Damien inhaled a deep breath of the cool autumn air and kicked his feet up on the side of the boat. He was reveling in the feeling of power that was flowing through his body. The pudgy man hadn't expected such a potent sensation to be spurned by his dastardly deed. He found that finally putting the smart aleck kid in his place was more invigorating than his other two kills combined.

The former agent lit a cigar, one that he had been saving for a special occasion, and inhaled. The burning sensation that tingled through his lungs was a welcome feeling. He slowly exhaled the harsh smoke and formed his lips into a smile.

"You know what kid," he said in a raised voice so that Reid could hear him over the crash of the waves, "it was easier than you would have thought to set this whole thing up."

The boy tied to the dock support didn't acknowledge his statement but Damien carried on with his speech anyways. "I cooked this whole thing up the night they fired me. I mean…I knew I couldn't let them get away with such an insult…and you…well…I couldn't let you win."

The man paused to see if there would be any reaction, finding none he continued, "Honestly, I had never planned on killing anybody. That kind of thing never appealed to me but…the whole idea came to me when I stopped to get dinner on my way home…ya know, I decided I might as well get something I enjoyed since it could have very well been my last time out on my own before the FBI had me arrested. Anyways, when I was picking up my food I saw some punk-ass kid ordering around a man that was clearly twenty years his elder. It was terrible, you should have seen the way the kid was talking to him. Needless to say, it reminded me of you and how you go out of your way to flaunt your supposed superiority and it pissed me off. And from there…well, my little plan developed."

Reid, who had barely been listening to the man confess his plan like some bad guy on a weekly T.V. police procedural, cringed as a wave of water lapped against his shoulders, just a fraction of an inch higher than the last one. He looked to the sky and saw the big bright moon skimming the horizon of the water, laughing at him as it manipulated the water level on the planet it revolved around. With renewed effort he pulled at the leather strips binding his wrists but his fingers were too numb to be of any use.

Damien paused his confession when he noticed that the genius's mind was elsewhere. He hated the fact that even now the brat wasn't giving him the respect he deserved. So he grabbed one of the beers that he had stashed in a cooler off to the side of his chair and hurled it at the boy's floppy head of hair. The aluminum can flew through the air and smacked into Reid's right temple, causing the young man to release a muffled cry of pain.

"Goddamnit! You made me waste a damn good beer on you. Now pay attention!" Damien bellowed.

The restrained genius slowly turned his head toward the angry man and blink his eyes in an effort to dispel the spots that were dancing across his vision. The pale moonlight barely lit the boy's shadowy face but West could still discern the heated glare that was radiating out from those intelligent orbs.

"That's more like it. Keep your eyes on me boy…I'm not done with my story yet." West sat his large girth back down on the cushioned chair and crossed his legs. "As I was saying…"

"There's his car," Morgan practically shouted upon spotting the genius's vehicle. The tires of the SUV squealed as its driver cut across two lanes of traffic and jerked it to a halt on the gravely shoulder.

Hotch jumped out of the passenger side while Morgan was putting the car in park. The darker agent was quick to follow his superior and soon joined him at the front of Reid's beat up hunk of junk. He found Aaron crouched down on the ground eyeing the small red puddle that had accumulated in the dirt. The unit chief glanced up at Morgan with a grim expression on his face. He then bent over and peered underneath the car. The seasoned agent immediately spotted something and Derek watched as his boss used a latex glove to grasp the object before pulling out from its hiding spot.

It was Reid's obsolete version of a cell phone. "He must have dropped it when he was attacked. Whoever it was clearly took advantage of the hood blocking Reid's view," the man said gravely.

Derek snorted at the agent's comment, he was about to say that he already knew that based upon the abrupt ending to their phone call when something wedged beneath the wheel caught his eye, "What's that?"

Hotch looked at Morgan like he was losing it, "Reid's phone."

The muscular man huffed at the unit chief's answer and kneeled down next to the vehicle, "No…I meant that." He pointed to what looked like a wallet but when Hotch grabbed it and flipped it open. They were both dismayed to see that it was Reid's ID.

Morgan gave Hotch a wide-eyed gaze, "He wouldn't have dropped that. He was looking under the hood of his car…there was no reason for it to be out. Whoever attacked him put it there on purpose; they were making a statement."

Hotch's nodded in agreement and pulled out his phone, "Garcia, I need you to contact the officer's in charge of West's surveillance. I need them to bring him in for questioning, immediately! We also need a CSI team down here to process the scene. Tell the other's to meet us in the conference room. Since Morgan is driving we should be back in less than ten, but while you guys are waiting I want you to start compiling a list of anyone that may be helping West. There is no way he was able to do this on his own." The profiler disconnected his call and looked at his teammate, whose expression had darkened throughout his one-sided conversation with the tech analyst.

"You think that West is behind this?" Morgan asked, dreading the other man's answer.

"Don't you?"

The water had finally breached his shoulders and had made its way all the way up to the middle of Reid's neck. He lifted his chin to try to put a few more centimeters between his nostrils and the harbinger of death that the water had now become.

Off in the distance he could hear Damien's baritone proudly explaining his master plan but Reid's concentration was waning and his mind was only picking up a few snippets here and there. "…I couldn't believe…easy…to fool those agents...all I had…pay…neighbor…act like me... those dumbasses…studied his build…good three inches…skinnier too."

The genius closed his eyes against the bitter wind that was sweeping over his exposed features. It was biting cold both above and below the water. In fact, when he closed his eyes he swore he could feel hardened icicles that had taken form between his eyelashes. His body was shivering uncontrollably and if his mouth was free his teeth would have been chattering incessantly. Based on the length of time he estimated that he had been in the water he knew it wouldn't be much longer before hypothermia set in. The only question now was which force of nature was going to kill him first, the temperature or the water?

His angular facial features were damp with moisture from the spray of the river. Each time the water swept in it kicked up stray droplets onto his face. Reid's brain was quick to supply that soon it would be covering his face instead of just spritzing it with each inward thrust. He knew that he needed to open his eyes now before the water enveloped him completely and he saw no more.

The young man blinked open his big brown orbs and casted their gaze across the water and up to the sky. There were a couple thousand stars twinkling in the sky above him. It was almost as if the universe had decided to put on a spectacular display for his last night on Earth.

His last night on Earth. A sob fought against the silver tape at that thought. Now that he was faced with his imminent death, he realized that he wasn't ready for it. No matter how bad he had been feeling over these last few months…last few years…he knew now that he didn't want to die.

He cursed himself for wasting his time lamenting about things he couldn't change, for dwelling on the bad cards that he had been dealt. This whole time he should have been celebrating the good things that were in his life; namely, the friends that he had been trying so hard to push away.

The genius could feel his cheeks flush with embarrassment, even in this frigid environment, at the thought of how foolish he'd been. He had thought that he was so alone in the world and the whole time his friends were right there fighting to get closer to him. He was the one that had abandoned them, not the other way around.

He had refused their help.

He had shut them out of his life.

He had surrounded himself in darkness.

And the whole time they were standing on the sidelines waiting for him to wake up. Never once did they falter and give up on him. They had been the light at the end of his tunnel and he had walked in the other direction. He had made them hurt just because he didn't know how to let them in to help him deal with his pain.

And now here he was alone and tied to a dock underneath a thousand sparkling diamonds.

He had truly become the solivagant he once thought himself to be.

It took the two alpha agents longer than anticipated to get back to round table room. Rush hour had just been winding down and traffic jams were littering the road. Even with their lights flashing and sirens wailing the drivers around them were reluctant to get out of their way.

When they arrived at the office they found the remaining members of their team spread out around the table engaged in varying tasks. Garcia was locked onto her computer tapping away at the keys, Rossi was perusing through a pile of papers looking for a clue, and JJ was on the phone using her mom voice to scold whomever was on the other end.

"Have you found anything?" Hotch asked, interrupting the working agents.

Penelope practically jumped out of her seat at the sound of his voice, "Oh! Sir! I was starting to get worried about you guys too! What took you two so long?"

The stern agent didn't respond to her question and just stared at her intently as he waited for an answer.

"Oh…right, well, I'm sorry to say but there really wasn't much to find out about West that we didn't already know."

Rossi looked up at his friends in dismay, "His list of acquaintances is small and he didn't socialize a whole lot. Whomever was helping him was more of an employee than friend."

"Why do you say that?"

"The people on this list are mainly from Ohio, where he grew up. The others are former team members that all have alibis for this afternoon."

JJ grunted a few seconds later as she set down her phone. "That was Anderson. They guys in charge of watching West went to his apartment in order to bring him in for questioning and found his neighbor sitting on the couch instead. It sounds like Damien paid him a couple of hundred dollars over a week ago to "apartment-sit" while he had went out on errands."

"And his neighbor didn't find that at all weird?" Morgan asked disbelievingly.

JJ shrugged, "Apparently a couple hundred dollars dissuaded him from asking questions."

Morgan looked to Hotch, whose face had become grimmer. "Perfect. The son of a bitch fooled seasoned FBI agents with a distraction straight out of a movie. Fuck Hotch, he probably snuck down into the parking garage and let all the antifreeze out of Reid's car. After that it would have been easy to tail the kid until his car overheated." Morgan brought his hands up to his head and wiped them down his face in disbelief, "What now?"

The unit chief felt just as worried as his subordinate but he managed to push his fear to the back of his mind. Stone-faced he turned to Garcia again, "You didn't see any red flags? Anything that seemed suspicious? Even the smallest thing could help."

Garcia shook her head, "No, sir. His life was pretty cut and dry. I mean other than a few speeding tickets, he was never in trouble with the law. He didn't go out much and as a result has a ton of money stored up in his bank account…which by the way he did make a hefty withdrawal about six day ago. But other than that when he's not working he is mainly eating take-out from local restaurants, going to the coffeehouse, seeing an occasional movie, and visiting a bait and tackle shop."

Rossi sat up straighter upon hearing the end of Garcia's sentence. "He fishes?" the older agent asked with a glint of hope shimmering in his eye.

The tech analyst looked back down at something on her computer, "Ah, yeah...I guess. I mean, he goes to the shop at least few times a month. Just two weeks ago he bought a new rod, some lures and a cooler."

Morgan glared at Rossi incredulously, "What does it matter if he likes to fish? That doesn't help us find Reid."

Rossi held up his hand at Morgan, stopping the other man's rant. "Garcia, where did he like to fish?"

"Uh…I can't really figure out any specific locations…but his boat…it looks like he keeps his boat at a dock on the Potomac."

"Where specifically?"

She rattled off an address and looked up at him for an explanation.

Rossi looked around at his fellow profilers, "Don't you see?"

Hotch's eyes went wide in realization, "JJ, you said that Damien hired his neighbor and that he had been 'apartment-sitting' off and on over the last week?"

"Yeah," she said, still trying to clue into where the two agents were going.

"I'll wager any money that those earlier occasions coincide with the deaths of Caleb and Markel," Rossi said, connecting the dots for the others.

"Shit! West is the one drowning people in the Potomac," Morgan burst out, standing up and pulling the keys to the SUV out of his pocket. "Baby Girl, send us the address to the marina. We've gotta go now!"

"…so I assume you guys were assigned to the case, right? I figured that two suspicious drownings would end up on the BAUs radar sooner or later. Doesn't matter though…tonight's my last kill. After this I'm taking my baby out of here and driving her down Atlantic coast. I pulled some money out of my bank account and I think it's time I took that Caribbean fishing trip that I've always dreamt about," Damien gushed gleefully.

The former agent allowed his speech to trail off and looked over to his captive. He was pissed to find that once the kid had zoned out on him. Damien's eyes narrowed at the brat's undying ability to annoy him. An idea sparked in his mind when he observed the current level of the water. He climbed up out of his boat and walked over to the dock that Reid was underneath. Damien strolled all the way to the end of the pier and laid on his stomach. He tipped his head over the side and saw the kid had woken up enough to toil against the post some more. "Did you see the marks on their necks?"

Spencer, who hadn't realized that West was near him until he heard the man's deep grumble, halted his struggles and tilted his head up to see the other man's snarling visage.

"I did that because of you. I thought, hey if someone else got to mark their prey, why can't I. So I carved my initials into their yielding flesh. D. E. W., Damien Edgar West. I'm sure to the untrained eye it just looks like a bunch of scratches, but now you and I know differently," West laughed robustly at the memory.

"I bet you have a lot of scars. I mean, I already know about the one on your neck. There has gotta be more. I'm sure everyone that has hurt you has left their mark in some form or another. Who wouldn't want to? How many people have tried to take you out? It's a pity that none of them were successful…but then again, we wouldn't be here right now if they had been better marksmen," Damien taunted.

Reid's wound seemed to prickle at the Damien's crass statement. Not wanting to hear any more of the former agent's harsh words, he closed his eyes and turned his head away.

"Lucky for me, I get to finish the job they all started."

West's gleeful chuckle filled Spencer's ears right before the profiler felt a slice of heat rip through the left side of his neck. He jerked his head back around and was greeted with the sight of a thin silver blade sticking out of Damien's right hand.

"You know…you really are too sensitive about your scars. Refusing to share their origins, trying to cover them up…one would think you were ashamed of them. Don't worry though, you're not going to be alive long enough to worry about hiding this one from the world," Damien sneered as he reached his hand out further and scraped the tip of the knife back into Reid's swanlike neck.

Spencer did all that he could to stretch his neck out of the crazy man's reach but it was to no avail. Damien had secured him too tightly to the post and his body wouldn't budge an inch. The best he could do was turn his head completely to the side, pushing his right cheek flush against the wood, and endure the pain.

A few slices later West pulled his arm up and said, "Now a part of me will go with you to the grave."

Before Damien stood back up from the wooden surface he saw a stray drop of liquid glide down the boy's reddened cheek. It was probably just excess water but deep down he hoped it was a tear.

Dusk had settled over the city and the full moon was slowly gaining purchase in the sky. The stars had made their presence known by sending their glistening light down to illuminate the night sky. Light-years away from the great gas giants two black SUVs raced down the highway, the people inside intent upon saving their once again troubled friend.

"Morgan, slow down! You're going to get us killed," JJ shouted as the black man narrowly avoided side swiping another vehicle while changing lanes.

His response wasn't forthcoming as he jerked the wheel in one big swoop in order to make it down the off ramp in record time.

"There is no way I'm slowing down JJ. I'll get us there in one piece. Trust me," he stated matter-of-factly.

The blonde grabbed the bar above the passenger side door and held on as her colleague turned a corner and hit a dirt road. "I do…It's just…I don't want anything to prevent us from getting there in time."

Morgan briefly shifted his eyes to look at his passenger. He could see the distraught look on her face. "We're going to make it. It's not much further…Pretty Boy's got too many roads left to walk in those big shoes of his for me to let him down now."

Jennifer discreetly wiped her eyes and cleared her throat, "Yeah, I know…he still wants kids."

A small amused laugh escaped the muscular agent, "Those are going to be some smart kids…and lucky too."

Her stomach dropped down in her stomach at Morgan's familiar comment, "That's what Blake said too…God! It hasn't even been six months since the last time his life was in danger. Can't Spence ever get a break?"

"The world has got something against our genius…every time he starts to pick himself up something is always there to push him back down," Morgan said solemnly.

"Yeah well it's time that the world leaves him alone. Spence deserves to be happy and if he…when he gets out of this whole mess I'm going to make it my mission to see that he is."

"You and me both, JJ."

Morgan guided the SUV to a halt in front of the gate leading into the marina. The wooden arm was down and there was a guard sitting in the little booth playing on his phone.

"FBI," Morgan called out before he flipped open his ID holder. "I need you to open this gate and let us in."

"What's going on?"

"Did you see Damien West come through here earlier?"

"Yeah, he got here about…," the man looked at the digital clock perched on the shelf, "…an hour and a half ago."

Morgan immediately responded to the information, "Open the gate now."

"Alright, alright…but don't you want to know which way to go?"

Derek glared at the man and nodded impatiently.

The guard pointed off to the right and said, "Just follow the road to the right and go all the way to the end. He's on the last pier. The only boat docked out that far."

The agent steered the SUV in the right direction and muttered to himself, "Hang on kid."

Fear cut through Reid's heart like a razor when the first wave of water finally reached the tip of his nose. He tipped his chin up as high as he could but he still had to hold his breath until the water withdrew.

He couldn't hear Damien anymore; the rush of the water was just too loud in his ears. He had desperately wanted to keep his eyes open in order to have at least one last look at the sky, but the river kept splashing over his face forcing him to shut out the world.

Reid could feel his heart racing as each wave moved in and out. His normally calm and collect brain was short circuiting with worry over which upsurge would be the one that wasn't going to ebb.

During the next brief reprieve he forced his brown orbs wide open and caught one last look at the full moon glowing brightly above him. A strange sense of calm settled upon him once he saw that sight. It was as if somehow his mind just knew that his last breath had come and there was nothing he could do about it.

The genius took a deep intake of air through his nose right before the next wave crashed into the pier. He counted a few seconds in his head while he feverishly wished for the water to retreat.

It didn't fade back.

Alarm bells started ringing in his head as the young man lost all sense of serenity and furiously fought for his life. He tried to thrash his body as much as he could but the bindings would not give. His lungs started to burn and his brain shouted at him to take a breath. He was in total agony. The profiler had never felt pain as sharp as the current that was radiating through his chest due to the increasing carbon dioxide levels in his bloodstream.

Unable to hold out any longer Reid gave in opened his nostrils in a fruitless search for air. The last thing he felt was the life-taking fluid invading his nasal passages.

He never even got a chance to hear the pounding of feet against the wooden planks lining the docks for the light that had once sparked deeply in the eyes of Spencer Reid had been already been extinguished.