Drill
A/N Slightly longer to make up for yesterday.
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.
They lay for what felt to Reid like an eternity Floyd was drifting in and out of consciousness: Reid wished he was too. The pain was unbelievable, but some how it was keeping the voices quiet. How long was he laying under this burning sun? How long can he lay here before one or both of them are dead? Why had no one from the road seen them yet?
Reid was sure that Floyd was going to die. He hadn't moved or said anything since the call to his cousin. The hand was twitching so Reid squeezed it harder. Stay with me Floyd, don't go anywhere. He closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and waited.
"So what happened?" A new voice drifting over his mind. He opened an eye a crack. A man stood above him. Dark eyes with dark hair, those familiar eyes again.
"Bike." And he squeezed a hand which had suddenly become worryingly limp.
"Nu hu, hes been shot, boy, so what happened?" He could sense more people there but couldn't get them in line of sight. "Talking to you boy."
"I – we came off the bike." He could hear people talking and muttering. Why weren't they helping?
"OK, whatever, we need to move you two while there's still a point. Floyd don't look to well."
A laugh – why was someone laughing?
"Floyd was born sick." A woman's voice and a few chuckles of agreement. "Why are we wasting our time with this?"
Hands started to pull Reid off the ground and his connection with the limp Flanders was lost but the pain which tore through him drew the curtains of grey across his eyes, and he fell back into the black place where there was no pain.
Next time he was able to open his eyes he could feel that he was laying on his front in the back of a vehicle. Reid opened his eyes a crack. He could see a row of feet. Booted feet, seven booted feet, no eight, no six. He blinked a few times trying to get focus and brain working as one. They were driving over a badly made road, and every pot hole and lump screamed through Reid's leg. "Where – where is Floyd?" he asked barely above a whisper, afraid of the answer.
"Stella has him. They will let us know if he don't make it." The voice sounded amused. "Think you have a broken leg, but Stella will check that when we get there. Why did someone stick and arrow in our darling boy Floyd then?"
"Arrow? I didn't know they had."
"Somebody finally got the better of him. They are stupid; they should have finished him off when they had the chance. They might live to regret what they did."
…………….
Spencer was taken to a big trailer and dumped on a hard bed. It wasn't a trailer people lived in. This was more like a medical room of some kind and what he was now laying on was more like a hospital examination table. Only this was not a hospital, and these people were not doctors and he still didn't know where Floyd was. He was beginning to hear the first whisperings of panic in the back of his mind. He was left laying on the table thing looking at the grey ceiling and trying to make the voices go away.
You are done for now boy.
"Go away."
You are going to get what Floyd had for years.
"It's not like that."
Where is he then?
"He is – I don't know."
Exactly – secrets – they are keeping secrets.
"Leave me alone!"
A voice suddenly. "Dr Franks, nice to see you again." Iolanda. "You have a dislocated hip. This might hurt. No – this will hurt."
"Where is Floyd?" He could feel hands on his shoulders.
"They are drilling."
"Drilling? What?!" But anything else was lost as Iolanda pulled hard and twisted on Reid's leg.
When he woke up – yet again – he was still laying on the table and something was strapped tightly around his leg. He pushed himself up on his elbows and had a look around the room he was in properly for the first time. Fear and revulsion hit him as the place reminded him scarily of Frank's trailer. Huge blades and cutting instruments hung from the walls. He had to get out of this place and find where Flanders was. Did Iolanda say they were drilling? What the hell did he mean by that? Very slowly and carefully Reid pulled his legs over the edge of the table. As he did it, it crossed his fuzzy mind that this was probably a mistake. It looked like they had bound a broken shin and foot didn't look right, but his need to get out of that trailer right then over rode the sensible part of his brain.
It was likely someone heard him scream as he slid off the table onto the floor in a heap of blinding pain. A woman came stomping in and over to him.
"You stupid or something?" He looked up at yet another dark pair of eyes. "You can't move yet, you broke your leg and smashed your ankle. You can't walk."
"Floyd, what' going on?" Slurred voice.
"I'll help you back up on the bench, you don't want to be moving though, or that ankle will get infected. We haven't pinned it yet. They are still working with Floyd. Someone will let you know one way or the other.
………….
They dragged Flanders by his arms and threw him into the back of one of the vans. It was decided to keep the two of them apart for now until they knew what was going on and why Flanders had called them for help. This was a first. He called to threaten and cause mayhem and grief, he never called for help. This was interesting. They would monitor this new turn of events.
Once back at their base, they again dragged Flanders by his arms and into a big double trailer at the centre point of their encampment. They stripped his dirty clothes from this filthy body and strapped him to a metal bench. Iolanda came in to watch. They looked into Floyd's eyes, and they inspected the bruises and marks covering his body. Most had been made by them, some were fresh. They made diagrams and sketched the damage. Then they turned their attention back to Flanders head.
"I am going to drill. Same place as before. Get the stuff ready. This is going to be interesting." Other people crowded around the metal bench to watch. "This might kill him. Say now if you have a problem." In silence he brushed some hair off Flanders face and found a small round scar on his hair line. Someone handed him an old hand drill. He pressed it to Flanders head and started the slow process of making a hole in his head.
……….
Floyd knew where he was. He was back in the centre van. He recognised the smells. He recognised those voices. He should never have called these people for help. What had he been thinking? He would have been better calling Aaron Hotchner than these twisted people. He tried to talk and to move and to let them know he was actually awake, but something was stopping him. He could feel his clothes being cut off him, and he felt the familiar straps going around his ankles and wrists and could hear the murmuring of voices in the back ground. A hand brushed his face and moved back some of his hair, and a finger rested on an old scar.
His mind was screaming the word 'no' over and over; he knew exactly what they were going to do.
He felt the pressure of something cold and sharp on his scalp and the twisting tearing ripping pain and it sliced through this flesh and began to eat into the bone underneath. The voices around him started up again. They were watching the flow of blood and liquid oozing from the hole in his head. "Drainage" he heard someone say. "Brain damage." He heard someone else say. "Let's hope he dies." Someone else muttered. He felt some of the straps being undone and he was rolled over onto his side then re-strapped him again so he wouldn't be able to roll back over.
"We can leave him for a while now. See what happens. Lonzo, stay here. Call if he wakes up, but I don't think he will."
………….
Spence?
Floyd!
Are you OK?
Broken leg. Where are you?
I need you to come to me.
I can't move. Come to me.
Spence, I want you here. Tell Iolanda to bring you to me.
Let me try to get them to move me.
Yu.
Floyd?
A huge empty silence again. Reid took a deep breath. "Hey someone – anyone out there?" He called out. "Hey Iolanda!" He carried on calling until finally someone came in to see what all the yelling was about. It was Iolanda.
"I need you to take me to Floyd." An order.
"That's not possible. You need to stay here." He started to walk away gain.
"You misunderstand me Iolanda. It wasn't a request. You will take me to Flanders. Now." Iolanda turned around to look at Spencer.
"How are the voices boy?" a small smile on his face.
"Just take me to him. I need to be there." Iolanda came back to the bench.
"What is the attraction? He is a monster. He is filth. Why do you stay with him? What is the power he has over you?"
"I don't need to go into my personal life with you."
"But you worked for the FBI, you have a brilliant brain when it's working properly. What did you throw all of that away for? Why is he with you? Why are you with him?
"I'm not with him. I need to be." His hands were starting to twist and his voice was rising too high and manic.
Iolanda nodded. "OK – will take you to him, but you wont like what you see. Don't get too alarmed it's nothing we haven't had to do before. It's just to relieve the pressure on the brain. He has head trauma." He put his arms around Spencer so he didn't have to put pressure on the foot they still hadn't fixed. "Take it slowly or you are going to be laying in the dirt again."
The walk across the camp was painful and slow, and when they finally reached the centre trailer it was obvious they wouldn't be able to get up the steps just the two of them. Iolanda called someone over. "Stella help me get him up here will you, then you can sort his ankle out for him."
She walked over looking at Reid curiously. "Floyd is in there. Get someone else to help." She ruffled Reid's hair "Shame about you, I bet you used to be cute."
"Stella – some help."
Together they half carried Reid into the huge double trailer. This place was again like the one he had just left, but bigger. Only one bench in the middle, which had Floyd strapped to it. They had stripped him down and covered him with a white sheet, but still his face seemed to have less colour. He was strapped on his side. He looked dead and the metal tube he had stuck in his skull didn't help. He tried to move forwards to him, but was pushed down into a wheel chair.
"OK you are here." Iolanda said.
Reid just sat with his mouth open looking at the macabre scene. "What the hell have you done to him!?"
"Lessening the build up of pressure on the brain by draining." Dr Iolanda pushed the chair towards Flanders.
"That's not how you do that! Take that thing out of his head!" His voice had taken on a wild pitch of horror and panic.
"It's fine. He's had it done before. When the pressure goes and the – erm – blood stops we can remove it and he will wake up."
"You are insane! That will kill him." His shaking hands reached out for the tube.
"Remove that and yes he will die, Spencer. It might not look like it but we know what we are doing and your foot is going a funny colour so I need to get Stella to fix that up for you." He pulled Spencer back again and put a brake on the back of the chair. "Sit for a while and watch this creature's blood drain, and be thankful he likes you. You don't want to get on the wrong side of that man.
They came to fix Reid's ankle. He wasn't treated in the manner he would have had he gone to hospital. This was a coven of insane people. They dragged him from the chair and forced his jaw open. They poured unknown bitter liquids down his throat – they stuck needles in his arms and leg and some drew out blood and some stuck chemicals into his muscles, and yet more straight into his blood. Then he could feel nothing, as they cut and sliced and chipped and drilled at Spencer and all he could hear was the drip drip drip of something sliding out of the tube stuck in Floyd's head.
……………