A/N: Thanks very much for the reviews and alerts folks! We're almost there now! Thanks to sangreal7 again for the read-through :)

Chapter 5

Emily groaned out at the pain that was jabbing a sharp stick into her brain as she felt like her world was shaking. She tried to focus on her surroundings once again, wondering how long she'd been out. When she finally managed to open her eyes and the light in the room had dimmed considerably and there was a niggling voice in the back of her head telling her that they were running out of time.

"Emily," She tried to turn her head at the soft sound of her name, "Emily, wake up, there's something going on."

"I'm awake." She said groggily as she realised that her world shaking had in fact been Jo trying to wake her.

"Something's going on." The young girl said again and this time Emily's groggy brain heard the fear in her voice and so she forced all of her pain into one of her mental compartments and threw away the key...she just hoped it would stay 'locked' long enough for her to work out what the girl meant. It was a second later that her sluggish mind put two and two together:

"You're over here..." She said, her brow furrowing in confusion, opening her eyes to look up at the twelve year old.

"I managed to get my hands out of the ties." She said with a pleased smile. After she had broken down in tears over being alone once more a strange sense of calm and determination had set in; she was going to help Emily get them out of here and the first step had been to escape the ropes.

"I'm impressed." Emily said, with a proud smile up at the girl. She had more guts than Emily knew she had had at that age, hell she had more guts than most people Emily knew now.

"I wanted to help get us out of here; because there's two of us and one of him, but there's something going on and I don't know what it is...I think I heard him say that somebody's coming but I couldn't make out anything else. He's mad, and he's pacing and...and...I'm scared." She admitted in a soft voice, as if even more afraid to voice her worry. Emily could hear the terror in the little girl's voice and wished so much that she could make it disappear.

"Jo, we're going to try and work out what's going on, but first I need you to try and untie me, can you do that?" Emily asked softly.

"I- I can try." She replied, trying to keep tears at bay and Emily wished she could offer some sort of comfort.

"Okay, I need you to –" Emily stopped herself mid sentence as she heard a door downstairs slam again and heavy footsteps on the stairs. "Jo I need you to get back to where you were, loop the rope around your wrists loosely and when he comes in I want you to play along just like you did earlier, okay?"

Jo nodded as she quickly complied with Emily's instructions. It was just in time as not a second after she was back in her original position the footsteps stopped outside the door and the key turned in the lock. This time the door was shoved open with such force that some of the plaster from the wall behind it was dislodged.

Wincing against the pain once again caused by the loud noise, Emily forced herself to look up at him with an air of defiance about her; she had to keep him focused on her for as long as possible.

"You've brought bad people to us!" He suddenly shrieked at the bound profiler and from the look in his eyes Emily knew that the man he really was was gone now and all that was left was the part of his brain ravaged by whatever had led him to commit these murders. "You shouldn't have done that...it's not what's supposed to happen!"

"I didn't bring them here; you did when you brought me here. You brought them to this place." She challenged, pinning her hopes on it being the right thing to say to keep him focused on her. She wished her head wasn't still swirling with pain so that she could gauge his reaction more easily and know where to prod her sharp stick.

"You ruined everything! Karen and I were going to run away, we were going to be like we always were and you've ruined it!" He yelled as tears covered his eyes.

"I didn't ruin anything, you ruined it for yourself by kidnapping a federal agent. You brought them here, not me." She challenged again, assuming he had realised that the police were looking for him more closely now. She saw the glint in his eyes too late to steel her body for the blow that came as he lashed out, his booted foot coming into fierce contact with her ribcage.

She stifled the yell she wanted to let loose by biting her lip between her teeth. The tangy metallic taste of blood in her mouth increased as she bit down harder with each blow he rained upon her. He had snapped, of that she was sure.

"I can take it." She said during the small respite when he pulled his leg back for another kick, telling a now screaming Jo that she was fine, that she could handle this. "I can take it." She choked out once again when his boot collided with her side; she was almost certain a few ribs had been at least cracked then.

"YOU RUINED EVERYTHING." He roared, completely breaking and this time he let his fists and his feet rain down on her in innumerable blows. He grabbed her by her hair to give himself better leverage, hoisting her twisted body into the air.

"Run." Emily mouthed as she managed to force herself to look at Jo. "Run." She repeated, hoping that in his state of rage he would be so focused on the pain he was inflicting that he wouldn't notice the young girl.

She looked terrified and when she hesitated for a second, her fear almost paralyzing her Emily looked at her with beseeching eyes and shouted at the man who had her by the hair:

"I didn't ruin anything, you did it all yourself." She roared through the pain, hoping to distract him long enough so that Jo could make a break for it.

When the next blow hit her solidly and all the air was forced from her lungs on a yell she saw him freeze for a split second at the sound and her heart almost thundered to a stop: Jo had only just made it to the door, she wasn't safe yet and he was no longer focused on her. Oh shit!

"No!" He yelled, flinging her to the floor. Her head bounced off the hard wood causing her to see stars, as he saw his 'Karen' almost out of the door.

"RUN!" Emily screamed through the pain. It was all the push Jo needed, flinging herself out the door as the man turned to follow.

When he disappeared out the door Emily tried to move, tried to pull against her bindings to get free, not caring that they were digging in and that she could feel her skin burning as she did so or that her head was banging off the ground with each unsuccessful attempt to shuffle forwards. She had to do something. She was running on pure adrenaline and she knew it wasn't going to last much longer as the darkness began creeping into her vision once again.

"No!" She gasped softly when she heard a gunshot resonate from the lower floor. Tears finally fell, tears for the pain, tears for the little girl that had no doubt been on the other end of that gunshot, tears for herself; knowing that he would come back for her and tears for her team who would find her like this eventually.

She had always wondered what she would be like if ever faced with a situation such as this; this was certainly not what she'd expected. She hadn't expected her compartments to come flying open and all of her thoughts to jumble together into one big mess of sadness and regret. She had thought she would be able to fight it, to be strong until the very last second; but now as breathing got harder and her head pounded angrily she wanted nothing more to succumb to the darkness that was blurring the edges of her vision.

That was why when a hazy image appeared in front of her face she was sure it had to be her bruised and battered mind playing tricks on her, because JJ couldn't be here, could she? That wasn't possible, she wasn't with the team anymore...it had to be a trick of the mind...As she tried to force her brain to focus on the fuzzy image in front of her it sounded angrily back at her, sending another wave of pain rolling through her body before everything went dark and her eyes fluttered shut. She was vaguely aware of familiar voices calling out and of hurried footsteps before the sound disappeared into the blackness as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds