Evolution, a Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 37. Misdirection

He realized Ana didn’t have the same gifts he did, but she’d said something about seeing Hotch in the woods. So at the very least, Hotch and the car were together and he was at some point going to enjoy a walk in the woods. Reid still had an odd feeling about the whole situation. He wondered why the Unit Chief hadn’t come in to tell them his plans himself. But he was also aware of the antipathy between the agent and the doctor. Maybe Hotch did just want to get away.

Reid gave a small, frustrated growl. The best thing he could do for everyone involved was to learn more about himself; how to harness, use, and interpret his abilities and the information they gathered.

And when push came to shove, he couldn’t see Bescardi winning a physical altercation with Hotch. Something wasn’t right, but he needed more to go on. And he had vowed to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt.

Time to live up to my best intentions.

Reid couldn’t shed his concern enough to mirror Bescardi’s enthusiasm. When he returned to the doctor worry was still evident on his face. He felt the same way he did when the team was on a case and needed just one more victim to set a pattern, enabling them to solve it. Even if you knew something bad might be happening, you had to wait. If anything bad is happening, he reminded himself. And the best way to get through the waiting period was to keep busy.

“Okay, Dr. Bescardi. Let’s get started. What do you want to do first?”

xxxxxxx

Hotch’s body exhausted itself trying to find balance that didn’t exist.

After a few hours of thrashing, a poor night’s sleep, and no food since the previous day, Bescardi’s designer drug took its toll. He lay unconscious in the undergrowth, blood oozing from his cuts while his knee purpled and swelled.

When he woke up, it was mid-afternoon. The sun beat down, making the day much hotter than he’d expected at this elevation. Insects were swarming on him, trying to feed from the cuts he’d suffered in his fall. For a moment, he couldn’t make any sense out of his situation. He stared at the sky and gradually remembered sleeping on a stone floor the night before. He recalled telling Reid and Ana to quiet down. He remembered something about a wolf that had made him smile.

But that was all.

He rolled over and looked at the sky. It was fine and blue and clear. He tried to lift his head and a wave of dizziness slammed him back down. That opened the floodgates. He realized he was sore, bruised, covered with stinging lacerations and underneath it all, like a baseline of drumbeats was the throbbing in his right knee.

And he was terribly thirsty.

And it was so quiet. The quiet of the wilderness, where what sounds could be heard, had nothing to do with humankind.

I’m alone. And I don’t know why.

He was supposed to be overseeing the retreat for Reid and his new friend, Ana. He had to get back. They needed him. He had no idea why he would have deserted them and a wave of shame rolled through him at the thought that he had abandoned his responsibility.

Hotch rolled onto his side and realized he was at the bottom of a small ravine. He moved his head, risking the vertigo and nausea again. He could just see part of the side of the car they’d rented yesterday peeking over the edge of the slope down which he’d fallen.

Yesterday? You sure about that?

He made a conscious decision to believe in yesterday. If he’d been here longer, it was too much to wrap his jittery brain around.

He could see which way the car was facing and, since he couldn’t remember having been anywhere, his injured, fractured logic told him the car must be headed away from the monastery. He must have been driving away for some reason. So he knew which direction he should go for the closest aid. Back the way he’d come.

He had no way of knowing Bescardi had turned the car around.

Hotch fought the pain and started to crawl in the direction he thought would bring him back to Reid, Ana and help. Every few yards he lost the battle and dizziness knocked him to the ground, but Hotch was a fighter. Bescardi had been right in thinking he wasn’t the type to give up.

Every time he was slammed down, he struggled back to his hands and one functional knee, and did his best to move along the bottom of the ravine.

Hoping to reach a spot where he could drag himself up to road level.

Heading in the exact wrong direction, thanks to Bescardi’s turning the car back towards the monastery before she left him.