Author's Comments: I think the next chapter's going to be awesome. No promises, but yeah . . .

Rebel in the Dark

Chapter Twenty-Five

Part 1.

As Olivia crawled over to the side of the container and took a seat against the wall, wrapping a protective arm around her mid-section, the door opened and quickly shut again after a rail-thin Asian woman was shoved inside. The woman stumbled a few steps, her long, dark hair floating like downy feather around her shoulders. She was wearing nothing but a night shirt with silky black lingerie shorts underneath, but she stood tall and looked solidly around to get her bearings.

Olivia fought off twinges of pain in her ribs as she watched the woman spot her, their eyes meeting briefly before the woman picked a spot on the ground to sit cross-legged directly across from Olivia. Instead of averting her eyes and hunching over as Olivia would expect from someone in her situation, the woman sat up, her back flat against the wall, hands on her knees, keeping a steady gaze on Olivia before saying, "You hurt?"

Her accent was strong, but Olivia heard what she said. "I'll be okay."

"Name Shu-wei," said the woman. "Short for 'sage' in Chinese."

"I'm Olivia." But Olivia could not sit and chat any longer, having lost the patience to wait for her own fate to play out. Instead, she stood and walked, hunched over enough to take the pressure off her injured mid-section, and walked the length of the container, looking for another way out. The door at the other end was locked tight, and there didn't appear to be any other hatches. When she returned to the end where Shu-wei still sat against the wall, she said, "Why are you here?"

"They going kill me," said Shu-wei, unflinching, her eyes failing to disclose any sign of fear.

"How do you know?" said Olivia, shaking her head before sitting on the floor to rest again.

Shu-wei calmly said, "I age out. I no longer useful."

Olivia looked at this woman, barely out of her twenties, and opened her mouth before the right words came to her. "Doesn't it . . . bother you?"

"No," Shu-wei enthusiastically shook her head. "It's my time. Just go to . . ." she said, trying to think of the words in English, "another place. Better place."

Glancing at the door periodically, Olivia said, "Where did you come from?"

"Monastery near Tibetan border," Shu-wei said, and for a second Olivia saw a hint of sadness flash in her eyes. "Armed men come, take me away. I been here several years now, not sure how long."

Olivia nodded, allowing her gaze to drift down at the ground again. Shu-wei provided her with just another example of the evils of this world. Shu-wei interrupted her reverie by saying, "But I have faith that I will get what I deserve."

Now Olivia looked up at her again, the woman's eyes revealing something else—compassion perhaps? How could this innocent victim of cruelty feel that someone like Olivia had earned her compassion? "Maybe I'm getting what I deserve," she said to Shu-wei.

For a seemingly eternal moment, Olivia stared into the woman's eyes, really noticing the depth of her dark pupils, and it felt as if she was staring into the universe. "You good person," said Shu-wei.

Olivia shook her head once. "Why do you say that?"

Shu-wei sat still, without moving a muscle, and said, "You help people?"

Thinking back to the girls in that dark room behind Mr. Black's office, Olivia remembered that her goal of this whole exchange was not just to get her own ass out of jail, although that was an incentive, but to make sure those girls made it back home safe, without experiencing the trauma of becoming sex toys to much older men. A tear formed in the corner of her eye, and she said, "Yeah. I try."

Shu-wei's face relaxed, as if she was about to begin meditation, and she said, "All you need is self-love then. Make everything better."

Olivia squinted her eyes, contemplating the fact that this woman, probably having endured years of abuse and sexual exploitation, could still maintain such a hopeful outlook. Shu-wei closed her eyes, sitting like a stone waiting for the river to carve out what it wished.

Part 2.

Elliot and Nick drove along the edge of the New York Harbor, focusing on the area where Huang had guided them. They checked out several ships from a distance, until they saw a handful of cars and two shipping containers near one freight ship in particular. They parked out of sight, and made their way back to the dock on foot, using freight boxes as cover.

As they got closer to the ship, Elliot scanned the surrounding area for signs of the feds, but he didn't see a gun flash or a hidden suit anywhere. Nick, stealing ahead in front of Elliot, lurched to a stop at the same time that Elliot heard a man's voice call out over a megaphone, "This is the FBI. Put your hands up and remain where you are."

Elliot froze for a second before he realized the voice was a bit distant and directed in the area of the ship, not toward him and Nick. Peeking around a stack of crates along with Nick, the scene before him became chaotic, with Chinese men in suits lifting their guns to prepare to fire. A group of them opened one of the containers, and a mature man with a serious but calm look waved at the other men to go toward the other container.

"Stop where you are," the megaphone demanded, but most of the men had already piled into the containers.

Elliot looked in the direction of the voice, and now he saw the flash of metal, and then a man in a flack suit holding the metal, which took on the outline of a gun. He made eye contact with Nick, and pointed in the direction of the armed man. Nick nodded as Elliot waved in that direction, and they began to venture over under the cover of the empty containers.

The FBI had established a base behind a stack another steel shipping container flanked by a pile of wooden boxes, and Elliot quickly spotted Dean Porter and saw that he was the one holding the megaphone. "Where's Liv," he yelled at Porter as he and Nick approached.

An angry voice came from the shipping container, saying, "We have your detective. Do not open fire or she dies."

Elliot peered around the boxes to see a sliver of light coming from the door of the container, and then Olivia filled in that light with her silhouette, holding both hands in the air. And then she was gone, whisked away back into the container.

Elliot turned his attention back to Porter, who shot him an unrepentant look while Elliot sized the man up and down again. "I'm going to kill you, you mother fucker," said Elliot, lurching toward Porter and grabbing his shirt collar in one hand and then shoving him against steel wall of the container. Several FBI agents moved toward him to pull him off Porter, but Elliot's grip was steel on the man's shirt. "Did you know she's pregnant?" he screamed, spittle flying into Porter's face.

Hands, their owners and origins unknown to Elliot, pulled him back and arms wrestled with him until he let go. Porter kept his eyes locked on Elliot's, and when Elliot let loose of his collar, he panted for breath and said, "No, I didn't know." Elliot was restrained fully now, and Porter dusted off his suit with his hands and said, "But knowing that isn't going to help us now."