Chapter 15

"How is she?" asked Fin when he stopped by on a coffee break. He sat down next to Elliot and tried hard not to look at how bad Liv was getting with each passing day. It made him sick to think of what she had to go through to be in this condition.

"I think she's getting a bit better. She's got a bit of her old color back and her fever's gone down, so that's good news," he said. Unlike Fin, he couldn't keep his eyes off of her, taking in what his broken promise had caused.

After a moment's silence, Fin asked, "how long do you think it'll take this time before she wakes up?"

"What do you mean?" Elliot asked, his forehead wrinkled in slight confusion.

"Her depression," he said, absentmindedly playing with his badge.

"I didn't think anyone knew about that." It was true. Until now, he thought it was only he and Cragen that knew just how unstable she could really be.

"We all saw it after her mom died. She tried to hide it, but you could tell. You also want to watch how much she drinks. When she's depressed and drunk, she can get, well...you just need to watch her. She told me what happened when she was little, and if I hadn't seen it when her mom died, I wouldn't have believed something like that could happen to someone like her," said Fin.

Elliot was quiet for a while, thinking of what exactly would happen to her, if she recovered from this ordeal. How low would she sink this time? Can they pull her back this time, before something happens?

"I didn't think about that until now. We all just need to keep an eye on her for a while. Even when she says she's ok, we all know it's a bold-faced lie, and that it could cost her life." He looked at her still body, unwilling to believe she would do something that would ultimately cost her everything in the end. She was a damn good liar, but they could see through it.

One of the things that Liv Benson feared most was drowning. It wasn't very surprising when, as a small child, you were thrown into a twelve foot deep pool and expected to make it out in one piece. She didn't like being wet. She knew it was a standard torture method to use when interrogating a prisoner, but now that she was on the other end, she was in full panic mode. She couldn't fight back, even if her hands weren't restrained. Plus, her ability to put up a struggle was fading fast, only because she was hanging onto life by a thread.

She could taste the bleach from the brown-green water. From the outside, it looked like water from a very dirty slimy fish tank, and it tasted like it looked. She shook her head in a futile attempt to get her interrogator to let go, but it didn't work. She didn't care if they killed her or not, nor did she care if they hit her harder, so she might actually have the chance not to wake up, but drowning was one way she refused to end it. They could burn her for all she cared, but to drown took too little effort.

She could feel her hair part company with her scalp as she was pulled up again just long enough for her to take a huge breath before being forced back down again. Her lungs burned from lack of oxygen than she couldn't get. The man holding her down elbowed her in the ribs, making her cry out, but there was no noise, just water that filled her lungs making the panic that burned within her turn to icy numbness.

The man holding her by the hair must have felt her go limp, because he picked her up and threw her to the ground. He wasn't supposed to kill her, just rough her up a bit, make her weaker, but he had strict orders not to kill her, not yet anyway. Judging by the drawn out silence, he had done just that. Thinking on his feet, he kicked her hard in the chest with a chilling crack. Moments later, Liv was coughing up water and blood.

"Do you really want to keep this going, Benson?" asked the man standing over her. "You're weak, and if you keep it up, you'll die within a week. Just give us what we want, and you can get the medical help you clearly need."

"Do you...h-honestly think I-I'm that weak?" asked Liv, still coughing up watery blood. Her eyes burned the way they always did, but they were like embers from a fire, fading fast.

"No, but I know you fear for your life. What do you think we'll do if don't tell us what we want to know? We'd go after your squad, that's what we'd do We d hunt them down and do to them what we've done to you."

"If you're foolish enough to do that, good luck. My squad would never let a lot like you to catch them," said Liv as she tried to sit up, knocking the wind out of her.

"Oh, it can t be that hard. I look forward to that moment. Hearing the screams of your squad while we press burning piano wires to their skin. How much fun that would be," he paused, watching for a sign that Liv was getting angry. "Or that partner of yours. How much fun would it be to cut him apart piece by piece to see what makes him tick."

Now getting visibly worked up, Liv slid up the wall slowly to a standing position, her temper rising.

"Your partner would be a great subject to cut apart and see what makes him tick. Cut him up piece by piece, and take out his beating heart."

"YOU SICK TWISTED MOTHER FUCKING BASTARD!" Liv yelled. For someone in as bad of shape as she was, she could still raise her voice to near thunderous levels. She knew she could just shut up and take it like she had in the past, but she couldn't.

She couldn't pretend not to care when her squad, her friends, hell, the men she considered family were threatened. As the man taunting her grew closer, he head butted her, only to earn a kick in the stomach that made her fall backward and hit her head on the stone floor. Her vision faded once more, and her world went black.

Months later, now safe and warm in a hospital, her world came floating back to her.