The Ghost of Princeton ||Spencer Reid||

scratch

CRESSIDA

"What the hell..." I whispered, opening my eyes to have them start burning. Something was falling into my eyes, and when I reached up to wipe them I realised it was blood. My head felt like it was splitting, and as I squeezed my eyes I started to remember what happened.

We were on our way to go after Scratch, who had tried to lure Morgan into a trap, and on the drive to the location our cars were hit by a semi-truck. I couldn't breathe, the vest was too fucking tight. Without thinking I undid the vest and lifted it over my head, leaving it on the dashboard.

"Trap, a fucking trap..." I whispered, opening my eyes again and looked around the car. I was the first one awake, but I wasn't the first one moving. Fuck. Fuck. Scratch was grabbing someone. He was trying to take Emily.

"Peter!" I shouted, as loud as I could while I forced myself out of the car. There was nothing I could do to stop myself from stumbling, so I made sure to land on the hood of the car.

"Peter fucking Lewis." I said, watching as he walked towards me. "You don't want to take Emily, you want to take me." Oh my god, was I really doing this?

"That's not my plan, and you are probably the best person on the team to understand that. I want information that only Emily can give me."

"Whatever it is, I know it. Take me-"

"You don't know where Aaron Hotchner is." He cut me off. God damn it.

"I could." I said, leaning on the hood of the car as I walked towards him. "You take me instead of Emily, get me a computer... I'll find you Hotch."

"Variables, I'm all about the variables. You should know that, it's why I'm not going to take you instead of Emily. If I did, that would change my plan and I like my plan. However, what won't change it..." He trailed off as he pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it at me.

"Where's the fun in that? You know I'm your best shot at competition." I said, looking down the barrel of the gun.

"Which makes you the most likely person to stop me. I can't have that." Before I could try and argue, I heard the shot. And I felt the bullet tear through my body.

I fell to the ground before I could do so much as scream from the pain.

***

I woke with a groan, pain shooting from my left shoulder. Beeping filled my ears and the smell of a hospital overran everything else.

"Hey, take it easy..." Spencer. It was Spencer. I tried to sit up but he put his hands on my shoulders to push me back down. "You were shot..."

"Wow, really?"

"Good to see you still have your sarcasm." He replied, and I looked at him. God, he looked tired and run down and like he'd just run a marathon.

"My sarcasm isn't going anywhere." I told him, he smiled. "It was a clean shot, right?"

"Yeah." His voice was quiet as he sat down in the chair next to my bed, his hands tapping his legs. "You were the only one shot." There was an unasked question under that, why were you the only one shot?

"I was the only one awake. Scratch was trying to take Emily... oh my god, Emily-"

"Emily's fine, Scratch is dead, he killed Stephen in the crash, everyone else is okay. You were the one we've been waiting on. You came out of surgery a few hours ago, he shot you in the shoulder, but that was enough to put you into shock after the crash." He explained, I let out a slow breath while I placed all that information together in my head.