Page 8 of Impossible

For a second, I think I must have made a mistake. I turn and look behind us, wondering what they’re running towards.

“Uh, Indie?” Cam gets up, his half-peeled clementine falling on the grass and starting to roll away down the hill towards the approaching stampede.

“Oh, fuck this,” Rose snorts, standing and brushing her uniform skirt down before wobbling up the grass hill in her Gucci sandals. Dress code has always been optional for her.

Cam pulls me up by my arm, taking a few big steps backwards while I lurch and stagger behind him, my headrush turning everything staticky. He gives up and turns to run in earnest.

I take a few steps, trying to ignore my dizziness, but then give up. I’m too weak. My heart is pounding erratically and my vision is tunneling and a dull roar is roiling around me; whether it’s the gym class stampede or the blood in my ears I can’t really tell.

I’m sure they’ll stop. What the hell do they have to run towards anyway?

As they get closer though, I see their faces. They are all bright red, wide eyes fixed on me, veins pulsing in their temples and foreheads and necks. The only one not looking like that is the teacher. His head is whipping back and forth, between me and the herd, as though gauging whether he’ll truly beat them to me or not. He broke out pretty far ahead of them at first, but midway up the steep hill they started gaining on him. He’s still ahead, but just barely.

When they’re about ten feet from me and I can hear the seesawing raggedness of their breathing, I start to feel fear. They’re not slowing down. They’re going to mow me over and I’ll be powerless to stop them. They’ll break my bones, grind me to dust.

The teacher reaches me a millisecond before the first student, and I realize as he looms over me that he is agiant. I am five foot ten, and he must be nearly seven feet tall. For a breathless moment our eyes lock and I take in the vibrant green of his irises, then he bends over, hooks his arm behind my knees and at my low back, and lifts me.

“Hey!” I shriek, but he pays me no mind, lifting me like I’m nothing and continuing up the hill, away from his students, barely breaking his stride.

When he gets to the top of the hill he stops, shifting me awkwardly in his arms to bring his whistle to his lips. Then he blows. My eardrums split as the whistle pierces the air inches from my head.

“Hey!” he barks. His deep baritone voice makes me shudder.

Despite having just sprinted directly up an incredibly steep hill, his breathing is deep and steady. The boys we’re now facing aren’t quite as polished. Some of them bend at the knees and gasp, but others seem to be struggling to hold themselves back from us—from what? I wonder. Attacking us? Is that why he’s holding me? To keep them from assaulting me? But why?

“Back to the locker room. Shower, change, and every single one of you report to Darber for your detentions. NOW!”

One by one the guys turn and head back down the hill, some muttering apologies before breaking into a light trot. A few linger, their eyes still locked on me. They look… hungry. I shiver in the teacher’s arms, and watch as he stares each of them down, a penetrating weight in his gaze that bears no questioning. One by one the lingerers turn, ducking their heads and following their classmates back to the gifted complex.

Without another word, the teacher starts carrying me back down the hill, following them.

“Um, excuse me?” I ask. “Can you put me down?”

“No,” he grunts. I glare at him. His blonde hair is cropped short, his features chiseled. He has a nick on his chin from shaving, and a spot he missed on his left cheek by his ear.

“Hey!” Cam’s voice from behind us sounds frail compared to the rumbly growl of the teacher, who completely ignores him, carting me down the hill, towards the gifted complex and the stampede of men that just tried to… what? Eat me? Kill me?

“Where are we going?” I ask, trying to hide my panic and failing. The teacher doesn’t answer. Cam stays at the top of the hill, watching us go. Rose is nowhere in sight.Thanks guys, I think to myself.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm down, and that is when I smell him. Cloves and cedar and something else that isn’t a smell so much as a feeling. My heart stops in my chest, my entire body stiffening as desire washes through me, making my abs clench and head buzz. It is one of the most intoxicating scents I have ever experienced, better than any Old Spice varietal or high-end cologne.

The way I felt before, when I was about to kiss Cam? Like a drop of water in the ocean of my wanting for this stranger who carries me like a child in his arms now. Like a pale ghost of the vibrant, electric lust that floods my body.

If I weren’t so weak, if my heart weren’t pounding so hard, if my head didn’t feel too heavy to lift, I’d be circling my arms around his neck, reaching up to press my head into the crook of his shoulder, rubbing myself there and feeling the balmy heat of his skin warming mine.

“What….” My voice trails off stupidly as I look at him and see him staring down at me with a mix of… what? His brow is furrowed and his green eyes are stormy with something I can’t parse. The intensity of his eyes frightens me. I pale, clamping my mouth shut and trying not to breathe too hard. What the hell is going on?

4

Moonstruck

Leon

Itwasasnormala Friday as Fridays could get, in the aftermath.

I wasn’t expecting fate to slap me in the fucking face.

Our routine had grown comfortable, if not pleasant. Me at the Complex, watching younger alphas have what we’ve since lost. Hollis at the Coalition, shuffling papers and taming his ego. Joshua surviving, subsisting, a pale shadow at home. And Risk in the woods, finding false solace in the numbness of routine.

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