A Penny For Your Tears

Twenty Seven

The journey home from Russia was a blur, consisting of my falling in and out of consciousness. I couldn't remember much, however, I did distinctly recall one particular moment, though brief, that I was awake while we were on the plane going home.

"This is all your fault!" Elias had exclaimed angrily at Alexia. "I told you she wasn't ready, I told you this wasn't a good plan but you insisted this was the only way."

"Elias, I hear you, but we did what we thought was best. I didn't intend for any of this to happen."

"Intend." He had scoffed, angrily pointing a finger into her face. "Well, you're intentions came at her expense. She almost died and for what? Volkov knew we were coming, that pig Viktor ratted us out, we didn't save anyone and we almost got Olivia killed."

"Volkov is dead, Elias, you saw to that. We might not have physically been able to save anyone yet, but we were able to take a burden off of their shoulders." Elias laughed manically, his shoulders shook and the sounds that came out of his mouth were filled with pain and so much anger. Controlled by his rage, he grabbed a glass and smashed it to the ground causing me to flinch slightly. Soon after, he looked at me apologetically, remembering that I was in the same space as them. I kept my eyes shut, fooling him into thinking I was still asleep. He ordered Alexia out of his sight and then we were alone. He knelt down opposite my sleeping position on the make-shift bed and gently held my hand to his forehead. His body trembled as he cried, no longer able to resist, I opened my eyes and the sight in front of me almost made me join him in tears. Though I had been the one to suffer, though I was the one in pain, seeing Elias beat himself up with guilt caused my heart to ache, I didn't want to see him torture himself like this. I wanted to run my hand through his hair and tell him everything was going to be ok, that I had gone through much worse. But before I could do anything, the door opened and in came Adam. I closed my eyes quickly as Elias got up to face him.

"How's she holding up." Adam asked. Elias sighed, sitting down next to me as he kept a protective hand on my leg.

"I don't know. She's been in and out of it and her arm is definitely broken but we won't know anything for sure until she sees a doctor when we get home. But look at her, Adam, we did this to her. We told her we'd get her in a few hours, however, it took us three days. Three fucking days, three days where they beat her, tortured her ,touched her and maybe even ra-" He stopped himself before he could continue, as if saying the words made it true.

"Elias, no one would have known that Viktor was going to betray us. Or, that he intentionally threw snow on her to temporarily damage the radio's signal." Adam tried to comfort Elias, but he wasn't having it.

"We should have known. Alexia should have never trusted a Russian to betray another Russian and she should have been smart enough to sense something was up when he threw that bucket of snow on her. I should have gone with them, I should have fucking gone with them." Elias got up and moved to the other side of the compartment and my leg felt cold without his touch. Adam followed him and placed a comforting arm around his shoulder.

"There's nothing we can do about it now. The only thing we can do is help her recover from her ordeal."

"It won't be easy, she literally ran from an abusive man only for us to hand her over to another abusive man. I mean, what we did, goes against everything we stand for. Adam, you and I should have never let this plan go through. "

"Elias," Adam began, clearly struggling to find ways to make his friend feel better. " You're right, we shouldn't have but at that moment we thought it was the best plan and had Viktor not betrayed us, it would have been. We would have found her in time and we would have saved hundreds of women,girls and other victims of Volkov."