Silence in the Scars

By: A.M. Anderson

Chapter 13: Dead End

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds nor the characters. I do own my characters. Warning: Slight mentions of rape. Violence and swearwords.

"This is everything we have on Mullery," Riley set a cardboard box in front of the team.

"Our technical analyst found some more information as well," Hotch said as opened the box and pulled out one of the files.

"Okay Penelope, you're on speaker so behave," Morgan said as he switched his phone to speaker so everyone could hear.

"Or what?" Penelope Garcia's asked. "You'll spank me?" Morgan rolled his eyes and Riley looked at the phone with some confusion.

"Garcia," Hotch's stern tone made her blush.

"Um right," Garcia muttered, highly embarrassed. "Well one scumbag, Jack Mullery has quite the record. I went ahead and unsealed his records."

"Isn't that illegal?" Riley asked.

"Only if you get caught," Garcia replied. "Any ways, he was arrested six different times before his 18th birthday."

"What were the charges?" JJ asked from her spot against the door frame.

"Shoplifting, assault, resisting arrest, two assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of attempted rape," Garcia reeled off.

"Who filled the attempted rape charge?" Prentiss asked.

"Hold on one second," Garcia muttered as she typed. "Holy cow."

"What is it?" Morgan asked.

'The girl who filled the charges was Sydney Crawford," she replied excitedly.

"The first victim?" Prentiss asked looking at the others.

"The very same," Garcia replied.

"Thanks baby girl," Morgan said, hanging up the phone.

"Morgan, I want you and Prentiss to interrogate him," Hotch ordered, handing the case files to them.

Jack could not believe his own damn luck. The day had started off great but the freaking idiot Tyler had decided to ditch him and leave him to get arrested by the fucking feds. Tyler was so dead by the time he got out of here. He entertained himself for a few minutes by imagining all the different ways he could kill Tyler, which calmed him down some. However he couldn't be entertained by that for long and he started considering his current situation.

His left hand was chained to the underside of the table and they had taken away both his gun and cell phone. They had left him in the room for what seemed like hours with nothing to do but stare at his own reflection. Going off all the crime shows he'd seen he guessed that the cops or feds were watching him from behind the glass.

"Are you guys ever going to come in here?" Jack finally yelled in frustration at the glass. "Or do I have to sit on my sore ass all freaking day?"

The plastic chair that they had left him in was extremely uncomfortable and he was already sore from sitting.

On the other side of the glass Morgan and Prentiss were observing Jake's behavior.

"What do you think?" Prentiss asked as they watched the suspect yank on the handcuff.

"He definitely is capable of murder but I don't think he could have made the leap from petty criminal to murder with help," Morgan replied. His eyes were dark with what Prentiss could only guess as ether hatred or contempt or both.

"Let's do this," she said, picking up the case files.

"Jack Vincent Mullery," Morgan said, dropping a stack of files on the table in front of the man. "Shoplifting assault."

"Two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest," Prentiss continued as she pulled out the chair across from Jack and sat down.

"Do you recognize this girl?" Morgan asked as Prentiss placed Sydney Crawford's picture in front of Jake.

"No," Jake scowled, crossing his arms and glaring at the two of them as thought daring them to challenge him.

"Well she certainly knew you," Morgan said.

"She said you tried to rape her," Prentiss observed Jake's reactions. He's going on the defense, she thought happily.

"Well girls are lying bitches," he snapped.

'How about these girls?" Morgan asked as Prentiss put the pictures of the six victims on the table with Sydney's picture. "Recognize any of them?"

"No," he replied a little too quickly and without looking at any of the girls pictures. It didn't take a profiler to see that he was nervous, little beads of sweat were beading on his forehead and he was refusing to look at them, choosing instead to look at his leg which was bouncing up and down.

"See I think you did kill these girls," Morgan said softly and with danger in his voice. "And if that agent dies, I'm going to make sure you pay for that."

"Why?" Jake looked up, anger sparking in his eyes. "He a friend of yours?"

"Morgan," Prentiss warned. She could see that Jake was getting under his skin and if he succeeded then Morgan might do something stupid like hit him.

"I heard about that actually. Didn't he get kidnapped or something?" Jake grinned like a Cheshire cat. "What kind of idiot agent goes and gets themselves kidnapped? Morgan snapped, grabbing two handfuls of Jake's shirt he pulled him up as far as the chain would go.

"I'm warning you Mullery," Morgan snarled as Prentiss jumped to her feet. "He gets hurt or if anything happens to him, you will go down and I will personally make sure of it."

"Morgan!" Prentiss pulled him off Mullery who fell back into the chair, laughing. "Come on." They left the interrogation room. Morgan was still breathing heavily, Prentiss knew that he was taking Reid's kidnapping to heart, they all were.

"It's my fault Prentiss," he said softly, leaning against the closed door.

"It's not you," she began but he cut her off.

"I told him to split up," Morgan ran a weary hand over his tired face. "I left him on the ground floor."

"Morgan," Prentiss grabbed his other hand. "You couldn't have known. Nobody could have known that this would happen."

"What happened?" Hotch asked.

"He got to Morgan," Prentiss muttered in a low voice to their boss.

"Prentiss, you and JJ interrogate him tomorrow," Hotch said as the three of them made their way back to the small room.

"Zoe," Tyler approached her carefully, keeping his eyes on Reid. 'Think about this for a minute."

"Oh I am thinking," she snapped back still keeping the gun pointed at Reid's chest.

"Well killing him is not going to help get Jack back," Tyler plowed on as the Reid and Zoe both looked at him, the first with confusion and the second with annoyance. "Besides we may need to use him later."

Several seconds ticked by, to Reid it seemed like an eternity passed before Zoe spoke again.

"Fine," she lowered the gun, tucking it back into her sweatshirt. "I'm going to get some sleep, stay here and watch him." Zoe left the shack, slamming the door after her. Reid opened his mouth, but Tyler held up a hand to silence him.

"Okay," he pulled up the chair Zoe had been using and sat down in front of Reid. "She took the car."

"Why did you stop her from killing me?" Reid asked. Tyler shrugged in reply so Reid pressed on. "You know she is going to kill me eventually."

"I won't let her," Tyler replied.

"Just call my team," Reid said desperately. "You could leave before they got here."

"Zoe would rat me out in less than a minute," Tyler said. "Besides she took my cell." Reid examined the young man in front of him. Tyler's hunched shoulders emitted a defeated, sadness as though he had seen too much.

"You have a car," Reid pointed out.

"She took it," Tyler replied. "Look, maybe I can somehow get a hold of her phone tomorrow and call your team. What's their number?" Reid quickly told him Hotch's number and Tyler wrote it down on the palm of his hand in black pen.

"How did you get involved in this?" Reid asked. He had noticed that Tyler's feelings towards Zoe and Jake were ones of disdain and fear, not subservient and willing like people in his situation normally were.

"We were friends growing up," Tyler sighed, leaning back in the wooden chair. "Started out as a stupid game, just a stupid game. Then-"

"Then you killed a girl," Reid said quietly.

"No," Tyler said, closing his eyes. "Zoe did all the killing, well Jack helped but Zoe told him what to do."

Reid looked around the small shack as darkness settled around them like a thick, dark blanket. The stars poked their heads out as the moon smiled serenely on the shack, blissfully unaware of the dangers in held within. Soft snoring told Reid that Tyler had fallen asleep. This left him alone with his thoughts. His team had caught Jack, maybe he would talk, but Reid was fairly certain that he wouldn't. If Tyler didn't call his team or if Zoe somehow suspected him than Reid was almost certainly going to die here in the broken down shack.

A soft wind blew through the broken window pane, a slight shiver shook Reid's frame and the terror that he had been fighting to keep at bay suddenly rose to the surface, threatening to break loose. He didn't want to die here, not alone and not at the hands of a lunatic girl with his gun. Spencer Reid didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was scared, afraid to die. Even though every day he risked his life hunting down monsters because of his job as a profiler. Being with his friends, the team, his family made the fear disappear or fade to the back of his mind. The dull ache of loneliness threatened to overwhelm as memories flashed in front of him.

Morgan teasing him, calling him 'Pretty Boy'.

Garcia's warm and cheery smile, always ready to brighten someone's day with a hug or cookie.

JJ calling him 'Spence' or the way she smiled at him. It always made him feel like maybe he wasn't such a freak.

Reid sank slowly in to sleep, although his mind continued to swirl. Outside the shack an owl hooted softly, stretching its wings as it flew off in search of prey.

Morgan paced back and forth like a caged animal in his hotel room. Hotch had ordered him back to the hotel to get some sleep, but Derek Morgan could not sleep. Every time he laid down and closed his eyes, images of them finding Reid's dead, broken body filled his head until he wanted to scream. No, he could not, would not sleep, not when they were so close to finding Reid. His gun and badge were sitting on the table next to a full glass of brandy. Morgan had contemplated it, he wanted so badly to go back to the station, back to the interrogation room and make Jake tell him where Reid was. He knew couldn't and here he was, pacing back and forth, like a caged animal.

Emily Prentiss lay fully clothed on her hotel bed. She could hear Morgan pacing in the hotel room next to hers and knew that he was a worried as she was. Reid was the glue that held their team together and she didn't know what would happen if they found Reid in any other state other than alive and in one piece. She knew that she should get some sleep, knew that she couldn't do anything until tomorrow, but knowing and accepting were two very different things. Prentiss closed her eyes and breathed slowly in and out, in and out, she felt her mind emptying as she drifted off to sleep.

Back in Quantico Penelope Garcia sat in her office, surrounded by her computers and colorful objects. All the fuzzy pens and stuffed animals could not erase the fact she did not know where her boy genius was. Every time the team left on a case, every time she stayed behind, she feared the phone call that would confirm her worst nightmare. That one day the UNSUB might be quicker or smarter than her team was. If Reid didn't make it back she didn't know what would happen. So instead she ignored Hotch's order to go home and sleep. Instead she sat in her office, a fuzzy, pink pig clutched in her lap. She searched through her computers, looking for the answer.

Aaron Hotchner knew that chances of the members of his team sleeping would be highly unlikely. He himself was sitting in a chair next to the window a brandy glass held loosely in one hand. Years of experience had taught him that you need to have a team that worked well together, one you trusted to have your back in dangerous situations. Now he was the leader of such a team, he knew that they were close to the edge. If Reid was found in any other state than alive, well he didn't know what would happen to his team. He remembered when Reid had first joined the team, the kid had been awkward and gangly, nearly tripping over his own feet. Gideon had been so sure in Reid's potential and even now Hotch was still amazed by how much the kid knew. He lifted the brandy glass to his lips and felt the slow burn of amber liquid slide down his throat.

David Rossi lay under the covers, trying to sleep. He hadn't been part of this team long, but he understood how it worked, how much Reid meant to them. When he had first met Reid, he thought it was a joke that he was anything more than well, a kid. Rossi soon found himself impressed by the way in which Reid helped solve cases and impressing David Rossi was not an easy thing. Reid often picked up on things that the rest of them, even himself, missed. Sighing, Rossi turned over on his side, waiting to drift off to sleep.

Across the hallway Jennifer Jareau sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the floor. She knew the rest of the team wouldn't be sleeping, but why should they be. Tomorrow was the deadline that the UNSUB had set for them and even though they were closer than they had been, it didn't feel like enough. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, but she stubbornly wiped them away, she refused to show any weakness. They had to find Reid tomorrow, if they didn't, JJ couldn't even finish the thought. Nobody could make her laugh quite like Spencer Reid could, even when the job got to her she could always count on him to make her feel better. If she didn't have his lame jokes or odd facts than she felt the job might just swallow her whole.

Author Note:

I love this chapter. I think it's one of my favorites. Let me know what you guys think. Comments make for a happy author.

3 A.M. Anderson