A/N: Thank you SO MUCH for the warm welcome despite my hiatus, guys! That was unexpected and wonderful and made me VERY HAPPY (imagine the heart emoji here).

As promised, here is the next chapter. Things are getting kind of creepy...

The usual disclaimer applies.

Hush, my darling, don't you cry

Hotch stops his car and gets out. Morgan and Rossi are already there.

"Anything?" Hotch asks.

They are at the address Reid found.

"No." Morgan shakes his head. "The address is no more than a mailbox. A ploy to lure us here."

They fall silent for a moment, aware that the main purpose was to lure not them but Emily here and that they unintentionally played into the hands of that, the fact that they can't find her confirming their worst fear.

"Let's not draw hasty conclusions," says Rossi, as always the circumspect one. "She could be anywhere."

"Yeah," Morgan agrees whereas Hotch keeps quiet.

Approximately an hour ago he was still in bed with Emily, the previous night dwindling into a feverish dream in light of the current events. Hotch is certain that something happened, something bad. Emily had a head start and used it to get here alone, but she would have waited for them or given them notice what happened, what she was about to do next, if she'd had the chance. She is stubborn and adamant to take care of herself, but she is also professional, wouldn't place herself in danger unnecessarily. It all boils down to the truth that evil has found its way in his life another time.

"No," Hotch eventually objects with gritted teeth. "He has her and we need to find her."

Whatever it is between him and Emily, it only has begun; he won't lose her.

It's cold. Why is it so cold? Emily moves and groans. Her head feels as if it has shattered into a thousand pieces, her vision blurry. She tries to sit up, her hands fumbling around, feeling dusty concrete. She is lying on the floor. When she pushes herself up, it causes nausea in an instant. She coughs; her throat is dry. Focus, she urges herself, fight the sickness. Emily takes several deep breaths and pushes herself up again in a sitting position. The nausea is not as bad anymore, but she still feels dizzy and feeble. It's dark; however she can make out vague forms. She is in a windowless room, a basement perhaps. As far as Emily can tell, the room is empty, the door ajar, letting a glimmer of light seep in.

Standing up is difficult; she is wobbly on her legs, stumbling over to the wall to steady herself against it. Only then Emily is able to approach the door, pushing it open carefully. It gives way with a quiet squeak, leading to a long hallway with countless other doors, the floor filthy, the plaster peeling off the walls. An abandoned building; no one has been here for a very long time.

Emily steps in the hallway. God, every muscle hurts. What happened? She tries to remember, still fuzzy-headed. Reid called her and told her about the address he had found on the shreds of paper. And then? She got her gun and drove over there. A twinge of guilt floods through her that she left Hotch like that after they had just spent the night together. Not exactly an ordinary first date. Then again, nothing about them, their past or their present is ordinary. And now she is here. Maybe there will be no second date either way.

She shakes off the dark thoughts, has to remember what happened in order to plan her escape. Emily was aware that it had to be a trap when she arrived at the address Reid had given her, but it was somewhere midtown, people all around. It didn't seem dangerous. She expected it to be the place where she would receive further instructions that would lead her somewhere else, someplace where the real danger would wait for her. Something must have happened there. Otherwise she wouldn't be here.

The back of her neck hurts; Emily instinctively touches it, feeling a prick and a slight swelling around it. Of course. How could she have been so stupid? Because she had expected Ian to be behind all of it; that's why. Because she knows him. Ian Doyle confronts people, goes straight for the throat. Emily had been so blinded by their twisted history, by her assumption what would happen that she wasn't on the lookout against someone sneaking up on her, someone who would inject her with something that immediately made her defenseless. The perfect trap. An abduction while everyone was watching. She remembers now...

The prick. The dizziness. She tumbled.

Take care, honey.

A man grabbed her, surprisingly gently as if they knew each other, taking care of her or at least pretending to do so as he was pulling her towards a car. Some pedestrians asked if they needed help.

We're good, thanks. My wife is feeling sick; she's pregnant. I'm taking her home.

The last thing Emily remembers is being pushed in a car, desperately trying to resist, but her muscles were like jelly. She couldn't speak anymore, couldn't think, her consciousness fading fast. And then nothing until now.

She walks down the hallway. There has to be a specific reason as to why she is here. No one makes such an effort without a purpose. Whoever it was who took her, it wasn't Ian, though, as she had expected. She didn't see the man's face; he approached her from behind, but she remembers a firm grip, being pressed against a tall body with well-defined muscles. And a voice. Take care, honey. Soothing, friendly. A sharp contrast to the threatening situation. However it was not Ian's body, not Ian's voice. And not the body or the voice of an old man either, ruling out the priest unless he has an accomplice.

Her steps create an echo. Walking is helping her to feel better, Emily's muscles getting adjusted to movement again with every step she takes, her stomach calming down. The only aftereffect left, aside from a blinding headache, is a funny taste in her mouth. She has no idea how long she was out cold. More than 12 hours? More than a day? Considering the way her body is affected, it must have been quite a while. Hotch has to be worried about her. The thought hits her out of the blue and she pushes it to the back of her mind immediately. She can't allow herself to think of him right now. This is purely about survival.

There is door next to door on both sides of the hallway, all closed. Emily tries some of the handles, anyway, but the doors are locked as is the door at the end of the hallway. No way out. Just as she turns around, looking back at where she came from, reflecting what to do next, the door closest to her opens as if by an invisible hand. The room is empty save for a chair in the middle of it and a bottle of water on the floor.

It could be another trap, most likely is, but there are no other options left. She has to play his game, at least to some extent, to find his weakness and use it against him. Emily enters the room warily, only now seeing the note next to the bottle of water. Drink it. No more sedatives. Her mouth is dry, her throat burns, the headache… She is dehydrated and needs water to fight the effects of the drug he gave her. To hell with it. Emily picks the bottle up and drinks the water greedily, savoring the relief for her parched throat.

She expected the door to close behind her while she was drinking, but nothing happened. When Emily turns around, eying the open door, she freezes though. At first she doesn't even recognize what it is. It looks like a pile of tattered clothes that someone attached to the ceiling above the door. Then she makes out limbs, an arm here, a leg there, and some grimy hair. It's no pile of clothes hanging above her. These are bodies. It's been a while that Emily has seen a body, let alone several of them displayed in such a disgusting way. Nevertheless, logical thinking and experience kick in straightaway. She wonders why there is no smell, considering the stages of decay she should smell something, but then she sees the ventilation system. However he did it, he has managed to keep the air in this filthy room with these rotten bodies as fresh as possible.

"Sit down."The voice startles her, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

Emily looks around. There has to be a camera somewhere, but she doesn't see one. Maybe he hid it among the bodies.

"Don't make me say it again." A trifle annoyed but still sounding condescending and amused as if this was just a game and she simply a reluctant participant.

Again she doesn't see any other option than to play along. Emily sits down on the chair that faces the door, the bodies practically dangling above her head.

Some kind of slide show starts, projecting pictures onto the wall. A middle-aged man, homeless judging by his appearance, a note saying Thief applied to his threadbare coat. Another man of similar appearance, only younger, the note saying Fraud. An old woman. Adulteress. Emily wants to close her eyes so as to not connect the faces with the lifeless limbs, but she knows she can't look away, not if she wants to survive. Anything could be a clue.

Another picture, another man. This time, however, Emily's entire body tenses. It's the priest of her youth, the one who cursed her. Even if he is older now, of course, she recognized him in an instant, wouldn't have thought she could, but obviously there are some faces you never forget. Traitor, his note reads. Emily looks up reflexively, searching for the priest's body. She doesn't find him albeit he is there, somewhere; she is sure of that.

So it's not Doyle behind all of this and not the priest. Then who is it? Does the voice talking to her out of nowhere belong to the man who sedated her? She can't tell, the speakers distorting it. Now that she has had some water, Emily's body and mind crave for a break to recuperate. Despite the gruesome situation, she is drained, the adrenaline rush of coming to in this gruesome place subsiding until the next picture makes her pulse go sky high.

It's a picture of her, unconscious on the floor with a note that says Murderer.

To be continued