Da Rez (Part 2)

John tried to speak. But his tongue was thick and his throat tight. He barely managed a whisper. “Please…”

The men ignored him.

The room had once been a tannery.

Copper pipes ran overhead like ribs. Plastic sheets covered unused machinery, their outlines ghostly—wheels, clamps, hooks. Steel tables with rusting hinges. Concrete tubs stained in dark rings. There was a drain in the center of the floor. A heavy hose coiled like a sleeping snake.

The men moved in sync. One released John’s right arm and reached for a black duffel bag in the corner. The other pushed John to his knees.

John tried to crawl forward. But the man behind him kicked his thigh, hard, and he collapsed flat.

“Stop,” John coughed. “Stop, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t—I loved her.”

The words were as useless as breath.

The man with the duffel pulled out black gloves, thick and stiff. He put them on like he was preparing to clean something, not beat someone. Then came the baton, short and ridged.

The first blow came without a word. Right to John’s ribs.
A sharp crack. Then another. And another.

He screamed. The echo barely reached the pipes above.

They didn’t rush. They didn’t yell. No rage. No fury. Just work. Calculated and practiced.

One knelt and drove his elbow into John’s spine, holding him still as the other rained strikes across his back, his arms, the base of his skull. John bucked, choked, sobbed, tried to beg again... Until his voice left him….

His lip split. A tooth chipped. His knee throbbed with something cracked beneath it. He vomited once and was kicked in the gut for it.

Eventually, they paused.

John lay gasping on the floor, his cheek against the tile, eyes wide, unblinking, tears pooling beside his face.

He saw boots.

Mr. Alfred stood at the top of the steps, just inside the door. He held a pair of white gloves in his hand and watched without expression.

He didn’t speak, didn’t even nod, just turned and walked away. The door clicked shut behind him. The beating resumed.

John was awake, but only just. His right eye had swollen shut. His breath came in ragged bursts. His shirt had been ripped halfway off, hanging by one sleeve. Blood had soaked into the fabric, and part of his jaw twitched involuntarily. He couldn’t feel his right arm.

They moved him like luggage now. Not with urgency, but with the kind of efficiency that comes from routine.

The two men rolled him onto a canvas tarp. One of them knelt and began untying his boots. John groaned. Not a word, just the leaking noise of a body forgetting how to speak.

The boots came off. Then the shirt. Then the pants.

He shivered.

It wasn’t cold. The room had grown hotter; steam curled from the far end of the basement, where a wide copper vat sat like a centerpiece to the horror. It was circular, industrial, its rim bolted with thick rivets, its exterior stained with old minerals. A pipe above it hissed quietly, releasing slow curls of steam into the air.

The smell was sickly. Like some old flesh.

John was too broken to resist now. They fitted a harness around his chest and under his arms. It clipped onto a steel hook dangling from an overhead rail system. One man walked to the far wall and pulled a lever.

The hook lifted.

John rose slowly, his head dangling forward, arms limp. He was three feet above the floor, the muscles in his neck twitching.

His good eye rolled. He saw him.

Cortez.

Standing at a small observation platform, arms folded, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers.

No words. No threats. Just watching.

The man at the crank began to turn it. The hook advanced along the rail toward the vat.

The steam thickened. John coughed weakly, his body twitching in midair.

Then the winch began lowering.

Inch by inch.

His feet touched the surface first, and for a half-second, he didn’t react.

Then they sizzled.

The sound was small at first, like paper catching fire. Then louder. Flesh blistering. Nerves waking up too late to scream properly.

Then the sound came.

Not words—a howl. Animal. Unformed.

He jerked upward, legs convulsing, trying to climb air. The harness held him in place.

One of the men turned a second lever. The hook continued lowering.

Up on the platform, Cortez drew on his cigarette, exhaled, and leaned slightly on the railing. His face was unreadable.

John screamed louder now, hoarse and high-pitched, until his voice broke entirely. His feet and calves were submerged. Steam wrapped around him like fog, swallowing the contours of his body, turning the basement into a ghost chamber.

The winch paused for a second, a mechanical stutter, and then resumed.

John twisted hard, muscles firing blindly, mouth wide open but making no sound anymore. His face was red, then white, then something beyond both.

The man at the crank didn’t look at him.

No one looked at him.

Except Cortez.

When the screaming stopped, it was not because John had been pulled free. It was because the vat had gone still.

The light through the curtains was wrong. Too warm, too still. It coated the room in amber.

Clair sat up slowly, her head lurching sideways, her stomach curling inward. Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t remember falling asleep.

Her legs barely responded as she swung them over the side of the bed. Her slippers were gone. The floor was cold.

The room was her own, the same one she’d grown up in—pale yellow wallpaper, antique desk, and the bookshelf she’d reorganized a hundred times. But something was different. The silence. The shape of the quiet.

She stood, wobbling, and stumbled toward the door. Her fingers shook as she gripped the brass handle and turned.

It didn’t budge.

She blinked and tried again. Then shook it harder.

Locked.

“Hello?” Her voice cracked.

No answer.

“Mr. Alfred?” She called, louder. “Is anyone there?”

She slammed her fist on the door. “Father?”

Her breath quickened. “John?”

Nothing. Just the soft whisper of the curtains shifting behind her.

She backed away from the door, suddenly aware of the tightness in her chest, the way her limbs felt three seconds behind her thoughts.

Downstairs, the estate was awake.

In the kitchen, the staff scrubbed silently. Two men hauled plastic-wrapped sheets down the back stairwell and bundled them into a maintenance van with tinted windows. The smell of bleach had already faded.

The tannery basement had been drained. The copper vat now gleamed under fresh light. A hose lay coiled in the corner. The two men who had held John’s arms now shared a cigarette beside the maintenance entrance, saying nothing.

In the courtyard, florists arranged bouquets of white roses in tall glass vases. Folding tables were dressed in linen. A piano was rolled into place beneath the veranda. A waiter polished the rims of champagne glasses with a cloth.

Henry Cortez stood in the center of the garden, hands behind his back, inspecting the layout.

His suit was cream. His shoes, tan leather. Not a drop of blood had touched him. The night before might as well have been a dream someone else had.

He turned to Mr. Alfred.

“Did the guest list confirm?”

“Yes, sir,” Alfred replied. “All confirmed. No cancellations.”

Cortez gave a satisfied nod. “Good.”

Alfred hesitated, then said, “The young miss is awake.”

Cortez didn’t turn. “Let her rest.”

From the balcony above, Clair’s voice could be heard faintly through the glass.

“Someone answer me—!”

No one did.

By evening, the courtyard was filled with soft music and smiling faces. Businessmen clinked glasses. Women in silk dresses complimented each other’s necklaces. A journalist from The Republic Weekly interviewed Cortez about his upcoming charity project. He spoke eloquently, with concern for the poor, a touch of humor, and a polished humility.

Upstairs, Clair sat beside the locked door, curled in her robe, fingernails digging into her palm.

Somewhere in the west wing, inside a storage room that no one entered, John’s jacket sat folded on a shelf. Inside the left chest pocket was a small oil-stained letter. Folded once. Addressed to Clair. Left Unopened.