A/N: I'm sorry about missing yesterday's update, you guys. I was trying to get it all ready to go, but I got interrupted and didn't make it home till later than I like to post. But hey, it's kind of a bonus for y'all because I decided not to split this chapter up, and just post the full 15 pages in one go, since I already screwed up the schedule. Still loving the comments for each chapter; I read them all, and even though I don't always reply, rest assured I have answered them all in my head or out loud to my computer screen, lol. I actually triggered myself proofreading this chapter, not because it's particularly worse than any of the previous ones, but some parts were just so spot-on for something I'm currently dealing with, I ended up needing a minute. Brownie points for realism, I guess? Anyway, trigger warning for rape, its aftermath, and suicidal thoughts. I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe for 2024. (P.S. I posted a new cover art with this chapter on AO3 if you want to take a look. Didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped, and I've got another one in the works, but yeah, it's there.)

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

- Walt Whitman, "I Sing the Body Electric"

Chapter 31.

The Body Electric

. . .

God, would he ever stop driving?

And that incessant chatter was going to drive (no pun intended) Olivia insane if it went on much longer. They had been circling aimlessly around the city for hours, no rhyme or reason to any of the sudden stops and screeching turns made at the very last second. Twice her head had thumped against the back passenger window, much to his delight. He kept trying to time it to the pop! in "Pop Goes the Weasel," sung at the top of his lungs as he swerved down an empty stretch of road, jostling her side to side.

His unpredictability was what made him so difficult to catch—and to keep. She'd put him away once, practically in the ground, yet here he was again, terrorizing her in the backseat of another car, in another part of her city
(It was hers, Amanda always said)
months after those four days of hell she first spent with him. Pop goes the weasel indeed.

This time she was his accomplice, though. What else did you call it when someone went on a rape-torture-killing spree in your name, then requested your presence, so you slipped your security detail and joined him with goddamn bells on? Sure sounds like complicit behavior to me, Captain. (Except she'd been Sergeant back then; barely six months in the uniform, and she had donned it to announce that she was a liar on national television. A liar, a brutal cop, an accomplice, a monster . . . )

Every half hour or so, he parked the car in some random spot—a closed gas station, an empty alley, beneath an overpass, anywhere dark and unpopulated—got into the backseat, and did things to her. Some of it was just groping, which was easy enough to steel herself against. She had plenty of practice. But when his fingers crept farther on, pumping between her legs, fast and hard, it became a battle of wills. "Come on," he slithered in her ear, coquettish at first, then vicious and cruel, determined to force it out of her. "Come on."

She wouldn't give it to him, not again. There were no drugs dulling her fears and inhibitions like last time, and if he wanted to fuck an orgasm out of her, the disgusting son of a bitch would have to climb on top of her again
(Please, God, don't let him—)
and get it up like a real man. It was almost hilarious how soft he got every time he tried to put it in her. She had laughed, verging on hysterics, when he whipped it out in her old apartment, only for it to wilt as it neared her. You'd think she had anti-erection powder sprinkled on her cunt.

He hadn't shared her amusement. And then the burning started. That finally got her nipples hard, and beyond that lay a drunken, drug-fueled haze of his hands, his voice ("Based on your extensive collection over here, I'm guessing Mr. Night Shift doesn't quite fulfill his end of the bargain, eh?"), his devil smile. She wouldn't even have remembered coming if he hadn't loomed over her on all-fours, shaking the bed like a magnitude 8 earthquake and crowing that he knew she'd give it up for big silicon dick.

Now she had to find her own distractions as he fumbled inside her panties, digitally fucking her in the dark. She watched cars in the distance, letting her eyes go soft and unfocused, the headlights blurring together and flitting place to place like the fairy in Peter Pan. Her mother had taken her to see the Broadway revival in 1979, with Sandy Duncan in the titular role. Productions in those days were a lot simpler, without the acrobatics and dangerous rigging of the Cathy Rigby era. But eleven-year-old Olivia was plenty impressed by Sandy's onstage gymnastics, and she'd loved the mischievous little ball of light that represented Tinker Bell.

Little had she known that someday she would grow up—the ultimate betrayal to Neverland and all it stood for—and watch a million Tinker Bells floating around her city while a dark and sinister man raped her in the backseat of a parked car.

Only it wasn't rape, not truly. Not in the sense of the word as she could stand to have it applied to herself. That was how she reasoned it out the first time with Lewis; he'd technically never put his penis inside her vagina. True, in some states penetration was defined as any part of the penis coming into contact with any part of the vulva, but that was not the case under New York law. And the most he would probably get for using the dildo on her was aggravated sexual abuse.

That wasn't even worth mentioning, considering all the humiliation and embarrassment which would accompany it. The toy was hers, with her bodily fluids on it (of course), and on the bed where she regularly had sex with Brian Cassidy—it had been so easy to explain that all away after her rescue. She held her breath waiting for the SANE nurse to ask if she'd recently had intercourse, based on the pelvic exam, but her urine and the four-day lapse must have taken care of that evidence for her. She was fully prepared to cop to getting herself off with the toy the morning of her abduction, but the subject never even came up.

As for the fingering, well, she had walked into this. She didn't want it, nor would she ever consent to such a thing with this man, but she had known exactly what would happen if she answered his summons. (God, she hadn't expected it so many times, though. His hand had to be getting tired.) That was sort of like consenting, when you knew something horrible would happen and you went anyway. Besides, it was just more aggravated sexual abuse, not full-fledged rape.

That's what she had told them last time, and she would say the same now, until she was blue in the face: he did not rape me, he did not sodomize me. He didn't have the balls
(or the hard-on)
to do it!

Her mother would be proud of her for taking the importance of word choice and definition so much to heart. Of shaping her story so painstakingly, bending the language to her will. I learned from the best, Mom. She had the court on her side too. They wouldn't call anything Lewis had done to her—this time or before—rape. And neither would she.

. . .

Ten minutes. He got bored and gave ("—up, okay? I'll come 'round and get you. Just wait right there for me, darlin'," Amanda said, throwing open her door and trying to get out of the car without unbuckling her seatbelt) after ten minutes. Ten minutes of pure hell, of sirens and speeding through the Lincoln Tunnel like they were moving at warp speed. He would climb into the back with her again soon, determined to break down the walls she'd rebuilt after the last time; maybe he would never take her to Amanda
(Amelia? But, no, she was dead)
but just drive around with her forever, penetrating her at his leisure.

"No," she whimpered when he opened the door to drag her out. She had at least twenty more minutes before he started in on her again, she'd timed it. They left the shipping yard at 4:47, arrived in the Mount Sinai ambulance bay at a minute till. If she was going to survive another not-rape, she had to prepare herself, and he hadn't given her enough time. "Not here. Somewhere else." Why he had chosen this place, bright and open and well-populated, she didn't know. It was like he wanted to get caught.

"Naw, baby, it's gotta be here." Amanda ejected the seatbelt, guiding Olivia from the vehicle—gently, but without allowing her to shrug off the assistance—and settling her into the wheelchair that waited beside the car. "We came all this way, and everything else is too far. You have to get checked out. For me and the kids, remember? You in okay?" She looked up from fitting Olivia's feet onto the footplates of the chair, her eyes burning sapphire bright in her pretty, careworn face. Her skin was pale ivory, blue veins visible in the delicate upslope of her neck.

For the first time since they had left Hoboken, Olivia noticed that the flecks on her wife's cheeks were blood spatter, not freckles. The rusty red color stood out starkly against her fair complexion. "Where's your shoes?" she asked, more dismayed by the sight of Amanda's slender bare feet on the pavement than by the blood. She understood the stippling meant someone was dead—there had been gunshots while the Crier was on top of her; "Hear that?" he'd grunted as he thrust, "Hope those fucktards accidentally blow each other's brains out. Then you'll be all mine"—but she couldn't remember who. She did feel certain Amanda had killed whomever it was, and strange as it sounded, that filled her with a distant, ethereal peace.

A whispered reassurance, a hand at the small of your back: Safe now.

"Don't you recognize them ugly old things on your feet?" Amanda replied, pointing over Olivia's shoulder. Her voice was too tight, too forced, the way she sounded when one of the kids got hurt and she tried to make them laugh so they wouldn't cry. "What'd you call me first time I wore 'em? Hillbilly Spice?"

("Peach Spice." Olivia tugged Amanda in by the hips, bringing them face to face, nose tip to nose tip. The only good thing about the butt-ugly chunky sneakers was that they put Amanda on the same level with her. The perfect height for kissing. "Wannabe my lover?"

Amanda pretended to think it over while Olivia nuzzled kisses against her neck, hands roving her backside in its skinny little jeans. "Well, now, I don't know, Cap'n. First you gotta get with my friends. Make it last forever. Friendship never ends, you know. Then you've got to give, because takin' is—"

Taking was far too easy, and Olivia did it with gusto, her mouth closing over her wife's as she practically swept the rambling blonde right off her thick-soled shoes. She did her best to make the kiss last forever.)

. . .

The color-blocked hospital flooring disappeared beneath Olivia's feet in the sneakers, giving her vertigo. For a moment, she thought she was on one of those moving sidewalks at the airport, but when she looked up, the wheelchair was rolling into an overbright room with a gurney and a cubicle curtain. Terror as stark as the room itself filled her at the sight of the narrow bed, the blinding overheads, and the confined space. She would have bolted from the chair if she could have gotten her legs to work. Or her arms.

Everything was so sore and stiff, she could barely turn her head to locate Amanda. Olivia heard her slightly nasal voice as if the volume were lowered and muffled by a glass partition, but a sidelong glance showed Amanda standing just behind her, gesturing at someone. Slowly Olivia followed the motions with her eyes and saw another woman in blue scrubs gazing down at her. Now she knew how a child felt, looking up at adults who were making decisions for them and talking about things they didn't understand.

She strained her hearing beyond the insectile whine in her ears to catch snippets of the conversation. Tense. Frightened. Urgent. Even without the words, she recognized those sounds. All from Amanda, and all in her clipped detective tone. But underneath was a quaver like the slide of a steel guitar, plaintive and heartbreaking. The appoggiatura they called it, from the Italian 'to lean'—the musical note that made you cry. And that's exactly what Amanda's rundown to the nurse made Olivia want to do.

"—raped by multiple assailants." A thick, sodden pause, as if the words were being plucked from a bog. "Six that I know of . . . sex trafficking . . . no condoms."

(Had there really been six of them? Six separate men raping her over a period of x days, y times a day. Olivia was too exhausted for rape math right then, but she knew for certain that she had surpassed the number of partial rapes from her past—and then some. Making up for lost time, she supposed. The punishment she had always deserved, but somehow managed to escape on a technicality at the last possible second. Perhaps she'd learned more from William Lewis than she ever realized.)

"—checked for internal injuries. Probably some rib fractures as well. You need to look at her cheekbone right there. Oh, and she had arthroscopic surgery about two years ago. Torn rotator cuff in her left shoulder, so you'll need to—"

"Ma'am, we can handle it from here." The nurse put her hand up gently but firmly, silencing Amanda's rattling list of ailments and precautions. "You can wait for your friend in the visitor's area, and we'll call you—"

"She ain't my friend, she's my goddamn wife. Not to mention she's a captain in the NYPD, so you sure as shit better give her the best damn care you got." When Amanda reached that tone, sharp and snappy, there really was no stopping her. Olivia found it best not to try, unless you wanted to be on the receiving end of a scathing remark. She did raise her hand, hoping to dissuade her angry wife from telling the nurse off any further. Instantly Amanda gathered the hand in her own, chafing it between her palms. "Don't worry, darlin', I'm not leaving you. They'll have to drag me— they'll have to arrest me if they want me outta here."

The expression on the nurse's face suggested she might not be opposed to such a thing, even Olivia could tell that much. She looked like a uni preparing to reach for her walkie and request backup. Amanda saw it too, and she was not above pulling rank. "Look, lady, I'm a detective. Same unit as her. Special Victims. You've heard of us. Well, now she's the special victim, and that puts her at the top of your list."

"I'll need to see some identification before I can—"

"Does it look like either of us has ID on us right now?" Amanda burst out, and though Olivia didn't have a clear view of her face, it sounded very red. In fact, the whole room appeared to be awash in red, as if it were set to a post-apocalyptic filter or lit with a bulb dipped in blood. What was that old mariners rhyme? Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. They never said what a red sky meant midday. (Dismay, Olivia's mind echoed. Dismay . . . )

"—had to put my clothes on her because the pigs who raped her tore all hers off. That's right, I'm not just dressed like this, I got these nasty-ass rags off a dead guy. Can you read? Her shirt says NYPD. If that's not proof enough, call the 16th precinct. Captain Benson and Detective Rollins. Do you need my damn badge number too? I'd give you hers, but captains don't have them. Did you know that, Nurse Karen?"

"No, ma'am." Nurse Karen, if that was indeed her name and not just a clever dig by Amanda, flushed several shades of pink under the fluorescent lighting. Mixed with the blue of her scrubs, it gave her a slightly purple hue, as though she too were hypothermic. Olivia felt a little sorry for her; she was obviously new to the hospital and unfamiliar with handling such a sensitive case, not to mention such a volatile spouse. But if she was going to do this line of work—and do it well—she'd better learn.

"Is Rudy on shift?" Olivia asked, starting at the rasp coming from her own throat. She could have voiced the part of a vengeful spirit in any number of horror movies with a rusty hinge of a voice like that. The nurse looked taken aback too, as if she were being addressed by a CPR training dummy, or perhaps a corpse from the hospital morgue. Apparently she hadn't thought Olivia could speak, let alone remember the names of staff. "Or Rose? They can confirm we're NYPD."

She hated using her badge to get special treatment, but if it kept Amanda from coming to blows with a bitchy RN, and if it got her checked out of the hospital sooner, she could make an exception this once. Besides that, her head was starting to feel a bit clearer, and though loath to admit it, she could tell she required medical attention. One unexpected side effect of spending so much time on introspection and mental health was that Olivia had become far more in tune with her body—its strengths and weaknesses; its abilities and, with more and more frequency throughout the years, its limits.

Her body had reached its limit. Despite the numbness in almost every piece of her, despite the realization that her flesh was no longer her own, she knew that she could withstand nothing else. One breath breathed on her too hard, she would fly apart like ashes in the wind. She held tight to Amanda's hand, convinced of it. The image was vivid in her mind: a golem with her form, dark and sooty; but she wouldn't be constructed of holy ash, more like what you would find at the tip of a cigarette or on the floor of a crematorium. Among the cancerous lungs and charred bone, the emphysemic coughs and the teeth cast like dice.

Then poof! A faint gust, and the golem disintegrated.

She was gone.

. . .

If there had been an answer about Rudy or Rose, she missed it entirely. Amanda was stroking her hair (what was left of it, anyway; she kept forgetting part of it had gotten hacked off) as if she were one of the kids being soothed while the adults conversed. Olivia almost fell for it, her head drifting toward Amanda's hip, where she gladly would have dozed off—had done so many times after they made love, although her wife's chest was her preferred spot—until she heard those dreaded words. Words she'd said countless times about others, but couldn't bear to have applied to herself.

"—a SANE nurse. She needs a rape kit. By someone who knows what the hell they're doing." Amanda tossed out a gesture that said Karen should already be halfway down the hall, hailing the nearest SANE certified RN like a runaway taxi. Her other hand had come to rest over Olivia's ear, but it didn't block out nearly as much as she thought it did. What made it through Olivia's soupy consciousness she heard with an almost-canine clarity and keenness. "And bring her some of those heated blankets, she's freez—"

"No." Difficult as it was, physically and emotionally, to separate herself from Amanda, she pushed back slightly and sat up straight. She started to shake her head, but her brain felt loose enough to tumble out, so she stopped. She couldn't afford to lose anything else, not after so much of her had been lost already. Who knew how much of her had made it out of The Box. Maybe she was still there, just dreaming of being rescued by her wife. But even in her dream she said, "No, I don't want that."

Amanda blinked in confusion, her hand compulsively cupping the back of Olivia's head, stroking it. She bent over to be closer to Olivia's eye level, a trick Olivia herself had learned from Meg, her surrogate auntie from childhood, who had always brought herself down to the other person's height for comforting. (It was Serena who taught Olivia to use the same trick for arguing and threats.) "Don't want what, darlin'? Blankets? But we need to get you warmed up. You're still shivering somethin' fierce." She reached out to stroke Olivia's cheek with the backs of her fingers, but withdrew without touching. "You're white as a—"

"The rape kit," Olivia said, forcing the words from her lips as evenly as possible. They quivered and crackled anyway. Just another part of her body, her being, she no longer had control over. "I don't want one. Won't make a difference. One of them's dead, and I can IP— . . . ID the rest. We don't need to collect evidence. I can put them away 'thout it."

For a moment, Amanda just stared back, her face a study in tragedy. Olivia couldn't figure out why until she realized she'd been pleading not to undergo the rape kit, hot tears searing her cheeks, Amanda's sleeve clasped in her hands. It was the first time she had produced actual tears, instead of dry, useless sobs, in at least a full twenty-four hours, she thought. Maybe longer? She had no idea what day it was or how long she'd been gone. And she hated playing on Amanda's emotions with her own, but right then, she would have said or done just about anything to get out of being poked and prodded any further.

"Baby . . . " Amanda's voice was thick with sadness, and she had to pause and swallow hard before continuing. Her hands were warming Olivia's again, and she drew them under her chin, curled to her chest where it was safe and warm. "I know they're awful and they take forever. But you gotta be examined. We don't know how many men there were—"

"Yes, I do." Olivia sat forward eagerly, hungrily, like a child who knew the correct answer in class. "Six. There were six of them. Gus and his two sons, the Crier, the Driver, and Parker. I can give you height and weight on all of them, I can describe tattoos and every one of Angel's piercings. I can tell you exactly what each of them did to me, and if that's not good enough, I'm pretty sure they were recording it, so there's digital proof out there somewhere. Just, please, don't make me go through that again. Not right now. Please, Manda."

The color drained from Amanda's cheeks the longer Olivia went on, even when she was crying too hard to understand the words tumbling out of her own mouth. Please was the only really coherent sound she had made, and it never worked for her. She didn't get to say please. Didn't get to say no. Those words were luxuries for other people who had agency and the freedom to make choices. Her entire existence began with a lack of consent, and she was doomed to repeat it until the day she died.

Why hadn't she just died?

"Shh, Liv. Shh," Amanda soothed. She coasted her hand up and down Olivia's back when Olivia hunched over, wrapping both arms around her waist and weeping against her soft, warm belly. Olivia had loved pressing her ear there to listen to Samantha, though Amanda's high-pitched impression of the fetus, who said things like Get your own damn pillow, lady, and Hey, Mommy, as long as you're down there, might as well give Mama a good time, had been entertaining too. The thought of her baby girl, of laughter and the easy intimacy she'd so recently shared with Amanda, made her cry all the more.

"Look here, darlin'." Ever so gently, Amanda took Olivia by the shoulders, easing her back enough to gaze into her itchy, watery eyes. She cupped Olivia lightly below the chin, as if helping her to hold her head up. "I think— I really think you should get the kit done. The video . . . if there's any chance it didn't catch everything, we need to know. I need to kn— It will just strengthen our case and might help bring in Gus. He's the only one we have to find now, okay? I'll be right by your side through the whole thing, I promise. Please, Liv? It's important, baby, and you're not, um, you're not exactly thinking clearly."

Wasn't she? She did have trouble staying focused, and her surroundings did feel vaguely dreamlike, but she knew who Amanda was, where they were, why she was here. And she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she did not want a rape kit. She would rather go back to the shipping container for another four hours than lie on the stiff hospital mattress with yet another stranger nosing around between her legs, touching her in places they had no right to touch. And hurting her. God, that pain, it seemed to go on for hours, for miles, into the deepest parts of her . . .

Then Amanda's face appeared before her, shining like the dawn, despite her pallid features and the exhaustion that made her look almost haggard. She was close enough to smell, but something was off about her scent. Musky. It reminded Olivia of the men in The Box, bringing with it the mandatory nausea, and yet she didn't pull away. She wanted Amanda to hold her and tell her that it was all just a bad dream. That the violation was over, and she could rest.

"Do I have to?" she asked, not caring how childish the question sounded. She felt more like a child right then than she ever had in her life.

Amanda struggled with a range of emotions too complex for Olivia to suss out, though her wife's expressive face was usually her favorite thing to study, and it usually told her everything she needed to know. A scrim had been drawn between them, not unlike the hospital curtain that Nurse Karen whipped shut when she went to find someone more qualified to do Amanda's bidding. Nevertheless, Olivia recognized two things: the deep turmoil Amanda was in and the resolve she tapped into for her answer.

"Yeah, sweetheart, you do. I'll make sure it goes as quickly as possible, okay? And if it gets to be too much . . . well, I won't let that happen. You just keep talking to me and telling me how you're doing, and it'll be over before you know it." Amanda forced a smile, more pained than genuine or reassuring. Her voice had a falsely cheerful lilt to it that sounded quite a bit like her mother Beth Anne's cloying tone, a comparison that would have made her cringe if spoken aloud. She seemed to notice it herself, and cleared her throat of the disingenuous note. "Come on, let's get you into a gown. That nurse better get her ass back here with those blankets in two shakes."

The last part was added below her breath as she leaned in to scoop Olivia up from the wheelchair, the rape kit debate apparently over. In a way, Olivia was glad. It was a relief to have someone making the hard decisions for her, instead of letting the burden rest on her weary shoulders. She trusted Amanda's judgment—much more than her own, at the moment—and if Amanda said she needed to have the examination done, then she would have it. Just the idea of arguing about it anymore made her deeply tired. Bone-tired, they called it, and nothing could have been more accurate.

. . .

Her bones cried out with every movement, the chill she'd caught from sleeping on a wet mattress in the cold, while practically nude, making her feel brittle and rigid. Like a pretzel that would snap in two if handled too roughly. Thankfully, Amanda was as gentle with her as with their baby, even though she was much larger and harder to manage than Sammie Grace. Olivia hadn't realized how big she really was until that moment. Other than a couple of inches in height, a slightly larger frame, and a much bigger bust, there hadn't seemed to be a marked difference between her size and Amanda's. But now she felt monstrous, her body bloated and ungainly and out of her control.

She tried not to look at it while Amanda helped her undress, but the sight of her arms outside the sleeves of the sweatshirt was startling. They were pale as fish bellies, covered in more fingerprints than an elevator control panel, and so raw at the wrists it looked like they had been garroted. Her hands opened and closed at the ends of them when she tested her fine motor skills, but they felt weirdly detached, as if she were wearing Mickey Mouse's big puffy white gloves and anything could be happening underneath.

Something about her hand-eye coordination was off, so she let her eyes drift farther on, to braless breasts (what had they done with her bra, she wondered, heart giving a little kick inside her chest, as if she'd misplaced her keys or a wallet) and an abdomen so mottled with bruises it looked like she was wearing purple and yellow camouflage. She gazed at them mildly, unable to make sense of the colors and the bite marks. There should be a pattern, a meaning to the madness, but all she identified was chaos, pain, and anger. More anger than she'd ever known existed.

She couldn't look lower. It was as though her bottom half resided under a dense fog. Her legs were there—obviously, since she was standing while Amanda hurried to shake out the gown folded on the end of the bed—and she saw that they were as battered as the rest of her. But they felt leaden and unreal, completely disconnected from her brain. The thing between them didn't exist at all. Pussycat, pussycat, I love you, yes, I do, Parker had crooned at her during one of the rapes. You and your pussycat nose.

Fuck Tom Jones. Fuck that stupid song. And fuck the cold hospital floor, icy hot against her feverish bare feet. Her internal thermostat seemed to be on the fritz, registering different levels of heat and cold in every part of her body. Mostly cold, god, so cold. But the splinters and raw, cracked skin ignited the soles of her feet like she was walking across hot coals, and she took turns standing on one, the other resting on top of the opposite foot, then switched.

"I know, baby, it's cold. I'm sorry. Almost there." Amanda draped the gown around Olivia's shoulders like a cape and reached into the sleeves to slide her arms through. The garment ties were in the front, same as the gowns designed for Pap smears and mammograms, and Amanda made quick work of knotting them into messy bows. She arranged the fabric gently over Olivia's breasts, ensuring they didn't show. Their eyes met briefly above the action, but neither of them acknowledged the awkwardness of it. "Can you make it up onto the bed?" she asked, and immediately bit her lip. "Here, let me . . . "

Along with the disruption to Olivia's natural rhythms, the injuries had thrown completely out of sync her easy physicality with Amanda. It took them a few tries to get her arm hooked around Amanda, who provided the boost upward that got her high enough to sit back heavily on the mattress. If it hurt, she couldn't tell yet, still too numb from the waist down to feel anything but an odd fullness in her groin, similar to the pain of needing to urinate but holding it until you cried.

"Sorry. Sorry." Amanda winced, despite getting no reaction to the abrupt landing. She plumped up the pillow at Olivia's back, guiding her onto it with the utmost care and checking for even a hint of discomfort as Olivia settled. "How's that? Are you— do you need anything? Water or . . . or . . . " She glanced around for something else to offer, but came up empty-handed. Looking a bit lost, she turned her anxious gaze back on Olivia, awaiting an answer, ready to spring into action when it came.

"Can't have water," Olivia said, even as her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth, sealed there by what little moisture remained on one or the other. Her lips were so parched, she felt new fissures forming every time she opened them to speak, and the split down the middle tugged painfully, as if the entire lip were ripping apart at the seams. She tucked it under her top teeth, hoping to soothe the soreness, but lacked the saliva to do so. "Mouth swab."

"Oh. Shit. Right." Amanda closed her eyes and gave an exasperated shake of her head like she was mentally kicking herself for the mistake. She sighed heavily through her nose, and when she finally opened her eyes again, they were contritely blue. The color of forget-me-nots sent as apology for some thoughtless offense. "I didn't even think. I'm sorry, darlin'. Is there anything else I can do?" She unfurled the blanket that had been folded on the end of the bed with the gown, frowning at its thin weblike weave. It was little more than a sheet with a low thread count, but she spread it over Olivia nonetheless, tucking it around her with fastidious hands.

Olivia reached for one of them, bringing it to her chest and holding it as if it were a small creature in need of protection. Truthfully, she just wanted Amanda to stay close. Even stepping away for five seconds to gather the clothing off the floor and prepare it for an evidence bag was too long. "Can you please just stay here beside me? Don't go anywhere. I need you right here." The more she asked for it, the more certain she became that it would be denied her. With mounting distress, she grasped at Amanda's arm, her hands climbing up the sleeve of a shirt she didn't recall ever seeing her wife wear before. It felt hot and abrasive in her palms. "I need you, Manda—"

"Hey, I'm right here. I'm right here, shh." Amanda made to gather Olivia against her chest, to kiss the top of her head as she often did, whether they were cuddling on the couch or tangled up together after a nightmare.

When the kiss didn't come, and Amanda held her slightly at bay, Olivia felt it as acutely as one of the slaps the men had applied to her cheeks. Not even blows of punishment, but brisk, playful swats meant to taunt and humiliate. It worked. Amanda probably just didn't want to disturb the crime scene Olivia's body had become, much of it dried into the filthy strands of her chopped up hair. At least she hoped that was the only reason her wife didn't want to touch her.

"I'm not going anywhere, Liv. They'll have to sedate me again to get me outta here. I mean—" Amanda shook off whatever was to follow-up the brash statement and fretted her bottom lip between her teeth. She had said something she regretted, but for the life of her, Olivia couldn't figure out what it was. Normally, she could almost read her detective's mind in these situations. Now it required more concentration and brainpower than she possessed. "Never mind that. I won't leave you. Just rest until the nurse gets back, baby. Just rest."

Attentive as Amanda was, fussing with the blanket, with the hospital gown, with Olivia's scratched and bloodied fingers, which she folded around her own and petted compulsively, she still appeared distracted. Each time her eyes met Olivia's, they darted away almost as quickly, to search for Nurse Karen or Rudy or some other medical personnel. Anyone but Olivia. She kept forcing vaguely seasick smiles, as if they were on a boat in choppy waters and she was trying to hold onto her lunch.

Anger, Olivia concluded. That must be the emotion Amanda was attempting to hide, afraid it would show through in too much direct eye contact. She didn't want Olivia to know how angry she was with her for letting this happen. For doing this to her and their children. Every time Olivia got hurt, Amanda and the kids had to suffer right along with her. If she had just fought a little harder or done a better job of negotiating with The Sandman, maybe she wouldn't be here, dragging her family through yet another traumatic ordeal.

. . .

("You know, Olivia Margaret, every time you pull a stunt like this, it complicates things for me too," Serena said, narrowly missing Olivia's cast when she swung the car door wide, ushering her toward the passenger seat with a hand that felt more forceful than helpful. And it should. It was the same hand that had pushed Olivia down the stairs and required a three night stay at the hospital; that put the cast on her leg and took away all athletic activities for the rest of freshman year. "I'm missing a lecture right now, thanks to you."

"Sorry," Olivia muttered. Her head was swimming from the pain medication, and she hadn't been fully awake when Serena bustled into the recovery room, announced that it was time to go home, and shook her by the shoulder until she opened her eyes. Now they were drooping again, and she was too tired to argue with her mother or even fasten her seatbelt.

She surrendered the latch to Serena, who sighed and leaned across her to buckle it. Normally, she did all that stuff by herself, to prove to Serena that she wasn't a baby or a burden. Today, she didn't care if she was either. Her leg hurt badly where they had set it, and she longed to be back in her hospital bed. At least there she could rest and the nurses took care of her without telling her she was a pain in the ass.

"—no special treatment," Serena was saying as she weaved through the parking lot. It occurred to Olivia that she was probably drunk and didn't belong behind the steering wheel, but hell, if she plowed them into a tree—or better yet, a brick wall—then they'd both be out of their misery. "I can't stay home to watch you, and Meg's got her own life to live. I'm not going to dump you on her like we're on some Deep South plantation. She's not your mammy. No, you're my responsibility. Lucky goddamned me."

She was doing it again. Making racist comments about Meg. That was how this whole thing had gotten started in the first place. Serena knew how much it upset Olivia when she put Meg down, as if she were the hired help and not the closest thing they had to family; not the one who had visited Olivia in the hospital, without complaint, and fed her so much candy she got a stomach ache; not the woman Olivia wished could be her real mother. Serena knew that part too, and she used it against Olivia every chance she got.

"Did you see that headscarf she was wearing yesterday? I know you've imprinted on her, little lost duckling that you are, but if I ever catch you following her around like some pickaninny in one of those, I'll disown you."

That's what Serena had said while they mounted the stairs to their apartment, both lugging schoolbooks, in a leather satchel and an L.L. Bean book pack, respectively. What happened next, Olivia could only describe as a brain glitch that was inspired by the elevator being out of order, the hot stairwell, and the rarity of the two of them getting home together from school at the same time. She simply forgot herself and said exactly what she was thinking:

"Well, it's not like you and I are anything alike. Maybe she is my real mom? It would explain my dark hair and eyes you hate so much. And why I tan so much better than you."

Serena swore it was her satchel that knocked Olivia off balance at the top of the stairs. That the weight of Olivia's pack, adding an extra ten pounds on her back, did the rest. But Olivia had seen Serena's hand striking like a snake when she turned. She had felt it ram into her shoulder, delivering the fateful shove that sent her toppling backward down the steps. At the bottom, the snap had been so loud and sickening, she thought a tree branch had broken beneath her.

Now the tree branch was throbbing, and Serena would not shut up about what a handful Olivia was, what a strain she put on her, how poorly having an unruly daughter reflected on her, how they were financially strapped with all the medical bills . . .

Olivia wanted to look her straight in the eye and tell her to go fuck herself. Scream that Serena was the one to blame for everything, including the broken leg. Tell her what an awful mother and human being she really was. Couldn't hold a candle to Meg Hawthorne in either respect. Instead, Olivia started to cry. Through her tears, she did the one thing she could think of to keep Serena from despising her, from thinking her so unworthy of love—she apologized. "I'm s-sorry, Mom. I'm sorry you have to take care of me. I'm sorry I got h-hurt. Please don't be mad. I'm sorry."

Little did she know at the time she would spend the rest of her life apologizing to her mother for crimes she hadn't known she committed.)

. . .

"Liv baby, what's wrong? Why're you crying? Are you hurtin' somewhere?"

Amanda's voice was so taut it made Olivia feel as though she couldn't swallow. Already coming up short from the dryness in her throat, she found it impossible to push down the lump in the back of it, as hard and jagged as stone. She made a strangled sound, like Gus's hands were around her neck again, choked on air, and began to cough uncontrollably. Water poured from her eyes, mixing with her tears, until she couldn't tell one from the other.

"Sorry," she wheezed between harsh, labored breaths. It sounded like wind whistling through a corridor each time she inhaled, her lungs pleading for more air than she could take in. She was as hungry for it as food or water. As forgiveness. "I'm— s-sorry, I-I'm sorry, Man-Manda. I'm s-s—"

A moment later she was in Amanda's arms, being rocked side to side and gently shushed, concerns about evidence transfer forgotten. She balled the front of Amanda's shirt—the one that didn't smell right—into her fists and hung on as if she might be torn from the embrace at any minute. There was that family years ago who survived a tsunami, the mother and oldest son managing to hold onto each other, even as nature raged around them, devastating cities and killing hundreds of thousands. That's how Olivia clung to her wife now, like the earth itself, the very ocean, in all its unfathomable depth and power, were trying to pull them apart.

"Naw, baby, you don't have to be sorry," Amanda cooed, stroking Olivia's hair and back. (It occurred to Olivia that she had less hair for petting; that's why Amanda's palm kept circling the back of her gown, and why she felt its warmth through the thin fabric.) She made soft soothing noises that were almost musical and sounded like one of the lullabies she hummed to Samantha when the baby fussed. Olivia thought it might be an old church hymn, but it was strangely comforting. "Shh. What do you have to be sorry about, huh? You didn't do anything wrong."

Of course Amanda considered her blameless. She still believed Olivia was brave and strong. A fighter who did things like face off with William Lewis, outfox Tad Orion, and use her bare hands to keep Amanda from bleeding out on the floor of a bank. She didn't hear all the begging, pleading, and groveling Olivia had to do in order to survive. The disgusting words she had to say. The even more disgusting acts she had to perform. If Amanda had witnessed any of it, she wouldn't think Olivia blameless anymore. She would be repulsed.

"I didn't f-f-fight hard enough. I shouldn't h-have let th-them hurt me like that. Please don't hate me, Amanda." Olivia buried her face in the neckline of Amanda's shirt, finding there warmth and bare skin that she wanted to wrap up in and disappear. Maybe forever. She pressed her forehead to it like a genuflecting Catholic at the Cross. "I w-wanted to be better for you and the k-kids. I'm sorry I let this happen again. I just keep h-hurting you. All of you."

"Oh, darlin'. No, huh-uh. Liv, look here." Gently Amanda pried Olivia's arms from around her middle, using them to prop her back enough to look in the eye. Her steady gaze belied the quaking of her hands, her body. At first, Olivia mistook the trembling as her own, but when she felt it pass through Amanda's grasp and into her like an electric current, she wanted to weep.

The detective seldom shook. Even giving birth, she had been fixed and unwavering. Always ready to get the job done. "None of this is your fault. You fought like hell not to let them touch you, I saw— I know that. There's no way you could've taken on that many guys by yourself and escaped. Even if it had been just one guy. You are not to blame here, it's them. You hear me? It's them, baby, shh."

Olivia heard her just fine, and perhaps right then she believed it. But what of later when the shock wore off, the numbness in her brain and body, and she had to feel everything on her own? What then? She didn't envy Amanda the effort it would take to convince her of her innocence when she was more clear-headed. The least she could do was accept being excused now, while Amanda was so desperate to let her off the hook. There would be plenty of hooks to come, and they would be much sharper and deadlier than this.

She answered with a small nod that Amanda had to glance down to see. Olivia tilted her face up at the same moment, and they gazed at each other that way for a long time, as a mother regarded an ill infant she cradled in concern. Words seemed to fail them both, and they relied on communicating with their eyes, with every touch. You're going to be okay, they said. I love you, they said. Please don't cry.

Neither of them could heed the request. They were weeping silently, eyes closed and foreheads together, when Rudy Syndergaard knocked gently on the doorframe to the room and peered around the curtain.

The examination was about to begin. For the next several hours, Olivia would again be at the mercy of countless strange hands, of eyes that would stare and judge, of bright lights and cold hard tables. Things inside her; her body being recorded, possibly for a jury to see. Her story in the hands and minds of total strangers. They took a piece of you with them, and you never got it back. Sometimes they didn't even believe your version of events. Sometimes they thought it was your fault. Sometimes it was.

She wished that Parker's belt were back in her hands.

. . .