A/N: asjkdlaksj I know this is extremely late, and I apologize, but I had the brilliant idea to make new cover art for part two. Long story short, it took forever and that's why I didn't get the story updated yesterday (didn't help that I ended up making three covers, because I apparently have no chill). :/ The good news is, I think the covers turned out pretty awesome and you can see them over on AO3 in all their glory. Okay. Thank you to everyone who's told me you're sticking with this story, even though it's dark. I appreciate you guys and your comments so much. One of the reasons I wanted to break some of these chapters up is to give y'all a breather too, 'cause I know it's a lot. It's hard for me to read it, and I wrote the damn thing, lol. Just take your time, and like I said before, if you ever need to skip a scene or two, I highly encourage you do to so. That said, the only trigger warning I'm putting on this chapter is for graphic language/threats.


PART TWO: THE BOX


Chapter 6.

Run

. . .

Some time later—whether minutes or hours, Olivia couldn't say—the van slowed to an amble, the bumpy city streets giving way to the crackle and crunch of gravel beneath tires. The man at the wheel had coasted into a driveway or lot of some kind, from the sound of it.

Lengthy shadows flickered past Olivia's peripheral vision, as if the van were traveling through tunnels, into daylight. The buildings beyond the windshield must be tall, but Olivia couldn't catch even a glimpse; she was still flat on her stomach, forehead resting on the vinyl mat that would probably leave a maze-like indentation on her skin. She had turned onto her cheek a while ago, only to jerk face forward again when the Crier stared down at her, slowly cracking each of his knuckles. Although she wasn't squeamish, just listening to the bubbles burst inside the fluid in his joints made Olivia want to puke. She couldn't do that with the tape over her mouth, though, and the sole of the Kid's sneaker was inches from her face on the other side. So, she prostrated herself and she prayed. God, how she prayed.

"Honey, we're home," the Driver announced, doing his best Ricky Ricardo. Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do. The Kid didn't get it, but the Crier sniffed out what was probably the closest thing to a laugh he could manage.

If this were a real I Love Lucy episode, the men would all be bumbling fools who botched the whole kidnapping, probably forgetting to secure Lucy's restraints, only to find she'd escaped out a window and down the fire escape—of course, not without several pratfalls and plenty of the other physical comedy for which the zany redhead was so famous. Unfortunately, Olivia was not Lucille Ball, and these men were far from foolish or inept.

"Okay, listen up, sugar tits," said the Crier, taking Olivia by the braid and, like a lever, using it to turn her face toward him. "I'm only going to say this once, so you better pay attention. You're going inside with us, and you're not going to make it complicated. Our boss will be here shortly, and you're gonna be on your best behavior for him, right?"

When Olivia simply looked at him, breathing heavily through her nostrils above the chemical-scented duct tape, he cranked her braid up and down, forcing her to nod yes. Her scalp was tender from the previous mistreatment, her temples pulsing from the kick she'd taken, and the come-down of the drug. She gave a soft, involuntary cry, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain. Long ago she had learned to function normally, in spite of the headaches and various sites of extreme discomfort within her body—as a child, it was chronic bellyaches; as an adult, the migraines that had tripled in size and frequency since Lewis—so she would survive a little hair-pulling. But Jesus, it hurt.

"Good girl." The same praise Olivia and Amanda gave to their dogs. The same thing Harris said in the basement of Sealview, his cock in her mouth. "Because if you do fight me, you know what'll happen, right?"

Yes. She knew.

Before she could nod, he did it for her, jerking her hair even harder than he had the first time. Tears pricked at her eyes, behind the closed lids. She exhaled wetly through her nose, hating the snotty, juddering sound it made; the way it puffed uselessly against the tape, like a bird fluttering at a windowpane, expanding her cheeks. It was difficult to gather herself, to feel in control and capable of forming a plan, let alone a clear thought, when she could hardly breathe properly. The smell itself was nauseating. That was how vodka smelled to her now.

"It's good that you do. But I've heard you're a real handful, and not just here." With the hand not clutching Olivia's braid, the Crier tugged back on her shoulder and slid his palm down to cup one of her breasts. "Seems like you didn't learn your lesson too well from those other boys who tried to tame you," he said, lips against the outer curve of her ear. "So let me be crystal clear—if you try any of your bullshit cop moves or whatever pussy-ass self-defense they teach you bitches in rape class, I will break both your kneecaps. Might cut off a couple fingers while I'm at it. Gus keeps a cattle prod around for the extra feisty girls. That's what I'll fuck you with, you give me any trouble. Got it?"

This time he allowed Olivia to nod for herself, a cruel smile—no, more of a sneer—on his face when she finally opened her eyes and looked at him. She didn't believe him about breaking her kneecaps or cutting off her fingers. If she truly was being sold, they wouldn't cripple or mutilate her and risk losing business. Men usually didn't want their toys broken.

But the threat about the cattle prod sent a cold stab of fear through her. That, she believed. She had witnessed the Kid tasing Amanda without hesitation, and she'd seen enough genital scarring, inside and out, over the years to be aware of its popularity as a method of sexual torture and coercion. Men weren't often concerned with the internal or what a woman's genitalia looked like, as long as they were in working order when needed.

"Mm," Olivia agreed. She had few other options. Until she got a look at her surroundings, she didn't know what the chances of escape were, if any. She would have to play the obedient captor, the "good girl," long enough to orient herself, decide in which direction to run and whether or not her muffled screams could be heard. It worried her that she wasn't blindfolded. They had no intentions of her returning from this abduction.

"That's more like it. You keep that up, we might go easy on you." At that, the Crier chuckled to himself, a dry, hoarse sound like dead leaves scraping the pavement in autumn. It scraped Olivia's inner ear, making her shudder and shy away from his humid breath. Then he read her mind. "No place out here for you to go, anyway. Unless you're a damn good swimmer. And tits like these? You'd sink straight to the bottom."

The Kid and the Driver joined in with his laughter, their voices spilling out the door of the van when the Crier shoved it open, hopped to the ground, and hauled Olivia onto her feet beside him. Once again, his brute strength shocked and terrified her. She'd been close to men like him before; men whose power seemed disproportionate to their size, and burst out of them with a force that snatched her breath away, sometimes literally. Men who were like a loaded gun that went off unexpectedly in your hand.

Elliot Stabler had been that kind of man. His explosive temper had frightened her at first, and she'd even considered requesting a new partner after seeing him in action in those early days. But what kind of cop would she be if she went whining and tattling to her boss because the big scary boy yelled and occasionally played too rough? What kind of partner? She had grown up with an angry, aggressive parent who yelled and played rough too. She knew how to handle it. Even when it turned on her.

He had hit her once—Stabler. It was accidental and partly her fault for grabbing his arm in a stupid rookie attempt to drag him off the perp he was pummeling. When he wheeled around, not realizing who she was, and decked her in the face, she'd instantly learned her mistake. That punch laid her out flat, after she slammed into the brick wall of the Central Park tunnel behind her. Hardest hit she'd ever taken, up to that point. Still one of the hardest.

This man, this Crier who probably hadn't shed any real tears since he was in a cradle, had that type of strength. The type that nearly knocked you out of your shoes with one blow, left you lying in the dirt and staring dazedly up at a swirling sea of stars on brick, made you forget your own name for a second. It was the strength of Harris, Lewis, Arliss, Orion . . . not of seven men, but of seventy times seven. Wasn't there a verse like that in the Bible?

(Would she ever get to look it up and find out?)

There was nowhere to run, just as he'd said. From what Olivia could tell, they were on some sort of loading dock that was practically an island unto itself. Huge shipping containers, the kind transported by boat and freight train, were stacked three and four deep on all sides, blocking most of her view beyond. She caught glimpses of water in the gaps between the stacks as the men marched her forward at a pace she had no choice but to keep up with, practically lifted off her feet by their iron grips on her arms.

A brackish scent tinged the air, and she could almost taste it in the back of her throat, like the warm saltwater her mother had made her gargle when she had sore throats as a child. Surely they weren't along the East River; she would be able to see the skyscrapers from there, hear the constant onslaught of traffic. Here, all she heard was the screech of seagulls—their vocalizations were eerily human to Olivia's ears, although maybe she was projecting—and the abrasive, discordant jamboree of drills and hammers from a nearby construction site.

Neither source was visible to her, bird or builder, and even if she did manage to break free from the two men on either side of her (the Crier outweighed her by twenty or thirty pounds, but the Driver was massive, easily in the two-twenty range and most of it muscle), no one would discern her muted screams for help over all that noise. Her captors would be on her before she made it past the first row of shipping containers, as uncoordinated as her legs still were from the injection, and she would find out what it was like to stick her privates in an electrical outlet.

Even that grim prospect couldn't keep her from balking when they reached a lone container, set off slightly from the rest, and which stood upon a jumble of railroad tracks so ancient they had receded into the ground like an old man's neglected gums withdrawing from his teeth. "Hm-mm," she said, and tried to fall back a step as the Kid loped ahead, unlatching the chain threaded through the panel doors at one end of the big metal box.

She had been inside of similar storage spaces enough times to guess where this was leading. Good for shipping large cargo, they were even better for housing all manner of clandestine individuals—illegals, trafficking victims, squatters, brothel workers who sometimes fit into each of those categories. During one raid, Olivia's team had discovered fifteen underage girls living in one of the units, the conditions so squalid each cop required several breathers in the fresh air to get through assessing the scene. The youngest girl had cerebral palsy and lost three toes, after they were gnawed by rats.

For her attempt at backtracking, Olivia received a rough shove that would have sent her face first onto the filthy floor if the Driver hadn't kept a tight hold on her bicep. As it was, she stumbled forward into the container, blinded by the shift from afternoon sunshine into stale, artificial darkness, depending solely on the Driver to keep her upright. The memories of being led around that way by Lewis and Amelia Cole, too out of it to object or aid in her own transport, were so vague she could barely access them; in her dreams of those attacks, she often floated. What dreams or memories would she have this time, she wondered.

Assuming she survived.

"Sorry about the accommodations." The Crier—AKA the Shover—resumed his clutch on her arm, jerking it unnecessarily towards him. Of course he had ended up controlling the side she'd required surgery on. Pretty soon they were going to start calling her Lefty, after all the injuries she seemed to accumulate on that half of her body. "Best we could do on short notice, pussycat. Previous tenants weren't very good about upkeep. Don't worry, they got, uh, evicted."

That earned an appreciative chuckle from one of the guys, or maybe both, it was difficult to tell in the dark. No sooner had the thought entered Olivia's mind than a switch flicked on somewhere behind her, a mechanical hum like a large air conditioning unit whirred to life, and four tall tripod lights—the kind found on movie sets and in photography studios—suddenly blazed so brightly Olivia's vision eclipsed.

"Lights, camera, action," shouted the Kid in a booming director's voice. He was the one who had turned on the generator that powered the lamps, and he kicked out his long legs as he skipped into the island of light, like an energetic circus master or a vaudevillian taking center stage. His size thirteen Chucks were pigeon toed and flappy on his awkward feet. Still such a boy.

The other men ignored his antics and walked Olivia deeper into the room, which was smaller inside than it had appeared on the outside. About the length of her office and the adjoining interrogation room, and not much wider than the back of the van she was just in. With a small hop, the Kid could easily touch the ceiling.

Furnishings were sparse—beyond the square of light formed by the lamps, an old metal office desk like the one Olivia had written her DD5s on during her early days at SVU stood at a slant. Its surface reminded her of a slab in the morgue. A five gallon bucket of the sort used by house painters and car-wash attendants crouched in the corner. She doubted it was filled with sudsy water. The floor surrounding it was mucky dark, swamplike, and judging by the strong whiff of excrement she caught from that direction, the swamp had had multiple contributions.

The smell alone turned her stomach, but her belly flooded with hot acid when she saw what lay beneath the confusion of wadded blankets, crumpled fast food wrappers, unspooled toilet paper, and, inexplicably, a mangy, one-eyed teddy bear that littered the floor. A single, pitiful mattress with almost as many stains in its creases as on the floor was just visible, cocked at an odd angle from the wall. It looked like an old hide-a-bed mattress, probably poached from some prehistoric RV, folded, slept on, and fucked on countless times over the years, until it dragged itself into this hellhole to die.

Before Olivia could pause to consider the consequences, she stopped short and dug in the heels of her tennis shoes on the unfinished wood floor. There was enough traction to keep her from skidding, not enough to keep the men from strong-arming her forward—closer to the mattress with each step—so she locked her knees, summoned the strength she'd been saving up in the van, and threw her full body weight into the man closest to her size: the Crier. He grunted and lurched to the side, and for a second, as he and his accomplice recovered from their surprise, Olivia managed to break loose.

Acting on instinct and adrenaline, she spun around to flee, every muscle, every synapse, the very blood in her veins crying out for her to RUN. She'd been there before, that lizard-brain place where fight or flight were all that existed; where you were just legs pumping, a heart pounding, and that single red word flashing in front of your eyes like a neon sign. Run.

Too late she felt the braid slide from her shoulder. Too late she sensed the fist that closed around it. She barely made it two steps before he jerked her backwards by the hair, stumbling and cringing ("Mm!" she cried sharply), and reeled her in as if she were his big catch of the day. "They told me you were smart," he snarled in her ear, the stubble on his face scratching her cheek. "But that was one dumb bitch move you just made. I'm gonna hurt you bad now, cunt."

Warning delivered, he clawed a hand around her throat, braid pulled taut in the other, and slung her gracelessly onto the mattress by both. She hit hard on her side, the thin, wilted padding providing almost no buffer against the unyielding floor below. The impact sent a cloud of dirt and dust wafting into the air, a good portion of that going up Olivia's nose and into her eyes.

Blinded and numb with pain on the side—the left, of course—on which she'd landed, she couldn't have said exactly how she made it onto her knees. But when the foot connected with her belly (she felt the unmistakable steel toe and ridged tread of a work boot), she wished she had stayed down. The dirt in her sinuses scraped like steel wool as she inhaled, trying to breathe past the pain in her stomach, except there was no breath to be found. Every bit of oxygen she sucked in through her nostrils was coughed right back out again, via the same route. And then she began to sneeze.

For several moments, she was lost in the throes of a hacking and sneezing fit so violent it blocked out everything else: the men who stood above her, like gods in a Greek tragedy, masks of varying emotion affixed to their faces (the Kid was Comedy, the Crier was Fury, the Driver was Apathy); the heat and cramping in her torso, the likes of which she hadn't felt since menopause ran its course, from that kick; the filthy, musty mattress she knelt on, doubled forward and fighting to remain conscious and breathing. Her sinuses burned like she'd snorted chlorinated water, her lungs burned like she was running a 10K at lightning speed.

If she didn't catch her breath soon, she would surely die. And maybe that was better than what the men had in store for her . . .

Before the thought had time to fully form, Olivia drew in enough air to keep herself from blacking out. She had worked up a sweat with all the coughing, and beads of perspiration ran down her temples to mingle with the tears and snot that flowed freely from her eyes and nose. Her face felt unbearably hot and she desperately needed to clear her throat, but couldn't find the adequate breath to do it without starting another coughing spell. She swallowed forcefully instead, willing away the twinge in her throat that threatened to set her off again. She wouldn't be done in by some dust and a strip of duct tape.

This was nothing compared to being stuffed in a trunk for hours with tape over your mouth and William Lewis behind the wheel, or feeling your life and breath dwindle away in your mother's monstrously strong hands as they tightened around your neck. Compared to those nightmares, this was child's play.

"Finished?" asked the Crier, a note of boredom in his tone. He extended his foot and prodded her in the ribs with his steel-toed, ridged-tread work boot when she didn't respond. From this angle, hunched and heaving, she had an up-close view of all their shoes—the Driver was wearing a pair of expensive high tops, brand new from the unblemished look of them; and the Kid had his classic Chucks. She'd known it was the Crier that kicked her. Who else?

He jabbed harder the second time, and Olivia shrank from the stitch in her side, nodding vigorously. Yes, you motherfucking asshole, I'm finished almost asphyxiating while you stand there and watch. A hank of hair had come loose from her braid, after all the manhandling, and she flicked it out of her face as she straightened—as fully as her stiff abdomen would allow—and shot him a dirty look, conveying the message.

Unimpressed with the glare that served her so well in interrogation rooms and jailhouses (but not here, oh no not here . . . ), he casually raised his arm and blinded her again, this time with a flash that threw large spots into her vision. She blinked hard to dispel them, though it didn't do much good. The throbbing in her head seemed to synch up with the flickering afterimages, creating a strobe light effect that intensified the nausea in her aching stomach. A vicious cycle of sickness flowing through her, head to foot, like raw sewage churning in the pipes. She could even smell it, thanks to that mess in the corner.

"You can't send that one," said the Kid, whose voice she recognized now. It had more of a lilt than the Crier's flat, emotionless pronunciation. And none of the Spanish inflection unique to the Driver. Why she should be so intent on distinguishing them by voice alone, Olivia couldn't say. Refused to say. "She's supposed to look hot, remember?"

And just as Olivia's vision returned, it was blotted out once more by something scratchy and foul-smelling scrubbing across her face. Worse was the hand clasped behind her head, keeping her from pulling away, from seeking the oxygen that was in such short supply already, while the Kid dried her sweat, tears, and snot. He gave the rag a final jiggle, like a mother prompting her child to blow, then tossed it onto his shoulder as if he were about to do the dishes. It was a ratty old long-sleeved shirt with a pink cartoon cat on the front. Something a preteen girl would wear, if not for the blood and mystery stains. Dried seminal fluid, if Olivia were to hazard a guess.

"There she is," the Kid said, and smiled as he crouched down and tucked the stray locks of hair behind her ear. She pled with her eyes, hoping there might be a shred of humanity left in him to appeal to; he was so young, surely he still had a soul, a conscience? Calvin and Amelia didn't, nor did Henry Mesner, but maybe this Kid could be reached . . .

"Much more fuckable." He tapped the end of her nose, the way she sometimes did to her children, and stood.

Maybe not.

"Say cheese," he added, his too-wide grin vanishing in another supernova burst of light from the Crier's cell phone camera.

The spots lasted longer this time, morphing into a trio of hideous monster shapes that loomed above Olivia, a dark and sinister trinity. In the outer reaches of her mind, someplace long ago and far away from here, she resurrected the lyrics to a song she hadn't heard since the days of Schoolhouse Rock! on Saturday mornings. Five-year-old Livvy, seated inches from the TV screen—the cause of her adulthood hyperopia, perhaps?—because Mommy had another headache and the volume had better stay low, or that thing is going out the window, do you hear me, young lady? (Livvy was lucky Serena let her have a TV at all, didn't she know that?)

She seemed to remember a funny little magician pulling an assortment of items from his hat, including the letter three:

The past and the present and the future
Faith and hope and charity
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three
As a magic number

A magic number, indeed. Although, some of the shine wore off when it was the number of men who were about to gang rape you. They left that part out of the song. But as she brought the men back into focus from the blobs they had briefly become, she saw that they were too preoccupied with their own affairs to concern themselves with her.

The Crier had wandered towards the container doors, jabbing at his phone screen and brandishing the device like he was trying to locate a signal; meanwhile the Kid and the Driver were huddled around the ramshackle desk, engrossed by something their broad backs hid from view. Their secrecy worried Olivia, who had witnessed similar behavior from Noah and Jesse, when they were up to no good. Unlikely these boys would be nearly as innocent in their troublemaking as her son and daughter.

Sure enough, the Driver, whose Vin Diesel build did most of the blocking, turned to the side and retrieved a plastic baggie from his pocket. He was far enough away, and just outside the perimeter of the tripod lights, that Olivia couldn't determine the bag's exact contents, but she knew without a doubt that the colorful capsules were not candy. Nor was the spoon the Kid rapped against the desktop in a manic, mind-numbing drum solo intended for scooping cereal. No Cap'n Crunch for Livvy today.

Lewis had done drugs too. She'd seen the telltale white crust around the rims of his nostrils at some point—the precise hour could be divulged only by Daddy Bill, and he wasn't talking—while they were still in her apartment, and he had snorted a line of white powder off of Mrs. Mayer's vanity prior to raping and torturing the old woman for Olivia's viewing pleasure. "Breakfast of champions," he'd announced to no one, flaring and kneading his nostrils until they squelched.

The stuff inside the baggie wasn't coke, that much she could see. She had heard enough horror stories from victims, and she knew enough about the drug scene, especially as it pertained to sexual assault, to make an educated guess about what the multicolored tablets were. Anything that bright and bearing such a strong resemblance to Flintstones vitamins or SweeTARTS had to be ecstasy.

The "hug drug," a favorite among ravers and rapists alike, supposedly caused an amorous response in the user, with heightened physical sensations. Ironically, it also lowered the sex drive, but that was why God had invented the little blue pill. Combining ecstasy and Viagra increased sexual potency to almost superhuman proportions (think small Mario consuming the mushroom and growing into super Mario) and made it possible to rave—or rape—on for hours.

Olivia wasn't surprised in the least when the Driver took another baggie, this one filled with light blue capsules, from the opposite pocket. Even from here, she recognized the distinctive diamond-shape of them, although that might have been a trick of her imagination. She was a little on edge, after all. But no, the Driver palmed several of the blue pills, trailing them like a gardener sowing seeds among the E, gearing up to sow his seed in Olivia, and the men began divvying up their bounty. Her boys were cooking up something extra sweet indeed.

"Hey, come get summa this shit before I hammerhead it like motherfuckin' Jaws on that naked chick," the Kid called over his shoulder to the Crier. He sounded like a kid on Christmas morning, in raptures as he surveyed all the presents under the tree.

"Man, Jaws was a great white, not a hammerhead, dumbass." The Driver butted the Kid's shoulder with his own, knocking him back a step, but laughing at the joke all the same. The Kid joined in as he began crushing pills with the heel of the spoon he'd finally stopped clattering against the desk. They stood there, giddy as schoolboys, pulverizing the trail mix into a fine powder. In that form, the E was known as Molly. At least in the United States.

In the UK, they called it Mandy.

(God, please let her find me somehow . . . )

And snorted, it took effect in about half the time of an ingested tablet. Olivia had approximately ten minutes until they started on her, fifteen at most. If she didn't act now, they would likely do her right here amidst the McDonald's cheeseburger wrappers and the foxed sheets of newspaper. She gazed down at the litter, frantically searching from side to side—for what, she didn't know. A cell phone she couldn't use with her hands taped behind her? A discarded blade, somehow overlooked by the men during their last gangbang? A revolver to end this before it started?

Click.

Her body began to rise of its own accord before she had mapped out a plan. There was no planning in a situation like this. She either got out, or she died trying. That would be better than the alternative, which was just a different kind of death, really. Like a cat with nine lives, she kept on escaping it, but soon those lives would run out and she'd be crushed beneath the tire for good, her guts fusing with the road until eventually all that remained was a garish smear.

It had almost gone that far with Lewis. In fact, her wife would argue that it had gone that far, and not just the once. According to Amanda, many of the attacks Olivia had sustained over the years were full-fledged rapes: months of statutory rape by Daniel McNab, following that initial assault which claimed her virginity; ten seconds with Lowell Harris in her mouth, barely managing more than one or two thrusts; Lewis fingering her
(and whatever else he put in you while you were unconscious, don't forget that)
and moaning about red velvet.

Olivia had drawn the line at calling the titfuck by Calvin anything other than an assault, and more often than not, she called it nothing at all. She had assented that the nameless—and all these years later, faceless—man who forced her to manually masturbate him when she was fifteen had committed sexual assault on a minor, and the breast fondling at thirteen, by a pair of hands she couldn't confidently say were male or female, had been a form of sexual abuse.

While she and Amanda had come to a grudging agreement about the terminology for those incidents, it was her most recent revelation that caused the biggest controversy. After a first trimester checkup at the OBGYN led to a discussion about first-time experiences with Pap smears, Olivia had mentioned offhand that hers was enforced by her mother as punishment for the engagement to Daniel. To be sure she wasn't pregnant or infected with the clap, supposedly.

"Wait, back up. She made you have one against your will?" Amanda asked, in that tone she had. The one Olivia had come to think of as the detective's watchdog voice. There was practically a growl in it.

"Yeah, it was mortifying. She wouldn't even let me go in alone. I hated her for months after that," Olivia had replied, expecting a sympathetic groan from her spouse, who knew what it was like to be a teenager embarrassed by her own mother. The response she got instead caught Olivia completely off guard and almost resulted in her running them into a telephone pole blocks from their apartment.

"Babe, that's . . . do you not hear what you're saying?" Gentle, yet steady and unrelenting. The voice of an SVU detective breaking difficult news to a hospitalized victim who was unaware of her freshly acquired status. "She forced a gynecological exam on you without your consent. That's rape by medical proxy."

Olivia's exact reply was a blur, the heated debate that ensued in their parked vehicle inside the garage fragmented in her memory, but at some point, too shrilly, she had declared, "Of course I'm upset, you're trying to say my mother raped me. My God, Amanda. You have got to stop making me out to be a victim every time I tell you someone touched me. It's too much."

That was one she couldn't accept. Would never accept. Just like she could never accept being raped by three men rolling on E and Viagra. She only had three or four of those nine lives left, by her wife's calculations.

Get out now, she thought viciously, still attempting to stagger onto her feet. Without hands to boost herself—the lumpy padding distorting the floor below, her abdomen broiling from that kick, legs weakened by the Cryo—it was almost as impossible to stand as it had been to sit up on the bed Lewis threw her onto when they arrived at the beach hou—Get up now, you stupid bitch.

Rocking her upper body to generate momentum, she dragged a leg forward, bent at the knee, and levered herself upright, to her full, albeit protectively hunched, height. The Crier had been thumbing at his phone again (composing a text or email, his rapidly pecking fingers suggested); he paused to observe Olivia's progress, with the cold gaze of a hunter preparing the kill shot for a wounded, dying animal. Not a mercy killing but a trophy hunt, to be stuffed and mounted. To be studied with dispassion or vague amusement on a parlor wall.

For a long while they simply looked at each other, muscles tensed and breath held, as they waited to see which way their opponent would feint. Amanda played that game with Frannie, arm cocked back, tennis ball in hand. When loosed, the fuzzy projectile—both ball and pit bull—would launch halfway across the park and be snatched up midair by a set of powerful jaws. Olivia's reflexes, while swift and efficient, weren't as keen as Frannie Mae's, nor was master as fleet of foot as canine.

If Olivia wanted to make it past her crying captor, she would have to rely on physical strength. He was strong, but so was she, and they were of similar size, at least in height. Given enough force, she might be able to plow through him and burst through the unbolted container doors. From there she would just have to improvise.

She'd been outmaneuvering larger, crueler individuals most of her life, from dodging her mother's drunken swings to fleeing through the woods to escape Orion. She had almost charged him on the edge of that cliff, seeing no other way to take him out. There was no other way now, either. The Crier smirked as if he knew it too. He twitched his shoulders like he was about to pounce forward himself, making a spitting cat noise against his front teeth. Fft fft. Mouth opening into a wide, vampiric maw, he let out an eerily realistic hiss.

Olivia flinched back, startled, and it was that split second of hesitation which cost her everything.

. . .