sweet honey | aaron hotchner

34 - oak street

——

"Agent Hotchner." The unsub taunted as he dragged the blade down the front of his shirt, ripping it in the process.

He breathed heavily, the unsub had drugged him and he was having a hard time controlling his movements after being suspended. "What do you want." He growled. He knew the unsub had been streaming footage of him to somewhere. He saw the camera as soon as he woke up.

The man in front of him laughed. "The correct question is who do I want. And to answer that. Agent Olivia Ambrosia. The most beautiful specimen I have had the pleasure to lay my eyes on. The only problem is, you were in the way. That won't be the case for much longer."

"You'll never be able to get her." Hotch said lowly. "She's smarter than that."

"And you were supposed to be smart as well. Yet here you are." The unsub scoffed. "No one can avoid me."

Aaron kept his mouth shut. He was studying the unsub, profiling him.

"She won't want you." He said after a while. The unsub looked up from where he was fiddling with a phone. "You're not her type." The unsub had drugged him with chloroform. Which meant he was too weak to fight him and Aaron noticed he only looked at him when he was taunting him. He was self conscious yet narcissistic. "She likes men who are strong. Who can protect her. Can you do that?" He knew he was making Olivia sound helpless, but it was necessary to break the unsub. "You can't. Because you had to drug me and tie me up to get me here."

The unsub paused and Aaron could feel the anger radiating off of the man. "Say hello Agent Hotchner." He said as he trained a phone towards Aaron's direction.

-

"I need you to narrow down that list babygirl." Morgan told her. The link was loading and they knew something would be going live soon.

"We know where he is. I know we do. We just have to figure it out." Reid said as he looked around the map. "Olivia-" he called her and turned around. She was watching the screen. He could hear her whimper as a picture popped up on the screen. "Guys it's back."

"Garcia trace it." Prentiss said.

"On it." They heard her typing but focused on the video.

Hotch was still in the same place but his shirt was ripped open and there was blood dripping down his chest.

"He's torturing him. Why?" Rossi asked. "The unsub mentioned Olivia specifically. We know she fits his victimology, but-" he was interrupting when they heard Hotch growl.

"This is my fault." They heard Olivia whisper.

They watched as the unsub carved small cuts into Hotch's chest. Olivia looked distraught as the man she had come to care for was forced to clench his teeth and try not to make a sound.

"Kid, come here." Rossi called her. She walked towards him and he led her out of the room. "We had no way of knowing that this would happen. Don't beat yourself up about this, you're a smart kid, so help us find him." Olivia nodded and Rossi gave her a slight smile. "Any ideas?"

Olivia noticed JJ walking towards them and nudged Rossi. "It just went dark again. But Garcia has another link and it's loading now." JJ told them.

They walked back inside the room and were just in time for the video to load. The sound of painful screams filled the air and Olivia ran towards it. There were larger gashes going down Hotch's side and the unsub was sticking his fingers inside of them.

"Think kid. Where would he take Hotch if he wanted you." Rossi told her when he noticed her panicking.

"Um-" she stammered. "Well the uh street names correlated with the victims names. And well my name starts with an 'O', so maybe he's got Aaron somewhere on a street starting with the letter 'O'." she said, Rossi made sure the whole team could hear her.

"There's Oak street and Orleans street." Spencer said hurriedly.

"Garcia."

"Christopher Lawley, 56 Oak street, he was a teacher for ten years and then applied and got accepted into med school six years ago but dropped out last year." She told them.

"Let's go." Rossi said and they went to gear up. "Good job kid." He said and patted her back.

"FBI." Morgan shouted as he kicked down the door.  The team and swat team entered and checked the rickety old apartment.

"Basement." Someone shouted.

They headed there. The door was knocked down and swat went first. They discovered exactly as the video showed. Hotch, suspended from ropes on the ceiling, a burner phone on a tripod and a man, cleaning a set of knives in the corner.

"FBI. Put your hands where I can see them." Morgan shouted as he shielded Olivia so she could run to Hotch. "I said put your damn hands up."

"NO." The unsub roared and turned around with a gun in his hands. The sound of gunfire filled the air as Morgan put a bullet right in the unsub's head. "Call an ambulance." He shouted and ran to where Hotch and Olivia were.

She had cut him down and laid him gently on the floor. He had passed out and there was blood oozing from his open wounds. She was crying and pressing down on them, but there were others and they were still bleeding and she didn't have enough hands.

"The ambulance is on its way. Stay calm." He said and rubbed her shoulder.

-

After they got Hotch into the ambulance. They headed back to the station while Rossi headed to the hospital with the ambulance.

"Liv?" Spencer approached her sitting on a chair in the corner of the station with her head in her hands.

She looked up and gave him a sad smile. "Hey doc."

"You okay?" He asked as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to her.

She sighed softly and shook her head.

"I'm here for you if you need me." He said and awkwardly put his arm around her.

"Thank you Spence."

"Anytime." They stayed like that for a while.

Two hours later, Olivia was packing up some files when Spencer came running in. "He's out of surgery." He turned and walked away and stopped when he realized she wasn't following. "Are you coming?"

She said nothing.

"He doesn't blame it on you, you know." He started walking towards her. "No one does. Now are you coming with?"

She nodded and walked with him to the car.