Emily watches as a stream of gasoline gets closer to her. She rolls, ending up on top of Hotch and shivering as flames scorch the cement she had just been lying on. She looks down and sees Hotch is now awake.
"What the fuck?" he mutters.
"Do you have a pen?" Emily barks.
"A…a what?"
"A PEN! Do you have a fucking pen?"
She carefully slides off of him so he can search his pockets. He has no keys but he does have a retractable ball point pen.
"Perfect," she says as she grabs it.
With flames flicking close to her cuffed arm, she quickly unscrews the pen and slides out the insides, grabbing the spring.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a key."
"A key?"
"Yeah. Got Lauren's ass out of Prague. Hopefully it can work for us, too. Hell of a lot easier when it's not bloody," she says as she bends the spring until it resembles a handcuff key. "There!"
She shoves the key into her cuff and turns it, laughing with manic glee as it unlocks her cuff. She quickly sits up and frees Hotch. The agents quickly move away from the worst of the flames as smoke and heat are making the basement nearly unlivable. And the only visible way out is the stairs, which are engulfed in flames.
"How the hell do we get out?" Hotch asks.
Emily thinks about images of the room she has seen and the outside of the building as she had studied it when they pulled up. She turns and looks at a wall just starting to be eaten by flame.
"THERE!"
She races towards it. Hotch follows. She starts to bang on the wall and finally finds the hollow behind the wall. Both agents are coughing uncontrollably.
"Window," she mutters.
Hotch nods and together they punch at the drywall that covers the small window that leads to the street. As they finally break through, Hotch grabs the window lock and prays it works.
It does. He yanks it down, pulling the whole window out with it. He cups his hands and Emily immediately steps into them and pulls herself up and out. Hands grab her by the shoulders and drag her from the window as she coughs and hacks. She starts to scramble back to help Hotch but arms stop her.
"We got him! Easy, Lady!"
Emily just continues to cough as she watches two men pull Hotch from the burning building. She flops back down onto the sidewalk, desperately trying to get a decent breath in. Hotch drops down beside her.
A few minutes later EMT's arrive. Emily and Hotch gratefully accept oxygen as they watch the fire department fight to get control of the flames. After a few minutes, Emily looks at Hotch.
"Anything he hadn't gotten out is gone. We were too late."
Hotch nods. "Yeah. How the hell did he know?"
Emily shrugs. "Could have been coincidence. Place was auctioned off, we have his other house, he may have been trying to get what he could before running."
"And now he can. If he had enough hidden here to set up somewhere else we've lost him," Hotch says.
"Maybe. But there's still a little boy out there that can i.d. him. I don't see him leaving with that thread still loose. Not if he was willing to kill us while burning this place down."
"And he'll want to try to get things from the house on Long Island. We need everything removed from there, not just the computers."
Emily stands and throws off the blanket and oxygen mask. "Then let's go. No way am I letting anyone but me near all the stuff in the office. We don't have time to go through it all again."
Hotch stands. "Right."
He goes and has a few words with the fire chief. The two agents get a police officer to drive them, lights flashing and sirens blaring, back to the house on Long Island to get their evidence before the unsub torches it, too.
Emily rubs her head, the sirens piercing her skull like an arrow, making an already bad headache even worse.
JJ sees Rossi and Pete leaving the street with Mr. Banner. She frowns as she walks into the house.
"Reid, what's with the neighbor?"
"Protective custody." He explains Morgan's concerns. JJ nods. Reid studies her. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know. Just a feeling. Neither Hotch nor Emily are answering their phones. Not even sending texts."
Reid's brow wrinkles in concern. "We couldn't reach them either."
JJ shivers. She can't worry about maybes and what if's. "Let me get upstairs. If we find his bank info we find him."
Reid nods. He goes back to sorting the business lists for transport as JJ goes upstairs. Putting on gloves, she pulls herself up into the attic. The ceiling is so low she has to hunch over at the shoulders even in the highest part. She slowly turns, her flashlight lighting up each area very carefully. She sees where the pallet and dirty blanket had been laying before being they collected it for DNA processing.
"Oh, you poor boy, Victor."
She starts to look into the many boxes stuffed up there. Most look to be things that had belonged to the previous owner. She shakes her head. Years of memories are stored up here. They didn't have time to go through them all. If they weren't careful the unsub would be in the wind and more children would suffer.
"Think, Prentiss, think."
She turns and looks at everything again. Her eyes narrow as she sees the military-style footlocker.
"Ethel Steinberg never married. Might be hers, might not be."
JJ walks over and sees the new lock on it. "Where's Emily when I need her lock-picking skills?"
There is a fine layer of dust on most things in the attic but this footlocker is very clean. Too clean. She glances to where Victor's pallet had been.
"Far enough away the kids probably would leave it alone because they wouldn't want to pass the trapdoor." She looks back at the trunk. "This is yours, you fucking bastard."
She pulls her gun and checks the safety. Taking a deep breath (and hoping it works in real life the way it does on TV) she slams the butt of the gun into the lock. She smiles as it does in fact jar the locking mechanism enough to open the latch.
"Damn you're good, Prentiss," she praises herself.
She throws the lid open and looks inside. She feels her stomach turn as she starts to flip through the items.
Magazines and photos depicting women being tortured or in various sexual situations. All make her the submissive and usually she seems to be in pain.
"So our unsub isn't a pedophile just a fucking businessman who deals in kids," she growls in disgust.
She moves another folder and stops short. A brown leather ledger book sits on the bottom of the trunk. She opens it and starts to read. It's in code but it is mostly numbers. Large numbers.
"Gotcha."
She pulls a large evidence bag out of her pocket and slides the ledger in. She seals it and writes the time, date, and location of discovery on the bag. No way was this information getting tossed out on a technicality if she can help it. She looks through the rest of the items in the trunk but this is the only thing that stands out as being possibly part of the pedophile trafficking. She makes her way to the trapdoor and lowers herself out of the attic.
Downstairs, Reid looks up as Hotch and Emily hurry in. His eyes widen as he takes in their appearances. Both are soot covered. Emily's jacket is singed along one arm. Hotch's hair is uncharacteristically mussed and his white shirt is nearly black.
"What the hell happened to you two?" Reid asks.
"Turns out smoking really is bad for your health," Emily mutters.
Reid turns from her to Hotch. "What?"
"Unsub torched Camille's house. We were in it."
"Holy shit!" The agents turn and see JJ standing their, her eyes wide with fear. "Why the HELL didn't you call me?"
Emily walks to her. "He took our phones and guns. He cuffed us to a radiator and left us to die in that fucking basement. We came right here as soon as we got away from the EMT's."
JJ just shakes her head. "I knew something was wrong. I just…felt it."
Emily lays her hands on her wife's shoulders. "Well, have to admit, you and the kids were on top of my thoughts."
JJ pulls her into a hug. "Thank goodness you're okay."
"Mostly. Head is throbbing from falling and getting kicked twice."
"What? Em, you know the doctors said if you get hit in the head you need an MRI."
Emily frowns. "Uh, actually, I kind of forgot about that in the rush to get back here and secure all the evidence. The unsub was willing to torch that house to make sure nothing is found. He'll do the same here."
"Right." JJ holds up the evidence bag. "But he won't get this. Reid, it's full of codes and large amounts of money."
Emily smiles proudly. "You found his bank ledger."
"Yep, in the same place he hid his moneymakers: the attic."
Hotch nods. "Good job. Now, let's get this place packed up. Everything and anything we can find. We get it out of here and then we lay in wait for him. He'll come here and we'll catch him."
The agents nod. Emily turns towards the stairs and starts up. Suddenly she is hit with a wave of vertigo as her head starts to throb harder. She grabs the handrail as she sways.
"HOTCH!" JJ yells as she grabs her wife and eases her down onto a step.
He hurries over. "Prentiss, you might have a concussion."
"So might you," she snaps. "You were out from the minute we fucking landed!"
JJ and Hotch exchange a look. The angry retort is out of character…but familiar from the early aftermath of her recovery from the coma.
"You're right, I was. And I probably do. We secure the house and then we both get to the hospital for medical clearance. Deal?"
Emily stares into his eyes. She looks over and sees the concern in JJ's. She gives a slight nod. "Yeah. Deal. Sorry."
"I'm the one who's sorry. I didn't think about your head injury. I should have. JJ, help her catalog everything up there. We need to get it to the FBI building."
The two women nod. JJ and Hotch help Emily up. JJ keeps her hand on her wife's arm as they make their way upstairs.
In the office the women work in silence boxing up the DVD's and pictures. Emily sighs.
"I won't be back here, Jen. Hotch might be but I won't get cleared. I can tell."
"Yeah, I know."
"You all be careful. He had no compunction about leaving us to die in that basement. He will feel he has nothing to lose."
"Emily, we know. We'll be ready for him. I promise."
Emily just nods. She trusts her team but after what happened in the city she is hurting and nervous. She would remain that way until he is caught.