Forever Hold Your Peace

Nothing Without Her

I feel a searing pain in my wrists and a throbbing in the back of my head and I start to open my eyes, blinking slowly. I look around the room as my vision gets clearer and realize we're in an abandoned warehouse.

I look up and my wrists tied together with a thick rope, and hung over a hook. I'm hanging a foot off the ground, and arms are killing me. Maggie is tied up the same way next to me. She's still unconscious. Her hair is sticky with blood from being hit over the head.

I struggle against the ropes, trying to slip one of my wrists out but the ropes are tied too tightly. There's pain radiating throughout my entire body.

I hear a door slam shut and a lock click. A man in a plastic mask walks in and he grins at me when he sees I'm awake. He's holding a small knife in his hand and a gun tucked into his waistband.

"You two were knocked out so long I thought maybe I'd killed you." He says with a chuckle.

I look over and see Maggie starting to come to. She looks terrified. Her eyes are wide with fear and she's struggling against the ropes.

"It's no use, Honey." He says, "I've been doing this for quite awhile."

There are tears running down her cheeks.

He walks toward me, the knife raised and I manage to swing myself on the hook, with just enough momentum that I kick him in the head. The heel of my boot connects with his temple and he stumbles backwards, holding his head as he bleeds down his face.

"You nasty bitch!" He yells, pulling his gun from his waistband. I turn away, closing my eyes, thinking he's going to shoot me but he hits me across the face.

I cry out, my face and the back of my head throbbing in sync now.

"You have no idea what you've just done." He says snarling at me.

Elliot's POV

I look down at my phone, hoping to see a missed call or text from Olivia. Nothing.

We're coming up on almost two hours without a call from Olivia or Maggie. They were supposed to be back an hour and a half ago. Rex keeps telling me it's not unusual for Maggie to go radio silent when she's working on a lead. But Olivia always calls me back. There's something wrong.

"Have you heard anything back?" Rex says, coming back into his office, and dropping down into his office chair.

"No. Olivia doesn't do this." I say, looking back down at my phone again. "I'm telling you, there's something wrong."

"Alright, alright, we'll go to Greenbelt park." He says, grabbing his keys.

The drive to the park is almost silent. Rex seems way too calm. I catch myself spinning my wedding ring around my finger. It's a nervous habit, it drives Olivia crazy.

"I'm telling you, Maggie, she does this. Falls down a rabbit hole and doesn't answer her phone all day." He says.

"And I'm telling you I know my wife and somethings wrong." I say, angrily.

We pull into the parking lot and there's cop cars everywhere, and a crowd of people trying to see over crime scene tape. The Medico Legal Lab van is still in the lot and there are crime scene markers on the ground next to it.

We both jump out of the car and duck under the crime scene tape, looking for the person in charge. There's a bunch of uniformed officers and two detectives interviewing a teenage boy holding a skateboard.