Usual disclaimers.

"Please, I-I don't understand…" Reid stammered, trying desperately to keep up with his captor's frenetic pace. "O-Oliver…"

"Will be fine for a couple of hours, puto," Darius snapped. "Now, listen, and listen good. You're going in there, and you're going to see to my mija."

Confused, Reid asked, "S-see to her?"

"Just like you're doing with that puto amigo of yours. She won't eat, she won't clean up, she won't 'play nice.' You're going to 'convince' her to do those things."

The thought of having to tell the little girl she had to submit to Darius's advances made Reid's stomach churn. "Wh-what if she doesn't?"

"Then I dispatch her and find another. There are plenty of putas from families that destroyed mine to pick from, esclavo."

So that's it, Reid realized. He's taking his revenge by stealing loved ones from those he blames for that particular incident, whatever it might be, and using them as forced prostitutes and slave labor.

"Now, get in there. Don't get cute—your amigo is just down the hall, and easy enough to dispatch if you try."

Reid merely nodded his head, and the thick teak door was opened enough to admit him. A pair of guards stood sentry in the corners of the room, and atop the four-poster laid the frightened little girl, the remnants of tear tracks glistening as they dried on her face.

"No," she mumbled. "Please, just let me go…"

"Cassie, it's Spencer," Reid said gently, desperately wishing he had some kind of clothing to cover his naked frame with. Cassie stared at the tall, nude man that crept closer to her and tried to pull herself away from his advancing figure.

"Get away from me!" she screamed. "Someone help me, please! I want my mama…!"

"Shh, shh, it's me, remember?" Reid coaxed, kneeling to the floor in an attempt to cover himself and put him at eye level with her. "I'm not going to hurt you…"

"Wh-where's your clothes?"

The profiler sighed. "They took them away from me," he admitted, his face growing flush as he did so. Reid knew the best way to develop some semblance of trust was to be open and honest with a subject as possible, and he desperately needed Cassie to trust him right then. "I-I took them from the man who took me, and he made me give them back."

"But then…where's your clothes?"

"They were destroyed."

"Oh." Cassie looked down onto the thick comforter, trying her best to avert her eyes to the scene that lay just below the edge of the bed. "Where's Oliver?"

"He's…sleeping," Reid said. Trust building or no, he couldn't have her focused on Oliver's predicament just then. When Cassie gave him a look, he added, "I just saw him get into bed."

"They…they hurt him. Bad."

"I know."

"He was bleeding, and he couldn't walk, and then a while later there was a loud noise, like a gunshot…" The little girl curled up into a protective ball, her sobs growing more forceful with each passing minute.

"Hey, Oliver's all right. I promise."

"Then who…? I know it was a gunshot, Spencer. My papa, he took me shooting once—the loud noise scared me…"

"Tell me a little about your papa," Reid said, realizing that talking about something safe and familiar might get Cassie to calm down.

"He's…he's a lieutenant in the Navy," the girl said softly, mindful of the guards in the corners. "His name is Tomas, and…and my mama, her name is Celia…"

"What does your mama do?" Reid queried, noticing that Cassie was uncurling a little from her tight ball.

"She keeps house, teaches sometimes," Cassie said. "I want to go home," she cried. "I want my mama…"

Reid gingerly pulled Cassie into a hug, the feeling of her warm skin and the rough cloth of her bedshirt rubbing against his own unprotected flesh. "Hey, shh. We're working on that."

"Really?"

"Mmm hmm." Reid looked over towards the small night table to see a tray of food sitting on top of it, the contents barely touched. "Not hungry?" he asked.

"A-a little," the girl said. "But I'm afraid…"

"Why?"

Cassie took deep breaths, her eyes flittering towards the unseen guards that lurked in the shadows. "What if they put something in it? You know, to make me sick? Or sleepy? That man, the mean one, he keeps trying to touch me, and maybe he might try while I'm asleep?"

Reid picked up a section of sandwich from the tray. "Here," he said, taking a bite and swallowing the bit of bread and cheese and turkey that melted onto his tongue. "Now we'll find out, hmm?"

"But…"

"If I get sick or start to fall asleep, then you'll know. I wouldn't eat it either. Give it about an hour, and we'll know, okay?"

"Okay," Cassie said reluctantly.

Reid readjusted his legs so that he was sitting cross-legged on the parquet floor. He hated the fact that he was being forced to expose himself to this young girl, but there was absolutely nothing he could do to remedy that.

"Here," Cassie said, pulling a small throw blanket from the corner of the bed. "Maybe this will work?"

The profiler picked up the thin blanket and wrapped it around his waist like a sarong he'd seen beach-goers in Miami wear once, while on a case. "Thank you, Cassie."

"You're welcome, Spencer." Reid smiled at the exchange. Feels nice to have someone call me by my name—either of them, he thought. I'm still a person, after all.

Her faith buoyed a little by the sight of a kind and friendly face, Cassie smiled back. For the second time since she'd been brought to this miserable place, the girl didn't feel like an unwanted prisoner or some cheap 'plaything' being kept in a gilded cage. "What now?" she whispered.

Reid thought about Darius's 'list' of demands. "Cassie," he said, his voice growing serious. "Has anyone hurt you? Since you've been here?"

"N-no," Cassie said. "Not like that, I mean."

"Like what?"

"Like that mean man wants to. He won't let anyone come near me, just him, except that one time just before you and Oliver came in."

"The short man, looked kind of caramel-colored?"

"Yes. He was mean too."

"How has the mean man hurt you?"

"He hits me, yells a lot. He touches me, like he did when you and Oliver were here, but not as much as then. Tells me I'm never going home, that I'm going to do what he wants from now on…"

The sound of that troubled Reid. It's only a matter of time before he forces her to 'comply,' he thought, and he'll try it when there's no one to stop him…

"I kick him and try to make him stop," Cassie continued in her hushed tones. "This doesn't help," she said gloomily, indicating the chain that connected her right ankle to the bedpost.

"Cassie, I'm afraid he might try to hurt you more if you don't listen to him," Reid said.

"You want me to let him…?! No. No, I can't. I'm scared. I want to go home to my papa…"

"No, no, nothing like that." God, I wish I didn't have to do this. "The truth is, the mean man? He plans to hurt Oliver if you don't 'behave'." Reid put a lot of emphasis on the word 'behave.'

"He…he would do that?"

"Yes. I think he would. He's told me I have to 'behave' too, or else he'll hurt Oliver, and Oliver's been told we'll be hurt if he doesn't do what he's told." The look on Reid's face told the little girl that he was dead serious.

"But…but, you're a boy. What could he…?"

Reid gently took Cassie's hand into his own and squeezed it. "He wants us to work for him. He wants us to do all the chores he doesn't want to, the ones that are hard and humiliating…"

"Like cleaning the bathroom?" Cassie wondered. "That's what Oliver was doing, I think, before he got hurt." The girl pointed to a familiar looking teak door that sat off to the side of the room—it was a mirror image of the one in Oliver's 'sick room.'

"Yes, like that." Reid chose not to go into much further detail about the 'expectations' his 'owners' had for him.

"But why take your clothes?"

Reid swallowed hard. "So…so we wouldn't run away," he said. There's probably a grain of truth to that, he reasoned. "He thought we'd be ashamed, the mean man, if we tried to run away with no clothes on."

"Oh." Cassie looked at Reid. "I wouldn't be."

The profiler smiled. "You're a lot braver than I am, then."

Cassie returned the smile, though it was small. "Spencer?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"I, um…" Bright brown eyes that shone like dark pebbles flickered towards the bathroom door.

"Oh." Turning towards the guard in the near corner, he asked, "Can she…um, go to the bath?" he asked, continuing to use the 'local' term.

The guard stepped out of the shadows, a large, nasty looking rifle in one hand and a smaller automatic wedged firmly onto a loop in his belt. Slowly, he pulled a small thin key from his pocket, and he unfastened Cassie's restraint, allowing her off the bed. "There, and back," the man growled in warning. "No tricks."

"Yes, sir," Reid said meekly, and with that Cassie ran for the small washroom, firmly closing the door behind her.

"Get over there and make sure she's doing what she's supposed to," the guard snapped, pushing Reid with the barrel of the rifle. "She dies, and it's on you."

"How could she…?" Reid began to wonder aloud, then instantly silenced himself. Remember, genius—behave. Prodded on by the muzzle of the rifle, Reid knocked loudly on the teak door. "Cassie? Are you okay in there?"

"Yes…I'm just…busy…at the moment…" Reid put his ear to the door and was relieved to hear no sounds of footsteps or objects clinking around on the porcelain or tile. By all accounts, Cassie was attending to herself as she said she needed to.

"She's not trying to escape, I swear," Reid said, his voice calm and even. "At least let me give her some privacy…"

"Hmmph," the guard snorted. "Fine. Soon as she's done, the boss wants her 'cleaned up'."

Reid shuddered at the thought of having to 'wash' the little girl, being forced to violate her further than she already had been. "She…she could…" he began, but a rough click silenced him.

"No, esclavo. You're going to 'supervise,' or one of those idiota 'employees' will have no trouble doing it for you. Your choice."

Bile ran cold down Reid's throat as he considered his 'options'—watch a thirteen year-old girl bathe, or let some depraved man who would try to abuse her watch instead. "I'll do it," he said, his tone one of resignation.

"Bueno. Now, get in there."

The profiler tapped lightly on the door again. "Cassie?" he called out.

"Yes?"

"I…I have to come in. Are you decent?"

There was silence a minute. "Yes," Cassie said finally, and Reid slowly opened the door to see the girl standing next to the pedestal sink, her eyes fixed on the floor and a towel in her small hands.

"I'm sorry, Cassie, I really am," Reid said, his eyes wide. "But, you remember how I said I have to 'behave' too?"

"Or they'll hurt Oliver," Cassie recalled.

"Or you," Reid amended. "If I didn't, they would have sent me away and brought someone else in—someone that might want to hurt you."

"What do they want?!" the girl cried.

"They…they want you to take a bath."

"No. I won't."

"Please, Cassie. Remember…?"

The little girl's stare remained fixed on the floor. "I don't want this any more than you do—in fact, I wish we didn't have to do it. But we do."

"I-I don't want someone getting hurt," Cassie said finally, in a small voice. "Do…do you have to watch?"

Reid's mind raced. There was a pair of large bath towels that hung on a nearby towel rod, both of them a deep red color. The profiler pulled one off the rack and noticed that they were as long as he was tall. "Here's what we can do," he said. "Grab me that other towel over there, okay?"

"Okay," Cassie said, pulling the towel from the rod. Reid tossed the large towel over the thin shower rod, and the cloth hung beautifully in a large sheet. Reid then took the second towel from the girl and tossed it alongside its mate, creating a makeshift 'shower curtain.'

"It's not perfect," Reid admitted, "but it'll work. Now, I'll turn around so you can get in—in fact, I'll run the water, okay?"

"Not too hot, please," the girl said as Reid slowly began to hear bits of cloth fall to the floor. Once she was ready, Reid closed his eyes and let her get inside the bathtub sight unseen. "Okay," she called out, indicating she was safely inside the tub. As he heard the water lightly splash in the giant basin, Cassie wondered aloud, "Why would they want you to watch me?"

"Because they think you might try to hurt yourself if you're left alone," Reid admitted.

"That's silly. I'm really scared, but why…?"

"They think you might try to hurt yourself on purpose so you can try to escape," Reid clarified as he sat on the porcelain stool, the lid firmly closed and acting as a 'seat.'

"Oh." The splashing continued, and finally Cassie called out for Reid to close his eyes again so she could dry off.

"Why wouldn't you take a bath before, when you were asked to?" the profiler asked. The inquisitive part of his nature had to be satisfied.

"Because…I thought if I smelled bad, or was really dirty, the mean man wouldn't want to touch me," Cassie admitted meekly.

Reid couldn't argue with her logic. If Raul would fall for that, I'd try it myself, he mused.

Finally Cassie was dressed in her bedclothes, and Reid 'escorted' her back to the bed. "No, please, don't," she pleaded when the guard came to reshackle her to the bed. "It..it hurts, a little…"

"Tough," the gruff man snapped. "You'll run."

"No, I won't, please…" The sight of the girl pleading with the older man broke Reid's heart. The guard merely went back to his wicker armchair without a sound, the rifle perched across his lap. Cassie's tears shimmered down her now-washed face, and when Reid tried to get her to eat something, she refused.

Well, I got her washed and 'behaving,' though how much I'm not sure, he reasoned. Hopefully two out of three…

"Still not eating?" Darius's voice demanded as the man sauntered into the room.

"No," Reid said, his voice cold and unwilling.

"She looks clean, though. Perhaps she's sick?"

"Maybe," Reid said, deciding to go with that excuse. Anything to avoid a beating…

"Mija? Are you sick?"

Reid's eyes told Cassie everything. "Y-yes," she stammered a little. "My-my stomach, it doesn't…"

"Well, that explains a lot," Darius said simply. "Bueno, esclavo. Now, your amigo needs you…"

"Please," Cassie asked, her eyes brimming with tears. "Please, may I see him?"

"Not now, mija. Perhaps later."

The look on Cassie's face told Reid she didn't believe the dark-haired man one bit. "Come on," Darius said. "That puto, he's made himself another mess…"

Sighing, Reid clutched the thin blanket covering him and 'obediently' followed, the metal ring wedged around his neck tugging as fiercely as an animal's claw. Now what? he wondered. And where is everybody? Are they ever going to come for us?