Tasting Darkness

Chapter 15 

“Move it, Aleera, twenty laps now,” Tobias roared behind me.

Despite not wanting to run, my feet start moving, the rocks digging into my feet painfully. It didn’t take long before the men overlapped me. Around a hundred or so barging and shoving past me. What the heck was their problem? I didn’t even know them, and they took no care when they came too close.

“Aleera!” I hear Zac’s voice behind me before looking over my shoulder in time to see him running straight at me. I tried to step out of his way when he dropped his shoulder and barrelled straight into me, diverting slightly off track to deliberately hit me.

My body was tossed across the gravel, and I felt like I was being skinned alive. My face burned as I skidded across the loose gravel, my hands I used to try and brace myself grazed, and I felt battered and bruised all over.

“Up Aleera, you have only done three laps,” Tobias calls from the center where the obstacle courses were. I haul my body up t o my hands and knees. Trying not to cry out at my pain and discomfort.

It was agonizing, I kept going, and by the time I finished the laps, the men had completed theirs plus the obstacle course. The rest of the class moved on to their next lesson while Zac had been told to make sure I finished the course.

His sneers and name-calling were starting to get to me. I was starving, and the sun was cooking me alive. I wondered how long I had been out here when the blare of the alarm sounded signally; it was lunch.

Someone brought Zac out some food while I tried to navigate the climbing wall. My arms could not take my weight much longer and shook as I tried to haul myself up when I felt something smack me in the center of the back. I was about five meters up when pain rippled up my spine, and I lost my grip, plummeting to the ground below.

A shriek left my lips as I grasped the air frantically, hitting the ground with a thud before darkness swallowed me.

It was the sound of angry voices that pulled me back to my surroundings, a furious growl has me blinking, and I found the sun was no longer directly above me, the sky in orange and pink hues as I tried to remember what happened.

“If she ran again, I swear I will fucking kill her,” Darius’s angry voice boomed. I groan, rolling on my side, my head pounding to its own beat, and every muscle ached. My back was killing me and my skin felt sunburnt

way through the . forest to the road. She wouldn’t even know what direction to g o in,” I hear Lycus’s

my hands and glance

squinted about to get to my feet when suddenly Darius gripped my hair, yanking my head back. He moved with speed that made the air rush around me. One second he was over on the crest of the small hill; the next second,

can skip classes, Aleera?” He snarls as I clutch his hands and cry out. My hair ripped painfully from my scalp, and I would need to find some scissors. The taunts and

me,” I choke out, and he laughs before shoving me forward back in

Kalen was nowhere t o be seen, which at least gave me comfort, knowing the only person who had been decent to me since being here wasn’t hunting me down to inflict more injury when my brain backtracked. He was one of them. He

placement with me. If I ever have to come searching for

finally you found her,” Kalen says, cutting Darius off as h e jogged over to us and a look of relief crossed his features as h e

looks at me. Kalen turns and looks at Darius before he shoves him. “Why is she bleeding? What the

toward him by the front of his shirt. “I haven’t done anything but take that tone with me again, and I will make you watch her punishment,” Darius

fighting each other, especially over

what?”

my class

a break. It’s her first day,” Kalen says, reaching down to offer me his

herself up,” Darius snaps at him. Kalen frowns and appears to be thinking.. He went to speak

stomach sinks, wondering why the sudden change in his attitude. Surely, he didn’t believe what Darius had said, but then again, I didn’t really know any of them well enough to judge

a kick to my leg pulls my gaze away from a retreating Kalen. I hiss

look of pure hatred on his face makes me cringe away. My eyeballs pulsated in my head, along with the pounding headache and all I wanted to do was find somewhere to

Touching the back of m y head, I wince, quickly pulling my fingers away to find blood