Hello again. There's a time jump near the end--I'll do a "rewind" in the next chapter to fill in the gap.

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine. Sadly.

The dust settled, and Reid slowly began picking himself up off the ground. "Is anyone hurt?" he asked, keeping his voice a whisper. He knew it was for naught, considering the amount of noise they'd just made—a herd of elephants in full stampede would have been quieter—but he still wanted to prolong the imminent 'punishment' he knew the Kites would give them as long as possible.

There was a chorus of soft 'no's that came in reply. Elisha coughed, her illness getting the better of her for a moment.

Standing up, Reid tried to gauge how deep a hole he and the girls were in. Even when he reached his fingers over his head to their limit, he still couldn't reach the top.

Probably about eight feet, he reasoned. What on earth was this put here for? To catch a bear? A deer? Or as a measure to keep escaping captives from getting too far?

My luck, probably all three.

Carrie straightened herself out and began running her hands along the slick earth walls. "There's nowhere to grab onto," she cried softly. "We can't climb out…"

Climb out…

Thinking quickly, Reid knelt down next to Carrie. "How tall are you?" he asked.

Carrie shrugged. "Maybe…four-nine? Why?"

Knowing he was going to hurt like the devil afterwards, Reid sat himself next to the wall. "Climb onto my shoulders," he told the girl.

Carrie did, after a few hesitant starts. Though she was small, she was solid, and it took Reid a few tries to be able to lift the girl up. "Can you reach the top of the ground?" he called up, still keeping his voice quiet as possible.

"Yeah."

"Reach around for something to hold onto, and use it to pull yourself out."

There was a soft tapping and scratching sound as Reid and the girls heard Carrie searching for something on the ground. After a few minutes, something rustled above them.

"Got …." She never finished the sentence.

"Well, now," a familiar voice crooned. "Look what the cat dragged in."

Carrie screamed, and began flailing her arms back, trying to push herself back into the hole. A strong pair of hands caught her by the arm and pulled her off of Reid's shoulders, kicking and screaming.

"Now," said the voice—it was one Reid instantly recognized—"I know that you don't have four-foot legs, so how is it you could reach the top of that trap…?"

Reid sank to the ground once again, praying that the voice's owner wouldn't look in.

He wasn't that lucky.

"Well, now, pretty boy," cackled Patrick. "Looks like you fell into a hole."

"Let her go," Reid shouted, mustering up all the courage he had. "Let her go and leave us alone."

"You're in no position to be telling me to do anything, boy," Patrick snapped. "'s high time these girls learned their place here—perhaps a private lesson would cure this one of her 'itchy feet'…" He chuckled, an evil tone to his laughter.

"Don't!" cried Beth, who sprang up next to Reid. "Please, just lave us alone?"

"Ohhhh," Patrick crooned. "You've got company in there…"

Poking his head into the hole, he saw Reid fallen on the ground; Elisha and Maria had tried to use the young agent as a shield, hiding as much of themselves underneath Reid as they could. Beth was standing next to the three, alternating between furious glares and pleading looks.

"Seems the Elder told you to stay away from these girls," Patrick said in a mock-patronizing sort of voice.

Reid said nothing. He was busy berating himself for letting them get caught.

Soon there was a cacophony of sounds above his head. Footsteps mixed with the cocking of rifles and loud shouts.

"What's going on here, Patrick?" came another familiar voice. Reid recognized it as the Elder's voice.

"That boy defied orders, sir," Patrick said, his tone at once submissive. "Tried to escape; managed to get himself caught. Seems he had a little company," he added, noting the struggling girl caught in his grasp.

The Elder poked his head down into the hole. His face at once turned beet-red and his eyes snapped with anger.

"Pull them out," he barked.

Below, the girls sank closer to the ground, trying to avoid the ropes and extended hands that meant to pull them back into their personal hell.

"Take the ropes," the Elder ordered. Below him, no one moved a muscle.

Pulling a rifle out of a nearby hand, the Elder pointed it straight at the small group huddled at the bottom of the pit. "Take them, or so help me I'll shoot you myself." He cocked the rifle and pointed it straight at Reid to emphasize his point.

Below, Reid stared up into the barrel of the weapon, swallowing hard. It wasn't that he was afraid to die; rather, it was the thought of the girls unprotected that scared him more.

"Girls, do what he says," Reid said as calmly as possible, trying not to frighten them further.

"No," sobbed Maria.

"I'm not going back there," said Beth flatly.

Elisha just cried, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Listen to me," Reid whispered. "There are people that will be looking for me, and for you too. If we do what he says, we can go back and wait for my friends to come and help us."

The girls looked at Reid for a minute, saying nothing.

"They're really coming?" Beth asked.

"I promise," Reid replied softly. For all our sakes, I hope so.

Hesitantly, the girls each took one of the ropes and allowed themselves to be pulled out. Once they were collected, Reid could hear the cries and protests of each girl as they were dragged back to the Kites' encampment.

Reid let out a long breath. They're all right. For the moment, anyway…

A rope fell near Reid's head. Heaving a sigh, he unwillingly took it in his hands and let himself be pulled up.

Once he reached the top, two pairs of strong hands seized the young agent. Reid struggled, just wanting to be left alone, but a vicious backhand across the face stopped him cold.

"I warned you, boy," the Elder growled. "I told you to stay away from those girls. I also told you not to try escaping. And what did you do?!"

Reid began to speak, but another strike to his thin frame knocked his words out of him. He gasped, trying to recover his breath.

"Not a word," the Elder snapped. "Mark me, I should just shoot you now and be done with you, all the trouble you've been."

The young agent's eyes widened. He began breathing erratically, trying to quell the insane fear that rose in his throat.

"If I may," Patrick began slowly.

"What?"

"'Could use him as an object lesson. A 'reminder' to those girls what happens when they misbehave."

The Elder stood for a moment, considering his youngest brother's words. After a long few minutes, he finally lifted the rifle and turned towards Patrick.

"What do you have in mind?"

Even with another five hours of sleep, Emily did not feel rested enough to go through another day of expert wilderness hiking. She turned and looked at their guide, who had once again 'kept watch' while everyone else slept. How the hell does she do it? she thought.

The foursome had managed to avoid another plethora of pitfalls, snares, smooth bear traps (Hotch still managed to set those off, though not as frequently now). It simply boggled Emily's mind that these people could navigate their way through all of this.

"It's a wonder that these haven't been set off," she said, once again keeping her voice low.

"Well, ma'am, no one really gets this far," Katie said simply.

"I mean, by the wild animals and such."

"Oh." There was a pause. "I'm sure they do, now and again; wouldn't surprise me if they didn't check a lot of these regularly for just that very thing," the girl replied.

"Do they eat whatever they catch?" Emily asked.

"If it can be, yeah, I would assume."

There was a rustling up ahead, followed by a large thud. Katie stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes wide.

Hotch reached for his ankle—though Katie had advised not bringing firearms with them, he just couldn't go through the trek without some sort of protection. 21 feet or no 21 feet, he was pretty sure these Kites would have firepower of their own.

Morgan tensed. Like Emily, he was running on borrowed energy, and he really didn't want to face these crazy people on less than 100 percent.

The four stood perfectly still for a few moments, trying to blend in with the surrounding trees. After about five minutes, Katie cautiously started toward the origin of the sound.

"It's all right," she called back, waving them over.

Hotch was the first to arrive, and he lowered his pistol only when he saw the source of the sound—it was a large tree limb that had fallen from its perch.

"Scary," said Emily, looking up. The limb had to have fallen nearly twenty feet.

"Look out," Katie said, gently pushing everyone to one side. She ran her toes along a line that appeared in the dirt. Picking up a section of the broken branch, she tossed it over about a foot.

The branch landed on the green cover, then sank another eight or so feet. "Pitfall," she said. "That was close."

"That's like the fourth one we've run into," Morgan commented. "How many of these things are there?

"A lot."

There was something else lying on the ground. It glittered in the sporadic sunlight.

"What is that?" Hotch asked.

Morgan knelt down next to the shiny object. Running his hands over the ground nearby, he replied "It's a spike. Lots of 'em."

"We're almost there," Katie said. "The barbed-wire lines."

At nightfall, the foursome reached the edge of the treeline.

"Stop there," Katie called out in a hushed whisper.

The three agents soon saw why. Not more than a foot away from the trees, the ground sank into a steep fall, creating a wide flat plain surrounded on one side by a natural breakwall. The three agents and their guide stood there a minute, able to see everything that was happening in the little encampment below.

"Take these," Katie said, producing two pairs of binoculars. "Make sure to cover the tops with your hands—you don't want to give us away."

Hotch and Morgan took the binoculars and laid out on their stomachs. The cover was excellent, and provided them with a good view of what was going on below.

"We'll have to wait a day," Hotch said finally. "We need to know what these people's movements are like, and we need to find out where they're keeping Reid and the girls."

Katie settled in, once again preparing for a long, sleepless night.