Their Situation, Our Problem

Chapter 2: Sofia

Air rushed into Sofia's lungs. She fell to the ground, greedily gulping in air. Yelling, smacking, and grunting. Noise surrounded and smothered Sofia. Everything was fuzzy. She looked in front of her to see a young man throwing punch after punch at the man who had previously been choking her. Sofia presumed it was the lack of air but she didn't even question it. Handsome stranger is now beating up the would-be kidnapper. Sure, that totally made sense. Not! The images in front of her made no sense. More people had arrived. There were men fighting. Rachel was yelling. Colton was here. Why was Colton here? Amara was crying. Her head pulsed, making it hard to process what was going on. What was going on? Who were these people that arrived with Colton? Who were the people trying to take Rachel in the first place? What was going on? A black object slid in front of Sofia.

A gun.

Her ears popped and suddenly everything seemed louder. Brighter. She looked up to see the two men still fighting in front of her. Except now, the guy who had been choking her clearly had the upper hand. Seems like he has a thing for choking because he was pinning down my guy with a pretty impressive one arm hold. The would-be kidnapper was reaching for something. Sofia couldn't tell what it was until he grabbed it. A brick. He raised it high up as if to smash it onto my guy's face.

"Stop," Sofia yelled. Her hands trembled and her voice cracked but it did the job. The choker turned to look at her. She doesn't know who was more shocked, the would-be-kidnapper or her. She hadn't even noticed that she had grabbed the gun, let alone picked it up and aimed it.

"Let him go," her voice quivered along with her hands. She had the gun. She had the power, yet his smirk said otherwise.

"Little girls shouldn't play with things they don't understand," he spoke.

"I understand exactly how this works," Sofia muttered.

"Then they shouldn't make threats that they can't go through with," He raised his hand-BANG!

Pain.

Silence.

Shock.

Sofia's shoulder felt like it was on fire. The pain literally brought tears to her eyes. The gun's kick had not been anticipated. It had been the last thing on her mind as she saw the assailant's arm dart down. Her ears were ringing uncontrollably. She couldn't hear anything. Her head was banging. It was pulsing so hard it just might explode. She was so scrambled, she couldn't tell which way was up and which way was down.

Suddenly someone was there. He was mumbling things she couldn't understand. His hands were gripping her head, shoulder, and then her head again. He kept speaking but all she heard was nonsense.

Another shot rang out. Had she- No, it hadn't been her but she didn't get time to ponder this as she was hoisted up and pushed inside a car