Chapter 2

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BAU Privet Jet

The team sat on the jet looking over the case assignment that Severide was working on, Morgan was disgusted especially with the trail of bodies they were leaving when they were done with these women. "How did Severide do this for months," he asked shaking his head. "Clear signs of sexual assault and excessive force," Rossi said looking over the photos of victims left behind by this ring that went back underground before they could shut it down and they took a member of the team with them. 


The flight to New Jersey didn't take more than an hour and Morgan and Reid went to Severide's undercover apartment which looked like every generic apartment that would be used in undercover cases. No photos anywhere, or art or personality in any part of the apartment. Morgan and Reid began looking around, "every undercover agent had a hidden space that contains a log book, a phone, their go bag," Morgan said as the two started searching for the hidden spot. 

After a moment the two paused taking a step back to look around, "She'd put it somewhere she could take it and run," Reid said walking over to the door and noticing a vent on the ceiling. The doctor moved a table over before he stood on it pulling the vent open to have a duffle bag fall., Morgan caught the bag as Reid climbed down. 

Morgan sat the bag down and opened it to find Severide's gun, badge, and ID, along with her clothes. Reid picked up a notebook and began scanning through page after page reading the entirety of it in less than a minute. "Strange," Reid said furrowing his brows, "Find something?" Morgan asked the genius. "Maybe, if Severide's logs are correct she handed over enough evidence 3 months ago to close this assignment, why'd they wait until last week to raid the operation? that makes no sense" Reid said confused. "Look at this, a crossword puzzle with no words to find," Morgan said handing Reid a folded piece of paper with symbols on it. "Where was this?" Reid asked, "In her pants pocket why does it mean something?" the agent asked. 

Reid looked over the page noticing some of the words encoded in the puzzle, looking over to the window and over to the floorboard

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Reid looked over the page noticing some of the words encoded in the puzzle, looking over to the window and over to the floorboard. The agent knelt down knocking on the floorboards, "Reid what are you doing?" Morgan asked as he hit a hollow board and pulled it up to reveal a hidden compartment in the floor where there was a journal. "A second log book?" Morgan asked noticing Reid pulled the notebook out and began reading through the pages in less than a minute again. 

The contents made him angry, Severide wrote about how she felt trapped how she begged to get pulled from the assignment 3 time but got told to stick it out and it was clear to Reid from the notebook that the agent was unravelling and starting to forget who she was. "What is it?" Morgan asked. "She asked to be pulled from the assignment 3 times and got denied, she was unravelling and starting to lose who she was. It's all here," he said handing the book to Morgan who read over a few pages.

A page fell out of the journal and Reid went to retrieve the page noticing it was another word puzzle with no specific words to find. "What's with the puzzles?" Morgan asked, "She doesn't know who to trust," Reid said. "What makes you say that?" he replied. "The words in the puzzles, Window, Floorboard, where we just found this. Trust, BAU, Reid and Helpme" Reid said before looking over the second puzzle.

Reid looked over the puzzle the words and a date stood out to him, "We should meet up with the team, show them what we found he said not wanting to point anything out until they were with the rest of the team. The puzzle in the hidden journal caused the agent to question a lot of things but all Reid knew was that Severide left him these puzzles to decipher with the team. She was counting on him and he couldn't let her down. 

21st district police department, Chicago Illinois

The detectives sat at their desks sipping on their morning coffee in the bullpen finishing off paperwork from the last case they just finished. Jay sat at his desk wondering about Zoey and how she was doing. The detective hadn't heard from her in months since she left and stopped taking calls before her phone just got disconnected. Jay called Morgan after a week and asked if she was okay only to be told she was sent out for a special assignment and to not hold his breath on hearing anything for a while. 

The detective sighed wondering what the blonde agent was up to or what she was dealing with. All he wanted was to hear her voice and see her beautiful smile and it was hard not knowing anything. Voight walked into the bullpen and stuck a photo to the board of a brunette laying on the ground shot wearing skimpy linger. 

"Patrol found this woman a block from Med shot in the back, they got her to Med and into surgery, she's stable for now," Voight said to the group of detectives. "Why aren't narcotics taking this case?" Detective Upton asked. "Because the name patrol found on her ID was bogus and the slug they pulled out of her back is standard police issue but no match to any guns in the CPD," Voight replied causing the team to furrow their eyebrows. 

"What was the name?" Atwater asked, "Liz Shay," Vought replied causing Antonio to pause at the name. "Atwater, Burgess wanna go check out the scene, Dawson and Halstead why don't you head over to Med and see if you can get her to talk, Ruzek and Upton can you ask around and see if anyone saw anything and pull pod footage in that area," Voight said as the group got up heading off to do their different jobs. 

New Jersey, Police department Downtown

Morgan and Reid returned to the station pulling the team into the board room. "Reid, what's going on?" Hotch asked the agent as he shut the door making sure nobody except the BAU team could hear. "We found Severide's log book and a few other things," Morgan said, "She left Reid a set of puzzles with codes, she's was freaking out Hotch," Morgan said as he pulled out the puzzle and Reid grabbed a highlighter highlighting the words on the 2 pages of puzzles. 

"Window, Floorboard?" Rossi asked reading the words Reid highlighted. "That's where Reid found the second journal and another puzzle," Morgan said as Hotch read through the journal shaking his head. "Trust, BAU, Help me, Reid," JJ said reading the rest of the words the dr had highlighted. "She had more than enough to shut this down I don't understand," Hotch said confused as Reid pulled out the second puzzle. "Look at this," he said as he began highlighting the words on the page. 

The team looked at the page as Reid Highlighted each word, "Rejection, Reassigned, Coverup, October 19th, Quantico, Elevator, Assault and J Leads?" Reid asked looking at the team

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The team looked at the page as Reid Highlighted each word, "Rejection, Reassigned, Coverup, October 19th, Quantico, Elevator, Assault and J Leads?" Reid asked looking at the team. Morgan was already on the phone with Garcia asking her to pull the elevator footage from Quantico on October 19th. "I can't find anything un-" Garcia paused for a second, "Did you find something for us, baby girl?" Morgan asked. "Yea, and it's ultra icky. like slime ball icky" She said, "Garcia, can you send us the footage," Rossi asked. "Already sent," she replied before hanging up the line. 

The team watched the footage as Severide got groped and Harrassed by none other than the FBI's section unit chief Jeffery Leads. The team watched in shock, "That's why she was acting so weird that day," Reid said putting one and two together. "So that's why she got reassigned out of the BAU without a notice," JJ said shaking her head, "Why didn't she tell anyone?" Reid said confused. "She got reassigned for telling me about her meeting with Leads about the Ikes case," Hotch said clearly upset by their discovery. 

"So he had her reassigned to keep her quiet, and left her in an assignment that would almost guarantee she wouldn't be seen again for a while," Rossi said in disbelief. 

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