White Rabbit - A Criminal Minds Fic

Twenty Eight

Spencer and Alice both awoke early the next day having slept very little. They lay on the double bed next to each other, listening to the sounds of the compound waking up.

"Spencer, what's the plan for today? What happens" Alice said lowly, shifting her weight.

"We try to find out what happened here whilst you were gone. Eric said last night that the numbers had dwindled and that we would find out why. So that's what we do. We need to know how many people are here still, how many children, and get a sense of how many weapons they still have if it's possible."

"I can ask Charlie. He'll tell us anything we need to know."

"Will he though, what makes you so sure? He's the leaders son. He bought you into the camp all those years ago."

"He also helped me escape it."

Alice approached the part of the wall she was sure she'd be able to get over. It was part that Charlie was patrolling and she just hoped to God that she'd got her timings right.

She kept to the shadows, moving between the buildings until she got to the wall.

Yes. She could do this.

Her heart pounding, she tossed her back pack up and over, wincing at the noise it made as it landed, seeming suddenly ten times louder that it should have been. She waited for a few seconds to see if anyone was coming, knowing that Charlie should in theory be beginning his walk back from the end of his stretch of perimeter.

Nothing. No one came.

Right, okay. Alice approached the wall and found her first foot hole, reaching up as high as she could to grab the top where the barbed wire had been crushed by a falling tree branch months ago. She couldn't quite reach and came slamming back down to the ground.

Shit.

She looked around again, not noticing the eyes watching her from the shadows. She tried again, giving herself a little run and a jump and barely grasping the edge before coming back down again.

She was so sure this would be her way out. She'd been able to get up onto the wall before to help repair it in other places. Why couldn't she do it here? She tried once more, trying to avoid vocalising her frustrations when again she failed.

"Do you need my help?"

Alice almost had a heart attack at the voice that appeared behind her. She spun around seeing Charlie stood there watching her.

"I'm.... It's.... Please don't say anything!"

Her friend, her closest friend and confident at the camp just shook his head at her and reached out to smooth her hair back.

"I'm not going to. Do you need my help? I can give you a boost, and then you need to run. Do you know where you're going?"

Alice nodded, almost not believing that he was offering to help her. But then she remembered all of the longing looks exchanged between them, the long afternoons spent hidden together in the stables, reading books and talking with each other. She thought back to how Charlie would always be the first to come and ask her if she was okay whenever she wasn't, how he was the one who visited her everyday in the infirmary.

"Come with me" she blurted out.

"I can't. I want to, but I can't."

"Please? We can.... We can have a life outside of here."

"Maybe one day we still can. Do what you need to do Alice, and maybe one day our paths will cross again. If you're going though, you need to go now."

"You're not even going to ask me why?" she searched his face.

"No. Because I know why. I know why you feel you can't stay, and if there was a way out for me too, I'd leave. But there isn't. So I'll stay and I'll watch over Abby for you. I'm so sorry I bought you into this. I've said it before and I still don't think you believe me but I honestly had no idea about the things the elders were doing, what my own parents were doing."

He looked so sad and Alice knew he was telling her the truth.

"I've loved you Alice, from the moment we met at the library. I still do. If you stayed, I'd never let anything happen to you. I'd protect you as much as I could. I'd rather die than let anything happen to you."

"I can't.... I can't stay. I can't do this anymore, I don't believe him and I can't live here knowing that what's happening here, is happening."

She could feel her eyes filling with tears, her resolve wavering somewhat.

"Alice, then you need to go. Get out. Tell people what's happening here so they can bring it down. And when they do, we'll find each other again. Somehow. But you need to go. "

She did and she knew it. She lunged forward quickly, wrapping her arms around Charlie's neck and pressing her lips to his, something that should have happened years ago before she'd let herself be manipulated and moulded by Lewis. He kissed her back for a moment, his hands gripping her waist tightly before pulling away.

"Come on. I'll boost you up. Then run, okay."

"Okay."

She turned back to wall, stepping into Charlie's laced hands when he offered them to her as a foothold. With his boost she easily managed to reach the top of the wall, grabbing onto it and swinging herself over, carefully lowering herself down on the other side.

"You okay?" she heard Charlie whisper as she hauled on her back pack, finding the torch and her drawn map.

"Yes" she whispered back.

"Now run. And don't look back."

She did as she was told.

"So Charlie actually helped you leave?" Spencer asked Alice in hushed tones.

She nodded, remembering that night. "He did. He wanted me to go to the authorities, he knew what was happening wasn't right. He just couldn't leave himself."

"So you think he'll be an asset to us."

"Spencer, he said he'd rather die than let anything happen to me. He'll help us if we tell him what we need. We just need to get him alone."

"Okay. Then that's what we'll aim to do today then."