A/N: Together we stand, divided we fall…
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Saying that it had been like going to hell and back would have been an understatement. Actually, going to hell and back would have been a walk in the park compared to what they had gone through and managed to survive. Flack refused to think of it in any other terms. Survive. She would survive. She was strong; she could leap back from the doors of death. She had to. She still had to explain to him why she had made such a foolish choice and he had still to tell her he loved her.
Flack tried to sit still, but it was virtually impossible. The impatience of no news biting his insides, the sting from the deep cuts on his back and in his soul, the pulsing pain from the stitches starting to heal... or at least, he wanted to believe they were healing; for the past two days there hadn't been any blood in the toilet bowl after he'd visited it, and that HAD to be good news. He avoided looking into reflective surfaces, uncertain as to whether he was doing it out of vanity or for his mind's sake; knowing all too well what he'd see if he did: broken nose, split open lips, black left eye, fractured cheekbone… and the gash starting from his forehead all the way down to his now almost useless right eye, the one that he already knew was going to leave a nasty scar. Not the first one, or the worst one, in his life, mind you, but the only one that wouldn't wait until a third date before he had to show.
Not that he was thinking about dating. He doubted he'd ever again feel comfortable when it came to intimacy; the issues going far too deep for even a dozen shrinks to work it out with him. There was only one person in the world that we would consider touching in an affectionate way as things were, and that person was inside a hospital room, still touch and go, and Flack knew that if she didn't make it… if she didn't make her, half of him would die with her.
Danny Messer had kept his distance since he had arrived to the hospital that morning. He had tried, you bet he had tried. But when Don Flack closed down, nothing in this world would get him to open up until he was fine and ready to do so. And Flack was far from ready. He had not said a word to any of them since he'd given his statement three days prior to a Mac Taylor whose hand had wavered slightly as he jotted down all the broken words coming from the broken young man's lips. Stella had tried taking the photos, but Flack had refused to even let her near him. Danny had seen the hurt in her eyes, but she had left without a word and it had been Danny's job to get photographic evidence of the case. After he was done shooting them both, he had handed the camera to Adam, who was waiting outside the room, unsure if he wanted to go in and witness for himself what was rumored to be behind closed doors, and had locked himself up in the bathroom. After throwing up, he had slid against the wall and cried until he felt empty inside. He was mourning his friends, Don far more than Angell, for he knew, without a doctor to confirm it, that life as they had known it was pretty much over.
Flack refused to sleep. He was afraid she'd slip away if he let his guard down. He was afraid of the things he'd see if he closed his eyes. He was afraid he'd wake up screaming. He was afraid he'd never wake up at all. Every time his lids stayed down longer than necessary, flashes of the case shone in all their Technicolor glory on his mind's screen. Jenn geared in leather, poking fun of him. Her boots, taunting him. The stupid leather g-string he had chosen to wear. Brian and Robert tending to his back wounds, pleading with him to tell her how he felt about her. Angell's scream as the knife came down… the knife… Flack sat up with a startle, gasping for breath like a man who had been about to drown. Nurses looked at him and shook their heads; their pleas for him to accept medication had remained unheard for three days now…
Stella had left the hospital in a state of angered restlessness she didn't feel often. She felt useless in helping Angell and had not liked Flack's rejection. Then she had read his statement and for a moment, for a very brief moment, she actually hoped Angell wouldn't make it. Then she got over it and swore she'd help the younger woman deal, that she'd do everything in her hand to nurse her back to health, both physical and mental… that she'd find a way to chase the nightmares away, not only for her, but for Flack as well. She understood why he had asked her to leave, grasping at straws to keep a shred of dignity intact, and she was no longer upset with him. She admired him more than ever, and she vowed to personally kick the shit out of anyone who ever even thought about giving him grief over this whole case.
Angell's thoughts drifted in a hazy cloud… she thought she'd heard her father's voice, and it pained her to make him suffer like this, but she had no choice. She was neither here, nor not here, and the only thing that kept her somewhat anchored was Flack's plea for her not to die. At least, not to do so before he could kill her himself…
Rick Silva moved about the precinct as jittery as a cat in a room full of rockers. He looked like a man who was waiting for the other shoe to fall, and to fall hard when it did. He kept things to business, as usual, temporary head of Vice since Agnetti had been killed in the line of duty during Nico's dungeon's raid. He was pissed. He had wanted this for way too many years, but not this way. He had wanted Agnetti to witness how he made it to the top. And he wanted his crowning to be immaculate, not a loose end in sight. And now, thanks to the blood bath mess he had in his hands, 9 cops dead and one barely threading the line, he had a shitload of unanswered questions. He had already demanded from Homicide's Cap the full report, but the old bastard had simply replied that Mac Taylor had it, and Mac Taylor would not share until his investigation was done and that Silva had nothing to fear. But if there was one man Rick Silva feared, that was Mac Taylor.
Flack's body, battered as it was, was proving to be far stronger than his mind, for it seemed to have a will of its own. It had been close to 50 hours since he had last slept, and no matter how hard he tried to keep awake, he was simply losing the battle now that shock had worn off and adrenaline had finished running its course. But he feared the nightmares, and he feared meeting her in his dreams, for he was certain, illogically so, that if he met her in his dreams it'd be only for her to say good-bye. And that… that was something he wasn't ready to accept just yet.
Cap Patterson paced in his office, cursing the moment he had agreed to Agnetti's idiotic plan. He had 6 widows and 3 mothers on his back, all demanding to be given an explanation and a body to bury and he couldn't give any of them any. He had spoken with Taylor, and agreed the whole thing stank to Heavens. He had spoken, or rather listened, to Sinclair, who demanded at least one head to roll. He'd stopped by to check up on Angell, his heart going out to her, lying like a broken puppet on the hospital bed, her olive complexion a ghostly hue. He had barely been able to look at Sergeant Angell in the face, feeling he had let the man down, for he had allowed the other man's baby to be harmed during his watch. He had tried to approach Flack, but one look at his detective's face told him to stay away, as far away as possible, and Cap was slightly thankful for that, for he did not know how to tell him that Robert and Brian March had been two of the raid's casualties… although Cap had the feeling that Flack already knew it, for the young man had not once asked for them… or about them.
The music… the music had been playing so loud it had hurt his ears, but he couldn't do anything about it. They were surrounded by people… nameless faceless bodies gyrating and rubbing and touching… he felt denigrated and diminished, his role merely reduced to a chunk of meat for Jenn… no, Jezebel, to peddle and offer to the highest bidder, expected to perform like a circus monkey at a moment's notice, rewarded and punished in the same measure, by the same crop. Sheer madness descending as he got lost in the mists of lust, cheap perfume and semen…
Lindsay and Adam were working together, completely silent, but not comforted by it in the least. They had Angell's and Flack's clothes, what little was of them, and they were analyzing them for evidence. Why were they doing such a fruitless job, it was beyond Adam, but he wasn't about to question Mac's orders. Adam knew, as well as Lindsay and everybody else in the lab, that this case would never get to see the inside of a court house, not when everyone involved was 12 floors below them, neatly tucked inside the morgue's fridge. And the only two people who were left to tell the tale… for there were two; Adam refused to think that Angell would not make it… the only two were victims that would never get justice done in their behalf. If any, sadly, they'd probably be filing for early retirement, the case quickly lost between other equally anonymous file in the dark underground maze they called archive.
Angell… Angell had been stroking another boy toy… seemingly to lovingly do so, before the crop came down, punishing, and a yelp… a grimace of pain and grateful tears in eyes that stared at her adoringly… whispered words of worship, promising to be better than her own slave, if only she'd give them a chance! And Flack felt rage and impotence and immense jealousy and he wanted to hate Jezebel for discarding him so easily, for leaving him in hands of strangers, for submitting him to an almost inhuman treatment, reduced to a simple object to be used and thrown away… every time he briefly remember all the things that had been placed inside his mouth, things he had so willingly accepted and taken, his stomach churned and he could feel bile and nausea erupting, barely able to contain the disdain he felt for himself, for having allowed it to go so far, for having accepted it to go so far…
Lindsay couldn't tell what got more to her… the amount of donors in both of her friends' clothing or the amount of blood. Both samples spoke to her of abuse and death, circling around, like vultures. Danny had told her of the injuries he had seen, weeping like a child in her arms, and these pieces of leather told no different a story. She had hoped, oh how she had hoped, that some of the blood were not Angell's, but that was a wish she wouldn't get granted. How the young detective was still alive was a mystery to her, for it defied the science she was using as a shield to protect her own sanity, for her mind could not wrap around the tales of torture Danny had frighteningly whispered in her ears…
Flack had tried to fight back, to resist, but in the end, he had welcomed the syringe that plunged him into darkness, cozy darkness where he could see nothing, he could hear nothing, he could remember nothing… he could feel nothing. He embraced the nothingness willingly, for he was too tired to keep fighting. Snippets of conversations drifted here and there… weakened condition… possible heart failure… diminished mental lucidity… he also welcomed those… so much better for him to have set in motion his demise, if she was gone, so would he…
Sid has seen so much in so many years, but still had not managed to shell shock himself against watching a fellow officer on his table. He was just grateful that it hadn't been his young friends who'd been in need of his services, for he was certain he'd never be able to do it, and neither would Doc Hawkes. Their hearts would not allow it. His heart, however, was at the moment beating to a different tune, one he seldom felt in his line of work. Nico Barbeito lay before him, a story of abuse and self-abuse dating back so long; Sid wasn't able to tell how young this man had been when he got his first scar. Burn scars, knife wounds, bullet holes, bite marks, scratches, bruises… too much on one single body, not any making sense. Even worse, the terrible "esthetic" surgery this… this man had undergone to create a monstrous penile weapon: studs of all sizes and shapes imbedded on his flesh, razor-sharp edges inserted on slits and folds of skin grafted specifically for the purpose… he was the abuser and the abused, Sid knew, for clear evidence of rectum reconstructive surgeries, plural, were evident as well. Sid couldn't remember when was the last time he'd felt so nauseated…
"Miracle she's made it this far… chances growing slimmer with each passing hour… she'll never go back to the force if she makes it… will never be able to bear children…" Words. Jumbled words coming to her from…somewhere. Present, but not quite so. Her body slowly healing, but her mind refusing to go back. Suspended in time…
Mac had not moved from his desk in hours. He had typed his preliminary report, based solely on Flack's testimony and the initial forensic evidence they had recovered at the site. He knew the words almost by heart, having read the whole thing over and over again. Not that he needed to read it in the first place; he had been one of the first respondents at the scene and he couldn't remember seeing such senseless carnage in a long, long time; not since his days in the Marines. Slaughtered. That's what Nico Barbeito had done with the slaves he had hidden in his dungeon; that's what he'd done to the police officers that raided the place trying to rescue Flack and Angell… he stopped himself short there. The memories were too personal, too painful, too raw to bear; but he kept doing it over and over again, unable to forget finding Angell virtually gutted from her breast bone to her pubic bone, thinking she was dead as well; finding a naked rambling Flack bleeding from tens of hundreds minute cuts, going out of his mind trying to keep Angell alive…
Gasping, Flack came back from the dark shadows of his subconscious. He had managed to avoid the house of horrors that Nico's place had been, but he had remained prisoner of the Oyster's Cult web of depravity. His heart beat ringing on his ears; he realized he finally remembered the exact moment when things had gotten a turn for the worse, a rampant race into madness: the dancing, the laughter (fake and real), bodies touching and sweating and arousing forbidden sensations in both detectives; both detectives feeling overwhelmed and daunted by their surroundings and how fast they'd allowed themselves to be pulled in, neither one of them hypocrite enough to deny that at one level, at one tiny level, they had enjoy the trip to the dark side.
One moment Angell was dancing with Brian, the next, she was in the arms of a man she had not expected to see; a man that did not seem willing to let go off her, either.
"Fancy meeting you here Jezebel. And with darling Donnie, too!"
Nico Barbeito.
All hell had broken loose.
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A/N: I'd like to apologize both for the waiting time and for the change of pace. I simply couldn't bring myself to narrate the events in a linear fashion in such way it'd do the story justice and yet not go overboard with the details and the violence. So flashbacks it is; I rather go Hitchcock's discreet approach than Roth's blatant gore. Please tell me if it worked…