21

They found the first body about an hour later. Floyd had spotted the drag marks on the ground, but he'd been sniffing out the body for about a quarter of an hour. Spencer and Floyd crouched down and looked at it. The body had been mostly stripped of clothing, but it still had on a Tshirt and a hard hat. The neck was obviously broken.

'A quick kill. This was Sam.' Floyd ran fingers over the neck of the corpse. 'This confirms that I got the direction right at least.'

'A broken neck doesn't prove it was Sam.' Spencer reasoned.

'Doesn't prove it, but I know. He's followed all the basic first rules. He's not hung around. Killed, taken what he needed and left. Though I would be disappointed if he's taken a gun with him and if he's followed the rules he'd have quickly dismantled it and scattered the bits. He's kept what was left of his own clothing on, unless he took it with him, however it's more likely that he dressed over the top of what he had. We need to carry on and see what else we can find.'

'Floyd, we cant just leave this man here.' Spencer stood and looked down at Floyd.

'Well I didn't bring entrenching tools with me babes, and we cant take him with us. We will leave him. His own men will find him eventually. I just hope they don't find Sam wandering around in nicked gear before they do. He'd have some explaining to do.'

So reluctantly Spencer agreed to leave the man. He didn't like it. It was his job to track down people who did this sort of thing and the situation was making him feel very uncomfortable, knowing that Sam was the UnSub in this case. He tried to tell himself that Sam must have done this in self defence, but for a very real reason he doubted it. He'd seen kills like this before. He'd seen Floyd do this sort of thing. It made Spencer feel queasy inside and reminded him that he was walking through a forest with a serial killer who somehow (occasionally with his help) got away with – quite literally – murder. The next body Floyd found easily. It had a slashed throat. This was against the rules and Floyd took out his anger with Sam firstly on the body and then on Spencer.

'If you'd climbed faster we'd have gotten here sooner and could have stopped this.'

Spencer raised an eyebrow. 'You really believe that? You're blaming what Sam has done on me?' He sounded utterly incredulous. 'If you really think that is the case we should move now and catch up before we find another. We cant let Sam wander through the forest killing innocent people Floyd. I'd imagine that man didn't know what was coming either. Sam stood out behind him and cut the man's throat. This isn't self defence and you know that.'

In Floyd's eyes the man was far from innocent. 'These people tried to kill me. They left you for dead. Actually they left Sam for dead too. They shot me. How in the name of fuck do you get the idea that his fucking bastard is innocent?' He prodded Spencer in the chest. 'They are murdering sons of whores who deserve what Sam's doing to them. If I find more, then good; I'm glad. Two people I don't have to tear apart with my bare hands.' Spencer slapped the prodding finger away. He shouldn't have and as soon as he'd done it he knew that it was a mistake, but mistakes seemed to be made a lot when it came to Spencer and Floyd. Always Spencer's fault and Spencer knew that. The fist caught him under his chin, smacking him off his feet and into the undergrowth. He landed on the clothes Sam had discarded, next to the smashed radio. Floyd then went on a kicking and biting rampage and Spencer attempted to fend him off, and he was doing quite well. What he didn't do was to hit back though.

'Floyd stop!' Spencer managed to say. 'We need to find Sam.' Try to keep him on task.

'Don't you ever fucking hit me again!' Floyd spat back at Reid. 'If I want to make a point by prodding you then you'll fucking well let me.' Floyd frowned and crouched down next to Spencer. 'My god you're beautiful. Turn over.'

Reid shook his head. 'We don't have time and this isn't the most romantic place you could choose. We have to find Sam. You said you had chest pains and it had something to do with Sam. Any clues?' Again Sam was the last person Spencer wanted to discuss but it seemed that events had taken hold now and he was going to have to. He wiped blood from his nose and carefully felt his ribs. He didn't think anything was broken this time.

'He had a knife. Maybe he was injured.'

Spencer had a flash of the image of Sam being impaled on a sword and that image felt wondrous, but he didn't think it was going to have happened. Mostly because these men didn't carry swords.

'Not here.' Floyd sat down next to Spencer and looked around. 'He took the man's radio, and somehow the guy was following the trail of his comrade, but Sam now has destroyed the communication. He might think that there were just the two of them. He will bite off more than he can chew. He thinks he's capable and he's not, though evidence might be telling you otherwise. When you kill you have to take everything into consideration. You should know everything. Your escape routes. Your enemy. Your targets. If you walk into a room of men with guns you don't go skipping over and break a neck. You wont get out alive. Now I might have shown Sam how to make a kill and how to dispose of the body, but I've never really gone much into the planning of it. He's never had to think that way and he's going to make a big mistake. These people aren't amateurs Spencer, these are professional killers and he's going to meet his match pretty soon. Are you OK to carry on?'

Reid wanted to say that he wasn't. He wanted to say that he really could do with a day and night to recover from the kicking he just took but he didn't. He wiped at the blood and nodded. 'I shouldn't be assisting. It feels wrong.'

'Assisting? Explain.' Floyd stood and put out his hand for Spencer to use to get up again.

'I know what these people did was wrong. I know what they did to you and then to me… I know that they didn't even bother to look for Sam, but it still feels wrong looking for Sam to rescue him from them. It should be the other way around. Do you see what I mean? Sam is the one picking them off one by one.'

'I see. I really do see what you're saying, however you're not working for that shit Hotchner and you're not being paid shit loads of dosh. You are assisting me in getting Sam back. Sam who you owe as I left him there so I could go get you. It didn't quite work out as I wanted it to but that's beside the point really. You still owe him. Come on.' Floyd moved down to help Spencer back to his feet again and unwittingly Spencer flinched away. 'What's wrong now? Scared I'll hit you?' Floyd smiled at Spencer with a weird expression almost as though he'd just lost his marbles. 'You know I'd never hurt you. How many times do I have to say that? At least not for no reason.' He added.

They began walking again. Floyd was certainly walking faster now. He did however occasionally crouch down to touch the ground or he'd stand still with a hand raised, which Spencer rightly knew, meant to stand still and be quiet. It was nearly half an hour later that they found two corpses laying spread out in a small clearing. There was the sort of scene which Spencer would normally have attributed to Floyd and had he not been with him since the night before he'd have automatically suspected that this was the work of Floyd. Both men had been torn apart. The throats were ripped out and chest cavities were caved in. One of them had his eyes removed whereas the other had his face mashed with a rock which was still resting where the man's face had been. Floyd said nothing, but stood staring at the mess. Spencer closed his eyes trying to remove the horrendous visual from his memory.

'Sam.' Floyd muttered. 'What in the name of living fuck are you up to? This is inexcusable.'

Spencer turned from the bodies and threw up in the undergrowth. He'd seen worse before, but this was done by Sam. The person they were looking for to rescue. This wasn't a weak vulnerable child doing this. Floyd rested a hand on Spencer's back as he spat out bits from his mouth and wiped at his sweaty face with his fingers. 'I never thought…'

'That he was capable? He's my spawn Spencer. He's not fully trained. This started, very probably as self defence. I don't doubt that the first kill was done because he was scared. This though? This is not something I'd have expected from him. I knew that he could do this, but I'm as shocked as you that he did do this. I'm going to have to teach Sam a painful lesson when we catch up with him. He's not used a knife here. This was his hands he did this with. If Sam's lost his control then we're going to find more like this before we find Sam. You going to be OK?'

'No… actually I'm not going to be OK. What are we doing Floyd?'

'Well…' Floyd pulled out one of his cheroots and lit up. '…really it started out as me looking for Sam. Now I think he's changed my objectives slightly. We need to find him and stop him. It's more like we are rescuing these poor poons than rescuing Sam. We need to keep going babes.'

'They will find their men. They will come looking for who did it. They will find us blundering through the forest. I'm not prepared to die for something Sam has done, Floyd. I'm sorry. I'm not going to defend him. I cant defend this.'

Floyd nodded. 'I understand how you feel, but if I can get Sam back and teach him…'

'Teach him? What are you going to do? Put him in psychopath rehab?'

'No, because I've been there and they don't work. I suppose I'll have to end it. Or…'

'The justice system will deal with him. I'm not going to pat him on the head and tell him he's a naughty boy. Fine I can maybe understand that he was scared and alone and he attacked someone in self defence, but Floyd this is the act of someone who has lost his mind. He's ripped those two men apart. Two trained military men. How the hell did he manage that?'

Floyd shrugged. 'I taught him how to do that. That doesn't mean he was meant to wander through here and just kill anything he saw. I have to sadly agree with you that he's lost his pretty little mind, however I need you to let me be the one to punish him for this. You really cant expect me to hand him over to someone. This is assuming that he's not been picked up already, though I've not heard gunfire. I do think we will.'

'One psychopath to punish another. Wonderful idea. What will you do to him?'

'Kill him probably. If he's out of control then that's the only answer. If he's become dangerous then he's a threat to me. I'll not have that. He's also a threat to you.'

Spencer rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips. 'We are both going to die.' Spencer told him. 'There's no other direction I can see this mess going in. We cannot rescue him, Floyd. Either he's having a psychotic episode, in which case we are both going to end up like those two, or he's been caught and we will be shot on sight.'

Floyd let out a long deep sigh. 'Very well. I understand what you're saying Spence. Go back. Go back South. Walk and keep walking. Find somewhere to make a call from. Call a cab or call Hotchner… it's fine. I'll deal with this myself. I'll find Sam and sort things out here. You don't have to be involved.' This of course was the opposite of what Floyd really wanted Spencer to do. He knew Spencer wouldn't just walk away.

'I've been on many a case where we see the UnSub devolving, but I've never seen anything as rapid as this. He will have to be held accountable for this, Floyd. You cant think, I hope, that we can somehow get him away from these men or from this situation and things to carry on as though it's not happened. He needs help.'

'He needs a fucking lobotomy. I'm not stupid Spencer. I can see what's happening here. The outcome wont be sweet. And for the record I did tell you both that we were entering hell. I remember clearly saying that. I didn't want to go into that place. And so again I'm going to have to blame you for all of this. Sam obviously is bonkers. You are a sodding Fed. You should have known better. I trusted that you'd make the right decision as my brain was a bit foggy at the time, and you failed me. You failed Sam. Happy now?'

Spencer didn't reply. Floyd didn't even know if Spencer had been listening to him. Reid re-shouldered his pack and started walking again. There was no point in talking to Floyd about this. The man was, as always, unreasonable and very deluded. On the other hand Spencer was beginning to feel a deep and dreadful guilt. He knew that when they'd been walking down that road that Floyd kept trying to leave the path and he'd put it down to Floyd not being able to see properly, but now he thought he knew differently. Floyd had also told them to keep going North and he'd sort of given reasons for that too, and again Spencer had ignored him. He let out a groan and scratched at the back of his neck but kept walking. Was he happy now? That was the question Floyd had asked him and he could honestly answer that he wasn't. However he wasn't going to give Floyd that satisfaction. They walked in silence. Spencer keeping quiet because he didn't want to say what he was thinking and Floyd was keeping quiet as he listened out for things which might indicate where Sam had gone. They walked down an animal track. Obviously people had walked down here too. There were boot prints in the wet earth in places and Floyd had spotted a couple of discarded cigarette butts. He didn't point them out to Reid. Sam didn't have anything on him to smoke, but he might have taken something from one of the bodies, but those boot prints were not Sam. Oh he could see where Sam had been though. Again he didn't point out the occasional indent of bare feet over treading the marks left by boots. Sam was following someone and they were following Sam and Floyd knew that they were going to find another body soon. He could smell it. He could at least pick up on the tang of blood.

'Spencer…' Floyd hissed and pulled on Reid's pack. 'Hold up a second.' Floyd crouched down and was looking at something in the brambles at the edge of the path.

Reid hunkered down next to him. 'What is it?'

Floyd picked up a stick and prodded at something. 'You know, I assume, that the human heart is the hardest part of the human body to burn. It's where the tradition comes from to eat it. It's better you see? You remove the incriminating evidence and devour it and then you can dispose of the body happy that the heart… Well anyway…' He prodded it again. '… it's tough to eat too. The heart muscle is incredible. It pumps your blood around your body… it's were your life starts and ends. To remove it is ritualistic as well as practical. When you kill…' He paused and looked at Spencer who was staring at the thing Floyd was prodding. 'When I kill I like to remove the heart and liver. The heart is the life force. By eating it you take that person into your own and they become a part of you. By removing the liver you take the place where the soul resides. With no soul that person cant move on. They will wander forever not being able to get to where they want to… be that a good or a bad place. For me it would prevent me from returning… for you it will prevent you from being reincarnated, or whatever it is you believe in.'

'Well it's not reincarnation. Why are you telling me this? What is that?'

'You should believe in it Spencer.' Floyd smiled a toothy smile. 'Oh you really should believe in it. It's the essence of my existence; the reason I do what I do. Never the less… this here is a partially eaten human heart. I wont pick it up because I don't want you to vomit on my head, but Sam's sucked it dry and chewed it around the edges. This babes, is worrying. If he'd removed them and discarded them then that's just something to spook the enemy, however he's gone a step further and removed them for a reason. He's still trying to be more than what he is Spencer. This might well work for me, or even for you if you were so inclined to change your career to cannibal, but for Sam? Well it's not going to make an iota of difference and he's going to know. I suspect he sort of knew when he did that second kill. He's taken on a challenge. A bit like Pinocchio wanting to be a real boy. Sam's strings have been cut and he's out on his own, but I need to find him and haul him back in and hammer him to a bookcase so he cant escape and have long words with him.'

All Reid could think to say was… 'Bookcase?'

'A fine bookcase, well made with that feel that hundreds of hands have brushed over the surface. Dark leather bound books, probably law books… maybe demonology… I can see it so clearly with Sam nailed through his hands and knees and probably through his shoulders. A wondrous sight to behold.' Floyd licked his lips. 'I need to invest in a good sized bookcase.' Floyd turned to face Spencer. 'You can understand that cant you? Can you see the justice in that? It's making my head spin with excitement. On the other hand I could just pull down his soggy piss laden pants and spank him. Which do you consider would teach him?'

Reid stood. 'We need to find him.'

Floyd nodded and stood, dropping the stick and partially eaten bit of heart. 'And when we get back to your place first thing to look for will be a bookcase. We should invest in another property though. I don't think I could live in that huge white monstrosity. It was one of the most vulgar builds I've ever seen. How the hell did it get planning permission? Ah! Spencer! I have such a wonderful idea. We can pull it down and rebuild. That's assuming you want a new build, I'm not so sure and I tend to over do size when buying. But can you imagine a big country mansion filled only with things we both love? Oh and Sam too… locked in chains in the basement. We could get people to pay money to see the monster. HA! Yes!'

'Ha, no.' Spencer replied. 'You've opened a floodgate of questions I need to ask you, but now's not the time or place. We need to find Sam and we need to stay alive.'

'And what part of that wasn't a brilliant idea?'

'I think it went awry when you mentioned a bookcase. Can we carry on now? Not that I'm in any rush to race to my almost certain death, but I don't want to find more human body parts. We need to stop him.' So there it was. Reid was hauled back again by Floyd who had himself some questions and here and now seemed like a very good time and place to ask them.

'Stop Sam.' Floyd repeated what Spencer had said and got a nervous nod. 'No, babes – you've got you Fed head on. What we need to do is to stop those bastards from hurting my boy. That's the reason we are following Sam. Not to stop him. That makes Sam appear to be the one in the wrong here Spence, and it's not him… it's them… those cunts wandering around the forest trying to force their will on other people. They're the ones. Not Sam. Don't you make him out to be the bad guy here Spencer.'

Reid shook his head in puzzlement. 'OK… Floyd I know that Sam is special. I know that and I accept your reasoning for what's going on here but if you've trained Sam to kill, and if Sam can kill this easily then it's Sam we have to stop to protect the others. To protect the general population I would think. Example; we leave Sam to carry on doing this… this thing and he manages some how to kill them in their entirety, what next? Does that mean he's completed his task? Will he then go find someone else?'

'Almost certainly. Indeed. He'll carry on until he's secure in his mind that he will reach that which he started out trying to reach. He's going to attempt to sacrifice souls and achieve his own salvation. Now… it's not going to happen as I explained previously. It cant happen. The boy has no soul. If you removed his liver you'd be able to tell. It wouldn't look any different, but it would just be a bit of dead meat, not a soul. I'd be able to tell that much at least. This does not mean that Sam is evil. It means that he is a victim of circumstances which are beyond – oh way beyond his control. He's out of his tiny but very pretty and nicely shaped skull. The lack of food, the blood loss, the syphilis… and now this infantile behaviour which I'd normally only expect from you… this all brings me to understand that his mental state has deteriorated to a point that I don't think I'm going to be able to help him. So what we are going to do is not to actually Stop Sam, but we are going to do what would be known as a recovery and I personally know a lot about how that works. He might if he keeps his mind on track enough even be given a chance at what he's after, but it wont be floating in the clouds as a fucking butterfly… it will be living amongst the deepest dregs of hell Spencer. The very deepest darkest pits… and he will be put on trial and he'll have to do certain things to prove himself. It's a long and usually deadly process. He's too young and he'd not survive. So what we are going to do is collect Sam up. Tie his hands securely behind his back and take him to that bookcase I spoke of earlier. Have you got your phone on you? Can you source antiquities on it? Google Bookcases, sixteenth century, for sale or something?'

'I've not got my phone Floyd. And if I did I'd not be going on Google looking for something for you to nail Sam to. We need to keep going.' Reid turned and started to walk on through the forest.

o-o-o

Sam's fuzzy plan to eliminate anything and everyone he came across had reached a calm phase. He sat next to his victim and gently ran his fingers through the blood soaked hair. 'This is for me.' Sam told the body. 'It's to help me to move on. I don't need those sons of whores anymore. Fucking wasting my time on them has worn me down. This here…' Sam held up a red meaty lump. '…will assist me in my endeavour to be what I was always meant to be. I just have to show them that I mean it. If Floyd could do it then so can I.' He prodded another bloody lump of something with a finger. 'That I'm afraid is going to stop you from going where your soul wanted you to go. I've sort of removed your GPS and you'll walk forever in this forest scaring the fuck out of happy campers for a millennium or maybe even longer. I suppose it depends on how long this fragile planet holds together for. There're so many predictions…' He looked down at the dead soldier he'd mutilated and was now talking to. '… and they're all very obviously wrong. The Mayans were a canny bunch of bastards. You know I could make this wild prediction and create a calendar and leave it somewhere mysterious and wondrous and that calendar could go up to a certain date… oh I could work it all out on the stars. I can do that you know? I could make this well wicked calendar and figure out all the calculations of it going not by the way the earth moves around the sun, but by some other random fact out there somewhere in this universe or maybe even a different universe… a different existence and I would have a beginning and ending date… People could use that… but all it would be was when I got bored of calculating the next phase of whatever sun I was using to figure it out… I've given myself a headache. What was I saying? Anyway the Mayan calendar doesn't predict fuck all. People predict. The rest is just numbers and anyone can do numbers. Nostradamus had some good predictions though… but each can refer to almost any incident you want to. It's a fucking joke. All of them are a fucking joke. I can make better and more accurate predictions than that arsehole. And now I've really lost track of what I was going to say.' Sam dropped the chewed heart onto the grass, drew his knees up close, wrapped his arms tightly around his legs and rested his head on his knees. 'I'm so tired. I'm so fucking tired I don't know what to do? Shall I walk away from this challenge I've been given? Shall I go back and try to find Spencer and Floyd? Or shall I carry on and carry on and carry on ripping and nibbling and hoping that someone down there is watching and taking note of me.' He sucked in a deep breath and began a strange chant from somewhere deep down inside. 'Guide me, show me, lead me, teach me, feed me, inspire me, give me courage, and give me a sign. Show me that you are watching and listening.' He whispered his words.

o-o-o

Sam was approached on two sides at almost the same time. Four men with guns stepped out from behind the trees with guns raised and grim expressions. From the other side of the clearing no one stepped out, but Floyd and Spencer hunkered down and watched. Floyd had already given Spencer a signal with his hand to keep his silence and stay still and as the soldiers didn't look like they were in the mood to take prisoners he decided that Floyd was at least for now doing the right thing. The thing which did concern Spencer was that these particular men hadn't come from behind them and therefore couldn't have known about the other bodies, yet.

For the first couple of seconds nothing much happened. Sam was still talking quietly under his breath with his head resting on his knees. His concentration so deep in what he was asking for that he didn't realise that he was no longer alone until the barrel of a rifle jabbed him on his arm. Then a voice spoke.

'What the fuck.'

It wasn't really a question. Sam didn't have to answer it, so he just let out a soft moan and screwed his eyes tighter together. All thoughts of trying to gain something from the slaughter were gone and a list of excuses shot through his head.

'Get up!'

This voice belonged to the man who had prodded him. The others were standing looking down at the mess Sam had made.

Slowly Sam turned his head to face the voice. He'd already managed to squeeze some tears out and now that he could see who was talking to him he edited his list of excuses to match. 'It wasn't me.' He whispered and burst into dramatic sobbing. 'I found him… and I tried…' He held out bloody hands. '… but there was nothing I could do. He was already dead.'

'I told you to get up!' Now a hand reached out and grabbed Sam by the hair and pulled him to his feet. 'Who the hell are you and what happened?' It seemed inconceivable that the pathetic skinny sick looking form who was pulled to shaking feet and wobbly knees could have done this to one of their men, yet Sam was covered in blood. Sam was though at a disadvantage. He didn't know about the soldiers who had shot Floyd. He didn't know about the men who had tied Spencer up then later left him to die in the underworkings of the building they'd been in. He knew nothing about these people. The four armed men looked again at the mess their comrade had been turned into and then looked again at Sam. 'OK. Tell me what happened? Who you are and what you're doing here and maybe I'll not hang you from the nearest tree.'

'I didn't do anything wrong!' Sam's voice came out as a pathetic and well rehearsed whine. 'I was on vacation with my friends and we got split up and I got totally fucking lost. I've been walking for days and fucking days. It's lucky that I have good woodcraft skills. Anyway… I was walking and I heard something really weird. It was like a muffled moan and I thought it was an animal so I kept well away. I don't know if there's wild things in this area. I don't know if there're hunters and stuff and I'm only a kid and though I really want to find civilisation again I didn't want to end up as some woodsman's cunt, so I kept away cos I was fucking sure that I heard footsteps, but the sound faded and so I went back in the direction I'd been going in and found a dead bloke laying there in the leaves. I didn't know what to do… I just looked at him and then I ran. And I kept running and I was so fucking scared that I wasn't looking where I was going and I tripped and fell and when I looked back I saw that thing… and I had blood all over me and there was blood all over him and I wanted to see if he was still alive but I guessed not when I went to take his pulse in his neck and discovered his eyes were gone and then I was thinking of chest compressions and I pressed down… I pressed… and my hands just went on… and on… and my hands were inside him…' Sam paused and took in a deep breath. Even from where Floyd and Spencer were watching from they could see that Sam was shaking. 'And so I just sat there and cried. I didn't know what to do. I was too scared to move and too scared to look. I just wanted the nightmare to go away. Oh my fucking god, you know I can still feel what it was like when my hands slipped inside him.' Sam's knees now gave way and he went down to them gracefully and not too dramatically.

Sam had tied the hand made bola around his waist and as he was dragged back to his feet again it was removed by one and passed to another who was told to check it. 'Are you sure this isn't the same person you found earlier?'

A shuddered breath. 'Well I don't know. It could be but the other one wasn't torn apart and I thought I'd been running in a straight line from that way.' Sam pointed almost directly at Floyd and Spencer. 'But maybe I ran in a circle. I was in shock and crying. I might have done that, but the other man was just laying there… There was no blood. It looked more like an accident.'

'But you could have gone in a circle and come back to the same person who had in the meantime been mutilated by something?'

Sam now looked confused and gave a small shrug. 'Maybe, but I don't think so. This man is on grass. The other was on leaves and dirt.'

The man put an arm around Sam's shoulders. Sam wanted to squirm away and start running again, but it did actually seem to Sam that the man believed him. Spencer noted that Floyd's muscles had gone taut. He was ready to run to Sam's aid, but as of yet he'd not.

'Come here boy. I want to show you something.' Sam didn't resist. He was still shaking but was feeling confident that the morons had swallowed his story. He guided Sam up a small incline to a ridge and then turned him around to show him the view. 'Beautiful isn't it? The view.'

Sam gave a small nod. Apart from the bloody corpse laying there is was a nice view. (Even with the body laying there spread out like a mad butchers dinner it was a beautiful sight.) He said a small, 'Yes.'

'Do you know what this ridge is called?' The man asked. He turned to look at Sam's profile and smiled. 'Of course you don't. You're just a little lost boy aren't you? I'll tell you. It's called Suicide Ridge. People come up here especially to hang themselves and have that as a last view. What do you think?'

'I think it's very sad when people are driven to suicide.'

'Drugs… that's the usual demon which takes people along that route. Drugs and mental illness. Now which have you got? I know you do drugs. You've got track marks on those skinny little arms of yours… but are you mentally ill too?' Sam remained silent. 'Because you know, if you are it would account for your untimely death and for what you did to trooper Styles. You shouldn't be here. You should have stayed with your buddies. You should never have gone off alone. Not with your drug dependency and your sick mind. This is what happens though. Eight people ended their lives hanging from this here tree last year. Your going add to the numbers. You see where this is going now?'

'I'm not a junky. I was once. I was in rehab and I'm fine now. I'm not mentally ill.' Sam was staring at the undergrowth on the other side of the clearing the body was laying in. He could tell something was there, but the smell of his own fear was masking it. 'But I think I might be in shock. I've not done anything wrong.' Sam's voice sounded as wobbly and pathetic as he looked. He picked at some scabs on his arms from where the barbed wire had cut him and looked miserable as one of the men walked over with Sam's bola. He reached out to take it but his hand was slapped away. Sam let out a small yelp as he looked around and assessed his situation which actually looked quite hopeless. He thought he could easily take out the two nearest to him, but the other two were standing down by the body, not looking at it, but staring up at Sam.

o-o-o

Floyd put a hand on Spencer's shoulder and talked directly into his ear. 'They're going to string him up. Now this might be a problem. It depends on whether they let him just choke, which I can hopefully rescue him from, or if they're going to break his neck, which I'm not so confident about. While they're distracted by Sam I need you to carefully and very silently move back away. Go back the way we came.' Floyd paused as one of the soldiers turned to look in their direction; he waited until the man turned back again and carried on talking. 'Avoid that road if you come across it again and keep going back south. I need you to go as quickly and as quietly as you can and you must not return; whatever you hear or think you hear you keep going until I catch up with you again. This fucking place is a death trap. Walk with caution.'

Spencer didn't reply with words but slowly shook his head.

'Babes, I don't want you dead.'

'I've told you before that I'll not leave you. That decision stands. Last time I panicked and ran and this is the result of that. I'm not leaving.'

Floyd nodded and smiled a lazy smile. 'Spence…'

Reid placed a finger over Floyd's lips. 'No.' He said firmly. 'I'm not leaving.'

The smile of Floyd's face broadened. He didn't smile like that often and it sent a tingle of panic through Spencer. That was a dangerous smile. That smile could almost guarantee mayhem and pain. 'Fine, then stay here and just watch. Don't come running in thinking you can help.'

'But…'

'I hate that word. No buts and no excuses Spencer. Stay here. I'm not going to walk in there and get myself shot again. You wont help if you come running in stuttering and stammering over your words and looking like a pratt.'

This time Reid nodded. 'I'll stay here. I'll stay here unless you call me to you or someone comes after me.'

'Good. We have a compromise. I'm not going in there now though. We watch. Whatever happens to Sam we just observe.'

'Floyd…'

'We observe. Sam's out of control. You can clearly see that. Let them dish out punishment and then I'll go in and hope it's not too late.'