"Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness."
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
It took JJ a few moments to get over her shock. "How did you-" The little girl standing in front of her cut her off.
"Your bobby pin." She held it up with a bright smile. "Now let's go before he gets back from work!" She exclaimed holding her hand out for JJ to take.
Getting over her surprise, JJ let the adrenaline take over. She walked over to Susie and took her hand, leading her out of the room and down a dark, narrow hallway. At the end there was a single door and JJ reached reluctantly for the handle, but knowing this could be their only chance she yanked it open. She let out a sigh of relief when it turned out to be a living room on the other side. It all looked completely normal, almost too normal for someone with psychopathic tendencies. She wanted to look around a little bit more, but knew that they didn't have that kind of time. On the other end of the neat room was another door, which she could see through the surrounding windows that it lead to outside. Pulling Susie with her, she jogged hastily to the door and jerked it open. Her heart dropped at the sight on the other side. Driving up to the house was Shane's sinister dark green truck. When he parked in the driveway JJ hopped into the bushes and Susie followed.
Shane was whistling a song as he climbed out. He walked to the backseat and opened the door, pulling something out. JJ struggled to see through the branches, but from what she could tell whatever he was pulling out was heavy. Once it was finally out of the car, JJ realized exactly what it was; a little blonde boy. He looked to be about 10 or 11 and was giving Shane one hell of a struggle to get away. He was kicking and swinging blindly with his small fists. That boy reminded her of Henry…which made her heart ache for him. She couldn't just leave him there. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shovel leaning against the house. Perfect. JJ thought as she turned to Susie, bending down so that they were at the same eye level.
"Susie…" JJ started, trying to figure out how to explain what she was about to do.
"Yea?" She whispered back.
"I want you to wait here while I go out there and help that little boy. When I yell run I want you to come out and with that boy, run as fast as you can to get away from here. Can you do that?" JJ asked softly, putting her hands on the small girl's shoulders.
"W-what about you?" Susie's eyes were swimming now.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be okay." JJ gave her a reassuring look and then a tight hug.
"I-I don't wanna leave you." Susie complained.
"Everything's going to be fine." JJ gave her a light kiss on the forehead. "Are you ready?" She asked and then picked up the shovel.
"Y-yea." Susie sounded nervous, but JJ had to trust that the girl would do as she said and get out of here.
Through the branches JJ saw Shane starting to guide the boy towards the house. This was her chance. Once he passed the bush they were in she tiptoed out, jogged up behind them and then struck Shane in the head with the shovel. He fell to the ground like dead weight and let out a moan. JJ advanced and pulled the blindfold off of the boy's face. He looked completely confused, but she didn't have time to explain. Instead she just yelled, "RUN!" As the words escaped her mouth the boy in front of her darted away and Susie was quick to follow. JJ saw that Shane was starting to get up so she clutched her shovel. Once he was on his feet, he pulled out a knife and waved it at her.
"Jennifer…Jennifer…Jennifer. I thought you would learn." Shane shook his head.
JJ didn't respond she only swung the shovel blindly at him to connect with his midsection. Her shoulder stung slightly from the sudden use of her irritated muscles. Shane hunched in pain over for a fraction of a second and then advanced quickly, pulling the shovel out of her grasp by the bottom. Now she was defenseless.
Shane smirked and put his knife away, now only holding the shovel; it was a better weapon…a more painful, but less fatal weapon. He let out a laugh that sent a chill down JJ's spine and then swung the shovel at her. She dodged, lifted up a nearby flowerpot and threw it at him. He moved out of the way and immediately swung the shovel again. This time it connected against the side of JJ's head, making her vision blur. That momentary lapse gave him enough time to swing again and hit her hip, making her fall over. Everything was still blurry and she had a terrible headache, but she ignored the protest from her body and got to her feet again.
"Wow…I forgot how much fight you have, Jen. It's delightful." Shane chuckled.
"You're…you're a monster." JJ's spoke slowly because her head was still throbbing. She felt like the world was still spinning. As he swung for another blow to her head she managed to duck away from it, but he quickly brought it back around to hit her on her side. She coughed and then he swung it again to make the metal collide with the side of her face. The last hit made her fall over again for the second time.
"Pathetic." Shane said powerfully. She heard his footsteps walking towards her, probably to finish her off, but at least she had the security of knowing that she had helped those kids escaped. She was the reason they were alive and that was enough to give her comfort despite the pain that came from the next few painful kicks that he aimed at her midsection. He pulled her off the ground and gave her a hard punch in the face, but she didn't even bother to open her eyes let alone fight back. She fell to the ground again in a powerless heap. Before he started to attack her again she heard him let out a screech. What was happening? To answer her own question she opened her good eye to a squint. Shane struggling against something…someone. Her vision was still blurred. It took a few blinks for it to finally clear a little bit and for her to realize what was going on.
Shane was hunched over, struggling to get a small girl off of his back. It was Susie. She had come back to help JJ, but unfortunately it didn't prevail. He shook her off easily and then pushed her to the ground where she started to cry from the violent action.
JJ's heart fell at the sound, but she felt too weak to move. She heard Shane pull Susie off of the ground and had to be holding her in a way that she couldn't get away. He forced her back into the house and then a few minutes later he came back and roughly carried JJ inside, back to the room they had started in. Even though he had been violent before, he actually took out the bandage he had promised to bring and then wrapped it around her bullet wound.
"Sorry." She heard him mutter, but it wasn't enough. She would never forgive him. He lifted her off the ground and laid her down on the soft surface of the bed before leaving the two of them alone in the room again.
"JJ…" Susie sounded concerned, but the woman didn't bother to open her eyes. It took too much energy, all she wanted to do in that moment was sleep.
"Hmmm?" JJ asked resignedly.
"I'm sorry." Susie's voice cracked as she started to sob. That made JJ realize that she did need to open her eyes and comfort the girl.
JJ lifted her eyes open and then looked over at Susie. Fatigue washed through her body, but she tried to stay awake. "For what?" She asked curiously. This girl had nothing to be sorry for. She had, after all, just saved a federal agent's life.
"Y-you told me to leave, but w-when I saw you…you were laying on the ground…and you didn't get up. I-I…I had to help. That boy he kept running…he'll get help, right?" Susie sniffed, her small blue eyes were puffy and JJ saw the tear stains on her face.
"Of course. They'll be here soon. We just have to be tough for a couple more days; do you think you can do that?" JJ asked her.
"Yea…" Susie said hesitantly.
"Good. Now come on we should get some sleep." JJ scooted backwards in the bed while trying to ignore the searing pain that the action causing. Hopefully she wouldn't be that sore in the morning. In front of her, Susie climbed into the bed and JJ wrapped her arms around her. The darkness engulfed the pair and neither of them knew what the light of the new day would bring.
"Hotch!" Morgan called, running through the San Francisco Police Department. He pushed through a crowd of officers to reach his unit chief. The man was panting slightly from his urgent jog, but he still tried to convey his message. "T-they found…" he panted, stopping for a moment to catch his breath.
Hotch's expression dropped. Did they find JJ's body? He needed to know right now, "Spit it out, Morgan!" He exclaimed callously.
"They…found…." He was still breathless, "a boy along a dirt road a couple counties over. He's the boy who was abducted early yesterday. He claims that he escaped from the unsub." He explained quickly with eagerness coursing through his veins. They had finally found something.
Hotch's eyes lit up. "Get him down here."
"He's already on his way."
This surprised Hotch. "Good. Thanks Morgan, let me know when he gets here." He walked into the room where the evidence board was. On it's surface was a picture of the first couple victims, Susie, JJ and the boy they had just discovered, Luke. The unit chief's eyes rested on JJ's picture, he recognized it from somewhere, but he wasn't completely sure. All he knew was that then, she had been happy. The smile on her face expressed that perfectly and the cheerfulness that glowed in her eyes made the corners of Hotch's mouth bend upwards. He didn't know why, but he'd always felt a connection with JJ. They both had a lot in common; they both had kids, they had both lost someone close to them, they were both always the last two people in the offices at night and she seemed to have the same passion in this line of work that he did. That link they had together always made him oddly protective over her, but now? His mouth returned to its normal frown. He'd failed his job, but no matter what it took he would get her back. It was his responsibility and he wasn't going to fail her again. Not at a time like this.
There was a knock on the door before Reid joined him in the room. "Hotch, Luke Hannagan just got here with his parents. Morgan is in the room right now, but hasn't started questioning yet." He explained swiftly.
Hotch nodded at his comment without taking his eyes off the board. He crossed his arms over his just and then replied, "I'll be there."
Reid turned to leave, but right before he reached the door he faced Hotch again. "You miss her, don't you?" He asked.
"What ever happened to the 'don't profile your team members' rule Reid?" Hotch retorted with an aggravated edge on his voice.
"It's okay to miss people, Hotch." Reid answered, ignoring the unit chief's other stubborn answers, "We all miss her and…I know you two were close so it's okay to miss her and it's okay to let people in." He sighed and turned around to leave again.
"I do miss her." Hotch said just as Reid made it to the doorway for the second time. "I keep sitting here and thinking that the one person who could help us figure this out is JJ. She always brings the new perspective, you know?" He sighed, "I just wish that I could help her somehow, but right now…we don't have anything…"
"Yes we do." Reid replied, "We have everything…we just need to figure out how it fits together and when we do…we'll get her back."
Another sigh escaped Hotch's lips before he turned around. "Alright…let's go and see what Luke can tell us." He walked out of the room after Reid and the two profilers walked into the room outside of the interrogation room where they watch the questioning through the two-way mirror. Morgan was sitting across from a small blonde boy and a tired, tear-stricken blonde woman sitting next to him. They both assumed that this was Luke and his mom. A few moments after their arrival, Morgan walked out of the room and up to Hotch for instructions.
"Just ask him basic questions. Figure out where he was, who took him, if JJ and Susie were alive, and how he got away." Hotch ordered quickly.
Morgan seemed to have gotten it all and he walked back into the other room to join Luke and his mother again. On the other side of the mirror, Hotch and Reid were listening for anything that stuck out to them as important.
"Alright Luke we're ready to start." Morgan smiled unthreateningly. He glanced down at the case file, "It says here that you were taken in the supermarket. How did that happen?" He asked.
"My mom went to go check out and I had to use the bathroom. Once I finished and started to leave someone grabbed me from behind. He must have taken me out the back way thought because no one saw anything." Luke explained. This boy seemed very well-spoken.
"Where did he take you?"
Luke's eyebrows creased in thought. "He put a blindfold on me so I couldn't see, but from the supermarket it was a pretty long drive. Longer than back to my house and longer than the drive here. I think it was more than an hour." He told them.
"When you got there, what happened?"
"The man took me out of the car and grabbed me by the back of my neck. He started to lead me somewhere when I heard footsteps coming behind us and then there was a crash and the man let go of my neck." Luke started, "A few seconds later…someone pulled my blindfold off. It was a woman…she was blonde and had really pretty blue eyes. She looked at me and then yelled at me to run, so I did. A girl followed me, she was blonde too. We both heard fighting in the background as we ran and we both turned around for a second. The man, he was blonde too, was fighting the blonde woman. He swung the shovel, but missed and she threw a flower pot at him. He swung the shovel again and hit her in the head and then a second time…somewhere else. She was down for a few seconds, but then got up again." He explained, "I told the girl we needed to keep running so we went a little further, but she turned around again to look. This time when we looked back…the man hit the woman in the side and face with the shovel. She fell and didn't get up. She just laid there and I thought she was dead, but I knew we had to keep going. I was gonna tell the girl to come, but she started running back to the house. I hid behind a tree because we were far enough away and watched what happened. The man was kicking the woman over and over, but she didn't move at all and then he picked her up and hit her in the face. She hit the ground hard after that and still didn't move. The girl I had been with was back by then and she jumped on the man's back. It wasn't long before he had shaken her off and took her back inside. A few minutes later he took the woman inside again too." He sighed and stared at the table. "I ran after that…and didn't look back."
Morgan was speechless for a moment.
Reid looked at Hotch, "Is JJ dead?"
"I don't know, Reid…" Hotch paused. "I just don't know."
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
Albert Einstein