Ruby's ordeal

Ruby's heart was throbbing having learned that her sister had come home unexpectedly and she was looking for her for some issues she wants to clarify.

When she reach home she was surprised that her things was thrown out of the house. She confronted her sister 

"Why does my things thrown out of the house?"  Ruby was shocked by the hostility evident in her sister's face.

"Because  you don't live here anymore! You traitor! " Her sister bellowed to her angrily.

" Me traitor? What have I done?" Bewildered to what her sister is accussing her of. Her sister is working abroad has suddenly arrived without noticed. She used to be so kind and understanding to her, But  turned  into this person who fierce and unreasonable?

"There  is no used in trying to play  innocent. My daughter tell all about the lies you have  spread about my family!" Eyes blazing with anger, her sister seem s to the person she hardly recognized.

"What lies I didn't spread any lies!" She defended herself.

'"Don't  you take me for a fool Ruby. After I have raise you as my on own, when our parents died this is all that you are repaying me  just go, I don't want to see you face again and don't you darken my doorstep ever  again." With finality her sister doesn't want to listen to her reasons

"But Demi , where shall I go?   I don't have anyone but you!"

"Then  you should have think twice before spreading those lies about us." Then Demi slammed the door on her face even when she begged  for her sister to open the door  her pleadings fall on deaf ears. So she picked her things which is not so much. Just a few personal things and a few change of clothes. and went to the only place she can think of.

"Melanie, I  was thrown out of the house by my sister." Crying she told her friend about what happened. Melanie is her childhood friend who was her confidant they grew up together and had been closed to one another based on their own individual circumstances, she was also grew up with her aunt. Her mother abandoned her as a child and she never knew who her father was?

"Why ?" She was baffled because Ruby never said anything about any feud with her sister.

"I don't know but I suspect it have to do with Jane."

" Your niece?" Melanie have long aware of Ruby's niece never respected her.

"Yes,  I think she had twisted everything and tell her mother lies about me and now all the blame is on me." She said sobbing.     

"Then  what will you do now?" Her friend asked concerned about her safety.

"I need a place to stay for the night and look for a place tomorrow with the little savings I have. " Her appearance made Melanie decide to let her stay even for a night in her house while her partner is away. It would be dangerous for her to stay anywhere for a woman as beautiful as Ruby she posses a kind of innocence and naivity that attacts men to her just to take advantage of her.

"I can  offer you a place to stay  while my husband is out of town,  but   you have to move out before he comes back  you know I don't want you to be involve in his money problems." Her husband is a compulsive gambler just like Ruby's brother-in-law. Melanie thought that she was save from a difficult life when she cohabitted with her partner Leon, only to realized that she had landed into  a much more difficult life with her live-in partner.

"Thanks Mel, youre a life saver."  Ruby was glad that she had now a place to lay her head even for a night.

"That's the least I can do. If only we have more luck in this life Ruby, at least we could live happy and contented." Her friend also have her own difficulties but she tried to help in  one way or another in time of difficulty.

They went home together and spent the whole evening reminisciing their experiences when they were young. A feeling that they have treasured despite their diffculties in life.

The following day when Melanie go to work as a saleslady in a shoe department, Ruby went to look for a place to stay. She was checking on her savings and counting the money she is expecting to recieved as a commision for her online work. it barely cover for the lowest rent even for bed spacer. what about her food and personal necesity.

 She remembered the life she has with her sister. She was  her mother's daughter from second marriage, Demi is older by fifteen years to her. She already have a two year old daughter when she had taken Ruby under her wings,  her parents believe to had perished in a shipping disaster and their bodies was never been found.

Demi had taken Ruby at the time and raise her as her daughter together with her daughter and son Jane and Rafael, Rafa for short . At first  she was treated right she was loved by her sister. But all of that changed when her sister left to work abroad. 

Her brother--in-law treated her like a helper, she was forced to stopped her studies and his niece and nephew was brainwashed to not to recognize her as their mother's sister. 

Her brother-in-law was into gambling and had so many unpaid debts that they are so many persons go to their house to asked for their money. Her niece was almost taken once as a collateral for her brother-in-law's debts. Ruby at the time withdrawn her saving to save Jane, and was  inturned been accused by her brother-in-law to be taking their money and have been telling her sister lies so that he will be the one who will receive  and manage the money that Demi had been sending for her children.

 She was going back to Melanie's house to get things to transfer to a small room he will be sharing with a student to cut the renting cost, when three men seize her. She had tried to resist but she was rendered unconscious by a single blow in her solar plexus.  She was brought by the men to a place without her knowing. When she woke up a new surrounding greets her.

"Where am I " She asked herself. this is not the place she had rented. The room was too nice and everything in the room speak of luxury. She must be dreaming, she slapped herself and the pain made her realized that she was indeed wide awake.  A sound on the futher side of the room made her turn and look. 

"Huh!!! Who are you " She gasp as she saw a man walk out of the bathroom with only a towel wrap around his waist covering his nakedness.