This is my Last Resort (Chapter Four) by Lexikal
Spoilers: None. And no, this story wasn't/isn't based on Mosley (Moseley? I've seen it spelled a few different ways now) Lane from season 5, despite some superficial similarities. I had the idea for this story about 2 years ago, but didn't have the time/energy/will (maybe I am just lazy?) to try to write it until now.
Warnings: Dark themes (hey, this is a Criminal Mindsfic, if you want dragons or something cute go read... honestly, I don't know, because I don't read cute, fluffy things, but I am sure some genres deal with that stuff), general violence involving kids and Reidy-boy, the usual stuff a story would be rated M for. Don't read if under 16, and if you are under 16 and not supposed to be reading M or you are sensitive and don't like dark themes, don't complain to me. Then again, if you don't like stories that deal with the darker side of human nature, I am not sure why you'd be a Criminal Minds fan in the first place... Also, I should warn that in this chapter the team profiles Daddy/Edward White and speculates that he may be impotent (the reason behind the kidnappings) and that Reid may have been sexually assaulted. There isn't any non-con in this story, but the team speculates that there might be (specifically Hotch, Morgan and Rossi). So if that might bug you, again, don't read. You have been warned.
Summary: Spencer Reid, third season-ish, is kidnapped/taken hostage and abused along with a host of other "unwanted" children. Please read the first chapter for the full summary and author's notes... This summary really does bite, but if you've read the first three chapters you'll know what this is about.
Author's Note: Thanks for all the kind reviews and the occasional bits of constructive crit! I appreciate it HUGELY when someone drops me a sentence or two to tell me if they liked a story of mine... lets me know if I am moving in the right direction. Thanks again for reading and reviewing! I especially love 1) When people tell me what they specifically like about a story (lets me practice those skills and hopefully become a better writer) and 2) any clichés or parts of the story they find trite or overdone (it's easy to fall into certain cliché traps!)... Thanks again guys!
Nothing's alright/ Nothing is fine/ I'm running and I'm crying...- "This is my Last Resort" by Papa Roach
"Wheels up in five," Hotch yelled to the team, bursting into the bullpen. His agents looked up, startled.
"Hotch, what's going on?" Morgan asked, already scrambling for his go-bag.
"The UnSub...Daddy, is on the line with Garcia right now, playing games. Pretending to be a concerned neighbour," Hotch said darkly. "The address is 40 minutes away by car if we break every known speed limit; the jet'll be faster."
"The UnSub is still on the line with Garcia?" Morgan asked worriedly, glancing toward the computer tech's closed office door. Hotch nodded.
"He must know something is up by now, that Garcia is stalling him... these people aren't stupid Hotch," Morgan said. Rossi had gotten his go-bag, as had J.J. and Prentiss, and they were walking quickly towards the elevators.
"I know. They've taunted the police before, but to phone from an actual address, to let us trace him, hear his voice... something has changed, something significant..."
Morgan nodded and swallowed hard, that all-too-familiar clog starting to form in his throat.
"We've already speculated that Mommy is psychotic, that Daddy enables her for some reason. If something happened to one of the children, perhaps one Daddy has become emotionally attached to, that might be a reason for him to phone in, to seek out our help..."
"You think one of the kids was hurt?"
"Yes. And probably badly. But not dead, not yet. No point reaching out for help for a corpse. Considering Lise Miller was involved in Reid's abduction and, to our knowledge, was the first child these people kidnapped and the one that has been kept alive the longest, I am betting that Lise is injured." Hotch finished.
Morgan thought back to the little girl in the amusement park, dark blue eyes, pale face. She'd looked innocent until she'd handed him the envelope, and then he'd had a hard time thinking of her as anything but an accomplice in Reid's abduction. But the truth was, she was just a child. She was far more vulnerable than Reid.
"Garcia?" Hotch addressed the computer screen when they were in the air.
"Sir. He's still on the line. Babbling about roses. On hold for the moment."
"Good. He give you anything we can use, baby doll?" Morgan asked hopefully.
"I help track these psychos by tracking down records over the internet, my love," Garcia told Morgan flatly. "I don't- thank god- get inside their heads. But this guy is giving me real Ed Gein vibes. And you know about my clown phobia."
"Garcia, what else have you got for us?" Hotch prompted. He knew Garcia was nervous, that being stuck on the other end with an UnSub and being forced to make nice with one of Reid's captors was its own sort of torture for the tech. But he had to keep her focused.
"Well, Edward White himself isn't giving me much, but I did some checking online. Apparently 6 years ago Dolores White, who was 39 back then, gave birth to a daughter...except..."
"What, Garcia?" Hotch insisted.
"The doctors insisted on a c-section, Dolores, a devout Catholic, insisted that God... uh... the baby was delivered vaginally, against medical advice. She... didn't make it."
"That was the stressor," Rossi said glancing over at Hotch. Hotch nodded.
"And 3 years ago, Lise Miller disappears, after her parents are murdered execution style."
"Garcia, where were the Whites living 6 years ago? When the baby died?"
"Uhhh... just a second. Brooklyn, New York. I can give you an exact address..."
"No, Garcia, that's okay. Thanks. Both Edward and Dolores... what are their hair and eye colors?"
"Both blond, Edward a bit darker than his wife. Both blue eyed."
Hotch thought for a moment, mind racing. They were already descending, the flight had taken just over 7 minutes.
"Was there a name on the death certificate for the White baby?"
"Uh...yes... Elle Dolores White."
"Thanks Garcia, we're about to land. Remember, keep him on the line..."
"Yessir."
And the computer screen went blank.
Hotch gazed over at the group.
"Their baby dying in New York was the stressor, at least for Dolores White," Hotch said pensively. "3 years later they abducted a child that physically resembled the child they had lost at birth."
"And who also would've been nearly the same age," J.J. added, feeling cold. Hotch nodded.
"Their baby dying in New York also explains why all the children they have murdered, for whatever reason, have been dumped there. For these UnSubs, New York is associated with failure and death."
"So they're trying to recreate their family... abduct children that resemble their daughter? But then... why take more than one? Or kill them for that matter?" Prentiss asked.
"I believe that once they abducted Lise Miller, they became collectors... Lise does represent their dead baby, Elle, which is why she is still... most likely... alive. The only reason I can think of for Edward White phoning us directly is that her life is in immediate danger. To Edward, Lise has become his daughter, flesh and blood."
"Which is pretty psychotic," Morgan muttered.
"Yeah, but he still realizes that without medical attention, Lise-who has probably been renamed Elle-is capable of dying. Dolores White is incapable of grasping that Lise can physically die because Lise has always simply been a proxy for her daughter, but also a proxy for her rage... her rage against her own infant for dying, against God, possibly the doctors themselves. These children have become dolls to her, and when one malfunctions or breaks, the only way to fix the situation and get back the perfect child they lost is to replace the doll... get rid of the defective child and take a new one..." Hotch stopped speaking.
The jet began to skid on the runway. They had touched down.
The agents were quickly off the jet, breaking into teams. The local police already had cruisers waiting and Hotch had phoned ahead and requested ambulances to meet them at the residence.
"Morgan and Rossi, you're with me," Hotch said. "Prentiss, go with J.J."
"I still don't get it, why take boys," Morgan asked as they sped towards the address. "Or Reid, for that matter?"
"They probably are trying to create the ideal family. Not only has Dolores White become obsessed with finding the perfect daughter, but now she wants the perfect family, which in the nuclear sense includes sons as well as daughters..." Hotch was looking steely-eyed ahead. The estimated time of arrival at the residence was a little under 8 minutes.
"And Daddy... then he would be subservient? Even though he plans the abductions and carries them out?" Morgan was still profiling, still dissecting the UnSubs. Hotch nodded.
"His wife's rage probably terrifies him, he probably feels impotent. He may even be impotent, physically. He has control over the actual abductions- she doesn't care about the selection process in that respect, just as long as she continues to receive her dolls. He- Edward White- has developed a twisted sense of power and self-respect from the abduction process, from the fear he instils in the kidnap victims. Being able to kidnap these children also makes him feel important, especially if he is physically impotent. Impotence might also explain why they simply didn't have another child after their daughter's birth, and also why all of the murdered children we have found were tortured with knives and cut with them post-mortem."
"Garcia would've mentioned if Edward White had a medical history of trouble in bed," Morgan said.
Rossi, who had been silent and pensive for all of the flight and most of the drive, glanced over at Morgan.
"If he is impotent, there almost certainly won't be a medical record of it. These are the type of people who, even previous to the wife's breakdown and subsequent psychosis, believed in keeping one's dirty laundry private, so to speak." Rossi said.
Morgan nodded. Thought about what he'd just been told about impotence. Dolores White couldn't have another biological child, in all likelihood. If not because she was barren, as they'd already considered, than because her husband was impotent. It made sense, actually, but they hadn't known the identity of their UnSubs an hour ago, let alone the fact their child had died. If Edward White was impotent, what did that mean as far as Reid was concerned?
Morgan shuddered... even with Reid's baby-face, there was no way in hell he could pass for a child, for Lise's older brother.
"The older boy, Connor, is 15. Pubescent. And Reid is 27... If Edward White is impotent and Dolores..." Morgan didn't have to finish his sentence. Hotch was staring at him with stony eyes. He nodded tightly.
Morgan stared back at Hotch, and not for the first time since he'd joined the BAU, he was glad he had dark skin. It made it harder for his colleagues to tell when he blanched from fear.
Morgan also understood, then, why Hotch had suggested J.J. and Prentiss ride in the other vehicle. If something of a sexual nature had happened to Reid... well, as long as they UnSubs were caught, there was no need for the women to know about it.
Elle wasn't talking to him anymore. Reid tried to estimate how long it had been since he'd been shot, since Elle had been shot. But he's passed out, so that made it virtually impossible to estimate. 2 hours? 2 and a half? Something like that. She'd been talking to him just a minute ago, and then her voice had become garbled. Weaker. Like a light bulb dimming. Before flickering out altogether.
"Elle?" Reid asked, hands moving in the dark. He pressed two fingers to her neck. Nothing. He couldn't find a pulse.
"ELLE?" Nothing. No response. No movement. Her body had become increasingly colder as he'd held her, until he'd felt her shivering, her teeth actually chattering. She'd told him she was tired. She was thirsty. Now, no more complaints. She wasn't shivering anymore.
"Elle, come on, wake up, come on," Reid begged. 3 doctorates, 2 bachelor degrees, and no medical training besides the most basic university requisites. Why hadn't he become a doctor in addition to an FBI agent? Reid was shaking. He shifted the child out of his arms and placed her on the ground, squinting in the near-darkness. His hands and arms looked black, from what he could tell, covered in his and the child's blood.
Oh god. She was dying. Or she was dead.
He wanted to scream for help, but that wouldn't do any good. The UnSubs wouldn't care. They'd murdered children, but then... they'd also had had Elle for a while.
"Help!" Reid screamed, still trying to feel for a pulse in the dark, getting nothing. His hands traced down to the small wrists, looking anywhere for a sign of life. Please let her be alive. Please let her be okay. Not now. Not in the dark. Don't let her die for no reason, not in the dark, not never knowing goodness... don't let her die when she'd been ready to die to let me escape. Please God...
Reid was praying out loud. He hadn't realized until, distantly, he heard his own words bounce back at him, as if on a time delay. He screamed louder. "HELP!"
He felt over her chest, nervous, remembering the CPR he'd taken as a kid, and then again as a young adult, and then again at the academy. God. His hands were shaking.
In the pitch black, Reid tilted the 6-year-old head back. Leaned down, listening, feeling for breath. Her breathing. Nothing.
"Oh God, Elle, no, you're not going to die..." he was panicking, his voice high and tight, and some distant part of his mind remarked blandly: You know, you sounded almost like this when Nathan Harris was bleeding out? Remember that, Spencer?
Her mouth was open. Airway clear. But she wasn't breathing. There was no pulse.
"CPR, right," Reid said, his own heart racing. "Different for kids under 8. Oh God..." Reid knew CPR for kids over 8. And Adults.
"Smaller lungs. Smaller lung capacity. Two breaths." He found it easier to keep it together hearing his voice delivering the commands to him. He pinched Elle's noise and breathed into her mouth quickly, two shallow breaths, trying to see in the dark if her chest rose. It was hard to tell.
"Check circulation now," Reid told himself sternly, hating the way his voice trembled. His hands were shaking even harder. "Elle, come on, come on..."
Reid pressed two fingers back to the carotid again. Waited 5 seconds. 6 seconds. At the 10 second mark and still no pulse, he knew he had to start chest compressions.
Oh God. She was going to die... she might already be dead. She had lost so much blood...oh god...
Spencer Reid started chest compressions then.
They didn't bother with a soft entry. The second they were out of the car, Hotch led point and the rest of his team followed, flanked by SWAT. There were also half a dozen police cars and two ambulances, not to mention a growing crowd of neighbours and on-lookers. No vehicles in the driveway of the residence.
It took Hotch only one kick to get the door in. They didn't even need the ram.
Hotch and Rossi were still leading, yelling "clear" as they proceeded through each room and finding it empty. The house was rather large but dusty, musty, smelling of lemon pledge and cigarettes and bleach. Over the mantle were photographs of children. Dozens and dozens of different children. Hotch walked over to the mantle and quickly scanned the photos, before quickly seeing Lise Miller staring back at him with haunted eyes. Connor Stephens. Duncan Marshall.
They had the right place.
But so far no UnSubs. No kids. No Reid.
"Reid!" Hotch screamed. He couldn't hear anything. Nothing. They swept the rooms, down the hallway toward what looked like a basement door.
Except the basement door was steel, and the wall around it looked like cinderblock. They weren't going to be able to kick that down. Or even use the ram... if it was locked, they'd have to take more drastic measures to... Hotch approached. If Edward White had phoned because Lise...Elle... was injured, she might be down there. They might have cleared out with the rest of the kids, but left this door unlocked. Hotch sped up, tested the door.
Hotch had told Garcia to keep Edward White on the phone. Either he had hung up after they'd gotten off the plane, which would've given him a 10 minute advantage on them, or he, at the very least, was still in the house.
Hotch nudged the door. Breathed a sigh of relief. It swung open. Hotch felt the side of the wall for a switch. Found it. Flicked it.
The room was instantly full of buzzing, fluorescent light.
"Oh, god," Prentiss murmured, staring in horror at all the power tools, the hand tools, the wooden tables, the bathtub. In one corner of the room there was a cabinet with jars and... anatomical specimens floating in them. Like in a high school biology classroom.
Lying in the centre of the room was Edward White. There was a pool of blood surrounding his head like some gory halo. He'd shot himself. Probably when he'd heard them enter. Hotch could hear Garcia's voice talking worriedly through the cordless phone lying on the floor next to White's limp corpse. Hotch walked over to the phone, picked up the phone.
"Garcia, we're here. He shot himself."
"Reid?"
"We're still looking," Hotch said, and turned the phone off. Gazed around the workshop again, trying to breathe. The room reeked of urine and blood and other, unnameable substances. The place reeked out of death.
This was where Dolores White took out her rage on defective "dolls", apparently. Some of the tools hanging from the wall still had dried blood on them.
"Reid!" Hotch yelled again, louder, his eyes scanning the room for any sign of the young agent. For any sign of anybody...
And then he saw the door. Not steel, just wooden, and rather rickety looking at that. He all but ran to the door. Could hear someone screaming back to him.
"Hotch?" It was Spencer Reid's voice. "Hurry! Help!" Reid sounded panicked. Hotch all but ran to the door and kicked it in, flashlight out.
"Yeah, Reid," Hotch descended the staircase, flashlight beam trailing through the darkness. There.
Reid was sitting, covered in blood, saturated in the stuff, in what looked like hay. His face was the colour of chalk. In his hands was a bloody, blond little girl. Even paler than Reid. Lips blue.
"I...she was talking 5 or 6 minutes ago..." Reid slurred, looking up at Hotch with haunted eyes. "You have to help her!"
"Are you hurt, Reid?" Hotch said, walking quickly towards his agent. Morgan and Rossi had already called for a medic. Hotch bent in front of Spencer Reid, feeling him over for injuries.
Reid recoiled.
"Reid! Are you hurt?"
"She was talking just 5 or 6 minutes ago," Reid repeated numbly. Hotch nodded, glancing down again at the small, unmoving face. Lise Miller.
"Reid, is all this her blood? Or are you hurt too?"
"The female UnSub shot her in the stomach," Reid slurred dazedly. "About 2 hours ago, maybe 2 and half now. Something like that."
"But not you? You weren't hurt?" Hotch asked again, concern growing when Reid failed to answer. Hotch could hear the paramedics clambering down the stairs now.
"Her heart is not beating!" Reid called over to the paramedics when he got sight of them, his voice higher and strangled, pleading. "You have to help her! She was talking 5 or 6 minutes ago, and she had a pulse 4 minutes ago. Approximately. She needs blood... she has lost a lot of blood. She needs blood..."
"Reid, come on, let them take her..."
Reid was still holding onto the child as if he couldn't bear to let her go, as if letting her go would mean she'd die for sure.
"Reid, let them help her," Hotch ordered again, shaking the younger man by the shoulder. And then he felt it. The hole. Spencer Reid had been shot in the shoulder. Reid recoiled again and made a noise like a muffled scream.
One of the paramedics took Elle then, loaded her onto a stretcher. They were moving fast, barking orders. Hotch helped Reid to his feet. From the way Reid was acting it was probably going to be easier to get him medical attention to let him walk out on his own.
Okay, more chapters to come, but at least Reid is safe, Elle is with the medics and one of the UnSubs is dead. From this point on the story is more about Reid's relationship with Elle (kind of cute, Reid being overprotective about a kid) and the team trying to track down "Mommy" and the remaining kids...
If you liked this, even a teensy, weensy bit, please review. If you didn't like it, you probably haven't read to this point...