Little Girl Lost

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.

Chapter 7: Who Can Save Me?

It took what felt like an eternity for her to realize through a haze of pain and fear that something had happened to the man. He lay unmoving on the floor, apparently unaffected by the music blasting from the speakers with enough force to rattle the floorboards.

She backed away slowly, never taking her eyes off of him, waiting in dread for the moment where he would spring from the floor and hurt her again. But that moment never came. Two steps back became five, five became ten, and still the man remained motionless.

Terrified eyes darted around the room. The apartment had only one door, and that was locked with key lock, the keys to which were in his safe. She knew from the elevator that the apartment was on the tenth floor, much too high off the ground for her to be able to jump from a window.

But as she stared longingly through the windows, she caught sight of something besides tall buildings and the sky beyond just past one of them. A metal structure so close that it could only have been attached to the building. Her heart leaped into her throat as she crept over to the window in question, finally daring to look completely away from the man as she turned towards the glass, hoping against all hope that she would see what she thought was there.

Her hope was confirmed. A fire escape. She grabbed hold of the window and pulled to raise the frame. It didn't budge. She tried again, harder, but still no effect. In the next moment, she realized that the window was sealed with a keyed lock. And the key would be on the same ring as the door key.

Despair flooded her as she sank to the floor. She was inches from freedom, but she was trapped as solidly as if she was back in the concrete room. She leaned her head back against the window as tears filled her eyes.

Then, perhaps because of that action, a memory surfaced of a motherly woman standing over her, chiding her gently for leaning her head back against a window. "You could lean harder than you think and the glass could break. And that would hurt a lot, wouldn't it?"

Not concrete. Glass. Glass breaks. And with that thought, hope flickered in her once more.

The man had made a mess of his apartment before collapsing, and personal items were scattered all over the floor. She desperately scanned the ones near her until her eyes lighted on an iron bookend just a few yards away. She slid herself across the floor until she was able to wrap her fingers around it and pull it to her.

With a surge of courage and strength she hadn't known she still had in her, she swung the heavy object at the window. Even over the music, she could hear the crashing sound of the glass shattering on impact. She threw a terrified look back at the man, but thankfully, he didn't even stir. She swung the bookend again, this time right into the open hole, widening it enough that she thought she could fit through. She didn't dare risk trying to widen it further. Every swing was another chance for him to hear her.

The broken glass from the window had torn a gash in the screen, and she reached in without hesitation, pulling the wire mesh apart with her bare hands, desperate to destroy this last barrier between herself and freedom. She ripped and pulled until that, too, had a large enough hole to be used as a means of escape.

The metal of the fire escape was so cold that it was almost painful to touch, but that didn't even slow her down as she crawled out onto it. She was no stranger to pain, and she would take any amount of it without hesitation rather than spend one more second in that apartment.

She pulled herself to her feet and bolted down the fire escape, taking all nine flights of stairs without so much as stopping to catch her breath and then simply jumping on the ladder for the final floor, clinging to it as it descended towards the pavement under the force of her weight. As soon as it stopped moving, she jumped off and ran, aimlessly, into the quickly darkening streets of New York City.

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Mike Logan ran a hand through his hair as he stopped before crossing the street. He hadn't had that much to drink at his favorite bar, but the combination of the alcohol and the sudden transition from the warm interior to the cold March night air was making him feel a little fuzzy.

Then something on the other side of the intersection caught his attention. He rubbed his eyes once to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but no. As improbable as this was, it was real.

A young girl was on the sidewalk, walking towards the opposite corner from where Mike was standing. She was moving in an unsteady way, as though she was trying to run but simply not able to sustain that pace for more than a couple of steps at a time. Despite the frigid weather, she was dressed in something that was so flimsy it resembled a woman's summer sleepwear more than regular clothing. No one else seemed to even notice her existence.

His old partner Lennie Briscoe would have pointed out that in New York City, people had stopped noticing things that were strange or out of place a long time ago, and usually Mike would have accepted that with maybe a roll of his eyes for the inconvenience it caused him. But not when a child was in trouble. If there was one thing in life he hated almost as much as a person who would hurt a child, it was a person who turned a blind eye to a child's suffering.

He bolted across the street without another thought, heedless of traffic and ignoring the cacophony of annoyed car horns that followed him, and stepped in front of the girl. "Hey, there, kid. Are you okay?"

She stopped short, looking up at him, and the look in her dark eyes cut him right to the soul. I know that fear. I know how that feels. "It's all right, darling," he soothed, softening his voice. "I just want to help."

She stood still, staring at him. He kept the gentle expression on his face, even as he internally fought the urge to be sick. This close, he could see the shape the little girl was in. She had no shoes, and her feet had left bloody prints down the sidewalk. Her hands were covered in a series of small cuts. Bruises were beginning to form on her upper arms. But what really turned his stomach were the streaks of blood on the insides of her legs. It hit him suddenly what else the tiny, sleeveless dress she was wearing could be. God, no, no, she's just a little kid.

Plunging his hands into his coat pockets, he quickly pulled out everything that was inside them, stuffing it all into his pants pockets instead before slipping out of the coat altogether and laying it over the girl's shoulders. As he did, his fingers accidentally brushed against her face and she flinched away, deepening his suspicions about what had happened to her. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said softly. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

She shivered, pulling the coat tightly around her, but still said nothing. She hasn't tried to run yet, I guess that's something. "Listen, darling, I'm just going to call someone to help you, okay?"

"Okay," she whispered after a prolonged silence.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and hurriedly dialed. A crisp voice came through the line. "911, what is your emergency?"

"There's a little girl in trouble. You need to send someone right away."

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Containment nightmare were the first words that went through Olivia's head when she saw the street corner. Already the uniformed officers were working to create a perimeter and back the gawking civilians away from the scene, but more and more people were coming through the busy intersection and then stopping and moving closer, insatiably curious as to the cause of the flashing police lights.

Olivia quickly turned to her husband. "I'll call you when I know if I'm going to be home tonight, okay?"

"Okay." He leaned forward to kiss her. "Just don't let them work you too hard."

"Aye, aye, sir," she teased, a last lighthearted moment before she had to turn her mind to the dark world she faced every day in her work.

She pulled her badge from her purse and the crowd parted to let her through. Her partner was already inside, talking to another uniformed officer and an EMT, and he waved her over. "Martin here was just telling me that he had us called because he thinks her injuries were deliberately caused."

The EMT nodded. "I can tell you her what happened was no accident, what I saw just isn't consistent. That and the extreme fear we've witnessed - that tells me someone did something to her. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am."

"Good call," Olivia acknowledged. "I'd rather have a false alarm than not be called in where we're needed."

"Liv!" Nick called suddenly from where he was standing beside the stretcher. "You need to come see this!"

She hurried over to him, her date-night heels clicking against the pavement. "What is -"

But before she could finish the sentence, she saw exactly what had prompted the younger detective to call her over. "My God. Isn't that -"

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Can we confirm?"

"I think I still have the picture on my phone." She scrolled quickly through her history until she found it, calling it up and showing it to Nick. "Yes, that's Andrea Marquez all right."

Nick glanced from the photo back to the little girl lying on the stretcher. "What the hell happened to her?"

Olivia just shook her head sadly. "I wish I knew. I'd better call Mu -" she abruptly cut off the automatic response, remembering all at once that the unit Lieutenant was temporarily out of reach resolving an old case of his. Damn timing, she grumbled internally.

Then her partner gently squeezed her arm. "You've got this, Liv, I know you do."

She took a slow breath, able to center herself with his support grounding her. "Okay, Nick, you ride with her. I'll call Fin and Rollins to meet me at the squad room and then I'll call the foster father and bring him down to the hospital. Call me if anything changes."

"Got it," he replied with a small smile playing on his lips. "See, I told you you had this."

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Zach just barely refrained from groaning out loud when his cell phone rang. He looked at the display long enough to see that it was an unfamiliar number before putting the phone to his ear. "Nichols."

"Detective Nichols, it's Sergeant Benson from SVU."

Instantly, he was alert. "Sergeant. What is it? Is there news?"

"Yes." A momentary pause. "Detective, we found her."

He came to a dead halt in the lobby of One Police Plaza, not even noticing the dirty looks from the people behind who almost crashed into him. "By found, you...you mean -"

"Oh, no, no." She had clearly picked up on the horrified tone in his voice. "She's on her way to Mount Sinai. She's going to be okay."

The moment after he heard the words felt like breathing for the first time after holding his breath for eleven weeks. "Thank you," he whispered in between gasps of air. "Thank you, thank you."

After a moment, he realized she was speaking again. He forced himself to focus through the rush of relief. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I asked you where you are," she replied patiently. "I can pick you up and bring you to the hospital."

"I'd appreciate that," he said softly. "I'm still at One Police Plaza. I'll wait out front."

He ended the call and walked out the front doors. The air was freezing but he didn't even feel it. All he could think was that after the torturous waiting, he was finally going to get what he wanted most. I'm going to see my baby again.

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The silence in the SUV was almost stifling, but Olivia wouldn't break it for anything. She knew that her passenger needed time to process everything he was feeling.

He had been able to tell as soon as he got into the front seat that Olivia was keeping something from him, even as he knew she hadn't outright lied to him, and he had been quick to push her on what it was. She had also known that not telling would only be delaying the inevitable, and by less than half an hour at that. But still, it had been heartbreaking to have to tell him about her injuries and their suspicions that the little girl had been sexually abused. He'd fallen completely silent after that, sitting with his head in his hands through the entire drive, and when she'd looked over to check on him she'd seen that his fingers were damp from his tears.

She only spoke once the car was parked in the hospital lot. "Are you ready?"

He nodded, wiping his face with his hand before he lowered it. "I need to see her."

She opened the door, stepping out onto the pavement. "Come on."

In the days and weeks to come, Zach wouldn't remember the walk from the car to the front door and through the hospital. His next clear memory was of the moment when she laid a gentle hand on his back, and her soft words "go ahead".

He pushed the door open, stepping over the threshold, and for a moment he simply allowed himself to take in the sight just beyond: Andrea, lying on the hospital bed, injured and disheveled but unmistakably alive and in front of him. In the next moment, as she turned her head to see who had opened the door, he bolted across the room to her side.

Her lips moved soundlessly a few times, and then finally a single word escaped her, barely a whisper and sounding as weak as she looked. "Zach?"

"Yes, sweetheart. It's me, I'm here now."

He reached a hand out towards her, wanting desperately to just take her in his arms but knowing that if she'd been hurt the way Sergeant Benson had suggested, that might be more frightening than comforting now. She reached back slowly, placing one little, bandaged hand in his much larger one. He knew that squeezing her hand would hurt her, so instead he gently ran the fingers on his other hand over the back of it. "You're safe now, baby girl. You're going to be okay."

"Detective Nichols," a doctor said from the doorway, "a word?"

He carefully set her hand back down on the bed. "I'll be right over here, Andrea. I promise." He reluctantly stood and walked across the small room. "Yes, what is it?"

"We still need to do a full examination on her," the doctor said, deliberately pitching her voice so it wouldn't carry, "and we'll need to clean out and re-dress the injuries on her hands and feet. It's not likely to be a pleasant process physically or emotionally, so I think it would be best if we sedated her for the process."

"Of course," he said immediately, matching the doctor's tone so Andrea wouldn't hear. "She shouldn't have to endure any more pain."

"We'll need a few consent forms signed."

"Fine. Just bring them in here." He looked back towards Andrea. "I'm not leaving her as long as she's awake."

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"I'll be right beside you when you wake up."

Andrea nodded once, barely even flinching as the needle was slid into her arm. A few moments later, her eyes closed and she was out.

"That's it, baby," he whispered. "You just rest now." Then he very reluctantly stepped out of the procedure room.

Detective Amaro was standing just outside, his face drawn in an expression Zach recognized that he'd worn himself during some of his more difficult cases. "Detective," he said softly, "I hate to ask this, but could you stay with her for just a few minutes? I need to make a few calls."

He looked over the taller man skeptically. "To who?"

Zach was surprised by the question but answered anyway. "My partner, my mom, Megan Wheeler - she was the one who initially called in the report on the abduction. Why?"

Now Amaro couldn't help smiling. Even though he'd been taken aback by the question, he had answered before asking for clarification. "We still don't know that many details about what happened to Andrea. Until we have a better handle on the who and what of the situation, Sergeant Benson wants to be vigilant about giving out this information."

"I understand," he replied, silently vowing that he would stay by Andrea's side nonstop if necessary until her attackers were caught before he'd let anything else happen to her. "But all three of them are people I trust absolutely, with my life and, yes, Andrea's too."

"You can go ahead and call Detective Stevens and Megan Wheeler," he said after a moment. "We checked them both out as part of the investigation, and besides," he admitted, "I know Megan from her time in undercover, and I agree with you about her being able to be trusted. While you do that, I'll have my colleagues run a quick check on your mother. Assuming everything comes back okay, I'll give you the green light to call her too. But," he added, "I need you to stress to all of them that they can't repeat the information to anyone until they hear otherwise."

"Understood." He stepped out into the hallway and pressed a familiar speed dial.

A voice answered on the third ring. "Hello? Zach?"

"Serena," he said, willing his voice to remain calm and even, "there's something I need to tell you."

And Andrea is safe. I never intended for this to end any other way. Smart little girl, though, isn't she? And she's had to learn to do things for herself. The woman she remembers is supposed to be the one other decent foster parent she had (see earlier chapters).

Logan wasn't a part of this story in the early drafts but I'd always intended to bring him into the series eventually and this seemed like a good way to work him into the arc. And those who know this character will know that he would never look past a child in trouble. We'll have a chance to really hear what he has to say about this situation in the next few chapters.

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