FULL SUMMARY
"I couldn't protect him, Dave. Within half a year, I've failed him twice." Aaron balanced his head onto his fingertips.
"You didn't fail him, Aaron. Not now, and not when Maeve was murdered. We're a team; no one is at any greater fault than the other for what's happened . . ."
Aaron let out a heavy, lamenting sigh. "For this unsub—whatever the motivation was before, subjugating a law official is going to give him a transgressive high. Reid's time with him—however short or long—is going to be unpleasant."
—
Peculiarly dismembered men are unearthed in the forest, and the locals request the assistance of more experienced investigators. The profile is complex and mercurial, leaving the team without substantial evidence to work with. So they wait on their perpetrator to ignite a series of events that will supplement their data for assessment. They don't foresee that data being one of their own. Darkness descends.
And yet.
PREFACE
This three-part book series is an endeavor to take an in-depth approach to the inner workings of an FBI case while dealing with trauma. Its aim is to depict a difficult story about perseverance and the dark place where someone may go after being damaged. Where possible, I have done my best to intertwine a slightly more accurate portrayal of how serial cases proceed while sticking with the Criminal Minds universe in order to create a fleshed-out piece. Some beliefs will need to be suspended, though.
Blackout is written in three arcs. Arc one (chapters 1-11) will be case heavy, introspective, will focus on what the victims of the perpetrator have suffered, and will unfold the investigation as naturally as possible as it's important for the second arc, the meat of the story. It will also have heavy doses of the team family dynamic trying to help a wounded person heal from his grief and mourning while drawing upon their own traumas. The second arc follows in this same vein of investigating the case but with a personal urgency, per the summary.
As such, please heed the following warning because I cannot emphasize this enough: the second arc (chapters 12-38) will touch upon a full spectrum of uncomfortable subjects, conveying physical, sexual, and psychological violence in realistic, escalating detail per cases of this nature, portraying the abuse and trauma that comes with such violence . The rape/non-con content warning applies to the midpoint and multiple chapters onwards. Triggers definitely apply, and appropriate warnings will be given for readers to take heed where necessary.
However, there is no darkness without light. The third arc (chapters 39-49), as well as the ensuing series (Book Two, entitled The Mist We Wade, and Book Three) will focus on the difficult path to healthy and supportive recovery, the fight to find light again through that darkness, even more intense family dynamics, protagonist/antagonist motivations, additional work-related mystery, as well as much-needed post-case resolution (because justice).
Lastly, and most importantly, please take note that this story is a work of fiction, and I, as the author, do not necessarily support, agree with, or condone the views, speech, and/or actions of some of the fictional characters in this story.
Without further ado, please strap in.
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Life isn't just about darkness or light, rather it's about finding light within the darkness.
—Landon Parham
DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
The pressure of the sterile air changed.
It pushed at the delicate hairs of his arms, his skin attuned to even its minutest of changes. These constant conditions he endured had at first jumbled with his senses and in time seemed to alter them. The brief gust would waft in his direction, weaving over him, its suddenness causing his flesh to bubble up and prickle; it was always just a couple of degrees chillier than the atmosphere around him.
The change no longer preceded that surge of fear that had assaulted him for days, weeks, lancing through him and ushering the panic, the screams, the punches, the kicks, the cries. Now, he just brushed away the insects crawling across his skin, sending them to the dark corners.
Except, he knew, there were no such insects.
He felt things. Sometimes, he felt the whispery touch of thick, curly hair on his cheeks and relished the sensation. He heard things, too. Sometimes he heard the pleasant gurgles of an infant's laughter and treasured the sound. And he saw things. At times, he saw people before him who he knew were impossible to see, and on those days his heart felt cloven in two.
The air had its moods, too. Like a spider that felt its web plucked and prodded, he could map out the course of his visits, and he could prepare himself. Sometimes, he could feel a calm and soothing pulse, and the frantic thoughts in his mind would begin to lull over him like gently rolling waves. Other times, it would whoosh and sizzle, making him shiver with its tangy foulness, and he would immediately hold his breath and lay as still as possible and hope, unable to drown out the sound of his blood rushing through his body so quickly that the artery in his neck would throb and he—convinced it was actually his heart—thought the beating chamber would spill from his lips.
What a false thing it was in those times, that hope. It never helped him. It never saved him.
So, yes, detecting someone else's presence in the room before he was approached had become second nature—a sixth sense. He found that ironic, given his situation.
It changed just now, the air, and he lifted his head up before canting it like a wary feline waiting to be frazzled by its mischievous owner or by something strange and new. He hated when it was something new. He hoped it wouldn't be. That false thing again—hope.
He attempted to turn around and sit up, unable to quell the groan the motion elicited. As last recourse, if all else failed him, he could smell whatever deficit his other senses failed to distinguish. So he gave the air a long, deep, silent sniff.
It smelled safe.
Was he a dog, spider, cat, or man? Maybe it was a little bit of everything, and the incredulous imagery that he conjured made him want to laugh. He did until he could only puff, and then puffed until he could only cough.
Before he could sit straight, a pair of hands pulled him upright. He made his gratitude known and exhaled when one of the hands tucked beneath his head and a thumb stroked his jaw. He was used to the touch by now, and even found it comforting. He couldn't quell the medley of emotions that stirred within him when he leaned into the touch, grateful for the kindness though he knew with every shred of remaining rationality that nothing about this was consolatory.
They began to speak with each other.
He thought, first, to apologize; it was only proper, the right thing to do in response to what he'd done before.
"I'm sorry."
"How are you feeling?" he was asked instead.
His response came slowly, as he was unable to find a sufficient word to convey the many things rolling within him. He was terrified and hungry. He felt weak, was in immense pain, and felt even more disoriented than usual. He longed for stimulation and light. And something deep within him, in his bowels, felt very, very wrong. Yet he settled on the only thing that could encompass it all.
"I feel so drained."
One of the hands returned to his jaw, the thumb stroking it while the rest of the fingers trailed into his hair behind his ear. He melted into it.
He was hesitant to continue, but he did so anyway. "Everything hurts." He was unsure if his complaint would be received without castigation. He never knew; the moods were mercurial and therefore unpredictable. He shouldn't complain, though; he was well taken care of. Either way, it made his chest hurt, the fear of the response.
"I know it hurts. I'm sorry that it does."
He pulled his hands away toward his chest. "Please." And then he was apprehensive to repeat it. "Please. Let me go? I don't feel well." In dread but understanding what his body was telling him these past few days, he added, "I think—I think I'm dying."
There wasn't any movement, and he shrank away in fear, knowing for a certainty that his plaintive words were to be met with a rebuke. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please . . . you don't have to—"
"I don't think I can fix you. Nothing's good enough. Nothing's working."
Oh, no.
He then felt the strong arms encircle him, and his hands were inevitably drawn to his chest, trapped in the tight hold. He thought if only he were strong enough, he could end this quickly. But he was weak, severely hurt, and so he couldn't resist the embrace. He used to be strong. He used to fight. When had he stopped? He used to be—
Not this.
It had been a few days since he'd moved from the place that was his bed, a sheeted and pleasantly smelling patch of warmth, a few days since he was beaten so severely that it hurt to breathe. He had incited so much ire from them that he hadn't even been placed, led to, or thrown back onto the bed as was usually done to him; he was left on the floor, where he had to drag himself back to the bed once he was able to orient himself.
That ground would sometimes scrape away the skin of his knees, or it would abrade his chest when he was dragged across the floor by the short links of chain between his cuffed wrists, or excoriate the skin of his back when his bound ankle was easier to grab.
He'd done a bad thing, he knew. What it was exactly, he didn't know. If he knew, he would never again do it to incite such anger.
He was gently rocked; his back was patted and soothed, his hair petted and smoothed. Tears burned his eyes. He missed his mother and his father. His mother often held him when he was a child, whenever he fell ill or whenever thunder clapped too loudly and safety was a warm place with two arms that wrapped around him tightly. She held him when he grew older and he felt trapped in despair so deep that he never thought he would be able to find purchase. She held him when he was so overjoyed that he thought that he might float away. Those arms grounded him, and he missed it. He missed her dearly. He missed them both. Not—
Not this.
But he let his head fall on the shoulder pressed against him, taking in the unique scent. It had bothered him at first, but the constant smell was something he'd gotten used to, something that became agreeable to his senses. Even—
Well, even this touch wasn't unwelcomed. He didn't know what the greater evil was, though: the feelings that came from the gentle sigh of a wicked person, or his severe hand.
Oftentimes, he didn't dare to dwell on it; he would take the former to the latter. He just cared about survival. He just cared about being nurtured. And he was nurtured. He was.
Eventually, the body pulled away from him and he was spoken to. He paid rapt attention. "I can't make you better . . ."
Please, just let me go. I just . . . want to go back home.
Though he had failed once before, he was resolved that the next time he tasted that sweet, short moment of freedom, he would escape. He would make it that time, and escape this hellish place.
Only, when that next time did come, he failed. Days later, Hell instead claimed him.
MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013 AT 3:05PM | STOKES STATE FOREST, NEW JERSEY
"I don't think it's a good idea. End of story, babe."
"Maggie, he's nine years old—he'll be ten when the new school year starts! The school is only a couple of blocks away. Besides, there will be plenty of other kids around while he's walking there. He'll be safe." The man looked over at his young son, who was struggling to traverse a massive, mossy boulder that a large tree was growing around. Their dog was making wide circles around them, bounding between standing trees, jumping over fallen ones.
DJ, current subject of his parents' debate, looked over at his father hopefully, pushing the frame of his glasses further up his nose. His slender face—shedding the baby fat as his limbs began growing too long and gangly for his age—glistened with sweat, and the glasses kept slipping down. He grabbed his father's outstretched hand and was helped up to stand on the rock mass.
Maggie looked up at them from her vantage point on lush ground below her, her hair curling in the humidity and sticking to her brows and cheeks from sweat. She gripped her hands tightly on the straps of her backpack and huffed, shaking her head. "Mm, no. Dylan, it's exactly the other kids I'm just as worried about. Ten years ago we were worried about keeping kids safe from predators, but these days, kids barely older than him are just as bad as any criminal out there!"
DJ looked up at his father then turned his gaze to his shoes, planting his back against the tree. "She's not wrong, Dad," he murmured. He looked up again. "And I'm going to middle school. That's the age that kids normally start going through puberty and trying to understand themselves emotionally and sexually through experimentation such as mastur—"
Maggie bridled like an agitated horse, stomping her foot. "Dylan Junior!"
"It is, Mom!"
"I know it is, but I don't want you talking like that. You're not old enough to be having such mature conversations."
Dylan snorted, knocking his son's head in a playful manner. DJ looked down, bashful. "I don't think we need to be worried about bears out here, kiddo." He started, not at all attempting to be covert. "Your mom'll scare 'em all away."
DJ grinned at his father.
Maggie huffed again but couldn't help smiling. "I heard that, you jerk," she groused as she bent down, picked up a stray but smooth pebble, and threw it at her husband. He curled his body dramatically as her aim was true and it struck his waist. She pumped both fists into the air.
DJ bent to his haunches and looked from beyond the boulder to the ground below and saw a wide gully that dropped below the boulder nearly fifteen feet, where his dog was sniffing the ground. Peeking at the roots of the tree that grew around the boulder, he charted a path, climbed down, grabbing on to some of the exposed roots, then jumped the rest of the way down, a good ten or so feet. He let out a quiet oof! then gave a loud I'm okay! to prevent his parents from coming over the edge to worry over him. He bent down, out of eyesight, and looked back up at the boulder, marveling at the way the tree roots grew around it before dipping back into the earth. He whistled to his dog, and the dog barked at him before sniffing the ground again, digging.
He wandered a couple of yards away, and stood in awe at the forest floor, where lady ferns and moss and many other green plants covered the ground below. There were also patches of curious white flowers with only three petals growing sporadically in this area, a lovely birch grove. He bent his haunches to examine the earth below, pushing around some detritus, carefully uprooting one of the flowers and putting it between two sheets of paper towel he produced from one of his many pockets, rolling it up, and putting it in a plastic sandwich bag. This was precisely what he was here to do today—collect soil and flowers and insect samples to add to his growing database he had in his bedroom (to his mother's everlasting irritation).
"Honey, we need to start monitoring the kinds of books DJ takes out of the library. I don't want him reading those kinds of things," DJ picked up on his mother's words.
Ignoring her, he began swiping his hand at the soil to clear it further. His dog was digging with fervor for something deep below the surface. It was a habit they were trying to break the canine from. He then pulled his backpack off and rifled through it. The soil here was too loose and looked quite disturbed. Perhaps an animal was hoarding a dead carcass. How exciting—he might be able to collect a lot more than he anticipated.
"You worry too much, babe. He's smart as a whip, our spawn. That's why we can take him outta school a couple of times during the year to have long weekend trips like this one."
The mother laughed, slapping his chest. "Don't call him that, Don. And even if he is, at the end of the day he's still just a little boy!"
He grabbed a few containers from his bag and picked up a handful of soil to document, biting his lip in irritation at hearing his parents' conversation. He wanted to drown them out, but sometimes they could really chafe him, especially his mother! He was old enough to have this conversation. He was also more mature than any of his upcoming classmates. And smarter. He didn't need to be protected.
"The fruit of my loin?"
"Heh!"
"Good thing he's tall, too! He'll blend right in with the middle schoolers."
"You mean, he'll be more attractive to young girls that are two or three years his senior."
"Meh. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe. Kid's gotta learn the birds and the bees eventually."
"You're incorrigible. I have actually sired a child with a man-child. Let's take some selfies and explore."
"Well, I'm not the one who married me, so it looks like you made the mistake."
"Ugh! The selfies; the exploring, Mr Man-child."
"Don't change the subject, Mrs Man-child; you always do that when we talk about something you don't wanna, you know, talk about. You know we can't shelter DJ, babe."
While his dog dug with fervor, twisting around his widening hole, DJ pulled out some of his supplies—a trowel, a large hand cultivator, a small dirt sifter, and some plastic bags. He, much like his dog, began going through the dirt, spending countless time sifting and collecting.
A few times, his parents came through to check on him or look at the beautiful area, or they called his and Ruffie's name. They mostly left him to his devices. Once he set his mind on a task, there was little that could break through the hyper-focus. He liked when they left him alone.
He was finding worms and bugs, and also strange larvae that he'd never seen before, and his interest was piqued.
Ruffie started chewing on something, and he reached for the dog's mouth to see any remnants of it.
"What is that, Ruffie?"
It was squished, yes, but it looked like a beetle—orange and black. He curled his eyebrows and pursed his lips, looking back at their large and deep hole. It was pushing three feet by this time. Another one of those same beetles burrowed up from a patch of soil that he'd just scooped up and crawled around the site.
Oh! It looked like a carrion beetle, and if so, would be the first time he saw a real one. He would take one—or two—home with him to classify in his bug collection. It made his mother shiver and squirm every time she saw the collection when she would clean his room. Best way to keep her out, then.
"Deej, you and Ruffie still with us?" The voice was from a significant distance.
"Still here, mom!" DJ yelled back as he dug along with his dog in fervor.
As he turned to another one of his plastic containers to unscrew the cap, the insect scuttled away and burrowed itself back into the ground. He continued digging and found worms and other beetles and grubs that didn't interest him, as he already had those ones in his collection, so he kept digging inch after inch hoping to find the carcass that the supposed canidae had buried. That's what carrion beetles meant—that there was something dead under there, and some animal probably buried it to keep from other predators. Deciding to use the cultivator to loosen up the soil further, he formed his fingers into cups, scooping the earth and digging with excitement alongside his dog, never minding the fact that most animals didn't bury their food quite so deep.
He dug and he dug, and Ruffie dug and he dug, and they were layers and layers deep into the earth, with its threshold soon above them. It was disappointing that they couldn't find anything yet, but DJ just knew there had to be something here.
And finally, all the work yielded the fruit of their labor, but it was neither fruit nor a furry find.
His fingers scratched against something foreign, and he reeled back in confusion. That was strange, and not supposed to be there. It was fabric. He thought to widen the hole more.
—
"How far did we wander from the trail?" Maggie asked her husband as she looked down at her watch. They were here for nearly two hours, now. Every now and then she or Dylan called out to their son or dog, or they wandered back to where he was. At one point, they'd admonished him that he would have to put the earth right back in the hole he'd dug.
"Dunno. Maybe half a mile, mayhaps, methinks, my dear? I know we're at the edge of Stokes and the Delaware National Recreation area, though. We'll need to get back on trail so we can leave before sundown. Let's get him to put the dirt back." Swiveling, Dylan winked at his wife. "You'll see just how independent our little human bean can be."
Maggie scrunched her face and worried at her brow. "I know, I know. I worry too much. But I feel like if he puts too much in his brain, there will be things that he might not understand emotionally, you know?"
"Yeah," Dylan agreed. "But he's been very open about asking us questions when he doesn't understand something."
"I'm not saying he shouldn't know them; I'm just saying he's still very you—"
Both parents whipped their heads in the direction of the terrifying screech that pierced through the quiet forest.
"DJ?" Dylan called out in concern.
Maggie turned and walked toward the sound of her son's rapidly approaching footsteps and of the dog barking behind him, used to his inability to contain his excitement. What had he discovered this time?
He burst a few yards left from around the boulder—completely soiled—ran toward his father without slowing, then continued right past him.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, buddy!" Dylan rushed after DJ. He overtook him in seconds and pulled him still, and his son looked at him with an ashen, terrified expression. "Where ya goin', Deej?"
His little arm began shaking in agitation, and he let out a soft whine that both his parents knew all too well meant he was disturbed. "I wanna go home, Dad. Please, let's go home."
Dylan bent to his haunches and levelled himself to DJ, placing his hands on the little shoulders. "Home? Without your backpack?" he asked with a laugh, hearing his wife exclaim that she would get it as well as her call to their dog. He was bemused but not entirely surprised by the change in demeanor. DJ had been so adamant that they travel all this way for their extended weekend getaway, but sometimes he would change his mind without any warning.
DJ pulled on his father's sleeve and his face turned red as he furrowed his brows upwards, pleading. "Please, please, Dad! Home!"
"Oh my God, oh my God!"
Dylan, hands still on his son's shoulders, turned his head in the direction of his wife's voice and his hands gripped tighter.
"Dylan, we have to contact the rangers!" Maggie's voice quivered.
"The hell," Dylan murmured. "Just . . . just stay right there, Deej." He straightened and began to walk towards his wife. DJ didn't stay still, but rather followed him. He found his wife moments later, staring at the ground and covering her mouth with her hand. His son clung to his side as he drew nearer to where his wife was standing. Nearing the fallen backpack, he stopped short and looked down to view what had terrified DJ enough to stop him mid-discovery and his wife to turn away at that very moment, gagging as their ill-trained dog resumed digging.
And there he saw it.
There below Maggie, Dylan, and their cowering child peeked the face of a person tucked into the earth—nose pointed to the sky beyond the treetops, all bound with fabric that used to be a white shroud—and their dog's blunt claws kept scratching scratching scratching.