If I'm being completely honest, Isaac was my entire inspiration for this fic. You will be seeing a lot of him.


When I woke up the next morning, the ambience of the place was completely still and silent.
I didn't hear the rustling of feet or the pound of heartbeats. There was nothing, only the 'plink' of water dripping onto metal and the buzzing of circuitry overhead.
I forced myself to my feet, trying not to move too quickly.
I wasn't as sore as eight hours ago, but the bruises still hurt immensely. I wondered if I had a few fractured bones, then laughed at myself for being so silly.
Of course my bones were broken.
I peeled back my sleeves to look at my arms, which were now a purplish brown color surrounded by a yellow that faded into the color of my skin.
They should be healed by tomorrow, I thought to myself, not bothering to check the wounds under my shirt.
As I rolled my sleeves back down, I heard footsteps descending the stairs, slowly.
"Where is everyone?" I asked as I saw Derek turn the corner.
He was wearing a black leather jacket over a black tee shirt, dark denim jeans, and black leather combat boots with silver aglets to offset the absence of color. I was beginning to sense that darkness was a theme with him, mood and all.
"School," he replied.
"Oh," I said. I'd forgotten all about school. Where I came from, school was just another thing I subjected myself to so my parents could keep up the superficial façade that our family was normal.
I didn't like school. I was the freak show, the one with hand me down clothes that wore sweaters in the summertime to hide the black and blue welts that covered ever inch of skin that could be hidden with a piece of cloth.
I was an outcast in school, much like in my own home, and I was glad I'd never have to go back to either one of them again.
"So since you can't go with them, you'll be spending the day with me," Derek said. "Showing me your skills."
"Skills?" I asked apprehensively.
"Yeah," he said. "I need to know what you can do, where to place you during fights. And the only way I can do that is for you," he said, straightening a mat out adjacent to the train, "to show me what you're capable of."
I sighed. "Okay. What do you want me to do?"
"First, we'll start off with something simple. See that seat frame over there?" he said, nodding towards the skeleton of a steal bench. "Throw it."
I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he was serious. That thing easily weighed three hundred pounds, and the most I'd ever hurled was about one hundred and eighty. Granted, that was years before I'd even heard of Derek, but how much can one's strength improve without proper weight training?
He stood there, arms crossed over his ridiculously large pectoral muscles, and glared at me.
I nodded, not wanting to find out what would happen if I disobeyed him.
I made my way over to it slowly, wiping my sweaty palms down my pants.
I grabbed the top of the frame with one hand and the bottom of it with the other, and pulled with all my might.
I could barely hold it two inches above the ground. "What happened to hollow aluminum?" I grunted, dropping it to the ground with a large clatter.
"It's an old bus," Derek mused. "Is that all you can do?"
I shook my head, grabbing the frame again, with my eyes closed.
I lifted, directing all the weight to my knees and all of my power to my shoulders.
I swung it a bit, trying to gain momentum. As soon as it was behind me, I pushed all of my weight forward, thrusting it into the air and ten or eleven feet across the floor.
As soon as I let go, I fell face first into the ground, a cloud of dirt puffing up around me.
Derek pressed the toe of his boot into my side, rolling me over to face him. He pulled me up by my shoulders, slamming me onto my feet as I coughed and sputtered.
"How was that?" I asked.
"Enlightening," he replied apathetically. "Now I want to see you run."
"Where?"
"Start at the other end of the platform, go up the stairs, over the railing and all the way back to me." He said.
"Are you going to time me?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I already know you can outrun a human, what I want to see is how tactfully you can do it. Use things around you to propel yourself. Think creative," he told me. "You're running away from bullets."
"Alright," I said, nodding. "Alright, I can do that."
"Good," he said. "One more thing." He walked over to a chest propped up against the train and opened it, fiddling inside of it for a few minutes. The chest was filled with metal chains, head gear, and shackles.
I didn't even want to know what he used any of it for.
"Ah ha!" He said finally, pulling something out slowly and carefully.
He turned around, grinning mischievously. In his hands was a two foot long paintball gun with six oxygen chambers and a magazine full of green paintballs.
"What the hell-" I began, but then he cut me off.
"Training has officially begun," he said, pulling the thing up to his shoulder and aiming it at me.
"Sh-" I began to spit out the profane word, but was cut off by a sharp pain shooting through my abdomen.
I looked down to see a big green stain on my shirt, then looked back up at Derek just in time to watch him reach for the trigger again.
I sidestepped in a millisecond, hopping a few feet at a time to reach the frame I'd tossed earlier.
I hopped onto it, using it as a platform to hurl myself up, my hands catching one of the light fixtures.
I held on loosely, quickly swinging myself backwards. A paintball hit, busting the light open just as I released and free flew to a ventilation tube. I grabbed onto it, claws sinking into the metal. I pulled myself up onto it, wasting no time at jumping the last six feet toward the top of the stare case.
I didn't quite make it all the way up.
My head landed between two steps, my body half dangling off the side. I pulled myself up just as another little orb zoomed past my head, missing me by no more than a centimeter.
"You have got to be kidding me," I growled breathlessly. I swung my legs up over the side, climbing the last few steps on all fours. There was some railing where the second level of stairs connected to the first.
Assuming that's what he was talking about, I climbed over it, sandwiching myself between the wall and the rails.
I looked down, ten feet between me and the concrete.
I closed my eyes and dropped, rolling a few times once I hit the ground.
The paintballs kept flying at me as I made my way towards Derek, and I dodged them, each one just barely missing my flesh.
"I thought you said come back to you!" I shouted at him.
"I did," he said. "But I'm the enemy. Come to me, Charlie. Take me down"
I growled, hopping into the train. Paint balls flew threw each window, hitting the metal insides just inches in front of me. I ran over the tops of the seats, and through the hole where the front door once hung.
For a moment, I watched Derek's head whip around, searching for me.
I took that opportunity to squeeze myself underneath the train, struggling to keep my breath even so that my heartbeat wouldn't give away my location.
I watched his black boots pace the floor cautiously, each step calculated so as not to make much noise.
I scooted closer to the very edge of my shelter, my hand opened and outstretched, waiting for an opportunity.
Soon enough, his feet came close enough to me that I was able to grab hold of the bottom of his pant leg, yanking with all of my might. I didn't pull him down completely, but I threw his balance off enough that he toppled over himself, the gun skidding across the concrete.
I slid out from my hiding place quickly, snatching the gun up and turning to fire.
As soon as I pivoted, I saw Derek's golden eyes glowing just inches away from me. He yanked the gun, nearly dislocating my shoulder.
I cried out, letting go of the handle. I slid across the floor, my elbows dragging the concrete.
I sucked in air, turning on my side and pressing my arms up against my torso, biting my tongue so I didn't cry out.
Derek's large form hovered over me, his face not quite clear as I struggled to focus my vision.
"Not bad," he said. "Now do it again."
"What?" I protested, hopping up from my place on the ground. I looked at my arms, skinned and bloodied, and wondered how I could possibly make it through something like that again.
"You heard me," he said, staring at me with eyes not amused. He picked the gun up, aiming at me with no mercy in his stance.
I groaned, trying not to pass out from having the breath knocked out of me. I forced my legs to pedal, pushing myself to my maximum energy output.
We ran through the course over and over until I thought all of my limbs might fall off. Though there seemed to be less paintballs shot at me each time, the stress accelerated until finally I just collapsed onto the dirty floor and threw my arms out to the side, crucifixion style.
"Get up," Derek commanded.
"I can't," I said breathlessly. "I can't even feel my legs."
Suddenly, I was yanked up by my shoulders, mine and Derek's noses just an inch away from each other.
My feet dangled an uncomfortable length from the ground as his fingers dug into my skin.
"Preparation is never over," he said. "These little courses I make you run- they're the difference between being one second ahead or one second too late. Understand?"
I nodded.
"Good," he said. "Now go change your shirt and get some rest. Once they get back, we have to lock up for the full moon."
He set me back down on the ground, and I fell back into my arms spread position, this time laying on my stomach. "I'd almost rather the Argents shoot me," I muttered, my brain completely shutting off.
I fell into a restless sleeping state where I was still aware of where I was, but I couldn't have gotten myself up off the ground even if I wanted to.
I was so tired, so utterly exhausted that I didn't mind taking a dirt nap, literally or figuratively. I was just that extremely worn out.
Soon, too soon, someone was shaking me awake. I didn't make a sound, I didn't move. I felt that, maybe if I pretended to be catatonic, whoever it was would just leave me alone and let me stay there in agonizing bliss. But, unfortunately, with the shaking came a voice. A soothing voice, that roused me just enough that I forced my eyes to unglue.
"Hey," Isaac greeted me. He was kneeling beside me, a backpack on the ground beside him.
"Hi," I said, forcing myself into a sitting position. I wiped the dirt from my face, groaning as my muscles ached in protest of my movements.
"What, did Derek give you sleeping pills for breakfast or something?" He asked.
I laughed, the mention of food making my stomach leap. "No," I said, rubbing my eyes, "paintballs."
"You ate paintballs for breakfast?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
"No, I spent the wee hours of the morning having paintballs shot at me," I said.
"Ohhh," Isaac said, his voice empathetic and understanding. "Initiation," he said, pulling his jacket off.
I couldn't help but watch the veins in his arms, so distinct through his pale, translucent looking skin. His muscles bulged around the cuff of his tee shirt, making his lanky frame seem a good deal more built than he actually was.
"If you can call it that," I muttered, looking down at the huge stain on my shirt.
I poked the scabs on my forearms, "Ouch." They were still very tender. My sleeves were shredded to pieces. I pulled at them, trying to find enough fabric to fold back over my arms.
"I think it's time to retire that shirt," Isaac commented. "The back doesn't look any better than the sleeves."
My fingers found their way to the backside of my shirt, or what was left of it. What I felt was mostly skin.
I cursed, embarrassed that I hadn't noticed so much of myself was exposed.
"I'll be right back," Isaac said, returning moments later with something black and soft looking in his hands.
He tossed it into my lap and I unfolded it. It was a long sleeve ball park shirt with a pocket on the front and three buttons down the neckline.
"That's the smallest one I have," he said. "I would go get something of Erica's, but I I'm sure you don't want that fight on your hands."
I shook my head, "No," I agreed. "At least, not while I can barely feel my lower body."
He laughed, "What did Derek make you do?"
"Throw that thing," I said, pointing at the seat frame. "And run around the circumference of this whole place, ducking and rolling for four hours."
"While shooting paintballs at you," he added.
"While… shooting paintballs at me," I affirmed.
I thought back to what my father used to do to me for training. I remembered how he'd tie roped around my wrist, so tight that they would bleed, and make me claw my way out of my binds. I remember how he used to pounce on me in the middle of the night, making me fight to keep his huge hands from smothering me. I could still smell the sweat of his palms, closing in over my nose and mouth, suffocating me as I fought with all the insane power I had.
It never seemed enough, though, not for him. He'd always close off his sessions with a good slam against the wall, to remind me that no matter how well I was able to fend him off, he was still alpha. I never really understood why he did the things he did to me. I guess, in his mind, he was making me stronger. Preparing me. But for what, I couldn't know.
All I knew was that Derek had a reason for his methods, and he wasn't trying to break me, he was trying to make me stronger.
"It was hard the first time for me, too," he said. "It's still frustrating as hell most times."
"It could always be worse," I said, switching my gaze from the floor to his face. "Where are Erica and Boyd?"
"At home," he said. "They have to spend some time there, at least. Otherwise their parents would send out a search party."
"What about yours?" I asked.
"What? My parents?" He looked at the ground beneath him, his expression darkening. "I don't think I have to worry about that. There's about six feet of dirt between them and I."
"Oh," I whispered. "I'm sorry…"
"Don't be," Isaac said, shaking his head at me. "I never really knew my mother, and my father…" his voice trailed off. "Well, he was.."
"I understand," I said. Believe me, I thought, I understand completely.
For some reason, I couldn't help but try to look past the hardened, bad boy demeanor he had going.
I mean, tight tee shirts and leather everything else, claws nearly constantly extended… Isaac had some identity issues, but nothing more severe than anything I'd personally encountered
Past that smirk, and the refusal to make eye contact for more than two seconds, there was something more than arrogance. Something painful and well hidden.
In fact, I wouldn't have recognized it, had it not been the same thing I saw every time I looked in a mirror.


I need some help with this one. I know it's a good bit shorter than the first chapter, but I wasn't exactly sure how to go about continuing their conversation without Isaac being too out of character. So... should I continue their little chat in the next chapter (which WILL be longer)? If so, how?

Also, I apologize for any misspelled words or grammatical errors. I'm very new to this site, so please be patient. THANK YOU!