She needs to make a call.
No, she reminds herself viciously, You want to make a call.
She can't. She knows it. Tom would not be thankful or grateful if she broke silence when Declan's whereabouts have long since been classified as information she's going to take to her grave. Literally, if Ian has his way.
Instead, she makes another call.
"You utter naïve… Ass."
To his credit, the only sound Clyde makes on the other end of the phone is a sigh. Emily's known him long enough to hear the grief and regret in the sound. "It was supposed to be secure."
"Secure- Tsia's dead!"
"I know, love."
She growls. "He's threatened my team."
"Well of course. What did you expect?" There's irritation there now, a waspishness. Clyde's never been good with blame. "We ran the mission but you were the face he saw."
You took away the only thing that mattered to me. Now I'm going to take yours.
She shivers, can't help it, Ian's parting words over that wrought iron table have been haunting her since he'd uttered them. A dozen people in danger because of a damn career decision that had been both logical and a challenge at the same time. Profile a terrorist, save lives.
It's a hell of a way to learn 'don't fall in love with a mark' isn't always a choice.
No one warned her how important it was to leave as many lives untouched as possible.
"Emily. I'm getting on a plane in three hours. Pack a bag. Meet me in Baltimore."
Everything in her pulls taut. "You want me to run?"
"Oh darling, don't say it like that. We both know you're so good at it."
She goes cold. It's one thing to know her own instinct is to run, to get the danger as far away from the team as she can. It's another to have Clyde say it, to point out the flaw like it will change her mind. The resolve solidifies in her chest, the promise she's going to make to her team, her family, right here and right now, even if they never know about it.
Her head comes up at the sound of footsteps and she meets Hotch's gaze from the end of the hall. He arches a brow, the question obvious. An idea niggles in the back of her mind, her mouth stretching in a strange and twisted approximation of a smile. Hotch stops just close enough to see her face. She holds up a finger: keep quiet. He nods.
"I can't just abandon my team."
She sees the shift in Hotch's eyes because she can't seem to look away from him, the possession that slips into his gaze and has her momentarily distracted.
"You'll be saving them," she hears, forces herself to focus on Clyde again. "Who do you think he really wants, Emily? You or your team?"
Both, but she'll keep that to herself. She's kept Clyde in the dark for this long. She won't give him any more ammunition. But she cannot stop the smug smile from stretching her mouth, a cold ruthlessness rising in her chest. There's a dark thrill in being underestimated, in bucking expectations. There always has been.
Then her face transforms, ready to play her role here. The air comes out of her lungs in a whoosh of put upon insecurity. "Clyde-"
"They'll be safer without you. There's only the two of us left, Em."
I'm all you've got.
She doesn't need him to verbalize it.
"Okay," she says with that same insecure, resigned sigh. "Pick me up in an hour."
"You have everything."
She thinks of the envelope in her safe, the four passports, the foreign currency. "Yes."
"An hour," he repeats, then he's gone.
Emily tucks her phone away and looks up. She flinches. Hotch does not look pleased. She can't blame him, but she knows she has something to prove. She pulls herself up, straightens her spine, looks him in the eye.
"I'm not running."
His face doesn't change. That's the terrifying part.
"It sounded like it."
She can't help the way she crosses her arms defensively over her chest. "I'm not."
He doesn't reply. They both know how potent silence can be, and she's just as susceptible to it as any UNSUB they've faced.
"That was Clyde Easter."
"Your handler."
"Of a sort," she acknowledges, feels the way her fingers twitch to reach out. It's irrational and frustrating. "He wants me to believe you guys are safer without me."
His hand clenches into a fist. She's grateful for the restraint, the avoidance of the very obvious follow up. Clyde's full of shit. She doesn't need him to tell her that. She doesn't need him to tell her that the chances of catching Ian, of all of them coming out alive, rise exponentially with her around.
"I want to bring him in."
His fist releases suddenly, goes slack. She'd been looking for it, or she's sure she'd have missed the surprise as it spreads over his face.
"Easter knew Doyle was in North Korea," she explains. "He knows what happened after I was pulled out and debriefed."
He watches her for a moment, considering. The knowledge dawns in his eyes beside that possession, beside a feral darkness she can only remember from the days hunting down Foyet. "You think he knows what's coming next."
"I'm not running," she says, preface, knowing. "But I have a plan." She lets that smug, ruthless smile slip across her face again. "And I'm going to need you to drive."