"Did Reid come back from the basement?" Morgan asked as Hotch descended the stairs.
The team looked at each other anxiously realising they hadn't seen or heard from their friend since the beginning of the raid. Without another word the team sprung into action, Morgan pulled his gun and descended the stairs cautiously.
"Reid, man you ok?" he called waiting for the young geniuses reply; every second filled with silence increased the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. He moved quickly scanning his surroundings for any trace of Reid.
"There's blood over here." He called which drew Hotch swiftly to his side.
"Not much, just a few drops, he must've been hit with that", he gestured towards a fragmented glass bottle which had a few drops of crimson blood snaking down the side.
Morgan moved swiftly out of the door leading to the back of the house, where he was met by a tall, stocky man facing the wall directly in front of Morgan. His dark hair hanging limply on his shoulders, a dark brown coat clung to his form and trailed all the way down to his feet.
"Move and I'll lodge this bullet in your brain!" Morgan boomed.
The man didn't move he simply chuckled to himself.
"You're too late Agent Morgan; he didn't even have time to scream." He sneered.
"Where is he you son of a bitch!" Morgan spat, moving slowly forward, gun trained on his head.
The man turned suddenly stopping Morgan in his tracks and grinned, revealing rotting, yellow teeth. He raised his hands and Morgan lurched forward cuffing him and forcing him towards the front of the house, the man came silently never losing the wide grin on his face as he watched the team's anxious faces as they realised that Reid was gone and there was nothing they could do about it.
Reid opened his eyes and frowned realising he didn't recognise the room surrounding him; he winced as a wave of nausea swept over him. He had been hit hard, his hair was sticky with dried blood and he had a painful lump where the bottle had struck his head. He sat up to take in his surroundings; he had been locked in what appeared to be a disused bedroom. He had been left on a small bed with a steel frame; the room was small and virtually empty aside from a small drain in the middle of the floor, the purpose of which Reid did not want to dwell on.
The walls appeared as though they were once a burnt orange colour, the paint was peeling now though, the colour fading. There was a large wooden door at the other side of the room which Reid attempted to reach but was stopped by a sharp tugging at his ankle, he looked down to see he had been shackled to the bed, keeping him just out of reach of the door handle.
Reid cast his thoughts back to the eight previous victims; they had been kept for two days and were each dumped with a different word carved into their bodies. 'Alone', 'Misunderstood', 'Rejected', 'Ignored', 'Beaten', 'Scarred', 'Bullied' and 'Avenged'. Reid didn't want to know what would be carved into him if he couldn't escape in the next two days. He sat pondering ways in which he could remove the chain from his ankle for what could have been seconds when he heard footsteps approaching the door.
The heavy footsteps stopped outside the door and the handle turned painfully slowly, letting out a groan in protest the door creaked open and a large figure strode calmly into the room, followed by a smaller man who looked nowhere near as confident as the first.
"Hello Agent Reid." Sneered the first, provoking a strangely surprised reaction from the second man. "I'm Dex but for all intensive purposes you address me as Sir, do you understand?" Reid nodded and glanced towards the smaller man who now appeared to be muttering to himself and pacing, clearly agitated.
"Calm down Andrew!" Dex snapped suddenly drawing Reid's attention back towards him.
"You…you didn't say anything about him being an…an agent" he spluttered in a voice reminiscent of a small child.
"Agent or not, we get who we're paid to get!" Dex barked, clearly infuriated now he shoved the young man back out of the door, Reid heard him fall to the floor hard with a yelp.
Someone is paying these men to hold me? Reid thought to himself, the blood drained from his face and he sat down on the bed, dizzy now.
Dex reached into his pocket very slowly and pulled out a large hunting Knife, his eyes shone with anticipation. "Now, we're going to play a game".
"David Lister. He's claiming that an accomplice has Reid and will kill him if we don't follow his 'rules'." Hotch explained to Agent Seaver as they stood outside of the interrogation room.
"Has he told us what the rules are?" she asked without taking her eyes away from the man.
"No, I want you to find out." Hotch gestured towards the door inviting Agent Seaver to go in. She hesitated for a moment, inhaled deeply and went in.
*Half an hour later
Seaver emerged from the room looking tired but hopeful. "He says the rules have been left outside the BAU in a large brown envelope" she said while half sprinting towards the front door.
"Now Agent Reid we need to establish the rules for your friends." He lunged forward and took Reid's wrist, Reid cried out in pain as the blade bit into his arm. Dark blood streamed from the cut and ran down Reid's arm falling silently to the floor.
Dex pushed his finger into the cut grinning as Reid yelped, he pulled it out and released Reid walking over to the wall running his finger over the peeling paint he formed the number '1' and returned to plunge his finger again into Reid's streaming arm, despite his desperate attempts to keep him back.
Seaver discovered the letter within a matter of seconds and raced back up to the BAU conference room where she tore it open and, forgetting to put any sterile gloves on she drew out a large colour photograph of a wall on which the 'rules' were written. The floor beneath the wall was encompassed by a large pool of blood.
"How much blood can a person lose and still survive?" Seaver whispered, Hotch didn't answer he just stared at the picture helpless to save his youngest team member.
Prentiss cautiously pulled out a second piece of paper, tears filled her eyes as she read what his captor had typed:
DEVIATE FROM THE RULES AND THE BOY WILL DIE AS HE LIVED
ALONE.