A/N: Hello, all. So, here it is, three years in the making: the long fic I've been talking about for, well, the past three years. I fully intended to start posting it on Petska's anniversary, but that got bumped to Labor Day, then that got bumped to Labor Day week, and now we're here on Sep. 11, which is kinda weird.. but I've finally got some free time. I was waiting for it to feel momentous when I started posting; now I think I just need to dive right in, because no perfect moment is magically going to appear.
Anyway. It's impossible to sum up this amount of work in a single author's note, so here's a quick rundown: the grand total is 424,966 words (give or take as I edit—shout out to myself for being my own beta!). 966 words longer than the longest Game of Thrones novel, for comparison purposes. That's about 792 pages in Google Docs, and it's such a large chunk of writing, I haven't even attempted to split it all into parts and/or chapters, let alone titles and stuff, yet. I'm going to have to work as I go on that, which also means I have no idea what the posting schedule will be like, but I will try really hard to keep updates coming steadily.
I got a little crazy on the cover art and made four, so if you'd like to see those, head on over to AO3 and view them in all their glory. Idk, I think they're pretty awesome. Also, here's your fair warning—this story has trigger warnings out the wazoo. It gets dark, people. Darker than any of my other Devilishverse fics. And it's graphic. If you can't handle brutal depictions of rape/violence/torture, I'd advise you to turn back now. It's not going to be in every chapter, and I will include individual warnings as I post, so you can skip if you need to, but just know it's coming. Here's a little example of the added tags I used on AO3: sexual violence, gang rape, torture, aftermath of violence, minor character death, suicide attempt, vigilantism. Not too much fluff in this one, guys, although there's plenty of hurt/comfort, if you're into that. Oh, and there's multiple points-of-view throughout, too. Don't worry, I always come back to our girls.
Okay, I think I've said all I can say at this point, except... hold onto your butts, it's about to get wild.
P.S. It's good to know your SVU series' lore for this one. Several past characters, including ones we haven't seen or heard from on the show in a while, will be making appearances. And keep in mind that I started writing this three years ago, so characters who were on the show then will be mentioned in the early chapters, but I tried to reflect some of the changes to the cast as I went.
PART ONE: A WOMAN SCORNED
Chapter 1. Countless Hatreds
. . .
Two pictures were what kept her going. They were allowed more, up to fifteen as long as each arrived individually and was not pornographic in nature, and most women in this shithole used every inch of the twelve-by-twenty wall space allotted them for personal decoration.
Some of the lifers had weaseled more square footage from the guards, constructing wall to wall collages on the scuzzy white brick alongside their bunks, as if they were goddamn Martha Stewart. As if any of the people in those photographs, or any of the children who sent those ill-proportioned drawings and scribbled coloring book pages, actually still cared.
Her old celly hadn't received a single letter or school photo the entire time she was incarcerated, and when she made the mistake of commenting on the blonde in the newspaper clipping ("So, which one's your ho? The snow bunny or the MILF?"), it was her final query. Sondra Vaughn got an extra three years tacked onto her twelve-year sentence for that assault, but it had been worth it, to see the fat, pasty bitch's eyes bug out when the shiv entered her spare-tire abdomen, smooth as butter.
What she didn't enjoy was the mess. It might sound cliché, but she didn't like getting blood on her hands—until this place, until Sealview Women's Correctional Facility, she had almost exclusively gotten others to do her dirty work for her. Anton had called her his curly-haired jackal, a sly comparison to the scavengers that waited for larger, stronger predators to make a kill before claiming the prey for themselves. He'd meant it as a compliment, murmuring the nickname the way most men called their lovers "sweetheart" or "dearest," lips stretched into one of his rare, simpering smiles that looked too tight for his gaunt face. No doubt he had a few more choice names for her after she turned state's evidence against him eight years ago, in exchange for a reduced sentence.
It wasn't personal. Sondra had needed to ensure she'd be out of prison in time to raise their little girl, their Nessa. The baby who had been taken from her arms minutes after she was born, never getting to nurse at her mother's breast, nor be rocked to sleep with the lullabies Sondra knew by heart and sang quite well. Her first weeks in Sealview were spent cradling her pillow like an infant as she wetted it with tears and hummed "Hush, Little Baby."
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird . . .
She'd been luckier than most. When they got out, half the women in here would be battling the courts, and siphoning thousands of dollars straight into their lawyers' pockets, to regain custody of their children. Baby Vanessa had gone to Sondra's brother out in Long Island, instead of getting lost and abused in the foster system. There were regular updates on her progress, during visiting days and over the phone; Sondra had missed her daughter's first words, first steps, first day of school, but she'd spoken to the child often, written to her with even more frequency.
On Nessa's sixth birthday, Sondra snuck her contraband cell phone into a bathroom stall and feigned the stomach flu, giggling between retches as she scrolled the photos her big brother texted from the princess-themed party. Pink everything. Nessa dressed as her very favorite princess, Moana. Uncle Royce the perfect Maui with his lion's mane of dark curls that rivaled even Sondra's itself. Other than Sondra's absence, it had been the best party a mother could wish for her child.
Two weeks later, Nessa and Royce were dead. A drunk driver, Sondra's sister-in-law relayed over the direct connect phone, her sobs and tearful voice disjointed from the crying woman on the other side of the glass partition. Sondra never much liked Denise, and she hated the sniveling cow even more after listening to her whine about her dead husband and sweet baby girl.
"It should have been you," Sondra told her quietly, before hanging up the handset and walking away.
She had stabbed her cell mate later that evening and gotten transferred to D Block ("Wonder how many of 'em actually like the 'D,'" an A-blocker had once commented, apropos of nothing, when the segregated group filed by on the opposite side of the barbed wire fence), with the other inmates too dangerous for gen pop. That was where the two photos resided by her bunk. And that was where she decided that Detective Amanda Rollins needed to suffer.
The little trailer trash slut was going to burn.
Declan Murphy, the man Sondra had hired and known as O'Rourke, was just as much to blame as the Rollins bitch, but no matter how far Sondra's feelers stretched beyond the prison walls, she could not locate the Mick bastard. One day he would return from dicking around with other people's lives undercover, and when he did, she would be waiting for him.
Until then, she was content to focus all her energy and her resources—which were considerable, despite (and, in some ways, because of) her location—on the blond whore who once pointed a gun at her pregnant belly. Sondra had been good to the detective, acting as a mentor of sorts and going along with that female camaraderie bullshit, partly because Amanda had shown real promise. And how did the stringy-haired, skinny-ass bitch repay her? By threatening what Sondra held most dear. By ripping it away from her. And now Vanessa was dead; little Nessa, whose first laugh Sondra never got to hear, whose wedding she would never get to attend. Amanda might as well have pulled the trigger that day, eight years ago. She had killed Nessa all the same.
As Sondra finished giving Parker his complimentary handjob, she gazed over his hunched shoulder at the pictures on the wall: one of Nessa shortly before her death, wearing a felt cowgirl hat, red rain boots, and a tutu, and showing off her missing bottom tooth; the other a wedding announcement clipped from the newspaper, two women embracing in the grainy image above the legend Rollins-Benson.
She had the article memorized, from the names of the brides' parents (Captain Olivia Benson must have sprung immaculately from the womb like Jesus Christ himself, because no father was mentioned) to the church, Convent Avenue Baptist, where Reverend Lynn Bishop officiated.
That had struck Sondra as funny—a Baptist church named Convent, with a reverend named Bishop—but only the first few times she read it. Throw in a yarmulke, make sure you were facing Mecca, and you had yourself one helluva holy mulligan stew at the Rollins-Benson wedding.
Sondra recited the lines of the announcement silently to herself as CO Parker ejaculated in her hands. His come reminded her of bird shit, always warm and runny and distributed with total impunity. Didn't smell much better, either. She kept a towel handy for these very encounters, and she swiped her palms against it now, in full view of her jailhouse lothario. There wasn't a sensitive bone in his big, Neanderthal body, unless you counted his brain—and that was just weak, not in tune with his or anyone else's emotional state.
That was fine with Sondra. She didn't have a heart left to involve, let alone damage. They had buried her heart in the ground two years ago. "So much for being discreet," she said, corkscrewing the gunk from between her fingers with the towel, as if she were polishing the inside of a wine glass. Strange the things you missed in prison. She would have gotten on her knees for Matthew Parker just for the chance to unload a dishwasher, to sip a Chardonnay. "Warden catches you in here, you'll be out on your ass. Then we'll both be fucked."
"Nah. Warden Young loves me." Parker flashed his sleazy grin that always looked like he was chewing gum with his mouth open—something banal and flavorless, Doublemint or Dentyne—even when he wasn't. Jesus, even the way he zipped his shit-brown pants and rebuckled his belt was disgusting. "He'll turn a blind eye. It was Barron I had to watch out for. She had a great big woody for me, Old Battleaxe Barron did. I could barely get any product past that tight-ass bitch, let alone a good beat off from one of my girls. She cracked down real hard after that business with my buddy Harris. Glad she retired before you came along, sweet thing."
Sondra was glad about that too, actually. Young was the laziest, most inept warden Sondra could imagine, and all of the guards had him in their back pockets. He was almost as corrupt as they were, though not smart enough to carry out any large operations on his own. Parker didn't have the brains for that, either, but he was a good errand boy and occasional lay, when they found an empty, unlocked closet where she could pull down her DayGlo orange pants and bend over.
It had been rape the first time. Back when Sondra still cared enough to fight him. Before she realized he could be of use to her. Now she controlled him, not the other way around. He'd been dumbfounded the first time she came onto him, eager as a little boy the next. She had loved Anton Nadari in her own way, but that relationship started out much like this one—as a means to an end. Once you had a man by the dick, you could lead him anywhere, just like a dog on a leash; Matthew Parker was a very good boy.
"All the same. I'd hate to risk losing our time together. Even Young would have to put us on bad report if one of the Pollyannas caught us." Sondra made a small, fearful gesture to the wide world outside her cell door, or at least here in D block.
She wasn't too concerned about getting caught. In her time among the more dangerous sector of women housed at Sealview, she had established herself as the alpha female. Not because of her size or physical strength—she was modest on both counts—but because of the power she'd wielded on the outside. The money.
Even in prison, wealth got you preferential treatment and lots of friends. Most of them just wanted to secure a handout once her stretch was over, but that was okay: people were more loyal when they thought something was in it for them. The rest recognized that the connections which had made it possible for her to snap her fingers and visit pain, suffering, rape, and sometimes even death on those who crossed her hadn't simply vanished while she was locked up. Those women avoided her altogether.
The guards—the Dirty Johns, not the Pollyannas—liked her because those same connections fueled their drug trade inside Sealview. A few dealt on the outside too, but nothing opened a junkie inmate's legs faster than the promise of a bump of cocaine or some oxy. Man supplied woman, woman serviced man, and they all had Sondra Ann Vaughn to thank for their little barter system.
But she still played up to Parker once in a while, just to ensure he didn't lose interest. "I can't go to the hole again. I'll go crazy, especially if I don't get to see you every day, Park," she concluded, all wide brown eyes and batting eyelashes. He ate that shit up, and she had the face for it.
He studied her closely, as if debating whether or not she was being sincere. Luckily he never spent too much time thinking about anything other than sex. "Aww, you know I can't resist that face." He pouted his bottom lip, feigning sympathy, then descended for a sloppy kiss, which consisted mainly of tongue. "Okay, I'll be a regular Boy Scout from now on. A Boy Scout who only fucks you in the broom closet. And that's not a euphemism for the ass, although I'm down for that too."
As I well remember, she thought, but didn't let it show in her expression. She couldn't suppress an impatient sigh, though. He was stalling, and if he kept it up, she would get called to the mess hall without hearing the latest news he'd been dying to give her when he arrived at her open cell door with a giant smile and a giant hard-on. Quid pro quo, Parksy.
"Okay, okay." Parker put his hands up, as if warding off an attack. He thought he was so cute. "Don't shoot the messenger. I just came to tell you they had it. Week ago. I didn't find out till this morning. Turns out lesbo babies ain't the hottest buzz on the law enforcement wire."
Well, if you fucking watched them like you were supposed to, those things wouldn't slip by you. Sondra bit her lip to keep from saying it out loud. So far he'd proven himself to be a wealth of information on the Rollins-Benson duo—particularly the Benson half—and continued to keep close tabs on them, at her behest. Plus, she was too excited to bitch at him. "What did they have? Boy or girl?"
"Girl. They named her Samantha, but they're calling her Sammie." Parker rolled his eyes. It was an unflattering look on him, too much white. More seizure victim than sarcasm. "Figures they'd give their kid a guy name. Probably grow up to be a feminist lesbian bitch just like them. Waste of good pussy, if you ask me."
Sondra barely heard anything past Sammie. She was trying to picture what the infant must look like. Probably still as scrunch-faced and splotchy as a newborn, and impossibly light in her mothers' arms. Amanda was very pretty, Sondra would give her that. If the child resembled her at all, it would be a beauty. Vanessa had been one of the prettiest babies Sondra had ever seen. "Can you get me a picture?" she blurted, unable to stop herself.
"All's I did was grab her ass a little—" Yet again, Parker was in the middle of soliloquizing about Amanda's cop wife (of course all those assholes stuck together), but he cut it short to blink at her, dazedly. "You want a picture of her ass? 'Cause I could probably arrange—"
"Of the baby," she said sharply, in no mood to deal with his lame jokes or his insufferable stupidity at the moment. In her life before, she used to joke with her girlfriends that she wanted a dumb pretty-boy for meaningless, no-strings sex. Well, she'd gotten her wish. (Except Parker came with plenty of strings). "Samantha."
She liked the name. But none of that Sammie nonsense. When Royce took to calling Vanessa "Van," it had annoyed Sondra wholeheartedly. Now, she would give anything to hear it again, and to hear her brother's big, booming laugh at her sharp-tongued response: "If I wanted my child to be called after some old white guy, I would've named her Charlton Heston."
That had been the only old white guy whose name she could remember at the time. So boisterous was Royce's amusement, one of the guards had sauntered over and asked him to tone it down, as if everyone didn't already overhear everyone else's business in the cramped visiting area. "Since when do you even listen to The Doors?" she'd asked, partly to ignore the snot-nosed little Barney Fife who issued the order, partly because she wanted to keep Royce's humor going. She had loved making him laugh.
"Huh?" He stared at her in utter confusion for a moment, then burst into another raucous fit of mirth. He pretended to lock his lips with an invisible key when the guard started their way again, but he leaned forward and spoke to Sondra in a confidential voice tinged with affection and hints of a smile. "That's Jim Morrison, sis. Van Morrison is a different old white dude musician."
"Whatever, they all look the same." And more seismic, eardrum-rattling laughter.
God, she missed him.
"I dunno, Vaughn." Parker scrubbed a palm over the bristly, graying hair he would no doubt cling to far longer than was advisable. It was already the color and texture of a used Brillo pad. "Those two bitches keep a pretty tight leash on their brats. Not a good idea to go nosing around and chance them catching on. I thought you said the kids were part of phase two, anyway. What do you care what one of them looks like?"
She had said that, it was true. But perhaps she'd spoken in haste. (In all likelihood she had; their conversations were always rushed, communicated partially in code—hence, "phase two"—in case someone else was listening. Supposedly the cells weren't bugged, but Sondra had her doubts.) She didn't care about the older children. They would go to the highest bidders, and whatever happened to them after that, Sondra would likely never know. That kind of life chewed kids up and spat them out fast, though. Most didn't survive it.
But the youngest girl, Matilda . . . Sondra had an eye on her. She'd only seen a handful of blurry pictures of the little redhead, swiped through hurriedly on Parker's cell phone when she should have been working in the wood shop, but there was one clear shot of the three-year-old, fiery curls springing from her head in every direction as she frolicked on the playground. Though the coloring was the exact opposite of Vanessa, the toddler reminded Sondra so much of her daughter—especially those wild, bouncing curls—her eyes had teared.
Irrational though it might be, she wanted the child. Decided to keep her options open. The men in charge of the operation were just as likely to sell the little girl along with her siblings (pretty as she was, she would make them a mint), but if Sondra promised them a high enough price, they might follow through with the arrangements she had in mind. Matilda would have a few rough and lonely years, but Sondra would be there to make it all better once her time was served.
And now there was a baby. A baby who would only be seven years old by the time Sondra got out. Almost the same age that her Nessa would be now, had she survived the crash. At that age, kids could still adapt to their circumstances. If Baby Samantha became part of the plan, instead of being delivered over to certain death, or a life that closely resembled it, she would know no other mother besides Sondra. That was almost too tempting to pass up. But she needed to see the infant first. And they had time. Phase one didn't begin until May.
"Indulge me, Parks. You know how we girls love to fuss over babies." Sondra gave her most radiant smile. Prison life had hardened some of her finer features—sharpening her from delicate silver spoon into slender, whispering blade—but she was still beautiful. Even after one of the fish managed to pocket a pair of scissors and hack off several inches of curl during yard time a couple weeks ago. It had left her unruly ringlets flat on one side, making her look off balance somehow. She'd gotten a couple of her fellow D-blockers, Big Wanda and Derby, to teach the fish a lesson about manners and Sealview's pecking order.
Anything for you, S. The two women, who were as muscular as men, their hair slicked back in Elvis-style pompadours (God only knew what they'd used in place of hair gel), had practically bowed to her as they hustled from the cell to do her bidding. She'd had that effect on people since childhood, her friends always deferring to her to prevent awakening her immense and vindictive anger. Royce had been the only one who wasn't afraid of her, the only one who kept her in check.
Sorry, big brother, she thought into the ether. Those days are long over.
"Besides, it'll give you a chance to get up close and personal with that captain you're still hung up on. Olivia." Sondra rolled the name off her tongue like good caviar, smooth and salty-rich, a delicacy only a select few could partake in. She used to eat the stuff by the tinful, delighting Anton with her sheer, unapologetic decadence.
Parker sniffed at the suggestion, lips curling into an unpleasant sneer. "Hung up, my ass. That cunt was nothing but trouble from the minute she got here. Flaunting it all over the place, then crying rape as soon as one of us looked at her funny. My buddy Harris didn't even put it in 'er, just gave 'er a little taste, and she got him locked up with a buncha lowlife criminals. Killed him, too. He'd still be here busting heads, if not for that raving bitch."
Sondra could almost recite the spiel about "my buddy Harris" right along with Parker, she'd heard it so many times. Personally, she thought the exiled corrections officer sounded like a disgusting prick who got off on torturing women, and more power to the Benson broad for having him sent up the river. But it was better to keep those feelings to herself in front of Parker. Besides, in her line of work she couldn't afford to pass judgment on someone else's crimes—those who raped for pleasure and those who facilitated it for revenge held no great distinction. And sympathizing with the victim was the worst thing you could do.
She had no sympathy for Olivia Rollins-Benson. The captain was simply phase one. The inciting incident to Sondra's one-woman tragedy starring Detective Amanda Rollins.
"Okay, yeah." Parker nodded decisively. A malicious little twinkle brightened his ashy gray eyes to their natural reptilian green, as if his lizard brain had activated and with it the scrim of color—and Sondra knew then that she had him. Hook, line, sinker. "I'll get you that picture, Vaughny. I'll do anything you want, if it means making that bitch pay."
. . .
Three months later, when it was time to roll out phase one, Sondra had added a third image to her wall: alongside Nessa in her cowgirl hat and tutu and the lesbian wedding announcement, a picture captured by telephoto lens from several yards behind the unsuspecting nanny depicted a beautiful infant with an ink blot of hair covering her fragile head, which peeked over the nanny's shoulder. Even Nessa's hair hadn't been that dark or that plentiful at such a young age.
The golden-brown eyes were wide and alert, also unusual in one so young. She was going to be extremely intelligent, this child, who already couldn't wait to take in every sight and sound around her. She was going to take after Sondra, always the most advanced student in class, always the most observant (the slyest, some would say). Sondra fancied that there was even a resemblance between herself and the baby—her baby. The birth mothers must have opted for the ethnically diverse sperm.
"Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird," she whisper-sang to the photograph, trailing her fingertip along the infant's pudgy cheek and smiling to herself. Seven years wasn't that long of a wait. It would go by in a blink, with her daughter out there waiting. Needing her.
But now? Now it was time to teach Rollins a lesson. Sondra pointed a finger gun at the blond woman's smiling face and pulled the trigger. Instantly reloading, she aimed for the dark-haired wife and blew her brains out too. "Nothing personal," she told the taller woman, giving a regretful shrug. The police captain should have chosen a different spouse, that was all. Tragic, really.
"Personal to me." Parker stood in the open doorway of Sondra's cell, arms crossed over his chest in a laughably masculine pose. Probably thought he was sneaky, just showing up like that, but she had heard the ring of keys on his duty belt jingling all the way down the corridor outside D block. (Shit for Brains better not screw up her carefully laid plan with his ham-handed presence.) "I'd give anything to be one of the guys who finally knocks that carpet-munching slut off her high horse."
"Well, you're not going to, so shut the hell up about it," Sondra snapped, rounding on him with a fierceness that made him draw back in surprise. She seldom lost her cool—even in court, when they handed down her sentence, she hadn't flinched—but she was sick of hearing how much he would have enjoyed getting a piece of the blond bitch's wife.
She should probably be grateful he couldn't let bygones be bygones. His grudge against Benson was the exact in that Sondra had needed; if he hadn't spent the day waving that wedding announcement in the face of anyone willing to listen—and many who weren't, Sondra included—while bragging that he'd almost banged the brunette chick "before she turned lesbo," Sondra might never have made the connection between the captain and Rollins. She might not have spent the last year cultivating the perfect retribution for the detective, making sure everything was airtight, everyone understood their role, and no one would back out at the last minute.
Sometime in the past, she couldn't remember when exactly or by whom (probably some arrogant man whose word she'd taken with a grain of salt), but she'd heard it said that you could rule the world from inside a prison cell. There was some truth to that. But Sondra didn't want to rule the world. Just a very small blond-haired, blue-eyed part of it.
"Sorry, Parks. Just on edge, I guess." It wouldn't do to get on Parker's bad side right now. An integral piece of this operation was riding on his shoulders, and if his feelings got hurt, Sondra risked losing her key to the outside world. Her obedient little doggy. "I can't believe it's finally go time. Aren't you excited? I barely even slept last night."
A slow smile began to spread across Matthew Parker's brutish features, the excitement contagious, as Sondra hoped it would be. He had that reptilian gleam in his eye again when he pushed off the barred door with his shoulder, prepared to move on with rounds. "Yeah, babe, I been waiting on this day since I found out Her Highness there was UC. Little narc bitch."
For a moment, Sondra observed the happy women in the smudged print that hung between her daughters' photographs. "Hey," she called to Parker before he sauntered off to the neighboring cell. He stopped short to look at her through the stationary bars the door rolled back on, and she stepped closer, peering at him from the other side. "Her Highness. She as pretty as she looks in that picture?"
Parker glanced over her shoulder at Benson—the woman he had dubbed "Her Highness," though he was just as likely to call her one of various female body parts, or sometimes Kat, the name she'd gone by undercover in Sealview. Here, kitty kitty, he murmured more than a few times, as he and Sondra plotted in feverish whispers, the paper brides overseeing all.
"Nice firm little ass, yeah. But those tits, boy oh boy . . . " He gave a low, appreciative whistle, hands cupped wide in front of his chest, indicating a large pair of breasts. "Everything's probably sagging now, though. She's way over forty. All dried up."
It was all Sondra could do not to reach through the bars and throttle him. She was months away from forty-seven. Smiling tightly, she spoke in her most honeyed and measured tone. "I meant her face. She looks awfully pretty for a cop. Is it just the picture, or . . . ?"
"Oh. Hmm." Parker frowned as if he were deep in thought, concentrating hard on conjuring mental images of anything above the captain's shoulders. Eventually he nodded like he was conceding a point. "I wouldn't put a bag over her head. A lot of the chicks in here are real messed up in the face. Jacked up teeth and shit from the drugs and getting smacked around. But she was too pretty, you know? Should've been my first clue something was off. Hey, wait a minute, you sure you ain't UC?"
He smiled at his suaveness, and Sondra couldn't help herself—she joined him. He'd given her just what she hoped for. "Tell them the buyer said not to touch her face. Anything from the neck down is fair game." Sondra Vaughn didn't excite easily, but now she clamped her hands down on his, pressed her own face between the bars as far as it would go, and hissed, "I don't care what they do to her body, but I want her face perfect for that blond bitch. I want Amanda Rollins to look into the face of the woman she loves and see every ounce of pain and suffering she's caused."
. . .