Their relationship was not as tumultuous ever since that day. Abbie had let her guard down a bit around victims. Allowing herself to actually search for similarities in order to come up with the best course of action. Up until he showed up it seemed to be working.
Adam called her in that day, they had finally found a good candidate for the spot that Jack had left open and he was announcing that to her today, just before he was to introduce them. "Abbie I would like to see you for a moment".
"I have found Jack's replacement." Not that she was complaining for actually being in charge regarding their cases but it would be good to have someone to share all the workload with finally. She took his gesture towards the chair as an invitation to sit and moments later she was thankful for taking it. She nodded, making Adam continue.
"He is a perfect match for this, and is quite young and connected", at that Abbie scoffed, another spoiled brat pushed through the ranks by his 'connections' as Adam had put it. "Now, his name is Thomas Williams…" At the mention of the name the world begun spinning. This couldn't be happening, this was not happening. She had changed cities, states to get away from that man. Her brain was screaming at her to tell him, TELL ADAM, but her mouth failed her and then it all got even worse.
"And I believe he is making his way towards us right now." At that everything froze. She could only hear her frenzied heart beat and the beginning of her fight or flight response kicking in. Suddenly she heard that. "Abbie Carmichael!" She heard the voice exclaim. "I can't believe it." She suddenly found herself in the arms of her monster and she couldn't react, it was like she had no control of what she did in his presence, like the 'lesson' as he had called it, he taught her, of what happened when she fought him, was still engraved into her mind.
She made some lame excuse and left, grateful for the lack of open cases and before she knew it, she found herself sat on a stool, drink in hand. She had not done that in ages. She was scared of what alcohol had transformed her into when she used it as a means to cope back then. She had never touched the damned thing since she found herself in bed with her best friend's boyfriend in one of the sex frenzies she had gone onto as an attempt to take back control of her body after he had taken it away from her. Yet here she was, intending to do the very same thing again.
"Hey", she heard, the voice momentarily pulling her away from her thoughts. God, she couldn't deal with this right now. "Hello detective", she replied hoping that her tone would push the detective away. But Olivia was persistent. "Didn't expect to see you here."
"Yeah, I don't usually go out to drink" she replied, immediately regretting the information she had shared and her tone while doing so. The hurt look on Olivia's face was enough. "I'm sorry". The voice in her head kept telling her to tell Olivia, TELL HER, she was a cop for fuck's sake. If anyone could help it would be the compassionate detective, but she knew that she never would. She never told anyone other than Jack and she had done that only in a moment of weakness.
Olivia opted to continue trying to make Smalltalk with the brunette in hope of getting to truly know her. Little did she know that the matter she had opted to talk about was no small talk for the young woman in front of her. "Heard you found the attorney replacing Jack". Yes, we found my rapist who is now essentially my boss she wanted to scream. "Yeah"
"I also heard that Adam is quite smitten with him." Dammit, she hadn't thought of the possibility that in the case she did tell Adam he would not believe her. Even though part of her brain recognised that this was not true and never would be, the part of the brain controlling her right now was not a very logical one.
A hand appeared on Olivia's shoulder and a smiling Fin made his way behind it. "Hey Liv, Abbie, care to join us?" He pointed to the group sitting a few tables over. Abbie hadn't noticed them. But of course she should have, Olivia was not a loser like herself, going out to drink herself until she passed out alone. "Actually I was going to head home, you go have fun. See you on Monday, if we don't have any cases" she said in a tone that left no room for even attempting to change her mind. "Amen to that" said Tutuola, followed by their goodbyes and she left.
Well at least they had saved her from the risk she was putting herself in of reverting to her old ways, even if it was for one night and for all the wrong reasons she thought as she made her way home.
She checked a total of seven times if her door was locked and slept with her, licenced, firearm in hand. She hadn't done that in years.
