Momma's Little Soldier

Chapter 14

So as predicted, waking up early for extra training was going to just wreck me, I have to fight the urge to sleep throughout the day, and even when I'm done with training for the day, everyone wants to go do something. Obviously, I'm not going to stay behind and sleep, I want to have a little bit of fun before my mother can suck it out of me before next year. The week is just about over and already I have worse dark circles under my eyes than before, I blame the guy who has given them to me. Although I will admit, Eric has been slightly giving into my jokes and sarcastic comments, he no longer threatens me with more laps. I have been doing well with training both with and without my fellow initiates, I am in the top 3 in rankings; I am in first, Bryce is in second, and Tom is right behind him in third, all I have to do is keep this up for another week and I will finish my first session of initiation in first. You know, if I don't pass out from my lack of sleep.

Speaking of lack of sleep, for some reason, I just couldn't find it in me to fall asleep, so instead of laying in the dark, listening to people snore, and watching the clock tick away, I just got out of bed and went to the training room to work on punching. I don't necessarily need to work on my punching, but it doesn't hurt to keep practicing I guess, just hope it won't get me in trouble for being here at three in the morning. I walked into the training area, walked over to the giant punching bags, and went to town punching and kicking the one I chose.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in here this early in the morning?!" As much as his voice didn't bounce back and hit me, it did startle me seeing as I didn't hear him come in. I slowly turned around so I could face him, placing my hands on my hips, "Ash?" I raised my eyebrows, giving him the "Yeah that's my name" look. I knew why he was confused, yesterday I decided to get piercings and change my hair color to a grayish silver, the only good thing about being here was that I could pierce, ink, and color whatever I wanted on my body. Eric was staring at me, more than he should've been, he walked closer to me and moved my left tank top strap to the side, exposing my collarbone piercing "Nice piercing."

There was this look in his eyes, a look that intrigued me, they almost seemed to show desire, hunger, lust a look I never pictured him showing to me, let alone giving to me. To break the tension, I moved my shoulder a bit and fixed my strap, "Yeah. Got a problem with it?" Clearly, he didn't, but I just wanted to see what lie he would come up with to hide his expression. Eric's eyes and face went back to the usual stone-cold expression once he made eye contact with me, backing away a bit, "Your mom is going to be pissed when she sees this." I shrugged my shoulders. "She may have told me to come here, but every decision I make from here on out is mine. If she doesn't like it, she'll learn to deal with it. I don't need my mother's permission for anything anymore." My voice was sassy as I intended it to be. Hopefully, he would drop the subject and move on.

"What are you doing here so early?" I was going to ask him the same thing, but I chose not to, knowing he wouldn't give me an answer anyways. "I couldn't sleep, so I just came here." I watched his eyes study my face and for what reason I don't know. "How much sleep have you been getting?" My face scrunched in confusion.

"About an hour each night. Why do you care?"

"Because if one of my initiates isn't properly resting up, there will be some serious damage." Oh look, the tin man does have somewhat of a heart. It's good to know that it's not an empty void where his heart is.

"I'll be fine, it's not that big of a deal." I turned back to face the punching bag and picked up where I left off. As my fist was about to make contact with the punching bag, Eric's hand grabbed it, stopping me from punching. I felt myself wince from his grip and he slowly opened his hand, revealing my bloody and slightly bruised fist. I looked away from him, trying to make it look like I didn't care what my fist looked like, "I told you, I'll be fine." I took my hand away from his, finally looking at him. "Unfortunately for you, I know the term "Fine" doesn't mean you're actually fine, but since you want to be stubborn about it and don't want to help yourself, then be my guest. Just so you know, that when you hurt yourself from the lack of sleeping, don't say I didn't warn you." His voice was deep because of that, I wanted to hide away, but instead, I just continued to stare at him. "Ten laps around the training room, two sets of your ab workout with thirty seconds rest in between, then finish it off with another ten laps. We will figure it out from there." With that, I took off.