The explosion fills the darkness with the brightest light as Emily stares out the back window of the Range Rover. Maybe, she should cover her eyes or look away, but she stares at it until the building is completely out of sight. Tears fall from her eyes unnoticed by her until the cold metal of the gun touches her cheek, collecting the tears. She wishes she could replace their lives with her own. Hotch, Jack, neither of them deserved this. She should have protected them. Never gotten involved. Her guilt screams within her, this is her fault.
"Painful, huh, Emily?" Ian asks. "Imagine it being your own son."
Emily sighs, looking at him. Her exhaustion clear in her voice. "Would you like to see the place Declan died?" Part of her is so tired and so upset that she doesn't want to fight anymore, but if there is any chance, she doesn't want that boy to experience grief ever again... if he ever experiences anything at all.
Ian stares at her, violence in his eyes. The gun slides beneath her neck lifting her chin as it presses into the place where her chin and her throat meet. She can barely breathe, but that is hardly new. The guilt is smothering her more than this gun. "Where you killed my son?"
"Yes," she answers, tears staining her cheeks.
"Give me the address," he says, and she easily recites it from memory. A warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Another one of the memories that she will never forget. He moves the gun from under her neck as she stays turned to see the smoke and the unnatural light in the sky that comes from their apartment. Ian lifts the gun, and as Emily listens to the sirens and watches the lights from the city, she prays Aaron understood. She prays they're safe. They cannot be gone. They need to live.
The gun slams into Emily's head, and her world goes black.
With freezing water dumped on her head, she wakes, and it is nearly as dark as it was in her mind when she was unconscious. Her eyes focus, and she recognizes it immediately: the warehouse.
"This is it?" Ian asks, looking at the abandoned building before them that surrounded by dozens of other abandoned buildings.
"Yes," she responds, looking up at the doorway. Ian gestures for his men to break the lock, and Emily swallows her anxiety. She is forced to stand suddenly by Ian's vise-like grasp on her arm. She stumbles inside, tripping exaggeratedly as the doors are brought to a close behind them and catches herself against the very wall with the light switch and she flips on the lights. The large warehouse is illuminated brightly. Only a couple chairs, a table, and an empty cabinet in the place.
"Hey!" One of Ian's men shouts turning his gun towards Emily.
She shrugs, still held tightly by Ian's hand. "I thought you would want to see it clearly. See where Declan died." Ian lifts his gun as though to hit her again with it, and she says, "That's it right there." She nods her head to a wall across from where they stand. "That is the wall Declan and his nanny were sitting in front of when they died."
A feral look crosses his eyes before he drags Emily across the ground. Slamming the gun into her head sharply, Emily falls to the ground. The clash of her body against the metal is just loud enough to cover up the sound of her dislocating her own thumb. "Sit up! On your knees, Lauren!" Ian howls at her. The thought of his murdered son is clearly the only thing on his mind. "You will pay for what you did. You're a monster," he tells her, pressing the gun into her forehead.
She looks up at him, striking black eyes cutting into him intentionally. "Ian, I'm the only person here that is not a monster." Ian is moments from pulling the trigger, ignoring what she said before she goes on. "I have a secret to tell you, Ian. Something only three other people know," she looks at him with a whisper.
"I don't care," Ian tells her firmly.
"You do. You will care about this more than anything. It's about your son," she tells him in a whisper.
"Tell me," he demands.
Emily shakes her head, looking at all three of his men around the room. "They can't hear this. It's too dangerous," she says, but Ian does not look sold. Her whisper drops even lower and she says, "Declan deserves respect, and if people that did not care for him know this, then he may lose that."
Ian doesn't believe her for a moment, but he has the gun, and he will kill Emily soon enough. He decides to hear her out and tell his men to step out of the building. They argue, but Ian has all of the authority. "They're gone. Tell me."
"Declan's last words. I thought someone else should know them." Ian looks at her blankly, waiting for whatever she had planned, but she knows he cannot be prepared for this. "He looked at me and said, 'Emily, is this the paint that movies use when characters are killed?' I told him yes and he smiled. Shut his eyes, and I shot him and his nanny. Well… I shot a photograph."
Ian looks at her shocked, eyes widening as he processes this information. She takes the opportunity and pulls her hand through the cuff. She tackles him and fighting ensues. He is immediately fighting back, but the gun is from his grasp and sliding across the floor. His men are outside and can't hear the struggle. They throw each other around the warehouse violently, hit after hit contacting Emily's skin, but she barely feels any of it. She barely experiences any of it. She is blinded by rage. He hurt, maybe… killed, Jack and Aaron. She just wants to hurt him back. End him like she wish she had all those years ago.
He throws her against the table, and it breaks beneath her. Her body aches, and her back screams, but she ignores it. She hears Jack's cries, sees Aaron's fear. She fights against him, and she is on top of him, hitting him with the leg of the table again and again. She is so close to the gun that she drops the stake without thought, reaching for the gun to stop him from hurting anyone else. But she doesn't reach it in time. The stake is in his hand, and then it is in her stomach, and she screams. Blood-curdling, glass-shattering, heartbreakingly screams, and all she feels is pain. She collapses on top of Ian as she bleeds from the major wound and many others throughout her body.
Ian pushed her onto her back and off of him and runs out. His men getting him out of there seconds before the sirens fill the air, barely reaching Emily's ears that can hear little more than adrenaline pushing her heart to beat fast as more and more blood escapes her. Her eyes are blurred, all things are foggy as darkness is circling what is left of her vision. Tears fall from her eyes as her hands that wrap around her wound and apply no pressure are joined by others hands: Morgan and Rossi.
"Emily! Look at us! Stay awake," Morgan says.
"Declan's in danger," she says in a barely audible whisper as the ambulance sirens become louder. "Aaron and Jack?" she asks, the words barely escaping tight and sore her throat. Every ache and pain in her body, all throughout her body, finally felt clear as day.
A dark look passes over Morgan's face, but she can't see it. She can't see anything clearly now. He doesn't answer, but Rossi does, "Yes, they're fine. Stay awake. You will see them soon. "
"Good," she whispers, a grin so weak settles on her face as she closes her eyes. She is peaceful. Aaron and Jack are safe. They are safe, and they are together. Everything is okay if they are. She is happy. They are alive.
She bleeds so heavily now, covering every surface with her blood, but she is surrounded by lights that she can be barely see and noises she can barely hear. She is being lifted, and she can feel it. She doesn't think of any of that though. She thinks of them. Aaron and Jack and her together, watching movies and reading bedtime stories and eating breakfast. Aaron's smile is the brightest image, like staring at the sun—or an explosion. Jack's giggle is the warmest sound, and she knows she could listen to it for an eternity. Every memory of Emily has with either of them flows through her mind in rapid succession. The final feeling in her mind is home in the memory of falling asleep in Aaron's arms. She is comfortable there. She wants to be there forever. The last thing she knows in her soul screams as all else fades: she wants a family. Not just any family. She wants this family.
Her thoughts and dreams and hopes and comfort falls away as every other sense disappears as well. She hears and feels and sees and knows nothing. She is left utterly alone, unlike anything she has experienced in her life. Because this is not life. This is cold. This is darkness. This is death.