AN: Thank you for your review HappyNerd92! I also read "Fury", dragonann is a great writer. That story was very graphic, I'm comfortable with M stuff but I don't know that I'll make it that graphic. The next chapter I guess I'll decide the direction I'll be taking with this story, although I think I'll make the next chapter the team and SBPD centered just to get that part of the story out of the way. I know this chapter sort of slows down at the end, it's 11 PM right now but I really wanted to get the chapter out. I'll try to keep updating on this schedule but midterms are in a month so I gotta buckle down for school. Don't worry though, I fully intend to finish this! I already have a sequel planned as well, because I need more of my eidetic boys.
Reid was scared.
He would never tell that to anyone, not Garcia or JJ and definitely not Prentiss, Morgan, Rossi or Hotch. But he was scared.
He knew, logically, that it was a natural reaction to the situation he was in but it didn't make him feel any better. He was blaming himself. Again, logically, he understood there was no way he could have known there was a second unsub - if he had known, he certainly would've discharged his weapon. But that only scared him more, because he now was physically and mentally unarmed: the profile was wrong. He had no answers, no weapons, and now, no backup.
But what scared him the most was how John Doe was treating Shawn's already beaten and unconscious body. Humiliating as it was to be cuffed with his own handcuffs and threatened with his own gun, it was infinitely more humiliating to watch the man he was charged to protect, though unofficially as technically he was off on medical leave, moan in pain as the two unsubs tied him tightly and hauled him up.
"Stop it!" he heard himself cry in a voice that he remembered from a nightmare in a cabin. "You're hurting him more! He's going to puncture a lung." He received glares in response, but as John turned back to Shawn his face softened, and he was considerably gentler, pulling up Shawn's shirt to examine the deep purple bruising and hissing in sympathy. He glanced at Reid once more and his face hardened again. Turning to his associate, he spoke.
"Carry him out to the car, quickly. I can already hear sirens, we have to hurry. But be careful with him."
"He deserves it," the larger man muttered quietly, and Reid was surprised by the meekness in his voice. This was the submissive personality. The man hefted Shawn up bridal style, and despite his comment Reid could tell he tried hard not to jostle the man too much. Seeing the blood dripping heavily down Shawn's face, over his left eye and cheek, Reid had to swallow to keep bile down and remind himself that facial and head wounds bleed considerably more than other wounds, and that other than a concussion the psychic was okay. Probably.
He glanced at Henry Spencer out of the corner of his eye. Thankfully the father seemed uninjured, other than the needle in his neck, and Reid hoped it stayed that way. He could hear the sirens distantly now, and wondered for a moment if the unsub had really heard them earlier, but decided it didn't matter.
Shame made his stomach hot with sickness as John Doe grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking him unsteadily onto his knees, and then to his feet. "Walk," the man growled, and for a second Reid didn't know if he could do it. He felt too unsteady, exhausted and ashamed. And for a second he considered willfully disobeying and trying to wrench the now two weapons from the man's hands. Undoubtedly he would be shot or beaten, but at least he would go down fighting.
These thoughts were fleeting and instead he decided to slowly limp his way to the car and only hope that his pained pace would stall enough for his team to arrive. He knew they must be freaked out, and his heart went to them. He was freaked out too.
He stumbled on his way off the porch, and John's rage showed through again. His partner returned, and they decided to simply grab Reid's arms and drag him through the grass, gate, and into the car, dumping him on top of Shawn. Reid yelped as Shawn groaned, squirming off of him and trying to sit up. John watched with a satisfied expression, slamming the door shut, and the two climbed into the front seat. The sirens were almost upon them now, and Reid prayed they would see the car pulling out of the driveway.
Of course, Reid always was the one with the worst luck on the team, except perhaps Gideon.
As they turned out of the block Unsub Number Two grabbed Reid's hair and forced his head down between the seats, and as he heard sirens rush past he realized they didn't want the police recognizing him through the window. Although, he didn't know if anyone would be able to see anything through the heavily tinted windows - even the windshield was tinted, and he felt homesick as he remembered swiftly that such a thing was illegal in Virginia.
He felt near tears.
So close, his team was so close, but it was too late. He was scared. He knew at least one of these men was a sexual sadist, and at least one had a pathological obsession with Shawn and an extreme hatred for anyone who was close to him, that being, right now, Reid.
He wanted to talk to the men so he could begin a profile, but was shamefully afraid of being hit. The thought of Morgan and Hotch's faces made his ears burn, however, and he wracked his brain for something to say.
"You don't have to do this, you know. I'm sure Shawn would like you just as much without you kidnapping him." His voice sounded weak to his own ears and he cursed himself. He was an FBI agent for God's sake!
"No. I have to protect him," John snarled, his knuckles turning white against the steering wheel. The other unsub looked over his shoulder at Reid, watching him with contemplation.
"Can I beat him?" the man asked quietly, glancing at his dominant personality. With a cold and sinking feeling, Reid realized he must be the sadist.
Mercifully, there wasn't much room to move in the car, and his pain threshold was met rather quickly. He faded into darkness, accepting it.
He woke to pain.
Tears sprung to his eyes immediately as he gripped his ribs, fruitlessly trying to diminish the throbbing that shot needles white-hot through his flesh, breathing shallowly to reduce the pain. Only seconds later did the screaming agony in his head make itself known, and he gripped his scalp tightly, trying desperately to ground himself against the jackhammer behind his eyes. He couldn't stop the few tears that slipped out any more than the low groan that escaped.
He couldn't do anything for several minutes except lie there and breathe. He couldn't even think. He didn't want to think. He wanted to slip back into the nauseously wavering blackness on the edges of his mind. But he knew he shouldn't, not with the clear concussion he was now experiencing. Instead he rolled over to the edge of what he was lying on - it felt like a bare mattress - and threw up, heaving painfully. He wanted the agony to stop, but knew it wouldn't. He would need to force through it.
He just wanted to slip back into darkness, but bigger concerns pushed that desire aside. Where was he? Who were the men? Was Spencer okay? He laid for a few more seconds before trying to pry his eyes open. One felt like it was glued shut, something sticky and dried coating his eyelids. The other opened easily, and he stared at the wall in front of him before rolling onto his back, knowing the smell of his own vomit would only make him nauseous again. He stared at the ceiling, taking in what he could about the room from his position, still trying to force his left eye open.
The air was cool and humid, and the ceiling was cement, but the wall looked like packed soil: probably a basement. He was lying on an old and very stained mattress, which he was unashamedly thankful for, as the floor didn't look terribly comfortable to him. He could see two support pillars in the middle of the room out of the corner of his eye, only confirming his conclusion of an underground prison. It was dark, a dim light coming from one corner of the room where he thought he could see stairs. If he listened closely, he could hear crickets and birds, so he wasn't in the city anymore or near the beach. It must be somewhere in the mountains, he thought, and cursed. It would only make him so much harder to find.
Slowly he forced himself to roll over and push himself up, examining the room more. He was in the back right corner of the room; in the front left was the stairway and the dim pool of light, and in the corner across from him was Dr. Spencer Reid, looking worse for wear. He couldn't stop the gasp that escaped him as he crawled over to the beaten doctor, afraid to touch him for fear of hurting him more.
"Spencer," he felt more than heard himself whisper, reaching out to shake the younger man lightly. "Spencer, come on man, don't do this to me. Wake up, c'mon Spence." Idly he noticed that while he wasn't tied up, Reid was chained to a metal pole that was sunk into the ground and secured in cement, and he cursed quietly. Either they didn't think Shawn could escape, or they knew he wouldn't try to without Spencer.
"Reid, my man, wake up for me." He shook harder, biting his lip, afraid serious damage had been done that he couldn't fix, but relief flooded him with Spencer groaned and opened his eyes.
It was a gruesome sight he saw.
Shawn's eye was glued shut with his own blood, and he could tell the man was in immense pain. Reid's body was filled with a dull throbbing from the beating he had taken, and he could only hope he hadn't sustained a concussion. Weakly, he reached up his hands to assess the damage, only to hear the rattling of chains and see his hands still cuffed together, albeit this time in front of him, for which he was glad. Sitting up slightly he could feel a cold collar around his neck, and followed the chain with his eyes to a sturdy metal pole which he knew he wouldn't be able to move. Shawn and him shared a look - neither one felt like talking - and he reached up to feel out the restraint before silently searching his pockets for anything that would be of use while Shawn did the same, both coming up empty.
"Damn it," Shawn muttered, glancing around the rather bare room. He looked back to Spencer. "Are you alright, man? At least, as alright as you could be in this situation?" Spencer nodded, sitting up more and leaning back against the wall, Shawn settling next to him.
"I'm not too hurt. The combination of painkillers and adrenaline knocked me out. I just have a few bruises, I think, nothing broken." Shawn closed his eyes, wrapping an arm around his ribs again, breathing slowly.
"Do you think they'll find us?" he whispered, looking to Spencer for reassurance.
"Of course," Spencer responded without hesitation. "My team and your friends will find us. There's no doubt."
"Yeah... But will they find us before it's too late? I'm sure you know the statistics on kidnappings..." He looked at Reid, his eyes watery. "They may keep me since I'm the subject of their delusions. But what about you? They'll hurt you. I can't stand that, that's not fair."
"I can handle it. This is what I've been trained for. I'm more worried... Shawn, we're going to have to find a way to get out of this, or get the opportunity to give the others a clue."
"You're worried they'll... That I'll be..." Shawn took a shuddering breath, swallowing thickly, unable to force out the word. The subject dropped. "I think we're in the mountains, but I couldn't tell you where. There are a lot of trails and cabins around Santa Barbara." Reid nodded thoughtfully.
"It explains the dumping of the bodies along the footpaths."
"Yeah, and right now a lot of the cabins are abandoned since it's too early for campers and too late for hunters. There's no telling which one we're in, since they probably didn't register for the cabin like they're supposed to."
"Do all the cabins have cellars?"
"Most of them. It's precautionary in case there are large storms that cause mudslides. Like in tornado alley, they have basements in most houses too." Spencer nodded, thinking hard.
"They aren't the type of unsubs who insert themselves in police investigations or taunt the law enforcement. There's a sadistic submissive and a sexually psychotic dominant... I think the stabbing of the bodies was done by the submissive personality to try and please the dominant personality."
"Do you think your team will be able to figure that out?" Reid looked down, slowly shaking his head.
"Probably not. Having two unsubs changes the dynamics of a profile. They can probably figure out there's a dominant and submissive, but I don't know how much more they can solve without more information which they don't have."
"Do you think the other murders were just crimes of opportunity?"
"Yeah. I think the submissive wanted to impress the dominant so that the dominant would pay attention to him more instead of you. I don't think it worked though - instead it acted as a trigger to his violence." Shawn sighed, leaning his head back against the wall, thinking hard and trying not to let fear and thoughts of what might happen overcome him.
"I don't know how I'll get out of this one," he muttered. Spencer was silent for a moment.
"We don't have to worry. We'll be out of here soon. My team will find us. I know they will." They both froze and tensed up as light suddenly flooded the room, making them blink, and they heard footsteps on the stairs. John Doe's smiling face appeared, but his smile disappeared quickly when he saw the two sitting next to each other.
"Get away from him, Shawn."
"I'm good right here, thanks."
"Get away, or I'll let Adam do much worse to him." Shawn looked up, seeing no hesitation in the unsubs eyes, and slowly limped his way back to the mattress, collapsing onto it with a moan of pain. The smile was back.
"Good! Now we can finally have fun. I know you're still hurt, don't worry. I'll be gentle this time. I don't want to wait any longer. We've both been patient enough." Shawn looked at Reid and saw his own terrified horror reflected back at him.
But there was nothing he could do about it.
