Chapter 7
1745 Words
Relief flooded him next. The thought of finding her, rather than the search to, was all the hope Kris needed to down the glass.
“When’s the last time you swam?” Kass asked abruptly.
“Uh… it’s been years,” Kris replied, somewhat ashamed.
“I can’t blame you,” Kass replied. “Wet fur is one thing… wet fur in the car is another entirely.”
“I highly doubt they’re going to let us swim while shifted,” Kris commented.
“They had specials with that swim team today,” Kass countered. “Some of them were bound to switch it up.”
“And you think we can too?”
“Yeah,” Kass grinned. “You’re wolf’ll have a better chance of pointing her out.”
“I don’t know man,” Kris worried. “She ran into my human form. Maybe it’s just better to go like this.”
“Swimming like a human is the worst though.”
“It’s not that bad,” Kris smirked. “I just worry about giving an old man impression.”
Kass grinned, “Maybe that’s just you. I don’t look a day over twenty…”
“That’s a load of crap,” Kris remarked, finishing off his water. “She called me sir…”
“If you don’t believe it, how will she?” Kass asked, stopping Kris in his tracks. “You know you’re a guy right?”
“Shut up…”
“Why wouldn’t she call you sir?”
“Kass…”
“That’s all I’m sayin’. Take it how you want to, but it seemed like she was just being polite.”
Kris stiffly nodded. Maybe that was all she meant. Not that he was old.
“You really think she’s with the team?”
“I mean,” Kass stumbled on his response. “She could have been in with the members but it isn’t likely.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Just sequence through the morning. It doesn’t add up if she’s a member.”
Kris nodded at that.
“Do you feel any better?” Kass asked, waving over Kris’ form.
“I guess,” Kris followed Kass’ motions while he checked over himself.
“Are there any noticeable differences?” he perused.
“Besides feeling weighted, like heavy? I really don’t know.”
Kass hummed at that.
“Any idea what it was?”
“I mean, stress is bad for everyone…”
“But,” Kris pushed his friend.
“Stress is really bad for us, no matter the designation,” Kass hummed while he put the groceries away.
“Yeah…” Kris nodded.
It was one of the seven self care requirements he could recall.
“But you running as an Alpha is supposed to hit differently,” Kass mentioned lightly.
“So you’re saying being burned and stunned is normal?”
“It might be,” Kass cringed.
“I don’t know man. I don’t think this is normal…”
====
Renee
====
“I’m going to ask you again…” her father barked somewhere in her room.
Renee blinked slowly, unable to open her right completely. The slit of light it did let in remained blurry and unmanageable. She’d have to really focus on elements in her room to figure out how to survive this.
Heavy footsteps marched around her body. The sole of his shoe ground onto her toes. There, she recognized where her father was behind her, unresponsive to the pain he left behind.
They couldn’t win, Renee told herself.
“Your brother says you’re doing drugs,” he tisked.
His fist quickly yanked her hair up and back. Her back arched terribly to give Renee a chance at relief.
How did she get on her hands and knees? The revelation haunted her; she must have blacked out.
Keep it together.
“The school called and said you physically attacked Bruce and some other senior that you’ve been fvcking.”
“They didn’t say that,” Renee gasped while her windpipe struggled to get a breath in or a word out..
“You even moan like a w***e,” her father bit out.
The comment disturbed her. Was he even listening? Her question died in her mind. It was just better to go blank.
No emotion.
Whore? She wasn’t a w***e. She hadn’t even experienced a word of kindness or a safe enough environment to notice her wants.
How could he even imagine that?
No worries.
“That’s great isn’t it?” her father growled. “Having my failure of a daughter become a drug and s*x addict. Am I getting this right?”
“No,” she mumbled to herself.
“Don’t speak unless it’s the truth, w***e,” he father spat, as he removed his belt.
The telltale woosh of the leather against the belt loops of his slacks made her cringe.
His hand could be so cruel, but the belt cracked ruthlessly against her clothed backside.
Renee’s yelp laid muffled under her tongue. The slap tore at her again and again until he released her hair. Her arms barely attempted to hold herself up after.
She slipped forward, regardless of how her palms tried to balance her body. Renee’s legs felt like jelly, unable to use the muscles in her rear end to at least scoot away.
Her father’s breathing was rough behind her. He wasn’t done. The slip of his warmed belt around her neck was her next warning… but this time he held her to the floor.
His large calloused hand pushed the small of her back further into the floor. The weight of his knee was the next to follow, lower, at the base of her ass.
Renee fought the urge to cry, to just endure. Exhaling short, helpless puffs of her mangled breath.
“You will not embarrass your mother and I like this again,” he warned. “Now, answer the question.”
“I didn’t p-purchase dr-ugs.”
“You want me to believe you made them?” he asked, grinding his knee further into her back.
“Not dr-ugs,” Renee sputtered. “Kale.”
It’s all he could possibly understand.
Her hips felt as though they were shattering while he remained in control.
“Bag,” she tried directing his attention to wherever her bed was now. “Kale in bag.”
Without another word her father released her, expectant to find her kale. By the sound of it, he would be the judge of her crime.
Her father wrestled with her bag, dumping her books, assuring her that her lying to him was a huge offense.
“Swim bag…” she tried not to wheeze into the floorboards underneath her. She didn’t need anything at all to keep him going.
“This?” he asked condescendingly.
Renee crooned her neck to the side, trying to find him, only to have a fist full of packages shoved in her face.
“This?”
He ground them into her cheeks and mouth trying to gag her. The foil packets prodded the soft flesh of her lips, cutting one deeply.
“Yes,” she ignored the trickle of blood that rolled off of her lip to answer.
“I’m taking these to the police department to be tested,” he taunted.
“Go then,” Renee turned her head away from him, still lying helplessly on the floor.
Those two words brought an intensity out from him that she had not seen before. It was two words, but the weight of them, the embarrassment she could cause, setting him up for failure was so much more.
Saying okay would have been a better idea…
It was all she could think until he retaliated, kicking her hard in the side.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” he shouted, making her jump. After, he left her room, all too eager to ruin her. As if he hadn’t already.
The sound of her door slamming put her on high alert. It would call another person into her room. But… gods, getting up felt like a worthless task.
Karri was next to slide in. It was her room too after all.
Her sister’s disinterest wasn’t new. In fact there wasn’t a time that Karri could be relied on to reach out to Renee. It was better this way, Renee knew.
In fact, the idea of being able to rely on anyone past herself didn’t exist. She was on her own, but even Renee felt herself slipping. How many times would it take to finally be strong?
Just as Renee expected, Karri sorted through her side of her room, completely in her own element. Thankful for this, Renee attempted to scrape herself off of the floor.
Her muscles burned. Her side ached. Her face required immediate attention, she thought. Especially since swim team practice was in the morning.
Renee kept silent as she rolled to her side. Her bones cracked as she went.
“It’s really not hard to stay out of trouble, isn’t it?” her sister spouted.
Renee kept her mouth shut. Speaking to the youngest wouldn’t help anything. Instead, Renee turned away from her and looked over at her old bed, tempted to sleep until morning.
“Mom!” Karri whined at the top of her lungs.
Fvck.
No end in sight, Renee complained internally.
“I did what you said but she’s not listening!” Karri prattled on.
Unlike her father who used his size to dominate her, Renee’s mother used her stealth.
Karri’s call was met with their mother silently appearing. Her eyes scooped downward, off of her shoulder at Karri before honing in on Renee.
“I didn’t know she was talking to me,” Renee rushed out.
A lie.
“Who else would I be talking to?” Karri tested.
Renee closed her eyes, exasperated. A flash of white stunned them open, or as far open as Renee could manage. An angry backhand, crowned with the diamond in her wedding band, streaked across Renee’s face next.
A fleeting hope came next, just as silently as her mother had entered the room.
The end…
Renee waited. Her family worked as a unit to ruin her, but by the time her mother got involved, the woman’s precision promised Renee that she’d wish for death.
Please this time.
Please let go…
- Writer
