Page 4 of Impossible

Cam’s hands take mine and try to help me up, but my knees buckle and I sit in the dirt instead.

“Down we go!” Cam’s eyes crinkle in his signature smile as he keeps hold of my hands and sits facing me. His teeth are blindingly white.

“Aww, is Indie being a messy drunk?” Rose’s hand ruffles my hair. I lean against her and feel her shift away. She doesn’t want me here. Neither of them do.

“I’m fine. Just dizzy. Go, play.” I let go of Cam’s hands and feebly shoo them both away. They go.

Originally, I starved myself because my stomach hurt and I was nauseous all the time and I thought that somebody would care and save me. Then I starved myself because people liked me more the skinnier I got, and I thought that one of them would save me. Then I starved myself because for some reason, I couldn’t stop, and I no longer wished for anybody to save me. Now I just starve myself. I don’t have much desire to stop. And I know nobody will save me. Sometimes I think I might keep shrinking and shrinking and shrinking until I fold in on myself, entirely gone, and nobody will be any the wiser.

2

Maimed

Leon

Igoharderonthe homophobes.

I wouldn’t admit it if Wilder put me in the hotseat. I’mLeon Midas, I’d say. Calmly, to let him know how moronic his line of inquiry was.I treat all my students the same.

I don’t.

The homophobes lump themselves together. They’re less common than they were when I was a student, but they’re still around. Their packs form quickly. It’s always like that—a common purpose builds the bond faster. It’s exactly what my class is meant to provide, with practice missions and military training. For the homophobes, they settle for a common enemy rather than a shared purpose. Low-hanging fruit resulting in low-quality packs.

I take pleasure in splitting them up. In crafting missions centered around their weaknesses. In watching them fail.

I wonder, if I had been a teacher before the attack, would I have done the same? Has the pain made me petty? Cruel?

My cause is righteous. My methodology, not so much.

I watch Anderson and James grab an alpha three years their junior and slam him into the ground. One of them kneels on the soft part of his belly. The other pins his legs, bending his knees backwards.

I blow my whistle, my rage splitting the air with a painful shriek. “Anderson, James, drop and give me fifty burpees! Wilson, you ok?”

He knows better than to say no. They could have smashed his kneecaps and he’d try to get up and walk away. He looks around, embarrassed to have been so easily overcome, his sweaty brown hair falling in his eyes. Drake is already on his way over—eighteen years old, bronze skin and blonde hair, a fine Pack Alpha in the making. He kneels next to Wilson, a scrawny fifteen-year-old, making him stay down while he examines his knees. He lifts each leg, testing the range of motion, the flexion, massaging around the kneecap with delicate tenderness. Helps him to his feet slowly. Keeps their hands interlocked as Wilson finds his balance and tests weight bearing.

Last Tuesday, I caught them making out in the locker room after class. It made me smile. It made the place where the bond should be inside me ache.

Drake thought that his pack would be him and Morrison. A dynamic duo, inseparable since arriving on campus four years ago, bonded through dozens of missions and classes and mixers galore. Then Wilson stumbled along a few months back, scrawny and younger and bright eyed and bushy tailed. And here we are. He thinks that Drake hangs the stars. He reminds me of Risk.

Anderson and James finish their burpees and glare at me, removed from the action. Anderson’s birth pack is powerful. Allies of Eros Pack. My former pack. Me and Joshua. The legacy we were meant to uphold. The legacy we turned our backs on.

The field is whittled down now. Only a handful of alphas left standing.

This game is my reward for my early morning bootcampers after a hard work-out—flag football, minus the football. Like capture the flag, but every member of the opposite team is wearing a flag, and victory is won by tearing them all off and putting the entire opposing team out of commission. A good way to build camaraderie, test team configurations ahead of missions, let them blow off some steam, and subtly work on their agility at the same time.

The games can get a little physical—they are hormonal teenage alphas after all—but brutalizing members of the other team is forbidden, no matter their personal proclivities. It’s a bitter thing, knowing that not only are there still homophobes at the Complex, but they still feel brash enough to pull shit like this.

Anderson and James will whine about my punishing them later on. But we all know that if Wilson wasn’t mooning around after Drake all the time, he’d have been spared their violence. Andthatboils my blood.

I blow my whistle when Drake and Wilson’s team wins. I try not to smile too broadly.

“Ok gents,” I boom, “drop your flags in the bag and hit the showers. Don’t go scaring any omegas off with your BO, you hear me?”

The laughter is raucous. I shouldn’t let twits like Anderson and James bother me—the other boys are ragging on each other, smiling and stumbling back to the locker rooms, the picture of good sportsmanship. They’re always sore after the workouts I put them through—that’s the point, and the easygoing friendships that result are plentiful. It’s just a few bad seeds. I watch Anderson and James drop their flags on the field, fifteen feet away from the bag I indicated they should put them in.

I’m about to call after them and issue them both detentions, but then I decide to be petty instead. I’ll just have the detention slips delivered to them. Hopefully in front of an omega they’re trying to impress. Serves them right. My pleasure lasts about as long at it takes me to fuck up retrieving the flags.

It’s the type of thing I wouldn’t have thought about before. I’m standing closer to the bag, so I would have just grabbed it with one hand, then bent over and picked up the flags with the other. Tossed them inside without a care, end of story.

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