The Mysterious Demon

-Dominic’s POV-

Gym class was next.

I sighed. It wasn’t as if I didn’t like gym class, it was my speciality after all, but what we do during gym was always boring as fuck. It wasn’t challenging, it didn’t work up a sweat, girls usually had it easier and I couldn’t use any of my strength at all. It was seriously a waste.

It was the last term of high school for me. Most people had been here for years and years and couldn’t wait to get out in a months time. They claimed they’d miss the place, miss the people in it. I had no such connection. I wasn’t going to miss the building I hardly spent time in, I didn’t have people I was going to miss, the teachers were useless, the education system a failure. But one thing I could relate to was the want to be free.

I had taken the exams I was meant to take. I could tell I did well, Xavier would hate me if I failed anything despite all of his efforts to teach me which he’s done successfully. I excelled for him. His pride was my pride. Even if I cared little to nothing about grades or moving onto American collage. My good grades are also the only reason I’m allowed to stay at this school. Nothing else kept me here.

Yet, alas, here I was. In the same corridors. Heading into the girls changing room. Despite having almost only 30% attendance, I was going to make an appearance in the last month of school and was going to attend gym class.

Silence and stares.

That was usually what I was met with now every time I went into a classroom. I didn’t blame them. I’ve been involved in so many fights, I’ve been suspected for murder, I disappear. It’s only natural for them to want to stay away from me but I didn’t care. That’s what I told myself. I didn’t care.

I got to a corner and started changing which is when they started talking normally again, some whispering about me but it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t in the mood anyway. I felt.. off.

After getting changed into kit we went to the sports hall where our lesson was going to be held. My eyes were glued onto the floor for most of the way there, more because of lack of interest in anything else than any other reason. When I did eventually raise my head, my eyes couldn’t help but widen at what I was seeing.

What the fuck was he doing here? I thought as I watched Xavier stand there with a grin plastered on his face.

“Gather around class so I can introduce myself to you all!” He boomed and everyone hurried to do as he ordered. Some more willingly than the rest of us. I turned to the boys and found Zack and Jake who were also in my gym class looking at me as if asking me why he was here but all I could do was shrug. My best guess would be that he was here to keep an eye on me like the doctor wanted him to.

“It’s nice to meet you all! My name is Xavier but I expect you all to call me sir!” I rolled my eyes, remembering when he tried to make me call him ‘sir’ when he first started tutoring me. I told him to go fuck himself. “The reason I am taking your class today is that I am promoting the gym that I work at which is known for its private bodybuilding and martial arts courses. You may be may familiar with it because a shooting went down over there last year.” A wave of mumbling spread between everyone. People definitely knew which gym he was talking about and of course, he had to mention the courses that he and I run. Almost made me laugh.

“Today, we’re going to be looking at a bit of self-defence-” I smirked as that sentence came out of his mouth. This gym class may not be as bad as I thought any more. The rest of the class seemed excited too. After answering some more questions and talking about some health and safety rules, we were ready to get started.

“I want you all to get into pairs. Dominic, you’ll be working with me.” I look around to have the whole class looking at me now, Xavier grinning smugly from in between them. “As you wish,” I mumbled and walked towards him.

He made us do some stretches and warmups in the beginning before saying he wanted to test us on the ‘high school kids’ favourite’ (whatever that meant) punching and blocking. “We’ll demonstrate,” Xavier announces after explaining the stances and importance of posture and reaction. He then came up to be and didn’t hesitate to throw a really hard punch, one he’d usually save for actual matches. I blocked. I see how it’s going to be.

He threw his next punch at me, it was again another hard one, he was trying to break through my block but I would let him and pushed harder against it. We both looked at each other’s eyes and switched, I threw a punch this time and he blocked me. The others looked at us with amazement and also a little worried which was humourous. The contact must have been loud.

It wasn’t long after, I finally broke through his block was he was able to evade getting hit. “Like that but not as harsh,” Xavier said chuckling a bit out of breath.

“Sir!” Someone called out, “Yes?” “Do you and Demonic know each other?”

The question made Xavier and I turn to each other. I was expecting him to say no but he suddenly slung an arm around my shoulder and brought me closer to him before answering, “Of course! We work at the same gym.” You could physically see their changes in opinion on me once he said this, couldn’t really call myself a fan. “Now, get punching!”

—

“Last technique!” There was still more?

This past hour Xavier took the opportunity to make this as hard as he could for me, knowing I couldn’t fight back to higher his ego and pride. He definitely thought this was all a joke to him, I could practically see him laugh as he threw me around.

He explained the last technique, my role again being the attacker which usually left me in the worst position after. Xavier took hold of my shirt and lifted. I wasn’t even up there long enough to see other people’s faces before he crashed me onto the ground which anyone could tell made a huge impact on the floor.

I’m sure I heard people gasp, another shriek. I held in a gasp of pain and instead grit my teeth while I was faced away from everyone’s eyes.

Xavier was too busy explaining key points to the class to notice he was still on top of me, holding me down with all of his weight and pushing down on my joints.

After he was done talking I raised my head up a bit and went to his ear, “You’re dead once I get to the bar,” I whispered with a threat filled voice. He must have felt my anger because I could feel him freeze on the spot while looking forward. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath which made me smirk. It didn’t last long though because he picked me up again, “when you’re good enough you can go from that position-” then crashed me on the floor in another position a second time, “to this one which puts more pressure on them and more control to you,” he carried on.

“You are so fucked,” I say when he turns his face to me, “that’s why I’m going to make the most of it now,” he says confidently back with a devilish grin. What was this? Childish revenge?

“Aren’t you going a bit harsh on her?” Jake then asked which made me chuckle. I may be in pain but too harsh?

“What? No! Of course not. Dominic is trained for these sort of things, right?” Xavier asked me, having the time of his life on top of me. I put a grin on my face and faced the class, “Yeah, it’s a normal routine,” -for the strangest street fighters in the world I wanted to add. I could only hope that none of these students actually learnt from us today.

After that beating session from Xavier, the lesson was finally over. As people were walking back to the changing rooms I made sure to give Xavier a really hard blow to the stomach as my own type of revenge. He kept in a groan of pain behind a smirk as I turned away and towards the changing rooms too, “Love you too, demon!” He called out laughing- still in pain.

While I was changing I noticed the girls were whispering again but this time it was different. “Omg look!” “She actually has abs,” “Her body has so many scars” “Ew I could not with those bruises,”

I bit my lip to stop myself from saying anything and put my clothes on as quickly as I could, making me one of the first to leave for lunch. I was hoping to be able to leave school and beat up a certain street fighter but when I came out I was met with unexpected faces. Unexpected and unfamiliar.

A group of guys had gathered around and seemed to be waiting for someone to come out and, unfortunately, the person was me. “Demoni-!” One was about to call but another jabbed him on the side which made him stop and correct himself. “Sorry, I mean, Dominic,” I almost rolled my eyes at them. Could there be anyone faker than them right now? I decided to ignore them. I really really wasn’t feeling like dealing with anyone right now. “Hey, don’t ignore us!” they called at me when I tried walking away.

“What the fuck do you want?” I growled, looking back at them with all the hate in the world. These boys weren’t going to leave me alone unless I put some fear into them. I kept glaring at them and watched as the first guy took out his phone and swiped around as if looking for something on it.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“Is this you?” He asked and showed me a video. It was of me at Zack’s house beating up a few other guys. “So what-?” “It’s her!” He suddenly shouted, cutting me off and before I could move, I was held by a pair of arms behind me and shoved onto the wall before hearing something being torn off of me. I felt my eyes widen as I looked down at the shirt they ripped off of me but I was still unable to move away from them.

“Make sure you smile for the photo!” I heard one say before a camera went off. I looked down, feeling weak, feeling helpless-

“Oi! What the Fuck do you think you’re doing?!” I kept looking down and listened to the sounds of shoes running towards me and others running away. “Shit, get her a shirt.”

It seemed that Zack and Jake had just come out of their changing room but were too late to prevent anything. Zack took off his shirt and gave it to me which I took slowly with gratitude. It wasn’t like I was nude but I couldn’t walk the rest of the day with only bandages around my chest so the shirt was mandatory. Putting it on, I looked up at the boys’ faces which only held sympathy and anger towards the group who ran away.

“Why didn’t you fight back?” Zack asked me and I tried answering but my voice got caught in my throat and I couldn’t. Jake seemed to notice so he wrapped his arm around my shoulder -making me flinch- before saying, “let’s go have lunch yeah? We’ll talk about this with the rest of the guys and figure out a way to fuck those guys up,” Zack nodded at this and put another shirt on himself before we all went to the lunch hall.

It was weird. Why didn’t I fight back? Why did I feel so suffocated? Why did I feel uncomfortable in my own skin? Why did I suddenly feel so… alone?

I gulped down a whole bottle of water once we got to a table and stared at it once it was empty.

Jason then joined us. Blake wasn’t here yet and Nick hadn’t come in today because of some work he had to do with his gang’s division in Italy.

“Everyone got sent the pic,” “What?!” That wasn’t that surprising I guess. Having proof of beating someone strong and not sharing it? Seemed unlikely. I shut my eyes tightly and squeezed on the empty water bottle. The fuck do I do?

Suddenly the door to the cafeteria was smashed open to reveal an angry face with dirty blonde hair and dark eyes which scanned the crowd until he was able to see his friends who were standing and blocking him from seeing me as I was sitting.

“Who the fuck took the photo?!” Blake shouted which made silence follow. Blake’s anger made me feel ashamed of myself and embarrassed. How could I have let him see me like that?

I could hear the steps of Blake coming closer to us as people started talking to each other again so I decided to take the initiative and started to leave through the back doors. With Zack’s shirt and a beanie, we hopefully wouldn’t know it’s me so I stood up and left.

“William? Can you pick me up?”

.