Author: TemporaryUniverse
WC: 1939 (8973 Total)
Chapter 5: In the Dark
Day 2 ~ 1:40 pm
REID
The man carried a small TV into the room and set it up in front of Reid. Reid watched warily, unsure of his motives.
The man left the room without looking at him and Reid watched him go, confused and a little scared. For a while — maybe 20 minutes?, he guessed — nothing happened. His jaw and thigh were throbbing painfully, but he had managed to calm his breathing. He had noticed that the Unsub had dressed the gash on his leg; it had stopped bleeding by now, but every time he shifted brought on a new wave of pain. The blood loss was making him slightly dizzy, but he forced himself to ignore it.
Then he saw the TV turn on out of the corner of his eye and turned to face it. He let out a gasp as fear shot through him. He was watching a house, more specifically, JJ's house. "No," He said breathlessly, the small cry never making it past the rough material that filled his mouth. On the screen, his godson Henry was outside, playing in the grass with his father and JJ's husband, Will. He felt his eyes burn and fill with tears. He had composed himself by the time the Unsub returned and removed the gag from his mouth. "Don't you dare hurt them," Reid snarled immediately. He was angrier than he had ever been.
The man just laughed, "I wasn't planning on it, unless, of course, you don't comply."
"What do you want from me?" Reid could feel some of his terror overtaking him, but Henry was in danger. He pushed the fear down. He had to protect his godson and he would do whatever it took.
The maniacal expression was back. The man then shoved the gag back into Reid's mouth. "I want revenge, Dr. Reid. You hurt me, and now it's my turn to return the favor."
UNSUB
The man felt an intense shiver of pleasure run down his body as he pushed the gag into his captive's mouth and saw the clear terror filling the doctor's eyes. The process was even more exhilarating than the months of planning where he had stalked his oblivious prey, learning everything he could about the young genius, his weaknesses, his fears. It was his duty to his father to kill the younger man by any means necessary. That was the promise he had made to his father as he had laid in the hospital, minutes from death. He watched contemplatively as Dr. Reid fought off unconsciousness, and only left when Dr. Reid groaned in pain and closed his eyes from exhaustion, succumbing to the darkness.
His job was to kill, but there was a powerful desire to cause Dr. Reid as much pain as possible. Killing the other men had been fun and deeply satisfying, but now, with the real thing in front of him, he couldn't stop thinking about all the different ways he could torture the young man. He would have done the same to Dr. Reid as he had done to the pieces of filth he had murdered but changed his mind. It just hadn't felt right.
Stop it, the man reprimanded himself. You're here to take your revenge, not find a new plaything to torture. Dr. Reid deserves to die. Another, more sinister voice inside him whispered, But why not? You could have a little fun with him first. Besides, you want him to suffer for what he did. Father would approve of it. And with that, he made up his mind, and the man left. He had a few items that he needed to gather.
Day 2 ~ 5:48 pm
HOTCH
The entire team was seated at the round conference table, brainstorming for their profile. Each of them was exhausted, but they refused to give up the search for their youngest member, the little brother of their makeshift family. They had been going over the evidence for hours but weren't any closer to finding their Unsub, or Reid.
The team had already delivered the profile to the rest of the FBI agents working on the case. They knew they were looking for a Caucasian male in his late 30s to mid-40s. They figured their Unsub was most likely a sexual sadist, given the method of the murders. He wanted revenge against a man in his early 30s with brown hair and eyes who he felt had wronged him in some way. It was likely that he had been in jail. The victims were all surrogates for the true target of his rage. They knew that the Unsub had likely lost someone close to him and that this loss triggered the killings. He blamed his target for his loss. They had told the agents that were listening that the Unsub's target was likely SSA Dr. Spencer Reid and that Reid was now labeled as missing.
Currently, the BAU family was settled in the conference room, pouring over endless files, their focus on finding Reid and bringing him home safe. Morgan was the first to throw down the file he was reading.
"This is hopeless!" He cried in frustration.
"Morgan," Hotch warned.
"No, Hotch, listen." Morgan was standing up now, his knuckles white as he gripped the table in front of him. The fury and frustration on his face masked the underlying emotions of worry. "Reid needs us right now and we aren't doing a damn thing." Hotch started to protest, but Morgan interrupted him again. "We've been over these files hundreds of times. There are no connections between any of the victims, none of Reid's recent cases match the profile of this son of a bitch, and we aren't any closer to finding him than we were this morning."
"Morgan." Morgan's voice had risen to a yell, but he ended his outburst when Dave spoke. The dark-skinned agent sank back into his chair, the defeat in his expression clearly visible. The young man seemed on the verge of tears and was breathing heavily, but he held it in. Hotch knew that Reid was like a little brother to Morgan. They were among the closest on the team. Hotch knew Morgan blamed himself for Reid's kidnapping. But it was my fault. If I had just insisted on driving him home… Hotch broke off the idea. Don't be stupid Aaron, you know that Reid is stubborn, he hates being treated like a child, and you couldn't have forced him to go with you last night. Besides, you know this type of Unsub, he wouldn't have given up if he didn't get Reid last night. If it hadn't been last night, it would be tonight or even tomorrow. Despite his stern self-reprimand, the guilt was still there. Hotch sighed and shook his head, clearing it to focus back on the work at hand.
"We've considered that it might be an Unsub that Reid helped catch and that they got out of jail," Prentiss started slowly, drawing the team's attention to herself, "But, what if it's a protégé or a family member? Our guy could have been close to one of the people that's now in jail."
Hotch frowned. They hadn't considered that it wasn't someone not directly connected to Reid.
Damn it, how did we miss this? Hotch was angry that they didn't see this before. He could tell most of the team felt similarly. "Alright, JJ, Rossi, continue with the released criminal lead. I know we've been over most of it, but I want to make sure we aren't missing anything. The rest of us will work on Prentiss' idea." He motioned for Prentiss and Morgan to follow him to Garcia's office.
When he entered her office, or her 'lair' as she preferred to call it, she looked up in surprise. "Ah, hello, sir! Anything I can do?" She looked up at him, her eyes large and ringed with red, and Hotch could tell she had been crying recently. There was a box of tissues next to her on the desk. Also on the desk were numerous baubles, flashy pens, and stuffed animals. Most of them lit up or sparkled in some way. It was against bureau regulations, but Hotch didn't mind, Garcia worked her best when she had something to keep her mind off the evil that would fill her screen.
"Hey, Baby Girl." Morgan moved forward. "Can you work me a little magic?"
"Of course, my chocolate god, anything your heart desires." Garcia instantly turned toward computers. Her air of sadness had disappeared and was replaced with determination. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
"Alright, sweetness, we're looking for any cases that Reid worked on where the Unsub went to jail and was in contact with any younger males outside of the prison," Morgan's tone was calm again, seeing Garcia would do that to him.
Garcia frowned, "Okay," she replied slowly, "That might take me a while, there's a lot of cases to go through and I have to crosscheck each one with visiting records of prisons across the country."
"That's okay, Garcia, just get it done. It's the only lead we have that could help us find Reid," Hotch ordered.
Garcia nodded and started typing furiously, her fingers flying faster than seemed possible. Almost immediately, there was a small beep from one of her many monitors. The technical analyst let her search program run and scooted her chair over to her second keyboard. She peered at the screen.
"Uh, sir?" Hotch and Prentiss had started to leave and were almost out the door. They paused and glanced back at her. "A woman by the name of Sarah Hendrix was just reported missing by the local police."
"That doesn't make sense if it's the Unsub. His M.O. is to kill young men, not women," Prentiss countered.
"Unless he doesn't need to kill men anymore, if he has Reid, then his anger isn't directed towards the surrogates anymore," Hotch reasoned. He peered over Garcia's shoulder to read the displayed document.
"Why would he kidnap her? This guy's all over the place now." Prentiss' confused question echoed everyone else's thoughts.
Garcia's breath hitched. "The police report says there was an eyewitness who saw Sarah getting into a dark blue van with another man," she let out breathlessly. She turned to face her teammates.
"So maybe his preference is actually women, but his anger at Reid caused him to lash out at men. Baby Girl, can you check on murders in Virginia in the last five years that fit our guys' M.O., but where a female was stabbed?" Morgan's hope was clear on his face; they might finally have a lead.
"Sure thing, cupcake." Garcia once again focused on her monitor. "Let's see, we've got 2,148 murders. Wow. Um, of those, 205 stabbings, we have 57 female victims between the ages of 20 to 34. 12 of those have multiple stab wounds, and those were only stabbed a maximum of 4 times."
"Do any of those 12 victims show signs of sexual assault?" Morgan pushed her.
"Um," she typed a few commands into her computer and sighed, "No, I'm sorry."
"Oh, send us the files of those 12 cases anyway, we'll see if Reid participated in any of them." Morgan was getting frustrated again.
"Consider them sent, handsome," Garcia told them.
"Continue going over those prison records, Garcia, we'll keep you updated," Hotch said, his usual stoic expression on his face, although inside, he felt like screaming and hitting something. It just wasn't fair. Spencer didn't deserve this.
A.N. Hello! I'm back, sorry I'm late, I didn't have internet for a couple days and didn't feel like trying to post on my phone.
