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Chapter 11:
Reid had been able to get a few hours of sleep before the sound a door opening woke him up. "Wake up Spencer." Doyle said, slapping him across the face, "you wouldn't want to keep Emily waiting." Reid's heart accelerated as he waited for a bound and beaten Prentiss to be pulled into the room. Instead, he was greeted by the sound of Doyle saying "Hello Lauren." "Ian," Prentiss' voice filled the room. "What do you want?" Doyle chuckled, "The good doctor and I were just about to become better acquainted. I thought you might want to watch." It didn't take a profiler to hear the anxiety in Prentiss' voice. "Let him go!" she begged. "This is between you and me. You want to hurt someone? Take me! I will gladly take his place, just don't hurt him." Doyle chuckled at her desperation, "But you are well equipped to handle torture Lauren, at least of the physical kind. I can't break you if you're prepared to be tortured, but maybe watching your colleague scream and knowing it's your fault will make you hurt the way I have."
"No, please!" Prentiss was cut off by Doyle yelling something in Celtic. Reid's heart rate sped up in anticipation as a large fist connected with the side of his face. Ouch. The blow hurt, but he was proud to have not made a sound. Blow after blow rained down on him, and it was all he could do to not scream. "Boss, he's not even flinching." "Keep hitting him!" Doyle's irate voice ordered. The man complied, acting as if Reid was his own personal punching bag. Reid gritted his teeth, clenching his muscles in attempt to protect himself for any long term damage. Just think of it as another training session with Morgan. What is it that he was always telling you? "What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger pretty boy!"
"Still nothing boss!" his tormentor grunted. "Take off his gag, he must be biting down it to prevent from screaming." Doyle ordered. Damn. Rough hands removed the cloth gag before once again beating Reid senseless. "Just scream when you want it to stop Spencer." Doyle told him. "There are nine year olds who hit harder than your man!" Reid huffed, thinking of how it would make Hotch smile in heaven. "I hope I didn't do any permanent damage." "Hotch, I was a child prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school. You kick like a nine-year-old girl." He'd used humor to both alleviate his supervisor's guilt and his own feelings of worthlessness.
"Better be careful Spencer." Doyle warned, "That mouth of yours will get you in trouble." If Reid wasn't blindfolded, he would've rolled his eyes. Could this guy be any more cliche? "Can't get any worse for me. I'm already in hell. Hey Emily! Are you throwing a party to celebrate the fact that you don't have to deal with me any more?" "Why would I do that, Reid? You know how much you mean to us." Prentiss replied. Reid snorted, "Who's we? Our now dead team? Or is it you and JJ? Hi JJ! At least you can say that me getting taken this time wasn't your fault! This guy's a saint compared to Tobias. But you wouldn't know that would you? All you did was almost get me killed and forced me to rescue myself." Reid heard a sharp intake of breath, "That's not fair Spence." he could hear the tears in JJ's voice. "You told me you didn't blame me." "I lied." Desperation filled his thoughts, he needed to do any and everything to ensure that neither Prentiss nor JJ would be put in harm's way. Even if it meant that they hated him, if he could keep them safe, then it would be worth it.
"He doesn't sound too happy to hear your voice Lauren." Doyle taunted. "Ian, let him go. How is torturing a man that hates me going to achieve your revenge?" Prentiss pleaded. "Ah, but you do care for him. I see how you flinch every time my man hits him. It must kill you knowing he's hurt because of you, that it's your fault." Reid heard a gasp from Prentiss and wished he could see what Doyle was doing. Anything to set Emily on edge couldn't be good. "This is a shillelagh." Doyle informed him. Reid's blood ran cold as he pictured the wooden cane his captor was holding. "It was passed down from my father to me and from his father to him. It has been in my family for generations. Maybe we'll get a better reaction from you Spencer."
"Go right ahead." Reid said in a bored tone. Doyle lightly rested the cane against Reid's chest, taunting him with a glimpse of the torture yet to come. His heartbeat accelerated at the woosh of the cane being drawn back, and all of the air was sucked out of his body as it collided with his abdomen. Once, twice, three times it struck against his stomach before Doyle chose another part of his body to torture. Bone-cracking blows attacked his arms, legs, and chest, but never his head. It seemed that Doyle feared a blow to the head would bring his captive into unconsciousness and unable to maintain the torture. Reid's entire body trembled under the pain each blow cost. The old Spencer would have screamed by this point, maybe even begged for the torture to end. However, this new Spencer's response was only to retreat into the brightest spot in his brain. The part where his true heart resided. Where all the best memories his eidetic memory had to offer, including one he had yet to tell anyone. It was that memory that he focused on.
"Just one scream Spencer. Is that too much to ask? Just one scream and this will all be over. Just one scream for Lauren, it is her fault you're here you know." "Go to hell." Reid gasped. "Only if you go there first." Doyle countered. "Kind of hard to, considering I'm already there." If Morgan had taught him anything, it was how much having a smart mouth could be used as a protective mechanism. Doyle continued beating him until Reid could feel the slickness of his blood flowing from cuts the blows had opened up. Right as Reid was at his breaking point, he heard the door of his cell open yet again. "Boss." another one of Doyle's goons said. "We need you."
Doyle let out a sigh of irritation, "Give me five more minutes." he ordered. "I'm impressed Spencer. You're not the weakling I thought you would be. But that doesn't matter. At one point or another, I will hear you scream. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but it will happen. What do you say? Should we play a game before I leave?" The gag was reapplied, preventing Reid from answering. Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump. He could feel his heart beating a violent rhythm against his ribcage as the barrell of the revolver was pressed against it. Logically he knew that Doyle would not actually kill him, but Russian roulette always produced an intense reaction. He figured it always would after what had happened with Hankle. Nothing would change that, even though he had switched to using a revolver, he was still terrified of the gun. He had thought that, by taking control of the weapon that had almost ended his life multiple times, he would be able to rid himself of the irrational fear; but his body's reaction proved otherwise. If anything, he was more terrified of the revolver. "Ah, that's the response I was hoping for." Doyle murmured as he cocked the gun and pulled the revolver six times. "I was starting to worry that you'd outgrown our little game, but it seems like it still causes an effect. Not as large as I would like, but that doesn't matter. I will break you." The gun was removed from Reid's heart and he was once again left to the darkness.
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