Within Fears Grasp
Sequel to Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Please Read and review and let me know what you think of the continuation of the story feedback is always appreciated!Chapter 1:
Life was slowly starting to return to normal, if there was such a thing. Abby's injuries were healing and she was able to return to work, half shifts after a 3 weeks and Kerry said that she would slowly ease her back into the longer shifts as she recovered. Her wounds on the outside where getting better, it was the wounds that were on the inside that were not healing.
Carter wasn't doing much better with things either, he had been torn away from Abby at a time when she needed him the most and he was having a hard time getting past that. He was trying to get his life back together while he had been exonerated of the crime; there was still fall out from being arrested. People at work didn't look at him the same way and the press was just now leaving him alone.
Then they both had to deal with the fact that Paul Sobriki had managed to once again cause havoc in their lives. While Carter had dealt with this when he and Lucy were attacked by Paul, he had once again gone after something that Carter held dear to him. He had gone after Abby in an attempt to get even with Carter, for what he perceived that Carter had taken away from him.
Carter this time however didn't take any reassurance in the fact that Paul was locked up once more, the man had somehow managed to walk away from a mental institute without a soul noticing that he had done it and attacked again. Paul might have been mentally unstable and insane but that act was done with malice and purpose. This time Paul knew what he was doing when he did it. Having him being locked up in a jail cell was a little more reassuring but they knew too that he was planning on using the insanity defense yet a second time.
He couldn't help but worry about what effects, lasting effects this was going to have on Abby. She had bore the brunt of all this. Paul had not only gotten her on the platform on her way home but he had tried to get her inside the very walls where she worked, the one place where she should feel safe.
As he worked he found that his thoughts were floating back to her, worried about her, she was at home alone right now, he was working the night shift tonight and she would be on at 7 am about the time that he was getting off. Her first day back was going to be hard and he wasn't going to be there to make the transition any easier. He knew that he needed to do something but didn't know how to help.
Abby's alarm clock pulled her from her sleep that morning. She had been almost dreading this day. She got up, showered and dressed for work sitting at the table having that one last cup of coffee before heading out where she would have another 12 or so during her shift. She sat there, not turning on the news, not wanting to hear anything more about what all of Chicago was talking about right now. She wished that she could avoid it curl up under a rock and pretend that it hadn't happened to her or that it had happened to someone else. There where times when she could focus on other things and then there were times like this where that was all she could focus on.
The intense pain, it would just randomly shoot up her back as if he was right there standing behind her stabbing her all over again. The fear taking a hold of her body not allowing her to move, that was keeping her from screaming, it felt so real, but yet it was nothing more than a flashback, or yet worse a panic attack. She was sitting at her table, within the safety of her apartment but yet she felt cold, she could feel wind blowing eerily over her skin, and then there it was again that hot searing pain, then the breath on her neck, the voice talking to her. She didn't like the feeling of helplessness that came with her attack, the feeling that she couldn't control what was happening to her. The world that she had built up all of her securities in had been shattered as if it was nothing more than a piece of glass and Paul had been a rock thrown into it, sending shards everywhere.
Within a matter of minutes she was back in her familiar surrounds that horrible vision pushed out of her mind once more nothing was ever what it seemed and to her that was unnerving and she couldn't trust her own mind, her own sight for she never knew when or where this was going to hit her.
"Pull it back together Lockhart." She said to herself pushing her hair back as she moved from the kitchen table to grab her coat and keys to make her way into County. She made it down the stairs from her apartment to the front door. Her hands were now shaking completely out of control and she was breathing faster than she had been when she started out. Surely walking down a flight of stairs wouldn't leave her that out of breath.
She reached for the door now to make her way outside and found that her feet wouldn't move, it was as if she was standing in cement that had suddenly hardened. Abby was losing her grip on reality and slipping into the realm of fear.
"You're just going to work," she said to herself again taking in what she hoped would be a calming breath; "no one is going to hurt you."
She stood there still unable to will herself to move, to take that first step forward into the outside world alone. "Come on Abby." Her voice was now nothing more than a whisper nothing behind it, she didn't believe that no one was going to hurt her, she didn't trust anyone to protect her to keep her safe, most of all she was afraid that he would do it again. The only place that Abby felt safe was locked inside her own little world, a world where no one could get to her, problem with that was it was what was keeping her from being able to walk out that front door.
There was that voice again. Haunting her to the very depths of her soul, the one voice that she would never be able to forget no matter how hard she tried.
Abby guess I didn't finish this the first time and I will have to do it again…
To make him suffer… you dying will seal his fate… No you see Abby darling I can't stop, it wouldn't be right to stop.
He wasn't going to stop either. Her eyes darted around where she was standing now, she was no longer safe, and she wasn't safe outside her locked door. If she wasn't inside the confines of her apartment behind a door that she knew was locked then he could get her and she feared that he would get her no matter how hard she tried to be in places where he couldn't get her.
She turned and bolted back up the stairs running now for her apartment and she didn't stop until she got there and locked the door up tightly behind her. She wasn't going out there; no one could make her leave now that she was here. This is where she was going to stay for as long as she needed to.