Warning for brief mentions/scene of rape.

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UNKNOWN DATE | UNKNOWN LOCATION
Sleep didn't come peacefully but was ushered on by repetitive and meandering thoughts of where he had gone wrong throughout his life-long interactions and how they led him to this very place and point.

If he'd never gone to the field house, or if he'd never blindfolded himself, or if he'd never tried to write a thesis with the desire to discover his own boundaries, would he be here, at this very point?

If he'd not endeavored so much to protect his mother, where might he be now?

Or if he'd kissed Diane with all he'd learned, the way he once kissed Lila Archer in a pool with a desperate need to restore something to himself—to be like everyone else—Maeve would be alive.

Or if his father had just never left. Or if he had gone with his father . . .

Or, perhaps, if there were no attachment to this life. If he didn't exist, know, feel, then this would be immaterial. There would be no this or now.

Conversely, despite all these things happening to him, what would have happened in his life if he had done what he had asked of Derek—told someone what happened to him?

Causality. It all led to this. His decisions in life led him to this point and to this captivity.

His rape.

And then those thoughts had gone to younger, vulnerable Derek Morgan. Before, it had been a horror that he couldn't fully comprehend but understood the fringes of based on his own college experience, one that fueled that same fire he'd begun to stoke when he decided to shift his life with the obtainable goal of putting away people like those who bullied him, assaulted him, those who chose to hurt others.

Now, thinking about it made him bone weary and all he wanted to do was protect his friend from the evil he endured, an evil that he now knew the full breadth of.

But did he, truly, though?

Derek had been a child in his situation. He wasn't. Not this time.

That self-loathing he'd had over a week ago now compounded. He'd slowly allowed this. The benign touches, the bathing—he allowed this knowing what the greater danger was. The blame laid with him.

It was a pattern with him.

Upon clawing to wakefulness, Spencer found that there was again an aloe, oil, or ointment between his buttocks.

He couldn't know how much time had passed, but the lethargy told him that he'd been drugged again. He couldn't confirm that he hadn't been raped again without his knowledge—his anus, rectum, and lower bowels still hurt, and the pulsing ache could be new or could be from the initial rape.

The thought alone made his stomach turn.

As time crept on, he awaited someone's presence while lying on his side. He couldn't sit. He didn't move. He didn't count. He'd stopped thinking.

When a hand pressed against his shoulder and he registered everything outside of himself, he didn't twitch, didn't suck in a quick breath to detect the scent that would brush the odds of who was here, but he knew anyway.

It was of earth.

The heat of her hand, the aversive whiff of cloves, and her knuckles brushed his cheek, his forehead near the leather. And then one hand grasped his jaw to open his mouth. Two fingers tucked between his lips.

He tilted his head away. "Stop drugging me," he whispered, swallowing. Her hand pulled away. "Stop doing this to me." Not a demand. "Please, let me go."

She didn't respond—didn't mete out punishment for his vocalization—but patted his shoulder again, bracing her hand on his jaw, swiping it through his hair wherever there was no brace.

He reached up his hand, grasped her wrist in a weak hold, tilted his head where he thought her gaze might be.

"Please. You've both done everything to me that you've done to your previous victims. Your husband's—"

Her finger pressed against his lip. She tapped his hands. "You're confused," she said. "You're sick. Let's get you to the bathroom."

The breaths he let out were stuttered, his chin quivered, and his nostrils flared as heat built behind his eyes. "Don't do this," he begged, throat tightening around the words. "Don't say this."

She wasn't doing this—erasing the horror he'd gone through earlier. She couldn't.

"It's time for you to use the bathroom." Then she began untethering his wrists.

He gasped in pain when she pulled him to sit upright, planting his hand on the bed to alleviate the ache. And then she was pulling him to stand, to walk. A cry pushed forward as pain blazed from his backside from the very first step, and he was on the ground.

Arms wrapped around him. A body was pressing against him.

She knew. Of course she knew.

She let her husband hurt him.

A mother knows.

After the woman took him to the bathroom and after he passed an agonizing bowel movement, she presented food to Spencer with a whiff of it under his nose. He vomited before it could even touch his lips. The water she gave him to wash it down had him slumping on the bed in minutes, draining him and leaving him near weeping at her determination to drug him.

He was unable to sit up and so laid on the bed, swimming between lucidity and insensation, registering her rubbing his shoulders, rolling him, exposing his back, buttocks, and legs to rub soothing ointments on the raised skin where the belt had landed hours ago.

Her hand dipped between his buttocks to apply more ointment.

He was barely aware when he was reintubated. The lethargy was slow to lift in the many passing hours. Through the heavy fog, beyond the drool leaking from his mouth, he padded his fingers over the tubing and the bandage keeping it secure, processing the smooth and rough texture with a frustrating delay.

His stomach cramped in hunger. He couldn't know how many hours had passed since he'd been raped, but he'd not properly eaten since the short meal preceding it and had now vomited three times since then—just after he was raped and twice each time the woman had tried to feed him.

And then the air changed.

In little time, the pungency of leather and grease struck him. Fear whisked away the limited grasp he had on reality, dragging it into that dense fog. Whatever beat within his chest became foreign to him.

His wrists were pressed together before being tethered to each other despite his weakened struggle, a hand bunched at his shirt, and he was pulled up to sit.

Before the warm glass bottle touched his lips, he smelled the beer. He moaned.

"Don't do this," he pleaded with the weak flutter of his hands. "Please, don't do this."

The bottle tapped at his lips, rested there.

He tilted his head away. "Please, don't do this," he voiced in a whisper.

Spencer couldn't see if his supplication filled him with a wanton rush, if it ignited a feral and frenzied impetuous fire within his eyes. Would it?

He thought, still, to cooperate, knowing that he was to be raped one way or another, but the words dribbled from his lips:

"I'll comply. Just, please, don't drug me or make me drink—"

Upon his hand was the tap-tap. His hands shook as they rose.

"I know what you tell my wife. I know that you speak with this"—the beer bottle tapped his lip pointedly, and he wrenched his head away—"and not with your hands."

Spencer swallowed.

"So. I'll let you choose. You can be quiet and drink. Or if you speak another word, these drinks will be going somewhere other than your mouth. It won't be the tube."

Sucking in a sharp breath, Spencer clenched his hand on his quivering belly.

Tap-tap. "Do you understand?"

With a burst of nods and a crumbling face, Spencer reconciled himself to this.

Tap-tap. "Tell me that you understand."

His hand flicked up. "I understand."

"Tell me what you choose."

Spencer swallowed, left with no choice. "I'll drink it."

A hand clapped his arm in praise. With another tap-tap, he was told, "Open your mouth."

But he couldn't. A hand grasped at the back of his head, and the bottle tapped at his closed lips. His body teetered, swayed with his indecision. But with the wrenching of his hair and then the tap-tap-tap of the bottle to his lips again, he sucked in a breath, dropping his jaw.

He lost time and everything fell out of his grasp. Upon reemerging from whatever profound dissociation he'd slipped into, he yearned for its prolongation.

He found, instead, that he was laid upon his back on the bed, his curled, tethered hands were resting on his clothed chest, and cool air was wafting against his bare legs.

It was the sensation of rough fabric spreading his thighs apart that had pulled him to awareness. His tongue was heavy with beer and a bitter aftertaste—his limbs, throat, and belly warm with its effects—and his mind was even heavier with languor brought on, surely, by more drugs.

Hands wrapped under his knees, wrenched him further forward, rested his buttocks upon the bare, foreign thighs.

Then, just as he had done the first time, the man waited before starting.

Spanning the next six days, Spencer was raped again and again in the same manner with alcohol and drugs preceding each violation.

Whenever the man came for him, he would remain in the room, vigilant. Spencer would shift in discomfort from whatever position the man left him in last—bent over the edge of the bed, on the bed, or, once, directly on the floor—to alleviate his bones or muscles, to calm his rolling stomach or the pounding headache, to recalibrate himself as his body tilted unpredictably with his dizziness. A hand would always fall upon him to reposition or still him.

The third time, the man had waited an hour before he violated him, and then the fourth time for nearly an hour and a half.

In following retrospections as the drugs were wearing off, Spencer suspected that the man was waiting to see if he would react to the drugs and become erect, for the man had—that fourth time— not given him beer, just water to wash the tablet down, had tapped his groin twice with his knuckles. Many minutes later, a loose hand wrapped around the back of his neck before tapping it twice in what Spencer could only surmise was a pitying manner. After that hour and a half of waiting, he'd made him drink the beer, and then he'd raped him.

It was then that Spencer knew it: he was being given some type of drugs that facilitated sexual disinhibition.

Did they cause the weariness? The dizziness? Both? Might the beer be laced, too?

Perhaps the man knew that mixing alcohol with chemical drugs could sometimes interfere with proper vasodilation and impede physical arousal. Perhaps that was why he had waited longer, had withheld it that fourth time. Whatever it was, the point was that this man was trying to induce a physiological reaction from him and wasn't getting it.

The man was experimenting on his victim. His subject.

Spencer's previous cooperation did nothing to deter the man from violating him. So on that fifth occasion, he fought. He himself was feral and frenzied, had bellowed out his refusals, spat the beer and the tablets in his captor's direction when they were forced on him, biting the hands if he could, punching, kicking his legs. They'd ended up on the floor that time.

It only ended in him being beaten until he was worn out, breathless, crying, and numbed from the physical assault.

'Don't do this!' he'd roared with his face mashed against the ground, fingers sliding against it for a solid grip on anything. 'You won't do this, you son of a bitch! I won't let you do this! I won't let you do this.'

The previous warning of having the beer forced on him anally had been forgotten at his frustration.

The man was jack-knifed over him on his knees with a hand clenching his neck to pin him down proper. Spencer stilled when his shirt was pushed up, when his pants were lowered just enough for him to register the press of warm, ridged glass at his sacrum.

He shut right up before breaking down into body-wracking sobs. 'I'll drink it,' he'd sobbed in desperation, clenching his buttocks. 'I'll drink it; I'll drink it. Please, I'll drink it.'

He was forced to drink and take the two tablets, and then he was raped anyway. When the man was done, he beat him again before strangling him.

Spencer tried to wade through and process the horror in the only means he knew: academically, and by trying to piece this hellish profile together.

The rape was nuanced. Psychological, physical, and or sexual abuse during childhood appeared to form the core dynamic of his captor's distinct pattern of inebriating, raping, beating, asphyxiating, and afterwards sitting with his victim for nearly an hour each time.

Could he attribute these to something that his captor's abuser had done when he had been sexually abused?

Was the process—the physicality—of getting his victim drunk intrinsic to creating or recreating a fantasy? Was this why he bypassed the nasogastric tube?

Too many unknowns.

Since Spencer didn't imbibe at all anymore, the alcohol worked quickly. It wasn't enough to erase these events, and neither were the drugs. They were all enough to disorient him.

On that note, combining the alcohol with the drugs—whatever drugs they were—was dangerous. If not controlled in the right dosages, these could be deadly. So he might be receiving deliberate and well measured dosages.

Could that have been why Victim B's sternum and ribs were fractured? Could he have been overdosed in this manner?

It didn't matter. It was clear that the man wanted his victim to be out of sorts enough to be euphoric—disinhibited and yet indolent—to induce sexual compliance.

Or might the goal be to have his victim enjoy the rape? Was he hoping that his victim's wanton physical reactions might stimulate him? Had it with his previous victims?

If these were the case, it would stand to reason that his victim shouldn't be chained so restrictively. Why ignore any type of stimulation that might make the victim more aroused and thus assist with his own arousal? Why not force the victim to stimulate him with their hands or force them to fellate him?

These latter behaviors demeaned victims; these were a sadist's game, forcing their victims into acts of degradation for the ultimate subjugation and rush of power, for the knowledge that any of his victims' unwanted gratification came from their captor.

The man did none of these things.

Whatever his release was, it wasn't sexual.

There may be no release at all. The man wasn't impotent, but Spencer noted that the man had yet to orgasm or to ejaculate inside of or on any other part of his body. Rapists seemed to derive some pleasure from doing this, too, to degrade their victims. His rapist might discipline himself, withhold orgasming and ejaculating here—might do so beyond the confines of this room or with his wife—but Spencer was sure that it was an inability rather than patience.

The man had lost and regained his erection twice more during his near hour-long rapes.

They ended abruptly, and the man didn't leave immediately to slake some desire. By the third rape, he'd switched to beating and asphyxiating him before dumping him in a warm bath, and then he sat on the bed, placing a hand that was ever-loosening on his ankle.

This all took time. Because the man didn't orgasm—because there was no resolution—Spencer couldn't attribute the last of the post-rape phase—the bed-sitting—to a refractory period. The only thing left, then, was that it was an emotional component—guilt or depression—like he'd thought days before.

What of the victims? Did he care if they ejaculated? If they orgasmed? It seemed that also wasn't the case: the man's hands didn't go near his groin; he didn't seek to stimulate his victim's genitals.

'Perhaps he has a misguided moral compass—some things that he won't do? Could speak to his psychopathy.'

Spencer had brushed Alex's question off when she'd questioned why the unsub wouldn't have manipulated or disfigured his victim's genitals.

How shortsighted.

It didn't matter. A moral compass. He was in the same grasp now that Noah had been in, and he was coming to see what Alex had questioned.

He didn't dwell long on the irony of being here. Instead, sometimes, in those dragging hours, he would think of Derek reciting the words that his abuser had spoken to him.

Look up to the sky.

Where? Where could he look? There was no sky here. There was no sea. No land. There was just an endless expanse of darkness. Up, down—these were immaterial now. When he was turned to his right side by his captors and faced the wall, he called it south; turning out to the room, he called it north; where he knew the toilet and sink were, this was the east; and the wall to his left, west.

This was all he knew.

Spencer was still unsure of what drugs were used when he was raped but attributed the headaches, dizziness, nausea, the overall heat, the weariness to it. It was much like and yet nothing like what he'd felt during the bathing days ago on that occasion after he'd been neglected and beaten.

Without fail, Spencer vomited each time. Without fail, he woke hours afterwards to find that there was ointment between his buttocks and elsewhere on his body to soothe the aches of the violation and the subsequent beatings he received.

He felt the shredding pain for hours swimming up his spine, coiling in his stomach, and he stayed laying on the bed, unmoving except to turn to relieve his muscles.

Walking to and from the toilet caused him fresh agony wherein the tearing would reopen and make him bleed. His bowel movements remained smooth and loose, but they didn't prevent the agonizing sting. He grew too afraid to pass anything at all by his third rape and so refused to defecate for upwards of three days. At that point, the woman must have given him a laxative, and he'd barely held everything in until the next time she came to let him relieve himself.

When the tearing would reopen, he didn't tell the woman. He couldn't. The thought of him being awake while she would apply her salves caused him to recoil with as much repulsion as her doing it when he was drugged. Instead, he rubbed the lip balm from under his pillowcase on his fingertips and keened when he touched them against his anus before collapsing in a heap, cursing and crying.

The nature of the rapes was worrisome, too.

The man didn't use any protection. Spencer's concern for acquiring an STI or STD needled at him. It was safe to assume that Victims B and C were also raped. Who knew what his captor had, or what he might have contracted from the other victims? They'd considered the possibility that Victim C had a high-risk lifestyle as a drug abuser. The possibility was there, then, that the victim had an infection or disease if he used needles to facilitate his drug habit or if he exchanged sexual favors to obtain his drugs.

It would only take one rape—his first rape—to become infected.

He would have to monitor any symptoms while keeping in mind that not all infections or diseases would have physical manifestations or symptoms. He would just have to maintain vigilance over the state of his health.

He bled and ached every time during and after because the man tore into him without compunction or hesitation once he set himself to begin after his extended waiting period. The assault was fiery before his own blood could serve to ease the rending, dry friction, and it barely did because the man barely unwedged himself from the deep press.

Blood was insufficient a lubricant. The retraction of the man's phallus from within him after pressing inside for countless minutes caused excruciating tearing and suctioning that he—at one point—was convinced might cause him to prolapse. He couldn't imagine that the man derived any sexual pleasure from it at all.

Maybe that was the point.

In no way was Spencer giving the man permission to violate him, but he needed to survive long enough—to be found, to escape.

The man would need to be gentler, ease the initial penetration instead of savagely surging into him, and—most importantly—use some type of sufficient lubricant. He wanted nothing to do with controlling the situation, but . . .

He would otherwise run the risk of the fissures turning into fistulas which untreated could lead to a bacterial infection and ultimately sepsis, just as what had happened with Noah.

This couldn't happen to him.

It wasn't how he wanted to begin dying.

But the rapes then stopped for upwards of a week.


THURSDAY, JULY 4–SUNDAY, JULY 7, 2013
A tree fell in the forest, and no one heard it.

Hurricane Gertrude swept through and ravaged the Northeastern states between the 28th of June until it dissipated further north by the first of July in Maine. As hurricanes were wont to do, there was geological shifting afterwards.

Three thru-hikers decided to stay at the nearest motel in New Jersey for two nights in order to lay low and avoid any tragedy while traveling. It wouldn't be safe to use Appalachian Trail shelters with the purported high winds.

Late Thursday afternoon, they returned to Stokes State Forest, keen to continue their trek in the cover of a night when most people would want to be stationary and watch the sky. Upon the decision to take a small detour to Silver Spray Falls, a lush area with a small, tiered waterfall, they took photos and explored the peaceful site for nearly an hour.

It was there—where the ground below was still wet and where there had been mud slippage—that one of them slid down, tumbled, and rolled until he was in a gully. There, an old, gargantuan, moss-laden birch tree with mud still clinging to its roots was laid on the ground, felled by the strong winds and the unstable earth below. They all clamored around it to take pictures and explore more, injuries forgotten.

And there, one of them saw—still in the earth below, snagged in the edge of the roots of the tree—something tannish and not quite right to be there. Upon closer inspection, it was found to be fabric, which one of the roots had grown through.

They immediately called the forest ranger station, for they had heard from the locals about The Linen Assassins.

Aaron put down the phone and breathed out a long sigh. When he had seen from the caller ID that the call was coming from the Sussex County Sheriff's station, his heart had frozen up.

Sheriff Reiner had just informed him that some thru-hikers had discovered a body less than an hour earlier, and it looked to be the work of their perpetrators, Spencer's abductors. CSU and the pathologist were already coming over to begin working at unearthing the victim who was, without fail, wrapped in a once-white sheet.

Aaron wouldn't jump to any conclusions yet. This could be another victim completely, another piece to the puzzle. It wasn't—it wasn't necessarily Spencer.

Weeks ago, they'd followed those theories mentioned in the jet during the Arizona case. They researched cults and religions in the area that might have some kind of affiliation or fanatic followers who went off script and followed their own dogma.

Outside of work hours, per Erin.

They found a few, these were shared with Erin, and she in turn shared them with Sheriff Reiner. When he contacted her and Aaron days later, there were no positive results to be had.

So there was a fifty-fifty chance that this wasn't him. One in two. Either the body was Spencer's, or it was not.

"Oh god," he gasped out, stomach fluttering. "Oh, god."

He swallowed, and then he stood to make his way to Erin's office. Within minutes, the two of them were walking through the bullpen—she to the conference room—and knocking on doors and hailing Jennifer and a recently-returned Alex.

Every member was dreading this. They thought they were numbed, but upon seeing Section Chief Erin Strauss waiting for them in the conference room, it turned out that they, in fact, were not.

They knew this meeting was either to do with The Replicator—which at this point would truly be a nuisance—or it was to do with Spencer.

Aaron had never seen his teammates look as impassive as they were at this moment. With his next words, he had never seen them crumble so quickly. He wasted no time, took a breath, and then he began.

"A few minutes ago, I got off the phone with Sheriff Reiner."

There went the crumbling.

"A body was found at Stokes State Forest."

Penelope let out a soft, unintelligible bleat; Jennifer, whose hands were pressed against each other, dropped her face in them; Derek's jaws clenched; David ticked his chin upward and his eye twitched; Alex sighed nasally and closed her eyes, face reddening.

Aaron squared his shoulders. "CSU and pathologists are going to begin processing the scene soon, but it looks to be the work of our perpetrators. We don't know, yet, if it's—if it's Reid or not."

Penelope moaned, face crumpling.

Derek didn't know how Aaron was keeping calm. He was barely holding back from tucking his hands under the table and upending it.

Erin spoke, voice strained. "A new case didn't hit your desks this morning. I'm making this investigation your top priority, and you'll hit the ground on it tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow morning?" Derek couldn't stay his disbelief at so incredulous a thought. The jet should be warming up now.

Erin cleared her throat. "This isn't a fresh case. The victim"—she cleared it again, blinking to keep her composure, to detach herself—"is already dead. There's no urgency for you to fly out this evening."

"And . . . the director is okay with this," David said, looking at the two of them. "With us being involved directly with the investigation."

Erin's eyes fell upon him, and she imperceptibly shimmied into a commanding posture. "Leave the director to me, and just do your job. You have until Sunday to investigate, unless anything of more pressing importance comes up." She turned and moved to exit the room but then turned back. "And don't muck it up."

David's eye twitched. She was mercurial. The tone was threatening, but the message was clear. If they'd flown out this evening, then she might have limited them to leaving by tomorrow evening.

She was giving them the weekend—extra government money.

Aaron turned to everyone. "Garcia, you'll be working from here."

Penelope had composed herself and breathed. "Hotch, sir, please, I—"

"If . . . if we find that we need you up there, I'll let you know right away," Aaron insisted. "To everyone else, wheels up at six."

« SOS devel. with Reid's
case.

» JJ texted me about it
earlier. can I call?

« Jack fell asleep on
me. Text only sorry.
« We'll be flying up
tmrw morning.
« You avail to help w
case?

» Currently knee deep
breaking up HT ring
and handling
bureaucratic BS
» Unable to come
stateside til this is
over

« DW.

» I hate this
» You know I'd be
there in a minute to
help if I could

« Again, DW. You
have obligations.

» You need to let me
know ANYTIME
something develops.
» I mean it Hotch.
» You know I'd drop
what I'm doing and
fly over.

« I know. I'll keep you
updated AAT. Not that
JJ isn't already.

» You know it.

« She and I'll keep
you looped in a
group text.

The short plane ride was quiet.

There was no call-in from Penelope to inform them of any additional information.

When they arrived at the station, there were people milling out front, some journalists and cameramen.

"Marone," David murmured.

They went in through the back entrance.

Sheriff Reiner shook Aaron's hand. "Agents," the sheriff said, giving them all a sweeping look. He refrained from saying the dry and empty It's good to see you again sentiment. It most certainly wasn't.

"Here's the latest on the investigation so far," he began. "Dr Bates and his team have already come back up to assist with this. They've found that the body's mostly skeletonized at this point."

Jennifer swallowed and her heart plummeted into her stomach.

"We're pretty positive that it ain't Agent Reid," the sheriff admitted.

"What?" Derek asked, breath whisking out.

"There's no viable hair to compare, but the height is off by a couple inches," Sheriff Reiner said. "And Dr Bates suspects that this body's been out there for a couple of years."

The relief was palpable—raised eyebrows dropped, guarded stances loosened, throats bobbed after swallowing.

"Techs and cadaver dogs also have been doing a wide sweep of the area and they found a second body a couple of hundred yards away about six hours ago. More techs have been gathered to assist, but everything's paused for now. I've requested the bodies be kept in situ so you guys can take a gander. We're not sure, yet, if it's actually human, and if so . . . we won't know if it's . . . your agent for a little while to come."

The response from everyone was frigid and unaffected, so he didn't hesitate to move on.

"I know you guys saw the commotion out front. This has broken viral. Again. One of the hikers made a little blog about it. Took a picture of what he saw n' uploaded it, too. It's kinda disturbing."

Aaron tilted his head. "These things are an inevitability."

"Mm. Them Linen Assassins Stokes State Slayers names are comin' up again."

Alex rolled her eyes. She'd been back for two weeks, now, and was glad to have heard neither hide nor hair of those monikers while she had been away and in the following days when she returned.

"Agent Blake will be hanging back here," Aaron said.

"Oh?"

Alex tilted her head. "I'm unable to make the trek, so I'll man the tip lines or anything else that needs to be done."

Sheriff Reiner nodded. "Mm, gotcha."

Sheriff Reiner downplayed it when he'd mentioned the swell of media. News trucks, cameramen, and others lined the street at the nearest street-entrance to Silver Spray Falls. The agents, following behind the sheriff in a separate vehicle, drove their SUV up to the throng of people, and then they turned deep into the private road.

Despite the wooden barrages and police presence to keep the crowd back, despite the rolled-up windows and the blasting AC that kept them cool in the hot and humid summer sun, the muffled voices still came through:

"You still haven't caught The Linen Assassins; do you have anything to say to the families who are still waiting for justice?"

"Is it confirmed that this newest body is a Linen-Assassin victim?"

"Is it confirmed that this newest victim is the missing law official?"

"The number of victims keeps climbing, agents. What's being done to catch these killers?"

They drove down the private road undeterred and arrived at its end. Head Ranger Fernandez was there, waiting for them, and after a brief hello he led them to the burial site, taking the straightest path to Silver Spray Falls, a distance a little less than a mile with swelling and dipping earth.

"Loathe to admit that this place is beautiful," David murmured, sweat perched at his brow as he gave the grounds a sweeping glance.

"Mm."

"It is," Ranger Fernandez agreed. "It attracts a lot of tourists who know to look for it." He then pointed. "It's just below here." He led the small team to where the forensics techs and where the CSU were, and they donned the needed PPE.

"Birch. Ferns. Trillium," Derek pointed out, looking around and waving his hand.

In the gully were sprinkles of three-petaled white flowers dusting the forest floor, the ground was lush with patches of ferns, and there were a few birch trees reaching toward the blue sky.

"It was theory before," Aaron said in a low voice, eyebrows furrowed, "but it's fact now. Where these three things collide, the unsub—or one of them—thinks it a proper burial ground."

It seemed wrong to be disturbing such a tranquil area.

"And I'm guessin' that Worthington was definitely used to throw us off when Marion was abducted."

"Mm-hmm," David agreed with Derek as he stepped toward the burial site. "Two more bodies in the same forest? This is where the emotional tie is."

And there it was—the massive, gnarled roots of an old and wide birch tree. Beyond it was the first dig site.

Sasha Everton and Dr Bates were all set feverishly about their separate tasks with their teams of people. The latter was with his assistants photographing the first body with a clinical distance.

After a quick salutation to Dr Bates and team, they observed it above the working people, quiet and thoughtful. The Evidence Collection team hadn't fully confirmed yet if this body belonged to Spencer, but they would be quick to run rapid DNA tests.

This couldn't be Spencer, though.

As Sheriff Reiner had said, the body was nearly skeletonized, and the roots were long settled into the fabric, weaving through parts of the clothing and the white sheet surrounding this victim's body.

That besides, what they saw below them denoted even more emotional attachment. They couldn't attribute that attachment to Spencer.

"Yeah, no; even if this body hadn't been out here for a couple of years, I'd still be quick to say this isn't the kid." David's voice came out soft with the shake of his head. "Everything about this is different. The only thing tying together this crime and the original crimes is the white sheet."

Derek looked broodily at the body. "Look at the prone position. It looks like his arms might be crossed underneath him."

"What does that mean?" Sheriff Reiner asked.

"Could be a strong indication," Derek began to answer, "that this particular victim personally knew his murderer. The unsub—the unsubs—couldn't take looking at his face when they buried him, so they turned him over."

"Ah."

"It's usually an indication of deep remorse." Jennifer added. "I wonder if his death may have been accidental. Dr Bates?"

"We're only now looking at this victim holistically so it's difficult to determine that," Dr Bates said. "But I have reason to believe that the perpetrator revisited this burial site. Can't say how recently, but I'd say recently enough."

"Why is that?" Aaron asked.

"So, work with me on this, because this body's barely been moved. When the tree fell, the roots that were snagged in the fabric disturbed it a little at the wrenching. I mention this bit about the tree because this skull is still pretty well wedged into this pocket there." He pointed to the skull. "And without even moving it further, you can tell, right?"

Aaron took a closer look. "The mandible looks to be missing."

Jennifer, Derek, David, and Sheriff Reiner all peered for a better look and saw, yes, that such was the case.

"Right. And from what I can see of the skull, there isn't any trauma or striations on the bones near the zygomatic or temporal bones to indicate that this was done ante- or postmortem."

"So conclusively," Jennifer started, "it was removed without much force, when the body was in a more severe state of decomp and when the bones could be disarticulated."

"Yep. But this is just theory as of right now. I'm gonna give this a heave now to confirm."

Dr Bates proceeded to unwedge the skull from the pocket it was squeezed into, and everyone gave pause.

"Oh."

Broken parts of the facial bones were left in the pockets of the fabric below, where this person's face had once been. And the skull was, indeed, completely missing its lower mandible.

"No teeth at all," David mumbled. "This was definitely a countermeasure."

Aaron tipped his head. "The unsub had a personal connection with this victim. They definitely don't want him to be identified dentally, or otherwise, because they know that this will lead right to them."

"All the more reason for us to identify him. He might draw us directly to the unsub," David reasoned. "Someone misses this person."

"This might be his first victim," Derek said. "It'd make sense. The clothes are different—bloody sweatpants and a navy t-shirt."

"This is highly indicative of blunt force trauma," Dr Bates murmured. He handed off the whole-most part of the skull to one of his assistants. He began picking at the fragments below and looking at them closely, holding one of the largest fragments nearer his own face and turning it in his fingers. "My best bet is subdural hematoma, based on what I'm seeing." He turned to the team. "Further analysis will show and confirm, but based on the findings so far, this person probably died as a result of repeated blows to the head. Face was smashed into a flat surface—the ground or a wall."

Photographs were taken, as were samples.

Finally, the body was turned over by Dr Bates and his assistants. As Derek anticipated, the hands were crossed over in front of the victim's body.

More photographs were taken.

"Linear striations on the phalanges, metacarpals, and carpus—on both hands and the forearms, too," Dr Bates observed pointing.

"Those are defensive wounds, then," Jennifer stated. "Defensive stab wounds that cut even to the bone."

"Mm. Sorta putting the accidental angle to rest," Dr Bates quipped. "I'm curious to lift the shirt a little," he said, dipping his head and tucking a finger under the shirt before tugging it upwards. The cavity was covered in a thin, papery husk of dried skin. "Lookie here." His voice lilted.

Aaron bent forward and down, looked. "Multiple stab wounds."

"How many are we talkin'?" David asked.

"From what I can see right now," Aaron started, eyes darting. "Damn. From what I can see, thirteen. There might be more, though."

"So they reclothed this victim," David concluded. "And this or subdural hematoma may have been the cause of death."

"Or both," Dr Bates said.

"So stabbing was a part of their MO before," Derek said in chagrin. "They graduated to where they are now. JJ, you were right that night we found Marion."

Jennifer squinted down at the body, hand at her hips. "I'm not proud of it."

Derek continued. "There were no signs of this kind of trauma to Noah, Zachary, or Victim C."

"And they've calmed themselves considerably," David said. "Only one to the chest for Marion."

"Did they?" Jennifer asked, an eyebrow raised, ticking her head to the side. "Seven to the chest and reproductive organs for Alex."

"Hm."

"We first thought Marion was an anomaly, then we thought Alex was," Jennifer said. "Seems that it was just a progression. And something truly enraged the unsubs about this victim, and about Alex."

"And, of course, we know what stabbing substitutes," David murmured. "We won't know if this victim was raped or not with the body in this state."

"We'll have to see the condition of the body once it's in better lighting," Dr Bates affirmed. He stood and directed one of his assistants to continue where he left off. "Do you want to take a look at the other body, Victim E?"

"Yes, let's," Aaron suggested.

They took the walk over to the next body several yards away. The burial was even more drastic in difference from the other.

"Well, the unsub didn't care at all for this victim," Aaron declared, barely taking a moment to look over the body.

"Mm, there's no peaceful send-off here," Jennifer agreed.

"These are definitely the unsubs' first kills," Derek asserted. "From the positioning, this victim was just thrown into his grave."

"Blunt force trauma again, too." Jennifer pointed. The only thing holding the skull together was the hardened dirt packed within it. But it was fracturing in a way not unsimilar to the previous victim.

"Only a few teeth missing," Dr Bates observed. "But given the condition of the other teeth, I feel safe in my assumption that the missing teeth aren't attributed to your perp."

As there was no husk and no fabric, it was easier for them to see the condition of the bones, especially in the torso. Again, the only thing keeping the body from falling apart was the dried dirt in the cavities.

"Striations on the ribs," Derek said, bent to his haunches and pointing a gloved finger to the chest. "And on the hands. I'm seeing at least"—he started counting—"at least ten slash marks in the ribs and a lot more on the hands and arms."

"But this is where true rage is," David said. "He didn't give him a sheet, and he didn't give him the benefit of clothing."

"So who died first?" Jennifer wondered. "Which of these victims was the actual object of the unsub's rage?"

It was a lot for them to soak in and gauge from the viewing of the bodies and the burial site.

When they arrived at the precinct, they began discussing their findings with Alex.

"Multiple stab wounds?" Alex clasped her hand to her chest. Of a sudden, the wounds in her chest and underbelly were aflame and stinging.

"For both of them." It was said as a statement with that faint lilt she often spoke in.

"Yeah," Jennifer affirmed. "And the faces were both just . . . smashed. Fractured. Dr Bates and his team will be determining what the actual cause of death was—from exsanguination due to the stab wounds or from the blunt force trauma."

"I imagine both of them might've done the job," Alex returned, shaking her head as she tentatively reached into her bag.

"Mm."

A sling was in Alex's hand and Jennifer let out an aborted sound as Alex started to—struggled with putting it on.

Their eyes all averted uneasily with the sound of her shuffling.

Jennifer's voice was soft. "You need help, Alex?"

"Nope. I've got it." More shuffling.

Jennifer's hand went to her hairline and scratched. "Alex—"

"Continue discussing the case, please," Alex ground out.

A difficult thing to do when she was struggling as she was.

Derek started forward when it fell from her hand. "C'mon, lemme—"

"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't ogle me while I'm doing this. It's awkward enough as it is." Her voice was louder than she'd intended, and she bent forward with difficulty. "Please. Continue as you were."

David—wishing to spare her the indignity—cleared his throat and did just that.

Together, everyone discussed the two victims and the burial site. The board was back up, along with a picture of Noah, Zachary, Marion, and Spencer.

Spencer's geographical profile was back up with sticky notes instead of the push pins. It had last been updated by him the night that Marion's body had been found, but was also updated when they identified Zachary Bridges.

Alex, who finally got the sling on, tilted her head. "So it looks like Spencer was right. These sites hold significance to the unsubs."

After a brief glance in Alex's direction, Aaron sought to agree with her. "Right. So if that's the case, Victim E doesn't fit into this. There was no love, no care at all for him."

"How does he not fit in?" Sheriff Reiner asked. "Considering he's pretty much gotten the same treatment as Victim D."

Aaron shook his head. "The unsub could've just dumped the body like he did for Marion."

"Except," David started, "We all know why Marion was dumped. He was a lure."

Derek clenched his jaws. "Maybe that place was important to Victim D and E and the unsubs equally," Derek suggested.

"No, I get what Hotch is saying," Jennifer argued, face scrunched as she looked up from her phone. She flipped it over and showed the rest of the team the map she had pulled up. "If the unsub didn't care for Vic E at all, why take the time to bury him? Why come out here this far into Stokes on foot rather than just take the drive a little further down and dump him in the Delaware River like we initially thought he'd done to Marion?"

"Mm," David ticked his finger at her in acknowledgement. "Yeah, it doesn't make sense. If we go with Reid's theory, that these victims were like seeds in the ground, maybe the unsub felt that Victim E was more like . . . compost."

"Hmm," Aaron hummed. "As if they—the unsubs, or one of the unsubs—aren't wasteful."

"Someone who feels extremely connected to their environment and to nature," Alex said. "Someone who values it to extreme levels."

It was cyclical. They'd gone through this before and had exhausted the possibility of one or both unsubs working in the forest at some capacity. The medical angle had more traction, and even that had led them nowhere.

"It sounds weird, but . . . what about environmentalists, naturalists, botanists, even radicalists?" Jennifer suggested.

In the following few days, the team expanded their search to include those whom Jennifer suggested might fit the bill.

Aaron went before the media outlets again and updated them with the unassailable truth that the latest body—singular; they wouldn't reveal that it was two—found in the forest was connected to the previous murders. To the public, the body count was at four with one person missing; to the investigators who were privileged with the inner workings of the case, the body count was now at six.

The public was reminded about the dangers, reminded of what to look for.

Tips didn't pour but trickled, many fake or that led them nowhere, or some callers who had derisive words to give the FBI agents the business over the tip lines.

Some were followed as a matter of course, but others were ignored.

Dr Bates' report revealed a few things:

Victim D also seemed to have low bone density, and had used drugs, though not to the same degree as Victim C.

Regarding the stab wounds, he had a total of 28 in the dry abdominal husk—some overlapping others—and another nine individual striations on the hands and arms.

But Victim D was a true outlier.

Although they couldn't do a facial reconstruction, DNA revealed that he had phenotypes matching a person of both African and European descent, an individual who was of mixed race.

"This falls out of the victimology pool," David murmured. "He had to have had a personal relationship with one or both of the unsubs. There's no other way to justify this."

"Even though phenotyping is showing that he's not blond, the unsubs are still overall targeting white males," Derek responded. "So I still think they have a type, and I don't get the feeling that the murder of Victim D was racially motivated."

Aaron nodded. "It's the nature of the relationship that this victim had with one or both of these unsubs. A close friend, a relative, or even a lover. There's a rage here, obviously, but this has a personal tie in the remorseful act of turning the victim to the front. They couldn't face his gaze. The unsub may not have planned to kill him."

"And if we're to take Dr Bates' theory that the unsub revisited the grave," David started, "then it means that the unsubs had an opportunity to remove the whole body from the area when he or they revisited it to remove something identifiable but chose to leave him there still."

"So where does that leave us with Victim E?" Alex asked. "These two were obviously killed before the unsubs changed their signatures—before they started cutting off the hands, wrapping up parts of the face."

"Maybe something that happened with these two victims is what triggered the unsubs to start enacting the more transgressive things on the later victims," Jennifer suggested.

"Due to the sexual element of this crime and now with the pattern of stabbing that's indicative of impotence," Aaron started, "It could be that neither of these victims were ever raped. Or it could be that they were stabbed to death when one of the unsubs tried to have a sexual relationship with them and he couldn't perform."

"Or maybe the victims mocked the unsub for being unable to perform sexually."

"Maybe—"

"What if—"

"Probably—"

It was all conjecture that led them nowhere nearer identities, nowhere nearer finding the perpetrators, nowhere nearer to finding Spencer.

According to the forensics lab technicians, they were able to recover a plethora of particles where they hadn't with the other victims that had been discovered months earlier: rope fibers, grains of concrete, small woodchips, all found with victim D. It was all inconclusive, though. Just more data to add to the reserves.

Victim E revealed other things: Aside from his face being beaten to a pulp—indicated by the fragmented anterior bones on his skull—he had multiple fractures to the ribs, to his arms, and to his legs.

"He was essentially a punching bag for one of the unsubs," Jennifer said. "Like the unsub took a bat to him. Someone who truly incited the unsub's rage. Maybe he represented an abusive or hated person in one or both of the unsubs' pasts."

Aaron nodded. "No one unleashes such rage against another person without having either a personal connection or an emotional one."

But all resources were exhausted in the following days. Spencer and Alex's attack was examined again to see if they had missed anything before when the team's heads weren't quite as cool.

"Still gotta wonder if there's someone out there who was abducted by these two and managed to get away," Derek proposed. "We're seeing an escalation between Vics D and E and the others. They have to have messed up somewhere along the lines."

"Mm-hmm," Aaron agreed. "And maybe that's why they may have gone through such rigorous forensic countermeasures, but why they gave us Zachary. Give him to us as a small victory. Give him to us on the premise that we stop at a certain point and dig no further. They gave us Freddie Collins' car because it's been so many years since it was stolen. A short lookup online would indicate whether the car has been reported or not. So give that to us, too, because it might lead us either nowhere or to the original car owner."

"So they'd expected an eventual investigation and had already planned what steps they would take," Derek bit out. "These bastards won't be as easy to break up as some teams are. If we catch them."

"We'll catch them," Jennifer asserted. But her heart thrummed at such a declaration. Clues led them nowhere. They had more questions than answers now.

The facial reconstructionist—who knew there was a law official's life who might be on the line—worked double time on the reconstruction of Victim E, and by Sunday they had one.

Aaron and Jennifer consulted with Sheriff Reiner and his PI Officer. Together, they prepared for a national news broadcast instead of a localized one. Aaron requested that Jennifer be the face in front of the camera, and she accepted.

"Good afternoon; my name is Jennifer Jareau and I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. In an effort to find the perpetrators connected to Stokes State Forest, we have updated information to provide the public. The composite sketch of the man you see on your screens is a newly-found victim of these perpetrators, alongside this other potential victim you will also see on your screen. If you have any information on the individuals shown here on your screen, or if you're able to identify them, we ask that you please contact us on our tip line."

She made note of the two cars and then recited other information that had been released multiple times, imploring that anyone with any tips reach out to them on their anonymous tip line.

But it was then that she added the following:

"It is possible that these perpetrators may have taken a victim who managed to escape from them. It's to these or this survivor that we appeal and would like to reach out to. If you may have had contact with these criminals and survived your ordeal, we would like to ask that you please come forward—we merely want to bring these people to justice, and your assistance would be indispensable. As such, we are prepared to release additional information regarding the nature of these crimes in case you or someone you know has encountered such an individual."

Jennifer began giving the information only so much as it would help any survivors, but—per Aaron—weaved false information as well:

"These perpetrators use methods of subjugation that makes it difficult for their captives to escape. There is evidence of ligature marks indicative of binding on the wrists and ankles caused by rope"—the lie within a truth—"as well as removal of teeth as terrorization"—a truth with a unique signature.

Whatever they would be met with, they would weed through, ask specific questions, and find a true victim.

However, left with nothing more they could do, they flew back late Sunday evening before they could even get any censure from Erin.

People were watching the broadcasts—locally and afar—and they were stirred in deep places, some with unspeakable scars they didn't want to revisit, others with hands that induced unspeakable pains.

The jet touched Virginia ground an hour before midnight, and the tired team members took the quick trip back to headquarters. The ascension to the sixth floor in the confined elevator was punctuated with silence, and they dispersed once the double doors opened. Alex went to Aaron's office.

Being that this was the first major event connected to this case in nearly two months since Spencer's abduction, the pall of defeat—of irritation—was strong. Just what were they missing? Nothing had come from them going to New Jersey. All it led to was more mystery, more victims, and more speculation. The additional pieces unfurled no grander picture but illuminated an undeniable reality:

They just might never find Spencer. They might have to change their focus from searching for him to bringing his abductors—his murderers?—to justice.

Enervated, Derek's drive home was silent apart from clearing his throat whenever intrusive images kept flashing before his eyes. When he arrived home, he paced.

He wasn't sure how he might come to terms with all this truth. When a fixture in one's life was removed, moving on without it was a battle—one to control grief, another to control rage.

The hour was late, but Derek couldn't sleep. Instead, he went to his cabinet and plucked one of his hard liquors from the shelf.

Nary a glass was taken to control his intake.

He sank into his couch. Clooney was being cared for by a neighbor down the hall and it was too late for him to knock on her door to get him. He was too tired to give him any kind of attention, anyway.

The amber liquid sloshed in the thick, crystalline decanter. Derek held it in two hands, cradling it like it was a precious child, stared at it until everything in his periphery became hazy.

The kid would just drink something virgin. He's been trying to cut out alcohol for a couple of years now. Pretty sure he doesn't drink it any more at this point.

Noah had an elevated alcohol level upon death. No one was to know regarding other instances during his captivity, but Noah had abnormal kidney function. The presence of ketamine wouldn't have helped in this.

Spencer had fought for his sobriety. Derek had been there to usher it along, and he felt that he grew closer to Spencer for it. That—along with his autonomy—and other things besides—was being swept from underneath him.

Derek couldn't stand the unfairness of it all. His thumbs tapped at the stopper, and with a hollow thunk, it popped out. Tucking the mouth between his lips, he swallowed it down in fevered gulps.

With a jolt, Derek awoke with crusted eyes and a heavy head. He was slumped on the couch and groaned as he shuffled to his bathroom groggily.

He caught his reflection in the mirror and was repulsed by the reflection. It was distorted, horrifically featureless. And then it morphed into a face that haunted him when he was a boy, that haunted him six years ago, and again just months ago.

"Son of a bitch. You damned son of a bitch."

He paced, brooding, caught occasional flashes in the mirror, and would throw his eyes heavenward while words began to dribble past his lips. A rage bubbled in him, and he clenched his fist, intent on destroying the reflection.