Chapter 22

BAU Headquarters
Quantico, VA

Spencer

"She's dealing with a case of courtship disorder. According to the courtship disorder hypothesis, there is a species-typical courtship process in humans consisting of four phases. These phases are one, looking for and appraising potential sexual partners; two, pretactile interaction with those partners, such as by smiling at and talking to them; three, tactile interaction with them, such as by embracing or petting; and then four, sexual intercourse. The associations between these phases and these paraphilias were first outlined by Kurt Freund, the originator of the theory: A disturbance of the search phase of courtship manifests as voyeurism or as in her case troilism."

"Troilism?" Kate asked.

"Watching your lover or intimate partner have sexual relations with a third party. In her case with the consent of the third party."

"So what disturbed her search phase?"

"A fairly severe burn injury she suffered when she was a child. She healed well but with extensive scarring. Add in that in her class group women are expected to be nearly flawless, even plastic surgery among teen-agers is common."

"Chicks dig scars, guys do not. Especially rich guys." Kate nodded. "I get it. Don't most voyeurs just turn to masturbating to pornography, especially these days?"

"True, and it started there for her. But her best friend is male and homosexual. He felt a little sorry for her, having nothing but porn to go on."

"And he let her watch him and his boyfriend. There you go. How does BDSM figure in to all of this?"

"BDSM is about making a safe space for submissives to give up control. She's actually a fairly dominant personality, but in the end her friend is submissive, although he acts as what's known as a switch. She cared about him enough to make that space for him, and ended up in a community which, unlike the upper class society she was raised in, accepted her even with her scars."

"And the community knows about her kind. So Sheriff Blackburn would know that she got off on watching?"

"More like she enjoys helping young men reach their potential, in every sense of the world, and actually derives pleasure from witnessing the process and outcome. And that includes in the bedroom. Blackburn was so angry that she took Joey Bauer from him and did what he didn't that he locked her in there and made her watch as he destroyed all those young men." Spencer was quiet for a long moment. "I know it doesn't fit the legal definition but it really was a form of rape."

"And she survived mentally?"

"Barely. She's okay at the moment but she is going to need a lot of therapy."

"I'll bet. Okay, so what happened next?"

"For roughly the next forty-eight hours they left me alone."

"Why?"

"Apparently they were waiting for Blackburn to get Hotch out of the county."

There

Then

They heard rough laughter beyond the door.

For two days they had left Spencer alone. He'd eaten his share of the MRE's, kept track of the days through the light of the bathroom window, taken their advice and cleaned himself inside and out ("Do you want them to do it?" Alice has asked) and talked to Alice and Jack as much as possible. He had a pretty good bead on what was going on and why, and preliminary profiles of all of their Unsubs. But what he didn't have was an escape plan. At least not yet.

Now the three of them, the three that were still healthy, crept to the door to listen through the cracks. "...I told them back in Quantico that if they can't control their own people then I sure as hell don't want them fucking up my investigation." Sheriff Blackburn was saying. "So they called them back to DC."

"What is he saying?" Jack said.

"My team is only allowed to operate at the invitation of the local police department." Spencer said, a cold knot settling in his stomach. "If they pull that invitation we have to go back."

"So they're not coming for you."

"No, they will." But he wasn't as sure of that as he had been when Hankle had him or when he was trapped by Benjamin Cyrus. Too much had happened; politics had gotten in the way too many times. He was no longer certain what Hotch would do. But he knew one thing. "Morgan will."

"Morgan?"

"Derek Morgan, my partner." More or less. His big brother anyway. "He can be very stubborn about this sort of thing." Morgan was a bulldog. He might get yelled at when he was back, but Morgan would never leave him behind. Morgan had never broken trust.

"I hope you're right." Jack said, before he moved away.

"I hope so too." Alice said.

They knew the Unsubs would be coming for them, it was only a matter of time. And likely for him, Spencer thought. He readied himself, tried to control his breathing, his fear.

They did come for him. As had happened on previous days the doors burst open. "Agent doctor!" The voice called out. "Your turn to join the party!" The men were blurs as they came in, grabbed his arms and dragged him out.

Spencer found himself landing in some kind of medical chair, with restraints quickly buckled into place. "Hello Doctor Reid." Sheriff Blackburn drawled.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Spencer asked him.

"Yeah. Took a load off that Agent Hotchner's hands. He and that Rossi fellow are good at their jobs, I'll give you that, and that big black buck of theirs is useful in an animal sort of way. And they've got a couple of real good secretaries going, that Garcia girl is a wonder. But you, well, I bet he's just grateful he doesn't have to deal with the junkie smartass anymore."

Spencer didn't say anything. He didn't want to antagonize the Sheriff and he wanted to ignore the way his words fed the seed of doubt that had lingered since the Doyle case. No, that had always lingered, perhaps only Gideon had ever truly been able to reassure him that he wasn't just a pain in the ass walking computer. But he was not going to let this Sheriff see his doubts.

"You know what your problem is, boy? You're too smart for your own good. You read too much. Well we are just going to make it so you can't get any smarter." The Sheriff sat heavily on a stool beside him and reached for something just beyond the chair.

All of a sudden Spencer heard a loud thump. "Close your eyes!" Alice called to him, her voice muffled like she was calling through a wall. "Close your eyes, tight! Spencer, close your eyes!"

Spencer shut his eyes as tightly as he could.

A moment later what felt like needle sharp claws raked at his face. He howled in agony as they shot deeply into his eyes.

"It's called a violet wand" Spencer said. "They are used for the application of low current, high voltage high-frequency electricity to the body. This creates a spark that causes a sharp pain to the body."

"But it's bad around the eyes?" Kate asked.

"The vitreous humor between the lens and the retina in the human eye is extremely conductive, as is the fluid around the eye itself. If the violet wand directly sparks the eye it can cause burning on the lens or irritation that can trigger the formation of cataracts."

"But by closing your eyes you were able to prevent a direct spark reaching your eyes."

"Luckily. There was no guarantee that would work. As it is the pain of the shock caused pseudomyopia. Severe but temporary nearsightedness due to spasms in the cillary muscles around the eye. It's going to take a few months to resolve. But at the time I didn't know that."

"What did it look like?"

"I actually looked into it, anticipating that question. Take a picture and put it into Photoshop."

"Okay." Kate picked up her laptop and started fiddling with it. "Okay, go."

"Select the blur filter and select lens blur. Set the iris shape to octagon to most closely resemble the human iris. Then adjust the radius. With my glasses I'm about a two to five. Without I used to be about a twenty-five. Now I'm at about a hundred."

"Whoa."

"Yeah."

They laughed at his pain and they laughed at what was done to him. The men around him laughed and laughed. "That ought to fix it." The Sheriff said. "Take him back; the Doc doesn't have his test results back. Can't have real fun with him until tomorrow."

Rough hands undid his restraints, and Spencer felt himself half dragged, half carried back to the holding cell and tossed in. He landed on his hands and knees and remained there a long moment.

Jack came over and crouched down beside him. "You're still dressed." He said. "What happened?"

Spencer looked up and around him. What had been blurry but recognizable shapes were now nothing but formless blobs of light. He couldn't even tell if anything was in his way anymore. He couldn't make out anything. "I'm blind."