the second intersection. So, my guess is it'll be another twenty minutes, at least."

Hotch let out a heavy sigh, closing his eyes as he dropped his head. His shoulders slumped for a brief moment, but he quickly picked them back up. "Alright, Sheriff, but if you can, please try to speed it up. At this point, every second is crucial."

"I know how critical the situation is, Agent Hotchner. I'll do my best to crank it up a notch," the Sheriff answered reassuringly. "You can count on me."

"Thank you, Sheriff," Hotch replied curtly before his finger released the speaker button. He then set aside the radio, barely managing to suppress the urge to just chuck it against the dashboard. There was a sharp ache near the top his head beginning to make its presence known and in an effort to ward it off, he pinched firmly on the bridge of his nose, his features contorting into a grimace at the malaise that was spreading like wildfire in the pit of his stomach.

"Is he being serious? We don't have twenty minutes. Hell, I'm not even sure if we have another minute!" Morgan exclaimed, his knuckles turning white as his grip on the steering wheel tightened forcibly. The blood coursing through his veins was dangerously close to reaching its boiling point, and he felt as if he was about to explode at any second. In a moment of impulse, he pushed his foot down on the gas, accelerating until he nearly rear-ended the cruiser, stepping on the brakes at the last second.

"Morgan, you need to calm down!" Hotch yelled, shooting a death glare in Morgan's way, his heart beating a little faster in his chest after the incident. "We won't able to help Emily and JJ if we get ourselves into an accident, or worse, get ourselves killed!"

"We won't be able to help them at the speed we're going either, Hotch!" Morgan snapped back, meeting Hotch's glare with one of his own. "Who knows what the hell is happening to them right now!"

- - - v - - -

Vroom.

"EMILY, HURRY UP!" JJ shrieked, her voice cracking towards the end. A waterfall of hot tears was streaming freely down from her puffy, red eyes to her flushed cheeks. "I CAN'T GET THIS DOOR TO OPEN!"

"I'M TRYING, JJ! I'M TRYING!" Emily screamed back without restraint, her hand quivering beyond control as she struggled to insert the key she had picked up among the silvery mass on the floor into the keyhole. With the key wedged tightly between her thumb and forefinger, she thrust it in the direction of the jagged opening, only for her shaking hand to direct the tip of the key away from its destination at the final moment and into the dead end that was the flat area around it, one desperate try after another, leaving flyspecks of white, nasty scratch marks everywhere on the once pristine gold-coated surface. It was laughable really, something as easy and effortless as sticking a key into a hole shouldn't be so difficult and laborious. Yet, it was.

That had been her story so far – her pathetic, panicky story.

Emily simply couldn't steady her trembling hand no matter how hard she wanted to, no matter how hard she tried. Her entire body was in hyper-drive; her heart was pumping at an immeasurable rate, her blood was heating up and her nerves were tumbling over the edge. To her, calming down was a ridiculous notion akin to a chicken flying.

Vroom.

"ARGH! FUCK ME!" She cursed as her hand slipped once more and squandered precious seconds. Of all the things in the world to screw up doing, she couldn't quite believe she was screwing up on one of the simplest acts, if not, the simplest. To add salt to the wound, she had been doing it casually, repeatedly her whole life – a life that depended on her doing it right, doing it fast.

Thus far, she was failing wretchedly.

There had always been this ominous thought planted in the back of Emily's mind, that she would be killed in the line of duty. She had expected it to be rather typical though, either going out with a bang, literally, in a shootout or coming in second best in a fight-to-the-death with an unsub. She definitely never imagined she might perished in such horrific, torturous fashion; to be crushed to death and reduced to nothing more than a mix of blood, fragments and mush in a jar. But, somehow, it was happening.

Throughout, JJ's helpless cries and screams from the other end of the room rang loud in her ears. She forced herself to ignore them however, clenching her jaw to hold back the tears in her eyes and bear the twitches of her heart. She already had enough on her hands to worry about.

Two or three unsuccessful stabs later, Emily was at last able to slot the key into the keyhole and promptly turned it. "GODDAMMIT!" She swore through gritted teeth when the key struck a block. It was the wrong one, again. She wasted no time in pulling it out and swiftly tossed it across the room like the others before, couldn't care less where it ended up. Since there was no way to clearly separate the keys she had tried and those she hadn't, she figured to get the former as far away from her as possible. It didn't help that the silver color of the keys was almost blending in with the grey color of the cement floor, causing her vision to double.

Once she disposed of the previous key, Emily quickly crouched down and picked up another random one from the floor in a continual cycle. She was panting heavily and sweating profusely, exhausted in more ways than one. There were so many keys, yet so little time.

Vroom.

The room was getting smaller and smaller. Keys were gathering in the nook where the walls and the floor converged, accumulating in numbers. The walls were gradually closing in, a few inches every few seconds. The wheels attached beneath them rolled on the black tracks, emitting a deep, low rumble that shook the ground as they propelled the walls forward.

At the speed they're going, it's only a matter of minutes before the walls on either side meet and crush whatever stood between them.

JJ couldn't contain the broken dam that was her tear-duct as tears flowed ceaselessly down her face. Her chest was constricting distressingly, forcing her to gasp hard for every breath of air as she rammed her shoulder into the solid, mahogany door with every ounce of strength she could muster, over and over, trying to force open the door that led back to the tangled, electrical web. It would serve as an alternative way out of the room for them, but that was only if she could get it to open.

Much to her dismay, there was no handle or knob on the door for her to pull on or twist. It was clearly designed by the unsub to accommodate the closing walls.

Vroom.

"COME ON!" JJ yelled at the top her voice when the door held firm, furiously banging on it with the palm of her hand before switching back to using her shoulder. She didn't know how long she could keep going. The gravel noise reverberating into her ears was sending wave after wave of chills down her spine. The vibration beneath her bare foot was making her stomach churn and her body shudder. The growing pressure of the walls was squeezing air out from her lungs and pushing her that much closer towards insanity. She was experiencing the whole spectrum of negative emotions all at once, from fear and terror to anger and frustration to sodding hatred.

JJ had never despised anyone so intensely in her life as she did Joseph Mullins. She could feel her hatred for him seep deep into the core of her bones. She hated his hideous leather mask, his maniacal green eyes, his perverted mind, his stone cold of a heart and everything he was putting her through.

The rush of adrenaline in her blood numbed the pain in her shoulder as JJ continued to drive it into the closed door, taking all of her emotions out on it as she cried, grunted and screamed at the same time, but the door stubbornly refused to budge. She had already ran out of ideas. Earlier, she had kicked at it, pounded on it and at one point, she even tried to pry it open by slipping her slender fingers into the slit underneath the door. The method would never have worked, but rational thoughts had no place in her panic-struck mind, she just wanted to open the door in whichever way she could think of as desperate times called for desperate measures.

Vroom.

JJ whipped her head around, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder to check on Emily's progress. To her fury, she noticed that the brunette was simply standing in front of the fifth door with her back to her, not picking up any of the keys from the floor and yet here she was, giving everything she had, trying her damnedest to get the door on her side to open.

"EMILY! WHY AREN'T YOU TRYING THE KEYS!" She screeched, her chest rising and falling rapidly, intemperately as she seethed, her heart pumping hot blood that rushed headlong up to her face, reddening it.

"JJ, I CAN'T!" Emily exclaimed, her voice choked as the tears she had been holding back, at last, became too much to handle and overflowed from her eyes, slithering down her cheeks, fusing with the beads of sweat from her temple before dripping off her chin. "THIS ONE'S STUCK!"

Upon hearing those dreaded words, JJ's whole body froze up when her hot blood ran cold at that instant, her eyes widened impossibly bigger in pure horror and her jaw suddenly found gravity irresistible. "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN IT'S STUCK!" She shrieked once her shock started to drain away, her volume increasing from low and audible at first to high and roaring at the end.

Vroom.

"I MEAN IT'S STUCK! I CAN'T GET IT OUT!" Emily yelled as she jiggled on the key almost violently, trying to shake it loose, but her palm and the pads of her fingers were so incredibly sweaty, she simply couldn't get a proper, firm enough grip, causing the key to slip away from her after every couple of shakes. Panic was now full-blown as her body shook irrepressibly. Her heart was thumping fast and hard against her chest, her blood was racing through her veins, raising hairs on her skin along the way.

Emily was certain that if the key didn't come off the next second, she would go mad.

JJ rushed across the room, not at all registering the pain on the bottom of her foot as she stepped on the jagged edges of the keys on the floor recurrently, wanting to see the lodged key for herself. She stopped dead in her tracks, a few steps behind Emily, when it came into view, watching on with her mouth agape while Emily desperately attempted to get it out of the damn keyhole.

"This can't be happening..." She breathed out, her hands slowly finding their way into her messy blonde hair before seizing a whole bunch of them and pulled on them forcibly. "This can't be happening... It can't be... It can't be..." She continued whispering, backing away from Emily gradually.

'I mean it's stuck! I can't get it out!' The words kept on replaying themselves inside her head, screaming at her incessantly until the despairing reality of their situation finally sank down to the abyssal in her. Without a forethought, JJ spun on her heels and sprinted back across the room once more, ramming her dropped shoulder straight into the door she had been trying to open this entire time. There was a loud, sickening crack that sounded, but she couldn't tell if it was her shoulder or the door.

She was numbed. And the door remained steadfast.

Vroom.

JJ shifted her body and slid her back down the door until her butt met the ground. She had her hands tangled in her hair, her watery, bloodshot eyes wide open, staring blankly into the space in front of her. Never had she ever felt so defeated in her life, one that was about to end soon.

"C'mon, Emily... C'mon..." Emily mumbled encouragingly to herself as she jiggled and yanked on the key with her trembling hand, doing her best to keep the amount of force she was exerting in check at the same time. The last thing she wanted to do was to break it, and with a semi-controlled, rickety tug, the key came loose at long last.

"I GOT IT, JJ! I GOT IT OUT!" She exclaimed in triumph, showing the dislodged key to the blonde seated on the far side of the room, but there was no acknowledgment from her whatsoever. "JJ!" She screamed her name again, but the response was the same. Nothing. She turned away from JJ and chanced a quick glance at the walls and realized, to her horror, they were less than five feet away. There wasn't an awful lot of time left, she estimated it would take roughly half a minute, a full one at the most, before the walls would close completely.

Letting out a guttural grunt of frustration, Emily tossed the cursed key in her hand away haphazardly and hunkered down to pick up another of the silver keys in haste. She couldn't afford to waste treasured time worrying about JJ right now.

Vroom.

The intensity was becoming unbearable, the urgency nearly driving her wild. Emily was moving faster than she had ever did, her hands shaking worse than ever before. She was acutely aware that she had to find the right key before the wall block off the keyhole. Otherwise, all that remained would be an absolute excruciating wait for an absolute horrifying demise for both her and JJ.

"Please let this work... Please let this work..." She prayed aloud as she shakily tried to insert the key. Her vision getting more and more blurry as warm tears continued to sting her eyes, but it was still clear enough for her to notice the frantic movements from out of the corner of her eye. She turned away from her task at hand for the briefest of moments to see JJ on her knees, bending over, shuffling through the keys on the floor. "JJ! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"

JJ didn't answer. She was far too occupied with riffling through the keys on the floor, trying to find it. Her hands picked up one key after another, examining them for a few seconds before tossing it away. She wasn't sure if she really did see it or it was her eyes playing cruel tricks on her, but there was nothing left to hold onto other than hope.

Hope that she had indeed, seen a marked key.

She had managed to catch a glimpse of the key, which had a black lining on the lower half of its body, before it got folded over into the heap around it and disappeared. The longer its image lingered in her mind, the more JJ was convinced she had seen it. The pressure from the wall in front of her forced her back, the pressure from the wall behind her drove her on. She had to find it. She must.

Vroom.

The walls were now just a couple of feet away from them.

"EMILY!" JJ cried out, almost in exhilaration, as she scrambled to get up on her feet, her hand holding up the marked key she found, her heart blooming with renewed hope. "TRY THIS! TRY THIS ONE!" She shouted, waving the key in the air as she rushed over to Emily.

Emily threw away the one she had and took the key from JJ without hesitation. There was no time for doubt, for questioning. Her hand quivered as she tried to slot it into the keyhole, the tip of the key poked and scratched the area around the opening several times before she finally got it in and immediately turned it.

For the first time, the key rotated a full circle and with a cluck, the door came unlocked. The two agents stood rooted to their spots with their jaw hung loose and simply stared at the lock, amazed, relieved, stupefied, immobilized in the state of surprise and disbelief. Emily still had the key grasped tightly between her fingers for fear that if she let go, the door might somehow locked itself again.

"It's unlocked..." JJ breathed out as she blinked her way back down to earth. "The door's unlocked... Emily, the door's unlocked! EMILY, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!" She exclaimed, shaking the other woman furiously.

Emily quickly snapped out of her stupor. It was hard not to, considering how JJ nearly blew out her eardrum by screaming right into her ear. She released her grip on the key straightaway and pushed the door open without second thought, without sparing a moment to take precaution.

The instant the door flew open, Emily's eyes widened with incredulity when she saw what's coming at them. "JAYJE, GET DOWN!"