A/N : Okay, I admit it; I'm stuck. I'll continue it, so this is to my faithful fans eagerly awaiting my next installment of 'A State Of Anger', not to worry. However, ideas on how to move the story along would be greatly appreciated either in a PM or a review on the story. I was thinking of adding yet another UnSub to throw them even further off Amy's tail while Reid himself closes in on her, but I'm not too sure. So please, give me a shout out, and in the meantime, here's another Criminal Minds fic to keep my mind and my fingers active. (I have WAY too much time on my hands.) xD

I own nothing. Except my ideas, my story line, my characters, my dialogue, my settings… (Rambles on about everything other than the characters from the show.)

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February 17th, 2007.

Darkness filled the tiny, cramped space where Reid sat, tied to a chair and slumped forward, his dirty brown hair hanging in strings over his pale face. His lips were dry and cracked, his throat; cotton dry and parched. When was the last time he'd had anything to drink…? He wondered absentmindedly, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. It wasn't like it mattered that much anyway. Reid had given up all hope of his teammates finding him in time; evidently they still thought nothing of his 'paranoid comments' in which he had said repeatedly he thought someone was following him.

Stalking him.

He'd been right.

But of course, just as Reid had figured out who their UnSub was, he'd been knocked unconscious with a blow to the back of his head some time ago. None of the other BAU agents knew what he knew; that the UnSub, or rather, UnSubs… were part of a home grown gang, and that they had been putting down past gang members who'd wanted out. The Devil's Tyrants, they called themselves… But worse than the agents not knowing what they were up against… was the fact that they didn't know where their youngest member was, or how close to death he was. Hell, even Reid himself didn't know where he was.

Reid might have cried once more, but found that his tears had seemingly been exhausted. He didn't bother to move; not only was his body still sore from the brutal beating he'd received when he'd been captured, but his wrists were raw and dried blood was caked around them and the thick chains holding them behind the back of the chair. In the dark silence, his stomach growled; the only sound other than his harsh, ragged breathing.

When had the last time he'd eaten been…? Probably the last time he'd had something to drink; before his capture.

Reid closed his eyes, cutting out the darkness around him with an even deeper darkness, but his heart didn't race this time around; he'd become used to the hell he'd been brought into to die. He'd finally given up hope and excepted the fact that no one was coming to save him.

He'd never felt so lonely in his entire life…

* * *

January 23rd, 2007.

Freshly fallen snow blanketed the grounds around the BAU office in Quantico, Virginia. Reid had just gotten out of his car and locked it, -not that anyone would want to steal an old piece of junk like that- and turned around to head through the back doors, shivering all the while in his bulky, light brown coat. He'd checked the thermometer outside his apartment before he left, reading it as twenty-one degrees. It felt a hell of a lot colder than that. The wind was blowing sharply at his ears, uncovered by his damned habit of brushing his hair behind his ears, but Reid took comfort in the fact that in just a few minutes, he'd be inside the building, warming his freezing body in the bullpen, as the heater was cranked up for the winter months.

But then Reid noticed; there was something besides the howling of the harsh winter wind in his ears. It was the sound of crunching snow; the sound of someone walking through the white, freezing flakes that hadn't been brushed aside by the snowplows and shovels. Standing as still as he could, his gloved hand on the door of the BAU office, Reid strained his already numb ears to hear the sound more, but it seemed to have stopped.

'I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy…' Reid thought to himself, more as a chant than anything, closing his eyes tightly and quickly moving through the doors, not even turning around to see the man dressed in complete black that he knew he'd see in the distance.

He had to try again, Reid thought, then walking down the hall, the bullpen quickly coming into view. He had to try and get Hotch or Morgan or someone to believe that he wasn't just hearing things; he had to get someone to believe he wasn't turning schizo…

Schizophrenia… shaking off the unnerving thought that he actually could, indeed, be turning down that mentally disastrous road, Reid continued walking, pushing through the glass doors to the bullpen. He couldn't think of how his mother had acted when her signs started appearing; he wouldn't think of how hereditary the mental disease was… And he definitely wouldn't think of the fact his mother had been his own age when her symptoms first started.

Taking a deep breath, young Spencer Reid noticed his legs had taken him to Hotch's office far quicker than he could have normally gotten there, but he didn't stop to think that he might have been jogging the entire way. All his mind was focused on was getting Hotch to believe him, and Reid had just raised his hand to knock on his superior's door when a blonde haired female suddenly rounded the corner, scaring him and nearly knocking him off his feet. With a startled gasp, Reid only too late realized said woman was J.J., friend and partner at the BAU.

"You alright?" she asked, her voice laced with concern as her eyebrows shot upward.

"Y-yeah… a-actually, no, no I'm not alright, J.J.-" Reid stuttered out, ready to explain to her about the footsteps, an argument already forming in the back of his mind how he wasn't becoming schizophrenic over night when the door behind them opened up.

Aaron Hotchner was revealed to the both of them, his dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion at seeing two of his agents standing right outside his doorway, his face stony and grim; like always. Hotch's mouth opened to say something, or probably to ask something, when J.J. shook her head and said quickly, holding up a brown case file with the letters FBI printed across the front on the seal,

"They just found a new body. They say this guy had been missing for over a week, but no one reported him gone. Single gun-shot wound to the head, starved to the point of mal-nutrition before that."

Hotch nodded, and moved out of the door, his feet taking him toward the round-table room, where they would hold their briefing as he spoke to J.J.,

"Any connections between the victims?"

"None sir, that's why they're, -and we're- so stumped…" J.J. replied, walking with him, leaving Spencer behind, standing in front of the now open door, his mouth slightly agape.

Shaking his head, Reid tried to put his own troubles in the back of his mind; there was work to be done, and he knew very well that the team that relied on him needed Reid at his best. He couldn't let them down; the stalker would just have to wait.

Moving quickly to catch up to J.J. and Hotch, Reid stuffed his hands deeply into his pockets, shaking his head every now and again and reciting within his head,

'I'm not crazy… I'm not crazy…'

* * *

"Man, this guy's getting braver and braver…" Morgan said, shaking his head frustratedly and slamming down the file of Gerald Rodriguez, the latest victim they'd found.

"He's probably devolving; getting more and more anxious and needing to kill more often. He's bound to make a mistake soon…" Prentiss offered, refusing to look at the pictures anymore.

They weren't as horrifyingly gruesome as some of the pictures they had to look at, but after a week of studying the files and case, trying and failing to catch the UnSub, just about every profiler in the conference room was ready to be done with this case once and for all.

"But that wouldn't really fit, now would it…?" Rossi asked, his gaze searching the faces around the table as he leaned back in his chair. "An UnSub devolving wouldn't leave the victims to starve; he'd toss them around, kill them right away, and stash the body somewhere. But the hiding place wouldn't be as meticulous as the previous places had been; like this one had been. He would have already left some kind of clue; he would have already made a mistake. Had he been devolving."

"So why leave a victim for us to find, and take another one so soon? He should have waited at least another two weeks before kidnapping someone else, if he'd stuck to his original M.O.." Hotch replied, his hand finding his dark hair and running through it; a gesture of frustration, of helplessness.

"There must have been something done to force him to change…" Reid offered. "Maybe he felt like we were closing in on him…?"

"How could we be closing in on him, pretty boy? We've barely even got a list of suspects here…!" Morgan ranted, but no one at the table corrected him that they did indeed have a list of suspects; the reason why no one corrected him being they hadn't found anyone fitting the semi-completed profile off of that list.

No one bothered to try and calm him down, or chastise him, either, for they all knew that they needed to blow off some steam. This case had been trying their nerves from day one, and they were no closer to an answer one week and two days later from taking on the case of a serial killer in their home of Quantico, Virginia.

Everyone at the table had fallen silent; the need to profile and catch this creep who eluded them burning strong despite the overwhelming odds against them. They had no clues, next to no evidence, and naught but a small, half-assed, semi-complete profile of a man who could very well be exactly the opposite of what they had depicted him as.

Finally, Hotch looked up, his eyes unusually sad while at the same time being hard as stone.

"Keep digging around; see if you can't find any connection through the families, friends, old work buddies, school friends, school bullies; anyone. I'm heading to Strauss's office, to see if she's found anything more for us from the confiscated items at the scene. J.J., will you come with me?"

The blonde nodded, and then the both of them were gone, leaving Morgan, Rossi, Prentiss and Reid alone to stare at the photos of the victims and the standing map in which all the dump site locations were marked in red. All in all, there were thirteen now. The supposed unlucky number.

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February 17th, 2007.

Reid's eyes snapped open, his breathing coming in panicked gasps; had he just heard footsteps…? A shiver wracking his body, Reid tried to calm his breathing and strain his ears for any sound at all, and finally caught the sound that had startled him out of his thoughts; a rat, scurrying somewhere… somewhere close.

And then Reid jumped, giving a loud yelp of fear as something fuzzy crawled quickly over his bare feet. The movement jarred his already sore body and raw wrists, making him yell out in pain again, tears starting to mist over his eyes. Reid whimpered in the darkness, certain that whoever heard him was laughing at him now. It was getting colder, and there was nothing he could do. He was tied, helpless, and alone…

So alone…

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