When the Levee Breaks

What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.

M. C. Escher

FOURTEEN

Hotch felt uneasy searching Emily's hotel room. It was highly unlikely that the unsub had targeted her based on personal characteristics, but he had to cover all his bases. Especially in a case like this.

He was examining a well thumbed copy of Catch-22 when his phone rang. He returned the book to the bedside table and checked the Caller ID.

Strauss.

'Hotchner.'

'Is there a reason you brought Agent Reid in before he completed his psychological evaluation.' Hotch checked his watch. It was almost 11pm. If Strauss was bothering to call him this late, she must have been pretty angry.

'I need as many field agents as I can get. I weighed the options, and I felt that Dr. Reid was ready to return to work. If there's a problem with that, then you can take it out on me, not him.'

'You're willing to risk your career to save the life of an agent?' She sounded firm, but somehow, more human.

'Yes, I am.' He replied without hesitation.

The drive from Quantico seemed to have taken record time for Reid and Garcia. Rossi wondered idly how many times they would have been pulled over if they hadn't been driving an FBI issue SUV.

'How long's she been gone?' was the first thing Reid asked as he set foot in the station.

'Almost six hours,' replied Rossi.

'I...she said she wasn't coming back to work until Thursday. She shouldn't have even been here.'

'Focus,' Rossi reminded him. 'We need to go over the profile, see if there's something we missed. Garcia, I need anything you can get from the latest DVD.'

Garcia was unusually subdued. She nodded quickly, and set up her laptop.

'Hotch is on his way back from the hotel, JJ's coming from the hospital. We can start without them.'

As they had hoped, Reid was able to pick up a few things they had missed. 'He's causing pain, but avoiding disfigurement. It suggests an emphasis on the psychological torture rather than physical. He was probably raised by a single father, who abused him physically and psychologically, but not sexually.' They were all theories that had been discussed previously, but Reid seemed certain.

'He probably tortures the victims in his place of residence he needs a certain level of closeness. He can't have the control he desires if he isn't close-by.'

'Most likely a house,' agreed Reid. 'It could have soundproofing. He doesn't want the neighbours to hear the screams.'

'It probably has a cold-room,' suggested Rossi. He thought for a second, and then added. 'All of this costs money. If our unsub is in a menial job, then how is he affording all of his torture equipment?'

'Inheritance? Theft?' Morgan spoke from the door. He had his arm in a sling, and JJ followed him.

'Don't even try and talk him out of it,' she said, a dark look in her eyes. 'He refused to let me leave unless he came with me. We had to stage a hospital break.'

Rossi raised an eyebrow, but Reid continued unhindered; Morgan's stubbornness was both familiar and understandable. 'I don't think it's theft. He can't run the risk of getting caught. Inheritance is possible...'

'Yeah, Garcia, run a search for rich, dead white guys.'

Garcia didn't answer. She had leapt on Morgan the moment he'd entered the room, and was still hugging him.

'What was that?' she asked, finally letting go.

'Never mind,' he said.

'If he has an inheritance, then why is he working?' asked JJ.

'Inheritance doesn't last forever.'

'Hey.' Hotch entered at that moment, completely unsurprised at Morgan's presence. 'Anything new?'

'No,' said a dejected Morgan. 'Nothing new.'

'Anything in the hotel room?'

Morgan looked up. 'You checked out her hotel room? Nothing in the victimology suggests that anyone was targeted for any reason other than their interactions with the unsub.'

'I know,' agreed Hotch. 'I just...We need to be thorough.' There was something else in his voice, something that suggested he wasn't saying something. Everyone else was too on edge to notice. If the unsub was degenerating, that was nothing compared to the collapse of the BAU. They knew, though. Knew that no matter how tired they got, they had to keep working.

The music was deafening. It was a simple method of torture, sleep deprivation. The unsub himself could go catch his forty winks while the torture continued. If he was sleeping, though, it meant she wasn't being watched.

She thought it was around the middle of the night; sensory deprivation was another tried and tested torture technique. She thought it was around midnight, maybe. She didn't think she'd been there that long; the unsub liked to get started pretty quickly. It would have been a few hours at most.

The straps on the chair were loosely fastened. He was an amateur. He had kidnapped eleven people, tortured eight and killed one, but he still had no idea how the human mind really worked. In times of desperation, people will go to any lengths to survive. Though both arms were in agony, she worked at loosening the straps even further. He had made a mistake in assuming the injury amounted to incapacitation. Eleven was so few compared to the dozens – hundreds – Emily had worked with in her years of service with the FBI.

Humans were more resilient than anyone gave them credit for, but it took extraordinary circumstances to bring that out. The right strap gave after what felt like hours of work.

She knew two things for certain, then. She wouldn't let the pain get to her, and if it came to life or death, she wouldn't go down without a fight.

A/N: I had a fair bit of trouble with this chapter. I guess I've been stretching it out so long that finding things for the team to do is getting harder. I was going to include an extra part to Emily's backstory here, but it didn't really fit, so it may come into play near the end of the story. We'll see. Tell me what you thought about this chapter. What worked, what didn't? Cheers, tfm.