With Love, Elena

25

Elena ran like she had never run in her life, her night dress billowing around her as boot hit the ground and her hair net lay to the side of her head, barely clinging on. Her brown face was covered in soot and dirt and so were her clothes and exposed parts of her body.

She heard no footsteps behind her but she ran until she made it to the road. In the distance, she could see black smoke rising towards the skies and she stopped running, her heart racing and adrenaline pumping through her body. Before her body could give up, she started running in the direction of the smoke, towards the town of Vaal City.

As soon as she turned the curb in the road on the side of the woods, she came to a complete stand still, eyes wide as she watched a red head trying to pull someone from the upsidedown black car that had tried to kidnap her earlier, the front of the car completely wrecked.

A weak voice called out for help.

Elena could recognise the voice anywhere and that red head had no business being near one of her trusted men, Blondie, who was lying unconscious, half on the front of the car and half still inside, glass everywhere, including his hair and parts of his body. She grabbed a rock and stalked towards the red head.

"Hey!"

The man turned and Elena smashed the rock against his head! He fell on the ground, groaning heavily, in tremendous pain, one of his hands raised in surrender while the other cradled the side Elena had just hit. She had grazed his skin which stung but not as much as the side of his painful and throbbing head.

"Elena, please!" he begged.

"Osam, you traitor!! Get out of my way before I kill you with my bare hands!!"

"They need help," he groaned.

Elena made to drop the rock and Osam flinched but she walked past him. She chose to focus her anger on helping the badly injured Blondie who had a slight weak pulse.

"Check his penis," she ordered Osam.

"I am not touching another man's-"

Elena glared at him. "If you want to make up for Charles, you will-"

"Kill me."

"Osam, this man is still alive, however thinly. I can't move him if his penis is erect because that means he has a spinal injury. You can already see he's in bad shape."

Osam grumbled and hesitantly felt into the car, feeling for Blondie's waist. Eyes closed, he touched the man's private part and quickly withdrew as if he had been burned. "He's flaccid," he spat in disgust.

Elena started tugging Blondie out until the thin man came out through the windshield. She lifted him and carried him to Osam's car, despite the heavy bleeding. When she was done, she turned to Osam.

"What was Blondie doing in Charles' car?" she asked.

Osam swallowed."Charles is in there-I don't know if he's dead or he's unconscious."

Elena ran back to the car, her heart rate spiking.

"Help me!" she ordered Osam as she tried to pry open the door on the passenger side. After a couple of tries, the door came open and the two pulled Charles from the wrecked car, the side of his face cut by broken glass like Tommy's.

"I can't feel a pulse," Osam whispered.

Elena pushed him aside and started trying to resuscitate Charles but nothing was happening. She went on with determination.

"He's lost a lot of blood," Osam stated, looking at the man's leg.

"Shut up!" Elena hissed angrily. Charles was not dead! Even though she could not feel his pulse anywhere, she refused to believe that he was dead and kept pumping. "Come on, Charlie. Come on my love. It's going to be okay. Just breathe." Her voice trembled.