"Michaela, I said drop the gun." Olivia repeated her instruction, keeping her eyes and gun trained on Michaela.
"Where's Alex?"
"She's outside, she's safe. There's a lot of blood on these floors, Michaela. You've caused a lot of damage to a lot of innocent people."
"You would have chosen one of them over me, they had to be taken care of. I want to see Alex."
"We can talk about letting you see Alex, but first I need you to put the gun down. On the coffee table, nice and slow."
"I can be better for you than Alex. She has that list of things she won't let you do to her. I'll let you do whatever you want to me. I'll stay at your feet and worship you all day. Isn't that what you want?"
"Right now I want you to put the gun down. It hasn't been that long since you've been out of my care, you know that I expect first time obedience."
Michaela put the gun down on the coffee table and dropped to her knees at Olivia's feet in worship.
"Are you going to beat me to show me you love me?"
Munch carefully removed the gun from the coffee table and removed the bullets from the chamber. There were only three left.
"I have never beaten a submissive, as you are well aware, and spankings are reserved for naughty submissives who are going to be forgiven for their behavior. You will not be forgiven. And the next time you see Alex will be at your trial where everything you have done is going to come out and you are going to spend the rest of your life behind bars." Olivia said as she pulled Michaela to her feet and quickly slapped a pair of handcuffs on her.
Michaela started screaming and thrashing, but Munch and Elliot jumped in to help Olivia take Michaela away so Michaela was outnumbered. They took Michaela outside and everyone watched as she was read her rights and loaded into the back of a squad car, still screaming and carrying on. With the danger finally over, everyone seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Alex ran back into Olivia's arms and soaked up every ounce of her Mistress's love.
"D-Do y-y-you s-st-still w-want m-m-me?" Alex stuttered with tears in her eyes. Michaela's words to her had left their mark.
"Of course I still want you, my angel. I will never not want you, I love you more than anything and I promise you'll be back home with me where you belong very soon."
"All clear! All clear!" the officers shouted as they walked through the halls of Rosewood and various people cautiously poked their heads out from their hiding places. The cook and other people who were still alive were transferred to the hospital for treatment. Those who were dead were removed from the building and taken to the morgue where they would remain until their next of kin could be brought down to identify them.
Since there had been a bloodbath in Rosewood's hallways, dormitories, cafeteria, and nurse's station, all of the submissives were going to be transferred to other Transition Stations. Alex was transferred to Kincaid Transition Station. The rules were similar to those of Rosewood, so Alex would have no problem adjusting to them. The only real difference was that the therapists, cook, other staff, and the female dormitory's disciplinarian were all different people. Alex was given the option to take a few days off of physical therapy while Monique's stitches healed or to have a new physical therapist altogether, and she chose to take a few days off. She was already having to get used to a new psychotherapist and a new speech therapist, she didn't want to have to get used to a new physical therapist on top of everything else. To the delight of both Alex and Olivia, whereas Rosewood had only allowed phone calls and would not allow Olivia to visit Alex, at Kincaid Olivia was allowed to visit as long as Alex was not restricted to her room as punishment.
A few days later, Olivia met with Rafael Barba on her lunch break to prepare for the trial.
"Here's all the paperwork you asked for, including a copy of my contract with Alex and the contract I had with Michaela. Copies of the complaints David and Michaela made against me. A copy of Melinda's report from Jason Kloss's murder. A copy of all the ACS reports on Michaela's daughter Emma that have been taken over the years. And all the rest of the paperwork you'll need."
"Great, I'll start reading through it as soon as I get back to my office. The crowbar and the knife have already been entered into evidence, along with both the street cam footage showing Jason's murder and the video footage from Rosewood's recreation hall showing Michaela talking to Alex. Now, I have to warn you that the defense attorney that has been hired by SPS to try and take Alex away from you is John Buchanan. He's one tough guy, but I promise you that I'm tougher."
"He can't use Alex's stutter against her, can he?"
"He can try, but I promise you that I don't allow badgering witnesses and the moment he tries to, I will step in and stop him. I'm on my way now to arraignment for Michaela. I'm going to ask for remand without bail just like I did for Dave Kloss. I'll let you know when the trial against Dave and Michaela will be, it probably won't be too long after this trial against SPS since the two are closely connected cases, but they are going to be broken up into two trials since one is to determine Alex's placement and the other is a criminal case. You and Alex will be called to testify in both cases, but I'm not sure yet who the defense attorney for Dave and Michaela will be. When I find out, I'll let you know since I'm working both cases."
"Thanks for all your help, Barba. I really appreciate it."
"My pleasure. Unfortunately, you will have to see Dave and Michaela at both trials, but neither of them will be allowed to talk to you or Alex, and as you know, in a courtroom there are armed police everywhere, so you'll both be safe. I'm also going to go down to Rosewood- sorry, Kincaid Transition Station, probably tomorrow or Friday depending on what my schedule looks like, and prep Alex for these trials."
"E-Elec-Electricity." Alex read the word on the flashcard.
"One more time." the speech therapist, Dr. Thorne, said.
"E-Electricity."
"That's a good girl. Next." Dr. Thorne held up the next flashcard in the stack.
"W-Wa-Watermelon."
"One more time."
"W-Wa-Watermelon."
"Good girl. Next."
"Th-this s-sucks."Alex sighed and Dr. Thorne smiled encouragingly.
"I know it doesn't feel like it, sweetheart, but you really are improving. According to Dr. Lowe, when you first started with him you took much longer pauses between words. You have thirty minutes left with me for today, and then I'll leave you alone until tomorrow and you get ten points on your behavior chart for completing your hour with me."
"F-Fr-Fruitcake." Alex read the word on the flashcard.
When her session with Dr. Thorne was over, Alex walked through the halls to go back to her room and rolled her eyes when she ended up in the cafeteria. She was still getting used to being in a new place and this wasn't the first time she'd gotten turned around. She was still wandering through the halls when she passed by a group of girls standing around talking.
"Oh, look, it's the freak who can't speak." Brooke teased. Brooke was known as the bully of Kincaid Transition Station, she had been living at Kincaid longer than any other submissive and called it her home. She never missed an opportunity to pick on new arrivals, provided there was nobody in authority nearby to overhear, and Alex was a prime target because of her stuttering.
"Brooke, just leave her alone." Grace scolded.
"I would be happy to if she wasn't such a freak. I hear she even sleeps with a stuffed cat, what a baby."
"M-My M-Mi-Mistress g-gave it to m-me." Alex stuttered.
"Your M-M-M-Mistress isn't h-h-h-here." Brooke mocked.
"Brooke, I swear, you're such a bitch sometimes." Grace rolled her eyes and gently led Alex away.
"Hi, my name is Grace. What's your name?" Grace smiled as she and Alex walked down the hall.
"A-Alex."
"Hi, Alex. Brooke really is kind of a bitch most of the time, try not to let her get to you. I used to have a stutter when I was little. It cleared itself up when I became an adult, but I know what it feels like."
Alex smiled, grateful that she seemed to have found a friend.
"I-I w-was t-t-trying to g-go b-back to my r-r-room, b-but I en-ended up in the c-ca-cafeteria."
"I can take you back to your room if you want, or you can join me for a game of monopoly." Grace offered.
Alex gratefully took Grace up on her offer, deciding that playing monopoly and making friends was better than sulking in her room missing Olivia, and the two submissives settled in to play monopoly.
"Hey, Mel, you wanna play Monopoly?"
"Sure. I'll be the banker. Let me go find Helene and see if I can rope her into being our fourth player." Melissa replied.
"Helene got sent to the punishment room. Better go find somebody else."
The dormitory monitor made the four girls pause their game to go have lunch. They caught up with Helene who had obviously been crying and was having trouble finding a comfortable position to sit down to eat her lunch.
"Wh-what's the d-dor-dorm-dormitory d-d-disciplinarian like?" Alex asked, finding herself missing Claire's comforting, motherly presence.
"Her name's Teresa. She's nice, but she doesn't take any nonsense, she's strict and if you get sent to her you'll definitely be sleeping on your belly that night. I got my stupid self sent to her for skipping my turn in the kitchen to help wash dishes." Helene said. Unlike at Rosewood, the submissives at Kincaid had assigned chores.
"Alex, honey, you have a visitor. Please go to the visitor's lounge." the dormitory monitor said after lunch.
"Y-Yes, M-Ma'am." Glad to be allowed to stop cleaning, Alex took off her apron and went to the visitor's lounge. She hesitated momentarily at the door; the last time someone had unexpectedly come to see her, it hadn't ended well, but Alex reminded herself that Michaela was in jail and couldn't hurt her.
"Hi, my name is Rafael Barba, I'm the lawyer hired by Captain Benson, I'm going to be representing Olivia in the trial coming up regarding your placement, and I'm also going to be the attorney prosecuting Dave Kloss and Michaela Brightman at a later trial. I just stopped by to go over a few things with you before the first trial starts." Barba held out his hand.
"Th-Thanks f-for g-g-getting me out of d-dish d-duty." Alex smiled. Barba laughed.
"First I need you to just verify some basic information. Did you willingly and freely enter into a contract relationship as a collared submissive with Olivia Benson on May 12, 1999?"
"Yes."
By the time Barba left the visitor's lounge to go back to his office, Alex's head was spinning with information, but she really liked Barba and trusted that he knew what he was doing. Alex found Grace with a group of girls watching TV and since she had completed all of her chores for the day, she sat down to join them and got completely engrossed in the episode of Law and Order they were watching.
"Girls, TV time is over for the day, we don't want anyone's brain to melt. Turn it off, please, and go back to your rooms for quiet time."
"Yes, Ma'am."
For one hour a day, the submissives at Kincaid were required to spend quiet time in their rooms decompressing. They didn't have to sleep, but they had to stay in their rooms and make as little noise as possible. Unlike at Rosewood where Alex shared a room with three roommates and the bathroom was communal, here at Kincaid she had her own room and bathroom. Alex sat down on her bed with Justice cuddled in her arms. She picked up a Reader's Digest that she had swiped from the visitor's lounge the last time Olivia came to visit and settled down to read for the hour of quiet time. She read through the whole magazine twice and then decided to take a hot shower.
Brooke was out and about roaming the halls instead of resting in her room where she was supposed to be. She passed by Alex's room and popped her head inside. Hearing Alex humming to herself in the shower, Brooke walked into the room and began to poke through Alex's belongings.