(Unknown Location)
"Look. Okay. Look. Okay. Whatever it is, we can discuss it. You don't have to do this. Just give me the morphine, okay, and...and...just...you can ask whatever you want." Emily begged, trying to hide the pain that she was feeling, but it wasn't working. Scratch could see the sweat on her face and the pain in her eyes.
"It was our investigation into you? Is that it? Is that what you want to know?" Emily asked, confused.
"Tangentially." He smiled.
"Oh! Nngh!" She whimpered.
"Then what? Tell me. Tell me. Then I'll tell you. It's that simple. Tell me, and I'll tell you." Emily kept begging, watching as Scratch nodded, seemingly accepting Emily's offer.
"Yeah. I believe you will now. This Agent and I had a little tete-a-tete, and I crossed a line I shouldn't have. I really couldn't help myself, and I started to stalk his son, and do you know what he did, that coward? He went into witness protection. And he has been very difficult to find ever since, so that's what I want to know. I want you to tell me where he is because I know you know." Scratch insisted.
"No. No." She cried.
"Yes, Emily. Where is Aaron Hotchner?" He glared at her, with anger in his eyes.
"I don't know where Hotch is. I don't. That's how WITSEC works. He has to be hidden from us because of men like you." She explained, trying to breathe and remain calm.
"Do you recognize this?" He asked, showing her a phone.
"Well, it was a text exchange you had with a series of burner phones, and a last text exchange between you and this mystery man reads, "Honduras connection is a go. Hunting down all leads to B-cap in D.C. Thanks. A.H." He put down his phone.
"Let's get down to the question at hand. Where is Hotch?" Scratch asked as pulled the white sheet down and grabbed a tool of some sort, holding it near the metal frames around her legs.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He never gave me an address. All we did was text." She insisted, still whimpering from the pain.
"No. Last chance." He glared at her.
"Vermont. He's somewhere in Vermont." She spoke before Scratch knocked the tool against the metal frame, hurting her.
"Aah!" She exclaimed, feeling the pain shoot up and down her leg.
———
(At The BAU Office)
Penelope, Derek, Spencer and Matt sat in the conference room, searching through each and every file that was in Rossi's office. They were glad that Spencer had an eidetic memory.
"Emily texted Hotch?" Penelope asked, looking at one of the files.
"According to the documentation, yes." Derek exhaled.
"It must have been a coordinated attempt to share intel. Would Hotch have exposed himself like this?" Matt asked, confused.
"No, and neither would she. I mean, she wouldn't rely on a hackable app, and she sure as hell wouldn't write, "A.H.," in a text. That defeats the purpose of compartmentalizing the investigation." Spencer shook his head.
"It was a smoke screen." Penelope gasped.
"A.H. is a pretty big red flag. Maybe that's what brought him out?" Derek asked.
"Well, they used Hotch's initials in other texts before. Then they found something else, something they knew would rattle him." Matt shrugged his shoulders.
"B-cap." Spencer spoke up.
"What's B-cap?" Derek asked.
"Geography maybe. I mean, it's mentioned in relevance to D.C. Maybe it's a code name for a partner." Penelope suggested.
"I can't see it." Spencer started getting upset.
"Hey, no. Why don't we kick it over to the team? Maybe they can suss out..." Before Derek could continue, Spencer shook his head.
"No. No time. Get out." Spencer demanded, everyone getting out of the conference room, Penelope grabbing her laptop.
"He's had a rough couple of months." Penelope exhaled, hearing a loud bang. She jumped when she watched Spencer throw another book at the giant window that looked out at the BAU bullpen.
"Oh..." She gasped.
———
(Unknown Location)
"Where is that place that you go to to ground yourself? I'd like to know." Scratch stood next to the bed, watching as Emily exhaled, trying to get the pain in her legs to subside.
"So you can destroy it. See, I've read your case file. I've read about how your father was killed when you were 13, and earlier, you said something about crossing a line when it came to stalking a child. I realized Hotch's son Jack, he's 13 now, too." Emily shook her head, staring at Scratch.
"I'm not a pedophile. I'm insulted by your inference." Scratch gasped, shocked.
"No. Your interest in Jack is clinical. You want to see what it will be like if he grows up without his father like you did. That's what I've been focusing on. After you kill Hotch, you'll never leave Jack alone. Am I right?" Emily explained.
"You are." Scratch nodded.
"Then let me tell you something, Peter. I've died before protecting a child. That was a child I barely knew, but J- Jack, I love Jack. I've watched Jack grow up. I will not betray him or his father, so it doesn't matter what you do to me. I will not break." She stared at Scratch with determination in her eyes. She watched as Scratch chuckled.
"Let me test that resolve." He smiled, grabbing a scalpel. He held the scalpel dangerously close to Emily's eye, watching as she continued to stare right at him, not blinking once. He closed his eyes and put the scalpel down, sigh.
"You make an interesting point. I need a plan B." He admitted, leaving the room.
The moment he was gone. Emily let out a long exhale, releasing a breath she didn't even know she had kept in her lungs. She let a tear slip, her eyes widening when she saw the other man walk past the plastic.
"Hey, you, come here...just for a second." She begged.
"Please, I just need a second." She watched as he hesitated before entering the room.
———
(At The BAU Office)
Spencer paced around the conference room, not only concerned about finding Emily, but also concerned about Cassidy. It had been a few hours since he last heard from her.
Meanwhile, Matt, Penelope and Derek sat out in the bullpen, still working on the files.
"This I might be able to help with. Prentiss' last text had to do with Honduras. Scratch's last known sighting before tonight was Honduras." Matt pointed to the text messages on Penelope's laptop screen.
"Right, and we thought Scratch fled there after he framed Reid for murder in Mexico." Penelope nodded.
"Right. Prentiss asked the I.R.T. to contact our central American sources just to see if we could find anything. Now, we never did. We also never stopped to ask why Scratch was in Honduras in the first place." Matt exhaled.
"Reid'll figure this out. He's really amazing at this kind of thing." Penelope smiled before they both heard another loud bang. They looked up at the conference room, seeing him throw his hands through his hair as he tried to concentrate.
They both ran up the stairs, entering the conference room in concern.
"B-cap is short for Banisteriopsis caapi. It's a plant, specifically a hallucinogen that's found in a tea called ayahuasca." Spencer explained. Penelope was scared and happy at the same time.
She was scared because Spencer had just thrown another object at the window in anger, but she was also happy that he had figured out what B-cap was short for.
"We worked a couple of those cases, I think. If I remember, it's like peyote." Matt nodded.
"Yeah, in multiple ways. They're similar legally in that taking them is considered a religious practice, and pharmacologically, they're similar in that both drugs cause you to hallucinate intense, geometric patterns and vomit a lot." Spencer exhaled.
"Okay...what does this have to do with Scratch?" Penelope asked.
"Well, Scratch has a cocktail of disassociative drugs to induce delusions, but a mathematical mind like his would always be looking for ways to tweak and improve the formula." Spencer rubbed his eye with his finger.
"So he went to Honduras to look for it. He then brought it back to D.C. to experiment with it. Emily came to the same conclusion and tried to pretend like they were hot on his trail." Matt nodded, understanding Spencer's explanation.
"We need to track down all practitioners of the ceremony in the district...shamans, gurus, overnight religions that just hung their first shingle. He could be using one of their volunteers as a partner, either witting or unwitting." Spencer insisted, seeing the concerned looks on Penelope and Matt's faces.
"What?" He asked, confused.
"You threw a book and another object at a window. It was jarring." Penelope frowned.
"Took me 60 minutes to deduce what should have taken me 60 seconds, and if Emily dies because I was too slow, I'll be throwing a lot more than books." Spencer threatened.
———
(Unknown Location)
When the man entered the room, Emily let out a sigh, a smile appearing on her face, only briefly.
"Please. Please help me. You don't even have to get me out of here. Just make a phone call. You can use my phone. Call 9-1-1, leave the phone, and run." Emily begged, seeing the fear on his face. Emily knew that by being in the room without Scratch's permission, the man was in danger.
"I can't do that." He shook his head.
"I won't tell them you were involved." She insisted.
"It's not that simple." He explained.
"You said we were both being taken care of. You mean trapped. He has your family, doesn't he?" Emily looked at him. He didn't give her any gestures that she was right. But she could see it in his eyes.
"Okay. My team can rescue them. It's what we do." Emily nodded.
"I have to go." He breathed.
"No. Please." Emily begged again.
"I can't." He shook his head, exiting the room.
"Take my phone. Please take my phone." She begged one final time before hearing Scratch.
"It's so hard to find good help these days. It seems like, no matter what, I'm left to do all the dirty work." Scratch entered the room.
"What is that? Is that the morphine?" She asked, worried.
"It's amphetamine. I figured out my plan B. I can't torture the answers out of you, so I'll simply stop your heart instead. If you want to live, tell me what I want to know. Where's Hotch, Emily?" He injected the liquid into the IV.
"Where's Hotch?" He watched as she struggled to breathe. She shook around for a little bit before the heart monitor let out a solid beep, Emily's body still. Her eyes were wide open.
Moments later, the man ran back into the room, seeing her body. He grabbed the nearby defibrillator and tried to start her heart back up again.
"Come on." He begged. After a few more tries, the heart monitor picked up a beat, Emily suddenly gasping for air.
"That's it." The man smiled, giving her an oxygen mask so she could breathe.
"Please, tell him what he wants. If you tell him what he wants, this can all be over. He'll release my family, and...and then I can help you, okay?" He asked, watching as she tried to say something.
"G- Go get him." She breathed, trying to slow down her pulse.
———
"Okay, so apparently, the only local place using b-cap is the church of the herbal sacrament, where you can find everything 'for your spiritual needs that only ayahuasca can fulfil'." Matt explained as he and Penelope drove to the location where they were hoping to find the practitioners who used b-cap.
"Walk me through what's gonna happen when we get there." Penelope asked, typing away at her laptop.
"We ask questions, and we come home." Matt spoke, smiling.
"No creepy weirdness?" Penelope hoped.
"No weirdness." Matt shook his head, slightly chuckling at Penelope's worry.
"Good because I'm about full up in the creepy weirdness department for one night." Penelope exhaled as she and Matt pulled up to the church, entering through the front door.
Making their way through the building, the pulled a set of curtains back, seeing a bunch of people on the floor, some of them vomiting, some of them rocking back and forth.
"I've seen the face of God. I've seen it." One man claimed as he looked up at the ceiling.
"So much for no creepy weirdness. Scratch's radio signal." Penelope gagged before seeing the alarm on her tablet. She followed the strength of the signal, Matt following her.
"Clear." Matt nodded as he opened the door that appeared to lead to where the signal was coming from.
"Holy mother-load." Penelope and Matt both gasped in shock, seeing the room filled with technology and systems that you'd find when looking for a strong radio signal.
"Looks like we found Scratch's I.T. department, but no Scratch." Matt exhaled. They were so close, yet so far.
"Yeah, but this is where he's been doing everything...hacking me, hacking our phones, the whole tamale." Penelope shook her head, inspecting the system itself.
"And, just like you predicted, he's been bouncing the signal off multiple buildings." Matt nodded.
"We're close, Matt." Penelope smiled.
———
(The Hospital)
Cassidy looked down at her phone, seeing a message from Spencer informing her of what they had discovered. Ignoring the pain in her head, Cassidy walked into Rossi's hospital room, seeing him sitting on the edge of his hospital bed.
"They sent me to talk some sense into you." Cassidy shook her head.
"Can't help by lying down, and I hear JJ and Tara waking up." Rossi insisted.
"Do you...do you want me to find you some crutches or something?" Cassidy asked, worried that Rossi might fall over.
"I don't need them." He shook his head.
"I got you." Cassidy smiled as she helped Rossi off the bed. He stood up, taking a deep breath in and out.
"Scratch. Scratch took Emily. I saw him." Rossi explained.
"Yeah. We know. They're looking for him." Cassidy nodded, seeing the concern on Rossi's face.
"He dosed her." Rossi exhaled.
"In the SUV while she was knocked out?" Cassidy asked, confused.
"Yeah. He brought his gas with him." Rossi insisted.
"Your legs are broken. Your right arm is broken." Scratch whispered as he sprayed the gas over Emily's face and body, making sure she inhaled it.
"You're in severe traction, and you're paralyzed. You feel unimaginable agony all over your body unless I give you high doses of pain killer." Scratch kept talking.
"She would wake in a delusion he'd have total control over. He thinks she knows where Hotch is, so he's trying to trick her." Rossi spoke as he and Cassidy walked to Tara and JJ's hospital rooms.
"She's one of the smartest people we know. She'd see through it." Cassidy shook her head.
"So Scratch would go even farther. Sometimes interrogators even simulate death. Man, he could make it feel like the real thing." Rossi added.
They halted their confusion when they saw JJ and Tara sitting up in their beds, drinking some water.
"No. That wouldn't work. Remember, Rossi, when Prentiss told us about when she died, for real died, how for her, it was just dark and cold?" JJ reminded Rossi, who nodded. Cassidy looked between them, confused.
"That's right. If he made her experience some out-of-body vision, she'd know it was a lie." Rossi realised.
Emily opened her eyes, trying to ignore the pain. That's when she looked up at the ceiling and realised that there wasn't any pain. Whatever pain she had felt, it was gone. She could lift up both her arms without any trouble. There weren't any marks or scars indicating that she was injured.
She sat up looked around the room, making sure that neither Scratch nor the other man walked in. Without hesitation, she pulled the white sheet off her legs. At first, she saw her exposed legs with the metal frame around them. But soon, the metal frames disappeared, the holes where the pins were disappeared and her legs were covered again. She was now looking at the black pants and shoes she was wearing before the accident. She smiled.
She looked over at all the medical equipment that slowly disappeared.
"Yeah. I get it." She nodded before hearing someone get closer.
She quickly pulled the sheet back over her legs and put her arm back in the sling.
"He probably combined the delusion with a classic prisoner interrogation tactic. At first, he would take away any chance of escape. Then he would introduce somebody else and give her a sliver of hope." Cassidy sat down, trying to come up with a reasonable situation.
"It could be a second interrogator who is a nice guy." Tara added.
"He's on his way, okay?" The man smiled as Emily exhaled, pretending to ignore the pain in her arm and legs.
"That guy would be her blind spot. She'd trust him and then reveal something she shouldn't." JJ exhaled.
"Okay. Yeah." Emily nodded as she prepared to see Scratch again.
———
(The Hospital)
Cassidy walked out of the hospital room, leaving Tara, JJ and Rossi to talk.
"Hey. What do you got, Matt?" Cassidy asked as she rang Matt, hoping for some good news.
"Well, we pinned down Scratch's most likely location based on his radio frequency. It's a warehouse in the district. Garcia just texted the address." Matt explained.
"She included Spencer on the text." Cassidy exhaled, confused.
"Spencer's not in a good place. I'm 10 out." Matt spoke.
"All right. So am I." Cassidy nodded.
She met up with the group again, insisting that all of them stay at the hospital, while she, Derek, Matt and Spencer go and get Scratch and save Emily.
———
(At The Warehouse)
Scratch walked into the room, seeing Emily still laying on the bed. She kept calm, trying to keep the fact that she knew she wasn't hurt a secret.
"If I would've known that putting you at death's door would get you to talk, I would've started with that. Now, are you ready to tell me where Hotch and Jack are?" He asked, glaring at her.
She nodded, exhaling.
"Good. Go ahead." He watched as she closed her eyes and took a moment.
"They're at..." Emily started, watching as Scratch leaned forward.
"Tell me." He whispered.
"8...5..." She started before biting Scratch's ear.
"Aagh! Aagh!" He screamed in pain, allowing Emily time to get off the bed. She watched as he grabbed a gun from one of the metal drawers. She quickly ran as far as she could, hoping to escape him.
Outside, Spencer, Cassidy, Derek and Matt had their FBI bullet-proof vests on while they exited the SUV. Neither Cassidy nor Spencer should have been out there going after Scratch - considering Cassidy had been in an accident only hours prior and Spencer wasn't officially reinstated yet - but neither of them cared. All they cared about was ending Scratch and his reign of terror for good.
Each team member went in through a different entrance, in an attempt to catch Scratch off guard.
"FBI!" Spencer yelled as he watched Scratch exit the giant doors, heading toward the staircase only a few feet away. Spencer shot at him, but experienced another headache and slight tunnel-vision, so he missed.
For 5 minutes, Spencer tried to run after Scratch, while Scratch ran after Emily. Spencer could hear the gunshots and the commotion occurring because of Scratch and Emily. He ran toward the sound of heels clicking against the concrete floor, and eventually, he rounded a corner to find Emily and Cassidy.
"Lower your weapon, damn it!" Emily hissed, watching as Spencer lowered his gun.
"Where's Scratch?" Spencer asked.
"Oh, he's upstairs. Tag in here. Cassidy, Matt and Derek can box him in." Emily whispered.
"No. I need to go find him." Spencer shook his head, about to leave.
"No, no, no, Spence. Please. I need someone I know is real right now, alright?" Emily begged.
Spencer nodded, putting his gun back in his holster. He gave Cassidy a quick kiss on the cheek before letting her run off to go and help Derek and Matt find Scratch.
"You okay?" He asked, wrapping his arms around her. She put her head on his shoulder, nodding.
"Uh-huh." She breathed.
Gunshots and grunting. That's all that anyone could hear. One moment, a gunshot would go off and the next moment, someone would grunt after pushing an obstacle out of the way.
The most grunting and gunshots seemed to come from Derek and Scratch. Matt and Cassidy looked for Scratch, but when they saw Derek running after the serial killer, they took a moment to breathe before one of them - Cassidy - went after them. As for Matt, he went back to Spencer and Emily, letting them know what was going on.
Derek had cornered Scratch on the roof. He watched as Scratch climbed down a short ladder, landing on a fire-escape.
When Cassidy saw that Scratch was trying to shoot Derek from the fire-escape she stopped and aimed the gun at Scratch, waiting for him to jump down so she could shoot him in the leg, or somewhere that wouldn't kill him, only stop him.
Scratch panicked when the fire-escape below him had become loose and fallen, forcing him to grab onto the edge of the roof for dear life, his gun dropping the 30-50 feet that separated Scratch from the ground below, where Cassidy was.
"Help me, please. Help me. Help me." Scratch begged as he watched Derek walk up to the edge, putting his gun in his holster.
Even if - for a second - he considered saving Scratch, he was too late, as he watched Scratch's grip on the edge loosen, his entire body falling all the way down. Soon enough, Scratch's body hit the ground below with a bang, shocking Cassidy. She almost dropped her gun. This wasn't exactly how she imagined Sceatch's reign of terror ending.
"Scratch is down. Repeat...Scratch is down." Derek exhaled speaking into the comms system. Cassidy looked at Scratch's dead body, the blood oozing from his head and other parts of his body. She breathed heavily, a sigh of relief exiting her mouth. She looked behind her to see Emily and Spencer.
"He fell trying to escape." Cassidy explained as Matt, Spencer, Derek and Emily walked up to Scratch's body.
"It's over. It's finally over." Spencer exhaled.
———
(At The BAU Office)
Emily stood at the round table within the conference room, watching as Tara and Matt entered the room.
"I wanted to thank you for all of your help. Tara, Matt, thank you so much. You've both been amazing." Tara and Matt nodded.
"Well, it was good to be of help." Matt smiled.
"If you'd both like, we can sit down and talk about open positions within the BAU? You'd both be an amazing asset to our team." Emily offered.
"That sounds lovely." Tara smiled, looking at Matt, who also smiled.
Soon enough, the whole team stood in the conference room.
"So we all need to discuss what Peter Lewis' death means for this team." Emily exhaled.
"It means that Hotch can come back." Penelope smiled.
"Yeah. We spoke to him. He was relieved that he and Jack were out of danger. They're out of Witness Protection, but, um..." Rossi spoke up, Cassidy exhaling.
"He's not coming back, is he?" Cassidy asked, her right index finger and thumb fidgeting with her engagement ring. Spencer pulled her left hand away and held it, rubbing the top of her hand.
"He loves being a full-time dad. He never got to do that before, and...let's face it...in this job..." Emily started.
"There's always gonna be another Scratch, and he's lost enough." Rossi nodded.
"We all have." Rossi explained.
"Yes. We have, which is why the director has ordered us to take some time off from handling cases, but before we all leave, there's one last thing I need to say. Scratch got deeper into my head than I care to admit, and the only way I was able to stay sane was by repeating a mantra, two words. You know what those two words were?" Emily looked at everyone, who looked confused.
"Wheels up." it saved my life when I wasn't sure I was gonna make it because it reminded me that you were out there fighting, so take your rest. You've earned it. But when we get back, wheels up, Matt." Emily smiled at Matt, who nodded.
"Wheels up." He smiled.
"Wheels up, Tara." Emily looked at Tara, who nodded.
"Wheels up." She smiled.
"Wheels up." JJ smiled.
"Wheels up." Penelope almost cried.
"Wheels up." Cassidy and Derek nodded.
"Damn right, wheels up." Rossi smiled.
Everyone turned to Spencer. He wasn't reinstated yet, so everyone was hoping that maybe he considered staying.
"Wheels up." Spencer nodded, smiling.
"Okay! Cheer up everyone! We have a wedding in just under a week!" Penelope reminded everyone.
"Who could forget?" JJ smiled.
"Matt, Tara, as unofficial members of the BAU, you've helped us so much over these past months. Which is why, Spencer and I would love to have you guys at the wedding." Cassidy looked at Tara and Matt, both of whom almost gasped in shock.
"We'd be honoured to come." Matt smiled.