Chapter Twenty
Emily couldn't see him, but she could hear him. He was sloshing through water nearby. Water. That was good. She had figured out where she was; somewhere linked up to the town's sewage system. It was the only was she could justify it smelling so awful and being so dark at the same time. They were underground, of that much she was certain. She only knew because of the pressed on her eardrums, and, even then, she didn't know how she knew. The pain in her arm was back, from the knife wound but the headache had subsided, somewhat, though she still felt tired. But the intense silence was worsening the buzzing in her ear. The high pitched noise was almost more annoying than the ropes wrapped tightly around her wrist, which were beginning to chafe. She could already feel that they had broken the tender skin between her a few of her fingers. Even twitching her hands hurt, but she hadn't stopped trying to get out of them, and she slowly felt the rope giving way, becoming looser. It was taking too long, though.
When he neared, she stilled.
"I didn't want to do this, you know," He told her, quietly. Emily said nothing, but listened intently as his voice shattered the stillness. "I didn't want to hurt you. I almost liked you. But I couldn't hurt her. She was too much like her. And I know what I need now. The little ones, they're not enough. It has to be you, instead. With you, it will work."
Emily had no idea what he was talking about. She had no idea who he was talking about. His words were jumbled, even as he spoke them, and Emily could barely put them together in her head, she was so disoriented by the blackness and the now dull ache in behind her ear. Who was the 'her' he was talking about? Or was there more than one?
"Tonight," He was nodding, "It will have to be. Still a full moon. Meant to be, you see," He was rambling, but she caught most of it this time, "Meant to find you. Meant to be you."
Allison. Definitely his voice. How had they missed this? She should have known, she should have seen it.
"JJ," She mumbled, suddenly fearful, her voice coming out quiet, "JJ?"
"There's no one else here, Agent Prentiss," He told her. "No one but you and I."
She strained, trying desperately to form a coherent sentence. "D'you hurt JJ?"
There was quiet in the darkness, and Emily felt her stomach drop. She couldn't breathe for a moment, fear gripping her like a steel hand around her windpipe.
"No," The hand released her and Emily gasped, sucking gratefully at the air, "I couldn't. The hair...blue eyes. Looks too much like her."
Groggy as she was, Emily was adding to their profile in her head. Her. Too much like her. Who?
"Who?" She breathed, "Too much like who?"
Again, silence. She could sense his eyes on her. He hadn't bothered to put the blindfold back on, she noted. That had probably been a precaution for if she woke up before he got her down here. Now, in the dark and the damp, it was pointless, useless. He didn't need it. And, besides, she knew who he was, anyway. He had no intentions of letting her get out of here alive.
"Tyla," He finally spoke, gently. "My Tyla."
Emily could tell from the tender way he spoke her voice that Tyla was his child. His daughter. It was slowly beginning to make sense to her, and if she hadn't been so out of it, Emily would have gotten there a lot faster.
"She was about six, right?" Emily was putting it altogether in her head, "That's why you took those little girls. They're substitutes for her. Did you kill her the same way you killed them?"
A hand shot out in the darkness and, with a roar of rage, he smacked her across the face. Arms and legs tied, Emily couldn't stop herself from falling, and the pain on her cheek was followed by more pain as her forehead smacked off the concrete of the floor. Whiteness, like fireworks, exploded behind her eyelids and Emily felt a warmth begin to seep down her face. Blood.
"Don't you dare," Allison was angry now, and closer than he had been. He reached for her in the dark, his hands finding her arms, and pulled her to her feet, where she balanced precariously, ankles still bound. "Don't you dare," He shoved her backwards, and Emily shrieked as her head was slammed against a smooth wall, and slid, helplessly, back to her knees. "I would never." As quickly as it had come, his anger subsided. He was crouching right in front of her now, so close that Emily could feel the warmth of his breath as his anger turned to sobs. "She was my baby. All I had left of my Olivia. I would never hurt her. What kind of a father do you think I am?"
Emily stayed very quiet. There were tears pooling in her own eyes, as she felt the blood run down her face. She closed her eyes tight against it, but it avoided her eyes altogether, travelling smoothly past her eyebrow and down the outside of her cheek. It was a steady flow of blood, but Emily knew that head wounds always looked worse than they were. There was always more blood than cut. The blunt force to the back of her head, however, in such quick succession to the last blow, was dangerous, and even in the dark, Emily felt the dizziness set in. She kept her lips pressed tight together, tears of pain seeping out of the corners of her eyes, for fear of angering him again. Without her gun, with her hands tied behind her back and her ankles locked together, there was nothing she could do to defend herself. There was nothing Emily hated so much as feeling helpless.
"I asked you a question," His voice was low, deep, slow. The sudden calmness made Emily wary and she swallowed, deeply, before she spoke. When she did finally speak, her voice came out in a rasp.
"I'm sorry," She said, wanting to appease his anger, protect herself for the time being, "I didn't know. I'm sorry for your loss."
"You are?" He sounded genuinely surprised, and regardless of what she knew, Emily was sorry. Too often, she came across this same story. Parents without children who lost their minds. She was sorry, and she told him so.
"You've done...terrible things, Jack," She started, slowly, "I think we both know that. You know what you've done isn't right. But, yes, I am sorry that you lost Tyla. Nobody deserves that."
Again, the silence. Emily tensed, pulling her knees up to her chest, anticipating a blow that didn't come.
"Terrible things," Jack agreed, through the darkness. "Terrible. But, after tonight, there won't be any more terrible things," He was rambling again, "After tonight, everything will be better. Just one more. You'll be my last. And then it will be better."
"How?" She asked, unable to help herself, "How will it be better after you kill me, Jack?"
"Because I'll have my Tyla back."
He was insane. Emily could hear it now. She thought back to the man she had met that morning, with his distant eyes and his perfect story of how he'd stumbled onto Thalia's body. What was it he had been saying, when she and JJ took him back to the site?
"So many," That was what he'd said, when he saw how many bodies they'd found. "So many."
"How many were there, Jack?" She asked. The way Emily saw it, he didn't expect her to make it out of this alive. So, he had nothing to lose.
"Twelve," He answered her, immediately.
Twelve. Emily closed her eyes, dropped her head. He'd killed twelve little girls. She took a moment, for the girls they hadn't been able to save. Thalia, Alexa, Meredith, and the nine other little girls whose names she didn't know. She shook her head in the dark.
"Jack," She tried to reason with him, knowing that in his mental state, it was probably pointless, but feeling the desperate need to try, anyway, "Jack, you can't bring her back. I'm so sorry, but you can't. Tyla's gone. She wouldn't have wanted you to do this.
"You don't know!" He was yelling again, and Emily shrunk back against the wall, anticipating violence. She heard a smack, but didn't feel anything, and deduced from Jack's swearing that he had punched the wall. "You don't know what you're talking about," He spat at her, "I know! I've seen it. I've learned. I taught myself how to do it, and I'm going to bring her back. I just need the right offering. That's where you come into it. But you've got until midnight, when the full moon rises."
Emily heard him splash away, and when she was sure he was gone, she exhaled.
His footsteps were receeding now, slowly. Emily didn't know where he was going. They would know now, that it was him. They would know he had her. How long had she been down here? It was easy to loose track of time in the dark, and she didn't know how long she had been unconscious for. If JJ had gotten back to them...if. If Allison had been telling the truth about not hurting her. He had. She really thought he had. The emotion in his voice, when he spoke about his daughter. He wouldn't have hurt JJ. Would he?
It hurt to think. Her head was still bleeding, and she felt it drip from her chin onto her chest as she sat there. Even if they didn't find her, she might well be dead before they got to her at this rate. Head wounds bleed a lot. Hotch would find her. He would. He wouldn't let them sleep until they found her. They wouldn't want to sleep until they found her. But she was tired, and it hurt too much to think.
"Hey, I'm sorry, I thought you said 10:30."
"I did, for you."
She knew she was in for it, when he said that. Reluctantly, she took the seat opposite him. From a glance, she could see what he was reading. She caught her name.
"I received Dr Merrill's evaluation and I just wanted to review it with you."
Uncomfortable now, and slightly annoyed at his having drawn her here under false pretenses, Emily bristled and cast her eyes about the jet. "Here?"
Things between them had been difference since she'd gotten back. She had seen it in his eyes, when she had walked into the conference room, when she'd seen him for the first time in seven months. He was unshaven, rough. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. They all did. By comparison, she knew she looked like she'd just come back from a weekend at the spa. She'd been lonely, but they'd been through hell. Morgan was looking at her like he didn't recognise her. Penelope was gaping. Rossi's face was impassive, but she thought she could detect the lingering of a smile at the corners of his mouth. Emily's eyes past swiftly over Reid, because she couldn't stand to see the hurt she knew she would find there.
JJ looked like she could cry with relief, at no longer having to keep the secret. But Hotch. Hotch was looking at her like he had so long ago. Like she was someone to be suspicious of. Someone not to be trusted. Someone he thought he had known, who turned out to be someone entirely different.
And here he was, bringing up her psych eval.
"I get tired of being profiled through my office window," He told her, attempting a joke, but Emily wasn't about to take that bait. It was difficult enough, being here, alone, with him. Things were too stiff, too awkward, too different, Before Doyle, they'd been in a good place. A great place. Lauren Reynolds had shattered that.
"What is there to discuss?" Emily asked, unwilling to be profiled by her boss, shutting down any cooperation he thought she might give him. "She gave me a clean bill of health."
Hotch's eyes bored into hers. She knew better than to try to fool profilers, but that didn't mean she had to make it easy for him. She looked back, her own eyes blank, unassuming. She wasn't about to give him any reason to take her out of the field again. Hotch, recognising the walls that were going up, the stubbornness that he was fighting against. He glanced back at the file, reading the words in front of him.
"Patient shows no hesitation tackling difficult goals as part of reintegrating into her life." Emily was nodding. These were exactly the words she had wanted the psyche to write, or, at least, words to this effect. She had been very particular about the language she used, when talking to the doctor. But Hotch was still talking. "She has reached out to her mother."
His eyes found hers and, for the first time, Emily felt the need to defend herself. "I'm going to!" She insisted, knowing he could see through the lie as easily as she could tell it.
"And has started a romantic relationship with a man named Sergio." Was that a smile playing at the corner of his lips? Emily would have sworn it was.
But, for that, she didn't have an answer. She tilted her head, looking for one, and licked her lip, in the way she did when she was thinking, but there was nothing to be said. He didn't wait for her to speak, either.
"Now, I don't care if you lie to your therapist," He was saying, "All I care about is how your behaviour affects your job."
And there it was. No, I care about you. No, you've been through a lot. All Hotch, all business. Just how he had been with her way back when, before they'd earned each other's trust. Before he knew her. He didn't know her anymore. That was how he felt, and there was nothing Emily could do about that. Regardless she was not about to let him accuse her of not doing her job.
"I don't think it has," She defended, passionately.
"You've been overcompensating," He accused, evenly.
Knowing he was right, but refusing to die on this hill, Emily rolled her eyes, shaking her hair out of her face. "How have I-"
Hotch, obviously, had come armed.
"You rushed to repair your relationship with Morgan." Strike one. "You've become an emotional sounding board for Reid and Rossi." Strike two.
"That's being a good friend." Even as she said it, she knew, they both knew, that it was more than that. She hated that he could call her out like this.
"You offered me parenting advice." Strike three. And you're out.
She sucked in a breath, knowing the game was over.
"Okay," She admitted, reluctantly. "Maybe I have been working a little bit harder to regain people's trust," Including yours. "Is that such a bad thing?"
Hotch was shaking his head and, this time, when he spoke, it was softer, calmer, kinder. "No," He said, simply, "It only is if you use it to avoid dealing with what you went through."
Emily looked at him a moment and, for the first time, behind those distrustful eyes, she saw concern.
"But I'm not," She tried to reassure him. "I chose to come back here. Why?" She asked, before he could, anticipating his next question. "Because I care about the people I work with? Yes. But also because it's clean," She insisted, willing him to understand, to feel how much she meant it. "I know who the good guys and the bad guys are. I don't have to worry about...screwing someone over to make a case."
He understood. He was all softness now. It was unnerving to see, but reassuring at the same time. "Okay," He said, gently, letting her be. "I want you to make a deal with me. You're going to go weeks, months, even, feeling fine." He was, she knew, speaking from experience. "And then you're going to have a bad day."
He was earnest, his eyes imploring. She wanted to reassure him, but she knew he was right.
"Just let me know when you do."
The seriousness had dissolved a moment later, with the quip about Sergio, but Emily had felt the weight of that promise she made to him for days after.
Clinging to that, the softness of him, the depths of those eyes, the lengths she knew he would go to for them, for the team, for her. That was what would get her through, she knew. Even stronger than all of her pains, her gunshot wound, the blunt force to the back of her head, the wound on her forehead, her bruised and bleeding hands, even stronger than all of that, was the knowledge that they were coming for her. In the dark. Waving flashlights and calling her name. They would find her. He would find her. It was all she had to cling to. It was enough.