Chapter 14: A Breakthrough
"I know these words mean something. I just can't figure out what it is." Reid grumbled while staring at the board full of all the words found in each victim's pocket, including the one found in his own pocket. His chest ached under an invisible weight as a sudden memory of the bullet moving through his chest radiated through his body all over again. Something he previously would have labeled as impossible now made his knees weak, and his demeanor crumble.
Morgan brought his attention from the file clenched between his fingers and moved up behind Reid.
"You good, man?"
Reid nodded his head limply as a wave of guilt overcame him; somehow, he was alive. He was here, and JJ wasn't. He was here, and countless other people had died.
But he was here.
He didn't know if it was intentional on the unsub's part or just luck. Either way, he needed to find JJ with this second chance at life so that she could have a second chance at life too. She deserved that more than anyone else he knew, and she was counting on him. That pressure was almost as much as the one that had been sitting in his throat from the moment he found JJ was gone.
He focused his shimmering eyes on the board once more. The words stared back at him while rearranging themselves in different patterns and forms, trying to find something that made sense. It had been hours of staring at the words when Reid finally came up with something. He wrote all the words again in a list, bolding the first letter of each one.
Justice
Empathetic
Notice
Need
Intelligence
Fear
Ending
Remove
Jaded
Agitation
Run
Efface
Anxiety
Unavailable
Jennifer Jareau.
Again JJ was pried from the sweet relief of painless unconsciousness. She sputtered at the insolent awakening, having lost count of how many times he had wrapped his brawny hands around her neck until she passed out. Then he would wake her again, sometimes with cold water, other times with a sharp stick in her side, one time he tazed her, and she only knew that because of the lasting effects that her body couldn't seem to rid. It was a sort of torture she had never experienced before, and after each horrific revival, he would strangle her again, just to watch the life flee from her eyes. Every time her eyes flickered closed, she wondered if it would be the last time she opened her eyes or took a breath of air.
An excruciating amount of time passed before he stood up from her bleak and bare body for the first time. JJ's body only conveyed bruises, abrasions, and her underwear. Everything else had been taken from her, including her dignity and safety. She might have felt "lucky" for the small act of privacy but at this point, she didn't care about much and he had only done it with a mumble under his breath that he "wasn't no pedophile like dad." And JJ vaguely realized he might still see her as the traumatized 15-year-old from so many years ago.
JJ had managed to stay conscious, long enough to hear Colton go on and on about the abuse he endured in each of his foster homes. He gave her a detailed account of every awful thing that had been done to him or that he had done himself from the moment he was put in the system. Colton told JJ about calling his uncle to take him in, but the man wouldn't for reasons Colton couldn't understand. After that, Colton had attempted suicide.
"You ruined my life. You changed everything. It's not my fault you're here- it's yours, and I don't feel bad for that at all. You deserve it." He repeated the phrases over and over, and JJ was too weak to analyze what his motive was for the constant curses until a familiar name slipped through his lips, and JJ spoke up for the first time.
"Beckham?" She questioned, not recognizing the sound of her own hoarse voice but knowing she had caught him in a mistake.
He paused.
"What are you talking about?" She pushed again, this time gaining a little traction from his surprise.
"You're delusional." He finally said with a nervous scoff.
"No, you said Beckham. He's a part of this?"
"You don't know what you're talking about." He growled and took a step toward JJ.
"What does Beckham have to do with any of this? Does he tell you what to do?"
"No!" Colton howled. "I tell him what to do."
"Like what? Why would he ever listen to you?" JJ kept driving the words like a stake into the ground, finally getting some information that could really help her. Her hands gently shook as she struggled to push herself up against the twin bed with a newfound sense of urgency and adrenaline.
"Like shooting genius Dr. Reid, but the dumb idiot screwed it up."
"Because Reid survived," JJ mumbled.
Colton whipped his head around and directed his crazy, red strained eyes towards her. "None of the rest of them did, and you won't either." He barked back.
JJ bit the inside of her lip and tried to ignore the threat and the throbbing in her head that made her both nauseous and feel like she could pass out at any second.
"If I ruined your life when you got taken from your dad… why would you kill him?"
His expression was sort of star-struck, like she was dumb for missing something so obvious, but after all the abuse and torture, she still hadn't been able to connect that dot. Colton shook his head, and for a minute, JJ couldn't tell if he was going to give her the information she craved.
"Because he was just like everyone else I ever trusted. A liar. He told me we'd be together when he got outta jail- but he didn't want nothin to do with me. A damn liar."
"So you started killing." JJ finished.
Like all his other startling emotions that were always so big and surprising, he began to sob.
"None of this would have happened. None of this should have happened, you stupid whore."
"I'VE GOT A NAME!" Garcia screamed as she ran down the hall from her office as fast as she could in her wedge heels. She got up to the conference room, where the rest of the team sat with dejected but determined stares. "I've got a name!" She repeated, this time with more urgency.
Each team member stood up from the table with a sense of hope that had been lacking for far too long.
"Thanks to Mcsmarty Pants Spencer, I found Colton Alderman, Ray Alderman's son."
"I thought you already looked into him?" Morgan said, trying to control his fleeting hope.
"I did, but what I didn't see was his suicide letter from his time in the system that had been sealed in his file under a misleading name. In the letter, he mentions JJ and how his death was her fault. Guys, this is it, this is him. Now go get our JJ."
A/N: You guys are so amazing. Thank you for the kind reviews, please keep them coming. I hope you enjoy this update, talk to you soon!