A/N #1: As always, thank you to those of you who have taken the time to read this story. I'm still hoping to have it done by May 21st!

A/N #2: Information from this chapter can be found at wings dot buffalo dot edu/ law/bclc/web/NewYork/ny3(b) dot htm. Again, I am not a lawyer, and have probably made law mistakes. I apologize in advance for those.

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Law and Order: SVU. That honor goes to the good folks over at NBC.

Spoilers: None.

Summary: An intelligent, non-athletic, non-confrontational ninth grade girl just trying to survive high school learns precisely how cruel some kids can truly be.

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Reddington High School, several weeks later

Annabelle dejectedly sat in her classroom, listlessly staring at the front board. She had a political science test sitting in front of her, with only the first couple of questions actually filled in. She didn't care, though. She really didn't care about school anymore, and even went so far as to wonder why she even bothered to show up in the first place.

Her days now consisted of her fellow classmates hitting on her or throwing innuendos in her general direction, with the Facebook and Twitter accounts consuming every fiber of her being. It didn't matter how many times she called Olivia to tell her about a new page springing up, nor did it matter how many times the NYPD removed a harassing page. New pages always popped up, seemingly within minutes.

And the incessant phone calls. Annabelle had to admit that her classmates were some pretty tech savvy people, because no matter how many times she changed and made her phone number unlisted, they always managed to find her. She could run, but she most certainly could not hide.

It didn't make any sense. Nothing made any sense.

But maybe Sammy was right, she mused to herself. Maybe she just had to ignore what was going on and move forward with her life. Olivia didn't seem to be able to help, and Alex? Well this was the first time in her life that Annabelle questioned whether or not lawyers did any good. Whether or not they were any good. Whether or not they were the good guys that she had grown up thinking they were. Shouldn't people have been arrested for something by now?

In a sense, Annabelle's heart ached so deeply that she felt utterly depressed and defeated. No, no one was physically attacking her, as Sammy had so graciously pointed out, but she felt like her peers were attacking something much more important to her than her physical body: they were attacking her values, her personality, and her character. Every joking phone call that she received asking for sex, or every dropped letter on her desk, brought her that much closer to the brink of despair.

Annabelle just couldn't escape her tormenters, and she felt her life slowly slipping away.

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16th Precinct

"What the hell is going on up there, Alex?" Olivia fumed, pacing back and forth beside her desk. "It's been weeks now, and still nothing new on Annabelle's case? What the hell do we need to do in order to get a warrant or a conviction?"

Alex calmly perched herself on Elliot's desk, watching as her friend and co-worker paced back and forth. "I can't move forward without solid evidence from your end of things. You know that. Give me something that I can use, and I'll take the case to court in a heart beat, Olivia."

"Give you something that you can use?" Olivia scoffed, momentarily standing in place. Ignoring the stares from her partner, Finn, and Munch, she frowned. "We gave you the names of the boys who have been harassing her!"

"And I spoke with those boys, but you know as well as I do that we don't have enough to charge them with anything major."

"We don't have enough to charge them with anything major?" Olivia repeated Alex's words, her hands placed firmly on her hips in order to keep them from flailing around in anger. "What about harassment? Isn't that a crime in the great state of New York?"

"Olivia, calm down," Elliot finally interrupted, getting to his feet. "This isn't helping Annabelle right now."

"We're not helping Annabelle right now, so don't you dare tell me to calm down, El!" she shot back. "You heard her voice, didn't you? She's no longer the spunky little ninth grader that she was when we first met her!"

"I know," he raised his hands in defense, trying to placate his partner. "I understand that she's starting to give up, but we're all doing our best."

"Well in this case, our best isn't good enough. At this point, we might as well arrest the whole damned school for harassment."

"So why don't you do that?" Alex gently but seriously asked. "I said that we don't have enough to charge them with anything major enough to give them jail time, but I can probably get my boss to agree to harassment in the second degree or aggravated harassment in the second degree. Read them their rights and bring them in, and I'll see what we can get from them after that. Who knows, maybe we'll even be able to figure out who's behind this whole mess."

"Come on, I'll drive," Elliot grabbed his keys, followed by Olivia's elbow, leading her outside.

Finn and Munch were right behind them.

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Reddington High School

"You can't come in here like this!" Reid Bannon shouted from the doorway of the main office, his face bright red. "What do you think you're doing? This is a place of learning!"

"Which is precisely why we're here," Olivia breezed by the principal, heading directly for Annabelle's political science class, four officers right on her heels. It was still first period, and she remembered exactly where the young girl's classroom was located.

"What are you doing?" Bannon repeated, following a short distance behind. "Are you arresting someone? Parents will need to be called and notified!"

"Parents will be called," Elliot assured the other man. "And yes, we're about to deal with your bullying and harassment problem. We warned you that this matter wasn't to be taken lightly, Sir."

"Is this Annabelle Lewis's fault?" the principal persisted. "That girl makes a mountain out of a mole hill! There's no reason to arrest anyone, wouldn't you agree?'

Olivia stopped dead in her tracks, immediately turning on her heels. Ripping a conveniently placed Facebook flyer from the wall, she handed it to Bannon. "I call this harassment," she told him, doing her best to keep her temper under control. "Our department has already shut down five or six different Facebook pages in the past week alone, not to mention several Twitter accounts. The purpose of each account was to harass and belittle one of your students, so please excuse me if I side with Annabelle on this one," she continued her trek down the hallway. "In fact, we should have arrested some of your students a full week and a half ago. I suppose we owe Annabelle a major apology."

"But I—" Bannon tried again, deeply frowning when Olivia and Elliot opened the political science classroom door, walking inside without hesitation.

"Joshua Schwartz, Jesse Niemitz, Steven Smith, Trevor Goodard, you're all under arrest," Elliot intoned, reading them their rights as four officers moved in to cuff the boys.

"What for?" Josh sputtered in surprise, tripping as he was forcefully pulled to his feet.

"Harrassment and bullying," Olivia replied, looking over at Annabelle for the briefest of moments. She looked so sad, and the detective didn't know how to help.

"But we didn't do anything!" Josh tried to tell Elliot.

"Again, you have the right to remain silent, so I suggest that you do so," he told the boys.

Annabelle quietly began to cry, tears sliding down her cheeks as she finally gazed at Olivia. Thank you, she mouthed.

Olivia beckoned Annabelle forward, smiling when the student hesitantly got out of her chair and followed the detective out into the hallway. "I'm sorry, honey," she murmured once they were alone. "We should have done this a lot sooner, but we were hoping to find the ringleader of this whole situation. That's why we haven't arrested anyone up until this point. Can you hang in there a bit longer for me, though? We haven't given up on finding the person who's been instigating everything."

"I'll try, but I can't take much more of this," Annabelle softly admitted. "I can't stand my life anymore, Olivia," she added. "Please, you have to do something soon."

"We will, just hang in there. And call me any time that you need me, okay?" the detective asked. "Day or night."

Rather than verbally replying, Annabelle flung herself into Olivia's arms, who simply held the ninth grader while she cried.

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TO BE CONTINUED