The precinct was ensued in chaos when Olivia walked into work the following Monday morning. There was not a single person at a desk, as everyone was running around collecting info from one and other and the squad room was filled with voices and the sound of phones ringing.
Nick was the first person to approach the baffled sergeant who had paused to watch the madness. "Did you get my calls?"
Olivia came back to reality when she heard Nick's voice directed at her. "Calls?"
"I called you three times already this morning." Nick told her.
Olivia pulled out her phone and sighed when she saw the three missed calls from Nick, as well as ones from Fin and Amanda. "I'm sorry. It was a rough morning and didn't check my phone before I left."
And it had been a hard morning. Even though she was already sixteen weeks along, Olivia still had not gotten passed the morning sickness and it come at her full force that morning. She didn't get sick, but she was so dizzy and nauseas she could barely get herself out of bed and getting ready had taken her much longer than it normally does. And this time she didn't have any support from Brian, it was just her by herself.
Nick looked at her, somewhat confused by her answer. "Everything okay?"
Olivia pulled her jacket slightly, covering her stomach. She knew he deserved an actual answer, but she wasn't in a place to tell him right there.
No one knew about her pregnancy, she couldn't bring herself to reveal it. She knew that it would mean a change in command for the squad and other complications. Liv just didn't want to put that on the team or herself. There had been so many changes with Cragen and Munch leaving as it was, she just was not ready for another one yet.
She tugged at her jacket again, knowing that soon enough there would be no way to hide her secret, before she answered him. "I'm fine. It doesn't matter." She gestured to the hectic and loud room. "What's going on that this place looks like this?"
"We don't have all the details of the case yet, but I think we should go into your office to discuss it." Nick's tone had changed. He now sounded worried, like the case was something hard to handle and he wasn't sure about it.
"Okay." Olivia headed towards her office. If it was urgent why was Nick wasting time making sure there was more privacy before he briefed her?
Nick followed behind her and gestured to both Fin and Amanda to follow him. They all needed to be there when they filled their sergeant in. They were the ones who understood the best and Olivia would need more support than she would be willing to admit. The two other detectives were quick to get from their desks and through the crowd into Olivia's office, Fin closed the door behind him as he was the last to enter after Nick and Amanda.
Olivia flopped her bag on the desk and turned to look at her team. "What's going on that you all feel the need to be in here when you tell me?"
"The case came in this morning. Two girls brought in by a man who said he found them on the sidewalk. They were dirty and disoriented, but they claimed they had been taken and held since last Thursday." Fin started, giving a very brief description of the crime.
Olivia looked from all three of them, her face contorted in such a way that seemed to scream confusion. "That's what you needed to tell me? And you couldn't do that in the squad room?"
"There's more to it than just that." Amanda said.
"Alright, seriously?" Olivia scoffed. "There is total chaos out there. I've never seen so many people or heard so many phone calls being made; this has to be more than an abduction. The girls aren't even still missing, so I need one of you to tell me why you're tiptoeing around this."
Nick sighed. "Both girls were taken to the hospital, where Amanda and I went to go talk to them. We also talked to the doctor, who was a little disturbed by what she found in the exam."
"Both girls were raped." Amanda explained, giving reason as to why the case was given to SVU in the first place. "They both still had a large amount of alcohol in their bodies…" She paused. "And they were covered in burn marks and had been branded. The doctor said she thought they were from cigarettes and metal hangers."
Olivia felt a shiver shoot through her whole body. Her eyes widened and her body stood absolutely still, her thoughts taken over by something else.
"Does that hurt? I'm sure it does." The man's ravenous eyes met hers and he snickered at the terrified look on her face.
The lit cigarette pressed against the skin of her chest, it burned and smoked as it melted into her. The room was filled with the smell of burnt flesh, this being the fourth cigarette he had lit into her, along with a slim metal hanger that had left a mark across her entire abdomen.
Olivia simply whimpered as her attacker continued his torture. The cigarette had gone out and it was no longer causing the pain he wished it to, so he pulled out yet another and lit it. He took a puff and blew the smoke into her face, making her cough.
His laughter filled the room as his antics were affecting her more and more. "Didn't like that much did you? Maybe you'll like this better."
He quickly clenched her face in hands, holding it so tightly in his grip that Olivia was sure he could break her jaw if he wanted. The pain was made worse as the cigarette he had just lit was shoved into her neck.
Olivia let out a cry of pain caused from both his hold and the hot, burning stick pressed against her skin.
"Oh see, you do like this better. I think I do to." He erupted again into laughter. A sound Olivia would never forget. The sound of William Lewis laughing was forever embedded into her mind.
"Olivia. Liv." Nick tapped her gently on the shoulder, making her jump.
"Lewis." Olivia said, finally looking at the others in the room. "It's his M.O."
"We thought that too." Amanda told her.
Olivia sat down in her desk chair. "How is that possible though?" She knew there was no way it was Lewis himself. She had watched him shoot himself in the head after a game of Russian roulette. The abandoned building had held only Olivia and Amelia, the little girl Lewis had taken, as well as Lewis himself, and when it came to his end the whole building seem to fill with the sound of a gunshot. Just the thought of that moment made her touch her face the feeling of being covered in his blood coming back to her.
"That's what we were worried about." Nick spoke. "The girls were able to tell us a first name of the man who had taken them. And we think we were able to figure out who did this."
"So why haven't you picked him up?" Olivia questioned her voice still a little shaky, the residual effect of her horrible flashback.
"We had just gotten a name and were looking at his record, when you walked in. We thought we should fill you in before someone else told you." Fin told her. He, just like Amanda and Nick, knew what Olivia had gone through and knew that this case would bring back things that were all too traumatic.
"So you have a current residence then?" Olivia asked them.
"That's not all we have." Nick admitted. "His name was in the system because he's been incarcerated before."
"Well that's usually how it works." Olivia said sarcastically. "What makes his prison stay any different?"
"We didn't think anything at first, but then Amanda pointed out that the details about the burns and what Lewis used to do them with were never released to the public."
"So we cross referenced the guy's prison time with Lewis'". Amanda explained.
Olivia was starting to realize what her detectives were trying to tell her. She knew herself that the specific details of her own torture and the other victims of Lewis, had not been told to anyone. Those were things that no one needed to know, it was hard enough to overcome an attack where a person was able to smell their own skin burn and watch a man violate them in so many different ways. The public didn't need to have those images in their heads, too.
"So what did you get?" Olivia questioned.
"The man, who took these girls… was William Lewis' cell mate before the trial." Nick finally told his sergeant.