A/N: Beta read and bunny-enhanced byt the Gublerific editor frog! Please don't kill me. Seriously. Don't kill me.
Reid fell to his knees, exhausted. The task of unclogging the toilet after his ordeal had left him completely spent, and he could no longer stand up. His outside hurt from the previous beating, and his insides were rebelling against him; trying to escape through his stomach.
All he could hear was his own strained breath as he let his eyes close and his head tilt backwards against the wall. The young doctor's heartbeats weren't nearly as loud as they once were, having slowed down to a steady pace.
Reid could no longer feel his wounds. His natural defense system had kicked in some time ago and shut off the nerve endings signaling pain to the brain.
The young man slumped down on his side against the wall. Lying on the cold concrete he tried to imagine what life would be like if he would make it out of this godforsaken hell hole.
I'd probably need therapy for the rest of my life. Do I really want to go through my life constantly looking over my shoulder, fearing that someone will kidnap me again...and again? And women; what about women?
Will I ever be able to trust a woman again after this?
Trying to lick his cracked lips, the young agent found that he had no saliva in his mouth. The word cotton mouth didn't even come close to the dryness reigning in his mouth. He needed water – badly.
Slowly rising, he leaned on the wall as he made his way over to the corner where he kept his precious drinking glass. After retrieving it with trembling fingers, he ventured over to the water bottle. Reid estimated the remaining amount of water to be somewhere between four and five glasses, reasonably filled.
As he lifted the container, the exertion overwhelmed him and he felt faint as he began to wobble. Having no strength left to hold the still heavy container, it slipped from his weak hands and hit the floor with a thud; and a crash.
The bottle had hit the glass, shattering it.
Reid could cry. The remaining water poured out over the floor before he could do anything about it. As he raised the bottle to its upright position, only a few mouthfuls remained in it.
Lifting the now fairly light bottle to his lips, he managed to swallow the last drops of fluid lingering in it.
Dropping the container on the concrete, he dropped to the floor, eagerly licking the slightly jagged surface to catch whatever liquid he could get into his system.
The shard of glass ripping against his lip made him jerk his head up. Holding his mouth, the young agent felt blood running from his lip down through his fingers. He realized there was no way he could drink that water, mixed with pieces of glass.
Crawling away from the puddle of glass-mixed water, he went to his secure corner, still holding his mouth. Strangely enough, his lip hurt more than any other part of his body.
The glass. The glass. The glass. I broke it. I broke it. I broke it. Naughty. Naughty. Naughty. Punish. Punish. Punish.
The dehydration; the malnutrition; the mind games; the abuse; the sleep deprivation; it all finally became too much for the young man to handle.
Reid put his hands on his head and began to roughly rock back and forth. His breathing started to speed up and with every breath came a small cry. Clawing at his scalp, his cries became louder, and more desperate; nearly manic.
If I punish myself first, they won't do it! They won't have to go through the trouble! I have to punish myself for being naughty!
The young doctor began pulling at his short tests of hair, banging his head against the concrete behind him.
Reid wanted to be sure that he had punished himself enough not to get another 'visit'.
Crawling over to the puddle of water, he searched the floor for a suitable piece of glass. The young doctor ran his hands over the floor, nicking and cutting them in the process before he found the shard of choice.
Standing up, he stared at the camera; a manic smile on his lips.
"I was bad! I broke the glass! But look, I'm punishing myself! Look! Look!"
Putting the shard of glass to his right thigh, he let it dig into the soft flesh, creating a gash about three inches long; but not too deep. Blood poured from the wound, as Reid laughed.
"Look! Look! You don't have to do it! I'm doing it myself!"
He let out another manic laughter as he let the shard cut through the skin and flesh of the other thigh. Crimson blood ran down his legs, gathering in small puddles by his feet.
Squeezing the almost triangular piece of glass in his hand, blood trickled through his fingers. His eyes had no focus; and he felt no pain. Just release.
"I'm good now, see?" he called. "I'm a good boy! Not naughty; good!"
The young agent staggered around in the cell, laughing absently. His mind was no longer with him. The sounds emerging from his throat could not be directly described as laughter, but not as an expression of any other feeling either. They were just...sounds.
Reaching a wall, Reid walked straight into it nose first, and it began bleeding. Still, the young man felt no pain. His eyes stared blankly out into nothingness as he still smiled; although it looked more like a horrible grimace than a smile.
"I'm a good boy... I'm a good boy... I'm a good boy..." he repeated in a mumbling voice as he kept pacing.
The young man felt a veil of black settling over his eyes as his knees gave in, sending him to the flood like a bag of cement. Drifting away from consciousness, the phrase echoed in his absent head.
I'm a good boy...
--
"This is insane." Emily practically threw the book over the table, nearly hitting Hotch sitting at the other side. "Follow your finger? What the hell does that even mean!"
The entire BAU was becoming more and more irate with the pointless riddles supposed to lead them to Reid. They had nothing to go on.
"She's making us play a goddamn child's game to find Reid, like some deranged cat-and-mouse setup." Morgan leaned on the table as he placed his entire weight on his knuckles. "This has got to end."
"Yeah, but how? We have the UnSub's identity and her motive, the victimology is done and we know they're in Michigan. We just have no way of knowing where in Michigan they are."
There was desperation in the air as the BAU put their heads together in attempt after attempt to solve the riddles flashing before them on the screen of the small laptop.
Gideon was at his worst. His analytical sense was taking heavy blows as his mind constantly drifted back to the disturbing images he had seen earlier; Reid lying naked on the floor, crying. It was hard keeping his head together knowing that his protégé was being mistreated this way – and all because of him.
Hotch began to lose faith. He didn't want to, but the situation was sincerely hopeless. Reid had been missing for a week, and the team had tried for five days to find him, only to come to a complete stop. Was there nothing more they could do?
Suddenly, the door flew open and two officers holding a perp by the arms barged in. Hotch flew up, meeting the men halfway.
"What are you doing? This room's taken."
One of the officers realized their mistake. "Oh, sorry sir! We forgot you guys were in here. We'll take the next one. Sorry for the inconvenience."
"No problem."
The officers led the perp down the hall. The BAU could hear the perp yelling profanities at the uniformed men holding him.
"Let go of me, you pigs! I haven't done anything!"
"Yeah, it's not a crime to break into cars," one of the officers said in a mocking voice.
A moment's silence, then came the officer's voice again.
"Oh, you're flipping me the bird now? I already know the way to the UP, thank you very much. Now get in there!"
A door slammed in the hallway and the room was once again reasonably silent.
Morgan frowned. What did he just say? Rising from his chair, he raced out into the hallway, opening the door that had just slammed shut.
"Hey!" The officer who had barged into the BAU-room a moment ago turned to Morgan. "You have your own room!"
"Yeah, yeah." Morgan had a hunch. "Look, just two things: what the hell is the 'UP,' and what did you just say about knowing the way there?"
Furrowing his brow, the officer looked skeptically at the agent before him. "Well, he flipped me off."
"So?"
"So, here in Michigan, everyone uses their hand as kind of a state map, at least here in the Mitten. The 'UP' is the Upper..."
"Come again?"
"You definitely must not be from here. Look." The officer held out his right hand, fingers together; thumb out; palm up. "Michigan looks like this. And when you flip someone off..." He bent all fingers except his middle finger. "...it looks like you're giving directions to the Upper Peninsula. Why do you...? Hey!"
But Morgan had already left the room. Running down the hall and into the interrogation room occupied by the BAU, he ripped the map of Michigan straight off the wall, slamming it down on the table.
Everyone rose, shocked as well as excited; what had he found?
"Morgan, what is it?" Hotch joined his subordinate by the map.
"The map we carry with us at all times; it's our hand!" Morgan was excited, holding out his hand in the same fashion as the officer just had. "The officer just told me that flipping someone off was like someone giving directions to the Upper Peninsula!"
"Follow your middle finger." Gideon stood beside Hotch, leaning over the map.
"Exactly!" Morgan held out his hand and traced the map on the table. "Alright, cities and communities along the "middle finger": Mackinaw City, Indian River, Gaylord, Grayling, anything ring a bell?"
Concurrent shaking of heads.
Morgan continued. "Roscommon, Houghton Lake, Prudenville, Harrison, Clare..."
"Wait!" Emily slammed her hand down on the table, running to the other side of the table, grabbing a thick book. Swiftly flipping through it, she found what she was looking for. Reading from the book, everything finally fell into place.
"It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor."
"The emperor and empress. Where is that from?" Hotch felt hope returning to his body with every breath he took.
"Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut." Emily slammed the book shut.
They all looked at the map. Harrison.
JJ pointed at the roads junctioning in the city. "Look. M-127 and M-61." Remembering the numbers scribbled down on the notebook in Cate's room, the jumble finally made sense. It wasn't '6' and '1' – it was '61'. 61-127.
Dropping everything but the laptop, the entire BAU rushed out the entrance of the interrogation room, through the police station and out on the parking lot to their waiting SUV's.
Taking off with screaming tires, their sights were now set on a small town in Northern Michigan– Harrison, MI.
Hotch nearly tore his phone from his pocket, dialing with one hand and steering with the other. "This is SSA Aaron Hotchner; I need every single available agent and officer in Claire County and the surrounding areas! We have a kidnapped agent held prisoner somewhere in Harrison! Well, fix it!"
Hanging up the phone with a slap, he threw it on the dashboard. Faith had flooded back into his body like a tidal wave. He finally felt something resembling hope.
We're coming, Reid. We're coming.
--
The young agent lay on his back looking at the ceiling. His eyes were tired and his body weak. Having snapped out of his previously manic state, he began to feel the pain of the wounds he had inflicted on himself.
What am I doing? he thought. Oh, God.. Please help me. I can't...can't...
He blinked away a tear as he turned his head towards the wall.
What's happening to me...?
Suddenly, the hatch began to open. Reid curled up into fetal position on the floor, covering as much of himself as he possibly could.
This time there was no basket. No line. Just a note floating down towards him, hitting the floor without a sound. The hatch remained open.
Reid pulled himself up to his hands and knees and slowly crawled over to the piece of paper. Gingerly taking it in his non-bloodied hand, he read the short message.
It's been a blast, Dr. Reid. Sorry I have to go. Have a nice life, however little you have left.
Reid panicked. He flew up, wincing in pain.
"No! Don't leave me! Don't leave me here, please!" he cried up into the opening, ignoring his exposed position. "For the love of God, don't leave me here!"
The hatch slowly slammed shut and was locked tight; once again the cell was silent. The young doctor was utterly terrified.
"Don't leave me! Please! I'll be good, I swear!"
Suddenly, the room was engulfed in a deep opaque. This sent Reid over the edge completely. He was left alone in the dark, in a cell that no one would ever find.
"No! Oh, God, NO!"