CH2: The Frame
“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
Closing the door of her penthouse, Hela took her boots off and left her car keys on a table. The walls were made of bulletproof glass, and the bustling city of San Francisco could be seen around her. She went to her living room and sat exhausted on a white couch and placed her legs on the coffee table.
After some moments, she grabbed a bottle of bourbon laying on a small table next to the couch and filled the glass. She gulped it down still holding the bourbon bottle.The sour liquid pooled her insides and she concentrated on the burning feeling pooling her insides.
She sighed and as she left the bottle and glass on the small table, she saw a photograph laying on the small table. A young woman with messy black hair was staring at the camera with dark eyes with a smile on her face, one hand resting on the check of a young man. He had messy black hair and honey couloured eyes. His toned arm was wrapped around the woman’s waist and his chest was pressed against her back. He too was smiling at the camera.
Hela grabbed the frame in her trembling hands. Her eyes started to burn but she wasn’t going to cry. She gently stroked the face of the man with her fingertips. She stood up. And threw the frame at the glass wall. It shattered into a million pieces.
She didn’t manage to stop the scream that followed. She just let it tear her lungs apart.
She wasn’t going to cry.
Her knees buckled and she fell on the cool floor.
She wasn’t going to cry.
Her body was numb. Her fingers covered her face and before she could control it, a wave of tears poured down her face.
Hela was lying on the bed drinking excessive amounts of bourbon. She felt something hard in the back of her jeans. The card. She slid it out of her back pocket and stared at the white letters engraved on it.
Nicklaus Ivanov
$ 5, 000, 000
Her hunt would start tomorrow.
