A/N: Again, thank you for every single comment on this story. I really struggled with this chapter because it's so dark and painful, but your kind reviews helped so much.

TW: Violence.

Florence & The Machine – Never Let Me Go

Lady Gaga – Angel Down

Florence & The Machine – Breath Of Life

Aurora - Runaway

CHAPTER 25 – NOVEMBER 2021

She has lost her mind.

She knows this, because all she keeps thinking as she's walking behind him is how much she misses Frannie. And it's not because she hasn't seen her in God knows how long, or because of the kind of beautiful scenery around her with the big trees and the newly fallen snow on the ground. It's because she has a rope tied around her neck and he's holding on to the other end of it, like she's a dog.

And all she can think of is how much she misses Frannie; Walks in Central Park, playing frisbee, cuddling with her on the couch.

So Amanda knows. She knows that the cold, and the lack of food, and the physical pain has gotten to her by now, that she isn't thinking straight anymore.

She has no idea how long they've been walking. She can barely feel her feet but she's not really worried about long term damage because she's about to die, and while trying to accept that, there really isn't any room for thinking about what might happen if she survives this night. Because she won't.

Right?

She wonders if he at some point during the day slipped her something because her body just feels so heavy, and she has to concentrate on lifting her legs so she won't just drag them along in the snow. She also knows that she should be freezing, but it's like her body is too fatigued to shiver.

"Having a hard time walking?"

"I could've walked faster if you had just given me my shoes."

"I thought you'd appreciate the challenge." He stops for a second and eyes her over his shoulder. "But I must admit, you do look a little miserable. Does your nose hurt?"

"Yeah, actually, it does."

And I couldn't care less that it gives you some sick gratification knowing that I'm in pain.

He sends her a smirk before he starts walking again.

She has lost count of all the times she has asked who's blood is covering his jacket, but so far he still hasn't answered. She wants to ask again, but she's currently busy counting her steps to keep from passing out.

But would that be so bad, though? You could use a break.

No, I need to stay awake.

For what?

I don't know.

67, 68, 69.

"You lucked out today, detective Rollins."

70, 71, 72.

"Your girls, they weren't home."

They're alive. He's finally telling me that they're alive.

"Neither was captain Benson's son."

Noah is alive.

"But she was home."

Liv.

"She put up a hell of a fight. I'll give her that. She's strong. I mean she was. She was strong. And I think she might've lost some of her… spunk. I think it really got to her, you being gone for so long."

I can't listen to this. I can't just listen to him talk about how he killed her. Why didn't I fight harder to get the key? I could've stopped this. I could've saved her.

"Stop." Amanda whispers, not knowing if she's talking to him or the voice in her head.

"I liked your letter. It was very… personal."

Her heart skips a beat then. The letter. "I want more."

"It was on her bed. But it's in her hand now. Thought it would be nice for her to hold onto it while she bled out."

The letter was on her bed? So she kept reading it after all this time? She didn't give up? She would've thrown it away, right? If she had given up? Or maybe put it in a box somewhere? Or a drawer. But it was on her bed. That's what he just said, right? On her bed. God, I miss her bed.

She didn't let me go.

"But I'll spare you the gory details."

Liv never let me go.

Even though her hands are free, she can't get herself to lift them to her face to wipe away her tears. The numbness that is slowly taking over her body makes it more and more difficult to believe that she's still alive, so she lets the tears run freely to remind her that she's not gone yet.

"So…" He says followed by a nonchalant sigh before he stops walking and turns to face her. "I thought I would give you a choice. I can either tie you up here," he points towards the tree next to her, "and you can freeze to death. Or, I can shoot you, right now."

Shoot me. Please just shoot me. But for some reason, she can't get herself to actually say it out loud. She opens her mouth but it's like the words are lodged in her throat.

Why can't you just say it? Isn't it what you want? Haven't you been praying for him to just end this?

I can't. I can't say it.

What's going to happen to my girls?

Shoot me.

I can't say it.

"Come on. Make up your mind."

Suddenly he pulls at the rope. Not that hard, but it's enough for her to lose her balance on her already unsteady feet, and the pull forces her to the ground, making her kneel in the snow. "Make a choice, detective Rollins."

Shoot me. Shoot me. Shoot me.

Her eyes are heavy now and there's a weird stinging sensation in her chest that comes with every single heartbeat. Her body is about to give up from the exhaustion. She can feel it in the way she's unable to lift her head, in the way that it hurts to breathe. She's just too weak.

Shoot me.

But Amanda stays silent as he starts to move and slowly walks behind her. She doesn't even flinch when the gun is pressed against the back of her head. "You know, it's kinda funny." He says as he pulls at the rope again, forcing her head up a little. "You'll die here tonight, and you will never know if I went back to kill your girls."

No.

Don't you have a promise to keep? Where is that stubborn side of you that sat across from him, telling him you would kill him yourself if he ever threatened your family?

I told him to burn in hell.

So do something. He's going to kill Jesse and Billie. And it'll be all your fault. So fucking do something.

I can't.

Yes, you can! Do SOMETHING!

Come on, Amanda. You can do this. I know you can.

She blinks a few times, confused because the voice in her head isn't her own anymore. It's Olivia's voice, and as hard as she tries, she can't make it stop.

Amanda Rollins, you do not get to give up like this! Do you hear me? You are better than this! Stronger than this! And your girls need you, Noah needs you, Frannie needs you. So fucking do something!

Her breaths are rapid and superficial, bordering on hyperventilating, and she knows that she's just a short moment away from passing out.

I don't know what to do.

Grab the gun.

I can't move.

Yes! You can! Grab the fucking gun!

He'll shoot me.

He's going to shoot you anyway. This is your only chance. Please. Please. Please do something. DO SOMETHING!

Suddenly there's a loud scream coming from somewhere around her, piercing through the cold air in the murky forest. She doesn't realize that the screams are coming from her until she's on her back, pointing the gun up at him.

"There she is!" Henry roars, almost sounding like he's excited to see her fight back, to see her trying to stay alive after dying right in front of him for weeks. "What are you gonna do now?" He laughs. "Arrest me?"

"No." Amanda says through gritted teeth while noticing that in the process of grabbing the gun, she had also made him let go off the rope. "I'm not going to arrest you." She doesn't understand how she's able to do it, but she lifts herself up from the ground, with the gun still pointed at him.

As their eyes meet, intrusive memories from their time together fills her mind, and it's like she can feel every punch, every kick, every burn, every unwanted touch all over again. And with her heart racing uncontrollably, she finds herself wishing that she had a knife instead. Because killing him with a gun just doesn't feel like justice. A bullet is too quick for this monster.

"You won't shoot me."

Hey, Annie Oakley. Don't listen to him.

"I can see it in your eyes. You don't have it in you."

Ignore him. You just have to pull the trigger. And then you can rest. I promise. Just pull the trigger, Amanda. Shoot him now. What are you waiting for? Just do it.

Shoot him.

Now!

"You're too weak."

NOW!

"No, Henry. I'm not."

The sound of the gunshot is deafening, but the silence that immediately follows is worse. Completely suffocating her and making her question if she actually did it or if the fallen body in front of her is just as much of a hallucination as Olivia's voice in her head.

Did I do it? Or is this just a dream?

You did it.

She's just about to let go of the gun that now feels so overwhelmingly heavy in her hand, when an unsettling gurgling noise makes her flinch.

He's moving. He's not dead.

Then finish him.

Functioning on sheer adrenalin, she takes a few steps towards him and watch as he squirms against the ground while the blood oozes from his chest.

"That was for threatening my kids." She whispers while raising the gun again.

Another gunshot, this time aimed at his crotch. "That was for me."

Unwillingly her lips curl into a grin as she moves the gun up until it's pointed at his face, where blood is now running freely from his open mouth. "And this," she spits, "is for Liv."

As the blood seeps into the ground around her, and as the gun slips from her hand, Amanda stumbles backwards before she falls to her knees. She desperately wants to stop crying, because every single sob feels like being stabbed in the back, but no matter how hard she tries, she can't get control of her own body. Tears are still falling when she slumps over on her side, unable to register how the snow feels against her pale skin.

Amanda.

No.

Amanda, listen to me.

Leave me alone. You told me I could rest if I just pulled the trigger. You promised.

I know, but you have a chance now. You're free.

I'm dying, Liv.

Only if you stay here. Get up.

She lifts her head slightly, in an attempt to take in her surroundings, realizing that the snow now falling relentlessly from the sky has covered up their footprints. She tries to remove the rope around her neck, but her fingers are too stiff to get the knot undone and she can't get herself to hold her arms up for more than five seconds.

I have no idea where I am. I don't know how to get back to the house. I can't go back the-

You can't stay here, Amanda. You'll freeze to death. You have to do something. For me. Do it for me.

I can't!

Get up! Run!

Where?

I don't care. Just move. You know how to run. You know how to move your legs. Run, goddamnit.

Get up.

Get up!

Get the fuck up!

She doesn't know how long it's been. Ten minutes? One hour? Two hours? It doesn't really matter because she doesn't know where she is or where she's going. But based on the fact that she can't really feel her legs anymore, she suspects that it's been a little more than ten minutes.

She doesn't look over her shoulder. Maybe it's because she's too scared, or maybe she's too fixated on getting out of this godforsaken forest that she has quickly come to hate with every single cell in her body.

Still, every other second she tells herself that it's ok to stop. Just stop, lie down on the snow-covered ground beneath her and wait for death to take care of the rest. Let nature have its way with her.

But images of her daughters forces her to keep going.

Jesse and Billie.

Jesse and Billie.

If I can just see them one last time, she thinks. I just want to hug them and kiss them and tell them how amazing they are and how proud I've always been to be their mama.

One last time, and it'll all be worth it.

It'll be worth the excruciating pain in her body and the hell he has put her through, if she survives long enough to see them one last time.

She has already accepted that her career is over. There's nothing that can convince her otherwise. This is not going to be some kind of cover-up where she lies her way out of it only to save her gun and badge. It doesn't matter, because she never wants to hold a gun in her hands ever again.

If she survives this, she realize, there's nothing keeping her in New York anymore. Maybe she should just take the girls and move back to Georgia. Live a quiet life where no one will ever know what she has just been through. What she's done. What she turned into, in the end.

There's a metallic taste in her mouth and it takes her a while to realize that she's bleeding from her nose again. She doesn't do anything to make it stop because she knows it's pointless. And maybe, if it bleeds long enough, she'll eventually pass out and get some peace and quiet.

Jesse and Billie.

The images continue to swim behind her eyes. Making her legs go faster, forcing her to ignore how branches are cutting into her naked skin, left exposed by the fact that she's only wearing an oversized hoodie that reaches down to her knees.

But the images are fading with each running step now. Instead flashbacks from recent events fills her head.

Blood, a lot of it. The loud screams. And the rage. It's weird, she thinks, that after everything that has just happened, her own rage was what startled and pained her the most. It had been so utterly raw, to the point of euphoric if the end result hadn't been so horrid.

Suddenly she's reminded of a quote she once heard that now seems to fit perfectly.

"Monsters are real. And ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win."

She can't remember who said it or where she heard it. But if one quote could sum up this last chapter of her life, that would be a as good a quote as any.

She knows trauma, on a professional and on an intimate level. She knows how it works, how it taints the mind and screws with every fiber of your being. She knows this, and it makes her wonder if each person has their own personal limit and if she has officially and finally reached hers.

The intrusive thought overwhelms her and suddenly she stops dead in her tracks, almost stumbling over her own bloodied feet that have gone completely numb from the cold.

For a short moment she stands completely still, as still as her frozen body will allow her to stand. She can see her own breaths leaving her, condensing into mist in the dark air.

And then she screams.

She screams until her voice cracks and it feels like she might've strained her vocal chords so hard that she might never speak again.

Good riddance, she thinks. In the slightest chance she survives this, she might not ever want to talk again.

Except to tell Jesse and Billie that she loved them. Loves them.

Jesse and Billie.

But they must know, right? Even if I don't get to tell them myself, they must know how much I loved them? How much I tried to give them the childhood that I never had? They must know.

She gasps for air and just as she's about to slump down in the snow, now stained with the blood still trickling from her nose and other parts of her wounded body, she straightens herself up and starts to move again.

I can't give up.

And there is one more reason she needs to stay alive.

As she keeps running, less determined now but moving nonetheless, another string of images fills her mind.

Nine years. Nine complicated, messy, undefined, awful and wonderful years. It wasn't the eternity she wanted but at least it was something.

She had lost count on how many times they had agreed on "this is the last time", until they slowly started to accept the fact that they had just been lying to themselves all along. There would always be a next time with them. No matter what drove them to do it. To run back into each other's arms, over, and over again.

So far, nothing had stopped them. Not the other relationships, not their nastiest fights, not the job or the complete mess that was their lives. They were magnets drifting around in each other's orbits, always seeking each other out.

And somewhere along the way, it turned into a rhythm so safe and predictable, a rhythm that neither of them wanted to disturb. Their bond was rock solid and still as fragile as glass. And so, wordlessly, they had just agreed to let it stay undefined and unspoken. Their little, massive secret.

But the text had changed everything.

"I want more."

That's what the text had said.

"I want more."

It was the closest she had ever come to an actual confession of love. Not including all the times Olivia had confessed it with her words, her body, her eyes, her hands, her mouth. Her soul. No. This text was different, because for the first time in nine years, there was no more doubt.

"I want more."

And now she would never get the chance to reply to those fateful and loaded words. She would never get the chance to show up at her door, wrap her arms around her and let her know in every way possible that she wanted more, too. And not just more. She wanted everything. All of it.

The beautiful parts as much as the ugly ones.

She wanted to wake up with her every morning, instead of sneaking out late at night. She wanted to feel her skin under her fingers, without the added guilt and constant feeling of making another mistake. She didn't want them as two lost souls, stumbling around in the dark, using each other for the occasional comfort. She wanted them to exist in this world together, side by side and hand in hand.

And now she would get none of it. Nothing at all.

But she needed to stay alive. Even if it was just to kiss her on the forehead one last time.

She could picture herself walk into the poorly lit room. How she would wrap her arms around herself as her eyes fell on the woman laying on that table in the morgue. Leaning in to whisper "I love you" against her temple. Crying while feeling her cold skin against her lips.

It's not enough to just picture it, though. She needs to actually see it. She needs to say goodbye.

If you just keep running, Amanda. Keep running and you'll get to see your girls again. And you'll get to tell the woman you loved that you're sorry, even if she won't be able to hear you or ever know just how much you wanted more, too.

Jesse and Billie.

And Liv.

It becomes a mantra when she starts to feel her legs give in. She's too cold, too exhausted, too malnourished to go on.

There's only so much a body can survive and she knows deep down that this is partly her own fault. She's been putting her body through the wringer for years. Maybe if she hadn't been so hell bent on tearing herself down, slowly and gradually, she would've been stronger now. Able to endure just a little more.

But there's a light somewhere. Not that far ahead.

And if she can just get to the light, then maybe there's a chance.

As she gets closer, she realizes that she keeps closing her eyes, and she wonders if it's possible to fall asleep while running. But I can't sleep now. I can sleep later. I can sleep forever if I just make it home one last time.

So she forces her eyes to stay open and wills them to focus on the light ahead of her. It's a street light, right? A street. A road. Cars. People.

I can do this.

For Jesse and Billie.

And Liv.

I can do this.

She's so focused to get to the light that when she finally comes out of the forest and her feet hits the ice cold road, she doesn't hear the car that moves towards her and screeches when it stops close to where she's now standing, practically bolted to the ground.

She gazes up at the light and stare at it like it's a long lost friend, emerging from the dark to greet her, to hold her, to tell her she's finally safe.

The sound of a car door being opened and a stranger's voice saying "Oh my god" is lost on her, because she has reached her destination and that was her last and only mission. The rest is up to the world around her, because she has nothing left to give.

Not when everything has been taken from her.

"Ma'am?"

Amanda falls to the ground and as cold as she is, the hard surface that feels frozen to the touch still has a soothing effect on her. I can rest here, she thinks. Just rest for a little while.

She barely registers that someone is talking over her. The voice is annoying, bordering on maddening, because it continues to pull her out of her wanted state of unconsciousness.

"I've called 911, ma'am, help is on the way."

She feels herself nod as something warm is wrapped around her and only then does she realize just how cold she really is.

That's a good thing, right? That I can feel how cold I am?

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Mm-" She tries, but the taste of blood in her mouth is suddenly so overwhelming that it makes her gag.

The stranger turns her over on her side as a mix of blood and bile comes pouring out.

"Jesus… They'll be here soon, honey. Just hang in there."

"Rollins." She manages to croak when the vomiting finally turns into a weak string of dry heaves.

The sound of a loud gasp fills the cold winter night.

"Amanda Rollins?" The voice asks.

She wants to say yes, but she's too tired to move her lips. She wills her head to move in a single nod, but she's not sure if she's actually able to do it.

And finally, everything turns dark, and she doesn't hear the stranger telling her "they looked everywhere for you."

A/N: Hang in there, Amanda. You're free now.

I decided to add the prologue into this, since we have now come full circle and I wanted to kind of wrap it all together. And speaking of full circle: One last flashback chapter to go before the story will solely be focused on present day.