DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
Spencer knew the numbers. He knew that the most important hours to find a missing person in an abduction were within the first 24 hours, and that each passing hour decreased the likelihood that the subject would be found. Marion hadn't made it beyond this.

He knew that 90% of all abductees were killed within the first 36 hours.

He knew that for the remaining 10%, after the 72-hour mark, the likelihood was that the subject was murdered or in a captive state.

And for those in captivity, he knew that after the first or second week, authorities had to consider the potential that the missing person was dead.

He was creeping into the week-long threshold now.

Noah was missing for over three months. So perhaps he had—he had a greater chance for survival. He had to trust that his team would be able to piece enough things together so that they could find him without his assistance. Under Tobias' captivity, he had been able to leave breadcrumbs for the team to pick up on. This unsub—these unsubs—didn't have the tendency to reach out to the media or to investigators, or at least as far as he knew. Who knew what was happening in the days since he went missing, though? All he could do on his end was survive in any way.

But he knew. He knew that his team would find him soon. He just had to wait and plan.

It seemed also that yesterday's request was honored despite having upset the woman. Hours after his second harrowing bath, just after the woman took him to his second bathroom excursion, the man shuffled something small and cylindrical and something hand-sized at his fingers. Upon taking them and shaping them in his mind's eye and giving them a few testing sniffs, he realized that one was lip balm, and that the other was a stick of deodorant. The scent of eucalyptus was most precedent with both, and he used them and then shoved them into the bottom of his pillowcase.

Four days of interaction with his captors, or—at most—six days of having woken up here. It was numbing. But when he wasn't sloughing off whatever drug or drugs he was given, he kept his mind on his recitations and on thinking about the team, past cases, about fond memories of Maeve, of proper words that he could latch on to her, name her.

Whatever methods these two used, it was good enough to keep his team at bay. This was long. Eight days of interaction or nine and a half to ten days of captivity. He'd already had a third bath two days ago and a fourth one hours ago; they were consistent about doing it every other day.

The team might be looking for two males, whereas he knew that they should be looking for a male and female couple. These were a rarity, and male and female couples that went after males were rarer still. He couldn't blame them; there were many things about these two that would throw the team off. He was resigned to wait this out best as he could while they made their discoveries.

He'd done nothing wrong to induce any more rage, though. He folded his clothes; he stilled in the bath—with no more embarrassing urination where it shouldn't be. Twice now, he was allowed to brush his teeth in the sink after waking. Two days ago, on his last bathroom excursion for what he deemed was the end of the day, he was allowed to brush his teeth again, same as last night.

He still found ointment between his buttocks often after having a bad bowel movement.

'This isn't necessary,' he'd said the next time the woman came. 'You can give me your medicine and I can put it on myself.' To soften the impact, he added, 'This is a nuisance for you.'

This was ignored with a This is how it was when you were a child. This is how it is since you're sick. I don't mind.

He understood. He was looking at a family dynamic: mother, father, and deceased son.

Today, he didn't have any stomach pangs, burping, or noxious gas like he'd had the past week, though, and for that he was grateful. They had been intense, as had been his headaches. His bowel movements were painful and potent, and he had to wait hours in between some of them. He'd entertained the idea at first if she was doing this to purposefully make him sick. But he knew for a certainty that he was being given some type of detox cleanse based on the flavors of his burps and other things besides.

It made sense that his captors were controlling not just what he ate, but showing care for his overall wellbeing, health, and diet. The woman had said it, hadn't she? And she kept reminding him: he was, in her mind, very sick.

On that note, while he knew that emotional manipulation was involved in her ploy, it seemed, at times, that she was convinced that he was that dead son and that she did, at times, fall under delusions. Either that, or she was tightening up on her yoyoing because she knew that he wouldn't be as easy to manipulate. It could be either or both.

His cooperation, though, didn't prevent them from continuing to drug him. It was by the baths and bathroom excursions that he was better able to track his time here. The pattern had emerged for his daily ritual:

He was allowed to use the bathroom three times in what he was sure was a 24-hour period: first when he would wake up (or rather, was woken up), after which he was fed, then about ten hours later before another feeding, and lastly about three hours later before he was turned to his right side (assumedly put to sleep). Everything was cleaned in that ritualistic manner. On the days he bathed, he was fed half an hour before being told the singular word Bath. He removed and folded his clothes, received claps or taps of approval. Every time he was bathed, the tub was cleaned after, too. Well . . .

Like Noah's rubbed left ankle, his left was always the one to be restrained. And at the end of the proverbial day, he was turned down to face the wall, right side down, left side with the port exposed.

Barring the violence that he had faced and the poor mind games, this was all benign. He hadn't been assaulted since the first encounter with the man, and for that he was relieved. This could be due to proper behavior, and he was waiting to be given more inches. He hadn't gotten another one yet. On that note, though, he found that the man interacted with him little, if only to assist his wife—Wife?—before and during the bathing, or to replace his sheets or put new, folded clothes at the bed.

The man, the father, may have also been involved with his son's medical and physical needs. The strange claps continued. The woman's Good boy continued. Her roaming hands over his own continued. The tap-taps and hair ruffling continued. These affectionate, familial gestures were all still dangerous things meant to lull him into a false sense of security, to make him comfortable.

This family must have been a tight-knit, close unit. So the son's death—Death, or murder? Or, rather, maybe it had been a mercy killing?—his death was just as difficult for the man as it had been for the woman. The woman had maternal desire. But could it be said that the man had paternal desire?

He wasn't sure, then, where the rape fit into all of this. In what fantasy would either caring parent rape or allow the rape of their child by the other? It just didn't fit. There were more layers to peel. Each unsub had his or her own reasoning for their actions based on past events in their lives, and while he was sure of the stressor, there were more beneath the exterior.

Either way, he was doing something right to avoid the rape.

Today, this fourth bath was different, though. There was a lethargy around the movements, and they weren't his but the woman's. Awakened, urged to use the bathroom where he was allowed to bidet himself without even asking, fed, taken to be bathed and shaved, towel-dried—all these were done with slow, heavy hands wherever the woman was involved.

When she bathed him, she didn't linger on his hands. She didn't ask him how he felt afterwards, and she didn't call him a good boy. No pats. No ruffling. It was a relief, but it left him on edge.

He didn't care about lack of concern for his well-being or the absence of praise, but it was her nature—her pattern—after a mere handful of days interacting with them. He was dreading this. If they didn't stick to what he knew, then there was no guarantee that he was still indisposable.

That dread seemed to be well founded. Unlike the days previous, he was now coming upon almost fourteen hours of not having interacted with his captors, and they'd not come in to let him relieve himself or to feed him.

Did he do something wrong?

No, he didn't. He knew he didn't. Was he not keeping track of the time well? It wasn't beyond the realms of possibility. He'd nodded off earlier as whatever drugs wore away; he could have fallen asleep for hours.

Perhaps they were apprehended, and the team was looking for him if this was a secondary location. Either way, he had to use the bathroom.

And then it came.

The pressure changed in the air. It was something he was also becoming accustomed to—that brush of cool air tickling against his skin. He'd been pacing as far as the chains would allow him to pace but stilled at the waft. He canted his head, waited.

There it was—a near presence, a scent. He expected the woman, whose scent was more of one surrounded by the citrus and lavender cleaning products and earthiness. The very distant hope was that this might have been his team and the delay was caused by them having caught his captors and that they were searching for him.

This scent was of leather and grease. It was the man, he knew, and his disquiet mounted. Despite this, he still needed to use the bathroom.

"I need to use the bathroom," he announced. The large hand clapped the back of his neck, and he tilted his head away in alarm.

The chains were released from his hands and there was a jostling at his foot before his leg was nudged. He palmed his way to the bed, to its foot frame, and then to the wall so he could trail his fingers across the rough texture before he met with the porcelain of the sink.

With a little bend, he reached his left hand forward, touched the cool surface of the toilet tank as his left foot tautened. His hands went to the hem of his pants and underwear and as he was about to tug them down, he hesitated.

He'd not gone to the bathroom in front of this man yet. He'd been nude in a bathtub with the man assisting with shaving him, yes, but there was an actual fetishizing quality about watching someone use the bathroom.

At his hesitation, the back of the man's hand tapped at his chest to urge him to get going, then tugged the rim of his pants.

Swallowing down his reservations, he pulled them down, covering his groin, sat at the seat, and went about urinating and emptying his bowels.

Why is it the enforcer and not the caretaker in this current role?

When he was done, he indicated it with a flourish and the man handed him the hose. He cleaned and wiped himself down when he was given a hand-towel.

With this being the first interaction with this man without the presence of the woman, he had expected worse. But this was no different than what he'd been experiencing for the past week. Everything within him told him to be alarmed that none of what he was experiencing these days was anywhere near as bad as what he had anticipated. They were still lulling him, he knew.

He turned and took the customary two steps to the sink, reached for it. After washing his hands, the same towel he had been given to wipe himself down with was handed back to him. He paused. That wasn't right. He was always given a dry towel.

This could be a trick. A test. It was something. It had to be. And he was blindly staring at it in his hands for too long, for the man tap-tapped him at the shoulder to quicken his pace.

So he wiped his hands and gave the man the towel. He took a step and two more toward the bed before he paused, stilled, tilted back toward the toilet.

The man double-tapped his hand. He lifted them without thought. "What is it?" he was asked.

His nose was pointed to the toilet and—no, he was certain of it. No citrus and lavender. The lingering scent of his bowel movement was still in the air. On that note, he realized, things had been overlooked this morning, too: the toilet hadn't been cleaned, the bathtub hadn't been cleaned, his hair hadn't been dried with the dryer, and he still had the same bedsheets from the previous two days.

No, no. Something wasn't right.

Again he was asked, "What is it?"

Trepidation stayed his hands until he shook his head. It wasn't nothing, though. He couldn't prevent the clamoring in his chest. Something was at play.

"Then go back to bed."

He did. He sat. He waited as the chain weighed the cuffs on his wrists back down.

Spencer had yet to have a conversation with this man beyond receiving orders from him. But he was still not violent since the first encounter. He would risk this.

The chain stemming from his ankle was shortened again, so the man was kneeling. Spencer reached his hand forward until his fingers buckled against the man's cottony shirt. He tapped it once before pulling his wringing hands back to his lap. The man tapped his thigh to indicate he was paying attention, and the hand remained. Spencer abided it.

No negative repercussions. A good sign.

"Where's . . . the woman?"

He waited. The hands tapped atop his. From the positioning, the man was still kneeling below him at the floor. Strange. It put him in a higher position.

"She doesn't feel good today. She's very tired."

He didn't know quite what to say to this, so he said nothing.

But then, to his surprise, the man elaborated: "She takes care of you and works and takes care of you again. It makes her tired."

Yes, a caretaker's job was tiring. They often experienced physical and emotional burnout. He had a feeling her work was to do with horticulture, like gardening or landscaping. That scent of hers—earth, herbs, heady flowers, and pine with that undercurrent of cleaner—lent itself to one of those professions, which were, in truth, taxing. It made sense, given the location of the dead bodies, the symbolism.

That observation besides, he thought of the emotional toll it may have taken this woman to work and care for her sick son, if she had done both and if that had been the case. Without a doubt, this must have been taxing on the father as well. In the end, that son was dead anyway, despite whatever effort they may have put in, and this was a blow that could tear people asunder and cause them to fracture. The husband may be indulging his wife for even his own emotional fulfilment.

The other end of the spectrum could be that they hadn't done enough when their son was alive and ill, and that this was the guilt they grappled with. This may be their penance.

But the balance of probability was that it was the former. If the latter had been the case, then they would have laid blame with each other, driven each other apart. No, these two were loyal and dependent on each other.

Beyond the peril of this situation, there was some melancholy to this aligning of understanding.

His hand was tapped. "Why do you ask?" he was asked.

Spencer tilted his head. Should he say? There was nothing antagonistic happening here. The man offered information that a captor need not tell his victim.

"You both have certain patterns." It seemed ridiculous, now, to convey this. "Throughout the day. You have a pattern. It's been . . . changed."

The response surprised him more. "Explain."

An invitation? Or, rather, a demand that was a subconscious invitation. Or was it curiosity? Was this all a trick? He could gauge nothing without visual input, without seeing a brow quirk, a back hunch, a hand curl, a lip twitch; he could gauge nothing without the flutter and cadence of one's voice or the specific, idiosyncratic words used. These were things that could tell him how to understand, calculate, respond appropriately, lie. What had been difficult for him to understand in his youth but he had mastered through years of study and practice was again useless to him here. He was at no advantage in this situation and in his captivity. It was a startling realization.

But his hand was tapped, and he was again told Explain, leaving him with no choice but to continue what he had started.

"Things are—" He paused in careful hesitation, deliberate in his avoidance of the specific word dirty, and sought to reword what he was trying to convey. "You're both doing things unlike before. The tub, the toilet, the bed. I was given the same towel that was used to wipe my body to wipe my hands. You're changing pattern. You follow patterns." He wouldn't mention his hair or the pats—those were, again, indulgences. But now that it was all put out there, it was incredulous to have expected any of these things each time he was either taken to the bathroom or given a bath. He was in captivity and these things—all those things were luxuries.

Tap tap. "And?"

And.

And indeed. He didn't know what to say. But this was the first time interacting with him and the man was surprisingly reasonable. So why this change? Were they bored with him? Had they expected that he would have resisted more? Should he have, and would it have extended his life?

Oh, no.

Some captors liked the fight. Some captors liked to break down someone into compliance. Had he removed that satisfying element? Were they soon to get rid of him?

He puffed out a breath, resolute. He would just say it. There were no pretenses about how his captivity might end. He licked his lips, but his hands were the ones that moved.

"Am I to die today?"

The hand at his leg, of all things, scratched it. He jerked at it—again uncomfortable with its familiarity and proximity. But the memory of what the woman had taught him in their first conversation came to mind. Where she would put a hand to her neck to indicate laughter as some would, the alternative was to scratch one's leg. He was laughing at him.

With a double tap and the raise of his hand, he was given an answer: "No. She's just not well."

It could be a lie or the truth, and he wouldn't know but for the passing hours. He wouldn't antagonize the situation, though, because the man was being amenable—congenial, even—and he would take advantage of it to get information, whatever inch he could get.

"What are your names?"

"No names."

He would shelve this for now.

"Are either of you deaf? Blind?"

"No." An inch.

"Is she your wife?"

"Yes." Another inch.

"Your wife says I'm sick. What with? She may have . . ." He sucked his tongue with a tch in frustration at not knowing the proper word in Sign. So he fingerspelled it. "She may have psychosis. She may need help."

"You're not sick."

Oh god. What was this man doing, then? Using her caregiving skills to keep victims alive so he could beat and rape them at his whim? Manipulating his wife to be complicit because of her need to care for someone?

Not at all thinking, Spencer parted his lips, face turned straight out and shoulders squaring. His unused voice croaked out: "You seem reasonable. You need to let me go. I'm FBI. I'm a federal agent. You'll go to prison for this. You'll both go to prison for doing this; you must know that. But if you let me go, I can tell them that you were cooperative. Surely you'd prefer a reduced sentence." They were both culpable for the murders of at least four other people; there was little room for leniency in their sentences, but the man didn't need to know that. The woman might have a more lenient sentence if this was what he believed it was. "You have to let me go; this is gravely criminal."

The man let him finish.

At the length of time stretching after his final censure, the surety he had fell away from under his feet like a drop door and instead he was afloat with rushing thoughts.

"H-Hello?" Spencer asked, shifting his blind gaze downward and tilting his head as if it would help him hear. Nothing.

He wasn't Derek Morgan, who would bare his teeth, put up his fists, and give a man like his captor hell. He wasn't Aaron Hotchner, who would remove his tie and jacket, call out his would-be assaulter a coward at his core, who would put up his fists to prepare to fight. He had tried these—at least the former—in the first encounter, and he had failed. And that hadn't even been his first recourse.

A profiler doesn't need a gun to take down a criminal. He knew this well. He was a blinker. But he used the power of the tongue. That was a fire.

It wasn't a weakness, but a conditioned response to the bullying he endured since he was a child. He flinched, froze, blinked, but he tended to speak first, aimed to de-escalate, to reason with, and—if those things didn't work and the inevitability of the situation was apparent—to flow, roll with what was to come while assessing his best plan of action before he might be able to flee.

He would play to his strength, lull the man, show deference while making him feel a sense of guilt and duty.

"Let me go," he said. "Let me go. I haven't seen your faces; I don't know where I am. I can't identify you or anything here. You both have the capacity for kindness. I can see this. You don't have to keep me here. You can let me go. You can still get away with this."

A hand tucked under his jaw, tightened around his neck, and—as this had been unexpected—he was pushed down to his side on the bed with little resistance. It then grasped his face with such force that the nails scored into his skin.

A blinker indeed. His voice rushed out as soon as the hand pulled away and he sought to correct this. "I—I'm—sor—"

Both hands clasped around his neck—Oh, no—and Spencer's fingers grasped the man's wrists.

"Wait, wait. Not this. Please, please." His voice was pitched in desperation. "Repeated strangulation will—"

Held by his neck, half of him was lifted clear off the bed and then he was slammed onto the floor, head colliding against it with flashes of white before his eyes upon the impact, air bursting out of his lungs. He began to kick in his struggle.

This happened in the moments before the man applied pressure to the veins with the heels of his hands. It was a venous occlusion, and everything was fading. His own shot up to the man's face, trying to gouge at the eyes while his own stung before his hands slowed in his effort.

But in the next moment, the thumbs came around, tucked far under his Adam's apple, and the man squeezed. Spencer kicked his head back; he tried to dislodge the fingers as his back arched to just draw in a tiny fraction of a liter of air he so needed. He knew he should draw up his shoulders and push down his chin, but knowing didn't prevent the action in the face of this panic. He couldn't get that air, and he fought for it, his body becoming more and more sapped by the second. He was helium-light, weightless.

The moment he was released, he turned to his side, coughed and wheezed, face digging into the ground as he tucked his knees toward his chest and grasped his sore neck with trembling hands.

He shouldn't have said anything at all. He should have kept his damned mouth shut. And he shouldn't have initiated anything, either.

He was wrenched up to sit on the bed again with his captor grasping his shirt in a fist, pulling him down as he knelt in front of him again. Two slaps to his hands urged him to listen. Both hands tucked underneath his curled fingers.

The words were aborted, jutting. "Pay attention. —," he said, then fingerspelled the last. "Demand. You don't demand anything. I demand. She demands. We demand. You do what we say. You take what we give. All the time. You don't complain. Ever."

Spencer nodded, understanding, turning to the side and coughing. The man didn't let him recover; he smacked the side of his head to make sure that he was paying attention. He returned his focus forward, tilting his head, cleared his burning throat, and coughed again. With a tap-tap to his hand, he listened.

"What you said before—you don't repeat it in any way, especially around her. You understand? Not ever. You will cooperate. Always. You're not ever to speak out loud. You should know this by now. You understand?"

Spencer nodded. Even then, the large hand grasped at the flesh of his face, squeezing, shaking. He lifted his own to wrench the digits away.

"Tell me that you understand."

Spencer did as told, his hand flicking to the side of his head. "I understand. You don't have to . . ." He paused and sought to change his next statement; he wouldn't dare make it seem that he was demanding anything of his captor after the explicit direction that he wasn't to make any demands. But those woman's words from days ago came back to mind. "Please, there's no punishment needed."

"There will be. Not now, though. Prepare yourself; think it over. Maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe it will be the day after, or in a few days. We'll see. Do you understand?"

Oh god. What would it be? Why would he tell him that he would be punished soon? He would rather not know at all that he had to prepare for his punishment and just let it be done.

"Please."

His hand was slapped . "No. Do—you—understand?"

A breath stuttered from Spencer's nose at the despair and dread. His shaking hand flicked to the side of his head before returning to his chest. "I understand. Please."

The hand clapped his shoulder twice before he was eased down to the mattress and turned to his right side, leaving him to wonder in trepidation what, indeed, his punishment might be. And his stomach pinched in hunger.


MONDAY, MAY 6–MONDAY, MAY 13, 2013 | WASHINGTON, DC
"Mama?"

While Jennifer was giving Henry a bubble bath, she was lost in thought. It was Tuesday—nine nights since Spencer was taken. Every day, she continued to hold onto the hope that he was still alive. But if he were, he would be suffering. They just couldn't win. The roaming thoughts had distracted her from her task.

But upon hearing her son's voice like a tinkering bell bringing her back to the present, she shook her head. "What's up, little man?" she asked, poking him on the nose and putting a fluff of bubbles there.

"Mama, when's—when's Uncle Spence coming to play again? I want him to tell me more stories!"

Good lord.

Jennifer's heart ached, but she forced herself to smile and gasp in delight. "You wanna see Uncle Spence?" Her voice swelled in affected surprise as she dunked water over his head to rinse him, blocking it from entering his eyes.

"Yah!" he said with a wide flourish of his arms.

She wanted to protect him from all the hurt in the world. She wanted to shield him from all the monsters and bad things. And he was so little. He was at the age where . . . he might forget about Spencer if Spencer never returned. He loved him; how could she explain that Spencer might never come back to play with him, to spoil him, to love him?

Spencer's memory, if he were never found, would never fade from Jennifer's mind. For Henry, he was at that cusp where Spencer could just be periphery and might disappear. Might it not just be best to let that memory fade so he didn't have to suffer the pain of missing him?

Her eyes filled with tears. It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be fair to Spencer. She cherished him far too much to disappear his memory.

"When, mama? When, when?"

Her attention was on her son again, and she kissed his soapy crown. "Uncle Spence is super duper busy, buddy! But he misses you and he loves you so"—she drawled out the word—"so much."

"Boo! Busy! Boo!"

Jennifer laughed and finished rinsing her son. He was starting to pick up on Penelope's expressions. She helped him dry off, clothe himself, brush his teeth, then tucked him under his blanket, kissing him upon his forehead and brushing her fingers in his hair as he blinked until he fell asleep.

She pulled out her phone and went to her messages, finding one conversation lower in the list. Their exchanges were at all times during the day—she felt no ounce of regret in doing this. It had been long enough, after all. She texted.

« Hey you
« You up?

The response came faster than Jennifer anticipated, and her stomach pinched.

» Cheeto Breath! Yes, up
» Pretty much drowning
in paperwork. It all
sucks!

« Don't I know it

» What're you up to?
» How's the team?

She started typing, and then her fingers hovered over her screen before she wrote. She erased it and tapped the phone against the bridge of her nose. Just do this.

« Not good
« Doc's missing

When the recipient of these texts was secreted in Paris, the two had given everyone code names to be safe, and it never quite ended even with her would-be murderer now out of the picture.

» You're kidding
» You're joking.

They didn't joke like this.

« No
« He's been gone since
the end of last month
« He was abducted
« Can we talk?

Typing. A pause or deleted message. And instead, mere seconds later, Jennifer's phone began to vibrate in her hand, alight with the name of its caller, Sergio.

"Emily."

"JJ," Emily responded from the other line, voice lilting in her perturbation. "JJ, this is—you can't be serious."

"It's . . . it's bad, Emily."

"Tell me everything."

Spencer would comply with his captors, yes, but his ever-mounting anxiety about his impending punishment had urged him to attempt something. It was terrorization to make him anticipate what the punishment might be. Considering that they knew he was a law official, this must have been to add an additional element of psychological terror, knowing what he knew of the crimes.

"Is that it?" he risked asking aloud. "You're making me sweat this out?"

He took to rubbing his wrists against the cinder block wall to try to abrade the leather and wear it down, but it was a multi-layer leather restraint: thick, full grain on the three outer layers, then the padded part that touched his skin was lined with genuine suede. If he kept his arms up for too long with this rubbing, his shoulders and muscles began to ache with the weight.

He was well bound on a bed that was artfully crafted and bolted to the ground and wall. He wasn't going anywhere. But he tried, and for it he would be disciplined, too.

But in the following days after his brush with the man, things proceeded as normal—he was fed, taken to the bathroom, and he was bathed normally; nothing was removed from him as far as privileges went. And everything was cleaned as they had been before. He was cautious.

It had been a test. He didn't know if there was any truth behind the assertion that she was tired, but he realized it now—it must have been some kind of test or trick to gauge what he might notice, say, or do, and he had fallen right into it. Damn but were they good. Or was it all just coincidental? Was he giving them too much credit?

It left him in a heightened state of vigilance—unless he was drugged, which he was twice more when he was fed. The lethargy draped over him, had him lying on the bed with limbs that wouldn't lift and a fog that wouldn't shift for hours, that would make him drag his feet even after it was peeling away. He nearly wept from it, not wanting to have such a thing done to him, lamenting what he had fought so hard against years ago and which was now taken from him.

Despite this, as much as he feared his captors, he found it difficult to choose between their presence and the isolation and sensory deprivation. In a way—in a very strange and undeniable way—he needed stimulating company, the regularity of the back and forth beyond where his chain was shortened. He would like to have said that he needed this because it would be evidence that they were still interested in him and thus wanted to keep him alive, that he was still indisposable.

But in another way—

He knew what this meant, and he knew where it all was taking place. It was all primitive. He could try to control this, but it was—in part—basic, animal. It was happening in his limbic system, and when all these parts of the human brain worked together, a human—an animal—in such-like captivity would begin to react naturally.

Fighting against this basic instinct could mean his death.

Hippocampus, amygdala, cingulate gyrus, basal ganglia—it all took place here. He was under no false pretenses that these two were dangerous and didn't excuse any of the things they'd done to him. But basic motivations, such as the need for survival, would be fulfilled by his captors, and a warped fondness would develop. The woman's kindness, her benign touches, her phrase of affection—Good boy—these were dangerous. So were the claps of silent praise.

Scents associated with actions or presences—creating pleasant or terrorizing memories—would regulate his behavior from aggressiveness to compliance.

The sense of order they created—this organized, rule-based environment—would affect him as well. Spencer liked forming habits and patterns—both of which calmed him—and they kept to certain patterns and that helped him anticipate the course of events to follow and act accordingly. The break from pattern had alarmed and unsettled him. Its return to normalcy stabilized him despite the looming punishment. And his body was now in such expectation of his schedule that it began to anticipate when he would have to use the bathroom and when he would experience hunger.

The only stimulation he received beyond counting, recitations, or mental calculations was by them and in the face of their presence. He knew what this would become if he wasn't careful. He merely wanted to survive.

But.

He was already adapting to and being conditioned by the situation: altering his behavior to win their favor, falling into step with their patterns, distinguishing them by scent when they neared and by the texture of their hands.

Depending on the situation throughout his life, he knew he wasn't a fighter. Again, he was no Derek or Aaron. If he could flee, he did; if he couldn't, he would try to reason with his opponent, or at least wax on and on long enough to distract them and until the danger had passed. This had worked with Chester Hardwick[1].

With Tobias, he fawned. Fleeing, which he could have attempted with the paltry bindings, was not a choice. His captor had displaced him, was at an advantage of knowing his surroundings, and was a prolific murderer. Between Tobias, Charles, and Raphael, Spencer was the most at ease and the safest with Tobias. He responded to each counterpart accordingly, yes, but Tobias fed him, spoke to him kindly, gave him CPR.

He hesitated for a split second before pulling that trigger, and afterwards he roiled in guilt. Those dead eyes had been one of the other reasons why he had started using Dilaudid after he'd filched the two vials from Tobias' pocket. If the days had dragged on in his captivity, there was no denying how much deeper the attachment might have become.

He was—at the moment—at the fawning stage of his captivity, wherein he hid from the danger, complying to preserve his life.

What he feared was what happened when a person in captivity went beyond the fawning response, where the basic human instincts to survive was eclipsed by adaptation, which was then replaced by endearment. Emotional investment was where the iffy, undiagnosable but ever-intriguing and ever-studied Stockholm Syndrome would come into play. It was a coping mechanism coupled with an emotional investment.

Spencer knew one thing for certain: he was an empathizer. Where one showed empathy, there was an emotional investment. He would have to fight against the empathy if he could.

Prolonged abduction—wherein the captive's needs for food and intimacy were met by the captors—might make the victims feel a primitive, primordial gratitude toward their captor in time, especially if their captors were benevolent. It was inevitable. Throw sensory deprivation into the mix, create an environment in which the victim had to rely on his captors for anything, throw drugging into the mix, and this would be a fight he wouldn't win.

He could either flow with this, or he could resist, stiffen, crash, collide, break, bruise.

He couldn't empathize. And he knew—he'd already started to. He would have to make them empathize with him. Stockholm Syndrome was reciprocal, and its reverse was to the effect of the captor developing feelings of sympathy for their hostages. Tobias Hankel had done this—he drugged Spencer to relieve him of the violence and torture that Charles and Raphael doled out, empathized with him and asserted that the drugs would help.

So in this situation, it wasn't an impossibility, especially given the woman's absolute need to care for her hostage. He would continue to work that angle if he needed to. One hand would wash the other.

At best, he might be able to resist these tides, but there was an additional element that might make this more difficult. He wasn't just a captive, but was meant to replace someone. So he also had to resist brainwashing, too.

They were starting, though, with the cleaning, the repetitions that he wasn't well, that he would get better, with trying to sow doubt and trying to confuse him.

They hadn't changed his visage yet, but he knew that they would at some point. He knew that when that happened, they—or the woman at least—would be further locked into that fantasy. Unless they did it shortly before he was killed. On this he wasn't sure.

And the damn drugs.

'These are control mechanisms used in cases of sexual slavery, or mind control—it's brainwashing.'

He himself had said these words during a case years ago when the most recent abductee was able to reach the outside world and it seemed like she was drugged. Drugs would break the captive down and cause a surrender of identity.

It seemed that they were trying to do the same with him. Conditioning, punishment and reinforcement, brainwashing, all wrapped up in sensory deprivation and drugs—holistically, their methods of subjugation were effective and near flawless.

Either way, he had confidence that being able to identify the patterns of his behavior that pointed toward Stockholm syndrome and brainwashing would help him to fight against them. He would not form an attachment to these people—he would do what he needed to survive and ingratiate himself to them, and in time he hoped that he would weaken their defenses.

He was confident that if he could identify this, then he could continue to do his utmost to quash it. So he resolved to do the following: he would maintain his own identity and not surrender it, remembering who and what he was; he would remember his objective, which was to survive; and he would remember who his friends and family were.

He would continue his literature, psychology, mathematics, and scientific recitations to keep his mind pliable.

And he would continue to remember Maeve. He would continue to do as David instructed, as Alex had suggested. In so doing, he would find peace with her death where there had been agony.

Derek made his way to his door, pulling his t-shirt over his head. He'd just taken a long and hot shower, and he just wanted to get into bed and sleep the night away, despite the earlier hour of the evening.

His dog, an aging long-haired Weimaraner, had picked up his furry head from his large bed, clambering from his comfortable position, nails skittering upon the wood flooring as he tap tap tapped his way to the door. His tail wagged and he itched to let out a bark of excitement. He sat and waited for his human to reach the door, thumping his tail on the ground. His dog was well trained, and this was as far as his excitement went in his older years.

Derek, giving the head a single pat and then a rub under the chin, looked through the viewfinder and unlocked the door, swinging it open.

"Garcia," he started. His dog stayed seated but began to lean forward until he was laying on the ground and whimpering in desire, tail swishing.

"Hey, you," Penelope said. There was a plastic bag in her hand, and within it a paper bag. She raised it.

"What's this?" Derek pointed at the bag with an open palm.

"Dinner," Penelope answered in an even voice. "Everything is stressing me out, and I—um—didn't wanna eat alone, and I got so much, and I don't wanna be alone, and—"

"Hey, hey; c'mon," Derek said without voicing the words as he opened the door further for her to come in.

"Clooney Clooney Clooney," Penelope cooed as she bent down toward the dog, who had sat up again. "What a good, good boy, yes yes. Here's a treat for you 'cause mama's missed you!" She doted on him, and he itched for more rubs and scratches. His tail thump thump thumped.

Within a few minutes, there was an array of Indian takeout spread upon Derek's coffee table, and he'd given Penelope one of his pullover hoodies to keep warm in his cool apartment. Clooney was lying under the coffee table, head resting on Penelope's lap.

Neither Derek nor Penelope had much of an appetite.

"The questioning is driving me bananas, Derek. It's like they don't care what's happened to Reid, like they've already written him off." She scrunched a fist over her chest and shook her head. "I don't know when this is going to stop hurting. If Reid's still alive, he's suffering, and it's like they don't care . . ."

"I know, mama," Derek answered, looking down at the coffee table.

"And he knew . . . he knows so much about what's happened to the other victims, but Noah and Zachary and Marion—they didn't know what would happen when they were taken. Reid knows—more than they do—what they'll do to him."

Derek's mind flashed, and he saw Carl. With the flip of a switch, there were massless, faceless shapes hurting Spencer in unspeakable ways, and he couldn't shut the horror off. His hands went to swipe over his face as nausea swept through him.

"Garcia, Garcia," Derek pleaded, groaning. "Please. Stop. I . . . I can't. Not tonight, please."

Penelope looked at Derek, and his expression was dark, his eyes tumultuous yet smoldering. "Oh, Derek," she murmured. "I'm so sorry. I know what you're probably thinking. For you and for Reid. I'm so sorry, I can't . . ."

It was during these few liminal days, while waiting for whatever punishment was to come and while his anxiety was mounting, that Spencer figured it out—while he thought about the woman's scent and what it might portend whenever she was near him.

They'd been looking into groundskeepers, rangers, staff members, volunteers. He was positive of the point of non-contact or when he was first sighted, but he had a suspicion that the woman had no traceable affiliation with the forest. They'd been looking for males. Her name wouldn't have shown up in all of that digging that Penelope had done. But even if they expanded the list to females, it would do no good if she were an odd-jobs person, and if his memory served him well, she just might be.

It was at the Ranger's station where she saw him, the very first day that they started working the case. It must have been. Sign language—a visual language—could be spoken and seen from a distance. Anyone familiar with it would notice even the smallest hint of it from afar if they happened to catch it. While he and Alex had sat in the parking lot of the station so that his stomach could settle, they'd exchanged a few words with each other in Sign.

There was a plethora of people there. One of them had been a gardener or a landscaper, but to mind he couldn't recall any vehicles with a distinct logo. He'd even passed her on his way into the station before he and Alex had signed with each other.

Before this case had even gone public, he may have been marked, and she was the one who marked him. They watched him for days, formulated their plan. They knew he was a law official. They could have taken him when he went to or came from the Worthington State Forest alone. Before that, they could have taken him when he went to Barnes and Noble.

Was that she who had been at the bookstore? He couldn't make out her face—but remembered that she'd been wearing a baseball cap. Were they one in the same? He hadn't paid attention to determine if she'd worried after the child who tripped near him; he had been lost in his own thoughts. Was that child even her own? Had that been happenstance? Or was that occasion just coincidence?

The next time he saw her was when he and Alex went traveling to the various bars that Noah and his friends had gone to. It was right at the station before they left. Reporters—a mass of them—as well as some local residents, and there below at the grounds, unobtrusive and keeping her head down while using a trowel and wearing gloves, heavily clothed and capped to protect herself from the sun, had been a landscaper.

Brash and brave indeed, continuing to keep her eye on her target. As he and Alex had posed, the other partner—her husband—could continue the hunt; she could stay right where she was while her husband had followed them. At any time could they meet. At any time could they continue to watch him and watch every action, waiting for or creating the exact opportunity to pluck him out. Who would have looked for a man and woman considering how sexualized the crimes were once it was understood that Noah was raped?

They chose to take him in a violent manner. Whether it was a symbolic assertion of power and virility on the man's part, or—perhaps—if it had been to obliterate Alex from the picture.

Women want it so you can't have it.

Either or both could be the case.

The director besieged the team in an effort to upend them. For a couple of days, they weren't to go out into the field and were to do paperwork on the recent case, as well as other cases.

This time it wasn't because they had done anything wrong on their end. Much like when Foyet was murdered, Aaron's ability to lead the team was called into question. Aaron had known this was coming. The moment Spencer was taken, Aaron had begun the countdown.

Erin Strauss was called upon by the director to reconcile an account of what had happened with Agents Reid and Blake, one of whom was missing and the other who was currently out of commission, surrounding the whole investigation of The Linen Assassins, or as some called the perpetrators The Stokes State Slayers. The director wanted to initiate an internal audit. Thus, Erin was tasked to go over the BAU's caseload to make sure that the team was following protocol, especially following the cases of George Foyet, Emily Prentiss, and Maeve Donovan. These cases were revisited.

They hadn't had their annual review yet, so this was a long time coming.

As it had been a few times before, the unit was on the line, and they didn't know how many more times they could skate over this type of thin ice.

Erin was rigid with her questioning of each team member, but she tried to also be compassionate. Overall, she had a job to do, and despite this team being one of the best in terms of results she had under her purview, she had to think of her own career as well. Every time the director's lens focused on the team, it focused on her, and they didn't make her look like she had proper control or chain of command during these times.

After the questioning, which went on for hours each day, and after reviewing each member's own account of the events, Erin reviewed everything, then she took up her assessment with the Director.

Aaron was currently waiting in the anteroom of her office so she could speak with him about the final say. He thought of words that Spencer had expressed to him nearly two years ago now, in the privacy of an office room, on a couch, after Emily had supposedly been murdered. As always, whenever Spencer was churning with emotions, his voice had shaken, as if it would fizzle away, and he was almost unable to maintain eye contact with his unit chief.

'It's just unfair that she's gone,' he had started, 'It's like—if we can't keep each other safe, then why are we even doing any of this? It's—sometimes I think maybe . . . maybe Gideon was right, you know? Maybe—maybe it's just not worth it.'

By it , Spencer had been referring to this job. It was true; there was much that Aaron had lost, and there were those brief moments where he thought that it would be best to just end this all and live a normal, regular, stable life with this son. But it was worth it whenever he saved someone else's child, or someone else's spouse, or anyone at all. It was always worth it. And now . . . it was especially worth it.

If they didn't have this job and if they didn't have this team, then Spencer was as good as gone. There was no doubt in his mind at all that Spencer would have no chance. They were the only ones with the perfect set of resources along with the heart and absolute desire to be able to put all the information together to find him, whether alive or dead. If it were the latter, they would be the only ones to put all the information together to bring his killers to justice.

And yet, so far, they had been wrong with two prime suspects.

Perhaps they were losing their touch. Perhaps, because they weren't the core team that they had been years ago, things just weren't the same. In Aaron's opinion, they peeked about three years ago, just a little before—before Haley had been murdered. Before Foyet had attacked him in his own apartment. Since then, there was a relentless attack on the team and during cases that—things that were just inexcusable.

From the outside looking in, it could be said that, yes, his leadership was to blame. That peak—and that dip—they both reflected on him. A team was only as strong as its leader.

Oh god. Should he have gotten ahead of this and stepped down instead of allowing the unit to be broken up or instead of being replaced by some other agent? These decisions had their own momentum. If not, he would see the team get reassigned, he would see budget cuts—he couldn't have that happen.

Behind the scenes, Aaron had grappled with choosing between Derek or Emily to be promoted as the acting unit chief when his job was on the line a few years ago after Foyet attacked him.

Emily was clearly driven, and it wasn't a secret that she wanted to one day move up to being the director. She was cool and collected even when under duress. She had the abilities without a doubt to lead the team. But she was also still new to the team at that time, Aaron felt. Now, she was chief of London's Interpol office—a manifestation of her skill and advancement in her career.

Derek, on the other hand, was put up for being Unit Chief in the New York field office, which was no small matter, but he demonstrated that in ways he still had some things to work out.

Derek's problem came with his attitude. Back then, he still wasn't cool and collected, but explosive. When Aaron had first started working with him years ago, his hot-headedness was detrimental. That was why Jason, who was at the time the Unit Chief, had made him go to the Academy two years in a row to learn that art of patience while assisting specific cadets who needed extra guidance.

It helped a little. The second time around, Jason had thrust a cadet on Derek to who didn't even meet the age requirement, one who was wet behind the ears, but who had an awkward yet tenacious grit, who learned not to go down without a fight. They didn't hit it off well at all, but Jason wouldn't hear of it. Now, the two were thick as thieves, and one of them was missing.

This was why Aaron had wanted Derek to be the acting Unit Chief back then. He wouldn't be thrust under having to truly manage a new team of agents and learn a new dynamic on his own, as would have been the case in New York. Under Aaron's guidance—which he knew he wouldn't need to provide much of, for Derek knew his job and knew it very well—and in a temporary capacity, Derek would be able to flourish with a group of people that he already knew. It would be a step up for him.

And Derek had not only excelled; he had exceeded Aaron's expectations and the experience left permanent changes upon Derek. And unlike what David thought, Derek didn't fight relinquishing his role as acting Unit Chief to give that laurel back to Aaron. Derek was controlled then, and he might be able to do this again.

Section Chief Strauss opened her door, and she beckoned him in with a quiet Aaron?

Aaron looked up. Is it too late to consider this? Or is it . . . is it different? Might Derek be too emotionally involved with resolving this?

He thought, quickly, of David. David hated the politics involved with the job, and he would hate to lead the team, he knew. But perhaps the circumstances were a change to this.

After he entered and sat, he waited for Erin's next words.

"Aaron," she began. "After running the assessments with your team and discussing them with the Director, he has come to the following conclusion: Firstly, there is no culpability on your end for Dr Reid's abduction. He didn't fit victimology as far as can be determined, and there was never any perception that he was in danger."

It did little to relieve Aaron.

"As you're now collectively victims of these perpetrators, however, the director is concerned that your ability to investigate Dr Reid's case may be compromised. While the worry that you all have for your teammate is well-founded, you may need to entertain the fact that by this time, Dr Spencer Reid may already be dead.

"The Director concluded that you are not allowed to pursue this case, especially with government funds, as was done for the case of Ex-Agent Prentiss regarding Ian Doyle, and as was done for the case of Maeve Donovan regarding her stalker. If you do, the Director will personally see to it this unit is completely dissolved, and everyone within it will be demoted to Special Agent and or reassigned."

"Erin . . ." Aaron began with a reasoning tone, "we have reason to believe that these unsubs keep their victims captive for periods of weeks and months. There may be developments within this time frame that can't be ignored. Will another team, at the least, be overlooking this?"

"I understand, and no, there won't be. No repeats of Foyet, Doyle, or Donovan."

Aaron's breath hitched.

He would die. If Spencer was still alive, he was as good as dead.

"That was why I advocated on your behalf." Erin then placed her elbows on her desk and folded her hands, expression unwavering. "Understand this, Aaron. When these things happen, it's not only your integrity on the line, but mine as well. The next time anything happens in this major vein, I promise you: I will not even turn my body in your direction—what the director says is what will go; do you understand me?"

Aaron blinked, head tilted but eyes still burrowing into the woman's. "I understand, Chief Strauss, however—"

She put up a halting hand.

"Let me continue. I know you. I know your team. Complete restriction leads to you all going rogue. You're all relentlessly stubborn. I'm trying to protect you from the repercussions of such drastic and idiotic actions by putting you all on a leash and giving you proper bounds with which to take your actions. I will give you the benefit of the doubt. So. Unless I sanction it, you are not to touch this case, and especially not during work hours. I find out that there's any activity done with government funds on this that falls out of my purview, and you are all done. Without question.

"If there are developments—if you are contacted by the Sussex County Sheriff for any reason because something new has developed, all information must be shared with me before any action is made. I will review the developments, and if deemed necessary, I will send you back to New Jersey. You will get things done by the book while there, and you're to check in with me before any decisive action is made."

This was better than what he had been expecting.

"So," Aaron began before pausing, "the team is . . ."

"You're all back on active duty and you're to continue your cases and workload as you were. I will consider bringing in an additional team member if I find it necessary, and I'll allow you, Aaron, to assess whomever you think would best fit the role. As Agent Blake is still out of commission for the next few weeks, that only leaves four of you in the field along with your technical analyst, and that poses difficulties."

"Thank you, Erin." He was nonplussed, and he couldn't hide it in his voice even though his expression remained cool and unwavering but for the quirk of a brow.

"You seem surprised, Aaron," Erin said, eyes squinting.

"This is more than I expected, Erin," Aaron admitted.

"Yes, well, just keep giving us the results we're looking for. We'll be watching you closely, Aaron. You don't go rogue. Get started on your cases."

"Understood; thank you," Aaron stood up and extended his hand toward Erin, and she shook it before extending that same hand to the door, dismissing him.

He knew which case they would work first—one that they'd been working for a few of years now out in California. The familiarity of the case would ease them back into the field. He had, in fact, mentioned it to Spencer mere hours before he was abducted.

Spencer peeled the tape from his cheek and tugged at the NG tube that trailed into his left nostril. Taking several large, bracing breaths, he pulled at it. Its weighted tip slid up through his esophagus and he scrunched his nose. With a full-bodied shiver and then a sneeze, it slipped past his nostril, and he whipped his head from side to side to dispel the lingering sensation.

No tube meant no drugs. And he continued rubbing his wrist.

The air changed in the room, the tiny hairs upon Spencer's arm pricked, and he knew someone had opened the door. A different aroma hit him, though, before a presence even neared him. The air was heavy with the heady, fruity scent of beer.

This is new. And not good.

New, yes, and an unexplored chapter of his captivity was being introduced to him that downright terrified him. Except for irritating his captor the other day—something he deemed his own fault—and the exception of his first encounter with him overall, the man hadn't been hostile. Yet, he was still awaiting his punishment.

Alcohol disinhibited a person, made them detached from the heinous acts they could impart on another person—acts that they would otherwise not engage in when sober. Sometimes people were only physically or sexually abusive when inebriated.

He came to learn that this was the proclivity of his violent captor:

Spencer sat back against the corner, turned the cuffs in his wrists to conceal what he was doing to them, and tucked his hands between his thighs, chest swelling in preparation.

It didn't deter his captor, and it seemed that nothing was hidden from his eyes, either.

His wrists were grabbed, twisted, and turned before the hands were gone again. Moments later, a sting that spanned from his right shoulder across to his left torso struck him, he shouted in shock from its suddenness more than from the pain, and he pressed his back further into the corner of the bed. He was wrenched forward by his shirt, limbs twisting until was kneeling on the mattress. The hand remained in a fist around the fabric, and he was slapped once with an open palm, and then again, before his face was then squeezed.

The words came out unbidden from his lips: "Please, stop!"

He was disciplined for it all, and for speaking too.

This was the first time he received the leather belt. By the strength of the blows, he knew that it was now doubled up, and the unpredictable lashes rained upon him as he tried to make himself as small upon the bed, body shoved into the corner and legs curled to his chest while his hands protected his head. The stings hurt, yes, but he was thankful that his layers of clothes had provided him with some protection. Some places, though, didn't receive that protection, and those exposed places—hands, feet, and wherever his hands or arms couldn't cover his head—stung with each strike.

When the lashes stopped falling upon him for a respite, he attempted to sign with his body still curled, shaking hands above his head, which was dipped between his arms. He was sure the man would get the sense as he opened and closed his fist. "I'm begging you, stop. I won't talk anymore. I won't."

The whipping didn't cease, he cried out, and—contrary to what he had just professed—began vocally pleading again for the assault to stop.

It wasn't long before he was wrestled, straddled, and the hands wrapped around his throat, tightening until he passed out.

There was a rough, tapping sensation on Spencer's cheek. He groaned as he awakened on the cool floor, shivering. He didn't understand how he'd gotten here from the bed. He must have been drugged again without the tube and wasn't sure how long he'd been out. His hands, he found, were restrained with a short chain between them. His leg was pulled taut. His captor was sitting atop him, and he didn't smell of beer anymore. A few hours must have passed.

He also wasn't wearing any shirts, and his skin didn't burn as he thought it should have, but it was also moist, sticky. The air, too, was moist and heavy with an herbal spice. Perturbed, he didn't know what to make of it all.

His hand was tapped, and he pressed them in front of him, shaking. "Your punishment," he was told, the hands calloused. "Remember?"

Oh, no. Oh no, no. What he received before—that hadn't been it?

His breath came short.

He shook his head, clenching his jaws as his hands moved. "I won't speak again. It was a mistake." Knuckles pressing at his chin, he repeated the last in desperation. "It was a mistake. Please."

The hands of the woman cupped and braced the sides of his face from above him, stilling his head. He hadn't noticed that she was here. Her knees were pressed at the top of his head before an upside-down finger tap-tapped his closed lips.

Calloused fingers wrapped along his cheeks, pinching his mouth open. This could be only one of two things. Either his tongue was to be cut out and he was to die this day despite the man's assurance days ago, or he was going to have a tooth extracted. The imminence of rape hadn't even entered his mind.

"This isn't necessary," he pleaded. "You don't have to do this."

When that didn't work, he tried to bite the fingers that neared his lips and was slapped for it, head whipping. The tang of blood was on his tongue. He couldn't turn his head without the woman's encasing hands straightening his blind gaze and had to swallow it instead. He tried to bring up his arms to cover his mouth.

The woman gave gentle taps from above, and she moved brush his hair from his forehead. When she left him for a moment, the man lifted up and began to reposition himself.

The short link of chains were wrenched down, and he pedaled his feet to land blows upon the woman, who seemed to have moved behind her husband. A few connected but in the next moment, he was back-handed with a fist, head whipping to his left. The man seated upon him again on his abdomen, his posterior and squeezing thighs preventing Spencer from being able to use his straightened arms anymore.

The woman returned above him, fingers brushing upon his face, knees pressing.

Again his cheeks were squeezed, and he tried to whip his head until his jaws loosened under the persistent pressure. He whimpered.

"Please, please," he struggled to get out.

There was a muffled clicking that resonated in his head as a metallic Jennings mouth gag was fitted between the two rows of teeth, and then it was cranked to keep his jaw open. A finger tucked into the side of his mouth for a better view, and he began to aspirate in absolute dread, mind blanking.

The metal of the extraction forceps was sharp on his tongue, distinct with its scent. His nerves tingled as it clasped on to one of his right premolars on his bottom row of teeth. He howled, blubbered, cried; his muffled voice was sonorous with its resonating in his skull. He stilled at the tightening, the shimmy and tug, and blood seeped from the root and touch his drying tongue.

In one swift, controlled motion, the tooth was unembedded from the socket and his mouth filled with a copper tang. He keened, his back bowed, and his hands tried to flutter up to his mouth, caught under the man's legs and groin.

The gag was removed, the body lifted off him, and he was released. He didn't hesitate to curl to the side to protect his face, bringing his hands up to his mouth and wailing as the pain pierced him. Blood and saliva poured between his fingers.

In the periphery of his senses, the chain around his ankle was lengthened before he was dragged over to the sink, where he was forced to stand before it with the man's body curled against his back to keep him upright. A rough hand curled around his neck and another into his hair before something was prodded at his lips at the woman's doing. He tried and failed to wrench his head away, and the hand at his neck pressed to his cheeks instead, vice-like until his mouth fell open again.

What was forced past his lips burned his whole mouth and the new, bleeding socket. It dribbled out, but the man's hand slapped down to stem the flow and keep this in. He could swallow it, or he could wait for the torture to end. The hand didn't stay long, though, and he keened and cried, both for the loss of his tooth and from the pain he had just endured as everything gushed from his mouth.

He stumbled as he was pulled toward the bed and then steered down to sit. It then moved to tap his; he in turn, couldn't bring himself to raise his hands. They tap-tapped again, and he swallowed. The patience, the congeniality, was gone. He was struck upon his head, the hands slapped again with greater force, and he raised his hands.

"We removed your tooth for what you said. Do you understand that?"

Spencer nodded in understanding. Speech was already bad; invectives were worse.

"No. Tell me you understand."

His hand moved to the side of his head. "I understand."

The man gave him a single pat on his leg. Then he tap-tapped Spencer's hand again. "Learn to keep your mouth shut. You don't talk. Understand?"

Again, Spencer nodded, chin quivering in tandem with a tremulous breath.

"Tell me you understand."

Spencer's hand flicked to the side of his head. "I understand."

Another clap on his leg. Then another tap-tap. "Watch what you say about my wife."

The thing about her psychosis? How was that offensive? But with an insistent slap to his chest, he responded. "I understand."

"Don't destroy the —-—. You understand the word?" He fingerspelled—misspelled—the last word, then proceeded to give him its proper sign. "Lether. Leather. Don't destroy it."

Trying to maintain some dignity despite his actions before, Spencer nodded, sucking in a breath.

"I'm only warning you once. Next time I see you doing that, I'm breaking a finger. Understand?"

His stomach fluttered. He nodded, trusting the warning.

"Understand? Tell me you understand."

Spencer nodded again, and he gave a wordless response, hand flitting up like a dying bird in its last throes of life. Was that what this was becoming? "Yes, I understand. I understand."

"Good. If I break your fingers, then she becomes upset with me. Then I get angry with you. No one wins. Understand?"

He nodded again. "I understand." His hands were treasured and the only allowable means for him to keep the line of communication open. It was multiple levels of liability put on him.

Was this why Marion's finger had been broken? Had he attempted the same and was punished? These cuffs might be the work of this man's hand, his craft, and he treasured his work. Destroying it was offensive to him. As Marion wasn't important to these people, the condition of his hands didn't matter to them, whether whole and unbroken, or shattered.

Again, there was a solid pat on his arm. A t-shirt and sweatshirt were handed to him, and he put them on. The chain returned to the cuffs, and afterwards a hand towel was pressed over his mouth—wrapped around a cold pack—and he was made to hold it against his face. He was pushed into the mattress and turned on his right side, and he let out another aborted whimper as the pressure of the pack irritated his mouth.

A moment later, something small was prodded at the fingers of his left hand. He stilled, but he overturned his hand to take what was being given to him.

Fingering it, he realized with horror that it was his removed tooth.

Noah and Victims B and C . . . They may have lost their teeth for similar reasons—for speaking out recriminations against their captors. Victim B had seven teeth missing. He also had the shattered knee and the broken ankle. If they removed teeth only due to reactions from what the victims said, then they probably showed extreme patience before the victims were killed. What on earth had he done for the broken bones?

Either way, they might be working with a timeframe instead of killing the victims as a final punishment. He didn't know the intervals between the tooth removal but based on the shattered knee and the broken ankle, Spencer was willing to wager that Victim B had fought against this and resisted mightily.

After just a couple of hours of being left alone with his thoughts, Spencer began to scratch his tooth on the cinder block wall, sharpening it at the root, unsure of what he could do with such a small shiv. He could surprise them—scratch it into one of their brachial or carotid arteries until they bled out.

His captors were no fools, though.

The tooth was removed from his person the next time they came in, and for that behavior he was censured, too:

"You get ten," he was told by the man before he was forced to stand on his knees on the floor. "Keep your hands open, keep them together, and keep your palms up. You close them, or you pull away, and you get five more each time. You speak, and you get five more." He trembled as the woman repositioned his hands, extending them in front of him like a Dickenesque beggar.

And then his open palms had been lashed with the belt.

He started out with ten, yes, but they were belted a total of 75 times for every time he had pulled away or fisted his hand or cursed or pleaded aloud for it to end. He'd lowered to his haunches, and she braced him up so he wouldn't teeter to the ground. They had gone numb, and his bottom lip had bled and swelled with how he bit it to keep in the rest of the words, and the muscles in his shoulder ached for holding the position so long.

He was soon after reintubated.

"Don't remove it again. You do, and we'll remove the rest of your teeth."

He wouldn't test the veracity of the threat.

The team was gathered in the conference room: Penelope, Aaron, Derek, David, and Jennifer.

Aaron remained standing as they all sat. They waited for the gavel to fall. He breathed. "After everyone's assessments, Erin took me into her office yesterday evening."

Jennifer tipped her head before clasping her fingers together.

"As of now, we're to continue operating as a unit and continue working cases in a normal capacity. We're under strict order, however, not to go rogue like we did for Emily's case, or like we did regarding Maeve Donavan. I cannot stress this enough: Erin Strauss advocated on our behalf to keep this team as one unit. We're the best hope that Reid has, so we need to do whatever we can to keep that status quo. If ever"—his composure wavered and he gave a single shake of his head— "whenever I'm contacted by New Jersey officials regarding developments on Reid's case, I'm to take it up with Erin first, and she'll see how we're to move forward. We do everything by the book."

With the whole team under such intense review, they were thinking the worst. They could accept this. They could work with this. They needed to ingratiate themselves to Erin so that she would allow them to do more delving, so she would give them inches.

"Garcia," Aaron started, "This means that you do not consult with them."

Penelope began to object.

Aaron held up his hand. "No direct contact. Grind your breadcrumbs into fine powder, Garcia. Whatever you find and send them doesn't leave any traces. Nudges."

Penelope blinked multiple times. "Oh—yes, I understand, sir."

"And absolutely not during work hours."

"Very clear, sir."

Aaron gave a sweeping look at the whole of them. "Nothing is to happen under work hours pertaining to that case. Anything else outside of work hours, using your own personal devices, or personal vehicles, does not fall under that same restriction. But use your discretion."

"Sounds clear," David said. And he wanted to truly say Sounds fair. Uncharacteristically so. But in the past few months, Erin was uncharacteristically benevolent and long-suffering towards the team. That AA stuff must be working. Months ago, when she was having a particularly difficult time with her sobriety, he had told her to pack a bag, leave her home, and meet him at a hotel. It was where he had seen Penelope and Spencer in their ridiculous getups the next morning, the day that Will had nearly been killed during those bank heists. He spent those hours helping Erin, distracting her. She was at a low point, and he wasn't one to turn his back to someone in such a state.

"Any questions?" Aaron asked.

They nodded their heads.

"Erin might be considering the possibility of bringing in another agent into the unit. I would like to hold that off for as long as possible, even though I am of mind to start searching just in case. Now isn't the time to be bringing in a new dynamic, even with our dwindled numbers. As such, we need to have a very high success rate with cases moving forward and prove to her that we're competent and capable of continuing our jobs as we are."

"BAU started with just me and Jason for a handful of time," David acknowledged, trying to encourage everyone. "We're double that size even right now missing two of our own. We'll be fine."

Aaron nodded. "Right. And Alex should be with us in the following weeks. So we're good."

Another round of nods.

"Good." At that, Aaron took a seat, adjusting his suit. "Garcia, you can begin."

Penelope stood and walked to the screen. There was no banter; she got to it. "We're a bit behind on the uptake this time around on this case. This unsub broke pattern. He abducted another nanny and a child almost a week and a half ago now on . . . on April 29th in Los Angeles." Penelope cleared her throat and her eyes fluttered as she cleared them, too. She had composed herself in her office earlier when she had gone over the case.

"This nanny's name is Gina Mendes, who was watching a two-year-old named Phoebe Payton. The mother and father, Shane and Melody Payton, are falling apart, understandably," Penelope continued. "There's been neither hide nor hair heard of Gina or from Phoebe since their abduction. There's been door to door searches in certain areas, and it's proven nothing.

"LAPD turned this over to the LA Field Office; we'll be taking point on this and working jointly again with LAPD," Aaron asserted.

Penelope sighed, "What's worse is that little Phoebe has a health condition."

Jennifer was flipping through the latest casefile. "Mm. Severe asthma." She shook her head.

"Needs regular nebulizer treatments in order to abate them. Otherwise, she can die," David murmured, also looking at the casefile. He then looked at the members of the team. "I hate to say it, but do we think that she may have already succumbed to an asthma attack and may have already died?"

"What—and that the unsub's holding onto the nanny?" Derek asked. "What purpose would that serve?"

"Well, he sticks to that May 13th date for a reason," David observed. "He has a personal connection to that date. So he'll hold on to his victim for that long despite what may have happened to the child that was with her."

"This would suggest that the children mean nothing to him," Jennifer reasoned.

"Well he does return them unharmed after about 24 hours and holds on to the nannies," Derek said. "So, yeah, maybe they don't really seem to hold value to him."

"Or we could be looking at this wrong," David proposed. "What if he's finally found the kid he's been looking for?"

"But we've profiled him as a sexual sadist with rage issues," Jennifer countered.

"Yes, but we have to take into consideration that this particular set of victims, the nanny and the child, were taken far ahead of this unsub's usual schedule. This points to some kind of connection between these two that the unsub has latched onto," Aaron mentioned.

"Right," David said, "And, yes, he's clearly a sexual sadist, but what if the kids are more valuable to him than the nannies?"

"Then the nannies would be . . . collateral damage in the hunt for what the unsub really wants," Derek said, blinking, jaws tensing in disgust. "A child." He shook his head. "Somehow, that little girl, Phoebe, fits the bill. It would explain why he abducted the two of them earlier than expected, and why he hasn't returned Phoebe yet."

Jennifer hated whenever a case involved a child, and what the implications were of an adult wanting that child. It was preferential. Wait a sec. "Wait. Why wouldn't he just grab the children, then?" she asked. "If it was about the child?"

Aaron then shook his head, mind hurtling towards a conclusion. "Because he's attracted to the dynamic between nanny and child. We need to figure out what's so special about theirs, and what makes them different from the nannies and children abducted before. Wheels up in thirty."

And so, the team took the next few days to solve the case at the proverbial eleventh hour. They dove in, putting Spencer in their periphery, but he phased in and out often.

'Gina doesn't just work for us; she's like family,' Shane and Melody had claimed at the outset. 'It's kind of like we adopted her in a way.'

Tara Rios, the victim who had managed to escape and whose trauma from the event was so ingrained in her that she blanketed it from her mind, had resisted being questioned at first, snapping a band at her wrist often. She had given Derek and Jennifer permission to talk with her therapist, though. The therapist didn't give them much, respecting doctor-patient privacy, but told them that she had gone through two EMDR sessions in the past couple of months and she was responding favorably to it. He asserted, though, that the two years of therapy was bearing fruit, and that he would hate to have her set back due to rehashed traumas.

They shelved this in light of the realization that one thing distinguished Gina and Phoebe's dynamic from the previous victims, and that was Phoebe's asthma.

"But why would a person willingly take a child with health issues?" David posed. "To what end would that serve?"

"To protect? To heal?" Derek posed with a neutral expression. "You don't . . . you don't care for someone who's disposable." The words were said with the shake of his head. "Early on, Alex wondered why the Jersey unsubs would want to hold on to a captive person who might have ailments due to the strangulation. This unsub is protecting Phoebe. And who has the strongest desire to protect a child?"

"Mm." David ticked his brows. "We're looking at paternal desire in this case."

When this connection was understood, they went national with their findings, asking Shane and Melody to use that platform as a ruse to express gratitude to the unsub for taking care of Phoebe while she was with him, but pleaded to him to let her come back home safely along with her nanny. Tara Rios was moved by the broadcast; she called them to tell them that she would help. They flew her over, discussed with her the use of recalling her memories using the EMDR therapy she was starting to use.

Tara Rios' trauma hadn't been easy for Jennifer or Derek to take. Jennifer, in speaking privately with Tara, couldn't help but think of Spencer, whose form kept phasing in and out of the fringes as she tried to concentrate on the case. She couldn't help but think that if they found him alive, he might be in the same emotional state as Tara was. It took Tara two years to get to where she was now after being held captive for just a handful of days, and that had been a battle in stormy seas.

What would come of Spencer?

On that note, it took them hours—over a day— to realize that the connection between the abductions and where Tara had been found was the dog parks. Spencer would have gotten that in an hour or two, tops.

It had been what helped them narrow in on their unsub. Tara Rios had mentioned that her captor had a dog; Alison Astor, the woman who was abducted alongside Tara, had been bitten by a large dog based on the bite mark, either ante- or post-mortem. It was enough. The dog was the other connection, and they went on the search, showing the composite sketch of the perpetrator to the public, asking anyone if they knew someone of his likeness who walked his dog in the park. A couple recognized him, they narrowed the dog to a breed and the owner's name to a Johnny, and Penelope went through veterinary records to find the connections.

Within just a couple of hours, Penelope found the connection and informed Derek and Jennifer, who were closer to the home of the unsub—Jonathan Ray Covey. It wasn't a paternal desire that he had, but a fraternal desire triggered by the negligent death of his sister many years before at the hand of his nanny.

Derek and Jennifer rushed over there. They had about half a day before Gina Mendes' body might be found in a public park, according to Jonathan's timeline, and they couldn't let another person die by his hands. And they hoped that Phoebe had survived these near two weeks.

Derek and Jennifer had gone to Jonathan Ray Covey's home, entered after stating who they were with their weapons at the ready and heard the horrific sounds of someone being drowned. They ran upstairs, Covey tried to send his dog on them while his back was turned to them, and he continued to drown Gina. He let her go as told, dropping her head-first in the tubful of water with a smug expression. The dog was still at the doorway, and he ran to slam the door before jumping out the window. Derek stayed behind to resuscitate Gina, and Jennifer had pursued Jonathan, who shot three rounds at her before she shot two at him, one of them embedding into his forehead.

The near two-week nightmare for the Payton family and Gina Mendes had ended. Shane and Melody didn't just embrace their daughter and shuffle Gina to the side. Gina had been grafted into that family, and the two distraught parents kissed her, embraced her.

It instilled in them the trauma that Spencer would be facing. Gina was sexually abused for most of the days that she'd been abducted and would never be the same, just like Tara. And the whole family dynamic, already fragile from a previous miscarriage, would never be the same either.

It reflected well what they as a team were facing. They were silent on their flight back east.

Upon returning home, Jennifer thought of how deeply Spencer loved Henry—of what he would do for her son—and she thought of how reciprocal that love was. She struggled with what to tell Henry. Derek thought of his own childhood, of Gina, of Tara, and of Spencer. Penelope prepared another letter to send to Diane the next morning.

Spencer, however, would come to learn over the course of the next few days and weeks that while speaking was disallowed, not everything was prohibitive—not his strident wails, his quavering keens, or his whispery whimpers of pain or discomfort.

And he wondered when he might be found.


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

The events near the end of this chapter are taken from Criminal Minds episode 08x21 Nanny Dearest.

I swear that not all the chapters will be this long. I'm so sorry. But I hope you enjoyed.