I'm Coming Home

by Shortstakk7932

After having a rocky start in the BAU during 'Who Are You', Alecta and the team head back to her home town for a birthday bash; it's part of the two week vacation that they have been granted by Strauss. While they are there, the team starts to learn even more about what has made Alecta the woman she is today. Nothing very sexual. Rated M to be safe for possible foul language.

9. Chapter 9

AN: So on with chpt 9. Last chapter we saw Alecta burying the hatchet with an old nemesis. How will that benefit her from here on out?

Quote: As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claw. (The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova)

I'm standin' on the bridge
I'm waitin' in the dark
I thought that you'd be here by now
There's nothing but the rain
No footsteps on the ground
I'm listening but there's no sound

Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home?
It's a damn cold night
I'm tryin' to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand?
Take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
But I'm, I'm with you
I'm with you
Hmm hmm hmm

I'm looking for a place
I'm searching for a face
Is anybody here I know?
'Cause nothing's going right
And everything's a mess
And no one likes to be alone

Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home?

(I'm With You-Avril Lavigne)

Alecta sat at Chaz's desk and chatted with her a bit while she waited for Whitney to be released and get her clothes changed. Chaz was surprised that Alecta had been able to change Whitney; Whitney had been such a staunch opponent for years, but perhaps there was some hope after all.

Twenty-five minutes later, after going through the procedures to be released and getting a fresh change of clothes, Whitney emerged from the rear of the policed station, walking over to the two women.

Looking up at her newest 'sister', 'Come on over to the house with me and have some lunch."

"I don't know if I should. Would I be welcomed?"

"Yes, of course you will. Kevin may give you hell for a minute. But, if he keeps up with it, I'll just chain him up out back and let him run to the end of his leash and bark. It'll be fine."

Whitney giggled, and the two women walked out of the station arm and arm as if the rift between them never happened. Chaz smiled, shook her head, and dove back into her paper work. She figured she might stop by the house later and see how everyone was getting along.

Alecta still hadn't found out that Hotch had been there, listening from the other side of the glass. He waited until after he was sure Alecta was gone before he came back out to Chaz's desk.

"That was wholly pointless." He dropped into the chair in exasperation. "I didn't find out more than I already knew to begin with."

"Patience, my good man, patience. Rome wasn't built in a day. And if you're patient, the pay-off is bigger and longer lasting."

"I'm not a very patient man."

"Then ya'll are meant for each other."

"Wait. What did she mean by being bought and sold more than a used car?" It seemed as though Hotch's brain was just now catching up to bits of the conversation. Chaz merely cocked an eyebrow at him as she looked up from her paper work.

Hotch gave it another 15 minutes before he headed back towards the Eason's house. By the time he got there, Whitney was sitting at the kitchen table with Alecta, drinking tea and eating some fried green tomatoes as well as some cucumbers that had been cut up in some vinegar and salt. They were talking and joking like they had been friends all their lives. Things like this never ceased to amaze Hotch. This woman had been cruel to Alecta her whole life, and yet, she had adopted her as a sister in a matter of moments.

Coming around the corner of the doorway leading into the kitchen, 'And you have problems understanding why I told you I love you?"

Alecta jumped, Whitney turned, seeing who it was and smiled. "Lex, I'd take him up on it."

Alecta grumbled something under her breath and got up to get some more tea to drink.

"Can we start over? I'm Whitney. I'm sorry I was so bitchy to Alecta the other day. And who are you?"

"I'm Aaron Hotchner. She and I work together in the FBI's profiler unit."

"Alecta, you're leaving him twisting in the wind?"

"No. Well, not intentionally." Looking at Hotch just for a brief second before turning back to her task of pouring more drink, 'I'm just not ready to…say it….back. That's all."

Hearing Whitney's heavy sigh, "Look, one husband just left me. One tried, yet again, to kill me. Luckily he wasn't successful, but as you can see I haven't got the best track record in the world. Forgive me if I felt like I might need some time to get my shit together and think over some things."

Whitney looked over at Hotch; if she wasn't mistaken, she thought she could see a glimmer of hope in his eye that this wasn't a lost cause after all.

"I'm sorry if you feel like I've been pushing you or anything."

"Oh good grief! Don't apologize. Do you know how long it's been since I thought anybody was actually excited to have me around?" She really has no idea, Hotch thought to himself. But he didn't need to be on this train of thought right now; not at all or Whitney would get to know him a lot better. Alecta shrugged her shoulders, coming back to the table with her refilled drink glass, and bringing one for Hotch as well. To anyone who grew up in the south, being given a glass of tea without having to ask for it first is as good as a peace offering as you could ever get; the only thing that might…Might…trump that is a huge bowl of potato salad for no reason. Alecta had made the tea yesterday afternoon, before the party. And Hotch was of the firm belief that this was the best sweet tea he had ever had.

Changing the subject, Alecta had asked where Garcia and the girls-meaning JJ and Emily-were at.

"They went with your mother and Mrs. 'Ouisa into town to do a bit of shopping. Since the Eason's had such an early morning at the diner, 'Ouisa was able to cut out early."

"Poor Garcia. Downtown isn't that big. It doesn't have the designer places she likes so much."

"Trust me. If it has an open sign on it, Garcia will shop there…she'll at least try it once."

Alecta shook her head laughing a little bit. Hotch spoke the truth. Garcia loved her shopping.

"The kids?"

"Kevin and Mr. Dan'el and the guys were taking them by the pond for a bit of fishing, getting them out in the open a little bit."

"Cool."

The three of them sat there for a little while longer, talking and enjoying the peace and quiet of the house before the inevitable return to insanity once the kids returned; with no fewer than six small children running around at any one time, it had been a mad house around there the past few days.

"Lex, it's very nearly 3p.m. I need to be getting home. I will have to stop by the grocery store on the way and pick up a little something for dinner, so I want to get started before too late."

"Ok. That's cool. Come by tomorrow. We can do some swimming or something."

"You betcha."

Meanwhile 'Ouisa, Mrs. King, and the girls had been enjoying a nice slow paced day of running around shopping. JJ and Emily had absolutely loved the little corner drug store that still had its own teeny tiny lunch counter. The area for the lunch counter was barely big enough, but somehow they had managed to fit five booths in there; and it came complete with soda fountain. To see the look on everybody's faces when they recognized Mrs. King after all these years had been something. There were a lot of questions from the ladies in the shop, just like there had been a ton of questions from the men over at the diner. They got to meet one little old lady that had to be at least as old as Ollie. Her name was Miss Carry; and she made it a point to inform the three BAU girls that it was pronounced C-A-R—EE, not Cary or Carrie. Miss Carry had been an old school teacher. She had taught Kevin and Alecta as well as all of their parents, and even their grandparents.

"Oh, yeah, I taught school forever. I started when I was only about 18 or 19. In those days you didn't have to have much in the way of a college degree. The school lessons were pretty simple. You just had to have high marks in your classes, and have a few college courses…but only if you wanted to make your application look better, it wasn't so much of a requirement as it is these days."

Carry had gotten side tracked sitting in a booth near them, talking her head off about some of the stories that she could remember about some of the kids growing up.

"I didn't retire until I was into my seventies. I really did love the kids you see. I got to watch them all grow up, got to watch their kids grow up. I was never married, and had no children of my own, so this was as close as I was ever going to get."

"Why wouldn't you have had your own husband and children?" Garcia wondered aloud.

"In the early days, the female school marms weren't allowed to marry. In those days, you didn't advertise being pregnant like so many of you youngsters do now. You definitely didn't talk about it in mixed company of men and women. It was kind of like the whole hang up the church has with Catholic priests being married. They wanted the marms to set a shining example for the young ladies. And the idea that a marm would be teaching while pregnant….wasn't going to happen. That would have lead the children to asking about pregnancy, how it happened, where did babies come from…that sort of thing. And the prevailing custom was that young people under a certain age didn't need to hear those sorts of discussions.

And if I had ever gotten married, especially in the early days of my career, I would have had to quit being a teacher. And I couldn't do that, I loved it too much. And years later, when it would have been more acceptable for me to do so, it was too late for it to do me much good. But that's ok. I've had a few gentleman friends."

Mrs. 'Ouisa grinned knowingly, 'So when's your next date with Ollie, by the way?"

"We're s'posed to go out to the movies tomorrow night. I don't know what he wants to see. I haven't cared a thing for the films the last few years; they're all violence and a bunch of naked people. No decent stories anymore. But he said there is a good one that he thinks I may actually like. We'll see."

"Miss Carry, you didn't ask me about how I can be alive right now."

"Jake's at the bottom of it right?"

"Well yes…."

"Enough said. That boy has been nothing but evil since the day he was born, God rest his poor mama's soul. That woman tried. But with a husband like that, what do you expect. At least your daddy came around in the end. He felt some remorse for the things he'd done to your momma and you kids. I don't excuse him for the years before that when he beat ya'll with if you got in arms reach of him…but at least he made his peace with it all. That Mr. King, Jake's daddy was clearly one of the Devil's own children. And it sounds like Jake got all of his 'finest' qualities. Those King boys were the only ones that ever gave me so much trouble. But I was only ever scared of Jake. The year I had him as a student, I passed him to the next grade just so I could get rid of him. I could scarcely believe that Alecta was his daughter; she was such a good little girl. She never caused any trouble. She always wanted to stay after school and help me get the classroom in order; of course she'd only stay if Kevin stayed. She would never have thought of it by herself. I can remember the first day he came to me and asked me for her if it was ok if she stayed and helped. I don't think I had ever heard her speak to be honest with you."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. King was genuinely interested to know.

"Oh, you didn't know. After….after what happened…when she thought you had died…the poor thing went almost completely mute for a long time. The only person I ever knew of her to speak to at all was Kevin, and even that was pretty rare. Once she got a bit older she began to speak more and more, but it was still so seldom."

This bit of news seemed to trouble Mrs. King a bit, but she didn't dwell on it for the moment. She could come to terms with it in her own time, later.

"Oh, PG…' Emily interrupted, 'Excuse me Miss Carry…Morgan just texted me; he says 'Pick up ur phone'."

Garcia gave a frown as she rifled through her purse looking for the elusive item. "Ladies, I will be back in a second. It seems as though somebody may have left her phone in the car. It shouldn't take me more than a minute."

"Yeah, yeah. Call your man before he comes tearing through town looking for you." Emily chided; JJ softly giggled…mostly because she knew how true the statement to be.

Garcia went racing out there; thankfully she had thought to wear flats that day and didn't have to totter around on her usual choice of four inch heels. Getting out to the car she got out Mrs. 'Ouisa's key to unlock it, but realized that Mrs. 'Ouisa must've forgotten to lock the doors. Out here in 'Mayberry' it was easy to forget. You would never do that around Quantico.

Rifling through the back seat where she had been sitting, Garcia couldn't find her phone.

Stooping down to reach under the seat a little in case it fell on the floor of the car she muttered, 'I know it's here somewhere…"

"Looking for somethin' darlin'?" An eerily familiar voice came from behind her, freezing her blood in her veins.

Slowly, Garcia stood up and turned around. This man was like a bear; you don't want to startle him with sudden movements.

As she turned around slowly, inch by inch, 'Who's Hot Stuff? Is he your little boyfriend?" The man watched the look on her face change, watched the color drain from it. "It don't matter to me none. He's never gonna see you again. That much of I'm sure of."

The man made a lunge for Garcia, grabbing her. She screamed and tried to fight her way free. It wasn't working. Along with having the personality of a bear, it seemed as though this man had the strength of one as well. Alecta! That was the last thought that Garcia actually had as the rag with chloroform covered her mouth and nose.

Inside at the lunch counter, JJ and Emily had gotten so wrapped up in Miss Carry's story telling that more than five minutes had passed before JJ sat up and asked everyone why Garcia wasn't back yet. As soon as she finished her question, Emily jumped up and ran out to the car to check on Garcia. When she got out there she saw the car door slightly ajar and Pen's phone on the ground, ringing. It was Morgan; he was still trying to get in touch with Garcia. Then Garcia's phone stopped ringing, and Emily's started going off. What was she going to do? If she hit 'ignore' so she could call JJ he was going to know something was going on. Emily raced back inside to tell JJ in person what she had found.

"Well you better call the man back. If he's anything like Kevin or his daddy is about his woman he will be here in a matter of minutes if you don't….and even faster if you do."

"Oh my God. This is gonna blow." Emily picked up her phone to dial Derek's number and let him know what was going on. Waiting for him to pick up, 'Now he'll never let her go anywhere without him again."

JJ rolled her eyes as she called Hotch to let him know what happened and get the remainder of the team together.

"What's going on?" Miss Carry began asking, worried about the bubbly young lady that had just been giggling a few moments ago at something she, Miss Carry, herself had been saying.

"Jake." Was all Mrs. 'Ouisa had to say.

"That…." Miss Carry didn't have the words. Nobody had ever heard her say any really foul words, but she came close. "I better get over to Ollie's. If I stay here, I'm liable to say something ugly that I can't take back."

Back at the Eason's house, Alecta had begun to make her way out toward the stables, which were about 200 yards from the house, to check on the horses. She thought she'd heard a disturbance out there, and she needed to go check it out. After doing her cursory check of the horses, she found nothing wrong. She'd mention it to Mr. Dan'el, he'd have his regular stable hands check things out more closely in the morning. As she was leaving the stables, a man came from behind the stable doors and dropped a bag down over her head. It was a large enough bag that it came down to her elbows as the assailant wrapped his arms around her. She started screaming and kicking. She could hear the man that had grabbed her initially telling someone to get her feet. Wait, that voice sounds familiar. She knew the voice that came from behind her. It was her father, Jake.

"Tie her feet, tie them tight. She's a kicker."

Not even saying a word, Alecta tried struggling harder against the men. Knowing her father had her by her arms, his lackey Rusty was probably the one that was tying her feet up.

"Daddy's home. But then you already knew that didn't you? In my defense, I didn't come near your precious babies again. Get her in the truck."

Garcia! Alecta thought quickly. They had likely gone after her too.

In the house, Hotch had been meandering through the kitchen and living room, making his way to the stairs. He was going to go grab the book he'd been reading on for days. But he heard a noise from outside. He went running into Mr. Dan'el's study, the direction that the noise had come from. Looking out the window, from a distance, he could just barely make out the source of the noise. He saw Alecta struggling against two men. It was her scream he had heard. He whipped out his cell phone and called Rossi. He needed Rossi to tell Morgan and Kevin what was going on. As he waited for Rossi to pick up, Hotch ran out the door, running as fast as he could to keep up with what was going on. He saw the men packing Alecta into an SUV of their own.

"Rossi."

"Dave." Hotch was out of breath, he'd run nearly ¾ of the distance and was beginning to panic slightly.

"Aaron? What's going on?"

"She….she went outside to check on the horses…." Still trying to catch his breath, 'They got her. Where's Morgan?"

"He's trying to get ahold of Garcia on her phone and having no luck with it. We're coming back to the house. Kevin and Dan'el are getting the kids packed up and ready to come back. We'll be there in couple of minutes."

The men arrived with the kids around the same time as Mrs. 'Ouisa and the women arrived back at the house. JJ hadn't been able to get Hotch on the phone and had been worried. Emily had been talking to Morgan on the phone at the same time as JJ called Hotch and had only been able to tell Morgan what she knew had happened. Morgan to say the least was NOT happy about the turn of events and only got angrier when Rossi got off the phone with Hotch.

Once everyone had made it back to the house, the team had from force of habit started to piece together the 'case' just as they would have if they were actually working.

"Wait."

"Wait for what Hotch." Morgan was getting a little worked up. "They have the girls."

"Kevin we didn't think about jurisdiction and things like that."

"You get started doing that thing ya'll do. I'm calling the sheriff now. He's a friend. He'll welcome the help. We'll have anything the town can spare at our disposal." Kevin walked out of the room to make his phone call.

"Someone may want to check on Chaz and 2. If Jake is starting shit…like father like son." Mrs. 'Ouisa thought out loud. At that Mr. Dan'el turned to go out the door to do so, balancing on his cane as he grabbed his cell to call Victor to tell him to keep an eye on Chaz. Dan'el himself was going to grab 2 from her sitter's house.

Looking around, Derek saw that things were starting to take shape quickly; he wanted to run and find Garcia NOW. He didn't want to sit and form a plan. He had one. It was to go and beat the shit out of somebody and get his Baby Girl back. As he scanned the room he could see that he wasn't the only one with these thoughts. Good luck Dave was all that Derek could think as he tried to calm himself down a little bit. He knew that Rossi was going to have his work cut out for him having to wrangle both Morgan and Hotch. Morgan had only ever seen Hotch this bent out of shape one other time, when he beat George Foyet to death.

Morgan sat down around the kitchen table with the others to talk over what was going to happen. Kevin came back into the room about the same time and took a seat.

"The sheriff has said that he will help us anyway he can. Now, we will have some unconventional help in trying to find them. I can tell you this already. I can promise you that 'Raging Creek' is already putting his tracking skills and lingering curiosity over the 'white man' to good use. Don't be surprised if he pops up from time to time. And you can bet that when the time comes he and the 'boys' will interfere as much as possible to sideline whatever Jake and the others have planned. They're good at jamming weapons and tripping people, etc. It's not much, but it can buy you a few seconds."

"I want to go through the old house…."

"Agent Hotchner, I doubt they'd be stupid enough to take them there. I mean they were smart enough to have two separate attacks simultaneously, surely they wouldn't follow that up with such a grand failure as that."

"This may be true, but there may be clues as to what their next move is or where they are holding Garcia and Alecta. And not only that, but during the party, after Alecta's performance, she went on a walk. I followed her, I have become like you, I knew it wasn't safe to let her walk around by herself with him being this close. She saw lights on over at the old house. And she went over there….I followed her of course, I couldn't stop her from going…..we were sitting on the porch hiding under the window, and she looked in and saw something. I don't know what it was, she didn't let me take a look, and she never explained it to me. But her mood changed completely after that. She raced back to the house like the devil was on her back and didn't stop running until she got upstairs. She was shaking. For all the crying she was doing she couldn't tell me what she saw. We need to get into that house and see what we find."

Kevin only nodded. He hadn't been back in that house in a long time…he had gotten some odds and ends of things that belonged to Alecta out and brought them home with him, to keep at his parents place in case she ever wanted them again, so she wouldn't have to go over there. But beyond that, Kevin avoided that place. He hated it. That was the house where all those bad things had happened to her. That was where she saw what happened to her mother. Those other poor women…..so much evil in one house. Just being there made him angry, thinking of all the years she was stuck in that prison alone. And now the agents wanted to go through that house. It was almost more than Kevin could bear. He knew what needed to be done. He began to wonder if this is how Alecta felt all the time over the prospect of people finding out about her story. His stomach hurt so badly.

"Excuse me, I'll be right back." Kevin jumped up racing from the table into the downstairs bathroom that was in the hall way. He just barely made it in time. Luckily since Kevin was tall he was able to lean in and grab the lid to the toilet flipping it up just in the nick of time. He began vomiting hard. 'Ouisa jumped up and ran down the hall after him. She had to see to her boy. He was hunched over the commode losing everything he'd ever eaten. Looking at him, she turned carefully and made her way back down the hall towards the kitchen.

As she came past the living room, "Ouisa?"

"Oh, Rossi, he'll be fine. It's just…he's kept her secrets for her all their lives. When she wouldn't or couldn't talk to anyone else, she came to him. Alecta's so private about her story. Just give him a couple of minutes."

Five minutes later, a paler, shaken Kevin comes walking back down the hall.

"If ya'll want to go ahead and check out the house, we need to go on over there and get this over with."

With that Kevin walked into Dan'el's study and walked over to the gun safe, taking out his favorite rifle and a box of ammunition that he started to pack up. Hotch and crew began getting their firearms straight. Morgan tucked one of his side arms in the back of the waist band on his jeans; as he did so he thought about whatever clever, naughty little thing Garcia would say about his ass in those jeans and chuckled for just a second.

As Reid got himself together he thought about the discussion that he had with Alecta weeks ago over the various psychological meanings some of the Shakespeare plays. It was an off-shoot of the discussion they had about Shakespeare and Marlowe. Reid grinned and kept getting his things together.

Rossi ran his hand over the book that he had given Alecta. She had put in Dan'el's study, on his desk, for him to read while they were here. The cover was worn, looked like the spine was going to fall off of it if the wind blew just right. Most of the pages were dog eared; she must have read that book 1,000 times. As he flipped through the pages a wrinkled photo fell out. Picking it up he saw that it was the last photo that had been taken of Alecta and Yuri with their children, just before the car blew up, making her think they were all dead. She had put it in her favorite book, and taken them both everywhere with her. He looked out the window in the direction of the stables that had been what drew her into the line of danger. He shook his head. He worried about Alecta; would she make it through this in one piece, and if so what would she be like when this was over.

JJ and Prentiss were thinking back to the day that they had gone shopping with Alecta and Garcia for that ball gowns that were needed when they were trying to track down the Russians. Garcia was always such fun on any shopping trip. The jokes she told, the dish on Morgan…it was great to see her face light up just at the mere mention of his name. And Alecta? Both women knew what everybody else knew. She was to die for. She was so little and just so damned cute. Men would trip over their feet every step of the way to follow her down the street. And she had no clue. She had jumped, with both feet, on to Hotch's radar, even if it was by accident. She was the first woman that had caught his attention since Beth left him. After that he had become more focused on Jack and work; he never seemed to notice the women that watched him at the bar when they got together for drinks after work. Alecta never seemed to take notice of the men that watched her; sure on odd occasions she danced with them, quite well judging by how closely Hotch watched her. JJ and Emily looked at each other when they both chuckled on the same thought. It was the time that Hotch realized he was busted. They had never seen him blush before, let alone so deeply red.

Hotch was pacing by the door, his weapons were ready; he'd checked them twice already. Why were the others taking so long?

"Agent Hotchner, these floors are original to the house. If you keep pacing like this you're going wear a hole right in the foyer. Settle down, they're coming."

Hotch had spun around hearing Mrs. 'Ouisa's voice coming around the corner. Hotch just shook his head as he came to a stop.

"Are you really any good with that thing?" Mrs. 'Ouisa asked Hotch one more time about his marksman ship.

Taking out his cell phone, Hotch showed Mrs. 'Ouisa the pictures of Fletcher and of Rasputin; both with fatal wounds that were inflicted by Hotch.

"Is this good enough?"

"It'll do."

With that said the rest of the team came into the foyer. Mr. Dan'el, 'Ouisa, the two Rachels, Sasha, Eva, and Oleg would be watching the other kids. And since they were all handy with weapons there was no safer place for them.

The team jumped into two SUVs. Hotch and Kevin were in one, Kevin driving; Morgan and Rossi with Reid and the girls followed in the other. They drove over to Alecta's old house, it only took about eight minutes; Kevin was looking rougher than he did before they left. This must be weighing on him. It was a huge secret to keep for somebody for so long. And to have been by her side all these years, if you overlook the years that he spent being angry with her and distant, that was a lot to ask of one person. And he had done it without question just because.

Eight minutes later the two SUVs came to a stop in what had been the front yard of the old house. As they all made their ways to the front porch they began looking around to see if there was anyone there that they could see from the windows.

"Fates Fault?"

"Yes Dr. Reid. In England back centuries ago, when you had a large house and estate, you typically named it instead of giving it an address. And when some of the well to do families began building in the colonies and the islands they took the practice with them. Alecta's direct ancestors named this place Fates Fault. I always thought it was kind of ironic. All those years she spent in this place."

Suddenly Kevin opened the door. With his foot. He kicked it so hard it all but fell completely off the hinges.

"Sorry, Southern summer weather. Sometimes the damn doors stick." He excused himself sarcastically.

With that he led the way into the house. Just inside the large foyer, near the foot of the stairs one of the first things they saw was a darkened patch of the wooden floor.

Without even looking down, as he moved through the house helping to secure the first floor, 'That is the stain left behind from the pool of blood that formed from Mrs. King's wounds."

Once they cleared the first floor they had made their ways upstairs. Of the rooms they had checked there was nothing there. There were signs that the men had been there and that they had been keeping women there, but they were gone now.

Kevin and the team began walking around the house to take a closer look at everything.

Prentiss was running her finger over a hole in the wall behind the kitchen table, "What's this?" she asked Kevin.

"That happened the day that Jake taught her to play Russian roulette. That's where the bullet went through the wall instead of her forehead."

Kevin got tired of poking around down stairs and he, Morgan, and Hotch wound up meeting back at the base of the stairs again, heading up them one at a time.

As they headed down the upstairs hallway, they began opening doors to the rooms that hadn't been opened yet. As they came up on a particular door, Hotch placed his hand on the knob and began to turn it…

"No. Wait. Leave this one." Kevin seemed upset at the idea of this door being opened. Hotch looked at the front of the door and it had little paper cut outs of fairies that were scribbled with crayons and markers; some of them had names that had been written on them in the shaky, unsteady hand of a child. There were little wooden, rounded shaped letters that spelled out 'TINK' in soft shades of pink and green that were strung together on thin strips of satiny ribbons that were in the same soft greens and pinks. There were a few small photographs, some of which had been cut out and pasted on the door panels of a baby and then toddler Lex with her mother, a younger Mrs. King; some pictures were of Alecta by herself. There was even one of toddler Lex with toddler Kevin. Apparently they had been eating popsicles and the popsicles had turned changed the colors on their tongues; the kids were sticking their tongues out to show the colors. Alecta's was purple. Hotch lowered his head for a second, glancing at the floor.

"Kevin…"

"Yeah, I know." With that Kevin backed away, allowing Hotch to open the door. Inside the room was a fairy world. There were paper cut out fairies hanging everywhere; some were neatly colored, as if by an adult, some were scribbled, as if done by a child. There were some small fairy sculptures that were on higher shelves, out of reach of a small child. There were stuffed fairies that lined some of the lower shelves and some were piled on the floor with some other stuffed animals. There was a fluffy light blue stuffed elephant that played a lullaby when you wound the key in his left hip. Stuffed horses, stuffed bears, etc. all toppled over the floor; most of them were well worn, showing that the little girl who lived in this room had loved them greatly. There was a full sized bed in front of a set of bay windows. There were four large windows that created the bay; they were all about four feet wide and close to 10ft high, nearly floor to ceiling like the rest of the windows in the house. From the window you could look out onto the area that would have been the horse pasture of the old house. The bed clothes were actually quite frilly, very little princess….not what you would have expected considering how impoverished she had been otherwise.

Seeing the look of thought on Hotch's face, "Mrs. King made these for Lex when she was little. She told momma what kind of fabric and things she wanted and had saved a few dollars every now and then and was able to give momma the money for the fabric. She sewed it all; she wanted Lex to have something like what every other little girl had, at least one little thing."

They looked around a little more, Morgan seeing an odd worn pattern on the floor near the door and an old dresser.

Seeing Morgan stooping down to examine the pattern, Kevin spoke again, "Jake had taken the lock off of the door a long time ago. She used to try to move the dresser in front of the door to keep it shut and keep him out. It never worked; he was strong enough that he could push the door and dresser out of the way."

Morgan and Hotch just turned to look at Kevin as he walked around, perusing the room. Hotch sat down on Alecta's little bed. To the left side of the bed there was a little night table, he leaned forward to pull the little drawer open and see what he could find, but before he could do so, there was a light thud that could be heard coming from under the bed.

Kevin and Morgan both turned to look at Hotch who was looking at both of them. All three men had a bewildered look on their faces. Shrugging, Hotch knelt down on one knee from off of the bed, looking under it to see if he could find the source of the sound.

It was an old leather bound journal, one of those that have the leather tie closure to it that is quite long and can wrap around the journal itself several times before you secure it. The cover was worn and soft, feeling almost like suede. It had been a bright teal color once upon a time, but over the years it had become darker with age.

Looking up at Kevin with the question in his eyes, Hotch needed to know, 'Kevin should I?"

"It may be the only way to find out some of what we need to know. There's so much that she has never talked about, not even with me. Ordinarily I wouldn't like spying on her and reading her journal, but under the circumstances, I don't see what choice we have. Go for it. If she gets angry later, just tell her I opened it or that it was my fault. I don't care if she gets mad at me; and to be quite honest, I stand a better chance of getting away with it."

Hotch carefully untied the string, opening the book, hearing the creaky sounds the old spine made after having not been used in ages. The earliest entries were in some of the same shaky child-like handwriting as the paper dolls on the door. They were just basic, short entries, not giving a lot of detail. But even in their simplistic patterns, these entries said a lot that she couldn't say for herself. Most of the early entries were to the point saying things like 'He came back again tonight. Last night I threw up on his shoes. He always tells me that I'm his little doll.' Or, 'He keeps calling me his princess. And I hate the sound my name makes when he says it. Daddy makes my name sound like a bad word.' But of all the early entries, the one that really pissed Hotch off bad enough that he thought he would stroke out was the one that had the line in it like this 'Daddy said that it wasn't fun anymore so he wanted to play a game. I don't like his games. Last night he brought his gun in with him. Since I didn't act like I was scared enough to suit him anymore, he was going to have to make sure. He kept the gun pointed at the side of my head and would wait to pull the trigger at just the right time. I wonder how many times we will have to play this game.'

Those early entries kept going. Over the years they got more sophisticated in both language patterns and handwriting. And also in the later entries she seemed to mention some of the women that came into the house. She would give rather detailed description of each woman, even if there was no name to go by. After each description she would leave a brief detail about whether or not she had seen the woman leave alive or not. Most of the women did not leave alive.

There was one entry for March 5, 1992, Alecta would have been nearly 13, that raised a question for Hotch. It hurts so bad…I've felt so sick for days now; even now I have the shakes and feel very weak. I have been going to school every day though. Don't want Kevin to worry. If I stayed home, eventually he would come looking for me. But I can barely stand it anymore. Something's gotta give.

What had happened; what was it that left her in this much pain? The entry was in a neater handwriting, as if done by a teenager or young adult, but it was still shaky, like she was actually in serious pain.

After the past few weeks of having known her, he could almost picture her hunched over making the entry, hand shaking, being too stubborn to just stop and wait until she felt better.

Flipping back and forth a little more Hotch found an entry that answered the question he had asked Chaz while he was at the police station. It infuriated him ever so much more than any of the previous entries had. Hotch saw nothing but red. The last time he had been this angry was when he beat Foyet to death. He was so angry, all he could see when he closed his eyes was that blinding light in his mind's eye. He shook his head trying to clear it all out so he could think straight. But that wasn't working the way he hoped.

The entry that drove Hotch to murderous rage was dated July 22, 1987. Daddy came home with a new dress for me. It was my favorite color and everything! I didn't even think he knew I liked green; he's never seemed to care. I don't so much care about dresses. I haven't had one since I was a little girl; the last one I had, mommy got for me. This one is green. It comes to my knees. It has straps instead of sleeves because it's summer. It even has little pink flowers on the front…..

On and on that entry went; eight year old Alecta was so excited that her daddy had gotten her. She was so happy that he knew she liked green; typical eight year old girl banter really. But there was a second entry…dated July 23, 1987. It was much different.

Daddy made me get a bath. When I was finished, he helped me get my dress on. He fixed my hair. All he did was brush it out and pull the top of it back in my green bow. He has always liked my hair. I was so happy for the dress; I didn't think….He made me go with Mr. Lucky. I don't like Lucky. Daddy said that he and Mr. Lucky are friends and I have to be nice to him…nice to him like I am for daddy and his other friends. I don't want to. I don't like daddy's friends….I don't even like that I have to be nice for daddy. But he said that Mr. Lucky gave him some money, it must be a lot. I've not seen it. I just don't want to go with Lucky, he scares me.

There was an entry made two days later that told most of what Lucky had done; none of it was very pleasant. And she was only writing then because she had lain in bed all day the day before, she had been so out of it and hadn't wanted to move.

As Hotch dropped the little journal something fell out, but he had taken no notice of it, he was still so mad he could spit nails. Kevin had turned to look at him when he heard him drop the journal on the bed, and he saw the things fall out. He came over to look at the things that fell out. Some old needles from a Christmas tree, a buffalo nickel, an old piece of paper that was so wrinkled that it was now soft to the touch. Kevin gathered the things up and put them back in the journal where they belonged. He didn't need to read any of the entries to the book, he knew most of Alecta's story by heart; besides, he didn't feel right flipping through it without her permission.

As Kevin closed the journal, re-tying the string around it, he thought of something that might help explain a thing or two.

"Did you ever wonder why she is an insomniac? Or why she is so reckless? And when you call her out on her shit she makes some sort of comment about she can't be killed or being immortal?"

Kevin studied the facial expressions of Hotch and Morgan for a moment.

"This is where it happened. She had just turned four about a month before….She said this one night, Jake came home drunker than she had ever remembered him being. As soon as he opened the door and came in the house she could tell something was different. She said that there was something in the air, you could feel it crackel. He was so drunk he could barely make it up the stairs without falling back down. He beat her momma. He did a real number on Mrs. King that night. And after he was done with her he turned on Lex. She'd been sitting in that bed, waiting….she didn't even try to fake being asleep anymore.

Jake was in fine form that night, doing what he does best. She said it was the worst it had been in a long time. It was almost more than she could bear.

You believe that? She was four years old…and she talks about that night like it was every day that a father does that to his daughter.

Anyway, he was…he was so drunk…he was so drunk that he passed out on top of her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't push him off of her.

Mrs. King struggled but she made her way up the road to the Gatling's place…I don't know for sure how long it took her. I know it takes about 15-20 minutes if you walk it at an average pace. But, it was storming that night, and Mrs. King was hurtin' something bad.

The Gatlings came back with her in their old, rattle-trap of a truck. Mr. Gatling had his rifle with him. He was finally able to get Jake off of Lex, and chased him out with the gun. It was a stroke of luck that the old man had been a medic in WWII. He knew basically what he had to do to try to save Lex's life. She was pretty much unconscious. She hadn't had a pulse for several minutes. He kept working on her. He didn't have a choice; there's no phone here, Jake never put one in. Mrs. Gatling had to take the truck back up to their house to make the call to the ambulance. But it would still take them close to another 15 minutes to get here. He had to keep trying. He got her back to breathing on her own. By the time the ambulance arrived, the EMTs checked her over, and the story that Mrs. King and the Gatlings told them was that she had choked on a piece of candy.

So you see, Lex has been dead once. She's says she got sent back because the devil doesn't like competition.

And the Gatlings had told Mrs. King that they would help her get out of town with Lex. The next afternoon when Jake came home early, that's what was happening. Rachel was packing some bags with just the barest of essentials, and trying to get out of here. But it was too late. He beat her so badly. And Lex saw the whole thing."

Hotch was doing all he could to keep the angry parts of him from completely snapping. "Let's see what else we can find, shall we."

"Kevin, Alecta said once that her dad had his own dungeon. Where?"

"That's right. Come one. I know how to find it."

On their way out of the bedroom Hotch grabbed the journal off of the bed, giving the damned piece of furniture one last look, wishing he could get the pictures of killing Jake out of his head. The three men made their way to the landing of the stairs. There was a rather tall shelf unit in the corner. Kevin had to stand on his toe tips to reach the top shelf. He was able to grasp a skeleton key. Next, he moved a potted plant that had died a slow death a long time ago, even the dirt looked fossilized. Shoving that decrepit plant out of the way he was able to locate the lock that he was searching for. Inserting the key, he turned it to the right until it clicked.

By now Rossi and the others had come to find out what was going on and saw Kevin unlock the secret door.

Reid let out in exclamation, 'A secret passageway?"

"Yeah, our houses are full of 'em. They were built around 250-300 years ago. Of course they have secret passages." Kevin shrugged as if to suggest that all houses had them and that it was common practice.

Opening the newly unlocked secret door, Kevin revealed a second stair case that led down to a darkened hallway. Fumbling around the wall just beyond the door he managed to find the light switch.

"Lex knows her way over every square inch of this house in the dark, I don't; even if I did, it's still a rather creepy place…."Kevin said by way of an explanation.

He led them down the hall; there were some rooms off either side that had doors to them.

"Most of these were just storage. A few were used for different things at different times. Like this one right here,' Kevin pointed to a slightly opened door, 'this room was used to store booze during the prohibition era. They had kegs of the stuff just stock piled. The room just across from it here…that's where they made their 'shine'. They didn't have to worry about an outside still. It was a nice outfit from what my granddaddy always said."

Kevin lead the team down the hall a bit further, hanging left, coming to a second shorter hallway, he stopped.

"This is the area that Jake and the guys kept the women." Opening a door to one of the rooms, 'This is where he would make Lex stay when he and the fellas were 'entertaining. This is a two way mirror, just like at a police department. He would tie Lex to that chair and make her watch what they did to those women. If she closed her eyes and looked away, she got beaten. That's part of the reason she got tied to the chair in the first place. She would try to leave the room and run away, going back into the house or leave all together. And the men would have to stop the activities or change strategy and one of them would have to go get her. They got tired of playing tag and started tying her up.

Of course with her being in here, that just meant that any one of them could come in here after her if they got bored torturing the woman they had in there."

With that he led them back out into the hall and through another door into the 'play room'; there were various objects hanging from the walls and ceiling, items that were used to torture those poor women and do all sorts of unspeakable things to them.

Prentiss and Reid held up two separate devices, Reid began explaining what they were for.

Kevin hearing Reid give Prentiss the low-down, 'Yeah, they used those on Lex before."

"How do you know?" JJ asked, sounding more agitated than she had wanted to come across.

"Agent Jareau, Lex and I made a baby. It stands to reason that I've seen the scars. I've seen almost every scar she has on her body, at least once. And I can tell you what most of them are from and when she got them."

"How was Jake able to ever get out of prison?" Prentiss asked setting down one of the smaller implements.

"The fact that he did any time at all is the miracle. Ask me why."

"Wh.." Reid didn't get to finish.

"I'll tell you why. The only official in that court room that wasn't crooked was the bailiff. That's how."

"What do you mean?" Rossi wanted Kevin to get on with it.

"Well, Jake fired his original defense attorney, didn't think he was earning his keep. Truthfully, the guy wanted to be the one to flip the switch on Jake's electric chair. He hated Jake and wanted him to fry. So Jake fires the guy. Then his new lawyer, it's a guy he was chummy with in high school. The guy has an interest in getting Jake the lightest sentence he can. That rat bastard had paid Jake for his turn with Lex more than once. And then on top of things the defense attorney went to law school with the prosecutor who had his own skeletons. The judge was a wife beater and he like his prostitutes barely old enough for puberty.

Lex and Penelope were the only two living witnesses to any of what happened in this house. And Lex's testimony was getting called into question by that dirty bastard defense lawyer. He was throwing it up in her face that she lied to the cops when she was four when she told them that she hadn't seen what happened to her mother or who did it.

He tried to make it out like, if she would lie about something like that, then what else would she lie about. He made it out to sound like she might just be a rebellious teen trying to get rid of her dad so she could go about her life any way she chose.

And she sat on that stand and took it; I thought I was going to snap. And then there was that one day she just sat there and smiled at the man with that look on her face. You know the one. It's the one that says she's about to flip the script on someone. The gleam in her eye changes. It's awesome to watch. If you don't look closely you'll miss it. I love that look.

But yeah, the bailiff was the only official in that courtroom that wasn't crooked. The only reason that Jake did any time at all was because everyone associated with the case had dirt they wanted to keep hidden."

After looking around for another 15 minutes or so and finding nothing of any pertinence Kevin and the team left to meet back up at the Eason house.

Once they were back, Kevin noticed that his dad wasn't back with 2 yet.

"Momma, where's daddy and 2?"

"I haven't heard from him yet."

"I'm going to go find him. I don't like this."

"Morgan, go with him."

Before they could leave the house though, Victor came barreling into the driveway, screeching to a halt and throwing the truck in park. As soon as he jumped out, Kevin and crew could tell something was wrong. It was written all over his face.

"Vict…"

"Something's wrong. Chaz got a call from the sitter saying that there was a problem and that she needed to come over there. I tried to tell her that everything was ok, and that she didn't need to go over there.

She left anyway. I would have followed, except at the same time I got a call clear on the other side of town…an accident. A car was run off of the road. Driver's dead, wrapped the car around a tree. It was no accident.

I've been trying to reach Chaz on her cell and I'm getting nothing, it rings out to voice mail every time."

"Dad had gone out to the sitter's house to get 2…."

"I've tried his cell, no answer."

Kevin looked at Victor, and Victor watched Kevin. Kevin paced. He didn't know what to do. He needed to go see to his father. There was no telling what had happened to him. But they were still no closer to finding out where Lex and Pen were at. He was a bit like a caged tiger at this point; one more thing goes wrong and he would snap.

"Ok. I have to go out and check on dad. Before I go though….We know that they don't have the girls at the house. So, based on that I highly doubt they will be at anyone else's house…."

"Where else is there?"

"Think Victor, think."

Kevin and Victor were both wracking their brains to try to think of where they might have taken the women.

Kevin spun around on his heel almost colliding with Victor, snapping his fingers. "The old school."

"Are you sure?"

"It makes perfect sense. It was built in around 1915. The gym is a newer addition. It's actually quite a defendable perch. Two stair wells, each with their own gates that can be chained and locked. Windows, with vantage points at every angle. If you seal off the back addition that was added in the 50's, the area where they kept the kindergarten classes, you can control the back entrances fairly well. Then all you would have to do is watch the front entrance. And there is the principal's office on one side, and the nurse's station on the other. Jake and Lucky could put a man on either side and that's easy enough. The school yard is wide open. There is at least one street that runs beside it. A few acres back there is a line of houses, it's not dense…there's only a few house there..but….

If they are back to their old tricks, and if they are stashing bodies on the property, they are storing them in the freezer of the cafeteria and then burying them under the cover of night."

"You think that they would go back to doing….that?"

"A leopard doesn't change its stripes. Especially not one like Lucky or Jake. And they need a place with several acres of land that they can hide bodies. Daytime isn't so great if they're trying to hide a body, with the road that runs beside it and in front. But at night, there's not a lot of light, except the moon or stars. And they could hide the statue of liberty out there if they dug a large enough hole.

Look, I have to go see to daddy."

"I'm coming with you."

"No, Victor, you stay here. They will need your help getting to the school and with the layout. Speaking of which…" Kevin ran to his dad's study and rifled through one of the cabinets looking for something. Score! He found the blue prints.

"These are a series of blue prints on the school and the free-standing gymnasium. These on top are older, they map out the original structure as it was built between 1915-1920. And these are all subsequent remodels and any changes that have been made.

Dr. Reid, you're the reader in the group, at least that's what Lex has told me, you'll want to look these over quickly. Victor, you watch his back." Kevin had pointed to Hotch as he said this, "I have to go. Come on Agent Morgan."

Kevin and Morgan jumped in a truck, Morgan actually allowed Kevin to drive, seeing as he knew where he needed to go. Fifteen minutes later, the two men pulled up on a modestly small bungalow style house. It had a small front porch, just large enough for a swing on one end and two wicker chairs on the other end with a small table between them.

Walking up to the house, Morgan and Kevin noticed that the door had been kicked in. They pulled their weapons and crept up closer, quietly. Once they made it to the porch, Morgan went in first; not knowing what they might see when they went in, he didn't want Kevin to be the first one in. Together they cleared the first couple of front rooms of the house. Making it into the kitchen, they found the body of the baby-sitter. She was 22, blonde attractive; she had been slaughtered after the men who did this had their fun with her. There was no sign of 2 in the house anywhere, aside from her bag of toys and favorite things that Chaz had brought with her when she was dropped off; the child herself was gone.

Going out of the back door of the house that was off of the kitchen, they found Mr. Dan'el laying on the ground.

Running to his father, "Dad! Dad, wake up." Kevin dropped down on his knees beside his father, checking for a pulse. "He's alive, call for an ambulance now!"

Morgan whipped out his phone and began doing just that. By the time the ambulance got to the scene, Dan'el was awake and talking, although, Kevin had made him continue to lie on the ground until the EMTs got there to look him over.

Dan'el was telling Kevin and Morgan what had happened.

"When I pulled up and got out of my truck, I heard the commotion inside. They were tearing the place apart it sounded like. They heard me coming and started scattering. As I came inside, I saw there were still two of them inside. They tried to fight me, and they won, but I did get a few good swings in. I fired my weapon a couple of times; I think I may have hit one of them in the leg. I chased them out here. I got blindsided. Son of a bitch cleaned my clock pretty good. The girl, Julie…."

Kevin shook his head negatively to his father, indicating that she didn't make it.

"If you catch these bastards, you better kill them. I don't think I can do this again in another 25 years."

Although the statement was made rather dryly, it caused Kevin to snicker a bit; picturing his father in his 80's swinging his cane around beating the crap out of Jake King. The EMTs had declared it was safe for Dan'el to be moved and that he wouldn't need a hospital, but to keep an eye on him over night.

Kevin and Morgan had planned to take the old man back to the house, but he had other ideas.

"No. Take me to the old school."

"How…"

"It's the only reasonable explanation. They can't hide out at one of their houses. We know that. And that school, it's got rooms everywhere, and enough land that you could bury bodies every day of the week for at least three years and not run out of room or have to use the same hole twice. If I was going to hide Jake's body, that's where I would take it. And I would dump him in that well that is on the property and give his carcass a taste of his own medicine."

"Thought about that a lot have you, Mr. Dan'el?"

"Only since we all went to school together Agent Morgan. A man like Jake tends to put you in touch with your sociopathic side; you begin to dream of ways to kill him and which ways would be the most satisfying. Just saying…"

After driving another 10 minutes quietly Dan'el spoke again, 'Kevin did you…"

"Check the back old man."

Turning around in the back seat of the SUV, Dan'el lifted up a blanket that was sprawled out in the boot of the vehicle. Underneath there was enough fire power to start WWIII.

"Good job son." Dan'el had a small smile on his face. Kevin chuckled a bit as he turned into the parking lot of the abandoned BBQ restaurant that was maybe 250 yards from the old school. He thought back to the good ol' days when this place was the place to go. Every Friday night before a school ball game everybody in town, or damn near it, would be in and out of here. Everybody knew everybody else, and you always stopped and asked 'how's your mom and them?' To most outsiders it would have been sort of a great place to visit. And to most people it would be hard to understand how a place like that would cover up something as horrible as Jake and his behavior.

Now the building sat empty, when Jimmy's went out of business nobody else had ever been able to make a go of it. So now, weeds were growing in the cracks in the parking lot. The old newspaper dispenser still held a few old editions from nearly 17 years ago; a good read if you wanted to see what happened on that particular day in town history. The old statue that stood in the entry, it used to hold the inner door open for the guests, now sat collect dust and cobwebs. Kevin almost teared up thinking of the time that had gone past and what it can do to your memories.

Getting out of the truck, Morgan, Kevin, and Dan'el made it over to the group; they had pulled the two SUVs around to barricade themselves from direct line of sight of the building. Everyone was going over the blue prints one last time to make sure they were well enough acquainted with the layout.

"I hope somebody has bolt cutters,' Dan'el spoke his mind plainly.

"They're in the truck dad. Next to the sawed-off."

"More than one pair?"

"Really? You think I'm dumb enough to only bring one pair of bolt cutters."

"Good boy." Kevin rolled his eyes at his father.

"Not only that but I have four sawed-offs, a shit load of glocks, 10 smoke bombs, and a partridge in a pear tree."

"Um, are you preparing for Armageddon?"

"No. What makes you say that? This is just my private stash."

"Nice." Prentiss grabbed one of the sawed-off shot guns and a box of ammo.

Hotch took two glocks, placing them in in holsters around his waist; then he grabbed one of the shot guns. And that doesn't even take into account the spare gun he had around his ankle.

Reid grabbed two glocks, as did Rossi and JJ. Morgan grabbed a shot gun. Kevin let his daddy have the last sawed-off and the ammo that went with it. Kevin reached into the back seat, under the floor board for his own shot gun; he called it Big Bertha, and two of his own glocks. Victor had taken care of his own weapons.

"Victor, I want you to go with Dr. Reid and Daddy and concentrate on finding Chaz. Between you and daddy few people know the layout in this place better." Kevin turned and lowered his shot gun as he heard two more vehicles pulling up.

"Don't shoot man we came for back up." Spurlock, Ratliff, Spenser, and several other deputies jumped out of the latest SUVs to arrive.

"Is there anybody manning the office?"

"Does there need to be? Seriously K., if it wasn't for Jake and those idiots, we wouldn't even need a sheriff's office."

"Ratliff."

"Ah, come on. We've got 'Radar' answering phones. He knows the codes and he said he'd do it for $50 and a hot shower. And as far as deputies, there are still six of them there."

"Son…."

"Yeah I know, I know. I guess for now that will have to do. The boat?"

"In case you haven't noticed, we're on dry land."

"Spurlock, this is Jake and Lucky we're talking about here. Just because they may have barricaded themselves in here doesn't mean they don't have a plan B. is the boat on stand-by, just in case."

"Of course it is."

"Fine. Spurlock you go with Victor and Daddy. Ratliff you go with Agent Rossi and Agent Prentiss….take Stallings with you. Spenser, you take Agent Morgan and JJ with you, as well as Outland. I have Hotch with me as well as Pyatt and Copeland. Ratliff, get on the horn now and tell that cousin of yours that I want him and about 6 of his buddies to cover the perimeter. Tell them to come in quiet, park their piles behind this row of trees, and try not to get caught. Ya'll know what those guys look like, if one of them comes out, and you have a clear shot, take it; try not to kill them, but shoot them in the leg or something and keep them comfortable 'til we wrap this up. We're going to get into positions, text me when you and your guys are ready, I have my phone set to vibrate; everybody else do the same, I don't want them to hear us coming if it can be helped, we'll have enough trouble not being seen as it is."

Everyone was in agreement, and Kevin and the team started making their way up to the entrances. Kevin and his four took the entrance to the stairwell which was the farthest from the convoy. Victor and took his team to the front entrance. And Spenser took his team, including Morgan and JJ over to the entrance to the stairwell that was closest to the vehicles they had all driven.

As the teams got into their places, Ratliff was hanging back with one or two others at the vehicles; he was making the call that Kevin had requested. It would only take his guys, at most five minutes to show up; most of them lived remarkably close by. Once the six extra men showed up, Ratliff went to send the text to Kevin, but as he did, he spotted a guy up on the roof line where the first story rises into the second. He lifted his rifle and looked through the scope.

"Damn!" he exclaimed quietly; he saw the man taking aim right at Kevin. "Not my boy, not today, asshole." Luckily the rifle he happened to carry had a silencer, and laser. He took aim, and fired, hitting his target right between the eyes.

"And that is why you don't fuck with me." He boasted. He took the time to dance a little jig as if he had just run for a 90 yard touch-down.

He sent his text to Kevin and warned him about what had just taken place. And he took one more second to gloat, '500 yards, easy peasy."

Kevin shook his head catching Hotch's attention, and when asked by Hotch what was going on, he showed him the text.

The time had arrived that everyone was in place, and the extra men were lining the perimeter as much as they could cover it.

Kevin sent his text out to Deputy Spenser and told him to ready the bolt cutters to be able to unlock the gates at the entrances. As he did that Hotch went on with the same task at their own entrance.

Before entering through the front doors, Victor opened it slightly and tossed in one or two smoke bombs to give them some cover just in case. Each team in the stair wells did the same. Once they figured they were covered they moved in.

Kevin and his three team members went up one stair well. Victor and his 2 teams (including Ratliff—who had caught up to them rather quickly, Rossi, Prentiss, and Stallings) made their way into the front hall; once through the front doors you looked straight up a small flight of stairs, maybe seven steps worth, that lead into the auditorium. Victor and his three partners went there first; they checked the back stage area, and the two little rooms on either side. As expected the door that lead to the back half of the building and consequently to the two kindergarten rooms and cafeteria were bolted shut, as were the two side exits.

Once the auditorium was cleared, Victor and his teams split up and started clearing the rooms downstairs. In a couple of them, evidence was found that the men had been in there, and likely had been back at their old activities. There were traces of blood on some of the implements that were scattered everywhere.

"Where are they keeping the women?" Victor muttered to himself.

Spurlock spoke up, 'If you wanted us to, some of us could go check around the boiler room and places like that."

"I don't like the idea of us splitting up; not knowing what they have up their sleeves…."

"There's four in your team, and four in the other one. We can scramble team members or whatever, but we need to check that boiler room and the basement in general, just to cover our bases."

"I know you're right. I just don't care for this at all." Victor thought to himself for a moment. "Alright, go on; check the basement and boiler room. Be back in no more than say seven minutes; just a cursory sweep, no more. The longer we are split up, the more chance there is for something to go wrong. We will meet back up at that stairwell, closest to the entrance to the areas you will be going. If you're not back in the allotted time, we will continue on without you, and come back for you when the job is done; so don't expect back up immediately, unless you call one of us and let us know something, or text….we won't come for you."

"Fine, I think we can all deal with that." Victor and Spurlock nodded at each other and gave each other a 'be careful brother' and then Spurlock and three team members took off to do the sweep.

Luckily, during the sweep of the basement and boiler room of the school, nothing seemed to be amiss and the teams were able to meet up as appointed and continue up the stairs to help check out the second story class rooms. They saw the teams that had gone up with Kevin; the Victor's two teams as well as Kevin's two teams started at opposite ends of the hall and were planning to meet in the middle and check two small class rooms that were up a small flight of steps that consisted of only four or five steps in all.

But, as the two teams got closer to that small set of steps, they heard the PA system crackle to life, and the sounds of a woman arguing with her captor filling the air.

Kevin bowed his head, mumbling, 'Don't push it Lex."

"What did you say?" Hotch turned to him.

"Damn, Lex. She's goading them. I wish she would stop that shit. It's going to get her killed."

"Where are they?" Morgan just wanted to find them, eviscerate whoever had thought it was smart to lay the first finger on his baby girl and go home.

"Ah hell K, they could be anywhere in this building or the gymnasium if they figured out how to hot wire the PA system." Victor was getting a little pissed off at this cat and mouse game. The Greek blood running through his veins meant he was a man that faced confrontation head on; he cared little for a grown ass man that would do bad things and then run and hide like a little child.

"But they're not just anywhere, you said yourself that the first floor and basement were clear, as was the boiler room."

"And the door that leads to the back half of the building was locked tight."

Kevin began ruminating, 'Yes, but, some of them could have gone through it to escape detection and had some of the others with them lock up behind them and then shoot upstairs and scoot through a second story window onto the roof of the first floor and then go from there. You know we used to climb out onto the roof all the time as kids, it's not like it's hard. How many generations of our families have done the same?"

"My question becomes,' began Spurlock, 'how long have they been planning this fiasco? And, what is waiting for us in the gym?"

"Fuck all these questions, are we going to go find my mother or not?" The entire group jumped when they heard Rachel's voice chime in.

"Go home."

"Like hell."

"Rachel, we don't need three generations of the same damn family getting caught up in this. Go home."

"And that is my momma. She brought me into this world, with very little help. She raised me, never sparing a penny for herself. The least I can do is be there now. If I can't do it for my mother, who am I ever going to do it for? I'd like to see you make me go home."

"Listen we don't have time to argue. Rachel is a grown ass woman and she's too old to ground her to her room. You can debate whether this is the right thing or not later." Ratliff put his two cents worth in and began to walk away.

The PA crackled again, and this time Morgan could hear Penelope scream; pushing past Ratliff he began to run.

"Does that fool even know which direction to go in to get to the gym?"

"Daddy, catch him before he goes totally the wrong way. He shouldn't be wasting precious time running circles around the damned building before he finds his way." With those final words from Rachel the mass of people took off running after Morgan.

As they made their ways to the stairwell, they could all hear over the PA that one of the men was beating on Alecta again. He was beating her for no other reason than he had done jail time as a result of her testimony at the trial….that and the fact that she had helped Garcia escape all those years ago, taking away all of their fun.

They could hear whoever was beating her and Penelope taunting them that they would kill both of them and then go hunt down the other seven members of the Agnes's that anyone knew about.

Kevin groaned in exasperation when he heard Alecta's rebuttal of 'You'll be dead before that ever happens'.

As Kevin shook his head, Prentiss asked him, 'What's wrong Kevin?"

"Dare is her middle name, quite literally. I just didn't think she would take it as a challenge."

Just before the group could exit the building entirely, they heard Pen and Lex both scream NO! at the same time, then there were six gun shots fired. That put a little speed in the steps of the rescuers.

All the while, hearing the beatings that Pen and Lex were taking, the group could hear the back ground noise that sounded like other women were being beaten or tortured.

At one time on the way out of the main building Victor was heard to exclaim, 'Chaz!" He had heard her voice among the noise over the PA system. And then she was quiet.

Coming out of the stairwell, and out into the driveway that ran between the main building and the gymnasium, the group turned to look when they heard the engine of a vehicle rev up. As they looked on, they saw one of the men behind the wheel and another one was stuffing Chaz into the trunk, pounding on it as he closed it.

"Shoot him." Kevin gave the order. Ratliff obliged shooting and wounding the man who had stuffed the young woman in the trunk. Spurlock took it upon himself to take aim at the driver of the car and try his best to stop him or slow him down; all he was successful in doing was taking out the back winshield.

"Go." Was all Kevin had to tell Spurlock. With that the man made a dash for another vehicle that was parked close by, followed closely by two other deputies, Spenser and Stallings. They left with a warning from Kevin to 'not let them make it to the millpond'.

With that final warning, Kevin and the rest of the crew turned to make their way into the gymnasium. But busting through the doors was proving more difficult than they thought it would.

"What the hell?..."

"Apparently they changed out the doors at some point. Instead of the old ratty doors that used to be here, now they have these damned steel doors. Sonofabitch!"

Kevin was pushed almost to the point of snapping. He could clearly hear Alecta in there, she was being hurt and he was ready to snap somebody's neck.

He began pacing again. But this time there was no floor. Rossi began to worry that at this rate, Kevin would dig a trench with all of his pacing.

"How are we going to get one of these doors open?" Reid seemed to wonder out loud.

After wearing a path in the dirt, Kevin turned around having hit upon something. He dug through the back he'd been wearing on his back since they first got started on this mission. He thought he'd seen something suspicious in there.

"Score!"

"What is it? What have you come up with?"

"I could kiss Ivory."

"Oh shit! You're gonna risk blowing up half of this block? You heard the story."

"Agent Morgan, do you have a key to this door?"

"No."

"Then shut it. I'm not letting her die in there without trying something."

Kevin set to work to attach the small bomb to the door leading into the gymnasium, after he was satisfied with his work he began to motion to the others to get back. They all ducked down behind some old playground equipment that was about 75ft away. The blast was just enough to blow the door open…it didn't level the block this time.

The team thought that all was good; they made their way back to the door of the gymnasium. But as they approached, there was gun fire. Spurlock and Ratliff got hit, going down. They weren't fatally wounded, the shots were little more than flesh wounds, but it was enough to knock them off of their feet. They had gotten lucky, the smoke from the bomb detonation had giving them some cover; had the gunman gotten a clear shot, both men would be dead right now.

Once the smoke cleared the team made their way in. As they entered the gym, they saw the two men that had fired the shots. Without thinking twice, Kevin and Victor raised their weapons and fired four shots, two shots each; out of the two shots each that they took, one entered each man's forehead and one entered the hearts. You didn't need a coroner to pronounce the two men dead.

"Y-You shot them."

"Yes, Dr. Reid. And we killed 'em while we were at it. I thought I made it abundantly clear what was going to happen here."

"Look!" JJ exclaimed.

"Damn it, No!"

Kevin set down his weapon and quickly made his way over to the two bodies that were lying in the floor. As he got closer he fell down onto his knees, sliding the rest of the way to them; he began checking for pulses, Victor helping.

"Who are they?" Victor asked as he helped to see to the women.

"They are…."feeling no pulse, Kevin corrected himself, 'They were Lex's friends, Moira and Cinnamon. How did they get them? Damn it! How did they get them?"

Hotch looked at Rossi, Rossi nodded; as soon as was feasible, he would be placing some calls to find out what the hell had gone wrong.

The two young women were dead. If Lex made it out of this in one piece, nobody was sure how this would hit her.

"Now we have to get Chaz and the kid back. That's the only thing that will come close to fixing this."

"Wait, K, they've gone."

"Yeah, I know. I figure that around the time of the blast or the gun shots they used the noise to camouflage the sound of the car as they escaped, they left these two idiots here as patsies."

"Where could they have taken them?"

Kevin closed his eyes as he wiped the blood of the two dead women onto his shirt, he was thinking, deeply. Then suddenly he seemed to have a thought.

"Follow me."

"But what about…"

"Dr. Reid, there's nothing more that can be done here. They are all dead. We can still help the living, which, if I'm not mistaken, includes your friend Penelope."

"Call a county coroner." Hotch gave his usual command.

"I got that." Rachel began dialing the needed number. As Rachel called the coroner, Hotch and Kevin made arrangements for someone to guard the scene. And with that everyone made for their vehicles and followed Kevin.

Nearly an hour later the group pulled up along the shoulder of the road in front of a two-story white house. As they pulled up, the caravan had to come to a sudden stop. Looking up, Morgan saw Pen come running out of the house. She had bruises all over, a busted lip, and she was holding her blouse together as she ran; she was barefoot running across gravel.

Morgan jumped out of the SUV and went to her.

"He has her! He…." Garcia was panicking.

"Baby Girl, what's wrong?"

She was frantically pointing back towards the house, not making much sense as she hurriedly tried to get the information out.

"They had her down in the well, out back….I couldn't get to her…."

Garcia was so worked up over what might be happening to Alecta; she was starting to have a hard time catching a breath, it was as if she had run a marathon.

"Baby, we've got an ambulance coming and you're going to the hospital and getting checked out."

"NO! I'm not leaving her. The only reason they tossed her in the well was because she stopped what they were doing to….I'm not leaving her."

Morgan noticed the way that Garcia never took her eyes off of the house. She'd glance at him quickly and then back at the house.

"Pen, have you seen Chaz or the kid again?" Penelope looked up at JJ and Prentiss and shook her head before turning to try to go back in the house.

"No you don't; you're at least gonna go sit in the truck. I don't want you going back in there."

Pen tried to shove Morgan's hands from her so she could continue to make her way back into the house, but before she could do so, Hotch had ordered JJ and Emily to go with her and stay in the truck.

Pen was not a happy camper, "But I have to help her. There are too many women in there; she'll never be able to get them out by herself."

"How many are there Garcia?" Rossi had been so quiet that it shocked her to hear his voice.

"Ten, I think. That's all I saw for sure. They're gonna hurt her bad. I heard Lucky talking about it; he said something about finishing what he started…..I don't know what he meant…"

JJ and Prentiss took her back to the truck, sitting in the back with her-on either side, to make sure she wouldn't try to make a run for it to go back to the house and help Alecta.

Since Garcia had mentioned that they had dropped Alecta into the well, that was the first place that they went to check.

"Drop me down there," Kevin was tying a rope around his waist, not having time to wait for a proper harness.

A couple of the deputies that had come with them began to lower him down as he instructed.

Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, and Reid were all that were left of the original team and they had to make their way to the house alone. There were no more deputies to spare.

There were at least three that had gone trying to get Chaz and 2 before anything worse could happen to them. Two had been taken out after Kevin tried to blow the doors off of the gym. Others still had been left behind to guard the scene until a coroner had arrived to examine the two dead women as well as guard their friends. JJ and Prentiss were currently watching Garcia to make sure that she stayed in the truck as well as to watch for any signs of shock.

Hotch was the first to enter the house, he was several feet in front of the others; after hearing the declaration from Garcia, he had begun to run.

As the others entered the house behind them, they saw a man standing in the kitchen with a can of gas, sprinkling some of it on the floor. Without even thinking twice, Hotch shot him in the chest.

"Hotch!" Rossi exclaimed.

"You heard Kevin. Besides, that man was soaking the house in gasoline; he was about to start some shit. Now he's never going to get the chance."

Morgan checked the man's identification, "His name was David Jones. Do you think this is the one with the grudge against Davis?"

"It's very possible; I did notice that the man was stumbling around with a pronounced limp." Reid interjected.

The guys began to check rooms to look for Lex. They hadn't managed to find her, but they had found some of the women that were being held. Some of them were chained to radiators in the rooms or even in large cages. The guys began cutting them lose and helping them get out of the house.

As they were escorting the last woman out the front door towards the waiting ambulances she turned to them and told them that there was one other woman that she knew of still being in the house and that she was being held upstairs.

Hotch told the others to help these freed women and he would go back and try to find Lex on his own.

Morgan didn't care for that idea at all. But Rossi made a great point that Garcia would feel more comfortable to have him around and that the EMTs would need help with all of these women, rounding them up and getting them away from this place.

Hotch made his way upstairs, clearing each room as he went. When he came to the third room, he got the door opened and Lex was there. Her hands were tied behind her back around a post in the room and she was slumped on the floor, unresponsive. Hotch busted out a knife that she had left on the coffee table over at the Eason's house and he had grabbed before some of this began happening and managed to cut the ropes around her wrists. As he helped her stand up he had grabbed her by one of her hands, placing his free arm around her back to support her weight as he stood her up; whatever they had done to her, she was in no condition to stand on her own two feet.

Her back felt sticky. Hotch ran his hand along the length of her back a moment to try to discern whatever might be the cause; when he couldn't figure it out just by the feel of it, he steadied her against the post she had been tied to and took his hand off of her back to investigate further.

There was blood covering his hand! No wonder she was barely able to stand; Hotch began to look around more thoroughly and noticed the pool of blood that had started forming around the area where she had been seated, due to her injury.

"Take photos." Her voice was barely above a whisper, she was so weak she couldn't speak any louder; her voice was quite unsteady. Hotch began thinking about what she had just said and took out his phone and began snapping pictures as fast as he could.

"Did you get the girls out?"

Hotch told her that they had; she seemed to feel a bit better about that news, but had lost so much blood that she stills seemed so weak and she slumped.

"Come on, you have to help me get downstairs and out of this house before you can think of taking a nap"

"I'm not sleeping. I'm just thinking real hard."

"Can you walk?"

"Hmmm? Oh, yeah, why not. A walk would be loverly right about now Jeeves."

As Hotch began to help Alecta walk out of the room she began to show signs of what Hotch would have thought were delirium. She was beginning to sing 'I'm Henry VIII I am', her speech wasn't slurred, but it wasn't all that coherent either…halfway through a line from that she switched to '99 bottles of Beer'.

Just as she was five bottles in, "Ooh! Speaking of beer…Boss man! When we get home can I have just the one….I don't want all 99. Promise. I'm getting too old for that shit."

She kept on babbling about God only knows what, half of it Hotch didn't even understand half of it.

They had only made it out of the door a couple of feet and Alecta started to sag again, she was becoming too weak to walk. And he also noticed that her right arm was hanging at an awkward angle, Hotch figured it must be dislocated.

As Hotch slowed down, Alecta's knees started to give out, "No ya don't midget."

"Not funny; kick a man when she's down." Alecta slurred. She was becoming as limp as a dish rag.

Hotch knew he had to get her out of this house quick. Not only was the amount of blood loss substantial for her all by herself, but then he thought of the fact that she was pregnant as well; what would this trauma do to that baby? And right behind that thought, as Hotch scooped her up in his arms for what seemed like the hundredth time this week and headed down the stairs, was the thought of 'Where is Jake? Where is Lucky? This was entirely too easy'.

No sooner than Hotch had made it to the bottom of the stairs, he got his questions answered. Someone had stuck their foot or some sort of debris out from a room off of the first floor hallway, causing Hotch to trip and fall, dropping Alecta.

"You're not leaving with what's mine," Lucky came roaring towards him. Hotch was still trying to roll onto his back and check on Alecta all at the same time. But, for all that she had been so faint before they came downstairs, Alecta was the first to react.

Before Lucky could make any contact with Hotch, Alecta had managed to get to a standing position and block him. As Hotch got to his feet he saw Alecta fighting Lucky, trying to buy him a couple seconds to get it together. Hearing something coming from his left, Hotch turned and saw Jake coming. Jake had picked up the gas can from the kitchen and started dousing what he could of the house with what was left of the contents; striking a match against the wall of the hall as he made his way through, Jake tossed it behind him, lighting the place up. There would be no exit from the back of the house.

Kevin had been hauled up out of the well several minutes ago, and as the flames started to shoot out of the first story windows, he looked around at the people standing near him and realized that Lex wasn't among them. And then looking at the BAU team, he noticed that Hotch wasn't there either. He began to run for the house, but was being held back by the deputies.

"Son, they have the fire department coming already."

"No! They'll never get here in time." Kevin was like a caged tiger, his father new it, but he would not let that boy go into a burning building. He was the only child he and 'Ouisa ever had. And besides, what would happen if he went in to retrieve Hotch and Lex and wasn't successful? There would be three more losses that day. But Dan'el was having one hell of a time holding Kevin back, even with the aid of the two deputies helping him.

"Daddy, don't go in there." Kevin suddenly heard Rachel's voice ringing in his ears. Turning, he saw the look on her face and stopped. He knew she was right. Lex would want him to stay with Rachel. Whatever happened the girl couldn't potentially lose both of her parents right before her very eyes. Suddenly, he made eye contact with Agent Rossi; once Rossi looked over at Kevin, Kevin shifted his eyes to Rachel, and back to Rossi, trying to give Rossi the message that he needed to come and gather Rachel and get her away from this.

But while he was busy sending mental messages to Rossi, Rachel took matters into her own hands and darted off for the house.

"Rachel, no!" Was all the warning Kevin got that something was going down. He looked up and his daughter was in a dead sprint for the house, now nearly engulfed. Before the girl could get far, out of nowhere, a long dark arm shot out snagging her around the waist. Looking back to see who had grabbed her, she saw the face of Kong.

"Lemme go! She's gonna die in there!"

The giant man only made a 'tsk'ing sound as he shook his head no, throwing the girl over his shoulder and carrying her farther back away from the burning building. As he made his move, everyone looked around and saw a water truck pull up, Mac jumping down out of the driver's seat, with Immogene riding shot-gun. Mac merely nodded to Kevin as he and Immogene got to unwinding a hose attached to the truck; a truck that they had parked as closely to the house as they could get. Even if they couldn't put the fire completely out, they could at least by Hotch and Lex some precious time. They began by wetting down the front entrance and dousing some of the flames there, and then moved on to some of the windows, just as a plan B.

"I don't get it, where the hell did they come from?" Morgan was clueless.

Rossi could only shake his head, 'Never underestimate the power of the 'bat-bitch' signal."

Kevin would have laughed in that moment if things weren't so dire. He again made an attempt at running for the house, only to be stopped by another large man, closer to his own size, if not slightly taller by about five inches. As he looked at the man that stopped him this time, he heard Rachel exclaim, 'Uncle Sky."

"You need to stay here, both of you." Sky commanded solemnly.

"But momma's in there; are you crazy?"

As Rachel gave her argument, Kevin chimed in with his own, both of them finishing up with the same question about Sky's sanity.

Next thing they heard was someone yelling 'Run!'

Kevin, Sky, Rachel, everybody all looked up and saw Hotch come stumbling out of the house, coughing against the back of one hand as he dragged Alecta out by her good arm with his free hand.

They weren't out of the woods yet though. Jake and Lucky were hot on their heels. Hotch was able to drag Alecta down the front steps and into the front yard before Jake had caught up to them.

Next thing he knew a shot rang out, Hotch dove over Alecta, not putting his weight on her, to cover her in case it was a stray bullet or someone aiming at them. Much to everyone's amazement, Jake fell to the ground, he had been shot between the eyes from God only knows where.

"Gibbs!" Rossi yelled.

From behind a barn over 100 yards away, Leroy Jethro Gibbs came sauntering into view. Walking quickly, he made his way to the group.

"That shot didn't come from me this time." He nodded his head to the house that was next door.

Looking in the direction of Gibbs' vision, the team that had gathered saw Ziva standing up from her position on the roof of the nearby house, slinging her assassins rifle over her shoulder and making her way over to a ladder that was close by.

"My dad called me; he said that he thought Lex might be in danger. He gets a subscription to this town's newspaper….since he grew up in the area, he still likes to keep up with the goings on. He had read that Jake was out, he knew it was only a matter of time before something bad happened. I passed it off as my dad just being a nosy old man, until Director Vance got a call from Director David who is all the way in Israel. Director David said he had gotten information that something was going to go down."

"You let it get this far!" Thinking of his Baby Girl's image running down the side of the road barefoot as she clung to her tattered clothes had Derek ready to choke Gibbs out, Marine or not.

"We had to let this roll out the way it did Agent Morgan. If we had acted too soon, there would have been a whole internal investigation, jail time, etc. This had to be a clean kill." Tony spoke up.

"No offense, but I wasn't really talking to you now was I?

"Morgan!"

"No, they could have done something. Look what happened to Pen."

"Director David called and said that our friends there were in grave danger and that, according to his source, those men would stop at nothing to kill them this time." Gibbs continued on calmly.

In the meantime, Hotch had gotten back up and began trying to move Alecta again, this time receiving help from an EMT that took his chances coming closer. As the EMT and Hotch began to lift Alect off of the ground, Lucky came barreling out of the house after them. As it was they were close enough to the ambulances and the team of people outside that it was seen as a stupid move on Lucky's part.

Before anyone else could react, Dan'el rushed forward with his cane in his hand and cracked Lucky good in the back of the head; it broke the cane and only stunned Lucky slightly, causing him to turn around and look at Dan'el.

As he glanced at Dan'el, he began to move toward the old man who, sensing the danger he was in, picked up the closest thing to him that he could get his hands on. It just so happened to be a 2x4.

Swinging the 2x4 in the air, about to connect with Lucky's head one more time, 'I told you once, you son of a bitch, that if you ever came near her again I would make it my life's work to be you to death and I'm going to do it."

Amazingly, or terrifyingly, enough Lucky was still on his feet after the blow to his head from the 2x4; he was staggering but, he was still on his feet. And then he began to swing on Dan'el. Dan'el took a swing at the man's midsection, winding him a bit, but not knocking him off of his feet.

"Why don't you just die already?" Dan'el asked getting frustrated.

As other people began to come closer to break up the fight, Kevin actually stood back and let his dad get a few good swings in. He was there all those years ago when Dan'el initially issued the threat. Kevin knew how badly his daddy wanted to beat Lucky to death with his bare hands; the same feeling flowed through every vein in his own body, who was he to deny the man that chance.

As the team and the deputies got closer and became more involved, Dan'el became distracted, and Lucky got the upper hand against him, whipping out a switchblade and stabbing the old man quickly four times.

Hearing the commotion from her spot on the ground by Hotch and the emergency worker, Alecta sat up weakly. She was right on time to see Lucky pull out the knife.

"NO!" Alecta yelled as she struggled to get back up on her own two feet. Hotch and the EMT were trying to keep her down. As weak as she was she was able to use the momentum of the struggle to boost herself to her feet. She saw Dan'el fall.

"No, no, no." She kept screaming as she saw part of Dan'el's cane lying on the ground. The end where it broke off was jagged and sharp. As she made her way over to where Lucky stood, ready to finish off the old man, she managed to grab the broken bit of cane.

As she got closer, she closed her eyes, gathering what ounce or two of strength she had left. If this didn't work, they were both as good as dead. Lucky turned and saw her coming and got ready to make a stab against her, but she was quicker; she buried the end of Dan'el's cane into Lucky's chest as he leaned in to make his last attempt to end her life.

They fell to the ground simultaneously; Lucky had the end of the cane sticking out of his chest, and Alecta had the switch blade he had been using sticking out her torso, just below her sternum.

This time there was no way to hold Kevin back, he shrugged off his dad and anyone else who dared to grab him. Rachel was still slung over Kong's shoulder and was struggling to get down. Before she could get down though, Hotch had made it over to where Alecta was lying.

"Don't move the knife. You don't know what may have been damaged when she was stabbed."

"Yeah, I sort of figured that already. Where's all this other blood coming from?"

"She had a wound of some sort to her back."

Suddenly, Garcia's words came back to him; Lucky said something about finishing what he started.

"That son of a bitch." Kevin shot back up to his feet.

"Where are you going?" Hotch called out to him.

"I'm going to make sure that bastard is dead. I'm tired of everybody coming back from the grave."

Rossi met Kevin over at the body of Lucky, lying there on the ground. He looked like Goliath having been struck down by someone far smaller than himself.

Pushing Kevin back, "He's dead son, let it go."

"I have to know for sure; let me see him for myself."

"Go back over to her."

"No, I'm gonna make sure he's dead."

"No! Back off. Go back and help Hotch make sure that Alecta is alright. If she thinks that you are losing it, it will stress her out. Do you think she needs that right now?"

By the time Kevin could get turned around to go back over to Alecta, she had shoved Hotch and the EMT out of her way and was crawling on her knees, supporting her weight with her good arm; she was crawling towards Dan'el.

Hotch was trying to stop her and get her to just be still but she wouldn't hear of it.

"Daddy…."Kevin tried getting his father's attention.

"Lexa girl, I'm alright. Just gotta have the doc stitch me up a bit." Dan'el had begun to sit up a little to let her know he was telling the truth. "You need to be still. Let the medic see to you."

Alecta only nodded her head. She practically collapsed right in her tracks, knife still sticking out of her wound. The medic that had been trying to see to her in the first place made his way over to her, being joined by a female counterpart.

"Her pulse is weak." The lady medic was double checking, 'Very weak. We will have to transport immediately."

Two other medics came running with the gurney to help load her on it. As they loaded her on to the gurney and started wheeling her to the ambulance, her hand shot out and grasped at Hotch's wrist; he made a mental note of the fact that her fingers didn't go all the way around before he looked into her eyes.

"Daddy and the others?"

He saw her struggling to stay conscious, "Dead."

She seemed to relax for a moment, 'Thank you God."

Suddenly, she gasped and drew up. "We have to get her to the hospital, now." One of the medics warned them. "To wait would be fatal."

"I'm coming with you."

The medic that had stayed with Hotch and Lex the longest made sure the others didn't argue.

"Then come on if you're coming."

When fate's got it in for you, there's no limit to what you may have to put up with.
- Georgette Heyer

"I know I am deathless. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time." —Walt Whitman

Post AN: Ok. So this might have been a strange place to cut Chpt 9 off, but it was huge, and I had to stop somewhere, right. At this point I have no idea what to expect out of chpt 10. Hopefully I don't lose the few readers I have in this chapter…at the half-way point I have snacks and flashlights for ya.

I said it on facebook, and I will say it here; I think that, at least length wise, this chapter was a personal best for me. it's the longest single chapter I have written. I just hope that the content was worth it.