Unknown- A Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 44- In

I finally got somewhere on the second Sunday since I had 'moved' to California, a day over having been there for an entire week.  The club wasn't open on Monday's, so the owner was there when we were closing up to empty the tills.  

I kept a curious eye on him as I cleaned the tables, not even bothering with discreteness.  Casey Mitchelson would have no idea how to glance at the decorative mirrors hanging on the wall directly in her line of sight to see what was going on behind her at the bar, instead she kept sneaking looks over her shoulder at the average-looking businessman talking to Steve as he put away glasses.

Over six feet, medium build, short black hair that was spiked up over his forehead, neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee.  No visible tattoos or piercings, but I'd been around enough FBI agents to know that he carried two smaller guns in a shoulder holster concealed under his gray suit jacket, although his 'co-owner' was probably packing a few more weapons.

He spotted me staring at him and I embarrassedly ducked my head, focusing intently on a sticky spot on the table that I hoped was spilled alcohol.  Once I had finished, I went around behind the bar to the back and started tying up trash bags.

When the two of them walked past, I nervously flitted my gaze up, but at a glare from the second man, I looked away.  They went out the back door, and I heard it clatter shut behind them.

"I can get the trash on my way out, kid," Steve said as he came back to help me.

I ignored the pang deep in my chest at hearing him talk to me like Morgan sometimes talked to Reid and responded, "Thanks, but I can get it.  I didn't spend the summer helping on my uncle's farm for nothing," as I hefted a black bag out of the trash bin.

"Well you're certainly a strong young lady, aren't you?" Steve said with a chuckle. He reminded me of a grandpa, not that I'd ever met either of my own to go off of experience, however.

I offered a shy smile and a slight laugh before carrying the bag out back, hauling it over to the dumpster and pitching it in.  The trash weighed about half as much as a grown man, and I had been trained to carry one of those, at least in dummy format.

I turned to go back inside, stopping short when I spotted something glinting in the faint glow from the light over the door.  I bent and picked it up, recognizing it as one of the sparkly feather earrings Danielle wore when she was working.  Last I had seen her was Friday night, and she was supposed to have worked tonight but word was she had come down with something and couldn't make it in.

I slipped it in my pocket to give it to her next time I saw her and kept walking, catching voices talking near the back door.

"We need a new shipment tonight, Brady!" I heard a gruff voice exclaim.  "Gregson isn't happy he had to wait this long," a man elaborated.  I assumed it was the owner, he and his 'co-owner' had been the last people to head out this way.

"What about the new girl, uh, Krissy?" a second voice presumably belonging to Brady, answered.  

I disregarded the fact that he had gotten my name wrong, but that was exactly the in I was hoping for despite the way it made my stomach clench in fear.

"The waitress?  I suppose some of our clients do like the more...reserved type," the owner mused.

I bit back a scoff, wondering if I should let them catch me eavesdropping now or later.  Now promised quicker results, so I let myself trip over a rut in the pavement on my way back inside. I knocked over a stack of plastic bread crates stacked by the back door, giving the two men the perfect opportunity to look up and see me since they had ducked behind the crates to have their little clandestine conversation.

Both men whipped their attention to me, and I blundered out nervously, "I am so sorry, sir,  I didn't mean to, I am just such a klutz, here, let me help you," my sentences one long string of words before bending to start picking up the bread crates.

"Did you hear what we were talking about, girlie?" Brady asked me suspiciously.

I paused a second too long before squeaking out a quiet, "...no."

"Now's as good a time as any," the owner remarked nonchalantly, and I screamed as Brady lunged and grabbed me, slapping a hand over my mouth.

I bit down on his hand, hard enough that it drew blood, but he didn't let go.  Instead he swore and grabbed a gun from his belt, swinging the butt end at me.  I should have fought a little harder, but I wanted to be caught.  Pain exploded in my temple with enough force to make everything flash white, and just as quickly it snapped to black and I was out, dragged back to the torture of my dreams.

A loud bang startled me from another nightmare, and I jolted upright from the dingy mattress I had been passed out on, frantically examining my surroundings.  The panic only lasted as long as it took for me to process the metal cage I was locked in, along a corridor filled with identical cages and girls in an identical predicament.

I groaned in resignation, because as much as I didn't like it, this was exactly where I was supposed to be.

I pressed a hand to the side of my head--it was pounding atrociously--and my fingers came away sticky with drying blood.  I couldn't have been here for that long if it wasn't crusted over yet, but apparently I was here long enough for them to change my clothes.  The jean skirt, flowered shirt, and matching sweater I had been wearing at work were replaced with a thin gray tank top and matching gray shorts that did nothing to keep me warm in the dingy...warehouse I think is where we were being held.

"Hey!" a voice called, and I glanced through the chain-link cage across the corridor at an auburn haired girl with big eyes and a petite nose.  She reminded me strikingly of a fawn.

"Danielle!" I whisper-yelled back at her.

"They got you too, huh, Casey?" she replied dejectedly, glancing at the ground as she shakily twirled a lock of hair around her fingers.

Even though I knew I never would, I legitimately considered telling her I was undercover for the FBI for a split second, because the expression on her face was the same as the time she had told me about her son, Sean, a few days after we had first met.

We were interrupted by an echoing bang as someone entered the large room from the end farthest from us.  The fear shining in Danielle's eyes paralyzed me as two men in dark clothes stalked over and opened her cage.

She screamed the entire time they dragged her down the hall away from me, and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it.