Chapter 5

We all sit at the table. The order properly restored as dad sits at the head and Hank sits across from me.
“So…,” Dad looks at Hank as he looks back at him.

“How was it?!” Dad laughs, slapping a hand down on Hank’s back before turning and laughing with me. He’s excited. Excited by what he sees in his son.
Hank grew.
Within the month that he was gone, his muscles developed some. I take in the fading yellow on his cheek and the new cut above his eye.

“Good,” Hank grunts it out in a way that has dad and I looking at him in suspicion.

I look at Hank. Giving him the look.
He’s going to have to lie better to dad.

Hank sees me and clears his throat, “It’s hard. I’m not going to lie dad. But I just need to get use to it. I advanced in my group though,” Dad smiles at that.
Questions are asked, ‘what food did you eat?’ ‘did you make any friends?’ ‘How did Larry do?’

It’s not until Hank and I are alone in my room that he takes off his mask, groaning as he lays down on my bed and looks up to the galaxy I painted across my ceiling.
“How was it?”

I fiddle with some of my paint brushes, waiting for his answer.
“I don’t know Layla. Everything is good really. I love it. I love the training. But there’s this one guy who bothers me.”

“Bothers you?”

Hank pushes himself up on both elbows to look at me, “He just…” he groans and runs his hand through his light brown hair, “He keeps messing with me. He won’t leave me alone for some reason.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, my eyebrows knitting now in confusion.

“Urgh I don’t know Lay, the guy just gets angry whenever I’m around and blows up. He always wants to fight me.”

He points to his cut on his face.

I gasp, “Do you know why?”

Hank laughs, “He says my smell bothers him.”

“What?” Someone would fight Hank over something so stupid like that?

“Is he an Alpha?”

I want to know more about this person.

Hank eyes me before falling back on my bed.

“Ya. He’s an Alpha. The way his pack works, you have to fight the Alpha to get the title.”

“So he’s….”

“He’s already fought the Alpha of his pack. He’s the Alpha. He’s not there to train and beat anyone. He’s already done it.”

I look at Hank in astonishment, “How old is he?”

“Really Lay?” Hank looks up at me annoyed, “why do I have to talk about this guy, even when I’m away from training?”

“Sorry, sorry,” I look away and at my blank canvas. I want to ask Hank what he looks like. To describe him to me.

I want to paint this stranger.

My hands are aching to do so.