Chapter 6: The Stranger in the Ruins

Elena's POV

I find myself waking from a very strange sleep with a sharp headache. Almost immediately, I’m startled by a bunch of strangers talking. My entire body aches.

I am moving, but something feels off. It's almost like I'm tilting. I can see a wide expanse of open night sky above me. Two unfamiliar faces gradually come into focus.

No! Wait.

I am being dragged by two men!!

Why am I being carried by these strange men?

“This bitch is heavy as fuck,” one of them hisses.

The other man starts laughing.

An unnerving cold forms in my chest as panic shivers run through the rest of my body.

I try to move, but I end up thrashing more weakly than I intend to. My body feels strange, distant, and heavy.

The men pause. They both look down at me almost at the same time as if they are trying to register whether I'm awake or not.

There is something familiar about their faces.

“Who are you?... Let me go,” I manage as I try to wriggle out of their grip.

The first man's grip tightens across my arm. The other, holding my leg, chuckles but tightens his hold too. They continue moving me towards the unknown.

I try to twist again, but all I manage is an even more feeble struggle, as I push against their now firmer grips. They drag me into a building. It's a large space. Like an empty warehouse.

Then it hits me.

Oh God.

The men from the bar. How did this happen? What did I do?

I remember the way they stared. The crude comments the one holding my legs made. The unease that had crawled over my skin as he touched me. And I shoved him.

Maybe I shouldn’t have shoved him like that.

But I knew something was wrong.

The realization creeps into me and dread slowly follows in its path.

I should have listened when Aunt Lucinda warned me. She begged me to take guards on this trip and I waved her off. I was so sure nothing would happen.

And now here I am, being carried like luggage through the dark, and I don’t even know why.

Had I offended them so badly that it had come to this?

A sob breaks from somewhere deep within my chest. I hear myself pleading before I even decide to speak.

They drop me onto a hard, cold surface.

Metal.

The sound it makes.

The feel of it beneath me.

Oh no. Dear God, help me please.

The full horror of my situation suddenly lands on me like a fist to the chest, and the sobbing becomes harder, uncontrollable now.

“Plea...se...” my voice crackles. “I'll give you anything you want. Please.” 

They laugh.

“Of course you will, princesa.”

A third man comes into view. He has been chatting with the men while they moved me, but I have not seen him.

That's three men.

Now I'm panicking.

My sobs are no longer sobs but have transformed into screams, spilling from my lips unchecked. Warm tears slide down from the corners of my eyes, where I lay down, trailing across my temple until they disappear beneath the haphazard pile of my dark strands.

The shorter man moves to my legs and pushes them apart.

I try to fight it, try to pull away, but my body feels like it belongs to someone else.

So this is how my life will become...

Why did I listen to Beatriz?

Why didn't I stand my ground and not come on this trip?

This wouldn’t have happened if I had just followed my gut.

“Let me go... I beg you... please...” I wail, but they pay no attention to me as they wrench my arms above my head and bind them to the metal.

The sharp edge of the metal bites into my skin.

No.

God.

This isn't happening. Not to me. What did I do to deserve this?

More shapes drift into my line of vision.

More men.

Several of them trooping in, smiling viciously, drawn toward the noise, drawn toward my wailing.

The taller man positions himself between my legs.

He shoves my right pant leg up to the knee and drags one rough, calloused palm slowly up my calf. The friction stings.

I don’t understand what he is doing at first. Then I do. And the world seems to tilt beneath me.

“No...”

The word escapes just as weakly as the rest, weaker than I intended, so I try again.

It's too early to give in. I can try and reason with them. Offer them money.

“Please... no, don't hurt me... I'll pay you… I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

A dark laugh rolls off his lips. He drops my legs abruptly, and for one desperate second I think, I hope… He is unbuckling his belt.

“Please, I beg you...”

My words dissolve into tears I can't stop even as the room blurs through them.

The others move toward me too, laughing like this is entertainment. Not a single one of them takes pity on me.

I sob.

I cry because life is capable of being this cruel.

To me.

Why did I ever forget that?

I have never felt so completely powerless before. No one should ever experience what I am about to experience now. This is every woman's worst nightmare. No girl should ever have to go through this. 

Rough hands close around my face. My jaw is forced to stay still. My limp hands are made to rub over something hard yet fleshy I cannot bear to register.

The tall one is pulling at the waist of my pants while I fight with everything I have left, which is almost nothing.

I try to think of home. Of my plants that I might never see again. Of sunlight.

Of ordinary mornings I had never appreciated because I had always assumed there would be another. I try to think of my dad, but I know if he can see me now he will be too heartbroken.

Please, God.

Please take me.

Don't let me go through this. Take me away. Let me go now before this even begins.

Please, God, send me to my fath—

Something suddenly makes the entire building groan, leaving everyone stumbling in shock.

An explosion ripples through the wall.

The impact causes the space to vibrate so violently that the entire room seems to lurch. I feel the floor jump beneath me. Concrete dust bursts through the air.

For one stunned second, everyone is thrown in disarray. A section of the wall has collapsed inward. The men recoil instinctively.

Some closer to the impact fall into others, their balance knocked clean out of them. The rest scramble up, trying to understand what is happening and realizing too late that they are under attack.

Blinding light pours through the breach.

The air is now filled with dust. It settles in my hair, sticks to my damp skin, turning my every breath into a struggle. I squeeze my eyes shut as grit scratches against them. I cough, but the coughing only makes my ribs ache more.

I open my eyes and blink repeatedly, trying to clear my vision. A figure emerges swiftly from the ruins, its dark silhouette haloed by light. I squint through the glare, tears blurring everything, as I struggle to make out his frame.

His eyes lock on me and he halts. Then something shifts in his expression.

I see his chest expand in a slow breath just before he starts walking toward me.

He approaches with a calmness that doesn’t belong to a man who just ran his car through a wall. He looks around as if he's studying the room.

He takes in the men, then looks at the exits. And finally his eyes land on the bodies sprawled across the floor from the impact of the collision.

The men who moments ago had been laughing now stand frozen. Some are choking from all the dust in the room while others cough violently. A few stumble backward as he approaches, the look of dread clearly written on their faces.

Now the fear in the room isn’t just mine anymore. They all seem petrified. 

Who is this stranger that is powerful enough to have my attackers looking so frightened? And why is he walking like that? How does a human even walk like that?

His broad shoulders barely sway with his powerful steps.

Even through the blur and dust, I can see him. The build of him.

The way he carries himself. As he moves closer I see his face.

Dear heavens.

For one impossible second, I forget to cry.

I must be dead.

These men must have killed me.

Humans can't possibly look like that. They shouldn’t move like that. I must be dreaming.

I shake my head.

No.

I'm not. I am here, staring at this unreal man. Who looks like he belongs on the cover of some magazine and walks as though he is a celestial being. And somehow he is terrifying enough to make grown men quiver. 

For God’s sake, Elena. Only you would be stupid enough to gush over some stranger who could very well be your killer.

No, I'm not gushing... I'm just making sure I'm still alive.

I inhale as I desperately pray that this unbelievable stranger is either of two things.

The man who eventually kills me, giving me a quick death.

Or my saviour.