Penance ↠ Volturi Kings {2} ✓

013

If I thought that my second time in control training would be easier than the first, I was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

There were several new faces when I arrived, and I clenched my jaw to keep from snarling when Doyle barked at me to get against the wall with the others as if I hadn't just done this the day previous.

"I believe we're waiting on Caesar to bring two more down here, then we'll begin," Doyle said, his red eyes raking over all of us, ensuring we were staying put in our places against the wall. The minutes ticked by until I heard footsteps coming from down the hall.

Caesar nudged two more newcomers in the door. "Here are the last two for you, Doyle. Next batch isn't set to complete the change for three days, they were just brought in this morning. So you have a bit of time to focus solely on this group."

"Excellent," Doyle said, grinning too widely for my liking. "Thanks as always, C, don't know what I'd do without you."

Caesar merely grunted in response before turning on his heel and disappearing. Doyle fixed his eyes on the final two newborns that Caesar had brought him. "Alright, newbies, here's how this works. You get against the wall. You stay against the wall. If you move off the wall, you get punished. Ain't that right, Cullen."

"Yes, sir," I ground out, knowing that was the answer he was looking for.

Doyle shoved the newborns aside to saunter towards me. "What was that? Couldn't quite hear you."

"Yes, sir," I repeated, digging my nails into my skin.

"That's what I thought." He turned away from me and I resisted the urge to rip off his head while his back was turned. "What are you standing around for, newbies? Get against the wall!" The two newborns quickly took places against the wall, looking like they'd rather not test Doyle's patience. "Good. Sam! Holt! Bring them out!"

The scent of blood hit me like a wall as Sam and Holt dumped two humans unceremoniously in the middle of the floor. I could hear their heartbeats pounding like a siren call as I forced myself to both breathe and ignore the call of the blood. I dug my fingers into the stone wall behind me and it crumbled under my grip.

"Against the wall!" Doyle snarled at one of the new faces I didn't recognize from the day previous, shoving the newborn back. I wondered if it would be worth it to lose my arms for even a drop of blood-

"Back, Cullen!" Sam bellowed. I hadn't even realized I had moved off the wall, and I backed up before Doyle could come and shove me.

It took six minutes and seventeen seconds (I had taken up counting the time as an attempt to distract myself from the scent of blood, though it was hardly working) for one of the unfamiliar newborns to snap and lunge forward.

Holt, who was devastatingly fast, grabbed him around the neck and threw him back into the wall. The newborn crouched, hissing.

"Don't do it," Holt warned, leaning on the balls of his feet. "You do not want to find out what happens to those who have decided to attack."

The newborn sized him up and lunged. "He warned you!" Doyle bellowed as Holt pinned the newborn in seconds. Doyle grabbed one arm and Sam grabbed the other, ripping them off in unison as the newborn screamed in pain.

"Against the wall," Holt snarled, hoisting the newborn up by the back of his shirt and tossing him into the wall. "Or it'll be your head next."

The savage display cast a sort of order over the rest of us newborns, who weren't eager to have the same happen to us. Stay against the wall, fight the bloodlust, and you don't get hurt. That was how it worked here.