WARNING: Please be aware this chapter contains heavy themes of violence and sexual assault
xxxxx
Fin's apartment building was an unfamiliar place, and as Olivia jogged up the sidewalk in the dark, she wished -not for the first time since being placed on leave- for her service weapon. In the middle of the night, it was hard to make out which shadows held monsters, and which passing cars were but harmless commuters. Her eyes darted across the street and back at the sidewalk behind her as she rushed up the steps to the front of the building, her heart racing.
She'd called the older detective minutes ago as she sat in the subway, clutching the metal railing next to the door in one hand and her cellphone in the other. Despite the late hour, she hadn't awakened him, and she'd been grateful for his accommodation at such a strange hour. After her fight with Brian she had little emotional strength left to explain herself.
Now, as she squinted through the front doors of the old building, she could see him on the other side, concern etching his features. He pulled the door open, glancing warily out at the street for a moment as he ushered her inside.
"Best not to let you walk up alone." He commented, nodding towards the stairway.
"Thanks." She murmured, quietly relieved by his protective presence as she still softly trembled with vulnerability.
She hooked her arm in his as they began to trek upwards, and although she knew he must be burning with curiosity, he hardly said a word until they reached his apartment. He unlocked the door, and guided her inside first before closing it behind them.
Twisting two sets of deadbolts, he offered, "You want a beer?"
"No, thank you." She declined as she wandered towards his couch, and sank down into the leather.
The main menu of Grand Theft Auto lit the room in sharp, LED colors, edgy music drifting at a low volume from the speakers, and she watched the preview cycle through as Fin took a bottle from the fridge and cracked it open before he joined her on the couch.
"This is about Amanda." He finally said before taking a swig.
He'd never been one to dance around a subject, and although he faced her inquiry head on, his eyes were on the beer bottle as he swirled the neck from his fingertips.
"Cragen told me she opted to take a leave." Olivia said, slowly. "That was two weeks ago."
"Not many choices there." Fin added, casting her a dark gaze with the insinuation that he knew of Amanda's escapades behind Bellevue's walls just as she did.
"She told you." Olivia murmured, leaning forward on her knees.
"In a way." Fin conceded, taking another drink.
"She told me too." Olivia whispered, glancing over at him. "But she didn't tell me where she was going."
She watched his brow furrow in the slightest tell, confirming her gut instinct that Fin knew where to find Amanda. She knew the bond that could grow between partners, the absolute trust and duty to protect. She knew perhaps better than anyone, but it only made her want to dig the information out of him more. She'd sworn her partner to silence over things that were better resolved in the light of day, and watching the conflict on his face set in her veins a distinct fear.
"Tell me now if you know, Fin." She urged as she leaned in closer, clasping his arm in a plea. "The last time we talked...it wasn't good."
He shook his head, his tone dipping, "You won't like it, Liv."
"I don't care right now." She insisted, sudden tears springing to her eyes with the same sense of urgency she had felt in the bathroom in Brian's apartment less than an hour ago. "This is my fault, and I need to find her, and tell her that."
"It's not your fault, Liv." Fin contradicted her, finally meeting her. "Amanda made her own choices."
"Fin." Olivia implored, attempting to even her tone out about the fragile tremble. "Please. She stayed by my side through that first week, through everything. She saved my life, and I just let her go. I'd didn't even try to stop her…"
His expression was creased with conflict, and he released a low sigh as he gazed down at the bottle once more.
"She sends me a text every morning. Just so I know she's okay." He murmured. "I've been telling Cragen she's in Georgia with family, but that's not true…"
"Then where is she?" Olivia whispered, thickly, her throat knotted with apprehension.
His dark eyes flicked towards her, slowly, and she could read the hesitance in his gaze. He wanted nothing more than to protect his partner, but Olivia could not honor that commitment in this moment. She was on the path to sacrificing everything for the other woman, and a scorched path of regret already lay behind her. She had to find Amanda before she burned along with the rest of what had once been her life.
"Fin, I'm begging you." She whispered, clutching his arm harder as his silence reached an unbearable level.
"Atlantic City." He finally said, his voice heavy with defeat.
She stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed, as the implications of Amanda's location settled into her mind. For anyone else it might've been a fantastic vacation, a fun-filled adventure along the Steel Pier, but for Amanda, it meant something much darker, a temptation to the underbelly of an addiction that Olivia had thought was over. As the understanding of just how lost Amanda had become in the last two weeks dawned upon her, the responsibility of the whole situation seized her with an even more vigorous grip.
"I told you that you wouldn't like it." Fin murmured at the sight of her horrified expression.
"Why didn't you stop her?" Olivia demanded, tears growing in her eyes as she imagined Amanda wasting away casino tables and bars full of uncouth men, ready to take advantage of her.
"I don't tell people what to do with their lives, Olivia." Fin responded with a shake of his head. "She was already there when I was able to contact her, and I told her that if she got into trouble she could call me and I'd come get her…. But I can't force her."
Olivia could feel tears growing in her eyes, and she shoved herself up from the couch. Pacing away from him, she pursed her lips against further urges to cry as she wandered to the window, and stared out at the blurry street.
When Amanda's issues with gambling had been discovered last year she'd had little understanding for her colleague. She hadn't been able to grasp why or how a police officer could allow themselves to become enslaved to such an addiction. Now, she regretted every second of disdain, realizing that Amanda's issues were much deeper than a little too much fondness for poker. She'd nearly killed a man, a rapist, when she herself had been so brutally assaulted. She was spiraling and Olivia had been to blinded by her own trauma to realize that she'd been pulling Amanda down with her.
"I have to see her, Fin." She finally said in a raw whisper.
"I promised her I wouldn't even tell you where she is."
"Well, you've already done that." Olivia pointed out with a scoff as she turned back towards him. "Come on, Fin. I owe her this much."
They stared at each other for a long moment before finally he broke the gaze, turning to set the beer bottle down with a clank on the side table.
"All right." He said at last. "But I'm coming with you."
xxxxxx
The light had faded from the sky, and what illumination drifted into the alleyway was bright with the reds and greens and blues of the neon signs beyond.
The guard's fingers were rough, biting into her inner arm. Her every base instinct screamed at her to tear away, and make an escape, but she knew better. She'd seen the guns hiding in threatening shadows beneath their dark suit jackets, and she did not want to gamble with the chance that they wouldn't shoot her down in the street.
As the heavy, metal door slammed behind them, Amanda's heart raced faster, her breath rasping from her lips as the guard let go of her arm with a shove. The gritty concrete was uneven beneath her boots, and she stumbled to get her footing. She caught her balance on a large trash can resting against the opposite wall, panting as she tamped down every urge to retaliate.
"There's no need for that." She spit, tightly, through gritted teeth as she glared back at them.
They exchanged glances, a dark humor resting on their lips at her words. Their amusement sent a sharp rod of horror through her stomach, an impending doom because she knew what men like them enjoyed, and the things that they laughed at. Women like her. Women in pain.
She'd suffered beneath faces of men just like them, and with their lewd smiles came a deluge of memories, flashes of pain and degradation that she'd fought so hard to forget. She would've rather had a gun held to her head, but Patton hadn't needed a gun, and although these men had more than enough ammunition to end her life, she knew what those smile meant. They'd rather use the weapons of their stronger bodies to exact the revenge that their boss had ordered.
Pulling herself upright, she stepped backwards slowly. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a sickening dread twisting her stomach. Her eyes darted up each side of the alleyway, and she prayed for some escape from the situation, but a creeping dread told her there would be no such miracle. It would take an act of God to stop what was about to happen, and God had stopped listening to her prayers long ago.
"What do you want with me?" She whispered, her throat tight as panicked tears stung her eyes.
"Us?" The first guard asked, motioning between them. "Nothing. We're just following orders, sweetheart."
He stepped closer to her, and she trembled, sucking in a quaking gasp as she attempted to distance herself from him once more; but the wall was already at her back, and she could see the second guard palming the butt of his holstered gun.
"Please, don't-" She began to whisper, but he grabbed her face harshly, his fingers surely leaving bruises on the soft flesh of her cheeks.
"Unngg…" She grunted as the rough brick dug into her back and skull.
Panic was an engrained reaction spiking through her mind, a vivid de ja vu, a remind that she'd gone through these motions before. His hand wasn't on her neck yet, but she could already feel her throat closing and she grabbed at his arm despite the numbing tingle that had already spread to her extremities.
"Mr. Defranco, on the other hand…He'd have a word or two for you." She heard him sneer as her nails bit into his flesh in vain.
Her unfocused gaze danced across the alleyway towards the second guard. His gun was unholstered, clasped between two meaty palms, and the sight of the barrel aimed directly at her head pushed desperate tears to her eyes. The promise of death was mere feet from her, and the emotion clutched her as the fleeting thought that she could escape this all passed through her mind. The men she had dared to defy - Lewis, James, Cragen, Cassidy, and now Defranco - would all take their pieces of her life, and what did she have left to fight for but a few blissful moments in a married woman's bed? They'd taken everything - her career, her love, her humanity, and soon her dignity and autonomy.
Her watery gaze shifted back towards the guard in front of her, and she could see the cold indifference in his eyes. He'd carry out his malicious duties without a hint of regret.
Parting her dry, trembling lips, she whispered, venomously, "Tell him she screamed…. Tell him I was the best fuck she ever had."
His eyes widened in surprise for half a second, a moment of weakness when she struck him, her knee slamming into his groin . A cry of pain and anger erupted from his mouth, and she wrenched her body beneath his grip. She broke from the wall, her heart rushing with at a nauseating pace, as she tripped over his legs.
In the back of her mind she prayed she'd hear the gun explode, a quick end to this torture, but she'd barely scrambled up to her feet again when she felt the second guard grab her. He wrenched her around by the arm, and her head spun before his fist even collided with her face. Then there was a sickening crack, flesh against flesh, bone against bone. Her head snapped back with the force of his knuckles against her mouth and jaw, and she gave a guttural cry. Pain washed across her face, radiating through the whole of skull, and white noised buzz filled her ears. The world twirled around her as she numbly felt him grab a portion of her hair at the base of her neck, dragging her like ragdoll. She was defenseless as a second punch to her stomach incapacitated her. Her legs collapsed from beneath her, and she could hear herself choking and wheezing as the air failed to fill her lungs. She clutched at her stomach as the sharp, intense pain of the blow seized her midsection, and he let her fall to the ground.
She lay against the cold, grimy concrete, her body clenched in the fetal position as she tried to breathe through excruciating agony of the assault. She could hardly wrap her mind around a single thought as they loomed above her, watching her tremble and gasp for air.
"J-just...shoot…" She stuttered out, her voice raspy and breathless.
"Shoot you?" The first guard asked. "That's not the endgame, sweetheart."
"F-fuck...you." She rasped through gritted teeth.
"Funny you should say that." He quipped, darkly, as he bent down next to her.
His hand brushed over her cheek, and she flinched.
"I have very specific orders." He went on as his fingers slipped around her arm. "You don't fuck a man's wife without getting fucked over yourself."
"Ngghh…" She groaned in resistance as he yanked her up from the ground.
She stumbled, her body still weak and disoriented, but she knew their intentions. With what strength she had, she screamed, splitting the air of the quiet alleyway.
"Shut up!" The guard demanded as he pushed her up against the wall again.
She writhed beneath him, panicked sobs echoing against the narrow passage. He slapped her sharply, his palm cracking against the left side of the length of her face. She gasped, hunching over as she clutched her ringing ear and throbbing jaw. She squeezed her eyes shut against the dizzying rotations of the earth beneath her, trying to find the willpower to fight one more time.
"Get up." He ordered, grabbing her by the back of the neck.
"Noooo." She moaned, digging her toes into the ground at he dragged her around and slammed her into the lid of large, filthy trash bin that sat against the wall. She flailed beneath him as he held her face down against the reeking plastic, sobbing as the reality of what the planned to do with her encroached upon her mind.
"You city cops think you can get away with anything." The guard laughed in her ear before he spoke to his partner. "Hey, Burke, hold her arms."
"No…." She moaned into the trashcan, kicking her feet as desperate sobs welled up in her throat.
It was a last ditch effort at fight or flight before the immobility would set in. She knew the process. She knew exactly the way that the tingling and the numbness would take over her limbs, the way that the disbelief would take her mind captive and not let go. She'd try to think of another place, but it wouldn't work. She'd feel every excruciating moment until they deemed her punished and put in her place….
The second guard - Burke - put his hands on her, his fingers wrapping tightly around her wrists, twisting them high between her shoulder blades. She cried out in pain, slamming her knees into the trash can. She screamed again, but it was short lived, choked out by the tears and the panic.
It'd only taken them this long to break her after all of the years she'd spent rebuilding what was left of the last man who'd pillaged her body like a prize. At the realization, she sank against the trashcan, sobbing.
"Please…" She cried, raggedly, her voice rising again as the first unnamed man tore her pants down in one, rough yank. "Jesus, p-please, don't do this...god, please, I'll do anything…"
"Shut up, whore." Burke hissed.
She released a loud sob as the other guard took a fistful of her underwear and shredded them beneath his unrelenting fist. Then the familiar humiliation filled her, the most damning, lasting effect of assault that she'd never been able to escape, not even for a second; but now, it was like a fresh, new wave of sea salt on an open wound, burning her with the reminder that she was a victim and always would be.
She turned her head towards the end of the alleyway, and the neon lights glimmered through her tears like a stained glass window. She could watch them flash and wink until this scene had run its course, and she could crawl away from this stage of violence and invasion.
They weren't going to kill her as she had hoped. They were going to leave her here, stripped of every ounce of self worth, and as she stared up at the lights, she wished she could see Olivia one last time. One last beautiful thing before she took what they wouldn't - her last breath.