A/N: You are getting another chapter tonight because I am in a great mood. Exhausted but still in a good mood which is a rare occasion for me! This chapter picks up right where we left things on the previous one. Enjoy!
TW: mentions of rape.
Her hand was still working its magic, moving soothingly up and down her forearm. Every time a tear would fall, Olivia whispered kind words to her, telling her that she was safe now, that she was here, that it's okay.
But it wasn't okay. There was nothing okay about this.
This has been going on for about ten minutes now and Amanda knew that she could no longer avoid their impending conversation.
"I have been working at the lounge for five years now." She started. "I wasn't lead performer back in the beginning. I was performing only one song, 'diamonds are a girl's best friend' and then I was just dancing and assisting the other girls on their numbers." Talking hurt in general, but talking about it hurt even more.
"Want some more water?" She softly ask, never letting go of the other woman's arm.
"If it's not too much trouble." She smiled and saw that the sergeant smiled back. She grabbed the plastic cup once more and put the straw between her lips just like she had done when the blonde woke up.
"Better?"
"Much. Thank you."
"Don't mention it. So, you were saying?"
"Yeah, um, I was new in the City, it was really hard for me to get settled and I found that place and they liked me. It pays good, free drinks, it's all so easy. Well at least it was, until one night it just wasn't."
"What happened that night?" She kept her voice low and calm, afraid that she might trigger some memory from her past that the blonde wanted to forget.
"Nothing of much importance. That first year we would just sit with a few customers and chat, nothing more would happen but it was just for socializing, business. I was sitting at the bar and one of the customers, drunk off his mind, got a little grabby-"
"That is important, honey, that's harassment."
"Doesn't matter. Not in my line of work." She echoed the words the sergeant had said to her a week ago. "Please let's not make a big deal out of it." She pleaded when she sensed that the other woman was ready to protest.
"Okay."
"I went to Teri, my boss, you met her. She said welcome to Burlesque and I just toughened up and moved on. It's been like that ever since but after a while they knew when to stop. Well, until a few days ago."
"No one says no to me darlin', you should know this by now."
She closed her eyes shut. She didn't want to remember, it pained her to remember. He pained her. She didn't need more nightmares, more flashbacks, more terrifying voices in her head. She didn't need it.
"Hey, hey, look at me. He is not here. It's just you and me, no one else. I won't let anybody hurt you." She inhaled deeply and exhaled, a shaky, full of terror breath.
"Okay." She opened her eyes and stared into brown orbs that emanated safety and warmth. "When I walked into my dressing room after the show ended, he was there. I was annoyed, he wasn't supposed to be there, I told him to leave. He didn't. He said that he doesn't take no for an answer and he... he punched me, threw me on the floor and raped me."
"I am so sorry that happened to you."
"Well, it's not like I haven't had worse."
Shit.
She wasn't supposed to let that slip. Nobody was supposed to know. Nobody.
"Anyway." She said quickly to cover it up and avert the brunette's attention from the matter. "And then the rest you know."
"Can you tell my what happened last night?"
"Well, I don't remember much. He was in my dressing room again, I told him to get the hell outta there but he didn't. He choked me so hard that I passed out a couple of seconds after he... after he pushed himself inside of me."
"Okay, okay. Deep breaths. You got it." She coaxed her gently. The blonde was panicking and it wasn't going to do her any good given her injuries.
Injuries.
"What... what happened. How did I end up here? Why does my body hurt so much?"
"Well, according to your boyfriend-"
"My what now?"
"Jacob, the bartender."
"Wait, you-" she presses her lips together and desperately tried not to laugh. "You thought that me and Jacob are a couple?"
"Well, it seemed that way. Sorry, I shouldn't have jumped into conclusions. Your love life though will come up during trial-"
"Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For your information there probably won't be any trial."
"How do you-"
"Back to how I ended up here?" She interrupted her yet again, no matter how rude it may have been. Trial was just another thing that she didn't want to talk about. From what little experience she had, they usually don't end well.
"Jacob found you in your dressing room, alone. You were curled up into a ball, crying and you... you were holding the card I gave you. He put the pieces together and called me. He told me that he was driving you here, mount Sinai hospital, and I came as fast as possible."
"Sorry for ruining your night."
"Huh, there was nothing to ruin."
"Hard to believe." She didn't mean for it to come out so flirty but it did, and there was no way of taking it back now. "Anyway, what exactly happened?" So she deflected. It was what she did best in life.
"You have the previous injuries and to that adding more broken ribs and a sprained wrist." She looked down and only now did she realize that her wrist was wrapped with bandages.
"Great, try dancing with that thing..."
"Well, there won't be any dancing for quite sometime, you need to rest."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Amanda... who did this to you?" The blonde had been dreading that question with every fiber of her being.
She wanted to tell her who and why and what a prick he was. She wanted to tell her everything but she knew that nothing would happen. Hardly something ever happens. Especially if you are a millionaire wolf of Wall Street.
"There is no point, you shouldn't even be here. It doesn't matter." She pulled her hand roughly away from Olivia's, immediately missing the contact but doing absolutely nothing to gain it back.
"Honey, that's how they-"
"Win. I know, I've been told countless times. If I tell you it's very much likely I will lose my job. And that can't happen."
"You are talented, Amanda, I have seen you on that stage. I am sure that whoever he is, he is not powerful enough to prevent you from-"
"Steve Ramsey." For a moment the older woman was confused. What did a very rich, and highly unlikable, man had to do with the blonde's rape? And then it hit her.
"Oh." She was taken aback when she realized that he was the man in question.
Oh boy.
"Well, it still doesn't matter who he is. A rapist is a rapist, how much he makes a year is irrelevant."
"Oh, okay. So when I lose my only job, my only income, you gonna be the one to take care of me? Don't think so. Let it go, Sergeant, it ain't worth your time. I ain't worth your time. Go help someone who wants to be helped. I am a lost case. Always have been always will be." That last part was mumbled, another thing she wanted kept hidden.
"I am telling you they hurt me."
"Honey, there is nothing we can do about it. It's a lost case."
"Get the doctor in here, I want the AMA forms. I want to go home." She tried to sit up, prove to herself and her companion that she could manage on her own.
And then she screamed. At the top of her lungs. Because everything hurt too damn much.
The monitors started beeping like crazy, doctors and nurses rushed in to check in on her, see what had triggered such a violent reaction. They gently pushed Amanda back down the mattress and swooshed the Sergeant our of the room.
She was in pain, she could barely talk, she could barely breathe and all that because once again she had let someone violate her. Because she had shown weakness, she hadn't fought back hard enough. And now she was quitting.
That's how they win.
She remembered the words of her vocal coach when she had told him about her unfortunate experience when she was a teenager.
He had won twice already. He had won two battles. Wasn't the war hers, though, to win?
Shouldn't it be?
Sure it could cost her everything and everyone in her life but was that life really worth it if she lived it in fear? Was a job, and one she had come to despise at that, really worth all those tears? All this torture?
It's not. So not.
"Go get him. I don't care how you are gonna do it but you have my permission." She told the other woman when she walked back inside the room after the doctors stabilized the blonde.
"You are pressing charges?"
"Damn right I am." She sounded so determined. Only five minutes ago she was a different person. It was a good kind of shift in mood but a too sudden one as well.
"I will call my detectives right away. May I ask what changed your mind?"
"I was already in enough pain, if we add some more, I don't think I'll be able to make it." Ramsey would be the cherry on the top. She had been bottling things up inside her chest for the past decade, exploding is the next thing on the list.
"I know that it seems hard right now-"
"Just call your detectives and tell them to do whatever they can. It won't be much probably but at least I would feel like I actually did something this time."
She could tell that the other woman had so many questions but was grateful that she respected her and didn't push further. At least not now.
"Yeah, Fin, it's Liv. Got a name, but I need you to handle this very delicately, okay? We can't afford any mistakes here. I want everything by the book and get Amaro with you, he is more experienced than the new one. You writing? Steve Ramsey. Yup, one and the same. No, I will be spending the day here, but if something comes up call me and I'll see what I can do." She hang up and then looked down at the woman lying on the bed.
"Oh, don't give me that look."
"What look?"
"The pity look, the victim look. I hate it when people do that. Jacob does it as well and I can't stand it. I am not gonna make myself a victim just because people want me to."
Everyone had expected from her to cry and be a wreck after all the things she went through. People would point her with their fingers, smile kindly at her and say I am so sorry for what happened to you. She was sick of this. All of it.
"Nobody is gonna make you a victim, honey. You are entitled to be whatever you want to. I am sorry, for everything."
"Well, there is no need to be. It's not like you shoved your dick up my vagina." She chuckled and for the first time in her life she felt grateful about drugs. Those pain meds they had her on had numbed the pain and now she could barely feel any of it.
"Not that it matters but... did you tell anyone about the assaults?"
"I told Teri about the first one and she basically told me to man up and get over it. I should have known better than to go to her. She is as bitchy as they come these days."
"She knew and she covered it up?" She looked surprised, like she didn't expect that from her boss. From a woman.
"I know where you are going with this and you are not trying Teri as an accomplice. And that's an order, sergeant. And honestly what did you expect? I go up there every night, acting like a whore, things like that are bound to happen."
"No, no they are not. I have been working sex crimes for sixteen years now and I can tell you one thing; just because you are a prostitute or an escort, a pole dancer or a burlesque performer it doesn't mean that you signed up for rape. You have the right to say no." She emphasized every single word as if Amanda were a child and needed to be told things slowly in order to understand.
"Well, where I come from that ain't the case." She retorted. Growing up in the south she had heard things from the boys like if a girl swayed her hips too much she had it coming. If the skirt she was wearing was too short she was asking for it. If she was a 'dyke' they would try and make her normal.
"And where do you come from?"
"Georgia."
"Well, explains the slight accent. How did you end up in New York?"
That's one story that she hadn't had to narrate in eight years now. And when she had told it, it was only bits and pieces. It was difficult for her to go back there. Good years followed but the good years followed horrible and now she just isn't who she used to be.
That's one memory she would rather keep buried.
"That's a long story to tell." She scoffed. "Look, Olivia, I really appreciate everything you have done and are doing for me but I feel like sleeping right now. Go, I promise I will be right here and according to the doctors, I will be right here for the next day or two."
"Are you sure?"
Amanda yawned and let her eyes close. "Yeah, don't worry. If I die I am sure they will give you a call."
She chuckled and within seconds she was fast asleep. She fell asleep and didn't get to see Olivia's worried gaze or hear her last few words as she ran her fingers through blonde locks that were sprawled out on the pillow.
"I promise to not let anyone hurt you ever again."
A/N: This was chapter 3, I hope you enjoyed it. We are gonna see some familiar faces soon FYI. Things will get interesting also soon, in a bad way or in a good way it remains to be seen. Till the next chapter have a nice day or night!
