Chapter Twenty-Two

Her head was spinning. The grass beneath her, which had been so comfortingly cold only a few moments ago, was now freezing, hard and uncomfortable. Her arm throbbed, burned. Infection crossed her mind, absently, but she couldn't grab the thought before it flitted out of her mind, replaced by the dizziness that came and went sporadically.

You should get up. A voice in her head was telling her. For half a second, Emily hought it was Hotch's voice. It was Hotch's voice. Inside her head.

Emily. You should get up.

I can't.

You have to.

I'm going crazy. She thought, weakly. But, brain-Hotch was right, if she didn't move soon, either Allison was going to come back for her, or she was going to pass out right here on the grass, and probably never wake up. And, if she did wake up, it would be to the pain of Allison carving that pentagram into her forehead. Then she heard them. The voices. And she could see the light, coming through the trees. More than one voice, so, not Allison.

"Here," She tried to shout, but the word caught in her throat. Coughing, she tried again, louder this time. "Over here."

Painfully, she shoved herself to her knees, trying to see further, and cringing away from the way her arm burned. Her head spun, aching, and she groaned.

Then, splitting pain through her skull, and Emily cried out as she was yanked to her feet, Allison's hand tangled tightly in her hair. He clamped a hand over her mouth, but too late. She heard a shout, and then the lights were growing brighter and the voices louder. Allison was trying to drag her away, but she fought it. With bound and bloody hands and every ounce of strength that she had left, she fought him. The hand that was clamped over her mouth shifted and Emily sank her teeth into it, not giving herself time to think, as hot blood flooded into her mouth. Allison howled in pain and threw her from him. Emily fell to the hard ground with a smack, spitting the taste of him onto the grass, choking on it.

But it was enough. The lights were bright enough that Emily had to close her eyes against them, and she could finally hear what the voices were saying.

"Allison!" Morgan! That was Morgan. "Put down the weapon and get down on the ground! Now!"

His voice was strong, but Emily could hear it shake. Morgan's voice never shook like that. Morgan always kept it together. Her ears were pounding, now, and her head felt like it was going to split open. Definitely a concussion; the lights definitely hadn't helped. She tried to move, tried to sit up, and heard a rustle of fabric and too many yells to make out one voice. Again, the shooting pain through her skull, right into the roots of her hair, and she was being pulled to her feet. Still unable to open her eyes against the torches, Emily tried to turn her head away and felt something cold pressed against her throat.

"Emily, don't move." That was JJ.

Pained as she was, confused as she was, Emily felt her heart soar to hear their voices. They'd get her out of this. Even as the cool metal of the knife pressed against her skin, and Emily felt the first prickles of pain as tiny red dots of blood erupted out of her skin, she still believed they would get her out of this.

"I've got to. She's the last one!" Allison was shouting, now, and Emily could feel the heat from his hand as the blood dripped onto her forehead. "She's the last one, and then I'll have my baby girl back!"

"Nothing is going to bring Tyla back, Mr Allison," That was Reid's voice, scared and anxious, but holding steady, "I'm sorry, but that's the truth of it. She's not coming back and...and she wouldn't want you to do this. Think about her. Think about your wife. Neither of them would want this for you."

The knife at her throat moved, shaking, as Allison began to yell back at them.

"You don't know!" He screamed, and Emily's head pounded in protest, "You don't know what it's like! To not be able to hold your child, or your wife. To have everything you love taken away from you! You don't know, you'll never know-"

"I know," Hotch! From somewhere over to her left. Emily jerked her head in his direction, felt the slide of the knife against her throat and gasped against it. There was a moment of silence, of tension, and then Hotch spoke again. Emily felt the slow trickly of blood that had begun at her throat. It was a shallow cut, but it stung, and Emily held herself in place, too terrified to move. "I know what it's like. To have the thing you love taken away. To lose somebody. I know what that's like. But that doesn't change anything," Hotch was saying, "That doesn't change what they would have wanted for you, Mr Allison. And its not this. Is it?"

The hand at her throat was jerking amost violently now, as Emily felt sobs wrack Allison's body where he stood. The hand in her hair moved, released, and the tension in her head was relieved, but the hand at her throat remained.

"YOU DON'T KNOW!" He was yelling now, and Emily grimaced at the pain it caused her. Her head was ringing, her ears buzzing. It was so bad that even as he stood beside her, yelling like that, she felt as though she could barely hear him over everyhing that was going on inside of her head. She must have cried out, though she didn't realise it, because suddenly he was pulling her back, flush against him, and pressing the knife in closer.

"Stop!" She heard multiple voices yell, along with the rustle of the grass as they advanced slowly.

"No, you stop!" Allison countered, and the rustling stopped, abruptly. The torches were lower now, and Emily chanced a glance, though her vision was still blurred by her headache. She could just about make the outlines of her team members out. Hotch, front and centre, was further forwards than the rest of them and even with her impaired vision she could see the tension in his muscles. JJ, with her blonde hair tied up high on her head, was aiming her gun at Allison, though Emily knew he was using her as a human shield. Reid and Morgan were doing the same, all of them trying to get an angle Emily knew wasn't possible to find. "You stop!" Allison repeated.

Emily could hear the shake in his voice and knew this wasn't going their way. She couldn't do anything to help them, with the knife pressed to her neck and her hands bound as they were and even as she squinted at the team, she felt the blood from her neck pooling at her chest. If she made it out of this alive, which didn't look likely right now, she would have another scar to add to the collection, and one not so easily hidden as the others. Craning her neck backwards, Emily tried to turn away from the knife, managing to turn her head just a little to the left. Allison held her in place, a hand returning to her hair, and she yelped.

"STOP!" She heard Hotch yell, "Stop hurting her, Allison or I swear-"

His professionalism was all gone now. Beside him, JJ could see his hands shake as he held out the gun. He couldn't shoot, wouldn't shoot, but JJ didn't want to see what would happen if Allison hurt Emily. She'd seen it before, what Hotch could do to a man who hurt someone he loved. She thought that, perhaps, Hotch's hands were shaking not only out of fear for Emily, but out of fear for what he might do.

The shot that cracked the night, however, did not come from Hotch's gun. It came from Rossi's. Rossi, who had managed to sneak away from the group before being spotted by Allison, and had crept in from the trees that stretched to the left. Emily had seen him, upon turning her head, seen him raise his gun. She knew what was coming.

The shot split her head open, or at least, that was how it felt. It didn't hit her, of course; it hit Allison, in the arm holding the knife to her throat. He dropped it and Emily kicked it away. Reid surged forwards to pick it up, but Allison still had a hand curled through her black hair and, even as his arm bled onto the grass, he wasn't letting her go.

"You-you don't understand," He was crying now, sobs wracking his body. Emily could tell, though, that they weren't tears of pain, at least not physical pain. They were tears of grief. "This was my last chance. My last chance to bring my girl back."

The hand in Emily's hair eased, her scalp screaming with relief as the pressure subsided, and Emily felt Allison collapse to his knees behind her. She took a step, stumbled, and found herself lying on her side in the grass. Bloodied, exhausted and concuss, she couldn't take another step.

He was at her side then, pulling a pocket knife out and hacking at the ropes that bound her hands. She closed and opened her fists a few times, looking at them in confusion. They didn't hurt anymore, though she could see the blood, both dried and fresh, that seeped from the broken skin between her fingers. She felt strong arms around her, one across her back, one beneath her knees, and wrapped her arms around Hotch's neck as he lifted her as easily as though she weighed nothing at all. She was covered in blood, she knew. It was on her chest and her neck, it was smeared across her face from where she had bitten Allison, and it was dripping down her forehead from where he'd clung so tightly to her hair with the hand she had wounded. In her concuss state, she worried, momentarily, about how she must look; like some extra from a horror film. But Hotch didn't see any of that when he looked at her.

"I've got you," He mumbled into her ear, so only she could hear him, "Emily, You're safe, I've got you." But even as he said it, she was losing consciousness.