Title: Salutarem Via

Summary: After an international mission comes into light, Reid has to face the fact that his team will now need to know one of his biggest secrets: his life way from the BAU.

A/N: Hello, I have another chapter. Sorry, I was away from a little bit, but now I am back and ready to tackle the task ahead. We have made it to the interrogation scene. Reid is not so nice to Nolan. It is not graphic and most of what is written is after the fact. I describe his condition. It is much the same deal with Adelaide's scene in this chapter. This is just a little warning, but like I said earlier I am no good at writing scenes like that. I tend to avoid it as much as I can.

Also, I was wondering whom you all picture as the characters of this story. I avoid detailed descriptions of my own characters to allow you the freedom of imagining them however you like. With that said, I am curious to hear about what you envision in you own minds. Please leave a comment or PM with your answers. If anyone would like to see how I picture them, I am putting together a cast list. This is just what I see in my own imagination. You are all entitled to see them differently.

Other than that, all I can say is enjoy! Please review...they are the best thing in the world.

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, because if I did you would definitely know. JJ would be more like her old self whom I miss dearly. We would see more of Hotch's pass and Reid would be appreciated by everyone. Rossi and Garcia would keep being them, because they're awesome. Morgan would have more depth and not just a door-kicker.

Chapter Sixteen: Truth Hurts

"Truth will prevail where there is pains to bring it to light."-George Washington

The air rushed out. Nothing in his lungs, Nolan wished for it to all go away. He wanted to be back home with his long-lost family before the dizzy need to be more than he was drifted him away from them, drifted him away from consciousness.

He always dreamed of making history, and he would.

Blood dripped onto the cold surface of the floor. Another knuckled punch connected to his face, one to the gut. He stopped counting an hour ago. Slowly, he shifted to see the one-sided mirror.

Were there people on the other side watching him bleed away?

A small chuckle escaped his lips. He was making history alright. It was just all in away that created savage chills and heavy whispers. His mother would loathe him if she knew what happened to him. Her accented voice echoed off the empty walls of his imagination. My son, my wonderful, intelligent son, breaking the law. Terrorism! No, it is wrong. No man is above the others. No man is more worthy of sentencing death than any of the others. We are human, so there will be faulty lines in the system. That is no excuse to be going around and blowing things up and hitting people.

It cracked...the voice. It cracked him. Nolan gasped roughly (no air in his lungs), "I'm...sorry." Another try to fill his lungs before he breathed, "I'm sorry, Mama. I'm sorry."

Reid looked at him and punched him one more time before settling himself on his chair, "Why are you sorry?" No response. Just a blank face. "Nolan, why are you sorry?"

A small cry pierced Reid's heart, "Why do you care? You only want to beat the truth out of me, so you can save your little friend. That's all you want."

His expression grim, Reid stretched his body forward to move closer to his captive. Voice steady and sincere, he replied with an unexpected answer, "I want to see if you can be saved." Not dropping his stare, Reid whispered, "I want to know if I can save you from yourself, from this path to destruction. I want to know if you still have a conscience of some sort."

Chuckling, Nolan lifted his bruised body to capture the sincerity of Reid's words, "There is nothing left for you to save. I'm a lying bastard. Rotten inside." He smiled a wicked smile, "Besides, I don't want you to save me. Go ahead. Beat me. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for this. It does not bother me, not anymore at least."

The mean look about him caused Reid to pause just for second sliding back into his seat. Nolan grabbed that hesitation on his holder's behave and challenged him, "You want me to break, so you can keep your reputation of a sweet and innocent genius. You don't want them to know you. Well, let them know. The truth always wins out in the end, even yours."

Once again moving toward Nolan, Reid peered into the darkness of Nolan's empty gaze, "I know. I knew that when I signed up for this. My secret was never going to last. Eventually, they would find out. Just like you."

Not wanting to continue with the philosophical theatrics, Nolan riled him up with simple words, "I wondered what he is doing to her right now. Here, we are having a debate about secrets and truth and Jonas or Adil or Hasim are probably beating her up just like you are doing to me. The difference is that they don't have the moral inclination to stop the beatings like you seem to do. What has it been...another hour? Alone?"

Nolan did not have time to react to his words. Reid leaped to him griping his shirt with two tight fists. He pushed him up the wall knocking the chair over. The clanking added to the pain engulfing Nolan's body, devouring all other thoughts.

Red fire replaced Reid's usually kind eyes. Solid fear replaced any reason still within Nolan's reach. Between the two of them, they came to a standstill. Neither one moved from their place as their passions ran high on their raw emotional exchange.

Pushing him further into the wall, Reid heard the hisses and groans. Instead of discouraging his actions, each howl increased his resolve to harm the man. At the moment, nothing seemed so vital as to cause the man in front of him as much pain as humanly possible. He needed to restore balance to the world by hurting the prisoner in his grasp. Placing his elbow on his rib-cage, Reid listened to each moan fill the air. He could not let it go. Let him go.

Harshly, Reid spoke, "Yeah, let's think about it. Let's mull it over. I could show you exactly what is happening to her. And you know what, you'll be begging for me to go fetch my gun and shoot you right between the eyes. I will listen, and I will go grab my gun. And right before I end you, you are going to tell me everything I want to know." He rubbed Nolan roughly earning another yelp, "You want to know why...because you are absolutely correct. The truth will always come out. As long as there is pain to be felt, the truth will come out."

Barely whispering through the burn, Nolan inhaled and exhaled, "Torture doesn't really give the best results. I would think someone like you, Doc, would know that."

Reid gave a deadly snicker chilling Nolan even more than before, "That's what they say, but I am not entirely convinced." He stopped contemplating his next words carefully, "It just take a certain person to break people. Luckily for you, I am just the right person to break you into little pieces." Lifting him up and smashing him into the wall once more, he leaned right into his face, "I'm incredibly smart, extremely well-trained, and unbelievably motivated. I know all your little secrets and fears and desires. I know where exactly you're wounded and where you aren't. Right now, I am absolutely your worst goddamn nightmare, so let's try that theory of yours. If I can't break you, we'll know that torture does not work."

Silence settled itself in their confined and dark room. Nothing dared to shatter that tension...nothing but the bravery of Manuela Ruth Ferro. She busted through the door and anxiously gasped, "Dr. Reid, you're needed outside." She waited for a response, for movement. Nothing reacted, "Dr. Reid...Dr. Reid...Spencer, please!" She cried the last two words with such desperation that Reid turned to face her. He nodded knowing that she had just rescued him from something he would never been able to take back. It would have haunted him into insanity.

Dropping him to the floor, he gingerly walked away from the scene commanding, "Clean him up. He has a broken nose, four broken fingers and two, possibly three broken ribs. Don't talk to him." Closer to her now, Reid said, "After you're done, turn off the lights. We are going to further isolate him."

Manny gazed up to Reid hoping to convey some sort of reassurance to him, but she simply ended nodding her support of his instructions.

Leaving her alone with the heavily broken man, Reid stepped away from that room. Shutting his eyes, he yearned to push away everything that happened in that lonely room. Rapidly, he opened his eyes deciding to get away from all of this by enclosing himself in his office, but he found the questioning looks of his team.

At that moment, his world crashed. His heart quickened with the agony of them knowing whom he was. Lacking the ability to face them, he swiftly abandoned them in the hallway. One foot in front of the other, he somehow found his office.

Comfort in the solitude of the plain walls, he wondered why truthfulness and misery always came together.

The darkened space allowed the monsters to go bump in the night. All of her deepest fear crawled out from her imagination and manifested in the black wind of the enclosed room. No wear to hide, Adelaide felt exposed, naked.

It did not help that it went further than a metaphor. Her rather expensive Chanel suit laid somewhere in the night, ruined by blood and bad dreams. Her Jimmy Choos broke mere minutes after arriving, a sign from above she was sure, and her satin blouse was shredded much like her genuine self-confidence.

All that was left was a small mirage of an armor her intimates provided and any tenacity she could muster for herself somewhere from the depths of her long repertoire as a manipulator and liar.

Another noise startled her as she relived the days she most wanted to forget. The laughter consumed her, and the screams...the screams devoured her. The noises, oh, how she wanted the noises to end.

Logically, she recognized that those noises were not buried within the shadows, but the sharpness of her mind blurred with the time she was here. It was effected.

Her hand gently went to the crook of her arm from where the sting originated. Her body could withstand any form of torture that those men could throw at her, but her mind could be more easily manipulated.

Adil was smarter than he looked. He proved that particularly sneaky fact when the first thing he did was a calculated tactic of drugging her to warp her mental faculties as much as he could, to weaken her mind, to unsettle her. He wanted to unsettle her enough for her to be malleable, and she hated that it was working enough to worry her.

How long had he left her in the dark? How long had it been? Did it matter? She was slowly losing herself.

Another noise rattled. Another noise made her jump banging her swollen feet on one of the legs of the chair. The white-hot pang rushed through her. Another noise ripped through her as she wheezed. She was just a little breathless.

At that moment, she thanked the her luck for the drug was losing its effect over her. She analyzed her chances of crawling out of the dark into the freedom in the next room. The more she used her arms the more she realized they were too weak to carry all of her weight. Not just from the drugs, they hurt from being held behind her back for so long. Another reason to be grateful as Adil cuffed her hands together in front granting her mobility.

He knew she was not going anywhere.

Her feet were out of commission. All the hope she had tangled with her faith in Spencer and the rest of the team she assembled. They had her notes, her people, her assets. Closing her eyes, she inhaled all of her strength and exhaled any insecurities. Now was not the time to doubt anything.

The world no longer spun. It was slowly correcting itself. She could rationally peak through the dark. Her senses slugged, yet she knew she did not need them to be acute to outsmart any of her captors. She just needed to live long enough to have the others catch them.

Adelaide knew she could survive long enough to bury these sons of bitches. She needed to as she made a promise she would. It was a code, but she want to see it to the very end.

Counting the seconds, three minutes later, a door creaked unveiling the buff man in question. He wore the same delirious smirk he always displayed when approaching her.

Licking his lips, Adil savored the look of her just defenseless. Frantic from the high he forced on her intensified by the dark, her wet hair and the imprints on her neck alluded to a frightened helplessness. A wonderfully teasing juxtaposition to the light glow of intelligence flaunted by her gleaming green eyes and smiling blue lips.

He announced himself, "Well, it looks like the princess has come down from her nice little adventure on the clouds. What did you think?" He towered over her, menacing and domineering. He thought he had her.

Addie did was she always did. She masked her identity for a much bolder persona, "Why did you bomb places in Maryland?"

Surprised by the question, Adil hid it beautifully with a single huff, "Why are you asking questions as if you are the one standing?"

She hit a nerve. She poked it some more, "I am still waiting to see him. He wants results...well, it's going to be a give and take relationship. He wants what's inside my head, and I want to see his face."

Throwing back his head, Adil laughed. This was big, full laugh that dampened the will of the bravest of heart. He scanned her for a point of entry to examine her resolve to keep up pretenses. Her spirit intact, he tipped his head, "Why would you want to see his face? He would only bring bad news for you. Why would you want that?"

Gathering all of her courage, she tilted her head to stare into his rather lifeless eyes and spit in his face, "I want to do that to him."

Fury created a steam powering his next action. Lunging, he gripped her throat, "You think you're funny." A gasp of air, her hands tried to fight him off. It was instinctual. "Well, let's see how funny you can be."

Though the pressure lessened on her neck, the relief of breathing was short and sweet. Water, soon, filled her lungs. It stopped. Coughing, she placed a brave face to erase all of the fear she held deep in her gut.

His voice boomed as he yanked on her cuffed hands dragging her to a hanging beam, "Are you laughing yet?"

Feet burning, Adelaide bit her tongue to prevent her screams from echoing in the room. Pulled with all of his strength, her arms sizzled with a ravaging agony as if torn apart. She dangled in front of him completely bare. Nothing was protecting her from his fiery glare or his flaming touch. She was on display for his twisted pleasure.

His shoes stomped closer, "Now, we have a party. Are you ready to have the time of your life?"

Closing her eyes, she willed Spencer to find her for she was not going to last much longer. Either they would convert her into a traitor or she would die a patriot. Either way, she was running out of time. As they all knew in this business as long as there was pain to inflict on another, the truth would see the light.

For the last three hours, Ames watched Coby type away on the laptop he requested. He pretended to understand whenever Coby exclaimed out loud whatever he discovered on that damn thing. He played the part of fellow computer nerd rather well, if he did say so himself.

The thing that worried him at this moment was the quiet sipping into the distance between them in the confined hospital room. It was too still for his liking. Not a quip or a jolt. It was strange and unwanted for all he needed was to know that his charge was alive and well.

Nine minutes passed, and eventually, Coby stirred with a nervous energy jazzing up the dull buzz wiggling in the atmosphere. He popped up from his bed as much as his wound would allow him and flopped his hands around attempting to catch his guard's attention. "Ames! Ames!"

Scrambling to Coby's side, Mitchell hurried, "What! Wh-wh-what do you need? Should I get a nurse or something?"

Wincing as he twisted his body, Coby proclaimed, "I need you to get Reid on the phone. I think I just found something that we missed the first time."

Obliging to the request, Ames punched in the numbers and waited, Ringing. Ringing. More ringing until finally a voice spoke, "Reid."

Handing the cell over, Coby excitedly spilled, "Reid, it's Coby! I had Ames call you. I think I just found the original communications between Salutarem Via and whom I think is the boss. He is definitely from the United States."

"Are you sure?"

Coby fiddled with the keypad of his laptop absorbing information at lightning speed, "Yes, I uncovered the communication. It is encoded, so I can't exactly tell what it means. What I can say is I think I just found the IP address. It was rerouted to a lot of different servers, so it was difficult to track down." He removed the phone from his ear and put it on speaker. Laying the phone by his side, his hands quickly danced on the keys once more. "I was able to narrow it down to the northeastern region of the US. I don't know if that is any help."

"It may not seem significant, but you just helped shorten the list by one which is a big help."

Sighing, Coby relaxed considerably with his body sinking more into the white fluff called a pillow. "If you talk me through it, I may be able to narrow it down more. I just am not a decoder. I am sure the actual messages have a lot more information that could help."

Reid's voice sounded more determined then before, "Can you send the encryptions to Manny or even Morgan? She should be able to do something with them. My team is helping in anyway that they can. Among all of us, we should be able to crack the messages." He whispered something private, but Coby heard it nonetheless, "I just hope it's in time."

Ignoring the odd phrase, Coby added some hope, "I was able to determine that each of the messages where signed either Salutaren Via or Lucida Coronam. Now, I don't know Latin, but I know one means Saving way and I googled the other one." He paused before breathing the other translation, "It means Bright Crown. Does that mean anything to you?"

Tension built around the seconds of silence. Coby's mind raced with as many possibilities as he was capable of concocting in his limited imagination before Reid finally answered the question, "I think I just figured out who took Addie."

His words arrested Coby's ability to move. Still, Coby managed to mumble, "What? Addie's missing!?"

"Yes, but I believe you just cracked the case wide open. I am going to find her."

Nodded to confirm his trust in him despite Reid's inability to see such an action, Coby muttered undecipherable gibberish at the news. They hung up.

White and sickly, the buzzing in his ear drowned out Ames's voiced concerns. A throb heated his chest with some sort of indistinguishable ache. They found the truth of the horror they lived through, yet he must experience the pain of this moment.

Somehow, honesty and agony always had a torrid love affair that blazed passionately but always left burning victims in its wake.