The pain was white hot and took his breath away. Reid screwed his eyes closed, the only part of his body he could control, in an attempt to block out the pain.
Reid registered that several of his teammates were yelling, but he couldn't focus on what they were saying. The pain consumed his thoughts and left no room for anything else.
After several seconds, Reid opened his eyes and was met with Dr. Malcolm's face inches from his. He still wore the ski mask, but the eyes were clearly visible and the look in them could only be described as gleeful. Reid looked down to avoid making continued eye contact with Malcolm. Then Dr. Malcolm pulled the knife away, eliciting another involuntary moan from Reid's lips as more pain emanated from the fresh wound. Reid saw the blade, bloody to the hilt, as it was removed from his body.
So this is it - this is how I go. I'm going to bleed out while this psychopath stares at me with a stupid smile on his face and my team watches on from the BAU.
"Well Dr. Reid, I wish I could stay and watch you die a slow death. And I do hope it's slow and painful, because that's what you deserve. But I have somewhere to be." With that, Dr. Malcolm dropped the knife to the floor, and walked up the stairs. Reid heard the basement door slam, then another door further away. Shortly after, an engine came to life outside. He listened as Dr. Malcolm's vehicle sped away. He was all alone now.
Except I'm not alone, Reid thought. He looked up to see his six teammates staring at him.
The team stood in shock, trying to process what had just occurred. It was bad enough watching Dr. Malcolm hit Reid, but now Reid had been stabbed and seemingly left for dead. JJ and Emily tightened their grip on each other's hands, as Rossi moved his hand from Emily's back to around her shoulders, holding her closer. JJ's left hand now unconsciously rubbed Garcia's back, while Morgan and Garcia interlocked hands. Hotch continued to stand behind his team on his own, staring at the screen.
Hotch noted that Reid was still conscious and he wanted to keep it that way as long as possible. "Reid…" But he wasn't quite sure what to say. It was difficult to comfort the man when he had no real hope to offer him. Reid was literally bleeding out in front of them and they had no idea where he was. He couldn't ask Reid any questions, because the man couldn't answer.
Then Hotch had an idea. He stepped forward to be closer to the computer screen. "Reid, stay with us. I need you to blink once for yes, and twice for no. Do you understand?"
The agents watched the screen as Reid slowly blinked once.
"That's good Reid. Do you think you can stay conscious for us for a bit?" Hotch asked.
Again, Reid blinked once for yes.
Morgan jumped in, eager to pose a question to the young man. "Reid, do you know where you are right now?" He asked hopefully.
The team was disappointed when Reid blinked twice. So much for that. Even if he did know, he has no way to tell us, Morgan thought bitterly.
Rossi was next to interact with Reid. "Reid, you're doing great. And we are going to find you, don't you worry about that. Now, can you tell us, is Dr. Malcolm gone? Did you hear him leave the house?"
Reid blinked once and Rossi nodded in acknowledgement. That's good, at least the man can't come back in to finish Reid off.
Emily turned to the teammates in the room with her. "Malcolm talked a lot about his daughter before he left. And he said he had somewhere to be. Do you think he could be going after Samantha?"
"It's definitely a possibility. I'm going to call the local PD and get a uniform posted at her door just in case. I'll make sure that they are patrolling the roads nearby and are on the lookout for his vehicle as well." Hotch stepped out of the room as he pulled out his phone to make the call.
The team turned their attention back to Reid, who had started blinking oddly and frantically. Garcia looked confused. "What are you doing sweetie? I don't understand."
Rossi watched for a moment and came to a quick realization. "It's Morse Code. Smart, kid. Can you start over? I think I remember enough of it from my army days."
Rossi pulled a notepad towards him and wrote down the code that Reid blinked to him. It took a few moments, but Rossi had worked out the first five letters. He had written on the paper B-A-S-E-M before he looked back up at Reid and said, "Reid, are you trying to tell us you are in a basement?"
Reid blinked once.
Rossi smiled proudly. "You're doing great kid. That helps a lot. Garcia, can you pull up a list of residences with basements in the area we've narrowed our search to?"
"I sure can sir. It looks like we have… 47 houses in the area with basements," Garcia said with a frown. She looked back at Reid sadly, knowing there was no time to search that many houses and hating that he now knew just how far from finding him they were.
JJ saw Reid's eyes turn down at the news that they were still so far from locating him. She assessed the situation and said, "Don't worry Reid, we are on it. We'll find something to narrow it down further. It doesn't look like your wound is bleeding very quickly, so the knife missed your major blood vessels. That's a good thing. I guess we are lucky Dr. Malcolm isn't a medical doctor." She had hoped to introduce some humor to diffuse the tension in the room, but the joke fell flat. She hadn't been lying about the blood loss though – while Reid was bleeding out and did need medical attention as soon as possible, it looked like the bleeding was slow enough that they might have a small window with which to find him still. JJ hoped, anyway.
Hotch re-entered the room and everyone, including Reid, turned their eyes to him as he began to speak. "It looks like our hunch was correct. An orderly was caught ten minutes ago trying to smuggle Samantha out of the psychiatric facility. I had the police handling the situation offer the orderly a deal, and he immediately gave up the rendezvous location where he was supposed to meet Dr. Malcolm. The PD is headed there now to apprehend him."
Morgan sighed in relief. "Good, I'm glad this son of a bitch isn't going to get away. You and I should head out there and meet them. We can't wait for the cops to get him back here to interrogate him, there's not enough time."
Hotch nodded. "That's a good idea. We'll have to interrogate him from the police car. Let's go." Hotch turned to Reid on the computer screen. "Reid, we're going to get your location from Malcolm and we are going to find you soon. We just need you to hang in there a little longer. Can you do that?"
Reid blinked once.
Morgan turned to the computer to address Reid as well. "We got you man. I'll see you soon, I promise." With that, Morgan and Hotch exited the conference room.