Raven Chapter 23 Two Weeks of Hell and One Delicious Secret 297
Raven
I lied. A broken body may actually be the end of me.
The training sessions with Anik and Forrest are a masterclass in conflicting philosophies, and my body is the unwilling battleground.
After two weeks, I’m ready to wave the white flag.
I’ve even started wondering if I could sneak back into ghost form just to escape the ever-present ache that has become my new corporeal existence.
My mornings with Anik are a brutal kind of care.
He’s building a fortress with his own hands, his panther and shadows a constant, watchful presence.
The strength training is grueling, the flexibility drills feel like he’s personally rearranging my skeleton—but I push through.
Because without a single word, I feel he’s doing it to make me strong. To make me safe.
I see it in the way he blocks the door after every session, arms crossed and face of granite, and growls, “Healing salts. Bath. Now.” Before he leaves to go make me food.
I agree happily every time. Who wouldn’t? I get twenty minutes soaking in his jungle-paradise bathroom, and then he feeds me. It’s like part of him sees the shaking in my hands and the shadows under my eyes and needs to fix it, even if the other part of him is the one who put them there.
The afternoons with Forrest are what truly break me. It’s not training; it’s a crusade, and apparently, my body is the pagan village that needs converting.
“Your form is inefficient. Your stance is not structurally sound,” he snaps, as if I didn’t get thrust into this body with the grace of a baby giraffe on ice skates.
He treats my exhaustion like a moral failing, a personal weakness that needs to be scourged from me so I can be rebuilt into the perfect warrior who'll never put his team in jeopardy.
The worst part? I know he isn't trying to be a dick. He's just so focused on building the perfect fortress that he doesn't see what's really happening. That I'm too busy trying to earn a gold star to tell him the foundation is cracking.
Anik builds me up, even when it hurts. Forrest carves away my flaws, forgetting I’m inside. A large part of me is ashamed that I want his approval, so I keep my mouth shut. Maybe if I push a little harder, if I’m just a little better, I’ll be worthy of them.
It never happens. I just curl up in my bed at the end of every day, too numb for tears, and fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow.
Then I get up and do it all over again. If anything can be said for me, it's that I'm a woman of my word.
I work my ass off as the days blur into a cycle of sweat, pain, and stubborn determination.
Small graces keep me going. Stumbling from training to find a protein shake shoved into my hand by a grim-faced Anik—a shake that somehow tastes like it deserves Michelin stars. Or his growled command to eat when all I want is to flop into bed and cease existing.
One evening, after a session that left me seeing stars, Anik didn't just hand me a shake. He sat me down at the kitchen island, placed a bowl of something that smelled like heaven in front of me, and stood there, arms crossed, until I'd eaten every bite.
When I finished, he grunted, took the bowl, and said, "Tomorrow, we work on your core." Then he walked away. I sat there for a full minute, trying to decide if I'd just been fed or threatened. Probably both.
His shadows have been writhing at his feet in a permanent state of unrest, especially since Forrest canceled family night.
Of course, the bastard would find a way to steal my first one.
Time has lost all meaning in this cycle of pain.
I hadn't paid attention to the guys' schedules in days.
When was Forrest's last statue nap? Had he even taken one? I have no clue. All I know was that my one night of reprieve was taken away from me, and I’m in hell.
Also, I may or may not have snuck into his room and seam-ripped one arm of every single fancy suit jacket he owns. Just enough so it's not immediately noticeable. To say I'd pay to be a fly on the wall for when he finally notices would be an understatement.
Not that I had the energy to enjoy my handiwork. I could barely lift a fork most days, let alone lurk around waiting for him to discover a missing sleeve seam.
Time is a blur when you're living the same painful day on repeat.
The past few days, I'd watch as Anik's eyes would lock with Forrest's over my head, and they'd engage in some sort of weird silent argument that happened, almost entirely, with eyebrows.
It was a skill I was much too exhausted to appreciate then.
The final straw came a few days ago—or was it yesterday? He finally snapped, his patience worn thinner than my own.
"You're pushing too hard. Ease up," he'd snarled at Forrest.
Forrest, the bastard, just stood straighter. "I wouldn't have to push so hard if she would just improve." There was no malice in it, only a cold, brutal logic that left my muscles trembling and my spirit in tatters.
I'd also see Dre at odd hours, a blur of motion heading to yet another double shift at the clinic. The dark circles under his eyes were a perfect, miserable mirror of my own, and I took it as a fucked-up kind of inspiration.
See? I told myself, that's what pulling your weight looks like. He's out there actually saving lives, running himself into the ground without a single complaint. The least I can do is survive one more sparring session without whining.
But through it all, Kieran had been my sanctuary.
He'd drag me into the kitchen for a baking session that ended with flour on the ceiling and laughter that made my aching stomach hurt in the best way.
He once found me staring blankly at a wall, completely zoned out from exhaustion, and without a word, pulled me into his room.
He put on some ridiculously upbeat music he called "80's pop" and led me in the most gloriously bad, flailing-armed dance session I'd ever seen.
There were even two glorious days where he convinced Forrest to let him teach me stealth.
We spent forty-eight hours attempting to assassinate each other with nerf darts or by sticking a post-it note on the other's backs.
Then Forrest walked in, got pissy that Kieran wasn't "accurately training me," and took over once again.
Even Emerson, lost in his research or deep in lecture, would sometimes look up, his intense gaze tracking the fatigue on my face.
He'd simply motion to the bed in his room.
I'd curl up and sleep, waking to a cup of tea and food waiting for me, a silent pardon before being summoned by Forrest yet again.
And the most heart-wrenching part of it all was watching the man I'd idealized become a stranger.
The Forrest who commanded the training room—all cold logic and impossible standards—was a world away from the one whose laugh was a rare, quiet rumble during movie night, or whose shoulders lost their rigid set when Leandre forced a cup of tea into his hand.
I'd thought his strength was a shelter. Now I saw it was a fortress, and I was the threat he was building it against. The flaw had always been obvious. It was me. I was the weak link, and every day under his command hammered home the same truth: I would never be good enough.
The sniping between Anik and Forrest has become the soundtrack to my training, and today it's grating on my last nerve.
I'm a rubber band stretched to its absolute limit.
I'm dizzy, my muscles are screaming, but I won't—can't—quit.
Not while Forrest watches me with that disappointed glare, and the rest of the guys, all except Dre, are lined up against the wall like a jury.
My knee buckles as I go to pivot, and I end up hitting the mat hard, my vision swimming. Forrest doesn’t stop. He demands I get up, and when I try, the shaking in my limbs is too much, and I fail miserably.
“Pathetic,” he scoffs.
With that word, something snaps inside me. Not anger or defiance, but defeat. A week ago, rage might have fueled me. Now, in this exhausted state, all I can do is lie there, unmoving.
I flinch when a primal growl rips through the room. I look over and watch as Anik grabs Forrest by the back of his collar and yanks him back.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snarls, his shadows reaching out and caressing my screaming muscles. The gentleness of it, the cool balm of his care, makes me want to cry.
I’m too tired for that though so instead, I just watch as the show continues.
Forrest shoves him off. “She needs to learn.”
“She needs rest !” Anik says, his teeth bared.
“She’s a liability,” Forrest reminds him.
I look around, trying to find Dre, desperately hoping he might be here to help—but he hasn't been around at all really, the past week. The memory of him teaching me about my body's need for water, and his intense message-sending sparring match with Forrest afterwards, flares to life in my brain.
“She’s ours .” Anik snarls, and I snap my head towards him, sure I imagined that.
I can’t be theirs. I’m a hot mess wrapped up in an enigma. There’s no way they want anything to do with me in any serious capacity. That much has been made obvious to me in the past two weeks.
“Sorry,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
Because I am. I’m so fucking sorry I can’t measure up and be what they need. I’m sorry I’m a failure, and that the years I spent dreaming of us being a big happy family were all a waste of time. I wasted their time and mine needlessly.
I notice the room has gone entirely still. Em pulls out his Nokia brick, the duct-tape holding the back of it together catching the fluorescent lights. Kieran comes to stand between Forrest and me while Anik growls and lumbers over to me, scooping me up into his arms.