Something in the Orange

Chapter Twenty-Seven

AUTHORS NOTE: lovebugs I need you to know this is a tough chapter, and its a big one. Like if this story didn't already have an R rating, this chapter would have given it one!It contains a lot of violence, like a lot. Including detailed scenes of a parent harming their child (an adult child), and graphic murder.If you want to avoid any of these scenes I will mark them with the following$$$$The first violence scene starts in italics after the shower scene. I will also provide another author's note at the end with a summary if you wish to avoid these scenes.

"I can survive alone again, figured that out the hardest way. The forecast calls for fire, flames sound nice today"

I can't go on - Bayside

Rolling over her fingers grip the cold sheets pulling the sleep from her eyes, sighing she pulls herself up, tucking her knees to her chest, resting her chin on her knees.

Her fingers tracing patterns on the rumpled sheets, wondering if it was all a dream. It wouldn't be the first time she had dreamt of his fingers gripping her skin. Inhaling deeply the smell of clove and bergamot fill her nostrils, the only confirmation that last night wasn't a dream.

Sighing she presses her fingers into her eyes, trying to steady her breathing as she feels the cracks in her heart starting to splitter.

'One minute of self pity and then I'll get up' she thinks to herself as she sits in the feeling, trying her best to identify it. The feeling of disappointment and loneliness winding around her heart, bandaging the cracks.

Vee wonders how she let herself so far down the rabbit hole of Santo Padre she had spent the past fifteen years pretending like the cartel didn't exist and somehow it had sunk its claws into her and dragged her back in, pulling her deeper and deeper every single day but no longer did she feel like she was drowning, somehow she kept her head above water.

But what next? Miguel was back and it wouldn't be long before he sent her back to Boston, then what? She would go back to wearing pastel dresses and blending into the background? No more coffee with Blair, or arguing with Nestor.

Her hand rubs her chest, trying to ease the sudden pain at the thought of leaving Santo Padre, leaving Blair and Nestor. In the few short months she'd been back she had built a life, she had fallen in love.

Vee's hand falls from her chest in horror, she had fallen back in love with Nestor and that alone hurt worse than anything she could imagine. Pushing herself out of the sofa bed she crosses her apartment, heading straight for the shower, the panic welling in her chest desperate for a release, her sweaty palms slipping on the shower knob as she turns it on to icy cold. Stripping off she steps under the cold spray letting it shock her system. Slowly her breathing returns to normal as she sinks to the floor pulling her knees to her chest, letting the tears fall, the salty traitors sliding down her face, as she rests her head on her knees.

Falling in love with Nestor as a child felt easy, it felt like the last puzzle piece falling into place, but after Rome, it felt like a mistake, it felt like walking endlessly across hot coals. Her mind drifts to that day, the moment her whole world imploded, the day she died.

$
$$$

"You stupid bitch" her father growled, his hand striking her across her face, her head snapping from the impact, tears slipping down her face. Her father gripped her hair, yanking her head back "how could you do this to me?" he hisses, spit flying everywhere.