Chapter 4

Chapter 4


The BAU team began to pack up their bags and the clock reached that glorious time of the day when they were free. Everyone had the same contented look on their faces.


"Got any plans for tonight?" Morgan asked Prentiss as he slipped his jacket on.


"You asking me out? 'Cause I don't think I'm your type, and you are definitely not mine!" Prentiss shot back quickly.


"No, no way...I wouldn't want to get in trouble with Hotch anyway..." There it was again, that pointed insinuation that made Prentiss blush, though she wouldn't admit why. She ignored it and continued loading files into her bag that she would work on when she was at home, preferably with a large glass of wine in her hand. Hotch's sudden voice behind her made her jump and caused Morgan to burst out laughing.


"Reid never showed today," Hotch stated, to the point as always, "Neither of you have heard anything from him?"


"Nah, he was completely MIA all day," Morgan replied when he had stopped laughing.


"He probably just needed space," Prentiss suggested.


"He normally rings though. He's never not rung," Hotch said simply. Prentiss loved how he never wasted words; he said what he meant always. He was so reliable and safe, yet strong...


"Uhh guys?" Garcia's voice broke Prentiss' train of thought and brought her back to the real world, "There's some weird shifty goings-on over in my temple of excellence and I don't really know what I'm doing, which is weird because I always know what I'm doing so when I don't know what I'm doing it can only mean that there must be some bizarro shift in the cosmos that turns brilliant people slightly less brilliant -"


"Baby girl, slow down," Morgan interrupted the blond technology pixie's rant, "What's the problem?"


"You'd better just follow me, Abs. And you, Fringe and Eyebrows," Garcia spun on her heels and scampered back to her room.


"I guess 'Fringe' and 'Eyebrows' means us?" Hotch said to Prentiss, managing an almost smile once more.


"Well, you're definitely not 'Abs', I'm Abs. Right, Fringe?" Morgan pushed past the pair to Garcia's tech office. Hotch and Prentiss followed, both laughing now at their co-workers.


When the three of them were inside Garcia's office the mood turned very serious. There was an email on Garcia's screen that she had enlarged on all the screens in the office.


Dear FBI agent,


Make sure your whole FBI team is available at 6.15 this evening


I have something to show you


Be there and make sure they are all here too


We can sort this out, if you cooperate


"Weird, right?" Garcia said, obviously disconcerted by the mysterious message. Hotch glanced at his watch.


"It's 6.10 now so we're on time," He stated, addressing his team.


"Who's it from, Garcia?" Morgan asked, arms folded across his chest, brow furrowed.


"Well, that's the strange, strange thing...It was sent from my own account. But I only just got it. It must have been set up on a timer to send at this specific point, "And check out this link at the bottom of the email."


Garcia clicked the link and they were directed to a page with a large black box and nothing else right in the center.


"So, it's going to be a video feed, most likely live. Yet when I trace the source - brace yourselves for a Freaky Friday-style twist - it is supposedly coming from this very computer!"


She looked around wide-eyed at her colleagues, but none of them shared her shock or enthusiasm as they looked at one another with blank stares.


"Ugh, normos," she sighed and proceeded to spell it out for them, "Basically I am sending this feed from my computer, but obviously I'm not, someone else is. It just looks like I am. And there's no sign of hacking. So...there has been some very clever, complicated, Garcia-level hacking brilliance that I am ashamed to say I can't trace."


"Well, I guess we wait then. This mystery-hacker said nothing about contacting us, they're just gonna show us something," Prentiss reasoned, though she had a distinct feeling that something wasn't right.


"Yes, and they won't be monitoring us, so it doesn't really matter that the whole team isn't present," Hotch said, doubt in his eyes. He realised how contrived it sounded even as he was saying it.


"Alright guys, anyone else sincerely creeped out?" Morgan interjected, cutting to the chase.


"Thank you!" Garcia said loudly, "I knew you'd get the weird vibe too, my chocolate Adonis."


"It's 6.14," Hotch said, "Garcia are you going to record this?"


"On it, boss," Garcia's hands flew to the keyboard as she worked her magic. The tension in the small office was palpable as the four agents stared in anticipation at the blank video feed on every screen in the room. As soon as the digital clock showed 6.15 the video feed sprung to life and they were all suddenly enthralled and horrified with what they saw.


Two legs were the only things in shot; two long, thin legs clad in smart black trousers kneeling on floor. The legs had black converse trainers at the bottom with flashes of colourful but mismatched socks showing in the gap between the trousers and the shoes .These were the clearly the legs of Spencer Reid. There was duct tape wound tightly around his ankles and he wasn't moving. The camera panned up agonisingly slowly to reveal Reid's whole body. His hands were bound behind him with tape and there was yet more tape wound round his torso. There was a leather strap around his neck securing him to what looked like a radiator and forcing him to lean forward in an uncomfortable position. There was a strip of duct tape over his mouth and he was straining against his many bonds to try and look at what the camera person was doing. He was making small pained noises and his eyes had even darker rings around them than normal. He'd been crying.


"Shhh shh shh," came the voice from the man pointing the camera, "This'll all be over soon."


Reid tried twisting round so he could get a better view of his captor but the more he moved the more the strap cut into his neck so he ceased his struggling.


"FBI agents? I trust you are watching this from your offices?" the man said, his voice calm and steady. At the mention of 'FBI agents', the bound man on the floor grew still and his breathing deeper. He was now frozen, listening to the words of the man with the camera.


"As you know, I don't like FBI agents. You don't care who you hurt. Do you?" he quickly moved towards his captive and shoved the video camera in his face so that every flicker of emotion was captured. Reid looked right into the lens; his eyes were filled with fear and desperation. The man slapped him lightly, once, twice, "Huh? No, you FBI agents are all the same, so it's time someone taught you what it's like to get hurt. An eye for an eye?"


The assailant's voice was growing more and more agitated as his calm, measured tone slipped and he was unable to supress his emotions. He was angry. He stopped speaking and only his heavy breathing could be heard.


"Mppppphmmm mrrrhmmmm mmmpphhh!" Reid yelled urgently into his gag but there was no understanding his muffled words. He was looking at something out of shot, something the camera man was holding, with terror in his eyes. Suddenly the thing he was looking at was lowered into shot; a long, serrated carving knife.


Reid was crying futilely now, tears slipping from his large brown eyes. The knife was brought up to his face and traced lightly around his left eye. He tried jerking his head away but the strap around his throat had him completely restrained.


"No, no, no...don't resist it," his captor said gently. Reid stopped squirming, squeezed his eyes shut and moaned softly into the gag. The knife point pressed slightly into the ridge of his left cheek bone below the eye socket. It kept pressing until the skin turned white from the pressure and the skin broke. It was only a tiny nick but a small trickle of blood ran down his face where it dripped of his chin and onto the carpeted floor. Reid gasped in pain and his eyes shot open so he was staring apparently up into the eyes of his kidnapper, silently pleading.


"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm better than you, I'm not going to stoop to your level," the man said and the camera moved up and away from Reid so it was looking down at him from standing height, "But I want you FBI agents to know that unless you make up for what you did to me, I might not be so nice next time round. For now though, I'm going to treat this one like the dog we all know he is."


He swiftly kicked Reid in the stomach. Unable to defend himself from the sudden blow, Reid coughed, winded, and whimpered in pain. He couldn't even lower his head to hide the tears that were falling freely from his eyes and mingling with the blood from the cut on his pale cheek. The camera zoomed in on Reid's face and captured every last tortured look of pain in detail.


And with that the video feed went dead. A stunned silence filled Garcia's office; no one could quite comprehend what they had just seen. Garcia's sob broke the silence, followed closely by Morgan.


"Son of a ...!" he yelled, unable to finish because of the anger and frustration of seeing his pretty boy like that.


"Garcia, I'm guessing there is no way you could trace that then?" Hotch asked quietly, but the fury was apparent in his voice.


"No, sir, it was coming from this computer...I couldn't - I can't do anything," the technical analyst cried and she stared at the blank video, unable to tear her eyes away.


"Hotch, what do we do?" Morgan asked, the only thing he could do was to turn to his superior.


"New case. Abduction, false imprisonment, torture. We need to come up with a profile. Someone needs to get JJ here as soon as she can make it," Hotch barked orders, his minds springing into action, "We'll find him guys, don't worry."


No one felt comforted by this. They all felt helpless. Yet they knew they had to act immediately in order to rescue their friend and colleague. Prentiss had remained silent since seeing the live video stream. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth she would be sick or break out in uncontrollable sobs or wailing. When Reid has been abducted by Tobias Hankel she barely knew the guy, yet she sensed his endangerment terrified the rest of the team. He was the child, the baby, the innocent of the group and none of them could stand to see him suffer. It only took Emily Prentiss a few weeks of working with the young genius to see why everyone felt this way. That was why when the two of them had been taken hostage by the cult group she had put herself forward for being the FBI agent; she knew that whatever torture they could inflict on her could never compare to the torture she would suffer if she saw them hurting Reid. And now he was kidnapped again and he was being tortured. He was scared and alone and in danger and there was nothing Prentiss nor the rest of the team could do and that hurt her so much. She walked in a daze back to her desk in the bullpen and just stood and stared at Reid's desk, as if any minute now he would awkwardly walk over and start rambling on about something none of them found interesting, wildly gesticulating and a great big smile on his youthful face. Prentiss laughed at the thought and in the exact same moment, tears spilled from her eyes and she wept in despair.


Hotch saw Prentiss standing, almost catatonic, over at her desk. Her shoulders shook gently as she cried. He wasted no time in walking up to her and gently folding her in an embrace. He knew it was inappropriate behaviour in the work place but he was dreaming if he was going to let her suffer alone. They both knew there was something between them lately and Hotch didn't plan on beating around the bush; he knew he could comfort her and he was going to.


"What if we don't find him?" Prentiss asked, her voice thick from the tears.


"We will," replied Hotch simply.


"With Hankel...we were lucky," Prentiss' voice cracked mid-sentence.


"We are going to find him," her superior answered with such certainty, Prentiss felt a little comforted. Hotch gently stroked her smooth, dark hair, soothing her. The pair of them closed their eyes and leaned on each other, peaceful and still.


Across the bullpen, Morgan and Garcia broke their own embrace, one that was more about friendship than intimacy. Garcia blew her nose loudly as Morgan put his arm round her shoulders. They both looked at their boss and their colleague, taking in the bizarre sight that all at once seemed strange but also made more sense than they could ever have imagined.


"Reid will be baffled by that," Garcia smiled sadly, resting her head on her friend's shoulder.


"Yeah, baby doll, he will. He will."

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