I waited patiently for Zach to reach out to me like he’d promised. The end of the week was nearing, after all, and he’d promised to teach me how to drive a dirt bike so I could finally start helping True Order. I didn’t really see him around much, though… Waiting for him made me anxious.

But then… On Friday morning, Zach suddenly stood in front of me after I’d used the outhouse behind the corner of the grocery store. He smirked at me, glanced over his shoulder, and gave me a small piece of paper. Before I could say anything, he walked past me to the outhouse. I quickly understood to walk away before anyone could see me standing there like an idiot. When I was sure no one was watching, I opened the folded piece of paper and read it.

I felt a surge of nervousness and excitement going through me…

It told me to meet Zach at his place later that day.

I took a deep breath, crumpled the paper into a tiny paper ball, and went to throw it in the closest sewer pipe.

Finally…

Of course, I had to lie to Alex again… I really hated it, but the omega lovers had already brainwashed him. I would one day try to talk to him about it, hopefully even make him see the truth, but right now, I didn’t want to take any risks. If he told someone else in our grocery store about where my heart truly lied, it would make our lives more difficult. Hell, if Zach was right, and the army was just as unhinged as he said they were, what would stop them from killing me? And Alex, too, just because he was close to me?

No… I had to be more careful. We had to be somewhere safe first, not at the mercy of these omega lovers.

I told Alex I was going for a walk and maybe planning on visiting some of our homeless friends to see what they were up to, and he bought it. He was sad that he couldn’t come with me, but his feet still hurt too much. I guess, in a way, it was a blessing that his wounds had cracked open again… Of course I wasn’t happy he was in pain again, but… At least now I didn’t have to come up with more excuses and lies. We’d always done everything together, after all, so he would’ve found it suspicious if I told him not to come with me.

I promised him to bring back snacks, then made sure he was all right in our hut and left. He still looked so sad when I crawled out, and his tiny ‘bye’ nearly broke my heart, but he had his drawings. He’d be fine.

He would one day understand I was doing this for our sake. For our future.

I arrived at the building where Zach lived, but he was already outside waiting for me with a few of his friends. These strangers gave me unimpressed glances at first, or maybe they didn’t care about me at all, but I felt suddenly small like a young child while they towered over me.

“Ready to start helping?” Zach asked me, his blue eyes studying my face.

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound as confident as I could.

“Good. First, you need to learn how to drive,” he said, and gestured for me to follow him.

I nodded, but then glanced over my shoulder. There was no one behind me, of course, but… I wasn’t sure why… I did feel a little insecure… I didn’t really know these people… And… Those doubts I had…

I was doing the right thing… Right?

I really wished someone was there to tell me if I was doing the right thing… But as always, I had to make that decision alone. It wasn’t like I had someone to turn to.

If only my parents were alive…

“You coming?”

I took a deep breath, then followed Zach.

He led us around the corner, and I quickly spotted a couple of old dirt bikes at the edge of a small parking lot between the buildings. Zach grinned at me when we stopped next to them and spread his arms like he was showing me his brand-new baby.

“Our trusty steeds!”

More like rusty steeds…

“So you have never driven one of these before?” Zach’s friend asked, giving me suspicious glances.

“No, sorry,” I mumbled.

The guy sighed and turned to Zach. “We only have a few left. If this kid breaks even one of them…”

“Come on! He’s a fast learner. It’ll be fine,” Zach said cheerfully. “We’ll need to steal a few new ones, anyway.”

The guy wasn’t happy with this reply, but stepped aside, giving Zach room to step closer.

“Right. Basics first,” he told me, gesturing for me to come take a closer look. “This is how you fire up the engine…”

I tried my best to memorize everything he told me. There wasn’t awfully a lot to remember, thankfully, but I was getting really nervous, especially since the three other guys gave me… looks. I had no idea what they thought of me, but my alpha believed they weren’t that interested in me. More like they were bored and annoyed they had to be there. Still, my alpha didn’t like them, but perhaps that was because I didn’t know if I liked them much… They really didn’t make me want to make friends with them… They were maybe ten years older than me, anyway.

Then, once I felt confident enough, Zach gave me one of their helmets. My nervousness hit the roof… What if I crashed right away? They’d get so mad at me… They’d probably beat me up for it… What if they made me pay for the repairs? They would, wouldn’t they? What would I tell Alex…?

Oh, lord… I was nervous…

Zach helped me to push the bike further into the parking lot, where we had more room. I put the helmet on, then tried to swing my leg over the bike to sit down, but I accidentally kicked it. Zach made sure it didn’t fall while I sat down, feeling embarrassed on top of being nervous.

I was so going to crash the bike…

“You good?” Zach asked, watching me closely with amusement in his eyes.

I was so embarrassing…

“Y-yeah…” I muttered with a nod.

The helmet was a little too big for me… My toes barely reached the ground… The other guys watched me, their arms crossed, like waiting for me to screw up while Zach was still smirking at me… None of them believed I could drive that thing… 

I felt so alone all of a sudden…

My alpha didn’t like this at all, and it was getting scared. It didn’t understand what this bike was, but it understood I was afraid of it. It wanted us to leave, to go back home to our brother and the kind older alphas who took care of us…

Maybe I should have…

“Right. When you start driving, you move this handle very, very carefully. This thing can reach a hundred miles per hour in seconds, you hear me?” Zach spoke.

Oh, no… I tried to breathe and listen to Zach, but my heart was racing too fast… I felt a little dizzy as I stared at the handlebar…

“Slowly, okay? Just drive around this parking lot, okay? Slowly.”

“O-okay…”

“Okay. Let’s give it a go, yeah?” Zach asked and patted my shoulder. “Fire it up.”

I felt weak in my stomach when I reached for the key in the ignition… I tried to remember how to turn on the engine, but after Zach showed me again – twice – I finally got the engine on. After that, I just sat there, almost panting.

“Ready when you are!” Zach shouted over the screeching sound of the old engine. “Remember! Carefully!”

I nodded at him, then… I turned the handle just a little bit, and the bike flinched forward.

And… Weirdly enough… I didn’t get launched all the way to the moon. No… The bike kept inching forward as I held my hand very, very still on the handle…

“Yes! You got it! Just drive around the parking lot!” Zach shouted after me.

Okay… Okay… I got this… This I could handle… I could do this…

And… I actually did it. I was driving really super slowly, but I wasn’t crashing into anything, and I was slowly gaining confidence. I even handled getting around the corners! And… It was actually fun…

I drove back to Zach, who told me to keep going and practice turning and speeding and breaking. He seemed impressed with me, but I guess he’d thought I was going to pass out from nervousness… But I didn’t!

I did several more laps around the parking lot and even dared to speed up a little after every corner. I was getting the hang of it fast. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to go drive through the streets, but this I could handle.

“Good job! Now, let’s go for a little drive!” Zach told me when I stopped the bike next to him again.

“W-what…?” I coughed at him.

But… I wasn’t ready! Not at all ready!

“It’ll be fine! Just follow us!” he told me, then jogged back to the others, who were already waiting for him with their bikes.

“No way…” I whispered to myself.

But I’d embarrassed myself enough… I couldn’t tell them I didn’t feel confident enough to leave this parking lot…I just…

I took a deep breath. It would be fine…

I would be fine…

Again, I was a nervous wreck when we left the parking lot. The other four guys shared the last two bikes, while I followed them on my own. I really shouldn’t have been driving on the streets… I didn’t even know anything about traffic laws! I tried to stay calm and just keep the speed steady and not hit anyone. Thankfully, the speed limits were low here in the city because otherwise, I probably would’ve ended up killing myself and everyone in the oncoming traffic. While we weren’t driving fast, it felt fast to me. At first, at least.

But… After a while… It didn’t feel so scary anymore once I got the hang of it. It was quite simple, actually… At least as long as I just followed the others around and mimicked everything they did. And… I really liked it… Driving was actually really fun… It made me feel… Free…

We drove around for maybe half an hour, and by the time we returned to the parking lot, I was feeling excited. Happy and excited and I couldn’t wait to get to drive again, maybe a little bit faster than today, just to see how it felt like.

“You really do learn fast,” the guys came to tell me, all of them looking shocked that we got back without any incidents.

I took my helmet off with a big grin. “Thanks!”

“I knew you could do it,” Zach said and patted my back. 

“That was actually pretty fun,” I told Zach and gave the helmet back to him. “So? When can I start helping?”

Zach chuckled at my enthusiasm.

“Whenever you’re ready, kid. Whenever you’re ready.”

I stared at him, feeling my excitement growing.

Alex… We would soon have normal lives…

“How about tomorrow?” I asked.

He bowed a little. “Tomorrow it is.”