Chapter Two

Silence Is Golden

Chapter Song: Way Down We Go by Kaleo

Not a word had left Katherine's mouth. It was one of the first rules she learned when she became a Ghost. Get caught? Keep your mouth shut no matter what.

She refrained her shackled hands from trembling. It would show fear. And she refused to let herself show anything close to that. Her face stayed solid—void of showing any emotion. Emotion was how those agents fed off criminals like Katherine. They'd pick up on her ticks, her tremors, her fears…they'd destroy her in a matter of seconds. But little did they know, she knew how to do the exact same.

And as calm as Katherine was on the outside, she was losing her mind on the inside.

She already knew they were watching her on the other side of the two-way mirror in front of her. She kept her eyes glued to the cold, metal table where her cuffed hands laid in front of her. She refused to look up to stare at her withered reflection—to stare at the glass where God only knew how many agents were standing behind watching her like a caged animal. Persistently, Katherine kept her eyes locked on the shackles engulfing her small wrists.

Her throat was dry, her stomach twisting into tight knots. Out of all the things Katherine had to worry about, being caught by the feds hadn't been on the top of her list. At least not for a while now. After all these years, she thought she'd be in the clear. And now, sitting in the interrogation room surrounded by the grim, gray walls, yet another one of her nightmares came to life.

The voice in Katherine's head laughed to herself. If it were possible for her to show any emotions, she would have shaken her head in disbelief. Years ago, the thought of being caught by law enforcement was a prayer she wished every day would be answered. The longer she stayed with the Ghosts, the more that thought abandoned her. Now, all she wanted to do was get out of here. Her life depended on it.

Katherine was conflicted. She had been repeatedly told the last 10 years that the cops were the bad guys. But in reality—deep, deep down—she knew the truth. They weren't the bad guys. They were trying to save people from all the evil the Ghosts inflicted all over the eastern coast. Katherine wanted to scream out to the agents watching her to plead for them to get her of the life she created for herself. She knew that would never happen though. She would either end up rotting in a jail cell or face a slow, painful death at the hands of the him.

But, maybe death was better than living with the aching guilt she bared every day.

When two guards had escorted her into the interrogation room, Katherine had noticed the camera positioned at the top left corner of the room. Even if she wanted to do something—anything—about freeing herself from the Ghosts, she couldn't. If the security system wasn't good enough, there was always the chance they were watching.

Katherine could feel all the muscles in her body tense as the door squeaked open. In her peripheral vision, Katherine saw two men walk in. One was a fit African American—he had been the ordering her to turn around while pointing a gun at her head. The other was an older man. His beard was graying and by the suit he wore, Katherine would guess that he was the leader of the agent's team. She didn't dare look up, her eyes stayed put.

"Katherine Elizabeth Grey. Age 27." The African American agent plopped down a photo in her direct line of site. Her eyes discreetly gazed at the picture of the seventeen-year-old girl. It had been an ID photo for her foster care file—one of the dozens she took. In reality, it looked more like a mug shot than an ID picture. Her face held no smile. Her eyeliner was caked and smudged under her brown eyes which looked like they had been abandoned of all hope. Her natural dark chocolate hair was poorly dyed a light brown. That picture was the last known public photo of Katherine. She noticed the small text at the bottom of the photo: Property of Saint Vincent Children's Home. It should have read hell on earth in her own opinion.

"How do you slip off the radar for ten years? We've got your name, your age, everything up till you were 17. Then nothing." Katherine didn't make a sound. "Not going to talk, huh? We've got all day." The man continued to drag on.

"Miss Grey." The older man sat down across from Katherine. "My name is SSA David Rossi. This is my colleague, SSA Derek Morgan. We're trying to find out what's going on here. We want to help you." There was the phrase Katherine had expected; they wanted to help her. They didn't want to help her. All they wanted to do was find the others and lock them up as long as they'd put her away for. "Were you kidnapped?" Rossi asked her.

"Come on Rossi. Kidnap victims don't run like hell from the ones trying to protect them." The other man, Morgan, scoffed.

"Were you threatened?" Rossi asked. Silence.

"Or did you just join willingly?" Morgan questioned. When Katherine failed to answer, or even acknowledge the two agents, Morgan sighed in frustration. "Let's go, Rossi."

"Maybe we'll try again later." Rossi's lips flattened into a disappointed line.

Time passed by. Katherine wasn't sure how long it had been, but it had felt like an eternity of sitting perfectly still and silent. The entire time, Katherine sat inside her head and scolded herself to not break down her walls. She wouldn't let the FBI agents cave her—no matter how much she debated whether or not the Ghost were watching her.

"Charlotte Becker, Gracie Styles, Meredith Falkner, Karla Jaffee…should I go on? Do any of these names sound familiar to you? Or should I list the full 23 you and your buddies killed?" Morgan had asked, spite laced in his voice. She wanted nothing more than to correct him. She didn't kill any of those victims.

"These are brutal murders. We know you didn't do this alone. Who is the rest of your team?" Rossi asked, flipping through a thick file she guessed was on the Ghosts. There was no answer, no flicker of a glare to answer his question. "Why wont you let us help you, Katherine?" Because there is no help at this point, she thought. She was too far gone to be saved. "You're in a lot of trouble. And if you talked to us—told us everything—we could work something out. Our chief is wiling to make a deal." Katherine wished she could scoff just to show them how she knew the tricks up their sleeve. There were no deals to be dealt in Katherine's cards. Her fate was sealed.

"Are we just going to play staring games all night? Because that offer is going fast." Morgan barked. Her lips stayed sealed. A phone beeped, echoing in the quiet room. Rossi motioned for the two to exit the room again. As the older agent walked to the door, Morgan's hate filled glare stared down and cooked into Katherine. A scowl danced on his lips as he threatened to open his mouth to yell at the girl—to slam on the table and scare the information out of her—but he bit his tongue.

"Morgan." Rossi quietly spoke up, silently urging him to not do anything that would have Hotch put his head on a plate.

Jennifer Jareau, Aaron Hotchner, and Spencer Reid stood in the poorly lit viewing area outside the interrogation room. The girl they hoped would give them answers continued to sit in the chair like a skeleton. Katherine Grey sat in that room frozen, not even indicating that she was listening to anything Rossi or Morgan were saying. Hotch thought he had done the right thing by sending two tough agents in to grill her, but he began having second thoughts. Maybe he should have sent himself in. Maybe JJ. The three stood flabbergasted as they finished gazing upon newly found information. Hotch's brows furrowed he and JJ stared forward to the statue of a girl.

"What's so important Hotch?" Morgan asked the moment the interrogation room door was closed behind him.

"Garcia just dug this up." The team's leader informed as Reid handed the file to Morgan. Perplexed, Morgan took the file and began skimming. The team had already found out she was put into the system at a young age. But what they didn't know was that she had been adopted. Morgan and Rossi stood close to each other, both their eyes running along the page. Katherine's adoption occurred when she was 17. And it lasted a full 28 hours…ending with both her and her adoptive fathers supposed demise.

"Going over the preliminary report, everything was so badly destroyed they didn't even try to discover any more remains." Reid informed. "Witness was the neighbor who saw her in the house right before it happened."

"Yet here she is." Rossi mused under his breath.

"Yet here she is." Morgan repeated.

"The fire department even brought arson in. They ruled it an electrical fire." Rossi read through the papers. "Aaron…you know what this looks like, right?" He sighed, looking at the agent staring at the glass.

"I know." He grimly stated.

"She could have been a murderer long before the Ghosts popped up."

"You think she killed him?" Reid asked.

"There's a high possibility."

It took twelve minutes. Twelve, long, painstaking minutes for Agents Rossi and Morgan to enter back into the room. Almost immediately, Katherine could tell something was different. The way Morgan entered the room gave her a bad vibe in the pit of her stomach. Morgan stood in front of the table, eyeing down Katherine as she continued her staring contest with the table.

"So you didn't just slip off the radar." Morgan's voice itched with interest. "Took a little doing since your records were sealed, and from the looks of it, someone really wanted to hide these files. You literally went six feet under the radar." Katherine could feel her heart skip a beat and her throat grow tight. She knew what was coming next.

"Peter Marks." Rossi spoke up. Hearing Marks' name was like smelling something familiar from her childhood. It was a portal into the past that evoked a well of memories. It didn't grace Katherine with the warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia. No. It haunted her with shivers and darkness. Regret. Sorrow.

Morgan noticed the slightest change in Katherine's demeanor. Her jaw tightened the slightest bit as she swallowed a hard lump lodged in her throat.

"I'm guessing the name rings a bell." He noted. Rossi leaned forward from standing behind her and plopped several pictures down onto the table. One was taken during the fire, with black and blood red flames billowing out of the silhouette of a home. The next was a picture of the aftermath—with walls and furniture so badly burned and charred you couldn't tell what was which. Everything had turned into black ash.

"The fire destroyed everything to the point they couldn't identify bodies. They declared you dead, Katherine."

"Doesn't look dead to me." Morgan commented. Oh how wrong he was, Katherine thought. Katherine did the best she could to avoid looking at the photos, but then she gazed over the photo of Peter Marks. Staring into his green eyes allowed all the memories to flood back…to have that same haunting feeling overtake her. She blinked, immediately transporting herself back ten years to when she was 17. She'd been sitting in the bedroom of the orphanage she called home when she was told to pack her bags.

Someone had actually wanted her.

It was January when he had come to St. Vincent's Children Home and expressed interest in adopting. Peter Marks was a single, forty something year old man. He was nice, but off in a way. He claimed to the agency that his wife had previously died and he wanted to fill the space of a child he'd never be able to have. Katherine had been suspicious, wondering why he didn't take one of the younger kids.

The process went quickly…quicker than Katherine imagined. Katherine had been adopted and officially the legal child of Peter Marks. Being apart of a family again was something she yearned for for a long time. And once it finally happened, it felt surreal. Katherine promised herself that life would become normal again. She even considered taking on the surname Marks.

Katherine blinked again, transporting herself from St. Vincent's to Marks' quaint suburban home.

It was more than Katherine could have asked for. She would have taken almost anything over St. Vincent's. Peter had given her a bed and a roof over her head. And most importantly, he had given her a chance at having a father again. She had looked to the home in awe, silently thanking God that he answered her prayers. She curled up on the couch that night, her fingers running over the soft fabric as she watched a political drama show on the clunky TV.

It only lasted a day.

The next night was cold. It had been a colder winter than usual. Katherine had just finished taking out the garbage when she came back into the house to find Peter opening the back door to greet visitors. It was half past nine, she couldn't think of who he was expecting. Her arms wrapped around herself, pulling the sweater closer to her body. Katherine's brows furrowed when Peter had nervously asked what his visitors were doing here. Katherine had entered the kitchen where the back door was located. She froze in her spot, recognizing the four men that stood before her. She had met them before, several times.

One of the men handed Peter money, which he just stuffed quickly into his pocket. He said something about that he had told the group not to come here since he had neighbors.

"What are you guys doing here?" Katherine had suspiciously wondered. She looked over to Peter. "How do you know them?" The eldest of the four, Liam, smiled at Katherine.

"Peter, it's been pleasure doing business with you." Liam had rung before slipping his hand into the pocket of his pristine slacks, drawing out a gun and pulling back the trigger without a flinch. Katherine's hands flew up to her mouth, her lungs released a high pitched scream as a silver bullet pierced into Peter's brain. His body fell lifeless to the floor, his eyes remaining open as blood seeped down his face. Katherine stumbled back, hitting cabinets. She screamed, asking Liam what he did.

"You know what they say about the middle man." Liam had said, calmly wiping his hands together after placing the gun on a nearby counter. "There's no need for one." He smirked. Hot, salty tears blurred Katherine's vision. She screamed and pleaded for the men to stay away from her. One of them, Elliot, held a tight grip on Katherine while the other three began taking bottles of vodka and lighter fluid, splashing it throughout the house. When the smell of smoke and burning wood wafted up Katherine's nose, she began to panic. She had used the heel of her palm to punch Elliot in the nose, and once he let go of her she sprinted towards the den where they had dragged Peter's body to. She had planned on grabbing the cell phone he kept in his back pocket and slipping out a window. She stopped in her tracks as she entered the den. Deep red and orange flames engulfed the entire room, snapping at the furniture, the walls, and Peter's lifeless body. His skin turned black as the flames ate at his body.

"Let's go! Let's go!" The African American man, Marcel, demanded. "Seth, we've got to go! Times up man!" He yelled. The proceeding moments were a blur. Katherine always thought it was her mind trying to protect itself by not remembering. In blurred, pieced together moments, she was dragged from Peter Marks' home as it went up in flames and everything before her was destroyed.

"Why'd you kill him, Katherine?" Morgan asked. Katherine blinked away the memories of the flames. Coming back to reality and out of her flashback, her body flinched. Other than her breathing, it was the first indication that she'd understood anything Morgan and Rossi said.

"Weak spot." Rossi muttered. The two agents, and whoever else was watching her behind that glass, thought she had purposely murdered Peter Marks in cold blood. Katherine swallowed hard, closing her eyes and attempting to recompose herself.

"You're the one who killed him, right?" Morgan asked again.

"That's first degree murder. And when we find the proper evidence to link you to every Ghost murder in that warehouse, that's a total of 24 charges. And North Carolina isn't very lenient on the death penalty." Rossi states. Katherine began to panic. She tried everything in her right mind to stay calm, but finding the information on Peter Marks set her over the edge. They officially had her down for one murder. And while the rest of the Ghosts got off scot-free, Katherine would be strapped down to a table getting a lethal injection for murders she didn't commit. Anxiety bubbled in her chest. She weighed her chances and she solemnly realized there was no escaping death at this point—whether it be from the Ghosts or from a needle issued by the state. Katherine's eyes quickly darted to Rossi's hand, noticing the chunky silver stuck on his ring finger. It was far from a wedding ring, and at first Katherine thought it was some type of class ring. She quickly took in the rings details—noticing the words Vietnam veteran and marine corps engraved into the metal. A thought sparked in her mind, and she yelled at herself to shut it down as quickly as it had come.

But she didn't.

The handcuffs surrounding her wrists were just far enough away from each other where she could hide the fingers from her right hand underneath her left. She continued her glare on the table, her heart racing faster and faster as she lifted an index finger.

Tap.

Her nail hit the metal table, the tap echoing through the room. Morgan and Rossi looked to each other and then back to her with confusion, wondering if the noise had just been a mistake. She lifted her finger again and pressed it against the table. Tap. Tap. Tap.

That's when they realized it hadn't been a mistake. Morgan took a seat across from Katherine, eyeing her every move.

"What's this supposed to be?" She tapped again, then paused shortly, and tapped once more. Morgan looked to Rossi for an answer, but the elder man shook his head. There was a long pause before she tapped three times, paused, and then tapped another two.

"Are you trying to tell us something?" Morgan finally wondered. Her eyes flickered up for the first time. Morgan's own eyes stared into her dark orbs for the first time all day. They made progress.

"It's a type of code." Rossi finalized. Morgan picked up his phone and dialed a number as quick as his fingers could type.

"Get Reid in here." He ordered, quickly hanging up. Morgan knew this was against all protocol, but he was eager to break whatever code this was. And if someone could figure it out, it was Reid. Katherine's eyes fell back down to the table. Moments later, another male agent walked in. As he approached the table, Katherine could tell by the slacks, button down dress shirt, and tie that 'Reid' had been the youngest agent she spotted earlier when she was gunned down.

"Miss Grey, my names Doctor Spencer Rei—" Katherine cut him off by tapping again. 1 tap, a pause, then 5 taps. She paused for 5 seconds this time, and decided to continue. 4 taps. A short pause. And then 2 taps.

"Is it Morse?" Morgan questioned, unfamiliar to the tapping.

"No." Reid quizzically thought. "She doesn't go past 5. There's a short pause in between each tap and then a long one after. None of the taps go past five." She tapped again. 1 tap. Pause. 1 tap.

"5 taps?" Rossi spoke up when Reid's information processed through his brain.

"And a pause in between." Reid nodded. Rossi stepped around the table to stand beside Reid and a sitting Morgan, looking to the girl inquisitive.

"It's a tap code." Rossi realized. Katherine's eyes flickered up to his own, giving him a silent confirmation that he was correct. The older agent looked down to his ring. "We had POW's use it during Vietnam."

"Rossi's right. It's a five by five code. Five letters in each row. Five rows." Reid elaborated, jogging his memory on the code he had almost forgotten he read about years ago.

"That's only 25 letters. There's 26 in the alphabet." Morgan reminded.

"C and K are used together." Rossi alerted.

"Miss—Miss Grey. Can you start from the beginning?" Reid asked. Katherine gritted her teeth together as she started over again.

One tap. Pause. Three taps.

Reid stared down and tapped his finger against the air. "That can be C or K."

One tap. Pause. One tap.

"A."

Three taps. Pause. Two taps.

"M."

One tap. Pause. Five taps.

"E." Reid exclaimed. Katherine's heart pounded against her chest the closer she got to the finishing letters.

Four taps. Pause. Two taps.

"R"

"C-A-M-E-R—are you trying to tell us a name?" Morgan wondered.

"She's not…." Reid trailed off, eyeing Katherine's trembling finger as she went to do her last bit of tapping.

One tap. Pause. One tap.

"A." Reid announced, realizing the complete word. "Camera." Katherine's eyes darted up to meet the young agent in the eye. She swallowed hard. Reid stared to her in utter shock. All three of the agents fought the urge to turn around and look at the interrogation rooms camera. Immediately, Morgan whipped out his phone and dialed a number.

"Garcia, shut down the interrogation room camera. Now." He ordered.

The proceeding minutes were tense. Morgan stood up from his chair, running a hand over his face. As he left Rossi and Reid in the interrogation room he exited and met an apprehensive JJ, Hotch, and Blake on the other side of the glass.

"Is it possible for someone to hack into our cameras?" Morgan exclaimed.

"If it's someone good and persistent, yes." Blake believed.

"Garcia was able to. Who's to say if someone just as good wouldn't be able to?" JJ wondered.

"Because I thought we stepped up our security system! This isn't some low level ass station; this is the Bureau!" Morgan yelled.

"How are we doing, Garcia?" Hotch spoke into the phone that was left on speaker.

"Doing beautifully, sir. My system shows there is an intruder but there's no getting past me. Whoever it is hasn't gotten past the multiple firewalls yet but they're close. Once I shut down the system they wont be able to get into the live footage and before you ask, that will be done in three…two…one. And we're offline."

"Thanks, Garcia." JJ called from across the room, her arms folded tightly over her chest as she watched the dark haired girl intently.

"What are you thinking?" Blake asked.

"We profiled them all as sadistic psychopaths. Would a psychopath try to help us out by telling us about the hackers?"

"Maybe if she thinks it for her own good." Blake shrugged. "No sane person, especially a woman, could stand by for years watching these innocent women get killed."

"What's the chance of her being kidnapped and forced? Maybe a form of Stockholm Syndrome towards the group leader. She could have done it under duress." JJ suggested.

"Unlikely." Hotch added in.

Reid whipped his head over as the interrogation room door opened. Morgan reentered, his attention going straight past his best friend and his eyes immediately training on the girl.

Reid's hazel eyes did the same, staring at the young female with her vision focused on the metal cuffs encasing her small wrists.

"Whichever one of those son of a bitches tried hacking into our system didn't manage to get in all the way. The system is down; the cameras are off." Morgan announced. Although a wave of relief had washed over the young agent, he was filled with curiosity. Who were these people that they were good enough to hack into the BAU's computer system? The more important question picking at his brain was, how did they know Katherine was here? Katherine had no phone on her when they arrested her. The rest of the warehouse district had been empty—it had been flooded with cops that checked every square inch of the place—there wasn't a soul for miles. How did this group know the specific place they'd take the girl?

"How did they know we were going to take you here?" Reid finally spoke up. He watched intently as her lips quivered, still reluctant about speaking. She swallowed hard, finally parting her lips.

"I'll tell you everything." Her voice was low, hiding the terror and fear of what was soon to come. "But I need you to do something for me."

"You're not in a position to be making ultimatums, Katherine." Morgan grunted. Katherine lifted her head, staring directly at the young agent in front of her once again.

"There's a tracking device in my neck. They know I'm here."

A/N: Okay waited forever to update this but I'm on a writing kick for this story now. Katherine and the rest of the ghost's pictures' are up on polyvore (under elenaxoxosilber). Please review and I'll update in the next few days!