A/N: Wow, lots of strong reactions to chapter 23! I was going to write up this whole thing about the butterfly effect that got us here, but I decided to just leave it up to interpretation. (Although, I am willing to offer my perspective to anyone interested. :) I do wanna say, though, keep in mind that a lot of the action last chapter was split-second, which can be tricky to convey on paper, since it takes longer to read a sentence than for it to actually happen IRL. And even longer for the characters to process in the moment than for the reader, who's had foreshadowing, clues, and direct insight into the bad guys' plans. But yes, I did write Parker as that much of a dumbass, lol. Try to go easy on Amanda and Daph, 'cause they're traumatized to fuck and back, so their judgment's a little clouded. Basically, there's just a whole lot of miscommunication going on right now—be it between characters, departments, or burnt-out brains vs. instinct. Anyway. On with the story! Slightly shorter chapter, but the next should be on the longer side. I don't think this one needs a TW, either. Happy reading!

Chapter 24.

All the Pretty Little Horses

. . .

"Oh my God. Oh, Jesus Christ, Daphne. That guy's involved. He's one of the men who took Liv."

"What?"

Amanda ignored Daphne's shrill exclamation and didn't even hear any of the questions or crying that followed. The man in the MAGA hat, who had filmed Olivia's abduction and spent yesterday morning raping her, doing whatever it was that left her so traumatized she stared at the wall for an hour afterward, hardly blinking—that man had Amanda and Olivia's daughter. Amanda was sure of it. Drug cartels wiped out entire families as revenge; Sondra Vaughn planned to take Amanda's apart piece by piece.

And she'd enlisted Matthew Parker to do it. Amanda knew it in her bones that he was the sixth man involved in her wife's capture, that he was the patsy, sent to do the grunt work like recording out in the open or snatching a cop's kid right in front of an entire precinct filled with law enforcement. You either had to be really gutsy or really stupid to do that, and Amanda's best guess from reading the guy's jacket, he was a grade-A moron the other men didn't mind seeing take the fall. The kind of guy who got their sloppy seconds (or sixths). She just knew it, like she had known he was MAGA Hat the second she saw his picture.

"Where are you, fucker," she muttered to herself, scanning the crowd for the fourth or fifth time. She tugged at her bottom lip so hard the web of tissue inside felt as though it would tear.

All she needed was a glimpse of Matilda's bouncy red curls, just one flash. They were molten copper in the sun, but the baby was so fair, Amanda and Olivia usually kept a bonnet on her during family outings. The precise moment the thought clicked in her head, she spotted a child in an ill-fitting red cap, seated in the arms of a tall man with salt and pepper hair. Her child, wearing the pink linen overalls Tilly adored because the buttons were shaped like butterflies and flowers. Olivia loved them too, said she wanted to pass them down to Sammie when the time came.

(Would it ever come?)

He was headed towards Bryant Park at a brisk pace, though he didn't run and chance drawing attention to himself. Even in New York, a man running with a small child in his arms would get a few stares—and some choice words—particularly among the heavier foot traffic. Still, he had earned himself a generous head start, his long legs carrying him two or three steps to the leisurely strolling tourists' one. He glanced back once, but his eyes were on the crowd, not Amanda or the precinct. He was expecting any would-be rescuers to come from behind him, and forgot to check the precinct stairs.

Amanda opened her mouth and almost made the biggest mistake of her life. Shouting at him would only alert him she was on her way, giving him ample time to flee. And taking out her weapon to shoot at him wasn't an option, not with Tilly in his arms. She wasn't armed anyway, and she needed Parker alive. He was going to tell her where to find Olivia.

Then she could kill him.

"I see him," she said, pointing the retreating figure out to Fisk, but not waiting to see if he got a glimpse.

Pointing to Daphne at the foot of the stairs, she barked at the kid like a drill sergeant training a recruit—"Give my baby to her and move your ass"—before leaping off the steps and hitting the pavement at full tilt. Her shoes were heavier than the lightweight tennis shoes she preferred to run in, but they scarcely slowed her down. Pedestrians were the bigger hindrance, though some heard her pounding the sidewalk behind them and dodged out of the way. If anyone swore at her or mouthed off, she didn't notice. The only sound in her ears was the wind rushing as she ran.

She was pitifully out of shape and unable to fill her lungs to full capacity, probably from all the extra tit she was carrying around. Her throat already burned, her knee, the one that twinged sometimes when she pushed herself too hard, felt as though it were crunching on gravel. She kept meaning to get it checked, more to appease Olivia than anything. "Sweetheart, you must take care of yourself," her captain had said, frowning at the swollen kneecap. It looked like a big blister about to pop. "As your boss, I order it. And as your wife, that thing is hideous, call the damn doctor, or I will."

Still she ran. He had her little girl, her Tilly-billy, the most trusting and tender-hearted of all her children. Even baby Samantha lost patience with her mamas from time to time, but never Matilda, their little ray of sunshine, who gave hugs and kisses just because. Only a few days earlier, she had crawled into Amanda's lap with one of her stuffed animals, bussed Amanda on the cheek with its snout, the other with her tiny pink lips that always looked like she was wearing lipstick, and said in all sincerity, "I love you, Mama." She was asleep against Amanda's chest minutes later.

That random display of affection would have spelled trouble if it had been from Jesse, but it was just Matilda's way. In the wrong hands, that purity of spirit and innate sweetness could be so corrupted, twisted into something vile, profane. It had happened to Matilda's birth mother, Amelia Cole. The father had been a psychopath, pure and simple, but Amelia was an innocent kid when William Lewis stole her childhood and turned her into a monster. Her backpack had smelled like a Cabbage Patch doll when Amanda found it on that tram to Roosevelt Island.

That was not going to happen to Amanda's little girl. She couldn't let it, not after what she'd let happen to Olivia. If she failed her wife again by allowing one of their children to be taken by a stranger—a rapist—there really would be no redemption left for her. She might as well run into traffic right now, and save herself the trouble.

Breathe, she told herself, gaining another burst of speed, though where it came from she couldn't say. Maybe the angels were on her side this time. Maybe it was that adrenaline that made it possible for mothers to lift a car off their children kicking in. Whatever it was, she was suddenly only a few feet away, with no other thought in her mind than saving her daughter. And that word that pounded in her head like her feet on the pavement: Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

He must have heard it, her thundering feet and breath, before he sensed her coming, because he glanced back in surprise, as if it were completely natural to wonder off with someone else's kid. The brazenness of these men's attacks was terrifying. Even more terrifying was that they got away with them—or almost did. For a moment he gazed benignly at her, in no more of a rush than a cow chewing cud, and then he was running too, his hand at the back of the red baseball cap, keeping it pressed to his shoulder.

At least he was protecting Tilly's head, but the sight of him charging ahead with her little girl in his arms, putting Tilly in greater physical danger should he fall or drop her, made Amanda's heart lodge in her throat. "Stop," she bellowed, too winded to reach her usual volume, though still loud enough that people nearby turned to see who was shouting. "NYPD, stop! Put her down, now!"

The warning didn't slow him down a bit, and that frightened Amanda, but it was even worse when she saw what the man was running to. Idling in a no parking zone on the curb outside of a bodega yards ahead stood a white van. Olivia had been taken in a black one, of much different structure, but that didn't mean anything. These guys had endless access to any number of stolen, impossible to identify vehicles—it's what they did. Besides that, the back door of this van was wide open, another man crouched inside it, snapping pictures on a wide-angle lens.

Even this far off, Amanda recognized him as Angelov, the sadistic bastard who had bounded out of the black van to snatch Olivia from her, and who reveled in hurting Olivia more than any of the others. It was hard to miss that fauxhawk, the tattoos, and the glints of silver from his many piercings. At least the visible ones, Amanda thought, remembering his Prince Albert piercing and how he had jammed it inside of Olivia again and again. Calling her kitty cat.

She tucked in her chin and ran faster, arms and legs pumping harder than they ever had in her days of running track. She was probably setting a new record for herself, which was saying a lot for someone who had been the fastest girl in five counties and whose picture still hung in a trophy case back in Loganville High. But it had always been freedom and determination that had pushed her on back then; now it was the pure and utter terror Olivia talked about. And not for Amanda herself, but for her little girl. Her little punkinhead Tilly.

Then a miracle happened right in front of Amanda's eyes, almost restoring her faith in God. Almost.

Against Parker's shouts for the van to wait, Angelov slung the rolling door shut and the vehicle sped away, leaving skid marks and the smell of hot rubber in its wake. They left him. The sonsabitches had actually driven off and left their man behind. So much for loyalty among thieves. Parker was yelling after them, still running, stumbling in his efforts to catch up. Adrenaline pierced Amanda's heart when his ankles wobbled. "Put her down!" she called, voice rising to a brutish shriek. She could hear Fisk behind her now, a short ways off, ordering the man to stop, police! The kid was pretty speedy too. Just not as speedy as Amanda.

And then, like magic, like that miracle a moment before, Parker stuttered his feet until he halted completely and stood Matilda on her feet so quickly she lost her balance and plopped down in the grass behind her. The red MAGA hat had fallen over her eyes, her tiny face covered by the brim. She couldn't even see Parker as he took off like a shot, abandoning her there, or Amanda as she sprinted by, shouting at Fisk to stay with her daughter. It wrenched at Amanda's soul not to stop and help the child herself, but she couldn't let Parker escape. He was going to take her to Olivia.

"NYPD," Amanda boomed, an announcement far more powerful than the word stop, and one she was so used to hollering she could probably manage it with her dying breath. This time he didn't listen, no more miracles left up his sleeves, but at least he knew Amanda was still coming for him. What he didn't know was that she had grown up playing tackle football with all the boys, and she needn't get close enough to grab him by the arm or the shoulder. All she needed was another inch or so, maybe another wobble in his step . . .

Like that right there.

She launched herself at his middle, plowing into him from behind like a one hundred and twenty-five pound wrecking ball, and tackling him to the sidewalk. He went down in the heavy, slow motion collapse of a demolished building, as if not all his parts were falling at once. When he did hit, he skidded across the sidewalk, breaking Amanda's fall with his back. It was still a rough landing, but more than worth it as he groaned beneath her. "Fucked you good, huh, pal?" she said breathlessly. "Fucked you real good. Little bitch."

Her cuffs weren't there when she reached for them, his wrists pinned behind his back, cinched together under her palm. She meant to haul him to his feet when she clambered up, but her hands, her entire person, seemed to move of their own violation as she turned him over, straddling his chest and pinning his arms with her knees. Then she started punching.

It was funny how she didn't even feel it as her fists collided with his face again and again. How she heard bones crunching with each blow of her knuckles, but couldn't understand the man's cries of surrender. How a macabre red mask appeared where his face had been, and she didn't register that the slippery substance on her fingers was blood. Not until Montero was hauling her off the man and telling her to stand down, Detective, did she realize she'd beaten her suspect nearly unconscious. He sputtered blood like red paint from his lips and nostrils, his mangled features pulpy and off center. One eyelid drooped closed like the wing of a dying moth.

Amanda spat on his chest and swiped a string of saliva from her chin with the heel of her hand. Her fingers, stunned into complete numbness by the brutality they had just delivered, she dried on the back of her pants. They probably wouldn't bend for a while, but she could live with that. She waited just long enough to be certain Montero had him under control, reading him his rights and cuffing his hands as he sat dazedly on the ground, peering out from his crimson mask. "Get this ugly fucker outta my sight and into interrogation," she said, and with that, went to check on Matilda.

Thanks to the hat and some quick thinking by Officer Fisk, who had escorted Matilda over to peer through the black wrought iron fence rails at a small flower garden on the other side, the little girl had missed out on the action behind her. She was surprised to see Amanda, unaware that the frantic shouts from moments earlier had belonged to her mama, whom she'd never heard or witnessed in cop mode before. That was something Amanda never wanted her kids to see, least of all sensitive Tilly. She couldn't bear for her little sparrow to be afraid of her; not like she had feared her own daddy.

"Mama!" squealed Matilda, throwing both arms around Amanda's neck and squeezing until their cheeks pressed together, as she was hoisted into the air. "Mama, I missed you! Is this work? And she bringed me to see you at work! Look, I picked you flowers." She brandished a pair of wilted buttercups in her tiny fist, as proud as if they were a bouquet of yellow roses.

Amanda couldn't let go, couldn't even draw back to make a fuss over the pretty weeds, pretending they smelled heavenly. Her baby in her arms was the most real thing she had felt in the past three days. It was like sensation returning to a long-asleep limb, or what a starfish must feel regenerating a part of itself. If she hadn't pumped less than thirty minutes ago, her milk would have let down with her tears. She crushed Matilda to her, hugging and weeping, until even her most patient and affectionate child began to squirm.

"Why you cry, Mama?" Matilda asked with deep concern, her milky white brow furrowed. A faint dusting of eyebrow, fattened by the expressive facial muscles underneath, stood out on her face like two ginger caterpillars on a magnolia blossom. She began to tear up too, the moisture turning her blue eyes cornflower. In her entire forty-seven months on Earth, she had only seen Amanda shed happy tears. It had been Amanda's goal to keep it that way, but now they were both losing that one. "Don't cry."

"Mama's not crying, baby girl. I'm just so happy to see you, that's all." At least the last part was true. Amanda didn't mind telling white lies to the kids every once in a while, but it made her feel twice as lousy right then. Olivia avoided lying as much as possible—especially with their children—and anything less than that felt like a breach of her trust, and theirs.

Funny how it hadn't seemed that way a few weeks ago when Amanda was sneaking a peek at Olivia's journal, her most intimate and personal thoughts, and something no one had the right to take away from her
(Oh God, I took them away from her)
and got caught by their eldest daughter. Amanda had lied her way out of that one, just like she lied her way out of everything else, and had broken Olivia's trust several times over. All in the name of "looking out for" her abused wife.

I swear I'll never lie or invade her privacy again if you just bring her back to me in one piece, she prayed, momentarily forgetting her abandoned faith.

Outside, the pavement dappled by the May sunlight through the trees, Matilda in her arms, and the city at its most vibrant, most vital, it seemed impossible that the hateful images she'd been watching on a computer screen for days were even real. Maybe the videos were manipulated and it wasn't Olivia at all—they had the technology for that now. They could just superimpose her face onto someone else, her body and movements, so familiar, her ravaged voice and godawful screams . . .

"Ow, Mama." Matilda leaned back from the hug, pushing at Amanda's shoulders to loosen the grip around her delicate herringbone ribs, her ivory-skinned back, no wider than the span of Amanda's open hand. The overalls straps draped off her narrow shoulders. "Too tight. No more bear hugs, please."

Please. Olivia had taught her to say that, as determined as any mama from the South that her children should have impeccable manners. Amanda would rather teach them how to say no, unequivocally, unapologetically. After listening to her wife plead not to be raped for the past three days, please had lost all meaning for Amanda. Please wasn't worth a good goddamn.

"I'm sorry, baby. No more squeezes." She eased up on her iron grip, sliding both arms down to cradle Matilda's bottom. She kissed the child's face repeatedly, each time reassuring herself that her little girl was safe and completely unscathed by what had just transpired. Still her sweet, innocent Tilly-billy. Gently, under the guise of more kisses, she slipped the red cap off Matilda's head and handed it to Fisk to be bagged as evidence. "Can you tell, Mama, though? Where were you going with that man? Did he talk to you?"

Matilda nodded empathetically, curls bouncing. "We're gonna ride the music horseys! He said. But I fell down. Where is he, Mama? I want to ride them." She sat up in Amanda's arms to peer past her shoulder, unaware that Amanda had turned slowly as Montero walked by with his handcuffed perp, keeping both men out of sight. "Can we?"

"Not right now, punkin. I know you love the carousel, but let's go on back to Mama's work and check on Daph and sissy, okay? We can see the horseys some other time, I promise."

With a heavy, resigned sigh, Matilda sank back down in Amanda's embrace. "Okay," she said reluctantly, then brightened a second later. "Is Mommy there too? I want to see Mommy."

The inquiry sliced through Amanda like a blade just forged, hot and unforgiving. Sharp enough to separate body from soul. Yes, Mommy was there in a manner of speaking, but seeing her was out of the question. Amanda would die before she let that happen. "No, punkin, we can't see Mommy," she managed, before her voice gave out. She cleared her throat and tossed her hair, as if the quick motion would recalibrate her spiraling thoughts. (With startling clarity, she'd envisioned herself walking back to the precinct, finding someone's unsecured weapon, and putting a bullet in her brain just to make it all stop.) "For now. We'll see her as soon as we can."

"He said we'd go to Mommy. After the horseys." Matilda wore the closest thing to a pout her delicate, naturally happy face seemed able to muster. A day without a smile from Tilly was like a day without sunshine, without love. Olivia hadn't seen that smile in three days, and maybe never would again. She might never hear Jesse's ridiculous machine gun giggles, or watch Noah dance his little heart out one last time. Might never know what kind of personality Sammie would develop as she grew . . .

Amanda took a gulping breath, almost choking on a sob. She managed to swallow it in time, but it stuck in her throat like a bitter pill. "Who did? The man?"

"Uh-huh. He said my mommy was 'scited for me to come, and he's my new daddy." Matilda lifted strands of Amanda's hair from either shoulder, lashing them like thin blond reins. She jounced in Amanda's arms like they were a saddle, prodding with her knees. Giddyup, horsey. "Is he, Mama? Do I got a daddy?"

The hair at the back of Amanda's neck stood on end, and it required every ounce of strength she possessed not to swear profusely, not to hand her daughter off to Fisk, sprint after Montero and the demented pervert in his custody, and finish beating Parker until he was unconscious or dead. Preferably dead. "No. That man is not your daddy," she said, too sharply, giving Matilda a scolding jounce of her own. "He is a liar, Tilly, and a bad, bad man. You don't ever go anywhere with a stranger like that again, do you hear me? No more riding the carousel if you do."

It was much too harsh of an admonishment for a toddler, and unwarranted, when Parker had been the one to walk off with Matilda, not vice versa. But if it frightened her, then so be it. Amanda would rather her children be afraid and safe than fearless and locked up in a shipping container somewhere, alternately being beaten and raped every couple of hours by a steady stream of men. A few tears for Mama were not the worst thing a child could experience in her lifetime, not by a long shot.

Matilda had an entirely different outlook, her sweet faylike features crumpling in on themselves as if they were made of tissue paper. "I sorry, Mama," she whimpered, before dissolving into the heavy, soundless tears that were so like Olivia's, falling as effortlessly as rain. If she had only wailed and burst into childish tears, blubbering about the carousel, about her "new daddy," her scattered toys that Fisk trotted over to retrieve, Amanda wouldn't have felt like such a monster. But Matilda wept.

Fifty-one years ago, Olivia's biological father had approached her in the same manner as Parker, telling her things no three-year-old should hear. She had gotten yelled at and threatened by her mother too, a memory traumatic enough to be stored away in the vault of her subconscious, unlocked only with the key provided by Dr. Anthony Giacomo—now rotting in a prison cell—in the form of hypnotherapy.

Would this be Tilly's childhood trauma, the one that followed her the rest of her days, keeping her from true happiness and fulfillment? What she would forever associate with Olivia's abduction (and potential permanent absence from her life)? She had Olivia's intuitiveness and deep capacity for empathy; of course this was going to affect her. All Amanda could do now was try and mitigate the damage she'd helped cause.

"No, baby girl, I'm sorry," she said, guiding Matilda's bright head to her chest, holding it there as she pressed her lips into the soft, baby shampoo scented curls, peppering them with fierce kisses, even fiercer tears. "Shh, Mama didn't mean it. He's just a bad man, and I got scared. You're not in trouble, and it's not your fault, Tillybug, shh. None of this is your fault."

By the time they reached the precinct steps, Amanda had calmed Matilda—and herself—down to an occasional sniffle, though she wouldn't lift her head, and simply peered out from under Amanda's chin at Daphne's outstretched hands. "Can Aunt Daphy hold you so Mama can say hi to Sammie?" Amanda murmured into the warm nest of ginger curls she couldn't stop kissing.

Matilda shook her head no, clinging to Amanda like she was Velcroed in place. It was the first time she had refused to let one of her mothers pay attention to the baby, her baby, and it tugged at Amanda's already battle-weary heart. "I want you, Mama," said the tiny, muffled voice below, reminding Amanda so distinctly of Olivia crying out for her mother while being raped, it almost brought her to her knees.

She sat down heavily on the steps, oblivious to the rough landing on the concrete and the sound of Daphne's fretful voice asking if she was all right, and she held her daughter close as they cried.

. . .