The Fate of Fractured Lives

08 Elemental

Time and place. I had mine. Donna had hers. She didn't like surprising me with last minute instructions and she liked having last minute revelations even less. But for better or worse, it was something we had both become accustomed to with her power glitching. Donna did not expect to feel the tide to our endgame so soon but she took the path without hesitation. Guided by her instincts, Donna waited in the long dark hours of the early morning to find Brenda. Now eighteen, Brenda had been on the street for a while and knew how to survive. She had been pushed even farther from the girl that she used to be.

The modesty of her former life had given her license to hide a figure she didn't love. And while she wasn't in love with her body, the relationship had begun to slowly warm over the years. She grew to appreciate a form that was not like the women society held up as the ideal. She let her jeans hang lower on her hips now, highlighting a feature that used to be one of the banes of her self-esteem. Brenda even allowed her shirts to come just to the edge of her belt line. She surprised herself. Now Brenda could sometimes look in the mirror and think, "I look... good?" Sometimes that wasn't even in the form of a question.

That did not, however, stop her from keeping people at a distance. Brenda now armored herself with long red hair, head shaved on the sides, nearly too much eyeliner, and clothing that was somewhere between metalhead and punk. This was New York but the look still mostly kept people away. It was also a camouflage that hid the epic nerd she became and that no one seemed to understand. It wasn't that Brenda was afraid to show the person on the inside, she was just selective with who she shared herself with. Too many people had burned her, so it was just easier to play the part of scorched earth. If you saw her, you wouldn't know that Brenda was anything other than just another street kid. Some people knew better. Well, some people knew more.

The group following her knew she was more. They were also in the category of not knowing better. Brenda knew she was being followed. She could sense five men, the term "men" being used incredibly loosely here, trying to be stealthy. Brenda sensed them through the displacement of the air around them, the weight of their feet on the ground, and through the water on the street and the wet of their clothes. It's a good thing it just rained. The elements were her friends. At that time, the elements were the only friends she had.

Now, normally Brenda didn't mind a little drama and causing a scene. She got a kick out of it actually. But on that night she wasn't in the mood to deal with idiots. She turned down a dark alley hoping these particular morons would lose sight of her. The alley had the added benefit of boxing them in if they were dumb enough to follow. The gaggle of hoodies paused for a second before entering the alley. She hoped they might be smart enough to leave her be, but they proceed into the dark.

"Oh, well. It was a boring night anyway." she said to herself.

She leaned against a wall, hidden in shadow. She could hear them whispering as they got closer.

"You sure it was her?" said one.

"Yeah, I know that crazy bitch anywhere." said another.

She knew that last voice. Brenda almost chuckled to herself.

"Rudy? Seriously? That was a year ago." she thought.

Brenda also immediately questioned some of her life choices even if they happened to be cute at the time. She didn't typically entertain the company of males but it happened on rare occasions that she usually ended up regretting. Her relationships with women were not all that successful either but they tended to end more amicably and didn't bring about stalking or revenge plots. A normal person would have at the very least gotten worried with this kind of turn to a night. Brenda got a little excited because to her the night just became more entertaining. She composed herself as best she could, trying not to laugh.