Chapter 26

Old Peterson House

Fredericksburg, VA

Nine weeks and two days after

"Hey"

"Hey Lynnie." This was the last voice Ethan expected to hear on his phone this morning. "How you doin'? No, don't answer that."

"Don't call me that." Gwen's answer was automatic, although really, she thought, there are worse nicknames. "I don't plan to, answer that, that is."

"Still not sleeping well?"

"He told you?"

"He's worried about you. He's afraid he fucked you up somehow, made it worse."

"Did he tell you what happened?"

"Kinda. You know how he can talk around things sometimes."

"Yeah, well, I took his cherry on the kitchen floor, not the other way around." There was silence on the other end of the phone. "What? It's not like the FBI doesn't have every detail of our sex life on report, in triplicate, filed for posterity. Why spare anyone the good parts?"

"So if it was good why are you calling me?"

"I need a place to crash for a while. Well away from here."

"What? Oh sweetie, he'll get better. Just let him practice a while."

"Fuck you, Ethan." She said without heat. "He's already better than you'll ever be."

"I don't know chere. I've been doing the musician thing down here in New Orleans for a while now. You get a lot of experience in these parts."

Gwen didn't miss a beat. "Ever have horse jizz up the nose?"

Ethan missed several. "Uhhh. No."

"Amateur."

Ethan chuckled. "So, why do you want my couch anyway?"

"I just need to get some space for a while."

"You leavn' him?" There was a long silence. "Bull shit you are. True companions. I told you that years ago. I never had a chance at you, Lynnie. You were his from the day you met."

"Yeah, I know." For a moment she sounded near tears.

"Tell me about it?"

Gwen strangled out a sob. "No."

"Where is he?"

"Downstairs, working on a lecture he's giving tomorrow."

"Screw the lecture, go tell him about it."

She managed something that wasn't a laugh. "Hell no."

"Why not?"

"He's too good for this world, you know that." For all that Spencer had been and would always be the love of her life; there were some facts about life on the other side of the tracks that she simply could not install in that gentle soul. But Ethan was a few years older when he'd shown up at CalTech one day, and he knew how the other side lived and Got It in ways Spencer never would.

"See, there you're wrong. He came down to earth the day you got snatched and has been slumming down here with the rest of us ever since. You know he's been monster hunting for years now, ain't nothin' you gonna tell him that's new." Ethan thought a while. "He tell you about the last time he was down here?"

"How you helped him get that monkey off his back? Yeah, he did."

"He tell you about how he picked up anthrax, of all things, a few years later and then got his knee shot out not long after that, and never touched a thing stronger than aspirin for either, just to keep his head in the game for you?"

Gwen winced. "No."

"Tell him what's going on in that stubborn head of yours, Lynnie, he can take it now."

"No."

"Fine, tell me. Go ahead and fuck me all to hell."

That was why she called, wasn't it? But now, "No."

"Well, you got to tell someone what's going on, sweetie. You can't run from it. You try and it's going to chew you up and spit out the bones. Can't tell him, can't tell me, tell someone on that team of his. Tell that old man, he'd know."

"Jason couldn't take it anymore. He got in the wind a few years ago."

"Well, shit. I am not surprised. Okay, tell one of the others. They all know how the monsters dance."

Gwen sighed. He was right. "All right, I will."

BAU Headquarters

Quantico, VA

Nine weeks and two days after

"Yeah send her over." Derek Morgan got up and waited at the door for his guest. He watched Gwen walking across the bullpen, following the secretary. Her hands hang in front of her, he thought, her arms don't swing. She's compensating for a hypersensitive vestibular sense. And she doesn't look at people; she still never looks you in the eye. Add in her slight frame and that hair now and those eyes and she practically has a sign over her head 'victim here'. But she's strong and wicked smart and when she can get the words out, that mouth of hers can peel paint from the walls. I never would have guessed Spencer to be the quiet one in the family. And she's resilient in a way I didn't think possible. If we could figure that out, teach it to others we'd stop all the unsubs in their tracks by taking the victim pool away.

When Gwen reached Morgan's office she managed a small smile. "Hi. Got some time to talk?"

"For you, always. But let me tell you, I have tried three times to get that husband of yours to call my contractor, he is determined to re-wire that house himself. Just keep 911 on speed dial and you'll be fine." He let her slip by him and shut the door behind her. "So where is he anyway?"

"Lecture. Something on geographic profiling."

"I thought he was taking some time off."

Gwen shrugged, "There was no need to cancel it, they didn't mind if I tagged along."

Morgan looked at the clock. "Does he know you're here?"

Gwen smiled and shook her head. His estimation was correct; she'd slipped out the back after the lecture started.

"You found your way across FBI headquarters by yourself?"

"I'm not helpless, you know. This place is considerably less stimulating than the average mall."

Morgan grinned. "I never thought of it that way." He found the small couch in his office and settled. "So, what's going on?"

Gwen wandered over to look out the window at the parking lot below. "What do you know about the Witness Protection Program?"

"I know I wouldn't trust them to watch my dog. And I know you don't need to do that, we're gonna catch this guy. Besides, you were adamant that you wouldn't leave Spencer back in LA, what's changed?" Morgan sighed. "Does this have anything to do with what happened the other night?"

"How do you know what happened the other night?"

"Next time bite him below the collar." Morgan chuckled as she rolled her eyes. "He said you haven't been sleeping well, he's worried about you."

"I'm fine. That was my idea, you know."

"I figured. Talk to me baby girl, what's going on?"

Gwen was quiet for a long moment. Breathe. Blow. "You found Sam's body?"

"Yes, we did. I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Did you see what happened to him?"

"The autopsy gave us a general idea. We still don't know why, he was the only body we found that way." Morgan frowned as he began to see where this was going. "You watched it happen?"

"Not exactly."

Omera/Bernard Estate

Then

This is going to be good, she thought. Sam may swear that this will be ten times better once I'm free, once it really is Spencer, but this is still good. It'll ease the pain a little and I'll be able to sleep a bit, which will help deal with the hunger a while longer. She moaned once, quiet, and tried to relax a little more, until she heard the all too familiar cocking of a rifle, right near her head. "Don't stop for our sakes, Stud." She heard Mr. Hyde growl. "Keep going."

She couldn't see past Sam's body to see who else was down there, but she could feel the chain around her waist being loosened and wrapped around Sam's binding them together. The table shook, and Sam dropped his head. "Legs to the table," he whispered, indicating where he had been tied, and that they were now bound inextricably in position. Then she felt him being pushed against her, hard, and the distinctive hum of a vibrator. Suddenly his face set and he growled in anger. They're raping him, she realized, while he's inside me. They're forcing him; the human male can't help that if it's done right. He's no longer doing this. All possibility of pleasure went out of her and so she went limp and closed her eyes, allowing them to do as they will.

A moment later, as Sam was forced to move around and inside her, she felt a hand take her chin and firmly turn it to the side. "Hello, Dolly." said the Boss, just inches away on the other side of the bars. "This is your fault, you know. All you had to do was come to me." Then he reached over and pulled Sam's head up by the hair so he could look at him. "There's only room for one bull in my barn, Stud, and you're not it". The Boss moved away, back down to the open end of the cage, and for the first time that day real fear settled into her soul.

"No. It's. Not." Sam managed to growl down to her. He didn't want this, she knew, he'd fight it as long as he could. For dignity, he'd said, and because whatever we feel is not theirs. No matter how many guns they point, or meals they withhold or shocks they deliver. Our feelings are our own and we must fight for them. And so he fought the inevitable, just to prove it was their doing and not his. But it was inevitable; she could see it on his face. He's absolving me, she thought, he doesn't blame me for what they are doing, whatever it is.

Then she heard it:

The sound of metal being sharpened. Honed,

A ratcheting sound.

Sam's eyes flew open. "No!" He cried out "No!!"

There was a snap.

And he started screaming.

BAU Headquarters

Quantico, VA

Nine weeks and two days after

"Oh my God," Morgan thought he'd heard it all, but this was a new one on him. "Sweetheart, I am so sorry."

Gwen was still looking out the window, only now her face was wet. "H…he was a friend, Morgan. H…he was g...good to me and k…kind and th…that's what th…they did to h…him. I've...I've loved S…sp…Spencer since I w…was s…sixteen. If V…Vallejo ever ever finds h…him he'll…he'll…." She simply couldn't go there at all.

"He won't. We won't let him." Morgan got up and came over and pulled her into a hug. "We'll keep you both safe, I promise. You don't need to go away."

"I…I need to do s…something. It would be my fault if I d…don't. And I d...don't know w…what else I can d…do."

"You need to be able to protect him like he protects you." Some sort of martial arts training, he thought, if she's capable. Make her into less of a victim. But she's not nearly healthy enough for that yet, she's just barely healthy enough to sleep in her own bed. But, "Okay, I know what we're gonna do." He looked up at the clock and picked up his phone. "Hey, you looking for your girl yet? Yeah, she's here with me. No, she's fine. When you're done with the cadets come find us. I'll look after her. Yeah. We'll be here." He passed Gwen the box of tissues. "Wipe your face, little sis. We've got some work to do."

Forty-five minutes later.

"Not bad. Try it again. Just squeeze."

Gwen squeezed and the gun in her hands went off with a sharp bark. Her wrists ached, her arms were about to fall off, and her nervous system was so over stimulated that they could have rigged her up and run the computer system off her like a battery. But this was the same kind of gun Spencer carried and she knew how to use it now. She was hitting the torso at least, and that would give them time to run if they had to.

"Good, good. You have two more in the clip, try again, nice and slow."

Never pull it unless you intend to kill what you're aiming at, Morgan had told her at the beginning. But she would, she thought, if it was that Bastard. If he threatened to hurt her husband, she'd kill.