Title: Hostage
Prompt: Kidnapping
Medium: Fic
Rating: R
Warnings: Hostage
Summary: At the end of a case, JJ is kidnapped by the unsub and the rest of the BAU have to act quickly to get her back.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure? - Harry Shearer
JJ couldn't remember how she had gotten where she was. In this tiny little room, in the dark, away from everything she knew. She was pretty sure the team knew she had run into trouble, but she had no idea how long it would take them to figure out who had taken her, or where she was.
Were they looking for her yet? Did she want them to be? It was risky to do anything in here. She had been nearly knocked unconscious for daring to peek around, to try and get her bearings, instead of keeping her head down like she was told.
Hours had passed and JJ could feel any hope of rescue slipping away. She thought of child abductions. How the chances of finding those children are drastically reduced after the first twenty four hours.
She wondered if the same was true for her.
--
"I told her to stay right with me. Damn it, why would she go off by herself when we were this close to catching him?" Derek exclaimed, pacing.
They had received a call half an hour before, from their unsub. Garcia had done her best to figure out where the call had come from, but the call was untraceable.
"So, where are we?" Hotch asked.
"Nowhere now," Prentiss sighed. "It's like he just disappeared into thin air, except now he has JJ with him."
"You know, it's not actually possible to disappear in higher altitudes. People either die due to loss of vital functions or they die because of mistakes they make under the stress of the higher altitudes. In mountaineering, there's a point called the death zone, where the level of oxygen can't sustain human life. The body uses it up faster than it can be replenished," Reid explained. His brain already working to figure out just where JJ might have been taken, and how much of a head start their unsub was likely to have.
"Okay," Rossi said, cutting off Reid's thoughts midstream. "Nobody's in high-altitude. Garcia, what have you got so far?"
“I’ve got The Biggest Loser’s car parked in the woods off of the highway 15 miles from here,” Garcia passed along. “I’m sending along the GPS coordinates now.”
--
JJ’s head ached and her body throbbed as she listened to the crazed ranting of their latest unsub. He collected female victims the way normal people might collect rocks or stamps. It was a matter of time, she knew, before she was raped and discarded. This unsub was the most dangerous. A serial killer. And JJ knew that he wasn’t planning on stopping unless he was caught.
She had to think. This tiny little room, with one tiny window, and him just beyond the door. Her team had to know she was there.
And then he was in the cell with her. Coming toward her.
“My name is Jennifer Jareau,” she said, willing her voice not to shake. “I have a husband and a son.”
“I know all about you…”
“You don’t want to do this…” JJ said, willing her voice to stay steady.
--
“Freeze! FBI!”
JJ’s heart was in her throat, and a gun was at her head. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was her own, since she’d been knocked out at the time of her abduction. She felt tears sting her eyes at the sound of Rossi’s voice.
He was here. They were all here.
“Let her go. You don’t want to do this,” Rossi said, his voice admirably calm. His gun was trained on the unsub.
“Oh, but I do…” The gun at her head was cocked, and JJ flinched. An explosion of noise filled her ears, and she screamed.
She felt Reid’s arms around her. “You’re okay. Morgan got him. You’re okay.”
Leaning heavily against her team, JJ let herself be led out of the house in the woods. She wasn’t okay yet. No way in hell.
But she would be.