"𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱"
-𝗘𝗹𝘃𝗶𝘀 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲

-----

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗶𝘃𝗲 - 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆

The next morning JJ, Emily and Valentina went to the contact she had found. They needed something, anything to make sure they got Spencer back alive.

Valentina had her earpods in again as she quietly hummed to the music.

"Tobias Hankel. I haven't thought about that boy in probably ten years" The old man said.

"So you two were in a program together?" Valentina asked him.

"He should tell you but yeah, I was his sponsor. Small town. We all lumped together. Me, I was a drunk, but Tobias, he was a whole different sort of animal"

"So, what was Tobias's drug of choice?" Emily asked.

"Dilaudid" He replied.

Valentina internally winced "Drugstore Heroin" She stated.

"He used to cut it with a psychedelic. That boy was looking to escape as far from reality as he could get. Addicts don't get excuses, but if someone ever needed to self-medicate, it was that boy"

"Why is that?" JJ asked.

"You know anything about his daddy?" The man asked "We think Tobias Hankle may have murdered his father" Valentina revealed.

"Good for him" The three women all shared a look, not expecting that reaction from him "You know, Tobias's mama ran off with another man when he was seven. His dad went section-eight, started preaching about sin, end of the world stuff. He beat Tobias silly. He burned a cross in his forehead when Tobias was ten. If Tobias wore a hat, he beat him more"

"Jesus" Val muttered.

"Is there anyone Tobias would turn to if he were on the run?" Emily asked.

"As far as I know, he never left home. You know, honestly, between his habit and the old man, I'm amazed he's still alive"

-----

"Any luck with the rehab contact?" Gideon asked as the three agents walked into the house.

"I don't know if I'd call it luck, he had no idea where Hankle might be. But we did learn that he has a serious drug problem with Dilaudid" Valentina told them.

"Well, that could explain the psychotic fracture" Hotch stated and JJ frowned "What are you talking about?"

"Tobias is living as three different people. Himself, his father and Raphael" Gideon spoke when a police officer entered the room.

"Well, this could be some bad news. A computer store was robbed in the middle of the night. A suburb outside of Atlanta. Thief got away with four laptops, external hard drives and a satellite"

"If it's Tobias, this puts him right back in business" Hotch stated with a sigh.

"Guys! Guys, get in here!" Morgan called out and the team were quick to come. Only to see Spencer Reid sat in a chair, bloody and beaten.

"Can't you track him?" JJ asked, urgency in her tone of voice.

"Hankle's only streaming this to his home computer" Garcia spoke.

Valentina couldn't believe her eyes, she felt remotely responsible for this. She knew under no circumstances you don't split up and she just felt like if she'd had gone with him, maybe the outcome would've been different.

"This is for us, he knows we're here" Gideon
mumbled.

"I'm gonna put this guys head on a stick" Derek muttered in anger.

"Me and you both. Why can't you locate him?" Valentina asked.

"He's rerouting to a different I.P. address every thirty seconds. I-I can't track him" Garcia panicked.

They watched as Tobias told Spencer he needs to choose someone to die and someone to save "I won't choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher" Spencer told him.

Valentina bit her lip as she watched Tobias roughly grab Spencer before he picked someone "Marilyn David. 4913 Walnut Creek Road" Tobias told them and Gideon was quick to ring the woman as she turned her camera off.

Then the screen on their end went dark meaning Tobias had turned off his camera and now they didn't even know if he was okay never mind alive.

"Fuck" Derek yelled, punching the door before storming off outside.

Valentina sighed "I'm gonna go check on him" Sending Hotch a smile she then followed after Derek.

"Hey" Was all she spoke as she came and stood next to Derek who was leant against the porch railing of the house "Cmon Morgan talk to me"

"It's just Reid ya know. I don't how long he can hold out with that bastard" Valentina stayed quiet as she listened to him "God I'm an adult, I shouldn't be reacting like this. Me punching a wall, what's that doing to help find Reid"

"Hey I broke down in Captain James arms once on tour. Totally just lost it" Derek finally looked over at the person who was trying to make him feel better as she gave him a smile "What I'm trying to say is, it's okay to not be okay. That is your coworker and your friend in there, you have every right to feel like this"

The two just sat in silence for a couple of minutes before Derek spoke "Don't you have a way with words, Valentina"

Valentina chuckled "Well I do try, Special Agent Morgan. Now you ready to get back in there?"

"Let's find this son of bitch" Val smiled before stopping him from walking into the house "But no punching any more doors, you got that?"

"Yes ma'am. Hear you loud and clear"

Emily, Derek and Valentina were now trying to look more into Tobias's life "We can trace their whole family history. Here we got happy, smiling pictures of Tobias. Report cards all A's and B's but at eight years old, we got nothing" Derek let out, confused like they all were.

"And that's his mother leaving. Six months later on the other side of the board, we have a form from child services saying they paid a visit" Val added on.

"And then Charles starts keeping journals about punishing sinners and needing to remove the devil from his son" Derek continued.

"Which corresponds to Tobias's drug use. He's trying to escape" Right now the three agents were just feeding off of each others ideas "So wherever Reid is, it was Tobias's choice. Not his fathers" Derek concluded.

"How do you figure?" Emily asked what Valentina was also thinking.

"Look at these two lives. They're like inverse graphs. One's getting weaker while the other one's getting angrier. Tobias would run away, his father would have stood and fought" Derek explained.

"Okay, so Tobias uses drugs as an escape. I'll go back through the journals and see if I can find anything connecting his drug use to a hiding place" Emily told them when JJ walked in the room looking like hell.

"Where's Gideon?" She asked, her voice quiet.

"He's upstairs. Why? What's going on?"

"Hankel just posted the latest murder"

Walking in to that room to see Spencer laid on the floor, lifeless was not what Valentina was expecting "Come on, come on" Val whispered as she watched for any sign of movement to indicate he was alive.

Derek came and stood next to Valentina, resting his hand on her shoulder for some comfort. It wasn't long before she put her hand over his and that's when the unexpected happened.

Tobias had came in and performed CPR on spencer, everyone let out a sigh of relief when he jerked awake "Wait. Wait a second. When was the video of the last murder posted?" Emily asked, she was on to something.

"9:23" Garcia replied almost instantly.

"And what was the time of death?" She asked again.

"The 911 call came in at 9:04, and the murder must have been moments later"

"That's only a nineteen minute difference so how long would it take to post the MPEG?" Valentina questioned.

"Two, three minutes"

"Well, let's call it two. You figure a maximum of sixty miles an hour in a residential area. That means Hankle has to be within 17 mile radius of the crime scene" Derek informed as Garcia nodded along.

"Garcia, can we see it on a map?" Hotch asked "Yeah" And in no time she pulled the map up.

"Call Farraday. I want that area locked down like it's marital law" Gideon ordered.

Then Tobias said something, alerting the team "Your team members. Choose one to die"

"Kill me" Spencer spoke with no hesitation "You said you weren't one of them" Tobias said.

"I lied"

"Your team has seven other members. Tell me who dies"

"No" Val bit her lip when Tobias pulled out a gun and aimed it at Spencer's head. She was stressed to say the least.

"Choose, and prove you'll do God's will"

"No" He then pulled trigger. Nothing.

"Choose"

"I won't do it" Again nothing was shot.

"Life is a choice. Choose" Spencer went silent like he was thinking for a second "I choose Aaron Hotchner" And that made the room go silent "He's a classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than anyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. 'Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense" Spencer went on as Hotch walked out the room, the team following behind.

"I'm not a narcissist" Hotch put it out there as he held a book in his hand.

"Come on. Look, you can't take anything from that. He's not in his right mind, Hotch" Gideon began to reason before getting interrupted by their unit chief once again.

"That's not what I'm saying. No, stop, just stop! Everybody right now, what's my worst quality?" Everyone went to say something but nothing came out "Okay, I'll start. I have no sense of humour"

"You're a bully" JJ said.

"You can be a drill sergeant sometimes" Morgan.

"Yeah you're like Captain James, but worse" Val added on to Morgan's words, she didn't have the heart to say anything else.

"You don't trust women as much as men" Emily rushed out like she'd been wanting to say that for a while.

"Okay, good. I'm all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team, because I don't, ever. Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that, and he also quoted Genesis, chapter twenty-three, verse four. Read it" He then handed the book to JJ who read the verse out loud "He wouldn't get it wrong unless it was on purpose"

"He's in a cemetery" Valentina concluded and that got the team searching on the map and it took them some time when Garcia finally spoke "Guys, there's a cemetery on the grounds"

Them words were the go ahead as they got suited up and into the SUV's, they weren't wasting anymore time.

Approaching what seemed to be a shed with their guns at the ready and flashlights on, the BAU was praying that Reid was on the other side of that door alive.

Giving a nod to Hotch, Val wasted no time in kicking the door down. Derek looked at her with a surprised expression for a moment before following her into the house.

"FBI!" She shouted, clearing the space in-front of her as a series of 'clear' echoed around the shed but it was empty. Another dead end.

"Let's spread out. They have to be on foot, let's go" So that's what they did, checking every inch of the field that was connected to the farm when a gunshot rang out into the night air.

Val stopped for a second and as soon as she knew where it came from, she was off "Reid!" She called but there was no answer "Morgan, over here"

All guns were trained on Tobias until they realised that he was dead as Hotch holstered his gun and went over to help Reid up "I knew you'd understand" He choked out before hugging him. He then hugged JJ and Valentina smiled knowing some of the guilt has now been lifted off her shoulders.

Spencer now sat in the back of an ambulance getting treated as Val walked over to him "How you feeling?" She asked, giving him a small smile which he returned.

"I've been better"

She nodded "I just wanted to apologise for letting you go off on your own. If I had followed you maybe the outcome would've been different and it could've prevented this whole thing"

"Like I said to JJ, it wasn't either of your faults. If anything it was my own, I made the choice to go round back"

"Well I just wanted you to know I'm sorry" She then started to walk away "Valentina!" It was Spencer who called her name "Yeah?"

"Thank you"