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My Broken Valentine

Chapter 10 (The Derek Morgan Chronicles)

By Cynthia FieldsPublished about a year ago 6 min read
2
My Broken Valentine
Photo by Sidney Pearce on Unsplash

Della slammed the door and locked the couple inside. She was confident that Derek would be unconscious for at least another few hours and Penelope would be too weak and inconsolable to do anything but sit next to him in tears. So, as she made her way out of the building and to her car, she made a call to her brothers; it was time to put the next part of her plan into action.

Penelope drew close to Derek as he lay on the floor. Gently she cradled his head in her arms and began to survey the room for a possible exit. She hadn’t been trained for any of this. She’d opened the door to her apartment not expecting danger. The woman had counted on that; that she would be clueless and weak, but she wasn’t weak; she’d seen too much in their line of work to be weak. No matter what came her way she would fight for hers and Derek’s life even if she lost in the end...she would fight.

Penelope quickly untied Derek’s hands and feet and positioned him in a more comfortable position on the floor. Then she checked every possible corner, nook, and cranny of the dingy room for a possible escape, a weapon or anything that would help them survive until someone found them. There was nothing but she still wasn’t ready to give up.

“HELP! HELP US!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Pounding on the door and walls, yelling for help until her throat was sore, Penelope was determined and angry and afraid.

“Okay, Della I’m here,” Corey whispered into his cell phone.

“Good, now make sure you don’t mess up, Derek Morgan needs to know that we are in control and that we won’t hesitate to hurt her if he doesn’t cooperate,” she ordered.

“Are you sure about this? Do you know what could happen if this goes wrong? This man is an FBI agent for god’s sake!”

“Corey, I know what I’m doing, and you and Paolo owe me!”

“Yeah, okay, okay.”

“Good, now take her to the storage room in the basement of that old high school where you used to work.”

“I’m headed inside now,” then, “damn!”

“What, what’s going on?”

“She’s screaming her head off! I got here just in time.”

“I’m counting on you Corey.”

“Don’t worry, I got this.”

“SOMEBODY, HELP US!”

Corey shook his head as he pulled the shiny key from his pocket and released the large padlock on the door. The door creaked against his hand as he pushed it open; he couldn’t help but notice the look of hope in her eyes.

“Thank god! Help us, please! We need...”

Penelope stopped mid-sentence as the stranger raised the gun and placed a finger against his lips.

“Shhh, we don’t want to raise the dead now do we?”

“W-what?” She glanced back at a still unconscious Derek, “Derek, wake up baby please.”

Then turning back to the man who had approached her.

“Let’s go!”

“No, where are you taking me? Why are you doing this?”

Losing his patience, Corey grabbed her arm and jerked her toward the door.

“Please, we can’t leave him!”

Of all the lessons he’d learned in and out of the dozens of foster homes where he was raised, Corey was always taught to never hit a woman, but this woman’s pleading and whining was testing his resolve; he failed and as his fist collided with her face, the silence was almost comical as her wide-eyed expression stared at him as her body hit the floor.

Home of Penelope Garcia – Evening

Sam nervously paced the floor of Penelope’s apartment. He’d decided to wait for her after watching her back out of the driveway with the stranger. The first hour he was angry as he rehearsed his argument to her in his head, now it had been three hours and she still had not returned. As he replayed the day’s event in his head, the fact that he did not have to use his key to get in should have told him that something was wrong, but Sam was clueless, and he was a coward. It wasn’t until he plopped down on the couch that he no longer could deny the fact that Penelope did not leave by choice. Her large blue leather bag was on the floor next to him; she never left without it, and he could no longer play the clueless coward.

JJ and Reid were already packing their things when Sam called. She had been trying to reach Penelope and Derek for hours with nothing but voicemails on the other end. With their line of work, none of them ever ignored each others’ calls. Something was wrong and Sam’s frantic call confirmed everything. Even before Sam, JJ had called Hotch, and Dave and they too were headed back to Quantico.

JJ wanted to strangle Sam for waiting so long to call but now was not the time to focus on that. The team had made a lot of enemies over the years and there was no place to start looking. It would be early morning before they all made it home and whatever happened to their friends, JJ hoped that they would hold on until they found them.

BAU Headquarters – Quantico, VA – Sunday Morning

The sun had not yet risen but it didn’t matter, the team had gathered in the large room on the sixth floor to begin one of the most important cases ever. JJ and Reid had already gone by Penelope’s where they had instructed Sam to meet them and along with the local police, the case of two missing FBI personnel began.

Sam was a wreck and he had answered the same questions at least a dozen times; his answers were the same, he didn’t get a license plate number, or make of the car except that it was a late model wagon with a dent on the back driver’s side bumper. The woman who’d forced Penelope in the car was average height with dark curly shoulder length hair and he thought perhaps she may have been biracial. What he did know was that if something happened to Penelope, he would never forgive himself.

Kevin was the last to arrive but the look on his face mirrored the rest of the team and he was eager to help. Hotch reviewed what little they knew, and he reminded them all to set aside their personal feelings, but he wondered if that was even possible.

Skid Row Abandoned Building –

Derek’s eyes opened and immediately he knew something had changed. Penelope was gone and he was alone in the room. He felt stiff, and his head ached but he was glad that his hands and feet were no longer bound. He felt wobbly as he stood but he knew it was just the residuals of the drugs he’d been given. Where was she? His heart pounded furiously, imaging the worse as he searched the room and tested the door for an exit.

“Let me out! I’m an FBI agent, you can’t do this!”

He knew how ridiculous he sounded, they had already done it; already kidnapped him and Penelope and he’d been powerless to stop them.

“LET ME OUT!”

Fan Fiction
2

About the Creator

Cynthia Fields

I adore words and I love what happens when we grab them, sleep with them, holler and scream and laugh at them! I love what happens when we throw them in the air and watch them fall magically from our minds onto paper!

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