Again, I only own the words and Haley.
The grave was large and enveloped an entire backyard. Reid looked into it, and Morgan stepped up behind him. Reid, seeing the shadow of Morgan, tensed, as if the tongue-lashing he expected could convert somehow into a real lashing.
"No victim type", Morgan observed. "White, Black, Latino, Asian. All here. Male and female."
Thankfully, Reid reflected momentarily, his expectations had gone unmet. "But look at the age", he replied, kneeling down. "I bet you they were all below eighteen."
"So he takes any of them below eighteen and-"
Reid cut him off, jumping up and turning around to face Morgan, somewhat sickened by his epiphany. "FOSTER KIDS, Morgan! He's adopting and killing foster kids! Have Garcia get a list of missing foster kids in the state of Virginia and cross-check it against the ones adopted to the people who lived last at this address. That's our Un-Sub." Reid began to walk away, suddenly apperaring frazzled and in a massive hurry.
"Where you going, kid?" Morgan asked, taking to follow at Reid's heels in a mixture of interest and concern.
"I just have to make sure Haley's okay", Reid said, "I know it's irrational." He walked faster, practically running, finally coming to the car to discover a fully awake Haley who was trying not to look at the house.
"WHYDIDYOUTAKEMEHERE!" she screamed at him when he opened the car door, curling against the opposite door, reminding Reid of just how fragile she was.
"Is this a bad place for you?" he asked innocently. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea, honest." He looked at her, pursing his lips and biting the sides of his tongue nervously, hands clasped in front of him, eyes flicking towards her face every now and then, trying to see her response in a nervous hopefulness.
"Okay, you didn't know", she breathed heavily and with relief. "But this was one of the worst places I was at. He made me watch", she said vaguely, pressing to the opposite door again, her voice taking on a nervous twinge.
Reid leaned forward into the car, looking her in the eyes and offering a hand. She took it quickly, and held on with a viselike grip known only to be possessed by trapeze artists, looking him in the eyes intently and following his cues to come out of the car somewhat hesitantly.
When she was fully out of the car, he made his quickly-going-numb hand give hers a reassuring squeeze, much as he imagined a father would do, if his imagination could tell him what a father was like, that is.
"Here", he said, holding up a finger to catch her drifting eyes, standing somewhat awkwardly.
She looked at him, following the finger with her eyes and shifting nervously, but extending her trust to appease him.
"Now, I know this is painful and probably makes you nervous", Reid began, "but what did he make you watch?" He tried to ask it like it was a verbal quiz, hoping that she would detach and answer it with a robotic, textbook-like reply.
"He…", she trailed off, choking up. "H-h-he", she tried again, only to begin to hyperventilate and shake and sob.
"Shh-shh-shh…", Reid soothed, hugging her for a moment. "Relax. Sit down. It's okay." She hadn't been out of the system for more than a couple of hours, and Reid couldn't help but feel that this was rather cruel to Haley. Truth be told, it was a mixed blessing-she had to spend her first few hours out of the system with reminders of its cruelty, but then again, she could finish her final business with the thing all at once and be done with it.
She took the driver's seat, her feet resting on the pavement so she was still facing the dreaded house. Morgan, unfamiliar with what was happening but acutely aware of Reid's delicately-balanced psychological dance with this girl, stepped back so as to be as nonthreatening as possible.
"Can you write it?" Reid asked, reaching into his sweater pocket and proffering a pen and field notebook, opened to a blank page.
She nodded, taking the pen and notebook, writing in a sobbing fury, and handing it back with several filled, tear-stained pages a few minutes later.
Reid read the hasty, sloppy, next-to-illegible text in ten seconds, but halfway into the first second, his expression became one of shocked horror.
He made me watch them die. Sometimes he raped them. Sometimes he beat them or whipped them, but mostly he just shot them or strangled them. He only took a knife to eleven of them, to my knowledge. He tried to get me to kill someone once. I almost died when I couldn't bring myself to do it. I have scars from the whip he took to me to prove it. Then he moved. Many times. He only stayed four months in a place, tops. Us survivors were terrified. He killed more and more. He made us bury them in the backyard. We were always scared that we would be next. I can show you the other houses I know of if you want. My friends deserve a real grave, at least. Especially the ones that stood in between him and me when I would have been next. I don't know his name, but I think I could ID him in a lineup.
Shocked, and with his expression showing it, Reid handed off the pen and notebook to Morgan and took Haley, holding her tight and spreading one hand over her back and another over the back of her head, exhibiting his unconscious protective instinct. It was no matter that he was on his knees on rough, dusty pavement. It didn't matter that in the bright white colonial-style home, a mass murder investigation was going on. What mattered was that he was going to keep Haley's head nested in his shoulder so she didn't have to relive it any more than she already had.
Unfortunately, Hotch didn't have the same idea. He knew that if Jack had been through something like this, he would do the same, but he also hoped that someone would make Jack sign off on his words so the witness statement would be counted in as evidence.
"Excuse me." He tapped at the two of them, Reid wide-eyed but looking into the cab of the car, and Haley buried into his shoulder like she was digging for plutonium.
Haley gasped and tore out of Reid's grip, and Reid let her go voluntarily.
"Um, Haley, meet my coworker, SSA Hotchner", Reid introduced somewhat awkwardly.
Haley nodded, looking at Reid. "Do you trust him?"
"With my life, Haley", Reid said. "He even saved my life a few times, so yes, you can trust him too."
She nodded, content with the explanation, looking at Hotchner. His face was drawn and strained, as if the grave was more horrible than anything else he'd worked on. He was a driven but tired-looking man, and between the night shadows and the police lights, he looked like he fit right into the scene behind him, the crime-scene-taped colonial with the matching sycamores and vast, well-kept lawn out front, the white-picket fence in front of that, and the small house contradicting its quaint appearance with the contents of its own backyard. Officers, investigators, and coroners were rushing to and fro as if this were the most normal thing in the world, except that it wasn't, but all in the name of taking the things that had happened here from one hidden place to another after a brief period of exposure.
"Um…if you could just sign what you wrote, Haley", Hotchner interrupted her thoughts, handing her Reid's field notebook and pen.
"Of course." She attached her signature to the end of her writing, handing the notebook to Hotchner and returning the pen to Reid, her vision being interrupted rudely by police lights demanding her constant attention.
"Why don't you get her home and settled in?" Hotchner suggested to Reid.
"Alright, I'll be right back", Reid replied.
"No, you'll take the rest of the night off too. That's an order."
"Okay. I'll be in the BAU to get my own car and we'll be headed home for the night."
"Take the surveillance car", Hotchner said. "Show up here tomorrow. Something tells me it'll be a long night with a lot of bodies, maybe even going into the day."
"It'll go into the day", Haley said, again becoming a detached, factual speaker. "Twenty-three in my stay here, and he was here for a year before I showed up. Be careful. You're going to wish you could unsee things by the end of it", she cautioned, "and tell the rest of your team that too."
"Okay, I will", Hotchner promised, turning to Reid. "Get home. Get her home. Don't show up here until one o'clock tomorrow afternoon. If you show up a minute earlier, you're on administrative leave for a month."
"Thank you", Reid said, stepping into the car after Haley returned to the passenger seat.
"Rest, Reid", Hotchner said. "I mean it. It's almost four now. No working until you show up for work tomorrow. Sleep."
"Okay." Reid would have normally been mildly amused by Hotchner's almost parental commentary on his sleeping habits, but he was too tired and preoccupied to care.
"Get home now; I've got work to do", Hotchner said, retreating.
Reid said nothing, but drove off, slurping the last of his coffeed sugar on the forty-five minute drive home, dark circles already under his eyes.