A Miracle From Hell

Chapter 6

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.---H.P. Lovecraft

The air rushed in Morgan's ears stopping him from hearing anything that was being said. All he could do was focus on the picture. That picture. 

He'd woken up that morning, and cried. He even considered just staying in bed all day. So it was he had fallen back to sleep and woken up to several missed calls and a strange envelope taped to his door. It had freaked him out, it wasn't there when he woke up this morning. 

He remembered pulling the picture out and being confused. It was entirely black, so what was the point? 

Morgan looked at the six polaroids on the table and realized that each picture got closer and closer to the final picture. He started rearranging them, starting with his black one and finishing with JJ's. It was only then that he started to tune back in to the rest of the team. 

"He died Hotch, we saw the explosion! I don't know what this is, but this is a cruel, cruel joke." Prentiss was in tears but she was adamant that this was a joke, it had to be. Otherwise... no she refused to think of that. 

Hotch's face cracked and his eyes watered. "I know Emily. But we have to consider, whoever did this knows where we live and whether or not this was a joke, that itself is very serious." 

Rossi's hands were shaking as he picked up his picture. "For the kid's sake, I hope it is a joke." 

JJ was crying and she pulled out her phone. "I, uh, have to call Will." She muttered to no one. 

Morgan tried not to look at the closest picture of Reid. He looked terrible, his face bruised and pale, and his eyes dark. If this was real, then he had gone through a year of hell and they didn't even realize it. 

He slammed the table, quieting the arguing in the room. "Guys, look, we have to do something about this. If this was a joke, this is an attack on us. And if not, then guys, we have to do something else than stand around and argue." 

Hotch nodded. "Morgan's right. We need to upload these to Garcia and have her take these apart pixel by pixel." 

Garcia walked in, her eyes red from crying. "Sir I am ready to examine those pictures as best as I am able to." 

"Good, now no one saw the person that handed these out correct?" 

They all nodded. "Great, alright, so we have little to nothing to go off of. But once we get a comprehensive review of those pictures, we'll know more. I will ask that none of you go home." 

Morgan stood up, already stir-crazy. "Hotch is there anything we can do?" 

Hotch sighed. "No."

Morgan sighed and walked towards Garcia's room. He could see that she was crying her shoulders were shaking as she examined the blown up pictures. 

"Hey, baby girl." he said softly.

"Morgan," she turned around, mascara running into her blush. "This is like a nightmare, I can't do this." 

"I know, baby girl, but we have to, if not for us, do it for Reid."

"I can do that. For Reid, and you." She turned back around. "Stay in here with me please?"

He squeezed her shoulder. "I will never leave you, baby girl."

The day stretched on and Rossi had just popped into the briefing room to ask if anyone wanted pizza, when Garcia ran out. 

"Everyone, my room, now." There was a panicked urgency in her voice, so no one questioned her as they got up and followed her to her "den". 

Morgan was in full alert, glued to the screen. 

Garcia faced the silent group. "Ok so I consider my computers to be very unhackable, I run through the systems daily, and i check the firewall's like all the time. But, and Morgan will testify, some one hacked me and now the only thing I can do is press this link in two minutes." 

"You can't trace the signal at all?" 

"No, it's been completely hidden in my computer. This is very well done." 

Hotch nodded for her to press the link, and they all waited with baited breath for the image. 

It was a video, poorly shot, and in poor lighting. The voice was strange, rough. 

"Garcia, run voice recognition." 

"Already on it."

"Agents of the BAU! Happy one year anniversary!" 

Everyone froze as fear fell on all of them. "Today one year ago today, I made off with an incredible victory. The capture of the one and only Dr. Reid."

The camera shuffled over to a cage in the middle of the room and focused in on the figure lying in the corner. 

"He's rather camera-shy, but I heard every one there doubted he still lived! So," The camera operator kicked the cage savagely and Reid jolted awake, pressing his back against the bars, his eyes darting around him. "There he is, your proof of life." Reid focused on the camera, then dropped his eyes. "Now, listen agents, the good doctor only has five days left to live, so I would hurry up. Time flies when we're having fun." And with that feed cut off and screens were black.

"Garcia." Hotch's voice was strained. "Please tell me you got something."

Garcia's voice was a whisper. "I am so sorry sir, I don't have anything." 

There was a stunned silence. Five days and Reid would die, again. 

Prentiss looked around. "We can't let this happen to him, yesterday, we thought he was dead, and now, we are not losing him to this psycopath. Garcia give us everything on that case in Utah." 

Garcia nodded obviously needing something to do to get her mind off the time line. 

"We need to come up with a timetable here, figure out what exactly happened to Henry Chaser, the night of the explosion." 

Hotch nodded. "I think we all understand that this is a high priority case now. We will put all our cases on hold and focus on this. Garcia when you're able to join us in the briefing room, please." 

Morgan stood up, panic and anxiety making him a ball of nerves. "Let's go get this son of a bitch."