I can't stand bullying.
Hate it. Despise it. Feel it burning in my gut like acid whenever I witness it.
Because I know what it's like to be on the receiving end.
You wouldn't think Alphas would be targets. We're supposed to be the predators, not the prey. The strong ones, the dominant ones, the ones everyone else fears.
But I was quiet. Small for my age until a late growth spurt hit me at seventeen. More interested in books and writing than sports and posturing. I spoke with an accent that made mestand out, a shy French-Canadian kid in a sea of loud American confidence.
Easy prey for anyone looking for a target.
The other Alphas at my old school made my life hell. Called me weak. Called me defective. Said I wasn't a real Alpha, just a pathetic excuse for one who should have presented as something else. They pushed me into lockers hard enough to leave bruises. Stole my notebooks and read my stories aloud in mocking voices. Spread rumors that I was secretly an Omega pretending to be more than I was.
And Bastien?
My older brother, who should have protected me?
He was too busy being one of them. Too busy climbing the social ladder on the backs of people like me.
His own brother.
I survived by becoming invisible. By shrinking myself down until I barely took up any space at all. By burying everything I felt so deep that no one could use it against me.
It wasn't until two years ago that things changed.
Coach Moreau found me on the ice one night, shooting pucks into an empty net like my life depended on it. He watched me for a while without saying anything, his arms crossed and his expression unreadable. Then he offered to train me.
Goalie training. Weight training. Mental training.
Everything I needed to rebuild myself from the ground up.
The quiet kid who got shoved into lockers is gone now.
In his place is someone stronger. Someone who can stop pucks that would break other players. Someone who's learned that silence can be a weapon, not just a shield.
But some scars don't fade with muscle mass.
Some wounds are invisible. Carried in the way you flinch when someone raises their voice. In the way you always checkfor exits. In the way you never quite believe anyone when they say they're on your side.
I round a corner, lost in thought, and that's when I see her.
Mabeline.
She's standing at the end of the hallway, near the administrative office I vaguely remember from orientation. The golden door gleams behind her, and the setting sun through the windows paints her in shades of amber and rose.
Her luggage is beside her, and I have to suppress a wince at the sight of it.
That bag has seen better days.
Better decades, actually.
It's a rolling suitcase that looks like it went through World War I, barely survived World War II, and is currently held together by sheer stubbornness and what appears to be duct tape in at least three places. The handle is crooked, leaning dramatically to the left. One set of wheels is missing entirely, replaced by a makeshift fix involving what might be bottle caps. The fabric is faded to an indeterminate gray that might have once been blue or green or possibly maroon.
She brought her entire life to Valenridge in that?
But it's not the luggage that makes my feet stop moving.
It's the two guys standing in front of her.
