lullabies through the window

Ten: The Empty Chair

Spencer Reid's eyes fluttered. He was trying to force them open, but they were tired, and they burned painfully when they weren't closed. Luckily, he didn't need his eyes open to know that the room was completely dark. Once he adjusted to the stinging, he wouldn't be able to see anyway. His arms and legs were held down in cuffs onto a table. "An operating table."Spencer thought. He felt safe assuming that because of the chilled metal that was soothing his raw back and shoulders. Spencer thought back to what happened- it wasn't hard to remember, and his eidetic memory wasn't likely to let him forget any of the details. 

He had been sitting on the floor of his bedroom. He had just locked the door- barricading it wouldn't be of much help: it was a pull door. He couldn't go out the window, either. These people could climb up, he couldn't even climb down. Even if he jumped and wasn't injured, they could get to him before he even got to the street. So he sat on his floor with his shaking hands pointing his gun at the door. His phone was buzzing on the floor beside him. 

Spencer could hear them tossing paper... he didn't care if they were here to kill them, if they ruined his books he was going to go primal on them. But his better, smarter instinct was to stay put-- so he did. It felt like hours before the door shook...and finally slid calmly open. He held his gun unsteadily at the face-- "Er... head?" The woman had a black face covering that completely disguised her. The next events seemed blurred together into one movement. He had shot at her, the bullet ripped through her shoulder and lodged in the wall with a spatter of her blood. "Damn, I just painted that wall." He remembered thinking deliriously as she hit his head with his own gun. It was enough to disorient him, but not enough to make him bleed. She had taken his phone and texted his friends on the group chat as the other two women tied him up and gagged him. He would have struggled more, but it didn't feel like too good of an idea with a knife at his throat. They held a rag soaked with chloroform to his face-- and now here he was.

Spencer was pulled from his flashback by the sound of a door opening. He heard footsteps, softly making their way to him.

"Do you know who I am?" The voice of a woman came down to him. It wasn't harsh; it had a slow, questioning lilt to it. 

Spencer squinted up, trying to see her face, but the darkness was impenetrable. He gave up. "No, but I can guess."

"Take a guess then." She challenged.

Spencer took a moment to think. He had a one in three chance of being correct. What would happen if he got it wrong-- or right? He decided to do what he was best at, and think a little.         "The way she's questioning me by herself, and she's the first one to come to me- she's probably the dominant personality of the group."  Applying that to the profile he and his team had worked on, that made her...

"You're Amber Richards?" He asked quietly. Talking made his throat burn and crack.

"And you're Spencer Reid. Sorry to meet like this." She said casually, as if on their first encounter she had accidentally spilled coffee and his shirt, instead of drugging and abducting him.

"Why...?" Spencer began, but was interrupted by Amber.

"You know, they always ask that. 'Why me?' 'Why are you doing this?' But you aren't like the other ones, Spencer, and I think you know that. I mean, you are a genius, right?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't know." Spencer coughed. 

"Oh, right. I forgot how smart people get when you know something they don't." She laughed quietly at her joke, then paused. "Well.... I'm sure you'll use all your little detective tricks to figure it out yourself. Anyway, if you don't do anything stupid, you'll make it out of here living. You aren't really here so much for us, you're just, well, leverage. Nothing special. You'll live." she thought for a moment. "Well, unless we have to move on to plan B, but, uh, the name of that plan implies that we don't plan on using it... Well, just relax until we say otherwise, okay?" Amber quietly padded out of the room, and closed the door with a metallic thud.

***********************************************************************

"AGENT HOTCHNER." 

Strauss had just stormed into the round table room where the team was working on the case and dragged Hotch to his office. As he was being pulled to his office, Hotch thought vaguely, "Right as I was forgetting her..."

Strauss closed the door and turned to him. "Agent Hotchner, may I ask what the hell you think you and your team are doing?"

Hotch was annoyed, and so, as one does, decided to annoy her a little. "Well, I think we're working on profiles, blood samples, looking through records, credit trails--" 

"You know what I mean!" She roared. "I took your team off the case, and-"

"With all due respect, my team is the best for this case." Hotch was furious, but refrained from yelling. Instead he adopted his traditional angry retort-- which would be easy to go against if his eyes weren't doing the Hotch Glare™. "Not only did we find the unsubs in two days, we were the ones working it the whole time. The crime has escalated, you need the best-"

"I know there's been another abduction, but-"

"No, one of my agents has been abducted, that makes this a federal crime, and a lot more important to-"

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be working a case you're emotionally invested in." Strauss said bluntly. "We both know that's never a good idea."

Hotch took a deep breath to calm himself. "My team knows the most about this case, and the unsubs. We are already getting somewhere since we started tonight, and we won't be stopping until the unsubs are in jail and Dr. Reid is out of harm's way."

Strauss jutted her lower jaw, glaring into Hotch's steadily furious eyes. "This better end. Soon." And she walked angrily away.

Hotch hurried back to his team.

The team looked up at him. They were all afraid they had gotten into trouble and been asked to leave.

"What did she say?" Morgan asked, leaning his elbows onto his knees. His eyes reflected worry; he couldn't imagine what they would do if they couldn't investigate the case. How could they give up on Spencer?

"We better solve this. Soon."

 Although the team let out a sigh of relief, the tensity in the room stayed with them, making itself at home in Spencer's empty chair.