The Murky Depths
Chapter 3
Thank you to everyone for positive reviews and feedback. It makes me smile.
Amanda had been assaulted!
Those four words spun around Olivia's head where she stood, pressed up against the door to hear the heated conversation. Amanda was a victim herself! A victim of a serial rapist who preyed on younger women, beat them, raped them and sodomized them, making them feel like dirt, like he owned them, like he had a right. She had to get Amanda out of there but wasn't sure how and while she was thinking about some kind of escape plan, the conversation on the other side of the door continued.
"An apology?" Brent, the owner laughed. "You came onto me! You were the one who started it all. Why should I apologize to you? You got what you deserved you little bitch. No one plays around with me thinking they can get away with it. If you hadn't kicked my nuts in you wouldn't be sitting here, darling. In fact, you'd be so damaged you wouldn't be able to sit ever again." he chuckled and Liv could hear the sound of a chair scratching against the floor.
"I should finish what I started right now, don't you think? There has to be a reason why you came back here, sweetheart. Did you come back for more? Did you want me to be rough with you? I bet you have the nicest pussy I will ever fuck."
Liv heard a bone crushing noise and a terrified whimper coming from Amanda and knew that he had hurt her. That was all it took before Olivia kicked the door open with such force, it bounced of the wall behind and almost came flying back, hitting her in the face. She caught it before that could happen and she quickly drew her gun from her hip. "NYPD, keep your hands were I can see them and step away from her. Now!"
Brent smirked, raised his hands and slowly took a couple of steps back. "Well, well, well! Isn't it sergeant Benson herself. I was just telling the lady here that she's had too much to drink and have to send her home."
Liv pointed the gun straight at him and threw Amanda a side glance to see of she was okay. She winched in sympathy as she spotted the dark red blood seeping through her nose, dripping down onto her lips and chin. She could tell that the blonde was dazed by the way she was holding her head with one hand and grabbing onto the side of the desk with the other, involuntary tears streaming down her cheeks as she tried to clear her vision.
"Turn around, you're under arrest." she demanded, stepping closer to the perp and got her cuffs out from the pocket of her coat.
"For what?" he snorted. "She's drunk, fell and hit her face. I didn't touch her." he spat, saliva flying through the air as he spoke.
"For assaulting a police officer." she stated, grabbed his hands and swiftly slapped the cuffs on.
Brent glared at the blonde who was trying to get the bleeding under control. "You're a cop? You bitch! This was all a setup, wasn't it? I wish I had finished you when I had the chance." his eyes were dark and so full of anger and hatred it scared Amanda. Perps usually made empty threats and she never paid any attention to them, but looking into the almost black shining eyes, she felt a shiver run down her spine, causing her to tremble.
While he was intimidating Amanda, Liv had already called it in and was waiting for backup to arrive. "Shut the fuck up." Liv growled and forcefully grabbed him by the arm amd pushed him down onto an empty chair. "You move, you're dead. Do we understand each other?" Brent didn't respond. Instead he snorted, eyes the tall brunette from top to toe, grinning.
Olivia turned her attention towards her injured colleague. Noticing a box of tissues on the desk, she grabbed a handful and hunkered down in front of the blonde, gently taking a hold of her chin so she could turn her head and see the damage. "Amanda, you okay?" she asked gently and wiped at the blood that seemed to be coming in a steady flow. "Tilt your head back and pinch the bridge of your nose. It's okay." she spoke gently as she guided Amanda's hand up to her nose and showed her where to apply pressure.
Being coddled over was not Amanda's thing and normally she would pull back straight away if someone tried to hug, touch or get too close to her. Right now she was too stunned to do anything. Everything had happened so quickly and she was unsure if this had happened at all. What was her boss doing here? How did she know that Amanda would be there? How much of the conversation had she heard before she had barged in? What the hell just happened?
Amanda didn't say anything. She just sat there, holding her nose in a steady grip, feeling the blood soak her hand and how the swelling began to kick in, making it almost impossible to breath through her nasal passages. Olivia was still crouched down in front of her, looking at her with concerned brown eyes. "How are you feeling?" she finally asked, reached her hand out to brush blonde hair away from blue eyes.
The blonde detective saw the hand moving closer and she turned her head and pulled away before the hand could make contact with her skin. "I'm fine." she muttered nasaly and hissed as a wave of intense pain washed over her and the beginning of a head ache started to form.
"The hell you are." Liv firmly stated. "As soon as backup gets here Im taking you to the hospital."
Amanda couldn't help but to chuckle, finding the situation somewhat comical as to why Olivia suddenly cared about her, especially her nose. This caring act came a little bit to late for Amanda, about four years give or take. Why was she so keen on making sure that the blonde was being looked after? Was she genuinely concerned or was she just following protocol and going by the book? The latter option was more likely, Amanda thought and chucled again, the tissue muffling the sound but it didn't go unnoticed by the sergeant.
"You find this funny, Rollins?" Liv questioned and raised an eyebrow.
Amanda suddenly turned serious but decided not to answer the question, knowing that she might say something that would lead to a full blown heated fight and spew words that she probably would end up regretting. Her glossy eyes found Olivia's and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "I'm not going to the hospital. I feel fine."
The tall brunette sighed. "You feel fine?" it was more of a statement than a question and she didn't believe that Amanda was fine at all, far from it, but she was just too stubborn to admit it out loud or even to herself. "What were you thinking, Amanda? Coming out here on your own, without backup, without anyone knowing where you were? Things could've ended very badly if things had played out differently." she was no longer sitting in front of the injured woman. She was now pacing back and forth, sighing in frustration and defeat but stopped when she heard the sirens of two patrol cars pulling up outside the lively pub.
Olivia wanted to be quick about all this and simply told the officers to bring him to lockup and he would be dealt with in the morning and asked another officer to drive them to the nearest hospital. The blonde was still fighting against it, telling her boss that she could take care of it herself and that her nose wasn't broken, just badly bruised. Olivia knew that her colleague was stubborn but she didn't know how stubborn she actually was and she found it frustrating, annoying and tiresome to try and talk Amanda into something that she clearly didn't want to do.
"Fine, have it your way but I'm coming inside with you to make sure you ice it properly. If you fight me on this I will put you on desk duty for the week and that's a promise."
There was not much point to argue with her boss and reluctantly let her inside the apartment and turned on the lights, causing a welcoming glow to spread through the rooms. "I'm gonna go wash my face." Amanda muttered and headed straight for the bathroom, leaving Olivia standing in her kitchen, looking a little lost.
The water in the sink turned bright red and she could taste the iron as some of the water got into her mouth. She knew she must look horrible and looking at herself in the mirror confimed just that. Her nose was red, purple, green, blue, practically every colour of the whole damn rainbow and the size of it had almost doubled. Her left eye had also turned quite colourful and the white eyeball had turned red due to, without a doubt, burst blood vessels. At least it had stopped bleeding but the head ache that had started earlier on was now pounding relentlessly. Groaning, she gently wiped her face dry before heading back out.
Olivia looked around the place from where she was standing. After so many years of working together, she realized that she had never been inside Amanda's home before and the blonde had never been inside hers. The place was neat and tidy, only a few things randomly scattered across the kitchen table and the coffee table in the sitting room. Otherwise the apartment seemed welcoming and comfortable to live in. She noticed that there wasn't many personal items on display, like photographs, ornaments or sentimental pieces that held no financial value. It looked quite bare but still livable and functional.
She located the freezer and pulled out the first item from the top drawer, which happened to be a packet of ground beef, shut the door and waited for Amanda to come back. As she turned around, her heart skipped a beat as an unexpected presence had quietly closed in on her while she was rooting around in the freezer. "Frannie!" she said with relief and placed her hand over her beating heart, just remembering that Amanda had a dog. "You scared me. Didn't your mother teach you that it's rude to sneak up on people." she said and reached her hand out for the dog to sniff and Frannie quickly decided to accept this strange woman as a new human friend and began to lick the outstretched hand and wag her tail almost violently.
"She seems to like you. Doesn't happen that often." Amanda said, retrieving a glass of water and a couple of aspirin. "She's trained that way but you must be an exception." she popped her pills and watched as her boss fussed over her dog, suddenly seeing a completely different side of her sergeant and she found it fascinating and somewhat attractive and luring. She quickly shook those feelings and thoughts out of her head and spotted the frozen meat packet on the kitchen table.
"Thanks." she muttered, sat down and gently pressed the ice cold beef onto her throbbing nose, hissing in pain as it made contact. "Fuck." she silently cursed but didn't move the packet away.
Olivia had stopped rubbing the dog and turned her attention back to the blonde who sat slumped by the table, looking almost like an upset little girl. "Show me." she requested softly and winched in sympathy as Amanda moved the iced packet and revealed her battered appearance.
"That bad, ugh?" the blonde huffed and continued with the cold pressure. "Look, I'm fine, you don't have to stick around." she grunted and scratched behind Frannie's ear as the dog finally decided to greet her master.
The older woman sighed and moved closer to the table where Amanda was sitting. "Why didn't you tell me, Amanda? Or Fin or Carisi? We would've helped you." shouting and roaring wouldn't do any good so by keeping her voice nice and soft, she hoped it would make Amanda feel comfortable enough to talk about it. "Did you set up your own honey trap?"
The blonde rolled her eyes but regretted it rather quickly as the pain came with a stabbing force. "We all knew it was him," she snapped, "we just didn't have enough evidence to nail the son of a bitch so, yes, I did set him up so we can prove that he's good for it. Nothing else seemed to work."
Liv closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. "You could've gotten yourself killed, Amanda. What you did was extremely dangerous, not to mention foolish and stupid. This could've ended much worse." her brown eyes studied Amanda's slumped form on the hard wooden chair and sighed sadly.
"But it didn't." the blonde spat, suddenly feeling the anger bubbling just underneath the surface. "What were you doing there anyway? Were you following me? Are you stalking me now? Is there a GPS signal on my ass telling you where I am, at all times? You have no right to follow me!" she yelled and slammed the frozen meat down onto the table, causing Frannie to let out a loud bark. "Easy girl." she soothed and stroked the dogs soft fur.
"And you have no right to take charge of a case like that, planning your own little heroic mission by setting up a trap. The first one obviously didn't go very well so what made you think that this would be any different? You could've gotten seriously hurt, Amanda." running her fingers through her hair, she began to pace the kitchen floor in long strides.
"What do you care anyway? I'm disposable, aren't I? You have Fin and Carisi, your two favourite shiny role model detectives, you don't need me." Amanda was shouting and Frannie kept barking, wondering what was going on, why her master was screaming. "It's okay, girl. Go and lie down, go on, go to bed." the dog trotted off down toward Amanda's bedroom, still wagging her tail.
"What is that suppose to mean?" Liv questioned, a hurt expression appeared on her face and took a step back. "You know that is not true. You're a great detective and a great asset to the team."
"Oh please!" the blonde spat, walked over to one of her kitchen cabinets and took out a bottle of scotch and a glass. "Don't pull that crap on me, sergeant. You have despised me since the first time I set my foot on your turf. You never trusted me, never listen to what I had to say, never acknowledged me or my work. I've been on the squad longer than Carisi and you still treat me like I don't exist." her head was pounding furiously but her anger beat the pain and she couldn't stop, no matter how hard she tried. This was all getting out there, once and for all. "Do you know what it feels like to be invisible? To be ignored? To constantly be checked up on to see if I'm doing a good enough job for you? It's been almost four years and I've worked my ass of for you, for what? So you can treat me like dirt?"
Olivia stood glued to her spot on the floor, listening to Amanda's angry words spitting out of her mouth, watching as the blonde detective worked herself up into a near hysterical state, tears brimming in her blue eyes, her body shaking from adrenaline. Liv got worried about her physical health and reached out to touch her arm and told her to sit down and breath slowly. As her sergeant's hand rested upon her arm she violently shrugged away. "Don't you dare touch me!" she screamed and Frannie came running out the door again but stopped in the hallway and just looked between the two women.
"Amanda, please!" Liv said softly and held her hands up in the air in front of her.
"I think you should go now." the blonde's voice was venomous and full of anger, hurt and bitterness. She had finally got her say and it was such a relief but she also felt slightly bad for yelling at her boss, she felt regret, which she didn't think was possible.
The tall brunette tried to stay collected and calm even though she wanted to take Amanda by the arms, shake some sense into her and tell her that she couldn't be more wrong. Letting out a shaky breath, Liv turned and walked towards the door but turned again to face the angry woman. "Please, Amanda..." she tried but was immediately shot down.
"Just go." she hissed between clenched teeth, slamming the bottle of spirits down onto the table.
Again, Olivia headed towards the door. She placed one hand on the handle before looking back. "For what it's worth, I am so sorry that I made you feel that way. From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry."
Her words were barely a whisper but she knew Amanda could hear her. Tears welled up in her brown eyes and rolled silently down her cheeks, discretely wiping them away with the back of her hand before she opened the door and closed without looking back once more.