Endgame
       Chapter 13
 

The thunder erupted directly above the two and yet neither so much as blinked. Dante waited for Michelle’s struggle against his locked embrace. There was none. She was motionless. Her hand remained still on his cheek. Even as her eyes discovered it was Dante and not Danny before them, they lingered, delving into his, unnerving him.

Michelle saw understanding and recognition briefly surface upon his face. Dante was no stranger to this desperation that had overtaken her. She tried to appeal to this momentary weakness he had revealed and softly said,

"Let me go."

These words tugged at Dante, tore at a part so buried inside of him, it made him want to scream. He knew Michelle’s request was for more than the releasing of his arms from around her. His eyes took her in, amazed at this flesh and blood paradox. She was so tiny and yet surrounding her was this enormous presence of strength. She had stood up to him before this moment, and had he not arrived in time, she would have single-handedly destroyed the plan that had been so long in the making. - So spiritually strong but so physically frail - He could feel her body shaking through the soaked, clinging silk of Maria’s dress. Her hair was glistening in the flashes of lightening, pasted in ringlets to her drenched cheeks, trailing down her neck. He could not let her go. He could not watch this spirit die before him, even though he knew he would have to break it anyway.

"I cannot let you go," he said to her, marveling at the frailty of his own voice.

It angered him. How dare this girl distract him, however briefly. He was in control, not her.

"I will not," he forced out, clamping his hand around Michelle’s arm to pull her inside.

The strength of her struggle surprised him. Dante stopped to reposition his hold of her. Grabbing her by the face, his mouth barely an inch from her own, he uttered,

"Your first passing might not have been the death of my son, Michelle, but your second one surely will."

"Not if you go get me," Michelle replied desperately but quickly, as if she knew his words before he had spoken them.


Dante’s expression fell from anger to disgusted wonder. He stared down at her eyes that were wide with absolute sincerity and pushed her face away from his.

"Go get you," he shouted, incredulous. "Does that sea below look as if it will leave your battered, lifeless body for me to retrieve, Michelle? No. It will take you into it and spit out what is left of you God knows where for God know who to find. And then my son will have to go through your death all over again. Except this time, Michelle, if enough is left of you to perform an autopsy, it will be very clear that drowning did not cause your death because your neck would be broken or your skull cracked. Would Daniel think you willingly jumped here to your death, Michelle. No. He would think that you suffered all this time, tortured, and then, one way or another, were pushed to your death."

"It wouldn’t be far from the truth," Michelle hissed back at him defiantly.

With that, Dante shoved her around so that he could wrap his arm around her from
behind.

"Well, my dear, you warned me not to underestimate you," he said, dragging her inside, down the stairs. I think I may have overestimated you. Take a good look, Michelle, you will not be here again for a very, very long time." He could feel her body wrench at his words as he pulled her out from her cherished place.

She was still for him now as he reached with his free arm to push the button to open the elevator doors. Yet, before his finger touched the pad, the elevator came to life, moving away from them, going down.



Danny had stopped running when he looked up and could see Michelle no more.
Knowing it was useless, he still screamed out her name. Even without the thunder, wind, or surf, he knew the sound of the rain alone made it impossible for him to be heard. He swung open the door leading into the lighthouse.

"MICHELLE!"

Thunder drowned him out. The light above him flickered, died, then came back to life.

Is it ever going to stop, he wondered as he approached the elevator. He pressed the
button and waited. His eyes darted to the emergency stairwell and back to the elevator. By the time I climb those, the elevator could have made the trip twice, Danny reasoned to himself, trying to quell the urge to sprint them a flight at a time. Finally the old, lumbering elevator arrived. As he ascended, Danny calmed enough to realize, The door wasn’t locked. The door wasn’t locked. Oh, God, please, please.

"Damn it," Danny screamed, beating on the elevator walls. "I could have climbed the stairs faster."

He stretched out his hands to watch them shake and then brought them down his face to discover tears that had come so stealthily.



"Damn it," Michelle heard Dante blurt out. "Dietz would have called before coming back here. Damn it!" He turned to Michelle and asked, "Where can we hide?"

"Nowhere," she said through her teeth as she escaped Dante’s hold of her and began to pound on the elevator doors. Before the scream of "help" could get out of her throat, Dante jerked her backwards with his hand dug in across her mouth. Into her ear, Dante whispered,

"And their names Rick, Abby, Meta, Bill, Ed, Jesse, Drew… Shall I continue?"

Michelle ripped his hand from her mouth. "You’re bluffing," she said tremulously.

Dante turned her around to face him. "From what I have told you of myself, do you honestly think that I bluff, Michelle?"


Why didn’t I jump. If I had just let go…


"WHERE," Dante screamed, dragging her back into the room.

"Up there," Michelle replied weakly, so torn.

She was pointing to a small, stand-alone closet on the balcony above the room. Dante grabbed her, forcing her in front of him.

"Go," he shouted, pushing her to the top of the stairs.

They both heard the elevator go quiet. Dante jerked open the double doors to the closet and shoved Michelle in with him. The door below burst open.

"MICHELLE," Danny yelled as he leapt up the staircase to where they were.

Michelle let out a tiny gasp. Dante put his hand up to her mouth. And yet, with his other hand, he cracked open one of the closet doors just enough for a sliver of light to come through, just enough to see his son.

Dante watched Danny run outside to the observation deck. With the storm moving past, they were able to hear him screaming her name. Over and over. They could hear his voice trailing in a circle. Dante felt the damp warmth of Michelle’s tears on his hand that still stretched across her mouth.


And then, from outside, came his scream. It was the scream of someone dying.

Michelle nearly doubled over in agony. Dante grabbed her,

"I will kill them all," he slipped into her ear. "If you try to escape with him now, your family and friends will be left for me take one by one. He must suffer this. He has to. I will return you to him, but not today."

She quieted in his arms and then pushed him off of her, positioning herself to see through the crack between the doors. Dante knew what she wanted and that he should at least allow her this much.

But how she would later wish she had not watched.

Michelle saw Danny finally appear in the doorway from the observation deck. His eyes were wild, his body wrenching, heaving as he cried. She nearly cried out as she watched him stumble down the spiral staircase to the room below. Dante placed his hand on her shoulder and applied pressure as a warning. She jerked her elbow back into his ribcage.

"All of them, Michelle, one by one," he whispered, wincing in pain.

"I know," she mouthed, deliberately, accusingly. And so she stayed with him. The smell of Dante, so much like her husband, the smell of paint, the smell of household cleaners all mingled in that closet to create a deepening nausea within Michelle. She could not control her body’s tremors.

Is it ever going to stop, she wondered.

She did not think it would.

A crash came from below. Michelle peered down to see her stereo, CD’s, and the shelf that had held them, all in pieces across the floor.


Danny went for anything he could throw. He yanked the phone out from the wall as he screamed,

"I HATE YOU!"

He grabbed the glasses, the hot plate left out from the last time she was here. They, too, went into the floor, shattering.

"You were good liar after all, Michelle, the best. I was supposed to kill you…I should
have. Is this your revenge? Well, bravo," he sneered, his sardonic laughter being betrayed by his tears. "Didn’t you tell me, ‘I’m going to find a way to get out of this marriage without anyone I love getting hurt.’ Well, I guess you knew what you were talking about with that one because you must’ve never loved me!"

He was stumbling around, looking up as he continued to rant.

"Didn’t you tell me on that bed," he shouted, pointing at it, "that the whole marriage deal was only about me wanting something that I would never have. Well, you made sure of that, didn’t you."

He stormed over to the bed, lifting the frame from the floor, but the shattered glass, metal, and plastic under his footing gave way. The bed frame came across his lower half, straddling him, pinning him to the floor. His laughter resonated throughout the room, through Michelle, as he had to writhe his burned back across the shards of glass and metal to escape from under the bed.

Danny groaned as he came to his feet. He smiled that empty, ugly grin and looked up. "Are you enjoying the show, God? Michelle?"

By the time he had heaved the nightstand and its contents across the room, he was in utter physical agony. Surveying his damage, a framed picture caught his eye. He reached down to pick up the Christmas gift he had given to Michelle. It was the picture he had taken of her in the park. It’s important you don’t forget me, he had told her.

She had not.

Danny knelt to the floor, staring down at the picture; simple black and white, her eyes were closed, her face uplifted towards the sun to warm it on that cold day, some of her curls were laying against her cheek.

He would not throw this piece of her to the floor. Instead, he clutched it, drawing it to his chest so that the edges of the frame dug in painfully.

"I vowed I would protect you with my life. I vowed I would never let anything happen to you."

His grief overtook him and he let it. His torso bent over his legs until his forehead touched the floor as the picture of Michelle lay between his hands and chest. And sobs that had lain dormant for weeks escaped.


No abandonment, no blindness, no attempted rape, no fear could compare to what Michelle was being forced to witness. She was watching her husband cry as if he were purging out his very soul.


Over half an hour went by before Danny became still. He sat up on his knees and looked up at the door leading to the observation deck.

"Well, Michelle, you’ve left me to go insane. I saw you, I can smell you, I can feel you. I’m talking to myself. Are you going to haunt this place now? I’ve never believed in that stuff. Are you proving me wrong? I know I saw you."

There was no sarcasm, no bitterness in his voice. Genuine concern crept across his face as he wondered aloud,

"What if you’re only in my head? Will I see you everywhere? Will this be my punishment for being so selfish, for bringing you into my world? Fine, that’s just fine. I don’t care if I have lost my mind so long as I can see you."

He got up and folded down the bed sheets. Their scent drifted and took him back to that night he and Michelle had laid together in them.

"You couldn’t go through with it. I wouldn’t’ve wanted you to then. But we wasted so much time."

He remembered standing here and feeling so much pain, Michelle’s pain, when he threw in her face her part in the death of his brother. So many words did he want to take back and so many more did he want the chance to give.

He gave up. He unbuttoned his shirt and let out a painful moan as he stretched his back to pull out his arms from the sleeves.


Michelle released a small cry before Dante could react.


Danny stopped, sure he had heard something other than himself. For several seconds he remained motionless, waiting for more.


None would come, for Michelle had put her own hand up to her mouth to stifle the sobs. She could plainly see the scar that ran across his back, now streaked with dried blood from the glass that had cut under him earlier.


Danny finished undressing and crawled into the bed. He reached for the pillow beside him and pulled it to his face.


Michelle heard a faint groan as she watched Danny bury his face into her pillow.


It was cold but still held her scent. Just as she had been cold that day outside the diner when he grabbed her without warning and pulled her into a kiss. He closed his eyes, remembering: how beautiful she looked smiling, waving goodbye to someone, his heart racing as he approached her with her back turned, how soft her neck was to his hand as he drew her to him, the scent of her - the same as within the pillow he was clutching, the feel of her body pressed against his, the softness of her lips, how warm they were despite the cold, his surprise that she didn’t immediately pull away, screaming.

Then came the other memory of her scent and cold. The night he pulled her out of the freezing water instead of killing her. Oh, God, I scared her so much. I thought I was saving her, but I wasn’t. I sentenced her to death. His tears began anew their course down his face.

"It was all I could think to do. It was all I knew to do," he said aloud, as if he were
pleading his case to God.

Danny then laid Michelle’s pillow beside him, turned over on his stomach, kept one arm tight around her pillow, and sunk his face into his own.

"Please come back. Please," he let out softly.


Michelle and Dante watched from above as Danny’s movements stilled. Finally after another half hour, all was silent except for his steady breathing. Dante opened the closet door fully.

"Let’s go," he whispered, pulling her behind him. "Quietly," he warned, turning to look into her eyes.

They tiptoed down the spiral staircase but were still unable to avoid some creaks within the aging stairs. Danny did not stir. He was gone to this world for now. When they reached the floor, Michelle pulled away from Dante. As he reached out to grab her, she held up her hand and mouthed,

"I know."

Dante looked at her ravaged face, so defeated, and decided to allow her this. For it had been excruciating to witness this himself, how much more...

Michelle silently came beside her sleeping husband and extended her hand towards that awful scar on his back. How badly she wanted to touch it and absorb the pain into her. Instead, she made her hand travel upward to his curls, brushing one away from his face. He remained undisturbed. She knelt to come even with his face, absorbing every detail. Finally, she pressed her lips to his forehead as she rose. He suddenly turned over, drawing her pillow to him tighter, and she heard him release,

"Michelle."

Quickly, Dante grabbed her arm, pulling her away. And then they left Danny alone to his dreams.