XVIII:

She bit back a scream of anguish behind the duct tape when she realized he meant to wrap her in the afghan that abuelita had crocheted for their bed; she could handle the burns, the brutal sexual assault with her own sex toys that she and Rafael had chosen together, the taunts and threats and physical violence – she could handle all of it… but the thought of destroying that little piece of home that could never be replaced nearly destroyed her.

William Lewis dangled the chain with her rings from his fingertips and said, "Last chance, Olivia… when's loverboy gonna be home?" He ripped the tape off her mouth with the practiced glee of a man who gutted fish for fun, and she cried out in pain. "Oh, come on – that was nothing, sweetheart…"

"He's in California," she lied breathlessly, "on business."

"So you're telling me that Mr. Benson won't be home for a while to tap that hot ass of yours?" he taunted.

She glared at him, though dizzy from all of the pills and alcohol he had forced into her over the last god only knew how long, and muttered, "Fuck you."

"Ah-ah-ah, Olivia," he scolded. "We're taking our time, remember?"

He had dressed her at some point after she had been unconscious, and the lacy panties and bra were chafing her raw, burnt skin. The other items of clothing were tight and clearly for show, rather than her comfort, because her skin felt like it was itching, burning, and if her wrists weren't both zip tied and duct taped together, she would have been tearing chunks of her skin off.

There was no way out of this; she could only hope that someone would eventually realize she wasn't where she was meant to be and find her.

And until then, she had to protect Rafael: if Lewis found out that he was her husband, he was a sitting duck in a very small pond.

She lifted her chin and squared her blurry gaze with his, then said, "Fuck. You."

Her gun against the side of her jaw was a welcome pain; it was real, solid, grounding, a focal counterpoint against the drugs coursing through her veins. He grabbed her arm, fingertips digging hard into her muscles, and even though she was moving slowly, she kneed him in the groin, cracked her head into his – hard – as he bent over, and managed to knock the gun from his hands. But even with all that effort, he yanked her hair, shoving her hard against the front door. He smashed her flat against the door, his breath hot against her as he panted and growled like a feral animal.

"I swear to god if you try that again… I'll break you," Lewis spat in her hair, yanking again. "Do you understand?"

He was unmistakably turned on by her fighting back, and it was enough to dishearten her; what little hope she had that she might get out of the situation alive was beginning to slip away. "Yes," she whimpered.

"Good girl," he hissed. "Now… you get to pick one thing to take with you, Olivia. One thing to remind you of home."

The bastard. The absolute bastard.

In the end, she chose the afghan: it meant hope and it meant abuelita's love and strength would be with her through the worst of it. She only prayed that Rafael would forgive her.

Things were blurry, hazy, but certain details stood out. Like rapes and murders along the way to their final destination. Liv felt like she was floating in her own self, unable to process what she was forced to be a part of: she didn't understand why William Lewis felt such superiority, such power in taking advantage of others.

And it hurt her so deeply to know that the only reason he hadn't gotten his hands on Barba was because she had sent him on to the hospital before her.

She was finally allowed a few sips of precious water, then gagged on more vodka, the dizzyingly painful wash of pills and alcohol settling into her system like a fog. She wasn't suggestible, really, just… couldn't hardly pull herself together to react enough to kick his ass. And, god, did she want to rip him apart. If she could only get her hands on her gun again, she would put a bullet first in his crotch and another right between his eyes. Even drugged and drunk, there was zero chance she would miss.

She had bled and cried all over the afghan, the faint scent of Rafael on the yarn growing fainter by the moment as William Lewis's stink began to overwhelm her senses completely, making her sick to her stomach. Her hope was fading away completely as she heard gunshots that indicated that Lewis had killed a police officer who had gotten too close to finding her in the back of the car; she burrowed into the afghan and closed her eyes, retreating into a foggy corner of her mind where Rafael's soft voice reassured her that he loved her and everything would be okay: that she was the strongest woman he had ever met and he loved her more than anything else in the world.

If she got out of this alive, she was going to wear her rings with pride in public – no more hiding.

Lewis yanked her out of the car by her hair, ignoring her tape-muffled scream of pain, and dragged her inside what seemed to be a perfectly normal little house. After giving her another drink of vodka and another pill, he said, "Bet you need to pee, don't you, Olivia? Better let me help you with that –"

Twenty minutes of humiliation, degradation, and things she couldn't bear to think about later, he had come on her leg after she had successfully used the toilet, and she was red-faced with shame and a bit of horror. He dressed her again, roughly, his semen still sticky on her outer thigh as he pulled up her jeggings and cursed them for getting stuck on the tacky mess.

"Now – dinner's just going to be Spaghetti-Os," he said, "because I grabbed them at the gas station on the way…"

"If you're going to fuck me, I want steak and lobster," Liv said.

He reached up to smack her and smirked when she flinched back just a little. "You're getting what you're getting – not my fault your asshole husband makes the big bucks and I don't. Too bad for him, I'm definitely the better lay."

She lifted her chin defiantly and said, "I highly doubt that."

This time when he reached up toward her, she didn't flinch. His hand tangled in her hair and he yanked her toward him until she was flush against his body, his smelly breath rank in her face. "You can't possibly love a pretentious prick who wears Armani suits and reads law reviews for fun," he hissed.

"If I didn't, why did I marry him?" she shot back.

"Convenience." And with that, he dragged her into the house's one bedroom on the main level and handcuffed her to the heavy iron bed frame. "Now, stay the fuck put while I go get some firewood. Can't have you getting cold when it comes time for the good shit, baby."

The second she heard him leave, she flung all of her weight into struggling at her bonds. She felt the metal biting into her wrists and knew that she would have terrible cuts in a few minutes, but the bar above her head began to give way. A few more thrashing bucks and one end came loose. She struggled harder, ignoring the roiling of nauseous bile in her stomach and the pain in her head, and the other end sheared off, and she maneuvered the bar loose so she could hold it in her hands – and not a moment too soon, because Lewis was coming back into the house.

She waited in silence for him to come back into the room and realize she wasn't on the bed before she pounced, cracking him across the knees with the bar, then the head – and then something in her head snapped.

He fully intended to kill her. He had already assaulted her with her own sex toys, with her gun, with his fingers – and he had told her he planned to rape and kill her in this house.

She hit him until he went down and didn't move. She was dizzy, sick, on her knees searching his barely alive body for the key to her handcuffs so she could free herself –

"Liv –"

"Oh god, Liv –"

She was shaking, couldn't hold the keys without dropping them, couldn't get her gun off of his body because he was laying on it – but Fin was gently picking up the handcuff keys from the ground and freeing her from the restraints. "He's alive," Olivia whispered. "I don't know how."

Carisi was right behind Fin, tending to Lewis, shouting for a bus – two busses – but Fin was gently trying to help her up off the floor. "Hey, it's okay," he said. "Liv, you're gonna be okay. Can you get up or do I need to get a guy with a stretcher?"

She glared at him. "If that asshole is going out on a stretcher, I'm walking out on my own two feet," she hissed.

"Good girl," Fin praised, helping her to her feet. "Come on – one foot in front of the other."

Olivia was quaking with the effort of walking while under the influence of so many drugs and so much alcohol and was leaning very heavily on her friend to get through the house and out the door, but by god, she did it under her own power. She barely made it down the front steps of the house before two EMTs stopped her and pulled her onto a waiting stretcher.

She was about to surrender to the feeling of being completely helpless in her own body when she heard a voice call, "Olivia!"

She turned her head and reached for him automatically, yanking on her IV line and annoying the EMTs. "Rafa –"

"Sir, we need you to step back –"

"Like hell," Rafael snapped. "I'm not leaving my wife." He curled his fingers tightly around Liv's, and she gripped his hand right back, glad of his presence.

"Please let Rafa stay," Liv whispered, suddenly terrified that he would leave her and walk away; that Lewis's taunting had somehow held a grain of truth.

"I'm not leaving her," he said firmly. "She'll need to be treated immediately, evidence collected, and a rape kit performed as soon as possible – but I'm not leaving unless she asks me to."

"Don't leave," she whispered. She needed him to see what Lewis had done; she needed him to know what havoc the monster under the bed had wreaked. She needed him.

"I'm here, Olivia," he promised. "I'm not going anywhere."

TBC...