ABLOCATE ▇▇▇▇ VOLUME TWO
━━ ❛ 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒖𝒕 ❜

chapter no. 044!

❪ 𝚃𝚆 : 𝙶𝚁𝙰𝙿𝙷𝙸𝙲 𝚂𝙲𝙴𝙽𝙴𝚂, 𝙳𝙴𝙿𝙸𝙲-
𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂 𝙾𝙵 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝚃𝙷 ⠀&⠀ 𝙱𝙻𝙾𝙾𝙳. ❫

❝ YOU HAVE TO LET GO. ❞
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﹙ MAY 3RD, 2016 ﹚

     THE POLICE PRECINCT WAS A CRIME SCENE BY THE TIME THE REST OF THE TEAM ARRIVED. CSI technicians crowded the front of the building, taping off the area. News reporters were already outside, trying to get a peak at the chaos that had ensued. Meanwhile, Captain Marvinhill was scrambling to keep anything from leaking to the press while the present BAU members were filling out their statements of the incident. Rossi and Blake were the first to finish, leaving Hotch.

     "Sir, put the gun down."

     Reacting on instinct, Hotch and Rossi placed their cups of coffee down on the nearest desk. They swiftly withdrew their weapons and aimed them toward the front sliding glass doors. There, holding a gun to his head, stood Stephen Leone. He wore the grin of a madman.

      "Sir, stand down!"

     Blinking, Hotch finished signing his name at the bottom of his statement. He clicked the pen shut and handed the document to the officer across from him. The two exchanged a nod and parted ways.

     As he turned to walk to the conference room to meet with Rossi and Blake, Hotch spotted the rest of his team, minus Garcia. Their expressions were filled with budding concern as they looked around the precinct, searching for a familiar face. They'd successfully made it past security. Once they spotted Hotch, some of them relaxed.

     "Hotch, what the hell happened here?" Cruz asked, motioning to the scene behind them as everyone headed over to the Unit Chief. Unfortunately, his question was left unanswered.

     Instead, the dark-haired man gestured for everyone to follow him.

     Dragging his eyes away from the body bag near the entrance, Morgan looked ahead. "Who's the stiff?"

     "Stephen Leone." Rossi and Blake answered in unison when the team entered the conference room.

     Well, nobody had expected that.

     Spencer blinked, his head reeling back an inch. "What?"

     "You're joking," Tara deadpanned, jaw slackening.

     Shaking his head, Rossi pursed his lips. "I wish."

     Hotch turned to meet the group. "He shot himself in the head," he revealed, noting the numerous sets of wide eyes.

     "Suicide?" JJ guessed, raising a brow. In response, he nodded. Visibly deflating, the blonde sighed. "Oh, God."

     Another lead was gone.

     "Did he say anything?" Morgan and Spencer spoke in unison, not bothering to glance at the other. They were equally too focused on the conversation at hand.

     "The best minds of the F.B.I., my ass. I gave you the poems, her blood, and the DVD. Johnston hand-delivered the riddle right to her doorstep and you still haven't found her. It's too late. Your mistakes have been a toxin. Think twice. Go back to that day." Blake recalled, twisting around the wedding band on her ring finger. The words Stephen Leone spoke had yet to leave her mind. A part of her couldn't help but feel like something was missing. What he said was a clue, she just hadn't figured out what.

     Cruz's eyebrows formed a jagged line. "What day?"

     Blake shrugged. "I'm not sure."

     "He indirectly quoted the poem..." Spencer pointed out, having recognized particular phrases Leone had used. "To unlock the door to paradise, you will be forced to think twice; so proceed with caution, mistakes can be a toxin."

     Countenances of realization spread amongst some of the team.

     "Speaking of the poem, "One among us five will let you move ahead, while another will, unfortunately, drop dead." It's like Blake said the other day," Rossi gestured to the brown-haired woman, "if we're to take what the lines from the poem are implying literally, one of the five men will drop dead, and he just did. Stephen Leone's dead."

     Hotch added, "Another will let us move ahead in our search for Valentine and that was likely Johnston. Leone said Johnston was the one that dropped off the poem at Valentine's residence."

     "I'm willing to bet they're the ones that were keeping an eye on us and our progress on finding Valentine," Rossi said, darting his gaze over to Hotch.

     Briefly shutting his eyes, Spencer exhaled slowly. The circles under his eyes were dark and deep, and his skin tone was naturally much paler compared to what it normally was. Clear fatigue and sorrow were etched onto his features.

     "Two among our family live before you in disguise," he muttered, running a hand down his face.

     The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of emotions and he was drowning in ocean waves. Over the course of the last two years, Cara's case had chipped away bits and pieces of him that he didn't know existed. It was stripping him of his sanity and his hope; he was barely holding on at this point. And it wasn't that he was tired or tired of trying. More so, he was weighed down by stress and grief, and seeing Ross Valentine's body in Fairbank had only worsened that. It was much easier to picture Cara dead now that he'd seen her father's decaying corpse.

     "Are we really thinking this poem is the key to finding Valentine?" Cruz asked, sliding his hands into his pockets.

     Spencer blinked, dragging his attention back to the discussion.

     "Perhaps." Blake shrugged. "Leone explicitly mentioned the poem, her blood, the DVD, and past poems."

     Hotch continued. "He implied that what we'd been given was more than enough to help us find her. The answer to where she is lies somewhere in the evidence."

     Shifting toward the Unit Chief, Morgan sighed. "We've gone over everything we have, though, Hotch. I'm fairly certain every detail is etched into Reid's brain." He loosely tossed a hand out in Spencer's direction.

     Merely glancing up, the genius shook his head in disagreement. "Clearly not every detail. Something's missing," he replied, clearing his throat.

     "If Leone was saying that the answer is there, we need to keep digging until we find it," JJ argued, folding her arms over her chest.

     It wasn't all too clear that the conversation was ending there, but Hotch took the initiative to call it a night nonetheless. He could identify the exhaustion on his team member's faces. "And we can't do that without proper rest. We'll regroup in the morning and decide what to do from there."

     No one was going to be able to find the missing blonde if they had less than a few hours of sleep. They all needed to be performing at their best.

────

﹙ MAY 4TH, 2016 ﹚

     IT TOOK A WHILE BUT BY NOON THE NEXT DAY, THE ENTIRE TEAM WAS CAUGHT UP TO SPEED. Now, it was time to take what they knew and get down to business. The longer they sat on their asses in Canada, the higher the odds of finding Cara Valentine dead got.

     "We need to think twice about where Valentine could be. After the riddle, our first guess was Fairbank, but that was a mistake. Evidently, we cannot afford to make another one." Hotch stated, passing around the crime scene photographs from last night.

     Morgan's eyebrows shot up for a brief second as he recited, "To unlock the door to paradise, you will be forced to think twice; so proceed with caution, mistakes can be a toxin."

     The riddle from May first was gradually etching itself into the memory of each agent.

     "Okay, so like we established, the poem is supposedly the key to finding Valentine," Cruz stated, double-clicking his pen.

     "Leone explicitly mentioned the poem, her blood, the DVD, and past poems. However, I'm thinking the most recent poem and DVD will prove to be the most beneficial," Blake said, fiddling with the plastic evidence bag that contained the riddle. "The blood provides nothing significant to the case aside from its symbolism of Valentine being alive. As for the past poems, they're merely taunts designed to get under our skin."

     Timidly raising her hand, Penelope awkwardly cleared her throat. "Okay, so..." she smiled when everyone diverted their focus to her, "This case is like uber complicated and my mind is sort of spinning with the fact that Leone just took himself out and not on a date. Can we just go over the recent poem and what it means? We've already nailed the timeline for the Red Scorpions, deep-dived into the Founding Fathers and Cara's relationship with Le, talked to Owen, and Reid has told us everything he knows. We've got everything sorted except for this stupid poem and whatever could be in that grotesque DVD."

     Tara nodded. "Agreed. Reviewing those could bring a cloud of clarity."

     "Blake," Rossi called, "since you're the one who took the reigns on deciphering the riddle in the first place..." He gestured for her to take the lead in the conversation.

     Sweeping her line of sight down to the all-too-familiar handwritten words, Blake took a moment to gather herself. The last twenty-four hours had been partially spent focusing on this poem. Reaching over to the right, she grabbed the same sheet of paper she'd been using yesterday. It was filled with scribbles of possibilities, but she had nothing concrete yet. Most of what she was about say was going to be nothing but a rehash of what she'd come up with a few days ago.

     With a deep breath, she recited the first two stanzas verbatim.

"The final show is here,
And you're in for a ride.
Here's to hoping dear Clementine
Makes it out alive.

"In this terminal round, prison bars will be of aid,
As long as your emotions remain beneath a blockade;
One among us five will let you move ahead,
While another will, unfortunately, drop dead.

     "So, as we established before, in the DVD footage, five men appeared. Whether it was on or off-camera. Le, Shirzad, Johnston, Lu, and Leone. As of now, I'm taking much of what these lines are implying literally. So one of the five men will drop dead— Stephen Leone. Another will let us move ahead in our search for Valentine— likely Johnston considering what Leone shared.

     "Now, backtracking to the line regarding prison bars and keeping our emotions beneath a blockade. This is a nod in the direction of Owen Sánchez. Upon visiting him, we learned more about Valentine's childhood, the nature of her relationship with Le, how Sánchez became one of the leaders of the gang, and the message Shirzad gave Sánchez about how the first circle of Hell was over, and that the second was beginning. That visit gave us more insight into Valentine's life and formed a better picture of what type of person we're dealing with when it comes to Michael Le.

"Two among our family live before you in disguise,
Four of us are killers, working with snake eyes;
We deal in dope lines and treasure loyalty,
Finding what Cara left behind should be of your first priority.

     "Here, it's implied that two Red Scorpion members are living around us or are close by—again, likely Leone and Johnston. There are four Founding Fathers left, all of which have committed murder, and Leone was one of the top players for the Green Snakes gang. From the DVD and Leone's visit last night, we know he was working with them. The next line is self-explanatory. The Red Scorpions dealt in "dial-a-dope lines" and are known for treasuring loyalty. As for what Valentine left behind, it was Valentine's copy of Persuasion, which helped us figure out the answer to the overall riddle."

     Blake paused to catch her breath before moving on to the next stanza.

"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind;
Dr. Spencer Reid has the answers,
And you best hope he has a change of mind.

     "Again, self-explanatory. Reid knows more about Valentine and her past than anyone on the team. This knowledge has helped us figure out when we entered the second circle of Hell, decipher the Roy, The Toxic Boy, poem, and what Le means to Valentine. Hence, Dr. Spencer Reid has the answers. And he had a change of mind by telling everyone.

"To unlock the door to paradise,
You will be forced to think twice;
So proceed with caution,
Mistakes can be a toxin.

     "Last night, Leone referenced these particular lines. As we now know, Fairbank, Arizona was a mistake and we have to rethink where Valentine could be.

"It will not be easy, nor will it be hard,
Yet this chase may leave you quite scarred.
We're done with hiding and want to be free,
To locate her body, find the two words missing from me:

     "The next five stanzas are the simple, run-of-the-mill riddles." Blake brushed her hair out of her face before continuing.

"I am damaged at best,
And am slowly falling apart;
I am a whisper, I am a ghost,
I am what people fear most.

"When in action, I cross out names,
No one is safe; these are dangerous games;
I live for the glory, yet thrive in guilt,
My actions cannot always be rebuilt.

"Compare me to none,
For I am one of a kind;
If you search hard enough,
You'll see I live in your mind.

"I am embedded in your DNA,
And trapped in your veins;
No matter what you do,
My voice will never stray.

"Long have you all pursued me,
But never could locate,
Yet, the key to finding her,
Relies upon my fate.

"I am what Cara Valentine desired but never received,
I am what she set out to find yet failed to achieve;
I am what Ross Valentine lost his life for,
I am what's keeping Spencer Reid from walking out the door.

     "Now this specific stanza is where we transition back to the double meanings. The truth is all Valentine ever desired from her father and Sánchez, but something she never received. They never told her that they both became moles for the Scorpions until their relationships with her were damaged beyond repair. Ross Valentine lost his life because she wouldn't tell the Founding Fathers the truth about what she told Reid. Then, the truth of what happened to Valentine is what's keeping Reid from giving up.

"I am something you treasure but consider a burden,
I am something the doctor knows yet can never be certain;
I am something the missing woman left the F.B.I.,
I am something that will make you say goodbye.

     "The first line is nothing special. I believe the second one is referring to how Reid knew something was wrong the last night anyone saw her, but he wasn't certain. However, I'm not sure how plausible that could be because how would the Scorpions know that? Unless they were waiting for her in her apartment that night. It might be a simple taunt, I'm not positive. Following that, Valentine left behind the truth of what happened to her by giving Reid the cryptic metaphor about Persuasion and Hell. She told him that the Founding Fathers were coming, and that was a truth all of us weren't certain of until the DVD.

"I am the truth."

     "And that's it. Look... I've spent hours trying to find something in this poem, but I can't come up with anything," Blake sighed exasperatedly, feeling particularly defeated. Linguistics was her specialty, and she was failing right now. The knowledge she had wasn't benefitting the case. She was just running around in circles, searching for a clue that may not exist.

     Tara frowned and quickly looked at Spencer, taking notice of his tense posture and the unwavering gaze he had locked on the glass evidence boards. It was clear he was deep in thought. He was staring at stilled images of Cara from each of the video clips from the DVD. His face was hard and there was a slight glimmer in his eyes.

     For him, he'd already come to all the same conclusions and thoughts that Blake had. Now, he was solely focused on figuring out where Cara was. Her location had been revealed to them somehow in either the DVD or riddle. It was just a matter of finding and identifying it.

     He was starting to believe that— sure, the riddle provided them with insight and gave them answers, but not enough— the DVD was the solution to this predicament. Although he never wanted to watch it ever again and that it would forever be cemented in his head, he knew he would inevitably have to revisit it at some point. Even if it did remind him that he failed her.

     Over at the conference table, everyone else was silent and thinking to themselves. It was starting to feel like they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. What else was left that could be a clue?

     All the DVD truly showed was Cara being tortured to the brink of death, conversations between her, the Founding Fathers, and Leone, Michael Le singing, and her muttering incoherently while drugged. That's it.

     Yes, they were able to find the location of the first clip and the location she was being held at in Fairbank, but that was it. The final few videos had been captured in a location they had yet to find.

     "Garcia, what's the phone number for the Millhaven Institution?" JJ asked suddenly, glancing over her shoulder at the woman at the end of the table. Everybody, minus Spencer, brought their attention to the blonde.

     "Uh... Give me a second. I'll text it to you," Penelope replied, hastily typing away on her phone.

     Cruz hummed. "Do you think Sánchez knows more than what he told Hotch and Rossi?"

     "Oh, he definitely knows more than we ever will about the Scorpions and Cara, but I think he might see something in the poem that we aren't." JJ theorized, shrugging softly. It wasn't much, but it was something.

     "I just sent the number, JJ," Penelope pipped up, sending her a smile.

     JJ nodded in thanks.

     Wait... Spencer's eyebrows furrowed as something nagged at him. "Phone number..." he muttered as the puzzle pieces were now coming together.

     Number... numbers... the numbers from the videotapes.

     Morgan recognized the look on his face. "Reid, what is it? I can see the wheels spinning in your head." He watched as the doctor pivoted and hurried over to the table. He began shuffling through various papers on the table.

     How'd he not see it before?

     "1-18-20-8-21-18 12-5 12-21 9-14 19-21-18-18-5-25 14-1-18-15-14-7 15-14 20-18-5-1-19-21-18-5 12-15-25-1-12-20-25 15-3-20-15-2-5-18 19-9-24 20-15-23-5-18." Spencer recited out loud, primarily to himself as he continued digging through the mass of notes and files. He could hear Cara's feeble voice muttering the numbers clear as day.

     Tara's brows scrunched together in confusion. "What?"

     "The DVD the Founding Fathers sent us. In the last video on February twenty-seventh," he rushed out, pausing and moving to bring the whiteboard closer. "Cara's last words were a series of numbers she kept muttering. There was also another series of numbers she said in a recording from October nineteenth, twenty-fifteen."

     Hotch and Rossi exchanged glances.

     "That's true, but we deduced that she was presumably drugged in those clips and so fatigued that she was speaking gibberish," Hotch recalled, looking back to the unit's youngest member.

     Shaking his head in disagreement, Spencer met his stare. "I don't think she was. I believe she was speaking in code. Talking to us," he said, watching as everyone collectively wore skeptical expressions.

     JJ frowned, her thumb hovering above the Call button on her phone screen. "Spence... There's no clear pattern to those numbers. Cara was out of it. You can visibly tell in the footage."

     "No. She was talking to us."

     Rossi sighed inaudibly, knowing that the kid was just as desperate for answers as they were, but there weren't any. Not at the moment. "JJ's right," he cleared his throat. "There's no pattern."

     Ignoring their statements of doubt, he went back to the table and began rummaging again. His brain was on overdrive with the prospect of having potentially discovered something. Cara wouldn't have said those numbers randomly. They were too specific. What she'd said had to mean something. It had to. He could feel that they were running out of time to find her.

     Suddenly, the realization dawned on him, and he froze.

     "It's an A1Z26 cipher," Spencer whispered, briefly looking up at the team.

     Morgan's face blanked. "A what?"

     Tilting her head, Blake turned to the doctor. "Is it possible Cara knows what an A1Z26 cipher is?"

     "I think so," he answered, finally finding the green Expo marker he'd been searching for. "Cara's a lot smarter than she's given credit for."

     Hotch slid his hands into his pockets, apprehensive. "And you think she'd use this cipher as a way to communicate with us?"

     As Spencer nodded and went to respond, Morgan cut him off. "Okay, can someone explain what the hell this A1Z26 cipher is?!"

     "A1Z26 is a very simple but direct substitution cipher where each alphabet letter is replaced by its number in the alphabet," Blake answered, gesturing to the brown-haired man who'd begun writing on the whiteboard. It had been positioned right next to the glass board.

     Spencer rotated his wrist before continuing to scramble each letter of the alphabet and putting a number under each one. "Yes. It's sometimes referred to as the Letter-to-Number cipher. For example, 'A' is one, 'B' is two, 'Z' is twenty-six, and so forth."

     "And what were the... okay, never mind." Penelope shut her mouth as she saw that he was already nearly finished transcribing the numbers Cara had spoken.

     "1-18-20-8-21-18 12-5 12-21 9-14 19-21-18-18-5-25 14-1-18-15-14-7 15-14 20-18-5-1-19-21-18-5 12-15-25-1-12-20-25 15-3-20-15-2-5-18 19-9-24 20-15-23-5-18." JJ read aloud, forehead creasing.

     All right, maybe there was a pattern after all.

     Spencer backed away a bit after translating the numbers, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

     Tara raised a brow at the words written on the board. "Arthur Le Lu in Surrey Narong on treasure loyalty October six tower."

     "Reid, that makes absolutely no sense," Morgan stated.

     "I think that's the point..." Spencer muttered, a memory of Cara coming to mind.

     "Matthew Johnston came up with this arbitrary code in two-thousand-and-one that was deemed to only be used for members of the Red Scorpions in high-risk or life-endangering scenarios. Here's how it works: You build a sentence and spell out what you're really saying by using the first letter of each word."

     With the green Expo marker, he underlined the first letter of each word. Underneath the sentence, he wrote out ALL IS NOT LOST. It was a line from Paradise Lost. Stepping back, his eyes swiftly drifted over the green message.

     Noticing something else, he approached the board again and rewrote the order of the words. Narong on Surry Six, Arthur in October, treasure loyalty, Le, Lu, tower. Then, he drew an arrow from the reconstructed sentence to a blank spot on the board. Writing out the first code she'd given in October, he hastily deciphered it.

     "2-1-12-13-15-18-1-12 2-1-19-5-13-5-14-20," he recited, sighing. "Balmoral basement." Inserting the word tower in between the two words, a wave of relief washed over him.

     Morgan's eyes widened. The kid did it. "She was trying to tell us where she is," he stated, sliding his phone into his pocket.

     "Does Balmoral Tower even have a basement?" Cruz asked, looking at Garcia.

     "Yes," Spencer replied, cutting the analyst off before she had the chance to check. "It was added ten years ago, a year before the Surrey Six murders, where five people were killed. One of which being Eddie Narong. The murders happened on October nineteenth, the day and month when Joseph Arthur was appointed as one of the three new leaders of the Red Scorpions. A gang that treasures loyalty above all else. Not only was Cara telling us where she was, but she was also telling us two of the five people who had her: Michael Le and Hennessy Lu. The two Founding Fathers whose loyalty she and Ross Valentine betrayed."

     "Rose... you smartie pants," Penelope gasped, a smile pulling at her lips.

     They finally knew where she was.

     "We don't have any more time left to waste. Let's go." Hotch ordered.

    As the team grabbed their belongings, the technical analyst grabbed Morgan's arm. "Keep an eye on Reid and bring back our girl," she whispered.

     "Will do, baby girl." Morgan pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead before following everyone else.

────

     TENSION WAS HIGH. No one could sit still as they neared closer to Balmoral Tower. What was potentially awaiting them was too large to ignore. Hopefully, they didn't travel all this way for nothing and the Red Scorpions weren't teasing them further. This could prove to be the final straw if they were.

     The team had split into two cars. In the first one, leading the way to Balmoral Towers, was Blake, Hotch, Cruz, and Tara. In the second, sat Morgan, Rossi, JJ, and Spencer. They were currently on a joint call with Penelope, getting a breakdown of their destination.

     "Reid, you said 9830 East Whalley Ring Road, correct?" Morgan double-checked, peering through the rearview mirror at the doctor.

     Spencer anxiously tapped against his thigh, eyes directed out the car window. Wordlessly, he nodded. On his left, JJ observed him with a tiny frown.

     "Garcia, other than the Surrey Six murders, what else is known about Balmoral Tower?" Cruz asked on the other end of the joint phone call.

     "Uh... not much. Nothing scandalous happens there. Balmoral Tower was built in nineteen-ninety-four and has fifteen floors and one-hundred-and-twenty-one units. King George Development Corporation developed it. Located in the New Surrey Center neighborhood, Balmoral Tower is the perfect blend of natural beauty and urban accessibility, according to their website. Not only do they have exquisite rooms to stay in, but they also offer complete access to a gym, spacious lounges, meeting areas with fireplaces, a gaming room, vaulted ceilings, a hot tub that looks amazing, visitor parking, and an underground secured garage that leads directly into a locked basement that contains twelve rooms, according to blueprints I have found. And unfortunately, pets aren't allowed."

     Rossi cleared his throat. "Has security been alerted of us coming?"

    "Yes, sir, they have. The on-site manager and security guards will meet you in the garage with paramedics on standby if needed. Surrey PD will be there too."

     "Thanks, Garcia. See everyone there." Hotch said, and then the call ended.

     In the front seats, Morgan and Rossi exchanged apprehensive glances. Nobody needed to verbally say how high the stakes were right now. They knew.

     Glancing back at Spencer, JJ saw how he had one hand covering his face. His eyes were shut and his lips were pressed into a thin line. Out of everybody on the team, she knew he was the one who had already gone over every possible scenario they could be walking into and every single outcome of the looming situation. It was breaking him, and she could tell.

     If he lost Cara...

     If any of them lost Cara Valentine...

     Shaking her head, JJ forced those thoughts out of her head. It wouldn't do anyone any good to think like that.

     Spencer flinched when he felt someone touch his knee. Blinking quickly, his head turned to the left and he saw JJ giving him a concerned stare, retracting her hand. He inhaled deeply and averted his gaze, nodding at her absentmindedly. Long gone was the energy to lie and reassure her that he was okay.

     Opening her mouth, JJ was interrupted before she could even get the question out.

     "I'm fine," Spencer spoke at a volume that only she could hear.

     "Spence—"

     "Jennifer, don't," he cut her off, holding up a trembling hand. She closed her mouth, eyes widening. It'd been a very long time since he'd used her first name. However, she knew not to take his outburst to heart. "I-I'm sorry..." His face fell when his words caught up to him.

     Forcing a small smile, she shook her head. "It's all right. I know."

────

     THIRTY-EIGHT MINUTES HAD NEVER PASSED BY SO AGONIZINGLY SLOWLY BEFORE. Even with Derek Morgan's somewhat reckless driving.

     Upon arrival at Balmoral Tower, Spencer was the first one out of the black SUV, hightailing further into the parking garage. The car had hardly been put into park and the others scrambled to catch up. They were dressed in their tactical gear, ready to go.

     Immediately, the team was greeted by the on-site manager, security guards, Surrey PD, and paramedics. Brief introductions were made before the manager showed them where the basement was located. It was behind a singular concrete door on the first floor of the parking garage, in the very back. According to him and the blueprints Penelope had reviewed, there was a total of twelve rooms inside the basement. The space was soundproof, which would explain why nobody ever heard Cara if she was actually there. The power was currently out in certain areas, which meant they'd have minimal light.

     When the manager opened the door, a set of descending steps greeted the bunch. Without hesitation, Hotch hurried down them. The rest of his team members followed, as well as Surrey PD.

     Soon, they reached the end of the staircase and stared down into a long corridor that split off into different branches. In a sense, it resembled an underground tunnel.

     "Fan out," Hotch ordered, holding out his flashlight and gun.

     Jumbled voices flooded the basement as the police officers repeated the order to others and coordinated their plans before beginning their search. The BAU team soundlessly split off into groups as a safety precaution— Hotch and Spencer, JJ and Cruz, Blake and Rossi, and Morgan and Tara.

     The area continued to be flooded with voices as people combed through each of the rooms they came across. Most of them had been used for storage but showed no blatant signs that anybody had been there. 

     So far, Cara Valentine was nowhere in sight, and the pit in the BAU's stomach sank further and further.

     "Empty!"

     "This one's empty too!"

     "Make sure you're actually going into the rooms and checking!"

     "Yup. Empty."

     Reports of no progress bounced off the walls. It was growing increasingly loud as the search persisted.

     However, despite the abundance of chaos and commotion occurring just down the hall from where she was stored in the final room, the woman was completely unaware of what was happening. Echoes of shouts and crashing objects filled the basement to the brim, but it didn't matter how loud everything was. Not even the triumphant sounds of rescue could wake her.

     Her conscious mind slipped away as her body fought to stay alive. However, it was an effort that might not pay off in the long run.

     The moment the concrete bullet-proof door was shoved open, two agents rolled in, flashing their lights around in the pitch black. They were the first to check the last room. Immediately both of their faces twisted in discomfort and disgust at the overbearing smell of the space. It was indescribable. Neither of them had ever encountered such a horrid smell before, and it caused them to pause.

     It almost smelled like death.

     At first, it appeared as if the place was empty as they shined their lights around, but then they saw it. "We need a medic in here!" Morgan shouted into his comm, his chocolate-brown eyes wide as he and Tara rushed toward the center.

     They hadn't made it eight feet when their feet splashed into a river of puddles. Quickly pointing her flashlight at the ground, the short-haired agent blinked when she noticed she was standing in a pool of blood. Morgan had also stopped, his gaze directed at the dark-red substance they'd wandered blindly into.

     Moving her flashlight, Tara held her breath as she traced the source of the blood to the woman hanging in mid-air only a few feet away from them. Both the woman's hands and feet were cuffed together and attached to two sets of chains, each of which was restraining her from being able to make any sort of movement. The chains holding her still were old and rusted with dirt, grime, mildew, and blood. It looked like she'd been hanging there for decades.

     Her skin was sickly pale, and every colored vein glistened in the flashlight's gleam. What used to be naturally ivory skin had sunken in its tone and was now a hollow ashen color. All across her body, her skin was pallid and stretched thin across her stark bones.

     She was more than severely malnourished and hadn't eaten anything in a long time. As the light traveled down her body, Tara unconsciously grimaced at the sight of the woman's feet. They were bare and coated in dirt and bright-red blood, while the only article of clothing on her body was a torn black button-down and underwear that had multiple rips in it and was stained with blood and dirt. The sleeves of the top fell to an inch below her shoulders, revealing the long, thin cuts carved along the length of her forearms with blood seeping from them. The button-down itself only had three buttons fastened. As she hung, glimpses of a large stab wound right where the woman's belly button was were visible. Even more blood was exuding and trailing down her pelvis and legs.

     "Tara!" Morgan shouted. Moving her line of sight, she found him near the backside of the room. He held onto a link of chains that ran along the wall and across the ceiling, holding the woman still. "I'm about to lower her down. I need you to grab her and lay her in your lap."

     Nodding, the short-haired woman automatically stepped back and watched as Morgan grunted, slowly lowering the chains. As she neared the ground, Tara reached up, placing one arm under her legs and the other against her back. Once completely down, Tara backed out of the pool of blood and sat down. She pulled the woman close to her chest to warm her body, worried that she would break if any part of her touched the floor.

     "Let me see her," Morgan muttered, dropping to the ground and slowly pulling her into his arms. Staring down, tears prickled in the corners of his eyes. He wholeheartedly believed she was gone. Taking a deep breath, he brushed strands of brown and blonde hair out of her face. The sight before him was devastating, and he felt the bottom of his chin tremble.

     Cara Valentine's face was hollow and lacked color. Her lips were a light blue but stained with specks of blood, and her skin was ice cold to the touch. Streaks of blood trailed from her bottom lip to down her chin and neck. A half-healed scar ran from behind her right ear to three inches below her earlobe. A chunk of skin was missing and had barely begun scarring.

     Lowering his ear to above her mouth, Morgan listened for any signs of breathing, but he couldn't hear anything. His stomach dropped. There was no tell-tale tickle against her cheeks and throat or a single rise and fall of her chest. 

     No. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

     Footsteps flooded the room and voices bounced off the walls.

      "Oh, my God." Immediately, JJ's gun was holstered and she approached Morgan and Tara's sitting figures. The place smelled awful, and she almost gagged. The back of her hand was pressed to her mouth but dropped when she stepped into a puddle. Averting her eyes to the ground, she faltered when she realized her boots were covered in blood.

     A sense of panic flooded her nervous system and she hastily glanced up. Behind her stood Cruz, Rossi, and Blake, all of whom were shining their flashlights in the direction of Morgan and Tara. At the same time, all four of them caught a glimpse of something that made them freeze.

     A blood-covered hand was hanging from Morgan's upper thigh, barely brushing against the concrete. With help from the rays of the flashlights, they were able to spot the single angel wing that was tattooed on the inside of the hand, two inches below the thumb.

     It was Cara's angel wing.

     Inhaling sharply, tears pooled in her eyes and JJ turned away. There was no way she could get any closer; she didn't want to see what was on the other side of Morgan. By the sound of the man's pleas, it wasn't good.

     "Breathe for me, baby. Breathe."

     Blake placed a comforting hand on JJ's shoulder. She was doing her best to hold it together.

     Cruz promptly excused himself, stating that he was going to start clearing a path for them to get out.

     Rossi was the first out of the three to inch forward, preparing himself for the worse. Once he was standing next to Morgan, he was met with the unconscious face of Cara Valentine. Relief washed over him and he exhaled shakily. They finally found her. Blood dribbled from the corner of her blue lips. Her eyes were closed and she looked at peace. It was probably the most at peace she'd been in years.

     "We need the medics!" Rossi shouted into his comms, crouching down next to Morgan. "Is she breathing?"

     Morgan shrugged, blinking back tears. He was unnaturally pale and appeared almost in shock. "No. I-I don't know what's wrong. She has a pulse, but it's really faint. Rossi, I don't..."

     "Yeah, I know." Rossi grimaced, saving him from having to finish the sentence.

     More footsteps entered the room and Tara glanced over to see Spencer, Hotch, and other officers arriving. No sign of the medics, though.

     At the sight of his other team members gathered in the center of the room, unmoving, Spencer knew they found her. They found her. He put his gun away and frantically sprinted past Blake and JJ.

     The sight of the angel wing tattoo was enough to get his hopes up. Once he reached Morgan, Rossi, and Tara, he dropped to the floor. It was her. "Cara..." Spencer breathed, feeling a lump get caught in his throat. Gently taking her out of Morgan's arms, he held her close. Cupping her cheek, he let out a shaky sob as the reality that she was there set in. His entire body was shaking as he hugged her to his chest, not bothering to care that his clothes were being painted in the staining red of her blood.

     As he cried, the medics finally piled into the room.

     "Kid, you have to let go," Morgan said, placing a hand on his shoulder as he stood.

     Spencer shook his head. "I-I can't," he whimpered, hands trembling as he refused to pass her over to the paramedics. His line of sight was on the blood pooling beneath Cara's chin and on her arms as if staring at it would will it back into her body.

     "Agent, please, give us some room to work." One of the medics said quickly, setting her bag on the ground.

     Hotch had made his way over, gesturing for his team to back away from the scene. "Everyone, move." His words fell on deaf ears as the youngest member refused to comply. "Reid."

     Another medic made her way to Spencer's side and gave him an encouraging smile. "Let us do our jobs and help your friend, okay?" she asked softly, raising a brow. He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. "My name's Alston and that's Rivers. We don't have a lot of time to spare, all right? Please, let us do our jobs."

     Reluctantly, Spencer gave in. Time wasn't a luxury they could afford right now. If they wanted Cara to make it out of here alive, he needed to let go. So, he handed her over and allowed Morgan to physically guide him away.

     Alston pressed two fingers underneath Cara's neck. "She's got a faint and slow pulse, but she's not breathing," she breathed, glancing up at Rivers. "I need a C-collar and then we need to get her outside before we do anything else." Her partner was at her side in a matter of seconds, passing over the C-collar. With well-practiced hands, Alston fitted the collar around Cara's neck.

     Rivers set up the backboard next to Cara, nodding at her partner. "On three. One, two—" On three, the pair shifted the blonde onto the backboard and then transferred her onto the gurney. Hotch was holding it in place while Rossi and Blake were making a way for the paramedics to exit. JJ and Tara had left the room, ensuring Cruz had successfully made a clear path out of the basement and outside.

     In less than a minute, everyone had exited the basement and the paramedics were in the lead with Cruz, JJ, and Tara showing them where to go. It wasn't until they were back outside and in front of the open doors of the ambulance that they came to a stop.

     "Pulse is weak," Alston said, checking the woman's pulse again. "Still no signs of breathing. I don't hear any gurgling in her lungs. There's blood in her airways, though. I need a suction pump." When she had the pump in her hands, she set it up and swiftly cleared the blood from Cara's mouth and throat. "Bag her," she ordered.

     "Got it." Rivers quickly pulled out the bag valve mask from her kit and placed it over Cara's nose and mouth. Looking at Morgan, the F.B.I. agent closest to her, Rivers nodded at him. "Start bagging her, please."

     Morgan took over and began to squeeze the bag for each breath in intervals of two seconds. His eyes brimmed with tears again as he stared down at the blonde.

     "Agent, unbutton her shirt so I can get the cardiac leads on her." Rivers ordered, eyes momentarily settling on Tara.

     "Come on, kid," Rossi muttered as Tara unbuttoned the black flannel.

     In the back, Spencer stood dumbstruck. He felt utterly useless as he watched everyone scramble around to keep Cara alive. His feet were glued to the ground in shock. The surrounding officers were closing off the scene, trying to keep civilians and hotel guests out as they tried to find out what was going on.

     "Patch up the open wounds on her arms and stomach," Rivers told JJ, handing over a bag of bandages. They needed to stop the bleeding as much as possible. They didn't have much time. JJ quickly put on a pair of gloves and got to work.

     Alston motioned for Morgan to stop once she'd positioned herself at the top of the stretcher, facing Cara's feet. "Intubating now." The bag valve was placed to the side, and Alston opened Cara's mouth, using a metal instrument to flatten her tongue and open up her mouth. Her chin was tilted up ever so slightly as Alston steered a tube into her throat and advanced it into the airway. Her eyes narrowed as she gently navigated it. Around the tube, a small balloon was inflated to keep it in place and prevent air from escaping. The second the balloon was inflated, Alston swiftly taped it in place.

     Rivers was finishing up attaching all the cardiac leads to Cara when Alston sighed in relief. "Tube's in."

     JJ let out a breath. "She's patched up. Bleeding's decreased."

     "BP is 50 over 40," Rivers added, reading from the blood pressure cuff she had placed around Cara's upper arm. "That's way too low. We need to bolus her."

     "We need to get her on the rig now," Alston stated.

     "We gotcha," Rossi spoke; he, Hotch, Morgan, Cruz, Blake, and Tara surrounded the stretcher and grabbed onto the bars. At the same time, they all lifted and slid it inside the back of the ambulance.

     Spencer blinked, quickly rushing over. "I'm coming with."

     "I'm riding too," Hotch said; his tone left no room for discussion.

     "Be right behind you, Aaron!" Rossi called.

     Nodding, Alston motioned for them to hop in with her in the back. "Rivers, drive," she ordered, giving her a look. The pair knew this was bad; the woman needed to be immediately transported to a hospital. Her skin was ice cold to the touch and she wasn't responding to anything. Intubating her would only go so far.

     Everyone was off and racing down the street, sirens blaring.

     "Do either of you know how to insert an IV?" Alston asked, grabbing onto leads of fluid. Hotch nodded. "Good. Put on some gloves and get a line going. I need to get more leads on her."

     Doing as he was told, Hotch slipped on some gloves and took the IV line from her. Spencer grasped Cara's hand as he watched Hotch quickly insert the line and tape it off. Her veins weren't challenging to find. Given how pale she was, they could see nearly every vein running throughout her body.

     "What's our ETA, Rivers?" Alston shouted, clicking a pulse oximeter onto Cara's right index finger.

     "Eight minutes!"

     On the heart monitor, Spencer watched as it beeped once and went silent for three seconds before beeping again. It was too slow.

     "Make it four. Heart rate and blood pressure are dropping. Bolus failed. Fluids aren't helping the hypovolemic shock. She's lost too much blood."

     The grip Spencer had on her hand tightened, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from breaking down again. She was going to get through this. Today was not the day Cara Valentine would die.

𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒆   ───   ❪ CRIMINAL MINDS ❫
act two:     𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚁𝙴𝙳 𝙿𝚁𝙸𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚂𝚂,       ²
╱ ✹     ▬▬     ❛ © CARDIIAC       2023. ❜
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𓄹 ━━━ 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓! ࿐ ໋₊ ˖

     hey everyone!! i hope you all enjoyed the forty-fourth chapter!

     HAPPY PRIDE MONTH TO ALL MY FELLOW LGBTQ+ BABES!!!!! sincerely, your local bisexual dumbass who took forever to update. i love you.

     IT TOOK US NINE CHAPTERS BUT CARA HAS FINALLY BEEN FOUND AND RESCUED!!!! or has she???

     i never wanted cara's recovery to be a quick and easy process. in some criminal minds fanfictions, when a character is taken or disappears, they're found relatively quickly with no real depth or exploration into their time away or what happened to them. i did not want to do that in the slightest. my characters and the criminal minds characters deserve more and i wanted to tell a dark, gritty, complex story that holds real weight to it. hopefully, i was able to do it justice and everyone enjoyed our journey to this point.

     the next chapter is going to be much shorter in comparison to the insanely long chapters i've been releasing recently. (it'll be up in a few days. promise.) the chapters from here on will be shorter, seeing as we still have much more to go until the end. i'm excited for everyone to see the fallout of cara's rescue and how she'll be with the team now.

     idk if anyone remembers but cara used a green expo marker when she deciphered the red scorpions' code in VOLUME ONE and now spencer used one to decipher hers... it's such a trivial detail but i love it nonetheless.

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˒⠀𝑹𝑬𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑫𝑬𝑹. . . ▬⠀⤸

Thank you all for taking the time out of your day to comment on this story. It means a lot and helps the story be spread to a broader audience &&& allows me to grow as an author. All I ask is that people vote on each chapter, please. As a creator, it takes time to write and develop stories. Especially ones such as this that take a while to write and dedicate time to. So please, vote on every chapter. It means a lot more than I could ever express.

Don't forget to vote & comment!

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˒⠀𝑪𝑶𝑷𝒀𝑹𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻. . . ▬⠀⤸

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