The BAU Badass

Chapter 18

It was 22 hours after the children were abducted, and the team got an anonymous phone call from an unknown caller ID. Hotch answered on speaker and all you could hear was the sound of children's screams. The unsub was taunting the team. Classic narcissist.

"Garcia, I need you to track this number. Now" Hotch demands. Garcia, who usually stays at Quantico, came with you to Arizona because this case was urgent. She's been a little bothered by this case because she can't stand the idea of psychopaths out there hurting little children.

She was panicking, "I-I'm trying, sir. He blocked– I-I can't find his location it's bouncing off different IP addresses in Bangkok and Paris and just everywhere–"

Morgan interrupted, "Baby girl, nobody's as good as you. Come on I know you can find it"

Hotch and Morgan hovered over Garcia as she typed aggressively into her laptop.

A minute of silence passes until Garcia speaks up, "Oh my god... I found it! I just sent the location to your phones"

"Alright, let's go!" Hotch demands as everybody rushes out.

______

You and Morgan are the first to arrive. The rest were still on their way. After getting out of the car, you notice it's an abandoned house surrounded by nothing but a forest of large trees.

You're putting on your FBI vest when Morgan speaks up, "We should wait for backup, we don't know what's going on in there"

"Morgan, if we wait for backup, three kids could die" you argue.

He responds, "We won't be of any help if we end up dead in there too"

"Alright we'll wait but g–"

You were interrupted by the screams of children coming from the house. Before Morgan could say anything, you ran to the front door and pulled out your gun, pointing it in front of you. Morgan rushes toward you and pulls out his gun as well.

Morgan kicks down the door and yells "FBI"

You rush into the living room first and shout clear. Morgan clears the kitchen.

You slowly crept up the stairs while Morgan was clearing the basement. Your gun was still pointed in front of you. The sudden sound of glass shattering turned your attention to behind you where you saw Morgan struggling while a white male looking to be around 35 years old was holding a gun to his head. Morgan's gun was on the floor a few meters away next to a broken vase and the unsub was grasping Morgan's shirt tightly.

The man raised his voice as he looked you in the eye, "Put your gun down or I shoot him!"

You were panicking but didn't let it show. You kept your gun pointed at him as you began to try and reason with him, "I can't do that... just calm down and we can talk–"

"–I SAID PUT IT DOWN NOW!" He shouted louder than before and pushed the gun closer onto Morgan's head, his finger moving closer to the trigger.

"Okay! Okay!" You put your hands up in surrender and slowly lowered your gun to the ground. The only reason you did this was because you spotted Rossi and Emily walking through the door behind the unsub with their guns pointed at him. You knew Morgan would be safe.

"Let's just talk," you tried to keep him calm and distracted as more officers began approaching, pointing their guns at him from behind him.

"Talk?!!! Nobody understands! My son died because of them! Nobody understands my pain!"

"Your son? How did he die?" You asked trying to get more information out of him and stall.

He started to cry through his shouts, "Does it matter?! Now, they'll finally understand the pain they put me through!!"

"Just tell us where the kids are" Rossi spoke up from behind him, surprising the unsub as he turned his body to face them. The shock caused him to loosen his grip on Morgan, allowing Morgan to move away from his grasp and run to get his gun that was lying on the floor. The unsub's shock only lasted a split second before he reacted by pulling the trigger of the gun, pointing it towards you. Before you even realized it, you had ducked and avoided the bullet. You heard another gunshot and looked up to see Emily with her gun pointed to the unsub who was now laying on the floor in a pool of blood surrounding his shoulder. 

He used his last breaths to whisper something. All you could make out was, "It's too late now" You looked back up at Emily, who had the same fear in her eyes as you did.

You spoke up with fear in your voice, "Morgan and I heard screams but we checked the entire house and we couldn't find the kids"

You spotted Hotch coming in from the back door with a look of anger on his face as he spoke, "They cleared the entire house. The screams were a recording played on a speaker, he was distracting us. The children aren't here. This was a trap"

Reid walked in the house with a couple of other officers and a paramedic behind him. You watched as the paramedic was tending to the unsub, putting pressure on his wound. You wonder if he was alive. Did you want him to be? You didn't know. He deserved a lifetime in jail for hurting those children, not a quick death. But at the same time, you wanted him dead; you didn't want to worry about him hurting anybody ever again.

Reid snapped you out of your thoughts, "I heard multiple gunshots. Is everyone okay?"

Before anyone had a chance to explain what happened, you spoke up, "Everyone's fine. We need to find the children. They're not here"

You walked past Reid and stormed out, anger filling up inside of you. This was all a fucking distraction and your team has no idea where the children are. You had to save them. 

Think. Come on fucking think, Jo. You thought to yourself as you paced back and forth in front of the ambulance.

While you were distracted by your thoughts, you felt a sudden hand touch your shoulder and you turned out to see none other than Reid's friendly face.

"You okay?" He asked with a worried look on his face.

You ignored his question, still busy thinking about where the kids could possibly be.

"Jo?" He asked again.

"Call Garcia" you stopped pacing and faced Reid, now seeing Emily and the rest of the time coming to join the conversation as well, "His son has to be around the same age as the kids he kidnapped. Find out when and how his son died. That'll tell us where the kids are"

"Morgan's already on the phone with her," JJ announced.

There were a few seconds of silence. You all waited for Morgan to come out of the house, hopefully with more information about the unsub's son from Garcia.

He hurried out of the house and immediately spoke up, "He drowned in a lake not far from here, Garcia sent the address to your phones."

Without a word, everybody rushed to their cars and began speeding to the location Garcia sent. He was going to drown the children, no doubt about it. The only question is would you make it in time to save them?