Verecund (Criminal Minds)

Chapter 3

Reid watched the girl before slowly stepping back over, and he crouched down near her. "Hey, is your name Ashley?" He asked in a soft voice.

The girl's face contorted slightly as her jaw tightened, but she nodded. She brought her hands up to sign Ash again.

Spencer got the message that she did not like being called by her birth name, and he nodded. "Can you tell me what happened to you?"

Ash sat in silence against the wall, leaving the book that she had been holding on the ground by her feet. She ran her hands over each other slowly and almost anxiously as she stared at the wall that she leaned on.

"Can you let us help you?" Spencer asked gently. "You need medical help, we don't want to hurt you."

Ash shook her head and curled her body tighter into a ball. Spencer watched her, wondering how easy it could be to get the doctors to anesthetize her- but it would make it worse, Ash would not trust the BAU team and would never talk to them if they forced the assistance on her.

"Is there anything you know about the person who took you?"

Ash seemed to wince as she leaned against the wall even farther, and she shook her head. Spencer reached into his bag, pulling out a letter-sized notebook with blank lined pages. He set it and a blue pen on the ground in front of Ash.

"If there is anything you can think of... Just go ahead and write it down here." Spencer slowly began to stand, careful not to scare the girl. He walked out to stand in front of the doorway, where Hotchner and JJ and Derek stood.

"We need to talk to Ash," Hotchner declared, "She's the last person we have right now that has any type of information. If that means we have to get the doctors to anesthetize her to help treat her first, then we may have to."

"She would never communicate if we did," Spencer remarked. "If we force something on her that she doesn't want, then she won't trust the BAU."

"Reid's right, Hotch," Derek agreed. "This may take longer than we expected."

"If we can convince her to get help from the doctors," JJ began. "Maybe then we can convince her to go to the police station and watch what else has been going on and get her to communicate with us."

"That might work," Hotchner agreed. Spencer watched the conversation, blinking at his coworkers as he tried to predict what Ash might do. "What we-"

Something tugged on Spencer's red cardigan sleeve. He turned slowly to the distraction to see Ash standing near him.

"Oh, h-hey, what is it, Ash?" Spencer looked down at the girl. Even though he stood at six feet tall, the girl was much shorter than him- she was probably just over five feet, he decided.

The brown-haired girl held out a white piece of paper to him with a trembling hand. Spencer could see a drawing of a face on it in blue pen, and he gently reached out to take it.

"Thanks, Ash."

The teenage girl gave a tiny nod in response before she turned and walked slowly back into the hospital room to sit against the walk again. Spencer looked down at the drawing.

It was obvious that the girl was competent in art. She had four pen lines across the paper, intersecting at the drawing's face and eyes as reference lines. The drawing took up most of the page, and a man stared back at Reid. He had short curly hair that had been expertly filled with blue pen strokes and beady eyes that seemed to mock its observer. His sharp jaw made him seem young, but the small sags in his eyes gave him age. The man had a long scar across the left side of his lip and speckled stubble across his chin and jawline.

"Bring this back to the station," Reid said, handing the paper to Hotchner. "Maybe we can show the other victims and their families, they could recognize him."

Hotchner carefully took the paper from the young doctor, gazing down at the paper. "Let's go. Reid, you stay here with Ash, the rest of us will go back to the station."

Spencer nodded and turned back to the girl, who still scribbled something on the white notepad. The doctor slowly and silently stepped over to sit in front of her, watching what she drew.

A house sat on the page, shaded with blue ink lines. It was only one story tall, and looked old from all the scratches on the doors and the broken down driveway. Ash carefully filled in a line of grass that grew longer against the wall of the house. She extended a blue chimney from the left side of the roof, hatching it with bricks. She gazed down at her creation before outlining a small rose in the front of the driveway. She removed the paper from the perforated edge of the notepad and handed it to Reid.

Spencer stared at the building for a moment. He ran his thumb over the pen lines that were embedded into the paper. "Is this the place the man took you?"

Ash gazed down at the blank paper, blinking. She didn't respond, and she set the pen carefully on the notepad. Spencer inhaled deeply and looked over the paper before looking back up at the girl. "Are you able to take us there?"

Ash nodded, her dark brown bangs bobbing in front of her face. She played with her fingers before looking up at Spencer, still refusing to give him eye contact.

"Will you?"

Ash hesitated before nodding again. She began to slowly stand up, but Spencer put his hand out to gesture her to stop.

"You need medical help first," he told her. "I can't let you go anywhere until you've recovered."

Ash shook her head almost frantically as she curled her knees to her chest again. Her tattered long-sleeve shirt hid her hands, and she pulled her sleeve-covered hands to rest on her feet from around her legs.

"We don't want to hurt you," Spencer reminded her, "We want to help."

Ash moved her hands. I know, she signed. No.

Spencer observed the girl again before slowly standing and leaving. He stood outside the doorway before finding the men's room and walking down the hall.

Spencer ran the water on the faucet, and it poured down the sink loudly in the empty restroom. He let the water run over his hands, and the cold temperature of the liquid woke him up.

The doctor hadn't wanted to relapse into his drug addiction for years. He had gotten over his addiction with the dilaudid, but seeing what the girl had gone through reminded him of his own experiences. He remembered the high he got from the drug, how he couldn't feel the pain anymore. He knew it was what he wanted and what Ash would want- not to feel the pain anymore.

Spencer shut off the water and stared at his dripping hands before slowly drying them on a paper towel. He stared at himself in the wide mirror, tainted from the fingerprints of small children. His messy hair almost reached his eyes, though it wasn't nearly as long as it used to be. His arms were thin, but still somewhat muscled from all the physical exertion that came with his job. His red cardigan and button-up shirt made him look professional, but was almost too big for him from all the weight he lost.

Spencer fixed his collar and pulled on his sleeves to straighten them before he turned to the door, ready for what was next to come.