Reid watched the red light on the camera. Everything else in the room was blurry, fading in and out of focus, but the light was always there.
"Garcia, don't look," he said, but he was very thirsty, and his voice barely made a sound. He licked his lips and tried again, a third time, a fourth. He fell asleep saying the same words.
Prentiss found Morgan outside, his hands laced over his head.
"He's a tough kid," she said, even though she was worried, too. "And he's smart. He'll find a way to make it until we can get to him."
"He's like my little brother." Derek's hands slid downwards, now woven behind his neck. "After last time..."
"He'll be okay." She rubbed at his shoulder but he didn't relax.
"It should have been me." He shook his head. "Or you. Hotch. Anyone else. Out of all of us, he's the most... He's still.."
"I know." Prentiss started to pick at her nails again and this time, when she noticed, but didn't bother trying to stop herself.
They stood together on the curb for a long while, each trying not to picture what was probably happening on the monitors in Garcia's office, each failing.
Hotch tried to keep the story short and clean. Stick to the facts. Even so, he could see Rossi grow smaller with every word.
"He never told me," he said finally, his eyes somewhere beyond Hotch's shoulder. "I wouldn't ever have guessed."
"He didn't talk about it much to us, either." Hotch sighed. "He struggled, but he got over it."
"And now, three years later..." Rossi shook his head. "We've got to get him out of there, Aaron."
Hotch straightened, suddenly alert.
"Three years..." he turned on his desktop and began to search for a copy of the initial report in his archives. "Three years almost exactly."
"Coincidence?" Rossi's tone belied what they were both thinking.
15 minutes later everyone was gathered around the meeting table once again, save Garcia, who refused to leave her office.
"I know it's difficult, but we have to treat this like any other case." Hotch spoke carefully, watching Morgan's reaction in particular. "It's our best chance to get Reid back."
"You mean we're going to profile him." Morgan leaned back in his seat, his arms crossed, his posture distinctly hostile.
"And the unsub." Hotch pinned up a printout from the feed they'd seen earlier, where Michael was leaning into the camera. "We can't rule out the possibility that Michael is his real name, but since he associated with Raphael, it's more likely he's referencing the archangel."
"A zealot," Prentiss nodded. "He kept asking Reid his name, like the priests in scary movies."
"He thinks Reid is a demon." JJ looked studiously at the table, avoiding the evidence board. "Us, too."
"Why the vacation?" Rossi broke in. "The Raphael stuff happened in 07. Why wait three years?"
"He could have been in prison," Prentiss tried, but Morgan shook his head.
"Look at the video. He doesn't give a damn if we see his face. We won't find him in the system."
"He could just be confident," JJ ventured. "You know, if the Lord is on his side and all that. Or he could have been in an institution. Hospital, even."
"Garcia's looking through federal databases now." Hotch was making notes on the whiteboard. Prison? Mental ward? "We need to pinpoint the connection between him and Hankel. Let's look over our old lists of suspects and associates. Flag anyone that-"
"We didn't talk to this guy." Morgan waved his hand in irritation. "One of us would have recognized him."
As he was talking, Hotch had been pinning up more printouts. Reid's bedroom wall. A screenshot of the video showing some detail of the room behind. A photo of Tobias. "So it's someone we didn't talk to." Hotch was resolute. "But he had to have been surveilling Reid. I'll tell Garcia to pull up video from Reid's apartment lobby and the parking lot. Maybe-"
Morgan pushed his chair back, hard, and walked out. And on a video feed playing somewhere further down the hall, inaudible to the team, Reid began to scream.
He had been woken harshly; maybe an hour or two after drifting to sleep, his head was yanked back as a now-familiar hand snaked through his hair.
"You don't fool me," a voice whispered in his ear.
"Just let me go," Reid whispered back. The words sounded canned- a record of the last time he had said them, three years earlier. Only this time, there was no Tobias to listen. Only Michael.
"Not ready to confess?" The voice receded to the room somewhere behind him and Reid stared at the red light again. Garcia, don't watch. Garcia, don't look. Garcia-
He didn't even have time to process the pain before a scream had wrenched its way from somewhere deep in his chest. He couldn't see what was happening and the pieces came together slowly, like splicing cut film. Michael was in front of him. There was a tearing sound- skin? No, his sweater. He saw a flash of his own chest, pale and shiny with a desperate sweat.
Michael was holding something it was long it was dark it was red hot on the endohGodjesushelpmestopPLEASE-
"-bear the mark of the Lord," Michael was saying, but his words were distant, like they were at the end of a tunnel. There was a terrible singed smell in the air and if he hadn't been screaming Reid would have gagged because he was smelling his own skin burn. Michael had backed away, careful to stay out of the way of the camcorder, and now Reid could see the cross-shaped brand which had faded to a dull orange. "Will you tell me your name?"
"Reid, Spencer... Spencer... I'm S-Spence..." He was sobbing now. The burst of agony had not lessened but instead had spread, blooming throughout his chest, radiating heat even though the brand was several feet away and by now cool. There was a fiery patch of red over his heart, and he could see the outlines of what would soon be a cross-shaped scar.
"We'll try again tomorrow," Michael said, retreating. The room was left empty, and silent save for the sound of Reid crying.