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Time	By : cr8zymommy Category: 1 through F > Criminal Minds Views: 4585 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story

Chapter List
- 8
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It hadn’t surprised Morgan to discover that Reid had passed out by the time the paramedic was done with his head. No, not at all. What had surprised him was that Reid had passed out against him. Not only that, but he wasn’t breaking the contact as he slept, either. Even when Garcia came up and sat on the edge of the couch near him, reaching out to touch his arm. No, Reid simply stayed where he was, curled into Morgan’s side, making so little sound that they would have wondered if he was alive if it wasn’t for the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
“He trusts you.” Garcia whispered softly. Her voice was almost quiet enough to not be heard over the hustle and bustle of the station around them. But Morgan did hear it. His eyes flashed up, locking on to hers. No words would come. She smiled at him. “Even though he doesn’t remember anyone, his instincts trust you, handsome. Some part of him, somewhere in there, knows that he used to trust you with his life. He’s listening to that instinct now.”
The thought of that made Morgan almost lightheaded. Yet at the same time he could practically feel himself inflating with the pride it gave him. Spencer Reid trusted him. Him! Even after the hell he’d lived through, even after no one finding him for so long, even though he didn’t remember anyone but Garcia, there was something left over of their bond buried in there. Garcia was right. Part of Reid remembered the bond they had shared and was relying on it.
“I won’t let anything happen to him.”
Those words slid out before Morgan even realized he was saying them. He heard the hard edge to his own voice; a desperate sense of protectiveness. He had failed his best friend before. That wasn’t something he was going to let happen again.
Garcia reached over, laying her hand on his leg as she had so many times before. “I know.”
Those two words were more reassuring than anything that anyone else could have said. The others would have picked up on the guilt he felt, that he’d felt since the day Reid disappeared, and they would have tried to tell him how this wasn’t his fault. They would have tried to make him feel better. But not Garcia. No, she knew him too well for that.
For a while the three of them sat together, a unit there on that police station couch. No one dared to come bother them. Morgan felt his eyes slide closed and tried to fight against it, but somehow he ended up being sucked down into sleep. He realized it when something touched his arm and his eyes shot open to see that the light outside the station was gone. It was night. Man, how long had he been asleep?
Abruptly he remembered what had woke him. Looking over, he saw Emily standing beside him. “Hey, sleepy head.” She said teasingly. There was something in her eyes though that had Morgan going completely still. A small hint of heartache hidden in the backs of those deep eyes. “What is it?” he asked.
Emily sighed softly. “I took the woman’s statement. Cindy. I…I think you guys all need to hear this. Away from Reid.”
Now, that didn’t sound good. Morgan felt his breath shudder in and out of his chest as he gathered his control to himself. No, this wasn’t going to be good. This woman had been held captive and abused. Not only that, but by the same man that had held Reid. Most likely her statement was going to have some mention of Reid in it. How on earth was he going to handle hearing this?
There wasn’t any choice. He had to hear it. All of them did. They wouldn’t be able to ignore this or walk away from it. Even knowing that it would hurt, they would all gather to hear this woman’s statement.
He turned is head to look at Garcia, who still sat perched on the couch by Reid. Without words he asked her to take care of Reid and watch over him. Her eyes just as expressive, she gave her agreement. The two knew each other perfectly. Gently they made the transfer, Morgan standing and Garcia sliding into his seat, her arm wrapping around Reid and holding him close. The small man whimpered, but he didn’t wake.
Now that he was assured that those two were ok, Morgan turned and nodded at Emily, indicating that he was ready to follow her. He didn’t think he could speak right at that moment. Too many thoughts were in his brain to put anything into words. All of this had him thrown far out of his realm of understanding. He was floundering here; they all were. But they had to do the best they could.
When Emily led him into a small conference room, the others were already waiting. JJ, Aaron, Dave. In the center of the room was a table and, on top of that, a small tape recorder.
It seemed that everyone else was having the same problem that Morgan was. No one said a word as Emily shut the doors, or as Dave turned the blinds until they were closed. Only a small lamp lit the room. But, even though they didn’t speak, they gathered close together, this little family that was forged tight by the bonds they shared.
Aaron took a deep breath before he reached forward to press the play button. His arms dropped to his sides, where JJ instantly reached out and took his hand. Emily had a hold of her other one. Then Emily was reaching for Morgan, drawing him into this group, and Morgan felt Dave’s hand settle on his shoulder. All boundaries were dropped as a woman’s shaky voice filled the room. They knew they were going to need one another for this.
Emily’s voice was the first one to fill the room. “Can you tell me what happened to you the day you went missing?”
“That…that part of things still seems a little foggy.” Cindy said softly. “I, well, I remember getting up and starting my morning. Brushing my teeth, eating breakfast, all that kind of stuff. I remember going out of my apartment and then it just kind of goes blank.”
“If he’s anything like with the previous victims, it would indicate that he blitzed you. Your injuries suggest he came up behind you and struck you on the back of the head with something blunt. It’s totally understandable that you don’t remember that part of things.”
“I woke up in this horrible little room.” Cindy said shakily. There was a tremor to her voice that told them how hard this was for her, as well as a slightly hazy sound that came from her pain medication. “He was kicking me to get me to wake up. There was this funny sound that I didn’t recognize. All I could focus on was the kicking. He was yelling at me to get up, to wake up. When he saw I was awake, he grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet. I…I remember his eyes. They were so cold.”
Her words wove a spell over them all, drawing them into her story, transporting them to her memories.
“He told me I was his now. That I was his property. When I tried to say something, he hit my face. Then he told me his name was Vincent and that I was going to take care of the downstairs for him while he was busy. That I was going to act like a proper woman should and care for his house. And if I didn’t, he swore to beat me. I was scared but I was angry too. I asked him what would happen if I didn’t care about being beaten by him. I refused to be his play toy. I know it was stupid. I don’t know what came over me….
**“You think you can resist me?” Vincent snarled. His hand darted out, fisting tight in her hair until she wanted to scream. “You care so little about what happens to you that you’d stand here and disobey me?”
“I’m no one’s property.” She forced herself to say. Her death was written in his eyes; she could see it there clearly. But if she was going to die, it wasn’t going to be down on her knees, groveling. It was going to be with her spine straight and her pride intact. “Just kill me already, you sick bastard.”
To her surprise, Vincent laughed. “Oh, I won’t kill you. But by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging for death, woman.”
“I won’t do what you want.” She said defiantly. Though his threat terrified her, she wasn’t going to give in to him. She would not bow down to this man.
“I think you will. See, I have a little leverage here. You women are always the same. What works for one, works for all. And I found this particular bit of leverage works wonderfully.”
A solid punch connected with her stomach, dropping her to her knees as he let go of her hair. While she was gasping for breath, she heard him moving away from her, moving toward the other side of the room. If she could just get her breath back than she could make a mad dash for the stairs. It was a futile hope, she knew. He’d catch her before she got free. But she had to try.
Just as the air came back into her chest and she thought she might be able to rise, she heard another sound that made her blood freeze. A sound of flesh hitting flesh and then a sharp cry. Oh, God. He had someone else down here! She raised horror filled eyes, unable to move, unable to look away as her captor brought someone out of the shadows and into the light.
Cindy had thought she couldn’t be any more scared or horrified than she already was. She was wrong. The horror in her grew even more when she saw Vincent dragging a naked man over by his hair. What made it worse was the obvious pain the boy was in. It looked like every inch of his body was different shades of bruises, broken by cuts here and there. Blood was dripping from different parts of this boy. This was his leverage? This half dead kid?
Then Vincent forced the boy to his knees, gripping his hair to tip his head up, and Cindy got her first glimpse of the boy’s face. The first look into the boy’s eyes and she knew she was lost. She knew she would do anything Vincent asked her to.
Though the body looked like that of a boy, a young man really, his eyes looked ancient. Wide, almost taking up his whole face, and full of so much. Pain, yes. Fear. But what broke her heart was the…resignation she saw there. The acceptance of this horror he lived in.
“You like my boy?” Vincent snarled. He released the boy’s hair, snapping and pointing down. The boy moved to his knees, bowing his head and placing his hands on his thighs. Cindy knew that position had to hurt him. But the boy made not a sound. “He’s my special pet, aren’t you, boy?”
“Yes, Master.”
A shiver ran down Cindy’s spine. The boy sounded almost…dead.
“See, woman, this is the leverage I told you about. Because my boy here knows what’s expected of him. He understands what he’s supposed to do. If you mess up at all, he will tell me, and not only will I punish you, I’ll punish him too. Every time you resist me, I’ll beat you. Then I’ll make you stand here while I beat him. If you leave, I will kill him.”
Cindy couldn’t stop herself from shuddering. “Don’t hurt him.” She found herself whispering. Her eyes were locked on that already abused body. No, she couldn’t let this man hurt him. No, no.
“He knows his punishments are deserved, don’t you boy?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Tell her. Tell her how you deserve this. Tell her how I saved you.”
“Master saved me. Master is the only one who can take care of me. I’m a bad boy. I need Master to make me better, to punish me.”
Vincent’s smile grew. “See? He’s mine, so don’t think you’ll be convincing him to leave me. He loves me, don’t you, boy?”
“Boy loves Master.”
The way the boy parroted his lines had Cindy’s stomach rolling. She couldn’t speak. When Vincent ordered her to her feet, she stood. What else could she do? She couldn’t let the man kill this boy. She shuddered again when Vincent cuffed her hands to a pole behind her.
Her eyes grew wide when he snapped at the boy and pointed to the center of the room. Instantly the boy moved, standing perfectly still in the middle of the room, his head bowed. Cindy saw something dangling over the boy’s head and the nausea in her stomach grew. Those looked like chains.
A moment later the boy was lifting his arms and hooking the cuffs to his wrists. When he was perfectly shackled, Cindy watched with horror as Vincent grabbed a three lashed whip from a table. When he stepped over by the boy, raising his arm, Cindy couldn’t stop herself from crying out. “Don’t! I’m not resisting you! I did what you wanted!”
“But you didn’t before.” Vincent said slyly. He obviously took great pleasure out of what he was about to do. “And he’s been a naughty boy today. Maybe this will show you that I mean what I say, for future reference.”
Then, without another moment’s warning, he sent the whip crashing against the boy’s back, eliciting a sharp scream from the boy’s bruised lips. Tears streamed down Cindy’s cheeks…***
“He whipped him for so long, I have no idea what the time was.” Cindy’s voice had started to quiver again. She paused to regain her breath. Trembles ran down the line of people that stood there, clenching tight to their ‘family’ as they listened to this woman’s horrific account.
“It’s ok, Cindy. Take your time.”
“No, I need to say this. Now.” Cindy’s voice firmed slightly. “When he was done with the boy, he beat me and raped me, right there on the ground where the boy lay, so I could see the whole time what happened when I disobeyed him. When he was done, he dragged the boy toward the wall and shackled his ankle. Me, he left loose. He knew I wouldn’t leave, not without the boy too. I just knew he’d kill him if I left. I couldn’t be responsible for that. After a while, I managed to move a little, to open my eyes and look around. Vincent was gone…
***A soft sob tore its way out of Cindy’s chest. Now that Vincent was gone, she let some of her emotions out. Let the pain that was radiating through her body finally bring the tears that had been burning her eyes for so long.
“There’s water on the table.” The boy’s soft voice broke through her haze of pain. She lifted her eyes, looking to where he sat against the wall, knees up, arms wrapped around his knees. His eyes were just barely visible behind a screen of hair. “You need to drink, keep hydrated.”
Cindy tested her body, discovering that she could move, even if it did hurt. Carefully she rose, wincing as her body screamed at her. But she made herself walk over to the table. Sure enough, there were bottles of water there. She didn’t hesitate to open one and wet her throat with it. It tasted like heaven.
When half of it was gone, she looked back over to the boy. He hadn’t moved a muscle. “Would you like some?” she asked him, her voice slightly hoarse. The boy instantly shook his head.
Carefully, Cindy moved toward him. “Are you ok?” She found herself asking, even though she knew the answer. “I’m sorry he hurt you.”
“Master loves me. Master is kind to me.” The boy spoke words she could tell had been branded into his brain. This poor, poor boy.
“But he beats you.” She couldn’t stop herself from pointing that out.
The boy trembled slightly. “Master loves me. I was a bad boy. Master was just teaching me.”
“But…”
“You should do what Master wants, or he’ll hurt you.” The boy cut her off. His eyes moved toward the floor. “Master will be mad if he finds this mess. It’s usually my job, but Master says that the pretty ladies have to do it when they’re here. I get to talk to you only to tell you your jobs, then we’re not supposed to talk. Master doesn’t like the pretty ladies talking to his boy.”
The terror at the end of that sentence was enough to have Cindy ready to do anything to keep this boy from being hurt. “What do I do?”
“Clean. Master wants it clean. He likes my blood, but not dried on the floor or on his tables. He doesn’t give us the key to the tools, he cleans those, but the rest of it…They have to be clean. There’s water of there,” He raised his hand, pointing to a small room at the back of this room. “And a mop and rags. No chemicals. Nothing sharp. It’s your job now, you’re the new pretty lady.”
“The new pretty lady?” She grew even more afraid now. There had been others? That thought was just sinking in.
“There were others. But they made Master mad. He…he hurt them.”
“Oh God, he killed them. He’s going to kill me, isn’t he?”
Those haunting doe eyes turned up toward her, gripping her in place as the boy shook his head. “Master doesn’t kill them.” The boy whispered brokenly. True pain was in his words now. It was evident in how his body trembled. “I do.”
What? “What?” No. There was no way this beaten, bruised man here was capable of killing someone! But she thought again of how easily the boy, the man, had listened to Vincent and she felt her blood freeze in her veins. “What?”
“I kill them.” The boy held his hands out, looking at his palms. They were trembling. “Master hurts them, over and over, and brings them to me. He makes them lay with me while they bleed. He tells me I can kill them. I don’t want to. I don’t!” His voice broke for just a moment on the last word. “In the end, they beg me. They beg me to kill them. They can’t take any more pain and they know they won’t get free. He keeps beating them, keeps bandaging them so they stay alive a little longer. In the end, they beg me to help them. To help them die.”
Tears were now traveling down the boy’s cheeks, bright red with blood. Cindy couldn’t move as she listened to this boy’s horror story.
“They beg, they plead. Anything. They can’t take it. And they tell me I can end it for them. How can I let them hurt, knowing I can help them? Knowing what they want? Some die on their own, most do, but some don’t. They beg me to do it. So I kill them.”
The boy rocked, his hands suddenly flying to his head, slapping his palms against his forehead. Agonized cries slipped past his lips. Cindy couldn’t restrain herself anymore. She couldn’t stop herself from running over to him and grabbing his hands, stopping him from hitting himself. “Oh, honey, oh no. No.” she cried, gripping his hands. He tried to get free, but she wouldn’t let go.
“Honey, that’s not your fault. Honey, it’s not you. No.” She insisted. In an instant she could see this boy’s life, see the pain he’d lived in, see what he had been forced to do. It made her heart ache and bleed inside of her. “Oh, you lost little boy. Oh.” She rested her forehead on her knees as the both of them cried.***
“I didn’t get to talk with him after that.” Cindy was saying. “Vincent beat us if we tried. He’d rape him in front of me. Once, I tried to talk to him when Vincent was gone, tried to make sure he was ok, and Vincent came downstairs in a rage. He hit my face, knocked me down and…and raped me. Then he told me to lay still on my back. He made the boy kneel over me so our faces were close. He, God, he beat him with a belt and raped him while he was on all fours. I don’t know how he’s alive.”
“He is alive.” Emily said soothingly. Her voice held just a hint of strain for those who knew her. “We have him safe at the station surrounded by officers and FBI agents. I promise you, he’s alive.”
“He saved my life.”
“What?”
“Right before Vincent took me, he got word that there might be a raid on his house. He was furious. Didn’t pay as much attention as normal, I guess. I don’t know how the boy got it, but he gave me a paper clip and told me to put it in my hair. In the back, underneath, where he wouldn’t find it. He told me he’d make Vincent mad so he’d come back and hurt him so he wouldn’t stay around after he hid me. We knew he was going to hide me. He said I could make it straight and pick the locks, that he’d keep Vincent busy to give me time to get free.” A soft sigh slid past Cindy’s lips. Her voice was fading slightly. “He wouldn’t free himself to go with me. Vincent was coming, so I put it in my hair. I told him I’d send help. Then…” Her voice paused, grew quieter. “…when I was there…when he was gone…I got it and got free. I got free…”
Silence filled the room. Emily leaned forward, pressing the button to stop the tape. The team still stood there, staring. It was JJ who finally spoke. “Dear God.”
“He was telling the truth.” Aaron spoke softly. His words drew their eyes. They saw the pain on that usually stoic face. “Vincent didn’t kill those women.”
Cindy’s words echoed back at them. Reid had killed those women. Had been left with women begging him to kill them until he couldn’t take it anymore and put them out of their misery. Granted them that final request.
“God.” Dave breathed out. “What we thought we were facing was bad enough. How the hell is he going to recover from something like that? Reid…it’s going to destroy him.”
“If it hasn’t already.” Aaron agreed.
Morgan couldn’t believe it. He felt like he needed to throw up. This bastard had broken Reid in so many fucking ways! How on earth were they ever going to heal the kid from all of this? “No judge in the world will prosecute him for this.” He said furiously.
Four sets of eyes drifted to him in surprise. None of them had thought that far ahead. Aaron actually paled. “They might try.” He said. “God, they might. He’s their killer.”
“He’s not a killer!” Morgan cried. He felt Emily’s hand tighten in his and Dave’s grip on his shoulder became firmer. “He’s a broken man who was beaten every day for almost two years and forced to watch other women beaten. They convinced him to help them!”
“We know, Morgan.” Dave tried to reassure him. “We aren’t going to let him go down for this. None of us are.”
“He’s right. I can make a few calls, talk to some judges. Maybe see what I can do to get him cleared on this.” Swiping a hand over his face, Aaron sighed. “He’ll probably have to testify at the trial. He’ll have to recount to someone how he killed them. For now this is just assumption. It’s ambiguous. We need facts first. Then, we’ll see about getting him the best lawyer we can find.”
Emotion clogged Morgan’s throat. He looked around at his team, knowing they were all wondering the same thing he was. How the hell were they going to heal Reid from this?
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