Part 2 - Hope

Endure and persist; this pain will turn to good by and by.

- Ovid

Chapter 29

"Reid!" Morgan said sharply.

Spencer blinking at him for a moment as the sight seemed to burn through whatever fog was holding his brain in place. Then he lowered the shotgun, leaned it against the wall, and walked into the room behind him. "They're here." He said as he went around the corner.

Morgan followed him. In the worn kitchen he found Laura Patterson, and a young girl with flaxen pigtails that had to be Lizzy. Laura had been sawing something off Lizzy's neck with what looked to be an old steak knife, but now she was looking up at Spencer with a mixture of shock and relief and deep anger. Without a word she went back to sawing.

"Let me help." Spencer said, too calmly.

"Not with your thumb." Laura replied, just as calmly.

Without a word Morgan stepped closer and picked up Spencer's hands. His left thumb was seriously out of joint, folded across his palm at an unlikely angle and more than a little swollen. But Morgan also noticed that the fingerless mittens he was wearing did nothing to conceal the skinned and swollen knuckles on both hands that were still seeping blood. "Should get that looked at," was all Morgan said, calmly.

"Yeah," Spencer agreed.

In the meantime Katie and her team pushed in behind Hotch and Rossi, and they heard other cars coming up. "Hotch." Katie said. They turned and saw Kipling Harris lying on the ground, twitching, a gun near his hand, but there was no blood. Katie knelt to check. "He's alive."

"Check this." Peter said, picking up something from the floor. "It looks like a taser dart crossed with a shotgun shell."

"Non-lethal," Rossi said. "How much do you want to bet that's a GlobalSafe prototype?"

"Check the house." Katie said to Mike and Kelly, who obediently went off while Peter and Lisa cuffed Harris and hauled him to his feet and out the door.

With a tearing sound Lizzy's collar parted. Spencer looked over as Laura pulled the hated thing away. "There you go." He said, briefly rubbing the girl's neck as she looked up at the two of them with a huge grin. "It's a shock collar." He explained to Morgan. "There's a radio fence around the property, she gets shocked if she gets too close to the boundary. We had to get it off before we could leave. Come here." He led her into the living room and up to Katie. "Lizzy, this is my friend Katie. It's her job to help kids find their way back home. Will you let her help you?"

Lizzy nodded. "Does this mean I won't see you again?"

"No. We'll have a chance to say good-bye, but I have to help Laura now. Katie will help you until we all get settled and your grandparents get here. And I promise; you'll always be able to find me."

Lizzy nodded, "Okay." Before reaching up and taking Katie's hand.

"Come on hun." Katie said. "Why don't you show me your room, and we can get what you need."

"Okay."

"Upstairs is clear." Kelly said as she and Mike came back down.

"Reid." Hotch said gently. "Where is John Rudger?"

"Down in the cellar." Spencer replied without looking at him. Instead he turned his attention back to Laura. She was looking at Spencer now, and backing slowly away. "I can't." She said quietly, her hand going over her mouth as if to hold in the emotions.

"Nono." Spencer was at her side in a heartbeat, catching her and pulling her against him. He started whispering into her ear, so quietly that none of them could make it out. She stood rigidly against him for a few moments, but he coaxed her into relaxing, eventually putting her arms around his shoulders and pressing in to him and finally, finally, nodding. At that he looked up at Morgan. "We need to go. Now."

"Okay. Car's outside. We'll go get that thumb looked at."

"Blake." Hotch said. "Go to the hospital with them. The rest of us will be along shortly."

"Right," Blake agreed. She kind of bundled around Spencer and Laura as he tugged her out the door, his arms still around her. They tried to get her into the SUV but Laura stopped at the open door. "I can't." She told Spencer again as she backed away, holding herself. "It's cold. It's going to be cold tonight. I can't…"

"Come here." Once again he pulled her into his arms and started whispering to her. Once again, after a few moments he gently seemed to coax her into relaxing and then into letting him help her into the back seat. Once there she kept holding herself as her face crumpled in pain and she started down at the floorboards.

It was better than what he saw on Reid's face, Morgan thought. I'd rather see that pain. But his little brother's eyes were still cold and lost as they slowly drove away.

According to Lizzy you had to go into the sunroom and find the trap door. Under it were worn wooden stairs leading to the original root cellar. The five agents crossed carefully in the musty dark, checking every shadow. At the far end they found a door painted old black to blend in. Behind it was a spiral stair leading down into the earth. At the bottom was another door that opened into the space they had seen in the video. The space was surrounded on three sides by cell bars and beyond them was a tidy, finished apartment with ample space for two adults to live comfortably. The side they had not seen held a small kitchen area. "This place is almost nicer than my condo." Mike said, stepping through the open cell door.

"Clear fields of fire though." Rossi nodded. "That shotgun explains it; he wanted to be able to subdue them before entering the cell." He pointed to a set of handcuffs hanging from one of the bars. "Then he'd restrain them until he was finished, lock the door, and let them go. Hotch." He nodded toward the bedroom section.

It was the only room that was at all disturbed. It looked like a fight had gone on, some of the furniture and a lamp were broken, and the bed was mussed and covered in something that looked like blood. A tall, rangy man lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling with sightless eyes. While JJ covered him Hotch bent down to check. "Dead," he informed them. "It's John Rudger."

"Is it me or was he beaten to death?" Rossi asked.

"It's not you." Hotch replied. He looked closer at the sheets, then touched a finger to the blood there, sniffed it, and tapped a touch to his lips. "Coffee, corn syrup and some kind of red dye," he told them. "It's fake blood."

"So Reid uses fake blood to convince him that Laura needs medical attention, urgent enough to not go for the shotgun," JJ said. "He voluntarily cuffs himself, and then when Rudger's back is turned…slips the cuffs?"

"His thumb," Rossi replied. "Houdini used to dislocate his thumb to slip out of handcuffs. Reid would know that." He looked at the body again. "Are we saying that Spencer Reid beat a man to death?" The others looked as shocked as he sounded. "What the hell happened down here?"