Tracking

He cant take his own weight and so has an arm around my waist and is leaning against me.

"Not sure this is going to work."

He tells me. "We have no options Flanders. It has to work."

He adjusts his hat for the fiftieth time and takes a stumbling step forwards. "I can tell you that Spencer and Sam were both taken in the same vehicle. I'm not sure which way it went. We'll…you'll have to drive for a bit and let me get my bearings."

At least if we are driving it will feel like we are doing something. I walk him slowly to the passenger door and then help him in. I even open the window for him. "I need to be able to pick up the scent." He tells me, so I take out the pine air freshener and put it in the bin. He doesn't say 'thank you' and I didn't expect it.

Again I am thinking as I sit there ready to drive off with a murderer at my mercy in the passenger seat that I could drive him to jail…straight to jail…do not pass GO…do not – do not rescue Spencer – or Sam. I cant do it and he knows I cant do it. His head is resting against the door frame and as I slowly pull away he lets out a small moaning sound.

"What? What's wrong."

But he just waves his hand in a 'It doesn't matter' fashion and so I carry on.

"Do you want me to try to follow Spencer's trail or Sam's? The thing being this – from this point they went in different directions but I suspect they will join again later. Now…before you answer I need to say that Sam's trail is fresher and easier to follow."

I nod. "I understand." I think they are both together somewhere… "Follow Sam."

Flanders nods. "Good choice. Turn left." And so we are moving now. I can feel my nose is bleeding again and once more I wipe at it. I want to ask Flanders about it. What he knows about it…What the connections with everything is but when I turn quickly to look at him he has his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open and he is drooling.

"Are you OK there?"

"Uh…yeah."

But the drool is running down the side of his face and dripping off the edge of his jawline.

"You're drooling." I tell him.

And I glance over and watch a shaking pale hand wipe at the side of his face. "Having swallowing issues. It will pass. Just keep going." He tells me when we reach a junction. "Straight over."

"This leads out of the city." I am driving slowly with my hands holding onto the wheel so hard I'm afraid I'll break something. He doesn't answer me and I do wonder if this is really happening. Maybe I am in bed. Maybe I had an accident and I'm in hospital on life support. Maybe this is just a nightmare. There has to be a logical explanation. I feel something on my leg and look down to see Flanders hand resting there. I look up at the road again.

"What are you doing?" I feel the hand tighten on my thigh.

"Squeezing your leg…what do you think I'm doing?"

The hand beings a slow stroking crawl up my leg. "Stop it. Flanders remove your hand."

"I just wanted you to know…you know…that this is real."

I don't know how he knew what I was thinking. I don't know how he knows any of the things he does, but he knew and that is enough to bother me. "I know it's real. Remove it." And he does. He moves it to his face again and wipes at the drool collecting there again, but sits up slightly in the chair. "Now what?" I can see he is frowning.

A small shake of the head. "Just too much…so much…blood. Keep going. They join here. I have both tracks now. It will be easier to follow." And his hand which is still shaking and white wipes across his mouth.

I should have take time to get my sidearms. I should be armed….this is stupid. I could have got a cab in the time I was waiting and gone back for my things. Yet I know really that I would never have left the car unattended for that long. I glance at him again. The hat looks good on him. He is a hat sort of person. I'm not. Well except for my pirates hat – and I expect Flanders would look better dressed as a pirate than I would.

"I don't know what we are going to do when we get there." I tell him.

"I don't have a clue either. I think I might have just pissed myself by the way."

Wonderful. He cant walk. He is incontinent and I am unarmed. What on earth are we doing? It does cross my mind that we should stop and arm ourselves, but with what? "Any clue what we are up against?"

He looks over at me with spittle dripping off his chin. "Five men. Armed. I think five. I can only sense five anyway – in the vehicles. I don't know what is where we are going. I wont know until we get there.

-o-o-o-

They put something over my head.

I cant breathe.

"Just walk."

I cant see.

"WALK!" And something hard is smacked across my back. I want to move my hands up and pull the thing away from my face but they've secured it in place with ties. I cant. I tried.

"Please. I cant breathe." And they are leaving Sam. They cant leave Sam. I need them to bring him so he can try to heal. "Bring the boy." I say, but the answer is another swipe across my back this time knocking me to the floor.

"Crawl." I am on my hands and knees and there is suddenly no air. Again I pull at the ties around the bag they have secured over my head and when I don't move they start kicking me.

I need to breathe.

I need to pull in some air.

I need to – oh god. They kick me and I try to do what they want. I try to crawl. The sweat is dripping off my face onto the thick fabric of the bag covering my face. I can hear them laughing and calling. "Crawly doggy crawl." And more kicks to my legs and arms knocking me back down again. I can vaguely feel as one set boots is impacting with my side that hands are at my neck…and a strange sense of relief at the thought they are going to remove this thing from my head, but they don't. The add something. They tie it around my neck.

"Come along little doggy." And they drag me and kick me at the same time. I cant get up. I cant defend. I cant breathe, and Sam. I have left Sam. Floyd will kill me. Floyd will skin me alive for this and my fear of what Floyd is going to do to me far outweighs what these people have in store.

I want to tell them they must bring Sam or I wont cooperate but I don't get the chance. The rope tightens around me neck and as I am jerked forwards of my hands I am dragged across the dirt outside the building I have been held in.

Then nothing.

-o-o-o-

"Right. Go right." I turn and can see he is sitting up a bit more in the chair and licking at his lips.

"This goes to an industrial estate. Warehouses." I tell him and rub at the tickling on my nose.

"They went this way. I can smell it…I can smell it." His hands move so they are holding onto the bottom edge of the window. "Something is wrong." I thought for a minute he was going to throw him self out of the window. He leans right out and I can see him taking in the air. It is probably about five minutes later that he points out a building.

"Stop…pull over." He pushes him self back into the car and sits staring at a warehouse dead in front of us.

"Is this it?"

He nods slowly. "Do you have a cunning plan Agent Aaron Hotchner? Cos I'm not able to get over there on my own… but…actually help me out. Something is wrong."

I switch off the engine and turn to look at him. "Wrong? In what way wrong? And I have no plan. I don't know how many people are there."

He does a strange curl or his lip at me. "No one. One. One person and a lot of blood." And now he is opening the car door and unclipping his harness. "Help me out damnit!"

I get out of the vehicle quickly and move around to his side of the car where he is sliding sideways out into the dirt. "We are too late." He is muttering to himself as he falls to the ground. "Go and check it out. Leave me here."

I'm looking over at the building and down at Flanders. Why am I trusting him? I bend down and grab his under the arms and pull him upright. He stinks. He is vile in every respect but I'm not leaving him helpless in the dirt. "You can come with me. If we are too late – if they have gone then it doesn't matter."

"Too late for Spencer. Let the fuck go of me and check out who the hell is still in there…my sense are confused…too many smells."

But I'm not about to do that. Again I am wondering why the hell I am trusting this person and so I don't do as he is demanding…I drag him with me across the dirt towards the doors. We are nearly there when Flanders speaks again. "Wait…fuck…wait a minute…let me go."

"No, you're coming in with me." I move forward again.

"Hotchner – here – something happened here – Let me down."

I look down and can see the marks in rough ground from the tyres of a wide vehicle. A van or and SUV maybe. I lower him down carefully where he settles on his hands and knees and moves his fingers over the ground. He then lifts them to his face and licks them. I just stand and watch. I don't now what he is doing or how he does it. But have to try to trust him.

"They dragged him. He is bleeding, but alive. They dragged him out this way."

"Reid?" I crouch down next to him. "You are sure?"

He looks at me with his head slightly on one side. "Yes I'm sure. He is hurt but alive." And now he is looking at the doors leading into the building. "Which means it is Sam still in there." I look around for something, anything I can use as a weapon but the area is devoid of anything I can use. Floyd is already on his way crawling to the door. I move out in front of him and stand in front of the door with my hand on the handle. Too much trust I know. I don't know what I am thinking. I look back at Flanders who has stopped moving and is now curling up into a ball on the ground. There is nothing for it. I have to go in. The door pulls…so I push the handle down and pull it open. It makes a slight squeak but nothing bad. There are lights on in the room…a huge room with dark shadows in the corners and around the edges. I listen carefully for sounds but all there is, is the occasional scuttling of small rodents and a steady dripping of water from somewhere. I keep my back to the wall and keeping in the shadows I move slowly around the room.

I am looking for Sam. I don't know what to expect when I find him. I just know it's not going to be nice. My eyes catch something in the middle of the room. A pillar and something handing from it. I run my fingers through my hair as I try to get my eyes to adjust to it and I take some steps forwards.

"Sam?" and as I move nearer I realise what the dripping sound is. "Oh my god." And I am running.

I put my arms around his waist and lift him slightly to take the weight off his arms. "Sam." I say again…I need him to wake up. "Wake up…I'll help you."

-o-o-o-

They drag me by my feet out of the back of the van and pull me to my feet. I don't know exactly where we are but I can take a wild guess. Apart from it being a forest obviously.

"Move." I am pushed forwards. Come on Floyd. I am here…come and get me. Find me. I stumble down the animal trail and can hear the engine of the van starting up again. A quick glance around shows me that there are four people with me now. So one has taken the van away. "Find what you need. Quickly."

I give a cursory glance around and even go to a tree and touch the bark as though I know what I am doing. "We need to go deeper." I say with a false confidence I hope that they cant see. I hope they cant read my lies. I don't know what I am looking for. I really have no idea….but still I pluck out a couple of large leaves and hold them between my hands rubbing my fingers over them. Just make it look like you know what you are doing. Just keep stalling them…Floyd will find me…He wont let me down.

Then I remember Sam.

And I wonder…will he even be thinking of me if he finds Sam hanging there bleeding. Is Sam dead? Will he tell his father that I tried to help?

As I walk I occasionally pick a leaf or berry and hold them tightly in my hand. I have no idea what will happen if I am asked to smoke this. I know I will be sick and so I just have to stall them for as long as possible.

"You nearly done? Because you know if you are taking the piss I will put a bullet in your head as quickly as I did your boyfriends."

I stand and close my eyes. They shot Floyd in the head? The forest is spinning around me as I try to think what to do next. "I just need a couple more things." I mutter and walk to the side of the track picking a mushroom thing and breaking a bit of a green moss off the edge of a tree. "I need to prepare it." So now what? How on earth do a prepare this handful of 'stuff'? I look around and make a decision. I snap a bit of bark off a tree and pull a stone out of the earth and sit on the edge of the trail. They are standing watching and I don't know if this is going to work. I really have no clue what I am doing here but I have to do something. I place the two big leaves to the side. "Where is the other guy?"

I ask as I start to grind the things together. I don't get an answer though.

When I have what looks something like something…I'm not sure what I pick up the leaves and place the mixture on it. I then curl the leaf around it and roll it up.

"I don't know how well this will work." I tell them. "The mixture is a bit damp…I'm not sure it will burn." I show them the odd looking thing I have made and I am give one match and something to strike it against. I place it between my lips and flick a flame onto the end and take a drag enough to make the end smoulder. They are watching me. They are watching closely and I need to make this look good. I have absolutely no intention of inhaling this muck. The smell of it burning is enough to make my stomach churn.

Slowly I stand.

I lean against a tree and I take another false lung full. The smell if so vile it is making my head spin.

He's not coming.

Floyd's not coming.

I have to do this alone.

I still have in my hand the stone I used for grinding. Trying not to let them see what I am about to do and just leaning on the tree smoking this 'thing' I lob the stone. It has the desired effect of causing them to turn and as they do – I push away from the tree, dropping the smoke, and I run. I run into the deepest darkest bit of the forest I can find and I have no intention of stopping just because they are bellowing at me.

"Stop now or I open fire you little shit."