Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or its characters.

This story will be largely from Reid's point of view, so you won't get much of the rest of the team until later chapters. I debated adding the team's point of view too in these beginning chapters, but I decided to do it this way in the end. So, sorry if that bums you out. It bums part of me out too, but the unbummed (is that a word?... well, it is now) side of me won out.

Anyways, enjoy! I appreciate reviews and comments!


Reid sifted through the few papers in his hand. Nothing of interest, so he moved on to the next. It was hard to find what you're looking for when you didn't even know exactly what you were looking for. It was very likely he wasn't going to find it at all.

He was searching through some papers that didn't belong to him but to the unsub they were searching for. They had called the man's employer and found he hadn't shown up today. No surprise there. They searched for the next expected option: the man's house. That's where he and the team were now. They had come up empty handed in their search for the unsub within the place, though, and were now scattered throughout the house, trying to find some indication to where he might have gone.

Reid was in the man's office, still donning his Kevlar vest, but his gun was now holstered. He was hoping to find something of use in the room, but having no such luck. It was a regular, organized office with no documents indicating a possible second location for the unsub to flee to. He wasn't even sure if the unsub would have a second location. Something was off in their profile. The unsub spends a lot of time with his victims, so he wouldn't want to be far away from them. They profiled that the he would have a place in his house where he keeps them, probably a room in the basement, but there was none.

They also predicted that he records his time with his victims so he could relive the experience whenever he wanted—needed, was probably a more accurate term. But there was no evidence of that either. No video recorder, tapes, and nothing from what they could see on his laptop. Garcia was working further on that to be sure.

This second discrepancy, unlike the first, had a plausible explanation, though: the unsub was a medical examiner. The very same medical examiner that performed the autopsies on the victims, in fact. He didn't necessarily need the tapes; he could relive the torture as he did the autopsy and for as long as the body was sitting in the morgue. All while doing this right under the local police and the team's nose.

There was an unknown pattern to the time between the abduction, death, and the next abduction until they realized the medical examiner was the unsub. They now knew the delay after the dumping of a body until the next abduction was the amount of time that same body had been sitting in the morgue. Once the body was released, the unsub could no longer relive his acts, and he moved to his next victim. So far, there had been four, one since the team had started working on the case.

The latest victim's body was still in the morgue, but it still wasn't quite safe to assume there wasn't another victim yet. From the looks of it, the unsub might have figured out they were on to him. If he did, then he may begin to devolve and move to his next victim quicker. That possibility was made more likely by the fact that he wouldn't be able to view the body in the morgue. Since he hadn't shown up for work today, the unsub probably knew that.

Reid looked around the small office space. He was sure he had looked through everything, but he glanced around to double check that he hadn't missed anything. He was about to leave the office when there was an indiscernible noise behind him. Nearly at the same moment, a hand suddenly clamped over his mouth. Shock and confusion prevented his reaction from being as quick as it needed to be. An arm also wrapped around his neck in a choke-like hold, and he lost his footing as he was forcefully pulled backwards.

He tried to ignore his extreme confusion and instead focus on escaping the unknown assailant's grasp. His own hands reached to the ones gripped at his mouth and neck. He felt like he couldn't breathe with the pressure on his neck and the inability to breathe through anything but his nose. He tried to twist and struggle out of the grasp while he was dragged backwards, but whoever had a hold on him was much stronger than he was. And he couldn't even call out for help.

It happened almost too quickly to even understand what was going on. If he had been thinking more rationally instead of concentrating completely on getting loose, he would have realized he was being dragged directly into a wall.

But there was no wall. Not anymore. Reid's eyes widened as he and his attacker passed through the wall's threshold. There was an open door there that had not been there before. There must have been a hidden door in the wall, and it must have been hidden very well, because Reid hadn't noticed a thing out of place.

His attacker suddenly twisted around and pushed him roughly to the floor. The back of his head hit hard on the wooden floor beneath him and left him dazed. The room became darker, not because of his nearly blacking out, but because his attacker had closed the door in the office wall, blocking off the excess light. He tried to get his hands to move, to reach for the gun at his hip, but his dazed state left his actions hindered. By the time his hand reached his gun, his attacker was already removing the piece from its holster.

His thoughts were beginning to clear again, but not quick enough for his liking. Before he could attempt to call out for help, the hand clamped down on his mouth once again, and his attacker was on top of him, straddling him in a way that prevented him from twisting and moving out from underneath him. Reid continued struggling, trying to twist his head to the side and pull the hands away, but the man's strength and leverage over him didn't allow him to succeed. He only stopped struggling when he suddenly felt a knife being pressed hard up against his throat.

Reid stilled. If he continued struggling, the man would harm him, if not on purpose, then by accident. With the way the knife was pressing down on his neck, any movement would probably cause it to break the skin. His attacker had his gun, yet he chose to use a knife to subdue him instead. This didn't surprise Reid. It was what he was comfortable with; it was what he used on his victims.

Reid looked up at the man above him, taking his first good look at the attacker. Technically, it wasn't his first look at him, though. It was their unsub. He had just talked to this man yesterday at the morgue. It was no wonder they couldn't find him anywhere; he had never even left his house.

The man above Reid looked like he was about to say something, but paused. His head turned towards the hidden doorway, and Reid's eyes followed. He realized what had caught the man's attention. Footsteps were approaching the office. He heard the footsteps stopping in the office doorway and Morgan calling his name in question, obviously surprised not to find Reid there.

Sensing Reid's want to call out to Morgan, the unsub pressed his hand more firmly against Reid's mouth, and the knife pressed slightly harder against his throat. It was a silent warning not to try anything that could alert Morgan to their presence behind the wall. As they waited, the only sound that could be heard throughout the hidden room was Reid's still heavy breathing through his nose, but it was hardly loud enough to be heard through the wall.

Reid could see the shadow of Morgan's feet through the tiny slit under the hidden door as Morgan took a couple steps further into the office, as if Reid could be hiding somewhere in the room, and paused. Apparently deciding to go look elsewhere for Reid, Morgan's footsteps grew quieter as he left the room and walked away from the office, the unsub, and Reid.