Author's Comments: Poor Liv.

Chapter Six

The only sound in the room, a ticking clock, was drowned out periodically by the crack of the whip, and the near-silence in between nearly drove Olivia insane. Whoosh-crack! . . . tick tick tick . . . whoosh-crack! . . . tick tick tick . . .whoosh-crack!

Every time the leather sliced into her skin, her body twitched involuntarily, the excruciating sting digging into her already-wounded flesh. She kept her eyes clenched shut, trying to inhale deep breaths in between every strike, but as soon as the whip pounded her painful back, her breath came out in short heavy bursts, like she was giving birth. A tear began to trickle out of the corner of her eye, followed by another, and the salty stream cut a trail down her wincing cheeks.

She didn't know which hurt worse—the times when the whip landed on gashes already forged into her skin, or when the torture implement found new, untouched flesh to scar. After ten, eleven, twelve strokes of the whip across her back, there was a pause, and she dared to open her eyes.

Tick tick tick . . . the clock continued uninterrupted, and now Tucker came into her line of vision from the side. He had removed his shirt, and sweat coated his shiny chest. He still had his pants on, and she cringed when she noticed an enormous hard-on protruding against the front of them.

She tried to slow her breathing again, but the pain in her back kept her heart pounding so hard that her lungs fought to keep up. Tucker approached her slowly, stroking her sides gently with the whip, admiring her naked body. "Mmmmm," he moaned, moving in closer to clutch one of her breasts in his free hand. "This really gets me going. I tried to tell you before. . ."

He suckled her neck with his mouth, and she rolled her head up and away from him, hoping the move wouldn't anger him too much. But he didn't seem riled up—he raised his lips to her ear and said, "I want to see you writhe in pain some more. But I don't want to finish too fast . . . I'll try to use restraint."

Now he pulled her tightly into him by pressing against the gashes on her back with his hand, and she let out an involuntary groan. "Oh, I think it's too late," he said, his moan joining hers, his erection pressing against her thigh until a wet spot touched her skin and he began to soften.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut, disgusted by his sexual arousal at her pain. But she couldn't shut her ears to his voice, and he whispered, "It's not over though. I'm going to smoke a cigarette, and we'll start up again soon."

Elliot cursed Liv for running away from him like that, and for giving him the slip by jumping into a cab. If he could have found another cab to follow her, he would have, but as it stood, he found himself forced to retreat into the bar to evaluate his next steps.

He wanted to track her down and restrain her, shout at her until she would listen to reason, but she was a grown woman who had gotten by on her own all these years without him. So instead, he ordered another beer. His fingers dialed her number fifteen times before he gave up. And then he started calling other people, because grown woman or not, she was blind to the danger she faced.

Why did everybody seem so busy today? He finally got through to Fin. "Hey, what's up, El, sorry I missed you at the station the other day."

"Hey, no problem, Bro. But I could really use your help right now."

"Yeah? What are you looking for?"

"Tucker's home address."

"So why you askin' me for? Dude's a loner—he don't hang with anybody I know."

Apparently, Fin didn't know what Tucker and Liv had going on. "I don't have time to explain. But you know how secretive One PP is about personal information. It would take me time to get a warrant, and—"

"Warrant? What do you mean—you want to go after the guy? In his home?"

Elliot paused, torn between wanting to explain the whole thing to Fin and wanting to get to Olivia as quick as possible. "Let's just say, Liv's safety may depend on it."

Fin hesitated, and then said, "Let me do a little asking. I'll get it for you. But only if I can ride along."

"You got it. Just hurry."

Exhausted, Olivia pushed up on her toes every few seconds, hoping to relieve the pressure on her arms. At one point, she tried to sway back and forth so she could swing her legs up until her feet rested on the bed—then maybe she could get herself off the hook. But her energy just wasn't there—she was barely able to move her body more than a few inches.

Tucker's footsteps padded behind her, and she flinched when he ran the handle of the whip over her torn-up back. He trailed the end of it down her buttocks and said, "I haven't even hardly touched this. Virgin territory."

She clenched her body, knowing it wouldn't stop the pain, and then jumped when leather crackled against her underwear, ripping at it to reach the bare flesh underneath. And again the whip cracked, and then again, and it didn't matter how many times it fell against her helpless body, she still dreaded the next lashing.

He stopped for a moment and nestled up against her, saying, "If I take the gag out, promise not to scream? You'll pay if you do."

She nodded, her eyes tight shut against emerging tears. The gag came out. "You sick fucking bastard," she sputtered, glaring at him. "How on earth do you think you're going to get away with this?"

His breath fell hot against her neck. "The same way I did the other eight times."

'Eight times,' she thought. The man had kept secrets better than she ever could have imagined. It just went to prove—everybody had something to hide. She croaked, "Yeah, but I'm betting those were prostitutes,"

"Not all of them. Remember how that female ADA went missing last year?"

'Oh my God,' she thought, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Instead, she said, "Elliot knows where I was headed."

His breath quickened, smattering onto her cheek in spurts. "Thanks for warning me. I'll take care of him too, if he gives me any shit."

He shoved the ball gag into her mouth, and then got back to business. His strokes growing more intense now, she thought she could feel the skin peeling away as he struck the same areas again and again. Every time he thrashed her now, she let out a little whimper, hoping he wouldn't hear over the crack of the whip, because she didn't want to satisfy his sadistic urges in any way. She counted at first, and lost count at twenty-five, and then her body gave up and went limp, no longer fighting the pain anymore by writhing or flinching the way it had initially. Then, she just hung in place like a piece of meat, waiting for the agony to end.