Chapter 10 Reid's POV

Reid sat at the conference table, papers spread out in front of him. He took a sip of coffee and realized that it was past lukewarm and was nearing cold. He looked down at it and considered getting a new cup. However, it would be a shame to waste the caffeine. He looked around at the rest of the team, minus Prentiss, who was currently running surveillance on Paige's old apartment. No one was looking. He chugged the rest of the cup and stood up to get another. JJ looked at him with tired, bloodshot eyes.

"Spence can you get me a cup?" she asked. He took her mug and nodded. She looked as tired as he felt. It had been almost three days and no one had gotten more than a few hours of sleep. He knew that if they didn't find Morgan soon, the team would be run into the ground and then it was likely that they would be too late.

He wandered into the kitchen, put down the mugs and lifted the coffee pot to fill them. It was strangely light and he looked at it in confusion. It was empty, for the first time in days. Paige had been diligently filling it, and now it was empty. He guessed that she was upset by the letter, and probably blaming herself by now. One of the things he loved about her but that drove him crazy was that she constantly took on other people's problems as her own to fix, including his own. He reset the coffee-maker and turned it on. While it was brewing he decided to spend a few minutes with Paige, just to comfort her. He knew he'd acted insensitively before, and he wanted to make it up to her. He looked in Hotch's office and found it empty, nothing disturbed. Confused, he checked Morgan's office. She'd obviously been there. A rumpled blanket lay on the couch and a half-cup of coffee sat on the edge of Morgan's desk. However, she wasn't there. Panic rose in his chest like bile. Where had she gone?

He hurried out of the room, trying not to sprint, and found the security guard by the front office.

"Excuse me," he said to the short, dark-skinned man. "Did you see a girl with brown hair wearing a green shirt walk through here?" The man nodded.

"Pretty little thing. She looked upset though." Reid wanted to shout at him, demand why he would let her leave, but he realized how futile that would be. Without a word he turned and ran back into the BAU section his phone already on his ear.

"Prentiss," he barked his voice tight with anxiety. "Is she there?"

"I'm assuming you mean Paige and no she's not," said Prentiss. "We've got all the entrances covered she wouldn't be able to get past us. I'll call you if I see her." Without needing to speak further, Reid hung up. He dialed his home number and waited as the phone rang and rang. No one picked up. By then he'd made it to the conference room. The team looked up at his approach.

"What's wrong?" said Hotch instantly. Reid could barely speak, his adrenaline setting was on extra-high and his heart was pounding furiously.

"Paige," he gasped. "She's gone. I called Prentiss and my place…she's not there."

"I know this is difficult," said Rossi. "But stop thinking like her boyfriend and start thinking like a profiler. Where would she have gone?" Reid took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His mind worked quickly, jumping from thought to thought like a tornado.

"She's going after Morgan," he said.

"But Prentiss said she's not at her old apartment," said JJ anxiously.

"Think about it," said Reid. "Why would the unsub send us a note telling us where he is. He's smarter than that. It must have been a clue, telling Paige where to really go."

"Where did she really go?" asked Hotch. Reid bowed his head, staring at his shoes as he thought some more. The team was silent, used to Reid's thought process by now. He looked up suddenly, his eyes connecting with Hotch's.

"They're at Morgan's apartment," he said. "The way the note kept repeating 'Derek Morgan' over and over again…it was a clue. The unsub wasn't focused on Morgan he was focused on her, so he wouldn't pay so much attention to him. He was giving her a message."

"Do you think Paige understood it?" asked JJ. Reid took a deep breath.

"Yes," he said. "I think she got it." He also knew, but didn't tell the team, that Paige's profile said that she would try to sacrifice herself for Morgan, believing the whole situation was her fault. She didn't intend to come back alive. He felt like he'd been stabbed in the stomach. Hotch must have seen what he was thinking, somehow, like he always did, because he crossed the room to put a hand on Reid's shoulder and look into his face.

"Maybe you should wait here," he said quietly. Rage made Reid's body white hot. He fought the urge to punch his boss.

"No way in hell," he said through clenched teeth. Hotch nodded, satisfied and hurried out of the room, with the rest of the team on his heels.

"JJ, call the SWAT team so they can meet us there. Rossi call Garcia and let her know what's going on. Reid…" he turned and looked at him for just a moment. "Do you have your gun?" he asked. Reid patted the weapon on his hip. "You're going to need it," said Hotch.

Paige's POV

I walked up to the door of Derik's apartment. The Crime Scene tape was torn and the door was slightly ajar. This convinced me I was in the right place. Up until then I hadn't been sure that I had interpreted the note correctly. I sent up a silent prayer and took a deep breath to calm my nerves. My hands were shaking, but I braced them against the door and pushed it open as quietly as possible.

The room was dark; the thin beam from the hallway the only source of light. I slowly stepped into the room, my hands outstretched in front of me, trying to prevent myself from bumping into anything. Finally, I found a light switch, and flicked it on. What I saw made my heart jump into my throat. Derik was tied to a chair on the far side of the room, his back to the door to the kitchen. I rushed over to him. He was awake and seemed well; I couldn't see any injuries aside from a rather nasty bump on the back of his head. I removed the blindfold from his eyes and then the gag from his mouth.

"Paige," he whispered his eyes tender and hard at the same time. "Get out of here. It's not safe. Leave, now!" I circled to the back of the chair and started trying to undo the knot in the rope.

"No," I said, also whispering. "I'm not leaving here without you." Just then, I heard the clunk-click of a gun being cocked.

"Get away from him," a cold female voice hissed. "He's not yours anymore he's mine! And you can't take him from me!" Very, very slowly I turned to face her, my mind racing. I considered telling her that he never was mine, and neither was he hers, but something told me that playing along with her delusion would work better than confronting it. I put my hands up and slowly straightened, so that we were face to face. She was a scant two feet from me, with a very large caliber pistol. If she were to shoot me, she would shoot Derik too, and I didn't think she realized it.

"Maybe we could talk about this," I said, as calmly as I could. "I could arrange it so that you can spend as much time with him as you want, away from your husband." Her eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed with hostility.

"That's going to happen anyway," she said. "Once Darren has you he's going to let us go. Derik and I will lead our lives together, away from you two." My stomach clenched at the thought. This guy had obviously messed this girl up pretty badly.

"Do you really think that's going to happen?" I asked. "In all the time that you and Darren have been together, has he always kept his promises?" Her eyes darted away from me for a moment, and then back to me.

"No," she admitted hesitantly.

"What about Derik?" I asked. "You've had to tie him up to get him to stay. How do you know that he won't run away from you once you leave together, or that he'll beat you like Darren does?" I was going out on a limb and I knew it, but it seemed to be having an effect on her. She was thinking about what I was saying, and I silently prayed that she would agree and let us go. Her gun lowered a fraction of an inch. I saw my chance.

My hand snapped forward and grabbed the barrel of the gun, pushing it away and toward the ground. She pulled the trigger too late, and the bullet blasted a hole in the floor. Keeping my hold on the gun, I punched her as hard as I could in the jaw. Her head snapped back, and then she lunged at me. I twisted and we landed on the ground, both grappling for control of the gun. I got a hold on her hair with my other hand and yanked viciously. She screamed and her grip loosened. I pushed the gun with the barrel pointing into her chest and squeezed her finger which was still on the trigger. The discharge thundered in my ears, and I almost vomited as a warm spray of blood sluiced across my face.

I rolled away from her body and sat up to a kneeling position, breathing hard.

"Paige?" said Derik, nervously. I realized that with his back to the fight, he didn't know who'd lived and who'd died.

"I'm here," I said breathlessly and he sighed in relief. With shaking fingers, I went back to trying to untie his hands. The sound of slow clapping startled me, and I turned toward the bedroom to see a man standing there, clapping for me. He was tall and roughly built, with tan skin and dark wavy hair. He smiled at me as I stood. He didn't look like what I'd expected him to, but I assumed this was Darren.

"Very good," he praised. "I thought you could probably take her, and I was right. She wasn't even a match for you." I was barely breathing. I looked at the girl's gun on the ground, where I'd carelessly left it. He chuckled. "Don't even try it, sweetheart," he said patronizingly. He pulled a gun from the holster on his waist and pointed it at Derik's chest. "You didn't come all this way just to see him die."

"No," I agreed, my voice shaking. "I didn't." I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans, but just managed to smear them with blood. "Is there any way I can convince you to let him go?" I took a step toward him, and Darren pointed the gun at me.

"Well there's the little problem of him seeing my face," he said calmly.

"So did the cab driver," I pointed out. "Just because he knows what you look like doesn't mean he can track you down if you get away. You can change your name and disappear." He seemed to think about this. Suddenly the sound of sirens cut through the silence.

"They know you're here," said Darren. "If you leave with me now, then we can leave him here to be picked up by his team."

"Why do you want me to leave with you?" I asked. "Why do you want me?"

"Well to be honest, you weren't my first choice," said Darren. "My original plan was to use Derik here to help me out. I needed a strong partner that was no stranger to killing. However, he's too noble for what I have planned. You however," he took a step forward and held my chin in his hand. "You have a dark side that hasn't even been touched. You have so much potential and you don't even realize it. I knew it when I was following Agent Morgan and got to watch you beat that blonde girl until her face broke. That was when I realized I wanted you instead, but Alison had already gotten her heart set on Derik." The sirens were getting louder. "Leave with me," he repeated, tenderly this time. "Imagine the life we could have."

I took a deep breath and looked at Morgan, who was shaking his head at me. I sighed. I hadn't really intended on leaving here alive, but this was one way to do it.

"Okay," I said.

"No!" said Derik, angrily. "Don't leave with him."

"I want to," I lied. I took Darren's hand. "Let's get out of here," I said. He smiled and opened his mouth to speak. I heard the breaking of glass and the smack of a bullet hitting flesh. I watched, seemingly in slow motion as Darren let go of my hand and touched his head. He looked at his fingers, covered in blood, and then back at me. His eyes closed and he crumpled to the ground. Once again I had been sprayed with blood that wasn't my own. I stared down at Darren's body in disbelief.

Suddenly the door burst open and Hotch, Rossi, and Spencer ran into the room, guns at the ready. Hotch and Rossi left to the check the rest of the apartment, but Spencer was kneeling down to cut the rope from Morgan's hands. I watched, paralyzed as Spencer checked Alison for a pulse. He shook his head at Derik. So I had killed her.

Hotch and Rossi came back in the room.

"It's clear," said Rossi. "I'm gonna go fetch the medic." I noticed, without really understanding that Spencer wasn't looking at me. I knew I should care, but I only felt cold and unmoving. Hotch said something to me and I turned to look at him, not comprehending. He gently took my hand in one of his.

"She's freezing," he said. He sounded far away. "She's in shock." My knees buckled and Hotch caught me, softly lowering me to the ground. My vision tunneled and the last thing I saw was Hotch's concerned face as I blacked out.