Author's Note: This story is based on the CBS television series The Jeffersons and as far as I know, it is the property of Columbia Pictures Television, Sony Pictures Television, TAT Communications Company, Embassy Television, Shout! Factory, and of course, CBS. No infringement is intended.

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains disturbing scenes of physical and sexual abuse and may be triggering for abuse survivors. PLEASE consider carefully before reading. Thank you.

Chapter Summary: A badly injured woman named Louise wakes up in the basement of a serial killer with no memories of her life and no knowledge of how she got there.

Chapter 1: The Hellhole

A thousand knives sliced through her broken legs as they pulsated with fire. The pain was unbelievable, and that was an understatement. She didn't even try to stop the tears from flowing. As she lay there on the concrete floor inside that dark, dingy basement, she just allowed herself to cry. The beautiful middle-aged black lady had no idea who she was or how she'd ended up here or how her legs had gotten broken. The only two things she knew for sure in that moment were that she was in agony and that she was in dire need of help.

Several hours passed before someone finally came. The woman heard the door open a crack, and then she heard the sound of little footsteps tiptoeing down the stairs. Moments later, a little girl with long, jet-black hair and brown eyes plopped down beside her. She then held up her head and helped her drink the small cup of water she'd brought with her.

"I'm so glad you're awake, Louise," the child's small voice said to her in the dark. "You passed out three days ago. I was scared that you might never wake up."

"Where am I?" the woman asked in her deep, booming voice. "What happened to me? How did I get here? And who are you?"

"Shh!" the child whispered. "You have to be quiet or he'll hear you."

"Who?"

"Don't you remember?"

"No. I don't remember anything," she said in a whisper. "Who are you?"

"I'm Melissa. Melissa Chen. We've been friends ever since he brought you here."

"Who?" the woman asked through her tears.

It was in that instant that they both heard the ominous sound of heavy footsteps, and Melissa looked at the woman then and whispered, "Shh! He's coming!"

The door opened, and a huge, muscular, terrifying brown-haired man threw an older, silver-haired man down the stairs.

"Mark!" Melissa cried out, and then the basement lights were flipped on, and the woman was able to get a much better look at everything and everyone. The older man was bruised and bleeding. It was obvious that he'd recently endured a terrible beating, perhaps more than one. The woman then took a good look into Melissa's little face and saw that it too was covered with bruises.

Moments later, the brown-haired man came down the basement stairs and yelled, "What's going on down here?!"

As soon as the woman looked into his vicious gray eyes, she immediately realized that he was the cause of everybody's various injuries, including her own, and she knew that now, the best thing and really the only thing she could do was to keep quiet.

That monster of a man walked around and stared at his three victims for several seconds while all their hearts pounded at about two hundred beats per minute. Finally, he said, "I've already had my fun with my buddy Mark tonight. Who's up next?" In the following moment, he looked into the woman's terrified eyes and said, "Ah yes, Louise. It's about time you woke up. We've really missed you these past few days. It just hasn't been the same without you."

He then grabbed the folding chair in the corner, the only piece of furniture in the sparse, dirty basement, and he unfolded it and set it down in the middle of the room. Afterwards, he picked up the rope lying on the floor, and he put Mark in the chair and tied him down to it.

"Sorry Mark, old boy, but you know the rules. After I get done with you, it's your job to sit and watch when it's the next person's time up. And speaking of the next person," he said as he turned towards Louise and Melissa, "who, oh who, will that next person be?" After a brief pause, he said, "Louise. Since you've returned to the land of the living, I'll let you be the one to decide." In the next terrifying moment, he unzipped his jeans, and Louise immediately realized what was about to happen to her. "Who's it gonna be, Louise? You or Melissa? Who's the next contestant in our little game?"

"Me," Louise responded in a shaky voice.

"So be it."

"No!" Mark cried out. "Haven't you done enough to the poor woman already?! Leave her alone!"

"Shut up!" he yelled, and then he punched Mark so hard that he knocked Mark and the chair over onto the floor. Melissa then began to cry, and she ran into the corner, hugged her knees to her chest, buried her face in her knees, and closed her eyes. Meanwhile, Mark was totally helpless as he watched Louise being brutally attacked and raped yet again. No matter how badly he wanted to muster up the strength to break free of the rope that bound him to the chair, it just wasn't possible; after the beating and rape he had just endured upstairs, he was simply too weak. As he watched that demonic pig force himself on Louise for what felt like the billionth time, all Mark could do was lie on the floor, tied up to the chair, and watch in horror.

Whenever it was possible, whenever that demon of a man left Mark alone with Louise in the basement, Louise and Mark talked. Mark explained to Louise who it was they were really dealing with: a serial killer. In Manhattan, he'd become known as "the 49er" because once every forty-nine days, he would kidnap someone, typically a woman, and beat her to death. After he killed his latest victim, he would take a knife and carve the number "49" somewhere on the victim's body to let police and the media know that he was the one who did it. Mark had been kidnapped by the 49er over six months ago and brought to the old, abandoned cabin here in the small town of Haven Lake, which was very close to Boston. He informed Louise that she had been there for the past three months, and that little Melissa had been there longer than either of them. Louise and Mark had barely had a chance to talk at all back when Louise still had her memory; in that time, Louise hadn't even had the opportunity to reveal her last name to Mark and Melissa. Louise wasn't wearing any rings on either hand so there was no indication that she was married. Unfortunately, there was nothing Mark could tell Louise about who she actually was or where she had come from. The only thing Mark could tell her was that the very first time they were alone together in the basement (and each of them tied up and barely able to move a muscle), they promised one another that they would always do whatever they could to protect Melissa and help her escape one day. And after Mark told Louise about it, they renewed their pact and agreed that no matter what, they would always put Melissa before themselves.

Sadly, it wasn't always possible for them to do that. Over the next several weeks after Louise regained consciousness, both she and Mark endured a number of rapes and beatings for Melissa, but one terrible night, neither one of them were given the option to protect her. Louise and Mark were terribly weak and just barely conscious after the injuries they'd received at that murderer's hands just the day before. They weren't tied up by ropes like they had been most of the time, but they were so weak, they may as well have been. Physically speaking, they were both pretty helpless when he came running down the stairs to the basement carrying Melissa, who was clearly scared out of her mind, and was crying and screaming her head off in fear.

"I'm gonna teach you a lesson, you little snake!" he hissed at Melissa as he brought her down the stairs and threw her on the floor.

"Stop it!" Louise cried out.

"Leave her alone!" Mark yelled as that demon unzipped his jeans and got down on the floor. In the following moments, Mark struggled to his feet, stumbled over to him, made a fist, and punched him in the back of the head. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to slow their attacker down. He was back up on his feet again seconds later, and he quickly retaliated. He punched Mark so hard that Mark instantly went down once again, completely unconscious.

Over the next several horrifying minutes, Melissa was brutally raped as Louise cried and screamed and yelled for him to stop. Both of her legs were broken in multiple places and getting up to walk was obviously impossible for her, so she did the only thing she could do. As difficult as it was for her, she somehow mustered up enough strength to push herself forward towards Melissa. However, it was a very long process and by the time Louise managed to reach Melissa, their attacker had finished raping her and had gone back upstairs. After it was all over, Melissa, wearing only a long, dingy gray shirt that came down to her knees, turned away from Louise and hugged her knees to her chest and just started crying.

"Melissa…baby, please let me hold you," Louise said softly while holding her arms out to the child.

Melissa was hesitant at first, but a few moments later, she lied down next to Louise and let her hold her while she cried.

"I wish my mom had been like you," Melissa said quietly. "When my mom and dad were still alive, my dad was just like him, and my mom never helped me the way you do."

"Did your father hurt you?" Louise asked, horrified to think that the poor child might have suffered any further abuse besides the hell she'd already endured.

Melissa nodded as even more tears came to her eyes, and Louise simply kissed the top of her head and continued to hold her close.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry."

"I love you, Louise."

Louise hugged Melissa even closer to her then and told her, "Oh baby, I love you, too. So much. I know this is hard to believe, Melissa, but somehow, some way, you and Mark and I will get out of here."

Melissa nodded, and she wanted so much to believe Louise, but hope was a fragile thing and it was dying off more and more with each passing minute that the three of them spent in that hellhole.