Infatuation

by Forever without him

Doctor Alison DiLaurentis is sharp, a charming seductress. She is also a killer. Behind her eyes there is a darkness. Beneath her smile there are untold secrets. She thought she had everything figured out. But then Detective Emily Fields came into her life. Emily is hunting Rosewood's most notorious serial killer. She never expected to fall in love with her. DARK AU. M

14. Urges and Desires

A/N: I ramble too much, but...I wanted to say thanks for sticking with me. I've been in a tough spot lately and have been burying my heart into this story as a means to escape, so thank you for the reviews.

Rated M: Twisted content ahead.

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Chapter 14:

Urges and Desires

Despite Alison being the one who was attacked, it was Emily who had nightmares.

Every time she woke up she would sneak into the kitchen with the intention of pouring herself a drink to calm her rattled nerves. But then she thought of her rock bottom. She thought of waking up in that hospital bed and seeing Toby's weary face…the tears in his eyes.

She'd made a promise to Toby…and to herself…that day. It hadn't always been easy to keep, especially after her dad died.

The night after his funeral she'd pulled out a bottle of cheap bourbon and put it on her kitchen table. She'd put a glass down to the right of the bottle and her glock down on the left. She'd stared at the lethal combination for nearly half an hour. She'd picked up the loaded weapon a few times, just to feel the weight of it in her hands.

She'd been reaching for the bottle and twisting the cap off when something stopped her dead in her tracks.

"It's not your time, Emmy."

Her father's voice in her head.

Startled, but not entirely surprised, she took the moment in stride. She didn't have a problem conversing with the dead. She knew it wasn't healthy, but it was a truce she'd allowed herself to keep her insanity at bay.

I can't do this without you, Dad.

She'd closed her eyes and could see him standing in front of her in his dress blues. His hand was outstretched, palm open and reaching for her face.

The warmth of his touch had felt so real. She'd put her hand on top of his, tears streaming down her face.

I'm not strong enough.

He'd drawn her face towards him and kissed her forehead.

"You're the strongest woman I know."

Her chest ached, as if her heart had physically split in half.

Is this pain ever going to go away?

He'd wiped her tears, the kindest smile on his face,

"It's always going to be there."

She knew she was having a conversation with her subconscious, but she held on to her father's image.

"Like waves slowly rolling over your ankles…the tide will rise and threaten to sweep you out to sea. But when that happens you look for that lighthouse out there…and you swim like hell, baby."

Emily blinked, and he was gone. She was back in her kitchen staring at the gun in her hand, left to wonder just what in the hell her dad's metaphor had been about.

She'd slowly put her weapon down and put the alcohol away.

She had been swimming towards the lighthouse ever since.

She hadn't fallen quite that low since then, but in her weakest moments sometimes she still craved some kind of relief, even if it wasn't death.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see Alison trapped in the back of the ambulance…terrified…fighting for her life. She could see Tim Roland's sadistic smile, his hands on her girlfriend's body.

She finally understood how Alison felt the day she'd come into the ER with a bullet in her chest. She understood how the surgeon felt having her blood on her hands…her life in her hands. Rushing Alison into the ER after the attack had fundamentally changed something inside of her.

Swimming against the current was hard enough, but now she was swimming through a crashing storm with her feet weighed down by rocks, trying to carry Alison with her.

She was also wrestling with a festering rage that she hadn't experienced since Maya's murder.

Another woman she cared very dearly for had been brutally attacked by a madman. Her father's lessons about monsters had been at the forefront of her mind. He had taught her everything she needed to know to defeat those monsters.

Fight like hell.

The quandary was how far she was willing to go to protect the woman she loved? It had her questioning everything about her sense of self. Did Roland's actions justify extreme measures?

Her morals were becoming skewed. She could see a world in which she would be okay with Tim Roland running into the Scarlet Letter Killer.

All she had to do was think about Alison…and the girls before Alison. Jenna. A teenager. A child. Her innocence ripped away.

If she ran into him on the street she would pull her gun and fire, no questions asked.

It challenged her philosophical beliefs. She thought about Ian and Garrett and what they'd done. She thought about Garrett's autopsy and the way she'd felt nothing when she saw his corpse.

A little part of her thought they deserved it, and that scared her. Because that was the thought process of this killer.

What, if anything, could justify murder?

Is there merit to what this psychopath does?

She felt her grip on her sense of duty starting to slip.

What is happening to me?

Her thoughts were a betrayal to the shield she wore and a betrayal to Maya.

She felt like she was being torn to bits, but she never let on that she was struggling. On the outside she was bright and sunny and just the right amount of sarcastic and playful. Inside, there was a storm brewing, and it was raging in her subconscious.

The nights she woke up in a cold sweat were her little secret.

It was always the same reoccurring dream.

Alison and Maya, or some warped version of them with black eyes and devilish smirks that went all the way to their ears.

They were walking towards her, arms outstretched, skin sloughing off.

With her back against the wall and nowhere to go all she could do was helplessly watch them corner her. When they were close enough she could see the bone protruding from Maya's neck. She could see Alison's bruises, purple and blue blemishes littering her swollen face.

"You could have saved us." Maya's voice came out as a demonic hiss.

"It's your fault," They whispered together.

Bloody hands groped her, grabbed her. They burned her skin like fire. The light was going out around her. The air was stuffy and smelled like the pungent odor of death. She was suffocating.

But just as she thought she was being dragged to hell a light beckoned her.

Her eyes shot open and she was staring at her bedroom ceiling.

Her first thought was,

I need a drink.

Her second,

Alison is safe.

She looked over. The blonde was sound asleep. Emily didn't doubt that Alison had bad dreams, though she never talked about them. Sometimes the young doctor whimpered in her sleep and started violently shaking. Emily held her until the shaking stopped. Alison didn't seem to remember them in the morning.

It had been two weeks since Tim Roland attacked Alison at the hospital. He was reportedly still "out of town on business". Emily had become hyper-focused on the case. She knew she needed to focus on the SLK case, but the killer was unusually quiet. It made Emily wonder if Roland was capable of more than they knew. Could he be the serial killer they were looking for?

No. Profile doesn't fit. Her eyes drifted towards the ceiling again. He rapes women. It's about power and control for him.

It was odd that the killings had stopped. Maybe the SLK was moving on. Or plotting. Either way, it made her anxious. Neither was a good scenario.

The only other reason serial killers suddenly stopped was usually because they had been killed, whether a freak accident or something else. But that was unlikely.

The SLK was inconsistent with kills. There had been gaps in the years where no killings had taken place. The most likely scenario was that the killer was retreating…for now.

It never dawned on her that the reason it stopped was because the killer was under police protection.

Surveillance made it hard for Alison to do what she liked to do.

But that thought never crossed Emily's mind. She looked over at the woman in her bed.

Such an angel…

So innocent. So vulnerable.

She was nearly killed because of me.

Since the attack, Emily had started to develop concerns about her relationship with the blonde.

Her relationship with Alison was dangerous to the blonde. She was hunting an active serial killer. On top of that, another suspect in another one of her cases had tried to rape her.

I'm a danger to her.

But she couldn't and wouldn't leave her.

Everything they had on Roland was circumstantial. They couldn't even get a warrant to seize his DNA. Not even the fact that Roland had met Alison in the park.

Emily turned towards Alison. The bruises on her neck had faded. The cut on her head was a tiny speck, now healed. She still had a small amount of bruising underneath her eyes, but the swelling in her nose and cheeks had gone down.

Emily wasn't sure what she would have done if she'd lost her.

The brunette shifted in the bed, careful not to wake her. Her lips grazed Alison's forehead.

Alison smiled in her sleep.

So fucking cute.

Emily lifted the covers and slid out from underneath them. She neatly tucked the sheet around the blonde so she wouldn't get cold in her absence.

She sat against the edge of the mattress in the glow of the soft blue light of her alarm clock.

It was 1:12 in the morning.

And the call was stronger than ever.

Just one glass. It'll help me sleep.

She'd be able to sleep it off. Alison had a shift at 8. She had one at 9.

She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. In the brief flash of darkness she saw the ghosts from her nightmare.

She grabbed her phone and walked into the kitchen.

Just one glass.

But it was never just one glass. She could never stop at one.

So she waved the thought off…

…until her eyes landed on the calendar hanging in her kitchen. She saw the date, and the urge to drink suddenly had her moving towards the cabinet.

She had been so busy that the days had run together.

It had snuck up on her.

Maya's birthday.

It wasn't very often she considered actually giving in to the urges, but three particular dates sent her running for the bottle.

Her birthday. Our anniversary. The day she died.

The day she died, in particular was hard, because the ghoulish version of Nightmare Maya was right. She could have stopped it.

She could feel the bourbon in the cabinet, taunting her.

Drink me.

She wished she could get rid of the damn bottle. Drain it down the sink and shatter the glass into tiny bits and pieces. But she felt a sense of relief that it was there.

She had control.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change…

The bottle was there.

The courage to change the things I can.

And she wasn't drinking it.

Drink me.

She glared angrily at the cabinet and instead of the typical "and the wisdom to know the difference" to finish up her affirmation she finished it off with hearty, "Shut the fuck up."

Being with Alison helped her fight it. They had been alternating staying at each other's places. Her place was a lot smaller than Alison's, but the blonde didn't seem to mind. Emily liked having her there.

She turned away from the cabinet, though she could still feel the looming invitation of the bottle.

She put on a pot of coffee and grabbed her laptop.

When the coffee was done she poured herself a mug and walked into the living room. She sat down in front of the couch so she was level with the coffee table and opened the computer and typed in her password.

When she logged on she noticed that Toby was online. She reached for her phone, but it buzzed before she had a chance to message him.

He'd gotten to her first.

You couldn't sleep either, huh?

No. How long you been up? She could picture him with files strewn all about his house, the dog snoring on the sofa as he worked on the floor.

Never really went to sleep. Too much bugging me.

Same here.

You better not have a bottle of bourbon in your hands.

Toby knew what today was, too. He kept an eye on her. He never wanted to see her back in a hospital bed again.

No alcohol. Instead I'm burying my rage in work.

Sounds productive. Angry Emily gets shit done. Which case?

Emily hadn't been very active in the Roland case since Furey came in to help, but she was still involved. Furey said it was fine if she worked on it with them, but she had to keep her temper in check.

Keeping her cool hadn't been an easy thing to do. She dreamed of shooting Tim in the face. She had to settle for wailing on a punching bag and pretending it was him instead. She could only imagine encountering him somewhere and beating him unconscious.

She could imagine wrapping her hands around his neck, putting pressure against the pulse points until the throbbing of his heart completely stopped.

Emily shook her head, trying to shed the darkness she was carrying.

"Look for that lighthouse out there…and you swim like hell."

She took a breath to calm herself before she answered Toby,

The asshole who hurt Alison.

About that…we might have a break in that case. Hold on.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins. Maybe she'd get a shot at him soon.

Seconds later Emily's phone was buzzing, long strides, a phone call from Toby. She plopped into her chair and answered.

"Did they find him?" Emily didn't even let Toby get out a simple hello.

"No." He sounded irritated, but then he lightened his tone. "But Furey told me a few hours ago that the daughter…Chloe…wants to offer her DNA to compare to what was found at the scene."

"How? She's a minor. She can't consent to that." Though Emily was salivating at the mouth to get something to link Roland to the crime scenes.

"Her mom signed off. The ex-wife," he said. "If they share markers…it'll be enough for a warrant. It will be enough to bring him in and charge him. I'm betting he'll have a nice little scar on his neck when we find him."

If we can find him.

Maybe the Scarlet Letter Killer had already gotten to him.

Then again, if that was the case, they would know. The SLK thrived on the bodies being found.

"Was it Chloe's idea or the ex-wife's idea?" Emily asked.

"Chloe."

"I wonder why she wants to do this." Did she hate her father that much?

"She goes to school with Jenna Marshall." It was all Toby had to say.

The survivor.

"Girls talk," he said with a tired sigh. "According to Chloe, her dad makes some of her friends feel uncomfortable. He only has visitation rights, and only for Chloe. He wasn't granted any custodial rights for Grace, though I haven't been able to find out why. When Chloe is with him she never invites her friends over."

"That's…" Emily tried to process the new information, "…very telling." And infuriating. No child should live in fear of their parents.

Emily glanced towards her bedroom. She often wondered what Alison's childhood had been like. She only knew bits and pieces. What she'd read in her file and the few things that Alison had shared with her were horrific. Her parents sounded horrible. She could see a life in which children would use every opportunity at their disposal to keep dangerous adults out of their lives.

"Father of the fucking year." There was anger in Toby's tone, but there was also something else. A paternal desire to protect the young girl.

"Speaking of parents…" Emily arched her back, stretching in her chair. "I've got dinner with my mom tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah. That's right. I forgot to ask how it went last week."

She had been completely out of sorts at her mother's last dinner. She'd fidgeted the whole time. It had been her first time away from Alison since the attack. The blonde had to work that night. A cop had been assigned security detail, but Emily was still distracted during dinner. She'd dropped a steaming pile of yams on to her pants and spilled her water.

"It was okay." Emily shrugged.

"Liar." She could hear the smirk in his tone.

"It'll be better this week. Alison is going with me." She was curious to see how the two of them got along.

They'd met briefly in the hospital, but hadn't seen each other since then.

Alison got along with pretty much everyone. Her mother was a bit more guarded, but she took her hospitality seriously.

"That should be…" Toby chewed on his thoughts, "…interesting."

"My mother is going to embarrass me. I just know it."

"I didn't know you were capable of embarrassment. Didn't you hang your ass out a cruiser window and moon Chief Furey as your initiation to the force?" Toby snorted.

"Okay, first of all…you dared me to do it. Second…" She paused. "Shut up."

"Can't wait to tell Alison about that one." He chuckled. "How are things going for her at the hospital? Is she re-adjusting?"

"Seems to be. But she says it's weird. Aria follows her around like a guard dog…"

"Let me guess…you asked her to keep an eye out."

"Didn't have to. She asked me first. Wanted to know if she could use deadly force if someone came for Alison again." Emily sniffed, and then laughed. "That woman is a Rottweiler wrapped up in a Chihuahua-sized package."

Toby let out a loud belly laugh.

His laughter brought a smile to Emily's face, though it didn't last long.

After he stopped laughing he cleared his throat, which indicated the shift in his tone.

"How are the Hastings doing since Melissa lost the baby?"

Emily paused. She'd seen Spencer at the hospital. The wreck that had injured her sister and killed her unborn niece had hollowed out a piece of the surgeon. She'd only seen Chief Hastings once, but the older woman had the same dull look in her eyes.

"They're pretty torn up." Emily didn't sugarcoat it. "Alison says Melissa is inconsolable and that Chief Hastings and Spencer are both struggling. Chief Hastings is dealing with the pain of losing a grandchild and the pain of a mother who can't stop her child from hurting."

"I've talked to Spencer a few times just to check in. I sent her family a bouquet of white lilies and white roses." He paused, uncertain, "I…I read those are supposed to symbolize innocence and peace and that it's meaningful after the loss of a child. Is…is that right?"

Even though she couldn't see him she could practically see him raising his thumb nervously towards his mouth and scraping his thumbnail with his teeth.

It was sweet that he cared so much. He acted like an authoritative asshole sometimes, but he was a big old softie.

"I think so," Emily said softly.

"Spencer called me up to thank me on Melissa's behalf. We've been talking since then. She seems…I don't know…" He sighed. "Broken."

"That whole family lost something when Melissa lost that child." Emily craned her neck back and peered at the ceiling, once again wondering about the innocent and the guilty and the loss of life.

She was more upset over a baby she didn't even know being killed in a wreck than she was about the SLK's victims.

"You hear they pulled the driver that hit her off life support a few days ago?" Toby interrupted the silence.

"Yeah. Alison told me." Alison trusted Emily with her secrets, which was a huge deal, because the blonde had major trust issues.

"Tragic situation all around." Toby clucked his tongue.

"Seems to be a planetary epidemic."

What makes something a tragedy? She wondered.

Why was it tragic?

It all boiled down to innocence…and cause of death.

Justification for murder.

Had she crawled too deep into the mind of the killer to get out? Or was she just too jaded to care when bad people died?

"Try to get some sleep, Fields." Toby interrupted her thoughts.

"You do the same." Emily echoed his words back at him.

"And hey, listen, if you need to talk about…you know…to keep from drinking...I'm here," he said quietly.

"I know. Thank you." Her voice cracked, but she fought back the tears.

On Maya's nineteenth birthday, the last birthday she'd had, they had taken a trip up to New York. Coney Island. Emily had won her a huge pink teddy bear in a game where she had to shoot a water pistol into a target while racing other players to the top. That should have been her first clue that she'd be a good cop.

They'd spun around on a tilt-a-whirl, their hands clasped together as they screamed and laughed. They'd kissed atop the Ferris Wheel underneath a magical moonlit sky.

She could still hear the music.

Three months later Maya was dead.

Emily shook it off.

"Emily? You still there?"

"I'm okay, Toby. I really am." It wasn't entirely a lie. "Things have been easier this year. Because of Alison."

The blonde filled a huge void that was missing from her soul.

"Offer still stands. Might be kind of weird to talk to the new girlfriend about the old one."

"I don't need to talk about it. She just gets it. She gets me." Emily smiled.

Alison was patient and kind and loving. She always seemed to know what Emily was thinking…what she wanted.

"Good for you, partner." Toby sounded truly happy for her. "I'm going to get back to work. I'll see you in a few hours," he said, knowing that neither of them would get any sleep.

"Night."

After she got off the phone she moved to the couch and buried herself in her work.

She was chasing every lead she could find on Roland. He deserved to pay for what he'd done.

Twenty minutes into her research she felt a hand on her shoulder and nearly fell off of the sofa. She whipped around and saw Alison standing behind her, eyes half-closed, a serene expression on her face.

"Couldn't sleep?" Alison yawned.

"No. Not really." Emily scanned through the files on her laptop.

"Why didn't you wake me?" Fingertips grazed the back of her neck.

"You looked so peaceful." Emily craned her neck to look at her.

Alison cocked an eyebrow at her.

I dream about rivers of blood. And tonight there will be an ocean of it.

Alison smiled at her, keeping her distracted.

The brunette didn't see the doctor dropping a tablet into her coffee. It was a slight of hand. It fizzed and melted into the liquid.

Sorry, my sweet girl. Tonight has to be a restful night for you. Can't risk you waking up and finding me gone.

The blonde smiled at her, taking a seat next to her.

"You are far too kind to me." Alison touched her face.

"You deserve it." Emily kissed her temple.

No, I absolutely don't.

"Hey, we got a break in the case." Emily double clicked a file on her computer.

Alison's heart nearly rocketed out of her chest. Her case?

"Which one?"

Before Emily could answer, Alison saw Tim Roland's name on screen.

"Did they find him?" Alison asked.

She knew they hadn't. And the reason she knew they hadn't was because she had.

Every spare moment she had at the hospital went into tracking the bastard so she could get to him before the police did.

She knew the way criminals thought. She could get in their heads. As painful as it was to crawl into the mind of a rapist, she was able to put herself there…to read his thoughts. She could see his perverse ideas. What he would do. Who he would do it to. What he felt like while doing it. Visualizing it disgusted her, but it led her straight to him.

He would hide in plain sight. Somewhere close to vulnerable women. He wouldn't strike again with the cops hot on his trail, but he would give in to his desires…his urges…in different ways.

There was a strip club on the outskirts of town known for the ladies doing more than just stripping. It would be a bold move to go there. He'd go in disguise. He'd probably gotten a wig. She imagined he was wearing turtlenecks to cover the gash in his neck.

There was an old abandoned building a mile behind the strip club. Homeless people sometimes used it as shelter…and as a toilet.

She had slipped out of the hospital three nights ago, ditching her security detail by telling them she'd be working on paperwork in her office.

She'd gone out to the building and staked it out. In the cover of darkness she had slipped into the barren structure. No homeless had been there lately.

Tim Roland had been sleeping when she found him on the top floor. Passed out drunk. It would have been so easy to dispose of him. But she needed her tools. She needed him to suffer. She knew that he was a creature of habit. He wouldn't be going anywhere.

She knew where to find him. And she had a plan. The building had a soundproof basement. It was perfect.

"They didn't find him." Emily's deflated sigh brought Alison back into the confines of the living room. "But the daughter wants to offer her DNA. If they match, we've got him."

Not if I get to him first.

"That's amazing." Alison stroked the back of Emily's head. She loved the feel of her soft satiny hair threading through her fingers. "I'll be glad to see him off the streets."

An involuntary shudder.

He came way too close…

Emily felt her trembling, so she pulled Alison into her arms and hugged her tightly, kissing the top of her head.

"He'll never be able to hurt you again." She laid her chin against the top of Alison's head.

Alison smirked.

He'll never be able to hurt ANYONE again.

"I'm glad I have such a strong strapping woman to protect me." Alison tilted her head up, peering at her innocently.

She kept wondering when Emily was going to see it.

The monster inside of her.

But the brunette was blinded by love.

Alison felt quite blindsided by it herself. It was dizzying. Disorienting. The only other person she'd ever loved was Jason. But she didn't love Jason the same way she loved Emily.

"I'll never let them hurt you."

She echoed her brother's sentiment now. She would never let anyone hurt the detective.

I would die for you. Alison thought back to the way she'd felt when Emily was on the operating table.

She would have given her life for her, a total stranger. Because there was something there. There was something between them. Emily anchored her, tethered her to the real world. Made her feel.

"I'll always protect you, Alison."

Emily wouldn't know exactly what that protection would entail until later.

"Come back to bed, Em." Alison kissed her, letting her lips linger. "I sleep better when I have your arms around me."

Emily didn't know how to say no to that.

They trailed back into the bedroom. Emily could feel the weight of her exhaustion. What she didn't know was that weight had been anchored down by an undetectable sedative her girlfriend had slipped into her drink.

Alison would never hurt Emily. The drugs she'd given her were harmless.

What she was going to do to that child rapist was less harmless. She'd stored her "to-go" bag in a hidden compartment in the trunk of her car.

Once she knew Emily was out cold she carefully slipped out of her arms.

I'm so sorry. She stroked the brunette's face. I have to do this.

She felt justified. It was for a greater good. But something inside of her gut told her what she'd done to Emily was wrong, just like what she'd done to Aria to get her hands on Garrett's corpse was wrong. She felt the strange foreign feeling of remorse.

She managed to bypass the alarm entirely with a scrambler that worked specifically to keep it from being tripped or recording anyone punching in a code when coming and going.

She had double checked for security cameras before she strategically parked her car. She knew no one was looking. Still, she pulled out the fake license plate she stored, for security purposes and quickly switched the plates out before climbing in and driving away.

She checked her watch, setting a timer.

Five hours was plenty of time to do what she needed to do before getting back into Emily's loving embrace.

The ride out to the abandoned building sent a spike of adrenaline through her.

She had killed a lot of bad people, but she hadn't killed someone so personal since Darren Wilden.

"Relax, Baby…"

She shook her head violently, fighting away the memory. Over the years the memories had become darker and scarier. It was part of her past she never wanted to go back to. Understanding what he'd done to her made it more tragic.

She clenched her hands into fists, flipped them over and watched them uncurl. She peered at the sweat covering her palms.

Her breathing was hard and ragged…the way it had been that night with Wilden.

"No…" she uttered under her breath, closing her eyes, fighting it off. Please no…

I don't want to see it. I don't want to remember…

A wild wind blew though her, pushing her towards an open chasm with no bottom. There was an unforgiving ocean with no shore below. Her senses were sharpened to an excruciating point.

She saw a flash of his sweaty face looming above her and it made her want to gouge his eyes out.

I should have done that. Ripped them out of their sockets.

He'd suffered, but had he suffered enough?

She tightened her hands on the steering wheel.

Why did I stay with him?

She'd always felt like something was fundamentally wrong with her. It had taken years for her to understand that it wasn't her fault she'd stayed.

She fought hard against the looming darkness, but a blinding flash of light incapacitated her. Suddenly, she was falling into the endless abyss.

o ~ O ~ o

~ Then ~

Her stomach was so upset that she couldn't stop puking. She'd never gotten seasick on Darren's boat before, but she hadn't been able to keep anything down for almost three days. Darren had teased her about not being able to hold her liquor.

She wanted to scream at him, "I'm thirteen, you idiot!"

Then again, she was pretty certain he knew the truth. She had assumed he was different. She wanted someone mature. Someone who would take care of her. Someone the opposite of her father.

Turns out, she hadn't been able to outrun her childhood. It had just stalled until she was thirteen years old, a budding hormonal homicidal maniac.

Darren was funny and charming and bought her everything she wanted that summer. And all she had to do was smile at him and let him do things with her in the bedroom.

But soon his smiling face morphed into a monster that was all too familiar to her childhood. The men who smiled and had looks that lingered a little too long and whose touches and hugs often felt…for lack of a better word…icky.

The summer she changed her blonde locks into the darkest shade of black and changed her name from Alison to Vivian had changed her in other ways, too. She had started the summer a hopeful child and ended it a cynical confused girl who had seen too much of the darkness to come back from it.

Her phone chimed from the bathroom counter. She had just enough strength to reach up from the floor - where she'd been laying for the past half hour between puking fits - to grab it.

Having fun with your friends, sweetie?

Her aunt checked in daily. It had been easy to fool her into letting her take the trip to Cape May. Mary believed it was with school friends and it was being chaperoned.

Any time Mary called to check in with her friend Riley's older sister who was "chaperoning" the trip the older girl played along. Alison was paying her well.

Darren walked by with a beer in his hand, letting out a disgusting belch.

"Damn, girl, you still got food left in you to be throwing up?"

Alison shot a scowl in his direction that clearly told him to shut up and keep moving. He shrugged and walked away, not even offering one iota of comfort.

He wasn't the sensitive man she thought he was when they first kissed outside the bar. He was just a horny piece of shit that walked away after he got what he wanted.

Alison typed a peppy reply to Mary.

Tons! But I can't wait to come home. I miss you.

It was true. She missed the comfort of her home. She missed the warm arms of her aunt. She missed Pepe snoring at her feet.

She thought of the dog. He probably wouldn't like Wilden very much. He'd probably bite him in the nuts.

She smiled picturing it.

Miss you, too. I'll see you in a week!

Reading her aunt's message sent a realization washing over her. She had been gone all summer.

She stared at the porcelain toilet and then looked at the sink which had a cabinet full of unused menstrual pads.

Her stomach tightened in a knot, and Alison suddenly felt sick for an entirely different reason.

She closed her eyes and started counting the dates.

I missed my period.

It had been over two months since she'd had her last one.

No…

The churning in her belly…

No…no…no…

She touched a tender palm to her stomach. Her gut went hollow and she started to tremble.

Oh God. Oh my God…

If she had something inside of her it would be a little monster inside of a monster. Darren's monster.

She asked Darren to take her to the drug store, but didn't tell him what she would be buying there. He didn't ask. He never asked. He just threw money at her and played games on his phone while she shopped around.

"Get you something to stop your puking? It's starting to get kind of gross, babe…"

She wanted to jam the pregnancy test in his ass, but she knew she needed it.

When she got back to the boathouse she rushed to the toilet. She sat down and read the instructions carefully.

Her hands were shaking as she peed on the stick. She put it against the edge of the counter and then washed her hands. She splashed her face and rinsed her mouth out to wash away the bitter taste that had settled on her tongue.

She was afraid to reach for the test, but she forced herself to do it.

Two bright pink lines.

The room started to spin around her. She gripped the counter to try and stay upright, but she ended up on the floor anyway. She crawled towards the toilet bowl and heaved, inhaling the smell of chlorine as she sucked in a breath after she was done.

This can't be happening. He said he was being careful.

She wasn't ignorant. She knew that sex could lead to babies. She had learned it in school. But had she been naïve to believe him when he told her he'd be careful?

She tried to reconcile what "being careful" even meant. Was it something that men could consciously do? Could they not get women pregnant if they just thought about not getting them pregnant? She was too young to realize the reality of the situation.

Darren walked by and saw her staring at the wall.

He stopped long enough to cock his head and peer at the fist that had clenched closed around the pregnancy test.

He walked in, noticing for the first time just how pale and weak she looked.

"Hey…uh…you okay?" He kneeled in front of her.

When she saw his eyes make contact with hers she wanted to hit him in the face and run away. But her mind was swirling in a cavern of darkness.

She held the pregnancy test out to him without saying a word.

His eyes widened in fear.

"Fuck." A flood of emotions washed across his face, but the most prominent one was annoyance. "Well…I mean…these things can be wrong…"

"I haven't had my period in two months." She blurted out.

His cheeks blossomed into red balls of fury.

"Why the hell didn't you say anything?" His booming voice startled her. "Fuck's sake, Vivian…" He rubbed his head, "How can I even be sure it's mine, anyway?"

She whipped her head towards him, a deadly gleam in her eyes. She let him see the monster he'd created in her.

"Because you're the only one who has been fucking me," she said the word fucking hastily.

He held his hands up, palms forward, a gesture to show he was sorry. Probably a fake gesture, but Alison was too tired to care.

"Okay, okay…you're right. I'm sorry. I just…this took me by surprise is all…"

It took YOU by surprise?

What a fucking narcissist.

"Let's talk about this…" His hand on her leg. It had been happening all summer, but in that moment something about the motion felt very wrong.

"Okay." She was still so angry at him. She could feel the heat in her face.

"We're too young for children, Vivvie."

He'd started calling her Vivvie when he was trying to be cute after the first time they'd had sex. That was coincidentally the exact moment that she'd started hating her false alter-ego. She would forever associate Vivian Darkbloom with his gross sweaty smell and the taste of beer and his tongue in her mouth.

"Babies make you fat and ugly. You're too pretty to be pregnant, princess." He stroked her face. A bout of nausea hit her as a buried memory from her childhood tried to claw its way out.

"Doesn't she look just perfect?" Her mother.

"Like a princess…" Her father's smile, hauntingly eerie.

Alison fought the memory as her present swirled around her, laughing at her like some kind of sick joke.

"I'll take you to a place where you can take care of it," Darren said.

"What…what does that mean?" At thirteen she didn't know the first thing about being pregnant. She'd heard the word abortion, but she wasn't entirely sure how it worked. She was too focused on true crime podcasts and documentaries about serial killers. Babies had never been her forte.

"Don't worry. Let's just go and get it out of you. Everything is going to be fine." He rubbed her knee.

She pulled away from him, falling to her knees and grabbing the toilet.

She started puking again.

When she was done he made her clean up. It was the first time she'd taken Clorox to the boat, but it hadn't been the last. Months later she had scrubbed every last bit of the boat, unanchored it, and set it on fire.

Vivan Darkbloom had ceased to exist after Darren Wilden died.

o ~ O ~ o

Alison slammed her palms against the wheel and uttered out a "fuck you" that only she could hear, unless the reception was good in hell…in which case she hoped Darren could hear her.

I hope you're getting ass-fucked by a cactus dick, you child eating monster…

The grooming and the statutory rape was bad enough, but in the thick of it all when she…a child…had been pregnant…he'd left her all alone when she got the abortion.

The nurse had been so kind to her when she gave her the first pill.

She took the second pill back at the boat.

Darren hadn't even bothered to rub her back as she sat on the toilet crying from the pain. It had been hundreds of times worse than any period she'd ever had. She thought she was dying. It was like someone was pinching her insides with needle-nose pliers while simultaneously punching her in the stomach.

The night had been pure hell.

The next morning before Darren drove her out of town he'd rolled towards her with a smile and reached for the buttons on her flowery pajama top.

"How about one for the road?"

She'd felt like stabbing him. Instead, she'd smacked his hand away and stormed out of the bedroom.

He'd followed her, angry at her rejection. He'd gotten violent. He didn't hit her, but he screamed and threw things, talking about everything he'd done for her.

The whole time he was screaming Alison was staring at him and thinking about how much she wanted to kill him.

Now, she wanted to kill Tim Roland for what he'd done to the women he'd violated.

The cycle continues.

Alison pulled her car off to the side of the road, ready to trek out to the abandoned building. She paused to soak in the moment. She always felt so powerful before a kill. She stared at the light gleaming off of her gloved hands.

The moon wasn't full, but it was close to it. She craned her head up through the windshield and up towards the sky. She could feel it in her veins, absorbing its energy. It was strange the way something so far away could have such a monumental impact on billions of people.

The most interesting thing about the moon was perhaps not its strength, but its weakness.

It was most powerful in the dark. Half the day it was a cold rock in the sky that often couldn't be seen. But when night came rolling around it was everything the world needed and more.

She triple-checked the perimeter before going inside with a large duffel bag.

She could hear noises from above as she ascended the steps quietly in her running shoes. Finding him awake could be a problem, but she'd accosted people in all scenarios. She was ready.

She made sure that the stairwell door made no noise as she walked towards where she'd last seen him.

The lighting in the area was dim. There was a makeshift cot pushed up against the wall in the same place she'd seen him three days ago.

Someone who wasn't the serial rapist was on it.

He had a woman with her.

It was Maya all over again.

The woman was unconscious. Tim stood over her, staring at her, rubbing his crotch and making grunting noises as he unbuckled his pants.

The woman would not become another one of his victims. Because Alison slipped up behind him and drove a needle behind his ear, plunging down, letting the sedative take hold.

Once he slumped to the floor Alison grabbed a sheet from the bed, which left the woman she presumed to be a stripper nearly naked on the cot. She pressed her gloved fingers against the woman's neck to make sure she had a pulse. Her heartbeat was fine.

He'd drugged her. That way he wouldn't have to kill her and call attention to himself, but he would also get what he craved.

Alison didn't like seeing her so exposed, so she dressed her before she turned around and dealt with Rapist Roland. She used the sheet as a make-shift stretcher and got him on to the service elevator.

When she got down to the basement she went to work.

She undressed him and restrained him. Then she made sure to cover every inch of the small room with plastic wrap. She suited up, surgeon attire, scalpel in her hand.

Cutting into his cheek, marking him, and watching his blood dribble down his fat face sent a shiver down her spine. She felt a heat in her stomach. In the right circumstances she might have come as the excitement of her arousal peaked.

She made careful strides with the blade, making it look purposefully sloppy.

Creating doubt.

She waited exactly seventeen minutes for him to come out of his haze.

He opened his eyes and groaned.

Alison smiled down at him.

"Hello, Tim."

She could tell that he recognized her by the way his eyes bugged out, but he tried not to let on.

Your face betrays you. I can smell your fear. It's exhilarating.

"Who the fuck are you?"

He was arrogant enough to think she hadn't seen him…that she hadn't known it was him in the ambulance. If he thought she'd seen his face he showed no indication of it.

Cocky.

Alison pulled a knife out, rubbing the flat side of it against her gloved hand. His eyes widened.

"Please…I have a family. I have children." He begged.

Did the girls you raped beg? Did they beg you to stop? Did you care?

"You mean your infant daughter Grace you haven't seen since your wife left you last year? Or Chloe, your teenage daughter…who is the same age as the girl you raped last month?"

"Wh…what?" The man stuttered. "No. You…you've got the wrong guy."

"Evidence doesn't lie." Alison dragged the knife gently along his cheek. "The cops haven't processed the DNA yet, but I have." A malicious smile. She didn't have to wait for things like warrants and probable cause. "You know that child you viciously assaulted? She had a rape kit done. She didn't want it sent off. She just wanted it in case she changed her mind. The hospital saves samples…" She smirked. "Well, I save a duplicate of the samples before storing the kit. I'm thorough like that, you know."

"You got something wrong." He argued.

"Did I? Well, how about the night you attacked me? See, you left me a present in the back of that ambulance. Your blood. The DNA I got from you matches the DNA we collected from the child that you raped."

"No! Your test is wrong!" He continued to deny his atrocious deeds with a ferocious growl.

But she was sure. She was always sure before she decided to kill someone.

Alison leaned over him, showing her teeth,

"I never make mistakes."

There was a flash in her field of vision.

She blinked and a bloody image from her childhood appeared.

The walls and floor splashed with bright patches of crimson. In the hollow air she could hear a crying child.

Her breaths came out quick and uneven.

"Jason! No!"

Not my brother…

The surgical mask on her face suddenly felt like a weighted pillow suffocating her. She choked back an unexpected sob. Her fingers loosened around the weapon and it clamored to the floor. She stumbled back, nearly tripping over her feet.

What is happening to me?

She'd never choked before.

She held her gloved hands up, staring at the blood coating them. They were shaking uncontrollably.

"What was that about not making mistakes?" The man on the table jeered at her. "I knew you didn't have the guts. Women don't got the taste for it…to take what they want…"

He thought his taunts were tearing her down, but they were doing the opposite. She felt her confidence returning.

"You know the best thing about women?" Spittle flew out of his mouth when he spoke. "The way I feel when I'm inside 'em when they know they're going to die…"

She backhanded him so hard that his neck snapped away from her.

"You are nothing but a pathetic little man…" She poked at his crotch. It both terrified and aroused him. "You and your tiny pecker couldn't get it the normal way so you had to force those girls…" Tried to force me.

"Bullshit. They wanted it." He didn't like her insulting his manhood. "I ain't gotta force anyone."

Sick delusional piece of shit.

Alison grabbed his cheek roughly, careful not to disturb her work. She turned his neck to the side and exposed the healing gash where a scalpel blade had pierced his skin.

"Interesting injury. Consistent with a stab wound. You got sloppy in that ambulance, Tim. You didn't know who you were dealing with when you came after me."

"If I had known what a slit-licking cunt you were I would have beat you a little bit more before making you scream. Woulda unloaded in you hard just to stick it to your pig dyke girlfriend…"

This time the slap was so loud it resonated throughout the entire room.

"Don't you dare bring her into this…" Alison bit down, her jaw tight.

"Aww, I hit a nerve there, sweetheart?" He cackled. "She could never give you what I can give you. You never would have looked at another woman again."

This was the Tim Roland she'd seen in the park. Not the soccer dad persona he tried so hard to hide behind.

The monster.

Monsters recognized other monsters. She'd never realized it before, but when she looked into the eyes of her kills she saw a little bit of the man who had ruined her.

"Fuck you, Darren." She seethed through her teeth.

"Darr…" A contorted expression of confusion, "…who the fuck is Darren?"

"It doesn't matter. You're all the same." Her tone was flat, emotionless. She had to detach herself from that moment or it would eat her alive.

"And you bitches are so different? You're all sheep. Cowardly and defenseless against the wolves of the world…"

"So…" She pressed a finger against the A in his cheek. "You consider yourself a wolf, do you?" She pushed her face directly into his. "Well, so am I…" She gave him a sinister look. "You can talk all you want, but at the end of the day you're still stuck to this table and I'm going to kill you." She reached down and picked up the knife. "It must eat at you…that I got away from you…that Chloe's friend got away." She hates you. Your daughter hates you so much. "We beat you. You're nothing but a weak…" She dragged the flat side of the knife against his naked chest, "pathetic…" Slowly trailing the weapon down to his torso, "...sad little man. Your family hates you, you know."

Physically torturing him wasn't enough. She needed him to suffer emotionally.

"Your daughter has been kind enough to offer a DNA sample…"

"That's not true." He spit at her, but she was swift. She dodged it. "My Chloe adores her daddy."

"She'll be at the station tomorrow." Alison continued taunting him. "But by then it won't matter." She lifted the knife up, holding it above his chest. "I'm going to tell you a little secret, Timmy-boy." She leaned forward. "I was with a man a lot like you once, only he was a different kind of monster."

Wilden hadn't held her down and forced her. He hadn't tried to kill her. But he'd managed to scar her all the same. Instead of killing her, like Tim did his victims, he let her live…and she had to face herself in the mirror every day thinking about how she'd fallen prey to him...thinking about how hard her brother had worked to protect her when she was little from other predators only to land directly in the hands of a man who destroyed her.

"And do you know what I did to him?" She licked her lips and lowered her voice. "The exact same thing I'm about to do to you."

He opened his mouth to scream for help, but she shoved a ball-gag in between his lips. She couldn't risk the stripper waking up.

Even though they had nearly a dozen floors separating them and even though the stripper was drugged she couldn't risk witnesses. She had double-checked the entire building and had found it empty. But she was still paranoid. She hadn't been getting away with killing for so long just to be caught by some junkie in a rundown building in the middle of nowhere. She would have to be quick. But she could still make him suffer.

She roughly grabbed his hand and squeezed his wrist, forcing him to flex his fingers. With one hand she held his wrist steady and with the other she brought the sharp knife crashing down with enough force to slice through every single one of his fingers, severing them clean from his body.

Muffled screams rattled the gag in his mouth, his eyes bugging out of his head. He tried to thrash, but he was trapped.

You'll never touch another girl again. You'll never choke her. You'll never assault her.

"This is what you did to your victims." Alison watched the spray of blood from the empty holes where his fingers had once been. She tied a tourniquet around his arm to slow the bleeding so he could feel the rest of what she had in store for him. She didn't want him dying too quickly. "You held them down. Tortured them. Watched them beg for you to let them go."

Tim screamed into the gag, tears streaming down his face. They always cried. It was a reflex.

"How does it feel to be on the other end of it?"

He glared angrily at her, but couldn't vocalize his thoughts. Usually the screams brought peace to her as she killed her victims. But with him, the sheer terror in his eyes was enough.

"That child that you hurt…" She walked to the other side of the table. She grabbed his other wrist and splayed his fingers out. He fought her, but it was in vain. She could hear the muffled no's from underneath the gag. "She'll have to live with what you did to her for the rest of her life. And those women you killed? They had lives with dreams and aspirations. They had families!" Alison brought the knife down hard, like she was chopping a thick slice of meat.

More muffled cries.

She controlled the bleeding with another tourniquet. She would be cutting his arms off, too, so she wasn't worried about forensics finding the ligature marks.

She heard him whimper and she thought she heard the word please.

Curious, she reached forward to loosen the gag.

"Please," He cried. "Please…I'll give you anything you want. I…I have money…" She shoved the gag back in his mouth before he finished.

"What I want is retribution." Revenge. Justice. It was all the same. The state executed people like Tim Roland. She was just speeding up the process. "You've done some very bad things, Tim." Alison looked down at the limp member between his legs. "And it's time for you to pay."

She walked down to the lower half of his body. She had been going back and forth on whether or not she wanted to do to him what she'd done to Ian Thomas. She knew she needed to remain consistent or else it would look suspicious to Emily and Toby.

To alter a pattern would mean they'd wonder why the pattern was altered. They knew what Tim was…what he did. They knew he did horrible things like Ian and Garrett. The signature had to be consistent.

"You thought attacking me would take away my power." Alison leaned over him. "But the truth is it just Pissed. Me. Off." She snarled. "You gave me the strength I needed to do this." She slowly slid the knife into him, hacking away the very thing he believed gave him power. He bucked against the table, making noises like an animal dying in the wild. "I'm the one with the power here."

She took her time with him. She wanted him to feel every ounce of pain as she cut him into pieces.

After she had properly emasculated him she untied the tourniquets and started sawing on the flesh of his arms.

She watched as blood pooled below them. It was a beautiful sight. She was liberating the women he'd killed. She was avenging the girl he'd left traumatized.

She felt the budding excitement growing into something more. She lusted for the kill like she lusted for Emily's fingers inside of her. The blood was water to her parched mouth…the rush of life in her veins. A desperation in its rarest forms.

The last noise Tim Roland made was a gurgling wheezing gasp…a feeble attempt at a last breath before his body was completely limp.

When she was finished she took him to the woods that led to the strip club. She posed his body in the lotus position near a tree so he could reflect upon what he'd done. She carefully strung his fingers up with fishing line, leaving them dangling around his body

"You can meditate on what you've done in hell." Alison really wanted to spit on him, but she was sure as hell not going to leave her DNA behind. "Say hello to Wilden for me."

She swept the forest floor, erasing any trace of herself as she backtracked to the building.

As she turned to look back at the woods she felt a chill in the air. The shade of the trees darkened into a black pit in the nighttime...a monster with teeth waiting to rip into anyone who got too close. Even though she had just emerged and she knew the only monster inside the trees was dead, she couldn't stop shaking.

She took a step back and heard a twig snap. Her breath hitched in her throat as the memory came flying back to her.

o ~ O ~ o

~ Then ~

She was running. Jason had her by the hand and he was yanking her along, forcing her to run faster. Tree branches and limbs slapped against them, stinging her delicate skin. The twigs and leaves below them made scary crunching sounds.

She was crying, but she couldn't remember why. The last thing she remembered was her father trying to take her somewhere. Her arm was red from where her daddy had grabbed her. Her little legs hurt from kicking and screaming so much. Her tummy was full of fluttering bugs that made her feel like throwing up.

She was hot and sweaty and her dress was sticking to her skin. Her heart slapped her hard from the inside.

She couldn't stop crying.

Mommy and Daddy don't love me.

Daddy hurt me.

She remembered her mother getting into a screaming match with Jason. While he'd been preoccupied with her, her father had dragged her out from under the bed and went to punish her in another room.

She'd struggled to get away, but he was too big and too strong. She tried going limp, because she'd heard that dead weight was harder to move. But he just yanked her up by her arm and the back of her dress like she was a pile of luggage.

He'd ripped her pretty dress.

She remembered begging,

"Daddy, daddy, no! I'm sorry! I'll be a good girl! Please…please don't hurt me!"

The rage in his eyes was a black hollow anger that she only saw when he let the monster out.

She managed to get away from him when they got to her room, but he picked her up and threw her hard against her mattress.

"They're coming over tonight and there's nothing you or your good-for-nothing brother can do about it. We tried to do this the easy way. It would have been easier if Jason had just listened. Now I'm going to have to get that disobedience out of you myself." He grabbed her and yanked her into his lap.

She put her little palms against his body and tried to push him away.

"But I'm your princess, daddy! I'm your princess!"

Her heart sped up and stopped at the same time.

"Please don't!"

She wailed, a haunting scream of a terrified child that would cut any sane person to the bone.

The scream was the last thing she remembered. Now she was running…running. Jason was holding her hand.

She faintly remembered Jason bursting into her room and grabbing her out of the bigger man's grasp. He had grabbed a bag that he'd called a "to-go" bag and slung it over his shoulder before running out the front door with her.

She was safe now.

But she felt cold. It was as if a block of ice had started to grow inside of her belly, slowly expanding throughout her body. Everything slowed down. Her brain was nothing but vibrations of sounds.

She tried to take a step forward, but her mind wasn't fully caught up to what her body was doing There was a delay. She could see everything happening before she processed it was happening. She stumbled over her feet, and she would have fallen down if Jason hadn't been gripping her hand so tight.

"Come on, Ali, we're almost there. Come on."

Sad little sobs broke through her trembling lips. She didn't understand what was happening, but she trusted her brother so she listened to him.

Once they were deep enough in the woods Jason slowed down. He stopped long enough to lean down in front of her and wipe her tears away.

"Hey…what did I tell you, huh, kid?" He tried to straighten her hair. "I'll never let him hurt you."

Alison nodded, sniffling, snot rolling down over her lips.

"Wanna ride?" He pat his shoulder.

She smiled. She loved Jason's piggy-back rides.

"Hop on up, little cowgirl."

She giggled.

Silly brother. She thought.

She leaped on to his back. He was all sweaty from the running, but she didn't care. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he sturdied her before standing up.

"Hold on tight."

She wrapped her arms around his neck. Her heart started thump-thumping and her muscles stopped doing the weird jello dance they'd been doing since her daddy grabbed her.

Jason carried her the rest of the way to the treehouse. He helped her down off of his back.

She grabbed his hand, her little fingers so tiny in his large big-boy palm. His hands were soft. Not like daddy's hands. Her brother's hands would never hurt her. They gently guided her towards the ladder.

"It's so high." She curled herself against his side and shivered. "I'm scared."

"It's okay. I'm right behind you."

"What if I fall?"

"Then I'll catch you." He playfully gripped her nose between his thumb and index finger, then booped it.

She let out a mixture between a laugh and a sigh.

"Promise?"

"Promise." He seemed very resolute in his answer, so she took a timid step towards the ladder. It was a little too high for her to reach on her own.

She felt Jason lift her up so she could step up.

"Go on…" He urged, giving her a boost and helping her on to the rung to the ladder that led up to their secret treehouse. "Just keep going up and don't look down. I'm right behind you."

Alison listened to her big brother. She had no reason not to.

Later, she would regret not looking down and memorizing the look of relief on his face. She would regret not seeing his face every second up until he'd died hours later.

o ~ O ~ o

Alison managed to pull herself together and finish cleaning up after herself. The last thing she did before she left was look in on the sleeping stripper. The girl had been saved by a fate she didn't even see coming. She would wake up in the morning completely unharmed.

She stared at the young woman, debating on driving her back to the strip club. But she would risk being seen. The threat was over. She'd sleep it off and be fine in the morning.

At least, that's what she assumed.

Something she failed to take into account was that even though the darkness made some people turn the other way, others embraced it…hid in its shadows.

She hadn't dared to think that perhaps the forest held a predator even more dangerous than Tim Roland. Perhaps even more dangerous than her.

After she finished up she drove back to Emily's place. She parked exactly where she'd left her car. She changed the license plate back to its original plate. She hid her tools. Then she slipped back into Emily's house.

She crawled back into bed, into Emily's awaiting arms. The brunette never stirred. She would never know that she'd been missing.

Emily would be her alibi. Alison hated that she'd had to drug her to get to Tim, but she saw no other way. She had a connection to him since he'd attacked her. She didn't need the police looking at her.

She needed Emily on her side, which would be easy to pull off. The detective had been dead to the world all night.

The brunette woke up the next morning, her arms still around her girlfriend. She had pulled her close in their sleep, her front pressed to Alison's back.

She took a moment to appreciate the feel of her skin against Alison's. She closed her eyes and hummed happily. When she was with Alison she felt like everything was right with the world. She felt…complete.

"Ali…" She swept aside the blonde's hair and kissed the back of her neck, then her shoulder, "Alison…it's time to get up."

Alison stirred in her arms. She let out a quiet moan.

"We have work." Emily whispered, pressing her lips against the back of Alison's ear.

Alison opened her eyes, exhausted from her busy night. She took a moment to relax before she slowly rolled over.

"Just a few more minutes, Em?" Alison pressed her warm body against the brunette's. She loved being in her arms.

Emily smiled at her. She leaned forward to kiss her forehead.

"You're so beautiful in the morning." Emily tilted her head down to meet Alison's forehead.

Alison scrunched her eyes at her and looked at her like it was the craziest thing she'd ever said. She pressed her lips together in a smirk as her cheeks flooded with color.

I cut a man's dick off three hours ago.

But Emily didn't see that part of her. Emily truly saw the best in her. Maybe that meant that buried deep beyond her darkness there was a little light. Maybe she wasn't a total monster. Maybe she was capable of love.

"You sleep okay? No nightmares?" Alison pressed a kiss against Emily's collar bone.

"It's all a blank." Emily yawned. "Truth be told, it's one of the best nights of sleep I've had in a while. I really do think I sleep better with you in my arms." She smiled.

"See…I told you…" Alison grinned, even though she wasn't in her arms most of the night. Emily would never know that, could never know that.

All that mattered to the blonde was that her brave detective was okay. She didn't like it when she suffered. She knew what it was like to suffer in the depths of her own mind. Her nightmares happened when she was awake.

She didn't have to be unconscious for the demons of her past to rear their ugly little heads. It had almost screwed up her kill last night. She'd tried to bury Darren Wilden's grinning face deep in her mind, but she'd only created a twisted web of thin thread that was slowly starting to unravel.

Darren wasn't the first monster she'd had to deal with. The monsters that hid their faces had fooled her when she was little.

"Now I'm going to have to get that disobedience out of you myself."

"But I'm your princess, daddy! I'm your princess!"

"Hey…you okay?" Emily dipped forward and kissed Alison's shoulder.

"Yeah, just…bad memories." Alison squirmed uncomfortably, trying not to break out into sobs.

Emily frowned at her, not just with her mouth, but with her whole face. She didn't like it when Alison was upset.

Sometimes the look the brunette got in her eyes made Alison think that she would have killed her parents for her.

"They come in flashes." Alison nuzzled against her, breathing in the wonderful scent of her bodywash and the slick sweat from being under the covers. "I just have to ride them out."

"Mmm." Emily nodded seriously, not pushing her. Instead she gently pecked her lips. "You know that if you ever want to talk I'm here for you."

Alison had no idea how to explain her childhood or her early preteen years. How did she even begin to explain what her parents had tried to do to her? What normal child was preened at five years old? How many seven year olds ran through the woods in the dark trying to escape a fate worse than death? Did normal thirteen year olds fall prey to a predator and end up pregnant with his baby?

"You're very sweet." Alison pecked her lips back. "And thank you. I'm still sorting through some things. But I'm okay. I promise."

"Well then, in that case…" Emily pulled her closer. "How about we make some new memories to get rid of the old ones?"

"Wipe my memory clean, Detective." She winked. "I don't even want to remember my own name when you're done."

A buzzing noise interrupted them. Both of them made a growling sound at it.

"Is that mine or yours?" Alison grumbled.

"Mine." Emily glanced at her phone.

"You have a busy day today?" Alison laid her head against Emily's broad shoulder.

"Always." Emily sighed. "A lot of paperwork. A lot of investigating. We're working double-time with the Scarlet Letter Killer and Tim Roland. I told you his daughter is coming in this evening after her swim meet to give us a DNA sample, didn't I?"

"You did."

Sweet unsuspecting Emily. It's too late for that. I took care of it for you.

The body would be found any time now. Daylight hours would make him easy to spot. She was surprised that nothing had been reported yet.

Alison took a moment to think about the stripper.

Did she get out? Is she okay?

She hoped the woman wouldn't be the one to find him, but she knew it was likely that she would.

Emily's phone buzzed again and a rush of excitement flooded Alison's veins as the brunette reached for it.

This is it.

She was going to get to see the look on Emily's face when she learned that Tim Roland was dead.

"It's my mom." Emily grimaced at the phone.

Oh. Well…that was anti-climactic.

"She wants to know if you have any requests." The brunette shifted uncomfortably.

You're not looking forward to tonight. Alison could tell. Emily was uneasy around her mother. But it's going to be fine, my sweet angel. I know how to charm people.

She knew how to play a part. She knew how to get people to like her. She knew exactly what to say and exactly what to do. Emily's mother would be no different.

"Anything. I like anything."

Translation: What I'd really like to eat is sitting here in this bed right now, but we certainly can't splay that out on your mother's dinner table and fine china.

Her phone buzzed again and Emily groaned.

"Now Toby is on my ass. Ugh, I don't want to go to work." She pulled the covers up over them.

All she wanted to do was lay in bed with her girlfriend…

…or drink the contents of an entire liquor store.

"You're the best of the best. They want you there." Alison kissed the tip of her nose.

"What does your schedule look like today?" Emily pecked her lips.

"I'm fairly booked in surgery all day. But we can do lunch around two if you want."

Unless, of course, the media had gotten wind of Tim Roland's death. Then Emily's day would be much busier.

"Sounds good to me." Emily smirked. "But until then I'm thinking I might need something to tide me over."

Fuck, she's hot when she's horny in the morning.

Alison surged forward and her lips crashed against Emily's as she clumsily reached back towards the bedside stand. She smacked around until she found the long silicone toy she was looking for, wrapping her fingers around the shaft.

Emily pulled back and whispered a quiet, "Hello, sexy" in her ear that left the blonde shuddering.

The detective slid her hand up underneath Alison's nightgown, touching her breast as she kissed either side of her jaw line.

Alison turned the vibrator on and moved it between their swiveling bodies, fighting to get it underneath Emily's panties and inside of her.

She felt the detective's hand grip her wrist and pull the toy away with a wicked smile on her face. Emily shook her head as she gently moved on top of her, holding the covers above her bodies. She kissed the exposed portion of her neck and took the toy from her as she slowly moved down her body.

Alison could already feel a sweltering heat building. She dug her head into her pillow. A flash of sweat came out of nowhere. Emily gave her one last mischievous look before she moved her mouth down between her legs.

God, I love you… The blonde almost said it out loud, but Emily's phone started buzzing again, interrupting the moment.

Buzz, buzz, buzz…

The vibration of a toy that should have been inside of the blonde while Emily pleasured her with her mouth. Instead it was an incessant reminder that they couldn't just stay in bed and have sex all day.

Emily grumbled and sat up, throwing the covers off in an adult-sized tantrum.

Alison glared at the cell phone.

And now I want to murder a phone. How shall I do it? Dissect the motherboard? Cut off its power at the source? Yes…dismember the charger. Muahahaha. It shall be a quick and swift death.

"Fuuuck." Emily fell back against her pillow, turning the vibrator off. "I have to go."

She rolled to her side and gave Alison a sympathetic sigh.

"Later?" The brunette looked hopefully at her girlfriend.

"Most definitely." Alison trailed her fingers against Emily's hip. She loved her curves. She felt like they were a beautiful map of her body.

Emily picked up her phone, which was still buzzing.

"Yes, Cavanaugh, I'm on my way." She grouchily murmured into the phone. She rubbed her eyes and sat up against the edge of the bed with a yawn. "Fuck you. At least I'm getting some on the regular."

Alison could only imagine what Detective Eyebrows had said to get that response.

Emily stood up and stretched. Alison watched her. The muscles in her body tightened.

That body should be writhing underneath me right now. Alison was pouting.

Her center was throbbing to the point of discomfort. She was still wound up from her kill and she was really horny. She'd gotten all wet for her girlfriend and now it was just itchy and hot and begging for release. It was like a fucking untamed dog pulling at a choke chain.

Like a goddamn hot pocket ready to explode. Fuck me. This is painful.

She needed release. She looked at the vibrator sitting in the spot where Emily had just vacated the bed. She grinned to herself as she reached for it.

Emily walked around the side of the bed, her backside still to Alison. Her ass was in grabbing distance, which only exacerbated Alison's hormones.

She stared at the brunette's ass as she touched herself. She watched Emily's motions as she spoke to her partner. She imagined her biceps squeezing her tightly…her thighs trembling at her mercy.

She pulled the covers off and rubbed herself with the vibrator she'd nicknamed Fields of Dreams, because the way Emily Fields used it on her made her see beautiful dreams. She felt her body jolt at the sensation against her.

She coated the toy in her wetness before sliding it into herself. She took it slow, moving it in and out, pausing and letting the vibration hit the tight bundle of nerves that felt like it was the size of a damn grapefruit because of her unsatisfied sexual urges.

She bit her lip to keep her muffled moans to herself. She wanted it to be a surprise for Emily.

She slowly started to buck against the toy, sweat dripping down her brow.

Emily was griping at Toby on the phone, still completely oblivious.

Kinda about to come here, Em. Need you to turn around…

She wanted to see the detective's eyes as she peaked.

The pressure in her stomach felt like water being held back by a leaky dam. She let a small whimper escape.

"Fine. Yeah." Emily spoke to her partner. "What are you hungry for?"

As she turned around she got a full frontal of Alison peaking in pleasure, legs open wide for a perfect view.

A squeak slipped through the brunette's lips.

Like what you see? A smug smirk tugged at Alison's cheeks.

Emily's jaw dropped. She flubbed a few words into the phone, nearly dropping it.

"I'm just going to pick up some dil-do…DOUGHNUTS…" She immediately corrected the fact that she'd nearly said dildos. "Doughnuts. I'm going to pick up some doughnuts…"

The brunette's eyes darkened in a ferocious lust as she watched the toy sinking in and out of her girlfriend.

Now you see it. Now you don't. Alison wanted to giggle as she buried it so deep it disappeared. It was like a sexual magic act.

Alison felt a little ridiculous, but she could be ridiculous with Emily.

A strong vibration hit her clit and she let out a moan. Emily hissed and covered the receiver of her phone.

She watched as Alison shook violently against the orgasm, writhing on the bed, one hand curling into the sheets.

The detective was practically salivating at the mouth. Her breath hitched when Alison came, which was simultaneously the funniest and the cutest fucking thing Alison had ever seen.

Emily's lips twisted into a smile…which threatened to turn into hysterical laughter as she spoke into her phone to her partner again.

"Yeah, I'll get cream filling." She had to stifle a laugh.

The laugh turned into a quizzical look when the blonde reached up with her free hand and grabbed Emily's hand, which was dangling by the bedside. Alison guided her towards the toy, letting out a little gasp of pleasure as she pulled it out far enough for Emily to grip it.

Emily licked her lips as she started gently moving it in and out.

It didn't take long for Alison to come again.

This time she couldn't contain herself.

"EM…"

Emily fumbled with the phone, managing to hang it up before Alison screamed out her name for Toby to hear.

Alison reached down between her legs and held Emily in the perfect spot as she rode out another pleasurable high.

She slowly pulled the toy out of herself when she was done.

The room was silent for a moment. Alison bit her lip and then they both burst into laughter. The blonde relaxed against the mattress.

"God damn, Alison…" The brunette's face was beet red. Her eyes screamed "that was hot!"

Alison didn't skip a beat.

"Don't worry. I saved you some cream filling." She lifted her brows.

Emily's head dropped as she broke into a fit of hysterical laughter. She pressed her index finger and her thumb against the bridge of her nose as she fell next to the blonde. The bed shook not from sex, but from an unrelenting fit of giggles

God, I love you… Emily thought to herself as she snuggled up against Alison for a sweet and tender kiss.

"Thank you for that. I'll be thinking about it all day." She whispered.

"Tonight." Was all Alison said in reply. I am going to fuck you senseless tonight.

A few minutes later they were both climbing out of bed and getting ready for work. Alison made breakfast. Certainly no 5-star full course meal, but scrambled eggs and fruit parfait would do in a pinch.

Emily didn't complain. She loved anything Alison cooked for her. Once, the blonde had managed to accidentally burn a batch of dumplings. Emily still ate them with a smile on her face.

She truly was the perfect girlfriend. Loving, kind, and viciously protective.

The protective nature had added a new dynamic to their relationship. She'd given a bunch of people a piece of her mind over the fact that they hadn't taken her warnings about Tim Roland seriously.

But she was doing a really good job of being Alison's bodyguard herself.

She followed Alison to the hospital. Her police detail was there waiting on her, something that Emily had fought tooth and nail for. She knew she couldn't be around the surgeon all day, so the department had provided some help.

Alison didn't mind their presence. She knew it wouldn't be much longer before they were dismissed. As soon as Tim's body was found and as soon as the evidence pointed to him as the serial rapist, her protective detail would be pulled.

Her main concern was the five-foot jazzed up caffeine junkie she worked with. She'd barely been able to shake Aria since the attack. The pathologist followed her around the hospital like a puppy…

More like a rabid wolf cub…

The girl wasn't afraid to bite if someone got too close to her. It was amusing in a way. Aria had no idea she was guarding someone who could kill a man fifty different ways with a pen.

Aria met her behind the double doors, where she'd been meeting her every day.

"Hey." The little brunette was all smiles.

She was insanely perky…as always.

"Aria, what did we say about too much coffee?" Alison gave her a look that a mother might give her child.

"To make sure I get some for you, too." She held out a disposable cup of java. She beamed, a bright little ray of sunshine.

Alison was just the slightest bit cranky at her lack of sleep, and the fact that she couldn't stay in bed with her girlfriend all day. Perkiness was not something she was in the mood for.

She'd never quite understood people who were happy before sunrise.

All morning people should be killed… She took a sip of her coffee …except Aria. She shall be spared my wrath.

"You're looking much better. You don't look like the elephant man anymore." Aria examined the fading bruising on her face.

"Anyone ever tell you that you lack tact?" This coming from a psychopath.

"It was a compliment, sweet pea." She tried her hand at a southern accent. "Don't you worry…even when you were all banged up you were still the prettiest peach I've ever seen." She pinched Alison's cheek.

Alison scowled, but it wasn't one of an evil murderer. It was one of a friend taking stock of another pesky friend.

Only Aria Montgomery could get away with teasing her. If it had been anyone else she would have murdered them on the spot.

"Forgive me for my social ineptitude. I spend all my time with dead people." Aria leaned against the wall. "So, what's your surgery schedule look like today?"

"Is Emily paying you to follow me around?" It sounded suspiciously like something her girlfriend would do.

"'Course not." Aria winked. "I just like hanging out with you."

"Slow day in the morgue?" Alison teased.

"You and your fellow doctors are very efficient at your jobs. And the Scarlet Letter Killer has been dormant. Homicides are down. Less work for me." She shrugged. "I'll take the downtime when I can get it."

"Why don't you take the time to relax? Read a book. Watch a movie. Do something normal people do…"

"Like what?" It was hilarious that Aria didn't have a concept of normal.

"Uh…sleep for starters. How long have you been pounding caffeine?"

"Long enough." She avoided the answer. "You can try to chase me away all you want…" She blew a cool breath against her coffee before taking a sip. "But I already know your surgery schedule. Asking was just a formality. I'll be there in the gallery watching."

"You realize that the men in uniform out there have me covered, right?" Alison put a friendly hand against her shoulder. "I love you, Aria. I really do." She paused and considered something. Oh, wow. I really do. "But I don't need a bodyguard."

"No, but you could always use a friend." Aria smiled.

Well…shit…what am I supposed to say to that?

"Emily isn't paying you enough." She poked her.

"Pshaw…" She made a noise with her lips. "I'm doing it for free."

"So she did ask you to look out for me?"

"I go where the uniformed officers can't go." She traced a finger around the rim of her cup. "I'm guessing given all the cop fanfare that they haven't caught the bastard who attacked you yet?"

I did. Last night.

She frowned, which boded well for a normal reaction.

"It's only a matter of time. Emily's team is full of angry hungry Bloodhounds." Alison cupped her coffee, letting the warmth radiate into her palms.

Fortunately, a wolf got to him first.

"Good." Aria's face hardened, a mixture of satisfaction and anger. There was a strange sadness in her eyes. Alison wasn't very good at feeling certain emotions, but she could sense the damage Aria was hiding. "You know I did the autopsies on both his victims, right?"

Oh. She could relate to that. She'd treated Jenna Marshall after she'd been raped, but the surgeon didn't let that slip.

"They were brutal. I mean…what he did to them…" Aria bit her lip. "I can't even imagine what could have happened to you. I don't think I could cut you up, Ali."

Dropping the formalities always made the situation seem more grim. She saw it on her face a few seconds later. She wasn't sure what the catalyst was, but she saw tears spring to Aria's eyes.

"Aria, I'm okay." She smiled softly.

"I almost had him that night." She gestured with her free hand, demonstrating as she continued, "I could reach my arms out and could almost grab him."

I'm glad you didn't. He would have hurt you.

Aria looked at her, a knowing smile on her face like she could read her mind.

"I know I don't look like it, but I'm trained in Jiu-Jitsu. I could flip a 300 pound man on to his back and have him screaming for his mama given the chance." Her smile turned crooked, a bit of pride in it.

"Your strength must come from the caffeine buzzing through your veins." Alison suggested.

Aria put her hands on her hips and struck a superhero pose.

"I…am…SuperJava."

"Faster than all the speeding ambulances in the ambulance bay." Alison flattened her hand and waved it in the air.

"Strong enough to make a full grown detective cower…" She had a sheepish look on her face.

"Uh…" It drew Alison out of the moment. "What?"

"I kinda lost it when I was giving my statement." She let out a little shrug. "I was so mad that he got away. And I was freaking out about you. I flipped a table."

"You…flipped a table?" Alison cocked her head, trying to picture it.

"Oh, yeah. Like full-on Monopoly-boarded a tray of instruments and sent them flying around the room. Scared Cavanaugh half to death, but I think it was only because the bonesaw almost took his head off."

Alison burst into laughter at the visual imagery. Big bad Bulldog Cavanaugh cowering in the corner from a tiny little Chihuahua.

"I might flip another table if he's not found soon." Aria huffed, pushing herself off of the wall.

"I know how you feel." It came out jittery, for entirely different reasons than Aria.

Aria wanted him caught. Alison wanted his body found.

She waited on the news to break all day, but nothing came up about a body being found.

As the day wore on Alison started to get antsy.

It was fair to assume that the stripper took a different route back to the club, but it was hard to believe that no one else had stumbled upon her beautiful work of art.

She had a hard time getting a handle on her emotions, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to hide it from her girlfriend.

Fortunately, an unexpected surgery came up and she had to cancel lunch. Normally she would have pouted about not being able to see Emily, but she knew she'd see her at dinner.

She tried to focus on the man on her table. She slid her scalpel across his skin. When the first fresh stream of blood appeared she disappeared into her mind. Droplets fell on to the sterile blue drapes that surrounded the field.

She was seven years old again.

Blood. Dripping on the carpet.

Blood everywhere.

Daddy was screaming at Jason.

Mommy was screaming at Daddy.

The screaming had been too much. Was that why she'd snapped? Grabbed the knife and gutted her entire family?

She couldn't remember doing it. But there wasn't any other explanation.

After the murders she had nightmares, but not about what happened. She had nightmares that the police would find out she was lying. She was scared they'd find a hole in her story or evidence or something that would unravel her web of lies.

She thought she'd feel something. Regret or something else.

But she didn't feel anything.

Alison finished suturing her patient and then wrote up the orders for his recovery. It hadn't taken as long as she thought, so she had time to kill.

Kill. She laughed at the irony.

She flipped the TV in the on-call room on, hoping to see a headline about a body being found, but instead all she got was a feel-good story about Good Samaritans saving two kids from a would-be dog attack.

She tilted her head and wondered…she was saving people, too. Did that make her a Good Samaritan?

She kept her eye on the clock, wondering when Tim Roland's daughter would be coming by the station. Emily hadn't given her an exact time.

She paced around the floor, obsessively checking the news every two minutes. She waited on a call from Emily to tell her that dinner was going to have to wait because they found another body.

But the call didn't come.

The story didn't flash across the news.

Something had gone wrong.

---

A/N: So to recap, we've got Emily's internal battle, Spoby crumbs, Alison's childhood being a pain in the ass, Ding Dong the Rapist is Dead, "Emily Protecc, Emily attacc, Emily didn't know Alison was humping a toy behind her back" (fun fact: this scene was almost cut), and Aria being a perky badass little dork.