Darling deception- a criminal minds fanfic

By your side

"I don't think I like this plan anymore-" Darling gulped, hands clasped in Morgan's as he slowly lowered her over the edge of a ravine they had made their way to.

"Is that because you didn't come up with it?" He teased, trying to keep himself steady to avoid losing his balance and falling into said pit with her.

"I was going to say it's more the fact I'm dangling above my death with only your sweaty hands to keep me from dying but yeah that too" she tried to laugh through the fear, lowering onto the ledge of the side of the shallow pit so she could then reach the bottom where Morgan had dropped his backpack before, deciding to try and get that after a few failed attempts of walking around the giant caving system to find Hotch to no avail, Darling wanting to search more but Morgan rightfully pointing out that they would be no help to him if they ran into Robert before they found Hotch.

"Okay now you just need to very carefully- Darling!" Morgan tried to instruct her on how to climb down the dropped edge safely but her foot sliced on one of the rocks, sending her flying backwards to the bottom of the pit- luckily her head landing on the soft backpack, but the rest of her unluckily landing on the rocks around it, a sharp pain coursing through her left thigh as the sharpest rock sliced it deeper than she could see in the dark.

"Holy mother of Jesus on a pogo stick!" Darling groaned in pain.

"Darling!" Morgan went to exclaim in a overwhelmed panic, not being able to see if she was okay since she had taken the torch down with her, but heard a noise behind him and quickly turned to hide around the corner as the footsteps got closer.

"I-I'm okay, I just-" Darling tried to call up, not hearing the footsteps until it was too late and quickly trying to turn off the flashing torch in a panic.

Shit, shit, shit.

Her panic was interrupted by the steps continuing past despite Morgan wanting Robert to try to find them so he could give him a piece of his anger but needing to make sure Darling was okay first.

"I think he's gone" Morgan spoke down to Darling after a while as she pushed herself to her feet and hid her wince- quickly pulling off the oversized jacket Morgan had taken off and placed on her shoulders onto her, taking it off and tying it around her waist to cover her bleeding thigh.

"I told you to be careful- what's going on?" Morgan called down, "what are you trying to cover up with my jacket?"

"Mind your business" Darling mumbled, pulling the backpack onto her back and trying not to wince from her very much broken rib, "I'm going to try to climb up, gimme a minute-"

"Please go careful" Morgan said as he led himself down over the edge to help pull her up when she got closer.

"Can you at least shine the light down on me so I can see instead of just telling me to be careful?" Darling chuckled through the irritation and the fact she could almost hear Hotch's voice in her head telling her she should have been more careful, calling her reckless like usual.

"Darling! Look out!" Morgan suddenly yelled, the light he held illuminating the dark shadow coming from the small cave opening none of them had seen before and quickly running out towards Darling, yanking her back down.

"What did you say Der- holy shit!" Darling fell backwards as Robert pulled her to the floor and tried to drag her to the opening further into the cave- but he didn't expect her to struggle nearly as much as she did.

"Get your nasty damn hands off of me you gremlin!" Darling yelled, throwing her hands at him at kicking despite the pain in her leg and rib.

"I knew it was you down here- I could sense you were here- now stop struggling! It'll be easier for you if you just go along with my plans-" he yanked her back by her hair, kicking out her leg and pulling her with him as he did so.