A/N: That's right. An update. Don't faint people.
Back at the station Emily is the first to approach the guys after they'd called ahead to alert everyone to the situation.
"What happened?" She demands, following them through to the briefing room.
"We're not sure," Rossi answers when Hotch walks over to the window ignoring her, head in hands.
Morgan storms through the door next, JJ on his heels. "Where the hell is Reid?"
Hotch just shakes his head, handing over his phone to Morgan who reads the text message aloud.
"Dad, I'm sorry but I have to do this, Spencer." Morgan looks to Prentiss to see if she's any the wiser.
"That's the same message Beth Renards parents received. What does it mean?"
"It means he's decided to offer himself up as bait." Hotch, looking as exhausted as he sounds, drops his hands and re-joins the group.
Rossi takes a seat, leaning against the table. "We got ambushed at the Gas station. He went willing, like he knew they were coming for him."
"What the hell's gotten into him?" Prentiss asks.
"Teenage rebellion." Rossi quips without humour.
"This isn't funny." Hotch says tiredly.
"Who's laughing? I'm serious, he's identified with these kids and their situations."
"Reid always identifies with the kids." Morgan snaps, mirroring hotch' body language and separating himself from the group.
"Because he still is one," Hotch snaps back. "I should never have agreed to put him undercover."
"Guys," JJ calls the group together, gaze flitting between Hotch and Morgan bookending the room. "Now is not the time to get into 'I told you so's'. Spence is missing and he needs our help."
"How are we going to do that?" Morgan steps back into the inner circle. "We don't even know where he is!"
"We have to follow his lead." Hotch says suddenly from the outer edge, voice heavy.
"What?" Morgan jumps forward, Rossi throws out an arm, holding him back. "No Hotch, you've seen what this guy can do."
Hotch heaves a sign and finally turns to face his team. "I don't like it any better than you do, but Reid's already inserted himself into the unsubs victimology, we find the unsub-."
"-we find Reid." Emily finishes.
"When this is over I'm going to kill him." Morgan grits his teeth, fidgeting on the spot, only just holding back from punching a hole in the wall.
Hotch leaves abruptly, muttering something to do with finding coffee.
Rossi meets Morgan's gaze. "I think you'll have to get in line."
…..
Reid knew he'd made a major error of judgement the second he got in the car. Rossi had tried to talk to him, get him to explain what was happening, but he was at the height of his 'genius knows best' mode and well… he may not be prone to confrontation or lying to his team mates, but he was constantly falling into that old habit of needing to prove himself right.
"Spencer, you look nervous…" Brent laughs, pulling off the highway. "Like you said, there's nothing to be scared about, right?"
"I'm trying to keep an open mind." Reid answers tightly from the rear seat, sandwiched between Kelin and Harry, two of Brent's trusted posse.
"Your grandfather looked so pissed." Kelin smiles with glee, slapping Reid's shoulder and spilling beer all over the upholstery.
"Hey watch the car man," Brent reaches back, steering with one hand and slapping at Kelin with the other.
The other boy in the car sitting shot gun, one Reid had seen around, always part of the crowd, continued to fill his roll of token group member and laughed but made no comment, focused intently on not spilling his own beer.
"So, what happens now?" He asks, forcing nonchalance.
Reid was mapping the route they were taking in his head. They'd taken an exit onto a loop road, a decommissioned one by the looks of the pot holes, overgrown shrubs and low hanging tree branches. His theory was quickly confirmed when Brent drove his truck straight through an orange and white barrier with a faded 'closed' sign plastered across the centre. It wasn't that late, around mid afternoon but the winter weather combined with the dense tree coverage made it look like the dead of night. The clouds he could see were dark and heavy, ready to release snow.
"Now," Brent pulls up a mile down the road. "The fun starts."
…
"We need to talk." Rossi announces the second he walks into the breakroom.
"Not now." Hotch doesn't turn from his intense study of the coffee pot percolating. "We need to focus on forming a plan if we're going to find Reid."
"If?"
Hotch winces, pinches the bridge of his nose as if staving off the worst headache of his life. "I know what you're doing."
"Good." Rossi kicks out a chair, and sits blocking the only exit. "Should make this go a lot quicker."
Hotch picks up the coffee pot, pours a fresh cup and turns, facing him head on. "A year ago, I made the wrong decision and Spencer paid the price."
Rossi leaves a prolonged pause before responding, tone neutral. "Anniversaries can trigger intense feelings, especially if the person didn't fully process the event the first time around."
"I'm fine." He bites. "I wasn't the one kidnapped and tortured by a psychotic killer."
"No, you were just the one responsible for the one kidnapped and tortured by a psychotic killer."
"Are really suggesting I have PTSD?" Hotch demands incredulously, losing his hard worked at calm exterior.
"Look around Aaron," Rossi matches his outraged tone, adding volume. "The whole team has PTSD! No one's talking but it's on everyone's minds, in every conversation. Irritability, anger, avoidance, all key symptoms are there!"
"You weren't there!" He steps forward, unsure where he's going but needing to stress his superiority here.
"No," Rossi nods, not even flinching at the sudden movement or the dig. "I wasn't. Which is why you should trust my judgement on this." He stands, approaches Aaron with his palms out, not unlike he would an unsub needing to be talked down. "Tell me, a year ago, would you have blown up at Reid the way you just did?"
Hotch looks away. "He shouldn't have compromised himself."
"No, he shouldn't. But that doesn't answer the question." Hotch's silence is all the acknowledgment he needs. "You're suffocating the kid, so it's no surprise instead of backing down and taking it, he's working over time trying to prove himself. He thinks you've all lost faith in him."
"That's not true." Hotch says softly. "I wouldn't have sent him in if I didn't think he could do it."
"Then let him finish what he's started."
…
"Okay first things first, we put out a local amber alert." Hotch stands strong at the front of the room by the white board and addresses the group.
"For Reid?" JJ's eyes blow wide.
"We need to keep his cover, otherwise the unsub may get spooked and decide not to keep him around." Hotch reasons.
"He disappeared while with his family and as far as anyone knows he's officially a missing kid, so we have to follow procedure." Prentiss agrees it as the best plan, following Hotch's lead, glad he seemed to have his head back in the game.
"Okay, I'm on it." JJ leaves to brief the local LEO's immediately.
"What next?" Morgan jumps from the table, standing at Hotch's side who's staring at the whiteboard in concentration. "Hotch we can't just sit here and do nothing."
"I'm thinking." Hotch, eyes squeezed shut, steps away.
Emily calls after him, "you okay?"
"I'm fine, we need to focus on the case and getting Reid back safe." He brushes off the concern.
Emily and Morgan share a troubled glance, but Rossi steps up and directs them to focus back on the plan.
"What we need is to get back into the school, we know that's where the kids were taken from."
"Yeah, but it's where they're taken to that's the problem. According to witnesses, Jessica Hall left the grounds alone and of her own violation early this morning. If we're right and these kids are hand delivering themselves to the unsub, then that's where Reid's going to be heading."
"No Reid's too smart for that," Morgan refutes stubbornly, "he wouldn't put himself or anyone else knowingly in danger like that again."
"What if he doesn't have a choice?" Emily asks urgently. "What if it's an unseen threat?"
"Do this or I kill your friends." Rossi agrees. "It could work on a teenager, especially one trapped at boarding school. Friends are all they have, their family."
"Reid wants to protect these kids. It must mean he knows more than he's shared with us."
"Or didn't realise he knew, until it was too late." Rossi defends quickly. "In the car his behaviour changed when we told him the missing girl's name."
"Jessica Hall." Emily repeats.
"She's one of the kid's Reid befriended." Morgan adds, "they were always together in my class."
"Wait," Emily draws everyone's attention. "She's not by chance related to the new head?"
"Garcia?" Hotch asks the open laptop in the middle of the table.
"Andrew Hall is … drum roll please…her uncle." She announces. "Also, a lawyer, not a headmaster or even a teacher."
"They removed Gables and a put a lawyer in his place, what does that tell you?"
"That things have gotten personal." Rossi speaks up. "When I walked the crime scene with him I felt he was just as baffled as we were."
"You think Jessica was targeted to send Halls a message?"
"And Reid?"
"That's probably why he ran." Prentis steps forward. "He feels responsible somehow. But how did that Brent kid know where to find him?"
Rossi looks to Hotch. "When you stopped at the gas station…"
"He was playing with his phone when I got out the car." Hotch adds suspiciously.
"Well we know he only uses that thing to make calls or send the odd text, so he had to be talking to someone." Morgan adds.
"But who?"
Hotch turns to the open laptop, "Garcia I need the last message Reid sent with his phone." He asks before she can speak.
"That's easy it was to you," she's confused, "what's going on, why am I looking at Reid's phone?"
"Second to last message." He corrects.
"Erm, okay it was… oh. A cell registered to … Andrew Hall."
"That Brent brat turned up minutes after."
"Which means they had her phone, Reid's not joined the potential victim's…"
"He's joined the unsubs."
….
"We there yet?" Reid complains as they walk the narrow path heading deeper into the woods, he wants to make as much a nuisance of himself as possible.
"You talk too much you know that?" Brent looks back at him, careful to not to step too close to the steep incline on his right.
"Yeah, so I've been told."
Brent snorts, "I like you Spencer," he raises his beer at him. "Let's hope you actually please her."
Reid, eyes on the ground watching his step. "Her?"
It's the first time anyone has referred to the unsub she they picked him up.
"You'll see." Brent grins at him.
"What the hell happened to you anyway?" Kelin points at the bandage wrapped around Reid's head, essentially ruining the opportunity to poke further. "When we came looking for you at school they said you'd been taken to the ER."
"I had a run in with a very hard ball."
"I heard that new gym teacher had it in for you. You must have pissed him off good."
Reid holds back his own grin. "Something like that."
"We're here." Brent points to a wooden hunter's lodge, nestled amid the trees. "It's time. You ready?"
Reid eyes Brent head on. "Let's get this over with."
