The Summer With Spencer

I was already sitting outside in the backyard when everyone arrived, roasting marshmallows. Derek snuck up behind me and stole my marshmallow, so I had no choice but to jump on him. He walked over to the grass and we started wrestling around; pretty soon everyone was gathered around cheering. I like to think I was winning. When those shenanigans were over, Derek suggested we play “Kidnapping.” He was going to pretend to be an unsub who has kidnapped me, and they have to profile him and find me. He had the whole block as options for where to hide me. I jumped on his back and we were off; he told me we were going to the park at the far end of the street, and then behind there, there was a forest. “How long do you think it will take them to find us ?” I asked him. “Well, I used a few different tactics from about four unsubs, so a while.” I had to laugh at that. He started to ask me about my home life, and he asked me about what had happened the other night. I told him the cruel outline of why I was spending the summer with Eddie, and he told me about his home life a little too; his mom and sister still lived in Chicago where he grew up. He told me about how him and the team thought it was kind of nice to have friends outside of the Bureau, and how he liked spending time with us, and he loved it that we were neighbors. “Now we have a big even number,” he said. “Ten instead of eight, its perfect.” The way he spoke made me really happy, like they were glad to have met Eddie and I, that we were all a part of a big exclusive group. Like it was us against the world.

We heard shuffling near us, and I couldn’t help it, my irrational fears came out. I clutched at his muscled torso, burying my face. He stroked my hair, but didn’t say anything. I saw Eddie’s face peer around the bush “Boo !” He said. Morgan and I stood up, brushing the leaves off of one another. Suddenly, Morgan picked me up and placed me effortlessly on his shoulders. “Do you even weigh a hundred pounds yet ?” he asked me. I was too stunned to reply, but Eddie nodded no. They all looked at me weird. Morgan let me ride on his neck the whole way home. “My turn !” Penelope said. We all cracked up. “Where’s Reid ?” I asked. Morgan struggled to keep his composure, since J.J., Hotch, and Rossi still did not know that I had a crush on him. “Backyard,” J.J. told me. Reid was sitting alone in the same chair as yesterday, reading something. I looked at the title Gray’s Anatomy, by Henry Gray. “I have that book,” I told him. “I’m reading it now.” “Really ?” He looked doubtful. “I’m really into medical stuff, and besides, I love to read.” I told him quietly. He nodded and awkwardly went back to reading. I took the hint and walked away. I sat, unsocial, for the rest of the evening.

For the next few days of their vacation, the routine was basically the same. Eddie and Morgan having coffee at my house, then all of us going out to do something for the day, separating for dinner, then the bonfire. Repeat. When they all went back to work, it was hard not seeing them every day anymore, because we had all become so close. I secretly stayed up at night and set my alarm for the morning, so I could see them coming to and from work. One day, the first Monday without the team around, so ten days after I came to Virginia, Eddie went to run some errands, and I found myself alone. I turned up the radio in the living room, and started dancing and singing, acting as I went along. No one knew that I did this, because I always did it when no one was home. I always did it in the living room so I could compose myself before someone came home. I got bored of that after a while, and I began to write poems. I must’ve written twelve love poems by the time Eddie came home ! (We all know who they were about.) Eddie and I went swimming after that, and that was basically the day.

Eddie got a job that week, so I was basically always alone, left with my annoying thoughts. I was so bored, without the team or Eddie to entertain me. I decided to go outside and go tanning. I must’ve been out there for an hour when I heard someone’s voice calling my name. It was Morgan ! He had come over with lunch to surprise me ! That was truly one of the nicest things anyone had done for me. We talked and laughed our way through his lunch hour, then I hugged him and he left. I was outside in the backyard, just aimlessly wandering when I saw it. A shadow. Behind me. I knew that I was not fabricating a possible crazy psycho behind me. I knew it was real. I screamed, so loud. It was the loudest sound I had ever heard. I lunged forward, desperately trying to escape. But he extended his arm toward me and stabbed me in the neck with a needle, injecting an unknown liquid into my body. I could only look over in horror at the needle protruding from my brachial plexus, the bundle of nerves near where the neck and shoulder meet. I could feel my body start to slow down, and everything moved in slow-mo. I slumped toward the grass, and I was laying on my side with my cheek against the grass, blinking slowly at the blurriness, when he dipped his head in front of my line of vision and looked me in the eyes. His dark eyes were the last things I saw before the darkness consumed me.

I woke up in what looked like a dingy basement. There were no windows or door that I could see, and a single lit bulb hung from the very center of the ceiling. Everything was painted a muted brown color, and the floor had soft brown carpeting. I was chained on a lumpy mattress on the floor, with, you guessed it, brown sheets covering it. I felt a brief bit of relief, I knew that the team would find me. They could profile me so easily, Morgan had a lot of information about me, and my past. Plus, they had Eddie. The question was, how soon could they get to me ? And would I even be alive ? Thankfully, the manacles weren’t cutting into the soft flesh on my wrists or my ankles. Also, I was positive I hadn’t been molested. But I was so afraid that I would be. I wondered what he had injected into me; I could think of a lot of drugs off the top of my head, because I hoped to work in the medical field when I was older. I began to recall ways of communication I had seen on crime television shows. I wondered if they would apply to real life. I also wondered if the abductor would contact the team or Eddie somehow, by phone or video. If it was by video, then I was in luck. Then again, I was never in luck.