What happened to Amanda? A Law & Order SVU Fanfic

Cigarettes and Other Sins

Warning: sexual and physical violence throughout.

Amanda carried on struggling, although most of her energy had now been drained and she was barely able to move with John pinning her down.

He had raped her violently for a short time, but had seemed to want to get it over with - for 20 minutes now, he had been smoking. He blew the smoke into her face, stinging her eyes, before pushing the ashy stubs into her bare skin. She had counted 13 burns, one from each cigarette. That meant 7 left, she could see that it was a pack of 20, and didn't even want to think about him going to get another packet.

She was still crying heavily, the sweat building on her face had loosened the tape around her mouth and she was able to breathe slightly better. Her hands were still bound, but where she had been trying to free herself, large open burns had formed and began to bleed around her wrists and into the rope.

The pain she felt there was interrupted by another searing noise as a cigarette was put out on her skin, this time her lower arm. Her crying intensified as the pain carried on shooting through her body, after a minute it reached the same pain level as the other burns and she moved her attention to the next one coming. Six left. She thought to herself.

He hadn't picked a particular place to scold her, he had just avoided her face and neck. This was some small relief for Amanda - if she was ever going to get out of this mess, at least she wouldn't have the scars on her face to remind her she'd been here.

He brought another cigarette down on to her torso, in the centre of the dark bruise from where she'd been kicked in the ribs, this one was particularly painful and she let out a small scream from beneath the tape.

John's attention shifted, he looked her in the eyes and slowly peeled off the tape from her mouth.

"Do you want to try again with the question?" He asked menacingly.

She was hesitant at first, but knew if she didn't he would probably hurt her anyway. She nodded slowly, her whole body shaking.

"Okay," he sat back, placing the lighter and next cigarette down on the dresser with the others, "where do you want to go and eat?"

She frantically racked her brains to try and remember what John had told her to eat previously in a letter. She couldn't remember a specific food he had requested, but there was a sentence that stuck in her mind. Coffee. It's the food of the brain. Drink it instead of eating, then maybe you won't be as fat.

She decided that would be the way to go, "well... Uh... I'm not that hungry, but I would love to go and get a coffee?" She trembled, trying to put on a fake smile for her captor.

He grinned back, "that's better." She gave a sigh of relief.

"Where's the best coffee?" He asked, wanting to allow her a small choice in the matter.

"Well, the café next to the parking lot is good, I can always get a good latte there for cheap?" She had tried to pick somewhere familiar with the restaurant, but this was an even better plan, the café was directly opposite the precinct. She knew that the squad went there all the time, she only needed one of them to walk in while they were there for this to work.

Luckily, as clever as John was, he hadn't seemed to realise this, and agreed. "Okay buttercup, we're leaving in 15, make sure you're ready." With that, he cut her hands free using a knife that he had retrieved from his pocket, grabbed the items he had brought in for the torture, and left the room.

She brought her hands down to her chest and turned onto her side, she began to cry again, having stopped for the brief conversation with John. Everything hurt. She was in pain last time, but this was different. The numb pain of a bruise was replaced by a searing pain from the burns, coming from all places on her body. She lay there still for a small moment, before remembering that John had only given her 15 minutes to get ready.