Escalation
Chapter 10
Contrition
"Play fair. Don't hit people. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody." - Robert Fulghum
It was about midnight that Aaron was finally left to sleep. His owners didn't clean him up yet as they thought he needed some time to recover from a particularly brutal day. He crawled under the towels to hide his face from the world, hoping now that the team wouldn't find him. He was beyond recovery, and the shame he felt was enough to make him wish he could die.
His skin was sticky with blood but he didn't care, he just wanted to sleep. He was suffering agonising pain throughout his battered body, but he tried to ignore it as he drifted off into exhausted sleep that was more like unconsciousness than natural sleep.
-0-0-0-
Dave had his warrant. He took the team in his car, and Abrams took a car full of cops as back up. They drove out to the address where Mimi ran her massage parlour, and stood outside, a few doors down the road. Rossi sent the cops around the back of the house to collect any escapees, and he went to the front door with Morgan and Prentiss. The door was unlocked and the three agents let themselves in. Mimi came to meet them, and Dave gave her the warrant.
They searched the house. There was nothing there apart from the usual one would find in a brothel. Dave was upset and frustrated. He had wasted time on this when Aaron was suffering somewhere else.
The men who were there, they insisted, for Indian Head massages, were all sent home, and Mimi was arrested for running a brothel.
There was no sign of any men working there. Dave thought it was too much of a coincidence, something he didn't believe in.
Back at the precinct, Mimi, or Mrs. Miranda Sugden, was being questioned, as Prentiss and the cops went through the house checking everything.
'Where are the men, Mrs Sugden?'
'Men? Sorry, but they don't give good massages. We don't employ men.'
Dave slid two photos of Aaron across the table. One of them was of Aaron after he had been beaten. Mimi looked carefully at them.
'I don't know him.' She looked straight into Dave's eyes. 'But I wish I did.' she added with a greedy smile.
'If this man dies, and we find out that you knew something we could use to find him, you will be charged with accessory to murder.' He showed her another picture. 'What about him?'
Mimi looked at the photo of Curtis. There was a flash of recognition across her face before she denied any knowledge of him. Dave wasn't convinced. He knew that she knew him.
'This man has told us all about you, Mrs Sugden, which is how we found you.' Dave lied. 'So we know that you know him. Now tell us about this man, or you will be charged as an accessory to kidnapping, rape and murder.'
Mimi blanched under her thick make up. 'I don't know who this man is. But I lend my car to this man,' she pointed to Curtis, 'and he uses it to run his business.'
'And what business might that be?' Dave asked.
'I wouldn't know. Just that he employs men. There is a group of them.'
Dave stood up. 'You had better hope that we find them, Mrs Sugden.' he said, 'Otherwise you are in deep trouble.'
He left the room, and joined Morgan in the observation room.
'She knows.' Morgan said. Dave nodded. 'She'd better start praying, because if we find proof that she is involved, she's going away or a long long time.'
-0-0-0-
It was Emily who found the address book. It wasn't in the usual places one might keep such an item, rather it was under the pillow in Mimi's private bedroom. She flicked through the pages. There weren't very many entries in it, but why hide something as innocuous as an address book. She popped it in an evidence bag and told Abrams she was going back to the precinct.
-0-0-0-
Aaron was still sleeping in his corner. His body was racked with pain, and the pain was in his night mares, as horrible creatures caught him and abused him as he slept. He ran from the creatures in his dream, but they always caught him and hurt him. He moaned out loud as his body moved in the towels where he slept, hands clutching at the cloth as he relived the rapes and beatings. He woke up suddenly, face covered with bloody tears.
He looked up and was surprised to see no body there. He looked around, expecting there to be someone wanting him for some deviation, but the room was empty. Aaron shivered and pulled the towels around himself. He closed his eyes again, and slipped back to sleep.
-0-0-0-
Emily was back at the precinct with the address book, showing it to Dave.
'It was hidden, Dave. I think we ought to check out all these addresses.'
'I agree.' Dave said. He took the book in the evidence bag and said, 'I will show it to Sugden, and see what she has to say about it.
Mimi looked down at the book. She wasn't a professional criminal, and couldn't keep the anxiety from her face.
'It's an address book. Don't you have one?'
'Show me the address where my agent is being held, and your charges will be reduced.'
Mimi opened the book and pointed to an address.
'Here, I think.' she said. This might be the address that you want.'
Dave ran out of the room. 'Let's go!'
-0-0-0-
Aaron was woken up again, this time, icy water was thrown at him.
He rolled onto his back. Three faces looked down at him. Aaron knew what was coming. he lay mutely as the chain was unlocked, and he was pulled to his feet.
Aaron's fit athletic body was a mass of dark bruises and blood stains. His skin was pale beneath the bruising, and his hair, now dripping with cold water, was dirty and matted with blood, and the water dripping from it was pink with shed blood. The sudden movement had set off the bleeding again, and thick blood ran down his pale legs. He swayed on his feet.
A sharp tug at the chain around his neck pulled him off balance, and he fell to his knees with a sickening crack. He tried to hold his head up, but the weight of his life pressed down on him, and he meekly waited for what ever these three men wanted. He crawled towards the bed as the three men giggled at him. When he reached the bed, Aaron pulled himself onto it, and sat with his hands forward, waiting for the chains to be fastened onto him.
Aaron didn't say a word as the men attached the chains to his swollen raw wrists, and pushed him down onto his back. He wept silently as they attacked him, and he made no attempt to fight them off.
They had broken him.
-0-0-0-
They drove past the address closest to the precinct, but there was no one there. It was an empty abandoned office. There was an old desk in the main room, with a telephone on the desk, but nothing else except a few papers, which the team carefully put into evidence bags.
The next address was the one Mimi had showed them. It was a good half hour's drive, and Dave gambled that she hadn't been lying, and they would find Aaron there.
-0-0-0-
The young woman was torn by guilt. She sat on her bed and sobbed. How had she been so cruel? She was not an evil person, but had been urged on by her so called friends. She needed to make amends. She needed to visit the man again.
-0-0-0-
Aaron was beaten into a coma and dragged back to the corner where he was once again chained up like the animal he was becoming. He moaned in pain as the chain was jerked closer to the wall. They left him there on the pile of grubby towels and left.
Aaron wasn't taken to the shower this time. There were customers waiting, and he was woken up with the ammonia bottle ready for the next paying customer.
Aaron looked up at her. She was on her own, and he thought that he recognised her. She bent down to unlock the chain, and stepped back, almost as if she was afraid of him. Then she reached down to him.
'I am so sorry for what we did to you. Please, forgive me.' She touched his cheek tenderly with the backs of her fingers. 'I want to help you.'
She helped him to his feet and Aaron leaned against her, wondering if this was some kind of evil trick to get him to lower his defences. Well, they needn't bother. He had no defences left. He staggered forwards towards the bed, the pain he was feeling was muted by his semi conscious state, but he knew what to do. He cringed as she put her arm around him and took his weight.
Carefully she led him to the bed and laid him down on his side. She covered him with the duvet, and slipped off her clothes down to her underwear, and then she got into bed beside him. She put her arms gently round him, and nuzzled her face into his wet matted hair.
'I am so sorry for what we did.' she whispered. 'I want to make it right with you.'
Very softly she stroked his hair and kissed his face where he was bleeding.
'I want to get you out of here.' she whispered to him.
'I can't leave.' he whispered. 'I belong here now.'
'No you don't.' she said, lovingly caressing his bruised skin. 'I am going to get you out, I promise.'
She put her arms around his waist and drew him close to her, softly kissing the back of his neck, and his hair. He took her hands and held them tight around him as if afraid she would go. She felt his chest rise and fall as he breathed, and gradually the rhythm slowed as he fell asleep in her arms. Her tears fell and wetted his neck.
Aaron slept. But he still walked in night mares of creatures which wanted to hurt him. He woke after a short while, beads of sweat on his forehead, trembling with fear.
Then he remembered the woman who was in the bed with him, someone who was pressing her face into his hair and whispering softly that she would never hurt him again.
He felt tears fall from his eyes. It was too late for anyone to help him.
'I have to go.' she said. Carefully she pulled her arm out that he was lying on, and got out of the bed. She put her clothes on and leaned over him and kissed him.
'P-please, don't .... go.'
'I am going to get you out.' she whispered.
'I don't think that you are!'
She spun round to see two men at the door staring at her. One of them was carrying a gun. She stared in shock. She stepped to the side so that she was between Aaron and the gun. But she stood mute, terrified.
'Come with us.' The man waved the gun, indicating that she should go with him. She didn't move and the other man came forward and pulled her arm.
'Leave her alone!'
Hotch was standing next to the bed. He stepped forwards and pulled the man's hand from her arm.
'Don't touch her.' he said, anger filling his voice.
There was the sound of the gunshot ripping through the air, and a red spray of blood across the white duvet, and the harsh sound of a body hitting the floor.
'Now do as you are told, otherwise you will be next!'