HIS CLAIM

52

Elsa

I could feel myself getting more and more anxious the closer we got. The gun behind my back didn't help to ease my nerves, making me constantly think what if something truly were to happen, even in broad daylight? What if someone was still there, keeping an eye on the house and hoping someone would be back to finish what they had started?... But they weren't after me. They were after my mother and they got what they wanted. The thought of me having to use the gun to defend myself didn't settle that well with me, but I knew I had to do it if I wanted to stand a chance. I was not a killer... I was still traumatized by what I had done, and the image of the man's bloodied face still haunted I took a deep breath when I felt nausea building up. "Hey... Hey, you're going to be fine." Asher glanced at me and took my hand in his as I kept tapping my hand against my thigh in uneasiness. "I don't know... I'm starting to think it's a mistake. What if something does happen?" I kept rambling on, sharing my fears with him instead of keeping them to myself. "I won't let anything happen to you. Trust me." He gave my hand a small squeeze, but I was still thinking that we should have gotten extra protection with us. Just as I thought about that, I looked in the side mirror, trying to see if any cars were following us. I still haven't spotted any of Nicholas's men so far, making me wonder if there were even anyone watching me, or if they were truly keeping themselves out of my sight. I also just realized that they would be reporting every single thing back to him, and he probably already knew Asher was with me. But I had no idea if they had managed to follow us. We had taken a flight, it was short but still, and now we were in the car on our way to the house. "It's highly unlikely someone would do anything during the daytime. It's too easy to get caught like that." Asher said, pulling me out of my dark thoughts. "I hope you're right." I sighed and tried to relax. I felt my heart beating just a little faster as we neared my house. I squeezed his hand in an attempt to comfort myself in some way. We drove closer and closer, only to get confused when he drove past the house and didn't stop. "Wait, why are you not stopping? You just missed it." I looked at him confused but he just looked focused as he scanned the area. "I'm just going to drive around the block to make sure it's safe before we get out. Just in case." He slowed down a bit as he kept looking around. I did the same, my eyes scanning the area to see if anything looked suspicious. Asher was being careful and thorough as he drove around a few times, then stopped and parked somewhere further away from the house to see if someone would have started to follow us. Luckily, there wasn't anything and he pulled up in front of the house. My heart started to beat like crazy when I got out of the car, and I could feel my legs losing a bit of strength as I looked around. Every single thing came back to me; gunshots, screaming, running, and blood. I knew this would be hard but I hadn't even taken a step inside the house and I was already feeling like this. Asher pulled me close to his side as he kept looking around, and I noticed he had his gun in his hand but still hidden if anyone were to look our way. I let out a breath as we stood in front of the door, and I hesitated a little before I pulled the handle down. Only to find it locked. "Huh, that's weird..." I muttered out and tried again in case it was just stuck, but it was locked. "Who could have locked it? It's not like we had the time to lock the freaking door before running for our lives." I frowned at the door but then it hit me. It could have only been him. Who else would bother to do this? "Don't you have a key?" Asher turned his head to look at me as he was still keeping an eye out. "No..." I sighed in frustration. We had come all the way here for nothing. "I didn't expect it to be locked." I said and took a look around the front porch. "Want me to kick it open?" "That doesn't sound like a good idea." I raised a brow at him and he just shrugged his shoulders at me as if saying 'I tried'. "Actually... No, wait! Maybe there still is a spare key out here?" I went to the small bench we had on the porch. "I just remembered she would put a spare key here because there was a time when I kept forgetting my keys." "Why doesn't that surprise me?" He grinned at me when I flipped him off. I crouched down and reached under the bench, feeling around until I came across the tiny hole my mother had made to place the key inside. "Found it!" I said happily and pulled the key out. I unlocked the door, only to get stopped before I could pull the handle down. "Let me go in first but stay close behind me." He carefully opened the door with his gun ready if someone were suddenly to pop out of nowhere. We walked further into the house, listening for movements but it was quiet. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding when Asher said it was safe. At least for now. I looked around and it was surprisingly clean. And thank goodness there were no dead bodies in the house, making me think that they had at some point come and taken care of it. To be inside the house again overwhelmed me with feelings, so much I had to bite my lip just so it wouldn't tremble. This was my home for years and now it couldn't be anymore... The memories were too painful. I swallowed hard and made my way to my mother's bedroom which was on the ground floor. I wasn't saying much and neither did Asher as he looked around the house, and I think he knew this was hard for me as he didn't try to make conversation. "Can you stay out here, or maybe grab the photo albums for me while I go in? I just want to do it alone." I said to him as we stood in front of my mother's bedroom. He gave a nod and went to the living room after telling him where he could find them. I closed the door behind me, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. It was hitting so hard to be here. I shoved my feelings away and cleared my head as I knew I wouldn't have that much time again and started to look around. The main reason why I wanted to come back was to see if there was anything I would find that could give me an answer or just a clue on anything. There wasn't even a moment where I found my mother suspicious, or even suspected that she was hiding something from me. But now I know that my mother was involved in something. And whatever that was, lead her to her death. I looked in her closet, going through her clothes and feeling around to see if there would be a secret hiding place for something. I didn' t know why but I felt like if there was something she needed to hide, it would be somewhere in her bedroom, to keep it close but it would still be hard to find. I kept looking around, searching everywhere but the more I kept going, the more frustrated I got when I didn't find anything. I huffed and placed my hands on my hips, frowning as I looked around and tried to think if I was my mother, where would I hide something no one was supposed to know about? But then again, it turned out my mother had a completely different side I had no idea about. I only knew the loving and motherly side of her. I almost gave up when I stared at the large carpet that was under the bed. I mentally groaned when I realized I had to move her big bed and the large carpet to see if there was anything there. I was already slightly sweating when I managed to move the bed enough, and it took a lot more strength than I realized as it was a heavy bed. Grabbing the corner of the carpet, I lifted it to check underneath it. I got down on my hands and knees and started to feel around the wooden tiles in the hopes of finding a secret hiding place. I had no idea if it was even possible to hide anything under the tiles but then again, I have already experienced enough to know that anything was possible. I kept adding pressing the tiles with my hands but they all seemed to be pretty steady and glued to each other. I gritted my teeth in frustration Maybe I was reading too much into this? What if wasn't even as deep as I had made it out to be? Yet, deep inside of me, I knew it had to be something much bigger... There must be something! I just needed one thing that could lead me to some answers. Just give me one damn thing! I slammed my fist down to the floor in pure frustration, not realizing my eyesight was getting blurry from tears. I rapidly blinked when I felt one of the tiles move slightly when I slammed my fist down. I touched it again, trying to shake it just to make sure I wasn't tricked. But it moved! My heart was beating faster, now knowing that I might have found something. I was so anxious about it that even my hands started to shake, and I had to take a short moment to take calm down. It wasn't easy to remove the tile and I had to use my nails to get underneath it to get a hold of it. After a few tries, I finally got a hold of it. A knock on the door startled me, and I almost let out a scream but stopped when I realized it was just Asher on the other side. I was completely focused that I had forgotten about him. "Elsa, are you okay?" He didn't open the door and kept outside. "Yeah, I'm just taking a moment... Processing everything." I grimaced at the bad excuse. "I'll be out in a minute." "It's fine, take your time." He said softly before I heard him walk away from the door, probably to give me a bit more privacy. I let out a sigh of relief before and went back to the now-removed tile. I looked down, seeing it wasn't that deep but it was dark. I didn't hesitate one bit and I reached down and started to blindly search for something. I kept moving my hands from side to side when I finally felt something. It was something hard and I pulled it out. It was a small treasure chest of some art, made out of wood and it had some engraving on the lid that I couldn't recognize or read. It was just large enough for it to contain some stuff in it. To my luck, there wasn't a lock on it and only had a simple metal hinge flip to keep it shut. I quickly opened it in impatience, eager to see what it contained since I wasn't supposed to see it, or anyone else for that matter. Just as I opened it, I saw some papers and something that seemed to look like letters and... was that a picture? It was an old picture of my mother when she was younger but she wasn't alone in the picture. A man was next to her, and not someone I had seen before. I kept rummaging through the small chest before I decided this had to wait so Asher l wouldn't become suspicious as to why I was taking too long when I was only supposed to grab a few things. I also didn't want to risk our safety by staying here for too long, so I forced my curiosity down and quickly arranged everything back to how it was. I grabbed a small box from my mother's closet and placed the chest at the bottom before grabbing a few more things of hers to keep around me. I made sure to fill the box enough to hide the chest as I wanted to keep this a secret until I had the chance to look through it. I glanced around her room one last time, hoping I would somehow be able to avenge her death. "I'm ready to leave." I said to Asher once I stepped out of the bedroom. He looked at me as if trying to see if I was okay, and I just gave him a small smile to let him know I was. "Do you need anything else besides these?" He held up the photo albums. "No, I don't really care about the rest. I just took the stuff that I knew my mom... liked." It was still weird to talk about my mother in the past tense. It did make me slightly uncomfortable to do so, and I knew it was because there was still a part of me that refused to believe that I had lost her. "Okay." Asher gave me a comforting smile before we got out. I locked the door but kept the spare key with me. Asher was scanning around the area once again but I wasn't as worried as I was before. If they wanted to attack, they would have definitely done it while we were in the house to keep things out of sight. "Can you take me to the boutique while we're here? I should put up a sign or something to let customers know we're permanently closed." I asked him once we were in the car. There was no way I would want to run the boutique alone, and also for some very obvious reasons, I couldn't stay here. Even though I enjoyed my job, it wouldn't be the same without my mother. "...You don't know?" Asher looked at me with a frown on his face. "Don't know what?" I looked at him confused. He sighed as he ran a hand through his hair and looked at me with a sad expression. "It was burned down."