Emily parked her car at the very edge of the Parker hunting ground, J.J. watched her ready her weapon, the Glock, as they joined Rossi and Reid along with the other members of the search party.
There was nothing new to what they had when they first came for James at the salvage yard, the only other difference was that besides the SWAT team and Chief Brody and the Team was that the Hunter Lucas Elkins, armed only with his hunting rifle, was joining them this time for his experience of the area of the layout around them, along with them was the new Detective on the case, Riley Peyton armed with his Beretta 92, to replace Stabler and Deeks.
Emily looked at the forest before them, the place where she first saw a hidden hell. The thought of returning to it again was enough to make her back away with the fear from the memories of what happened. Then she thought that James would need her and her only thought was what she would be willing to do to the family in order to find him.
J.J. could see it in her eyes, she had no concern about the UNSUB's anymore. It worried her because that look in her eye showed a completely different person than the one she called her friend, it showed a person who was willing to do anything and everything to get what she needs to do in order to help her get want she believes would be the right thing to have done.
Emily did not care about what was different from before, everything was unimportant in her eyes right now. All she wanted, no, all she was able to care about was finding James in one piece and alive. She did not want to think about the possibilities of what could be happening to him right now. She knew that the two of them had done enough for the Cullen Family to want them dead, they had no reason not to kill her if they saw her gain, but James was more or less their family so she could always hope that they would at the very least consider that.
She took a brief moment to check her weapon ammo before sliding it back into the Glock; following behind the Team as they lead the SWAT team along with Elkins and the detective.
The team begins to move through the woods, following the map and confirming with Elkins every step of the way, not wanting to take anything to chance.
Emily watched as the others moved, following behind them, unsure if they were even going in the right direction, she could just barely remember all of the details of the turns she made after escaping, James could have probably found his way back to it easily, but she was not even sure of that.
The day was already reaching the middle by the time they reached this point. Then they were stopped dead in their tracks by a perplexing sight, nothing but cars, old cars, for a short distance like an old scrap yard; only the cars were not piled onto each other, just in the wilderness, covered by the grass and vines of nature slowly claiming them as their own.
The look on Elkins and Brody's face's told the team what they expected; the town's people had been completely unaware of this place. One by the one they checked the license plates on the back and front of each car, every one of them from all around the country.
"How could no one not know this place was here?" Emily asked, and then Elkins replies "This part of the wilderness is old, most people don't come out this far, not even kids. Whoever these people are they've been using this place for a long time."
Hotchner looks at the hunter confused and asks "What makes you say that?" then Elkins points to one of the oldest cars on the sight and says "I'm no car expert, but this one impala looks like it was made in the 70's, and I mean the really early 70's or possibly the very late 60's."
Emily stared at the various cars; the Cullen family, they must have put a lot of time and effort into all this, to keep their secret safe over the years. She then thought of what they would be willing to do to keep it a secret from the world, and to preserve their own little corner of the world.
Suddenly they all heard a variety of shots in the woods and before Emily even realized what she was doing, her feet were running as she bolted to the direction the sound of the gunshot came from, it was on more of an impulse than a decision. She had no idea whether the gunshot was James or someone shooting at James or maybe even it could have nothing to do with him at all, it could just be another hunter in the area.
These many possible factors did not stop her though; she had to be sure, regardless of the outcome and/ or its consequences for her. All that mattered to her n that moment was James safety.
Meanwhile
Caleb and Jenkins watched Greaves for a while after he passed out from the torture; once he did there was no solution to waking him up. They both had used this method before on a few of the other people that they captured from Parker, frying them before cooking them up, but most of the people they tortured were not as strong as James and as such they failed to account for how much he was able to take before finally passing out and they lacked the knowledge to know when he would wake, or how they could wake him up to continue torturing him for the information that Joseph Cullen was wanting.
Guess they should have put some more time and planning into their methods of the process of Cattle prod torturing him.
James was technically asleep, but he could still hear them just barely. For once his inability to dream finally came in handy in this less than ideal situation. He could hear Caleb put the cattle prod down on a nearby wooden table before saying "I'm going out for a smoke Jenkins, go on without me if he wakes up."
The belladonna drug that Caleb forced down his throat one or two days before, depending on the time of day, was no longer in his system, but now he was starting to wish he had a little hallucination to help distract him from the pain.
The feeling of being hit with a little bit of rock salt was enough to seriously hurt someone enough to take any excuse to forget about it, and James was no exception to this category. He was just barely able to wake himself up, his vision taking a long time period of seconds to finally clear up.
He could see Jenkins looking at the things they took from his house after they kidnapped him. Jenkins could be heard saying, believing James to still be out cold "You may be have been born in civilization Greaves, but I got to admit you have nice taste in weapons."
Jenkins remained unaware, examining the M1911 and Sphinx AT-2000 pistols and SR-25 sniper rifle. It gave James some time to take grip more and more on reality, feeling the restraints on his hand, holding them behind the chair. Then the effects of the cattle prod began to come back and falls back into being half-conscious.
Jenkins looks back at James, seeing he was just barely awake. It was clear that torturing him right now would do no good until he was fully awake and starts to take a walk around the cabin, looking for his rifle to properly guard him until Caleb returned.
James took some time to look at the layout of the barn her was in. It was big, well medium size, but still big for a barn.
It took some doing, but he was finally able to undo the restraints on his hands, rubbing the sore skin as he looks for something to use when Jenkins returned. The crafty little devil quickly found it in the form of a small hook; he took it in his hands before pretending to still be restrained as Jenkins returns with his bolt action rifle in hand.
James made a smirk on his face, laughing at Jenkins's obliviousness to his freedom. He pondered the things he could do to him. These bastards had tortured him two times in the past few days in one week seemed only natural that he repaid them with a little grief in kind.
Jenkins took an immediate dislike to the smirk and grudgingly asks "What are you smirking about?"
"So your Caleb's new little helper?" James says, looking to find a way to get his goat.
Jenkins then says "Shut up. You may be smiling now, but me and my cousin are going to bleed you for the hurt you've caused our family."
"Bite me. No, no wait, you actually might." James says sarcastically before Jenkins replies "You're not funny, just pathetic. Hard to believe someone with Cullen blood in them could be as pitiful as you are."
"Big words coming from a back woods, inbred, redneck hillbilly whose only function is to be someone else's bitch," James says as he insults Jenkins. Laughing a bit on the inside as some of those words Prentiss used to describe him years before when they first met.
"You really think your better than us, don't you?" Jenkins asked. James did not have a riposte that time and Jenkins continues on saying "We may have killed those people but at the very least we have a reason for it. The thrill of the hunt and the kill."
"What about you? Don't tell me you didn't enjoy the killing for just a minute." Jenkins says in an attempt to mess with his head. James then lost the part of his head that kept him held back in his brutality and says "Actually yeah, I did. When I killed your friend Lee and Steve. And then when I killed that little Maggie bitch. The sound of hearing her beg for her life was thrilling."
:"Shut up. Jenkins said, not wanting to hear him speak that way about his cousin. And then James goes on saying "What? All I'm saying is Maggie went down crying like a little bitch. Like all of you are going to."
The words must have cut deep for Jenkins, because the next thing James saw was him preparing to hit him with the stock of the rifle saying "I said Shut up!"
James reacted quickly, stabbing him in the leg before tackling him to the ground. They struggled for control of the rifle Jenkins was holding. He tried to raise it up, but James grabs hold of it as he pins him to the ground and then punches him once across the face gaining full control of the rifle.
James then hit him with the barrel of the gun before swinging the stock across his face, knocking him unconscious.
As James stood up with the rifle in his hands he considered killing him then and there. As he aimed the rifle at Jenkins head, his finger was close to pulling the trigger, wanting nothing more than to rid the world of another monster. It was then as his finger began to hesitate some part of him finally woke him from the madness. To kill this sick man would have made him no better than Caleb himself.
As much as he hated him, despised every fiber of his existence, he did not want to become anything like him. But were they so different anymore? He was broken now; he could probably have killed a person and not be bothered by it. He had done it to the various members of the Cullen family.
In that moment he questioned what he had become, was he a monster, or was he something worse.
He could not kill him; he could only drop the rifle and walk over to collect his two firearms. Putting the two pistols away he quickly checks his SR-25 sniper rifle finding it to be empty of its ammo and throws it down saying "Damn it all."
He then takes a nearby hunting knife as he hears a noise. Suddenly Caleb walks back in with his rifle drawn, seeing his unconscious cousin and a free James. James then makes a run for it, with Caleb firing two shots that just barely missed him. Caleb pulls back on the bolt of his rifle and loads ammo in to replace the bullets he wasted and then pushes it back in and chases after him shouting "You can't escape me Greaves; I'll hunt you down to the ends of this godless earth if I have to!"
"I'd like to see you try!" James shouted back to his psychotic cousin.
James continued to run as he said those words. He could literally feel his heart beating like a drum as he did. He felt like that Greek guy who was doomed to push a boulder up the hill for eternity. Caleb continued to fire his rifle, unaware that he had attracted the people who were looking for him.
Back to Emily
Emily continued to run through the tattered wilderness, tracing the origin of the gun shots. Her weapon was ready as were the rest of the team and the SWAT team. She could hear more of the gun shots being given to someone.
She could soon hear a voice, and then recognized it as the psychopath that she believed tortured James and forced the drug down his throat with tea, Caleb Cullen.
"You can't escape me Greaves; I'll hunt you down to the ends of this godless earth if I have to!" She heard him shout, and then she hears James voice "I'd like to see you try." Her heart raced as she picked up the pace with her running.
She had no more concern with bringing Caleb back in alive. All she cared about was finding James alive and if that entailed that her killing Caleb would be necessary than she would without a second thought to it.
Soon she hears Caleb's voice again "I am so disappointed James! You showed such promise! Now here you are trapped like a rat and the thing is I did not bring you here, you walked in by your own damn self!"
Emily was then given the relief of hearing James voice again as he replies "You a dead man Caleb, you hear me? A DEAD MAN!"
Everyone heard one last gun shot before they finally saw the two of them.
James disarmed Caleb of the rifle he was using, kicking it out of his hand, and Caleb then responds in kind by pulling out a knife. James does the same and they engage in a knife fight, both dodging the others move and retaliating with a slash of their own.
Emily would have killed Caleb then and there, but she was not able to get a real shooting position in view as they struggled. It was then that James took notice to their arrival and says after kicking Caleb back "About damn time, where have you people been."
Emily then watches as Caleb charges at James and she takes the time to pick her shot and hits him in the arm holding the knife and then James jabs his knife into Caleb's leg, causing him to fumble to the ground with his leg bleeding. James then looks up at the group and says "What the hell, do you know how long I've been putting up with this ass hole."
James slowly staggered away from the wounded Caleb as he pulls out it Sphinx. He just barely escaped this monster two times now in less than one week and he was not ready or willing to be taking any chances with him now. Caleb looks up at him and begins to laugh and Morgan asks "Something funny here you son of a bitch?"
Caleb continued to laugh for a few more moments and says to James, speaking in the same manner he did in the interrogation room yesterday "Tell me something Greaves. How did it feel to know the truth about where you come from?"
Emily took notice to the expression on James face as he lowered his weapon and says "I felt like someone gutted me of every emotion I ever felt and replaced it with bile, sadness, depression and resentment. Like someone tore my whole world apart right in front of me."
His face resembling a man recounting the emotions from the worst point in his life.
Caleb again begins to laugh and asks "Did your grandfather really never tell you about where he came from, the kind of people he was raised by?"
James took a moment of pause with only Emily and Caleb looking directly at him and says as he reminisces about the past with a few laughs "I was fifteen when my dad's old man caught me halfway through my first beer. I was so sure he was going to scold me after that, instead he laughed so hard as my face was turning green. He then looks to me and says "Your just like me and the rest of the sinners in our long family line of trouble makers." He never told me directly about his family or home, just that he ran away when he could tolerate it no more."
As James was lowering his guard and was preparing to put his weapon away Caleb reaches into his pocket and pull out a small pistol, causing James to re-aim his weapon back at his head and then Caleb says "Oh relax, I'm not going to kill you or your FBI "girlfriend."
Caleb then asks "I do wonder though Greaves, if my grandfather had gone with yours and agreed to abandon their family what would have become of me? Could I have led a different life from this one?" Caleb said before James replies "Your life was not entirely decided by your grandfather's actions, you could have walked away any time, you had plenty of chances but you chose to stay on that course."
He continued by saying "You can try to fool yourself and say you didn't have a choice, but you had a choice every day of your life when you killed, but you did nothing to stop it."
Emily and James both expected Caleb to defend his action, but he did not. He simply said "Your right James, you're absolutely right." Then before either of them had time to react Caleb pulls up the gun, aiming below his chin and fires one shot.
Emily walks over James as the team checks the body to make sure he was completely dead. James stood motionlessly staring at the body, still in shock as he tried to get a grip on reality. Then before he knew it he felt a hand touch his shoulder and he looks to see Emily looking at him.
"Are you okay James?" Emily asked. James did not respond at first; he just looked at her without a word before bringing her to a tight hug and says "Thanks Raven."
