The Good Life Continues

The Good Life Continues.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead: - Bertrand Russell

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.

"That's enough. Away from him now."

Aaron didn't move. "Spencer, can you hear me. Let me know you are still there." He took hold of the hand which hadn't been ripped and squeezed it hoping for a response back, but he got nothing.

"I told you to get away from him."

Still Aaron didn't move. With his finger tips he gently began to wipe the blood away from Reid's eye. "It's going to be alright Spencer. Just stay with me."

This time there was a response, only it was from the captors not from Reid. An arm was wrapped around Hotch's neck and was jerked back away from him. He kept hold of Spencer's hand as long as he could but the limp fingers eventually were torn from his grasp as they pulled him back to the other side of the room. Once Hotch lost physical contact with Reid he put his hands up to the arm choking him and tried to loosen the grip slightly. It didn't last long though. The motel room was small and he was soon back at the wall forced to his knees facing the pale green paint.

"What do you want from me?"

"I think you can probably guess the answer to that one and didn't we tell you to shut your mouth? Didn't we say we would hurt your little friend if you spoke?"

Hotch heard the sickening sound of boot against flesh and leaned forward resting his head on the wall. He could feel tears of anger and pain for his friend prickling behind his eyes. He needed to pull himself together now. He needed to ignore what they were doing to Spencer and concentrate on what was going on. They hadn't brought him here just so he could hear them beating Spencer. They hadn't brought him hear just so he could hear Spencer's last breaths. What the hell were they after? This had to have something to do with Floyd and Rosa. He just hoped that this wasn't all for nothing and that Floyd was keeping that child safe.

-o-o-o-

Spencer watched with bleary eyes as Hotch was brought into the room. He watched as the man who was so strong and always there for him was pushed against the wall and made to kneel. He needed to free Aaron from this. He needed Hotch to be free to do what he needed and not have to worry about him. Other peoples lives were at stake because of him. He couldn't think exactly what it was he had done but it must have been something to be here now. Nailed by his hand again, only this time to a wall. He knew he had lost too much blood. He could feel the warm stickiness against his skin. He could tell that his eye was most likely damaged beyond repair now and he could feel the terrible guilt of whatever it was he had done.

He thought back to the stoning and how he had watched Hotch get hurt to give Floyd a chance to get away. Now was his chance to make it right.

Spencer started talking. He heard them tell him to be quiet. He saw the glint of the gun. He heard their threats which weren't real anymore. The pain firstly in his shoulder stopped his immediate diatribe and then as he felt him self fall sideways unable to hold him self up in a sitting position anymore he felt the knife being ripped through his hand. Thankfully that was when everything stopped. Almost. He could feel the pain. He could hear the voices and he could feel his blood draining from the wounds, but as Aaron held his hand and touched his face he couldn't force his battered dying body to respond to him. He felt Aaron being ripped away from his hand and wanted to scream for him to come back and not leave him in this new found darkness but he just lay and stared again at the shadows he had been living in for so long now.

-o-o-o-

The first round hit the man in the doorway in the chest. He fell with no complaint.

The second shot slid its path across Emily's left arm causing nothing but a graze.

The third hit Floyd central in the upper chest.

The fourth hit Floyd again this time in the side of his face just in front of his left ear.

The fifth hit the second man in the neck. His hand went to the hole and he fell sideways against the door and slipped twitching to the white and blood red tiles.

The sixth hit Emily in the side, but again only a graze

The seventh hit Emily in the left arm again – this time getting a proper blood splattering hit. She screamed in pain and fired again.

The eight hit the final man in the forehead. He fell where he stood.

All the time there was a blood curdling scream coming from the small child hiding in the bath tub.

"Rosa – are you hurt?" Her words coming out in gasps of pain.

"No." a small terrified voice. "I peed myself."

Emily turned to Floyd and looked at the fresh blood oozing from his chest and face.

"Stay where you are." Emily crawled forwards and removed the weapons from the dead UnSubs. She then pulled her cell phone from her belt and speed dialled Rossi. She tried to tell him to get back to the house – that she had been shot and that Floyd had probably been killed – all the time in the back ground were the wails of distress coming from ten year old Rosa.

"Daddy! Wake up daddy! Don't go to sleep now. You need to stay awake. Make yourself better daddy!"

Again Rossi was taken back to his nightmares. He promised to send people over there now. He told her to stay where she was. He said he was on his way.

Emily turned back to Rosa. She grabbed a towel and held it tightly over the wound in her leg. Rosa was sitting astride Floyd – her head resting on his chest and screaming in the pain of what she was seeing.

Prentiss crawled closer to them. "Rosa – please leave him. Get back in the tub. It will protect you from the bad guys if they come back."

"They won't hurt me. All of this is cos of me." She sat up and looked at her dad's face and chest. "He will get better though. He can do that. He can make him self better."

"I know darling but for now I need you to get back in the tub. Let me see if I can help him OK. Just jump down off him."

Rosa slid off but didn't get back into the tub. Emily put her head to Floyd's chest and could hear the faint unsteady thumping of his heart.

"Rosa honey. Grab me some towels will you. I will see if I can stop the bleeding here." Emily looked at the hole in the side of Floyd's head and at the blood spray covering his face and the side of the bath tub. She took the towels from Rosa and pressed one to his chest and the other to his face. She didn't want to move him to see the mess which might be behind his head. Not with a child in the room and she doubted that moving him would make a whole lot of difference except for bleeding to death on a bed was a bit more dignified than dying next to a toilet. She decided to wait for Rossi and Morgan to arrive.

Her stomach curled with fear when she first heard the sound of the front door slamming open. But then the familiar noise of SWAT made her call out. "In the bathroom!"

-o-o-o-

"Well it looks like he needs more persuading." Aaron tried to turn around to see what the man was talking about. He could see in the darkness of the room more camera flashes. He could hear something being dragged and could only assume it was Spencer they were moving. Hotch had no idea now it Reid was alive or not. He hoped that Reid's strength – the one so often overlooked had stepped up to the line and kept him going. Spencer wasn't one to give up. He had been a fighter all his life. Being mostly dead wouldn't – Aaron hoped – change that.

Again he tried to turn to see what they were doing to him.

"Keep still scum."

"I need to…….."

Something hard hit Hotch in the side. He felt ribs give way under the pressure. With a moan of pain he fell sideways still facing the wall unable to see what they were doing to the man he was meant to be protecting. He saw the flash of the camera. This time close to him. This time the pictures were of him.

"What are you doing to …………" a kick to the head forcing his forehead into the skirting board and splitting the skin in a line above his left eye.

"Shut up bitch."

They turned him over to take pictures of the damage. This gave him the chance to look over to see what they were doing to Spencer, but all that was left was a puddle of blood on the floor and a smear of blood on the wall.

"Where is……………" a boot under his chin made his teeth clamp together biting his tongue and drawing blood. He spat out blood and stared over at the empty space where Spencer had been laying. He needed to stay awake. If he kept trying to ask questions they would stop him and then he wouldn't even be able to hear the sounds he could hear coming from somewhere out of his line of sight.

-o-o-o-

In his new found darkness he saw flashing lights and from somewhere else he could feel he was being moved. The pain in his shoulder as they dragged him by his arms threatened to take him further away into the darkness and let it all end quietly, but he managed to pull back from that pain and concentrate on something. Periodic table of elements was what he used today. Vaguely he felt the flooring underneath him change as he was dragged from carpet and onto tiles. Still in his jeans which had a nice bloody front to them now where the blood from his chest had pooled and his shirt – he felt himself being lifted. Spencer managed to flail weakly with his good hand at whatever it was making this happen but he stopped abruptly as he was dropped into the empty tub face up.

Again he saw the flashes of the camera through the darkness and now the sound of water and the sensation of water slowly soaking up into his jeans and around his shoulders.

-o-o-o-

Rossi and Morgan were back at the house. Prentiss had been taken to the hospital. The problem now was what to do with Floyd and Rosa. Morgan had made it clear that hospital for Floyd was pointless and somewhat dangerous.

"He will only attack the staff. It really isn't worth the stress. He resists any attempts to help him in that way."

"We can't leave him on the bathroom floor. Morgan can you carry him to his room?"

Touching Floyd was not something Morgan felt much like doing right now and he would quite happily have left him where he was. If he hadn't messed about with the drill then Prentiss wouldn't have been here and wouldn't have been shot by the sonsofbitches laying in their little puddles of blood in the doorway but there was a child involved. Even though the child was a genetic Flanders spawn she was still a child and so he did a reluctant nod and bent down to pick up the thing on the floor.

Rosa decided that clinging hold of Rossi's leg was the thing to do and for now Rossi wasn't going to complain too much about it. She was scared and those big dark eyes were enough to make any person forgive and forget anything she may have done. Right there – right now – Dave Rossi would have died for this little thing clinging to his leg.

Morgan had just rested Floyd on his side on the bed when one of the officers left to keep the building secure entered the room. Morgan had replaced the bloody towel on Floyd's head with another. There didn't seem to be an exit wound. There was however a hole in his back where the chest had a through and through. Rosa had let go of Rossi and was laying behind her dad holding on tightly. For a minute Morgan thought the scene looked heartbreaking until he remembered who it was.

The officer handed an envelope to Rossi. "A local child came to the door with it. Said someone in a dark town car stopped and gave him a dollar to deliver it to this address."

Dave nodded and took it from him. "Thanks."

He took out the photographs first.

Aaron kneeling facing a wall. Aaron laying bloodied his eyes looking at something they couldn't see. The blood running down his face and in his eye. His hair stiff and encrusted. His hands in fists. Aaron curled up around his pain but still with his eyes open defying the attackers. The marks from the rope could clearly be seen around his neck and now one hand reaching out for something.

Spencer laying bloodied in a heap on the floor. Blood up the walls both in a spray pattern and in smears. Pictures of him laying face up in a bath tub water about four inches deep around his blood soaked body. The water around him in each of the pictures slowly turning a slightly deeper pink as his blood diluted with the bath water.

Rossi passed the pictures to Morgan.

"The cars are missing. Get Penelope onto that if you haven't already. I want to know where Floyd's car is."

"Already done that. So far no sign of it. We have no idea where he went in it and there is no way of tracking it. Flanders made sure of that."

Both men looked over at the two people on the bed.

"And there is something slightly wrong about that too." Morgan indicated the bed. "We can't leave them here and we can't stay here with them."

Rossi nodded. "Get them to a safe house. We need to work out where they are holding them. Where would Reid have gone? You know him better than me. Think about it. I will sort out somewhere to put these two for now."

Dave walked away slightly to make phone calls to who he needed to get these two somewhere safe. Morgan stood leaning against the wall looking at them and wondering where the hell Spencer would have gone.

'Probably a motel. The pictures looked like the place wasn't too expensive. The walls painted pale green and the carpet looked old. There was a chip on the bath tub and it was not a new looking thing. So somewhere averagely maintained but not expensive. In the past Reid had tended to take the forest roads'. He pulled out his phone and made a call to Garcia.

-o-o-o-

Hotch heard the smack of something falling into the bathtub and then the sound of running water. 'Oh god they are going to drown him. I have to stop them. I have to do something.'

"You realise if you kill him there will be no reason for Floyd to do what you want. This is what this is all about isn't it?"

"You just don't know when to shut up do you?"

Hotchner watched the man pick the baseball bat up off the floor and then begin to walk towards where they had taken Reid. "Time to finish this one off I think."

Aaron started to crawl forwards. "No – no!" A foot on the small of his back pushed him back down to the floor. "You are making a big mistake. If you want to use Reid as leverage he is no use to you dead."

"Do you really think I am going to listen to what you have to say? You are trained to manipulate with your words. It is your job. What is your great need to keep this one alive though? Is this a three way thing you have going here? Interesting. I didn't see Reid trying to save you when we had you both before – yet you are willing to die for that pathetic bit of filth?" The man stood swinging the bat back and forth. Aaron could see his hair and blood stuck to it still. "I really do think that Floyd needs to know we are deadly serious about our demands. We will have Rosa back and we will destroy everything Floyd has ever been close to and I think that includes you Hotchner – but you see I don't have to physically destroy you – I think we only need do that to the scum pervert doctor. That will be more than enough to destroy you. What do you think?"

Hotch just stared at the man with the bat.

"Nothing to say?" He turned and started to walk away again.

"You will need him later. Floyd won't trade his daughter – not even for Reid. You are wasting your time."

"Then my time is wasted. As I said – now I just want to take from him everything he needs. I want to take from him anything and everything he holds close. You are included in that list Hotchner. But I want you to hear Reid die first. I wont give you the pleasure of seeing it. I want you to imagine the look on his face. The look of betrayal. The look you gave him. I want him to die alone and unloved and forgotten. That sounds good to me."

Again Aaron tried to crawl forwards. "He won't feel like that. He knows how I feel. He knows…." He was cut off as the man with the bat spun on him again.

"I've had enough of you." The bat swung and caught Aaron on the side of the face. He heard his jaw crack and felt his teeth loosen. He fell sideways onto the floor his head spinning out of control, but unfortunately still able to hear.

And what he heard made him want to scream.