Monday's Minute Challenge

Elena

 Maxiel twirled the mask around his finger. “It’s lovely isn’t’ it?”

“No! Stop!” Sara cried, reaching for the mask that had been her mothers.

“Oh stop now, I won’t break it, it’s much too valuable for that. I just plan to keep it. How does that sound?”

The girl kept reaching, but she was barely half the height of the tall man. Tears streamed relentlessly down her face. The mask was all the memory she had. It was all she had period. No home, no family, not even a dress but the one she was wearing.
“You’re going to be trouble aren’t you,” the man sneered. He twirled the mask one last time, its brilliant jewels flashing in the sun before he tucked it away in his coat. He smiled cruelly and grabbed Sara by the wrist.

“Ow! Stop it, help!” she cried pitifully.

Maxiel shushed her and tossed her into a rusty discarded animal cage. He slammed the door and propped up a bucket from the pile of rubbish against it. “Now…’stay,’” he laughed. The villain turned around and stroked his fingers over the mask-Elena’s mask. 14 years he had searched for it. Elena had run far away, so far he couldn’t get to her until now, after she was long dead. He wondered how she had hidden all those years, what fear must have always been in those blue eyes. He was a fool to ever have loved her…married her. Stupid emotions and their fickle nature.

Sara whimpered in the cage trying to calm the tears spilling from her crystal blue eyes. “Let me go…” she gasped, but Maxiel acted as though he hadn’t heard.

Suddenly another voice entered the alley.

“Let my daughter go, Max,” Elena demanded, her blue eyes glinting.

Lace A. Narrator