Chpt. 22

So the last chapter was a bummer as far as Alecta was concerned. Let's see if we can't do something about that sicko that took her.

Rossi was making his way to the door of the conference room as he turned and sternly told Garcia, 'Track the shit out of my phone and send whatever you can to our tablets."

"Yes sir, of course."

With that he started to leave the conference room again; as he left, he patted himself down a bit, checking for his side arm.

"Sonofabitch!" He was livid.

"Rossi, what on earth?…' Emily raised her eyebrows and asked in astonishment.

"When Rachel nicked my cell phone, she swiped my gun."

Derek tossed Rossi one of his guns, 'Take it, I can get another."

With that Rossi went in search of Hotch, finding him in his office double checking to make sure he was properly armed; as a matter of fact as Rossi came into the room, Hotch was popping a fresh clip into the glock.

"You can't kill everybody that lays a hand on her."

"Why not? We've tried the whole prison thing and, as you can tell, he escaped. He won't be escaping anything ever again."

"Aaron, listen to yourself. This is vigilante justice."

"Yep.' A clicking sound was made as Hotch checked the ammunition in his spare fire arm. "I promised her that things like this would quit happening. If I fail the only thing left to do is fix it."

"Killing him won't undo everything he's done up to this point."

"You know…you're right. But it will stop him from ever doing it again. Of that, I'm 100% certain."

"Aaron…."

"Look, he came for me. The only reason he didn't get to me was because she wouldn't let him. All I can do is go and save her. Are you coming or not?" Hotch turned and began making his way out of his office, Rossi had to nearly jog to keep up with him.

The entire team in two different SUVs fairly well peeled out of the parking garage headed in the direction that Garcia's data said they should go.

Within an hour they had arrived in the town they needed to be. It was quite rural. In most towns they have suburbs with nicely manicured subdivisions, houses that are cookie-cutter.

Out here, there were a few derelict older homes; some were probably close to a hundred years old. Some houses were still inhabited. But, regardless of the age of the home or the state of habitation, everything was spread out….farm land mostly. There was an old brick school house on one side of the road.

As the team drove through the area, it wasn't lost on them that this was much like the area that Alecta had grown up in. Inwardly, each of them smiled at how much she had taught them about places like this, just by being around. Now when they looked at an abandoned house they didn't see an old death trap falling in on itself….instead they tried to picture what the family that had once lived there had been like. Driving past the old school house, which was also abandoned, they had to stop at the one traffic light in the town. While they were stopped, Rossi turned to look out of his passenger window. In one of the first story windows, he spotted an image of a child, head and shoulders peeking out of the window. Without turning away from the image, he poked Hotch with his elbow causing him to look around. As they pulled away, Rossi smiled at the child who gave an impish smile back before vanishing completely. He would have to look up this school and try to find out about the child. That was another way that Alecta had changed them.

After another 15 minutes of driving, Garcia's voice could be heard on the tablets that the team had, one manned by Rossi, and the other by Reid in the other SUV.

"Ok, guys, it looks like the place you're looking for is approximately 100yards to the left, there's a long driveway. My best guess based on the phone's GPS is that this is the place. Be careful. And Bossman…."

"Yes Garcia?"

"Shoot to kill." With that, Garcia tapped out and went back to whatever work she needed to do; she needed to find out the Identity of the inmate that Mark Goodnight had switched with. What his name and serial number was, where was this person now? All of these things, and she was going to have to hack a few places to get it. As tedious as it was going to be it was still going to be a hell of a lot faster than having to actually speak to prison officials; it's not like they would admit to letting this slip through the cracks anyway.

In the hour or so that it took the team to get out to this old place, Mark Goodnight had raped Alecta yet again. From the time that Alecta had gone missing up to this point had only been 4 ½ hours, and she had been assaulted repeatedly. JJ and Prentiss had managed to have the forethought to bring a bag with a pair of jogging pants and an FBI t-shirt for Alecta to put on when they found her, it wasn't much, but at least she would be able to have some clothing.

After leaving Alecta laying on the squalid mattress curled up in a ball yet again, Mark went to get cleaned up and get himself something to drink. He had every intention of killing her in front of Agent Hotchner and then he would kill Agent Hotchner himself. He saw Alecta as a whore, just like all other women, that didn't know her place. And Agent Hotchner, well he had to die for thwarting Marks work and the death of his brother. And he also had to die because he was helping the whore.

When Mark walked into the kitchen in this ramshackle house, he reached into the small cooler he'd brought with him and grabbed a beer. It was nice and cold going down, he took his time. Suddenly he heard a floorboard creek. Steadying himself, Mark spun around and swung on the person standing behind him with enough force that he knocked them completely off of their feet.

"Oh, what do we have here?" Mark was almost giddy with excitement over his stroke of good luck. 'Why, it's the whore's mother. It's so very nice to meet you." Sarcasm oozed from every pore on Mark Goodnights body as he leaned over, grabbing Mrs. King by the hair, pulling her up forcefully, knotting his hand in her hair tightly. "And you brought me a present, how kind." As he lifted Mrs. King to her feet, he grabbed the gun she had dropped when he struck her.

"You know, I must say that I truly expected those damned agents first. But this is even better. If I didn't know better I would swear it was my birthday or Christmas."

"Where's my baby at? And don't get too smug ya bastard, you will die today."

"Perhaps, but, not before I have a little more fun. I am not done with her yet. She's so damned feisty, it'll be a crying shame when I have to put her down. But that's just how it goes. Although, she seems to be getting a little worn out, I wonder if I were to….well yes, that just might work."

'The maniac is talking to himself? This can't be good.' Mrs. King thought to herself.

Grabbing a tighter hold on Mrs. King, Mark made his way back to the room where he was keeping Alecta. Kicking at her with his shoe as if she was nothing more than a carcass, 'Wakey, wakey. I have something to show you." He waited, no response. He kicked her harder, causing her to turn to face him if only to make sure he didn't kick her unnecessarily again and risk hurting the babies, if they weren't already.

"I said, I have something to show you. I think you'll love this." Alecta's eyes tried to focus as Mark shoved her mother into her line of vision.

"So should I let you rest and maybe see if your mother is half as good as you are?"

"Don't you have your dares. I will kill you."

"Hardly….at least anytime soon. Make me a better offer." Mark paused, 'I'm just joking, she's too old for me. But I will have to kill her later. She's a whore just like you. She tried to leave her husband. No wonder you turned out the way you did with an example like that for a mother." He started leaving the room with Rachel in his grasp.

"Where are you taking her?"

"Into one of the other rooms. The way I see things….if I bind her up in the other room, the sounds she hears coming from in here will either make her want to die or kill me…more. Or on the flip side of the coin….you being chained up in here, will be tortured by her screams while we get acquainted." Looking at Rachel, who was still stuck tightly in his grasp, 'Although, I'm sure those bedeviled agents are closing in on our location and we likely only have two hours at most. You will have to learn fast. Alecta was a natural."

"Don't hurt her." Alecta fairly well pleaded for her mother.

"Well, how nice I am to her depends in large part on how happy you make me when I come back." With that Mark turned and drug Rachel out into the hall and slammed the door shut.

Alecta rolled over onto her back looking up at the ceiling. She hated to admit that she was starting to give up. Damned pregnancy hormones; I should be busting in there and settling this. But she knew it was as much about age as it was about her pregnancy. In her 20's she had gone charging into things without a care in the world. But over the last 20 odd years she'd lost a lot. After you lose so much you get to a point where you just can't do this kind of thing anymore. It was almost time to hang up her 'Wonder Woman' lasso and cape and call it a day.

As she lay there thinking, she noticed a red dot that had formed on the wall above where her head was lying. She stared at it momentarily and realized it was from some sort of equipment the team uses. The light started blinking. She suddenly had some sort of hope….the team was there. Twenty bucks said it was Derek blinking the light. Alecta would ask Garcia to kiss him for her when they got out of this; and she would make sure that the woman knew to make it count….as in he should get knocked up from the kiss when it was over. She'd do it herself, but…well….Hotch may not care for it…and she was friends with Garcia. It would make things awkward if the kid came out looking like Alecta.

Scrambling as quickly as she could, she got as close to the window as the chain linked to her collar would allow her. She found an old section of some long forgotten newspaper. Next she reached as far as she could with her arms and raised the window ever so slightly. As soon as there was enough room through the open window, she balled up the paper and tossed it out of the window to signal that someone was in that room.

Derek had gone around the back of the house with JJ and Reid; Hotch, Rossi, and Prentiss had taken the front. They had crept up on the property quietly, no lights or sirens, and they parked up nearly 20 yards from the house in the hopes that the creep wouldn't see or hear them coming.

Derek had hit upon the idea of using the red laser beam after that case where Prentiss and Reid had been held hostage by the cult a few years ago. He only hoped that Alecta was in the room to see it and understood. He only had to flash the light about four or five times before he saw the paper come out of the window.

JJ saw it as well and immediately called Hotch to let him know that they'd found her.

Whispering, "Reid, I'm getting a closer look, you two cover me." Reid nodded and JJ cocked the assault rifle.

Derek made it to the window, the door to the room burst open, Morgan had to duck down low to keep from being seen.

"Put this on, you're coming with me." Derek heard Mark growl at Alecta.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Shut up and put it on." Mark had thrown a large men's shirt at her to use to cover her nudity, 'If your idiot mother can find me this fast it will only be a matter of time before Agent Hotchner does as well."

Derek could hear the chain that had been used to trap her rattling. Mark had come over to unlock the pad lock that had held it down to the hook in the floor.

After sliding the shirt on, Alecta tried again, 'Where are you taking me?"

Suddenly Derek heard a smacking sound….likely Mark had just backhanded Alecta….then Derek heard her hit the floor with a grunt. He knew what she was trying to do, but he wished she would just play it cool. Derek could hear Mark grabbing the chain again, jerking it and dragging Alecta along to rush her…

"I think you've almost outlived your usefulness to me….but we have a little time."

"Where's momma?"

Mark yanked the chain again, causing Alecta to stumble again, 'whores aren't allowed to talk. Now come on."

Derek made his way back over to JJ and Reid instead of trying to climb through the window; he needed to relay what he had seen and heard so they could warn the others. As he crept back over to his team mates he began to think that if this monster had been treating Pen this way, he'd rip the guy's throat out with his bare hand, and Derek knew that if Hotch had any idea what was happening he'd think the exact same thing.

In another part of the house, Mark was dragging Alecta to a room that might have been an old bedroom; it was hard to tell, but it did have yet another old dingy, foul smelling mattress lying on the floor.

In a matter of minutes Alecta situation had changed. Somewhere in this hell hole, Mark had hidden her mother, likely restrained; Alecta was second or third generation 'don't give a fuck'….who did everybody think she got it from. And also she knew that the team was close by. She knew that she had to do whatever was necessary to keep Mark from turning on her mother, if that meant that she got it a little worse, so be it. And the thought of the team being so close had emboldened her a bit, whatever fight that she had lost had returned, at least briefly. She had to do something. Alecta was completely calm in her decision to provoke Mark; she knew that if everything went south that her team was close enough to kill him. Outside of the fact that it would put her unborn twins at even more risk than they already had been, nothing else mattered to her; she didn't feel as though she had a lot of choice, she knew what must be done.

Mark threw Alecta down on the mattress with every intention of crawling up on top of her until she managed to scramble away; all he had to do was grab the length of chain and yank it backwards, causing Alecta to stumble and fall on her ass.

"I almost forgot, you like it rough….at least that's what I've heard from certain sources" punching her square in the face, 'Don't do that again."

Spitting blood from where her lip had just been busted, 'You hit like a bitch. Come here and let me show you how it's done."

"I was born at night but not last night. You have a tendency to kill your opponents."

"Scared?"

"Hardly."

"Prove it."

Mark shot Alecta a second time with the stun gun, but this time he used less voltage than he had the first time. Next, he tossed her back onto the mattress.

"By the time I get done with you, your dear Agent Hotchner won't even be able to stand the sight of you, let alone being with you again. He'll finally learn what you really are. Of course, if I do my job right, none of that will really matter anyway, you'll be dead."

Mark began to climb back on top of Alecta; she continued to try to fight him….her efforts were futile, she was still quite weak from taking two hits from a stun gun.

As Mark's hands roamed her body, his fingers entering her, he had a thought, 'You know, the only regret that I have is that either my brother or Fletcher couldn't be here to enjoy this."

Finally came the moment that Alecta had been dreading. Mark positioned his body to prepare to enter her yet again.

As Mark forced his way into Alecta's body his face was buried close to her neck and he began taunting her again.

"Yes. I may as well kill you before your precious team gets here. Damn sure Hotchner won't want what's left when I'm done; and the others will probably detest the mere mention of your name, just like before. You remember, you sacrificed everything for the greater good then too, and what did you get for your trouble? Besides, don't want you passing your whore tendencies to anybody else. We can't have that."

One of the movements he made into her hurt really bad, more than the others….Alecta couldn't believe the pain.

She thought about her babies, all of them, and decided that if she was going to die anyway, she might as well take one last shot. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath she silently begged that, if God ever cared for her at all, that he would intervene now.

With a silent tear sliding down each cheek, Alecta raked her fingernails down Mark's face. The pain caused him to raise up just enough that she could get her knee up and get him right in his vital parts, this caused him to roll off of her and double over.

As soon as he had moved off of her, Alecta crawled off of the mattress intending to make a run for it. She didn't get very far. Mark had time to grab the chain and snatch it backwards.

"You are going to pay for that!" he roared right into her face.

Alecta had no way of that during the time that Mark had been away from her he had tasered her mother as well and tied her up in a different room of the house after smacking her around a bit as well. Also, the team was silently making their way into the house and clearing it room by room.

Rossi, Prentiss, and Reid were tasked with finding Rachel, Alecta's mother. Hotch, Morgan, and JJ were on the hunt to find Alecta.

In the meantime, Mark had snatched the chain again, dragging Alecta back to the mattress. He began smacking her face back and forth, alternating with back handed slaps as well.

This time as Mark continued to rape Alecta he pulled a knife from under the mattress holding it in one hand to threaten her with it, and using his other hand to tightly squeeze her throat. This time the pain from the assault had become completely unbearable. After everything Alecta had been through, she could honestly say she hadn't been physically hurt this bad in long time. The hand around her throat kept getting tighter.

Suddenly, there was a creek in the floorboards. Everybody on the team halted, although, it was really too late, Mark had heard them.

Finishing his final assault on Alecta, Mark pulled out, getting his clothes pulled back together. He leaned across Alecta grabbing some kind of plastic bag. He wrapped it around her head as tight as he could possibly get it, and then he used the length of chain to wrap around the end of the bag that was covering her throat. Next, Mark rolled Alecta over and tied her hands behind her back. After that was accomplished he rolled her back over onto her back, scooped her up, slinging her over his shoulder. He carried her over to a closet, opening the door with his free hand, and slung her roughly into a footlocker that was in there. He shut the footlocker, placing a padlock on it to secure it shut. Then he shut the closet door.

As satisfied with his work as he could be, Mark took off out of the room only to encounter Rossi, Prentiss, and Reid.

"Mark Goodnight! Freeze!"

"I don't think so old man!" Mark took out the gun that he had managed to pick off of Rachel and shot Rossi, hitting him in the leg. Reid caught Rossi as he went down so he wouldn't hit the floor with his full weight.

Once he had fired his shot at Rossi, Mark took off, heading for a back door. Reid took out his phone and signaled to Hotch and the rest that he was on the run and that Prentiss was in hot pursuit.

"JJ and I will join Prentiss, you go get Lex." Derek assured Hotch. Hotch was at a standstill in his mind. Yes, he wanted to go get Alecta, but he wanted to be the one to catch Mark Goodnight just as badly. Of course he couldn't be trusted not to shoot the man right between the eyes, recent past events have proven that where Alecta was concerned, and perhaps it was better that he was kept as far away from this son of a bitch as he could be. Besides, he was chomping at the bit to get Alecta back.

As Derek turned to join JJ in pursuit of Mark, Hotch turned back into the house and stumbled upon Reid and Rossi in the hall.

"Dave?"

"Don't worry about me. I'll live." He was trying to find a less painful way to get up, with Reid's assistance.

"Hotch! He came running out of that room over there, that door to the right." Reid instructed as he helped Rossi up. Reid was going to help Rossi get as close to the front door as he could so when the paramedics arrived they could get to him easily.

Hotch turned to enter the room, but Rossi stopped him, 'Aaron, he had blood on his clothes." It was as if Rossi was trying to prepare him for the worst in some small way.

Hotch turned and ran even faster into the room. Looking around as he passed through the door, all he saw was that filthy mattress. He gasped, there was a small blood pool on it….his mind began racing as to where the blood had come from. There was some blood on the floor, a little spatter…..still he couldn't put it together in his mind where it might have come from. He didn't see any sign of Alecta. Looking around a bit more closely, he noticed a closed door across the room. Racing over to the door Hotch realized it was a closet. There was nothing of any great…seeing the sealed foot locker Hotch grabbed one of the handles and pulled it out of the closet carefully.

What am I going to find? Hotch wondered to himself. Looking carefully he realized that the locker actually had a lock on it holding it shut. Running over to the mattress he flipped it over in hopes of finding a key. No such luck. He began striking at the lock with the butt of his gun, apparently he wasn't hitting it hard enough to do any damage. Standing up and stepping back a few steps, Hotch pulled his gun and shot at the lock, hoping that the bullet wouldn't enter the locker. Shooting it worked, the lock fell off. Leaning over, Hotch fairly well ripped the lid open.

His eyes widened at what he'd found, 'NO! We need medics in here, NOW!"

Hotch scooped Alecta out of the box, the plastic bag still wrapped tightly around her head, chain still around her throat. He set to work immediately trying to remove the bag from her face. It would have taken too long to unwind the chain, so he just ripped through the bag, that would give her some space to breath, if she could, while he got the chain unwrapped. Alecta wasn't moving. Hotch soon had his answer to where the blood had come from. When he tore the bag open he saw that her lip was busted, that might account for some of the spatter he had seen on the floor next to the mattress. And as he was working on getting the chain unwound from around her neck he noticed a stab wound that was around her rib cage, explaining the blood pool on the mattress. He also noticed, as he was unwrapping the chain, that her skin was changing pallor; it was taking on a grayish tint.

Damn waiting for EMT's! He had initially wanted to wait for the paramedics because of her pregnant state he didn't want to risk doing more damage. But, she had been suffocated by that damned bag, stabbed, raped (which that alone was enough to drive him into a blind psychotic rage), and beaten—who knows how badly. After getting the chain from around her neck, he rolled her over carefully and untied her hands, and then settled her back down on her back beginning CPR.

It took less than three minutes for two EMT's to rush into the room from the time Hotch had yelled for them, it took a while to get there; it was so far from….everything else.

The EMT's kept trying to get close enough to Alecta to work on her, but they couldn't get past Hotch, he wouldn't stop administering CPR; every time they tried to pull him away, he shrugged them off.

"Agent Hotchner, let us take over." One EMT demanded.

It didn't seem to sink in; Hotch was going on about having to keep going until help arrived.

Somewhere in the distance there were three shots fired in rather rapid fire succession. Hotch stopped only briefly to look up, and then once he realized what the sound was he went right back to continuing CPR, and the EMT's were still trying to pull him away.

It wasn't until Morgan came rushing back into the room, hearing Hotch argue with the paramedics that he stepped forward and grabbed Hotch by both arms from behind, pulling him away that the medics could even get close. As it was, Hotch had done his level best to break Morgan's grasp on him but it didn't work.

"Come one man, let them do their jobs. We'll go outside and get some air…."

"No. I'm not leaving her side." Hotch didn't take his eyes off of where Alecta was lying in the floor. He could see the shape of Mark Goodnight's hand and fingers around her throat.

"We've got a pulse,' one of the paramedics could be heard to say….that is Morgan heard it. Hotch couldn't hear a thing besides the blood rushing through his veins. Then he saw the boy, the boy from earlier, when he and Dave were at the traffic light….the one from the school. Looking up from where the paramedics were getting Alecta settled on a gurney, Hotch saw the boy standing behind one of the medics, sort of to the left.

Without even flinching, the boy looked at him and smiled, 'She can't die ya know that right mister? If she's told you once, she's told you a thousand times, she can't die." Hotch thought about it for a split second, and that does sound like something that would come out of her mouth. He nodded at the young boy, the boy winked at him quickly and turned to go away….as the boy left, Hotch could hear him say, 'I'm coming mama."

Hotch was shaken out of his thoughts when he heard Morgan pronounce, 'He's riding with her." With that Hotch was quickly ushered into the back of the waiting ambulance, still pondering what he had just witnessed and thinking over all that was to come next.

Post AN: Freaky, huh? Well I will explain what the three shots were for in the next chapter…as well as possibly getting around to Alecta being allowed to leave the hospital….we shall see. Love ya peeps.