There were many times in her life when she had felt pain. It hurt when her father slapped her across the face because she snuck out with her high school friends to a party wearing a miniskirt. Her cousin, Ricky, the faketard was a constant pain at her side during her high school years—pulling her hair hard from her skull or twisting her arm until it bruised whenever he saw it necessary to discipline her. After all, her father had given Ricky the role of a CCTV camera so that he could monitor her modesty from afar. She could list down too many of such incidents the hands of men in her life had left symbols of dominance on her skin.
Nevertheless, she believed she had climbed out of that dark chapter with great struggles. She had a successful career in photography, made some money, and moved out of her father's house.
Yet here she was, lying under a man's beating hand—a man who seemed to have lost his mind at that moment.
And her eyes burned and overflowed from the agony.
However, she didn't know when she started screaming when his second punch connected to her ribcage. But even the strongest warrior would have done the same too. Saliva sprayed out of her mouth. She coughed from the excruciating ache below her breast. Her head spun, and she saw little, swirly sprinkles all over the shadowy ceiling.
She heard the noises of people progressing with hollers and gasps. Strangely, it felt like those noises were coming from the end of a long tunnel.
Was she dying?
Did death feel so utterly painful?
Nah. The next moment she dismissed the notion. She had seen the moment her mother had passed away. She could never forget how peaceful she looked. It was like her mother was staring at the beautiful angels descending to pluck her soul.
Angels never yelled this way, did they?
As her vision and ears reverted back to normal, she hissed, realizing the vice grip around her arm.
What now? Was he attempting to rip her hand out of her shoulder now so she couldn't click another photo in her life? Well, if that was the case, then she was bloody going to start taking photos with her foot and shove it down her masochist family and ex-fiance's royal throat. But she would not bend, no way in hell.
Her eyes registered an irritated-looking Ricky removing Adi from her.
"Hey! Stop. Hey, man!" Ricky hissed. "We can get in deep sh*t if she dies or anything. Let's go, man."
She tried to roll further away from these lunatics but groaned when even the littlest movement hurt like a b*tch.
More footsteps entered the room in the next few seconds as Ricky was trying to drag the still-enraged Adi out of the room. She recognized the motel's manager and the staff who brought her clothes earlier.
There was this other face she recognized, and she was fairly surprised by his presence there. "Alex?" she murmured in confusion. Wasn't it Alex Leon? The CEO of his now-bankrupted family business—Quartz. But what was he doing here in this motel?
She watched Alex fly in faster than anyone else. He looked at her and his face squared in shock and fury. The next thing she saw was him crossing the distance to Adi and Ricky and placing one on each one of their jaws.
"Umph"
"Ahh..."
She couldn't enjoy the relief of her survival and the satisfaction of them getting hurt for much longer. White, blurry shadows began to surround her and were closing in. Along with a few more faces, Alex's face blurrily cut through those shadows. They all had sympathies on their faces—it was an emotion she didn't want from them. She tried to move her body, sit up, lift up her chin—anything that would make her look less of a victim. But instead, what happened was she fell into the numbing lap of unconsciousness.
After all, there was so much a soul could take in the span of one single day.
--
After some sprinkling of water on her face, she returned to her senses. People who rescued her tried to send her to a hospital by calling an ambulance. She firmly refused and stopped such a thing from happening. There was insufficient money in her hand, and she didn't want to be indebted to more people. She was already indebted to Victor. And the scary thing was she didn't know how she would retrieve her money from her father's hand.
But surely she could ask to borrow another thing. "Could you lend me your phone for a minute, please?"
Alex seemed to turn speechless for a second. He even looked a bit uncomfortable. Weird.
"I can't," he said.
"Oh," she blinked and looked away.
"It's dead," he explained further. "Got soaked in the rain."
If it were the old version of Alex, who was filthy rich and ruthless, it would have been a normal thing for him to buy a new phone. But this Alex perhaps had understood the meaning of scarcity of money.
Anyway, she was now back to square one of hopelessness. No money and no way to communicate with anyone.
"What are you doing in this motel?" Victoria asked Alex, attempting to push away her worries for the time being. She groaned from her leaned-back position in front of the bed's headboard with a pillow behind her. It hurt to talk loud even. Moving was a completely different thing altogether, which made her head spin.
"I could ask you the same thing," Alex shrugged. "I'm in the room next to you—heard some shrieks and arguments. These cheap walls are not soundproof. Others downstairs heard, too. Also, they kept an eye on the suspicious girl from what I heard while entering the room. Who were those a**holes?"
"A demon cousin and a freshly made ex-fiance who were trying to change my decision."
After muttering some choice words, he advised her, "Go to the police and file a complaint."
"I will," she whispered, her lips pressed into a thin line as she tried to gulp down another bout of pain that spread throughout her mid-region from her ribs where she was hit. She didn't explain to Alex that asking for legal help wouldn't be of much help since her own father, who had connections in incredible places, was siding with Adi. Besides, Alex seemed to be struggling in his own mess, too—a mess he didn't want to discuss.
So she said instead, "By the way, you look like an addict. I guess they're keeping an on you, too." She stared at his swollen eyes, stubble-covered cheeks, and tornado-swept hair.
And all the light from his soul seemed to have gone missing by the way he sighed and looked away before starting to leave.
"Are you alright?" she asked out of worry.
He was not a friend or a relative. Alex was just a past client of Chimera—the company she worked for. As far as she could remember, he was a ruthless businessman who was dead serious about his own get-up and the time and money he invested in anything and everything. He was not quite friendly or welcoming back then. He and Victoria saw each other only because of her friendship with his wife.
Ah—she sighed—correcting her thought—now ex-wife.
"As much as you are," was his dry reply before he left.
Victoria left the motel before dawn, fearing that Adi and Ricky would return for her again. They knew where she was. And she wasn't sure how what they would do next time.
So she took an oversized hoodie from the motel staff. With her face hidden, she got out to the silent streets of Asthel.
And she spent a whole day sitting on park benches, watching children play and homeless people sleeping. Then she thought—she was quite homeless too, without money or a phone.
People gave her weird and suspicious looks when she tried to approach them for a phone—her dress, unkempt hair, and limping made her look scary to them.
She didn't dare go to the police with Roland backing her up somehow.
Indeed, she was pretty homeless at that point.
Her little, one-room apartment was back in South Hills, where she initially worked for the Chimera agency's headquarters. She worked there for a period of time. For the rest of the year, she went out on tours to exotic and mysterious locations around the globe—doing photo walks, making documentaries, and living her dream career. Her father couldn't have picked a more perfect time to plan her surprise wedding. It was just in time as she was sent to Asthel to work on a project in one of the agency's branches. However, she hardly had the time to learn about the project details because of the entire wedding fiasco. The old guy was furthermore smart enough to book the wedding venue right in the hotel Roland selected for her.
She was deeply engrossed in her thoughts and was sleepy from sitting with her back in the cozy morning sun. However, she did not dare lean back into the bench's backrest and nodded off as it had some white crow-sh*t splattered on it.
She might be helpless enough to wear second-hand or third-hand clothes. But no way in hell she was hopeless enough to sleep drooling on sh*t.
Her eyes went to one of the homeless ones sleeping peacefully inside a crummy sleeping bag next to the pavement. From this far, she could hear his snores. There lay the happiest person on the earth.
Hell, why did it have to be a public holiday!
A trip to the office was what she badly needed right now.
She was letting out a long sigh of utter frustration when her eyes suddenly fell on the man walking down the pavement.
Victor.
She sat up straight by his sight. Another girl was walking by his side. Both of them had two cartons in their hands.
Wordlessly she started walking after them.
While Victor moved with confident strides, the girl, as if, had little springs on her steps. The girl's bouncy hair was above shoulder length, and she looked quite energetic as she spoke. They talked and laughed among themselves as they walked.
In their high school days, yes, she and Victor went to the same school. She had never seen him so close to any girl.
But look at him now!
It made her feel curious.
On her way after them, Victoria noticed a beautiful lake with a picturesque walk-over bridge. And the lakeside park and the trees looked magical, dressed up with the colors of the fall. She made a mental note to return here for a photo walk someday soon.
They reached an orphanage soon.
Why did people come to orphanages? It was either to adopt or to donate. Those cartons in their hands announced clearly which one they were here for.
There was security at the orphanage's gates. Victoria knew she couldn't follow them any further.
The feeling of humiliation returned underneath her skin as she approached them and called his name, "Victor."
They stopped at the gateway and turned to look at her. While Victor looked surprised, the girl next to him only looked confused.
Sighing, Victoria walked closer.
"What do you want?" He looked a little irritated as the initial shock on his face quickly wore off.
She could see that he would not stand for any introductory or greeting-type of conversation. "Your phone," so she replied simply and straight.
His brow raised.
The girl next to him suddenly gasped. She moved forward, muttering, "No way in hell!" And then the girl did some weird movements consisting of throwing her legs, one after the other, in the air between them.
"Ellie?" He had his confused eyes on her now. "What's that?"
"It's Ninja warning," the girl, whose name apparently was Ellie, gave Victor only a short side glance with the reply. She was way too focused on Victoria instead and told her seriously, "Look, Victor must be a good guy who saves damsels left and right. But that doesn't mean you can just appear out of nowhere like a ghost and hijack away his phone."
Well, what did she expect?
Wearing clothes like she was wearing, looking the way she was, then turning up out of the blue and asking for the phone—Victoria couldn't blame the girl for thinking she was a hijacker.
Victoria sighed and gave a tight-lipped smile. "I just need the phone for a minute. It's really urgent. I will give it back, I promise." And she tried to look as genuine as she could. "I'm not holding a switchblade your way, see? It's just a request—"
"Switchblade?" The look on Ellie's face changed. "I like it when girls talk about switchblades and pocket knives."
Victor cut in then, rolling his eyes, "Hey, Ellie, chill. I was not going to give her my phone even if she's not a hijacker, alright? Now, let's go."
Ellie looked bewildered suddenly. "Why is that, Vicks? Why wouldn't you help someone who's not a hijacker? You're not like this usually, and it's confusing me greatly."
Was the girl on her team or not? This entire conversation was way too puzzling.
Victoria shifted on her feet. She bent her head to let her hair fall on her face, hiding the wince of pain.
Victor gestured to the guard at the gate to come and take the cartons they'd placed on the ground by now. Then he spoke to Ellie, words that Victoria knew were meant for her, "There are some evil people on earth who don't need the rescuing, Ellie."
Ouch!
That hurt. Even more than how her ribs hurt at that moment.
He turned to look at Victoria, a quick look from head to toe. "And we must not forget that these evil ones are masters in their games of betrayal—what they show us are always nicely thought out ploys."
"Evil ones—ploys—eh?" Ellie seemed utterly puzzled at this point.
Victoria nodded, blinking to clear the haze of hurt and humiliation. Of course, he would forever hate her. "Well—forget that I asked anything. Please go on your way."
And they did.
The girl named Ellie looked unwilling to leave, by the way. She was eager to solve what smelt like a puzzle. But Victor convinced her and then took her away with his hands over her shoulders.
Not wanting him to see her limping or cringing, Victoria stood still on her spot until they completely left her sight. And when she was turning to leave finally, the miracle happened. The guard at the gate, who was a silent and keen observer of their conversation until now, jogged down the distance to her.
Victoria realized that God worked in unexpected ways when the guard let her use his phone for a while.
Because, sometimes, even the supposed evil ones need some rescuing, too. Not all want to accept that disturbing fact.
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Word Count: 2543
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A/N:
Hello everyone,
So, Victor kinda hates Victoria. Is she truly evil?
What do you think happened between them in the past?
And here comes Ellie again. Did you like Ellie's Ninja warning? ;)
Thanks to all those incredible people who've been supporting the Rain series. About Victoria's friendship with Kate in the past - I'm going to introduce that in the next few chapters of the prequel to the series 'In the Rain'.
I'm really enjoying writing this series. What about you?
Please don't forget to vote and comment! Your votes motivate me greatly. Fan/follow me to get notified of my updates. Follow me on Insta as I'm really enjoying the Insta world.
See you soon with a new chapter.
And happy holidays!
Lots of love,
Lara.