Warning: Very long chapter with no Morgan/Reid stuff. I wanted to get the current case over with so this chapter is just focussed on how they nab the unsub. There is also one mention of the C-word for any of you who may be upset by that kind of thing.
Music: The Horror of Our Love ~ Ludo
Lake Ponchartrain ~ Ludo
Prentiss sat on the end of the four-poster bed, gun beside her, legs tucked under, straining her ears for the slightest sound of movement downstairs. Her heartbeat was so loud she was worried she wouldn't be able to hear. It was a struggle to control her imagination, which kept showing her the unsub creeping up the stairs.
This is stupid. She thought. I have to try and relax or I won't be able to trust my ears when he actually arrives.
She picked up a magazine, scanned her eyes along the page, but her brain refused to interpret the words, so she would get to the end of a paragraph and realise she hadn't actually read it. She put the magazine down and returned to worrying, this time about Young.
He was an obnoxious idiot and the sooner he was out of her life the better as far as her stress levels were concerned, but it was a brave thing he'd done, agreeing to help them. If he died at the hands of this unsub she knew the guilt would haunt her forever.
He might be dead already.
No. The unsub needs both of us to play out his fantasy.
She looked out of the window. It was snowing again. If Young was outside then the cold and the blood loss might kill him just as easily.
Why wasn't the unsub coming for her?
Suddenly the piercing ring of the cabin landline sounded, making her jump.
She frowned. The landline wasn't fully connected so usually you could only get the hotel services or the emergency number. There was no reason for anyone to call her on that number. Who could it be? She walked over to the landline to check the caller ID and dialled Hotch's number on her cell.
"You alright?" he asked.
"The landline's ringing. Looks like a cell phone number. You think it's him?"
"Might be. I'll call Garcia, get her to do a trap and trace. I'll text you when we're ready, let it ring out until then. He'll definitely keep calling you. As soon as he talks to you he has the power to set demands with Young's life as a bargaining chip and it'll be hard to strike a deal in your favour. Be careful though, it's possible he's calling you to try and distract you while he breaks in."
"Okay." She relayed him the number and hung up.
The shrill noise did nothing to calm her nerves. It finished ringing, then fell silent for a moment. She nearly panicked but it rang again, just as Hotch said it would. Finally the text came through from Hotch to say that they were good to go. She picked up the phone and took it up to the bedroom, feeling nervous and exposed downstairs. She crossed her legs underneath her, sitting on her bare feet, and answered the phone in a fake-sleepy voice.
"Hello? Baby is that you?" she murmured. There was no reply. "Adam?"
No reply. She waited, knowing Garcia needed a long time to track the signal, but the other person hung up. Then, no more than five seconds after the call ended, the power cut out.
Her heart was in her mouth as she looked around the darkened room.
Surely that couldn't be a coincidence? Something had gone wrong. Why hadn't Hotch phoned? They must have seen the outdoor lights go out on the CCTV. What the hell was going on?
She shivered slightly as a breeze caressed her bare shoulder blades, blowing in from the open window.
The open window.
Her heart exploded into a rapid frenzied rhythm as she realised what it was that she was missing, what her instincts had been trying to warn her about. She picked up her gun with shaking hands, and got to her feet, straining her ears to hear anything outside the blood crashing round in her ears and her gasping breaths as she struggled to stay calm. The wind howled against the outside of the house and flecks of snow blew in through the open window as she pushed open the door to the en suite bathroom. No one there.
She turned to the large oak wardrobe opposite the four-poster bed, more than large enough to hide a person, and reached out with a shaky hand. She gripped the door handle in her left hand, gun in her right.
She yanked open the door and leapt back.
It was empty. That just left…
Suddenly she felt something scratch her leg. She looked down to see a hypodermic needle embedded in her calf, and stumbled backwards in shock as a man pulled himself out from under the bed she'd been sitting on, his arms like the feelers of some horrible black insect crawling out from under a rock.
Then her circulatory system pumped 20mgs of benzodiazepine into her brain and she started losing control of her limbs as he got to his feet in a leisurely manner. She tried to fire at him but he just smiled patronisingly from behind that awful mask, and held up the bullets he'd taken while she'd been downstairs. He held out his arms and caught her almost tenderly as she collapsed forward, unconscious.
...
The team were gathered round the monitor, eyes glued to the screens. The atmosphere got heavier and heavier as the minutes ticked past. Morgan stood closest, his face set with grim determination, barely even blinking. There was no way he was going to let this guy get past them again.
"Something's not right here." He said finally. "He should have come back for her by now."
At that moment Garcia called them.
"Did you find out where the signal was coming from?" Morgan asked, almost yelling the question he was so wound up.
"I'm sorry to disappoint, I may be good, but tracing a ten second call is beyond even my capabilities." She said huffily.
"Okay babygirl don't worry." Morgan hung up. "Ten seconds? What the hell is the unsub playing at?"
Hotch dialled Prentiss's cell to ask her what was going on. "She's not answering." He said.
They all exchanged worried glances.
"We can't go rushing in there." Hotch said. "Not when there could be a reasonable explanation."
"Come on Hotch!" Morgan snapped in disbelief. "This is Prentiss we're talking about! Get her out of there now!"
"If we do that then Young is as good as dead!" Hotch replied angrily. "I was the one who invited him on this case. We are not abandoning him."
For a moment there was a tense standoff between the two agents, the team watching them helplessly, not knowing who to agree with. Morgan opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it and nodded. He knew Hotch was right. They couldn't panic. Young was depending on them.
Reid nudged his way to the front.
"Excuse me…sorry…If I could just…" he put his nerd glasses on and leaned across the table to get a closer look at the monitor. He studied it for around twenty seconds and then turned to face them.
"Get her out of there." He said urgently.
"What is it?" Hotch asked.
"Don't ask me how, but somehow we've been hacked."
...
It didn't matter how fast they moved, they were far too late and they all knew it. The back door was wide open and there were faint tracks in the snow, but in the blizzard they were facing the trail would be gone in a matter of minutes. They found the open window, with a chip around the lock where he'd forced it open. They found the idiotic design flaw in the cabins which made it laughably easy for somebody to climb from the fence, to the kitchen roof to the bedroom window in ten seconds.
It shouldn't have mattered. The alarm should have gone off when he forced the window.
Except he cut the electrics first.
That shouldn't have been possible with the team watching the outside of the house via CCTV.
Except he'd hacked into the feed and set it on a loop.
Even then, there were two hidden policemen watching the house, who should have seen the lights go out.
Except he slit their throats before they could call for back up. One was still alive, they took him away on a stretcher, but it was clear that he wouldn't last long.
Blood in snow. Morgan had never seen anything like it. He couldn't stop staring at it as it soaked into the ground.
This job had plenty of awful moments, but some cases really broke your heart. He let himself think this as he closed the dead policeman's eyes, then he forced the door shut on his emotions and stood up. He had a job to do. Prentiss and Young were counting on him.
...
Young groaned as his mind swam into consciousness. His head injury was throbbing and his face felt sticky and crusty with blood. He was propped up in a heavy wooden chair, his hands bound tightly to the arms in plastic cuffs which had cut off his circulation and made his fingers somehow numb and painful at the same time. Same story with his feet.
He was incredibly pleased to note the fact that his heart was still inside his chest and beating away like a metronome. A very frightened metronome.
He raised his head on a stiff neck and blinked blood out of his eyes. He was in a darkened room with no windows, but he could feel a strong draught from all four walls, and concluded that he was in some kind of wooden shack. He could also hear water.
Ah. Near the lake then.
Still, he thought, at least he kidnapped me first and not Emily. That was a big mistake. I'm sure she'll be infinitely more useful in rescuing me than I would be in rescuing her.
As if he were waiting for a precise cue to crush Young's hope with maximum effectiveness, the masked man yanked open the door, hinges squealing with rust, and carried an unconscious Prentiss inside, laying her down on the floor next to Young with ostentatious care, as if he were placing a sleeping princess on a bed of roses. He tied her hands behind her back and her feet to a metal ring on the wall while Young played dead (there really weren't many other options open to him at this stage). Then he left them alone to wake up, ready for the finale of his twisted game.
"Emily." He whispered, his voice cracking in his dry throat. "Emily, please wake up."
He listened for a reply.
"You'd better not be dead. I hope you realise I'm relying on you to think of a plan to save my puny ass." he whispered.
Still nothing.
"Or if you can't manage an escape plan, perhaps you could set your mind to how I'm supposed to use the bathroom while tied to a chair, without seriously compromising my hygiene and my dignity?" he continued. "Don't worry though, I can wait. For a while anyway. You take your time. Have a think."
There was no sound except her shallow breathing.
"That'll teach me to...accept a free holiday. I had heard stories, you know? I shoulda listened. Free holidays are always terrible. Luggage going missing, flights getting double booked…serial killers trying to feed your heart to your pretend wife…" he gave a forced laugh and then had to stop as a jolt of pain and nausea from the head wound swept through him. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.
I'm going to die. He thought, swallowing back tears. I am actually going to die.
...
Meanwhile at Prentiss and Young's cabin, the team were already on the phone to Garcia.
"Babygirl we need you." Morgan said, putting his cell on speakerphone. "Seriously, now would be a great time for one of your miracles."
"Well…it's not exactly a miracle, but I have a picture of the unsub from the cameras in Carson and Son's Tailoring and Alterations, the shop where he bought the dresses. Don't get too excited though, It's very grainy even though I've increased the resolution as far as I can, I don't think it'll be much help."
"Send it anyway. Thanks Garcia." Hotch said.
"So let's remind ourselves, what do we know about him so far?" Rossi said.
"He's got to have some kind of IT background." Reid said. "And somehow he knew Young and Prentiss were FBI, but he still went ahead with his fantasy. That demonstrates a powerful need to defy authority, and that he's desperate to complete his fantasy. His cooling-off periods are getting shorter and shorter, so he's probably devolving."
"Which means he'll start making mistakes, right?" JJ asked.
"Maybe he already has…" Hotch said suddenly. "Garcia can you find me a list of male IT technicians for companies and small computer repair workshops in the area, who were fired or who quit in the last couple of years?"
"Ohh that won't be fun." She groaned. "Hang on."
There was a long silence filled with furious typing.
"Okay, I have 2,776 candidates. Hit me."
"It would be a job where he felt bored and undervalued, that his skills were going unnoticed and unappreciated. He would have been given multiple warnings about his problem with taking authority and would almost definitely have been reported for sexual harassment of female co-workers." Reid said.
"Okay…uh, 462 hits for sexual harassment! Wow…IT technicians are having no luck with the ladies are they? Way to let the side down people. At least some of us know how to be fabulous."
"He would have had a long period of medical absence fairly close to when he left, for the injury to his face." Hotch said.
"Fourteen."
"Any of them have Ukrainian names?" Morgan asked.
"Hang on…" she scrolled down. "Wait…holy crap guys!"
"What? You found him?"
"Oh yes, without a doubt. Wait until you hear this."
...
Prentiss woke up in the dark with her cheek on a cold floor. She lifted her head off the floor and tried to use her arms to sit up, but found that her wrists were tied behind her back with thick nautical rope, in a tight complicated knot which felt like it would have been hard to untie even if she'd had both hands free and enough light to see by. There was more tied around her ankles and about a metre and a half of it connecting her feet to a metal ring on the wall.
"Emily?" Young murmured, barely conscious.
"Yep." She said. "Hi. Are you okay?"
"Can't complain." He snickered in a slurred voice.
"You don't sound like you're okay." She stood up. She could hop/knee-shuffle a couple of steps away from the wall, enough to reach him. She turned around and got him to lean forward, then awkwardly but carefully, not wanting to hurt him, she felt the wound on the side of his head with her fingers. There were a couple of glass shards stuck in it and it was still oozing blood at the slightest touch. Half his hair was matted with it.
"Do you know where we are?" she asked, saying a mournful goodbye to the beautiful red satin dress before hitching up the back of the skirt and trying to rip out the ruffled red cotton lining.
"I don't know. Somewhere near the lake." He muttered, his head dropping like he was nodding off.
She tugged at her dress but the quality of the stitching was good and it was hard to tear the fabric. She needed a sharp edge, but the unsub probably hadn't been kind enough to leave them a…
Oh.
She got Young to lean forward again.
"Sorry, this might hurt." She said, and began to ease a shard of glass out of his scalp. A fresh trickle of blood leaked from his head, filled her palm in less than a second and ran down her wrist. She had to act fast or he was in trouble.
The task was much easier with a blade, and once she made a cut she was able to easily tear off the whole of the ruffled underskirt, leaving her with a large square of absorbent material.
She held it firmly against the wound until most of the bleeding stopped, then folded it and after several attempts, finally managed to tie a rough bandage around his head.
"Sorry." Young said miserably, and then leant forwards and vomited onto the floor. She rubbed his back and told him to calm down and breathe. He stopped retching but he didn't lift his head. He was unconscious again, she realised. She put one hand under his chin and one on the back of his head and pushed him against the back of the chair so his head was supported. She turned his head to the side in case he vomited again and pulled his tongue forward so he wouldn't choke on it. His skin felt freezing cold; he'd been out here a lot longer than she had.
She used the inch-long glass blade to start cutting through the cord around her wrist, wrapping her dress around the outside as a safety measure, to avoid her fingers getting too cut up. It didn't work very well but she gritted her teeth and ignored the pain. The work was awkward and slow. Really slow. Ten minutes of cutting and she'd only got a quarter of the way through the cord. She knew she probably wouldn't be able to get them both free before the unsub came back, but she didn't give up, figuring if she could get free she could find something heavy she could swing, and give the unsub a special welcome the next time he came to check on them.
She'd only got halfway through when she heard the unsub's key in the padlock across the door. She hid the flattish blade between her wrists and lay back down, faking sleep as she heard his footsteps coming towards her.
"Hello." He whispered. "My name is Misha Kurkov."
He brushed her hair back over her ear tenderly, and stroked her cheek and eyelashes with his thumb. Then to her disgust, he bent forward and placed his lips on her mouth for several seconds.
"You are very beautiful." He said affectionately in a strong Ukrainian accent. "And very convincing." He chuckled. "But I know you are awake. Don't worry I am not angry. You can open your eyes now."
She kept them closed, breathing steadily.
"Open your eyes you fucking stupid cunt." The man said, barely changing his cheerful tone.
She still kept them closed. The moment she opened them Young would be killed. The killer could be bluffing.
He slapped her. She didn't react. He slapped her again.
"I am about to lose my patience." He scowled like a petulant child. "You will obey me."
For a moment he was quiet, then she heard the familiar sound of a lighter being clicked, and the whoosh as it finally ignited. The game was up. There was no way she could stand that, and it wouldn't help her escape to get burned. She lay still right up until she felt the warmth reach the sole of her foot, then opened her eyes, yanked her leg away and sat up.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." She said apologetically, putting on a feminine 'help me' voice to play to his ego.
She thought he might burn her anyway as punishment, but he flicked the lighter off and put it away.
"I'm not angry." He said, though the cruel gleam in his black eyes said otherwise. "You only trying to protect your friend. It was nice of you to bandage his head. You must like him a lot. Why that is, I have no idea, when you could have someone like me." He took off his black eye mask and laughed bitterly, obviously referring to his facial scarring.
She looked at his face for the first time. He was blonde, surprisingly since his brother had such dark hair. His hair was longer too and tied back in a short greasy ponytail, apart from two strands at the front which were too short and fell in front of his ears. The skin on the upper half of his face was slightly shiny and red and puckered up, normal skin starting at the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. Across his forehead patches of new skin had been grafted onto the worst parts, giving him a slightly patchwork look until they healed up properly. His damaged right eyelid was still swollen half closed. He was tall and powerfully built, dressed in a black tuxedo, and his breath stank pungently of rotting meat.
"I was beautiful once too." He gave a melancholy sigh. "I would have been able to charm your panties off in less than an hour. But my brother was always jealous of me. He sabotaged me. He got me drunk, and then he wouldn't pay for taxi home, so I had to take car and I crash, and now goodbye nose, goodbye skin, goodbye job! Goodbye to love of my life." He hissed bitterly. "She told me I'd changed after the accident." He laughed bitterly. "She say I scare her with mood swings and drinking. So she traded me for unscarred model. My darling brother. After they forced me out I lived rough in the forest around the lake, surviving in the wilderness with my broken heart, for two years. The children of the town even created a legend about me." He chuckled. "The carnivorous lake monster."
She looked him in the eye the whole time while he spoke, determined not to let him think his injuries intimidated her. For a man as vain as he had obviously been, she saw that the disfigurement must have been a disturbing change for him, but he actually didn't look that bad as burn victims went.
"I'm sorry. That must have been a terrible betrayal." Prentiss said, forcing herself to sound sympathetic. "But what have I done? What has my husband done?"
He laughed at her.
"Do not lie to me woman. He is not your husband. I heard the policemen talking about your plan. You were sent here to trap me, but I outsmarted you. I outsmarted the FBI." He pointed a dirty finger in her face and laughed again. "Bet you all thought I stupid. Everybody thinks this. My whole life they told me I not worth anything unless I do as I am told, but now I show them all." He chuckled. "Are you hungry little girl?" he pulled a hacksaw and a carving knife out of his rucksack and dangled the knife in front of her eyes.
Prentiss shook her head weakly. "Not right now thank you."
"Oh. That's a shame. You won't enjoy your meal very much then." He grinned.
...
Garcia read off a list of facts she'd gathered from her research.
"Misha Kurkov, younger brother of Viktor Kurkov. Parents still live in Ukraine, he arrived with his brother and girlfriend in late 2001 and became an IT technician to pay off his student loan. He kept swapping jobs because he had a problem with being bossed around, and a major problem with female co-workers. But he managed to find a job and keep it for five years, and then used his savings to help his brother buy and renovate a run-down hotel and they were pretty successful. Then in 2005 Misha was involved in a car accident which left him half blind and scarred. He also had extensive injuries to his body such as a collapsed lung, bruised spine, and two broken legs. He was behind on his insurance payments so his brother had to pay for all his treatment, and ended up having to close the hotel because he could no longer afford to run it. Apparently Misha really didn't take well to the recovery process, and treated his brother and girlfriend really badly…smashed up her car...demanded his brother pay him for his share of the business even though there really was no business at this point because his brother was looking after him. Then his girlfriend and his brother got engaged and he tried to set fire to her...then he ran away and wasn't seen again for four years. He was officially declared dead when the police found a beat up John Doe in a ditch at the side of a nearby road with his wallet and wearing clothes matching his description, and assumed he'd been hit by a car."
"So where do you think he would take Prentiss and Young?" Morgan asked.
"I checked the area and found no more buildings under the name of Kurkov. He's probably operating under the identity of the body the police found." Garcia said.
"What buildings are there within body-dumping distance of the lake?" Morgan asked.
"What is body dumping distance exactly?" Garcia asked.
"Use your own judgement."
"There are mostly only boathouses that close to the lake. They're used for privately owned fishing boats to dock." Reid said.
"Then there's a good chance he's using one of those. We should drive down there and start checking them." Hotch said.
"But that could take hours! There are literally thousands of boats on that lake!" Reid said. "We have to find a way to narrow it down!"
"Right, well until you do, I'll be checking them one by one." Morgan said, heading for the front door.
"I'll get the police and security team down to join the search." JJ said, taking out her phone.
"I'll drive us. Let's go." Hotch said.
...
Misha stood up suddenly and went outside, taking his rucksack and tools with him. When he came back he was holding a small digital radio which was modified somehow so that it was broadcasting the police radio frequency.
"Your friends are finally on the move." Misha said. "But they know nothing of course." He grinned smugly. "And by the time they find you I will be long gone I'm afraid."
"It takes a long time to remove a person's heart and feed it to another person." Prentiss said.
"I prefer to kill him that way, yes." He shrugged. "Buuut, I can adapt to new situation. I will just drown you straight away. I will do it perfectly next time, when I finally kill my wretched brother and his whore." He grinned.
"If you take us out onto the lake now then the cops will see you straight away." Prentiss pointed out.
"Who said anything about taking you out…" the man smiled, evidently enjoying her confusion. "Where do you think you are anyway?" he laughed.
"I don't know. Some kind of wooden shack near the lake." She said.
"Not just any old shack." He said. "This is a boathouse. You see the slanted floor? And you will also notice that the walls at the far end of the building…" He pointed behind Young's chair.
"They're made of cement." Prentiss noted, now the lamp light from beyond the open door lit up the room slightly. "From floor to ceiling."
"And you cannot see this from the inside, but there is a gate. When I lift the gate juuust a little, the water comes in, and fill the room all the way up to where the cement stops." He explained.
He lifted a foot onto Young's chair and nudged it so the chair fell backwards with an ominous crack, which Prentiss hoped was the chair hitting the floor and not Young's skull.
Then he picked up another length of rope and used it to connect her wrists and ankles, rolling her onto her stomach and tying her up like a joint of meat so she couldn't stand up. She didn't bother fighting. She knew if she struggled he'd just knock her out. Part of her wondered whether that might be a preferable way to go, but she refused to give up yet when she knew the team were looking for her. Plus she'd managed to hide the glass shard in her palm while he tied up her wrists again, so there was still hope.
She would not die at the hands of this arrogant, misogynistic batshit-crazy narcissist. She was going to live just to piss him off, to look him in the eye and see the look of shock on his face when he realised that she had survived and that he had failed, and that he was just a mortal man after all like any other, not some kind of invincible, vengeful God.
He kissed her on the forehead like he was tucking a child into bed, then stood up and closed the door behind him as he left. She broke out into a cold sweat as she heard him turn the key in the padlock. With trembling hands she started sawing away at the rope with the glass.
There was a creak and the sound of stone shifting, and the concrete wall lifted about an inch off the floor, and the icy black lake water started flowing in at a frightening rate, closer and closer, higher and higher.
She fought back tears, fought back the urge to scream and beg for her life. She suddenly hated Young for being unconscious, for leaving her to go through this horror on her own. She had always thought that however she finally ended up dying she would be okay with it, as long as it wasn't drowning. Her worst nightmare was the idea of being trapped underwater, totally alone, feeling her breath run out and knowing that every second brought her closer to the unbelievable pain of inhaling water into her lungs. Despite all the horrors in the world she faced on a daily basis, she had never thought it could be so cruel as to let her die this way.
The water was lapping at her feet already, and she was calculating how long it would take the team to get there and she knew it was hopeless. The journey alone would take them at least an hour, and they had only set off about ten minutes ago.
She used her abdominal muscles to move like a snail away from the water, but she was already laying in a shallow pool of it. It had already soaked the back of Young's head and the tufts of hair over his ears.
Her hands were wet now, and the glass slipped out of her hands.
"No, no, no!" she cried, stretching her fingers out in the water to try and find it.
"Emily…Emily are you there!?" she looked over and saw that Young had woken up, blinking in the dark. "Don't leave me." He said, looking like a scared child still confused and woozy from the head injury.
She stopped fighting and slumped back onto the ground.
"I'm not going anywhere." She said comfortingly, tears welling up in her eyes. "We'll be fine. They're coming to get us. We just have to wait."
She didn't have the heart to tell him the truth about their situation.
"I think you're lying." Young murmured sadly.
"Shut up you idiot. I'm not lying." She said half-heartedly.
He chuckled. "See you in hell baby."
He started thrashing and trying to tug his arms free as the water reached his face and then his mouth and nose. Prentiss shut her eyes. She couldn't bear to watch him die.
Now she began to scream for her life.
But the water came for her, into her ears and eyes and nose.
Fully submerged and waiting to run out of oxygen, she suddenly heard faint banging sounds but they sounded far away in the water, then she heard a crunch and she opened her eyes and saw light! Somebody had broken down the door!
She saw a figure lean over her, felt a blade cut through her ropes and hands pulled her to her feet. Gasping for air, she helped their rescuer lift Young's chair clean off the ground with him in it and carry him outside. The half-conscious Young coughed and spluttered as they dragged him out of the door, and Prentiss collapsed onto the snow, coughing.
She looked up at the man who had saved her life and realised that it was their skiing instructor, Viktor. Misha's brother.
"I'm sorry my brother has been doing these things, I did not know, I swear to you!" he said, cutting Young out of the chair. "I came as soon as I was released, I knew he would bring you here, so I waited for him."
She sat up, gasping. She didn't have time to scream a warning before the axe came crashing down onto Viktor's shoulder and he howled in pain.
"Hello miy̆ brat!" Misha hissed. "Long time no see."
"Go!" Viktor screamed at her as he turned around, yanking the axe handle from his brother's grasp.
She scrambled to her feet and ran for her life towards the trees. When she looked back briefly Viktor and Misha had each other in a death grip on the snow-covered ground, it was impossible to see who was winning. It was a very small axe and Misha had been aiming to taunt rather than kill, but there was still a lot of blood. She didn't look back again.
...
Misha jammed the axe blade first into the snow beside his dying brother's body, panting triumphantly.
"Finally…" he wheezed. "You finally understand that you are weak, and I am the strong one." He threw his hands up into the sky. "YOU HEAR THAT FATHER? WHO WOULD YOU CALL THE RUNT OF THE LITTER NOW YOU OLD BASTARD!?"
He slung the unconscious FBI agent over his shoulder and staggered down to the edge of the lake. It was already starting to freeze, chunks of ice clunking against the boats. There was a small rowing boat sitting on the shore. He dumped Young into the boat, pulled the plug out, and pushed it into the lake with a sarcastic salute.
"May you go to your death with fidelity, bravery and integrity my friend. And take your ugly whore of a girlfriend with you when I get her back."
...
Prentiss kept running until her feet were so cold she couldn't stand it, until her lungs were burning and she was soaked in sweat. She could hear the crunching footsteps from behind her as she was pursued. She blundered around, totally and helplessly lost, knowing every second could be Young's last.
She stopped, a flash of scarlet in a black and white forest of skeletal branches. There was no point in her wasting energy by running blindly around in the dark, when she had no idea where she was. She had a good head start on him but she needed to use it wisely.
She looked behind her at the path, snow torn up by her footprints. It gave her an idea. She ran to the side of the path until she reached a large bank of snow, to make it look like she intended to hide there. Then she started running back the way she came. Backwards, fitting her feet to the prints carefully. She did this for a minute and then ran behind a fat, gnarled old tree, levelling the disturbed snow with her hands so it looked reasonably flat. She then climbed into the tree and lay flat behind a large branch, so it would be nearly impossible to see her from the path.
Then she waited, hardly daring to breathe, shutting her eyes as he ran past her tree. She gave it ten seconds and then jumped down and ran back the way she came, always a few metres to the side of the path so it would be harder for him to find her trail.
He would realise soon what she had done. He would be back. But she would be ready for him.
God would she be ready for him.
...
She was tiring now. Running through snow was hard work, especially in bare feet. She could hear him gaining on her. She turned around and realised he could actually see her now. She was fit enough, but so was he, plus he knew the terrain and had nothing left to lose.
She put on a fresh burst of speed as she broke away from the trees back onto the shore of the lake, and saw what she was looking for.
His car, right where he left it, door still open where he'd leapt out to kill his brother.
Please don't have taken the keys, please don't have taken the keys…she pleaded.
He hadn't!
She scrambled into the drivers seat and shut the doors, locking them from the inside. She saw his ugly face change from smug to furious as he realised what she had planned to do. She turned the key in the ignition and stamped on the accelerator.
He froze stubbornly in her path. He thought she was bluffing.
He still looked surprised that she hadn't stopped, as he flew through the air like a sack of potatoes and landed in a crumpled heap about ten metres away.
She slammed on the brake but she couldn't stop in time, and the car all-but demolished the rickety boathouse. The airbags deployed but she had no seatbelt so she got a bit bruised and banged up. Nothing serious though. She opened the door and jumped down from the driver's seat shakily, looking for Young. He wasn't where she left him.
She looked out at the lake and her heart nearly stopped when she saw that there was a boat out there half submerged. She saw an arm and a head appear over the side as Young tried to sit up.
Large bodies of water terrified her. She couldn't stop thinking about how vast and deep the water was, what horrible creatures could be lurking below the surface. Every instinct in her body told her that this lake was pure evil, that if she went in it something awful would happen to her. But then she thought about how scared she would be if it was her in that boat, with no one to save her, and she ran into the lake without another second's hesitation.
She cut through the water as fast as she could, gasping at the shock of the cold and her own exhaustion. She seemed to be swimming for such a long time she thought she might be too late, but then she saw him again, clinging to the upturned hull of the boat.
She kicked her legs faster, until she caught up with him. Just as he was about to slip under she pulled his head up out of the water and screamed at him to breathe with such ferocity that it snapped him back into consciousness. He gasped for air and started to thrash.
"Hold your breath and do small kicks with your legs!" she gasped, choking on the water. She didn't even know if he could hear her.
With a mammoth effort she began to pull him towards the shore, slowly but steadily.
His eyes were half closed and he was as white as a ghost. He mumbled something she couldn't hear.
"Huh?"
"Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me... it brought me to you. And I'm thankful for that, Rose. I'm thankful. You must do me this honor. Promise me…you'll survive. That you won't…give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. P-promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise."
It took a moment for her to understand what the hell he was talking about and then she almost slapped him.
"Never let go!" he laughed at her perplexed expression.
"Will you shut up!" she half giggled half wheezed. "This is not Titanic, and it's extremely suspicious for a heterosexual grown man know all the words off by heart."
"Say it! Come on, when are we going to get another chance to re-enact one of the most romantic… f-films of the century?" he laughed through chattering teeth. "Say it!"
"I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go!" she gasped dramatically. "Happy?"
"Yes. Thank you." He smiled and closed his eyes.
She stopped for a rest about 100 feet from the shore, regretting that she had talked instead of preserving her energy. Suddenly there was a shout of "They're in the water!" and she turned around. It was Morgan and Reid. Morgan yelled at Reid to go and get the others, took his coat and boots off and ran into the lake, swimming towards them at top speed, his powerful strokes barely making any splash. Prentiss sighed with relief.
"We're going to be okay." She breathed.
...