(A/N: Well, here we are, we're officially in the sixth chapter. I'm excited for this because it's going to be going back to the "Special Victims Unit" inspiration from the fourth chapter (I might be addicted to the show, I can't help it). I wouldn't expect to see Thite in this chapter, this is going to focus more on Cora and John and the investigation (the one he's working on), but I won't say anything more.
Just so you know, warning: emotional stress, mild humiliation and police interrogation will happen in this. If you're sensitive as a victim, suspect, etc. then I would avoid this chapter. I know that these are especially triggering in this day and age, but I promise you it won't be too much (and I mean it) and please take in mind when this takes place. What happened over a decade ago should be left in that time and left alone. Take in mind, however, that is inspired by SVU, which is nothing but a TV drama in real-life.
Again, if you're sensitive, please don't read this chapter, I don't want to trigger anything negative in anyone. For those of you who are reading, please enjoy it.)
*I*~o-x-v-O-v-x-o~*I*
With unsteady legs, Cora lifted herself off of the bloody floor. Every part of her legs were shaky, from her ankles to her tights, as she stood in place, looking into the room the being she saw had been inside of.
When she had first seen it, she was analyzing it and felt no fear. Now, however, after it attempted to attack her, disappeared after leaving, and everything she had seen, she felt a flood of fear as her mind processed it.
She may have thought that she had seen a person in a costume, but that was an idea that was pushed out of her mind. The texture of skin, the fleshy dreadlock-like growths, the muscles, and the height, it had to be real and definitely not a human.
She did not scare easily, it took a hand held grenade exploding to get her to flinch, but this definitely terrified her. Just the idea of seeing something that belonged in a monster movie in person was enough for her skin to crawl with a cold feeling dancing on it.
She felt her legs move into the room, she was subconsciously curious about whatever she had seen was doing. She discovered a blue puddle on the counter with the melted remains of a plastic bin.
She knew not to touch whatever the fluid was and decided that she had seen enough. She began to take steps out of the room, stopping at the doorway to peer out at the bloody hallway, she wanted to see if the creature had returned.
"Cora!" she heard a familiar thick Austrian accent shout.
She stepped out into the middle of the hallway to see her uncle running towards her. He stopped only for a moment to look up at the body pinned onto the wall.
His eyes were wide and his skin was as white as a ghost, he gripped his niece's shoulders, noticing the blood on her, "What happened here?"
She didn't know how to tell him everything that happened, she didn't know if he would believe her, all she could say was, "I fell."
Cora stood naked in front of Melinda as she took pictures of her, she felt violated and embarrassed having to stand without her clothes, but didn't show it on her stoic face. John was standing outside of the room, waiting for it to be over, he couldn't imagine the amount of humiliation his niece must have been feeling.
Melinda noticed a bruise on the side of her right buttock and snapped a photograph of that too. It was just one more thing that made her feel even more humiliated.
The pictures continued and she stood stiffly, almost like a statue, her legs were spread apart and her arms straight and horizontal. In this position, she felt as though she was chained to a wall, even though she could move whenever she wanted.
"Okay, hun, we're done," Melinda told her.
She put on a pair of scrubs that were given to her, as her clothes had been taken away, all of her clothes, including her underwear. It was unnerving for her to be aware that she was literally naked underneath a thin, single layer of clothing.
John opened the door, his eyes seemed to bore holes into her, but she couldn't tell what he might have been thinking. "It's time to go."
"I know the drill," she replied monotonously.
The drive to the precinct was silent, and she was shaking like a leaf blowing on a windy day on the inside. She always tried not to show weakness on the outside, but she had a feeling that what she felt internally would be leaking very shortly.
When they arrived at the precinct two uniformed police officers were waiting for them, or, more specifically, for her. She got out of the car without sparing her uncle a glance and he watched as the two cops took her away, likely so that she could be interrogated.
He was now off the case, he couldn't investigate a case that may involve his own family, even though he believed that she was innocent. He had crossed the line in his cases before, but he would obey the department rules for this one, or risk his badge getting taken away.
Nevertheless, he knew that he couldn't sit idly by and do nothing for her, he had to help, but not as a cop, as a family member. And he knew exactly how to do that.
He picked up his phone and dialed a number, holding it up to his ear when it started to ring. "Hello, I need you to renew that favor you owe me."
Meanwhile, she was being corralled through the hallways of the precinct by the two cops. She had been inside of this building so many times and it was always a joyful experience for her, she was endlessly eager to learn all she could about law enforcement when she was younger. She remembered a time where she was on the upper floor of the homicide unit and she watched as a couple of suspects were taken to the interrogation rooms, excitedly guessing about the crimes they may have committed. Now, she was the one who was being taken to get interrogated.
Inside of the squad room, everyone was looking at her, or seemed to be. Many of them recognized her or saw the resemblance she had to her uncle. It must have seemed like a bad dream for them to see the niece of one of their own detectives being taken to her interrogation.
She was taken to the interrogation room, where she sat in an uncomfortable metal chair and waited for whomever would be questioning her. She wondered if it would be someone she knew or who knew her, but it was something she highly doubted. She survived a massive conflict in Iraq for four years, but even she wasn't that lucky.
The wait was shorter than she expected, the door opened and two pairs of shoes tapped on the floor as they walked into the room. She wouldn't look at them, she bore a focused, stone-cold face as she stared at the concrete wall.
One of the detectives was a tall man with curly brown hair, he sat in one of the chairs across from her, "Hey, there. I'm Detective Edwards, this is my partner Detective Jones."
Detective Jones was a man of average height with short and neat black hair, he sat next to his partner in the chair next to him, "Anything you want to say?"
She didn't recognize either Edwards or Jones and she knew that they weren't a part of Brooklyn Homicide, they may have been from another borough, but she couldn't be certain. One thing she could say was that they didn't look like cops at all, at least not detectives, they looked more like police officers in a comedy movie.
Since she knew nothing about them and didn't trust them, she only said one word, "Bonjour."
She wouldn't speak in English whilst being questioned and she could keep it up until the end of it. She was fluent in German, French, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic. She learned German, French, and Russian from her uncle, Spanish and Arabic were learned in school.
"Uh, bonjour, I guess," Edwards said awkwardly. "Do you know why you're here?"
She shrugged, "Non. Je ne sais pas."
"Do you mind speaking to us in English?" Jones asked.
"Non," she shook her head. "Je ne parlerai pas en anglais avec vous."
"Okay, if you don't want us to understand you, fine. But we know you can understand us," Jones stated.
"We know that you were there when our vic was killed and we know you were inside of that room, where the skulls of two other murder victims were busted. So, just tell us what happened here and we can work something out with the DA," Edwards said.
"Nada," she replied simply, now speaking in a different language. "Yo no hice nada."
Jones took out a couple of pictures from a manila folder and slid them across the table in front of her. They were photographs of the crime scene technician who was impaled on the wall at the coroner's office, and the fractured remains of the skulls.
He pointed at the picture of the deceased technician, "What did this person do to you? Huh? A hard worker who was taking care of an ailing grandfather." He then tapped on the picture of the skulls, "What did these people do to you? Self-defense? Or a crime of opportunity? Just for kicks?"
If Edwards and Jones really were police officers, they were doing a terrible job with their interrogation. Making false promises to talk about leniency with the District Attorney, showing her actual pictures of the crime scene that could potentially lead to her giving a false or coerced confession; whoever trained them didn't do it very well.
"Idiotas, ustedes están haciendo un mal trabajo," she calmly commented.
Suddenly, the door flew open and a man with neatly combed gray hair wearing a black business suit with a red tie and holding a thin suitcase came into the room. Surprisingly, she recognized the man as someone who lived in Brighton Beach, a place she used to visit often when she was young. The man was Dmitri Petrovsky, a Russian immigrant and lawyer who was once believed to be involved with the Potato Bag Gang, a bank robbery gang believed to be connected to a large Russian crime syndicate, although no proof was ever found.
"Not another word," he told her with his semi-diluted Russian accent.
"Vam ne nuzhno bespokoit'sya ob etom," she responded.
He smiled at her, "Da, ya znayu." He then turned his attention to Edwards and Jones, "Unless you plan on charging my client, I'll be taking her home."
When they said nothing, she stood up from the chair and he grabbed her by the arm to take her out of the interrogation room. When they still didn't say anything when they stepped out of the room and the door closed, she felt like she could finally breathe.
"Kak ty uznal, chto ya zdes'?" she asked him in Russian, still not comfortable enough to speak in English yet.
He smiled at her again, "Tvoy dyadya."
They were walking through the middle of the squad room, headed for the door to exit, when John stood up from his desk and came up to them. The first thing he did was embrace his niece.
He then shook hands with Dmitri, "Thank you for coming on short notice."
He nodded, "I'm happy to help out an old friend."
"What happens now?" Cora asked.
He wanted to give her an honest and reassuring answer, but he couldn't. He pulled her into another embrace, "Everything will be alright, Schatz." He held the back of her head in his hand as he gave a kiss on her forehead, "Dmitri will take you home, Ich werde so schnell wie möglich zu Hause sein."
He pulled away from her and she nodded, struggling to hold back her tears in her eyes, the emotional stress was beginning to put a lot of pressure onto her. Dmitri wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he escorted her out of the squad room.
"I can get you something on the way there if you're hungry," he offered.
She smiled softly, although he seemed like a stern, uncaring man upon first seeing him, he was actually a very considerate and generous person. Still, she declined by shaking her head, "Net. I'd like to go home now."
*I*~o-x-v-O-v-x-o~*I*
(A/N: I know, it's not very long, and, believe me, it felt longer than it actually turned out. Thite is not in this chapter, but he will make an appearance again very soon.
Translation(s):
1. Bonjour. - Hello. (French)
2. Non. Je ne sais pas. - No. I don't know. (French)
3. Non. Je ne parlerai pas en anglais avec vous. - No. I won't speak in English with you. (French)
4. Nada. Yo no hice nada. - Nothing. I don't know anything. (Spanish)
5. Idiotas, ustedes están haciendo un mal trabajo. - Idiots, you're doing a bad job. (Spanish)
6. Vam ne nuzhno bespokoit'sya ob etom. - You don't have to worry about me. (Russian)
7. Da, ya znayu. - Yes, I know. (Russian)
8. Kak ty uznal, chto ya zdes'? - How did you know I am here? (Russian)
9. Tvoy dyadya. - Your uncle. (Russian)
10. Schatz - sweetheart (German)
11. Ich werde so schnell wie möglich zu Hause sein. - I'll be home as soon as I can. (German)
12. Net. - No. (Russian)
For those of you who don't know much about John Schaefer, it's mentioned in the very first "Predator" comic book ("Predator 1989", or "Predator: Concrete Jungle" as it's more commonly known) that he's fluent in English, French, and Russian, so that's where those languages that Cora speaks comes from. John's brother Dutch is portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie and in a video game and since he speaks German, I figured that John (and therefore Cora) would likely speak it as well. And then, Spanish and Arabic are two languages that can be learned in New York schools (at least I think, but I'm not from New York).
I think it's time for me to get out of here and let you guys go on with your own thing. So, with that in mind, I'll see you in the next chapter, there's still lots more to come.)