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

wouldn’t be able to find her way through the . forest to the road. She

her scent,” Lycus growls, and I pull myself up to my hands and glance around to see them coming up over the small hill from the

suddenly Darius gripped my hair, yanking my head back. He moved with speed that made the air rush around me. One second he

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 very demeaning. I suddenly cursed being

out, and he laughs before shoving me forward back in the

which at least gave me comfort, knowing the only person who had been decent to me since being here wasn’t

placement with me. If I ever have to

cutting Darius off as h e jogged over to us and a look of

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 she

but take that tone with me again, and I will make you watch her punishment,” Darius growls

don’t need to be fighting each other, especially over her,” Lycus says before glaring down at me. I remained quiet, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself. Kalen,

for what?” Kalen

my

a break. It’s her first day,” Kalen says, reaching down to offer me his hand. I reached for it, and Darius slapped my

where, or with whom, she can get herself up,” Darius snaps at him. Kalen frowns and

attitude. Surely, he didn’t believe what Darius had said, but then again,

away from a retreating Kalen. I hiss

My eyeballs pulsated in my head, along with the pounding headache and all I wanted to do was find somewhere to lay down

was moving, and my vision blurred worse. Touching the back of m y head, I wince, quickly pulling my fingers away to find blood stained