Stars | Aaron Hotchner

24

     Pain pierced my lungs as I gasped for air.

     "What is it?"

     "Catherine, sit down." Someone pulled a chair up behind me, but my legs wouldn't move.

     "Rossi!" Someone yelled.

"Someone took him." I gasped out in between sobs. I held a photo of Aaron, tied up and beaten bloody. He had the same white shirt on I'd seen him in yesterday, but it was stained red.

I couldn't focus on anything but the photo in my hand. My breathing evaded me as I grasped onto the picture, my knuckles hurting.

"Breathe, Catherine." My head snapped up to Rossi, my eyes full of tears.

"Call my Dad," I ordered. I'm not really sure if the words got out.

"I'll send the jet after him if I have to," Rossi said, understanding my broken words.

I brought the picture closer to my eyes, trying to focus on the details. My heart pierced pain through my chest as I looked at Aaron, my Aaron, knocked out.

I turned towards the glass doors, walking quickly.

"Catherine, where are you going?" Prentiss asked.

"Garcia."

I walked through the doors and down the hallway, a parade of footsteps behind me. I reached Penelope's office, the door already open.

"Garcia, I need you to scan this picture for anything and everything you can find," I said, handing her the picture.

"Of course, anything y-," her voice cut off as she looked at the photo, her breath quickening.

"Oh my god." She whispered before putting the photo into a machine. It quickly loaded onto the screen pixel by pixel.

"If there's anything on this photo, I'll find it. I'll run every software the FBI data world has ever seen." She said.

"Conference room," I said, turning towards the group behind me. My breath was still shallow, but that didn't matter now. I needed to find him. I needed to bring him home.

I pushed through them, walking back through the glass doors into the bullpen. I walked past my spilled coffee and up the stairs. I walked by Aaron's open door but stopped in my tracks. I turned and slowly entered his office, my eyes peeled for any detail that could explain what happened.

I put one foot in front of the other, approaching his desk. There were a few spots of blood on the paperwork that was laid out on his desk. My eyes closed in response, the pain spreading.

After a minute, I forced my eyes open. I looked closer at the blood pattern, squinting my eyes to see through the stinging tears.

"A blunt force trauma knocked him out," I said. I could feel the presence of more people in the room. I looked down on the floor, paperwork scattered.

"The unsub knocked him out. He fell to the floor, and the unsub must have dragged him out this way." I said, pointing to the right of the desk. The papers were scattered to the sides with a space in the middle as if someone was dragged through them.

"He would have seen someone come in," Morgan said.

"So he must have known the unsub," Prentiss said.

"Or the unsub hid and waited until Aaron was alone," I said, approaching the shelf behind his desk.

"Morgan, come here please," I asked.