Chapter Text
Emily stares out the window from the passenger seat of the black FBI issued SUV. She takes calming deep breaths to get her “head in the game”. She sees nothing but dark trees illuminated by the small sliver of moonlight in the night sky. Emily hates taking down an unsub at night. She feels that there is more room for error. It makes her tense as she thinks about her family that surrounds her, all of them about to willingly walk into the lair of a monster. The familiar uneasiness settles in her stomach when the headlights go out on the identical SUV ahead of her.
“You guys ready?” Morgan says from the driver’s seat as he pulls the car to a stop.
“About as ready as we ever are,” Emily mutters.
“Hey,” JJ leans in from the back seat making sure Emily is looking in her eyes before she continues “you and me, we got this. I don’t even know why we brought the boys. You know the two of us are badass enough to get this son of a bitch blindfolded.”
Emily’s smile isn’t her normal toothy grin, but it feels genuine. Even after years of working together, it still astonishes Emily how JJ knows just what to say to get her out of her head and back in the land of the living.
“I'm bringing this one along to make sure I don’t get any scuffs on my new boots from kickin’ in a door,” Emily says as she juts her thumb out in Morgan’s direction.
“Um, excuse me ladies but I have more take downs than both of you combined.”
“You mean door take downs, right? I mean you are our resident battering ram,” JJ deadpans as she throws the back door open.
“You guys suck.” Morgan shakes his head.
Emily follows JJ out of the vehicle and takes one last deep breath before joining her and the three agents that were in the other car.
“You three go around back, and we’ll take the front,” Hotch orders as soon as Emily, Morgan, and JJ are in earshot.
They all nod as they take their guns out with Morgan in the lead and Emily taking up the rear as they make their way around the back of the house. It eases some of the tension in her stomach knowing that she’s got JJ’s back, literally. Even though JJ has proven herself time and time again to be a more than competent agent, Emily can’t help the fear that builds up in her regarding the blonde’s safety. Once again, Emily gives herself the checklist to justify her worries. JJ is the youngest agent apart from Reid, the only other woman on the team, she’s newer to profiling and being a part of all unsub takedowns, and she’s her best friend. She needs JJ to be her own personal ray of sunshine in the dark world their job surrounds them in.
This is not the time! Emily gives her head a slight shake and mentally scolds herself.
The house is a two-story farmhouse with peeling paint, broken windows, and looks about one stiff wind away from tumbling over. They stealthily hopscotch around the various broken objects that litter the junkyard that is the side lawn. Just as Morgan and JJ pass around the corner of the house, Emily sees something move in her peripheral. She swings around and hears the click of a bullet being locked into the chamber. She sees their unsub, Dean Karney, holding a gun to the temple of his latest victim.
Where the hell did he come from? Emily’s eyes are quickly darting from the two people in front of her and their surroundings. She lands on a plank of plywood that was once leaning up against the side of the house revealing a large basement window that had long been broken. She curses herself for not paying closer attention to the clutter and garbage that lines the perimeter of the house. Shifting her eyes forward again they land on the girl in Karney’s arms. She’s probably about 18, fresh out of high school, based on his other victims, what’s left of her clothes have a rainbow of awful colours on them, and every inch of skin she can see is marred by cuts and bruises. Emily could tell her eyes were probably once a beautiful bright blue, but now they’re dark and dull. She imagines JJ’s beautiful blue eyes, full of the optimism that she forces herself to see the world through and hopes that this young woman's eyes will once again shine as bright as JJ’s do. First, Emily needs to get her out of this situation alive.
Emily levels her gun as her eyes meet the man’s cold glare, “FBI, put the gun down and step away from the girl.”
“Man, I really thought that if I was ever face to face with law enforcement, they would have a better opener that ‘put the gun down and step away from the girl’, but hey not everyone can be as creative as I am ," the man says cooly with a slight sparkle in his eye. Emily followed Karney’s pace as he slowly started to shuffle the two of them back into the tree line.
“I don’t know what you deem creative, but I can tell you that I have put away dozens of men that think the exact same way as you do. They are made the same way you are. Everything about you is textbook, even this house. Once we knew your name, the first address we looked for was your childhood home. Every one of you can’t resist the symbolism of killing woman in the house where your father took every ounce of power away from you. Your father was a strict man that wasn’t afraid to get physical with you or your mother. You used to cry when he’d hit your mother and maybe fought back a bit, but after enough physical and mental abuse, he trained you that a man’s job is to put his woman in her place. All your father taught you was how to be weak. You could never fight back to your father, so you take small woman that are barely old enough to be considered adults.” The three of them kept moving as Emily spoke and she could see she had the broken basement window on her left side.
The team should have noticed I’m not with them anymore. I just need to buy a little more time.
Karney stopped his shuffle and shifted his gun to Emily, that sparkle in his eyes was gone and all that was left was pure hatred, “I’m not weak!”
Well, at least he’s not pointing it at the girl anymore.
“How about you put the gun down, let the girl go, and you can prove to me you’re not as weak as I think you are.”
“Do you think I’m stupid! You’ll shoot me as soon as I lower my weapon!”
“Okay, I’ll lower mine first.” Emily holstered her gun. Idiot! Don’t do that! “Now let her go, come on let’s see what your daddy taught you.” Emily could see Hotch and Rossi come around the corner from behind Karney and could hear shuffling coming through the basement window.
“Oh Agent, my father taught me that most woman can be taught to obey a man, but he also taught me that some are just not worth the time. You are not worth the time.”
Emily heard a shot and simultaneously felt the air leave her lungs as a force slammed into her, taking her down. She heard another shot and the thump of a body hitting the ground. She waited for the pain to hit her, but all she felt was her lungs desperately trying to fill with air and a slight ache from her hip that caught most of her fall. She could feel herself sandwiched between the hard dirt underneath her and a dead weight on top of her. A blonde ponytail was covering her eyes and she looked down to see JJ’s beautiful face resting against Emily’s chest. She looks like she could be sleeping. She looks peaceful. Emily shook her head trying to clear the daze that she felt since hitting the ground and tried to focus.
“JJ!”
Then she felt something warm seeping onto her hand. She raised her arm to eye level and immediately felt sick from the sight of her crimson hand.