Chapter 16

Toys

A/N: having a bad day….hope this chapter is ok!

What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care: -William Blake

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.

She seemed to know where to go without having to think. A pull. Something dragging her along and she rode without of thought of direction as she was manipulated and coerced into doing whatever he wanted her to do. Now that he had ripped through her barriers she had nothing to protect herself with. No backup. Nothing….just a free mind which Floyd had every intention of ripping apart and using as he wished.

Really in Flanders mind it was her own fault.

If she hadn't shown so much interest in him he would never even have noticed her – but she just couldn't keep her dirty little mind closed around him and he lapped at her and sucked her in.

Emily ate at roadside stalls. She got burgers and corndogs and drank coffee…and yes she knew it wasn't healthy and good for her skin but right now she didn't give a damn about that. All she could focus on – all Floyd would allow her to focus on was finding him. The job had faded into the background. Her oath to serve the country was forgotten and any thoughts of going to work to help Garcia look at porn was eliminated. Now she needed somewhere to stay the night. The dirt from the road was sticking to her sweaty skin and she wanted to strip off and lay on a bed somewhere and read.

It was a grubby run down place but it didn't matter. She had no intention of getting under the bedcovers so any stains went unseen. She locked the door and closed the blind and stripped down and flopped on the bed. She wasn't tired. This was a different sort of feeling. As though she just needed to keep very still for a while and recharge her batteries. She lit up a cigarette and opened the bedside drawer to see what was in there. A bible. Good. Just what she was looking for.

She started at the beginning and at a speed she had only ever seen Spencer read at she started to take in the words.

-o-o-o-

The next time Reid woke up Ardal was gone.

He moved a hand behind him to feel for the warmth, but the bed behind him was cold. He opened his eyes and glanced around. The room was very much like the last time he had seen it only this time the lights were brighter. He rolled over onto his back and pulled the bed covers over with him wrapping them around his naked body.

Spencer's head was thumping and he could feel a crust of blood under his nose. Slowly he sat up and took in the mess in the room. It looked like one hell of a party. Some of the things obviously he knew what they were. He wasn't stupid. He knew what all of this meant. Reid pulled the sleeves of his robe down over his arms so he wouldn't have to look and find out if he had been doing something he really didn't want to think about. He prodded at some of the larger objects with his toe and frowned. There wasn't even a tiny bit of his brain which remembered what happened. He sat with his legs over the side of the bed and his arms tightly around himself wondering where Ardal was.

There was something about that person which seemed to keep Reid from imploding and disappearing into his own head. He was in a way keeping him sane. Spencer rubbed at the scab under his nose and then ran long sweaty fingers over his face feeling for a bruise. Usually after a night of rough sex…and this looked like it was more than a bit rough, he would have a bruise or two. Because he would have been fighting Floyd off.

He stood and walked carefully to the washbasin, being wary not to tread on anything on the floor. He filled the washbasin up with warm water and looked at the pack of razor blades on the small self next to the taps. He stared at them for a while and then at the empty place where the mirror had been. It was behind him on the floor somewhere. He would have to wash without it….The sight of it he thought would make him feel very ill. And now it was beginning to sink in what he had done. Taken cocaine for Floyd.

He put his face into the water and washed away all the mess with his fingers. He wanted to scream at himself for being so stupid, but it was his choice. No one had forced it on him. He had a good enough will power to say no…and had said 'no' and Ardal had eventually accepted it, so why had he felt the need to do that for someone who had run off and left him after one of the most horrific experiences of his life? The man was going to slice his head off.

Reid put a wet hand on the back of his neck.

And the man who professed to love him just walked off afterwards.

"You are a coward Floyd." He said as he raised his head from the water. "You get your dog to do your dirty work to leave you free. So why am I here and why are you asking me to do drugs for you Floyd? Where are you? Why are you doing this to me?"

Spencer ran a finger along the slightly raised line on the back of his neck.

"You still need me. You might not want me and I definitely don't want you, but you need me don't you? What for Floyd? And you know something else? I think you may have been right, maybe I am a fag, it was you I didn't want. It was you I was repulsed by, not my sexuality, and so Floyd why was I so compelled to find you again? And Emily? What is that all about?"

He didn't get a reply and wasn't expecting one. He wiped his face on a bunch of paper towels and threw them in the bin and then turned to look at the mess around him again.

A sigh.

Spencer felt a compulsion to pick it up and tidy but he didn't want to investigate too closely what all the things on the floor were. There didn't seem to be any food left for him. There had been none the day before either which didn't really bother Spencer but it confused him. All he had been given since he arrived was the bowl of fruit and some yoghurt – oh and cream.

Again he looked around the room….maybe he had eaten yesterday and couldn't remember. There were no signs of food here at all. Not even a Whip-it dispenser. Just sex toys and drugs. His eyes caught on the mirror on the floor and slowly he walked over to it and stood looking down. Still around the edges faint traces of white powder. The mirror was covered in finger smears. Someone had been licking their fingers and wiping them over the surface. He sighed deeply and picked it up. He would have love to have been genius enough to be able to tell if it was him or not, but he had not a clue. Under the mirror lay the small blade Ardal had used. Spencer reached down and picked that up too. Now he was looking for the straw he had used. That was the last thing he could remember doing.

"I snorted cocaine for someone I loath and wasn't even in the room with me." He said coldly looking back down at the mirror. He opened his fingers and let the things fall back down to the floor.

Now he was standing here he could see quite clearly that there was more than one syringe. Only one bit of rubber tubing, but two needles. Again he was tempted to look at his arms. To feel them through the thing fabric of the thing he was wearing, but if he did, and he if had been that stupid then he didn't think he would be able to hold himself together any longer. He tried to stop himself from looking for whatever it was had been in the needles. He really would rather have not known, but the small bits of silver foil and the stained cigarette filters laying next to the green lighter made his heart sink even lower.

"Please – please whoever is listening – not that."

Reid walked back to the bed and sat with his back to the wall. He pulled his knees up tightly to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. He rested his forehead on his knees and slowly and rhythmically rocked back and forth trying to keep the tears of anger and shame back. Very slowly his fingers made their way over his arm in search for the tell tail mark on his arm.

Just a small sound escaped from between his lips and the rocking continued but now he wasn't able to keep back the tears as he left a soggy patch on the hem of his robe.

-o-o-o-

The CSU swarmed in. People were pulled in for questioning. They needed every tiny bit of information they could scrape together. As the people in the area were taken away in vans Hotch approached the supervising CSI.

"Anything?"

A shake of the head.

"All I can tell you is that a lot went on in that room. There are a lot of blood, hair and skin samples we have picked up. There is a lot of blood but nothing fatal. No signs that anyone had bleed out and no big blood splatter patterns. This place is also very dirty and there is no show to cover up what was going on here. What I am saying is, if your boy was here I would imagine he left alive. I'm only guessing though. I've seen places like this before. A sort of trial area."

"Trial?"

"For the sex industry. They set them up in places like this first. Do a screen test. If they fit the bill they use them. Sell them on."

Hotch's mind screamed at him but he stayed calm. He was glad Derek was back at the Precinct finding out about the other lads who had gone missing. Aaron felt Rossi's hand on his arm.

"Drugs?" Hotch decided that a one word question was all he could manage right now.

"Oh most definitely. There are multiple signs of different drugs used here. From cocaine to heroin and there is a smell of gasoline – I don't know if you noticed that? Ether. So yes – in answer to your questions drugs have been used. We wont be able to tell if your boy was drugged."

He looked away from Hotch who was beginning to go very pale and started talking to Rossi. "They sometimes go willingly. Not everyone has to be drugged to be used like this. Most are, but you know….for some it seems like a good way to get money. The porn industry if rife and this room has been used to check out a lot of people and they haven't been too gentle with them."

Hotch started to walk away. "We need to get back to base."

Rossi frowned and looked at Aaron's retreating back. "This is a very personal case for us."

The CSI nodded. "I understand. I will let you know as soon as we have any results of any use to you."

Rossi walked quickly behind Hotch. "Wait."

Hotch stopped and turned around.

"Aaron – explain. We have evidence that Reid was here. We haven't found this Gert person yet and Morgan is still collating information of others reported missing. We haven't started to talk to the people we took in yet."

Hotch ran his fingers through his hair. Rossi was right, but he had a horrible feeling that Reid was going to be somewhere on the tapes and videos Garcia was looking at. He looked at Rossi in the eyes and nodded. "We need to find out what happened to Reid when he left that place."

Now Rossi was nodding. He had grounded Hotch again – he was thinking as a profiler and not as a friend. A very dangerous route to take.

The questioning was done mainly by the local cops. They asked the simple question of where they had been for the past four or five nights. If they got through that stage they went onto the next. "Have you seen this man?"

Person after person shook head or scratched at chins and sometimes arses and crotches too and left a name and somewhere they could be located if needed. Names fake and the locations variable. Most of them gave the local shelter as their home address. Nearly all of them were on drugs of some kind and half of those were so tweaked that they wouldn't have known if the titanic had been in the street that night.

Finally.

"Yes I saw him. Newbie with Gert." A hand was waved and the tall if he stood up straight dead looking person in ripped clothing and battered skin was taken to the interview room by Hotch and Rossi. Morgan was faxing through pictures of the missing to Garcia to see if she could match anything.

"And Garcia – Don't forget – Reid is part of that list now."

Silence on the other end of the phone and then. "Derek – I hope to god I don't find him on any of these." Then line was cut.

They sat the guy would called himself 'Dan' down. They gave him a warm drink of cocoa. They offered him smokes. They wanted him to feel comfortable before the barrage of questions they would have for him. Rossi asked the questions this time. Hotch stood back and slid his hands into his trouser pockets.

"So you saw him?" Rossi finally started.

"In that alley way….near the bins…yeah I saw him."

"And why are you so sure it was him?"

"The eyes. Look at them! How can you forget those eyes. Never seen something so beautiful. The rest of him was wrecked. Drugged or drunk I don't know, but man those eyes…huge mothers and so sad."

"What else?"

"He didn't look clean you know? Not someone I would go to. Too thin. Too sick looking but a mouth that looked like it could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch."

Rossi closed his eyes at the image and sighed.

"Did you see if he left alone or not?"

"Gert approached him. I guess he saw those eyes and mouth too." He puffed on the cigarette. Rossi wanted to stuff it down the guys throat but had to keep like Morgan and stay calm…he was helping them.

"Where would Gert have taken him?" Rossi could see out of the corner of his eye that Hotch had started to pace.

"His room." A shrug. "Thought you knew that already as you were there ripping the place apart."

"Have you ever been there – in his room?"

"Once – but I wasn't happy with it. Didn't like the bondage stuff. Some guys are into that crap. I don't like it." He started to chew on his fingernails. "I was only there an hour or so…I guess Gert didn't think I was good enough."

"For?"

"For to bother calling in the others."

Hotch stopped pacing. "What others?"

"Oh every now and then Gert would get some other guys to come in and watch whatever was going on. They had bags like they had laptops and cameras and crap."

"And he didn't do that with you?" Rossi started asking the questions again. Hotch's agitation was all too clear.

"No – no – but he did with him." and he put his finger on the picture of Reid. They were there ages. Invited others in too…said no smoking allowed so he had the Ether going in there I reckon. They left about three hours later I suppose."

"And did you see Gert and…" Rossi placed his finger on Reid's picture. "him again?"

"Well Gert left after he did." Looking down at the picture. "He just locked up and left."

Hotch stepped in again. "The person we are looking for left? With anyone?"

A frown spread over Dan's face. "I just said didn't I? He left with the guys with the computers and stuff. They half carried him out to their car and left."

"What type of car?"

A shake of the head. "Geez man I don't know! It was dark…the car and the night both dark…and big….one of those SUV things but I have no idea what type it was.

"What was he wearing when he left.?" This was important. If he was in the same clothes they knew this guy was lying to them. They knew Reid had been stripped of his clothing.

"Same they all wear when they leave. Black sweatpants and a hoodie. Barefoot – I noticed he had nothing on his feet and before you ask. It's a one way street and I didn't see which way."

Dave smiled at him and nodded to Hotch who nodded back at him. Dave pulled another pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and placed them on the table. "You know I can't pay you for this information, but if you see Gert again we would be very interested." He slid the pack across the table towards Dan. "And Dan – thank you."

"He will be away for a while. When he gets a good payment he's always away for ages – weeks sometimes."

"We would still like to know." And he reached over and placed his hand over the hand reaching for the cigarettes. "One more thing. You said he didn't look clean."

"He looked like he was positive. You know?"

Rossi nodded.

-o-o-o-

He didn't notice that someone had walked into the room…he didn't know until he felt the pressure on the bed next to him and then the hand on his shoulder.

"Spencer?" Ardal's voice.

Reid turned to look at him.

"Spencer? What's wrong?"

"Where have you been?" Spencer felt an arm reach around his shoulders and pull him in close.

"I was working. But that's not what's wrong." He felt Spencer push in close to him almost as though he felt the need to meld physically.

"All this stuff on the floor." He felt the arm tighten. "I don't remember any of it."

He heard a small laugh. "You are upset about that? Well I can understand I suppose. You partied like an animal Spencer! It's why they gave you the day off."

"What did I take?" he squeezed in tighter. He was going to explode he knew it and Ardal was the only thing which was going to prevent that now.

"We did the lines first – you remember that don't you. You said one – then snorted half of it." Ardal could feel Spencer's shivers as he talked. "We played - and we loved each other…." Ardal's voice was getting quieter and lower and his free hand reached over and took one of Reid's hands. "We shot up and well…to be honest I don't remember much else."

"I wouldn't have!"

He hadn't known Reid long but he could hear the distress in his voice.

"It was your idea – I assumed it was something you always did." He squeezed Spencer's hand. "It's OK it doesn't mean we have to do that again. We can just snort and smoke. You are ok smoking stuff aren't you."

And he wanted to scream that this wasn't him and he was being made to do this but he couldn't make his voice work and all he could hear was.

'Thanks babes. You would sell your soul for me wouldn't you?'