Poaching

It is a huge compound. Even though we had inspected every corner of this place on a map provided by Garcia, it doesn't prepare you for this.

The SWAT team are spreading out and emptying the different vans and tents and the only thing I can say is that I am glad that the rain has stopped for a while.

There is still a storm. The whole place occasionally becomes like a strange distorted photograph. The thunder is rolling in the distance and the people are lining up looking a mixture of confused, angry, and amused.

The smell drifts over the land like a green fog. A smell of wet animals and sodden rotting straw and filth. They stand watching us carefully and the odd shout here and there goes out as more of these, and I have to describe them as, freaks are lined up.

'What are you looking for?' A man standing around the middle of these people. They turn to look at him as he steps forward and I step forward.

'SSA Hotchner.' I say

'I know who you are and Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss and David Rossi.' Nodding to each in turn. 'I asked what you are looking for, not who you are.'

I try not to let this throw me. I try to keep this as me in charge but that statement wasn't lost on any of my team members. I see Morgan take a step forward and I see movement from Prentiss. Dave stands his ground. I pull out some photographs of missing children. They are in protective coverings in case of the rain.

'There are some missing children. Have you seen them?' I hand the pictures to the man who appears to be in charge and I watch him carefully. He looks at each one and frowns at them and then turns and passes them to a guy in a red jacket.

'What about you?' He says to him, then turns back to look at me. He is holding a photo in his hand. 'This one looks familiar, but we see a lot of kids here Hotchner. It's not easy to remember every face. This one though. Something about those eyes. I remember them. Very deep dark eyes and a wide mouth. Almost unnatural. I spot things like that. But you know I might be wrong. It might just be a similar looking kid.' I watch as the pictures are passed along the group of strange looking people. 'Not here though. Back in Bucklees… That's where she was.' He hands me back the picture. 'Anything else we can help you with? I kind of object to being treated like this you know. You have a reason for this?' A very tall guy in a clown outfit and smudged make up steps forward and pushes the pictures into my hand.

'You know why we are here.' And I walk away. I am not going to explain to someone who knows the names of my team members why we are here. He knows. I know he knows and he knows where these children are.

They didn't really hide the trail. It was blatant once we looked at it. Each town that has reported a missing child in the past six months has had a visit from the Carnival that same week. Maybe not right in the town, but within five miles of it. I splash my way through the mud and muck towards the central tent passing smaller places as I go. I indicate for them all to be checked and again the sky lights up with a terrific crack of light and a boom of thunder that seems to make the very ground shake and just as I step through into the mail tent with Morgan close behind me the sky opens once more and the rain falls in fast hard torrents.

I heard Derek next to me make an odd sound of disgust and it is all I can do not to copy him. 'People actually come here and pay money?' Derek says as he walks past me and through a line up of straw bales. The place stinks. I frankly don't think I could sit in here and be much entertained and I definitely wouldn't bring my son here. 'So they just sit here and watch the freaks?' Derek is standing in an opening looking at the central ring. 'Clowns and trapeze and what? Horse riders?' I walk up behind him to look as he turns. 'They are all freaks Hotch.'

I nod at Derek and look at the mess of discarded popcorn and rotting hotdogs and burgers. There are sweet wrappers on the floor and used up and sometimes crushed polystyrene mugs. I know they don't clear up much when they leave and I know that people complain to each other, but I don't think anyone in their right mind would come in here in the daylight and complain to them about the mess.

'Macabre'

Derek says.

And follows it up as he walks away and the rain hammers down on the canvas…I think this is what he says. 'Reid would have loved it here.'

I know Derek is hurting too. The case went cold. There was nothing to follow up. Reid was just gone and now the case is closed but I also know that something is going on between Prentiss and Flanders and I know for sure that he knows what happened to Reid. I just need to persuade Prentiss to do what I ask her to do.

There is nothing here though that shouldn't be. No missing children. No boiled skulls. Nothing – I can't say nothing unusual – but nothing that we can say was illegal.

We walk back to the SUV's in the rain, with our heads down watching where we step. We pass old battered tents and side show stalls but there is nothing here. If the children were here then there is no sign of them now.

I tell them that they are not to leave. We will be back. I want to see this place in the daylight. He nods at me and shrugs.

'We've been here too long already. Do you intend compensating us for loss of income, cos we can't work here. It's a quagmire.'

'Just make sure you are here tomorrow. I will have more questions to ask you. He scratches at his neck and gives me a strange half smile half snarl which I have seen so many times before. Quickly I turn my back on him and head for the SUV. I don't not want him to suspect I know more than I do. It would perfectly explain how he knows our names.

I have every intention of ripping this place apart until I find whatever it is going on here.

-o-o-o-

'Get up and get out.' Jules is shouting and throwing things at me. 'Get him dressed and get the hell out of here. They're coming back. I can't shield you in the daylight. Take the camper van and just get the hell out of here.

I let go of where I am holding onto Spencer and roll over to face the spiteful eyes of Jules the Eye. 'And where am I meant to go? Have you seen the state of him?'

'Not my problem. Not our problem. You Floyd Flanders Fucking Franks are the damned problem. You cant' stay here.'

I pick up the jeans and a hoodie which he's given me to put on Spencer and I throw them back again. 'I'm not putting those on him.' My hand reaches behind me and I gently touch Spencer's arm. 'Jules, where am I going to take him?'

He picks the things up off the floor. 'I'll get him sweat pants Floyd…he can wear the hoodie.' Keys are now thrown at me. 'Get out. Get out now or that Garcia bitch will pick it up on her damned radar thing. Move it. I don't want you here causing trouble wherever you are.' He throws the hoodie back. 'Start getting him ready. Gone in ten minutes Flanders. Understand?'

I do understand. I wants me gone, but I'm not the reason SWAT and the Feds were here. 'So why were they here Jules?'

'Ana. She poaches. It's OK. Nothing is left for them to find.' He wipes his hand over his mouth and then smiles at me. 'But I defy you to criticize the girl. I need to have stronger words with her. But she is a fine cook. Five minutes. I'll get those sweat pants.'

-o-o-o-

I don't want him touching me. I don't want him near me. I want him to leave me alone in peace, but he is pulling at me and dragging me around and touching and touching and he won't keep his hands off me. I want to shout at him to stop, but I can't so when that hand comes close enough.

'You little bastard!' He shouts at me, but I have the taste of his blood in my mouth now. 'I'm trying to help you.' He is hissing at me, but he's not. I know he's not. I can feel his hand on my face pulling my head around to look at him but I cant see anything but shadows and I make sure not to look in his face. I get punished for that. I hurt if I do that. 'Spencer – listen to me.' But I shake my head and try to dislodge his hands from my face. I want to pull them away with my hands but I can't do that either. They hurt me if I use my hands. 'In the name of the gods Babes what in fuck's name have they done to you?'

I can hear other voices and now he is pulling something up over my legs.

The talking voices are raised and shouting now and I hear the sounds of flesh hitting at flesh and the strong sweet smell of blood, but I turn over to lie on my side and I make my eyes look into the darkness. He is there somewhere. The person who protects me and heals me and loves me. I know somewhere he is there. I just can't find him anymore. I am being grabbed again now that the voices have stopped shouting and this time it hurts. I cry out and howl but I'm ignored as the skin on my back tears and sticky ooze drips from the blisters I have been growing there. He is carrying me over his shoulder and I wonder if I should kick or bite at him but I don't I just howl with the pain my back is in and he is saying to me.

'Shut the fuck up you sound like an animal.' And I am tossed down onto a hard surface where I roll to my front and crawl away into the darkness. Maybe he will be there. There is always a chance, but I can't see properly. I can't see what is going on or where I am.

The shouting again.

'What about…..?'

'No longer our problem. None of it. Just clear off and don't come back. You're not wanted here.'

'You are my damned family. You can't just refuse me?'

'Watch us. You see what happens if you come sniffing your perverted dirty nose around here again. Next time you contact us we will be deaf to your demands. Now get out. And be thankful we kept you here as long as we did.'

'Grateful for doing that to him?!'

Then sounds are muffled as I hear doors slam and I am in a wonderful dark silence. For a little while. It must be one of the vans I am in now. I hear and feel the engine start and it makes me curl up tighter and I think I might be crying because I can feel liquid on my face to match the liquid sticking and oozing and leaking on my back. I want to touch my back but I don't. I lie on my front with my legs pulled up under me and my arms under me and my hands on my head and I stay like that forever. It feels like it is forever anyway. Folded up in the back of the van. Going somewhere. With someone. Away from the only person who can help me.

-o-o-o-

I went north.

I went north for a few days.

I didn't stop but to refuel the van and have a piss. I didn't even go round the back to check on Spencer.

It's gone wrong.

This was not meant to happen.

The bloody family was meant to just shield us from Taki not do this. I'm not tired. I don't sleep you see…I don't have to eat really; it's just something I do to pass the time and to be social like, but no need now. I'll just smoke and drink hot sweet coffee.

I've pulled over at some old run down diner. They are all old and run down. I don't think I've ever seen a spiffy new one. I should check on my cargo. He needs to eat even if I don't, but then again I don't want to put out those signals. That was fine, that wasn't fine, what the hell am I thinking about. I don't care about him. I can't afford to care about him, he has weakened me. He has given me conscience and pain and I don't much like it. I don't like feeling like this. I want to be alone again. Somewhere. And make my companion and play my games, but it's gone too far for that now. He is there inside me gnawing away at me and that is what is going to be my undoing. Cos I can't fucking think straight knowing he is there so damned close.

The diner.

A hole it is. I get a coffee for me and a bottle of orange juice for Spence and I walk back to the van. I need to check on him. With a sigh I put the drinks down and unlock the back doors of the van.

To say he took me by surprise is a slight underestimation. I didn't expect him to be there waiting for me. With his feet and hand teeth. He was on me like a damned animal making vile guttural sounds and going for the jugular. He was good. Damned good, but only cos I wasn't expecting it you know. The feet in my face. The scratching and biting. I had to pluck him off me like he was some weird four legged beast, which in a way I suppose he was, and is and I threw him back into the van. I really can't afford people to see this. I leap in behind him and pull the doors closed.

'Spencer.' I hiss at him, but he is lying on his back in silence now, but he is awake. I know that. I can see his fists clenching and unclenching. I can see his toes moving. He is getting ready to attack again. 'Spence, it's me. It's Floyd. I'm not going to hurt you.'

And he sits and almost looks at me, but only almost and then he is scrabbling back away from me. 'Keep away – j j just keep away.' And his voice is so strange and quiet that it doesn't sound like him.

I move in fast so he is sitting with his legs pulled up in front of him and I push his knees apart and slide in on my knees closer to him. 'Spencer. It's me.'

But he is pulling back again and I don't know why I am so pissed at this situation if I'm not meant to care, but all the time I was trying to forget him he was forgetting me anyway. I put my hands out and place one on each side of his face. I want to see those rich hazel eyes again. I want to fall into that beautiful face and feel my head spin and that light headedness I feel from looking at them, but they are not the eyes I know. These eyes are lost and sad.

'Spencer.' I say to him again and I want to run my tongue over his mouth and feel those lips under mine again but he looks so fucking scared of me. I'm going to have to start over. That's what I need to do. I need to retrain him. They've taken away from all the stuff I placed there and now I need to put it all back again.

There are only a few ways that can be done.

I can woo him and send him flowers and chocolates.

I can drug him and force him that way.

Or I can just beat him and take what I want.

Options.

I don't have flowers.

I don't have the right drugs.

I do have hands and fists.

BUT

Didn't I just say I wouldn't hurt him?

Hell he won't remember that. I am thinking these words as my fist makes contact with his eye and I'm forcing the kicking squirming Spencer onto his back. I forget about the burns and blisters. I forget that I'm meant to protect him and I pull at his clothing and he is saying 'Please don't – please stop.' But his voice is so quiet I hardly hear it over my own noises. And is face is salty as I lick away his tears and rip into him. And yes I've been whoring, but

…this is Spencer, and I've missed this. The feel of his ribs under my hands. His smell. His flesh. Spencer's hair and Spencer's body under mine. This is what made me weak. Sod drugs and alcohol and whatever else there is, Spencer is my vice. I don't know if this is love or just addiction, but I need this like I need air to breathe.

No, more than that, I can survive lack of oxygen. I can't survive lack of this sweet arse.