A/N: Hey there, Rolivia girlies (and guysies, if you're out there)! Ready for chapter 35? Me too. Thank you to everyone who's still reading, and Happy Mariska Birthday Week to you all! No trigger warnings, other than a brief violent image involving a child. I'll be going out of town on Thursday, so I'm considering posting early on Wednesday... what do y'all think? Lemme know.


Chapter 35.

A Fine Line

. . .

"You have got to be kidding me." Olivia stared at the bottle in disbelief: A) That her mother had demonstrated on an almost full vodka, which seemed like a waste, and B) That anyone in their right mind would put something like that . . . well, there. She was only eleven, but that was more than enough time to figure out you didn't go around sticking things in your privates, unless you wanted to end up in the emergency room, your mother wailing about a marker lid in her daughter's you-know-what.

And now her mother was insisting that women all over the world did this to themselves for about five to seven days each month. Hence Olivia's disbelief and the sneaking suspicion that Serena had already polished off part of a vodka before inserting the tampon into this one. Tampon. Menstruation. Menses. Even just the words associated with the phenomenon Serena had spent the past half-hour lecturing on—she loved talking to Olivia, as long as there was a lesson involved—were gross. Kotex. Ovulating. Uterus.

See?

Olivia peered skeptically at the white clump bobbing in her mother's favorite drink, like those creepy gel candles on Serena's desk with random objects suspended inside. Years ago, Olivia had tried to eat the fruit out of one, thinking it was like a Jell-O mold, and got into big, BIG trouble. But it was perfectly okay to go shoving cardboard tubes and gobs of cotton into your twat? (That's what the girls at school called it. Another ugly word for things she'd rather not think about. Hers already seemed to be a source of punishment—and now this.)

"Are you sure? Isn't there some way to make the period things stop?" Olivia stressed the last part, making it very clear that was her plan for this menstruation nonsense, to stop it in its tracks. She hadn't even gotten hers yet, so why not just nip it in the bud before it ever got to the tampon stage of development? Why were grown women subjecting themselves to these . . . shackles of the patriarchy? (Her mother's words this time.) "Like a sitz bath or something?"

To Olivia's astonishment, Serena burst into laughter at the inquiry, slapping her knee like it was the most hilarious thing she'd ever heard. The strange part was that she didn't appear to be laughing at Olivia, but finding humor in what she had said. Enjoying her input. That hardly ever happened.

She was definitely drunk.

"Well, baths can be helpful, particularly hot ones," Serena said, when her amusement died down a bit. She kept on grinning, though. It was kind of scary to see her in such a good mood. Hyenas smiled at their kills, too. And yet, she was so pretty in that moment and willing to listen, Olivia allowed herself to be drawn in. "It helps with the cramps. Bidets are nice for hygiene as well. Unfortunately, I haven't heard of a sitz bath to cure menstruation. I'm afraid it's something you'll just have to get used to, my dear."

Being called "my" anything by Serena, who usually looked at Olivia like a dirty sock pinched out in front of her, was even more rare than her smiles. And when she reached out and held Olivia gently by the chin, stroking it with her warm thumb, it felt as though something truly magical was taking place. Maybe the spell had been broken, and the mean, awful Serena who yelled and swore at Olivia, who threw things that sometimes hit her, was being replaced with this lady, who thought she was funny and didn't mind showing affection. It didn't matter if the new lady was a drunk too. All that mattered was how nice it felt here in the palm of her hand.

"When will it happen?" Olivia asked, sounding to her own ears like a small child asking after the pictures in a storybook. What happens next, Mommy? Can I turn the page and see? She didn't much care how childish it was, though, so long as Serena kept looking at her like that and stroking her face. It was the best feeling Olivia had felt in all her eleven years on earth.

In fact, she was so entranced she didn't notice Serena's expression slip for a second, or at least pretended not to. Her mother hated to be watched too closely, and she scolded Olivia for being a nosy little busybody if Olivia asked what was wrong. Eventually, Olivia had learned not to see what was happening right in front of her face. Like the dark flicker that momentarily turned Serena's gray eyes to reptilian slits when she contemplated her prepubescent daughter becoming a woman.

"Oh, not for a while," she said, a cryptic note in her voice. Her hand went to Olivia's hair, which she usually drew back from as if it were filled with snakes. Lots of people made a fuss over Olivia's dramatic features ("My goodness, child, where did you get this coloring? Who's your mother: Cleopatra?" they'd ask, winking over her head at Serena), but instead of being proud like most mothers would be, it just seemed to make Serena mad that someone considered her little girl pretty or special in some way.

Now she was petting Olivia's hair as if it were the arching backbone of a sleek black cat, and hers was the hand of a potion-stirring witch. Olivia wanted to lay her head in Serena's lap and purr with contentment. "Well, if you're anything like me, that is. I didn't start menstruating until I was fifteen. Some girls do start at eleven, though. I guess we'll just have to wait and see where your . . . unique biology takes you, won't we?"

Too drowsy from the gentle touches to question the meaning of her "unique biology," Olivia nodded along. It was always best to agree with Serena, even if you had no idea what she was talking about or why she was angry. Defy her, and you wound up locked in your bedroom or on your way to the ER. "I hope I'm like you, Momm— Mom. I don't want to be a woman yet. Besides, if I'm having cramps and all that other stuff, I might not be able to focus on my schoolwork. And that's just unacceptable."

That drew a soft chuckle from Serena, and if Olivia wasn't mistaken, there was a bit of pride in it. Her mother might not care if she was pretty or not, but she insisted Olivia get an education. And today, this conversation over a bottle of booze and a crazy stick of cotton dynamite you put in your privates, had certainly been enlightening.

Actually, it had been a pretty great day, despite the drinking. Olivia didn't know what had inspired Serena to sit her down for this talk, but it was one of the best mother-daughter bonding moments—no, the best—they had ever had. Maybe it was a sign that their relationship would get better as Olivia got older, instead of worse like she feared. Maybe Serena just didn't care for children (although she didn't seem to mind other people's kids).

Whatever it was, Olivia didn't intend to let it pass her by. She wrapped her arms around Serena's shoulders with such spontaneity and enthusiasm, it almost knocked Serena over. It was more attack than hug, but Olivia couldn't help herself; she didn't have a lot of experience doing this, and she better get it over with before the moment passed them by. Her heart was swelling with love for the woman she feared and sometimes thought she hated. The woman she called Mother.

"Thank you for telling me all that," she said, giddy with relief when Serena's arms closed about her too. She had been pushed away so many times, she'd learned to just keep her distance. They would both have to get used to the hugging thing if this was how it was going to be now. Please, God, let it always be like this. "Even if it is kinda gross and scary, I'm glad I know about it so I can prepare. I still don't get how it helps with having babies, but I think I'll want a little girl someday, and probably need it then. And . . . oh, Mommy—"

Lost in the sensation of warm arms around her, a warm and powerful hand stroking her long dark hair down her back, Olivia didn't notice when Serena reached back with the other hand. She didn't see the glint of the coffee table lamp on silver, nor did she hear the little experimental snick of metal.

"Mommy, I love you!"

Then she felt the scissors plunge into her gut, not with the crazy hacking arm like in the movies, but with a subtle fluctuation of muscle and bone. Like a Fosse shoulder roll, that's how it looked when her mother stabbed her. Hotcha, whoopee, jazz!

It didn't seem to hurt at first, before her body or mind could register shock. Then pain, a thousand times hotter than the face of the sun, opened up inside her belly, pouring out its wrath in red tears that rained into her lap and made it feel like she'd wet her pants. Was this what it was like to get your period, she wondered vaguely. Perhaps she had reached womanhood after all, hastened by Serena's hand.

"There. Now you know how it felt having you," Serena cooed into Olivia's ear, cupping a hand behind her head to hold her upright. She was faint and trembling from the shock of losing so much blood so quickly, and it was difficult to stay sitting up. It was difficult to make sense of her mother's words, though she had heard them many times before. "The little girl I never wanted."

The little girl she never loved.

As Olivia felt her life ebbing away, ended by the woman who had given it, she reached up to touch her mother's cheek. She wanted Serena to know she was forgiven; Olivia didn't blame her for anything that had transpired between them then or in the past. She still loved her mother—her murderer—as much as she had seconds ago, and with her final breath she whispered to Serena how long that love would last:

"Always."

. . .

She gathered Olivia's wavering hand in hers, bringing it to her lips and warming it with her breath. It was still so cold, though the hypothermia had dissipated hours ago and the heated blankets were plentiful, post-op. Amanda had insisted on it at the first sign of Olivia shivering under the single thin blanket they had wheeled her into Recovery wearing. That might have been a trick of the light, honestly, but Amanda wasn't taking any chances.

At least the fever had gone, so she didn't have to worry about Olivia's brain cooking itself inside her skull, or her organs shutting down one by one, consumed by the spreading wildfire beneath her skin. Little left to cling to, Amanda clung to that: the infection was under control and, though Olivia's road to recovery would be long and arduous, her life was no longer in imminent danger. For the first time in going on four days, Amanda could rest easy knowing that her wife was going to be okay.

That was the theory, anyway. You couldn't have proved it to her while she waited by Olivia's bedside for two hours after the surgery, jumping at every movement, real or imagined, beneath the covers, every shadow at the corner of her vision. She was paranoid and skittish from lack of rest, but there was no way in hell she could sleep in a hospital unless she was under sedation herself. Not while she'd awaited news of Olivia's condition, and not while she waited for Olivia to open her eyes.

It seemed like she was about to get her wish, the captain finally beginning to stir, reaching out a hand as weak and palsied as an old woman's. A moan that might have been a word, though too unintelligible to identify, accompanied the gesture, and Amanda held her breath, willing more to follow. If she still believed in Jesus, she would have asked him to raise Olivia up like that young girl he brought back from the dead. Talitha cumi. Little girl, arise.

Maybe Amanda didn't need his help, though. Maybe she had the power to bring Olivia back all on her own. By sheer force of will she had tracked her wife down when no one else could, escaped a deadly gunfight, and single-handedly killed three men. Who was to say she didn't hold dominion over life and death? She'd given it and taken it away multiple times since that very morning.

Talitha cumi, she repeated to herself, to Olivia's sleeping form. Talitha cumi. She clasped Olivia's hand tight, intentionally squeezing a bit too hard, in hopes of rousing her. A small amount of pain was sometimes necessary to bring about healing; she didn't need a Bible story to teach her that, just regular life experience. Recovering from two bullet wounds provided a lot of insight as well. Talitha cumi, talitha cumi . . .

She hadn't realized she was gritting her teeth with effort, straining to convey her thoughts to Olivia's unconscious mind, until another voice cut in. "Manda?"

Her teeth sliced in opposite directions with a noise like whetting a knife, and her eyes flicked open so quickly they were momentarily blinded by the stark overheads.

By God, she had done it. She told Olivia to rise, and that was exactly what happened. Even through the cacophony of trauma, surgery, sedatives, and exhaustion, she had heard Amanda and followed her out of the darkness that was so hellbent on swallowing her up.

It was a miracle—and it was also a load of absolute horseshit.

Olivia was no more awake than she had been since her return from the OR, eyes shut defiantly against the outside world. She did look like one of the kids faking sleep, all puckered up that way, but Amanda recognized it as the face she made while heavily drugged or when she'd had too much wine before bed. Once again she was too far away for Amanda to reach, their extraordinary connection lost, possibly never to return. (What if it never returned?)

Suddenly furious for the interruption, convinced it was the reason she hadn't gotten through to her wife, Amanda shot a stony glare over her shoulder at Dana Lewis. The agent hung back by the door, hands in her pockets, and for the first time in her short acquaintance with Amanda, she looked completely out of her element. The street clothes added to the impression. Jeans and an NYC hoodie were much less formidable than a business suit and Fed boots. She was shorter in tennis shoes.

"Don't call me that," Amanda snapped, without pausing to consider if she might have misheard. She didn't care right then, as long as she got to vent her helplessness and frustration somewhere. "Only she gets to call me Manda. And I don't go by Mandy either, so don't even try it."

"Right, uh, sorry. Amanda." Dana glanced back at the door like she wanted to bolt, but instead she shuffled a few steps closer to the bed. Craning her neck, she peered over the remaining distance at Olivia. "How's she doing? Got a healthier color, at least. She's blue last time I saw her."

Amanda wanted to snarl that if horrifically bruised was a healthy color, then sure, Olivia was healthy as a goddamn horse. But after that first flash, all the fun had gone out of being angry. It required too much energy, and Dana was too wide-eyed and uncertain to be a good target. There was no sport in killing something frozen in fear. Hospitals had a way of reducing people to their basic animal selves—Dana was a timid hare in this room, scenting for danger, prepared to dash away if it came.

She must have sensed that Amanda was the mountain lion: keen, moody, ever-prowling. The off-brand sweats, about two sizes too large and the same shade as oatmeal, contributed to the overall effect, as if she were wearing a catamount bodysuit. Her clothes, née Nicholas Angelov's clothes, were on their way to the incinerator, having been stuffed into a hazardous waste bin after she requested the sweats from Rudy.

The nurse had included a pair of tube socks and plain white tennis shoes in the bundle, and with her ratty blond hair pulled back in a ponytail—Rudy had even scrounged up one of those hair coils that looked like an old phone cord, bless his heart—Amanda felt almost human. It wouldn't have been her first choice of attire for speaking with the brass or IAB, but at least she was no longer wearing the blood of the man she'd killed.

Besides that, Angel had been wearing those same shitty joggers and that same worn out flannel when he raped Olivia. Burning them was the only viable option, just as scrubbing her skin with handfuls of soap from the bathroom dispenser and patting dry with paper towels had been Amanda's only option for ridding herself of any trace of that sick bastard. Even now, her flesh crawled at the thought of him, of his dead skin cells and God knew what else hijacking some small part of her body she'd overlooked.

Maybe she was in need of a baptism by fire too.

Shuddering, Amanda forced herself back to reality and Dana, who watched her expectantly with those big hare eyes, full of questions. "Well, she's not hypothermic anymore, if that's what you mean. We got her warmed up pretty quick once I brought her in. 'Nother night in that torture box, she might not've been so— "

Lucky. She'd almost said it out loud. Hot, slimy bile slickened the back of her throat, made her mouth humid and sour. Thankfully, Dana nodded as if she understood. No need to finish.

"That why she's still out?" Dana edged closer to the bed, gazing down at Olivia like she was looking over the side of a cliff. One she had narrowly missed plunging off of herself.

"No," Amanda said, wanting to leave it at that, but knowing she owed the other woman a better explanation. If not for Dana, she wouldn't be standing there with Olivia right then. She might never have seen Olivia alive again at all. "She had a real bad infection from the r— from a, uh, tear or something. They had to go in and stitch her up. Would've caught it sooner, but the symptoms mimicked hypothermia and shock. Damn near fell off the bed when she blacked out. She'd be even more busted up if I hadn't been there to grab her."

With a heavy sigh, Amanda plucked at some imaginary lint on the blankets that were piled on top of Olivia. The rest was none of Dana's business, no matter how beholden Amanda was to her. She hadn't even told Fin about the hysterectomy ultimatum Este had handed down in the waiting room. Olivia deserved some small semblance of privacy, after having so much of it stripped away by violent, sadistic hands. Amanda longed more than anything for her wife to wake up, but part of her dreaded what was to come. Especially now that Olivia knew about the recording.

"Sounds like you're pretty good at that," said Dana. She followed the outline of Olivia's cheek with her eyes, as if she were tracing it with her finger, though she didn't dare reach out. Amanda narrowed her eyes anyway, prepared to intervene if there was such a movement. Dana's hands didn't leave her pockets, but neither did her gaze leave Olivia's battered face. "Grabbing her up when she needs you."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Amanda bristled inside her ugly jogging suit, which was probably too baggy to show the full effect. She clenched a fist inside one of the loose sleeves, consoling herself that at least she knew it was there. She didn't want to use it unless absolutely necessary, but if Dana was implying that she treated Olivia with anything less than her utmost love and respect, it would sure as hell be necessary.

They didn't need another Alex Cabot horning in on their relationship and making Amanda out to be some kind of abuser, not right now. Not ever again. "I don't go grabbing on my wife, if that's what you heard. Anybody lays a finger on her, or just looks at her sideways, I'll . . . " The rest faded away when she realized Dana had seen exactly what she would do to someone who hurt Olivia—the blood, the trail of bodies. Strange how she couldn't make the threat, now that she'd actually done it.

"I wadn't saying it in a bad way," Dana said, finally tearing her attention from the sleeping captain and eyeing Amanda for a moment. She didn't appear to know what Amanda was talking about, although her interest was clearly piqued, her lips rounded into a questioning O. For someone so great at getting into character in her undercover roles, she didn't have a whole lot of subtlety as Agent Lewis. "You're the one who brought up grabbing her when she fell. I was agreeing that it sounds like you take good care of her. No matter what needs to be done."

Try as she might, Amanda couldn't find an accusation in the latter comment. On the contrary, it sounded like a pat on the back instead of the reprimand she expected. So far it seemed as if Dana was glad the men were dead, no matter how many rules were broken to get them there. Hell, she seemed to like the rule-breaking part too. Amanda should have been relieved—it was hypocritical not to be—but Dana's disregard for what was just and good made her angry.

True, everything made her angry right now, from the occasional chatter at the nurses' station to the cheap fabric of her generic sweats. But here at Olivia's bedside, she couldn't be congratulated for taking the law into her own hands and going against everything Olivia had fought so hard to uphold throughout her entire career, her entire life: justice, fairness, peace. Amanda had slain the monsters, but at what cost?

Signaling with a nod for Dana to follow, Amanda wandered just far enough away from the bed to pretend they were out of earshot, while sticking close in case she had to spring into action if Olivia woke. It was the best she could do on short notice, and it eased her nerves a bit, so that she didn't feel quite as much like a furious mama bear, determined to tear apart anyone who approached her cub.

Once Dana joined her, however, she found she had no clue where to begin. How did you ask someone if they had killed a guy for you and successfully staged a crime scene to cover your ass? The girl who once sweet-talked bookies and bosses didn't know how to spin this one. She could never repay such a debt.

As she was racking her brain for the best place to start, Dana slipped something out of her pocket and held it up for Amanda to see in the light.

"I think you oughta hold onto this," Dana said, shimmying the chain lightly, dancing its pendant to and fro. The names of Amanda and Olivia's children graced each side of the dainty rose-gold pillar, which Amanda had hunted down so painstakingly last Christmas. "For her. Keep it safe till she's ready to wear it again. Maybe get the clasp fixed so it doesn't fall into the sand anymore."

Amanda stared at the dangling necklace for several moments, not quite comprehending, not even sure she recognized it. In the past five months, she hadn't seen it off of Olivia's neck more than once or twice, and that had been in the shower, nowhere near any sand. She'd thought it lost forever when Gus Sandberg yanked it away from Olivia and stuck it in his pocket right before he raped her. That was probably where it had been for the last three days. Until Dana somehow retrieved it . . .

Oh. The Sandman.

"Where did you— " Amanda cupped a hand behind the pendant, gently scooping it up as if she were catching a firefly in her palm. She rolled it back and forth with her fingertip, reading and rereading her children's names. One soul more than the amount of people she had killed today. Dead-even if she counted Kat. "Is he . . . "

She cast a look at Olivia, then around the room, as if it might be bugged. Anything was possible, she understood that now.

"Mr. Sandman won't be bringing dreams to her or anyone else from now on." Dana drizzled the necklace into Amanda's palm and folded her fingers closed around it. There was barely any weight to it; if not for the pillar pressing into her flesh, Amanda wouldn't have felt it inside her fist at all.

She, too, felt oddly weightless as she tried to make sense of what Dana was telling her. She thought she might have misheard or misunderstood, but that sly little smile on the agent's lips was not imagined. Neither was the wink she passed to Amanda before resuming a solemn expression, most befitting of a g-woman. "I found it in the shipping container," Dana added, her inflection telling a different story. She may have been in the container when the necklace appeared, but it had been found in a dead man's pocket. "Just lying there like it was waiting for me. I figured it was better off with you than in some evidence baggie."

"Just like that, huh?" Amanda opened her fist to gaze at the necklace a few moments more, wanting to see those four precious names again (had it really been almost as many days since she saw Noah and Jesse?), wanting to remember how the pretty rose-gold had looked against Olivia's golden skin, back before their lives were destroyed. The chain around Olivia's neck was made of fingerprints now.

Closing her hand around the pendant, Amanda squeezed until it hurt. She thought about putting it on Olivia, but that would be overstepping her bounds. Suppose Olivia woke up to find herself wearing it and got triggered all over again? She'd already been eyeing the St. Jude medal as if she knew exactly where it came from—and exactly how it was obtained. Fortunately, Amanda didn't have the full story behind this one, whether the captain asked after it or not.

She snapped the magnetic clasp around her own neck and tucked the pendant inside the collar of her sweatshirt. When the timing was right she would return it to Olivia, with as much love and gratitude as it had first been given, but that was not this moment. Not while she discussed revenge killing in code with a woman whose ethics were what you might call somewhat lax. "Sure there wasn't anyone around to see this miraculous discovery of yours?"

Dana was getting more brazen with each play on words, her fear of the hospital all but disappearing, and her voice resuming its normal strident quality that for some reason reminded Amanda of a skillet. Blunt iron, hot and crackling. You didn't talk like that unless you were pretty damn confident in yourself and your ability not to get caught. Of course there was that old Bible verse about pride going before a fall, but Amanda would rather be involved in a coverup with Dana than someone guilt-ridden and unsure of themselves. Prison was filled with heavy consciences.

"Not a living soul, can you believe it?" Dana bragged, pushing up the sleeves of her hoodie. It looked brand new, as did the jeans and shoes. She must have ditched the clothes she'd worn while taking care of Sandberg and tidying up the scene, though Amanda couldn't conjure up the image of what those had been. A blazer and slacks most likely.

What had the pattern of blood spatter looked like, Amanda wondered. Usually you could lay out the last few moments before death with a fair amount of accuracy just by where the flecks landed. They had computers to do it for you now, but she had gone into the academy right under the wire and learned to visualize murders without a machine doing the work for her. The sea spray arc of arterial blood, the symphonic rise and fall of multiple stab wounds, the minute stippling from a gunshot. It was almost artistic—painterly—in its flow and nuance.

Amanda knew; she had painted her masterpiece earlier that afternoon. She glanced at the wall clock then, realizing she had lost all track of time. Maybe it wasn't even the same day that she had foiled her daughter's kidnapper, rescued her wife from human trafficking, and dispensed of half the traffickers in the ring. It did feel as if a lifetime had passed. But she was stunned to see that it was only ten in the evening, presumably on the same night as her arrival at the hospital. Her kids might still be up, if they were putting Daphne through her auntie paces.

"Yeah, I reckon I can believe it," Amanda said, her affect as flat as one of the sociopath's who occasionally wandered into SVU. Victims sounded that way sometimes too. A fine line, Amanda Jo, she thought to herself. A very fine line. "Just hope everyone else can. You know, when they bring in the big guns and start going over every little thing."

"Honey, I am the big guns." Dana slung an arm around Amanda's shoulders and patted the outer one a tad too roughly. The contrast to how gently and lovingly Olivia offered comfort made Amanda want to weep. Dana Lewis couldn't hold a candle to the woman who still lay unconscious in that lonely hospital bed, but she did have a killer instinct that Olivia lacked.

Right then, it was an instinct that Amanda needed if she meant to stay out of prison. Walking around feeling guilty and corrupt was a surefire way to get caught. That soft heart and deep sense of morality she so loved in Olivia would not help her through this. It felt like a betrayal just admitting it to herself, but that was how it had to be: she would follow Dana's example on this one, not her captain's.

"They're gonna investigate where and what I tell 'em to, and they're gonna be so busy celebrating a major trafficking ring wiping itself out that they won't give two shits how you or I were involved." Dana gave another brisk pat that was more like being thumped on the back, and released Amanda when she shrugged off the attention. Conspiring had cured the agent's fear of hospitals it seemed, for her cocky manner had fully resumed, hands loose at her sides and ready for whatever came her way. "Just keep your story simple and be consistent. And don't be afraid to bat them baby blues at the fellas. Heck, the ladies too, if you think they're into that."

No way in hell was Amanda in the mood to flirt with anyone at the moment. But she couldn't help wondering how Dana had pegged her as the type to sweet talk her way out of trouble. Was it that obvious or just a good guess, one Southern girl recognizing the ingrained behavior of another? Either way, she didn't like Dana advising her to use her looks or her body to get away with breaking the law. Not while Olivia was in the hospital recovering from a horrendous assault. It would be almost as bad as cheating.

"I already told Fin that I was at the port, but I said Parker led me to the shipping container, and I lost track of him after that. Didn't see inside the warehouse at all. Just focused on getting Liv the hell outta there." Amanda tipped her to gaze longingly at Olivia, as if a different vantage point might reveal that the captain's eyes were open, she was awake and wanting water the way Sammie wanted milk, needing Amanda, even if it was only to provide a few precious sips. Olivia slept on, unaware of how much she was needed in return.

"Which is mostly the truth," Amanda added, taking a deep breath and, with it, putting some substance behind her words so they didn't sound weak and ineffectual. She would never convince anyone with a delivery like that. "I didn't have back up and Liv was bad hurt. I was there no more'n five or ten minutes, and I didn't stick around to see what those fuckers were up to. All I cared about was my wife."

She looked Dana directly in the eye as she lied, careful not to go too intense—that could give you away too—but not overly calm either.

A very fine line.

"Good. That's good." Dana waved for Amanda to stop there, though she had already concluded. The agent began to pace, her expression thoughtful, as she let the alibi sink in next to whatever her version of events were to be. It must have been a decent fit, because she began to nod, chin in the V of her fingers, the other hand tucked under her arm. "Keep it simple. Don't embellish and don't offer details they didn't ask for. You can say Parker bested you, grabbed your gun before he ran off. Other than that, just use the wife angle. No one's gonna press too hard after seeing what she—and by association, you—went through."

"It's not a goddamn angle," Amanda growled, taking a reflexive step toward Dana. What she planned to do she wasn't sure, but she couldn't stand by and listen to her and Olivia's suffering being called an angle, as if it was calculated or insincere. "It's our fucking lives. You think this was all just some bid for attention? Some big show she was putting on for your viewing pleasure? 'Cause, lady, if that's what you think— "

Whether responding to the anger in Amanda's tone or Dana's defensive reaction ("Hey, easy," she said, backing away, hands protecting her face), Olivia chose that moment to open her eyes, groaning at the effort it required. Some of the swelling from the facial fractures and bruising had gone down, but the whites of her eyes were so shot through with red, it looked like they were filled with blood. She squinted from behind blackened lids, trying to bring the room into focus.

. . .