Author's note: the big scene is finally arriving... this one was hard to write. Don't own Criminal minds.
Chapter 14: Standoff
Emily woke up to the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, as well as a certain stiffness in her neck. It took her several seconds for the pounding in her head to lessen enough so that she could finally open her eyes. Her face was pressed against the wooden floor. Granting a few more moments of calm to her aching head, she closed her eyes and listened for any sound that could tell her where she was or what had happened. She vaguely remembered walking through the dark kitchen with her gun drawn, hoping the cracks of the floor would not betray her presence. Then a shrieking sound echoed through the room, attracting the two men's attention. By the time Emily had understood that it was her cell phone ringing and she had taken it out of her pocket to shut down the noise, something cold smashed the back of her head, and she had drifted out of consciousness.
The brunette stiffened when she heard footsteps on her left side. Her eyes shot open to find two boots in her vision sight, and she automatically pulled back in protection, pulling a grimace at the pain in her neck. Looking up, Emily was blinded by the bare lamp hanging from the ceiling, and she had to put a hand over her eyes to have a better look at the man standing over her.
"At last you're back with us, pretty one." Joseph Schrader's voice could not be mistaken. Emily flinched as he kneed down to let her see his face. She wondered how much time she had been lying there, and why the man had not yet taken the opportunity to finish off the job.
"Stand up, Agent Prentiss." The pounding in her head made all her movements difficult and Schrader soon grew tired of waiting, so he pulled her up by one arm to make it quicker.
She tried to get out of his grasp but her retreat was hindered by a huge wooden cupboard. The dishes made a funny noise vibrating as Emily's back collided with the piece of furniture. Without giving much away, the trained profiler began assessing the situation and environment. They were standing in the kitchen, which looked different and more welcoming now that the light had been switched on. In fact, it looked so warm that you would almost have expected children to happily jump through the room for a quick snack. But the only other person in the room was a man standing in the doorway and looking awfully nervous. The brother, Emily guessed. She would deal with him later. For now, all she wanted to do was understand.
"What do you want from me?" she hissed, staring straight into the man's eyes.
"You took away my family, bitch." The man looked full of determination. Anger had left him a long time ago, replaced by the urge to do what he thought was right, to take revenge on the woman who stole his daughter from him.
"You destroyed your family. You killed your wife…"
"She made me do it."
"She made you stab her eight times?" Even though she was afraid and her profiler's reason was screaming at her not to antagonize the man, Emily felt her rage fighting to get out.
From the corner of her eye, the brunette could feel that the accomplice was getting more and more nervous at the sight of the couple. Contrarily to his brother, Eddy Schrader clearly was no cold-blood killer, and had only been drawn into this whole mess to help Joseph.
"She wanted to take my Lily away." Joseph hissed, taking a threatening step towards his victim. At that point, Emily saw the gun – her Glock – in his right hand, ready to be used.
"You abused your daughter, Joseph. You raped her. She is far better off without you." No antagonizing, she kept repeating to herself, but her lips seemed to move completely independently from her brain.
Emily didn't even flinch when the man hit her in the face with the gun, leaving a bloody scar on her left cheek. Not quite ready to give up, she spat some blood onto the floor and stared back to her assaulter. It was time to try another way.
"Do you know what he did to me?" Emily pointed a threatening finger to the man, now standing merely three feet from her, while her eyes were set on the brother.
"Do you know he killed my daughter in cold blood?" Her voice broke as she said the last words, but it seemed to work, because the man flinched.
"What is she talking about?"
"Your crazy brother sent someone to kill her!" Feeling that the accomplice was getting more anxious by the minute, she forced herself to continue. "She was only nineteen, Eddy. Nineteen years old… He cut her throat, for God's sake!"
Emily suppressed a sigh when she saw Eddy moving forward. He grabbed his brother's arm, but Joseph's eyes were still set on her.
"Is that true? I thought you said…"
"Shut up." He hissed, not turning around.
"I thought you said 'no deaths'!"
Eddy didn't shy away. Instead, he forced his brother to turn around. Joseph barely felt as his finger pulled the trigger. He only watched with round eyes as his brother clutched onto his own shoulder, the other hand pressing on the fast growing red spot on his shirt. Horror and incomprehension was plastered over Emily's face as she was witnessing the scene, unsure whether Joseph had really gone crazy or shot by mistake. Eddy fell down to the ground, and the agent snapped back to reality. With a swift move, she rammed into the armed man to knock him over. Her body was screaming at the sudden violence and recklessness of her movements. Taken by surprise, Joseph Schrader literally flew over the kitchen table that had been standing in the way, and he took Emily with him. Both bodies fell onto the floor with a bump, and two pairs of eyes eagerly searched for the gun which had fallen out of Joseph Schrader's hand.
By the time the car had jumped off the main road and headed to the quiet lane leading to Eddy Schrader's farm, Derek Morgan was sweating heavily. He prayed for no car to come from the opposite direction: if Hotch's driving style had already been scary on the tarred road, the poor state of this countryside lane was making things worse. The car was bumping every time Hotch took a hump-back too quickly. A few moments earlier, Derek had called local authorities to let them know where they were and that they needed back-up. They had no jurisdictional right to be there, but given the urgency of the situation, the agent had not thought twice before waving 'BAU' and 'FBI' at the local sheriff in a very authoritarian way. Just as the black Sedan pulled next to what Hotch guessed was Emily's rental car, a shot was heard from inside the premises.
Fortunately, both men had taken the time to put on their bulletproof vest during the ride, so they only had to draw their guns before leaving the car and running in methodical order up the alleyway. Without saying a word, Hotch motioned for his agent to go to the back of the house while he was taking the main entry. They not only had to find Emily before she did anything stupid; a family's life was also at stake. The dark-haired man leaned his tense body against the wooden wall of the house and chose a spot near the door so he could have a clear view inside. When his eyes fell on the scene he had dreaded to witness, the man counted to three, took in a sharp breath and used his right foot to break the door down without much care.
Emily's eyes wandered across the wooden floor until she spotted the Glock lying less than four feet on her left side. Her hand reached over but the strong hand pulling by her hair with rage made her cry out in pain. Without even looking, she slammed her left elbow backwards, glad when a whimper confirmed that she had reached the target. This gave her enough time to let her fingers wander across the floor and finally close around the barrel.
Emily Prentiss was a trained field agent. She had already killed suspects to protect herself or victims, and she didn't shy away. It was part of the job, she thought each time she had to pull the trigger. And her ability to compartmentalize made it easier for her to go back to work the day after. But today seemed different, she thought as she pressed the weapon against Joseph Schrader's forehead. The man didn't even flinch. He had probably hoped for this to come. Tonight, it would be either him, or the agent. Either way, he was not going to live one more day without his daughter. Eyes fixed on Schrader's every movement, the brunette tried to back off from the man's grasp. The couple had fallen into such an awkward position that their legs had found themselves entangled. One step at a time, Emily thought as she increased the distance between her and the man.
"Why did you not kill me directly?" The question escaped her lips before she knew it. More than back up, what she needed now were answers.
"Because I want you to know what it feels like."
"I took your daughter, so you took mine." She whispered against her better judgment. She didn't want to go down this path.
"How did you find her?" she went on.
"I had some help." To Emily's dismay, a grin invaded Schrader's features. Why did he seem in control, while she was the one with the gun?
Their so cordial conversation was interrupted by the breaking sound of a door shattering. Still concentrated on her assaulter, the brunette raised her eyes to find Hotch, gun pointed in their direction, walking into the living room. Their eyes locked and the relief in her mind would have been complete if Joseph Schrader had not taken this opportunity to plunge forward.
Derek Morgan used his gun to push the backdoor slightly open. The room was all darkness but given the height of the ceiling and the emptiness around him, the agent guessed that it was a sort of garage. From his position, he could not hear Emily's conversation with Schrader, or the door being kicked down by Hotch. But yet, weak noises were disturbing the silence he had expected to find. In his career as a profiler and FBI agent, he had often enough walked in on trapped victims to recognize their distinguishable whimpers. He suppressed a sigh of relief: the family was still alive. This was hardly believable, after a whole month. Using his flashlight, the agent walked around the room, his mind focused on determining the origin of the sounds. Soon enough, he spotted a door closed with a padlock, and put the gun back into its holster. The device was strong and the door made of metal. He would need strong tools to get this thing to open, he decided, turning around with his flashlight still in hand.
"Mrs. Richards?" he said softly so as not to startle the obviously terrified woman. The mere response he got were more whimpers.
"Mrs. Richards, this is Agent Morgan, from the FBI. We have come here to get you out. Are the children with you?"
There was silence for two seconds, as the woman probably considered whether to trust the unknown voice or not. When Derek heard the sound of a body throwing itself onto the door, Derek knew that he had convinced her.
"Stay calm, I am trying to get you out of there." Trying to stay as quiet as he could, Derek began rummaging around the room until he heard a shot coming from the other side of the house.
