Inevitably Yours

MICHAEL

I heard the lock click behind us as I walked into the garage with Lawrence behind me. My mom wasn’t home, but she was supposed to be soon. I assumed he didn’t want anyone to interrupt what was coming. The packhouse garage was mainly used for tools and lawn equipment as well as storage.

“Your mom can’t save you here, Michael,” Lawrence hissed from behind me. Ah, so I was right. Whatever this is should be great.

“I got a call from the school, again,” he continued. “Not only are your grades slipping, I hear you’re skipping class now?”

f**k. He knew. I could feel the dread spreading from my chest, and my stomach fell somewhere beneath me.

“You took away the only thing I cared about,” I managed to respond. I was starting to feel anger flare up within me, and my new wolf was bristling too. “So, why should I go to classes I don’t care about?”

“I don’t give a f**k about this wrestling s**t. You should never have joined the team while I was away without my permission. I let it slide last year, but this is your last year of middle school. You’ll do as you’re told. Your actions directly reflect on me, and this gay wrestling s**t doesn’t fit into the equation.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want.” It was the easiest way; give him what he wants, and the repercussions are less. He had only been gone for four days, but I took my chance. Being who I was, he couldn’t force me to quit when he returned.

“I didn’t give you a choice, did I?” he asked behind me. I hadn’t turned around since we walked into the garage. I knew he would hit me eventually, and it was better if I didn’t see it coming. The last time I’d started to defend myself on instinct, it ended much worse than usual.

“No, sir,” I spat. Goddess, I hated this man.

“We’re not strong enough yet,” Eros growled within me.

“I know,” I lamented, wishing things were different. One day, I was going to make them different.

“Today, you’ll learn why you shouldn’t make me look bad,” Lawrence rumbled, now much closer. My hands gripped the wood of our large workbench as I braced myself against it. I could feel his hot breath only inches behind me. I closed my eyes, waiting for the first blow, but it didn’t come. “I’m going to give you a choice, though.”

My heart was pounding. Whatever he was planning wouldn’t be in my favor.

“Since you think you can make adult decisions for yourself, I’ll let you make one now. You’re newly fourteen and not that far away from mating age. Want to be Alpha? I’ll let you pick up any singular thing in this room to use as a weapon, but if you do it, you better f*****g kill me. If you don’t, I’m going to use it on you.”

My breath caught in my chest as my eyes darted around the wall in front of me, covered in tools and gardening implements. Of course, he wouldn’t take me around any real weapons for this. Still, I could be free…

“He’s baiting you,” Eros barked. “You aren’t strong enough, and there’s nothing in this room we can kill him with.”

He was right. I took a deep breath; I relaxed my hands and spread my fingers wide on the bench in front of me, bowing my head in submission. There was nothing I could do here.

“What, the big man doesn’t want to be Alpha? You’re going to hang your head like a b***h then?”

A kaleidoscope of color flashed in front of my closed eyes as my nose exploded all over me, drenching me in b***d. He’d struck the back of my head hard, driving my face into the flat surface in front of me. I reached up to feel it, and luckily it wasn’t broken.

“Nothing?” he asked from behind me. “That’s okay; we’ll make a man out of you someday. Guess it won’t be today.”

I could hear my mom coming home. The garage door wasn’t sound proof and she would be looking for us. It was only a matter of time before she found it locked.

“Looks like we have less time than I thought,” Lawrence said, sounding genuinely sad. “Let’s get to it then.”

I felt the searing pain of his belt across my back, followed by an open-handed slap to the side of my face. I could feel the b***d rushing to my face, and I decided I wouldn’t look away anymore. He’d have to look at me.

I turned around at the wrong time, and my face met his swinging arm. It dropped me to the ground, my l*p swelling already. I could hear my mom yelling on the other side of the door now; she was yelling something as she fruitlessly fought with the locked door.

A kick came to my stomach, folding me in half as I coughed and tried to catch my breath. After that, I didn’t know what was hitting me. It was just… pain.

–

I woke up again, drenched in sweat. These dreams were coming more frequently now, and I was getting used to them. I guessed the Goddess didn’t want me to forget what I’d been through now that I was free. What kind of fun would that be?

“We’re not as weak as we were then,” Eros purred. “We will kill him once we’ve trained, and we can move forward.”

“I guess.”

I wanted to end him more than anything, and I knew that I should be able to with real training. In truth, the last year of him putting his hands on me felt weaker, and I was sure that I could have protected myself with wrestling alone. Still, it was Lawrence. I never knew what kind of sadistic s**t he was planning or capable of. The last thing I needed was to lose and be shoved in a box somewhere, fighting to move, fighting to breathe, fighting-

“Breathe, Michael,” Eros interrupted my spiraling. “He’s on the other side of the country.”

“For now,” I ended. I pulled clothes out for school and shoved my wrestling shoes in my bag before running to shower. By the time I was clean and ready, I was still the only one up. Throwing bread in the toaster, I pulled out the peanut butter and set it out while I waited. I heard stirring from down the hall, and it was Tyler peeking his head out.

“Mom’s not making breakfast?” he whined.

“You’re old enough to take care of that yourself.”

He’d been getting progressively worse since we’d gotten here. He was already a brat at home, but it was like he expected to be waited on by everyone around him now. I could see the dark circles under his eyes. I knew he’d stayed up all night playing Pocket Monsters on the new game system Mom bought him for his birthday, even though it was a school night.

He scoffed, “No, that’s mom’s job.”

“You’re not smart enough to make yourself a bowl of cereal or throw something in a toaster? You need your hand held for that too?”

“Moommmm! Michael hit me!” he ran down the hallway. Goddess, he was such a pain in my a*s.

“I didn’t touch him, but I am leaving. I’m done with his crap.” I linked my mom. I was trying to let her sleep.

“Keep your hands to yourself, Michael. I know he’s annoying sometimes, but it doesn’t give you the righ-”

“I said I didn’t touch him. I don’t have a problem keeping my hands to myself. You’re mistaking me for your husband.”

I stormed out of the house with a piece of toast in my mouth and a banana in hand. I wasn’t staying there for any more of this. As I walked to school, I pulled out my phone and stared at Quinn’s last message to me. It was just us talking about something inane, but it helped calm me down. It had been a few weeks since we’d moved here, and nothing was going right still.

ME

| Good morning beautiful

I deleted it immediately. Stupid.

| I miss you…

Not right either.

| I wish I was starting today off with you…

If I was really going to let her go and be free from me, I couldn’t text her s**t like this.

| I hope you’re having a good day

I closed my phone and shoved it into my pocket. That almost made me feel worse than not texting her. I knew she was already in class and probably wouldn’t see it until I got to school, at least. Now, on to this stupid new school.

–

The team was panting and in various positions on their knees or laying on the floor after a few minutes of drilling ref’s position. I’d been drilling the bottom where you start on your hands and knees with the intent to explode to your feet and escape while the person in the top position who was kneeling over you tried to drag you to the ground and pin you instead. My partner was lying on the floor with his eyes closed, trying to catch his breath.

I reached out my hand to him, “Come on, get up. There’s no air down there.”

“That doesn’t make sense; there’s air everywhere,” he panted, begrudgingly accepting my hand and pulling himself to his feet. We had to step off the mat for the girls to come on and drill now that we had finished that exercise. This coach was an i***t and wouldn’t let us on the mat simultaneously like wrestling near boys would hurt the girls or something. All it was doing was halting practice for both teams and keeping our bodies cold. That’s why the wrestlers here were so out of shape.

“You just need practice with a coach that cares about wrestling,” I muttered low enough that Tagey couldn’t hear me. “You’re lacking basic fundamentals that I learned in middle school.”

“We don’t even have wrestling in middle school, man,” my partner, Bobby, replied. “I just started this year.”

“I can try to help as we practice if you want?” I offered. The guy was a monster, and his raw physical strength rivaled mine, but he had no idea what he was doing and lacked combative stamina. It wasn’t the same as lifting weights in the gym; your opponent was fighting back.

“Thank you,” he replied gratefully, offering his fist which I tapped with my own. I liked Bobby, although I doubted we’d be friends outside of school. I didn’t have any interest in being friends with anyone anymore.

I’d blown through every wrestler on the mat in my first practice, and even though some of them hated it, they had to respect the clear skill gap. They were all like wrestling with big sixth graders compared to what I’d gotten at home, and Tagey’s wisdom made it worse.

Things like, “Just keep your head down and tackle him like in football,” rang out in his southern twang across the mat as we practiced as if he were trying to get them hurt. It didn’t even make sense for football, let alone wrestling.

We watched the girls get whistled off the mat, and we stepped back on for our turn. Tagey looked pointedly at me and yelled, “Switch partners for neutral! Galbraith, you’re with Grant.”

I rolled my eyes; he put me with his pet because he didn’t like me helping to teach anyone. I felt bad for this kid because not only did he not have a chance, Tagey put us on our feet. Tagey seemed to think that Grant would somehow catch up after he got pinned in twenty seconds on the first day I came to practice, but I’m not sure how.

The whistle blew, and I reached out my hand to shake as was custom before starting a round. He slapped it away, his knee hitting the ground as he shot in for a double leg. As his arms began to close around my legs, I smiled. He still hadn’t learned. I reached down, one arm going under his armpit and reaching towards his neck as my other arm shot under his chest to meet the hand coming in from underneath. Now, I had his head and arm controlled, so I sat on my butt and let the momentum of his double leg drive us backward. I rolled over my shoulder, letting him go up into the air over me and continuing through it to end up on top of him. I ended perfectly atop his h**s with my knees on the mat, pinning him in place. His face was red as he tried desperately to break free, but I sank my weight down and calmly controlled his h**s with my own, my legs swiping side to side in the direction opposite of him like a windshield wiper to keep him from moving.

“You’re pinned,” I told him quietly. I didn’t want to embarrass him, but he was still struggling. We should have stood back up and been at it again by now.

“f**k you,” came the muffled response from under my chest.

I sighed. Why did there always have to be a problem? I just wanted to wrestle. The whistle blew again, and I could see Tagey was pissed about what had just transpired. “Get these mats cleaned up, so we can get out of here,” the inept coach barked before walking away.

After getting the mats rolled up and put away, Bobby tapped me on the shoulder, “Hey man, you ever thought about doing Jiu Jitsu?”

Thanks to Lawrence, I had a strange, fickle history with various forms of martial arts. I could never get too good at something or enjoy it too much, or it was immediately removed from my life. “I might be interested,” I shrugged. Bobby put a flyer in my hand, and I read ‘Twin Wolves BJJ” across the top. It said they had BJJ, MMA, Muay Thai, and wrestling.

“Interesting,” I thought. “Maybe I could find a competent wrestling coach here. I’m never going to get it from school.”

“Worth a shot,” Eros agreed.

“Thanks, man, I’ll check it out.”

“Hope to see you there. I just started yesterday,” he told me, fist-bumping again before we headed out of the cafeteria.

As I left, I caught the eye of a girl I hadn’t seen before. She was almost as tall as me, with blonde hair and bright green eyes. As our eyes met, her cheeks flushed, and she looked away quickly, biting her l*p. She giggled with a boy she was looking down at, probably her brother, I thought.

“Have a good night,” I quipped as I walked by.

She giggled more, and I heard her squeak from behind me after we passed, “You too!”

“Might be a nice distraction?” Eros chimed. He’d finally forgiven me for what happened before, and now he was trying to take my mind off of the blue-haired angel I couldn’t stop thinking about.

“It would only be fleeting,” I answered sadly.

–

“You’ve gotta give me some time, son,” Melvin sighed, clearly tired from his new job.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

“You told me that I had to train to fight him. It’s been months since this started!” I knew we’d all been dealing with a lot, but we hadn’t trained together once.

“Let me get settled into this new job, and we can train as much as you want,” he tried to reason. “It’s just a lot to juggle right now.”

“We shouldn’t care about settling in here,” I yelled. “We should be worried about getting our pack back. YOUR pack.”

“In time, son.”

Goddess, he was infuriating. I went to my room and slammed my door behind me. Pulling out the flyer from my bag, I read over it again. If he wasn’t going to train me, I’d do it my damn self.