Page 43 of Ava: Part Two

She swallowed, squashing down her feelings at the thought of sharing his bed.

“What makes you think I’ve done anything?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday. You took an illegal substance that almost killed you and could have had you sent to Isolation for a week if they had figured it out,” Zeke growled as he came up the stairs.

“I... I don’t know what you—”

“Don’t lie to me, Ava. You’re making all of this worse.”

He stopped just in front of her, but she still had to look up to meet his gaze. The anger she felt from him was almost palpable, and something inside her wanted to apologise and promise she would never disappoint him again.

“You’ll tell me what it was and who gave it to you,” Zeke continued. “You’ll tell me everything, Ava. This isn’t a game, and you being stupid like this will get everyone killed.”

She reeled back at his words, her apology dying on her lips. Being stupid? This was her life! She would do whatever it took to stay alive and leave the academy.

“You’ve done a lot for me, Zeke, but maybe it’s time we set some boundaries. You saved my life, so I will consider what you have to say, but I don’t owe you any explanations. I’m going to shower, and then I’ll go to sleep. In my own room,” she said, then turned around to continue up the stairs. “If you want to talk, maybe I can squeeze you in after the evaluations when I’m not too busy trying not to die.”

She didn’t know where the filter in her mouth had gone or why she wasn’t terrified of Zeke anymore. He was still the same man who had scared her senseless from her first night at the academy and had killed Claire and some other unfortunate wolf in the woods.

But either way, she didn’t want to talk to anyone tonight. She wanted to process the events of the day and try to figure out how she had knocked out Douche Dexter because, even now, that was a little bit hazy.

Chapter 28

Avasleptinherown room and silently made her way downstairs before Zeke woke up. The Omegas were the only ones awake when she went into the kitchen to grab a piece of fruit. She would have breakfast in the dining hall before going to the arena for the second day.

The Omegas were just standing around, and the moment she walked in, they tensed and looked down.

“What are you doing?” she asked with a frown, keeping her voice to a whisper so she wouldn’t wake anyone up.

And why were they lowering their eyes?

“Alpha Ezekiel keeps ordering us not to cook, but we have to. We don’t know what we should do,” one of the Omegas said. Samantha, if she remembered correctly. This Omega was usually the one bold enough to answer Ezekiel.

“I would do what he says. Prepare your own food and then go to train and get ready for today, or whatever. I won’t say anything,” she said, reaching for a banana.

She ate it quickly before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and putting it in her bag. The plan was to jog as far as she could and consider that as her warm-up for her fights. It was stupid to put herself through that torture voluntarily, but she had to get away from Zeke.

“Do you... do you want any breakfast?” the shorter one asked.

That made her turn around and really look at them. What the hell was going on here? The last conversation she had with them was when they had been changing the sheets on Zeke’s bed and basically called her a slut.

“Um... No. No, thank you,” she whispered before leaving the kitchen.

She quietly walked out of the house and down the driveway before she started stretching for the jog. It was still dark, so it took her a moment to realise someone was standing in the shadows across the road from Zeke’s house.

Maybe leaving the house by herself was a bad idea. She knew how much she humiliated Dexter yesterday, and if there was one thing she knew about bullies, it was that he wouldn’t let that go.

“Why are you alone, Little Red?”

It was a relief to hear Jared’s voice, but he was still an unwelcome intrusion.

“And why are you standing in the dark like some creepy pervert, Alpha Jared?” she asked.

Jared stepped into the road and looked over at Ezekiel’s house.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said without answering her question.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said as she continued her stretches.

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