*Author's Notes*: Sorry about the slow upload on this one guys, two words: College Midterms
Chapter 6: Endgame
The Unsub forced Ana to pull over outside of a Catholic Cemetery near Woodridge. If there hadn't been street lights flanking the entrance, it would have been pitch black out.
"Do you know where you are?" He asked in a cold voice.
"Of course I do…" she answered. "Matt's buried here…" she said.
A lump rose in her throat as she thought about Matt, her eyes ached with tears she didn't dare cry. This man was crazy… she had no reason to show him the fear he seemed to want out of her.
"Why did you bring me here? What dose Matt have to do with any of this? Did you kill him too?" She barked accusingly.
"I released that boy… he's free now because of me…" He replied defensively.
Ana was aghast… she had never honestly believed that Matt had been beyond saving that last night, and given what he'd done to Bo and what he was doing to her, she wouldn't have put it past him for a second; but, the way he claimed responsibility as if it were an honor was something she hadn't been prepared for.
She felt an almost primal rage swell up within her, a surge of adrenalin suddenly making her much stronger than she was. She jumped up onto the seat and lunged at him, using the full force of her tiny frame to force him out onto the pavement in front of the gate and pin him to the ground.
The unsub just laughed in her face.
"What's a matter Sweetheart? 12 years too soon? Or can't you wrap your head around the fact that your little boyfriend is better off where he is, free of pain and suffering…?"
She pressed her arm against his throat, choking him. "Shut up. Matt may have been small, and young, and he may have had to go through a lot, we all have… but he was still happy, still full of life, and he wasn't a coward like you… he was twice the man that you will ever be…!" She spat.
At that, he used his larger size to overpower her, and pin her to the ground. Once again, he pressed his dagger against her throat.
"Wanna say that again? I can make your death quick and as painless as possible or I can gut you right now and leave you here… understand?"
She nodded.
"Good…" he replied, yanking her to her feet. "Walk…" he commanded, putting the knife to her back.
She obeyed.
He forced her through the gate, toward the chapel.
…
Once the entire team had gathered back at the field office, Garcia was ready and waiting on the phone with new information.
"The reason that I couldn't find Anastasia's cell phone, or any record of her having one at all is because the account was in her uncle's name, not her parents, he and her grandmother are included in the family plan. I spoke to her mother, now that I know which of these five lines is hers, I'm trying to use it to locate her… I also put an APB out on her car, since we know that's the vehicle they took…"
"Any hits yet?" Reid asked.
"Unfortunately no… and by the way there's something else you guys should know…" Garcia told them.
"What is it?" Blake asked.
"The Unsub may have tried to kill her once before… during the initial stent surgery she was given way to much anesthesia, and by way too much I mean an under-weight five year-old was given the approximate dose that should be given to a six foot tall, two-hundred and fifty pound grown man…she was in a coma for a couple of days, but she came out of it…" Garcia explained.
"That had to have been our Unsub, there's no way giving her more than five times the proper dose was a matter of human error… Garcia, was anyone charged with malpractice after that incident…?" Reid asked.
"Yes, the anesthesiologist who put her to sleep that time ended up losing his medical license." Garcia told them.
"Except, we know that the unsub still works at the hospital, so the anesthesiologist must've been framed, they fired the wrong man…" JJ pointed out.
"Probably a nurse or orderly like we thought who let the doctor take the fall…" Reid theorized.
"Guys, I found her… her cellphone is pinging off of some towers near a cemetery outside of Woodridge… and you're never gonna guess who's buried there…"
"Matthew Ethridge, the other victim that both she and James Kirkland were friends with?" Hotch guessed.
"Right you are, my liege… I will say after scanning her laptop that James was not the only one who thought that there was something fishy about the little guy's death… she had an entire folder of scientific research, most of it from real academic journals… which she had access to through school…all of it basically demonstrating that Matthew should have survived. However, there's nothing here to suggest that she knew who the Unsub was until tonight, or even that there were other victims besides Matthew…."
"Alright send us the address…" Morgan told her.
"Already done…sent it to your phones 60 seconds ago."
"Thank you Garcia…." Hotch replied, as he led the way to the two dark SUVs waiting outside.
Once the vehicles were in motion, both had their sirens blaring and blazed ahead at, at least twice the speed limit. Everybody knew that there was no time to lose.
On the way to the cemetery, Matthew road, unseen by the others, in Reid's lap since this time there was no empty seat.
Reid could feel the little boy clutch his hand, the way frightened children do when there's an adult around that they trust, though as always, outwardly at least, he ignored it, since he knew that no one else knew that Matthew was there.
It was obvious why the boy was so nervous, his post-mortem mission was about to come to an end, by the time the sun rose, Ana would either be safe, free to finish securing her own health and completing her degree, and her assailant would either be dead or on his way to prison, or she would be dead, yet another martyr of the unsub's cause…
It took all of Reid's self-control not to do or say something, anything to reassure him that he and the others would do everything in their power to ensure the former. Of course, he knew he couldn't, not with everyone else around… it was bad enough that he had a sneaking suspicion that JJ had heard them talking. He didn't know just what Matthew was capable of but he hoped that Matthew could read minds.
Everything's gonna be ok, we're gonna get him… we won't let him hurt her… he thought, hoping against logic that Matthew could hear his thoughts.
…
Meanwhile, inside the chapel on the grounds of the cemetery, the Unsub had forced Ana down onto a set of kneelers in the second row of pews. He had also ripped her most prized possession, a one-inch by half-inch silver, three-barred cross necklace, from around her neck, and thrown it onto the marble floor, where it landed with a soft clink and slid further across the floor toward the side window.
That made her flinch, that necklace had a calming effect on her when she wore it, a symbol of her faith, a reminder of who she was. Without it, she felt exposed and vulnerable, and it became more difficult to control the storm of emotions boiling inside her.
"Why? Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Why are you trying to kill us off? We've done nothing to you!" She cried.
"You survived." He spat loudly back at her. "You survived… and my daughter didn't!" he growled. "She was born with complex CHD, multiple structural defects, in the mid-90s, just like you. Here you are twenty years later, still alive and healthier than ever, while my baby girl is in the ground…"
"Killing us won't bring her back… don't you get that? Back then, kids like us had a fifty/fifty shot of seeing our eighteenth birthday… and who made it and who didn't was just as much about how much fight we had in us as it was about the treatment we received." She replied.
That only angered the unsub even further, he got down to her level, with his face less than three inches away from hers, and yanked her hair by the roots.
"Are you insinuating, that my daughter just…gave up…?" He snarled.
"No…but sometimes the will to live isn't enough…sometimes we're fighting a war we can't win…"
At that, he just yanked harder.
"Listen here, you little Bitch… I've read your file… I know what your weaknesses are…" He told her, holding up a small bottle of pills and shaking it so that the pills it contained rattled inside. "Now here's how this is going to work, you heard about James's murder and you were so overwhelmed by the pain of losing yet another dear friend… that you drove to Matthew's gravesite, and knowingly took medication you know you can't tolerate. The Police, and the feds, will find you here, dead, and a simple tox-screen will prove that it's exactly what it looks like."
"You really think you'll get away with this? If they got federal agents involved, that means the police are on to you…Don't be stupid, just let me go and give yourself up."
He tried to force a few of the pills down her throat, but she kept her lips sealed and her teeth clenched as if her life depended on it.
Faced with her refusal, he changed tactics, he softened.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you sweetheart… I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm trying to help you…you've been fighting for so long… if you swallow these, all that pain will melt away, and you'll never have to go through any of that again…." He told her reassuringly, as though he thought his offer was tempting.
It didn't work, Ana stood fast in her refusal to take the pills. She didn't even open her mouth, afraid that he'd take the opportunity to force them on her….