47I apologize for the long delay in updating this story. I wrote the first draft of this chapter back in May 2015. I recently pulled it out and ended up completely re-writing large parts of it following my original outline. Particularly the opening scene I rewrote from scratch. As always I don't own any of the characters from Criminal Minds.
Chapter 3
"Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear." – Stephen King
When awareness returned Spencer was surprised to find himself free. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he quickly realized he wasn't in the warehouse anymore. A cursory look around revealed cream painted walls, and a tiled ceiling had replaced the temporary enclosure and high beams. The plush carpet beneath his converse sneakers completed the change in scenery.
High windows revealed he was in a sub-basement of some kind. A short flight of stairs upwards reinforced his conclusion. The pain in his foot precluded climbing the stairs, his only other option was a single door left slightly ajar next to the stairs.
Opening the door, he found another set of stairs heading down into the darkness. Spencer swallowed several times pushing down the fear threatening to rise within him. That last thing he wanted was to enter that darkness but Hotch was counting on him.
Spencer forced himself down into the darkness, leaning heavily on the stair rails for support. With every step he found himself taking deep breaths to quell the panic rising with him. Spencer had just reached the bottom step when he heard the door slam shut behind him. Panic started to take over as the last sliver of light from above was abruptly cut off leaving him in total darkness.
Even through his panic, Reid forced himself to put one foot in front of the other, pain shooting through his foot with every step. Reid stumbled forward as his foot came down on something other than the empty floor. A sharp crack resounded through the darkness as he stumbled. Regaining his balance Spencer waved his arms around wildly searching for something, anything to help him in the dark.
His hand lit upon a long chain and he pulled. With a click the overhead light bathed the scene before him, bringing it into sharp relief. A white sheet outlined the form of a corpse. In the light the source of the crack was evident, brittle fingers breaking under Spencer's meager weight.
Reid felt bile rice in his gorge at the sight of those mangled fingers but with difficulty managed to choke it back down berating himself for his reaction. He had come across far more grizzly scenes in his years as a profiler, yet there was something about feeling the snap of bone beneath you.
After taking several deep breaths to calm himself Spencer bent down and with great trepidation pulled back the sheet. Beneath the sheet lay a corpse both familiar and yet strange. Beneath the familiar haircut and crisp black suit lay sunken eyes and sharp cheekbones. The wither of the skin suggested years of dehydration yet Spencer was confused. It couldn't have been more than a couple of hours since he last saw Aaron Hotchner.
Spencer fell to his knees to grasp the body of his departed boss. Even as he cradled the body Spencer heard Hotch's voice, indistinct yet soothing. At the sound of the voice, Spencer found himself choking back a sob. Spencer's breath hitched his throat as he heard footsteps somewhere in the darkness behind him.
Dropping the corpse Spencer struggled to his feet as the footsteps got closer and closer. Before even taking a step, Reid felt the point of a knife slipping like a whisper into his back.
A sharp pain flared in Reid's back as his real eyes flew open. The words that had pervaded his dream suddenly became clear. "Wake up, Reid, Wake up." As the pain received Reid found himself struggling to separate dream from reality.
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It seemed like hours had passed though in reality, it could have been mere minutes. Foyet's last taunt continued to echo within Hotch's mind. Grief and guilt had overcome rationality when a memory flashed through Hotch's mind. Another kidnapping. Gideon bent over a laptop computer belonging to a murdered couple. A young man's choice. Words of strength. "Reid, if you're watching. You're not responsible for this, you understand me? He's perverting god to justify murder. You are stronger than him. He cannot break you." A different situation yet Hotch still found strength and comfort in the memory.
A strangled cry drew Hotch from his private contemplations. Reid was thrashing around in the throes of some nightmare, each involuntary movement drawing dribbles of blood from his impaled foot.
"Reid? Can you hear me? Wake up Reid, it's just a dream. Wake up." Hotch spoke in soothing tones perfected through years of parenthood. Relief flooded him when Reid's eyes flew open. A range of emotions played across Reid's face, fear, confusion, relief before he looked away. Embarrassment.
Reid had always worried about appearing to weak, unable to cope with his job. It wasn't Hotch or Gideon Reid had come to those years ago when he first experienced nightmares. Hotch's words to the 24-year old profiler were still just as true yet Hotch was prepared to pretend nothing had happened.
"How are you feeling?"
Reid was quiet for so long Hotch feared he wasn't going to answer. When Reid finally lifted his head and spoke he did so without ever meeting the Unit Chief's eyes. "Do you know there are over 200 places to stab someone non-lethally on the average adult male body? Not to mention countless injuries that will lead to death in the slowest, most painful way possible."
Reid flinched in pain as he talked. The dribble of blood from his injured foot had spread into a fresh stain. That didn't seem to be the real problem however, judging from the way Reid squirmed in his seat.
Hotch felt the urge to go the young man. While his hands were still bound behind him there was nothing binding him to the chair itself. Only knowledge of how Foyet might punish Reid for his rendering aid kept Hotch in his chair.
Reid's obvious pain eventually broke through the agent's resolve. With some difficulty, Hotch managed to push himself up from the chair.
"What are you doing?"
Instead of answering Hotch stumbled across the floor, his legs weak from sitting too long. Reaching Reid's side he knelt on the floor next to the chair. "Lean forward" he instructed.
As Reid leaned forward he couldn't help the yelp that escaped his throat. A quick glance was all Hotch needed to find the source: a deep puncture wound just above the kidney courtesy of a 4-inch nail, one of many sticking out of the back of Reid's chair.
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Not long after leaving the warehouse Foyet found himself in a non-descript café accessing the "free-wireless" advertised store-front. Places such as this were a dime-a-dozen in this digital age and Foyet took full advantage, never frequenting the same place twice and running home-brew software to mask his online activity.
While Foyet sat waiting a waitress approached his table: Pretty, blonde, maybe 17 years of age. "Anything else I can get you?" Foyet's hand twitched subconsciously towards the knife in his waistband before he shook his head, as much to clear his mind of fantasies as to answer her question. "Just the coffee."
While the waitress refilled his cup Foyet found his thoughts drifting backward in time to 6 weeks ago...
In between his attempts to locate Agent Hotchner's ex-wife, Foyet had been chatting on a local news bulletin board. It was there he had come across a young man claiming to work for the FBI. By pretending to be a journalist interested in writing about the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, Foyet had managed to gain the man's trust.
After talking online for a week, the man had agreed to meet with Foyet in person. Meeting face-to-face Foyet had socially engineered the naive young man into handing over confidential information about the BAU. Since then his contact had been almost eager to hand over any information Foyet needed for his "article."
As soon as Foyet had the information he had temporarily abandoned his search for Hayley Hotchner in favor of scanning the BAU personnel files for possible weak spots to exploit. As soon as he noticed a certain genius doctor was injured in the field he began to plot...
"Ahem." Foyet's trip down memory lane was soon halted by his contact's arrival.
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"Rossi?" Garcia answered the phone, confusion evident in her voice.
"Garcia, I need you to pull up everything you can on Hotch's movements today. Phone calls, network activity, everything."
"What? You want me to look into the boss man?"
"Discretely."
"Stay on the line, this will only take a second." Worry was evident in the normally bubbly tech analyst's voice as she performed the requested search. "Now normally a search like this would take time but since you and I work for the government and have less digital privacy than a convicted felon... got it. His phone records show one outgoing call at 9:15 and an incoming call from the same number about an hour later. Records show it's a U.S. Marshall phone allotted to one Sam Kassmeyer."
"Kassmeyer? The marshall assigned to protect Hotch's family?"
"Yes, sir but fret not. The first call lasted less than a minute and the second call was just under 5 minutes. We would have seen much more activity were his family in trouble. Speaking of activity, it looks like Hotch signed out a covert GPS tracking device from the bureau just after 10:30 and..." Garcia trailed off as a notification popped up on her screen. "Hello what is this. An e-mail alert from Reid?"
"Open it."
"The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain." – Aristotle