This is my Last Resort (Chapter Nine) by Lexikal
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Dark themes; violence; missing children/implied child abuse, lots of Reid angst...
Summary: Spencer Reid, third season-ish (2008-ish), is kidnapped/taken hostage and abused/terrorized along with a host of other "unwanted" children. Please see chapter one for more info.
Chapter Note: Reid has a mild meltdown as he continues to "remember" what happened in the White house. Reid angst ahead! You have been warned.
Fan Fic Music Video Note: I recently made a music video for this fic set to the song "Last Resort" by Papa Roach. If you are interested in watching this, go to YouTube and type in "lexikalfanfic", in quotations. A few videos should pop up (all fan fiction music videos). Select the one entitled "This is my last Resort" Criminal Minds Fan Fiction Music Video, and enjoy... or you can get the URL directly from my author's profile page. Take care, and happy reading! And, like always, please review!
"Reid, come on, sit down."
Those were the first words Hotch heard as he entered the bullpen. Morgan had his hands out and up and was speaking to his friend in a slow, calming voice. Nervous tension was radiating off Spencer Reid like an electrical force field.
"Reid, come on kid, just sit for a minute. You know you're not going home like that. At least get changed."
"I-I am just getting my go-bag and I am going to go home and..."
"Reid, can I talk to you for a moment?" Hotch said gently as he passed by. Reid looked up with haunted, frightened eyes.
"I want to go home, now, Hotch!" Almost a wail.
"C'mon, it will only take a moment."
"Then can I go home?"
"Let's just go talk first."
Reid nodded dully and staggered along behind Hotch. Hotch shot Morgan a look: Thank you. Morgan nodded back, obviously worried.
Reid was still pale and looked ready to throw up again, maybe, or faint. Hotch pulled a chair out for him and Reid, unsteadily, sat down.
"You could have been drugged. That would explain the amnesia, and also what you remembered," Hotch said in his best paternal tone of voice.
"Why? Why drug me?"
"Because you were an adult, and therefore harder to control? Or possibly because Elle may have thought it would be funny to watch?" Hotch said glumly. He tapped a finger on the spiral notebook in which Reid had, earlier that day, detailed the account of his kidnapping and treatment.
"Drug me with what? You heard me! With..."
"LSD, perhaps, or some designer hallucinogen. LSD can be quite effective, from what I have been told, even in minute doses and depending on the dosage it wouldn't have registered on a tox screen..."
Reid was hugging himself.
"It was more than being drugged, though, seeing weird things. I knew... I can remember now... that I knew when I saw that boy, that skeleton, begin to laugh that it was wrong. That I was hallucinating. But other things... I can remember them happening, but they couldn't have happened..."
Reid's voice trailed off. If Reid didn't look ready to bolt or burst into tears Hotch would've asked him to go get changed and maybe burn that sweater vest, but as it stood, getting this information was more important.
"What other things, Reid?" Hotch asked carefully. Reid shrugged.
"Spencer?"
"You said you were going to send a psychiatrist to interview Elle? Did you?" Reid said, changing the topic.
"One should be returning back from the hospital any minute now, depending on how long the interview lasted. The man promised he'd phone with his initial first impressions before typing up the report." Hotch sighed, and made a mental note to ask Reid about the other memories later.
Reid was silent as he thought this over.
"Do you still want to go home right now, or would you rather wait for that phone call?" Hotch asked.
"I guess... I want to know what she said, what Elle said. What the psychiatrist thinks."
"Okay. Why don't you go get changed. You have your go-bag here, right?"
Reid nodded. Hotch nodded back, excusing him. When Reid was gone, Aaron Hotchner went over to his window and opened it, frowning slightly at the smell.
"Agent Hotchner?" the shrink said. It was a psychiatrist Reid didn't recognize, not by name or voice, but according to Hotch, a good one.
"Speaking. I am going to have you on speaker phone. S.S.A. Dr. Reid is here with me, too, as well as agents Morgan and-"
"That's fine, S.A.C. Hotchner," the man said quickly. "I will still type up a full report, but I promised you that I'd phone with my initial thoughts?"
"Yes."
"This child displays all the classic symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder, specifically RAD, the inhibited subtype of the disorder, and not Disinhibited Attachment Disorder or..."
"DAD. Yeah." Reid broke in impatiently.
"She does, however, still present with some classic symptoms that straddle both main subtypes; refusal to make eye contact; lying that was unrelated to the case and seemed unrelated to fear, but borne out of a sole desire to control and manipulate the interview. Most disturbingly, this child, though obviously bored with me, asked several times about Agent Reid and..."
Reid stiffened slightly.
"...inquired into his health and well-being, before launching into a long monologue about gore and violence, also classic indicators of the disorder. Specifically she asked why Agent Reid hadn't visited her again, and if, and I am quoting here, he was still her big brother."
"What did you tell her?" Hotch said calmly, watching Reid carefully out of the corner of his eye. Reid was pacing a bit, obviously distressed.
"I told her that Agent Reid had never been her brother, and that the people she referred to as her parents were actually kidnappers who had kidnapped her from her real Mommy and Daddy."
"How did she respond to that?" Hotch asked.
"Not well. She told me that I was a kidnapper and that if I didn't reunite her with her mother, there would be more deaths."
A collective chill seemed to run through the room. Morgan glanced over at Reid. Reid stalked around a bit more, as if unable to remain still. Prentiss and J.J. looked at each other, the shock evident on their faces. Even seasoned BAU agents, apparently, felt shock and fear at the idea of an angelic 6-year-old girl threatening murder.
"She threatened death if she didn't get what she wanted?" Hotch said flatly, eyes searching out Reid's. Reid looked hollow and dazed and utterly exhausted- both physically and mentally.
"Not specifically, but there was definitely that feel to it. She told me there would be more deaths unless she was reunited with Dolores White, but didn't threaten actual violence, herself. The facial expressions and tone of voice, though... all of it... suggested to me that this child, though probably never involved in an actual murder directly, has overseen some killings and at the very least witnessed some deaths. The concept of killing wasn't new to her, and it wasn't distressing to her the way you'd assume it'd be for a normal six-year-old child, even a highly traumatized six-year-old."
"I realize you're busy," Hotch said diplomatically, "But we're trying to form a profile based on the movements of the female UnSub, Dolores White, and right now Elle is our only real lead. Was there anything else she said that could possibly help, that stood out as unusual... given the circumstances, I mean?"
"Honestly, Agent Hotchner, the entire interview with this child was a little unnerving, and I did my practicum on prepubescent children who had committed homicide, usually matricide or patricide, but in all cases they had killed..." the man was silent for a moment, thinking, choosing his words carefully.
"She asked if Agent Reid- whom she referred to as Spencer- was still having waking nightmares. I thought it was a weird thing to say, so I called her on it, and she clammed up but smiled at me; a long, slow smile and..."
Reid's pacing had increased.
"Did she say what that referred to?" Reid blurted out anxiously.
"No. I brought it up a few times later, hoping to catch her off guard, but every time she caught me out. Why? Do you have any idea what she was referring to, because based on the facial expression, I was actually worried."
"We think Agent Reid may have been drugged with some sort of hallucinogen during his abduction," Hotch said tiredly, before Reid could deny anything.
"That... that might explain what she said. Like I said, she wouldn't give me much. Everything she said had a teasing quality to it; just enough information to pique my interest, but nothing truly helpful. Even after I explained to her that her Mommy, Dolores White, had taken the other children..."
"Wait a second," Hotch cut in, voice sharp. "Did she ask about the UnSub, Edward White?"
"Yes. I explained that he had died, and asked her if she understood that death was permanent and..."
"The hospital... Elle didn't know he was dead." Reid snapped in the direction of the phone. Edward White had been their one card to play.
"They, They... they said she knew. Said she'd told them she'd seen the body herself when she was removed by the paramedics, so I just assumed..." the psychiatrist trailed. "They were certain this child knew he'd killed himself. She described the body to the nurses, and I checked over the files before the interview. Everything fit."
"She knew he was dead?" Reid asked, his voice rising with anxiety. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, she even knew that he'd shot himself in the head. I asked her how she felt about it and she said it served him right for putting her in the bathtub, but then wouldn't elaborate on what that meant..."
Reid was nodding. This didn't make sense. Elle had been shot in the stomach, only a few seconds after he'd been shot in the shoulder. How could she have possibly have known that Daddy had shot himself in the head? Had she woken up before him and heard the gunshot and put the pieces together? She'd been unconscious and without a heartbeat when the paramedics had taken her out of the oubliette so she couldn't have seen the corpse then...
Once again, the puzzle pieces weren't fitting.
After Hotch disconnected, Reid stood up.
"I... I think I want to go home now."
"I think we are ready to formulate an updated profile in the conference room," Hotch told Reid. Reid shook his head.
"Can you guys do it? I don't think I am going to be much help today. I just... I just really want to go home."
"Reid..."
"Hotch, you implied earlier that if I listened to the call, I could leave early today. I just, I need some time to absorb all of this, okay?"
Hotch sighed tiredly and nodded. Morgan, however, followed Reid out into the bullpen, towards his desk.
"Morgan, I want to go home and get a shower and scrub my skin off and go to sleep. Please. Don't start with me." Reid was aware that Prentiss and even J.J. were watching him concernedly. Damn it.
"Reid, she's had these kids for a little over 4 days now. If she has any credit cards they are listed under another name. Basically, they have all just dropped off the map and that..."
"What am I supposed to do about it?" Reid asked angrily, turning on his friend. "The last time I tried to make a dent in this case, I got myself abducted and became this case's biggest liability. You guys will be able to formulate a better profile if I am not here to mess it up with emotional outbursts and LSD-induced memories. So, unless you..."
"Kid, we still need you on this case."
"If she didn't kill them in the first 24 hours, she's unlikely to kill one between now and 10 a.m. tomorrow. I am going home to sleep."
"I'm phoning you later," Morgan said, and Reid raised a hand in acknowledgment but continued on his way to the elevator.
Elle lay in her hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Spencer. She could remember him tied to the wall in the oubliette, head craning to look at the skeleton, mouth opening and closing as he screamed in abject horror. She hadn't known what he'd been seeing, but it had been soooo funny to watch him freak out like that.
"What's the matter, big brother?" She'd asked him with mock concern, getting up and leaving her doll in the straw.
"Make him...make him stop. Make him stop!" Spencer Reid, a 27-year-old man, had been begging her for mercy.
"Make him stop what?" Elle asked smugly, and walked over to the skeleton in the corner, the obvious source of Spencer's terror. For now, anyway. She knelt down and crawled behind it, making the arms and head move like a puppet.
"Whooooo!"
"It's laughing!" Spencer had screamed, obviously terrified. "It's laughing at me! This can't be happening! This can't happen! This is not reality!"
Elle had let the skeleton's arms drop then. She walked back over to Spencer and prodded him in the stomach with her shoe, watching with slightly shiny eyes as he squirmed away from her, backwards. He couldn't really get away from her though, not tied to the wall like that.
"Why can't it happen?"
"Skeletons don't laugh," Spencer had ground out desperately, "It's not possible!"
"You just keep telling yourself that, big brother. Before your friends find you, if they ever find you, you're going to see a whole lot of things you never thought possible."
Spencer had thrown up then, all down the front of his naked chest. Elle had wrinkled her nose, and felt like punching him, but she didn't want his vomit on her boots or flashlight or hands.
"You... you're not a normal little girl," Reid had said weakly, head drooping against his vomit covered chest. He was breathing quickly, face pale from fear and sickness. "You're not right. You're a psychopath. They damaged you and you're not a normal child anymore."
"'Course I am a normal little girl... and you better be nice to me, or you won't last long. Believe me..."
"What are you talking about? The other kids? The dead ones... we found them. Your parents killed them, but you told them to, didn't you?"
Elle had smiled smugly and shrugged. "They were boring."
Reid craned his head then and screamed a swear word at the skeleton in the corner. Told it to shut the eff up.
Elle had laughed harder. Spencer Reid was proving to be even funnier than the first cop. A whole lot funnier, actually, and his facial expressions were hilarious. When Spencer was scared, he showed it on his face. Watching his terror was almost delicious.
Elle snapped back out of her reverie and stared around the hospital room, before reaching over and pressing the button for the nurse. She was still on an IV for fluids and antibiotics, but that was supposed to come out soon.
"Yes, honey?" a nurse asked, entering her room.
"Is Spencer coming to visit me today?"
"I...I don't think so, honey. I can check. In the meantime, is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Yeah..." Elle said slowly, pouting a bit in obvious disappointment. "When is dinner?"
Yeah, short, but short is good (for me, anyway). Then I can at least update a chapter from some fic I am working on each day I have access to a computer. Please review! Lexikal