Chapter 3: Bully

~Aria's POV~

The door flew open.

I didn't bother trying to grab the mop or the bucket.

I ran.

My shoes slid on the wet floor as I rounded the corner, my heart pounding so hard it was a wonder the walls didn't shake. The door to the stairwell came into view, a heavy steel door with rusted hinges. I shoved it open, wobbled inside, and pressed myself against the wall, my labored breaths the only sound as the door closed behind me.

"What?!" I stiffened as Vanessa's furious voice echoed through the hallway. "Which Omega was cleaning this floor? I'm taking this up with Luna Serena! Luna Serena! Someone better pay for this mess!"

Footsteps stopped just outside the stairwell. I heard the door to the classroom open.

"At least there wasn't much water in the bucket," said Adrian, his voice calm and smooth. "If it hadn't been for that, I would've made sure to pay for her new heels after I slipped."

My nails dug into my palm.

"Spare me, Adrian," Vanessa snapped. "Who does do you think you are? Alpha Heir Kieran?"

There was a pause. I could practically picture the smirk on Adrian's face as he concealed his emotions.

"I am the young master of the Delta Carter Family," he finally said. "I would have killed you already."

"Then get rid of that useless Aria already," said Vanessa. "I wish she was dead."

I heard her picking up her shoes by the sound of the rustling fabric. Then the sound of the shoe rack being put away.

Their footsteps got farther and farther away. Once they were gone, I slid down the wall until my knees pressed against my chest. And then, just as every Omega was taught to do, I cried. No sound escaped me, silent tears sliding down my cheeks.

Vanessa has been harrassing me since day one. As the Beta's daughter, she had a room in the second floor of the Alpha House, three times bigger than the damp basement my mom and I had to call home.

I was six when our paths first crossed. Her kitten had gotten loose, and she came to find it. I clearly remembered the first words she said to me.

"An Omega like you dares have chocolate-brown hair and green eyes?"

She hasn't hit me, kicked me, or insulted me back then. She just looked at me with calculating dark eyes, as if she was already seeing my future.

Two months passed, and everything changed. Kieran came back from his seclusion with the Grand Wizard, and he was seven. I had to clean his room as it was a direct order from Luna Serena, one of the many chores an Omega child had to do. When he found me there, he frowned.

"What are you doing here?"

I told him Luna Serena told me to clean his room.

He looked at me strangely after that when I said that I wasn't in school.

"Omegas don't go to school."

His brows furrowed together. "That's ridiculous. You're seven, you should be going."

And so the next day, he took me to his lessons. That was when it started. And that was when the other students, mainly Vanessa, began harassing me. She found various ways to make my life a living hell. She put chalk dust in my drinking tube, left used panties in my desk, attached chewing gums in my chair, and even cursed me out whenever our paths crossed in the hallway.

When Kieran would see her do these things, she would feign innocence and say that we were playing games.

For a while, he actually believed her.

Soon enough, his own lessons became more complex and rigorous, making him not have the time to spend with me. Nevertheless, he would find time to ask about my studies. I thought of him as my friend. My only friend until a year ago.

Until the day everything changed. It was a practice session that involved cliff climbing behind the academy. I was always bad at physical exercises, mainly because I was smaller and thinner than the other girls and didn't have enough muscle mass. Nevertheless, I trained hard.

I climbed higher and higher. Until Vanessa's lackeys, Ava and Ivy decided to play a prank. As they climbed higher, they grabbed the waistband of my training pants and gave a hard tug, sliding them down my hips.

It was the second day of my cycle, and the blood had already soaked through my pad. Using their climbing hooks, the roughly pulled the now blood-soaked pad down before throwing it up and down between them like a Frisbee.

"Look! Look! Aria thinks flashing her period blood will attract the boys!"

"That's gross!"

"Maybe that's how Omegas find their mates!"

Everyone started laughing. The boys were the worst, and they watched as I desperately tried to retrieve the disgusting thing and hide the bulging blood spots on my pants. They were stronger and faster than me, so I failed.

I ended up on my knees at the foot of the cliff, staring at the people who made me feel so ashamed. I memorized every face as if I was seeing them for the first time.

Then, Kieran appeared. The senior students were the ones who supervised the training grounds, and they immediately saw the commotion.

"Vanessa. Ava. Ivy." His voice was like steel as he looked down at the three of us. "Five hundred laps around the mountain. Three thousand kilometers."

"Now." He said darkly. They ran until the sun set. Then the moon rose, their tired figures stumbling back to the Alpha House.

By the time, they reached their destination, Vanessa was even more furious. She went straight to the Luna Serena and blamed me for trying to seduce Kieran, saying that I had planned that day to get his sympathy.

She was furious that an Omega like me dared to try and act as if I was worthy to be around the future Alpha.

The next morning, Luna Serena summoned me to her office.

"You will leave the academy," she said emotionlessly. "If you don't comply, your mother and you will be exiled from this pack. You will become a rogue."

Every wolf hated the term 'rogue'. A rogue was someone whose pack exiled due to their actions, and they had to fend for themselves. It was the most horrible fate any child could receive. These people wandered from city to city, barely surviving. And I didn't want that to happen to my mother. So, I agreed.

Kieran found out weeks later, and he was angry. He came to the basement where I was and stared at me furiously.

"Why? Why did you give up so easily?"

I wanted to tell him the truth. Tell him that it was Luna Serena who made me do it, that my mother would be starving if I didn't leave. But, I didn't. Instead, I did what Luna Serena told me and stopped acknowledging his existence.

Every time he came to the basement, I looked away. Every time he tried to talk, I walked away. Until one day, the sadness in his eyes turned to anger.

He said regretfully. "I thought you were stronger and more independent."

He turned around and left. That was the day he left to study overseas. I'm sure it had something to do with Luna Serena, too. She didn't want anyone, especially an Omega like me, to be around the future Alpha.

Months later, Alpha Victor took notice of something strange. My name was still on the list of the highest scorers in the academy, even though I had been gone for a while.

He called me to his office and questioned as to why the best student was suddenly gone. I told him I had made a mistake and that I wanted to finish my education, and he ordered the school to let me come back. Even Luna Serena couldn't refuse his orders.

And so I came back to school, but Kieran was never seen again.

Eventually...I learned to live without him.