Kora

I obviously had no idea where that came from but I found my mouth doing the most now. I was tired of it, I was tired of listening to her while she disrespected my mother like that. She turned to me, my mother too.

"What?"
I knew she couldn't believe I had said that. I couldn't believe it too.

"Didn't you hear me? I asked you to get out of my room right now!" I already started anyway, there was no point in turning back especially since she was going to keep disrespecting me and my mum like that.

"Your room?" She scoffed.

"Yes, my room."

"Hey, Kora." She frowned at me. "Are you out of your mind? How can you ask me to get out in my own house? This is my house. My father's house." She scoffed. "I have every right to be in any room I want."

"Yeah well, I don't give a damn. I live here too, that makes it my house, my mother's house, my room and I don't want you here anymore, if all you're going to do is disrespect my mum."

"Then leave." She cut me off. "If you hate me so much," she placed a finger on my shoulder and pushed me slightly. "If you can't stand being here so much why don't you just leave? Why don't you and your pathetic slutty mother and annoying brother just leave this house and go be a leach somewhere else?"

"He's your brother too!" I yelled back at her. "He has every right to be here just as much as you do. We have every right to be here."

"That's enough." Mike was beginning to cry now and mum was having a tough time trying to calm him down. He hated it. He hated it when we raised our voices or shouted at each other. It terrified him a lot. I slowly turned to him with tears almost clouding my eyes. I hated it when he cried like that. At that point, I'd have done everything to make him stop.

"Do you really have to do this?" I turned back to Racheal. "Do you really have to pick on us all the time?"

Racheal shrugged her shoulders.

"Fine. If it's the laptop you want, then take it." I stood away from the table just so she could get the laptop since it was all she wanted so badly. "Just take it and leave."

Racheal pouted for a while, pretending to think. I just wanted it to be over, I just wanted her to leave. I wanted her to take the laptop and leave.

"Fine." She leaned towards the desk and picked up my purple laptop. I watched her lift it from the table, a wry smile spreading across her face as she took a good look at it like she was examining it.

"You have the laptop now." I reminded her. "Just take it and go." At that point, I was just too embarrassed to hear anything else. My ears were almost bleeding from hearing her cuss at us like that. I watched Racheal raise my laptop in the air as high as she could and then let it go, causing it to fall to the ground with a big thud. She started to step on it and jump on it with full force.

"Racheal." My Mum gasped as Mike's cry started to get worse from the noise. He must have been startled just as I was. I was numb all over, watching her until she was done. She stopped.

My legs failed me as I watched parts of it break apart, as I watched the screen detach from it. I had my eyes wide open, staring at my ruined laptop while Racheal dusted her hands noisily. Mike was crying really hard now and mum was still trying to calm him, surprised at what had happened too. The noise must have startled him a lot.

I found myself halfway to the ground, trying to see if I could pick up the pieces of my laptop. How could she? Why did she?

"You should have just let me have it when I asked." Racheal watched me. "Your mum was right, it's below my taste. I wouldn't possibly use something so outdated and wretched. I guess I'd have to go to the mall now."

I was so angry. Angry wasn't the word, more like furious and frustrated. I got up quickly.

"Kora, no." My mum tried to stop me. Not like she could do much with both her hands wrapped around Mike.

"What is wrong with you." I pushed Racheal.

"What is wrong with you?" She pushed me right back.

"That's enough!" Mother was trying so hard not to yell or make the situation worse than it was. I folded my hands into a fist like I was going to hit Racheal right before-

"What on earth is going on here?!"

I watched Racheal and my mum shake at the sound of his hoarse voice. They both turned to the older man that stood a few paces in front of the door. He looked his sixties. Not so tall, but extremely scary. He looked so much like Racheal too. Mr Peter, Peter Olori, AKA my step father and the man partly responsible for bringing Racheal into this world and making her the kind of person she was. The man that brought us into his home and never for once tried to reprimand his daughter whenever she disrespected us.

"I asked a question!" His voice echoed around the room, even causing Mike to stop crying. That was his effect on everyone. He terrified us all. I slowly raised my head to meet his. Unlike my mother and Racheal, he didn't leave that effect on me, I wasn't scared of him.

"Chief." My mother took a step to him. "It's nothing serious. The girls were just having an argument."

He narrowed his gaze to the broken laptop on the floor and then raised his gaze to mine right after.

"What is this about?" He asked me.

I stepped forward, I wanted to speak, I wanted to tell him what had happened. At least if I did, maybe he'd have had the perfect punishment for Racheal. I knew just how terrified she was of the round man in our presence.

"It's nothing Chief." My mother cut in. What was she trying to do? It wasn't nothing. Why was she trying to protect Racheal? He turned to her.

"I didn't ask you."
My mother swallowed hard.

"Racheal disrespected me and my mother." I blurted out. I wasn't going to cover up for her anymore. I wanted her to pay, if there was some sort of sense of discipline left in that house, in that man, I hoped he made her pay for what she did, I wanted her to pay for what she did to me. "And she broke my laptop because I refused to let her have it."

"Dad." Racheal raised her head to meet his, feigning innocence and completely changing the sound of her voice so she sounded timid. "That's not true, they are lying." She was trying so hard to convince him. "They are only jealous I made it to NAUN ,and Kora didn't."

I scoffed.

"So all this ruckus is just for some clumsy laptop?!" He yelled at us. "You three are turning my house to a market place because of some stupid laptop?"

Stupid laptop? Did he just miss the part where I said his daughter disrespected me and my mother?

"Then talk to your daughter." I snapped back at him. "Did me and my mother ask to be here? Since you got married to my mother, the least you could do is protect her, take responsibility for it and stop your daughter from being unnecessarily mean to her, or me or my brother."

"Kora." My mum wanted me to stop talking but I just couldn't help it. I couldn't help myself. My heart was breaking into bits, I wasn't happy. I wasn't happy at all. "What has come over you?"

Peter just stood there, staring at me with both hands behind his back. I could hear Racheal scoff in disbelief. I bet she didn't know I wasn't scared of her or her father.

I had to leave.

I couldn't bear to spend an extra minute in that room with all those people. I was going to cry in any moment, and I hated to cry in front of people, I hated to give anyone a reason to think I was weak, to think they made me weak.

I sniffed and hurried to the front door as fast as my legs could carry me.

"Kora!" I could hear my mother yell my name as I ran out of the room and headed towards the stairs. I needed to breathe, I needed a breather.
I needed to be out of that house.