When the Levee Breaks
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
NINETEEN
He withdrew his fingers from her neck, frowning. He hadn't been getting the buzz he normally did, and that surprised him. The others, they had screamed, begged, pleaded for him to stop. It was so much more satisfying when they cared he was in control, when they cared that he held their life in his hands. She knew, but she just didn't seem to give a damn.
He set a goal in his mind. To make her scream. To make her care that he was in control. Because if he couldn't do that, then he wasn't really in control at all.
That, though, could wait until after he had made dinner.
He tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants, and shut the cold-room door behind him.
'This guy isn't going to back down,' Rossi whispered to Hotch, as they prepared to enter the house. 'Being in the hands of the authorities is about as emasculating as it gets. He's going to go down fighting.'
Hotch nodded, and kicked the door open.
Max Clark was in the kitchen when he heard the crashing sound of the door being kicked open. He was momentarily startled, but recovered quickly.
He had planned for this.
He knew that one day. One day they would come for him, and when they did, he would be ready. Because he was the one that was in control now.
He ran for the cold-room door, gun in his hand.
She kept her eyes closed as she heard him enter the room. He was moving quickly, not caring how much noise he made.
'They're all going to die,' he muttered. She wondered what he was talking about. It all became sickeningly clear when she heard voices. Voices calling her name.
He undid the straps that secured her to the chair. She feigned unconsciousness.
'Max Clark, drop the weapon.' Hotch's voice. She felt the cold harsh metal of the gun against her neck. Her feet brushed the floor.
'This house is already filling with gas,' Clark said. She couldn't see his grin, but she could imagine that it was there. 'If you fire one shot, it will go up in flames.'
'Put the gun down, Max,' warned Hotch. 'If this house explodes, then you'll die too.'
'I know,' his voice was elated. 'It's so empowering, to choose the time and place of your own death. I pity the rest of you, no control over your own existence.'
She opened her eyes slowly, hoping that the others in the room would not react. "In three," she mouthed at Hotch, who gave a barely perceptible nod.
One...
Two...
Three.
She pulled down, away from his grip, reaching for his gun hand as she did. If the trigger went off, then they were all dead. He would have been stronger than her, even without the injuries to her arms. The momentum of the struggle sent them crashing into a nearby table. Still, it achieved the desired result; the gun fell from his hands. Hotch kicked it away, levelling his own weapon at Max Clark's head.
Emily pulled herself away from the weapons aimed at the man who had, until very recently, been an unsub. Help came from both sides in the form of Rossi and Reid. They were careful not to exacerbate her wounds.
Hotch reached for his handcuffs, while Max Clark reached for a knife that had fallen from the table. 'You'll never take me,' he whispered, plunging the knife into his chest. There was not a dismayed face amongst the law enforcement officers present.
'Suspect down. Bring in the medics,' Detective Walters called into his radio.
'We've got you now,' said Hotch, putting his suit jacket around Emily's shoulders. She flinched at the material contacting her injuries, but seemed grateful for the protection against the cold.
Then, without warning, she fell to her knees, heaving the contents of her stomach onto Hotch's shiny black shoes.
Morgan, JJ and Garcia had been waiting impatiently a good distance from the house. When the call came over the radio, their response times were better than those of the paramedics, who entered the house just behind them.
'That way,' pointed a uniformed officer, who was seeing to it that there was no more gas coming into the house. Clark had not been lying – if any one of them had pulled the trigger, they would have been burnt to a crisp.
'Emily!' called Morgan, as he entered the cold-room. She looked up at her field-restricted colleagues, smiling weakly.
'How's the arm?' she asked him. He shook his head. He wanted so much to pull her into a hug, but knew that he would probably do more harm than good.
'Can I ride with her?' he asked the paramedic that was helping her onto a stretcher. The paramedic shrugged.
'Whatever,' he said, and Morgan took the non-committal response to be an undeniable confirmation, running after the stretcher.
The rest of the team looked at each other tiredly, and for the first time in almost twenty-four hours, a great weight was lifted off their shoulders.
A/N: All right. There'll still be a few more chapters after this, I think, but I'm not sure how many. Could be two, could be five. Maybe fifteen. I want to get this finished before I start exams, so that will be a limiting factor. The sequel I may or may not plan to write might not come until next year at the earliest – I'm heading over to the USA for all of December, and I'd rather not start and then leave you all hanging, but we'll see. Maybe you'd prefer it that way. Anyway, more later. Peace out. tfm.