Retribution, A Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 68. Psychic Burn Victim #1

Before Prentiss or Morgan could ask what he was staring at, Reid was off and running again.

“Dammit! Reid!” Morgan understood the need for speed, but he would have felt a lot better if his young colleague had stopped to take a breath, and explain what he was doing. Morgan would have appreciated some information that could have enabled strategizing. Running through the streets of Manhattan with no mutually-agreed-upon destination wasn’t his idea of a well thought out plan; or one that was likely to end in success. He truly did believe, as he’d told Rossi, that the ability to protect relied heavily upon the ability to predict. Lately, his team seemed to be hell-bent on behaving unpredictably.

But he’d sworn to himself that he’d have their backs no matter what. He did his best to dodge through the traffic that didn’t seem to slow Reid down at all.

Prentiss had some misgivings as well, but she thrived on adrenaline and action. She was hot on Reid’s heels, hand resting on the gun at her hip partly out of habit, partly to keep it steady, and partly in case the opportunity to get the drop on Bescardi presented itself. She rather hoped for scenario number three.

Reid didn’t hear anything the others were shouting at him. With more rage and focus than he’d ever thought himself capable of, he raced across the street and down the block. Going full speed with his neck craned upward, he scanned windows dotting the monolithic brick sides of the adjacent buildings. The aura of livid lavender pricked with gold still hovered, but like an atomic bomb’s mushroom cloud, it was flattening and spreading.

Reid was too new at this. He’d never tracked anyone by following psychic energy through a city. He was terrified of failing. He was also terrified of what he might find at the end of the trail…if he could even find the end of the trail. He was used to identifying his daughter by a much gentler pastel aura. The sprays of gold were usually like a hint of glittery mist dispersed by wind. What he saw now looked more like points of molten metal edged with flame.

Oh, God!  What is Bescardi doing to her!?!

Reid pounded down the sidewalk, occasionally bumping into people who would either shout their indignation, or curse him and his ancestral line. Still, he kept his eyes focused upward. Turning the corner, he slammed into a street vendor’s pretzel cart. Reid’s slight weight wasn’t enough to overturn the contraption. His headlong rush garnered him a bruised hip and another colorful string of invectives to add to those he’d already earned by virtue of this blind dash to find Melinda.

But Reid didn’t feel the impact. He was too distracted by what he saw pouring through and around a section of wall three floors up halfway down the block.

A column of pale purple wafted outward. It was a calmer color than the explosive cloud still billowing above the building. A frisson of terror robbed Reid of what breath was left him. He didn’t know the portent of the change in hue, in vibrancy. Psychically, he supposed it could mean the end of an action and the outpouring of energy accompanying it…or the end of a life and the release of the energy animating it. He was sure the color change was significant, but he just didn’t know in what way.

Morgan and Prentiss caught up to him as he found the unobtrusive door leading to the building’s interior. Slightly recessed in the brick façade, the panel of buttons linked to individual units surrounding a rusted speaker was the only indication that this was the entry to an apartment complex. Reid was yanking at the door handle, almost growling, pitting his strength against a slab of reinforced steel with a very secure deadbolt…the standard for private entrances in midtown.

“Reid.” Morgan took in the younger agent’s frantic battle. Clearly, the door was winning. “Reid! Just use the panel!”

“Huh?” His mind was on Melinda, not the practical business of how to gain entry when confronted by an intercom system. Reid wanted to reach out and see if he  could touch his daughter’s psyche, but he worried his emotional state would only alarm her, and possibly harm her. Keeping himself in check when she was so close multiplied his frustration exponentially.

“Let me.” Morgan had no trouble moving his slender teammate out of the recessed doorway. Once he could access the panel of buttons linking every unit within the building to the intercom, he simply ran his finger down each row, setting off the raucous buzz in each apartment that meant someone was asking to be allowed in. Almost immediately there was an answering whirring sound, telling them that one of the multitude of residents was probably expecting a visitor and had tripped the lock.

Morgan grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, ignoring the other responses to his gambit; the annoyed, wary, or curious voices asking for whoever was buzzing to identify themselves.

“It’s an old trick. Shouldn’t work, but it usually does in buildings with this many units.” Morgan smiled as he ushered Reid and Prentiss through the door. “Odds are someone’s waiting on a friend, or relative, or a delivery or…well, you get the picture.”

Prentiss nodded in appreciation of Morgan’s street-smarts. Reid was already slamming through another heavy door into the stairwell.

“I guess we’re going up. C’mon, Derek.” Prentiss drew her gun, but kept it pointed groundward.

Reid was too far gone to proceed with stealth, imagining nightmare visions that chilled his father’s heart. He pounded up the staircases in two and three step leaps. At the third floor landing, he plunged through into the hallway with the others only a few feet behind.

Standing in the dim illumination cast by bare bulbs depending from the ceiling, Reid panted.

“She’s here… She’s here… I know she’s here…” The words carried a whimper of terror.

“Reid, can you, ya know…touch her?” Prentiss wasn’t clear on any of the finer points of Reid’s abilities. She still didn’t quite grasp why Hotch had been able to draw Melinda to him when the baby’s own parents couldn’t. Morgan wasn’t any more knowledgeable, but he preferred it that way.

“No! I can’t!” Reid was looking from side to side, noting that the hallway turned a corner at each end. “Mellie’s too fragile for me to chance hurting her. I can’t tou….”

To his right, at the far end of the shabby, dismal hall, Reid saw a tendril of lavender-gold, like fog running along the floor. All his colleagues saw was his eyes widen, and his breath hitch, as he once again sprinted away from them without explanation.

Doors were cracking open, chain locks engaged, once the trio had passed, as suspicious tenants peered after them. Morgan knew that a call to the police about intruders probably wouldn’t bring anyone down on them right away. NYPD usually had its hands full with more serious crimes than people running through hallways. Still, he hoped they could avoid all police involvement. Discretion was the operative word in anything involving the Reids. However this ended, it wouldn’t do to reveal the little family’s paranormal traits. The less contact with any authority that might ask questions, the better.

So when he heard a roar of fury and pounding, battering sounds, Morgan raced around the corner at full speed, Prentiss keeping pace at his side.

Reid was throwing himself against an apartment door. The sounds issuing from his throat were those of an enraged animal. Morgan was about to pull him away, sure that he would damage himself before gaining entrance. But, with a last guttural yell, the frantic father gave a kick that made his friends proud, and would be spoken of long afterwards. The door burst inward, followed by Reid, with Prentiss and Morgan in close pursuit.

The scene that greeted them wasn’t anything they could have imagined.

Reid raced to the playpen. Picking his daughter up, he engulfed her. He enveloped her. He surrounded her. He immersed himself in the love of her.

The thought he sent to Ana shouted with a joyous kind of triumph. I’ve GOT her!! I’ve GOT her!! Ana, I’ve GOT her!!

While Reid snuggled his child, Prentiss pulled out her phone to call J.J. and let her know their youngest agent was reunited with his Mellie-bear. Morgan took a cautious look around the sad excuse for an apartment, ending with the even sadder excuse for a human being that sat in a pool of wine and what smelled like her own waste. His nose wrinkled in distaste for woman as well as stench.

Bescardi’s eyes were fixed on the playpen. Locked on it.

Morgan wasn’t sure, but he had the uneasy feeling that Reid’s daughter wasn’t as helpless as her father thought.