Chapter 62: This Is A Warning...
Fucking hell, I almost got hit by a basketball. The speed of that ball was so fast that no matter how I reacted, I wouldn’t have been able to catch it. I wouldn’t have even had time to blink.
The ball was levitating an inch away from my head, just a little bit away from touching me. It just hung there in mid-air, defying gravity. No one was holding it. My heart was thumping so hard I could feel it in my throat.
I turned to my side to see Sasha staring at the ball, her hand raised and her face strained with effort. She was the one who stopped it from hitting me.
Fucking hell, she controls things now!
Immediately, I moved, and so did Malo. He was frightened, his eyes wide as saucers, giving me that look of I told you so. Like, what the fuck did he tell me so? We scrambled off the bleachers, our feet stumbling over the metal rows.
The ball made a heavy thud sound as it finally dropped and bounced on the ground, rolling away toward the center of the court.
We stared at Peamah, whose attention was now fixed entirely on Sasha, the one who had just saved my life. He looked pissed. I swear I could see the anger radiating off him in waves. His eyes were glowing a dark, toxic green. That wasn’t the color I remembered from that night in the woods. That night, his eyes had been a bright, predatory yellow. This was something different. Something darker.
In the blink of an eye, he leaped from the center of the court to exactly where Sasha was standing.
That was fucking fast. Really fast.
It’s true what everyone has been saying. He’s ten times stronger than he ever was before he died.
Without a word, he grabbed Sasha by the front of her shirt and flung her across the court like she was a rag doll. She hit the floorboards with a sickening slide. Then he turned those glowing eyes toward us.
We were already trying to scramble down from the seats, ready to run for our lives before things got even worse. I really didn’t want to end up like Sasha, who was now groaning on the floor, trying to catch her breath.
Then suddenly, he was right in front of us. He hadn’t even seemed to run; he was just there.
Those green glowing eyes locked onto mine. I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I swallowed hard, wishing with everything I had that I had just stayed in bed this morning or left the court earlier.
He reached out and grabbed both of us at the same time, lifting us up by our collars. To him, it looked completely effortless, like he was just lifting a couple of light weights at the gym. My feet dangled off the ground, and I could feel the fabric of my shirt pulling tight against my throat.
Just when I thought he was going to throw us across the room like he did to Sasha, he carried us over to where she was instead. He walked with a heavy, purposeful stride.
Malo was shouting for help, wiggling his arms and legs like a cockroach that had just been sprayed with insecticide. I wasn’t screaming, but I was terrified. My hands were shaking as I gripped his forearms, trying to loosen the hold.
He dropped us both to the ground. Malo bumped right into Sasha, who was just starting to push herself up, and she fell right back down under his weight.
Malo quickly sat up, breathless, and looked up at Peamah with a pleading expression.
"Look, big guy, we didn’t do anything! It was all her! She’s the one who ripped your heart out, not me or Faye. Just like you, we are actually her victims. So just let us go, and I promise I won’t tell a single soul about this assault. I’ll even pretend like I was never even here today..." Malo said, the words tripping over each other in his rush to get them out.
"Shut up!" Peamah growled. The sound was low and vibrated through the floor.
Immediately, Malo went dead quiet. He scooted closer to me on the floor, grabbing onto my hand like a lifeline. One word from Peamah, and he had turned into a frightened kitten.
"Just so you know, I’m carrying Princess’s pups. What you did earlier... when she finds out about that ball, she will kill you," I said. I tried to make my voice sound steady, using Princess’s name like a shield to scare him off.
Honestly, I wasn’t wrong. If Princess finds out he threw that ball at my head with that much force, she will do something absolutely crazy. She’s already protective enough as it is.
"Do you really think I should care?" he said, his voice cold and flat. "I’m not scared of a baby Alpha. I’m stronger than her now. She should be the one who’s scared of me."
Oh fuck.
This version of Peamah isn’t scared of an Alpha. He isn’t scared of anyone. And it’s true... he’s fast. That leap from the middle of the court proved he wasn’t lying about his strength.
From where I was sitting on the floor, I slowly moved onto my knees, trying to look less like a target.
"Look, what happened to you that night... it wasn’t our fault. If you’re looking for revenge, we are not the ones you should be coming after," I said, trying to appeal to whatever logic he had left.
"If I wanted revenge for what you three did to me that night, you’d already be dead. Your last rites would have been done by now," he said coldly, staring down at us.
"But right now, I don’t even care about that. I didn’t even want to come after any of you... until you started stalking me."
He pointed a finger at Sasha, who was still clutching her ribs on the floor.
"You first. Following me from the convenience store all the way to my house."
Then he pointed at Malo and me.
"And you two. Always staring at me every time I train. Like earlier, MG was in the boys’ locker room, secretly watching me... even when I was taking a shower."
"I wasn’t staring! I just wanted to check if you had a scar on your back, that’s all!" Malo defended himself, his voice squeaking a little.
"I said shut up," Peamah snapped, his eyes flashing that dark green.
"Yes sir," Malo said immediately, shrinking back.
"And you," Peamah said, turning his focus back to me.
The fuck did I do? I wasn’t the one watching him in the locker room or following him home. I had stayed as far away as possible.
"Stay away from my head. I don’t want you inside my head ever again."
"I don’t even understand what you mean. What the fuck would I even be doing inside your head?" I asked, genuinely confused. I don’t have powers like Sasha, and I can’t read minds.
"I don’t know," he said, looking almost frustrated for a split second. "But you’re always there. And I don’t want you there."
There was something really off about the way he said it. His voice had lost some of that icy edge, replaced by something that sounded almost like confusion.
"If you three know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from me," he continued, his tone turning hard again. "This championship is really important to me. I have to win for the team. It’s the only thing that matters to me."
He paused for a moment, looking around the empty gym. Then his voice dropped slightly, losing the growl.
"So I’m begging you... stop what you’re doing. This is a warning."
That was it. That was his warning.
And just like that, he turned around and walked away, leaving us there on the court floor. We didn’t move. We didn’t even breathe until we heard the heavy court doors creak open and shut behind him.
We just sat there on the hardwood... completely speechless.
