The Monster In Us

36- i See you

The Taser doesn't fully knock me out, but I can't move my arms for a solid few minutes, which is just enough time for the goons to get me into the basement. They push me through the same corridor I was in the day I heard my best friend get murdered.

When I finally get my strength back, I'm alone in a cold cement room with my hands tied to a thick chain hanging from the ceiling. I can still stand flat footed on the ground, but my body is stretched and uncomfortable. My neck and shoulders immediately start to ache, my head and back throbbing from the Taser.

I pictured Coleman in a room like this when he died. Baseball bats, knives, and other torture weapons hung on one wall and there was a drain in the corner where they would have sprayed away all of his blood after getting rid of the body.

That's what was going to happen to me too. I imagined the blood that was now pulsing hard in my throat, streaming across the concrete, getting caught in my lifeless hair, and then down that drain like I was never here. Like I never existed.

Is this how Coleman felt too? Was he afraid?

I'm starting to spiral in my grief when the door cranks open. My body gets stiff as I watch, expecting Giovanni and the Goons to reappear. He'll torture me in hopes of getting answers and when he realizes I won't give him anything, he'll kill me.

My blood will be washed away down the drain, the rest of me will get dropped in a dumping ground somewhere in the dessert. My body will rot and decay in an unknown place and nobody will miss me. I wonder how my dad will react to the news. He'll be angry, but not on my behalf. He'll view my murder as a slight to him, he'll have to replace me and that will be so inconvenient. I'm the only one who knows our tech infrastructure.

It's Dante who peaks his head through the door, and I shouldn't be happy to see him. But I am. I know he'll be just as brutal as his father in his interrogation tactics, maybe even more so, considering how much I personally screwed him over. But I didn't think I'd ever get to see him again and I'm happy that he's here.

Without saying anything, he shuts the door behind him and walks forward. His face is a hard, unreadable wall. He stands in front of me, not looking in my eye but passed my shoulder somewhere distant. And then to my shirt, which he starts unbuttoning.

I'm caught off guard for a split second before I realize that he's probably looking for my tattoo. The only thing that the Berardis know about me is that I have this tattoo and maybe he needs the proof.

I covered it this morning with the optimistic thought that I'd surprise Dante with a quickie in his office during lunch. I imagined him ripping the shirt off of me so hard the buttons went flying as he kissed my chest. This is a lot less fun than what I had planned.

Once the shirt is completely unbuttoned, exposing my black bra underneath, he scrapes the pad of his thumb along my rib cage. I stop myself from leaning into the touch, but I want to. I know he's not touching me for any good reason, but I like it. I like feeling his skin against my skin and I try to appreciate it, knowing it's the last time I'll feel him.

It takes some repetitive rubbing but eventually, the makeup starts to fade until he can see the ink that proves I'm Vera.

He stares at it for a moment and then closes his eyes, never looking at my face but I'm watching his like a hawk. Under an exhaled breath, he mutters, "You fucking bitch."

I don't respond. I have too much pride to apologize or beg for mercy. I won't swear to him that everything I felt for him was true. I won't admit defeat until there is a bullet in my brain. And other than those things, what is there for me to say right now? I hope he can't hear the pounding of my heart in my chest but I feel like I can hear it echoing through my entire body, pounding in my head.