Kaitlin POV
"You're gonna blow me up because 20 or so years ago, Emily didn't…do it with you?" I put it all together.
"Exactly," He said, "And look what time it is!" He smiled. It was 36 hours.
"Oh god," I said. Would it hurt?
"But tell you what? Since I like you so much and you look so good in that dress…I'd hate to see your blood splattered all over it," He said.
"So…?" I asked.
"I'm gonna disarm the bomb. I'll put it on me. I'll give you a 15 second chance to escape, and then I'm gonna blow myself up. There are bombs all over the house that'll blow up…or I can just press this button and you'll blow up right now. You choose," He offered.
"I think I'll try and escape…" I said nervously.
"Fine, suit yourself," He said nodding. He pushed a button, "You're free to move," He said.
Slowly I stood. Nothing happened. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ready?" He asked me. I shook my head 'no'.
"I…" I said angrily, "was strapped to…a BOMB…" I continued, my anger getting worse, "because Emily wouldn't…. have SEX WITH YOU?" I yelled. I wanted to kill this guy.
"Yes," He said angrily, "15…14…13…" He began to count.
"Sh!t!" I jumped up and ran for the door. It was locked.
"You suck!" I yelled. I ran for the window. I looked down. It was so high up.
"9…8…7…" He continued.
"Here goes nothing!" I yelled. I opened the window and jumped. I landed on my ankle.
"JESUS!" I yelled. It hurt so badly. I think I broke it. I had to ignore the pain. I ran as fast as I could toward the bottom of the driveway. I had to get the hell out of there. All of a sudden, I heard and explosion. It was the loudest thing I had ever heard. I dove as far as I could out of the way and behind a huge rock. Things went flying everywhere.
"Holy fu…" I swore. It was all over. I was relieved. I started laughing. Then I saw a car speeding up the driveway. I waved my hands wildly. It was Emily.
She drove through the grass to where I was and she hopped out of the car and ran to me.
"Kaitlin!" She said hugging me. I hugged her back tightly.
"Call 911, please," I said wearily. She nodded.
A couple minutes later fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and news vans were pulling up to the scene.
Medics and news reporters were running up to me. Emily was getting the reporters away from me while medics wrapped my foot.
"We need to take you to the hospital to get a cast on that," a medic said. I shook my head.
"Later," I told him firmly.
A woman with a microphone and a guy with a camera came up to me.
"Kaitlin, can you tell us your story?" She asked me. I looked at Emily, who nodded. I sat on the hood of a car and she sat next to me and hugged me.
"Uhmm…okay…Almost a month ago, my parents and my brother were murdered and I was stabbed. Agent Prentiss here, ah, Emily, is with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI here in Quantico. She and her team were on their way back to the BAU after solving a case. I was bleeding from being stabbed and I had made my way to the side of the road, hoping a car would see me. She did. She called and ambulance and stayed with me at the hospital, along with her colleague, Agent Derek Morgan. Their wonderful technical analysist, Penelope Garcia, found out that I had no one to take care of me, so Agent Prentiss took me in. She along with the rest of her team, especially Media Liaison SSA Jareau, we call her JJ, became my family. They all took care of me and loved me, and Emily decided to adopt me, so now she's my mom.
"Ah… a couple weeks ago we started receiving anonymous calls and messages…threats…Emily and I… and we were on our way back after we had arrested a serial killer, the one who killed my family and we were hit, by a truck because we had not stayed home away from the team like the messages had advised us to. While we were in the hospital, Agent Jareau was kidnapped. She was beaten and r…" I stopped myself from saying raped, "severely by the man that had been threatening us. He had said Emily had made a mistake and he would make her regret it forever…
"The man put a live streaming video of Agent Jareau and sent it to my laptop. The whole team came to our house and we watched, but there was nothing we could do. We couldn't track where the video was coming from. The man said at any point, Agent Jareau could decide when to shut off the video and when to turn it back on, and she used that option a few times…
"The man called my phone and said that he would release her if I came and took her place and I agreed…without telling any body, first. He gave me an address and I told them I was leaving, and then I left," I stopped and breathed. It was so hard to relive it all.
"Are you okay?" the woman asked me. I nodded, "Yeah," I said and continued.
"I walked there. I took Agent Jareau's gun with me. About an hour later I got here. I called the number, told the man I was here, and he let Agent Jareau go. She didn't want me to take her place, but I told her to get back to her husband and her son, who's almost 2…" I smiled thinking about Henry.
"She agreed reluctantly. I gave her the gun and then I went inside." I said. I explained how he beat me and then made me say my good byes. I skipped over the part where he strapped the bomb to me. I just said he made me sit in the empty room.
"Then he said he was going to give me 15 seconds to try to escape, and then he was going to blow up the house. He had put bombs all over the house and he strapped one to himself. So I ran for the door, but it was locked. The only other choice was to jump out the window…so I did. I broke my ankle. I'm so thankful that's all that happened. I could have broken my legs. But, yeah, I just jumped and stood up and ran as fast as I could. And then…well…that's it. Emily came, called 911, and now we're here," I finally finished.
"What you did for Agent Jareau was extraordinary. After all you went through because of switching places with her, how do you feel?" The woman asked me.
"I don't regret what I did for JJ. I would do it again. And if it were any one else on the team in that situation, I still would have gone. That's what you do for family. I didn't even blink when he asked me to switch with JJ. I just…I just did. I don't regret it at all," I explained.
"Well that's amazing, Kaitlin. Thank you for sharing your story. You were there for 36 hours, according to Agent Prentiss, but there was only about 15-20 hours of video. What happened in the time off camera?" The reporter asked me.
"I don't have anything to say about that," I replied, "It's off camera because I don't want people to have to hear about it or see it. I don't want them to know. That's that." I responded. I looked at Emily. I was ready to go now. I didn't want to talk any more.
"So where will you go now?" The reporter asked.
"I'm going to the hospital to get a cast on my ankle and to see JJ. Then I'm going home to do my algebra homework," I said, "If you'd like to talk more, here's my number. Give me a call and we can set something up," I said handing her a card, "But now I'd like to go see JJ. Thanks," I said turning and leaving with Emily.
"That, ladies and gentlemen, is Kaitlin Taylor, one extraordinary young woman. Back to you, Jim," She said.