The feeling in her body was gone as she tried to process what was happening. It was like she was living the nightmare she'd feared was coming. Thunder tore the sky apart after another bolt of lightning made her hair stand on end.
"Nice job, Sweetheart. Good to hear you remember me." Lewis' remark came back.
Olivia's heart leapt into her throat, and she tried in vain to swallow it down before speaking again.
"This is the part where you ask me what I want." He used his words because she couldn't.
Olivia's breathing was erratic. "What do you want?" The shaking in her voice was something that she could not stop. There was no point in trying to hide it anyway.
"I need you to do your job. I have a little girl here - how old are you now?" Crackling sounded on the other end of the phone as he moved the piece of technology that he'd somehow acquired.
Olivia's heart stopped. He had a little girl? Oh god.
"Five." The voice was laced with tears.
Her fear dissolved, transforming rapidly into anger and desperation. "Lewis. This is between you and me."
His chuckle only made the flame inside her grow.
"That's why I called you." His reply was cold and concise. "You already know what I want. I want you - here."
Olivia was already standing with her keys in hand.
"Alone." Lewis added slowly. "Or this little girl gets to experience everything you did. You remember that - right?"
Even without the ability to see his face, Olivia was positive he was smiling. She could hear it. The image of the burns on her arms, the cuts, the violations she'd dealt with plagued her brain. For another minute, she could do nothing but breathe uneasily as she felt the pain of the torture again.
The fight was her own. She had to save that little girl. "Where." There was no question. She was demanding him to answer.
Another chuckle chilled her bones. It sounded like he was standing in an empty space, a large space with the way his voice echoed. "699 Columbia St., Brooklyn. The old terminal."
Olivia took a fast trip to the counter, grabbing a pad of small note papers. She wrote it down as legibly as she could with the way her hand was shaking.
Lewis was quick to remind her. "You don't tell anyone where you're going - if I hear one police siren, this little girl dies."
The whimpering Olivia heard in the background made her heart sink even farther. Her breath was gone from her lungs when she heard the click of the gun on the other end.
"Please." The tiny voice was one of complete and utter terror.
"I'm coming, Sweetie. Just hang on." Olivia was already out the door, leaving only one thing behind.
"Lewis if you hurt her, I'll put a bullet between your eyes the moment I see you." Her warning was stern, only earning another small laugh from him.
"Don't worry. We'll wait."
Nick arrived home with an uneasy feeling, one he'd felt before. But this time it was just more intense. He reasoned with himself.
Maybe it's the weather.
He watched out his window to where the storm hit its peak. Lightning streaked across the sky brighter than any city light could ever hope to be. He took a deep breath as he listened in the empty air of the quiet house.
Zara was in D.C. and would remain there until Lewis was back in custody. Both he and Olivia and reasoned that Lewis could quite possibly go after family and friends close to everyone on the squad.
It was just hard to believe that The Beast hadn't surfaced yet.
Cragen sat up in the bed of their room. The large ship beneath them didn't even seem to move as the cruise headed across the ocean for Spain. There had never been a time where he'd felt more helpless. As he listened to Eileen's steady breathing next to him, he replayed too many images in his head.
Munch had actually been the one to call him, Cragen, his former captain. Cragen sat up when he should be sleeping, thinking, hoping, praying. He didn't want to get the next phone call that Olivia was gone. Or worse, not get a phone call at all.
Olivia wasn't phased by the rain pelting the car windshield as she took off from the parking garage beneath the building. The storm's fury was audible even from within the vehicle as the streets thinned of pedestrians and other cars. Even with hardly anyone on the road to get in her way, Olivia gripped the steering wheel until her fingers were white and numb. Her teeth bit into her lip unconsciously as the upcoming confrontation began to manifest in her mind.
The old grain terminal - she knew where it was. She knew that piles of concrete, an unsteady floor, and a chipping roof warned of danger in the building. What scared her the most was the isolation of the place. It was such a huge building, but no one entered or exited any premises near it. The clock's numbers faded from 9:54 to 10:30 in what felt like a blink of an eye.
When she rounded the corner of the canal road, the towering structure came into sight. It was dark, its exterior only illuminated by the lights of the buildings across the canal. The enormity of it gave her chills. What a fitting place. The last time, Lewis had kept her in an expensive beach home. The old grain terminal on the water of the canal was much more fitting to his character, his motivations.
With her hands still shaking on the wheel, Olivia took the final turn into a lot a little ways from the building. With her headlights off, she hoped Lewis didn't already know where she was. Piles of concrete and dirt presented obstacles that would keep her vehicle from being seen. Olivia, already thinking ahead, stopped in a junk lot, filled with rusted cars and old machinery.
A long ways from a dark opening into the building, utter fear sunk into her again. Her team was already too far behind. They had no idea. She was going to go in, she realized, to finish what he'd started. A shaky breath caught apprehensively in her throat. There was no plan to come back out. There was no plan but to make sure Lewis didn't live to terrorize another man, woman, or child ever again, no matter what that took from Olivia. It was time to end the battle she'd been fighting.
Olivia grabbed the flashlight she kept in her glove compartment and took yet another breath. This time, her face stoned. She was so sick of having to be afraid. That would end. The rain had slowed, the storm heading east, the worst of it gone. As she walked to the black opening, the gun in her hand hung at her side. She was ready. She was ready for the end. As long as it meant taking Lewis with her.
Amanda was lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling as the butterflies continued to flutter in her stomach. It was nothing new. For three days they'd been a permanent feeling she encountered. With the lightning throwing light through the blinds on the window, the butterflies turned to pains.
Amanda could hardly remember a time when the oppressive cloud of what Lewis had done hadn't hung over the squad. Even after he'd been sentenced, even after they'd convinced themselves that it was all over, he had cast a shadow on their lives. Each and every one of them wanted him gone.
With a grimace, Amanda turned on her side, staring directly through the slits in the blinds out onto the city. She wanted it to end. If it didn't end soon, Olivia was going to crack and fall apart.
Amanda closed her eyes. Olivia had been strong for too long. It amazed Amanda, along with everyone else, how long it had been that she'd had to deal with everything at once and kept herself upright. Even one of them, moving to the highest position in the precinct, recovering from the trauma she'd experienced, and being thrown into a different life, could have knocked her down. And after almost an entire year of it, Olivia was still unable to be knocked down.
Amanda opened her sore eyes. There would be no sleeping for her again.
Olivia put her first foot into the threshold of the doorway as she shined the light into the abyss of darkness within. Even as she tried to keep her breathing steady, her heart pumped at a rate that made her head spin. The spray paint on the ceilings and walls closed in on her. It felt like a horror movie as she looked to her left, and then to her right. Nothing but blackness awaited her.
"Lewis." Her voice was steady, steady and loud. She wanted him to know she was coming, afraid of what he might do to his hostage if she surprised him.
The staircase in the depths of the first floor to her right caught her attention. Her feet were moving before her body could process what she was looking at. The boots she wore made hardly a sound in the echo chamber. Her jeans clung to her as the rain sank deep into the fibers. She was at least thankful to be out of the downpour.
The rumbles of the thunder outside filled the place with an eerie vibration. It created a deep sound that was almost painful to the ears.
As Olivia put her foot on the first wooden step of the winding staircases that rose above her in a maze into a tower of the terminal, she said his name again. "Lewis."
It was like he would come popping out at any second. He wouldn't kill her; she was sure of that. He would finish the job on her if he had to. And if Olivia couldn't get the little girl to get out in time, she was very aware that meant she would have to let him do what he wanted. She wouldn't let a child fall a causality of the fight between them.
A tear almost made its way out of her eye as she continued to climb up the unsteady, rotting wood. Everything she had, her job, her freedom, her life - it was all coming to an end. He'd always known how Olivia felt about children, and just like everything else he'd done, he used it against her.
The stairs did not creak, but silently took her weight. They widened as her ascent into the upper floors of the grain terminal made her even more anxious. On the landing, the second floor, far above the first, she stepped into the concrete floor of the area she encountered.
Her dim light seemed to be more ineffective in the blackness of the room. The large, concrete-walled area had obvious rooms built in. Her fingers squeezed the cool metal of the gun harder as she scanned the new floor.
The light stopped, almost falling from her hand as the beam found a figure standing. It scared her so intensely that she physically jumped, her shoulders lurching. It was him. He stood with a gun to a little girl's head. She was so young. There was nothing she could do but fight off the flashbacks her PTSD threatened to bring back.
"Nice of you to join us, Olivia." Lewis was already smiling a little. "Say hi." He leaned down to the frightened girl who cried quietly.
Olivia felt her heart break and explode in anger at the same time.
"Hi Olivia." The broken voice of the girl sent a spear into Olivia. Her feet began to move again, closing the distance between herself and Lewis.
"This is between you and me." She said through gritted teeth. Even so, her fear showed.
The scar on his face became visible as she stood mere yards from him. "I didn't want to bring her into this either. But you did that." He replied, stroking the child's hair with the barrel of the gun.
"If you want her to live, you're going to give me your gun." The click of the gun made Olivia jump again.
This is it. I have no choice.
The pleading look in her young eyes made Olivia sure of what she had to do. Slowly, she made her way to him. She looked him in the face as she handed him her gun.
"Turn around."
Olivia swallowed hard as she did so. The cold metal of the handcuffs made her skin crawl all over again. His hands brushed hers as he restrained her. Then the whisper in her ear confirmed the worst of her fears.
"We've got some time to ourselves." He paused to give the side of her head an agonizingly long kiss. "And we have an audience."