Discarded by Fate

by Morgan Kelley

  Oh, this was it.

  It was on.

  Elizabeth pulled off her gun and badge and slapped it down on the table as Chris stared at the woman with tears in his eyes. He’d been right.

  She’d violated him.

  “What are you going to do? It’s your word against mine, and who’s going to believe a man was raped. You participated. You never said no, and you could have left at any time.”

  That woman was sick.

  This was an insane way to get revenge over a decade later.

  Chris wanted it to be a nightmare.

  He wanted to wake up.

  “And now I fuck a bitch up,” she said, cracking her knuckles.

  As she headed toward the woman, Chris knew he couldn’t let her toss her career.

  He’d be okay.

  So, he grabbed her, yanking her back into his body. At the same time, Doctor Julliard shoved her table with the dead body on it at them.

  They barely got out of the way before the victim went sliding to the floor.

  “Let me go! She’s dead!” Elizabeth said, as Chris held her back pinned to his chest.

  “She’s not worth it,” he said.

  Elizabeth broke free.

  She vaulted the victim on the floor, and was halfway toward the sick bitch that raped Chris. As she went to leap on her, biohazard and all, Ethan appeared.

  He caught her mid-air.

  Chris immediately grabbed her and pulled her away from the woman.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “She’s going to kill her. A little help, please!” Chris muttered as Elizabeth fought pretty hard to break free again.

  Ethan couldn’t let this shit happen. If this hit the media…she’d lose her job.

  “Someone had better explain to me!” he ordered.

  “She tried to hit me,” Doctor Julliard blurted. “She tried to attack me.”

  Elizabeth tried to climb over Ethan and the dead corpse to get to the woman.

  That was a clear sign how angry she was.

  “Baby! Stop! What is going on?”

  “She drugged Chris last night to get him in bed against his will, and she’s proud of it,” she muttered, as Ethan refused to let her past him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “She raped me.”

  That was all Chris had to say.

  Ethan turned around.

  “I hope there was some misunderstanding and that’s not what is going on here.”

  Doctor Julliard played dumb.

  “I don’t know what they are talking about. He came over, we had drinks and sex, and he left. He was fine.”

  Elizabeth wanted to kick her ass even more.

  Now she was playing dumb.

  Chris and Ethan couldn’t contain her. Elizabeth managed to get around them, just as Callen came in at the chaos.

  “Stop her!”

  He dove at Elizabeth, who was clearly furious. When he grabbed her, he was able to lock his arms around her, trapping hers by her side.

  “She’s going to drug men and then laugh?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m going to beat her face into a bloody pulp!”

  “What the hell?” Callen asked.

  She told him.

  Callen let her go.

  “Not helping, Callen. Contain her!”

  He did it, but because he had to—not because he wanted to do it. As far as he was concerned, she could kick the woman’s ass. That was crossing a line.

  That explained why Chris was a mess last night. Come to think of it, he did have that dazed look. He and Ethan had been kids. They’d been into stuff they shouldn’t have.

  Ethan, somehow, got it under control.

  He knew they needed to do it or this was going to be ugly. “OUT,” he said to the doctor. “If I see you again, he’s filing charges. You admitted a crime to feds.”

  “You can’t prove I admitted anything,” she said. “And I don’t recall being read my rights. Nice try.”

  “Just let me kick her ass. I’ll shove her head so far up that bloated corpse’s ass, we won’t know where it ends and she begins!”

  Ethan pointed at the door. “You take some vacation time or I call the commissioner and your boss. You’re out of line.”

  The woman took off her gloves and headed out the door.

  “I came so much. It was worth it.”

  Elizabeth stomped on Callen’s foot and chased after her. They both went through the door, only to have Ivan come back through with Elizabeth over his shoulder.

  She was kicking and fighting to get down.

  “I think you lost something.”

  He put her down.

  “Okay, breathe,” Ethan stated.

  Immediately, she went to Chris. He was her concern at that moment. She opened her arms, and he went into them. Together, they stayed there in the center of the room.

  “Oh, Christopher, I’m so sorry,” she whispered in his ear.

  “I wanted to tell you last night. I just…”

  She got it.

  “You were humiliated, embarrassed, and ashamed.”

  He nodded.

  Elizabeth held him. “We can take bloodwork and file charges,” she said. “We can get her ass tossed in jail. If she did this to you, she likely did it to someone else.”

  He shook his head. “Please. No. I’ve been to trials like that. It’ll be all over the news. It’ll be online. Bethe…”

  She got it.

  “Okay, we won’t file,” she said.

  Ethan, Callen, and Ivan stood there.

  “I need you to promise me something,” he said, lifting his face to stare into her eyes.

  “What, honey? Anything.”

  “Don’t kill her. Don’t let her win.”

  She didn’t speak.

  “If you touch her, and they catch you, I’ll lose you. Please don’t do it. I know when Livy was raped…”

  She wouldn’t lie.

  She’d thought about taking down the bitch.

  “I won’t,” she promised. “That was old Elizabeth. That was Newbie Elizabeth. I had nothing to lose. Now I have everything to lose.”

  He rested his forehead against hers.

  “Thank you.”

  “If you need me, I’m here.”

  Everyone in the room could hear the anger in her voice, including Chris.

  “I’ll be okay. I have my family.”

  When he opened his eyes, his met hers.

  That didn’t mean she couldn’t be pissed off, because she certainly was.

  “Let’s get this room put back together,” Ethan suggested.

  Elizabeth gave Chris a soft kiss on the lips. “Family began here,” she whispered.

  “Thank God for that.”

  Elizabeth set him free to grab her gun.

  “I need to get out in the field. I’ll be down at the ride,” she said, refusing to look at anyone.

  Then she was gone.

  “She’s really upset,” Chris said. “Please don’t let her do anything dumb.”

  They wouldn’t.

  Ethan approached the man. “Proving what she did would be hard, Chris, but we would fight tirelessly to do it.”

  Callen agreed.

  “Remember the shame?” he asked Callen, not bringing it up. While he knew it wasn’t the same, and Callen had endured twenty-three rounds of rape, he still felt embarrassed.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t deal right now. I just got my life back. I’ve just found peace. Let it go. If you love me, you’ll let it go.”

  Ethan hugged him.

  Chris clung to him.

  “Okay, Chris.”

  When he set him free, Callen hugged him next. “We have your back,” he said.

  Chris let him hold him.

  He was safe.

  “Thank you. I love you both.”

  They gave him a moment.

  “Call in the team. I’m composed. I can do this,” he stated, standing up, fixing his glasse
s, and taking a deep breath.

  Ethan called them back in.

  Immediately, the man was back in control. As they surveyed the damage, Chris pointed at the body on the floor. “I’ll finish that autopsy up,” he stated.

  Christina raised her hands. “I’ll help, and can I say that I’m really glad that we don’t have to deal with whatever case it’s attached to? That evidence is compromised.”

  Chris laughed. “Yeah, yeah, it is.”

  Callen pointed at Johanna and Blue. “You both know who had contact with the call girl. See if you can tie her to the other victim. Run bank accounts, all that stuff. We’ll be out in the field. We’ll stop in after the interviews. Hold down the fort, and get us any information on the student who was using her as a weekend girlfriend.”

  They got to work.

  Blue and Johanna headed into the office outside the morgue, and Chris suited up.

  “Okay, team. Let’s clean up after the Boston ME. God knows it’s not the first time.”

  Chris only hoped it would be the last.

  Outside, they found Elizabeth leaning against the vehicle, and she was smoking.

  Well, that was new.

  Yes, Ethan was known to do that when he was stressed, but Elizabeth?

  “Um. Are you okay?” Callen asked. “You don’t smoke.”

  “She drugged and raped him. He’s my freaking brother, and I wasn’t there to stop her. I feel...”

  “Angry?” Ethan asked.

  “Helpless?” Callen asked.

  “Both.”

  Ethan knew this was a tough one. “He wants us to let it go. We have to do what he wants, and at the top of the list is you not doing anything rash.”

  She took a long drag.

  “Yeah, that’s going to be easier said than done.”

  They knew it.

  Ethan went over to her, took the cigarette, and then led her to the tailgate of their ride. He sat her down, parked it beside her, and then took a drag with her.

  They’d done this once before.

  “Talk to me.”

  “I am angry.”

  “At?”

  She took a drag and passed it to Callen. Where did she even begin?

  “Well, until that clusterfuck in there, I was solely pissed at Bonnie and Wyler. Now you can add Heather ‘I’m going to violate men’ Julliard.”

  They let her talk.

  “We can cut out,” Callen offered. “You can ditch this case until you are better…”

  She took the smoke away from him and gave Callen a look.

  “Oh, no lung cancer for me. That will teach me,” he teased, tying to lighten the mood.

  “We can send Wyler away,” Ethan offered. “That will amount to our security tackling him every day as he scales the gate.”

  She was aware.

  Elizabeth didn’t want to go to extremes. She just wanted to heal from all of this. Her heart hurt so damn bad.

  It was distracting her.

  Finally, she made up her mind, and shared it with the men she loved.

  “No, he can stay.”

  There was that pause.

  “What will you do when he does it again?” she asked. “What will we all do?”

  And there it was.

  They knew the issue. It was more about Wyler bailing on her for the first time.

  She never saw this coming.

  They always assumed he would.

  This caught Elizabeth off guard. They only wished it caught them off guard.

  “I should have warned you about the plan before so you could have had some input.”

  “Yes, you should have,” she said, flipping off a reporter who was taking her picture.

  It made Callen laugh. “And you wonder why they hate our guts. The poor guy was just taking a family portrait of the three of us sharing what could have been peyote…”

  She laughed.

  Callen could always do that.

  “He won’t do it again,” Ethan offered.

  “How do you know?”

  “I screwed up. Do you trust me?”

  She got the point.

  “Okay, we trust him, but next time?”

  They waited.

  “He had better pray I’m not in a pissy mood. I’d hate to hurt him. He’s old.”

  Ethan knew she wouldn’t do it.

  He’d bet money on it.

  Elizabeth let Ethan have the last drag, and he crushed out the butt.

  “Let’s get to work. We’re heading to Harvard. We have some sorority sisters to interview, and a couple of happy hooker hirers to catch up with too. There are days I love my job, and that day is today.”

  Yeah, she was in her glory.

  “On it.”

  Oh, she would be all over it.

  “That should fill up most of our day. Ethan, get our team to give us information on that college student, and then find him on campus. We have some questions.”

  Yeah, and she was in a shitty mood.

  She’d better really like those answers.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Boston

  Somewhere

  He had them in his cage. They were waking up, and he couldn’t help but think of the beautiful dolls they’d make. In his mind, he could see them moving so freely, unencumbered by their earthly boundaries.

  They were going to be free.

  Before long, he’d have made the perfect piece of art. After all, he wasn’t in anyone’s shadow. He was going to remake himself.

  Too long had he been in the shadows, doing what needed to be done. Well, his time away from Boston changed that. He came back a new person.

  He came back realizing one thing.

  He was meant to be something more.

  He was special.

  These women were nothing to the world, and when he was done, they’d have their place in history. Because of him, they’d be remembered past their time at work, on their backs, or in school. It was time to give life to his art.

  As he approached the first cage, he noticed she was crying. He felt bad for her.

  “I won’t let you feel it. As a nurse, you must see so much. Thank you for helping people. You don’t deserve the pain.”

  She began crying even more. When she reached out, he expected her to strike at him, but she didn’t. She touched his arm.

  The hands of an angel.

  “Please set me free. Please.”

  He couldn’t do that.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She wept more.

  The girl in the other cage was a different story. She cursed at him, as she tried to hit him with her spiked heel.

  It angered him.

  He shook the make-shift cage so hard that her head hit the side. Then he reached in and squeezed her neck enough to make her pass out.

  “You’ll feel everything,” he said, staring in at the whore in the stripper outfit. “You’ll feel every inch of that blade. There will be no mercy for you. I promise.”

  He picked up the stun gun and held it to the metal. He’d rigged it to kill. When he approached the nurse, he apologized again.

  “I won’t let you suffer. It’s time to go to sleep.”

  He hit the side of the metal cage and the electricity shot through it, and into the watery ground beneath it.

  He could smell hair burning as her body did the sick, jittery dance of death. Her eyes went wide. Her body convulsed, and then her heart stopped.

  Gently, he opened the smoking cage.

  Parts of her were burnt, but her face—her beautiful face—was intact. He’d use that part for his doll’s head.

  Gently pulling her out, he rolled her over. The metal had burned her body, but she was still decent. Her legs and arms would work.

  As she laid on the wet, damp floor, he left her there. She was gone, and she could wait. He went to the girl who had passed out. Opening the cage, he gently pulled her out to check her body.

  She had really nice brea
sts.

  He’d loved that about her.

  While the nurse was older. He liked her for her kindness and brains. She’d been kind to him, and she likely didn’t realize it. That’s why he took her.

  That’s why he picked her.

  He pulled what was left of the stripper’s clothes off, and some money fell out.

  He laughed.

  “I get a tip.”

  He tucked the bill into his pocket.

  “You are the first up for the deconstruction,” he said, dragging her along the floor. He had her by the ankle like a rag doll.

  Hoisting her up, he tied her down to the table with the metal straps he’d fabricated.

  When she was bolted in, he slapped her face until she woke up. As she was waking, he tied some tourniquets around her legs and upper arms.

  He didn’t want her to bleed out fast.

  NO.

  She was going to feel this for being a bitch.

  As she began waking, he plugged the saw into the generator.

  The second it went on, she tried to scream.

  Only, no one could hear her.

  She was going to only scream for him and herself.

  As he checked out her feet, he picked the one he liked best.

  “The nurse stood too much. Your feet are prettier.”

  With that, he cut one off.

  The blood barely sprayed, but she screamed bloody murder as she was forced to watch.

  “Women have higher thresholds for pain,” he yelled over the saw.

  Then he cut off the other one.

  Her footless legs flailed, and he found that amusing.

  As he moved up her body, he took her hand in his. “If you’re not using this…?”

  It was removed at the elbow.

  Her screaming stopped as she finally succumbed to the pain. Her poor heart couldn’t take it anymore.

  Which was fine with him.

  “Well, it looks like you’re done. I’ll have to finish you off and get to work. It takes a long time to make my artwork and then sign it.”

  With that, he removed her head.

  Eyes open.

  Scream immortalized on her lips.

  When he was done, he worked in silence.

  That was how he liked it too.