HIS CLAIM

21

Elsa

“What did you do on your little getaway with Nicholas?” Tessa asked as she shoved her face with popcorn. Arianna and Tessa brought snacks and we were all just splattered on the bed in Nicholas’s room. Nicholas had helped me in the shower after our quick fck, but one thing lead to the other in the shower and we had another round. I was planning on taking a nap but couldn’t sleep so Arianna and tessa came to entertain me.

“Don’t give details.” Arianna said in a warning tone.
“What’s the fun in that? I want the details! Tell me, is he big?” Tessa got a pillow smacked in her face by Arianna.
“You’re so fcking disgusting! Don’t you dare say anything.” She looked at me sternly.
“I wasn’t planning to.” I laughed at her reaction.
“Come on! I want some hear some juicy stuff. I will even start and say that Dante is definitely packing. It felt like he ripped my vagina in half!” Tessa continued. I burst out laughing when Arianna put her in a headlock with her hand clamped against her mouth to make her stop talking about Dante’s ‘package’.
“Okay, okay!” Tessa yelled as she struggled to get out of Arianna’s hold.
“You’re like a female hulk!” Tessa looked at her in shock.
“Right?! She is freakishly strong!” I said as I remembered how she had held my head when Mika needed to stitch me. She really made sure I couldn’t move.
“Duh, look who my brothers are. They dragged my as to work out with them and taught me how to fight, how to use knives, guns, you mention it.” She casually said as if it was normal. Well, for them it was.
“They did not cut me any slack, and they didn’t give a fck about how they were much stronger than me. I remember telling them to chill the fck out and I used the ‘I’m a girl’ card. Lame, I know, but they were kicking my as. Nicholas got so mad at me and said people don’t give a sit about you being a girl. Either you kill or get killed. That was my last day of complaining.” Arianna chuckled.
“Whoa… How old were you?” I asked, interested in getting to know more about their lives.
“I think I was around 13 years old.”
“You were just a kid!” I exclaimed in shock.
“It’s normal in our world, Althaia. If things were different, you would probably have learned how to use a gun and a knife too.” She shrugged.
“True. I mean, I didn’t go through the same as you, but I just learned the basics of how to use a gun.” Tessa added with a nod.
“What?! Since when? You’ve never told me that.” I gaped at her.
“How am I supposed to bring it up? Like ‘oh, by the way, I know how to shoot people’?” She looked at me amused. I guess she did have a point.
“Well, now I kind of feel left out.” I frowned. It would be cool to learn how to use a gun. Not that I was planning on shooting
anyone, but now I felt like an outsider. Arianna looked at me for a little while before smiling.
“You see, when I first saw you, I thought you would be scared and submissive. But then I saw how you handled Nicholas, and how you weren’t scared of him. The big innocent green eyes you have are deceiving. You’re tougher than you look.” She laughed and I couldn’t help but smile at the comment.
“Trust me, I was scared of him the first time I saw him. Especially, when he showed up in my hotel room. I thought he was going to shoot my as that day.”
“He probably was going to.”
“…Thanks for clarifying.” I gave a sarcastic smile.
“You’re welcome. So, do you want me to teach you how to use a gun?”
“Really?” I looked at her in surprise.
“Yeah, why not. You need to learn how to defend yourself so you don’t end up with a face like that.” She grimaced when she gestured to my face. I looked at her blankly and threw a bag of chips at her which she caught and stuck her tongue out at me.
“When can we start?” I was excited that I would be learning how to handle a gun. The thought of it gave a rush to my body.
“Depends. Do we have to wait for Nicholas’s approval, or do we just do it behind his back?” She raised a brow.
“Right, because he would so approve of me learning how to use a gun.” I said sarcastically. I already knew there was no way I could ever talk to him to teach me how to use a gun. I can’t even imagin trying to have that conversation with him.
“Exactly. Then we can start tomorrow.”
“Already?”
“The sooner, the better.” She said as she popped an M&M in her mouth. I gulped a little. I didn’t expect it to be that soon.
“Okay, enough about that! Let’s go back to what you were doing while being away from the rest of us.” Tessa grinned and Arianna groaned.
“Nothing, we just hung out.” I shrugged.
“Hung out? What are you, teenagers?” Tessa was not impressed with the answer I gave her.
“Give me the juicy parts!” She almost whined.
“You really want to know? Fine. We fcked a lot. So much I was sore. We fcked in the bed, in the shower, in the car, and in the bathroom of a really nice boutique while shopping for a dress. Happy?” I huffed out.
“Oh, and we also just fcked right there before you guys came.” I pointed to where they were sitting. Arianna got up quickly from the bed and cursed at me for being disgusting. tesaa was laughing her head off at Arianna’s reaction while cheering me on.
After a while of talking and bickering back and forth, they left the room so I could sleep. I kept yawning and struggled to keep up with the conversations. I even fell asleep while they were talking to me and mumbled something in return. The exhaustion hit me full force and needed some good sleep, and they left the room quietly while I dozed off.

I didn’t know what happened.
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.
I tried gasping for air but nothing filled my lungs. I couldn’t open my eyes and my body was pressed down onto the bed so I couldn’ t move. I tried to scream but no sound was escaping.
I was panicking.
I was running out of air fast.
I started to violently thrash around in bed but my upper body was heavy with something. I tried to move my legs but not much was happening. With all of the strength
left in me, I rolled over to the side and fell right off the bed. I landed on my front with a loud thud and gasped for air.
I sat up to look around, only to see Sofia lunging at me.
I didn’t have time to react when she wrapped her hands around my neck. My eyes burned with tears as she crushed my windpipe, using her weight to put more pressure as she had the advantage of being on top of me
“You don’t deserve him!” She hissed at me. I tried to get her hands away from me, even scratching them but she wouldn’t budge. I wanted to say something but only the sounds of gags came out of
me.
“What do you have that I don’t!?” Sofia yelled in my face. My sight started to get blurry and I had to do something fast.
I pulled my arm back and landed a painful punch right on her nose. She cried out in pain and held her face. I took the chance and pushed her away as fast as I could to get away. I started to violently cough and gasp for air my lungs were desperate after. I stumbled up to my feet, trying to get away from her but she quickly recovered and slammed me right into the wall and held me
hostage.
“So – Sofia, stop.” My voice was breaking and was hrse from her choking me.
“What do you have that I don’t?! You’re not even that pretty and you’re so fcking weak. You’re nothing!” Her baby blue eyes were filled with rage as she yelled. I looked at her with my eyes wide, stunned to hear her true feelings.
“He’s mine!”
“Then take him.” I coughed out. She looked at me surprised and her hold on to me slightly loosened. It was enough for me to grab her head and smash her face right down into my knee. Sofia screamed as blood poured out from her nose. She stumbled away from me and fell to the floor. I wasted no time and ran to the door, ignoring the pain shooting up in my foot. I swung the door open. and looked back to make sure she was still on the floor, only to see her aiming a small gun at me with shaking hands.
I let out a scream as I threw myself to the floor and the sound of a gunshot echoed through the walls. I was breathing hard as I crawled away from the door with my trembling body. I tried to get up but my body was too weak already, having me stay down on the floor.
“Elsa!” Several footsteps were heard running up the stairs as soon and I wanted to cry in relief that someone was coming.
“H- Help…” I croaked out. My throat was burning and making me cough every time I tried to speak. A pair of arms grabbed me and pulled me. I looked up to see it was Nicholas who was holding me tightly to him.
But he wasn’t looking at me.
I followed his gaze, seeing Sofia standing at the end and aiming the gun at me with her shaking hands. Blood was still gushing ou from her nose but she didn’t care as she had her eyes set on me.
“Sofia.” Nicholas sneered out in a threatening tone and pulled me behind his back.
“Move, Nicholas. I don’t want to hurt you.” Her breathing was loud and harsh. My heart was going crazy behind my chest, and it was making me take quick and sharp intakes of breaths which only caused me to cough with my hurting throat.
“Put the gun down. You don’t want to do this.” I noticed her look behind us and I followed her gaze. Antonio, Logan, and Dante were behind us, their eyes focusing on Sofia. Arianna and Tessa were to the side, close to the stairs, and out of Sofia’s view.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want her!” She hissed the last part.
“Why?” Nicholas calmly asked. He was talking to her as if she wasn’t waving a gun at us.
“She doesn’t deserve you.”
“That’s not a good enough answer, Sofia.” He began to walk towards her.
“No!” I grabbed the back of his shirt to stop him in fear of her suddenly shooting him.
“Don’t fcking touch him!” Sofia screamed at the top of her lungs and aimed her gun at me. I froze and stopped breathing at the sound of the gun firing. I looked down at my body but I got confused when didn’t see any blood. Neither could I feel any pain. A blood-curdling scream pierced through the ringing in my ears and made me snap towards the sound.
Sofia was on the floor, clutching her blody hands while screaming in pain.
“What…?” Confused, I looked at Nicholas, now noticing the gun in his hand.
He had shot Sofia’s hands before she could pull the trigger.

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