Note: It's almost over, I promise. I hope I haven't traumatized anyone too terribly.
Chapter Thirty-Five
"Fucking idiots!" Stabler roared, a freakish mixture of rage and mirth at the same time, "But damn am I glad they're fucking idiots!"
Casey's phone had been on long enough for them to track it down and when Olivia called it, they localized it even further. It was within thirty feet of the address that the minivan was registered to, which was Clark the clerk's mother's house. Without Barbary, his minions got extremely careless. Ruth was drunk with the power she'd been given and his supposed vision resulted in the ones he chose to escape the arrests were not the best choices.
Elliot's knuckles were white and he was dressed in jeans and t-shirt. He was driving wildly and speeding through stop lights with his police beacon twirling on his dash. "If both of these women don't have all of their eyes and fingers when I get there, I will personally go into lock-up and shoot every single one of those motherfuckers!"
"Calm the hell down, El!" Olivia yelled at him.
There were two squad cars ahead of them and one behind along with a bus and Fin and Munch were somewhere. Fin decided to take some manner of shortcut to the location.
...
"Whore!" Ruth bellowed at Alex as she lay balled up on the cold floor. She was slinging blood this way and that was she tried to keep Clark off of her and keep her dress covering her.
Casey clinched her fists and Alex was muttering, "No, no, no."
Clark was laughing from on top of her, but he couldn't get her to get out of the fetal position. She was definitely scrappier than she looked and she was a good deal stronger than the slightly tubby boy and also a few inches taller, though about fifty pounds lighter.
Ruth shouted at Alex again, "You flirted with Raphael! You flirted with him while he was working and now you're not interested in him?! You open your legs for everyone else!"
"Wait," Casey said suddenly, "Can I do something to her?"
Ruth looked toward her curiously and Clark looked over his shoulder. Everything went silent except Alex, panting and squirming.
"I want...I want to...um...carve something into her..."
Ruth's eyes grew even wider than they already were and she motioned for her Clark to get off of Alex and said, "Don't you dare try to run, Alexandra Cabot."
"What the fuck, Casey?" She asked from the floor and Clark kicked her in the ribs instantly.
Ruth was next to the tray of knives and she picked them up from the table, bringing them over to Casey. Instead of taking one, Casey grabbed the metal tray and slung all of the medical instruments into the woman's face.
She let out a wail, causing Clark to turn and then Casey used the tray like a softball bat, smashing it into his face as hard as she could. He fell to the side and she raised the tray over her head and brought it down on his face a second time with a solid clunking noise and sound of his cracking nasal bone.
Ruth was suddenly covered with bleeding cuts and Alex skittered across the floor on her back, vanishing to the darkest part of the basement.
Casey quickly turned back to Ruth and held up the dented tray like a shield. Ruth had picked up the kitchen knife used earlier and her eyes had grown crazier than ever. Casey began backing away from her, wondering where the fuck the cavalry was and not knowing what she was going to back into.
Despite two hard blows to the head with the tray, Clark was not completely incoherent. He was coherent enough to reach out, grabbing onto Casey's ankle, tripping her. She dropped the tray and trying to break her fall, she twisted her other ankle and went down.
Ruth began to bellow for Elimelech and Gabriel when Alex re-emerged, stumbling on her heels and her now tattered dress barely keeping her covered, despite her taking the time to refasten the top. She snatched up what was left in the bottle of vodka and ignored the blood pouring down the inside of her leg and all down her side. She splashed a bit of the liquid into Ruth's eyes, breaking her focus. She started moving toward Casey and stopped only long enough to kick Clark harder in the scrotum than she'd ever kicked anything before in her life.
The hotel attendant had been pawing for Casey, but couldn't reach her because he couldn't get his eyes to look in the same direction after she hit him. Alex scrambled to get the other attorney to her feet. Casey almost took them both back down to the floor when she tried to put weight on her ankle. Alex quickly locked her arm around her and Casey tightened her grip around her shoulders.
"Police! Put the knife the fuck down!" Fin shouted from somewhere upstairs as the two women limped toward the stairs.
"Fin!" Casey screamed as loud as she could, somehow mustering whatever else she had left in her.
Alex looked back behind them when they reached the start of the stairs and saw Ruth coming up behind them. She was squinting, but wielding the knife still.
As Munch opened the door above them, Alex shoved Casey to the right of the stairs not heeding her injured ankle in the slightest and figuring being alive was ultimately more important. Alex ducked as the woman dove at them and at the same time, Munch commanded, "Put the knife down lady."
She sneered at him and went for Alex to her left. Alex slid across the concrete as Munch fired once and Ruth let out another animalistic scream and fell backward. Alex went on her hands and knees over to Casey who was laying in much the same place where she'd pushed her, but was sitting up on her elbows, looking completely exhausted. When Alex got to her she reached out desperately and hugged her tightly not caring about the mess of blood. She buried her face into Alex's neck and didn't care that she smelled like cheap vodka either.
"You ok?" Alex asked.
"Not dead," she gasped.
"Ok. I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass out now."
Casey started crying in near hysterics and supporting Alex's dead weight because after all she was generally a woman of her word and did pass out.
"Down here!" Munch called out, "We've got a live one and Alex and Casey!" Then he saw Clark, "Scratch that, two live ones, but both are incapacitated!"
Olivia and Elliot barreled down the stairs and flipped on all of the light switches that illuminated the whole room. She revealed what was obviously the main headquarters of the cult operations. There was a plethora of surgical and other medical equipment along with ropes, assorted straps, more tools and a drain in the center of the concrete floor for easy clean up of the blood.
Speaking of blood, it was also everywhere just from the foray that went down moments before. Ruth was alive, but barely. Munch had shot her in the chest, but not fatally. At least it wasn't fatal just yet. Clark was most definitely incapacitated and easily put into cuffs and dragged upstairs.
Elliot stopped in their tracks seeing the scene so suddenly that Olivia bumped into him. They had no idea what could have happened and wouldn't be finding out soon because Casey was in hysterics and Alex had fainted.
Olivia tried to calm her down, but to absolutely no avail.
When the paramedics came down, Elliot pointed them over to Alex and Casey and stood over Ruth, who was sputtering blood from her mouth by that time.
"Jesus Christ..." Olivia said once they pried Casey off of Alex and put the woman on a stretcher. She got a look at the revealing stabs and cuts on both of the women that matched those of the victims.
Olivia reached down and tried to touch Casey, but she started screaming and swatted her away then pulled her knees up to her chest. Elliot came over and knelt down next to her. He spoke bluntly to her and didn't try to calm her down at all. He said, "You need to go to the hospital now, Novak. If you don't go they're going to go ahead and take that crazy hag who had you down here."
It wasn't true exactly. A paramedic was stopping Ruth from bleeding out as he spoke.
"It was you guys' day off..." She said sniffling.
Elliot chuckled and said, "Come on. Hospital."
"I can't get up," she sobbed and reached down to roll up the leg of her pants. She also had a huge bruise forming on her shoulder and another was engulfing her elbow on the same side. The cuts were clotting, but they stung and the back of her head ached from Clark pulling her hair. She also felt skin flopping around on the inside of her cheek which was swollen. Both of her pals were bleeding, but nothing compared to her hugely swollen right ankle, which was already blackening.
"I'll carry you. Let's go. Gotta get you out of the crime scene," he said pleasantly.
Olivia let out a huge sigh of relief. Munch looked over the basement with his hands on his hips, bony elbows jutting out. He was shortly joined by his partner once Elliot had Casey upstairs.
"What the fuck?" Fin said, looking around.
Munch shrugged. "Did you see Cabot?"
"Yeah."
"Part of me is incredibly curious about what happened here and another part of me doesn't even want to know."
"I don't wanna be the one to take their statements..." Fin admitted.
"Somebody has to."
"And somebody has to talk to the damn press."
"The Captain can do it."
Fin grunted in agreement and Warner trudged down the stairs, "Why'd I get called? There's no bodies."
Munch shrugged his lanky shoulders again.
"There's a severed finger over there," Fin pointed. "It doesn't belong to anyone we know."
"Good God," she observed. "I got here as they were loading up Novak and I passed a paramedic saying someone had a ruptured scrotum. I assume they were not referred to either of the women we know."
Fin's face suddenly contorted and he paled. Munch patted him on the back and said, "Pretty sure our prosecutors put up a damn good fight."
"Look at this tray, man. That shit looks head shaped," Fin pointed at the tray that had held some of the scalpels.
"We should get out of the way so the CSUs can get in here," Warner told the men. "I should go back to my lab and probably get ready to run a million samples. Let me know about Alex and Casey, alright?" She shook her head in disbelief and they all went back upstairs.
...
Some liquid stitches patched up Casey's cuts and light bandages were put on her hands. She had a severe sprain and was given some Vicodin for everything else. She lay alone and semi-conscious in the hospital room for a while before Olivia came back and sat down in a chair next to her bed.
"Where's Alex?" She asked her. "Is she ok?"
"She has a concussion, a broken toe and she lost some blood," Olivia began. "She's been stapled up and she's down the hall."
Casey looked relieved and relaxed into the pillow then suddenly became annoyed by the paper gown she'd been put in and the tubes sticking out of her arms. "When do I get to go? I hate hospitals."
"I spoke to a nurse in the hall and she said tomorrow. They want to keep you overnight for observation."
"Get me the remote for the TV and tell me what dumbasses sent me flowers, so I can be mad at them as soon as I can get up."
Benson laughed and handed her the remote, "They're mostly from people in the DA's Office. We all have more sense than to send you flowers."
She grunted and asked, "When do you want to get my statement about the fucking shit that went down in that basement?"
"Whenever you're ready."
She grunted again and turned on the television.
"I went by your place and got you some clothes. I also took care of the parking tickets you accumulated today."
"I can't believe I got fucking...kidnapped," she said bitterly. "I'm going to have to go to some therapy, aren't I?"
"I let you get kidnapped and yes."
"Shut up, Liv. I got Alex kidnapped too."
"Again, she was on her way to have lunch with me when it happened."
"Shut up, Liv," she said again, but with less conviction, knowing it was futile. "Can I just talk to Huang about being tortured so I can go back to work?"
"I'll see what I can," Olivia told her.
Casey stopped her adamant channel surfing on a local news channel and read the headline at the bottom with a sneer, "Two Manhattan attorneys held captive for torturous afternoon."
"Maybe you shouldn't watch TV right now, Casey," Olivia suggested and then Elliot emerged in the door leading into her room as well.
"Hey, Elliot." She greeted him.
"How are you?"
"Not dead."
"This place is swarming with God damned reporters trying to talk to you."
"Tell them to shove it," she said.
"We're keeping them at bay and Cragen is giving his 'no comment' speech right now. He'll probably come see you if you're up for it after he's done."
She pointed to the TV, "I see his glistening bald head."
Elliot came in and sat down next to Olivia. They watched the Captains very brief appearance. Then Elliot observed, "Who the hell sent you all these flowers?"
"Dumbasses I work with."
"Vicodin usually makes people more pleasant..." Olivia pointed out with a smile.
Casey smiled back, "God, you guys, my career."
"Huh?" Elliot questioned.
"Because of Alex."
"What're you talking about?" He asked. Olivia remained quiet.
"I'm talking about everyone knowing now, and this isn't how I wanted any of those to be, and...and it's going to turn into a thing at the DA's Office. The defense is always going to be saying I have an agenda, and...and..."
Olivia elbowed Elliot in the ribs lightly, trying to get him to stop talking, but he was so confused he couldn't help himself, "Casey? What?"
She sounded exasperated, "Me and Alex. God, Stabler. Sometimes you're a fucking blockhead."
There was an pause in the banter and then he laughed loudly before composing himself, "Oh! Novak, listen to me. I don't care either way." He nodded to Olivia, "It doesn't mean any of us like you less and I'm pretty sure you're overreacting."
"I don't think you're actually helping, El," Olivia said to him.
"I really don't want to deal with any of this..." Casey grumbled. She felt herself about to slip into hysterics again. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe, but maybe she wasn't either.
"There's always the 'no comment' speech," he shrugged and put his big palms in the air, making the motion more exaggerated.
"What about Alex?" Casey asked.
"What about her?"
Olivia reached over and took Casey's hand. Casey didn't even bother to fight her off. She took a deep breath and said, "Let me tell you something about Alex. She's got some skeletons in her closet and she knows how to deal with them-"
"I don't want to be a skeleton, Olivia."
"You're not dead," Elliot butted in. He was trying to make jokes and even on good days Casey was sometimes not fond of jokes.
Olivia glared at him, "What I'm saying is to talk to Alex."
"But this happened to her because of me..." Casey said softly and sadly.