It was way too early to wake up.
It was way too early to go to school.
But I was way too excited and ready. If I waited inside the house for anytime longer, I might just go ahead and experience combusting.
I decided that even if I couldn't drive Raven, my precious motorbike, I could still take care of her. It had been some time since I changed the oil and cleaned the chain, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and the tools I needed were all under the kitchen sink.
Pleased with my little diversion, I left my jacket inside, celebrating the strange sun that was still making an appearance against the well-established reputation of this place. I regretted leaving the jacket inside the second the door to the house closed behind me — it was the coldest I've ever felt since the day I first came here. The sun was only there for decoration.
I hated the cold.
As I stood in front of the white-painted garage door and checked both my pockets for the key to open it, I felt a shiver in my back and it wasn't because of the weather this time.
Someone was watching me, again.
I wasn't able to shake the sensation of being watched all the time lately. First, I thought I was being paranoid because it began the day I feared someone might attack Sophia, but as the days went by, the feeling simply refused to leave me, my neck was prickling at the moment, and the level of my suffocation for being under a stranger's gaze was becoming too much to bear by the second. I decided to stop looking for the key and bent down to open the garage door manually. Wanting to put a barrier between myself and whoever the other person was.
I both felt and heard someone approaching.
It took every ounce of my self-control not to turn back and attack whoever it was first, an instinct I was only beginning to get a taste of recently. If I did turn back to attack, there was a significant possibility that I would go for the instant kill.
I wasn't ready for that. Nor will I ever be.
It wasn't what martial arts were for.
I almost lost my temper again as I recognized something, it wasn't only one person approaching, there were at least two of them.
No, there were three of them.
They were coming from different directions all at once, this was premeditated.
As a part of my brain was going through kickboxing techniques for self-defense. Another part — that annoyed the hell out of me — wondered whatever they chose me for, what was special about a guy like me anyway? Other than the fact that I was their last target, and that they would regret this moment for as long as they breathed.
First-degree theft is a class B felony, they would get10 years in prison and a fine of probably $100,000. I was the son of a great lawyer, and it was the path that both Li and I were going to take.
Those guys were going to be a good practice, a first unofficial case. I liked that idea.
As I felt them a few steps behind me now, and with dad's image inside my brain, the old man inside of me urged me to reason with them or at least try to. I was confident in my ability to neutralize the three of them unless they pointed guns at me from where they stood right now.
That would be a bit too much and suck for me overall.
I turned slowly and faced them, they looked familiar, it took me one second to figure out why... they were the guys from yesterday's fight.
Maybe it was all in my head, maybe there was no scheming and lying, maybe Mrs. White told me nothing but the truth. Perhaps as they ran in my direction, their target was me and not Liam Johnson.
Why would they be here right now for revenge otherwise?
I took a deep breath as I felt the adrenaline rush, my body and my mind were preparing for the upcoming event, there was going to be a fight now for sure.
I wanted to stay calm, I was going to subdue them calmly, that was until the guy in the middle opened his mouth.
"King."
That one word flipped my world upside down at that exact moment.
They were after King... after Elizabeth... since probably yesterday.
My Elizabeth.
The three of them were as good as dead.
My father taught me that the key to fighting multiple offenders was not getting between them. So the smart thing to do was to stay outside the group and try to force them to fight one at a time.
I would've done that if they hadn't mentioned her name.
I went on full offense mode aggressively and attacked first, going after the leader. The one who liked standing in the middle as he had done so yesterday and today, he was also the one who dared mention her. They changed their postures quickly and I understood that the other two wanted to flank me, but I avoided being caught in a triangle, it was not hard at all, I knew where the other two were and was one step ahead of them as if I had the ability to read their minds.
My strikes were incisive blows that targeted weak spots such as their temples, groins, and knees. I went on a full rampage and for the first time in my life, I wasn't aware of what I was exactly doing while fighting, or the amount of force I was delivering to my opponent.
I was out for their blood.
I had one of them by the collar and was about to deliver an uppercut when I heard something I wasn't supposed to. Not here and now.
"Theodor!"
It was her one and only euphonious voice, screaming my name, and it was painful for me to hear it now of all times. I looked behind me, panicked.
Many things happened at the same time.
Elizabeth King was standing in the middle between two men, I recognized Wyatt immediately, and her friend, the girl who was a senior, stood tall behind her.
Everything was too vivid. The guy that I was holding went on a coughing episode, preparing to breathe his last while I continued choking him, the other two offenders, one trying to get up from where he was lying down over the ground, and the other one right next to him. All these vivid things that were next to me got interrupted as an insensible image hogged my attention, one thing stood on another level in my view. So I gave that the priority.
Other than Elizabeth's familiar eyes, every person in her group had the same ones, not the unworldly light almost white ones that I had noticed on Wyatt more than once before. But an awful bright crimson.
One thing was for sure, Elizabeth's friends were monsters.
And the monsters were all around her.
I dropped the guy that was about to die at my hands disgustingly and I shouted with all the strength in me at everyone that was there.
"Stay the hell away from her!"
It was like there was a hidden camera somewhere, what was happening around me felt surreal.
Everyone present at that moment bowed down their head and tilted their neck to the side, all the eyes that were only on me a few seconds ago, all of them were pinned to the ground, all of them, except for a set of two reddish brown ones. They did not look cold for once, they looked frightened.
'What are you afraid of?'
'I'm afraid of you!'
I didn't even have the luxury to blink. Her mouth was completely closed, her voice was in my head. And to top those two off, she was answering my unspoken question.
"Back away from my brother!"
Just before I was able to process the impossibility of what was happening to me and all over around, I heard my brother before I saw him, standing across from Elizabeth. He was clenching his fists, ready to strike, lowering and spreading his body for stability. His face was completely red, his brow was low, and he was showing all his teeth, scowling before then sneering.
I wished that was the end of the ongoing nonsense that continued to take place before my eyes.
Standing behind my brother were none other than the Johnson twins, and behind those were two abnormal dogs that made my huge brother look small in comparison.
The dogs, or were they wolves? They were polar opposites.
One of them was as black as the night itself, while the other was as white as the snow that had melted away today. And while the black one was male, the white one was obviously female.
.
.
.
How the hell was that obvious?
Her smart eyes brushed over me for a fraction of a second, then she looked at Elizabeth's group and snarled loudly. Giving me goosebumps.
I stood there, flabbergasted. Half expecting to wake up from the dream, or more appropriately, the nightmare, anytime now.
But nightmares were never this detailed.
"This is all a misunderstanding." Elizabeth directed her attention at Li, and I finally understood that the demand he made earlier was meant for the group that Elizabeth stood in the middle of and not the three offenders who were closer to me.
"Liam?" I finally found my voice, but his name was all I managed to say.
He looked at me, his features changing at once into ones of remorse, he didn't linger on me, he quickly went back to glaring Elizabeth's way, and something inside of me urged me to stand between them.
Out of everything that surrounded me, my brother posed the biggest threat to her. It was something I just knew.
The thought was unsettling, but I couldn't move a muscle.
"He was supposed to be safe here! This was supposed to be a restricted area!" Liam's chest heaved as he continued to shout at Elizabeth, accusing her of things that didn't make sense to me.
"The lines were blurry because they mean him no harm, it was simply loyalty, they were just unable to ignore how he makes them feel anymore." Elizabeth sounded as vulnerable as she looked.
"I don't want to hear it! You're full of excuses! Admit that his presence here changes everything and ask the Northwest packs to honor the treaty! Admit your incompetency so we can handle it already!" Liam kept mercilessly screaming at Elizabeth.
"That decision is not mine to make." Her voice was cold and she finally started resembling her usual self.
"I am telling you to ask your father!" Liam spat the words out.
"…It is not simple with Theodor in here now, father's leash has grown less effective, our kind, they unconsciously acknowledge the rise of their new king."
Did she just say 'our kind'?
"King." The leader of the group that was supposed to have come to attack me repeated the same word, the word that started everything and almost made a murderer out of me.
He looked at me, blood covering him from head to toe, his dazed eyes were full of admiration, and it clicked in my head the next second.
He was not talking about Elizabeth, to begin with.
He couldn't possibly be talking about... me.