I'm releasing this chapter early because I know, guys. I know what you want and need. I'm not one to withhold that from you. Just make sure you're reading in the correct chapter order.
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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013 AT 6:03 PM | CHESTER, NEW JERSEY
The flashing red and blue lights from the four police vehicles and the ambulance prompted drivers to steer to the side of the road. There were only brief bursts of sirens to move along the occasional hindering vehicle. Otherwise, the sirens didn't wail to warn the McAllistars of their proximity. The engines roared as they sped down the local highway, and the occupants of one of the two SWAT vehicles—Aaron, David, Alex, Derek, Jennifer, Emily, and Luke—were all silent.
While the Sussex County Sheriff Police Department was still trying to obtain a warrant for the arrest of Russell and Lorraine McAllistar, the team—under the purview of Luke Alvez—felt it imperative that they move forward with their arrest in a swift manner. The perpetrators may still have a victim with them, and if so, the threat on his life was imminent.
Anxiety thrummed through each of them at different frequencies, but all of them had knotted stomachs for the same reason. It didn't matter whether they found Spencer alive or dead at the McAllistars, or if he wasn't there at all and they had misinterpreted that he was still with them; the situation would be delicate either way.
If Spencer was still alive after almost seven months of having been in captivity, they would find a sorely abused and tortured victim. But there were hours where they were with him—hours that were likely used to kill and prepare him as they had with his predecessors. Just postulating the possibility—just throwing the idea out in the universe—made them weak.
If he was dead, the McAllistars would have the ire of six people to deal with, and those six people just might lose sight of their objectivity.
Neither was a hopeful outcome, one especially less so, but it all just boiled down to hurting. A lot.
Luke's phone vibrated in his pocket, and he leaned over to pick it free. He looked at the screen. "It's the lab," he said, voice tight. He answered it. "This is Agent Alvez." His eyes swept over everyone. "Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Yeah. Got it—thanks."
Aaron's eyes bore into Luke's as soon as the connection ended. "What have they said?"
They didn't need the confirmation. They already knew that these were their unsubs.
"DNA samples are showing a positive match for Noah Turner in the terrarium given to his mother."
Many necks bobbed from the dry swallowing.
"They're still turning over the other samples for positive matches."
It was David who spoke with an unshakable assurance, head dropping in a single nod. "They'll find them."
Spencer had to be alive. He had to be.
Mere minutes later, the lights stopped piercing through the high windows, leaving the seven agents in an eerie glow.
Jennifer's eyes watered as the vehicle slowed, and she looked up at the soft interior light to keep her tears from falling. Her heart clamored in her chest, and she wrung her hands atop her knees, which were clenched together. Deep despair clawed at her. She pinched her lips together and tightened her jaws when Emily's hand reached over to hers and wrapped around them.
She wriggled her fingers, and in the next moment their fingers were interlocking and tightening around each other. She couldn't shift her gaze.
Derek—leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his fingers interlaced, and his thick eyebrows brooding while his eyes pierced at an unknown spot on the floor bed—clenched and unclenched his jaws repeatedly. His muscles were taut, and the vein in his forehead kept pulsing each time he tensed. While he looked like he might attack anyone or thing if wrongly provoked, there was an underpinning of dread and sorrow.
He wished to find and see Spencer again. Of course he did. But he knew he wouldn't. If he were alive, Spencer would be present only in body.
Alex was seated upright with a perfect posture, but her arms were wrapped around her torso with one hand subconsciously rubbing below her belly where she'd been stabbed. Lorraine's rage, jealousy, and violence against her was underscored by hurt and loss—something that she knew well. It didn't excuse what she had become in the passing years, but it highlighted, for Alex, how different circumstances—the littlest shifts—could alter someone's life in unimaginable ways.
The spectrum of emotions amongst everyone else was colored somewhere between these.
Luke, who didn't know this missing agent personally, had done extensive research on him as a matter of course to get into his victimology. Knowing that a traumatic experience had caused all of this—his victimization, his captivity—was heartbreaking. He didn't understand how one person could elicit such an array of profound reactions among so many people simultaneously. He knew from personal experience how difficult it was for a partner or teammate to be in the clutches of a mad man. But he, individually, had been close to his teammate. A whole team? It was almost unheard of for so many people to actually like each other this much.
He wanted—more than anything for these agents he had come to know in these passing days—for things to come out alright in the end.
The vehicle began to slow around a right turn, drove a short distance. Jennifer, unable to quell the sound, released what had been building within her—a weak, distressed, lamenting, vocalized exhalation—before clamping her lips again. What seemed like a single bark of laughter was an expulsion of pain, an exorcism of a being that clawed at her insides.
The vehicle turned left and slowed before coming to a complete stop. The agents all stood as the door was opened, and they each walked out, hands at their guns. Other SWAT and deputies were already standing in the blocked street in front of the home of the McAllistars.
It was a large, well-landscaped, recently renovated, modern split-level Tudor-style brick home, flanked on both sides by a tight line of tall pine bushes that stretched across the expansive, undulating lawn and into the surrounding trees. The driveway bent in a curve to the garage. Beyond it, the line of trees continued. There might be a brick wall or iron gate behind the tight line of trees, for on each side of the house were large, solid, mahogany and iron wood doors that led into the back. Perfectly normal. Perfectly well hidden.
Absurdly picturesque.
There was a crossover SUV parked in front of one of the three garage doors. They had three registered vehicles, the third of which was a utility cargo van also registered under Lorraine's name, but it wasn't in the driveway. It could be in the garage alongside her SUV that she drove earlier. Either one could be readying to carry the dismembered body of their latest victim away from them.
"Whatever we find in there," Aaron began, his voice breaking, eyes glistening, "We—" He paused, swallowed around his dry tongue and throat. A puff of air pulsed out. This was a vulnerability he rarely let his team see.
"We know, Aaron," David said softly. "We keep our objective." It was difficult even for him to say.
Aaron nodded and his comportment changed. It was so slight a thing, but he stood taller, his shoulder squared, and his expression hardened. He turned to Luke and nodded.
"Let's go," Luke said to the other officers and SWAT. "Follow our lead. Absolutely no deadly fire. The only ones authorized to shoot are the other agents and me."
With that statement, the agents quietly toed the plush lawn toward the front door. A SWAT member with a door blaster and an absorption mat approached, placed down the mat, and extended the blaster with the push of a button to clamp against the frame. The flat, circular pushing-plate pressed against the door. Standing back a few feet, she deployed the remote operation.
Barely making a sound, the wood by the locks splintered and the heavy door eased inward. The blaster fell onto the absorption mat and she quickly moved forward to pull the two items away.
The team crossed the threshold and was inside the dark McAllistar home, climbing up the short flight of steps that would take them to the main level, spreading out and moving to clear the household. Luke and some SWAT members went up a short flight to the bedroom level to clear the rooms and bathrooms, and another few of them went to the lower basement level.
In pairs, Jennifer and David, Alex and Aaron, and Derek and Emily searched the first floor, clearing the open area. The beams of light landed upon various objects on mantles, consoles, on rich plant décor in the living room and photographs on the walls.
This was vulgar. This house was a charming veneer of the wicked perversion that had seeped and intertwined into its very foundation. Their eyes would be the first to bear witness to and systematically unveil the festering rot within the molding.
Yet it smelled distinctly of rich lavender, citrine, and a blend of household garden herbs and spices. Pleasant.
A dim light near the back kitchen sliding door drew Jennifer, David, Alex, and Aaron towards it.
Derek and Emily, though, found a strange underglow beyond a shelf garnished with modern, minimal décor—some flowers, succulents, photo albums, and other trinkets. It was nearer to where the garage would be if one followed the light, and so, swinging open the hidden door, breathing deeply, Emily let it fall open and was met with a deep flight of stairs. Derek gave her a distinct look and moved forward, going down before Emily followed suit. He landed upon what looked to have once been a clean, large, and open pantry room.
"Oh my god."
The raised guns lowered a few inches.
Without touching or moving a single thing, they inspected the wide room quickly.
On one wall to their right, there were shelves of neatly organized medical equipment: rolled feeding tubes, gravity feeding bags, feeding syringes, bandages, sutures, alcoholic towelettes, cotton swabs, and more. There were shelves of neatly folded fabrics: shirts, boxers, sweaters, sweatpants; pillowcases, fitted sheets, cover sheets, large and small towels, and more. On the wall directly in front of them, there were two sets of shelves. One half was of cleaning and hygiene supplies: soaps, detergents, sponges, bristle brushes, tub scrubbers and toilet scrubbers, and more; toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste, body soaps, shaving items, and more. The other half had shelves of drugs: salves, rubbing alcohol, and a slew of drugs, most likely illicit and homeopathic. There were shelves full of things for hair and skin care: hair bleaching kits, toners, clippers, moisturizers, and indigo blue bottles all labeled with various essential oils and carrier oils.
All these categorized items were in separate, clear plastic bins—some larger than others to accommodate the things inside—and were properly labeled.
Meticulous. Fastidious.
On their left, there were two toxic waste bins, one labeled for fabrics, one labeled for medical waste. There was a small incinerator as well with a vent leading to the wall. It looked like something had been recently burned in it. There was a refrigerator, and a dark granite counter with various cooking utensils, machinery, a large power blender, and a cold press juicer. There was even an electric stove top built into the counter. Above the counter, there were large mason jars filled with grains, beans, and nuts.
Obsessive; keeping the victim's food separate from the regular house food, most likely.
They had anticipated this. But seeing it to such a degree was horrifying.
There was a large two-tiered cart with items from the shelves that mostly consisted of heavy cleaning chemicals not found among the shelves, as well as medical material.
Derek looked up and saw a cylindrical galvanized pipe that led on one end to a heating and cooling unit with an electrical panel in the far-left corner of the room. The other end disappeared above the center wall of shelves.
"Prentiss," Derek whispered, still looking up at the pipe.
Emily looked from the stacked fabrics on the right wall back to Derek.
"What is it?" she responded, her voice equally as soft. Seeing his gaze, she, too, looked up.
"That pipe; the unit is leading straight into a wall," he stated.
"Oh god; there's another room here."
"Yeah."
She and Derek rushed over to the shelving unit, and she pressed her hands along the sides while Derek propped his gun under his chin.
It took a few seconds, but she then murmured, "I think I found a latch." She pulled it, but the door didn't budge. Looking down, she saw a locking mechanism that she could release with her foot. She did so and tugged on the latch simultaneously. With a click, half of the shelving unit on the wall swung toward her with a soft rush of air.
She leveraged the door open at full swing and a click below signaled that the door wouldn't swing back to close. She too releveled her gun.
They walked in.
The ventilation fan wasn't quiet; it was a constant, loud roar. The room was dark, alight only by the stream of light coming in from the other room.
The beam of light from Derek's flashlight fell to the wall beside him, where he found and saw a circular dimming light switch. Turning it, the room was fully lit, manifesting the nightmare that Spencer Reid lived in for nearly seven months.
But Spencer wasn't there.
Their limbs thrummed with dreadful energy, and Derek found himself breathing excoriatingly as he took a step in. He had to control it. The smell of each inhalation was undesirable—of blood, of vomit, of urine, of beer, and a fecal undertow. Lingering sterility and citrine and lavender were undercut by the heady, distinct scent of sex and suffering. Of rape.
It was a large rectangular room with no windows, and white cinder block walls. The floor was acid etched concrete, painted in a pale grey coating. There were a few drains equally spaced and spanning along the center of the room, which dipped in at a slight angle. There was an exhaust vent on the far-left corner of the room.
From where they stood at the entrance, there was a wrought-iron bed pushed into the far-right corner, clothes and leather paraphernalia on the floor at the foot of it on its left. Further down to the left of those was a sink with a propped toothbrush, and to its left a toilet with a bidet spray hose. At their very left was a large wardrobe. The room spanned almost the whole length of the house.
Across the bed on the other side of the room—to Derek and Emily's direct right and parallel to the bed—was a claw foot bathtub and two padded, rotating stools next to it. Next to those was a grey, three-tiered metal rolling utility cart with neatly packed items: a few folded towels varying between full-sized and hand-sized, a contained soap bar, various indigo glass bottles of labeled oils and creams, a straight razor shaving tool kit, shampoo, and fingernail clippers.
Derek went toward the tub, and Emily toward the bed.
Alongside the wall of the tub were two chains with leather restraints hanging from a protruding bar that itself had a leather cuff. The restraints dangled, shortened by a padlock.
Derek tightened his jaw as he reached forward but didn't touch it. Even though he had gloves in his pocket, he wasn't quite ready to touch anything.
They had a security release lock instead of a buckle. He seethed; Spencer wouldn't have been able to remove them himself. He looked at one of the feet of the tub, and there was padded restraint around it too. Attached to that was a short length of chain, at the end of which was another unlocked cuff.
"Oh, Reid," Derek heard Emily murmur before she gagged.
He turned to his left and walked toward her, toward the messy bed, and before he reached it, he could see more chains and padlocks. There was vomit on the floor, and vomit upon the bed nearer the wall. There was a blood-stained length of chains on the bed, the ends of which had unlocked cuffs, and a coiled length of chains coming from underneath the bed on the floor. The one on the floor had a padded leather restraint, and it too had stains of blood on it.
There was no blanket, just a cover and bed sheet. They had patches of blood on them.
"Oh, Reid," Emily bemoaned. "Where are you?"
Derek was consumed with that same emotion, but he also was shaking with untapped wrath. He bent to a knee and checked under the bed, just in case. He saw coils and coils of chains.
"He's not here." It was said in a rumble.
But someone had been in here recently.
"And we're done. Let's head back up, see if Alvez found anything. They can't have gotten anywhere with surveillance on them."
—
Aaron moved in front of Jennifer and entered the large, clean kitchen space. It was empty, but the patio door was open. He went through it, his other agents behind him, and they stepped into a modest-sized, heated solarium thriving with various plants and herbs. Passing through, they finally reached the patio deck.
Overseeing a large backyard hidden from neighbors' eyes by more tall, tightly lined pine bushes and a tall iron fence, he and the other three came upon the harrowing sight under the cloudless illumination of the bright, waning gibbous moon: the glimmer of a metal tongue reflecting its light, and the shadow of three bodies.
Quietly they moved, went down the short flight of steps, and the four of them walked toward the far-left corner of the backyard, toward a small patch of three grafted paper white birch trees. Underneath them, three people knelt.
They neared, and the shuffling of feet through plush grass paused.
"Russell and Lorraine McAllistar," Aaron's voice was thready, "FBI. You're under arrest for assault, murder, attempted murder, and the abduction of a federal agent."
Jennifer gasped. "Spence . . ." Her voice came out in a whisper as soft as the sound her foot made when she shifted through the grass to take another step forward.
The man that they'd not seen for many months was seated on the ground, his back pressed against Lorraine. While it looked like death had already claimed him, his hands were before him, shaking, twitching. His chest barely rose and fell, but rather pulsed in rapid, feeble breaths.
From the tips of his blond hair to his raw ankle, there were bruises, scratches, blood. He was nude, and Aaron found that Spencer Reid would hate knowing that his colleagues could see all of him like this, exposing a body that he guarded. His shame was laid bare, and Aaron felt that shame seeping into his every cell, every muscle, loosening his grip of the gun in his hand.
This was categorically wrong. This was undignified. This wasn't Spencer.
Beyond the barrel of his gun, David resisted the urge to cross himself by rote, to unsee the image—not of his extant colleague but that of a variation on the theme of The Pietà. Lorraine held Spencer's limp form ardently, The Mother grieving over The Son.
But that image was marred, cut through with that of Russell's firm grip of Spencer's tongue between a clamp in his right hand. In his left was a pair of sharp, black shears that were already poised at the edge of the muscle and would certainly snip cleanly through at the slightest provocation.
"Please," Lorraine spoke, voice soft, shaking. "Please, my son is . . ."
"That's not your son, Lorraine," Alex reasoned, gun still pointed at the woman who had her arms slipped through Spencer's own, wrapped around his torso.
"No, this is . . . Kenneth." The lilt with which she said her son's name didn't hide her confusion. Her eyebrows were furrowed. "My . . ."
"Lorraine?" Alex started.
Russell hadn't moved, but he watched his wife like a stone gargoyle. The illumination from the moonlight revealed his physical state: there were fresh pink and red scratches and bruises skittered along his hands and forearms that disappeared underneath his rolled up sleeves. Stemming from below his collar and slashed up his neck and jaw and face, there were more scratches and more bruises. One was distinct —with four scored lines on his right cheek that stretched under his eye to below his lips.
There would no doubt be more underneath his clothing.
Spencer had fought, it seemed.
"Lorraine, Kenneth is sick." Alex's voice was laced with an empathy that went beyond her honed practice, came from a scarred place within her. Yes, she knew the aching loss this woman suffered, and to see Lorraine holding Spencer so desperately was to remind her of the desperation she once knew, and it cracked at the disgust and anger she felt for her.
But beneath that empathy was raw, unhinged fear. Spencer looked to be in a bad way, and the night was still young.
"Your son, your Kenneth—he's sick, right?"
Lorraine nodded gently against Spencer's face. Tears poured from her eyes and fell into his hair. She sobbed and dragged her right hand up to stroke his left chest. The left hand was gripping tightly against his right hip. Any closer—their connection—and she would be encasing him within her womb to protect him.
"I did everything I could. I did everything."
Alex looked at Aaron and he at her, giving her the barest of nods. She holstered her gun.
"I know. I know you did. Your whole life, you tried to protect him. But there was nothing you could have done to help him in this, Lorraine. But you can now."
"I couldn't save him. I couldn't fix him."
There was a rush of footsteps and clattering behind the seven people. Russell's dark eyes shifted to them, shoulders tensing.
Aaron whispered with barely suppressed panic. "Stay back. Do not engage!"
Any sudden move and Russell could sever Spencer's tongue. The man was stalwart like a statue, but his muscles—they trembled at the ready.
"I know you tried, Lorraine. You were . . . you are a good mother."
"I'm a good mother," Lorraine agreed in a low whisper. She kissed Spencer upon his cheek, lips quivering.
Jennifer swallowed bile at seeing this. She only saw the blurred form of Spencer beyond the tears clouding her gaze, making sure he was still breathing as she tried to process every bruise and scratch.
Spencer hadn't moved yet with all the commotion, hadn't opened his eyes with her soft call of his name, hadn't tilted his head to detect their presence. Rather, he looked dead, and where his skin wasn't covered in fresh red or many-days-old bruises, he was a pallor that the Las Vegas sun had never given him. The scratched skin of his hip wrinkled under his slightly bent position, and his arms were loose before him, nearly covering his nakedness, and they, along with his hands, shook.
The tips of his red-stained fingers and toes and even his nose had a bluish tint. His scratched torso was covered in long purple and red welts and lashes. His chest rose and fell rapidly, in weak pants. Jennifer could see the artery in his jugular pulsing like the beating of a small creature.
Reddened indentations of bitemarks littered his skin from his jaw all the way down to his inner thighs—something that hadn't been present with Noah, something Marcus never mentioned occurred to him in his three assaults from Russell, something the adipocere that preserved a part of Zachary's body had never manifested. They were too numerous to count.
Unlike Noah or even Marion, whose bruises told the story of a physical assault before their deaths, Spencer's fresher bruises, many reddening and grouped to be in the shape of fingers, were telling the story of a more carnal assault.
This was unique to Spencer. Special. And his face was covered in bruises and large, hand-shaped prints. From his bloody lips his dry, pink tongue was caught in a clamp.
"Lorraine, I might be able to help Kenneth," Alex reasoned. The woman was obviously vacillating between two realities—one where her son was dead, another where he was right in her arms. "If you let Kenneth go, I can . . . I can get him treatment. They've found something that will help him. Would I be able to do that for you?"
Lorraine's right hand returned to his side and her grip tightened around Spencer. "No. No no no!" she gasped out. "I can't. I can't let him go!"
"Okay, okay." The tone was mild, and Alex took a step back, swallowing.
"Russ and I, we . . ." Lorraine gasped. "We love our boy. Our miracle boy." She looked at her husband. His eyes were bright and glistening. "He was our . . . he's our miracle . . . mm . . ."
A rending wail pierced the dark night as Lorraine pointed her face heavenward, her expression pinched in agony. It ended with a breathless sob.
Russell's shoulders shook and his own tears finally fell as he was unable to bear his wife's grief, and unable to quite disregard his own.
Aaron's eyes filled with tears unbidden. This—this was difficult to bear. They had done terrible things. They were terrible people. But knowing what was done to them, knowing what they cherished and lost—something he nearly lost himself—made this unfair.
He should hate them. These were monsters in human form. Between them, Spencer hadn't moved at all but for his tender brea—
Aaron sucked in a breath. Spencer wasn't breathing.
Aaron's finger twitched on the trigger as he stared at Spencer's chest to see a rise or a fall. He couldn't—he couldn't see it. Oh god, no.
He didn't—he didn't know what to do. This was Spencer. His finger twitched at the trigger.
—
Emily and Derek along with Agent Alvez and the SWAT team members had just crossed into the kitchen when they heard the horrid sound. The three of them, guns poised in the air, hearts beating, headed to the back yard. They went down the patio steps, saw the swarm of SWAT and other officers, and just beyond their purview, they saw the forms of their teammates. They headed for them and stopped at the edge of people.
Jennifer, David, and Aaron had their guns pointed toward the McAllistars, and between the two assailants was Spencer. Leaning against the tree, glinting against the lights, was a sharp axe.
"Oh my god." It was said in a breathless whisper.
Derek leveled his gun at the man and almost spoke, but David took one hand off the grip of his own gun and stretched it toward Derek and Emily in a halting manner, finger pointing loosely and wavering from left to right.
They couldn't break past Alex's ruse, and they understood this.
Spencer's body rippled in the smallest fraction, and he took in a heaving, rasping, crackling, shaking breath. At its heels was the short, broken pitch of a desperate, winded exhalation.
Lorraine's hands tightened around him, and her lips returned to the crown of his head, where she whispered words to him that none could hear.
"Please, Lorraine," Alex begged but kept her whispery voice steady. "Please. Let me get Kenneth the help he needs." And then, appealing to something inside the woman, drawing on the lines between life and the nature the woman so loved, she continued.
"There's still hope for him. He's still young; he can get better, become good as new, and you can help him get there once he's taken care of and I give your boy back to you."
Lorraine's heavy breathing evened out and she was quiet.
"You're a mother," the woman finally stated softly, sagely, in wonderment.
"I—" Alex stilled, and her heart sank in profound sadness. "I am," she admitted.
"You have a son."
"I do."
Her voice softened and she spoke fondly. "What's his name?"
"His . . . His name is Spe—Ethan."
Lorraine tightened her arms around Spencer like he was going to float away, disintegrate.
"Please. Kenneth doesn't have to die, Lorraine."
Lorraine stilled at the words. "Die?" Her thumb caressed his torso. "My Kenneth," she whispered. She shook her head, and she reached her right hand up to her husband's wrist.
Aaron's finger twitched on his trigger, ready to take a shot.
"No, he won't."
The other guns began to lower.
"He's finally coming back to me. He's coming back. I have a miracle again." It was said with such relish. She repeated the same words under her breath, nodding again and again as her lips fell upon Spencer's hair and kissed.
She then took a steely breath, her comportment changed, and with an unwavering voice devoid of any sorrow or wonder or joy, she spoke.
"In nature nothing dies."
With a swift grip of her fingers around her husband's hand—she clamped them down. The shears snipped through Spencer's tongue in the same moment that a single shot rang out.
END PART 2
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This concludes the second arc of Blackout. Thank you all so much for having stuck through this difficult and painful journey. Now comes the next phase.
I have enjoyed every one of your reviews/comments. I have enjoyed your kudoses, subscriptions, likes, faves, etc. If you're a silent reader, thank you for having stuck through this. I see you, too, and I thank you.
You have all been wonderful and encouraging. I'm grateful for your support. On that note, there will be a significant break between this chapter and the beginning of arc three. Please expect a time gap of about three to six weeks until I update. Likely it will be on the longer end, but I promise not to disappear like Connor (or Kenneth), although that wouldn't be in my control . . .
Once again, thank you all for your support, and see you soon!
