Ophelia s Bodyguard

-Clara, it's late, let's go home please," protested Micaela, Clara's best friend.

The young girl leaned her forehead on the desk with frustration, waiting for her friend to deign to put the books away and leave together.

-I'm almost finished..." exclaimed the natural brunette with long curls and a honey-colored gaze, who was focused on her practical work for the first aid course of her medical career.

Micaela rolled her eyes and fiddled with her phone, knowing that her old friend's "I'm almost done" was a complete lie.

Everyone in medical school knew that Clara was a bookworm, the nerdiest of them all, at the top of her class.

She turned in assignments on time and never missed a class, no matter how exhausted she was.

Micaela looked at her friend out of the corner of her eye with admiration.

The young woman knew that if her friend was working hard to get the best grade of the course, it was because she really needed it.

You didn't have to be very astute for someone to realize that Clara Herrera was a humble, low-income young woman.

The brunette was wearing the same old gray sweatshirt that had once been black. She had given it to herself for her 24th birthday, and Clara was now 28 years old.

She knew that her old friend liked baggy things, things that didn't mark her stunning body that Micaela knew she was hiding under that T-shirt three sizes too big and her old sports pants that she had stolen from her uncle.

-Ready!" exclaimed the brunette, closing the book and putting it in her backpack a thousand times over since she couldn't afford to buy a new one. She herself would say it was an unnecessary expense.

-At last!" shrieked Micaela, throwing herself back in her chair in exhaustion.

Clara laughed at her friend's gestures and they both left the room, which had already been empty for some time.

It was late, almost midnight as the two young women walked down a desolate street in the most precarious area of the city.

They both stopped at a lighted corner.

-Are you sure you don't want me to come with you," her friend asked worriedly. From that street on, everything became more dangerous.

During the day it was something else, full of stores and people coming and going, but as soon as the sun went down and the stores closed their doors, the place was desolate, full of lowlifes and alcohol and drug users.

Micaela did not like her friend living there, she had insisted that she live with her. But Clara refused and her friend knew why.

-Don't worry," exclaimed the brunette, who felt bad every time her friend sacrificed herself for her wellbeing, "It's enough that you go so far away to accompany me here.

Micaela hugged her goodbye.

-Anything at all, you call me, you hear me? And if your idiot uncle isn't home, let me know. Is that clear?

-Mica... I'm not a child anymore," protested the chestnut, smiling sideways.

Micaela pouted and turned back the way they had come.

Clara waved her arm in the air until her friend disappeared from her sight.

Once alone, the chestnut sighed heavily, letting exhaustion win out.

"I don't know how much more I'm going to put up with this" She thought walking down the street inside.

Juggling between study, internships, family business and also paying the bills and keeping her uncle out of trouble was nearly impossible.

Clara walked up the uphill street with the last of her strength, feeling her slender but toned legs burning with the effort.

The young woman had always been athletic, but with how little she had eaten all day and with so many hours away from home, there was no body that could withstand so much effort.

The young brunette was so lost in thought, preoccupied with the work she would surely have to do late into the night, that she did not realize she was not alone when she entered her family's small store.

As soon as the little bell on the door rang in the silence of the shop, an agonized groan filled the air.

The brunette raised her honey eyes to the darkness of the counter of the fast food place and stepped back alertly.

-What the fuck?" she exclaimed to the gloom before her.

Suddenly, the light came on, revealing that a burly, scarred man had turned on the light.

Clara stepped back further, bumping into the door.

-Mhhh... Mh....- the agonizing sound was heard again and Clara's now alarmed eyes moved and found her uncle Ricardo on the floor, gagged, bound hand and foot and with several bruises on his face. Behind him, A thin man, but with a dangerous look, who was smiling mockingly at her.

Clara didn't have to ask who those two men were, she knew them perfectly, they were the thugs that the boss of the whole city sent to collect his damn tax just for having a place in his area.

-We had agreed that on Monday I would give them the money! What did they do with my uncle?" she protested full of fury, not afraid of those two idiots who between them didn't have a brain.

The older one laughed, with that stupid laugh characteristic of him, but he let his companion, who was more "Intelligent", speak.

-Oh Clarita, Clarita .... Why do you keep defending this useless rat? - exclaimed the thug, shaking the tied man- You are more than this primor... you know that the offer to join us still stands- he winked provocatively.

Clara felt nauseous that this disgusting man dared to flirt with her.

-Now go away, you've beaten him enough, on Monday you'll get your money. At the weekend I'll finish collecting it, you know very well that on weekdays it's harder to get it- -The bully carelessly let go of the thug.

The thug carelessly dropped the guy on the floor.

-We know that Monday is payday.....

-So, you were just bored and came to ruin my day? she exclaimed in exasperation, "You idiots, get out of here! At that moment the big man grabbed her by the arm angrily, "Let go of me, you big, brainless, big man," shouted the young woman.

-We came to give you a warning, so that there would be no misunderstandings on Monday," he whispered very close to Clara, making the young woman turn her face to the side with disgust because of the thug's stale breath.