The dry air was hot and the sun was blistering in the sky directly overhead. A dog barked down the dusty alleyway. Joey watched as children played with a ball a couple doors down.
She turned in to face the small kitchen where she was standing. "Abdel." She chided to the boy sitting on the floor, playing with toy soldiers. "Go pack those. We'll be leaving soon."
The little boy obediently scooped up his figurines and ran up the stairs to put them away. Joey turned to look down the alley again. "Papa!" She called through the small house. "Maman! I think they're here."
Joey turned at the sound of bustling fabric to see her parents hurry into the kitchen, carpet bags in hand. Joey's mother was tightly clutching Abdel's hand. Her father handed her a bag. "Let's go."
They quickly scurried out into the alley. Her father didn't bother locking the door behind them, and Joey hardly had the chance to give the place one last look-over before her father was pulling her toward the large tan truck that sat waiting at the end of the alley.
But Joey suddenly realized that everything had gone deathly quiet. She couldn't hear the children's laughter anymore, and the dog had stopped barking. She turned to look behind them. "Papa-."
The first bullet struck Joey's mother in her back and exited through her chest, ripping a hole through her heart. "MAMAN!" Joey screamed. Her younger brother had stumbled, still holding his mother's hand when she fell limp to the ground. Vaguely, Joey registered men exiting the humvee ahead of them and running toward them to assist.
Joey grabbed Abdel's hand, shouting his name as she did. Her father pulled them forward as gunfire erupted in full force through the alley. The men from the U.S. military ran in front of them and tried to shield them by returning fire, but the attackers seemed to be coming from all directions. Two more men emerged on either side of Joey and her family and hurried them toward the armored truck.
"Come, Abdel." Joey panted. "We're almost there." She looked down just in time to see another bullet tear through her brother's shoulder and out of his chest. A fait look of surprise crossed his face before he crumpled.
"Abdel…" Joey called, then shouted. "Abdel? ABDEL… NO, ABDEL." She dropped to her knees beside him, attempting to shake him, but a pair of strong hands tried to lift her to her feet. "NO. NO, ABDEL." She clawed helplessly at her brother's lifeless chest.
"Come on!" A voice shouted at her and hauled her away. She put up no more resistance, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed.
"Abdel, please!" Joey felt herself being unceremoniously shoved into the armored truck. She caught a glimpse of the alley, littered with small bursts of light as rounds were emptied onto the dusty pavement, before one of the soldiers shouted something to the driver and the door was slammed shut.
Joey's eyes flew open. Her chest was heaving and she felt trapped in a cocoon of sheets. She tore them off of her, sweating and shaking all over. It took her a moment before she registered that someone was pounding on her door. Startled, she grabbed her phone off her nightstand.
Two missed calls from Garcia and six from Reid. "Shit."
Joey threw herself out of bed and dressed at lightning speed. Grabbing her go bag, she unbolted the door.
"What happened?" Reid demanded as the door swung open. "I called you like six times."
"Uh, yah…sorry." Joey spit out, still breathless from the nightmare. "My phone must have been on vibrate."
"Come on." Reid motioned for her to follow him. "The rest of the team is almost there."
In the car, Reid wasted no time buckling his seatbelt and throwing the car into drive. Joey said nothing as she pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window, closing her eyes against the headlights of oncoming traffic.
"Hey…" Reid started softly. "Are you okay?" He switched between looking at her and the road in front of him, a crease forming between his brows.
"Yah." Joey sat up straighter in her seat. She hadn't registered what time it was while she was getting dressed. She looked down at her phone. It was just past two in the morning. "Do you know what this case is about?"
"Not much." He replied. "Just that it involves a child abduction. Everyone's meeting at the jet."
The ride to the tarmac was short. When they arrived, Reid and Joey jogged across the blacktop and up the plain, the steps folding up behind them.
"Sorry guys, my fault." Joey said breathlessly as she took her seat and buckled in. Reid followed suit as the jet began to taxi down the runway.
JJ glanced at Joey with concern before shooting Reid a questioning look. He didn't have time to respond, however, as Hotch began. "We don't have any time to waste. We're headed to Billings, Montana where in the past three hours, three boys between the ages of six and seven have been taken from their homes."
Everyone looked up at him in shock. "He's taking a boy every hour?" Prentiss asked, horrified.
Hotch gave a curt nod. "That's what it would seem based on the pattern so far." Joey had never seen him look so serious before.
"But if this UnSub keeps it up, based on how long this flight is, that means…" Morgan began, looking at his watch.
"By the time we arrive, another boy will have been taken." Hotch finished heavily.
Silence followed. Reid and Joey exchanged wide-eyed looks. JJ closed her eyes and exhaled sharply.
Hotch passed out files to everyone. "We need to do as much as we can now so we can hit the ground running when we get there. Garcia." The screens lit up with her face.
"Yes, crime, fighters, I am here for you." She said, though Joey thought it lacked her usual enthusiasm.
"Any updates from the local PD?" Hotch inquired sharply.
"None yet, sir, but they are doing a grid sweep of the whole city, looking for anything or anyone that stands out." Garcia replied instantly.
"This is weird." Reid muttered from next to Joey, already pages-deep into the report.
"What?" Morgan asked.
"Well I can already tell this geographic profile is all over the place." Reid flipped back and forth between a couple pages. "I mean, he starts in the southwest part of the city, then an hour later moves to the north east part, then another hour and he moves back to the central west side."
"But I thought geographical profiles didn't always fit with child sex offenders?" Joey offered. "That sometimes it changed because of their preferences?"
"That's true." Reid confirmed. "But they usually still have a general comfort zone. This guy jumps all over the map."
"And these boys don't look alike…" JJ continued, flipping through the file herself. "Usually child sex offenders have a 'type' of victim, but this UnSub crossed racial, cultural, and socioeconomic lines." She looked up. "That's really unusual."
"So maybe he's not a sex offender?" Prentiss offered. "Maybe this is something else?"
"Garcia, have any ransom demands been made?" Morgan asked the tech analyst.
"None so far." Came the response.
"I don't think that's what this is, either." Joey jumped into the conversation. "The only family really wealthy enough to pay a ransom would be the first boy's, Tyler Laurent. His father is a doctor and his mother is an orthodontist." She flipped to the next page. "But the second boy, Michael Smith came from a single-parent household. His dad is the manager of a construction company. And the third boy…" Joey flipped to the next page. "James Philips, comes from divorced parents. Mom is a grade school teacher and dad is the sales manager at an engineering firm. Neither are remarried."
Silence fell as the team all stared down at the report, lost in their own thoughts. Joey closed her eyes and massaged her temples. She was beginning to get a headache again, and she still felt shaky from the nightmare. She barely heard Morgan speak up again as the plane leveled out.
"Okay so we have to look at it from another angle. There's gotta be something in their personal lives that intersect."
Hotch nodded. "Garcia is looking into that now…"
"Excuse me." Joey quietly dismissed herself as she unbuckled and made her way back to the minibar area. She could hear Garcia saying that she'd come up short so far in how the boys' lives connected.
Joey leaned on the counter, looking up into the mirror above the sink. She looked pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her cheeks were hollowing out, since she hadn't eaten well in weeks. Whenever she tried, she felt sick to her stomach thinking about Pearce and her father. She held her hands out in front of her slightly to find them shaking still, so she reached forward to turn on the faucet and run cool water over her wrists.
"Hey." Joey jumped and turned to find Morgan standing next to her. She turned off the water. "Everything okay?"
Joey flashed him a tight-lipped smile. "Yah, I just uh…I didn't get a lot of sleep before this."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Joey shook her head. "We don't have time. I mean this case…" She trailed off, observing her teammates pour over their files.
"Yah…" Morgan turned to watch them, too, folding his arms in front of him.
"Three boys in three hours…what are we going to do?" She felt at a loss.
Morgan sighed. "I don't know, but I have a feeling it's going to be a long one."
Hello guys! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Again, I appreciate those of you who are reviewing/favoriting/following! I see you and love you! The next update should be soon!