It was cold, dark, and wet. A young woman lay unmoving in an ice bath, the ice covering her body leaving only her head out. Her lips were blue and her skin was pale. There was a bruise just under her swollen left eye and a cut on the bridge of her broken
nose. A heavy metal door opened slowly, the hinges squeaking as it did. A man, about six-foot-five with broad shoulders and a square head, came into the room. He flipped a switch, turning on the light. Fluorescent lights flickered on and illuminated
the room. The blue-lipped woman's eyelids slowly opened revealing pale blue-green eyes, the left was bloodshot. She weakly looked around the room and then up at her captor. He grinned at her and reached into the ice with gloved hands and pulled her
out of the tub. She was naked, her whole body turned pink as soon as he removed her from the icy water and set her on the cold cement floor. She stood there on unsteady legs, shivering.
He didn't say anything to her, but led her to what appeared to be a doctor's table, much like something found in a gynecologist's office. She blinked at it, still shivering and stood still. He nudged her forward; she winced as he hit a big,
black and blue bruise on her back. She complied and stepped forward, struggling to get onto the table. Impatient, he picked her up and lay her down, putting her feet into the stirrups. He glared at her when he heard her soft whimpers. Her entire body
was covered in bruises. Her fingers were tingling now as the feeling returned to them, but she didn't dare move. The last time she did, she ended up with the broken nose and black eye. He wrapped his big hand around her neck and squeezed until she
couldn't breathe, she gasped for air as he unzipped his pants and forced himself inside of her. She closed her eyes tight and waited for it to be over.
This time lasted longer than the others. He would loosen his grip on her neck every time she was about to black out, then once she had a moment to breathe, he would squeeze even harder. As he finished in her, he wrapped his other hand around
her neck and began throttling her. She lost consciousness and he set her back on the ice bath.
A few hours later, the door opened again, only this time it slammed against the wall as it did. She snapped awake, but she was unable to see. Her left eye was swollen shut and without her glasses, her right eye was useless. But she didn't
see the fuzzy outline of the man. She saw two women and heard words of surprise and shock. The taller of the two approached her.
"I'm Sergeant Benson," she said in a calm, even tone. "And this is Detective Rollins. We're going to help you."
The woman covered in ice panicked. She began struggling to escape her icy prison and get as far away from the two women as possible. If her captor ever found out that she had escaped, he would surely find her and kill her.
But the two police officers didn't seem to understand, they each reached into the ice, grabbing her arms and pulling her up out of the icy water. A man wearing all blue, or was it black?, came in and wrapped a blanket around her and led
her outside to an ambulance where she was escorted to the hospital.
"Do you remember what happened to you?" The brunette officer inquired. "It's okay if you don't."
The young woman looked up at the officer. She blinked and looked back across the room and shook her head. "H-he raped me," she said quietly. "But he never said anything."
The officer nodded and sat down on the bed next to her. "Can you tell me your name?"
"Victoria Wagner is my name." She slouched against the pillows behind her and pulled her blanket up around her neck. "Everything hurts, Ms. Benson," she could feel tears welling up behind her eyes, it hurt her bruised
eye. Every time she moved any part of her body she would hurt.
"I know it does. You can call me Olivia." She gently touched Victoria's cold hand. A nurse walked in and said something to Olivia. "Victoria, would you be willing to let the doctors do a rape kit on you?"
Victoria looked down for a minute and then nodded. "Yes, that would be okay." She looked up at the nurse and a few tears fell down her face.
The doctors let Victoria go home a few days later, after they were sure that she didn't have frostbite or any other serious injuries. Aside from a mostly-healed broken nose, a shiner that would be there for another week at most, and a cracked rib, she
was fine. Physically, she was fine. Emotionally, she was a wreck. The blonde detective who helped Oliva find her drove her to her apartment and helped her inside. Victoria went inside and shut the door. She looked around her big empty apartment and
began to cry.
She slumped down against the door and rubbed her eyes with her hands. She bit her bottom lip gently to keep her sobs to an acceptable volume. She couldn't help it though, she let out a blood curdling scream, loud enough that her neighbors
could hear her. Her entire body hurt; it was freezing in her apartment; every time she closed her good eye she saw the inside of that room that held her prisoner. She shook and cried louder.
There was a knock at the door. She immediately stood up and turned around. She cautiously looked through the peephole and then stepped back. She didn't recognize the man who was at the door. He was quite a bit shorter than her attacker,
but had a similar build. She opened the door just enough for her to put her face out. He stepped back and leaned down to look at her face.
"Are you okay?" He asked. "I heard you screaming. Is. . . is there someone in there with you?" He pulled out his cellphone and began dialing 911.
"Wait, wait," Victoria held out her hand to stop him. "I'm here alone. I just um… I just got home from the hospital," she admitted to this total stranger.
"Have you talked to the police?" He inquired.
"Yes, I talked to two detectives from SVU," she opened the door a bit wider.
"A brunette woman and a short blonde?" He cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at her.
"Yes! How did you know?" She did her best to smile.
"A.D.A Rafael Barba," he held out his hand. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again at some point," he smiled softly at her.
"I'm sure," she took his hand and shook it.
"I live just down the hall," he pointed towards his apartment. "If you need anything, just let me know."
She nodded and stepped back into her apartment, shutting the door behind her. She locked the door tight and went into her bedroom. Everything was just as it had been when she left. There was a little pile of dirty laundry in the corner between
her window and her closet, her bed was unmade as she was running late the morning she was abducted. The dresser was open with clothes strewn about everywhere; the closet door was open as well. The curling iron was still sitting where it had been left
and her hairbrush was on the floor next to her mirror. She looked out the window and down at the street. The sun was beginning to set and the orange light illuminated the room. She crawled into her bed, not bothering to take off any of her clothes
besides her shoes, and went to sleep.
The next morning, she woke up and made her way to the precinct. She walked through the front doors and wrapped her jacket around her tighter. She looked around for a familiar face, then finally recognized detective Rollins. She walked up
to the blonde detective and swallowed hard.
"H-hello," Victoria tapped her on the shoulder. "I'm here to talk to you or sergeant Benson. About . . . well you know."
She turned around and nodded. "Alright, I'll take you to her office."
Detective Rollins opened the door for Victoria and said "Victoria's here to see you, Olivia."
"Victoria, I'm glad you decided to come in." Olivia smiled at her. "Please, have a seat."
Victoria sat down in the chair across from Olivia and shoved her hands in her pockets. She looked around the room and then back at the detective sitting across from her. "I already told you everything I know, Ms. Benson." She started.
"I know, but I need you to make an official statement and we're going to have you sit down with a sketch artist. Just to see if you can remember anything about your assailant." Olivia clicked her pen and began writing. "Just
tell me everything that you remember starting with the night you were abducted."
Victoria sighed and nodded. She slouched down in the chair and began playing with a piece of lint in her pocket and began speaking. "It was late, I had just gotten off of work. I was heading home; I don't work too far from my home,
so I usually just walk unless it's raining. Anyway, I always walk past a bar, oh, what's it called? McFadden's, or something like that. A man stumbled out, he was tall and he was huge. He looked like a football player, to be honest. He grabbed me
and told me that if I didn't cooperate he would push me into traffic and leave me for dead. Of course I had to cooperate. I didn't want to die. He hailed a cab and pushed me in first; we went to his apartment. It wasn't anything nice, small, plain.
It seemed like government housing. I didn't want to go in, so I began to struggle and he hit me with his fist in the chest. It knocked me back.
Once we were inside, he ordered me to take off my clothes, so I did. He shoved me onto the floor and I hit my head on the TV stand and he was on top of me. He… he fondled my breasts and groped me. I didn't want any of it so I began screaming
'no! No!' but he only got meaner." Victoria looked down and closed her eyes tight. "He unzipped his pants and shoved his penis into my mouth to make me be quiet. I didn't want that so I bit him and he hit me in the face with the heel
of his hand, breaking my nose," she reached up and gently felt her nose, tracing it's now-bent shape. "He… he grabbed onto my face again after I fell backwards into the TV stand again and pulled me back and put his penis back into my mouth.
I was crying and blood was pouring out of my nose, but he didn't care. He used my face for his pleasure and when he was getting close he pulled out of my mouth and finished on my face." Victoria looked green now. "He rubbed it all over my
face along with the blood and the tears." Just thinking about it made her want to throw up. She took a deep breath before she continued talking. "After that he picked me up by my hair and basically dragged me back into the bathroom. He made
me stand up and get into the tub that was full of ice and cold water. He even poured cold water on my head. Honestly I was thankful for that, it got most of the mess off of my face and it felt good on my broken nose," Victoria was blinking back
tears at this point.
"Victoria, when we found you, you were in a tub full of ice, can you explain that?" Sergeant Benson inquired.
"He did that to me the day before you found me," she continued. "He told me I was 'too warm' for his liking. He would have on weird fetish porn when he raped me." She looked down and furrowed her brows.
"Can you be more specific about his fetish?" Olivia asked.
"The actresses were always so pale and so lifeless. I almost always thought they were dolls. Then one day he came home with a new DVD where the guy strangles the girl until she passes out. He'd always do what the guys in the videos
were doing to me. He always told me not to move. Don't even breathe. He'd choke me, either with his hands or with his belt or a rope. That was when I realized that they weren't dolls. They were supposed to be dead. 'But dead girls don't moan,' he
would say. 'Dead girls,' he would look back at me and smile, 'can't say no.'" Victoria pulled her hands out of her pockets and crossed her arms over her chest. "That night, he took me to the mini-storage unit you found me in. He had his
ice bath set up, the exam table. The first time he did it, he left me in the cold water for fifteen minutes and choked me with a rope tied around my neck and the table. He said I was still too warm. Then he put me back and left for a while. There
wasn't a clock so it might have just been a few minutes, but it felt like years, and he came back. He put me back on the table and felt me again for a moment. He said I was perfect and began raping me again. He had his hands wrapped around my wrists,
squeezing them, cutting off the circulation to my hands. The next time, he had me bent over the table, and dug his elbows into my back. The next morning he came back and took me out of the ice. I was so cold I could hardly move, But once I got the
feeling back in my fingers, I tried to move and he noticed. He clocked me in the face, as you can see. Gave me a black eye and broke my nose even worse than before I'm pretty sure."
Olivia did her best to hide her horror, but failed. Victoria could see right through Olivia's mask. Victoria nodded and pulled her hands into her sleeves and began chewing on one of them. "I don't remember the address of his apartment
and it was so dark. I remember we kept moving in the direction of my apartment though, once we got in the cab." She said.
"Did you ever get a good look at him?" Olivia asked. "Do you remember anything about him that would set him apart? A scar? A tattoo?"
"I think," Victoria started. "I think he had a tattoo on his right wrist. I don't remember what it was though, I'm sorry."
Olivia nodded and stood up. "Thanks for coming in," she led Victoria back to her car and watched until she could no longer see Victoria. "Alright," Olivia said once she was back inside. "We're looking for a man,
6'6 or 6'5, weighing about 220, brown hair, and a tattoo on his right wrist."
"That leaves us with a pretty big chunk of the male population, sarge." A young detective said. "How do you suppose we narrow it down?"
"Now that's your job, isn't it, Carisi?" Olivia rubbed her forehead. "He rented out a mini-storage unit where he kept our vic," she said. "Fin, Rollins, you guys go check it out. See if you can get a name of who
rents it. Amaro, Carisi, go check out any tattoo parlors around town. Maybe our man got his tattoo at one of them."
Victoria stood outside of her apartment building, she had somehow left her key inside. She looked around for some sign of someone familiar, but no luck. She sighed and walked back down the stairs and into the cafe next door. She did her best to ignore
the stares. The barista messed up her order he was so distracted by her face. She didn't say anything. She just took her coffee and sat down. She looked out the window, waiting for someone to come in who lived in her building, but she'd be sitting
there for a while.
People came up to her, asking about her face and if she was okay. She'd nod and ask them to leave her alone as politely as she could, but eventually she got so tired of it, she got up and left. She sat down on the bottom step of the stairs
leading up to her apartment. She rested her head in her hands and watched the people walking by.
A man passed her. He looked like the man who had taken her. She seized up and lowered her head so he wouldn't recognize her. She watched as he entered the cafe she had just been in then come back out. He walked up to her and smiled down
at her.
"Thought you could escape, huh?" He asked.
She struggled to breathe. "Please leave me alone," she managed to say. "I don't want to go back there."
"You left," he frowned. "I don't know how anyone found you."
"That shouldn't matter." She backed up against the door. "I'm not going back with you." She looked up at him in a panic, then looked around frantically for any sign of someone who could help her.
"Well that's too bad. You're coming with me." He wrapped his hand around her bruised wrist and began dragging her out to the sidewalk.
Luckily for her, a cab stopped in front of the apartment and a man got out. He walked up the stairs and tapped the bigger man on the shoulder.
"Excuse me," he said. "I believe the lady asked you to leave her a-" his eyes widened and he pulled out his phone. "Liv, we need you here. Bring back up."
"And who do you think you are?" The man turned back around and looked down at the person who was talking to him.
Police cars pulled up a moment later and Olivia and a few other detectives got out of them, their guns were drawn.
"I told you, I didn't do nothin' to that girl that she didn't like." The man said. He was getting angry.
"She wanted you to break her nose?" Detective Amaro asked. "Because the last time I checked, no one likes that."
"What? She slipped and fell. Ice makes the floor slippery." He said leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.
Amaro nodded and rolled his eyes. "And I suppose she asked you to break one of her ribs, too, huh?"
"Look, the bitch liked it rough. She kept tellin' me to hit her harder. I didn't want to, but she kept telling me to." He looked up at his interrogator. "If anyone is the victim here, it's me."
The detective rubbed his face and closed his eyes.
Outside the box, sergeant Benson and the D.A. stood watching.
"We didn't find any DNA in the system that matched the DNA found in the rape kit or at the scene." She said.
"He was being too rough on her to not be him." Barba replied. "This is your guy. But we can't hold him here on the rape charges. At most we have him on assault."
Olivia nodded and turned around looking through the window of the interview room where Victoria was sitting. She was drawing circles on a steno pad while she laid her head on her arm. She sighed and looked up at the window Olivia was looking
through. Victoria pushed the pen and paper away and covered her eyes with her arms and began shaking with sobs.
"I don't think she wanted any of this," Olivia stepped forward and leaned on the window frame. "She's traumatized. Just look at her."
He turned around and looked at Victoria through the glass. "She looks scared," he nodded. "She knows he's here, she doesn't feel safe. I wouldn't either."
Olivia looked down at Rafael and raised a brow. "What were you doing at her apartment?"
"We live in the same building," he responded. "I guess her parents are paying for it for her. No one her age would be able to afford rent."
"Just be careful. If someone sees you two together, people might start thinking things." Olivia said turning her attention back on their suspect.
"I want my lawyer." The man said. "I didn't rape that girl. Everything we did was consensual."
The detective left the room, frustrated. He walked over to Olivia and looked at her. "He lawyered up." He said and then left.
Olivia walked into the room Victoria was sitting in and sat down next to her. "We have him in custody. Are you alright?"
Victoria shook her head and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "I just wanted to go home and go back to bed." She sat up and fixed her hair. "All I want to do anymore is sleep. It's the only time that nothing hurts." Her bottom
lip began to quiver as she fought back tears. Her whole body began to shake again. "I don't want to be here, I want to go home."
Olivia nodded and sighed. She didn't want to send Victoria home alone again, but Olivia needed to be home with her son, Noah. She didn't want to send any of her other detectives home with her either. She pursed her lips and stood up. "Stay
here for just a second, I'll be right back." She stepped outside for a moment.
"Take her home?" The D.A. looked up at Olivia and shook his head. "You're out of your mind. You told me to be careful."
"If I had any other options you know I wouldn't ask you." Olivia said. "Besides, you live in the same building."
He sighed and nodded. "Fine, but just this once." He reluctantly agreed and opened the door to the room that held Victoria.
Victoria jumped when she heard the hinges squeak quietly as the door opened. "Oh," she relaxed when she saw who it was. "You're the guy from my hallway last night. Mr. Barba, right?"
He nodded and sat down across from her. "Sergeant Benson wants me to take you home. I still have some things to do back at my office, but you're more than welcome to come sit. I know you don't want to be here, and I'm not going to make
you be anywhere you don't want to be."
Victoria looked up at him and nodded. "I'd like that."
"Well I need to talk to sgt Benson, but I'll be right back, okay?" He stood back up and walked out the door.
Victoria rested her hands in her lap and laid her head back on the table. She waited patiently for her ride home to come back and save her. As soon as he returned, she stood up and grabbed her purse. She walked slowly over to him and sucked
her lips into her mouth, keeping her head down.
"You seem excited to leave." He said dryly. "Well if you're ready, let's go." He let her leave first and followed close behind her.
"Do you want to tell me anything about what happened that night they found you?" Rafael asked her, not looking up from his paperwork.
"Not really, no." Victoria responded. "I'd rather not talk about it anymore. Ever again."
He looked up for a moment. "You won't even testify against him?" He looked at her, worried.
"You saw how I was in that room. I couldn't even see him. Just imagine how it would be if I could see him. If I had to look at him and tell twelve people, and you, and his lawyer, what he did to me. It's not like they would believe
me anyway." She looked back at the book she had in her lap. "I had a pretty big presence on a few fetish networks," she glanced back at the D.A., her face bright red.
"Did you tell that to the police?" He inquired. "It doesn't matter though. What he did to you was unacceptable."
"The jury won't see it that way. He didn't see it that way." She mumbled, closing her eyes. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"No. Now we know he didn't choose you randomly. You could be part of a pattern." He said as he sent a text message to Olivia.
"Or the start of one." She added. "It doesn't matter, anyway."
He held his face in his hands and looked at the young woman sitting on the couch in disbelief. "Ms. Wagner, it does matter. What this man did to you should never have happened regardless of what you do in your spare time. The fact of
the matter is he raped you. And that's against the law. Getting off on consensual rough sex is not."
"That's all you think it is?" She closed the book and turned to look at him. "Mr. Barba, if you knew half of the things I've done, you'd look at me the same way the bastard who did this to me did." She pointed at her
eye and rolled up her sleeves. "You'd look at me the same way all of them did. No one cared about the fact that I'm a person, too."
"Olivia is sending someone to come talk to you. I need you to give them access to all of your accounts." He looked at her, his face a slight pink color. "It's in your best interest that we have access to them before the defense
does."
About half an hour later, two detectives walked through the door. She recognized the blonde, detective Amanda Rollins, but the man, she didn't recognize. Detective Rollins kept calling him Nick.
"We heard that you've been keeping something from us?" Nick asked. "Victoria, we can't have you keeping secrets."
"What he means is, if there's anything you haven't told us, you need to tell us." Amanda interjected.
Victoria nodded and asked for a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote down all of the usernames, email addresses, and passwords for all of her accounts. "I had been messaging back and forth with this guy for a while. He never sent me
any pictures, so I don't know if it's my attacker or not. But the messages stopped two nights before . . ." she paused and looked down. "You know."
Amanda nodded. "Is there anything else?" She looked at her.
"If I can think of anything else, I'll come find you." Victoria leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "I promise."
The car ride home was uneventful. Victoria was practically on the floor she slouched so low in her seat. She had her knees against her chest and she looked out the dark window. She sighed and relaxed slightly as they neared their building. She looked
over at Rafael nervously. Was he going to leave her completely alone once they got inside? She didn't want to be alone. She was tired of being left alone.
"I'll walk you upstairs," he said shutting her door and locking his car.
"Thanks," she said following him closely as they made their way to the stairs that led up to the door. "Oh wait, I left my key inside my apartment," she bit her lip and crossed her arms.
He blinked at her and sighed. "I have an extra bedroom. I'll help you get ahold of maintenance in the morning so they can get you a new key."
She looked up at him apologetically. "Would it be too much to ask to take a shower?"
He shook his head and walked up the flights of stairs that led to their floor and down the hall, past her apartment, to his. He opened the door to an apartment similar to Victoria's, just a lot bigger. He held the door open for her and she
stepped inside. It was noticeably warmer than the hall; Victoria was grateful for that. She'd had enough of the cold for the rest of her life. The walls were the same white color as those in the hallway, and the hardwood floors were covered with expensive-looking
rugs, though Victoria was pretty sure she'd seen the same ones on sale at a discount furniture store a few weeks ago. There was a couch and two arm chairs situated around a coffee table and facing a TV. But it didn't look as though the TV was used
often, as it was dusty. She walked inside, following him to the bathroom.
"Um-" he paused and looked at the young woman. "Here." He said quickly and turned around to leave.
"Thank you." She said quietly and shut the bathroom door behind her. She turned on the hot water, not touching it until she was sure it wasn't cold anymore, then pulled off her clothes and got in letting the hot water warm her.
She sat down on the floor of the shower and closed her eyes. She didn't even want to get clean. She knew no amount of soap would remove what he did to her. The water felt nice though. It hurt her the bruises on her back when she tried standing back
up. The bruises on her knees made it hard to get up that way, though, so she suffered through trying to stand without her knees.
She turned off the water and got out of the shower. She wrapped a towel around her and paused. She didn't have any clothes. She opened the door and looked down at the floor. There was a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a pair of underwear.
She blinked at them and picked them up. She went back into the bathroom to put her clothes on. She walked back into the living room and looked at the man on the couch.
"Where did you get these?" Victoria asked. "My key-"
"Was sitting on the table next to your door. In the hallway." He nodded and reached for his drink. "You can stay here though."
"Thanks," she said sitting down on the chair farthest from him. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself and closed her eyes trying not to cry. "I'm sorry." She looked down the hallway and sucked in a breath.
Rafael just looked at her but didn't say anything. He finished off his drink and looked down at the two ice cubes that slid around the bottom of the glass. He stood up and pulled off his jacket and his tie. "When was the last time you
ate?" He asked her.
"Oh, eating." She thought for a moment. "I can't say I remember." She put her hands on her stomach and looked down.
"Did he feed you?" He blinked at her.
"What? Yes." She looked up at him. "I guess I haven't really felt like eating, you know?" She made a face and looked back. "It didn't really seem important."
The counselor nodded and looked down at his phone. Victoria closed her eyes and said "You don't have to feed me." She put her hands in her pockets and sat up straight.
"Liv would be furious if she found out I wasn't taking care of you." He sighed and held his phone to his ear. "You like Chinese food, right?"
Victoria rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yes." She leaned her head against the wall behind her. "What's the deal with you two anyway?"
"Who? Me and Olivia?" He answered after he got off the phone.
"Yeah you two. I don't get it. Are you sleeping together? You really seem to be ready to do what she says."
"No, we're not." He responded. "Though I can't say I haven't thought about it. She's not my type." He paused and looked at Victoria. "Too tall."
Victoria smiled and nodded. "I can see where that might be a problem." She sighed and relaxed a bit. She felt strangely comfortable here.
"Besides, she has a son. I don't want to get in the middle of that. And we work well together. I don't want to jeopardize that by letting my feelings for her, or anyone else at the station, get in the way." He answered.
Victoria looked at him with her mouth open, but closed it because she couldn't remember what she was going to say. "Do you have a girlfriend?" She asked him.
"Nope," he smiled and opened the cabinet. "Do you want a drink?"
"Water, please." She looked over at him. "Sorry for prying."
"It's fine. Anything to take your mind of the past few weeks, huh?" He asked and filled the glass with water.
Any hint of life that was in her eyes at that moment left as soon as he reminded her. She returned to her previous, quiet state. She looked down at the floor and sighed. She had almost forgotten about it.
"I didn't mean to upset you." He set the glass down on the table next to her.
"Do I have to testify against him?" She kept her head down but looked at him.
"If you don't, he won't go to jail. But you know you don't have to press charges against him." He sat back down on the couch.
"I do though." She shook her head. "I can't let this happen to anyone else. I don't want anyone else to ever go through this."
Victoria woke up the next morning and rolled out of the bed. She made her way to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The swelling from her black eye was completely gone now and her nose didn't hurt as bad. The bruises on her wrists and thighs were
yellowing, but her eye was still black and blue. She turned on the sink and cupped her hands under the water and rinsed her face. She looked around for her clothes, but they were nowhere to be found. Mr. Barba must have picked them up. She sighed
and left the bathroom and stood in the hallway. To her right there was a wall; the her left was a bedroom which she assumed was his. The door was open. She looked inside and saw him asleep still. She stood in the doorway for a moment watching the
blanket rise and fall as he breathed. He began to move and she turned the other way and walked down the hall to the living room.
She wasn't fast enough though, he noticed her. A few minutes later, he was in the living room with her. "Were you watching me sleep?" He looked down at her.
"Of course not." She lied. "That would be creepy."
He nodded and walked back to the bathroom. She heard the shower turn on, then fifteen minutes later, turn off. She leaned back in the chair she was in in the kitchen and watched as he walked from the bathroom to his room. She looked down
at the coffee cup in front of her. She leaned down, getting her face as close to the hot liquid as possible.
"You can drink that you know." He said buttoning his shirt the rest of the way. "It won't hurt you."
Victoria rolled her eyes and took a drink of her coffee. "I know that," she nodded and zipped her jacket the rest of the way up. "I'm going to go back to my apartment." She stood up and walked towards the door. "Thanks
for letting me stay here last night."
"Oh, you're welcome." He nodded. "You should give me your number, just in case Olivia can't get ahold of you."
"Sure," she said and took his phone from his hands, adding her number to his phone. "There, now you can call me whenever."
The detectives were all gathered around a screen that had one of Victoria's profiles opened. Amanda had her mouth covered; Nick stood there with his arms crossed; Fin was sitting there silently; Dominick was nodding with approval.
"You're disgusting," Olivia's comment was directed towards the youngest detective.
"You're telling me that you don't think she's a little bit hot?" He looked at his boss. "Come on, you know I'm just kidding. What that creep did to her? She didn't deserve that."
Olivia looked back at him and shook her head. "Did you find anything that might connect her to our suspect here?"
Carisi opened a new tab and logged into a different account. He opened her messages to the most recent thread. "This guy's username is NecRomance78. He and Victoria had been messaging back and forth for a week before she was abducted.
She sent pictures, he never reciprocated." He opened his mouth to make an immature comment but stopped himself. "His profile is a little scary." He opened it in another tab. "Look at this. His fetishes include a lot of what we
notice on our vic. Though there are no pictures of his face," he paused and clicked the link to the photos. "There are plenty of hers."
"He was taking pictures of her and uploading them to the internet?" Fin leaned forward. "What kind of sicko does that?"
"Does this guy have a name?" Olivia turned off the computer and looked back at her detectives.
"Daniel Parker," Carisi responded. "He's 37, works as a teller at a bank."
Victoria laid on her bed with her face buried in her pillow. She had several blankets over her and kept her hood up over her head. She was finally too warm. She wanted nothing more than to turn on a fan and sit in front of it. She turned her head and
looked out the window. Her phone buzzed. She reached for it and opened her messages.
"What do you want, Mr. Barba?" She groaned and opened the text. "Pictures? Of me?" She sat up and closed her eyes. Did her attacker really take pictures of her? She hated to think that maybe he did. Wasn't the rape enough?
Why take pictures of her.
She dialed his number and waited patiently for him to answer.
"What do you mean they found pictures of me on someone else's FetSphere profile?" She felt sick to her stomach.
"They don't need you to come in, but you should know that they are doing whatever they can to get the images removed. However they did do a reverse image search and found a lot of them on other websites." He responded. "There
is a good chance that so many people have seen these pictures already."
"You're not going to use them as evidence, are you?" She panicked. She didn't need more people seeing them.
"We have to," he paused for a moment. "We can censor them, though, if you want."
She shook her head. "If you're going to use them, I'd rather you not censor them."
He made a noise of agreement and added, quietly, "I'm rather glad I decided to bring you clothes last night."
Victoria was confused but shook it off. "I'd like to go back to sleep now, Mr. Barba," she curled back up in her bed. "If you need to let me know anything else, call me."
"You should probably wake up. It's nearly four." He said before hanging up the phone.
Victoria looked at her phone then opened up an internet browser. She paused for a moment before logging into her FetSphere profile and went through her friends' list before she noticed her face as someone else's profile photo. She blinked
back tears and clicked on it. The pictures on the profile ranged from her in the ice to the actual rapes that occurred. She got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. She fell to her knees in front of the toilet and vomited. Every decision she had
ever made in her entire life became a regret. She looked up at the ceiling for a moment before she began heaving again. Tears welled up in her eyes as she continued to vomit. She flushed the toilet and leaned back against the wall behind her. If she
had never made that stupid profile to begin with, if she had never started messaging him in the first place, none of this would have happened. She stood back up and turned on the shower. She crawled into the tub, totally dressed and sat there, letting
the water soak her completely.
"Ms. Wagner is clearly full of regret regarding the things she decided to do," the defense attorney, James Drake, said looking down at Rafael. "We're willing to plead guilty misdemeanor assault, though, because, unless you find more witnesses
or supposed "victims," no jury will convict my client."
The D.A. leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "Ms. Wagner presented with a black eye, broken ribs, a broken nose, and multiple contusions all over her body. That's not misdemeanor anything."
The defense attorney nodded and stood up. "Then we'll be seeing you at the trial, Mr. Barba." And he left.
Rafael looked down at his desk and sighed. He looked over at his phone and contemplated calling Olivia and seeing if they could find any other women that Daniel had contacted or had any sort of relationship with. She must have been reading his mind though
because as soon as he was about to call her, he received a phone call.
"Hey, Liv." He answered.
"Another girl came in today. She said she spent a night with Daniel and her story sounds a lot like what Victoria told me the first night she was with him." Olivia said, not even bothering to return the greeting. "She went to a hospital
but never reported anything to us because she was afraid of him."
"She just escaped?" He asked.
"Not exactly. She said he let her go after she refused to indulge him in his fantasies." She answered.
He nodded and exhaled heavily. "I can't say it's not worth a shot using her as a witness, but the jury might see this as-"
"At this point anything helps. We were going through her profiles, her messages, she's got some pretty explicit content there." Olivia sighed. "I can't see this ending well for us."
"Send me screenshots of all of her messages, friends' profiles, anything that can be used as evidence. I'll see if I can get you a subpoena for his profile." He responded.
"No need, he gave it to us no problem." She smiled. "I'll be over in a bit to give walk you through all of it."
Victoria sat in the shower until the water got cold and no matter how far she turned the knob to the hot water, only cold water came out. She sat there, shivering, rocking back and forth, crying. She couldn't move. The cold water reminded her of everything
she had been through the past two weeks. Her head hurt from crying. She wanted to throw up again, but her stomach was empty; all she could do was dry heave.
Someone pounded on the door. She froze and looked in the general direction of the door that lead into her apartment. She turned off the shower and stood up. She slowly walked towards the door and looked out the peephole. She opened the door
and looked up at the two people standing in the doorway.
"Victoria?" Detective Amaro sighed and looked down at her.
"Are you okay?" Detective Rollins looked at her concerned. "What were you doing?"
Victoria opened her mouth but nothing came out of her mouth. She turned around and walked back to her bedroom, trailing more water through her apartment. She unzipped her jacket, pulled off her wet t-shirt, peeled off her sweatpants, and
looked at herself in the mirror. There were more bruises that she had forgotten about. A few cuts, too. She leaned against the wall the mirror was hanging on. She saw the two officers standing in her room. She looked back at them.
"Go ahead, look at me all you want." Victoria spat. "I'm used to it. I've become something of a freak show."
Nick shook his head and opened Victoria's dresser, pulling out a dry shirt and handed it to her. "We don't want to do that," he started.
"Then what do you want? I haven't been able to stop thinking about what happened to me. Mr. Barba called me and told me that the guy who raped me's lawyer wants to plead out to misdemeanor assault?" Victoria questioned. "What
even is that? Look at me."
Nick nodded, "But we have another woman talking to us. She said that Daniel tried doing the same thing he did to you, but to her."
Victoria looked up trying to keep the tears back. "But she didn't get it nearly as bad as I did, huh? Of course not."
Amanda walked up to Victoria and took the shirt from Victoria's hands. "Turn around and look at yourself in that mirror."
Victoria did what Amanda asked her to do and sighed.
"Do you know what I see? I see someone who survived something horrible that I don't think even I could live through. You are so brave for even talking to us. You can stand up to him." Amanda paused for a moment. "He wins if
you hide from him."
Victoria sighed. "All I see is me. Mostly naked. With two police officers standing in my room with me." She chuckled and closed her eyes. "Sounds like something a lot of guys would like to see, huh?"
Nick took the shirt back from Amanda and handed it to Victoria. "She picked him out of a line up. We have a case built against him. But he let her go. We have to know: did you ever once consent to the things he was doing to you?"
Victoria shook her head and pulled her shirt on. "After a while I just became numb, you know? I didn't want to feel anything else anymore. The ice helped. It's hard to feel anything when you're on the constant verge of frostbite. I
stopped fighting back after about the third day." She rubbed her eyes gently. "I know this sounds bad, but I'm happy I'm not the only girl he did this to. Maybe now he'll be put away forever."