The Queen || ✔

Chapter 50: Firing Zone

Claudia

"Get down!" I heard Bullet scream, but I was already one step ahead of him. I was on the floor, working my way towards the wooden rails of the stairs, and using them, I climbed my way back up the stairs on my knees, with Bullet following from behind me.

We reached up the stairs and pinned our backs against the wall which was adjacent from the stairs, and my mind went frantic. Charles had officially started a war.

"Claudia..."

"... give me a gun." I said bluntly. He didn't try to hesitate at that moment, he pulled out a nice black gun filled with bullets. It was supposed to feel cold in my hands, but since it was in Bullet's back pocket, it was unfortunately warm.

"What's the plan?" He whispered to me, ready for anything. That was what I loved about Kings, nothing scared them.

"We shoot on target at anyone who tries to stop us. Once you get shot, yell it out and I'll know you'll need help."

"Won't I be dead by the time you get help?"

"I don't know about you Bullet, but I don't miss."

I went back towards the stairs and with my gun in hand, I aimed out. There was an awkward silence, but the minute I stepped on the last step, the shots began being fired and I was in the middle of the firing zone.

On my left was a man holding the gun aimed straight at my head, I aimed and...

Bang!

It landed right on his nose, through his skull and into his brain. Luther taught me that.

One by one, shots were fired towards me, and I now knew that there were at least nine men firing at us. I shot down four and Bullet shot down two.

The remaining men didn't stop though, they all kept shooting at us, and I didn't know if we could both make it to the front door, so I did the one thing I knew I could.

"Bullet, I'll cover you!" I screamed out, and he didn't stop to ask me questions. He moved thoroughly towards the door, and I shot down another man.

Once he made it out, I knew that it was time. I threw my gun towards the front door and shots were fired. While shooting, I advanced towards the first man who thought that the other man was me shooting at him, and I paralysed him using a technique taught to me by Luther. He showed me things I never thought would come useful, yet here I was.

The shooting stopped and I sprinted my way to the door and out of the mansion. I found all of them waiting worriedly for me in the van. Once I entered, everyone sighed out from relief.

"Thank God, you're ok." Mary exclaimed while holding me in her arms and squeezing me tightly. I missed her too.

I let her go and, with a bended back, walked towards Hera and sat next to her. She was fast asleep in her seat, and I couldn't help but feel bad for what she had to go through because of me.

Hera had developed frown lines around her lips, and her lips were dry and cracked, with a small sore on her bottom lip. She must've bit herself there.

"I had to give her sleeping pills." Mary confessed behind me while we started moving.

"What..."

"... she was hysterical and wouldn't leave that house without me drugging her. I had no option left. She kept screaming about saving her father, which I find weird because... come on... the man kidnapped her for heaven's sake."

"She wanted to save him... from me?" I asked, as the realisation struck me.

"I-I don't know about that... no offence... but she seemed really freaked out. When she wakes up, she's going to want an explanation and, my dear auntie, you better have a good one."

Mary patted my shoulder reassuringly and looked back at the laptop in front of her, searching for Steve Jobs on YouTube.

I looked back at Hera, whose head was now on my lap, and frowned. This was it. I had no choice now. My family knew only what happened after they left, they didn't know what I had done.

What if I had killed Luther? If so, I hadn't done it intentionally. It was no wonder Estelle and Charles hated me so much. Yet, I didn't even know that it was happening. I didn't even bother to read through the lines of Luther. I thought that he was using me, he was training me as his assassin, but in true fact, the more I prepared myself for his demise, the more he fell in love. I hated myself now.

"You know that you're going to have to tell everyone about what happened once we get there." Bullet spoke up from the driver's seat in front of me, "Hera will not only demand for the truth. That warrior of yours will expose it in front of the whole family."

"It wasn't my fault." I said, still denying any hand in his death.

"You will soon realise it. He loved you, I saw it with my own eyes, and his love for you scared me to the core."

"I was only sixteen." I uttered out, thinking about how ridiculous it sounded for a man in his sixties to fall for a sixteen year old.

"In his eyes, your age meant nothing. Any obstacles associated in normal relationships in society, were basically useless excuses to waste time in his mind. He didn't care. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about his destruction." I admitted with certainty, knowing fully well about how I was feeling at the time.

"How ironic that while you were thinking about destroying him, all he could think about was loving you. Very ironic."

"Bullet..." I called out to him, wanting to tell him something that I wanted to tell him ever since he started speaking.

"Yeah?" He asked, sounding like he was awaiting for me to agree with him. As though he knew that he was right all along and I was the stupid one. He wasn't the one locked up in a cell hole and then told that it was for love. He wasn't the one lashed nightly and then told that it was for care. He wasn't told to either shoot his own father or watch his whole family die and then told that it was a sign of trust and loyalty.

"Shut the fuck up." I said bluntly and I meant it.