The Alpha's Secret

Giant Wolf

MORIA

“You little freak!”

I feel my body slam into the metal lockers, hear the force of the hit echo down the almost empty halls.

“You think you’re better than us don’t you?”

I slap weakly at the hands dragging me up by the collars of my shirt even as out the corner of my eyes I watch my lunch get stomped on.

It was a ham sandwich.

I really like ham.

“Let me go.”

But the words when they leave my mouth have no real will in them.

I know they will not let me go.

And trying to fight them would only make this last longer.

So I don’t.

The hand jerks me back and forth even as the other two laugh and giggle.

When I get home, my mother will ask me why my shirt is torn.

I will have to come up with another convincing lie.

Maybe I should start thinking about it now.

Maybe…

“Hey are you listening to me?!”

She tugs violently at my hair, forcing me to look up into her eyes.

“You stay the f**k away from me and mind your own business you hear me?!!”

She is spitting in my face. I dare not wipe it off.

I can hear the others getting anxious. The bell will soon go off.

Everyone will start to trope in.

They didn’t want to get caught.

“Anita, it’s enough, leave her alone. Lunch is almost over.”

But she does not care, does not listen to them.

“Anita I’m sure she’s learnt her lesson. Let’s go.”

She pushes her friend away violently and leans in closer to me

“I said, do you hear me?”

There is what resembles anger burning in the way she looks at me.

But as I stare up into the eyes of the girl who had bullied me all year, all I can feel…is a crushing sadness.

Her sadness.

And I feel so sorry for her, that in that moment, I forget to hate her.

She jerks me forward and moves to slam me against the lockers one more time.

There is a ringing in my ear.

A shrill sound like a far away ambulance siren that drags me from the memory.

I burst out through the surface of the water.

Floating on my back, looking up into the crisp blue sky…

Gasping and hurting.

I made it…I made it out ali…

But it is too soon.

Another wave slams right into me with the force of a small car and instantly I am pushed under again.

Which way is up, which way is down…

Every part of my body is hurting as I struggle, legs kicking, arms flailing to get back to the surface.

But the harder I fight, the more difficult I find it to move.

My legs like two useless pieces of wood dragging me under, refusing to obey my brain’s frantic commands to move.

It feels like I am swimming through liquid soap.

Like the water is resisting my efforts to break to the surface.

My lungs are burning now, crying out for oxygen.

I have held my breath for too long.

How ironic, I’d fought Tristen for trying to drown me and yet, here I was, drowning myself.

I needed to…What the hell…

I almost let go of the breath I have been holding.

Oh f*****g hell, just kill me already.

Using your eyes underwater is a f*****g hassle.

It stings and everything seems to shimmer and move like a distorted glass image

But even half blind as I am, I can tell that there is something in the water heading straight for me.

And whatever it is, is huge and dark and most definitely alive.

And given my luck, more than likely, it was f*****g hungry too.

I struggle to turn around and start to swim away as fast as my wooden legs would allow me.

But given my current state, it isn’t fast enough.

I am still disoriented and for all I know I am swimming farther into the ocean but I do not care.

Drown or get eaten by some sea creature.

Not that I have never experienced either but I do know which one has teeth.

I am aware that what I am doing is less swimming and more panic induced flailing and that it is not helping.

There are spots dancing in front of my eyes and my lungs are about to collapse in on themselves

Everything hurts. Everything.

Maybe I should just give up.

I turn back around, my strange hair floating out and around me like blood colored snakes, my arms and legs just barely moving to keep me suspended in the water.

I squint out at the creature advancing on me.

It was close now. Close enough that I could make out the shape.

And what looked like four large legs paddling in my direction.

That’s when I realize that whatever it was, it was only half way in the water.

The rest of it…the rest of it was above.

I must be closer to the top than I realize.

Hope floods my limbs.

Maybe it isn’t after me.

It probably hasn’t even seen me.

If I stayed down just a little while longer, it might just pass by me.

My lungs are screaming at me now.

They have gone too long without oxygen and are about to give up.

But I have to stay still.

Just a little…just until it passes…

Just…

It’s head pushes into the water and I think my heart stops working.

It looks like a dog…no. A wolf.

Except it is very easily the size a bear.

A very, very large bear.

It had a broad, pointed snout and round ears and was the glistening color of a starless sky at midnight.

Oh God.

I turn around and start to halfheartedly swim away but then I feel its teeth sink into the neck of my shirt and then I feel it start to pull.

I scream as loud as my feeble, bruised lungs would allow and start to struggle to get away.

“Will you just stop f*****g fighting. I am trying to save you.”

I freeze.

Tristen?

Why was Tristen’s voice in my heads again?

But I have no time to float around figuring that out.

Not with some 8ft wolf creature about to have me for dinner.

I hear my shirt rip and suddenly I am free.

With my last burst of strength I start to swim up.

The water still feels different and every movement is a struggle but the less I fight it, the easier it seems I am able to move up.

But my head hurts and feel so tired.

I know I am about to pass out

Even if I get to the top, there is no way on earth I would be able to swim my way back to shore.

No way.

But at the last minute, my head breaks through the surface of the water and air slams into my lungs with a sudden intensity that is almost too painful to bear.

I gasp and cough and struggle to remain conscious even though I can sense the darkness clawing at the edges of my mind.

The giant wolf plunges its head out of the water after me and grabs at my shirt again.

So I slip out of it.

If the wolf wanted to grab unto me again, it would be sinking it’s teeth straight into my skin

But I am also back underwater again.

Please…please just let me go.

I did not have time to hold my breath before I slipped under again , and my body is done.

“Breathe Moria.”

Tristen… again.

“Oh for f**k’s sake I have no idea how you’re doing that but get out of my head and leave me alone.”

“Oh Trust me, I would love to do that. But I can’t…I can’t just let you die. So can you just let go and f*****g breathe…please.”

My eyes are drifting shut and the darkness is all around me now.

This is it.

“Moria…trust me…breathe.”

The water feels

Then I remember.

“It got her here didn’t it? Besides, we both know she can’t drown. If she’d stopped holding her breath she’d have realized she could breathe under…”

Tristen’s words when I woke up.

Bullshit.

He couldn’t have been trying to say…

That would be ridiculously insane but then again…

Nothing about any of this made any sense.

A man that could pass through walls and another who could move faster than I could blink.

A woman that could float, a wolf the size of a large car,

Voices in my head.

Why wouldn’t it be possible?

I can feel my heart rate starting to slow.

Even if it weren’t, I was already dead anyway. More more could it hurt.

So I stopped struggling, stopped holding my breath and simply let go.