Chapter 11

Douglas slammed the phone down and looked at Reid with pure disgust. Reid merely fidgeted and looked up expectantly.

"They'll be on their way now... I'll be long gone though, I'm going to get my wife back," Douglas said in an almost reverent tone. All his energy for the past few months had been building up to this point...he was so close, he eyes glowed with greed.

"What are you going to do with me?" Reid asked tentatively, praying that Douglas would agree to leave him here for his team to find. It seemed his prayers were going to be answered.

"I'm not taking you with me, if that's what you are wondering," Douglas said, "I'll leave you here as a little present for your fellow dogs to find..."

He walked over to Reid and started unlocking the chain that connected his wrists and ankles. He grabbed under his arms and began hauling him back down to the basement, muttering under his breath the whole time about snakes and dogs and FBI agents. Reid listened to him belittling him and his career choice and his beloved team members and he felt an indignant anger boiling up through his stomach and chest and up to his mouth. He couldn't stop the anger once it reached his brain.

"You can't blame all your problems on something else. So, one FBI agent screwed you over, that doesn't say anything about the rest of us," Reid couldn't see how this man could possibly avoid the logic he was presenting.

"It says everything about the rest of you!" Douglas screamed and threw Reid to the ground. Reid immediately sat up and looked definitely up at Douglas; someone once told Reid he was strong and he couldn't be broken and he felt that strength surge up inside his heart now.

"You don't know anything! You are just a delusional, self-pitying man on a power trip!" Reid shouted back up at his captor, "You think you're better than me, than any FBI agent, but you need to treat me like an animal in order to feel control, you have to talk about us as if we are dogs and snakes; you're pathetic!"

Douglas kicked Reid in the stomach. He just wanted him to be quiet; this man's words were cutting into him like a knife or a lover's rejection. Yet Reid didn't cower submissively like a dog might, he raised himself back up to stare Douglas right in the eyes and continued.

"I am an FBI agent and I spend my life putting scum like you in jail. I help people, save their lives. What do you do?" Reid asked, smiling and feeling like he was 15 feet tall. It didn't matter that Douglas had kidnapped and tortured him; he was just a weak, desperate man. Reid thought of his team and how brave and good they were. His pride for them lit up his eyes and Douglas saw this light and cowered from it. He was gripping his head in his hands and staring down at Reid in horror.

Before his eyes, Reid transformed into the man who had stolen his wife. That man was strong and confident too, he was everything Douglas wasn't. He could see his wife and the way she looked at her new lover; he could see the way she looked at him too, glancing at him with disgust, like he was a waste of human life. And he was. He no longer felt in control; the man on the floor in front of him was dangerous and powerful. Douglas had to stop him staring, he had to get those judging eyes from his face.

Reid beheld the damage he had done; he had unravelled all of Douglas' confidence with the power of his words and profiling. He knew they would all be proud; Gideon, Rossi, Hotch, all of the father-figures he looked up to. He was thinking about this when Douglas aimed a kick at his head. He was momentarily stunned and he couldn't fully comprehend what Douglas was doing but he felt himself being dragged and pulled and restrained.

Douglas had to work quickly; his prisoner was no longer a prisoner. He was dangerous and fiercely intelligent. If Douglas didn't get him out of the way, Reid would surely find a way to get inside his head again and make him feel sick like before. When he had finished, the FBI agent was trussed up and shaking his head lightly, no doubt recovering quickly; Douglas could do nothing to stop him. The only way was if he killed this man. He left Reid on the floor and hurried over to the tap in the corner of his basement. He turned it on full blast and ran up the stairs without one last look at the man on the floor. He didn't stop until he was in his car with a map in hand. He was going to find his wife, thought he felt like nothing could make him feel good again. He was a waste of human life and he knew it. Everyone knew it. As he stepped on the gas, there was only one thing left for him to do.

Reid returned to his senses, though the room was still spinning a little. He was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. His hands were bound behind him and his ankles, knees and elbows felt uncomfortably restricted as if they were tightly wrapped in tape also. There was an uncomfortable pressure on Reid's chest and as he looked down he saw why; there was a large chunk of concrete on his chest, held there with plentiful layers of tape. He sighed into the tape that was wrapped around his mouth; it was uncomfortable but it wasn't going to kill him. He could wait until the team got there, he only wished he wouldn't be found in such a helpless position. After the way he handled Douglas he felt like a super hero, not a damsel in distress.

Something wet slowly seeped into Reid's shoes and he jumped in shock. The rush of blood he could here roaring in his ears hadn't subsided as he expected it would. It took him a few seconds to realise that the roaring sound in his ears wasn't his own blood pounding; it was the powerful gush of water coming from a tap in the corner of the basement. The floor of the room was very slowly but irrevocably filling with water. And the water was slowly creeping up to Reid and into his clothes. And he had no way of stopping it and no way of escaping it. He let out a long and loud but muffled scream for help. No one came. He was on his own.

As the water tugged at his hair and chilled his bones, he prayed that his team would find him before he succumbed to a watery fate...