WEDNESDAY, MAY 1–THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2013
This morning, the members of Aaron's remaining unit were tired and haggard, and two of them were missing in action. Getting actual rest had given him some clarity, though, which highlighted how imperative it was that they rest despite their worry.

He began: "I know we might not have gotten much sleep last night, but we need to give our full energy to this case. I know what we're all thinking about the probabilities of survival. We cannot let that countdown distract us from staying focused. Let's continue as we were yesterday, operating on the premise that Reid is a victim who the unsubs have designed to abduct for a longer duration, like Noah and Zachary.

"We need to continue asking the important question of why he was abducted, and we need to figure out how and possibly where this all began. So here's what I want us all working on: I'll be working with the PI officer to make sure that Reid and Alex stay out of the spotlight, and I'll be dealing with media. Garcia."

Penelope perked in her seat, sitting straighter with an alarmed expression. "Sir?"

"Contact Alex and try to get a list from her of all the places she and Reid visited since we've come up here. If she can't speak, get them from GPS locations on her phone. She and Reid went everywhere that Noah went the night he was abducted, and one of these places may be these unsubs' hunting-grounds. Liaise with all establishments and look over any surveillance. Also check nearby buildings as well—they might have outside surveillance that will give us a wider perspective."

Penelope nodded. "Will do, sir."

"Also get surveillance of any of the establishments we all went to as a group, and where Morgan and Reid went for interviews. These unsubs are smart and may have been doing this long enough to keep their surveilling at a distance, so this may not yield any results, but we have to exhaust all possibilities. Follow up regarding that person of interest that was at The Cellar the night that Noah was abducted. If Kevin can assist in all of this, get him to do so, or if you need a team of digital forensic techs to assist, get them on it and tell them that it's top priority. Top."

"On it, sir."

Aaron nodded. "Morgan and JJ, continue looking into the larger list of suspects that Penelope had generated. We need to continue weeding through those."

Derek and Jennifer nodded.

"Dave, I need you to follow up with the main suspects that we'd generated the other day. Now that we know that we're dealing with a pair of unsubs, these people, though they were cleared before, are back on the board. You'll need to get into contact with the local PDs so they can assist us and reinterview these suspects. I'll help you with this whenever I'm not dealing with media.

"While we're concentrating on our tasks, other information—reports regarding the vehicles, reports from the pathologists regarding the other victims—will continue to trickle in, and these will add to the profiles and possibly to victimology. This is Reid. I know we're worried. Whenever you need to, take a few minutes—a few minutes—step away, and get out what you need to get out. No one should be judging each other if we do or if we don't. Let's get to it."

And so they did.

At quarter to ten, Zachary's full report came in from Dr Bates, and not long after did Noah's full autopsy report from Dr Dale, as well as Marion's, all replete with photographs and full toxicology reports. The two doctors had been informed yesterday morning of the developments and were making everything top priority, sending all samples that needed to be further analyzed to the FBI Labs via a courier service for same-day rapid DNA analysis.

Alex responded to a text Penelope sent her, professing that she was up to discussing everything with them after having received the reports.

She was called and they all spoke.

"How's everything going, guys?" Alex asked over the phone.

"The question is how you're doin', Blake," Derek responded. He and Jennifer didn't have a chance yet to visit her.

"Eh," Alex answered. "I'm to begin physical therapy—for my clavicle as well as breathing exercises—at one."

"Don't overdo anything," David said.

"Oh, I won't. Shall we get to it?"

"No malnourishment," Jennifer started, looking over Noah's full report. Her eyebrows furled. "And . . . no vitamin deficiencies either. And it shows that he had low cholesterol. Kidney functioning was a bit abnormal, but not showing anything detrimental."

Derek was also looking at the same section as Jennifer. "No solid food content, but it breaks down to a mix of fruits and vegetables." He looked up at the team. "Not that I doubted you at all, Alex, but, yeah, these victims were not disposable to one or both of the unsubs."

"Mm-hmm. Nutritional health was a factor," Alex concluded from the other line. "And yet, wasn't it reported earlier—that Noah was slightly atrophic?"

"That might be explained by his toxicology report," David sighed out, having read further. "The tests show that he had elevated levels of both alcohol and ketamine in his system upon his death, and that his liver was slightly inflamed."

Aaron looked up, concerned. "The combination of those two is never good. In high dosages it's even worse. The mixture can cause increased sympathetic nervous system activity—and his autopsy shows that he had an increased level of epinephrine in his system. Considering that he survived for months, mixing the two was likely not something done regularly to him, or at least not in high dosages, and may have been done in a controlled manner. The ketamine can explain the atrophic muscles—the hair follicle analysis shows a history of it being in his system."

Penelope was wan, looking up from her laptop. "They kept him drugged?" Her voice shook and her eyes began to glisten.

Derek placed his hand on hers, knowing where her worry was stemming from.

"Also found in the toxicology report," Aaron continued, "was—" He closed his eyes for a moment and tilted his head, letting out a hum of distaste. Dr Dale, it seemed, ran tests for other date rape drugs. "MDMA and GHB—uppers and downers—in the hair follicle tests, though not found in his blood, saliva, or urine. So these weren't administered in the last few days he was alive. How much he metabolized is inconclusive."

Penelope let out a quavering moan.

Jennifer puffed out a breath, seeking to move on. "Brain exam shows signs of hypoxic brain damage, as well as an intracranial hemorrhage." The fingers near her neck twitched and she blinked something out of her eye. "So Noah likely had brain injury as a result of the asphyxiations, and traumatic brain injury from when he—fell?"

David swallowed. "His death may have been a mercy killing."

Multiple stomachs fluttered.

"Let's go over Marion's full report," Aaron asserted, voice thin.

Nothing in his stomach indicative of having eaten within the hours before he died, low glucose levels, dehydration. Cranial blunt force trauma. Bleach on every surface and orifice in his body but not in his lungs. No additional forensic evidence for Dr Dale to gather.

Minimal physical assault. Few sliding abrasions on his hands and torso. Three distinct impact site bruises from punches or kicks that had rained on him, leaving behind a bruise that bloomed on his cheek and eye, and that colored his torso in one place and leg above his knee. One broken finger.

It was confirmed that there was an elevated level of ketamine in his system, conclusively ingested orally or nasally due to lack of injection marks.

If it was any consolation, it was that Marion had suffered little, that he had probably been insensate, and that he didn't feel the stab wound that did, indeed, kill him, for he died of exsanguination.

But it was in the efforts to get to Spencer that he suffered at all, and that didn't sit well with them.

Derek clenched his jaw. "I'm gonna say it. Alex, what are the chances that none of the four stab wounds to your chest nicked your heart or artery, but Marion was stabbed just the once and that did 'im in?"

"Mm," Alex grunted.

Jennifer blinked. "That, along with the nutritional health . . . should we be looking for someone in the medical field?" she asked, hand clasped against her neck.

"Two unsubs make for a wider net," David responded. "Maybe someone who lost his license, or who never made the cut in the first place."

"What about a situation similar to John Nelson from a few months ago[1]?" Alex asked over the phone. "The one who was trying to fix his wife? If this is fantasy-based, our unsub could be trying to fix someone, heal them. It plays to that new life, recovery, and rebirth that Spencer was talking about regarding the symbolism in the area where the bodies were found. Or he's trying to fix himself vicariously through these victims. I mean, the coverings and the removal of hands—we've talked about this. It could still also be symbolic of his own abuse, his silence, what he was forced to see or do . . ."

"Right . . . these are important to the unsub after death."

They then moved on to Zachary's full report.

They already knew of his fractured hyoid bone, the CPR he'd likely been given as shown by his fractured sternum and sixth and seventh left ribs, the missing seven teeth, the shattered knee, the badly healed compound fracture on his ankle.

"Could the broken bones indicate that if the unsub has medical knowledge, he's lacking in his craft or that his knowledge is limited?" one of them asked.

Zachary's cause of death was determined to be exsanguination. There was blood found in his preserved lungs, in his lower esophageal walls, in the stomach lining. The evidence was clear: Zachary's tongue was removed.

Adipocere formation preserved the organs and anogenital area well enough to determine his diet from the remaining stool in his intestines. These, too, revealed a diet of healthy foods—fruits, vegetables, and grains. The abnormalities in his rectum were confirmed as highly indicative of sexual assault. He, too, had traces of sepsis.

In the last few weeks or months of his life, Zachary was subject to the same abuse that he had left years ago, and violently, it might seem, for the adipocere formation had also preserved some injuries. They ranged from dark belt and cord markings all over his back and torso, to large and small blackened impact bruises.

"Sir?" Penelope's voice trembled out, small in the quiet room.

"Yes, Garcia?"

"I think—I think I'd like to take those few minutes now, sir." She looked away in shame.

Aaron's expression softened. Voice gentle, he kicked his head to the door. "Go ahead."

Penelope grabbed her phone and stood up before making a hasty exit, her shoulders scrunched towards her ears as she tried to hold back her sniveling.

Reaching the back of the precinct and stepping outside, she spent a few minutes weeping—not just for what might happen to Spencer if they didn't find him soon, but for those men who had already suffered besides.

Resolute, she went through her phone and then dialed a number.

The phone rang twice before an automated voice began speaking. "Thank you for calling Bennington Sanitorium, where we care for the needs of your loved ones with utmost delicacy and dignity. If you would like to hear our visiting hours, press one. If you would like to—"

Penelope tapped at the zero button again and again, sniffling.

"Please wait while we put you through to our operator."

The line rang twice again before a soft, male voice came through. "Thank you for calling Bennington Sanitorium. My name is Harry; what can I do for you today?"

"Hi, Harry. My name is Penelope Garcia and I'm calling from the Federal Bureau of Investigations." Penelope knew this was a personal call, and she knew she shouldn't be attaching this to the government, but she was hoping that this person would have a sense of urgency at her words. That, or he would think she needed to be committed.

"Okay. What can I do for you Ms Garcia?"

"I need to speak to Dr Norman immediately regarding one of his patients and that patient's primary caretaker. Is he in today?"

"Yes, he is. I'll . . . patch you through to his office. If he's unavailable, his voice messaging system will automatically kick in, and you can leave him a brief message concerning this patient."

"Thank you." She wiped at her eyes. The line went through, and the man picked up after a few rings.

"This is Dr Norman."

"Dr Norman, hello. I'm Penelope Garcia of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and I, um, work with—"

"Dr Reid, yes." The man's timbre then shifted. "Is something wrong? I was hoping to never receive this call from you."

The tires of Javier's car had been examined using radiology, and the crime scene technicians discovered what Aaron suspected. His rear passenger tire had been sabotaged with a thick nail embedded—not just in the groove of the tire, which had excreted a hard rubber gel when it was punctured—but in the hardened gel itself. What they found when extracting the screw from the gel was that it had a hollowed center and any unique grooves that could identify its type, make, or lot had been shaven clean off.

The technicians explained how puncturing a tire in this manner could cause a slow leak, depending on the size of the hole, and things made a world of sense for them.

"The goal was to inconvenience them," David said with the quirk of a lip. "Probably stalked 'em for hours and must've known that most of them were drunk."

"Right," Aaron said, getting the sense of where David was leading. "So how would the unsubs have facilitated his abduction? The same as with Alex and Spencer, in a violent collision while they would be parked off the side of the road?"

"Maybe they had planned for something like that," Derek suggested. "The mustang was obviously expendable to the unsubs. They could've been planning to use it to crash into Javier's car."

It was Jennifer who spoke in a soft, contemplative voice. "Something about the violence of the collisions might be a change in the MO. It didn't happen to Zachary, but they could have wanted to escalate to that with Noah because the unsubs might have also been escalating their sexual deviations once they had their victims in captivity. It's symbolic. The act itself is one of thrilling vehicular rape."

David's expression flattened, but his nose scrunched. "A precursor to what would happen to the victims while in captivity. These jagoffs are pissing me right off."

"Or maybe they would have been stabbed, like Alex," Derek said. "Or maybe the unsubs were possibly waiting until the numbers dwindled down."

"Whatever it was," Aaron concluded, "it seemed like going to the rest stop had probably saved those guys' lives. But the unsubs hadn't been deterred and had been well prepared for any type of situation."

For the moment, technicians were unable to uncover something similar from Spencer and Alex's collision with such extensive damage. While everything was collected from the scene, there was still a lot of documenting to be done, as well as collision reconstruction.

The hours dragged. Penelope was unable to find any surveillance that revealed anything suspicious. Spencer and Alex had gone to numerous cafés and restaurants, whether for themselves, or when following Noah's footsteps before he had been abducted. Surrounding CCTV, if there was any, also revealed nothing of note. Aside from the places that Aaron had told her about, she also looked at any surveillance from the Stokes State Forest Ranger's Station.

Nothing seemed suspicious, although, admittedly, there wasn't a wide range of surveillance beyond the entrance of the small building. Her hand had fallen upon her chest when she watched Spencer rush in, hand pressed against his belly. Six minutes later, he walked out. At that, Penelope remembered that Spencer went to a Barnes and Noble not too far from here, and her heart stuttered.

"He was alone then," she said to Derek as she looked through the meager footage that showed random spots of him at the register, nearing an aisle of books in a few minutes' span. "And he was alone when he had gone to and from Worthington State Forest. They didn't take him either time."

"Yeah," Derek responded thoughtfully. "Maybe they hadn't been stalking him by the time he went to Barnes and Noble, but by the time he drove to Worthington, they had to've been watching him."

"So why didn't they take him?"

Derek sighed, shaking his head and clenching his jaws. "I dunno. I mean, it was still daylight. Maybe it just hadn't been the right timing, then. They hit at night."

Penelope sighed, looking over whatever footage she could in whatever angles there were available. She switched the camera views to see him as he got to the section where he needed to go, and from the angle she could see him skim his fingers over the spines of the books until he began plucking the ones he was looking for.

She hated this. She didn't want to watch him filling his arms with book after book and walking to another section and tilting his head before he began plucking more books. It was so quintessentially him. He was saddled with them. And like that, he was off camera again.

"—complicated dynamic with implicit trust and near codependency."

"—pattern of violence followed by remorse and points to a dominant-submissive relationship, but there are many signs that both are dominant, which isn't impossible in partnerships—"

"—they both stalk the victims, participate in the hunts, share the weight of the captivity period, and assist with disposing the body."

"—was nothing wasteful about Marion's abduction or murder—clean and precise—and when compared alongside Agent Blake's stabbing, wherein none of the stab wounds were fatal, this points to someone who has some medical knowledge. They may have had the idealistic desire to save or fix people because that gave them a sense of purpose—perhaps at one time they wanted someone to save or fix them."

"—so think someone who has lost a medical practice, or was never able to complete that practice before becoming licensed—potentially may have been an angel of death if they were licensed—"

"—don't want to mistaken the less violent partner for being a victim. He's participating in these crimes and is just as culpable. If their criminal desire weren't present, their partnership wouldn't work. Together, these two have perfected their methods of physical, emotional, and sexual violence against their victim. The addictive drugs used on the victims makes them euphoric—this is where the emotional manipulation comes in. Between the two dynamics of his captors, the victim may attach himself to the one who provides sustenance, care, and escapism, which further will feed into the more 'caring' captor's psychopathology. But he probably calls the shots just as much as the more violent partner in order to create that cycle wherein the victim is abused and then taken care of, fixed."

"—and may potentially covet the hands for this reason—involvement may not be sexually motivated; however impotence may be a factor for this unsub—"

"—however, all points to someone who may have been severely abused and has no identity of his own and finds power and a sense of control through the victim he subjugates, and a sense of camaraderie for his partner—"

"—this could point towards a hatred towards women, although his focus is males, so he has turned his anger inwards instead of on female surrogates, which is not unheard of—"

"—sexual sadists typically don't feel remorse, but this is a spectrum. The remorse, the guilt they show in the burials is, again, a reflection of themselves and potentially to the innocence that was lost to them when they were being abused—"

"—between these unsubs and the victim, there is a power differential."

"—and starts to satiate an appetite to possess and subjugate—serve to strengthen their trust and their bond with each other—loyal bond that justifies their actions. Once these deviant personalities collide, they're deadly and unstoppable."

"—perhaps one provides for the other financially—"

"—and the other partner is inducing pain and terror on the victim—"

"—perhaps found each other through BDSM chatrooms, porn sites, locally through some type of anonymous support groups, etc, and wanted to find a partner who could help create this cycle of violence wherein he could fix or save the victim."

"—or consider the possibility that this is father and son, long-time friends, boyfriends, or husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. The latter two are so rare and considering that the victims are male, and that the latest abduction was so violent and symbolically sexualized and two people committed it, it's the least likely scenario. It was likely a product of the violent unsub, in which the lesser violent unsub assisted—to show his devotion—with the stabbing of Agent Blake. Again, these two are ultimately devoted to each other."

It was all over the place. These new observations were being shared with the deputies and Sheriff Reiner. They didn't know what they were looking at but throwing out any kind of possibility.

They still didn't know what attracted the victims to the unsubs. They went for the angle of emotional restoration, but it didn't fit. Zachary had a sad and abusive upbringing but was off his antidepressants, had loved and doted on his daughter, was clearly seeking to marry Dana, was correcting matters so that he could take his half-sister under his care; Noah had lost his sister and father, but was recently engaged and had an active life and was well balanced. Spencer, yes, was currently in grief and in mourning, but he was an outlier even in this angle. It wasn't physical—none of them had any deformities, injuries, or physical limitations.

So there were seeds there, but the profiles were too erratic. There was something important that they were missing.

As the hours passed, the desperate angst crawled from their stomachs into their throats.

Penelope was finding nothing viable. No one lingered after Spencer or stared at him awkwardly, or Alex, for that matter—at least not within the cameras' views.

Keeping the news outlets at bay for new information on Marion Knowles' confirmed murder was like trying to hold back hungry canines.

Seven of the 34 main suspects, five in New Jersey—one in New York, one in Pennsylvania—didn't have solid alibis on April 29th, and the leads were tirelessly followed up with after Penelope tried to unearth even more history from them. Aaron and David, dividing and conquering, went to precincts to question the men when they were detained by local police.

Although Derek and Jennifer had been able to whittle down their secondary list of Stokes State suspects and put some files on the side, they still had a handful more files to look through, now also consisting of Worthington State Forest, and it was approaching six in the evening.

At the very least, when Spencer had been abducted by Tobias Hankel, they were able to still have eyes on him, as the old network was contacted multiple times so that they could watch what Tobias was doing to his victim. Although they knew it wasn't likely, they were each of them preparing to hear news of a dead body being discovered in an open disposal area.

At half after eleven, Aaron dismissed everyone to be ready to be at it all again at eight, and they went to their hotels, where they barely slept.

In the morning, Penelope dropped off Spencer's first letter to his mother into a post office box.

Everyone got to work.

It wasn't until nearly eleven when things came together and they got a viable lead, and from there, things began trickling from all ends within mere hours of each other:

The two same tire treads matched a few Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 2008 registered vehicles. One of them, a charcoal grey one belonging to a Frederick Byron Collins, hadn't been re-registered in early 2010. This one they focused on.

"Who wouldn't reregister a new car so soon after purchasing it?" Derek proposed. "Title's not handed to someone else, so—what?—did the car just . . . disappear?"

No one argued with his logic. Indeed, it didn't make sense.

As was the case for Zachary, the team was reluctant, this time, to immediately suspect him as their unsub, though. He could be another victim.

But his age didn't match. He was currently living in Hopatcong in a tiny apartment, not missing. He was paying bills. In delving deeper into his money trails, other understandings came to light.

"He's divorced and is paying child support, and he also has his wages garnished," Penelope said.

They looked into Frederick's history and found a restraining order being held against him by another man, Paul Jackson, twelve years his junior, who currently lived in Ohio along with his wife of nearly four years and his stepson. Incidentally, Paul's wife was Frederick's ex-wife. A rope was pulled, the curtains lifted, and every detail from Frederick's life began to play out in front of the team.

On April 26th, 2009, Frederick instigated an attack on Paul at Frederick's own home. The record for the assault was expunged, but there were hospital photographs. Two days before that, Paul Jackson and Frederick's ex-wife got engaged. Five months before the engagement, Frederick Collins was divorced and began paying alimony and child support with rapidly depleting savings. In the two months before his divorce, he was paying nightly for a nearby hotel room.

Calls were made, and the reason for the attack stemmed from just before he was paying for those hotel fees. Frederick had caught his wife in a compromising position—in his own home—with the younger man, who was one of his close fellow researchers from a couple of years before.

"It was exactly what he thought," the ex-wife, Sheryl, said over the phone with Jennifer, her voice laden with disinterest. "He spent so much time with his stupid artifact toys that he didn't know how to give his wife a hand. I had to get my own toys, if you get me."

There were pictures found of Sheryl, a brunette in her mid-forties who was three years Frederick's senior and thus fifteen years Paul's senior.

After the conversation, Jennifer approached anyone who was available. "Okay, this age gap could have been seen as a motivation for Alex's attack, as well as the infidelity," she suggested. "If Spence was stalked, and whenever he was seen with Alex, then the unsubs, specifically Frederick, who has this very specific stressor, could have latched on to Alex and Spencer's relationship and warped it in his eyes. Alex wears the ring; Spence doesn't. Frederick could've projected."

It didn't explain Zachary or Noah, but at the same time, they were both fathers or fathers-to-be.

Frederick was an associate History Professor and Researcher at Fairleigh Dickinson University for seven years until his termination in the summer of 2009. Apparently, everybody talked, and there was footage of the attack he instigated on his well-trimmed front lawn. The footage was everywhere in certain circles, and no professional establishment wanted to be associated with him, especially since Paul had been his fellow researcher.

Frederick had been on the cusp of being reviewed to receive his tenure, and he had been on the cusp of earning his PhD. He lost both.

He found employment, instead, at Walmart months later. He was currently driving a shoddy, old navy-blue pickup truck with a truck cover. His mustang hadn't been lost in any battle, so what had happened to it?

They did more delving and found that he used to volunteer years ago at Worthington State Forest. He'd grown up camping all around there multiple times a year as a child, became a counselor in his late teens at Worthington, and even during his first two college summers he volunteered there. As he had a good history before the infidelity of his wife, had no criminal record, was steadily employed, had a son whom he cared for, was involved in his community, and he was willing to attend anger management counseling for half a year, his record was expunged. He hadn't been able to avoid that restraining order, and he lost visiting rights to see his son. It all began to bleed him dry.

It didn't take much digging to find his name, not once, but twice on the volunteer list when Marion was searched for both Sunday and Monday. But he was in a different section, one labeled as Contributions and Goods.

It was all damning evidence, and it was becoming more and more damning. Frederick went to the same gym as Marion. He wasn't signed in the night Marion disappeared, but in searching, there were rare days where they were both at the gym simultaneously, having signed in minutes apart.

His online purchases were minimal, but that was understandable, as he was barely eking out a living. Wayward purchases could be attributed to the other unsub.

David and Derek both went to The Cellar, presented Frederick Collins' license picture to a waitress, and she tilted her head when they asked her—without any kind of prompting, without any kind of leading—if she had ever seen him before. "Oh, hey, this is the guy that your other two agents were askin' me about last week. Depressed as all hell and got a drink but never drank."

Witness placement.

The evidence was so outstanding that they knew without a doubt that they had one of their unsubs.

An affidavit was written up and immediately sent to the county judge, a building just a stone's throw away from the precinct. She barely needed to look through the whole thing—a warrant for the immediate arrest of Frederick Byron Collins was issued without delay.

Frederick frequented two places: his job and the gym. The team was split, each with a team of officers to go to three locations: his workplace where Aaron went in plainclothes; the gym where he had signed in about an hour and a half earlier and where David went in plainclothes; and to his home, where Derek went with a SWAT team, hiked up to the gills in Kevlar vests and with assault rifles or Glocks.

All officers were ordered under absolute and strict direction that the only ones to make any shots were the FBI agents accompanying them. There would be no deadly fire.

Lingering media outside saw all the building commotion, and they were piqued and immediately began working at finding what the latest news was on the perpetrator. Aaron bypassed Penelope liaising with the media and requested that Jennifer do it.

Until he found his wife with a colleague twelve years his junior, Frederick Byron Collins had had a happy life: as a child and teenager, he had two parents who enrolled him in all sorts of activities, he won many awards, and he built collections of memorabilia and artifacts; as a young man, he had earned his baccalaureate's summa cum laude at 22, travelled for work, and then earned his Master's degree with distinction at 25; he bought his first and only home with his impeccable credit score when he was 26, began an adjunct professorship at 28 that turned into full-time associate professorship a couple of years later and in that same year got married to a gorgeous older woman and had a son fifteen months later.

He lost it all.

Aaron and Derek reentered the room behind Frederick Byron Collins' attorney. He looked wan and tired, as if he had gone through a marathon. Despite this, Frederick had leverage over them. As their perpetrator, that could be very problematic.

Aaron sat and he gave his head a tilt. "You have information for us. So talk."

"My car was stolen sometime in November 2009, possibly on November 8th."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Come on." He laughed, turning to the attorney. "This is what makes this man innocent? You're gonna believe this?"

"Morgan," Aaron warned. He wouldn't take that act-first think-later attitude from Derek here on out. He gave him a brief tongue lashing before they re-entered. By the book. They would be by—the—book.

"Listen to what he has to say, agents," the attorney spoke. "It's compelling, honestly."

"There's nothing in your history indicating that you filed a report for a stolen vehicle," Aaron stated. They had looked—and Penelope was still looking—thoroughly into his life and into every record, because they would find the smallest scrap to implicate him.

Frederick's hands were folded on the tabletop, and they were wringing into each other. "That's . . . that's because I never reported it stolen."

Derek began to pace, expression brooding. This was unbelievable.

"Why not?"

"I left all the keys on the front seat, and I left the door unlocked."

Aaron's eyebrows lowered and his head eased to his left almost imperceptibly, eyes still trained on the man. "Intentionally."

"Yes. I—I wanted it to get stolen."

Derek lifted the chair next to Aaron and it clacked as he set it back down before settling into it. Sitting forward, he folded his hands into each other, and the muscles flexed. "Now why would you want a Mustang Shelby GT500 to get stolen?" he asked. This was ridiculous. This was utter garbage.

"I woke up late with a hangover on November first, and I started getting ready for—for work." Frederick was unable to look at the two agents. "When I finally got outside, I saw . . ." he trailed off, his skin paled, and he swallowed. "I saw a piece of fabric stuck in my fender, some scuff marks on my bumper, and—and blood with hair stuck to it."

Derek blinked, his shoulders loosened, and his eyes smoldered. He didn't want to hear this.

"I called out of work. The night before, I'd been drinking. It was just . . . it was just—it was after everything, after the court dates, after the damn restraining order, and Sheryl—she'd just gotten married that day, and I was pissed. I got"—he shook his head—"I swear to you, I'm not this type of person, but I got plastered, and I got behind the wheel because I just—I just wanted to see my son. And the next day, I see scuff marks on my car, I see blood, I see human hair, and I see a piece of fabric. I knew what it meant."

Aaron's expression was turning ever grim. "On October 31st. And you didn't report it."

Frederick shook his head in shame. He tilted his head, straightening his lips in a self-deprecating expression, eyes void. "I—I took care of it, and I cleaned my car, and for the whole damn day I was listening to the local radio, watching the news, scouring the internet for anything about it." His face turned red. "And then that evening, there was a report about two teenagers who were coming from a party who were involved in a hit and run. Both of them were in critical condition . . ."

Derek's thumbs beat against each other. "You hit two kids with your car, and you never reported it."

"I knew if I did, I'd be in deep, especially with having gotten a sentence reduced already, and having just finished anger management. So I cleaned my car, I fixed the scuff marks, but the guilt—it stayed with me. I couldn't get past knowing. And a couple of days later in the news, they reported that they may be looking for a dark sedan, and it felt like every time I drove my car, everyone was looking at me. So I knew I had to get rid of it."

"So you left it somewhere for anyone to just take," Aaron concluded.

"I drove it east," Frederick said. "I knew that if it had gotten towed, I would have eventually gotten billed for the expenses and for it being impounded and I would know the towing and impound date. I never did, so I figured it was stolen pretty quickly."

The attorney finally spoke up. "Like I said before, agents: compelling." Her look was one of contrition, but she was nonetheless stern.

"No," Aaron responded, looking squarely at her. "Convenient."

That contrite look warped, her face then held an expression he could only describe as unaffected and a little smug, and it unsettled him.

Frederick shook his head. "I swear it to you. I swear it. This is where I want my deal. I'll tell you where I left the car—exactly where I left it—and I'll also tell you where I hid the evidence. I never got rid of it—the bloody fabric and even the hair I found. I kept it all together. And photographs of where I left the car that are date-specific."

Derek breathed out evenly. This man was scum.

"It's all in writing, agents," the attorney said. "If Mr Collins' information proves to be false, the deal will be void."

"You can match it," Frederick urged. "Evidence will match with that case. They never found out who did it because it was me."

"Why should we believe you?" Derek asked.

"You have my wallet," Frederick asserted.

The untouched brown box labeled Collins, Frederick B was still by Aaron's feet. Indeed, they'd put his wallet in there along with his keys, as they were on his person when he was arrested. Aaron pulled it out.

"Front pocket on the left." Frederick kicked his chin at it.

Aaron opened the leather wallet, and there—from the left side—a circular outline stretched the leather. He knew exactly what it was, and he handed the wallet to Frederick in cool resignation.

Frederick slipped his finger inside the pocket and pulled out a sobriety chip, placing it on the table with a metallic clunk. He pointed to it with an upturned, flattened palm. "This is my three-year chip. By January next year, I'll get a four-year chip." He looked at Derek and Aaron gravely. "Not a drop , agents. You hear me? Not a damn drop has touched my lips since I hit those two kids. I've had that chip for over three years, but I've never gotten past the eighth step. I've tried, but just not been able to do it. Now I'm at the point where I can't even do it on my own volition."

The eighth step of the AA program. That would be for the addict to make a list of all persons they had harmed or offended and become willing to make amends to them all. The ninth step was to make direct amends to those people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

"Whatever you guys saw that night in January . . . I don't even know how you guys figured out that I was at The Cellar. I bought a drink, but I didn't drink it. My son turned ten that day, I wasn't allowed to see him, and I . . . I just missed him."

Aaron finally sat back, feeling all sorts of things broiling within him. This wasn't at all how this was supposed to go. This man was supposed to have been one of his perpetrators. Instead, they were finding out that he had committed a separate, heinous act, and that one of the most viable pieces of evidence might just not be very effective in finding their unsubs.

It was a terrible blow that left him reeling. Had any of their theorizing been on the mark at all?

"I didn't do what you guys are accusing me of. I didn't."

Despair clawed at Aaron's feet, tightened around his ankles, wrenched him neck-deep into the ground.

Control. He had to keep control.

"Mind you," the attorney spoke up, "what my client has done is a terrible offense, but he's not your guy. He happens to also be, in a way, a hapless victim caught in your perpetrator's web."

Victim? No.

This man had made choices. This man had chosen to attack his ex-wife's lover. He had chosen to get behind the wheel after drinking. He had chosen to hide evidence and not own up to his misdeed.

Spencer, Noah, and Zachary—these were the victims who had no choice in their abductions, in their captivity.

His heart stuttered. Oh god. Would they ever find him?

Control. He breathed. Control. This had to wait. He couldn't fall apart. His team needed him. Spencer needed him. He had to be objective.

Recentering himself, Aaron gave Frederick a grave look. "You have evidence of exactly where you left your car?"

"I can tell you exactly where and, yes, I have photographic evidence that I left it there with a viable time and date stamp as well, but—"

The attorney stepped in here. "My client is willing to stay under custody until the evidence he's referring to is recovered and can be used to corroborate his culpability in that crime and not in yours. He's willing to give you the location of where he left his vehicle and photographic evidence of that location and date. But he wants his deal in writing. And only then will he give you the information you're looking for, and only then will we agree not to press charges for your previous oversight. Otherwise, it'll just be . . . a little too messy for you."

He felt like a starved mongrel, keen to get any scrap of information he could. It was a deal with the devil, and Aaron just might have to shake his hand. And hers.


DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
Sometime—possibly hours—after Spencer fell asleep following his first encounter with his captors, he'd awoken with a full belly, like he'd eaten. If his captors knew what they were doing, they would make sure that his head was a little elevated if feeding him while he slept.

The grip of lethargy was wound tight around him.

Though spent physically and emotionally after the initial encounter with them, he was under no delusions that the greater probability lay with having been drugged via the tube. He had half a mind to pull it out, but fear of what they might do to him stayed his hand. At this point he wouldn't dare do anything brash this early in his captivity.

Dr Dale had suspected that Noah wasn't malnourished, and she didn't see signs of dehydration. A tube was . . . different. He already thought on how it was a control mechanism, but it pointed, too, to some degree of medical knowledge. One didn't have to have this in spades to know how to insert and use a tube—there were a plethora of circumstances that might avail someone the insight and ability to use one properly. Until he had more interactions with his captors, he wouldn't come to any conclusions, but he had his suspicions.

His mouth, though, was still dry, and the metallic tang of blood was still heavy on his tongue.

Whatever it was that filled his belly, it made him queasy. Feed him, but not give him water, still? After the encounter, it wasn't curious to him. This was still to assert control. He'd demanded they hydrate him and in return they didn't. Egg him. Edge him to supplicate instead of insisting.

He started counting the time and resumed his recitations. It went on for three hours—the counting—and somewhere around the forty-first minute into the third hour, he lost track, for he fell back asleep from the lack of stimulation and for the lingering fatigue.

He awoke to a great and deafening, rattling bang, like that of a rickety storm door swinging open and hitting a wall. His fright from the jarring sound was acute and severe, causing him to bolt up from the bed and slam his back against the corner as his heart clamored against his chest. His breaths were short, jerking.

It took him a few minutes to come down from that. He still couldn't hear anything. He almost wept in relief that he wasn't going to be attacked. He began padding his fingers in a perusing manner over every groove and dip of the harness and blindfold. What began as a calm perusal turned into a desperate, spittle inducing struggle to remove them.

After the thrashing subdued, the resignation set in again.

So he waited and he thought.

The little white lizards returned, and he found it curious and almost amusing that they were walking on their hind legs this time, anthropomorphized, holding various fruits and vegetables in their little hands. He'd begun burping, and its flavors were what they held. Astute little creatures.

The flapping had returned as well.

He remained with his back pressed to the corner, thinking of what he knew now since the initial encounter.

The last time he'd been blindfolded, it was mere minutes before he first and last saw Maeve. As this wasn't a memory that he wanted to think over, he analyzed this from an objective lens.

Blindfolding the victim was a common fetish among sadists. They intended on killing him eventually, he was sure, so the blindfold didn't serve the purpose of withholding their identity from him. The motive involved injecting additional terror into the victim, who wouldn't be able to see or anticipate what would happen to him. The auditory occlusion intensified this anticipation as well. It also dehumanized him in their eyes: by covering his eyes, they could avoid his gaze and therefore minimize any emotional attachment to him.

Or. Another possibility was that by eradicating direct eye contact, it would counteract the shame that might break through the unsubs' defenses. This could make sense, given the burials and the remorse that was evident in them. But he had a feeling that this had nothing to do with shame, and everything to do with the exhilaration they felt from terrorizing their victims.

It was difficult to accept that this might be what he would have to endure before the team found him or before he was murdered. His death—that he could deal with. Ultimately, he would prefer that his teammates found him instead. It was what might come before this—the violence, the rape—that worried him.

He tried not to dwell on it, but he couldn't help it.

The hands that had bathed him didn't linger on his genitals or posterior. That cleaning—excluding the fondling of his hands—had been—upon now recalling the bathing from a more detached lens—clinical, routine. He was at his most vulnerable to the unsub at that moment—nude, tethered, physically drained—and yet they hadn't used the opportunity to assault him. There wasn't unnecessary lingering—except, again, with his hands.

It was such a strange fixation, that of the hands. Apart from Marion's, he and by extension his team wasn't to know what had been done to them before they were dismembered from the dead bodies of the previous victims. The covetousness was perplexing.

But the care Alex referred to was there. He was bathed, his teeth brushed, had been towel dried, and he was clothed—all without a shroud of wanton touches. If he was just an object of his captors' sexual fantasies, he didn't need clothes. Nudity debased, shamed, and subdued a subject. He, on the other hand, was wearing comfortable clothing, had a sheeted bed, obviously a tub. Even when the other captor, the enforcer, straddled him, held him down, strangled him, there was no languidness, no excessive or unnecessary touching, no—no grinding.

Despite this, he wouldn't delude himself. The rape was an eventuality. Perhaps they just wanted to make sure that he was absolutely clean, absolutely purified—that damn research he'd done before they would begin their assault.

His stomach pinched. He thought to stop dwelling on this, and instead eased himself to the bed and sought to sleep off the drugs.

He fell asleep and dreamt of Maeve, of his mother, of his team, of little Henry and little Jack, and then of a little alien infant left alone in the dark expanse of space in a little pod and—

Spencer rolled to wakefulness upon registering the squeeze of his shoulder. Moments passed and he sucked in a slow, deep breath.

This was the most well-rested he'd felt in months.

Rather sore that it took being abducted—again—for this to be the case.

He may have slept longer if not for that tactile hallucination. He sighed out, resigned to begin counting or thinking again, which, in truth—he liked brainwork. On his own terms, though.

But then a sensation curled on his shoulder again, and he scrambled, sat up, crushed his back against the corner. His chin tilted down. The heavy chain at his ankle pulled away from him and he tugged his leg back toward himself, bending it and his other to his chest. A hand patted at his knee and twitched the chain again to beckon him forward.

"What do you want?" he whispered, hearing his muffled voice whiff through his head. It clicked a moment later, and he shrank further inward with his hand covering his mouth, remembering that he shouldn't have spoken.

The hand patted the side of his restrained ankle and jerked the chain. He lowered his leg. A pat was better than a punch or a slap, but it did little to slow the drumming of his heart. Hesitating for just a moment more, he moved forward until he was sitting at the edge of the bed with his feet planted to the ground. Compliance. That last jerk had been insistent.

There was a pressure against his knee and a hand upon his shoulder. He tilted his face to the hand in alarm. It then dragged down his sleeved arm—Oh, god.—past his restraints, and clasped his hand.

These bare hands seemed to be those of his other captor, the one who had intubated him, bathed him, toweled him dry, dried his hair. It was slight, but these were smaller.

His left hand was turned, and then a weight pressed against it. His fingers tightened around it, and he knew by its shape that it was a cup. Ten fingers grasped the other, he sucked in a breath as the profile buzzed through his mind, and then it was lifted toward his face. The hands manipulated his own until three fingers were left untucked. His breaths were short and quick going out but dragged back into his lungs. The cup began to tremble from his fierce grip.

What do they want? What is this?

Two of their fingers weaved between his remaining fingers, splaying them, and their palm was covering his hand. Their other hand wrapped around the back of his. Then the hand moved up, drawing his fingers to his mouth. His index finger was made to tap at his own mouth three times.

They did it again. Then the cup was urged to his mouth and for the first time in the many hours since he'd first awakened, pure water washed over his tongue, drained between his teeth, dribbled down his chin, gliding down his throat past the tube as he swallowed.

He was made to touch his mouth a third time with a tap-tap-tap, just as before.

Like a stoked machine, his mind clicked and whirred as something so foreign yet familiar slotted into place.

Just after he had been bathed and when he'd vocally thanked his captors, the aggressive one had pressed Spencer's flattened hand near his own mouth at the fingertips and pulled away. He'd done it a second time for emphasis.

He'd just been given water, and he was made to gesticulate.

Separately and in any other situation, these meant nothing to the average person. But to someone like him, who was becoming more comfortable in communicating in a secondary language, he understood what his mind was seeing: these were the words for thank you and water in Sign language.

He had to test this. Could it really be this simple? Perhaps they didn't want him to speak but still would allow him to communicate with basic terminology?

So he tried. "Thank you," he signed.

In the next moment, the hands were upon his face, clasping his jaws, the touch benign as the thumbs tapped. He brought up his right hand and placed it over their left. The gesture may have seemed like tender reciprocity, but he was merely testing for a ring and the texture of their skin. With only touch to guide his understanding, he knew what was now obvious. The nurturing, the care, the remorse shown in the burials, the cleanliness—

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Gerald and Charlene Gallego, Fred and Rosemary West, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka—these were the names of some prolific serial killer couples.

But perhaps, given Noah's case—and in his case now—he should compare his captors to Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, who kept their captive for over nine months; Cameron and Janice Hooker, who kept their captive for seven years.

Numbed, he brought the cup back to his lips.

He was under no delusions. Even if this was a woman, she was no less dangerous. Being a woman didn't preclude her from also raping him along with her male counterpart, if it came to that. There were ways aside from forcing a male victim to penetrate her, other ways for a woman to rape a man. Things like paraphernalia.

He gagged and he flattened his palm against his belly. His profession exposed him to far too much. He knew too much, and he didn't have to engage his imagination. Noah, Marion, and the previous victims had the advantage of not knowing what their situation would bring them. He, on the other hand, had an acute awareness of what was to come and how it would end, a fuller grasp on the situation that they had the benefit of not having.

The cup was taken from his trembling hand, and the pressure against his knee shifted. He suspected it was his captor's leg, their knee. Her knee. His hand was atop his leg, clenched, wringing the fabric.

No, he wouldn't let his vigilance fall. He was still at her mercy in his restrained position. She, after all, had the hand fetish. Maybe she wanted to manipulate his hands in some way. Might they both want to use his hands to stimulate them?

The belly-quivering renewed, and his hand pressed against it and gripped at the fabric to quell the flash of dread as he was unable to suppress a groan of displeasure.

Her hand, though, tapped the top of his twice before grasping his at the cuffs loosely. She kneaded his hands until they were open. And then she tucked her fingers into his palms, pushing them up to chest-level. Here it came, the fetish. He braced himself. He had to comply. As far as he could, he had to comply. It didn't prevent the heat from building behind his eyes.

But instead of any caressing, massaging, or anything else that he had dreaded or expected, her hands began to form into distinct, careful, and deliberate shapes in his hands.

Oh.

This—this wasn't basic. This was an advanced interaction. This captor was using pro-tactile signing. He'd watched a few videos about this one day at the library when he fell into a wormhole on the YouTube and on other sites.

The same phrase was repeated multiple times. It took a while before he could form what he was being told in his mind's eye: "This is how we talk, remember. You have to remember to talk like this. Do you understand."

Of what he knew about pro-tactile signing, it was very much about being in one's personal space, and the physical connection was paramount for the person classified as Deafblind, that which he was forced to be since he was deprived of his sight and his hearing.

Proximity, one person had referenced it as. He could sign all he wanted, but if he couldn't feel the recipient's presence, if he didn't feel that they were near him, if there wasn't that physical connection by way of a hand, if he couldn't receive the tapping reminders that they understood what he was saying or agreed with him, there was no real assurance that anyone was even in the room with him.

She continued to repeat the words upon his hands. "This is how we talk, remember. You have to remember to talk like this. Do you understand."

Should he pretend that he didn't know Sign language?

Don't be stupid; they've stalked you. They likely saw you communicating with Alex. They know you have some kind of command of the language.

She repeated it again, but with some insistence judging by the jutting of her hands, "This is how we talk, remember. You have to remember to talk like this. Do you understand."

Putting up a pretense might warrant some type of adverse reaction. Not cooperating might usher his death sooner. Decision made, he nodded.

"Okay," she said.

He nodded again. He needed keen focus to get the signs in his mind's eye forming in the void in front of him.

"You forget. You can't talk."

What—like I'm unable to speak? Or that I shouldn't talk?

He pulled his hands away, and though she left their hand on his leg and placed the other on his shoulder—she was so close —he spoke in Sign. "I can't talk? It's bad?"

Fingers tapped his hand, and he was apprehensive as he lifted both up to keep a loose hold on hers as they tucked into his grip. This is what he knew to be the proper way to read the signs tactilely.

"You're unable."

Not able. The words used suggested an inability to speak rather than a restriction. But maybe there was both.

Without thinking of the repercussions, he vocalized his declaration, voice crackling. "I can. I can speak. I'm able to speak. I'm a federal agent." He hesitated. "My n—"

A hand pressed to his lips, and he reared his head back. Pulling away, she tapped again before tucking her hands into his.

The words came slowly, no doubt to get him used to this mode of communication. "You're very confused. You're always forgetting your name and saying strange things. Remember, your mind is in a very delicate state right now."

He sighed in frustration and his broken words were in aborted gestures: "Let me go. Let me go. I'm not confused. My head is fine. You have to release me."

"No," was the simple response. As he was told this with one hand, the other was on his thigh and swished across it repeatedly. His hands were tapped again, and he brought them up. "You're very sick. You need to get better."

Ah. He understood.

This captor was delusional. It would make sense. The intubation, the sterile air, the bathing and brushing—this captor's fantasy was that of a caretaker. It was a power dynamic that would put him at her mercy.

She might not be the violent one. The fact that he had spoken aloud twice in her presence and wasn't reprimanded might indicate this. He didn't know how far he could push that, though, and thought not to risk it.

So where in her delusion did he lie? A son? A brother? A close relative or friend? A patient whom she had cared for long-term and became emotionally attached to?

He pulled his hands away and thought for a moment, and she kept one hand on his thigh. "Who am I?"

The hand took a hold of his and pressed it against her throat. Ripping his hand toward himself, he wondered what the gesture meant.

"What does this"—he mimicked the motion on his own neck—"mean?"

"I'm laughing. That's why you're here. See." She drew something curved on his thigh, and he bobbed his leg in alarm at the unexpected touch. "You can't even remember who you are."

Ah. My denials are feeding the delusion that I'm not well.

"What does this mean?" Spencer asked as he made the same motion she'd made on his thigh just a moment ago upon his own leg.

"Question mark. It's okay that you've forgotten."

Obvious.

He would be direct. "How am I sick? What's my sickness?"

She pressed his hand against her neck again, and he took it to mean that she found it a funny or silly question. He should already know why he was sick according to her delusion. What with?

He would find out in time if the delusion came and went, if she sometimes had awareness of her wrongful actions, if she was locked in the delusion, or if she wasn't delusional at all. Likely it was the former. Two people, not one, had been involved in the collision. There was too much organization involved with the crimes. This had implications of some emotional manipulation she might use. And maybe he would gain more insight as to what he was sick with and how this worked into the profile and victimology.

And what of his male captor? How did he fit into this dynamic?

Clearly the woman fell in the delusional and custodial killer category. The delusional aspect played to her psychosis—that she was still the caregiver of a specific person, made obvious by the hair dyeing. The custodial aspect . . . she might mercifully kill her helpless or dependent charges. A visionary killer, of sorts. The man was the sexual sadist.

He truly hit the exacta with these unsubs. This would be laughable if it weren't so grave a situation.

Was the object of her fantasy Deafblind? If any of the other victims were deaf, or if any of the victims were non-verbal or fell on a spectrum, then these two were targeting a specific community of people.

Most importantly, he worried about how his teammates would find him. If his interaction with this captor was anything to go by, Noah knew sign language or was somewhat familiar with it as well, but he wasn't deaf—that would have come up during the case. That was something so intrinsic to their victimology but wasn't obvious and wouldn't stand out because it was likely a secondary language for him and the other victims besides. The team had none of this information to work with. They didn't even have any need to come anywhere near this line of thinking for now. But he was sure of it: this was the missing link that connected the victimology, minus Marion.

His hands were tapped again, and he was called back to attention. "I'm going to make this better," she said. "Fix this. You'll win this. We'll all win this together and you can come back to me."

Come back to me. This person must have died. What was it—cancer, a disease? Or perhaps could the coming back be indicative of restoring a former state of being? Could something have caused the original object of her fantasy to have gone deaf or become blind? Was there something else?

Things were making more sense regarding Noah's body—the blindfold, the cotton in the ears, perhaps even the missing tongue. These had nothing to do with sensory deprivation and likely had everything to do with emulating a person's physical condition. The missing hands might have less to do with a fetish and more to do with reverence—or a memento—like his team had also posed, for the hands were the only allowable mode of communication here.

But what had Noah and the two other victims done that ended the fantasy? Noah was missing for over three months before he was killed. He was sure the case was the same for the other two victims, or somewhere thereabouts. What had they all done right to prolong their lives, and what had they done wrong that made these captors need to end the fantasy?

What had they done wrong to warrant the torture and the tooth extraction? The rape? Speech was an obvious trigger for the man, but he was relieved that this didn't seem to be the case with this woman. It was plausible that the other victims learned this in time as well.

Personally, being non-verbal wasn't something he fell into by choice. It was situational and was often brought on by a broiling of emotions and by specific subjects. It would choke him, freeze up his vocal cords, and his mouth would disengage from what he wanted to convey. It was so severe when he was a toddler that he couldn't speak, and had everything to do with being overstimulated, oversensitized, and overly anxious. His parents both found ways to help him overcome those issues, they'd used basic ASL, and his complete inability to speak began to ebb starting when he began to attend kindergarten, not long after Riley Jenkins had been murdered and he'd obliterated the memory of his existence. Over the years, it cropped up on occasion.

Since Maeve's murder, much of what he experienced in his youth brimmed at the surface and sometimes came out unbidden. One was his more extreme self-stimulatory behavior. The other was when he just physically couldn't speak. Oftentimes, if he was forced to do so, then the stimulatory behavior inevitably began as if one were compensating for the other.

Before he'd lost Maeve, the last time it was anywhere near as bad as it was these past few months was when he was about to confront and meet his father for the first time in seventeen years. Though David may not have understood everything to do with this, he had sensed his distress and had spoken up for him. The previous times it happened were traumatic and had lingering effects for weeks.

Either way, he would without question try his best not to speak if it would help to prolong his life. He hoped, also, that it would delay any physical repercussions.

"Thank you," he said politely with the flutter of his hand, "for helping me become better." Ack. He hoped he hadn't just signed his death. Getting better could have been the trigger to his murder. Some victims in situations such as this were killed upon accepting and taking on the role of their captor's fantasies, no longer needed alive.

His captor, in return, drew a shallow U shape on his thigh, and he jerked it again in perturbation. He returned the gesture on his own leg and asked what it meant.

"I'm smiling. I'm happy. When I draw this"—the gesture was repeated on his leg—"you can see my smile."

The corner of his lip quirked as the gears in his mind continued to turn. Work this angle. She is who will empathize with me over time.

Yes, she might come to care for him too much to want to allow his death. Privileges might be doled out to him as reward for good behavior—privileges that would allow him to formulate an escape. He might even be able to turn her against his male captor. The latter might be a stretch—they were probably set in their loyalties to each other, but he might try to wedge himself between them if possible.

What of the man, though? He might need further interactions with him to know how he might engage with him. Maybe intellectual stimulation might make him more attached. He might have to play that into his favor. And he would do whatever was necessary to hold off on the rape. Whatever was necessary.

"I see," Spencer said in understanding with the flutter of his hand. "Can I have more water? I'd like you to remind me of other things I keep forgetting."

Yes, play into the fantasy.

He was never comfortable with random physicality. Touch—physical intimacy—all of it was complicated with him, and he gave it to or accepted it from so few people for very specific reasons and in increasing spades in the last years. He would have to fall into this forced proximity despite this and divorce himself from his misgivings.

He'd always been quick to adapt to a situation when his life depended on it.

Before his captor left and as additional explanations were given to him when he asked what this or that meant, and as he was told to keep silent and behave or he would have to be disciplined, Spencer was fed again. The tube port shuffled against his cheek, the coolness of liquid ran through the tube as something passed through it, and moments later his stomach began to fill. Afterwards, his tube port was irrigated and then left alone.

Somehow, receiving the threat from her and the promise of punishment caused fear to ricochet through him with more severity than what he had already experienced. He experienced his male captor's violence to an extent; hers was an unknown entity, and he wondered if, perhaps, she used her male counterpart to enact her violence to assert her dominance.

"I won't be returning for a few hours."

A hand was placed on his shoulder before he was eased to his right side upon the bed.

In less than an hour after his captor left, his stomach revolted, and he was curled up in agony within another half hour. His head also began pounding and he felt distinctly uncomfortable in a way that he couldn't understand, hot and feverish. He had to clench every muscle to keep himself from defecating and urinating on the bed, and he kept burping, passing gas, and tasting undesirable fruits and raw vegetables from whatever he was fed.

To bide the time and keep his mind distracted, Spencer began going over impossible and unsolvable mathematical problems, starting with The Riemann Hypothesis. That made him think of Alex.

His worry for her was mounting. If he was taken and she was in a collision that he knew was focused to her side of the car, she might have died due to her injuries. The stabbing—that might be far-fetched. Marion was an outlier. A more plausible probability was that she, too, might have been strangled—not with a goal to torture but to kill. His hand curled to his tender neck, still sore from the strangling and probably covered in bruises not unlike Noah's. He had to hope that she was still alive, but hope was sometimes crippling. He'd lived on it multiple times in his youth, in his adulthood—recently, even—and was growing ever disillusioned with it.

A jolting cramp had him curling over in agony, moaning, and it distracted him enough from those negative, spiraling thoughts and focusing again on the unsolvable mathematical problems.

He went at it—for hours—until he hit a mental wall and moved onto another, colloquially known as The Unknotting Problem. The simplest version of this had already been solved but creating an algorithm that could unknot any knot—no matter its complexity—in polynomial time would truly put The Unknotting Problem fully to rest. Or even proving that creating an algorithm was impossible or too profound would also put many mathematicians to rest. So for now, this problem was in limbo.

Thinking over it—trying to come up with an algorithm for it—invariably drove him to think about impossible objects, which spiraled into thinking about Euclidean and conceptual geometry, and—finally—about Maeve.

'Well, you know, Spencer. I think any mathematician worth their salt will tell you that every Penrose triangle has its thorns,' she had said to him once after he explained to her how he had tried to create one as a boy and his frustration at not being able to do so.

He couldn't help it. He smiled at that memory and dared to hope that the next time he dreamt of her, the pale visage she had in his recent dreams—one that had started melting just a couple of days before due to alchemy—would further melt into a pleasant blush.


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Note 1: In reference to footnote [1] in this chapter, you can find additional information on my tumblr.

Note 2: I kindly request that the names of any of the living victims of the serial killers written here not be mentioned in the comment section.

Note 3: I don't want to be that person who over-explains, but in case you're balking and you're interested in knowing the links for the victimology, you're welcome to find out on Tumblr in the same post as the footnote. I enjoyed creating this contrast between the team's understanding vs Spencer finally understanding another important piece of the puzzle that the team doesn't have. Sorry for the agita and if it didn't quite meet your expectations.