When the Levee Breaks
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Chuck Palahniuk
ELEVEN
Derek Morgan felt a slight sting as the bullet entered his flesh just below the right shoulder. Emily pulled him to the ground, as soon as she had registered the gunshot, but it had been almost a second too late.
'Can you move?' she asked, as she pressed her jacket into his wound with one hand. The other hand was holding her gun, waiting for their assailant to try again.
'I...I think so,' he said, and he felt the pain then. It was a crescendo, worse than anything he'd ever felt. He couldn't think about anything else, just the pain.
'There're some trees about two metres to your left. Try and use them as cover.' Before he could ask where she was going, she had already gone, leaving him to crawl towards the trees.
They had heard the gunshot from the police station, a jarring resonance that shook them to the core.
'Where did it come from?' asked Hotch, whose hearing was still a little fuzzy.
'Parking lot,' Rossi barely had time to say; he was already running out the door.
JJ watched in fear, knowing that she couldn't follow.
While the bushy expanse at the bottom of the parking lot meant that Morgan had cover, it also meant that the shooter had cover. Emily had heard the crashing of branches as he – or she – had fled on foot. She followed the sounds now, with a strange mix of caution and impatience.
She didn't have a torch on her – that was the problem. It was just past twilight, and there was just a hint of light still in the air. She could see the trees in her path, but only just. Calling for the shooter to stop would have been an exercise in futility, serving only to warn him of her proximity. Instead, she followed the signs.
'Emily? Morgan?' she heard the voices calling in the distance, but ignored them, continuing forward. The best chance she had of catching this shooter was now.
She strained her eyes, seeing a clearing ahead. It would have been a perfect spot for the shooter to ambush her. Thinking so, she focused on the clearing, almost missing the sounds of someone sneaking up behind her. She turned at the last second, arm blocking the impending blow. The gun fell from her grip. She heard the bone snapping, and felt the subsequent pain, but she couldn't afford to give up now.
He was almost two full heads taller than her, and had a great deal more muscle mass, but he lacked the close combat training she possessed. Of course, a good deal of that combat training counted on having two working arms. She was holding her own fairly well, until her enemy seemed to remember that he had a fully functioning firearm. The bullet struck her in the same place in had Morgan, a fact she was not exactly in the mood to notice. Both arms were incapacitated now, and the blood loss made retaliation all the more difficult. The last thing she felt was a blow across the back of the head, before the abyss consumed her.
Hotch was tending to Morgan's shoulder when he heard the second gunshot. Rossi and several police officers had spread out, eager to cover as much of the treed area as possible.
Both men looked up sharply at the sound. Morgan tried to get up, but Hotch held him down. 'It's okay,' he said, in what he hoped was a comforting manner. 'It'll be okay.
Someone had called an ambulance Hotch realised, hearing the sirens. It was a few more moments before he remembered that it had been him. The paramedics helped Morgan onto a stretcher. Hotch was torn between going with him to the hospital, and staying to help in the search for Emily.
'Go, man,' said Morgan, the pain evident in his voice. 'She needs you more than I do right now.' There was something enigmatic about what Morgan was saying, but Hotch didn't waste time arguing.
'Find her, Hotch,' Morgan called after his retreating boss. There were the beginnings of tears in his eyes, though he would never admit it to anyone.
Emily woke to darkness and indescribable pain. Both arms were bound behind her, though she didn't think she would be able to move them, even if they were free. The blood from the gunshot wound had spread across the front of the shirt, and was now dripping into a tiny pool on the concrete floor. Her assailant hadn't even made an attempt to stop the bleeding, nor had he tended to her other arm, which she feared was badly broken.
Still, she knew she wouldn't be getting out of this by moaning in pain. She looked around, eyes having finally adjusted to the dark. The room seemed eerily familiar, and it wasn't until a burst of clarity escaped the pain that she realised the undeniable truth.
The shooter was their unsub.
A/N: Kind of an obvious climax, I guess. I had this chapter finished just a few hours after the last, but I wanted to make sure the other one got a fair run as first chapter, because it's pretty important plot-wise. Edit: I'm posting now, because I couldn't be stuffed waiting. For now, revel in the fact that the action is finally here. Plus, hopefully Reid and Garcia will arrive on scene within the next two to three chapters. Don't say I didn't warn you. Don't forget to review. Cheers, tfm.