A/C I'm baaack! And I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree! With that being said, this story will be updated a lot quicker than in the past. Again, thanks for sticking with me! I appreciate all the comments and favorites. This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but the next one will make up for it guaranteed.

~C~M~

Once again JJ felt like she was in a dream. Adrenaline pumped through her system and her heart beat rapidly. This time, however, she had control of her legs. She also had some control of her former captor. For such a large man, he ran just as fast. She almost fell behind at one point, actually. And while she was not sure where exactly they were going, she knew any direction away from that house of horrors would be salvation.

In their first half-mile sprint, she hadn't even realized her feet were bleeding. The too small dress shoes were cutting into the back of her ankles and the front straps suffocated the tops of her feet.

"Luke! Stop!" she bellowed as she slowed down, coming to a stop. With that, she hunched over grabbing her knees for support as her heart rate decreased.

Luke stopped dead in his tracks and ran back over to her at lightning speed.

"We need to go! They'll find us," he urged, showing more humanity than she'd seen before.

"I…need…new…s-shoes," she pushed out, her breath coming back to her slowly but surely.

His gaze shifted from her fatigued face to her blood soaked feet.

"I'll carry you," he said, moving towards her.

"No!" JJ unintentionally shouted, causing Luke to jump back with alarm.

"I mean no, Luke. We both have to be able to run if we need to," she said more calmly.

"We… we can't go back," Luke said, looking around with paranoia.

"I know, Luke… we can't do that," JJ agreed, gently putting her hand on his arm. "But is there somewhere we can find sneakers or boots?"

At that Luke's expressed turned pained. It was like he was battling with his thoughts within the confines of his skull.

"Luke…?" JJ continued, still holding his arm gently.

"I'm – I'm not supposed to go there. I'm not allowed," he half whispered in fright, pulling at his shirt with anxiety.

JJ would have backed down in any other context, knowing he was in obvious distress. However, anywhere their captors didn't want them to go could mean safety.

"Luke, they can't control you anymore. We need to get away from here," JJ said as calmly as she could. At this point the last thing she could afford was the team's only ally breaking down.

For a while he remained in thought and JJ's anxiety rose, starting to feel the time running out before the family would search for them.

"O-okay… there's a store in the old place. There might be something there," Luke finally said.

"What's the old place?" JJ asked, wondering whether this would be a safe location.

"It's like a…" Luke struggled. "Like a town."

Town? JJ questioned to herself. He must have meant the town they first drove into. Ismay, she remembered. There was the sign, and the dirt roads and the barbeque place, where they first asked to use a phone. The woman told them there wasn't a phone. But… but, then how did Angie know they were coming. Their drinks were already prepared and spiked. It suddenly occurred to her that maybe there was a phone there after all – a phone that Garcia could trace. If there was in fact a phone there, there was a chance the three of them could get out alive.

"Okay, let's go," she said, showing the closest thing to a smile she could conjure.

Luke picked her up and she didn't object. They needed to get there as fast as humanly possible.

Hotch/Morgan

The afternoon was dwindling down by the time they reached Miles City. The heat, however, was not. Morgan had a bad feeling in his gut ever since the Sheriff told them about the region's ominous legend. Well, the entire situation didn't sit right with him, but that especially. There was something about it that sounded familiar. Right after they left Forsyth Morgan speed dialed Garcia to ask her to research any sightings of a "woman in white" in the area. He couldn't stomach the fact that this was the only lead they had.

The pulsing vibration of his phone broke the silence in the car. Morgan instantly snapped up his phone from the cupholder and answered.

"Hey Babygirl, did you find anything?" Morgan asked as he put her on speakerphone for Hotch to hear as well.

"You can bet your fine self I did. So I did a record search of any cases that involved the sighting of a woman in white clothing and cross-referenced them with missing person's cases. I came up with ten," she relayed.

"And what did the reports say?" Hotch asked.

"A lot of the people missing were separated from a group of people either camping or just taking a day trip. But they're all out-of-towners."

"The Sheriff said there were only a few cases each year," Morgan remembered aloud. He looked to Hotch. "You think he's hiding something?"

"I don't think so. He's out of the immediate area and I don't believe he would have anything to gain, especially so far away from Miles City," Hotch replied.

"So maybe the whole woman in white sighting is a smaller variable. Garcia, can you look for missing person's cases spanning from Billings to Glendive involving travelers?"

"Your wish is my co- woah," she said, her voice dropping into shock.

"What is it, Garcia?" Hotch demanded.

"There's been over 100 cases of people reported missing in the area in the last ten years. And they're all from out of town," she told them.

Morgan exchanged a troubled glance with Hotch. Over 100 people? Something was happening here and it was worse than they thought. The fact that their friends had mostly likely fell victim to whatever was out there was like a punch in the gut.

"Is there a common location where they were last seen?" Hotch questioned, his voice losing its usual sense of control.

"They all left Miles City… on Route 12."