Amanda's choice

by AmandaYoungFan

For years, she's done the Entity's bidding, thinking somehow, her doing so was also doing the bidding of the man she respected most, John Kramer. But seeing the survivors outside of the trial have made her question if what she's doing is right. What happens to a killer in the realm who no longer has the drive and stomach to do the Entity's bidding? (Feel free to comment)

81. She looks like Amanda Young

Strahm slowly approached Amanda on the floor and got into a crouch next to her. He quietly asked her, "Is there anyone else?"

Amanda kept crying and shook her head. When she had herself slightly under control she pulled her hands from her face and saw that the man crouched next to her was fucking Peter fucking Strahm and while she didn't fucking know how he was fucking here, only seeing Jake's fucking face could have possibly been fucking better. She sat up and wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shirt.

"It's over now. It's over." It wasn't easy with Amanda clinging to him and crying in her relief, but after a try or two, Strahm holstered his Glock.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and Perez came though the doorway and holstered her own gun. With Amanda holding him in a death grip, Strahm nodded at Kyle Donner's corpse and said, "See if he has any keys for that damn gate."

Perez crouched next to the body and felt around the corpse's pants pockets and produced a ring of keys and darted out the door.

Strahm asked her softly. "Who was he. I know his name. Kyle Donner. We tracked that down. But who was he, really?"

Amanda leaned her head back from his chest and said. "My first. My first lover, and as of yesterday...My first rapist." But as she said the words, her tone was emotionless as if she was telling him the cat puked on the carpet again. This woman was made of something, and it was now as strong as iron. The woman that had darted from the Gideon plant to her uncertain future was far removed from the woman who had been inches from death and now casually discussed her rape as though it was a parlor conversation over drinks.

Still, it sicked him. He hated assholes that did it. He absolutely hated them. He'd obviously been hitting her. Hadn't that been enough? He looked at her state of undress. No, it very clearly hadn't. Not for this psycho.

"Are you okay to stand?" Amanda nodded and he helped her to her feet. As he helped her out of the kitchen, knowing that she was made of iron, he quietly said, "Your taste in men has improved tremendously."

And she let out a giggle and muttered, "Light years ahead of where I was. I'd have been better off giving my virginity to a fucking beer bottle. It was Strahm's turn to lightly chuckle at that.

The entryway was cold with the door open. He left her for a moment and sprinted down the hall to the open doorways at the other end of the hall. The room was lit and there was a rumpled mattress and blankets and his stomach turned because of what she'd told him in the kitchen and the scent that attacked his nostrils as he entered the room fully. It still faintly smelled of what he he knew a very recent rape. He'd raped her this morning as they were on their way to get her. He felt a pang of regret at not getting there sooner, but it was over now.

He picked up a comforter and collected what was obviously her purse, pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Jake's number as he walked back down the hall. "I've only got a couple minutes but there's someone here I know you'd like to talk to."

He passed his phone to Amanda and wrapped the blanket around her as she stood shivering in the hall. She found her voice and said, "Jake...I'm...I'm okay. He found me."

Strahm continued down the hall into the kitchen to take one last look at Kyle Donner's corpse. After smelling what he had in the room Donner had locked her in, knowing what he'd done to her in it, he'd needed to get one more look at Amanda's revenge, especially because his delay in figuring out the clue she'd given them on the phone had forced her to have to do it, at least in her mind. She would have known in her heart that it was her only chance. Now he would be able to see what the former apprentice of Jigsaw had done to make him pay.

The left side of his face was destroyed, and so was his dick. Even if he and Perez hadn't shot him, Donner's days of being rapist lothario had been over. He walked around the island and got a clear look at what had inflicted the damage. She'd burned him with a portable electric stove.

Jesus. He had to give her the props she deserved. He put himself in the situation and he really didn't believe that he'd ever have thought of it. But she had. It was the only weapon she'd had at her disposal and she'd done what she needed to do. How it hadn't felled him he'd never know. He must have been functioning on pure hatred and rage.

He left the kitchen and went back to where she was still standing, wrapped in the blanket, his phone to her ear. She said, "I fucking love you, Jake."

On the other end of the phone, Jake ignored the presence of his parents and said, "I fucking love you too."

Strahm collected his phone from her as he saw flashing lights out the door. "Ambulance is here. She's on her feet so we'll take her to Mount Sinai to get checked out rather than one of the local hospitals up here. We're about an hour out."

Jake got the hint and hung up. After he did, he told his parents, "She's okay, Thank God, she's okay. Strahm did find her. He was right, He figured out where she was, and the man that took her is dead," he told them. They both circled him in a hug.

Strahm pocketed the cell phone and when the ambulance pulled through the overhang, he lifted Amanda's bundled weight in his arms and carried her inside so that her feet wouldn't get cold on the concrete. Fontana hurried over with Perez. "I'll ride with her," Strahm told them. "Fontana, can you have your team work the scene? Perez, can you follow us in the car?"

They both nodded. Before he walked away, Fontana said, "Nice shooting, both of you. I wish I'd been here to take the shot myself. A lot of problems would be solved with a little more frontier justice...When the situation is appropriate, like it was here." He nodded at them both in goodbye and turned in the direction of the house.

Strahm pulled the door of the ambulance shut as the paramedic finished helping Amanda onto the gurney and asked if she was in any pain. She shook her head and pulled the thin hospital blanket up to her chin. Strahm found a spot to sit and hung on as the ambulance drove around the circular drive and back onto the county highway. The other paramedic glanced at Strahm. "I can watch her, she's stable."

The paramedic nodded and passed through the opening between the rear of the ambulance and the cab to sit up front.

There was a comfortable silence between the two before Amanda finally spoke. "You...Really picked a good time to show up. How did you finally find me?"

Strahm looked at her and smiled slightly. "You told us. Craig House. It's embarassing that it took us so long. We should have known then, but with the call coming from a cell phone, it sounded like you said Greg instead of Craig. We figured out the car, and we figured out the state, we even figured out Donner, and we spent the better part of Saturday trying to figure out how Greg House and Kyle Donner were connected. It didn't help that the main character of that damn show is named Greg House. Sylvia was confused as to how you were a closet fan."

Amanda smiled weakly. "Seriously? I've never watched it once. I didn't know there was a character on it named Greg. I've just seen the previews and since the show was called "House," I thought I could put the name Craig in front of it and make it seem like I was talking about a friend...But...That guy that he stabbed, Wade...He must have also told him that the place was once known as Craig House, because he slapped me right after I said it and then...After he hung up...He really hurt me for that. He really thought I gave the game away. I did, just not at the time he thought."

"We heard it. The first slap. Jake wrote down names of some of the exes you told him about over the years. We guessed pretty quickly your attempted blackmailer was your kidnapper, but you apparently didn't tell him about Donner."

Amanda sighed. "When I moved out...Well, to put it more accurately, escaped my father before he could...Kyle was the first guy I met at my apartment complex. He seemed decent. So decent I gave him my virginity. There were other reasons I did, but that was the main one. What I didn't know was that he'd given notice that he was moving out a few days before I moved in, but didn't tell me. He used me for a few weeks and then basically disappeared, and I never bothered to go looking."

Strahm was shaking his head. "What a shithead."

Amanda glanced at him. "I think I'm wearing off on you. I know we haven't had a lot of deep conversations but I've never heard you cuss."

Strahm smiled a that. Amanda's eyes kept blinking and she appeared to be trying to keep them open. The adrenaline of the fight was wearing off and shock and exhaustion were obviously kicking in. Strahm said, "Sleep. It's ok. You're safe." She reached out from under the blanket with her hand, and when Strahm took it, she squeezed it fiercely and her eyes leaked tears.

"Thank you," She said, and then she let her eyes close. Strahm held her hand until he was sure she was asleep and then let it go. He found the pair of them to be a fascinating dynamic. If Amanda had not chosen a different path, they could have easily been enemies, perhaps facing off in one of John Kramer's games. But she'd chosen the right path, and he remembered what Jake had told him that first day. He'd coaxed his father into bringing Strahm onto the investigation, in part, because he knew Amanda liked him, and trusted him, despite the fact that he was fuzz.

Knowing what he knew of the woman, Amanda's friendship, and especially her trust, was something she did not give lightly, and knowing she felt that way about him was something that Strahm definitely considered one of the highest badges of honor he'd ever received. Plus, she'd saved his life at the Gideon plant. Hoffman had been waiting to plug him and Amanda had warned him and taken the bullet for him instead.

Today, he'd gotten to return that favor. They were bonded more closely now. Perhaps a dinner invite for Jake and Amanda wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Why should he and Alexis be the only ones to have to suffer through some Lauren's kitchen horrors? She was beautiful, and he loved her, but the woman could not be trusted with any pan.

As Amanda slept soundly and peacefully, he dialed Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole at home, and quickly gave him a preliminary briefing. He wrapped up the call at the outskirts of New York City by telling him that yes, the full report would be on his desk before the end of the day on Monday.

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Jake, Jack, and Sylvia Park were anxiously waiting next to the ER doors of Mount Sinai. Despite the fact that Strahm had told them it would be at least an hour, he'd rushed his parents into dressing and Roger had broken land speed records weaving them in and out of Manhattan traffic to get them here as fast as he possibly could. It was a Sunday in New York, but even then, New York was a city that rarely slept.

So he'd paced and they'd offered encouraging words and he admitted that he needed them more than he was letting on. He knew his wife was a fighter and whatever had happened to her, she would recover, but his heart broke over the fact that she'd had to suffer through it, especially because Strahm had warned him that this guy might escalate things and he'd heard how tired she was in the brief conversation they had from Strahm's phone. And that slap. They'd all heard the slap. It was practically the slap heard round the world.

When an ambulance had pulled up, he restrained himself from running to it, because this was Manhattan. It might not be hers. But when the back door had opened and Strahm had dropped to the concrete in his overcoat, Jake had then rushed out the door as the paramedic opened the other, and had insisted on helping lower the stretcher from the ambulance to the ground.

They carted her slowly through the doors, and Jack and Sylvia smiled at her. She was alert, and actually managed to smile a little herself. She kept the thin blanket pulled to her chin, likely from the cold. A tall, white-haired man bearing the name tag Dr. Mitchell Allen greeted her.

"We have a private room set up for you," Allen told them as the sliding ER doors opened and Lindsey Perez joined them. "Are you experiencing any pain?" Amanda shook her head. Dr. Allen smiled slightly and said, "We shall keep you here for part of the day for observation, but unless you really wish for it, I don't think it will be necessary to keep you overnight."

Perez, seeing her outside of photographs and up close for the first time, really, felt a strong sensation of deja vu. She felt so much like she'd seen her face before.

Amanda shook her head. "I think I'll be okay if I'm released before then." She took Jake's hand in hers. "This guy will help with any pain I may be suffering later."

Strahm leaned over her. "While things are fresh, after you get settled, would you mind speaking with us so we can put together our report?" Amanda nodded and the nurses wheeled Amanda down a corridor as, what Amanda could only describe as her fan club, followed her. She noticed Perez looking at her intently as she was wheeled into the spacious room. Dr. Allen said, "Jake, you can come in with us. Agents, if you'd wait a moment to let us get her settled in, that would be perfect."

He looked at Jake's parents and his smile was chagrined. "I'm sure the agents will prefer to conduct their interviews privately, but I promise you I will get you in here as soon as I possibly can." They nodded and smiled in understanding, then settled into a comfy loveseat in an empty room opposite Amanda's where they could watch the door.

After the nurses wheeled her into position, they left the room. The only four now present were herself, Jake, Strahm, and Dr. Allen. Amanda decided at that moment to reveal the truth to Jake without having to look him in the eye. She wasn't ashamed...She just wanted to be able to admit it without having to look at Jake's eyes...Just for that moment.

"Agent Strahm...Do you need to have the doctors perform a rape kit? The last time...It was recent."

Jake's head swiveled in horror from the two men to Amanda's face so fast that Amanda feared for a moment it might spin right off of his neck. He searched her eyes and she nodded.

He felt sick. The promise of money hadn't been enough. The miserable fucker had to defile her too. But then Amanda grabbed his hand and squeezed it and when he met her eyes again, he didn't see shame, or guilt, or sadness. Her eyes flashed with satisfaction. Whatever he'd done to her, she'd made him pay for it.

He remembered her breakdowns over Frank but she wasn't having one now. She seemed as far from tears of guilt as he'd ever seen her. She wasn't worried about his reaction like she had been with Frank. She loved him and knew he loved her and much like the Legion ordeal, she knew he would feel nothing had changed between them and in that gesture and her look, she was letting him know she felt the same way.

"It's okay," Amanda told Strahm and Dr. Mitchell. "If you think it's necessary. As long as it's kept private. I may...Not have been his first, and he may have gotten away with those."

Strahm took a step forward. "I don't believe it will be in this case. Since we have the body, we can collect as much blood evidence as we would ever possibly need for the FDDU."

Jake turned back to him, confused. Strahm told him,"The Federal DNA Database Unit. If he's connected to any unsolved crimes, we can assist local law enforcement in connecting him to it, and we can also run it against any unsolved crimes that he may fit the profile for. If he'd escaped, we'd certainly need it, but in this case, we don't. We'll keep your...Underwear as evidence, and that should suffice. He's never going to stand trial. But you can give her a morning after pill."

Amanda was about to decline but didn't. She could say that she couldn't get pregnant or she could just take the damn pill. So she just nodded. Dr. Allen ushered Strahm from the room and Jake helped Amanda get out of bed and then he saw why she'd kept the blanket to her chin. She was wearing a pair of black panties and her blouse, nothing else. And the white, soiled cotton hung open over her exposed breasts, the majority of the buttons having been ripped off. She hadn't wanted his parents to see it.

Once she got to her feet, Amanda wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest and she wept, but she kept murmuring, "It's just...Relief...It's over. I'm free of that musty place. I'm not crying over what he did to me I'm just...Crying..." A nurse came in with the pill and she took it with the cup of water. She immediately left and hugged Jake for a few moments longer.

She took off the remains of her clothes and Jake got her a hospital gown and helped her tie it and when she was secured she turned around and she gave him one of the deepest, most passionate kisses that he could ever remember her giving him. The room melted away and they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed and kissed and it seemed like hours had passed. A few tears leaked from her eyes and his own and when they finally parted, she reached up with both of her hands to touch his face.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you...If I hadn't gone to..."

Amanda put her finger on his lips. "There will be none of that, baby. If we're going to go down the path of regrets and what ifs I could start us off by saying if I hadn't given him my virginity then none of this would have happened either. Or more recently, if I hadn't underestimated him as being an active threat after I told him to piss off, I'd have been more aware of my surroundings instead of giving him the chance to get the drop on me. All that matters is he's dead. Not by my hand. While it would have been satisfying, I didn't get to do it. But I did hurt him, that's for sure."

"Why did you take the pill? After all, we both know how the realm works." Jake looked at her, curious apparently about her response.

"We also were under the belief that history would reset itself to Nov. 9, Now we find that it resets itself to two-week intervals. I'm sure nothing would happen but based on the circumstances...This is not a glitch in the matrix that I want to risk."

Jake nodded at her. She looked at the door. "You'll have to listen to some bad things before we get to the part where I hurt him...Badly... Can you handle it?"

Jake nodded again. "Of course I can. It'll hurt but of course I can. And after that...Shit, I'm half-tempted to tell those two that I'll never let you out of my sight ever again. It may not even be a lie."

Amanda shook her head, grinning fainty. "You may have to let me out of your sight, someday." Her eyes danced. Jake arched a brow. "If we ever regain our bodily functions I will not allow you in the bathroom when I'm taking a shit. Pissing I can adjust to, but being in there when I'm shitting in the toilet is where I draw the line, buckeroo."

And he laughed and so did she. And she let him help her back onto the bed. She drew the thin blanket all the way up to her chin to where it stopped and forced her feet at the bottom until it pulled loose from where it was tucked under the mattress, then let it pool around her waist as she stuck her bare feet out from under it. She did not like having her feet encased under a blanket.

She gave Jake a nod and he opened the door and Strahm and Perez entered. They'd taken the heavy coats off. Both had notebooks and Perez had a small digital recorder in her hand. She set it on the little rolling table for patient meals and looked at Amanda's face intently and Amanda knew what she was doing and simply met her gaze as Perez rolled the table in front of her and said, "I'm Agent Perez. I don't think we've been introduced yet." Amanda shook her offered hand. "We'll record the interview as well, if you don't mind, Mrs. Park?"

Amanda nodded. Perez stared at her a moment more and then sat in a chair next to her partner. No, they hadn't been formally introduced, but it was clear that she and Strahm were partners for awhile. They had that way of moving in-tandem like two people that knew each other fairly fluidly. And she had met Strahm while he was investigating the Jigsaw case, which meant that she would have been investigating it as well.

Amanda couldn't tell yet whether or not Perez had matched her face to the case files and thought she looked remarkably like Amanda Young, or if she recognized her face from somewhere and hadn't quite made that leap yet. At this point, there was nothing to do but sit back and let the cards fall where they may. There was truly not a fucking thing she could do about it, and so she would not fucking do anything at all.

Strahm glanced at Perez and noted that Perez was staring at her, then at Amanda. He remained stone faced but gave her a wink, as if to signal that he'd take care of whatever.

Strahm opened things up by saying, "We pretty well know the circumstances of the kidnapping, and this man was the one who made the attempt to blackmail you, correct?"

Amanda said, "Yes. He snuck up on me from behind and knocked me unconscious. I'm guessing that he stopped the car somewhere and tied my wrists and ankles because I was tied up when I woke up, and I tried to offer to let it drop and I offered him the money in my purse if he stopped the car and let me go, but he threatened me and told me to shut up, so I did. And then he took me to that place...Craig House."

Amanda waited as the pens in both of the agent's hands moved furiously on their notepads. "So he took me inside and he had one of the rooms that had metal over the windows and a lock on the door all set up. He said it must have been subconscious that he had set the room up...That he must have sensed he'd be bringing me there. I dunno, I think it's nullshit and he planned it from the start. Anyway...he untied my ankles but left my wrists tied and then he returned with a little bag of travel-size toiletries and also said it must have been a sixth sense or something that made him buy them. He left me alone for awhile and I could see there was no way for me to escape so I just sat there and waited."

Strahm said, "The corpse in the hallway, the other man present, who was he? When did you become aware that there was a second man involved in your kidnapping?"

"Kyle called him Wade, and I'm not sure if he has any family but I want it clear that he really wasn't involved in anything until after I was kidnapped. I got the sense that he had something to do with the place, and that he was going to get some of the money if I'd agreed to the bribe, but the look of shock and anger on his face when Kyle showed him I was there couldn't be faked, and he chewed Kyle's ass for involving him in a felony. He did some things to break the law but for a time there, he really wanted to help me, he was just stuck in an awful position between me and Kyle at the time."

She closed her eyes, remembering. "I tried to work the angle to let me go again, sine I could see Wade didn't want me there, and I swore that if they let me go I still wouldn't testify and Wade really seemed to want to go with the idea. They had an argument outside the room and Kyle seemed to get him on his side but then he got a moment alone with me and told me that he was willing to accept my promise and that when he had the right opportunity, he'd release me."

Strahm was writing in his notebook. "Was Wade present for the entire time after that?"

Amanda shook her head. "I don't think so. I mean, I didn't see much outside of the room most of the time I was there, but he wasn't there when we left for the ransom call, only after we returned. Kyle did...Some things to me on that first day that I don't believe Wade would have left him done if he was present."

She tried to think back to it...The timeline. "After Kyle and Wade had the initial confrontation, I'm almost positive he left. Then Kyle brought me some food and water and he tried to blame me for my kidnapping by saying that my laughing at his bribe attempt showed that I was stuck up or spoiled or some bullshit and I was just not fucking having any of it. I'd have probably behaved differently in that moment if the kidnapper had been a random stranger, but we did have a regrettable history from when I was younger and my refusal to back down pissed him off, I think. He backhanded me multiple times, and I can't remember exactly what I said to him but finally he punched me in the face hard enough to make my nose bleed, a lot."

Jake winced, sitting at her right side, and he took her hand in his and squeezed it and she gave him a glance and squeezed Jake's hand herself before turning back to the agents.

"He backed down after that a bit and I asked him to untie my hands so I could clean up the blood and he did, and I suggested that I didn't need to be tied up since I wasn't going anywhere, and so he left me untied, at first."

She sighed. "So there was a bathtub in the bathroom and I told him I was going to take a bath and then after I got in he came into the bathroom and he just...It was creepy...He just sat on the toilet and stared at me the whole fucking time and I just...He was an ex. Then he touched my breasts and touched my...I wasn't intimidated by him at all at the time and so I just went about my business and ignored him and it pissed him off again because he rushed me and tried to drown me in the tub."

Perez asked her, "What made him stop? Did Wade return?"

Another head shake from Amanda. "I tried to push myself clear but he wouldn't let up so I just grabbed the stopper chain with my toes and pulled the plug...He kept trying to push me under the water but thank Christ it drained enough that he couldn't anymore, and so he slammed my head on the tub and stormed out and I never saw him again for the rest of the night. It was shortly after that when I noticed a little square plaque on the sink that said Craig House and filed it away for later."

As she wrote, Perez noted that Amanda was a quick thinker in that moment. Others would have probably panicked and he might have finished what he started. Her face was so incredibly familiar and she felt uncomfortable staring at her as Amanda spoke, but she was so sure of it. Even the first name sounded familiar. But she didn't have much time to dwell on it now.

"The night was uneventful," Amanda said. "Then the next morning, I tried to escape. I waited behind the door with the mattress up and when he came in, I tried to pin him under it but he fell in front of the door and I couldn't open it. He got free and then he pinned me down and backhanded me until my face was...Was numb."

And for the first time, Amanda was unable to surpress a shudder, remembering how vicious he'd been in that moment, and that it had been the first time he'd duped her.

"Then he said he didn't want to hurt me anymore. He just wanted the money and understood he couldn't intimidate me, and that we should just relax and have breakfast and he left, leaving my door open. So I got dressed and tried to escape again, but he'd been waiting for me. I didn't realize the door could only be opened with a skeleton key, and when he busted me at the door he told me I could go back to my room and be punished lightly, or I could keep pissing him off and it would be severe...The window glass was too thick to break next to the door, I found that out, and...Fuck him. I ran up the stairs and tried to get out an upstairs window thinking the glass might be normal up there, but it wasn't and he caught me."

Strahm was looking at her and his eyes betrayed the sympathy he was feeling for her as she described this part of the story. "And he...Punished you?"

Amanda nodded. "I was making my way up to the third floor when he caught me. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me by it from the third floor all the way back to my prison cell."

Amanda's hands shot up involuntarily to touch the side of her head as she remembered how painful it had been, really, truly painful, to be dragged that way for that distance. "I grabbed his hand, which helped, but still...It was awful."

"But he didn't stop with that?" Strahm's eyes remained sympathetic but his superior was a stickler for details and he had to have as many as possible.

"He tied me up, hit, me, punched me, then kicked me all over my body. He took my boots and socks away, I'm guessing so I wouldn't try to run again with it being so cold out, and then he pulled his belt from his pants and whipped me with it. He untied the knot and then he told me I could crawl to the tub to clean up. Then he lowered the temperature on the radiator in my room and took the knob away so I couldn't turn it back up and I managed to get to the tub and get cleaned off."

"Was that the end of it?" Perez had taken over again. Where Strahm's eyes had been sympathetic, Perez' eyes looked horrified after that last description.

"At some point he stole my clothes," Amanda said, looking at the toes of her feet. "He dragged in what I later discovered was a loveseat, and took my comforter from the bed and laid it between the radiator and the loveseat and when I came out, he made me touch myself while he masturbated...And threw it on me...When he was done."

She looked at them sharply. "I didn't want to. But he hit me...There, with his belt and threatened me, so I did it. Then he left me there with just the comforter to stay warm with until he came to take me for the ransom call. He gave me my clothes, but not my underwear, and not my boots or socks so I had to be barefoot in the car because he claimed I might run again but really he was just being a fucking asshole." Amanda glowered.

She sighed. "And I'm sure you traced where we made the call. He either studied or knew from someone that you could trace him almost immediately through cell phones so he made sure we were well clear, and when he handed me the phone, I remembered that little plaque from the sink and tried to work in a clue without making it obvious...But he knew."

Strahm was nodding. "We dispatched local police up here since their response time was faster than ours but they still had almost a 20-minute drive and you were long gone when he got there. I don't like to give the prick credit but he chose that place well."

Amanda said, "And after I tried to slip in that Craig House clue he got particularly violent. He punched me, he beat me..." Jake winced beside her and squeezed her hand again." ...He really thought that there'd be a thousand cop cars parked outside that place when we got back, and he threatened to maim me as much as he could before the police hauled him away if that was the case. They weren't there, but Wade was."

Strahm asked her, "Was he still violent when you got back, even though there was no police presence?"

Amanda shook her head. "I think because Wade had shown up unexpectedly while we were gone. And then Wade said he was going to stay, but said he didn't like Kyle's beer selection and asked if Kyle would run to the store and buy the brand he liked if he gave him the money. Saying it now I realize just how obvious it was that Wade was trying to get Kyle out of the house, which is obviously why he was tipped off."

"So did he actually leave the premises to go buy the beer?" This question came from Perez.

"Sort of," Amanda said. "Wade gave me the cliff notes. Apparently Kyle wanted Wade's keys and so he gave them to him. But that left us stranded in the cold. He unlocked the door and left me in the room to try and find my boots and coat because it was 20 degrees or so outside and he knew it would not be easy for me to make it to town with no shoes."

She closed her eyes, remembering. "Kyle...He drove off obviously, but he must have just driven the car out of sight. I was packing up my purse and then the door shut and locked on me, so he must have snuck in the house. Then he and Wade had some sort of confrontation. I didn't hear the conversation entirely but Wade said something about how he wasn't going to let Kyle keep me there and Kyle basically said that Wade wasn't going to stop him and they got into a struggle...Kyle won."

"And then, did he come for you again?" Strahm was looking at her, and hated asking because he sensed that the dark turn of the story was coming around about this time.

"It was at least an hour. I don't know what he was doing. I decided to try and make one more break for it and when I saw his shadow under the door, I hid behind it. I felt that if it had been Wade, he'd have announced himself. He anticipated me though. You saw the room, there was only the bathroom or behind the door and he shoved the door in sharply and squeezed me into the wall a few times, and then we struggled and he grabbed me by my fucking hair again. I never realized how quickly I could be disarmed by hair pulling. He dragged me over in front of the radiatior and had some rope. He held me down and cut it and since the radiator wasn't hot, he tied my wrists to it." Amanda held her arms up indicating how she was tied.

Strahm's pen was empty and he reached into the pocket of his suit jacket to produce another Bic.

"Then...He sat on the loveseat for a minute or two, lost in thought. And then he told me how beautiful I was, and then he said that now that he'd committed two felonies with Wade's murder, that he was already facing life...and that he might as well commit a third...That was his thought process to raping me. I mean...He'd done some things sexually prior but it wasn't until that moment, I think, that he finally decided to go all the way."

Jake winced as Amanda's hand locked around his like a vice. "I didn't have any underwear on. He started pulling my slacks down bit I fought him. So he just...Ripped them and cut them off me. And then he had some leftover rope and since the loveseat was right there, he managed to overpower me to tie one of my ankles to the leg, and once I had three limbs tied, it was easy for him to tie my last ankle to the other leg...And he ripped my blouse open and got undressed himself."

Jake's hand hurt but he made no effort to move it. Amanda's knuckles had turned white.

"He...Played with me with my fingers and in that moment...I just...I knew I had to let him...Believe that I was broken. I knew he'd never let his guard down if I kept fighting him and being strong. I had to let myself look weak, even though I wanted to rip his fucking head off. So I played it up and pretended to be scared and...He enjoyed the look of fear on my face. And then he got on top of me and...And then...Before he..." Amanda's eyes leaked real tears. It had been that vile in the moment. "...He asked me if I was on the fucking pill. I told him I wasn't and that just thrilled him. He got even more excited because he got it into his head at the time that he might actually be able to impregnate me. It...It got him off..."

Strahm and Perez were both looking at her with sorrow etched on their faces. They both knew that rape was quite traumatizing to victims. Strahm said quietly, "That was...You said it was the first time?"

Amanda pressed her head to Jake's chest and spoke hollowly. "He raped me again almost immediately. It was maybe a few minutes later. He was making comments...About how fertile he was, really trying to drive home the fact that he might be getting me pregnant. He kept my wrists tied but he untied me from the radiator and loveseat and I kept playing weak because the more I did, the more he believed he'd won and lowered his guard, it seemed. He thought he'd broken me so much the first time that he felt comfortable just tying my hands and moving me onto the mattress for the second time. Then...He left for awhile."

She couldn't stop herself from shuddering. Jake got up and awkwardly sat on the bed and she finally released his hand and let him put an arm around her. "I wanted to clean myself badly...But I thought it might tip him off that I wasn't as out of it as he thought if I did so. I made up my mind to just...Lay there...With it...Fuck I hated it I fucking hated it. I didn't have the thought then but when he did what he did to me it was the same thing that..."

And she stopped speaking and she felt Jake's eyes on her and she broke down crying and said, "FUCK."

Jake spoke quietly. "You never told me about any other time. Who...Was it him?"

Amanda, through her tears, said, "Where's the stop button on this thing?" She held the voice recorder in her hand and searched it for the stop button and pressed it. Then she looked at Jake. "I've told you...EVERYTHING. I mean truly everything...Except this one thing...I was just too ashamed."

She was silent a moment, forming the words. "When I was...Eighteen...The night before my graduation I was alone with my father. After I really blossomed my senior year his hands on me got...Not abusive. He was really drunk and really mopey and begging me to stay and I was stupid and was on the couch next to him and he pushed me down and he tried to rape me...My own fucking FATHER. And the only thing that saved me was that he leaned back and I was able to kick him in his dick and hide in my room until mom got home. I never saw him again after that night."

Her little body shook as she wept. "I'm...I'm fucking sorry...I never wanted you to know that. I didn't want you to know that my childhood almost ended with the fucking redneck incest cliche'. I know I didn't do anything wrong but it was just too disgusting and I'm so fucking ashamed that my own father...That he could fucking...Want THAT...With his own fucking DAUGHTER. That's...It's the only thing I never told you. I should have because I know you'd have fucking understood. Fuck, you understand everything and you'd have only tried to make me feel better but I just...I fucking couldn't."

Her ability to form words left her again and she just let the tears fall. He held her while she wept. Jake did understand but still his heart broke for her because he already knew that everything she'd experienced before she met him had been roundly shitty and he hated knowing that something even more shitty had happened to her.

When she recovered herself, she reached for the voice recorder and looked at the buttons until she found the one that said REC and pressed it. An orange light turned on and she set it back on the little food stand.

"After he fucked off doing whatever he came back one more time. I'd passed out by then. He untied me and fucking raped me one more fucking time and I'm sure he was all fucking excited about the thought of getting me fucking pregnant and then when he got his fucking rocks off he left me untied and I fucking hoped that was a good sign and then he fucking put the comforter on me and fucking finally he fucking left me alone for the fucking night."

Amanda's litlte face screwed up in disgust. "But he wasn't done yet. The next morning he woke me up and tested me and I acted broken and let him and he fucking raped me and I kept pretending to be out of it and I think that's what saved me later. He...He called my rape his fucking morning coffee. And then after he finished and recovered for a few minutes he raped me for the last fucking time."

She wept bitterly. "And I guess my fucking performance was award-worthy because he fucking told me that he couldn't let me leave. Now that he'd murdered Wade and added multiple rapes to his felony charges he fucking told me that before or after he collected the fucking money he was going to come back and murder me. The only reason he told me, I think, is because he really fucking thought I was out of it. And then after he told me he was going to fucking murder me he asked me if I wanted breakfast and then he took me out of that room of his own accord for the first fucking time."

She looked at both Strahm and Perez. "I knew. Deep down...I knew that it was going to be the only fucking time he let his guard down enough to let me out of that fucking room. I knew that after breakfast he'd take me back there and fucking rape me again and again until he was fucking tired of it and then he was going to fucking kill me after and I knew it was my only chance to try and save myself. And...It's going to sound really crazy based on all the shit that happened but I was lucky that what happened next, did happen."

Perez looked at her and more and more, especially after hearing about her abusive childhood, she realized who Amanda Park reminded her of. But that woman was dead. Still, she saw the resemblance and the childhood trauma matched pretty closely to the other woman she reminded her of, who was also, conveniently, named Amanda. Perez asked her, "Lucky how?"

Amanda smiled bitterly. "He was a male chauvinist pig. He opened up two cans of hash and then he had me cook it for him. And then he filled a pot of water for coffee I think and he made me cook that too, like I was some sort of barefoot in the kitchen wife or girlfriend, instead of a kidnapping victim he'd gotten off on repeatedly raping."

She was silent. "Obviously you can tell by the wounds but I'll explain anyway. The place had no stove, so he had one of those portable electric stoves. I was cooking the food and the water was boiling and he made a mistake and got close to me and started kissing my neck. And I knew I had a minute. Maybe a second, where I could save myself, so I hit him with the pan of boiling water, and then I hit him in the face with one of the hot coils of the electric stove."

And then Amanda lied, just a little. "I don't know how he was still upright but he was. When he took out the can opener he pulled some other things out and one of them was a kitchen knife. And even after getting burned and hit with the pan he somehow had it in him to grab that knife and try to stab me so I shoved one of the burners into his crotch."

Jake realized why Amanda had behaved the way she had when talking about her revenge for what Kyle had done to her. It didn't make up for it entirely, but shit, getting a red-hot burner to the face and to the balls definitely went a long way towards making him pay.

"I tried to get out but I was on the wrong side of the kitchen and eventually he grabbed me and then he tried to stab me. Agent Strahm, I heard, told him to drop it and he wouldn't. There was a shot that wounded him, but he still would not stop. I'm assuming it was Agent Strahm who shot him repeatedly in the chest and he made one more move and then there was one more shit to his head that killed him to save my life."

And that was it. Roughly three days of horror for most, summarized succinctly. Strahm collected the recorder and switched it off. "We'll obviously keep this under the radar, I'm sure the Park family would prefer the situation just sort of fading away, and with the assailant dead, I don't see any reason why it can't."

Amanda nodded and Jake said, "Please. I don't want anyone else trying to finish what Kyle started."

Strahm gave her a card with his contact information. "If you need anything further you can reach me there, and if we need anything from you we'll be sure and reach out. I appreciate you helping us with the report, and I'm very glad we arrived there when we did and that you can both begin the healing process. You did far better under the cirumstances and the pressure than anyone could have hoped for, and part of the reason you're here is because you did what you needed to do to make it out of there." He and Amanda shared a smile.

Strahm produced two clear evidence bags from his overcoat, like some sort of crime-scene magician, and using a pen, lifted Amanda's panties into one, and the ripped blouse in the other. He wrote on them, then slipped them into the side pockets of his overcoat. They both looked at him and he noticed. "Basically to go along with the report at this point. I mean, we've engaged in a shooting, and your statement plus the state of your clothes and the semen will corroborate that your statement is accurate and that he assaulted and raped you and that, in part, the shooting was justified."

He shook hands with them both and so did Perez and Amanda smiled gratefully. He opened the door and looked at Jake's parents and said, "They're all yours." They all shook hands and Strahm and Perez disappeared, though Perez looked at Amanda through the doorway one last time, believing she knew who Amanda really was.