The Lake House Chapter 10, a criminal minds fanfic

Criminal Minds characters and universe are not mine, but the original characters, storyline and wording are mine.

Poor Hotch. He just can't catch a break.

Huge thank you to unnamed Guest reviewer. I'm so happy you're enjoying the story. Thanks for taking the time to review; it was getting thoroughly depressing that over 130 people are reading the story but only two had bothered to say anything.

Warning: Graphic non-sexual violence and abuse throughout this chapter. If you feel like you need a hug by the end of it (I frikken did), go to youtube and look up "wheels up the hotch song".

Just a thought…unsub means unknown subject. So once they know an unsub's name is he just a sub? In which case can you get him as a twelve inch rye with sweet onion relish? :D lol

The Lake House

Chapter 10

The team felt for Hotch. They heard the guilt in his voice and knew he was thinking of what the victim had been going through while he was relaxing what could have been only miles away. Although they were all beginning to wonder if this woman was only the victim of a crime to their boss. They heard her trying to distract him from what they'd just learnt.

"Look at me. Aaron, look at me. This wasn't your fault, nor mine either. And knowing or not knowing how long I was there doesn't change that. How you feel and how I feel is unimportant right now; only the other woman or women he may have matter. When this is over, we can deal with the guilt, but not until then, OK?" Her voice had a core of steel the team hadn't expected to hear.

"Yes, I know, but…" Hotch didn't get to finish his sentence.

"No buts. You know that if you can't put it aside then you'll have to recuse yourself and let Agent Rossi take over. Do you want that?" Prentiss looked at Morgan, who seemed impressed by her handling of their unit chief.

"No." Hotch all but growled. JJ raised an eyebrow at Prentiss, who shook her head, although JJ thought she was looking increasingly uncomfortable and wondered what ideas were going round in her head.

"OK then, cowboy the fuck up and let's get on with this. Agent Rossi, would you help me continue, please?" They heard Hotch chuckle at this and exchanged amused glances. If there was more going on with them than just agent/victim, then they were looking like a good match if she could get away with telling him to man up as well as stabilising his mood so quickly.

"Of course." said Rossi smoothly. "Let's not focus on time right now. Tell me what happened when they put you in one the rooms. Did it have any furniture?"

"No, nothing. And he didn't bother chaining me to anything; we both knew I couldn't get out. I was on the first or second floor. I couldn't see the ground out the window; it was too high in the wall. But looking straight out, the tops of the trees were closer to eye level than they should have been." She cleared her throat. "Is…is any of this helping?"

"I'm sorry, Lily, we need more. Garcia's been searching about four hundred square miles around Hotch's cabin but there are too many buildings that it could be. There has to be something in the detail that can help us narrow it down. We just don't know what it is yet." Reid said gently.

"It's OK. I'd have to tell you guys about it sooner or later. Might as well be sooner." She blew out a long breath. "After that…days were similar enough that if I didn't have the strength to lift my head to look at the window, I couldn't tell if a new day had come or not. I-I wasn't allowed any clothes. There was a dog bed. I spent most of my time, when he wasn't there, underneath the mattress part to keep warm. There were hairs ingrained in it, long, wavy blonde hairs, like from a retriever. But the smell was almost gone. I almost went mad thinking about that dog, if he'd done to it what he was doing to me."

"And when he was there?" Prentiss pressed.

"I didn't see the first guy again, I don't think he actually knew the second guy very well. It was only the second guy who came. I think he had some sort of pattern in his head that he had to work to. Even when I…disobeyed…and made him angry, he wouldn't deviate from it. He'd hurt me in some weird kind of order." She laughed bitterly through obvious tears.

"First he'd punch me between the legs, then kick me in the belly, low down and then higher up, then punch me in the sternum, that spot that makes you lose your breath. Then he'd punch me in the throat, I couldn't speak for days at a time."

"Do you think that's what he wanted? To make you unable to speak? At least unable to make words, like a human being." Rossi asked.

"I don't know, maybe. He was calmer while I could only answer him with grunts or coughs. But I refused to do it when my voice was my own, even though I knew it would have made things, not easier, but less hard. I couldn't let him turn me into a thing. I stopped caring about being punched in the throat when he started kicking me in the head. There was a rhythm to it all, once he started, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven. One-TWO-THREE-four-five-SIX-SEVEN." Her voice was shaking so badly they could hardly make out the words. "He kept a strict schedule I think. Food in the mornings, punishment in the evenings."

"Lily, take a second. Slow your breathing down so your body knows it's not going through that right now. Give it a chance to separate memory from the present." JJ spoke calmly, evenly, and she could hear Hotch doing his best to calm her.

"Guys, that many head injuries…Hotch I think Lily needs to go to a hospital as soon as we can get her to one. The constant blows to her head would account for why she found it so difficult to keep track of time. There could be damage. There could be a lot of damage." Prentiss heard Hotch's murmured acknowledgement and called Garcia to let her know to have medevac teams ready to go when they had finished with the unsub/s.

"Chakras." Reid's voice suddenly broke the almost silence. "I think he was following chakras."

"What do you mean?" asked Morgan, confused.

"The order in which he hurt her." He searched quickly on his tablet then spun it to show the others. There was an outline of the human body, with different coloured circles in the seven places Lily had described him kicking and punching her in sequence. "He followed the line of chakras from bottom to top every single time. I think he was trying to destroy her soul."

"Maybe he did." Lily's voice sounded flat, which worried JJ.

"No." Hotch's voice whispered over the speaker. "No, honey. He didn't. You're still a person, actual and whole. He never took that from you."

"That's it!" Morgan felt the rush of the revelation. "That was exactly what he was trying to do. In the Catholic religion, a human has a soul but an animal doesn't. He was trying to turn her from a person into an animal by taking away the one thing he thought made her human. Her soul."

The others nodded, it made perfect sense, in the mind of the unsub anyway. They heard Lily's breathing change to panting as she crooned in distress.

"He did he did want that. That's why, I see it I see it, that's he why he ohgodohgodohgod." She was chanting under her breath.

"Why he what, Lily? What did he do?" asked Rossi, trying to get her to verbalise what had just struck her. But moments of silence followed. When she spoke, it was quiet and there was tenuous control in her words.

"Aaron. Let me up, I need to stand up. I can't….turn the other way. Please. I don't want you to see me right now. Please please please." Morgan felt a lump in his throat, knowing now that, this whole time, Hotch had been holding her while she relived her own personal hell. He must have done as she requested, because she spoke again in that flat monotone.

"Bitch, he called me. Over and over. Bitchbitchbitch, bitch-in-heat, bitch-bitch, baby-bitch, stupid-bitch. The dog bed, don't you see?" Prentiss put her face in her hands as she understood what Lily was saying.

"And…and the…feeding me….nono Aaron don't look at me please don't please don't see me…" They heard the complete and utter humiliation in her voice. "He-he-he fed me d-dog food. He fed me dog food and bones and I was I was so hungry it tasted good. Ohgodohgodohgodnononono." They heard Hotch moan in abject misery as she fell apart.

The others weren't listening for it but Morgan was, and he heard the soft impact as Hotch reclaimed her in his arms. He looked over at Rossi, who returned his knowing glance. Something did occur to him, though, and he picked up his phone and asked Garcia to check if there were any large deliveries of dog food to any of the five possible buildings her search had pinpointed. She promised to get back to him quickly.

"Lily?" Morgan asked quietly.

"I..yes, Agent Morgan." She drew a shuddering breath as she tried to regain control. He knew the last thing she wanted right now was an audience, but he didn't know if the lead he'd given Garcia would pan out and they needed to finish this.

"I know this is hard, I can hear how hard this is for you. But we need to finish. Can you keep going?" He ignored Hotch's warning growl; he could punch him later if he still felt like it.

"There…I guess there isn't much more. The routine didn't change much. Sometimes I think he would leave a day or two in between beating me, although I couldn't be sure. Sometimes my fingers needed to heal."

"What do you mean?" Prentiss interjected.

"He…when he would kick me in the head I couldn't get away from him. All I could do was put my hands over my head to try and take the worst of it. He broke my fingers so many times. I had to…I had to rebreak them sometimes because they were healing wrong." They heard her breath begin to sob. "I didn't have anything to use except the bones he brought me to gnaw on." JJ looked a little sick. All of them felt it.

"My whole life I never felt so alone as when I had to do that. And he knew it." She lost control then and they only had time to hear the beginning of her cries before Hotch muted the mic at his end.

Everyone let out breaths they didn't know they'd been holding. Morgan's tablet chose that moment to chime as it received new information. He turned it silently so the rest of the team could see Garcia's success. Regular deliveries of dog food had been sent to an abandoned asylum, St Margaret's, not for the last four and a half months but for the last two years.

"I think this is a lot bigger than just Lily." Morgan's face was deathly serious. "Hearing all of that, how is Hotch going to react when we tell him the unsub's name?"

"Rossi, I think you need to take over." Reid spoke quietly. "I don't think Lily is just a victim to Hotch. In fact I think she might be a good deal more to him than Hayley ever was. He can't be objective here."

"No he can't." Rossi's face was grim. Prentiss was unreadable, but Reid saw JJ's arm snake across the seats to hold her friend's hand in her own, pity in her eyes. He knew then that, just as Lily was more than just a victim to Hotch, Hotch was more than just their boss to Prentiss. He felt sorry for his friend. He knew she would do her job to the best of her abilities, but the aftermath was going to be hard on her.

The speaker crackled back to life.

"Are you guys OK?" JJ asked.

"We're getting there." Hotch's voice was tight but calm enough.

"Aaron, I'm taking over the case." Rossi said calmly. "You and I both know you are too close to this."

"I know. Do what you think is best." Hotch spoke after a momentary silence, his voice sounded reluctant, but grateful.

"The plan we already have is still the best. We just need to know one more thing from Lily, then we can let you go until we get there." He hoped to hear no argument from their chief about his plan for he and Lily to go on ahead of them. He was thankful when none came. "Lily, what changed in the end? How did you escape?"

"I made a mistake." She spoke so quietly they couldn't hardly hear her. "I wasn't supposed to speak. But I thought I was giving myself a chance. So stupid. So, so stupid."

"Hope is never stupid, Lily." Reid said. "There are five people here who think that you are strong beyond all imagining for going through what you did and coming out the other side. Whatever you felt, it ultimately helped you survive."

"Thank you. At the time, though, it felt like I'd just kicked a tiger in the balls. That feeling…I wanted to make myself so small. He was…hurting me…as usual. But he was talking more. He was frustrated and excited. He was screaming at me about why wasn't I bleeding, why wasn't I? I didn't understand, I'd done nothing but bleed and hurt since I got there. Then he started shouting that I couldn't be a good breeder if I didn't bleed. And I screamed back at him that I couldn't have children." The team held their breath. They knew what was coming.

"He went quiet. So quiet. He didn't move. I actually found the strength to look at him. I wished I hadn't. I thought it would save me, telling him that, but I was wrong. I thought about trying to take it back. But he could see the truth of it in my eyes, and I could see my death in his. He left then without a word and I heard him use the phone outside the door. I heard the words 'set her on fire and feed her to the pack' and my mind just kind of went dim." They heard her sigh. She sounded tired, so very tired. Her tongue was leaden and she continued as if in a dream.

"I think I was alone for three days with no food or water after that. I didn't even hear him walk past the door. The night of the third day, the door opened at the end of the corridor and I knew." Morgan looked across the table to see that JJ had her hand over her mouth and silent tears streaming down her face. This was someone Hotch cared about, maybe even loved, so by default they did, too.

"I hid in the dog bed, under the mattress, with the biggest of the bones I'd been given, the one I'd used to rebreak my fingers. When he came into the room I didn't move. I didn't pretend to be asleep, he'd have known better, I was just still. I knew I'd only have one chance. When he bent and stripped the mattress off me I took it. I swung the bone at his head and he went down. I couldn't believe how hard he went down. I just stood there. And he just lay there. So I ran. It took me a long time just to get out of the building. I took some clothes I found on a chair, his I think, and started moving. Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning. He caught up to me as I reached Aaron's cabin."

They heard her voice quiet and knew they wouldn't hear any more of her story. They didn't need to. They had the address of St Margaret's and knew that the unsub was injured, but not enough to stop him chasing her.

"We have to go now." Hotch's voice was devoid of emotion.

"Hotch, wait. We need to tell you what we found out about the unsub's identity." JJ said before he could disconnect. Hotch was silent for a moment.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"No. No you're not." Morgan had drawn the short straw, it would seem. "The unsub is a native of Massachusetts. After his parents died in a firefight with the local LEOs, he grew up being shipped between various family members before settling with his grandfather. The unsub's name is Alexander LaGrange-Foyet. He's George Foyet's cousin."

The silence stretched out for interminable moments.

"No." Came Hotch's voice over the speaker, deep and certain.

"Hotch, we need to…"

"No. That bastard's cousin took Hayley. He's not getting Lily, too."

The line went dead.

"Shit! Shit shit!" Morgan slammed his fist on the table. "He's going after him."

"Morgan, all we can do is get to them as quickly as possible. Maybe we can get to them before they engage LaGrange." JJ couldn't bring herself to use the second half of the unsub's name.

"JJ, they're not going to 'engage' him." Morgan looked JJ in the eye. "Hotch isn't looking for justice any more. He's looking for vengeance and he's going to take it."

"Morgan's right." Rossi chimed in. "He's just had to sit there and listen to every evil thing this man did to this woman who, to all intents and purposes, seems to be more important to him than even his wife was. He's going to tear him apart."

"Uh…guys." Prentiss was looking at her tablet in horror. "Garcia kept the search running on his name. Look at this list. All properties owned by members of the LaGrange-Foyet family. And it's a big family." She showed them her screen.

"And?" Reid's brow furrowed as his mind took in the information. His expression changed to horrified understanding as his mind reached its conclusion at the same moment Prentiss spoke again.

"Look at the properties on the map view. Look at the dates they were purchased." The map showed red dots. In the centre was a blue dot and a green dot, Hotch's cabin and St Margaret's, only eight miles apart. The red dots were spread around the two like the numbers on a clock. "All the properties were purchased about six months after Hayley's death. This isn't one unsub. This is a family business and they've had Hotch surrounded for eighteen months."

"They're walking straight into an ambush." Morgan looked at the others.

Rossi spoke up.

"That's not an ambush. That's Custer's Last goddamn Stand. We need to get our friends out of there."