A/N: I warn you that this is EXTREMELY GRAPHIC, but in an anatomically correct way. Rape is vulgar, and so is my description of it. If you want to skip this chapter, you are missing Casey's statement, and that is sort of important to the story.

Sunday, November 10th 2007, 7:30pm

Olivia, Munch, Cragen, Fin, and Huang are all here. Olivia told me that they would be coming, but somehow I didn't think of how hard this would be.

We chat for a while. They ask how I'm doing and I appreciate their support, but being in a room with this many people is suffocating right now. They don't know what to say, to each other or to me. We all know that the real reason they're here.

"Casey, we really need your formal statement as soon as possible." Cragen says, "The sooner that we can say definitively that it was self-defense and close the book on this one, the better. Your statement is all we need to do that."

"Ok, I'll give my statement now. But then you have to spill. I want to know everything there is to know about Felix Lietnen." I am trying to be strong willed, but the idea of recounting what happened makes me tremble.

Don nods. "Okay. You know, we don't all need to be here for the statement." He glances at Olivia and she nods. "If you just want Olivia here that's alright."

"Can Olivia and George stay?" Like I said, Olivia is my best friend, and a woman, but I don't want her to be the only one who has to listen to this. Maybe it's because Dr. Huang is so obviously gay that I don't mind telling him this, or because he's short and gentle, or even because he's a shrink, and he is supposed to be understanding. Anyway, I think they're the two least intimidating people here.

"Sure, that's fine." Munch, Fin, and Cragen leave the room and close the door behind them. Olivia pulls out her digital recorder.

"You ready Casey?"

"Yeah, I guess." I feel a knot of anxiety in my chest, but it's probably better to get this done with.

She turns the recorder on. "Today is Sunday, November 11th, 2007." She glances at her watch. "The time is 7:46 pm. This is Detective Olivia Benson, badge number 32612, of the Special Victims Unit, NYPD. I am here with Dr. George Huang, Special Agent for the FBI, and Casey Novak, Assistant District Attorney for the Manhattan DA's office, and the witness in this case."

"Casey, please state your name and occupation for the record."

I take a deep breath. "My name is Casey Novak. I prosecute Sex crimes for the Manhattan DA's Office. I work in conjunction with the Special Victims Unit."

Olivia speaks, "Please give us your account of what happened on the night of Friday, November 9th."

"I left work at 7:30pm. I went for drinks with a friend from college. His name is Jeffery Hansen, and we have known each other for the past ten years. He lives in Philadelphia, but we get together when he has business in New York. We had drinks; we spoke for a while. Jeff had a 10:00pm Amtrack train to Philly to catch, so we left at nine in the same cab. He got out at Penn Station, paid the cab fare for both of us, and the cabbie continued to drive me uptown to my apartment. I got to my apartment at 9:37pm. I looked at my watch, so I'm sure of the time. I went up to my apartment."

I stop talking. I can't tell. I can't say this. I feel like I'm going to hyperventilate, so I take deep breaths. I sit on the bed with my knees bent up to my chest and my face buried. Somehow I think that this will be easier if I don't have to see Olivia's and George's faces as I tell them.

"Casey, you can do this," says Dr. Huang. "What happened when you got to your apartment?"

"I opened the door, and... and he as there. The lights were off so I didn't see him. I closed the door and that's when he put the gun to the right side of my head. He was behind me. He put his left hand on my shoulder and he spoke to me." I pause.

"What did he say?" says George.

"He said, 'Hello Casey.' He said something like, uh, 'I've been looking forward to this. Drop your purse and cell phone and we can have some fun.' I did what he told me to do. After that he started to touch me."

Tears are running down my cheeks. I take a minute to get my breathing under control.

"He, uh, he put his left hand between my legs, down my pants. He kissed me, my chest, my breasts. He told me to unbutton my shirt and I did. He put the gun to the back of my neck and told me to get on my knees.. He moved to stand in front of me. He made me have oral sex with him. He told me to swallow. Then…then he didn't have the gun pointed directly at me anymore, so I bit his – his penis as hard as I could. He yelled and dropped the gun. I tried to grab it, but he grabbed me by my neck first and slammed my head into the kitchen counter. I think I blacked out for a moment. I was dizzy. When I came to he said that I would pay."

I stop again, breathing hard and choking, sobbing despite my attempts to remain calm.

"Honey, you're doing just fine. Just a little bit more, and you'll be done." Olivia speaks softly and takes my hand in hers. I take a deep breath and continue.

"He made my lie down. He gagged me and tied my hands, but it was fairly loose. I could move my hands fine. He cut me with a knife he got from my kitchen. My breasts, the inside of my thighs."

I gasp, because remembering this is actually, physically painful. I am still in pain. "It hurt, oh god, it hurt! He licked the blood off of me. He kissed me. He had his hands all over me."

I keep crying; shuttering gasps escape my mouth. Deep breaths, Casey, take deep breaths, I remind myself. I force my tone to be flat and measured. This happened to someone else. Not me.

"I tried to scream. I tried to pull away from him, I swear I did. I swear it. He wanted me to fight; he was laughing at me. He raped me, then…then... he used the knife to rape me again." I laugh bitterly. "I suppose I'm lucky that it was not a bigger knife or I'd be dead. All the time he was touching me, and calling me things: whore, bitch, cunt. He said I deserved it. He said I was asking for it by being a prosecutor. Then he kept telling me how beautiful I was. I didn't understand it; he didn't make any sense saying all those things at once."

My voice drops to a monotone. Somehow I feel like I'm drifting, like it really wasn't me who shot that man... just for a moment, I'm not here. Just for them moment Casey Novak has left the room, and a pod person is here in her place.

"He started to rape me again. He had the knife in one of his hands, and he had put the gun in his pants. The gun fell. I grabbed it. I shot him twice. He was on top of me and he fell on me…he was gasping for air. He looked shocked. He was a lot heavier than me, so it took me a minute to pull myself out from under him. I kicked the gun and knife away from him, even though I thought he was dead, put my underwear back on and called 911."

I snap out of my emotional void as I suddenly feel the need to explain why I was practically naked when the police showed up: "I would have put my clothes on, but they were covered in blood. It was 11:50 when the police arrived. I can't…I can't believe he was only there for two hours."

I break down crying. My arms are wrapped tightly around my knees, and I bury my head in them, rocking back and forth.

Olivia says, "That's good Casey. We're done. This recording concludes at 8:20pm." She turns off the recorder and hands it to Dr. Huang. He leaves the room. Olivia wraps her arms around me and holds me as I cry uncontrollably into her shoulder.