Olivia [Ch. 6] | The Cavalry
Siri, play Bonnie Taylor, Holding Out For A Hero
Welcome back, Night Owls.
Grab something cozy and snuggle up to a story about your favorite psychopathic serial killer—as we totally normal and completely sane people do.
It’s time for the main event…
Content Warning: Olivia contains mature content not suitable for readers under 17. This series explores psychological profiling, manipulation, and emotionally detached narration that may be unsettling for some readers. Content is rated Mature (17+) for realistic violence, strong language, and dark psychological themes. Chapter 6 contains scenes of physical torture that may be disturbing to some readers.
Reader discretion is advised.
You can read chapters 1-4 below
Chapter 1: Necessary Introductions
Chapter 2: Boundaries
Chapter 3: The One Where Olivia Makes A Mistake
Chapter 4: Clean Up Time
Chapter 5: Is Olivia Losing Her Edge?
Where We Left Off Last Time
His eyes darted to the door, then locked onto the ‘officers’. He leaned in and kissed my cheek, then slipped away—ghost-quiet for a guy built like a linebacker.
I poured two glasses of tea, monitoring both of the ‘cops’ in my living room and the figure in the Tahoe, from the corner of my eyes.
Badge numbers weren’t local, that much was certain. Statistically speaking, the odds that Ben was being honest were high—especially for him. That’s all I needed.
The Cavalry
I put on the perfect smile, and placed the tea in front of the strangers on my couch. “Let me guess, the neighbors called again. That’s the third time this week.” I said with feigned exasperation as I entered the living room.
It was a test—I didn’t have any neighbors, the houses on my street were all up for sale. Before you ask, purely a coincidence.
“Yeah, well, you know,” The ‘cop’ to my left–we’ll call him Jon, clearly the alpha of the two–validated the lie. “Just doin’ our jobs. Protect and serve and all that.” He flashed a too-perfect smile that would’ve convinced anyone but me.
The one to my right, predictably, hurried to back his partner–the lackey is always the one that looks like a weasel. “Third time in a week, like you said—that’s a lot of complaints for a girl living alone.”
Definitely not cops. Definitely not local. They had just seen Ben, yet assumed I live alone. That meant they had studied the paperwork for my house–the layout, owner, occupants.
They were trained.
Ben had asked me to buy him a few minutes, which I had no trouble doing–it had become obvious that he wasn’t going to answer my questions. Information was his leverage. The men in my living room, however, weren’t on Ben’s team.
And as they say: the enemy of my enemy…
“You guys new?” I ignored the second guys probing statement, looking to get answers of my own. “Just curious. I haven’t seen the two of you around.”
They exchanged a glance, and the fingers on their dominant hands twitched toward their weapons holster—highly trained startle responses. The man to my left swallowed hard. He grabbed the tea and took a large gulp, no hesitation.
Survival Tip # 6: Never ingest anything that you didn’t prepare yourself.
The specific concoction of chemicals in the tea was FOIA gold—snagged from some half-redacted MKUltra side project. Scopolamine, a pinch of midazolam, and the right ratio of fast-acting barbiturates–there’s no such thing as a ‘truth serum,’ but that recipe will get you close.
Ben asked for four minutes—but it was at least fifteen until I heard his steps reach the stairs. The basement door flew open—Ben, focused and moving like he had backup with only a splintered table leg, a bottle of bleach and vinegar solution, and anger issues.
He didn’t hesitate. He drove the club into Jon’s head, a move too clean, too brutal for someone half-awake. I heard a sickening crack. Jon’s eyes rolled; he dropped—deadweight. Not moving.
Ben’s face melted into confusion. He blinked once. The weasel fumbled for his weapon, but his arms wouldn’t cooperate. Ben yanked the gun away, about to drive his fist into weasel’s throat when he spun, snapping at me—
“What did you do to them?” He looked at Jon’s body, then back at me, voice raw. “He should’ve countered—why didn’t he counter?” His breathing was sharp, his hand trembled just for a second.
“Exactly what you asked me to do,” I said, not looking at the blood pooling under my kitchen table. “I bought you four minutes.”
Ben was already taping the weasel up, dragging navy-jacket-guy in from the van. His confidence leaked out in his short, angry movements. “You know damn well that wasn’t my fucking question, Olivia!”
He finished tossing all three men down the stairs; he snapped upright. His eyes met mine—it was the first time he’d been so…serious. “I asked you what you did. Exactly. Give me the details.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off.
“And don’t give me some shit about how I’ve been withholding information from you, this isn’t one of your fucking games. You pretend to care about doing good but the only thing you care about is what benefits you.”
The silence in the house felt like a countdown. He took a step closer. “You dosed them. What did you give them?”
“Once again, your stupid games got you here. If you had clued me in on any part of your plan—”
“Yeah, sure, this is my fault,” He spat each word. “I’m the one who expected a literal fucking psychopath to follow a goddamn order!”
The silence pressed into my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. He was right. I spoke quickly, efficiently. “Scopolamine, midazolam, barbiturates, low dose. It wasn’t supposed to—”
He cut me off, “I don’t care what it wasn’t supposed to do—it wasn’t what I told you to do.” When he turned, his eyes met mine. He spoke to me like—like the way that he spoke to me mattered. I took a mental image and stored the behavior for further examination—later.
“You’re incredibly intelligent, Olivia—probably the smartest person that I’ve ever actually met—when I tell you to do something, don’t ask stupid questions, don’t do it ‘Liv’s way’—do it right.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. I gave him the response he needed in order for us to move on.
“Understood.”
We both let out a breath that we didn’t know we were holding. He finished dragging the men into the Human Habitat™; I followed a respectful distance.
He looked directly into my eyes; “Okay, I want you to lock me up—I need you to lock me up.”
“Why?” I fired back. I had already started reaching for the locking mechanism.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Liv, what did we just talk about?”
“You said, ‘don’t ask stupid questions, don’t do it Liv’s way, do it right’—I’m not asking a stupid question. It’s relevant for—” I had readied my list, but Ben cut me off.
“Because, goddamn it, I’m fucking tired!” It was at that moment that I could tell, all pretense of games had been long over. Ben had been playing mental chess for days, steps ahead of me—impressive, but taxing. He had been masking, so controlled for so long, he was about to break.
If I had been wrong about everything about Ben to that point, I was sure of two things:
Ben was a ticking time bomb.
And when he spoke next, he was being honest.
“I have a weakness, Olivia, but it isn’t my parents–and don’t fucking laugh. I have anger issues. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I can’t control myself when I’m angry.”
His eyes finally met mine again, as if he’d been ashamed of admitting his lack of control. As if I wouldn’t understand. “I’ve gone through op after op, I’ve always had an outlet. I haven’t had that in a few months, that’s why there’s been a recent escalation in altercations with civilians. I haven’t had an outlet, and I’m out of fucks to give my self control..”
The next sentence landed like a confession; “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’ve known me for 36 hours, Benjamin.” I quipped.
“FOR FUCKS SAKE LIV LOCK THE FUCKING DOOR, THAT’S A GODDAMN ORDER.”
My body's natural reaction was to recoil–but I locked the door behind him, like he asked.
The guy that Ben had already murdered–Jon–laid slouched in the back corner, while his partner, weasel, shook his head, groggy from my FOIA special.
Navy-jacket-guy sat quietly—could’ve been Jon’s sock that Ben shoved in his mouth.
“You asked who the not-cops were,” Ben began. “That’s the same question that I have.” He gestured to the two still breathing. “And they’re going to give us the answers.”
Ben began rummaging through the various drawers, grabbing random items and laying them on the shelf: super glue, push pins, tape. “See, Olivia, you’re used to a clean kill. In and out. But who gets closure from that? Aside from you.”
Ben’s question was irksome, but I answered. “It’s not about closure, it’s—”
“It’s not about closure—to you. But these pieces of shit dudes, they usually hurt someone, no?”
“Always.”
“Ok. So they always hurt someone. And your version of justice is to give them a quick and clean return to sender?”
He stripped the not-cops down to their shirts, binding their ankles so tight that I saw the white marks rise on their skin. Methodical, practiced efficiency. Delta habits die hard, they say.
He started with navy-jacket-guy. Duct tape over the mouth. A quick, brutal twist of the wrist to expose his hand. Ben’s voice was flat, almost bored as he spoke.
“Most nerves in the human body run through the fingertips,” he said, meeting my eyes. “It doesn’t take much to break a man, if you know what you’re doing.” He pressed the edge of a splintered dowel beneath a fingernail, then hammered down.
Navy-jacket-guy’s entire body jolted—a high, muffled scream choked by the tape. Ben didn’t flinch. He waited for the eyes to roll, and the body to sag. Then he moved to the next finger.
I felt something claw at my stomach.
He interrogated Navy-jacket-guy—names, handlers, contacts, meet-ups. I listened for tells, half out of habit, half out of self-preservation.
I watched for lies, but the drugs did their job—too well. No answers. Which was, of course, not enough for Blood-Thirsty Benjamin.
His rose-colored signature dotted the concrete as if he were trying to carve the memory of that moment into the very foundation of my basement. Navy-jacket-guy whimpered, and thrashed against his restraints. Ben paused, breath ragged. He was losing control, or starting to. I could see it in his eyes.
“That’s enough, no more.” I said as I stepped toward the enclosure, voice level. “No more murder, Benjamin. You got what you needed.” I reached the glass, arms crossed over my chest. “Meanwhile, I haven’t been able to run a single calculation, I still don’t have any data to measure—”
He spun on me, unbridled fury flashing across his face. “You don’t get to make that call, Olivia! The whole world isn’t at the will of your stupid fucking equations!”
His words landed harder than any blow. “We agreed—”
“We didn’t agree on shit.” he snapped. “We agreed that you would keep me locked in here, and not open the fucking door. That’s what we agreed on.”
Navy-jacket-groaned. Ben responded by taking a piece of splintered wood to the side of Weasel’s knee. There was a wet, sickening crack, a muffled shout, then silence. He grabbed the roll of electrical tape, a make-shift screwdriver, and a plastic squeeze bottle full of cleaning solution.
“Pulse is quick,” Ben muttered, thumb pressed to Weasel’s throat. “Good. You’re still useful.” He looped the tape once around Weasel forearm, just below the elbow, cinching until the veins marbled blue beneath the skin. A field-expedient tourniquet.
Restricting venous return builds pressure–when done correctly, the release will amplify stimulus delivered downstream. Less damage, more pain.
Efficient.
Ben set the screwdriver’s tip against the soft web between Weasel’s thumb and index finger with an even, deliberate push until the flesh dimpled. Weasel tried to thrash; the tape squealed, chair legs skittering on concrete.
Ben’s voice was scraped raw from fatigue, but firm. “Name, safe‑house supervisor,”
When Weasel spat a string of muffled curses, Ben grabbed the bottle of cleaning solution and squeezed. A clear stream of ammonia cleaner soaked the open skin. Weasel convulsed, eyes rolling white.
Thirty seconds. Ben counted them out on his wristwatch, silent ticks I could see pulsing in his jaw. Then he eased the screwdriver free and released the tourniquet. At the same time. Blood rushed back—Weasel’s scream rose like a kettle left on high.
Navy-jacket-guy whimpered. Ben’s head snapped toward him. “Stay with me, buddy.” Then turned back to Weasel. “Safe-house supervisor, give me a name.”
Weasel sobbed out—“I can’t.”
“I can’t,” Ben repeated, flat. Then, almost joyfully: “Sure you can. Definitely beats the hell out of what I have planned for you–I plan to make whoever you’re scared of look like Jesus goddamn Christ by the time I’m done.”
He wiped his hand on his jeans, rose, and finally looked at me. “Your little system, your data, statistics—” his gaze cut to the captives, back to me “You tell yourself that you’re doing ‘the most statistical good,’ but really, you just can’t accept the fact that you’re not fucking normal, Olivia.”
He planted the screwdriver in the plywood like a flag. “You don’t understand anyone, and no one understands you—and, yeah, I’m sure that’s fucking lonely. But instead of holding yourself to the same standard that you hold men, Liv gets a little lonely and what does she do? Oh, right–she kidnaps people!”
Sweat plastered curls to his temple; the whites of his eyes were shot with red. “You love facts, right? Well, according to the facts, we’re both monsters. So you don’t get to hide behind some stuck up, exceptionalist ass excuse like your data or statistics. You. Are. Fucked. In. The. Head. Olivia. Just like me.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out…He was right. Every life I’d taken, every carefully measured dose, every perfect smile and surgical incision—it had never been about the victims. It was about me.
For a second, I saw myself as he did: a fraud, a monster hiding behind an equation that I’d written myself.
Ben turned back to Navy-jacket-guy, fury taking over with an uncannily clinical precision. He grabbed a wrench from the shelf and swung. Once. Twice. The crack echoed, and blood splattered.
Navy-jacket-guy sagged, dead weight. Messy. Pointless. The silence after was suffocating. Ben’s chest heaved. His knuckles were split open.
I forced myself to breathe, even though the silence seemed to make each breath echo. I counted to five—statistically, the pause most likely to maximize emotional discomfort post-confrontation. Long enough for the limbic system’s adrenaline spike to flatten, short enough not to appear rattled.
“You asked me to keep you locked up, I did.” I said quietly. “Despite your blatant disregard for my request.”
He looked at me, all that rage collapsing into something raw and exhausted. “Thanks,” he whispered, barely audible.
There was a moment of silence—Ben stared at the ground, I stared at him. When he finally spoke again, he was quiet. “I’m good now. You can let me out.”
It took me 9.7 seconds longer than normal to get the key into the lock, my hands just wouldn’t stop shaking for some unknown reason. I don’t exactly know why, but I lingered by the door—close enough to see the red rim around his eyes, the cut above his brow.
Our eyes met and, before either of us could ruin the moment by simply being who we were as people, he crossed the enclosure, and closed the distance between us. His hand brushed my cheek.
Static.
We hovered there—gravity twisting between us, blood and adrenaline buzzing in my veins. His lips brushed mine, hesitant, almost pleading. I almost pressed forward, wanting—something. Forgiveness, maybe. Or just proof I could still feel.
I could almost taste his breath when the basement door flew open. Footsteps, boots echoing down the stairs. I jerked back as two men in battered tactical gear spilled into the room like a bunch of Great-Value Avengers.
The tallest grinned. He reminded me of a Labrador Retriever puppy in a way–a little dumb, but just the right amount of dumb to be funny and entertaining; not so much so that they’re a liability–we’ll call him Air Bud.
The shorter one, quiet, dark hair and even darker eyes, he reminded me of a chameleon. You almost wouldn’t notice him, especially not in a crowd. I could tell that he preferred it that way.
Air Bud brushed past me to pat Ben on the back. “Well, Bennie Boy, guess you don’t need our help anymore, huh?”
Ben’s hand dropped from my cheek. I couldn’t tell if he had felt relief or regret.
I, myself, had one initial thought—Benjamin Baker has friends? I began analyzing the friend group.
All three clearly trained, obvious camaraderie–must’ve been enlisted together. Both of the new arrivals—but Air Bud, specifically—looked highly susceptible to manipulation; masculinity, emotion, ego.
That was when I had one of the greatest realizations of my entire life (at the time, I ranked it number 29, if you’re curious): I could get so much goddamn information out of them.
I blinked myself back to reality, putting that perfect smile back into place as I introduced myself to Air Bud and Chameleon.
“You must be the cavalry.” I extended a hand toward Air Bud—seemingly the most vulnerable of the three. “Ben’s told me so much about you.”
So…. What do ya think? Let me know in the comments!
If you want to show your support for me (or Olivia’s research), you can use any of the links below.
Until the next story,
—The Narrator.
NOT on board with Ben insulting Olivia like that (HOW DARE YOU) but ohmygosh I need more of the story!!!
Brooooo
First of all Ben is pisssing me off. My guy, you were supposed to be “not like the other boys” but here you are telling my home girl what to do?? Ordering her around?? Sir you better step back.
But also. YOU ma’am narrator. How DARE you end that almost kiss like that 😡
Yall both are on my shit list now