Quick note: I'm really sorry about how long this took to upload. I know I left everyone on a really bad cliffhanger, and I didn't expect this to take so long, however, life can change really quickly, and in the past two weeks I have gotten a second job, my wife has quit her current job and gotten a new better one, however, it's a commute and we only have one car. Things have been insane to say the least. Anyways, I'm trying to catch my stride and I hope everyone will be patient. I am so happy to finally be posting this chapter. Please enjoy.
xxxxx
The heat of Atlantic City had begun to give way as night approached, a small favor that Olivia was grateful for. Her face and shoulders had taken the brunt of the sun, but she'd hardly given mind to her slowly baking flesh as they'd searched up and down the main strip, through half a dozen casinos, and down the pier.
Amanda's morning text to Fin had failed to arrive hours ago, and although Fin had been determined to help her before, she'd seen his own, true concern become apparent as the hours passed with no contact.
Now, on the brink of evening, Fin had suggested - or rather, ordered - that they find something to eat. Half an hour would likely change nothing, he assured her. Sitting in the booth of a retro diner, waiting for their plates, Olivia could hardly believe that.
She sat against the wall, the photo of Amanda that she'd shoved in irritated tourists faces all afternoon clutched in her hand. It was a printout of her NYPD ID, and the camera had captured her somber expression, her full lips perpetually frowning. Olivia rubbed her thumb over the picture, releasing a trembling sigh.
There was no solid evidence that something had happened to Amanda, but the uncertainty pressed dread into Olivia's stomach. They'd tried GPS tracking which had returned with the unhelpful information that Amanda's phone had been off since yesterday. They'd tried several hotels, and while Amanda's photo seemed familiar to several of the clerks, none of them could confirm that she was currently booked with them.
"How long on the financials?" She murmured to Fin, barely lifting her eyes from the picture.
"It might be another hour." Fin replied.
Olivia gritted her teeth in frustration, finally looking away from Amanda's face. She stared at the window opposite of them, chewing at her lower lip.
"Something's wrong, Fin, I can feel it." She whispered.
"We don't know anything yet." Fin attempted to assure her, but she knew it was simply a measure he was taking to keep their composure in place.
"Here we go!" The waitress interrupted, cheerfully, as she arrived with their orders.
"Thank you." Olivia replied with a forced smile as her food was placed in front of her.
Her stomach was empty aside from the coffee she'd drunk during their two hour drive to New Jersey, but she could hardly think about eating. The anxiety that gripped her left nausea swirling in her belly. The unanswered text that she had sent to Brian while they had been on the road only added to her growing discomfort.
I'm going to be in New Jersey tomorrow. She'd typed carefully. I'm not sure when I'll be back.
The benefit of the doubt that she'd extended to the possibility of his not seeing it had slowly faded as the hours passed. Surely, he'd seen her message when he awoke alone, or perhaps, he'd never slept at all, and the silence was a just bitter warning that she'd gone beyond the point of no return. Either way, she didn't need to be told that she had, nor could she feign to desire a second chance. She'd made her decision, and not a single part of her wished to return to New York.
"You should take a bite, Liv." Fin suggested, softly, and she glanced up to see him watching her carefully.
She released a sigh, and picked up her fork. She pushed the tongs through the pasta before finally taking a bite. The flavor was something she might've enjoyed immensely in any other situation, but in the moment, she simply wanted to swallow it and be done with the meal in order to continue their search.
They ate quietly, periodically exchanging a few words, but Fin's mind seemed to be in much the same place as hers.
She'd managed to get through half of her plate when her phone buzzed on the table next to her, causing her to start. She immediately snatched it up, unrealistically hoping that by some slim chance Amanda's name would be on the screen. Instead, her stomach clenched as she unlocked the screen to see that the notification was from Brian. She slowly set down the fork, and swallowed hard the pasta she'd been chewing.
"Everything okay?" Fin asked as he noticed her expression.
"Yeah...it's just Brian." She replied, an attempt at a carefree tone.
She opened the message thread, her heart racing with apprehension as her eyes landed on the new text.
If you want to go to NJ that's fine. The first message read.
It was filled with stiff indifference, and she knew it was a lie, but it hurt nonetheless. It hurt that their relationship had changed, that it hadn't been strong enough to withstand Lewis's devastation, that even though she cared for him, she didn't love him. Accepting that final truth hurt, perhaps, more than anything.
A second message popped up with a vibration against her palm, and through blurry tears, she read his true reason for replying to her.
But whenever you decide to come back we need to talk without you running away.
She read the message over several times, but it meant the same thing each time. He was done. They were done, and it was only a matter of her returning to New York for him to officially break off the relationship. In some ways, there came relief, in others regret that she hadn't had the courage to respectfully end it months ago. Now, she bore the brunt of the guilt for their lapse in connection, and he might never realize her unhappiness before Lewis ever came into their lives.
"Liv?" Fin repeated as the stared at her phone, tears glistening in her eyes.
"Yeah?" She whispered, quickly lifting a hand to press her fingers against her tear ducts to stem the emotion dripping from them.
"Do I need to be kicking some ass when we get back?" He questioned, causing her to scoff a brittle laugh.
"No, no, I can handle it." She assured him, setting the phone back down as she brushed away the remorseful tears with short smile.
He frowned deeply, but didn't push any further. Uncomfortable with the tenor of the conversation, she quickly changed the subject to their current quest to find Amanda.
"Any possibility of getting those financials sooner?" She asked, taking up her fork again, and nudging her pasta which had grown cold.
"Already asked." Fin replied before taking the last bite of his burger, and pushing the plate back. "They said no can do."
Olivia signed loudly and tossed the fork back down.
"Well, if you're done I'm done. We're wasting time." She suggested, irritation lining her tone.
All she wanted was to find Amanda, and sink into the warmth of her chest. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell her scent, almost taste her saliva on her tongue. Since breaking down last night, she felt as though all of her desires throughout their two weeks apart that she had spent so much time pushing away had rushed to the surface and spilled over. The aching loneliness, the way she missed her with every fiber of her being, could hardly be encompassed now, much less extinguished. No matter how horribly she felt about Brian, the tug and pull of Amanda was like the moon's effect on the ocean, so natural and irresistible; like nothing she'd ever felt before.
She'd sworn to herself upon entering New Jersey that she wouldn't leave until she found the woman that had so captivated her mind and heart, and she wouldn't break that vow, no matter the obstacles.
Sliding out the booth, she shoved her phone back into her pocket, effectively putting Brian's text out of sight and out of mind.
Fin followed her, and after paying their bill, he escorted her back out onto the sidewalk.
The sun had disappeared entirely from the sky, and the strip was illuminated now by the numerous neon signs and brightly flashing headers. Somehow, the city was louder at night than it had been during daylight, and with a glance up and down the street, Olivia decided it was also much more dangerous.
The thought of Amanda, alone and distraught, struck her with startling clarity. She couldn't shake their last interaction from her mind - Amanda's despair, her confession of visiting Lewis, and of their kiss. She must've felt as though she were losing everything, and Olivia had simply let her go. Rather than risk impaling herself on these unexplainable feelings, she'd opened her fingers and let her slip away. It had been foolish and selfish after all that Amanda had done for her. Now, only God knew what had happened to her or what kind of people she had come across.
"You wanna canvas until the financials get back?" Fin asked, noticing her deep, pensive expression.
"Yeah…" She replied, watching a group of men walk past her.
They cast her quick glances, and she tried not to recoil. They were just passerbys. They most likely didn't mean her any harm…
Most likely.
"Let's stay together for now." Olivia suggested, clearing the tight tone from her throat. "I don't want to miss the financials coming through."
"You got it." Fin agreed easily, though she doubted he had missed the layers of fear and uncertainty hiding in her gaze.
Clenching her hands into fists at her sides, she tried to squash the paranoia. It frustrated her that her ability to discern the intentions of strangers had become lost in a sea of hypervigilance since Lewis's abduction of her, and she wished again for her infallible gut instincts. She could feel that Amanda needed her, and she wanted more than anything to finally be to Amanda what she had been to Olivia, and in doing so, somehow repay her. She couldn't do that if she jumped at every little shadow or premonition of danger, relying on fear instead of courage.
Pulling out the photo of Amanda once more, she stared hard at the sky blue eyes, the ones that hid compassion and kindness behind so many volatile emotions. She'd come across a treasure, one that so many people had overlooked, and she'd also almost let her slip through her fingers.
Lifting her gaze, she narrowed her eyes at the sidewalk ahead.
"Come on." Her voice deepened with determination as she nodded her head towards the pathway up the strip. "I'm gonna find her. With or without the financials."
xxxxx
They'd worked their way up the main drag for well over an hour, and the exhaustion that had tugged at the back of Olivia's mind had begun to stretch across body at an alarming rate. The continued disinterest of the tourists and irritated locals had begun to wear on her determination, and as each one pushed passed her with hardly a glance at the photo of Amanda, she cursed, unbothered that one of them might hear her frustrated expletives.
"Come on, Liv." Fin finally cut in, taking her elbow in order to halt her from storming up the sidewalk. "We've checked all the hospitals. We called all of the precincts, remember?"
"That's not good enough!" She demanded, spinning towards him with indignant tears growing in her eyes.
Desperation had gripped her since that epiphany on the bathroom floor, but the fear and the panic had only grown since they'd reached New Jersey. The sharp mixture of emotions left her overwrought, on the verge of breaking down in the middle of sidewalk.
"She's somewhere, Fin, and she's not okay." Olivia insisted in a rough whisper, sending quick glances to the crowd around them. "I can feel it."
Fin frowned, perplexed by both Olivia's emotions and Amanda's disappearance. She didn't expect him to lash out or break down, but she wished that for one time in his damned life he'd forget his cool, composed exterior if only to make her feel not so alone in her desperation.
"Let's check the casinos one more time." Fin finally suggested, nodding towards one of the larger ones that lay within their sight.
Olivia swallowed back the encroaching tears, and focused her gaze on the building beyond. She'd never had much understanding of gambling or casinos beyond a law enforcement perspective, but now she wished that she could tear down every single one, put away the bookies, destroy any chance of Amanda every becoming trapped in this addiction again; but more than any of that, she wished that Lewis had never touched their lives. He'd left an indelible mark on Olivia's being, and Amanda was on the verge of destroying herself in her attempt to remove it. She wished she could go back, and tell her scars could not so easily be expunged - hers and Amanda's.
"Okay." She whispered, at last with a nod.
"We're gonna find her." Fin assured her, softly, laying a hand on her arm.
She reached up to grasp his fingers for a short moment in a gesture of gratefulness before they headed up the sidewalk again, silent now in their path towards the casino.
The structure loomed over them, the facade decorated in bright lights and a sign that read: The Manchester. Even in a different state they couldn't escape New York, and apparently, neither had Amanda.
Olivia's eyes lifted skyward to the blaringly bright, flashing letters as they reached the entrance, a strange sense of doom filling her at the gaudy display. Her throat tightened in apprehension, goosebumps slowly crawling over the back of skull, and down between her shoulders blades. The sensation of sudden terror wrapped itself around her arms and legs, halting her on the sidewalk, and though for a moment she didn't know why, she saw Amanda's face in her mind, a quick flash of pale flesh painted in blood. She flinched, taking a quick step backwards abruptly just as Fin began to open the door in front of her.
"Amanda…" She gasped, breathlessly, her chest aching with the weight of sharp, sudden premonitions.
"Liv?" Fin's confused tone crackled in the back of her mind, but she ignored his call as she turned back towards the sidewalk, away from the yawning doors of the Manchester.
The crowd around her was buzzing loudly, and the cars on the street whipped past her with a rush of wind and sirens and horns. In the clamor it would've been easy to miss the anguished cry, but it reached Olivia's ears through the roar of voices and the haze of cigarette smoke, cutting out every other sound.
She stood on the sidewalk, frozen, hands clenched at her sides as her ears strained for a second whimper, a confirmation that she had heard what she was convinced she had.
"Liv, what is it?" Fin asked, appearing in her peripheral vision with a puzzled frown.
"Shh!" She insisted, harshly, holding her hand up to halt his protests.
Her eyes darted up and down the sidewalk, and along the buildings as she scrounged for any sign of danger. She knew it was there, in the darkness somewhere, secretly slipping with insidious fingers across her senses. She could scarcely breathe as she stared into the night, waiting on the very edge of her sanity.
"I don't see anything-' Fin began to speak, but it was there, suddenly, chillingly, in the midst of his disbelief.
The scream shattered Olivia's ears, filled with a terror that she knew far too well, and intense fear went through her because she knew that voice. She'd know it anywhere, across any distance. She'd prayed she'd hear it again, though not quite like this.
"What the hell?" Fin cursed as their eyes met, her wide and glistening for a the moments it took to grasp her at her gut instincts.
Then she broke from the sidewalk into a run, the pounding of her heart in her ears taking over every other sound. She could hear Fin behind her, their boots hitting the sidewalk in tandem as they swerved around groups of people and lone joggers, but all she could focus on was the sidewalk in front of her, and the alleyway between the Manchester and the hotel situated next to the casino.
The passage was narrow and dark, but she plunged ahead, grabbing at the rough brick as she rounded the corner. Her body was screaming, pumping with adrenaline, but the sight that met her eyes halted her in her tracks. What breath she had left vacated her lips, leaving her trembling and frozen in the mouth of the alley.
She'd been searching for her for hours, expecting the worst, but she wasn't ready to believe that it was Amanda crushed against the hard brick, two brawny men trapping her beneath their musclebound bodies. But she knew it was her. She knew in the pit of her stomach before the blonde head even turned, connecting blue eyes with hers.
"Jesus, no…" She ground out, and she could feel her body shaking, a volcanic implosion that ruptured in her chest.
"No!" Her voice rose in an uneven swell of desperation down the alleyway, and she shoved away from the brick, flinging herself towards the ghastly scene before her.
Her head was buzzing, panicked breaths rushing in her ears as she hurtled directly into the path of danger. She saw them turn her, their faces flashing from brutal amusement to abrupt surprise.
Time seemed to slow as one of them spun, a gun clutched in his hand, and she fully expected the bullet to explode from the barrel but the possibility of being shot was hardly a blip across the radar of her mind, crowded out by fear and desperation for Amanda.
"Get away!" She screamed, tears fleeing down her cheeks unnoticed.
The second man who'd been poised against Amanda's body released her, tossing her away as though he'd decided she wasn't worth the consequences, and shoved past his cohort. He ran up the alleyway, and his partner abandoned his bravery in turn for cowardice, chasing after him into the dark.
In any other situation, she would've chased after them, following the ingrained training of the NYPD, but she abandoned every instinct she'd ever had as a detective as she watched Amanda's body fold, her pale figure sinking to the ground.
"Amanda, Amanda…" She panted, dropping to her knees next to Amanda's half naked, trembling body.
"NYPD!" She heard Fin shout behind her, his footsteps pounding into the cement as he rushed past her, his service weapon clutched in both hands.
She hovered over Amanda's quivering figure, her quaking hands stretched out over her flesh, but for a moment, she couldn't touch her, afraid that this reality would swoop in far too quickly for her to accept. Her head had begun to spin, and the force of panic had swept nausea through her stomach. All she could think of was what had happened before she had shattered this vile scene, what events had led them here, how long she had suffered.
Clasping her hand over her mouth, she choked over the bile rose in her throat, and her watery gaze danced upwards as she heard Fin grunt a curse. Across the alleyway, he'd caught one of the perpetrators and she flinched as he brought the barrel of his gun across the man's face, once then twice. The crunch of bone and the splitting of flesh seemed dull through the ringing in her head.
Forgotten tears slipped down her cheeks as she stared back down at Amanda's shivering frame. She was locked in the fetal position, in shock, and Olivia's felt the crushing weight of what had happened in this alley settle down upon her chest.
"Oh...no…" She moaned, sinking down to the ground as her body doubled over in an almost physical pain. "God, no…."
Her forehead pressed against Amanda's arm as full-formed sobs ripped through her chest. Her fingers clutched at her breast as agony cut sharply through every inch of her, bearing a white hot anger that she'd felt only once before in her life, moreover, an agony she hadn't even been able to feel for herself.
"She asked us out here, man!" She heard the man complain to Fin as their footsteps scuffled closer. "She wanted it!"
The disgusting falsity finally cut through the haze in her head, and her head snapped up from her bent position as his words ignited across the flames on her chest like gasoline. She felt herself trembling with a rage so deep that she felt sick with it
"You b-bastard!" She growled, shoving up from the ground as Fin was cuffing him.
"Liv!" Fin began to protest as she hurtled towards them, the rage spilling across her face in flushes of red.
"Say that to me face again, you sick bastard." She breathed, stopping mere inches from his chest, close enough to feel his breath.
He stared back at her, his brow knitted, eyes narrowed as he assessed her expression. If he valued his life at all, he'd keep his mouth shut, but she knew how men like him operated. He watched her display of anger like it was a show that he could throw a dollar at.
Finally, his lips twisted in a smirk through the blood that Fin had left there, and he began to chuckle. "Oh, come on, give it a rest. I didn't even get anywhere with the bitch before you interrupted. A damn shame."
She froze at his words, her mind spinning sluggishly.
"Wh-what?" She whispered, unsteadily, taking a slow step backwards.
Her ears buzzed in the sudden silence of the alley, and for a moment she couldn't think past the adrenaline and outrage pumping through her blood. The relief lagged behind her comprehension of his words, but when she was able to wrap her mind around his insinuation, it hit her full force.
"You better not be lying." Fin threatened before dragging him away from Olivia's shocked stance in the middle of the alley.
When he was out of her sight, she sank against the brick wall, clutching her chest as she gasped in relief. Tears clung to her lashes as she leaned her back, and stared at the night sky.
Thank you, Jesus, thank you…. She thought, a prayer that she hadn't sent with unwavering belief in years.
"O...Olivia…..?"
The soft whimper drew her back to the alleyway, and Amanda's cowering figure on the ground, and she pushed away from the wall quickly.
"Amanda, baby?" She whispered, dropping back down next to her.
Amanda's bruised, bloodied face tilted in her direction, her fearful, watery blue eyes meeting Olivia's for the first time in two weeks.
Her expression immediately crumpled, and she began to whisper, "I'm sorry, Olivia, I'm so sorry…"
"Honey, no…" Olivia whispered, her voice clutched with emotion, and she sank down next to her, and gathered her in her arms. "No, you have nothing to be sorry for."
Amanda trembled in her arms, her fingers digging into the fabric of Olivia's shirt as she hid her face in her chest.
"Shhh…" Olivia hushed her, softly, her fingers quivering as she stroked Amanda's hair and back. "You're going to be okay…. I promise."
Pressing a kiss to Amanda's forehead, she could only pray that it was a promise she could keep.