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

through the . forest to the road. She wouldn’t even know what direction to g o

growls, and I pull myself up to my hands and glance around to see them coming up over the small

me. My vision was blurry, and I 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

ripped painfully from my scalp, and I would need to find some scissors. The taunts and bullying I could deal with. The hair-pulling was a low act and

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

Kalen was nowhere t o be seen, which at least gave me comfort, knowing the only person who had been decent

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

to us and a look of relief crossed his features as h e let out

for a second, I thought you left us again,” Kalen says before his smile falters when he looks at me. Kalen turns and looks at Darius before he shoves him. “Why is

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

“We have enough going on. We don’t need to be fighting each other, especially over her,” Lycus says before glaring down at me. I

what?”

skipped my class

on, give her a break. It’s her first day,” Kalen says, reaching down to offer me his hand. I reached

up herself. She survived for six years holed up, God knows where, or with whom, she can get herself up,” Darius snaps at him. Kalen frowns and appears to be thinking.. He went to speak

he didn’t believe what Darius had said, but then again, I didn’t really

gaze away from a retreating Kalen. I

hatred on his face makes me cringe away. My eyeballs

staggered. The ground felt like it was moving, and my vision blurred worse. Touching the back of m y head, I wince, quickly pulling my fingers away to find