Damn! Telling the thing to one person wasn't much big of a deal. But the ears and eyes today were so many. She skimmed hers around the court to try at least to find anyone who wasn't looking at her. Her feet felt like giving up on her, opting to crumble on their own. She looked at the Vice President. She had crossed her legs and arms, paying full attention to the testimony.
"Yes…" Elena whispered to the court after a while. Some murmurs took the center stage at the courtroom, the reason all well too obvious. As she stared at her clenched hands, with the sudden noise surrounding her, Elena wondered why Att. Weiss and DA Kenya had insisted on the orgasm thing. Weiss had asked her when they were in hospital, and now, the question had been brought up again. 'Is there something that they are not telling me?' she wondered.
"Your honor, the jury, and the whole court… that will be all. Elena, thank you. You may head back to your seat." DA Kenya finished off her remarks. She wanted to add something but the moment wasn't there already. She wanted to wait for the right time. Elena got off the witness stand and found her way to her seat. She wanted to feel ashamed of herself and her actions but it was rather her confidence that was building up. This felt right, it had to be.
Elena strolled back to her seat as some people watched on. Some neighbors to Ethan's home stepped forth to narrate their point of the story; how they heard the yelps and cries coming from the house. The noise was disturbing, so they decided to call the police, hoping that they would look at what was wrong. When they were done, they all got back to their seats as the defense attorney had no questions for any of them. The prosecution however had one last witness. They called out for him and forth stepped Lance Harper. Elena watched him and wondered what he was going to say. She recalled how she had left him immediately they arrived at the party and yet here he was, going to testify on her side. Ethan on the other hand couldn't quite place what Lance wanted to say. He knew that he and Lance were not the best of friends and so this would be the time for him to get an upper edge on him. But he remembered that he left the party on good terms with him and whatever he was going to say, he had probably cooked up. After some swearing by the bible, Lance began his testimony.
"Well, I was the one who had gone for Elena earlier on that day. I was to take her to the party and bring her back home as her mother, Mrs. Lynn, had instructed me. So somewhere around ten in the night, I was feeling banged up and tired you know? So I decided to go home but I had to take Elena back before I veered on my own. I asked for her around the party after I noticed that she wasn't picking up her phone. Some guy named Rafael told me that Ethan had taken Elena on some trip in the Valley Street direction. It hit my mind immediately that he had taken her to his new home."
"And how did you know that?" Asked DA Kenya. Her voice was sharp and warm, warmer than Paul's to say the least.
"I am a friend of the family, just the way I am a friend of most families here. Many of them know me." He said (cough), he bragged. "So I um… I knew it that way plus some of his closest friends had an idea about it. I asked the right questions and was given the right answers. It was really not much of a surprise. So when I went there, I heard cries and screams coming from the house. I could tell that was Elena's voice because I have known her for a long time and she seemed like she was in trouble. I didn't know what was happening inside the house and I was too scared to enter because I wasn't sure if he had a weapon on her or something, therefore, he might have easily hurt me or her, or even killed someone. So I decided to call the police. Mr. Wentworth got to the scene as quickly as possible. That's all I have to share."
"Thank you, Lance. That will be all." DA Kenya said, short of words as usual.
Paul rose from his seat to cross-examine the class of 2016's popular student. They exchanged some harsh looks, the expression all well too evident on their faces.
"So, Lance my client says that you two have never really gotten along so well. In the past two years or so, you two have been having some unrests, right?" Paul growled at him, standing nothing but sentry.
"Yes, it's true. We have our own issues as guys."
"Yet you are here saying that you heard her scream at his home and probably thought that he had a weapon on her and might have killed someone. How did you know this? This could be your own way for you to get back on him for the grudge you two have against each other. By testifying against him as a violent man capable of murder. "
"Umm… uh," Lance scoffed at the friend turned enemy in front of him, looking for words to say. "Mr. Purcell, I respect you a lot but the words that you're saying are unjust. Ethan and I had no beef at all by the time he got out of the party. Ask him yourself. We even drank a toast to him and Elena's prosperous future ahead of them together. If only I knew what he had in mind, I wouldn't have allowed him to be with her that night. There he is, go on… ask him." Paul turned to Ethan. He really felt beaten by Lance's turnaround.
"Your son, Ethan, was with her in that house. I heard her scream in there! As did the neighbors! It was her! He was hurting her! I'm sorry Mr. Purcell but that's the truth." Outwitted by him, Paul had no further questions for Lance and he let him slip back to the public gallery.
As Lance headed back to his seat, his eyes met Ethan's. The suspect's face was filled with rage. His teeth were grinding on themselves, and the fisted hands above the wooden table before him cemented that he was furious with the blonde guy. All he could however was joke off Lance's testimony. After all, what else would he be expecting from him? Remorse?
The prosecution team eventually decided to bring forth their evidence; the ropes, some pieces of broken mirror stained with blood, Elena's phone, undergarments, and her red torn dress, all enclosed in transparent bags. The bloody bedsheets were there too as well as medical reports from the hospital. A whole album of photos taken from the crime scene and Elena's body was presented too before the judge and the jury. They took about fifteen minutes to examine all of the physical evidence presented by the prosecution taking time with no rush whatsoever.
"As you can see, in relation to those records: First, the ropes you have observed were found with Elena's DNA… the ropes that the suspect used to tie her up with as the police found her, with one leg still firmly tied. The torn dress is irregular in shape meaning that no knife or sharp end object was used to cut it, which makes me believe that only powerful manpower which was Ethan's hands as Elena has stated were used. He tore the dress himself and took off her bra first and the underwear followed. If it were consensual ladies and gentlemen present here today, I believe that the dress would be intact, wouldn't it? He forced himself on her, dear jury. And he slapped her twice as seen from the slap marks on her face. Here and here." She said as she showed the photographs, her voice cutting hard the silent court.
"The other marks on her body followed soon when he held her against her will as she tried to offer some resistance, and he ended up hurting her in the process. Her phone was found in her purse which is evidently on the left side of the bed and that's why she could never contact the police on her own. It was just too far for her to reach it- just as the victim has stated. The bedsheets had been stained with both his and her blood, as the DNA records prove it. In Elena's case, however, no cut was visible on her; the hospital records clearly indicate the rowdiness of his nature as he forced his genital inside her vaginal area that made her bleed. No other open wound was found on her! To add on that, some wounds were also found in her vaginal canal as the medical reports show." She said as she paced slowly in the room explaining every single detail that she could. The jury and the judge looked at the evidence as she explained along.