Jack wasn’t having a good day.

He tried to concentrate on the equation in front of him, but his mind kept wandering, causing him to tap his pen repeatedly against the side of his glasses. He looked around, watching the other students quietly getting on with the test, but there was no chance of him copying their answers, what with their desks being a good foot higher than his head.

Jack was one of the few remaining ‘Betas’ at his school; a colloquial term used to refer to people of what you and I would consider to be normal height. Almost all the kids attending Oakwood High were products of society’s never-ending quest for physical perfection, specifically in the form of the highly effective growth hormone GH-X2.

Children, not adults, could be administered the compound, specifically between the ages of 6 and 16, which increased their growth rate dramatically and practically created a new class of superhuman averaging over 11 feet tall; an increase in projected height of around 200% i.e. double. These giants liked to refer to themselves as ‘Alphas’, and all public buildings had been rapidly rebuilt to accommodate this new, predominant ‘tier’ of humanity.

Looking to his left, Jack was only a few feet away from Alex, a sporty, raven-haired Alpha girl wearing black sweatpants and a tight-fitting sports vest. From his perspective, all he could really focus on was her colossal right leg jigging up and down as she concentrated on her paper, bouncing her heel against the floor.

Almost all Alphas were in tremendous physical condition, as the treatment optimised their bodies to cope with their increased size and process the food they consumed more efficiently. Even without much exercise, most were toned and athletic, and with even a modicum of effort, girls like Alex could have muscle mass that dwarfed that of Beta men. The thigh Jack was failing to avoid looking at was much longer and thicker than his torso, and as his eyes followed her form up her firm midriff he stared up at a mammoth white vest top containing breasts larger than his head. It was at this moment that he realised she was looking down at him disapprovingly through narrowing eyes, causing him to jolt involuntarily and drop the pen, which rolled under Alex’s oversized sneaker. With a cruel smile, she pressed her foot slowly into the floor, crushing it flat.

This was exactly the kind of shit Jack had to put up with all the time, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it either, as the huge girl would probably just hang him on a coat hook by his underwear if he made any kind of fuss. It wasn’t just the unfairness of this specific situation that rankled him either, there hadn’t been a Beta girl at the school for a few years now, and there was this kind of universal indifference that the Alpha girls had for the few Beta guys that remained.

Jack had long since resigned himself to an adolescence free from meaningful connections with members of the opposite sex, let alone any kind of intimacy. He had only a couple of brutal rejections to show for many years of pent-up feelings and frustration, exacerbated daily by the presence of intoxicating giantesses with essentially no regard for him at all.

During early puberty, realising he was going to be a virgin for at least the next 7 years, Jack developed a strong fixation towards Alpha girls, both resenting and at the same time fascinated by the tremendous femininity of their magnificent bodies and his own unattainable, futile desires. Most nights he couldn’t help but touch himself to thoughts of their enormous, sexy limbs and large, pouting breasts, dreaming up fantasies revolving around experiencing the soft, abundant flesh of someone much, much larger than him. In part, this was to counteract the scarcity of physical contact with girls that he had in real life, which was restricted to being bumped into, pushed against, or physically intimidated, none of which could readily be classed as ‘intimate’.

The reason why there were no longer any Beta girls at Oakwood High was because the risks faced by normal-sized women in an Alpha-size world meant female uptake of GH-X2 was as good as universal. In fact, a government initiative to provide funding towards the treatment for girls had been set up within the last decade after countless high-profile rape and abduction cases.

For men, however, there was no such protocol, due to lingering assumptions about their perceived ability to withstand the mental and physical challenges of life in the shadow of the Alphas. Boys from poor families, or, in Jack’s case, families that didn’t believe growth hormone treatment was ethical, went without.

There were still many areas of the globe which were untouched by GH-X2, a lot of Africa, South America and Asia was too impoverished, but in developed areas Betas were a demographic in sharp decline as jobs and infrastructure were repurposed to make space for Alphas.

Jack’s best friend Delon was a fellow Beta, a black kid with a gangly frame and short scrubby hair, he was pretty tall for a Beta kid at 6’ 4” which meant that he tended to avoid getting into too many scrapes and had made friends with a few of the more tolerant Alphas.

“How’d the test go?” he asked as he and Jack waited against the wall for the Alphas to stride their way past.

“Fucked it,” Jack replied, “No way am I going to be ready for June.”

Delon laughed, moving through the wide doorway into the corridor, “Mate, you can’t have done worse than you did in the mock last week,” he joked.

Jack gave a pained smile, “I might’ve got a better score but for Alex pissing Eberhardt crushing my only pen with 5 questions to go. You know how expensive these Beta-size pens are getting, and that was my last one.”

Delon eyed his friend with a mixture of pity and amusement, rooted in his coat pocket and pulled out a pen, handing it to Jack.

“Don’t let any of the big girls step on this one, promise me, I want it back”.

They made their way down the corridor, sticking to the right hand-side with the younger, less gigantic kids to avoid getting trampled, and Jack peeled off to head to English class. He tried to gauge the flow of Alphas as he headed for the classroom, but at the last second a large saddle bag swung into view and caught him on the forehead, knocking him to the ground.

“Oh god, sorry!” said the Alpha girl, stooping down to check he was unhurt and picking up his fallen glasses before anyone stepped on them.

Taking them from her large fingers, Jack recognised her as Penny, a tall, sandy-brown-haired girl from the year below. She was wearing a long-sleeved purple top, and a mid-length black skirt over tights on her lower half.

“I’m ok, don’t worry, I’m fine,” he said, as her long arms enveloped him and helped set him to his feet.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you,” she went on, looking at him apologetically with her large green eyes.

Jack was suddenly highly aware of their proximity, something he was unused to without associating it with some form of intimidation, and stared at Penny’s tremendous face blankly for a brief moment before continuing his insistence that he was quite all right. He straightened his glasses on his face, surprised that her pretty features seemed full of concern, and despite her size she had treated him delicately and tried not to crowd him.

“I’ll see you around, then,” she said finally, smiling warmly and rising up to her full height, allowing him to walk past her into the classroom.

He looked back at her, and smiled back, not quite sure what to make of her unexpected kindness, before making his way to his Beta-size desk.

All through class, Jack replayed the incident with Penny in his head.

He’d seen her around the school before, but she was a quiet, slightly odd sort of girl, not noticeably unpopular or anything, but definitely more studious than most. He’d usually spot her after school in the library, or doing something extra-curricular, but their paths seldom crossed. He was also confused at the feelings it was awakening within him, as he was so unused to being treated with respect by bigger folk it was triggering dormant memories from when he was younger, back when kids were still used to behaving as equals in spite of the slowly increasing size differences between them. He’d gotten used to being treated like trash by all of the Alpha girls his age, fully aware they wouldn’t be caught dead with a Beta-size man, or ‘manlet’ as they sometimes joked, instead choosing to torment their feelings whilst dating the Adonis-like Alpha guys.

When the bell went, Jack slowly collected his things and packed them away in his bag before following the Alphas out of the doorway. Instead of walking straight home, he’d already decided to stay in the library for a bit to read up on old film books and the like.

Jack had always found films predating the growth hormone era mysterious and fascinating, as they documented a world he envied and in many ways yearned for. He’d often spend an extra hour pouring over some books, and grab a movie to take home with him, it was one of the few things that made him feel truly happy.

Upon entering the library he felt a slight sensation of butterflies at the prospect of Penny being there, but after a brief scout around he couldn’t see her anywhere. A little disappointed, he grabbed one of the books from the cinema section, hauled himself atop one of the high stools for Betas to use the library desks, and spent a good while immersed in another time and place.

When he left the library, he went straight to his locker to sort out what books he needed to take home. After entering his combination, he swung the oversized door open, put his bag down, and began organising himself when he realised he could hear the sound of raised voices travelling down the vast and empty corridor. He packed his bag and closed the locker firmly, he decided to quickly run and check out the commotion, which seemed to be coming from the main hall just off the corridor.

The voices got louder as he approached the pair of large theatre doors that led into the hall, and as he peeked through the rectangle of safety glass he could make out half a dozen Alpha girls and boys energetically dancing around under the watchful eye of an irate-looking drama teacher. Jack’s heart skipped a beat as he realised that Penny was one of the 6, dressed in a long black dress and flat dance shoes. Her long hair was pulled tight into a 1940’s-style bun, and she was fiddling with a theatrical cigarette holder in her right hand.

After a good thirty seconds of staring, he was startled when he felt a large, soft hand enclose his right shoulder in an unshakeable grip as he was manoeuvred around to face the waistline of the very statuesque Alex Eberhardt. The massive girl’s eyes bore down on Jack, who could barely see up past her prodigious rack.

“Oi nerd, who you perving on?” she asked, with a hint of a smile.

Jack’s mouth moved to respond, but no sound came out, and when he did force himself to reply his voice broke a little as he did.

“H-hi Alex,” he said, “No-one, I just wanted to see what was going on,” he continued bravely.

As he stared up at her, he noticed one of Alex’s friends, Hannah, walk over to join them. Hannah was noticeably shorter than Alex, but still almost twice the height of Jack. She was much curvier than most Alphas, with short blonde hair and a copious amount of make-up.

“What’s the manlet up to?” she asked, talking miles above Jack’s level. “Oh nothing, he’s fine. Have you seen Caitlin?” replied Alex.

Not Caitlin, thought Jack.

Caitlin was renowned around the school for being on the one hand an incredible female athlete, and on the other a merciless bully. Her wealthy family were one of the privileged few to have had access to GH-X2 for every straight iteration, and it was rumoured her parents had paid a small fortune for her to be given an experimental formula, causing her to grow taller and put on more muscle than most.

She was the tallest girl in school, standing at 13’ 1”, and with her fire-red hair and intimidating physique even the most self-assured of Alpha guys were wary of her. Jack himself had managed to stay under her radar for years now, ever since the horror stories had started to do the rounds around school.

“Caitlin’s just getting changed, she’s been doing extra training, “continued Hannah.

“I think she wants to head to the mall after she’s freshened up, if you want to come?”

Jack felt Alex’s powerful hand knead his shoulder painfully as she weighed up her response, “Yeah, I’m up for that. What about you, little dude?” she said, angling her head down.

Jack tried to force a smile up at the two enormous girls, trying to play ball with them.

“Oh I dunno,” he said nervously, “I’ve got to be getting home.”

He was used to getting teased by Alpha girls, they usually enjoyed intimidating him for a bit before growing bored.

“But we know you love shopping,” grinned Alex, emphasising the word ‘love’ with a playful squeeze on his shoulder, before she and Hannah resumed their conversation.

In some ways he felt like a little brother stuck with his sister and her friend, though he’d never actually experienced that either; the joys of being an only child.

Jack tried to twist his shoulder out of Alex’s grasp, and surprisingly, the big girl let him go as she was much more interested in talking to Hannah. He returned to his position looking through the theatre door, but he could only see a couple of the girls from his perspective; the others were further round than his restricted vision would allow.

Resisting the urge to push the heavy door forward, which might attract their attention, he instead decided to make his exit in case the two gossiping behemoths decided they wanted to antagonise him further. Expertly rounding their two pairs of enormous legs, a skill he’d had a lot of practice with at school, he headed back towards the corridor, looking over his shoulder to check that the two girls were still busily chatting.

If he had been looking where he was going, he might have seen Caitlin’s hulking form rounding the corner at exactly the same time, and he might have avoided colliding meatily with her bare thigh.

The next thing Jack knew, he was on his back, struggling to focus on the 13 feet plus that was Caitlin Reid towering over him.

Sweeping an arm to his side, he located his glasses and returned them to his face, hugely relieved that after the knocks they’d had today they were still unbroken. The leviathan redhead could barely suppress her delight at knocking down such a pint-sized dork, and casually resumed tying her still-damp hair into a signature ponytail with lengthy, well-built arms. Above her colossal, sculpted legs she wore very small, white gym shorts, and a tight, pink, low-cut t-shirt which emphasised her bulging assets.

“Watch where you’re going, tiny,” she advised, prodding him with the toe of her immense sneaker, “Don’t want to get trodden on, do you?”

Jack shook his head frantically and quickly got to his feet, though Caitlin’s amused expression still seemed as far above him as before.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” she asked coolly, “W-well, just home really,” Jack replied.

“I should probably go, I need to meet my folks,” he lied, but Caitlin shifted an enormous leg into his path as he made to move past her.

“Not so fast, no need to run to your Mummy and Daddy just yet,” she said.

Jack gawked up at her face, trying to gauge her expression as he felt the twin presences of Hannah and Alex walk up behind him, surrounding him in a sea of legs.

“Let’s take tiny somewhere more... private,” Caitlin instructed, and before Jack could react, a large, soft hand covered his mouth, and he felt his whole body lift off the ground as Alex’s big arms wrapped across his torso and held him fast against her chest.

The girls carried little Jack into the nearby girls’ changing rooms as he tried in vain to pry Alex’s hand from his face, kicking and squirming against her superior strength. Jack was utterly terrified, he’d heard all the stories about Caitlin and her vendetta against Beta guys, how she’d often humiliate and belittle them to breaking point to scare them clear of school entirely.

The fact Hannah and Alex were in league with Caitlin should have come as no surprise to him either, they were all part of the same super-popular social clique, and keeping on her good side was a prerequisite for maintaining that kind of standing within the school.

“What are you going to do with him?” squeaked Hannah excitedly, walking practically in the shadow of Caitlin’s monumental frame.

“I want to have some fun with this guy,” the redhead explained, and stooped to look Jack in the eye.

“You’ve always been very careful to avoid me, little one,” she goaded, poking a monstrous pink fingernail painfully into his forehead, leaving an arc-like dent in his skin.

Jack tried to respond, but all that came out was a muffled cry from Alex’s hand, causing Caitlin’s smile to widen.

As they rounded the corner and entered the bathroom area, she scanned around to see if anyone was there,

“I don’t think anyone will hear him in here,” she reasoned.

Jack’s first instinct was to scream abuse at his gargantuan captors, but when Alex removed her hand from his face, he forced himself to stay cool, and tried to control his racing heartbeat.

“Just let me go,” he insisted, sounding braver than he felt.

“P-please, I won’t tell anyone, I promise” he begged.

“You really think anyone would care if you did?” Caitlin said threateningly, stepping closer so her mountainous bust was nearly touching Jack’s nose.

Staring into her yawning cleavage, framed by the low-cut cotton of her tee, he could make out tiny water droplets on her freshly-showered skin, and her fruity, clean scent filled his lungs.

“Please,” was all he could utter, as Caitlin peered down at the helpless boy.

“Give him to me,” she said, and enclosed her great fingers around Jack’s waist, plucking him from Alex’s hold.

“I want to teach this little imp his place in the world,” she said confidently, “Alone.”

Hannah and Alex glanced at each other, “Are you sure, Cait?” asked Alex.

“Yeah,” Hannah chirped in, “What are we gonna do?” pulling a sulky expression.

“You guys go on to the mall, I’m sure this won’t take long,” Caitlin said firmly, and watched the two girls shrug and leave reluctantly.

Waiting until the door had fully closed behind Alex, Caitlin then turned her attention back to the shivering specimen in her hands.

“So it’s just you and me now, peewee,” she said ominously.

Jack placed his little hands on her much larger ones, sensing the power in her grip and the soft feel of the tiny hairs on her smooth skin, and was too scared to think of anything to say back.

The fire-haired titaness strode into one of the cubicles, carrying the terrified Jack in front of her, turned and sat down atop the toilet, allowing him to place his shoes on her thighs. Even standing this way, Jack’s head was no higher than hers, and to emphasise the difference in scale she pulled his body in towards hers, buckling his knees, so that she could look down on him slightly.

Jack felt her enormous, warm bosom press gently into his abdomen as the tip of her nose brushed past his, and then found himself gazing at her thick, plush lips, slightly pink and glossy, which he would have found much more enticing under different circumstances.

“You’re Jack, aren’t you?” the lips said, the sweet smell of peppermint blowing into his face and steaming up his specs.

Jack nodded feebly, not wanting to antagonise the enormous girl.

“The thing is, Jack, is that you’re just too small,” Caitlin went on, “I mean, the world’s built for people like me, isn’t that right?”

He nodded again, swallowing audibly.

“You’re too weak to stand up for yourself, it’d almost be too easy for someone like me to mistreat a pint-sized manlet like yourself. Doesn’t that scare you?” she continued, widening her eyes, which resembled two great marbles of blue set amongst her freckled complexion.

“And it’s not like any girl’s going to want to get with a tiny little nothing either, with an itty-bitty dick. Have you got an itty-bitty dick, Jack?”

He just looked at her with a worried expression, wary of the increasing menace in Caitlin’s voice as she further humiliated him.

“I asked you a question, shrimp,” she reiterated, increasing the pressure of her hands on his waist, causing Jack to let out a yelp of pain.

“Yes, Caitlin!” he cried, “Please… don’t hurt me.”

Caitlin lifted Jack away from her, holding him above her lap with her powerful arms, his legs dangled beneath him as she spread her mighty flanks a few feet apart. Lowering his body between them, she clamped his waist tightly between her thighs with exquisite pressure, relinquishing her grasp with her hands.

She laughed as Jack immediately seized the opportunity to try and push free from his vice-like prison, his tiny hands buffeting the thick muscle of her upper thighs. After 10 seconds of amusedly watching his feeble arms strain against her, she seized them both in one of her mammoth hands, and pulled them over his head, rendering him immobile but for the kicking off his lower legs under her thighs. Jack was rapidly realising that this monstrous girl could, and would, be doing anything she liked with his hopelessly outmatched body.

“Caitlin, please,” he pleaded, “You’ve made your point, I’ll do anything, just let me go.”

She just looked down at him disdainfully, and slowly shook her head, causing her red ponytail to sway from side-to-side behind her. Jack felt the pressure on his midsection relent as her thighs parted once more, lifting him up above her head to hang by his arms like a wriggling fish. His hands were completely swallowed in her grasp, with just his fingers poking out from the top of her much bigger ones. He kicked frantically with his now-free legs, hoping to land a hit on her, but only succeeded in bouncing his foot off her rock-hard abdomen.

“Feisty, aren’t we?” teased Caitlin, more entertained than angered by his futile actions.

Using her free hand, she plucked Jack’s glasses from his face, holding them up in front of her eyes to examine them, thrilled by how tiny and fragile they seemed. As he watched, she positioned them in her hand between finger and thumb, and without any warning, flicked them out of the cubicle, where he heard a distant ‘clack’ as they hit the floor.

“You bitch!” yelled Jack, trying to turn his head to check if they were damaged.

Caitlin tutted at him slowly, shaking her head as again a smile creased her freckled features.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” she cautioned, her hand now reaching for Jack’s leg, pinching at it with her oversized fingers, enjoying his struggles.

“You can fight me little Jack,” she said, looking up at his worried face, “But you can’t stop me.”

Jack felt the pad of a big finger brush against the seam of his jeans, poking him between the legs haphazardly, and he tried to swing his body away from her hand. He looked down past Caitlin’s face, watching her massive fingers push and probe him effortlessly, despite his attempts to evade her. His knees kept knocking into her chest, causing her beachball-sized tits to jostle slightly in their pink cotton casing.

He felt her thumb and forefinger tug and tweak at the waist of his jeans, and too late he realised what she was going to do.

“Caitlin, no, please,” he cried, feeling her large fingertips pinch the fly of his jeans and pull with a steady but irresistible force.

There was a slight ‘ping’ as the button gave way from the strain, impacted on her neck and tumbled down to nestle just above the awesome chasm of her cleavage. Jack felt a heavy digit, capped with a smooth, hard nail, nuzzle inside the waistline of his jeans, curling inside and slowly pulling them off his hips. Jack’s feeling of helplessness, coupled with the sensation of a girl touching him so delicately, caused him to let out an involuntary moan as the knuckle of her finger grazed past the soft cotton of his underwear, and slid down his inner thigh. Within a few seconds, she had tugged his jeans down to his ankles.

Jack’s pulse was racing, he was horrified at being manhandled so easily, and conflicted by the inescapable grasp and teasing touch of Caitlin’s hands. He’d never had any intimate contact with any girl, especially a girl as gigantic and terrifyingly alluring as Caitlin. Her statuesque face was lit up with such malevolent glee it was hard for Jack to look at her, she was like a cruel kid toying with a pet, her attention completely focused on proving to him how insignificant and weak he was.

In spite of himself, the gentle touch of her fingertips on his diminutive body sent waves of bittersweet pleasure through him, and as utterly terrified as he was, he felt his penis begin to stiffen as she toyed with his diminutive body. She pressed her finger against his underpants, squishing his dick deliberately through the soft material, and pouted at him with an expression of mock surprise. “

What’s that, little Jack?” she scoffed, smiling sweetly and pushing her nail into his ball sack, causing him to wince.

“It feels like a cock, but much, much smaller,” she continued, “Do you like it when I play with your tiny cock, peewee?”

She pinched his hardening member through the material and gave a sharp squeeze, triggering a surge of pain that shot through Jack’s body like a bullet. Whining through gritted teeth, he flailed his legs despairingly as Caitlin’s fingers held him painfully for a few seconds before letting go. Real tears were beginning to roll down his cheeks now, the fight was leaving him and he was barely able to muster the effort to resist her.

As his legs hung uselessly, giant fingers tugged his underwear down over his knees, and he felt cool air wash over his exposed genitals. His humiliation complete, Jack dangled limply like a ragdoll, trying to blink away the shame from his eyes.

Caitlin sensed his submission, smiling evilly, and lowered Jack’s slack frame back down between her legs, turning him side-on to her so that she could clamp his thighs front to back with the inside of hers.

Unlike previously, Jack offered no resistance when she released his arms, his head lolled forward as he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He just waited for the giant to make the next move, figuring there was nothing he could say or do that could feasibly stop her handling him as she pleased. The top halves of his legs were swallowed up by the abundant flesh of her mammoth thighs, and his now almost fully erect penis pressed gently into their unyielding mass.

“Given up, Jack?” Caitlin said softly, her vast torso slowly twisting and looming over him. He felt her big right hand grip the back of his head like a grapefruit, and forced his face towards her titanic, cotton-covered tit, easily twice the size of his own head. Jack tried to resist, but his neck and torso were too weak, and it was tremendously painful to fight against the irresistible force of her enormous arms. She pressed his little face into the soft meat of her tit, rubbing him against it with her hand and mashing his nose into her.

For the first time, Jack heard Caitlin react, emitting a small moan that reverberated through the tremendous mound of her bust.

She was enjoying this.

She guided his face to her sizeable nipple, which was beginning to stiffen and press through the surface of her top noticeably.

“Kiss it,” she ordered, applying firm pressure to his skull with her powerful fingertips, and Jack complied.

The behemothic schoolgirl gasped as she felt his toy-like lips make contact with her nub through the material almost imperceptibly, a sensation so puny and delicate she couldn’t help but smile.

“You’re soooo tiny,” she purred, leaning her body towards him and shoving the full weight of her colossal tit into his face.

Jack started to struggle for air as her prodigious asset blanketed him like an immense pillow, he tried to call out for help but the sound was muffled by its sheer mass and he felt himself blacking out. Clawing at the vast, round expanse of cotton with his right hand, he tried to shove her away from him, but despite all his efforts, poor Jack was too small, and Caitlin simply too big, and he succumbed to the darkness.

Jack awoke in a crumpled heap on the cold, hard floor of the toilet cubicle, his jeans and underwear still round his ankles. He daren’t move in case Caitlin was still nearby, instead scanning what he could from his vantage point without moving his head and listening intently for any trace of his Alpha tormentor.

After several moments lying still as a mouse, he was convinced enough by the silence around him that no-one was in the vicinity, so very cautiously rolled himself over, and sat himself against the base of the oversized toilet. Looking around, he saw that Caitlin had closed the cubicle door when she must’ve left, but otherwise there was no trace of what had transpired earlier.

Trying to recompose himself, he pulled first his underwear, and then his damaged jeans back on, the lingering smell of her scent on his clothes made the reality of the situation suddenly sink in. As the feelings of helplessness and humiliation flooded back, he began to weep quietly into his hands, too scared to think about what she would have continued doing to him if he hadn’t have passed out.

His anguish was punctured abruptly with the sound of a door opening at the other end of the changing room, making Jack’s heart pound in his ribcage. Fearing Caitlin’s return, he scrambled underneath the cistern, trying to hide himself as best he could. Heavy footsteps approached, definitely an Alpha, and then a thump as something heavy was dropped to the floor. The person walked into the bathroom, but thankfully for Jack, straight past the row of cubicles.

The sound of a tap filled the room with a noisy hiss, and then a couple of splashes as whoever it was seemingly washed themselves with the water. The flow ceased with a clunk, and Jack could make out the noise of shallow breathing. The person sniffed a couple of times, and yanked a paper towel from the container on the wall, before walking back towards the main changing area.

As Jack cowered behind the toilet, he heard the footsteps stop just before the threshold of the changing area, and then nothing, as if suddenly stopped. He fought to keep his heart-rate down, silently praying that the heavy footfalls would resume and whoever it was would walk right out of the room. Instead, to his surprise, a sweet, gentle voice, quite plainly a girl’s, called out, “Hello?”

He froze, mindful not only that this girl might be Alex, Hannah or any other of Caitlin’s friends, but even if not, being discovered in the girls’ changing rooms would result in public ignominy, definitely more bullying and the possibility of some kind of disciplinary action.

Again, the girl’s voice rang out, more hesitantly this time, “Is anyone in here?”

Jack felt a strange pang of recognition this time, there was something familiar about the way she spoke, but he was far too cautious to consider uttering any kind of response. He heard the girl’s weight shift as she started to move along the cubicles, the individual footfalls getting louder as her giant form padded inexorably closer and closer to his hiding place. He watched her shoes stop outside the door, and fearing the worst, hugged his knees to his chest to try and minimise his profile behind the toilet.

He closed his eyes at the sound of her palm connecting with the big door, swinging it open, and for a few seconds he held his breath.

“Jack, are you in here?” said the girl.

Dumbfounded, he forced himself to stay rigidly still, searching his brain frantically to figure out who the girl was from her voice. He sensed her towering form stoop down, but daren’t open his eyes to confirm anything, he knew it was only a matter of time before she’d notice him and he prepared for the worst.

He felt a light tap on his shoulder, and then another hesitant prod by a large digit, before he heard the giant girl’s voice say, “Jack, it’s ok, it’s me.”

Opening his eyes, he turned his head to face his discoverer, meeting two big, wonderfully green eyes.

Penny’s expression softened into a hesitant smile when he realised it was her, she was holding his little glasses between finger and thumb; they were bent out of shape and one of the lenses appeared to be cracked.

“Penny,” Jack breathed, his voice breaking slightly, “I’m so glad it’s you.”

The girl knelt there, unsure of what to do next with this small Beta boy who seemed so upset. Not wanting to frighten him, she carefully grasped one of his small hands in her big one and ever so gently gave it a squeeze.

“What’s the matter?” she asked softly.

Jack looked up through teary eyes, he didn’t want to mention specifics, as Caitlin would be sure to make him pay if word got out.

“One of the Alpha girls brought me in here,” he explained, “She wanted to scare me... show me how weak I was. I tried to escape, and to... to reason with her, but she didn’t care.”

He swallowed hard, “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said, fighting to keep his emotions in check.

“I’m so sorry,” said Penny sympathetically, caressing his hand, “I think it’s awful the way you guys get treated, it makes me very upset. Are you sure you’re ok?”

He looked at her bravely, wiping his eyes, “I’ll be ok.”

Penny was still wearing her hair in a vintage bun, but she wasn’t in her drama outfit any more, instead she was dressed in the purple top, skirt and tights she had worn earlier. She was being so gentle and kind towards him, it made him feel safe to know there was an Alpha that treated him like a person.

“I think your glasses have seen better days,” she said eventually, waggling the damaged frames between her fingers.

“I’ve got an older pair at home,” Jack replied, “I mean, they’re not as good, but they’ll do for now.”

He gently extricated his hand from her grasp, and hauled himself upright as the Alpha girl retreated to give him space. Fortunately, despite the missing button on his jeans, they seemed to stay up all right, and he put the mangled specs in his pocket.

“I only need glasses for distance really, my eyesight’s not as bad as all that,” he said, squinting a bit and opening and shutting his eyes. Penny stood up to her full height, and then waved her arm at him to show she was up there, smirking as she did.

“Very funny,” he said drily, though secretly quite grateful for her light-hearted candour.

The giant girl walked out into the changing area, bending down to pick up her saddle bag, which Jack recognised as being the one introduced to his forehead earlier.

“How are you getting home?” she asked, turning around whilst adjusting the strap on her shoulder, “I guess all the school buses have finished now?”

He nodded, “Yeah, they will have, I think, but to be honest I don’t really use the bus, I prefer to walk.”

“Oh right,” said Penny, slightly surprised, “How long does that take?”

“About 20 minutes usually, it’s not too far,” he replied, walking past her to the door.

“Well, maybe I could walk with you... if you want?” she suggested, opening the door for him.

“I thought you lived over Westbury way?” he asked, “Cuz I live in Green Hill, that’s basically the other side of town.”

She made a thoughtful face, absent-mindedly tapping her fingers on the door handle.

“Yeah it is, but... honestly, I don’t mind, if you want somebody to walk with, that is...” she said coyly, following him through the door and walking alongside him down the corridor.

“It’d be no trouble, my folks don’t really care when I get home.”

Jack was a little bit intimidated still, but Penny seemed so different from all the other Alpha girls. She behaved like she was quite naïve and sensitive, something he’d never, ever picked up on when speaking to an Alpha before. As they walked, she began removing the pins from her hair, letting it hang down in waves as Jack watched her intently.

He reached his locker, glad to see that his bag was still in front of it, and swung it over his shoulder.

“It’s a long walk back,” he warned, turning to look up at her. The lofty girl knelt down to his level and placed a sizeable hand on his shoulder, causing him to flinch instinctively – she was so much bigger than him. Her expression was gentle though, as she began to speak quietly.

“If you don’t want me to, Jack, I won’t, I just wanted to make sure you were ok, it’s the least I can do.”

She removed her hand from him, sensing his anxiety, “And I’m sorry for whatever happened today, I know how hard it must be for you.”

He stood, staring into her haunting green eyes framed by the hanging locks of her sandy-brown hair, he wanted to reach out and touch her cheek delicately, in some small way expressing his thanks for her kind-heartedness.

“It’s just, well... I’m not used to an Alpha being nice to me,” he explained, “I know that sounds really corny, but it’s true.”

She looked at him sadly, “It’s ok, I understand, all I can do is hope that you trust me when I say that I’m not really like others... my size.”

Jack looked at her intently, “You know, I’d really like it if you could walk with me, Penny, if that’s ok.”

Her mouth broke into a warm smile, “No problem,” she replied, gesturing with her eyes for him to lead the way.

The pair walked away from the school down Alpha-size streets, Penny careful not to walk too fast, Jack careful not to get too close to her lofty stride. For the most part, they talked about school, Jack learning that Penny was taking an extra subject, whereas she was very curious to hear about his interest in cinema.

“Me too,” she enthused excitedly, “I really like acting, I’ve been doing a class after-school!”

The girl paused, “Well, I guess you figured that out already,” she said, rolling her eyes, “it’s more for fun I guess but I’m enjoying it a lot.”

Jack also found out, without asking particularly directly, that Penny was 12’ 7” tall, though she seemed a little uncomfortable telling him for whatever reason; he joked that his 5’ 8” was probably nothing to be proud of either.

She also seemed reluctant to talk about anything beyond more than a year or so back, only sweeping recollections about her past, as if she didn’t have much specifically to talk about from those days.

Their conversation was interrupted suddenly by Jack’s phone ringing, causing him to scrabble through his bag to retrieve it.

“Jack? Are you home yet?” his mother’s voice chided as he put it to his ear, “Not yet, mum,” he said, “Why?”

“I’ve been texting you for hours, what have I told you about not checking your phone?” she scolded, “Grandad’s been taken ill, your dad and I are in the hospital downtown.”

“Alright alright, I’m sorry mum, is grandad ok?” he asked.

“He should be fine, he’s just had a nasty fall is all, we’re waiting on the X-rays. I’ll text you when we’re coming back but it won’t be for a while, you can have some of the cold leftovers in the fridge for dinner.”

“Ok mum,” he said, “I’m almost there anyway.”

“Good boy, I love you. We’ll see you later,” she said.

“I... love you too,” he replied, glancing embarrassedly up at Penny who was studying his expression for clues. The phone hung up, and Jack put it straight in his pocket, then put his bag back on.

“Everything alright?” Penny asked conscientiously.

“My grandad’s had a fall, my mum and dad are with him,” he replied.

“Oh dear, I hope he’s ok”, she said.

“I think so,” Jack went on, “He’s quite hardy, my grandad.”

They resumed their walk, and after a few more minutes talking, passed into an area where, whilst the road remained very wide, there were still a few Beta houses dotted around.

“Nearly there,” said Jack, “It’s just up here on the right.”

Shortly, he stopped in front of a small, neat bungalow with a single-car garage to the side,

“Here we are,” he announced. Noticing Penny looking at it curiously, he was concerned, “You ok?” he asked.

She snapped out of her brief trance, “Yeah, I’m fine, I just... well I haven’t seen a house like this for a long, long time.”

Jack pointed across the road, “There used to be a lot more Beta houses in this area, we’re one of the only inhabited ones left actually, a lot of them are empty. They keep knocking them down to build Alpha houses.”

She nodded knowingly, “Yeah, it’s happening all over.”

“My parents aren’t in, so I’ve not really got anything to do right now, would you like a cup of tea or something?” he offered.

She hesitated, “I’ll need to be getting off soon, but... ok, that would actually be really nice.”

“I’ll find the biggest mug I can,” he smiled, “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to, you might find it a bit cramped.”

“I’d like to try,” she laughed, following him as he walked up to the door, put his bag down, and fished his keys out.

After Jack unlocked the door, the Alpha girl stooped down to look into the diminutive house. She took off her bag, and reaching inside the door, propping it up against the wall. Carefully, she doubled over, and bending her knees, walked into the main room, trying to avoid knocking anything with her head or legs.

“It’s ok, just sit anywhere,” Jack said, closing the front door behind him.

He watched as Penny gingerly sat herself down on the floor, her long legs stretching out in front of her, and swept her hair out of her eyes.

“This place is so nice,” she said, comparing herself to the dining table and chairs she was seated next to.

Picking one up effortlessly by a leg, she examined it closely, “Everything’s so diddy!” she smiled, looking at Jack brightly.

“Remember, it’s not small, you’re just very big!” he corrected with a grin, heading into the kitchen.

After a short while, he returned with the biggest mug he could find, full to the brim with hot tea. Penny clasped the handle between finger and thumb, dwarfing it immediately, and proceeded to happily sip it whilst looking around the cosy home. Jack fetched his own mug, and sat on the chair Penny had placed down.

“I’ve lived here all my life,” he said quite humbly, noticing her looking at the photo frames on the wall, “This is probably the only place I have left that doesn’t make me feel out of scale with everything.”

“Do you really mean that?” she asked, surprised at the sudden dampening of his mood.

“Well... more and more I do,” he said, “I suppose today I was reminded why, in many ways, everything is just going to get worse. I can’t protect myself from other people, from danger. The world is just way, way too big for me.”

Listening to his words intently, Penny scooched herself closer to his chair, but even sitting down, Jack’s head only came up to her shoulder.

“You’ve got to be brave,” she said, looking down at him, “I know it can be scary sometimes, but you must keep going.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” said Jack huffily, feeling something rising inside himself, a wave of hopelessness and frustration; it annoyed him to hear this girl telling him what to do.

Getting up from his chair, his eyes now level with hers, he announced coldly, “You have no idea what it’s like for me, none at all,” his little jaw set and his expression full of anger.

Her pretty face creased into a frown, “Well, I do, actually, not that you’d know,” she said, “We were all little once, in case you’d forgotten, not just you.”

She turned away from him, and sighed deeply. Jack was irritated, but at the same time a part of him realised he had just alienated a person who’d only ever been trying to help him. She turned her head back round, and he saw that her eyes were dewy and she was legitimately upset.

“I may not understand what it’s like to be small in a world of giants, but I would never be mean to anyone because of their size,” she said finally, her gentle voice wavering slightly.

“I’ve got to go now, thank you for the tea,” and with that she placed her half-drunk mug of tea on the dining table and hauled herself up.

Jack bit his lip and just stood there as she withdrew her giant body to the front door and opened it. He turned to face her as she picked up her oversized saddle bag, and carefully passed through the doorway. Turning around, she met his eyes, and with one last sad glance back at him, closed the door gently.

Jack didn’t know how to feel, he was very annoyed, but also very upset, and he was beginning to regret his petulant outburst to Penny more and more as he replayed it back in his mind. Sitting down, he stared into space for a while, slowly sipping his tea.

After clearing up the mugs, he made himself a little something to eat, watched a bit of TV, and then went to his bedroom. He didn’t much feel like doing school work, or even going on his laptop, he just felt tired and emotional, running through what had happened, scarcely believing that any of the experiences were real.

After years in his room fantasising about the giant girls at school, the way Caitlin had treated him was deeply sobering. Despite her inescapable sensuality, he had feared for his life, been humiliated, degraded and reduced to tears, just so the oversized vamp could prove a point. Thinking about it was hugely conflicting, as some of his desires had come true, and thinking about it now, retrospectively and in the relative safety of his bed, was causing him to become aroused in defiance of the feelings in his heart.

Dejectedly, he plugged his phone into the charger, and finally lay down on his bed, where, thoroughly exhausted, sleep overtook him.

Initially, he dreamt that he was back in school, in the corridor, talking to Penny about cinema and various actors as they walked. They were having a fantastic conversation, when everyone ahead suddenly stopped walking and shuffled to either side of the corridor, triggering Jack to turn and look in front of him. Caitlin’s monumental form, flanked by Alex and Hannah, strode confidently up to him, reached down and picked him up between her mighty hands. He struggled like crazy in her grip, shouting out for help over and over again, but Penny’s face melted away into the background, her eyes wet with tears. Caitlin’s menacing, gigantic smile then filled his vision, as he felt himself shrinking smaller and smaller, becoming more and more helpless. He heard monstrous moans of pleasure as her now-brobdingnagian fingers pressed his insignificant body into her building-sized breast, and her sultry, deafening voice boomed out, humiliating him, “You’re soooo tiny! Sooooo tiny!”

Jack’s eyes ripped open as he awoke in a cold sweat atop his bed, the duvet cover beneath him partially wrapped around his sprawled, fully-clothed form. He realised, despite his terror, that he was sporting a full-blown erection, and felt a wave of shame wash over him.

Reaching out for his phone, he grabbed it and yanked it free from the charger; 3:49am. As he lay there, trying to slow down his frantic heartbeat, he told himself that it was only a dream, only a nightmare. Not real. Switching his laptop on, he first went to check his emails, then logged in to his social networking page.

Despite what had happened earlier, he had half-hoped that there might be some kind of message, or request, from Penny, but no such luck. Regret overwhelmed him as he thought back to when she was sat in the main room, happily drinking her tea. He didn’t even know what her surname was, and now he’d blown his chance of making friends with the only Alpha who’d ever treated him as an equal. Rubbing his bloodshot eyes wearily, he vowed to never be so stupid again, no matter how upset, angry or frustrated he got.

Turning off the computer, he took off his clothes, noticing the missing button from his jeans which elicited a cold chill through him. Dropping everything in a pile, he crawled under his covers wearing just his underwear, and tried to get back to sleep again.

“Jack?” “Jack!”

The sound of his bedroom door being knocked violently.

“Jack! Get up, I’ve been shouting you for 20 minutes!”

His eyes slowly blinked into life, letting the harsh, bright light of day in.

Trying to speak, his voice sounded croaky and hoarse, “What... time... is it?” he asked groggily.

He heard his mum yell through the door, “It’s 8.40, will you get up young man!”

Eight fucking forty!

FUCK, he thought, throwing his covers off immediately. Forget time to shower, dress, eat, walk in, he had less than 5 minutes to catch the bus! Throwing a different pair of pants and a polo top on, he frantically dressed himself and grabbed his bag. He ran into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, his hair was a bit bedraggled but not awful, so he quickly started brushed his teeth until he realised... SHIT, glasses. Recalling his broken pair, he threw his bedside drawer open, clawing around to find his old glasses, which he eventually found at the very, very back.

Sprinting through the house, his mum cried out to him, “Grandad’s fine, just so you know!” as he opened the door and rocketed across the front lawn. Not 30 seconds later, almost completely out of breath, he reached the bus stop just as the jumbo school bus came to a halt. He was nearly doubled over as he let two Alpha kids, both very young but far taller than him already, board before he did.

“Haven’t see you in a while, son,” said the driver gruffly, an elderly Alpha guy who he remembered was called Joe, giving him a toothy smile.

As the bus started to move off, Jack regained his breath and looked around for somewhere to sit, realising that there wasn’t really anywhere at all, even for someone as small as him.

“You can sit here,” said a large girl who looked about 10 or 11 years old but was already getting towards 9 feet tall. She had her shiny black hair in pigtails and was wearing a yellow t-shirt with a picture of a kitten on it and ¾-length pink leggings.

Jack walked up to her, and waited for her to move over for him to sit down, but instead she looked down at him curiously.

“No silly, sit over here,” she told him, patting the seat between her body and the window.

Jack rolled his eyes and squeezed between her knees and the back of the seat in front, then jumped up next to the gigantic kid and made himself comfortable.

“My name’s Sam,” said the girl, fiddling with her pigtails, “What’s yours?”

“I’m Jack,” he replied detachedly, eager to get this bus ride over with.

“You’re really small, you know that?” she observed. He looked at her in disbelief for a moment, then tried to cover it up with a forced smile.

“Yeah. I know,” he said.

He watched as she shifted her big thigh across the seat towards him, pressing it up against his.

“My leg’s like twice the size of yours,” she said boastfully, “I bet you couldn’t budge it if you tried.”

Jack decided that, as much as he was enjoying this riveting conversation, he’d probably be better served by just smiling at her, so he did, then turned his head away.

“How old are you?” he heard her ask, but he really didn’t want to have to tell her, so he kept staring straight ahead.

“Hey,” she said, her tone becoming more impatient, “Hey shorty,” and he felt a large finger poke him extremely painfully right on the shoulder blade.

He shot his head around to glare at the girl, “Watch it!” he said crossly, holding his shoulder as the stinging pain slowly subsided.

The big girl’s face turned first to shock, and then to anger, and he felt her bodyweight shift as she slid towards him on the seat. Before he could stop her, she pressed his miniature body against the side of the bus using hers, squashing him uncomfortably.

“You be nice to me,” she threatened, her face above him turning slightly red, “Or I’ll squish you to death, little boy.”

Jack swallowed hard, completely caught off guard and afraid, realising that the colossal tween could not only do so if she so wanted, but might do accidentally if he didn’t calm her down soon. He nodded desperately, looking up at her indignant expression, “I’m s... sorry,” he stammered.

He felt the pressure of her body pushing into him relent slightly, “Good,” she said firmly, and patted him on the head roughly, “Good boy.”

To Jack’s great relief, he only needed to spend a handful of awkward minutes wedged against the side of the volatile 10-year-old, listening to her talk about herself, before the bus reached the school. Only after almost everyone had left did she release him, having lectured him emphatically about his obligations towards “big people”, and then ran off to join her friends.

He stepped off the bus in a daze, and completely failed to respond to Joe wishing him a good day. A good day, he thought, it was bad already; he just needed to survive it. Tomorrow, it would be the weekend, and he could spend 2 days in bed, safe and sound. Emphasis on safe.

He trudged up the steps into school, running his hand against the wall numbly as countless Alphas of varying sizes and ages walked or ran past him. He tried to hug the side of the corridor as much as possible and stay relatively out of sight, he did NOT want to run into Caitlin or any of her mates.

In a way, he didn’t want to run into Penny either, because just thinking of her tearful expression the previous night made his stomach knot. As he plodded along, a familiar face appeared right next to him.

“Nice specs,” said Delon.

“Yeah, rockin’ it,” Jack replied drily.

“Totally,” his friend agreed, pulling an overly-exaggerated impressed face. Jack couldn’t help but smile, Delon always managed to cheer him up. The pair went to their lockers, organised themselves, and then headed to registration.

He and Delon were able to stick together for the first couple of classes, as they shared the same subjects. Jack decided against telling him about what had happened with Caitlin, as he was in many ways embarrassed about the sexual nature of the humiliation, particularly as he was a virgin and he knew Delon was not.

Delon had a long-term girlfriend of 4 years who lived in the next town over, a Beta girl from a first-generation immigrant family. They’d met during a regional summer camp exclusively run for kids not on GH-X2, Jack had been ill for most of that summer with a virus, and the following year the camp stopped running because of the shrinking numbers of Beta kids in the area.

Jack did however decide to mention the he’d met a girl called Penny, and nonchalantly asked if Delon knew anything much about her. Initially, Delon teased him a bit because of his interest in a girl, especially an Alpha one (completely out his league, of course), but then told him what he knew.

“Never really talked to her to be honest, she seems a bit strange. You know that Shen guy in the year below?”

Jack nodded, Shen was a Beta, and like a lot of Chinese students, was pretty smart; always in contention for the school’s academic achievement prizes and things like that.

“Well, do you remember last year when I got him to help me out with some coursework, she was a new girl then and he said she was a bit of a loner cuz she was bullied when she was younger.”

Jack frowned, “Bullied? How come? Was she short?”

“Ha, no, you met her right? Pretty much the opposite,” continued Delon, “Apparently she had problems with her growth shots as a kid and grew way too fast; perhaps an issue with the compound they gave her. Her parents educated her from home for years until her bones strengthened, but when she went to the Alpha school across town, the other kids made her life hell because she was so much taller. Apparently she was home-schooled again until she came here last year.”

Jack felt a crushing sense of guilt as Delon relayed the story to him, it put some of the things Penny had been saying to him in perspective.

“Oh, right,” he said numbly, trying not to betray his thoughts in front of his friend.

Throughout the next class he was very subdued, working through various scenarios in his head, trying to figure out how to apologise to Penny. What on earth could he possibly say?

“You ok, dude?” Delon asked genially, nudging him with an elbow, “Ever since I told you about that girl you’ve gone all quiet.”

Jack turned to him, “Nah, I’m good, just worried about exams” he lied, though he could see that Delon sensed something was up. In fact, he was planning out when he could go and find Shen.

After class finished, Jack had a free period, so after putting his bag in his locker he made his way to the IT Department on the promise of finding Shen there. At the very least, he thought, there was no way he’d bump into Caitlin; there wasn’t a chance in hell she would’ve picked it as a subject, let alone voluntarily hang out in the computer lab.

He made his way there carefully; it didn’t take him too long to get to IT and he spotted Shen in the small Beta area (only a handful of small workstations and tables in a corner) of the main computer room talking to an Alpha boy a few years below. Jack took a seat at a computer a few feet away from the pair, and waited patiently until Shen was alone once more.

After the Alpha kid had left, Shen packed a couple of sheets of paper into his bag, and turned to look at Jack.

“Hey,” he said, “Did you want to see me too?”

“Err… yeah, but not about schoolwork or anything like that,” Jack explained.

Shen’s brow furrowed slightly, “Ok... so what’s up?”

“Well, this might be a bit weird, but you know a girl called Penny, right?”

The Chinese boy’s face showed recognition, “Yeah, I know Penny, we both study History.”

Jack hesitated slightly, “Well, the thing is, I need to speak to her, do you have her number or anything?”

Shen got his phone out of his pocket and had a quick scroll through, “Sorry dude, I thought I did, but to be honest I’m not entirely sure if she even has one. I’d suggest trying to find her but she wasn’t in class earlier, so I don’t think she’s here today.”

This news didn’t make Jack feel any better, “Really?” he said emptily.

“Yeah, quite often she doesn’t come in to school, she seems to get ill a lot,” Shen went on, lifting his glasses up slightly to scratch his cheek, “Why do you want to talk to her anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Jack paused, weighing up whether he should ask Shen for her last name or not, ultimately deciding it would be a bit awkward.

“Er… I got talking to her yesterday after school… it’s no big deal, but thanks anyway man,” he said, getting up from his chair.

“Ok then… I’ll catch you round. Jack, is it?” asked Shen, looking slightly puzzled.

“Yeah, it is. Cheers Shen,” he replied, and made his way out of the computer lab hastily.

As he walked briskly, Jack couldn’t shake off the notion that Penny hadn’t come in because of him. He probably should have asked Shen for her last name, but it would have made him seem like a creep. Well, maybe not, but it would have been a bit awkward.

The corridors were now pretty empty, and he’d been pacing along minding his own business, staring at the floor. He’d literally just rounded a corner when he suddenly became aware of the presence of two Alphas standing by the lockers just in front of him.

“I’m not sure about that, Caitlin,” he heard a guy’s voice say.

Jack froze in his tracks, two yards or so in front of him was the back of the largest, most muscular leg he’d ever seen. From the oversized foot, encased in a flat, white running shoe, smooth, taut skin rose up into an enormous calf muscle that was nearly as big as a beachball. Incredibly, it was actually level with Jack’s crotch, such was the scale of this leviathan; even the back of the knee was level with the base of his ribcage.

Flaring out from the joint was a lusty thigh which had to be at least three times the size of Jack’s torso, and less than a foot above his head, this colossal leg fed into the right side of a very short green cotton miniskirt containing an ass the size of a large boulder. Far above him loomed the contours of a gigantic, toned back covered by a tightly-fitted white tank-top, and hanging between two broad, muscular shoulders was a long, red ponytail.

In a heartbeat, he flattened himself against the lockers, too scared to breathe. From up high, he heard Caitlin’s familiar, commanding voice as she talked to the guy addressing her, who, it appeared, was her sports coach.

“If I want to bulk up, that’s my decision…” the herculean girl said firmly, “I’m plenty fast enough, I need to work on my core strength and build up my arms and legs if I’m going to really dominate the events at the next meet.”

“I understand that, Caitlin, but too much and you’ll compromise in other areas,” said the coach.

“You reckon, Mr Franklin?” she interjected, curling her right arm up to emphasise an enormous bicep.

“I’m just saying the extra mass will slow you down, there’s no need to be difficult about it,” he explained, the restraint in his voice all too audible as he talked to his overgrown pupil.

The girl idly dragged her other foot across the floor, as if not paying attention, “Whatever, I’ll prove you wrong,” she snapped waspishly.

Jack watched Caitlin’s large shoe move to her left, plant itself, and her whole frame twisted above him, her shoulders rolling back towards the locker. He tried to scoot to the right to avoid it, but her hulking right leg swung inexorably back, stopping literally just before it would have pressed into his little body. He stared at the vast expanse of lightly freckled skin that was her hamstring, watching the cords of thick muscle ripple as she bounced her foot against the ground impatiently.

“If that’s all you’ve got say, I’ve got some classes I have to prepare for. I’ll see you on Monday anyway, right?” said the coach eventually, beginning to move away, “And don’t forget to work on your cardio this weekend.”

As the Alpha guy left, Jack could hear her whisper “Yeah, right, how could I forget?” under her breath petulantly. He then noticed Caitlin’s meaty shoulder thud against the locker above as she leant onto it, and looked on helplessly as her large leg swung back, compacting him against the locker with a meaty thump.

“The fuck?!” exclaimed Caitlin, pushing her titanic body away from the locker instantly as she felt something bony against the back of her leg.

Jack clutched his face in pain, checking with his fingers to see that his nose hadn’t been flattened, or worse, his only remaining pair of glasses were busted. He gawped up as her herculean torso slowly spun round; she was so close she was practically on top of him. He fleetingly glimpsed a pair of pink panties underneath her miniskirt as her massive thighs shifted, then her exposed midriff commanded his attention, immaculately chiselled into a huge 6-pack the size of a table. Threatening to burst out of her shrink-wrapped white sports top, her massive breasts bulged overhead, so enormous that he could barely see the two dark rectangles of her sunglasses above them. He felt his knees go weak as a greedy smile spread itself across her wicked face as she leaned forward.

“What’s this?” she proclaimed, feigning surprise and putting her hands on her hips. “Is peewee back for more?”

Jack felt panic grip him and went to run, but her gigantic knee pre-empted him and smashed him into the locker, squeezing all the air from his lungs.

“Going somewhere?” she asked cruelly as he slid to the floor, bending her other leg down to kneel as he struggled to catch his breath.

Her great hand swooped down and grabbed him by the front of his polo shirt, and, without any effort, hoisted him up to her eye level, then slammed him against the locker painfully.

“I thought you learnt your lesson yesterday?” she said threateningly, the veins in her neck standing proud as the angry giantess interrogated her victim.

“I’m s... s-sorry...” Jack choked, tears already streaming down his face, “You can’t, please...  I’m s-so scared, Caitlin... don’t do this.”

Just visible through the oversized shades, her steely eyes inspected him, weighing up his fate as she pinned him in front of her with his legs dangling way off the ground.

“If you’re looking for pity, shrimp, you won’t get it from me,” her sexy lips breathed contemptuously.

Jack put his little hands on the thick wrist of the Alpha girl and pleaded though increasingly ragged breaths as his body became overwhelmed with distress, “I’m begging you... th-the humanity in you... Caitlin, please.”

Her face momentarily softened as she saw the terror in his eyes, and in that instant Jack couldn’t fail to notice how beautiful she was, but it was immediately replaced with a scowl of derision.

“Humanity?” she scoffed, “You don’t even qualify as a human,” and let go of his shirt.

Jack’s legs crumpled beneath him as he hit the floor, and he let out a pathetic yelp as his ass smacked to the ground and his head jarred against the locker door. The imposing Alpha then reached to her side to drag a large sports bag near, dug around in it with her spare hand and removed a large roll of sports tape.

Looming over the frightened boy, she tore off a long strip and descended over him, “Hold still, pipsqueak.”

Jack felt like he had been struggling for ages, but the strips of tape that bound him and sealed his mouth would not budge. He’d been stuffed roughly into Caitlin’s large sports bag, and then been buffeted and thrown around in it along with all her stuff. He was acutely aware that his glasses were no longer on his face, so he presumed they were part of the detritus he was surrounded by. He’d tried over and over to shout for help, but she had done a decent job of attaching the sports tape securely over his lips, so all he could do was moan through his nose, albeit too quietly for anyone to hear within the bustling school.

He’d overheard Caitlin talk to a few of her friends at school, discussing their plans for the weekend, before explaining that she would be going home to ‘work out with some new equipment.’ Jack felt he had a pretty good idea what that meant, and it further increased his futile efforts to free himself.

From then on, he only really felt the rhythms of the Alpha girl’s lengthy stride as she walked home, and the occasional drone of cars and trucks as they drove past. He’d been sobbing for much of the time he’d spent trapped in the bag, as the hopelessness of his situation sank in, and the sweet, sickly smell of her dirty work-out gear made him feel nauseous.

Eventually, her strides began to slow, and he felt her walk up a few small steps, unlock a big front door, and walk inside an Alpha house. He listened intently for other voices, possibly for parents or siblings that he could try to alert to his presence, but he heard nothing except Caitlin’s own movements.

The bag he was inside was yanked off her shoulder and then dropped violently on the floor, landing Jack on his arm painfully. The big zipper was subsequently torn open, flooding his prison with light and causing him to squint as his eyes adjusted to the brightness and his own short-sightedness.

Caitlin’s stunning, slightly fuzzy, features looked down on him, “Rise and shine, Jack,” she said playfully, taking off her sunglasses.

Jack tried to respond, but could only moan desperately through his nose, causing the redheaded girl to smile broadly, “It’s just you and me, you see, my parents won’t be back ‘til Sunday.”

Jack’s eyes widened and his moans became more strained, “Hush, peewee,” she went on, placing a large, pink-nailed digit on top of his taped-up mouth, “Don’t worry, I’m sure that’ll be enough time for you and I to get better acquainted.”

The formidable teen reached into the bag, grabbing his puny body between her hands and lifting him out of it with ease by his waist. She looked down at him wriggling in her grasp, her face unable to conceal how much she was relishing the moment.

“Let’s just hope you last longer than you did yesterday, tiny, I was only just getting started.”

Jack’s muffled cries continued as she carried him at arm’s length to her oversized bed and sat down on the edge of it, her mighty frame sinking into the thick duvet and causing the mattress to groan under the strain. His eyes darted all around him, surveying the weights and exercise equipment at the far end of her giant bedroom, not to mention the pile of stuffed toys heaped on the other side of the bed. There were several posters of Alpha tennis players and athletes adorning the walls alongside the obligatory boy band and hunk ones, and he could also see that she had her own en-suite bathroom and a large wardrobe, with all of her summer clothes spilling out of it untidily.

The enormous female laid him on his back on her lap, and rather unceremoniously tore off the strip of tape covering his mouth with her nails, causing him to cry out in pain.

“Caitlin, let me go!” he screamed, seizing the opportunity immediately, “I’ll do anything, please, for fuck’s sake let me go!”

The big girl looked down at him, pulling an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression.

“Hmmm…” she went, rolling her eyes up and to the side before boring into him once more “…I’m gonna go with nope.”

Jack was getting increasingly exasperated, “But w-why?! Why are you doing this to me?!”

She placed both hands on him once more, and raised him so that his little nose was touching her own.

“Because I can, pipsqueak,” she said matter-of-factly, her warm breath washing over him as she enunciated the ‘k’, “You’re a tiny little fuck, and it gets me off that you can’t do anything to stop me.”

Jack was now gripped with fear, pressed this close to her without his glasses, he could see every pore, every freckle on her immense face. “

But it’s w-wrong, you can’t…” he began.

“Oh I can,” she interrupted, “Let me show you.”

She twisted her body and placed the restrained boy down on the bedcover, watched him struggle against his bindings for a few seconds before slowly lifting herself up and lowering herself on top of him.

“No! Caitlin, stop!” Jack wailed, as her rock-hard stomach flattened his knees against the thick duvet and her soft, beachball-sized tits engulfed his lower abdomen, pressing together deliciously inside her sports top.

She was heavy, like, really heavy; he knew that this was only a fraction of her full bodyweight, but already it felt like several large sandbags had been placed on him. He wriggled his toes in discomfort, realising quickly by the moan that shuddered through the elephantine female that his pinned feet were brushing against her panties.

Caitlin gradually increased the pressure on him, allowing her considerable frame to bear down on his diminutive one. Jack had never felt so small, she positively engulfed him with her body, crooking her arms either side of his head as she rested on her elbows, swelling her basketball-sized biceps.

His terrified eyes stared pleadingly into hers as she coolly scrutinised his face, enjoying his discomfort and helplessness.

He was struggling for breath now, “Please, stop. Caitlin… please…” he wheezed, "I ca... can't breathe..."

“Mmmmm,” she purred, her whole body vibrating, “I like it when you beg, peewee.”

“You’re... sick…” he murmured, squirming as her head lowered itself towards his, her sultry, pink lips parting to reveal a huge, glistening tongue. He watched in awe as she ran it around her mouth sexily, her steamy breath heating up the air between them.

“W-what are y-you…” he stammered as it descended onto him, cutting him short by sealing his mouth with gargantuan lips. Her enormous, slimy tongue forced its way in, filling all the available space and pinning his own to the bottom of his own mouth. She tickled his throat with the tip of it, emitting another thunderous moan and angling her solid jaw into his tiny face.

Jack was squirming around under her frantically, no doubt exciting the perverse titaness more and more, desperately trying to inhale enough air through his nostrils to prevent from passing out. Caitlin seemed to sense this, and he felt the crushing weight of her chest relent a touch as she arched her back, then slid her tongue out of his mouth and released her lips from his face with a sticky ‘smack’. He could feel the stain of her lip gloss in a ring around his mouth, cheeks and upper lip, and tried to get his breath back with a series of splutters and gasps.

 “You little wimp,” she spat bluntly, hoisting herself off him and reaching behind her head to unfasten her long ponytail.

"Don’t go anywhere,” she smirked, standing up to her full height and sauntering to her wardrobe with lithe, sexy strides.

Jack turned his head and beheld the frightening muscularity of the Alpha girl, the sculpted pillars of her colossal, well-toned legs and her powerful, well-built shoulders as she bent down to remove her running shoes.

Jack’s heart was racing, try as he might he couldn’t loosen the sports tape an inch, and for every minute that went by he was getting more exhausted and less likely to escape. He realised with a groan that he hadn’t got his phone on him either, it was in his bag in his locker along with his keys and everything else. This giantess was going to torment him for the next 48 hours at least, there was very little he could do to stop her, and no-one knew where he was.

A thought popped into Jack's brain almost instantly; he might have a chance of wriggling off the bed, and from there he'd be able to roll underneath, buying himself some time to get free of the tape. Caitlin was definitely getting changed out of her current attire and this was likely to be his only window. Cue frantic squirming, kicking and rolling as he tried to get himself to the edge of the covers before Caitlin returned her attention to him.

He was acutely aware of how ridiculous he must've looked, like a pathetic worm trying to inch its way across a teenage girl’s bed.

Just as his hopes dared to rise as he approached the edge of the bed, he heard her voice cry out, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The leviathan’s heavy footsteps thumped near as she swooped in to halt his progress and drag him back to the middle of the covers. Her huge face appeared in front of his, not exactly furious but more than a tad annoyed.

“Sneaky little bastard aren’t you?” she smiled evilly, looking down his body to where she was placing her left hand. He strained his heavily-bound neck to see, clocking an awe-inspiring view of her perfectly-developed bod in just a bra and panties. She waited for him to notice where she’d put her fingers; right in position to flick him where it would hurt the most.

Jack’s world exploded as Caitlin’s middle finger delivered a devastating blow to his nutsack; the poor boy screaming again and again in agony as the girl laughed cruelly, amused no end by his suffering.

“Stupid toyboy,” she mused.

“I hate you!” Jack screamed bitterly, “I fucking hate you!”

The big girl pulled a pouty face, pretending to take offence, slid her hands under his writhing form and lifted him in the air by the waist. He again had a front row view of her unbelievable body; pink hipster panties and a matching demi bra left little to the imagination - her tremendous physique seemingly pushing the bra in particular to breaking point.

The powerhouse redhead parked her mammoth backside down on the bed, and held him just in front of her, his feet hanging limply between her knees and his head right in front of hers.

“Can I let you in on a little secret?” she said piercingly, her face simultaneously stern and arresting framed by her long ginger locks. Jack didn’t gratify this with any kind of response, so the giant continued anyway.

“I could have any boy, hell, any man I want, with this body,” she boasted, deliberately pushing her elbows inwards to emphasise her prodigious tits and cleavage.

“However, I realised that fucking with guys was more fun than just fucking them,” she grinned, shaking her hair out of her eyes self-assuredly.

“Plus, none of them stack up where it counts,” she added, raising an eyebrow self-assuredly.

“Men are pricks, even you little Beta runts,” she went on, “It gets me off so much to humiliate you, to make you beg, it makes me feel… powerful.”

As she said this, he felt her flex her muscles, and looked on terrified as her arms, shoulders and neck bulged noticeably.

“Beg me to let you go, come on, it turns me on soooo bad.”

The enormous girl awaited a response, her intimidating physique almost unreal to behold.

“Y-you fucking psycho, you’re s-sick! W-why are you doing this to me?” came Jack’s desperate response, “I never hurt you, I n-never…”

Caitlin squeezed him forcibly, stopping him mid-stammer with a yelp, “Stop whinging, shrimp, don’t you get it? I want you to hate me, it gets me off, I don’t care about you or your feelings.”

Jack began to weep again, “And don’t be such a pussy either,” she growled threateningly, “Or I’ll give you something to really cry about.”

The giant girl idly squeezed and pressed the distraught boy with her controlling hands, causing him to twitch and squirm involuntarily as she sought out tender spots on his miniature body with her strong fingers and thumbs. She could almost place his whole backside in one oversized palm whilst prodding his ribs and torso relentlessly.

After tormenting him for a few moments as he blubbed, she decided to strip some of the tape from his legs, resting him carelessly against one of her forearms whilst ripping the tape off with the other arm. She left a tightly-wound band from his stomach to his shoulders that held his arms by his sides but left his wrists and hands relatively free. Jack spent a lot of the time meekly pleading for her to let him go between sobs, absolutely on the brink of submission and clinging to the hope that he might still be able to get out of this situation by some small miracle. The giantess’ features remained utterly unmoved.

After she’d peeled the last strip from his pant leg, she placed him on the floor like a little soldier just in front of her. Without the use of his arms, Jack didn’t feel very stable, but just as he was about to try and retreat cautiously, a large palm connected with his forehead and sent him tottering rearwards to fall flat on his ass on the carpet.

The leviathan chuckled heartily, her tree-like thighs rippling with muscularity as she stood up with her feet either side of his, it was like looking up at some gigantic, malevolent statue of a Roman Goddess. As the tiny captive tried to gain purchase on the floor with his flailing legs, Caitlin lowered one huge foot onto his body; her heel resting just above his crotch on the sensitive part of his belly, and her pink-capped toes at the top of his chest. She drummed her sizeable toes on his collar bone, the muscles in her lower leg undulating imposingly, and gradually increased the pressure on his chest.

Her hand snaked up her torso to one of her big boobs, cupping it suggestively as she glowered down at him, “I could crush you so easily, toyboy, you know that?”

Jack emitted a wobbly groan as she compacted his lungs with the ball of her foot, his little legs flopping limply as he tried to cope with the strain.

The enormous foot lifted off slightly, allowing him to breathe again, and slid heavily along his body towards his legs, grinding into his junk deliberately with the sole of her foot as it went. Its substantial weight then pressed down on his legs, pinning them against the carpet firmly enough to hinder their wriggling, her toes now resting on his groin.

“Please g-g-get off…” he stammered as she nudged the fly of his trousers with the pad of her big toe. The towering redhead just peered down at him, unsubtly pushing against his stiffening cock through his trousers with a toe the size of an elongated billiard ball.

“You know what, I bet you’re just as sick as you think I am,” she said confidently, “I bet you love this…”

“I d-don’t!” he yelled, “I’m scared, I’m hurt, I w-want to go home!”

His face turned slightly red with embarrassment as the stimulation downstairs began to have the desired effect.

“You’re lying, you little prick, this totally gets you off too,” she breathed, rubbing her nipple through her bra a little with her fingers as she leant directly over him.

“It d-doesn’t, please, you’re forcing me! This is like rape!” he wailed, twisting his body pitifully as his hard-on began to press harder against the fabric of his pants.

“I don’t think your microdick agrees, little Jack,” she sniggered, “Shall we see what he has to say?”

 “N-nooo…” he whined, but Caitlin was already lifting her foot off him and lowering herself down, tucking her well-built legs underneath her body as her long red hair swept across her face. Elephantine fingers attached themselves clumsily around him, effortlessly lifting him from the floor like a child’s baby doll, then dumping him unceremoniously on his back on a corner of the giant bed.

The duvet cover was thankfully very soft, cushioning the landing, but respite was brief as immediately an outstretched hand big enough to hold a 12-inch dinner plate forced his thighs flat whilst the other started to roughly yank off his shoes.

Jack yelled out in pain as he she twisted his ankle carelessly, plucking off his little socks and dropping them on the floor next to his shoes.

“Don’t undress me again, Caitlin! Please!” he pleaded despairingly.

“Shhh, peewee,” she soothed disingenuously, already sliding her suppressing hand up to his chest and grasping at his waistband with her invasive fingers. Despite his frantic wriggling, she easily tugged his britches down around his ankles, and before he knew it she had, for the second time in as many days, stripped him of his dignity in the most uncomplicated fashion.

The giant girl gasped in false amazement, aiming to be as disparaging as she possibly could.

“Oh tiny, is this for me?” she cooed, placing a heavy fingertip on his shaft and squishing it sideways onto his inner thigh, making him groan protractedly as the incompatible sensations of embarrassment and arousal battled in his mind. His penis was rock hard, painfully so; he’d never felt himself like this before.

The redhead suddenly laughed out loud, and he strained his neck to look down his body.

“Ha-ha! Your cock isn’t even as big as my pinkie!” she cackled, comparing his boner to her finger.

Humiliatingly, she was right, his little dick was perhaps slightly thicker than her smallest digit, but was nearly an inch shorter.

Smirking, the giant girl grasped his member lightly between thumb and middle finger and delicately pulled on his foreskin, causing Jack to moan as he felt her big index fingertip tap the head of his dick gently. His cock pulsed as she pinched more firmly, watching his face intently to savour the exact moment his pleasure became pain. His little mouth opened slightly as the soft noises he made became more high-pitched and strained as she gripped still harder, twisting it malevolently in her vice-like grip.

Caitlin’s glee was cut short unexpectedly by the sound of her mobile phone ringing from the other end of the room; it was clear from her reaction that she needed to answer it.

Exhaling huffily, the girl stood up and grabbed it quickly, bringing it up to her ear but keeping her focus firmly on the bed – Jack dared not move a muscle, despite the awkwardness of his situation; pants round his ankles and naked from the waist down.

“Hey… yeah. Yep. Ok, whatever…” she clucked in a bored kind of way, cocking her hip and angling her head to her side.

“What… now?” she said incredulously, rolling her eyes, “…Ok, gimme a second already, god.”

She grabbed her sports bag, walked over to Jack and dropped it right onto his body and bare groin with a sickening thud, winding him.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she hissed down at him, holding the end of her phone away from her mouth as she did so. She opened the bedroom door, walked through it and closed it behind her, her voice trailing off as she walked through the house.

Caitlin’s bag wasn’t quite as heavy as Jack had made out; it wasn’t exactly light or anything but his over-exaggerated ‘oof’ had definitely sold the illusion.

Kicking madly, he wriggled his way out from underneath it, then rolled off the duvet cover onto the floor, landing on his feet and immediately letting his back fall against the side of the bed so he didn’t topple over. Despite having his arms pinned to his side with sports tape and his pants round his ankles, he could still try and shuffle around to find an exit or hiding place before she returned.

He was used to being dwarfed by Alpha-scale environments at school, but a teenage girl’s bedroom was a new experience entirely – he was completely out of his comfort zone here. Scanning around, he figured that hiding under the bed was way too obvious - she would find him within seconds - so he scuttled towards the en-suite to buy himself some time. His eyesight wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t see where he was going, but it was definitely hindering his ability to spot somewhere to hide.

He got through the door not a moment too soon, as Caitlin’s distant voice approached the bedroom door again and opened it, still in mid-conversation. Unfortunately, there was nowhere obvious to hide in the bathroom where he couldn’t be found very easily, as she didn’t have any kind of cupboard, just a small plastic bin that offered practically zero protection.

“Alright Mum, you don’t have to check up on me every 5 minutes,” her voice protested as she re-entered the room, closing the door and locking it behind her.

“K, bye then…. bye,” she said finally, her phone making a beep as the call disconnected.

“Where were we?” she announced ominously, closely followed by a hesitant “...huh?” as he heard her investigate the bag and lift it up.

“You little shit!” she yelled angrily, “You wait ‘til I find you!”

He felt the floor shake as the gigantic teenager dropped to the floor to check under the bed, and he could hear her arms sweeping around underneath it, bashing boxes and god-knows-what around in her haste.

Treading as carefully and quietly as he could, Jack made his way towards the shower door, which was left tantalisingly open – figuring he could hide behind the door and use the large towel draped onto it as cover. He was still absolutely petrified, because it was a pretty feeble hiding-place, but it was the best he could do in the circumstances.

“Where the fuck are you hiding?!” the increasingly irked giantess bellowed, moving on to the wardrobe, if the noises from the other room were anything to go by. He heard her throwing her clothes around the room, and then her shoes as she stormed around like an angry bear.

Jack tried to tread carefully as he stepped up and across the threshold of the shower. It wasn’t wet, but as it was a very smooth surface, it was hard to get a good foothold without the use of his arms for balance.

The din from the bedroom subsided suddenly, and he froze, trying not to make a sound.

“I know you’re still in here, boy,” the girl snarled menacingly, “And if you don’t come out soon, when I find you, I’ll use you for soccer practice.”

He swallowed audibly, inching his way carefully behind the towel. He heard the monstrous Alpha get to her feet and start throwing her clothes back into a pile.

“It’s only a matter of time before you fuck up...” she began, but never actually finished the sentence, as before she could, the unmistakeable echoed thud of a shampoo bottle falling over in a shower was heard from through the bathroom doorway.

Jack began to shake with fear; he’d been so concerned with moving quietly, that he hadn’t concentrated on where he was placing his feet. Within seconds he would be found, and sure enough Caitlin’s towering, athletic frame stomped imperiously into the room and turned to investigate the shower.

She sneered down at her prey cruelly, spotting him through the glass door, her face flushed slightly pink after her efforts to find him.

“Great hiding place,” she said sarcastically, brushing away a few strands of her long red hair from her eyes and smiling threateningly.

“Why didn’t you just say you wanted to freshen up, tiny?”

Jack’s mouth opened and shut, but no words were forthcoming and the wicked girl’s smile broadened.

He watched in awe as she reached behind her back and carefully unhooked and slid off her bra, allowing him a first glimpse of her unbelievably perfect rack. Her breasts were enormous, jutting out from her washboard stomach like two perfectly ripe melons – and this is impossible to overemphasise – melons easily as large as beachballs. Her gargantuan tits jiggled deliciously as the monumental redhead bent over to remove her hipster panties, sliding the pink waistband down her well-built legs and over each foot to deposit them on the floor unhurriedly.

He took a small step backwards instinctively, his heart rate fluttering as fight-or-flight reflexes took over.

She spotted his anxiety immediately, “What’s the matter, honey?” Caitlin said in a sing-song voice designed to mock him, “Scared of little old me?”

She was the sexiest, most dangerous creature he’d ever beheld – over 13 feet of solid muscle, tits, ass and legs. He was terrified because deep down there was a part of him that wanted her to abuse him, hurt him, debase him… use him as her own personal loofah. A growing chunk of his brain longed for this titanic sexpot to overwhelm him completely – screw the pain, screw the humiliation, she was the closest thing to a goddess he could possibly envisage.

The more rational parts of his brain screamed at him in protest; because despite his libidinous desires, he needed to face up to the fact that he was confronted with a huge and powerful adversary, a person who had demonstrated several times already that she thought nothing of holding him captive or hurting him. To top it off, this unhinged, bad-natured teenage girl had the physique of an insanely large, fully-developed athlete, she was a monumental freak even by Alpha standards and there was no telling what she was capable of.

His jaw started to chatter with fear as she took one imposing step towards the shower, and then another, grabbing the door rail with a big hand and swinging it open wide.

She peered down at her shivering quarry, shook her head and declared, “Boy, am I gonna make you wish you hadn’t tried to escape.”

The diminutive Beta looked utterly pitiful with his pants around his ankles and his puny dick poking out beneath his shirt. He retreated falteringly, shuffling backwards until his ass hit the tiled rear wall like a cornered animal, whilst Caitlin placed one hefty foot on the shower floor and stepped into it.

Looking directly above him, Jack saw the power dials a couple of feet above his head, and the shower head beyond it, which seemed a long way up indeed. As Caitlin’s other leg entered the shower, he also noticed the super-sized bottles of various shampoos and conditioners littered about, including the one he’d so foolishly knocked onto its side.

The oversized teen closed the heavy glass door behind her, cutting off the only exit, and reached over his head to turn the shower on.

He looked up at her colossal body as she moved closer to him, his eyes timidly taking in the shapely v of her pelvis, roaming up past the bumpy striations of her muscular abdomen to the underside of her mountainous tits. Through the valley between them, he could just see the underside of her chin, lips and nostrils.

With a click, a vast torrent of water sprayed down from the shower head as the titaness craned her neck to the ceiling, with just the hard silhouette of her jaw now visible from his vantage point. Countless rivulets of water criss-crossed her silky skin as they meandered down her body, and plenty sprayed off her large form onto Jack, dousing him through.

The enormous girl purred contentedly as the warm water covered her body, running her hands over her torso, acting almost like Jack wasn’t even there. Cautiously, he allowed his eyes to return to her midriff, embarrassed but also captivated by her large womanhood, which was about a foot higher than the top of his head. Her noticeably reddish pubic hair was neatly trimmed, and the size of her vagina took him aback, he had no experience with girls of any size, of course, and her sheer nakedness was giving him alternating waves of butterflies and fear.

High above him, Caitlin’s long arm reached to one side and grabbed a container of shower gel that was hanging up, unhooked it and squeezed some gel into her left hand. She idly rubbed her powerful hands together to foam up some lather, and tilted her head down to look at him, causing her long, wet hair to cascade onto her torso.

Jack didn’t know what to do, though he was arguably too scared to do anything even if he had wanted to.

“Cat got your tongue, peewee?” she teased, moving an enormous leg into him without warning and pressing his body up against the smooth tiles with it, emphasising how effortless it was for her to domineer him. His little face smooshed up against the freckled skin of her inner thigh as the water washed over the both of them.

Looking up through the spray at the enormous expanse of woman he was trapped under, he could see her caressing her monumental frame sensually with big, soapy hands. He realised the mountainous girl was still talking to him, but with one ear pressed into solid muscle, and the other inundated with water, all he could hear was the increasingly terse tone of her voice, and not the content.

Caitlin abruptly moved her leg away from his body, watching with amusement as his feet skidded out of control and he lost balance completely, landing on his back with a yelp.

The strapping redhead rinsed her hands free of the foam and looked down at the defenceless boy.

“If you’re not going to even try and add to the conversation, I guess I’m going to have to find another use for you,” she said forbiddingly.

With his arms still bound he was incredibly vulnerable to the whims of her giant feet, which it didn’t take his tormentor long to realise. He kicked his legs to try and propel himself away from her, splashing in the shallow puddle of slowly-draining water like a freshly caught fish loose on deck.

The monstrous schoolgirl raised her foot and hovered it over his head, taunting him with the sheer scale of its dripping wet sole.

“Oops-a-daisy!” she exclaimed, slowly pressing the arch of her giant foot into his face, flattening his nose and then lifting it off again.

Jack began to panic; this girl’s oversized foot could crush his head in an instant, what if she slipped? He now couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She rotated her enormous foot to one side so she could glower down at him, his field of vision looking right along that gargantuan, well-built leg of hers, right up to the ceiling where her piercing blue eyes bore into him with a steely gaze. She was still grinning, a perverse sort of smile, full of malice and sick glee.

She poked her big toe into his face, “Kiss it, shrimp, or I’ll flatten you,” she commanded.

The frightened boy puckered his lips and pecked at the pad of her toe meekly, ignoring the cascade of water washing over his face as he tried to appease his brobdingnagian captor.

Caitlin giggled girlishly, almost innocently, at the sensation of his lips touching her skin, reflexively pushing her toe into his face and nose and forcing the back of his head against the hard surface of the shower basin.

“Now, suck it,” she ordered, less aggressively but still with the threat of trampling at the forefront of Jack’s mind.

Reluctantly, he opened his mouth but it was obvious her toe was way too big - the bottom of it was like a big grapefruit. She waggled the ample digit at him playfully, then applied firm downward pressure to try and force him to suck.

Jack started to scream as the heavy pad of her toe pressed hard against his lips and teeth. Howling with pain, he beat his legs on the floor as visions of his teeth being pushed in flooded into his frantic mind.

The giantess raised her foot off him and surveyed him coldly, clearly unimpressed with all the commotion.

Jack closed his mouth and checked his teeth with his tongue to make sure none were bent or missing and thankfully they were all accounted for. Amidst his panic, his erection had all but wilted away and showed no signs of a return.

The irked giantess planted her foot back on shower floor, and lowered herself down towards his prone form so that she was crouching directly over him.

“You little pussy,” she said in that sardonic tone of hers.

Reaching down, she grabbed his now-flaccid cock between finger and thumb and examined it disparagingly.

“Not enjoying it, sweetheart?” she sneered, pulling it taut to simulate a hard-on and caused him significant discomfort.

“Let’s see if I can’t help you out,” she proposed playfully.

“C-caitlin, no… please,” he begged, trying to knot his legs over one another as she tugged at his shaft roughly with her fingertips, attempting to coax some life back into him.

The giant girl bit her lip slightly as she manipulated him against his will, clearly aroused by his pathetic pleas to stop her touching him.

She pinched his dick and pulled as if trying to drag his body by it, causing tremendous pain.

“Ffffffucck!” he whined pathetically; the behemoth looked on in amusement, releasing her grip on his tiny prick and sliding her other hand around the back of his torso.

The enormous girl then grabbed a handful of his sodden shirt and picked him up like a drowned rat, giving him a vomit-inducing sense of vertigo as the floor shot away from beneath him.

The next thing he knew, a massive wet nipple forced itself into his mouth, and he felt his spine conform to the smooth, cold expanse of the glass shower door. This mammoth sexpot had him pinned flat, helpless and disorientated, her oversized nub swelling between his lips whilst her other hand resumed grasping at his cock and balls in an attempt to stimulate him further.

He could feel himself welling up, trying to cry but unable to, almost like a passenger to his own brain. His emotions were so raw, at breaking point; there was so much to take in and his head couldn’t process it.

Her impatience seemed to grow as he failed to stiffen. Her grip on his jewels became tighter as she tugged and pulled on him more zealously, causing him to wail out in pain from behind the oppressive heft of her meaty tit.

She mashed her big palm into his groin vindictively, nearly crushing his little peanuts, inflicting the kind of punishment Jack simply couldn’t cope with. Much more of this and he might not be able to get an erection again, maybe Caitlin wanted to break him down there, to truly emasculate him?

The malevolent teen was certainly capable, but Jack sensed her dissatisfaction at his lack of arousal. It got her off to get him off against his will, and in a completely mad way, by failing to respond he had a semblance of control over her.

It wasn’t long before her greedy, powerful fingers ceased their assault on him, it was useless - the tiny boy couldn’t get it up, and the giantess femme fatale was majorly unimpressed.

“You pathetic worm,” she breathed from high above, “Looks like I’m going to have to postpone our little playdate until I get back”.

Her now rock-hard nipple retreated from his mouth, but Jack stayed silent, though in truth it was mainly as his head was in bits.

The giantess smeared his limp, sodden ragdoll form against the immense glass surface petulantly, smooshing him clumsily into it, clearly frustrated with her toy and unsure what to do about it.

This sexpot was monstrous, and freakishly strong, but she was still an adolescent girl. It wasn’t much of a chink in her enormously intimidating suit of armour, but as Jack numbly withstood the dull impacts she inflicted on him, it began to dawn on him that there was just the tiniest bit of hope.

He felt his weary limbs slide away from the cold surface of the glass as the girl grew bored at his lack of response and lost interest, he was just hanging limply in her grasp waiting for the abuse to be over.

He heard the sound of the water being turned off and the heavy movements of his giant captor as she pushed the glass door open and stepped out of the shower with weighty, damp footsteps.

It was in many ways rather wonderful to be carried with such ease by a being many, many times bigger and stronger than himself, in his head he almost allowed himself to enjoy the near-weightless sensation, until this illusion was shattered rather predictably by Caitlin’s nasty attitude.

The giantess held his frail body up high near her face to inspect him; he noticed her complexion had a noticeably red flush to it, possibly from the shower, possibly because she was royally pissed off.

She glared at him darkly, her big eyes unwavering as she bored into his sad, tired ones for what felt like an eternity. Finally, she spoke, bluntly and deliberately, for effect.

“I will deal with you later,” she said, cold as ice. He gulped audibly, trying to keep his face unmoved, but failing to do so. It didn’t help that his eyes began to wander down to look at Caitlin’s jaw-dropping physique glistening and steaming in all its naked glory.

She shook his body forcibly, snapping him out of it and commanding his full attention.

“I will break you, Jack, I’ll have you begging for mercy. Tonight, you will worship me like a goddess.”

She deposited his limp body crudely atop the plastic toilet lid with a thump, and watched him carefully to make sure he wasn’t pretending to play dead.

He didn’t want her to realise; but he was mentally and physically drained - any kind of escape was beyond him completely, not to mention the punishment she might inflict for another failed bolt for freedom.

The girl pulled her damp hair tight into a ponytail and affixed it with a pink scrunchie, towelling off whilst all the while keeping her attention fixed on the slumped boy.

He tried to avoid looking at her but slowly, inexorably his gaze was drawn to her – she was a walking wet dream.

He was scared, terrified even, of the things she could do to him, but try as he might, the idea of her, the scale of her, had an irresistible hold on him.

This was all so terribly confusing.

Jack kept absolutely still as the fearsome schoolgirl strode to the far side of her luxuriously-scaled bathroom and picked up a small collection of clothes she must’ve placed there earlier. He could make out a pair of panties and matching bra, a party dress and a pair of high-heeled sandals.

The statuesque redhead didn’t linger for long and was careful not to leave him unattended, she returned to keep an eye on him, but he got the impression it was also very much to keep his eyes on her.

The statuesque schoolgirl dressed with a minimum of fuss, securing her considerable endowments behind skimpy cotton and slipping the dangerously tight, figure-hugging dress over her shapely form. The dress was so short, and so snug was the fit, that her imposing physique was practically bursting out of it.

The Alpha vamp very, very knowingly adjusting her cleavage in full view of Jack’s shivering form; she was stunning, knock-out, to die for, and boy did she know it.

The superlatives kept tumbling over in his head like dominoes, only succeeding in distracting him from his predicament. The cold, sodden clothes he was lying in were causing him worse and worse chills, and his body kept trembling in bursts as his core temperature dropped.

Caitlin finished putting on her heels and stood admiring her robust, skyscraper-long legs. Her shapely calves and thighs were beautifully built, and she flexed and posed them in a very transparent attempt to draw his attention.

If he hadn’t been in so much pain, Jack’s arousal would have probably been very visible indeed. Instead, he just felt numb and unresponsive, ogling her majestic frame was simply a base instinct he didn’t choose to fight.

The immense teenager turned her attention back to the shivering bundle slumped on the toilet lid.

“Show’s over,” she declared brusquely, reaching down and grabbing him roughly with both hands.

She wasn’t gentle with him in the slightest, handling him like a kid would a battered old teddy, and with each heavy-handed bump and jar new aches and pains came into sharp focus. She carried him lackadaisically into her room, and dropped him on the bed in an untidy heap; though he was too tired to really care anymore.

The enormous girl then sat down just to the side of him, and, extending her long reach, dragged her big sports bag near and removed the roll of sports tape from it. If he hadn’t realised already, this confirmed Jack’s worst fears – there was going to be no escape.

Lifting up his puny legs in one sizeable palm, she secured them together tightly with several bands of tape, without any protest or struggle from the weakened boy.

“Any last words, squirt?” she asked, holding a small strip up to his face pointedly.

He couldn’t bring himself to speak, teeth rattling slightly from the cold clothes, and just stared up with watery eyes.

“Suit yourself,” she said curtly, shrugged nonchalantly, and applied the tape over his mouth and pressed it hard against his skin with a big thumb.

The hamstrung Beta could still breathe through his nose, but was otherwise completely incapacitated, as earlier when in the confines of her sports bag.

Stupidly, his brain decided that now was the moment, after what felt like eons of elf-imposed silence, to try and say something. He couldn’t figure out if he wanted to scream, to beg, to persuade, but all that came out was a muffled noise that made Caitlin’s wide features break into an obnoxious smile.

“Too late, pipsqueak,” she grinned, picking the tiny boy up like a parcel and scanning the room for somewhere to put him.

Jack felt like crying again at the sheer helplessness of the situation, he was going to spend the next however many hours tied up, with only the prospect of more abuse to look forward to once that purgatory was over.

He lost control of his functions and began begging uncontrollably behind the sports tape, his pleas for mercy almost completely muffled and inaudible. It was pathetic, he knew it, and all it seemed to be achieving was satisfying Caitlin’s desires in some dark, malevolent way.

The wicked girl leaned forward and stood up to her full height with him in her grasp, then marched purposefully over to the wardrobe, kicking the mess of clothes out of her path.

She laid Jack down on the hard wood surface surprisingly gently, then retrieved a small, old-fashioned-looking key from one of the small drawers some way up on the left hand side.

The boy scanned his surroundings quickly with a couple of turns of his neck, but his new prison was empty except for a couple of dresses hanging from a rail high above – when the door inevitably closed it would be dark, lonely, and uncomfortable.

He felt the prodigious teen’s shadow loom over him once more, and a large clump of fabric dropped onto his body. He immediately recognised it as one of Caitlin’s t-shirts, it smelled strongly of her sweat and perfume. A heady mixture, and one that made him feel uneasy.

Part of him wondered if this was a tender gesture from his giant captor, which seemed unlikely, or more predictably, a cynical ploy to keep her on his mind whilst she was away. Either way, this was going to be his only tangible comfort while the girl was out, and for that at least he was grateful, no matter what the intent.

“You’ll have plenty of time to think in here,” the girl explained gruffly, “And don’t even think about trying to escape.”

He looked up at this towering, indignant 17-year-old – scarcely able to believe she was capable of such cruel indifference. He was blinking back the tears, but Caitlin clearly wasn’t about to have a change of heart any time soon.

Without any ceremony, she swung the wardrobe doors shut, plunging the trapped Beta into darkness.

Closing his eyes, he heard the sound of the key rattle its way into the keyhole, turn slowly until there was a clunk, and then be removed. Next were her heavy footsteps as she walked away, followed by the sound of another drawer being opened, and lots of jangling of metal or plastic, like jewellery or something being rummaged through.

He was of course relieved not to be bearing the brunt of Caitlin’s vindictive attitude any longer, but he also didn’t fancy being left alone with his thoughts for hours and hours, awaiting her return. Hearing her actions over the next few minutes was strangely comforting for him, as it meant he was relatively safe for the time being.

He heard her walk into the bathroom, and then, quite clearly, the clink of a small set of keys being wielded, presumably to lock any windows. It was dispiriting, but inevitable really, given the way he had tried to fool the angry giantess before.

After a minute or so of listening to her inspecting what felt like every corner of her room and en-suite, the familiar ring-tone of her phone rang out loudly, and she rushed over to pick it up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there soon,” the Alpha insisted, “Are you still up for coming round tomorrow?” she added.

Jack felt dread grip his heart, who would be coming round, and why? Caitlin knew he would be listening, so again, this might be for psychological effect, to leave him in a state of panic when she left.

“I’ve got a big… well, a little surprise for you,” she continued, and could be heard opening the door.

“Oh you’ll have to wait and see!” was the last thing Jack heard her say before the bedroom door closed for good, and then that was locked too.

He heard her voice continue to rise and fall excitedly as she exited the house, but it was too faint for him to make out the details. With one final slam, she was gone, and he was left shivering and alone, trapped in the Alpha girl’s wardrobe.

The silence was deafening.

All he could think about was what was going to happen to him, tonight, tomorrow, beyond that.

His parents would surely realise he was missing and go looking for him, but he didn’t even know what time it was, or how long he had been gone from school. It felt like ages but it really couldn’t have been more than an hour or so, so it was probably still school time for a while yet, and it wouldn’t be until maybe 8 or 9 that his parents would suspect something more than him just going round Delon’s house unannounced.

He wasn’t sure if anyone would really notice at school either, Delon had already seen him so it wasn’t like he had been missing for long, and he did sometimes go and disappear into the library for most of the day when he was feeling under the weather.

He felt so, so helpless, and then, to make matters worse, his mind turned back to poor Penny, the only Alpha girl who had shown him any kindness, only to be repaid with his misplaced rage and frustration.

His eyes overflowed and he sobbed as he wished he could turn back the clock, and arguably have avoided his current predicament entirely.

He lay there in the dim confines of the wardrobe, with only slithers of light seeping in around the door, and contemplated his very existence. He wasn’t the most philosophical of people, but he knew he was going through something that would change his life irrecoverably.

Caitlin filled him with such contradictory thoughts, it was maddening to think about her mean streak, her bitterness, and then to juxtapose that with her explosive sexual appeal and otherworldly stature and strength. She was way, way too much woman for the poor boy to withstand, and yet a side of him yearned for her in a way that was dangerously close to idolisation.

Penny too, was very beautiful and kind, she was someone he wanted to confide in. What if she only knew, he thought, what if I could make her aware?

In his trance-like state, he began fantasising about Penny breaking into Caitlin’s house to rescue him. He could almost hear the sound of the key turning in the lock, see the daylight flooding in, feel himself being carried away by someone who could protect him, make him feel safe, and keep him away from the evils of the world…

Jack drifted off several times until he finally started to come to his senses. He felt unnaturally groggy, he had lost track of time, and the inevitable return of Caitlin. The light through the cracks in the wardrobe seemed much the same, so it definitely wasn’t dark yet.

He noticed that the many aches and pains around his body had faded a lot, and what little strength he had was returning. He hadn’t moved much since his incarceration, other than rolling into the soft material of her dirty t-shirt in search of a more comfortable resting position. His nostrils were also full of her scent, which was overpowering but not necessarily all that unpleasant, or perhaps he had just grown used to it over time?

His eyes were also now fully adjusted to the darkness, so he could see the two dresses hanging above him quite clearly. The garments themselves were hung up on cheap metal hangers, and looked like they hadn’t been touched in some time, smelling faintly of musty fabric conditioner and not really being the sort of thing Caitlin would recently be seen wearing – a bit too flowery and childish for someone so well-developed and popular.

As he began to feel a little more normal, he started to squirm around, testing various areas of his body – like his legs, arms, and stomach – for bruises, aches and pains. He was still hurting, but nowhere especially badly, which was fortunate in the circumstances.

As his flexibility improved, so he began to notice that the tape that held his arms down was nowhere near as adhesive or rigid as the tape on his legs, possibly from being doused in water and subjected to a lot of movement since it was first applied.

He couldn’t slip his arms out from the tape as it was still too tightly wrapped, but if he could make a tear somewhere he figured he might be able to rip it.

There was obviously still the huge question of what he would happen even if he did manage to remove the tape; the wardrobe was still locked and then there was no way to escape Caitlin’s bedroom and bathroom. He could try and hide in the wardrobe, but she would find him within seconds, even if he just stayed where he was, the mere fact he had escaped his bindings would give the scornful girl just the excuse she needed to punish him brutally.

Puffing his cheeks out, he weighed up his options.

If he could get free, he had a chance of getting out of the wardrobe. He didn’t know how, but it was an Alpha-sized lock, he might be able to use his fingers.

If by some miracle he could get out of the wardrobe, even if there was no way out of the room, all he needed to do was find some way of communicating to the outside world, like a laptop or tablet, or an old mobile phone. If not, at least he could try and find a better place to hide, somewhere Caitlin might find it hard to squeeze into, or might never think to look. Then, if he waited long enough, she might think he had escaped anyway, and give him an opportunity to escape for real.

If he could get clear of the house… he would be safe.

His mind was set; he would risk it. He prayed he wouldn’t regret this…

Jack squirmed this way and that, but the tape still held firm, there simply wasn’t enough give and he was nowhere near strong enough to even open up a small tear.

Looking around the wardrobe, he remembered the dresses, and their wire hangers… If he could pull a dress down, with hanger, he stood a chance.

Straining for all he was worth, Jack snaked his way towards the longer of the two dresses and rolled awkwardly over onto his front so that he could grab a handful of the fabric. He tried to give it a strong tug, but lost his grip almost immediately. The big curtain of fabric rocked softly back and forth as he twisted his neck to look up.

He reached out again and grabbed the dress, then rotated his body so that his other hand could grab a clump of it also, then pulled firmly, but not hard enough to tear it from his grasp.

The dress tilted to one side, causing the hook to scrape a fraction of an inch along the rail. He again yanked at the material, trying to do it so that he was pulling at angle that might dislodge it somehow. The hanger slid once more, about half an inch this time, and he could see that the cheap wire was deforming slightly with every pull.

He could barely exert any meaningful force on his next attempt, and the hanger refused to budge, so he let go of the material and allowed his hands some respite.

The dress swung side to side like a pendulum, so Jack, thinking quickly, forced himself into a position to grab at the fabric and give it a yank as it swayed, trying to increase its momentum.

The hanger wobbled slightly, so he composed himself again and went for it, once more the thin metal appeared to give way a tiny bit. He had to keep this going; third one’s the charm, he told himself.

With one big effort he twisted his body painfully and threw himself up at the dress, grabbing a clump in each hand and dragged down with as much force as he could. The hanger bowed considerably, and as he hit the deck and rolled onto his back he looked on as, agonisingly, glacially, the hook scraped just beyond the point of no return.

Euphoria washed over him as a wave of fabric and clanging metal tumbled down around him and he screamed out in defiance. His voice was still muffled by tape of course, but with no-one else there to hear him it couldn’t detract from his elation.

Twisting onto his front, he wriggled through the expanse of cloth to locate the hanger, and manoeuvred his body in such a way that could get the hook under the loop of tape binding his waist and arms. The jagged metal tip scraped across his stomach, but in his haste he ignored the pain, concentrating fully on getting the hanger at an angle so he could get a foothold on it.

With some considerable effort he succeeding in getting the toes of his right foot over the thin bar of metal by bending his knees right up under his chin, and pushed tentatively with his leg muscles, attempting to rip or stretch the tape. It was slow going, but with small repetitions he could feel it beginning to give.

After around a minute the tape had been pulled away enough to tuck his right wrist under it so it was no longer pinned to his side. He only had a small range of movement, but it enabled him to grab onto the metal and hook it by the next band of tape, so he could jimmy it free also.

Over the next few minutes he stretched and pulled the sports tape out enough to free both of his forearms, and from there he used the jagged point of the metal hanger to attack the remaining bands.

When his arms were free, he tore the tape from his mouth and let out a huge scream, an outpouring of anguish to the heavens. Inhaling deeply, he allowed himself a small moment of respite before continuing.

The bindings around his legs were a bit trickier as the tape was stronger, but it didn’t take too long to tear them using the wire hanger.

He rolled onto his back, exhausted, stripped himself of his damp clothes, and wrapped himself, naked, in the comforting, dry fabric of the oversized dress. Sadly for Jack, his relief was soon to be tempered by the realisation that he was nowhere near out of the woods yet.

After composing himself for a bit, Jack’s thoughts turned to the next phase of his great escape. He rolled out of his fabric cocoon and stood up on stiff, weary legs.

The keyhole on the door was about a foot above his head; it was quite a large, old fashioned one. He suspected the wardrobe might in fact be an example of antique-effect Alpha furniture - very large, very old locks from churches and other bygone structures were repurposed as vanity detailing in traditional-looking cupboards, chests of drawers and the like. As true antiques were obviously at Beta scale only, it was a real mark of status for some Alphas to boast something that looked authentically ‘vintage’ in their enormous homes.

For Jack at least, this gave him hope, as the lock appeared to be quite primitive in design, definitely more for show than to actually keep anything secure.

He racked his brain to try and remember any information he had learned about lock-picking; not necessarily something he’d ever suspected he’d need to use. It was already incredibly lucky to have a wire coat hanger to hand, he now needed to make the most of his good fortune.

He knew that older locks could be opened by skeleton keys, which were really simple keys with just a single tooth at the end, so if he could bend the metal wire relatively straight, and then put a 90 degree kink at the end of it, he might be able to turn the lock.

He knelt down and grabbed the oversize clothes hanger, and tested the strength of the metal hook with his hands. The wire was relatively thin, especially in comparison to the size of the hanger, but it still took some force to straighten the hook out, and add the kink at the end.

Once he was happy with how his makeshift skeleton key looked, he stood up on his tiptoes and slid it into the keyhole, using the loop-like frame of the hanger as a handle to try and jiggle and turn the ‘key’ in the lock.

Pressing his ear against the door, he listened to the clanking sound of the wire rattling in the keyhole, and tried to feel for any resistance. After a good long time concentrating hard, the metal seemed to be catching against something towards the back of the lock, so he adjusted his grip and begun to carefully twist the hanger with his hands.

He felt jittery as he increased the force on the thin wire, he seemed to be making progress, surely this was only a matter of time…

With a heavy clunk, his ‘key’ suddenly span and fell out of his grasp, causing him to lose balance. After picking himself up, and making sure the wire hadn’t bent or snapped, he inspected the lock and realised that, incredibly, the deadbolt had retreated back into the door, there was clear daylight there.

It took a moment for this to sink in - he closed his eyes and leant his head forward against the surface of the wood. More than anything else, an overwhelming sense of relief washed over him. It was the sudden realisation that some of this was in his hands now; he at least had a small semblance of control over the situation, instead of just waiting, and worrying.

Cautiously, Jack pushed the wardrobe door open. He immediately had to snap his eyelids shut, dazzled by the unexpected brightness of daylight after such a long stretch in the dark.

He stood there for a moment, totally blinded, but gradually his eyes acclimatised so that he could begin to survey the scene. The far side of the room was quite blurry without his glasses, but in the foreground he could see lots and lots of Caitlin’s clothes in untidy piles, or simply strewn across the floor.

He staggered across the room on legs made of jelly, nearly falling to his knees as he reached the oversized sports bag that had been his makeshift carrycase earlier on. Reaching in, he scrabbled around with his fingers until they stumbled across an item he had feared he’d lost; his glasses. Fortunately, they were intact, if a little grimy; they had lots of small flecks of dirt and grass on them.

Slumping back against the big bag, he wiped the lenses with his fingers and carefully slid the chunky frames onto his face. For the first time was able to scrutinise the finer details of the Alpha girl’s bedroom.

As he’d seen earlier, the room was a strange mix of fitness equipment, posters of athletes and sports stars, and then cuddly, cutesy crap like stuffed animals, pop band posters and lots and lots of pink. She even had pink weights littered around a kind of enormous multi-gym in the corner, next to an exercise bike and a ball-shaped punching bag.

The first thing Jack needed to do was to check if there was any possible way to escape, so he got to his feet wearily and headed over to the nearest window. Clambering up onto the windowsill, which was just above waist height to him, he inspected the handle – it wouldn’t budge, plus it was a modern lock; much harder to try and pick than an antique one.

He looked out of the window, and realised he was on the ground floor, as evidenced by the long expanse of lawn in front of him. This was a bit unusual as most Alpha homes tended to be 2-storey houses with bedrooms upstairs, they took up far less floor space, leaving more room for a small garden on restricted size plots. Extensive bungalows did however prove practical for wealthy Alpha families that had Beta maids or nannies as there were no double-height stairs to negotiate, plus they could easily afford to live in purpose-built, Alpha-only districts where plot size wasn’t a factor.

He could see a pathway leading to a swimming pool, hot tub and barbecue area around to the right-hand side. The entire garden was surrounded on all sides by a tall, white fence, so nobody was likely to see a naked Beta boy gawking through the window.

Jack spent a few minutes checking the windows in both rooms, but every single one had been fastened shut and locked. He gave the last window am extra hard punch in frustration, but this was super thick, Alpha-grade glazing, designed to withstand a fully grown Alpha throwing a brick at it without shattering. His pride, and knuckles, were hurt.

He slunk back to investigate the bedroom door, and that appeared to have a separate lock installed beneath the door handle. It was very compactly designed, and he couldn’t even begin to figure out how to pick it.

He tried to stay optimistic, he’d already come this far. There was no turning back now.

Walking into the bathroom, he clambered up to the sink via the toilet seat and had a long drink of water from the tap. Looking around, there was make-up detritus everywhere, lots of lipstick, bottles, jars and cases, cans of hairspray and other assorted things that he was pretty unfamiliar with.

Caitlin clearly cared a great deal about her appearance, but he had no idea if this was a normal amount of make-up or not. It made him feel very naïve, to be honest.

Heading back into her room, he began to search around for a phone or computer, or maybe even some food to keep his energy levels up.

Next to her bed was a small cabinet. He was able to drag the heavy drawers open and rummage through, but it was mainly assorted hairbands, nail varnish bottles, and cheap mall-purchased jewellery. He climbed up onto the big bed to pry open the topmost drawer, and noticed a small ladies watch laid on top of the cabinet. The second hand was still ticking, so it stood to reason that the displayed time of 3:16 pm was accurate.

Hopefully this would give Jack a decent window to try and find a way to contact the outside world, or at the very least, prepare a hiding place somewhere.

He opened the top drawer, which was a bit of a struggle, only to discover a huge purple dildo resting on a bed of panties and white socks.

Taken aback, he looked down at his own manhood, and felt more than a bit pathetic. This obscenely-proportioned behemoth was over 2 feet long, complete with ball sack and everything. The shaft alone had to be 5 inches wide; he could easily have used the thing as a battering ram, for fuck’s sake.

If other Alpha girls were used to putting anything like this between their legs, then there was no hope for boys like Jack. Reaching out curiously he ran his little hand along the smooth, synthetic shaft, then shuddered to think of the size of some his Alpha peers; guys who presumably had ‘things’ like this for real.

He shoved the drawer shut hurriedly in his embarrassment, and dropped down under the bed to see if he could find anything down there instead. There were a lot of glossy teen magazines thrown around with pictures of good-looking Alpha boys and girls on them, some with pages torn out, and several empty cardboard boxes with slabs of polystyrene falling out. On the sides of the boxes were names of various brands of fitness equipment, presumably opened up and discarded untidily under the bed.

Hiding under the bed didn’t seem to be a very sensible option, it transpired. He would be easy to find, either in a box or hiding behind one – he’d have to think of somewhere else.

Next, Jack went over to inspect the area by her gym equipment. Several bright pink dumbbells were littered around on the floor alongside the exercise bike; he tried to see if he could roll one a few inches but they were too heavy for him to budge at all.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted an unopened energy bar by the front of the bike, he darted over and pounced onto it. Tearing the wrapper away feverishly, he consumed the goliath slab of chocolate and peanuts greedily, barely pausing for a second. Scaled up, this one bar was as big as 8 bars of similar Beta confectionery, and about as delicious.

It triggered an old memory of when he was still allowed to go trick-or-treating; he and the other kids always used to go to the Alpha neighbourhood as they knew the haul would be so much bigger. At Easter too, there were chocolate eggs bigger than his head, and he’d eat so much that he’d make himself really ill. As the other children grew taller, and less and less Beta families stayed in the area, his parents had warned him it wasn’t safe and made him stay at home instead.

With his belly full of chocolate he started to feel much more normal, which in turn made him increasingly self-conscious about being completely naked. He’d need to get his clothes a lot dryer if he hoped to be able to wear them soon, though.

Walking back across the carpet, he stepped into the wardrobe and tucked his sodden pants, t-shirt and jeans under his arm. He kicked Caitlin’s oversized t-shirt and dress into a pile in the corner, retrieved the metal hanger, and closed the large wooden door so that the wardrobe appeared to be untouched.

He laid his clothes down on the nearest windowsill, and hoped that the warm sun would be able to dry them out a bit so he didn’t have to wander around in the buff forever.

Crouching under the bed, he then threw the hanger into the furthest corner, so that if Caitlin discovered it, she might not put one and one together so easily.

There was a laundry basket tucked away near the bed that he hasn’t noticed before, he went to scope it out as a potential hiding spot, but it was as good as empty. A couple of soft toys had fallen off the bed into it, but the clothes tossed all around indicated it wasn’t being used for its intended purpose.

Scrambling up onto the vast bed, Jack confronted the bizarre menagerie of plushies, teddies and the like. The collection had to have between 50 and 100 cuddly animals of various shapes and sizes, predominantly pink ones. Dominating the group was a big brown teddy bear, the kind of thing you’d win at the fair, who appeared to be even bigger than Jack himself.

Poking out from beneath the bear’s foot, was the corner of something glassy and flat… Jack’s heart skipped a beat. Rushing forward, he shoved the toys out of the way to reveal a large tablet computer about the size of a dinner tray.

His hands shaking nervously, he put his palm to the glass, which lit up to show a PIN code entry screen. In the corner of the display, the battery life was listed as 27%, which didn’t seem like much, but Jack knew for a fact was probably at least a day’s worth of charge for a tablet this size. Alpha electronics were large enough to contain many times more battery power and hard drive space than similar hardware available at a Beta-friendly scale.

As this was a tablet and not a phone, there was no option to do an emergency call or anything like that – the only way to get help was to crack this code.

Caitlin didn’t strike Jack as the most tech-savvy person, which was the worst kind of stereotypical assumption, but probably the right one. If he had to guess, he reckoned that she would not only have a simple PIN, but she wouldn’t have enabled the lock-out feature either.

He began by tapping 1,2,3,4 on the screen, code incorrect. 0,0,0,0 – incorrect. 1,1,1,1 – incorrect.

No warning had popped up, so he was safe to continue indefinitely – now, hopefully, it was only a matter of time.

He’d spent about 15 minutes on it by the time he decided to change tack, she might have a code that used the old telephone keypads, 2 for ABC, 3 for DEF, and so on.

REID was 7343, he worked out, but that code was incorrect. CAIT, 2248, incorrect. He wasn’t sure where to go next, looking around, he decided he’d try PINK, 7565… nothing.

He thought about it some more - maybe it was a year, or a date. He started by entering in the year he, and presumably she, was born, incorrect, the year after, nothing, the year before…

The code entry screen swooshed away to reveal a tiled menu in front of a photo of Caitlin and three friends on a night out. He was in! This also meant that perhaps Caitlin wasn’t 17 at all, maybe she was actually 18, or even 19…

He didn’t have time to ask questions, but this was definitely news. Jack recognised two of the girls in the picture as Hannah and Alex, but the third girl was a mystery to him. She was a bit taller than Hannah but noticeably less so than Alex, and Caitlin, obviously, and had dyed shoulder length hair. There was also something just a bit offish about her, he didn’t know quite what, but anyway, there were more important things to do right now.

The little clock in the corner of the screen showed the time as 3:42, people would be leaving school around now. Jack tapped the browser icon, and loaded up an incognito tab so that Caitlin would have no record of him using the tablet and it wouldn’t save or record his activity.

He wasn’t so sure that sending his parents an emergency email was a good idea, as he was beginning to worry about the implications if he got them involved. His parents would almost certainly call the police, which would make things incredibly serious, and they would surely push for an investigation into what happened, which would be expensive, embarrassing and risk upsetting Caitlin’s wealthy family. He didn’t want to get either of them fired, so he had to be careful.

All the same, he needed to be rescued, or at least make someone aware so that they could get him out of there.

He logged into his social media account, and loaded up the messages tab, selecting Delon as the recipient. He knew for a fact that Delon was pretty useless at checking his messages – he hadn’t been logged in for 9 hours, but seeing as his telephone number wasn’t listed, and he probably wouldn’t notice an email for several years, it was his best bet.

Opening up the maps application on the device, Jack looked at the list of recent locations to try and determine where he actually was. There were several big clusters of pins around the city, mainly around the school and the mall near the centre, and then a very tight cluster concentrated somewhere in the wealthy residential area to the north of town. Zooming in, the pins were centred on a large house with a pool, a hot-tub and a patio in the back garden…

Jack took a mental note of the street name – New Chester Lane – and reopened the tab with his unwritten message to Delon in it. He began to type:

Hey Delon,

I don’t know how to put this, you probably won’t believe me.

I’ve been kidnapped by Caitlin Reid, she grabbed me at school and brought me to her house, it’s just off New Chester Lane about 3 miles north of school – I just checked on her tablet – not sure which house number though. It’s a big bungalow with a pool in the back garden.

Her parents are away, she tied me up and left me in her room. I managed to get free and find this tablet. There is no way out of her room, I’m completely trapped, this isn’t a joke.

I don’t know whether to get police involved, or tell parents, I’m really scared.

Caitlin is crazy, man, all the rumours are true. I’m gonna have to hide in here somewhere and hope she doesn’t find me. She will be back later and will go apeshit, I have to make her think I already escaped or something.

If I can, I will check back on this, but I don’t know when that will be.

I don’t know what else to do.

Please get this message asap, dude. I don’t know what she will do to me if she finds me.

Jack

He read it through twice, and then pressed send.

3:51pm. He still had to find somewhere to hide…

Jack closed both the maps app and the browser, making sure there was no trace of his activity, then switched the screen off as if it had never been touched.

As he put the tablet down on the covers, he looked at the oversized bear toy – probably a gift from her Dad or a boyfriend or something. As he stared, a stupid idea popped into his head; you know, one of those truly idiotic ideas that never works. Ever.

What if he hid inside the bear?

He had a good look at the toy – it was definitely big enough, the thing had to be 7 or 8 feet tall, head to toe. The proportions weren’t exactly human (the bear’s head was massive) but there would be plenty of room to manoeuvre inside.

No.

It was a stupid idea, he told himself, shaking his head.

The more he thought about it, however, the more sense it seemed to make…

The main problem with finding a place to hide was the fact that he wasn’t as insignificant as he felt; he was half-size compared to this environment, so not exactly the incredible shrinking man. Hiding in a large bin, or a drawer, or a box, was way too obvious – he probably wouldn’t remain hidden for more than a few minutes, tops. Anywhere else would be really cramped, so not only would he be supremely uncomfortable, he might do himself long term damage or even get stuck. On top of that, she would probably find him before long anyway – there were only so many places he could fit.

If, however, he was able to conceal himself inside this jumbo teddy, he’d be hidden in plain sight. All he would have to do was keep quiet and hope that Caitlin didn’t figure it out. Hell, she could even pick him up and move him around without knowing, as long as he made himself fall limp.

It was totally crazy, but just crazy enough to work, right?

Jack dragged the giant teddy bear across the bed; it was cumbersome and surprisingly heavy to move for something that was made almost entirely of stuffing. He laid the toy down on the big duvet, and rolled it over onto its front - it had a small zipper about 3 feet long running down its back, which he was able to unfasten quite easily. Reaching inside, he began to take out handfuls of the cotton-wool-like fluff, as if he was giving teddy a bit of liposuction or something.

After amassing a Jack-sized pile of stuffing, the boy put first one foot, and then the other, inside the open flap, and started to wriggle his way into the toy’s rotund body.

There was actually quite a lot of room, but the stuffing made it very claustrophobic, and he couldn’t really see what he was doing with his arms and legs. Tucking his elbows in by his ribs, he cleared a space in front of his face, and located the bear’s neck through the internal stitching. With his feet pressing against the spongy paws at the bottom of the toy’s stubby legs, his eye level was just above the neck join, and slightly below the stitching where the bear’s mouth began. He could even see through the gauze-like fabric surprisingly clearly as the toy’s neck was slightly worn and the fur was a bit thinner there.

Twisting around, he checked that he could reach the zipper to fasten himself in, which he could with relative ease. This was all looking suspiciously promising.

After extricating himself from the plus-sized bear, he swept the scraps of leftover stuffing onto the floor, dropped down and carried as much of it as he could into the bathroom. He had to dispose of the excess fluff somehow, because if Caitlin stumbled across any she would figure out where it was from and… game over.

He walked over to the large toilet, checked that the lid was up, and then started chucking in clumps of stuffing. He did a couple of trips, making sure he hadn’t dropped any bits between the bed and the toilet, then clambered up onto the seat, had a wee (as he didn’t know when he’d have another chance to), and flushed the evidence away. Job done.

He went to check on his clothes in the windowsill; they were still a bit damp but had dried up considerably – hopefully he would be able to wear them soon. He climbed back up onto the bed, and moved both the tablet and the bear back to roughly where they had been before – in amongst the pile of soft toys.

Glancing across at the bedside cabinet, he saw that it was 4:39pm. Taking a moment to relax finally, he lay down and sprawled out on the abundant duvet. His body sank into the pillowy material, it was wonderfully soft, and warm, and he was feeling quite tired indeed…

Jack’s eyes snapped open, his heart pounding furiously as he remembered where he was, and why. How long had he been asleep for? The sunlight through the window was definitely longer, but at least it was there at all. He sat bolt upright and scanned for the watch on the cabinet: 7:03pm - he’d been asleep for well over 2 hours. Thank god Caitlin wasn’t home yet.

Cursing under his breath, he picked himself up, slid off the bed covers and trotted over to the window sill, where his clothes were practically dry now. He dressed himself in his pants, t-shirt & jeans; they were a bit stiff and smelt slightly stale, but it was a lot better, and less weird, than running around in his birthday suit. He searched around on the floor near the bed and found his socks and shoes too – more or less where they’d fallen after Caitlin removed them from him earlier.

Fully clothed now, he scaled the bed once more, pulled the tablet out from the jumble of toys, unlocked it and checked to see if there was a reply from Delon. His spirits fell as he saw that his friend now hadn’t been logged in for 12 hours. For fuck’s sake, Delon, he thought angrily, this is too important.

Closing the tab, and making sure the tablet was as he found it, he fought the overwhelming urge to load up Pype or some other kind of app, but he knew that if he tried to log in to anything his details would be stored, and he didn’t know how to delete them afterwards. It was too big of a risk, he would just have to sit tight until tomorrow.

He slid the tablet back under the toys, crawled round to the back of the giant teddy, and gingerly slid himself inside, careful not to knock any of the stuffing out. He had propped the big bear a little further back into the pile, sat on some smaller toys so that he could lean against them and not have to stand or sit too awkwardly. He hoped this would also help make sure he didn’t attract any warranted attention, whilst still giving him a clear view out across the room ready for when the frightful girl would inevitably return. He zipped himself in carefully, got comfortable, and tried to keep his nerves under control.

There was a jangling of keys coming from the bedroom door as Jack slowly drifted back into consciousness. His eyes opened wide, Caitlin was home. A key was inserted and turned, the lock clicked and the door was thrown open wide.

Jack’s heart was in his mouth. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck… He tried to stay calm, he had done all he could, it was in the lap of the gods now.

The towering redhead stomped in, nearly smacking her head on the doorframe she was so tall in heels, and sat down on the bed clumsily, causing the whole thing to rock. The frightened boy looked on as she removed her heels and deposited a small clutch bag on her bedside cabinet.

It was pretty obvious she had had a bit to drink, and she seemed vaguely angry and frustrated with something. He was not looking forward to what she would do when she discovered he was missing, his hands started to shake from nerves and he had to hold his breath for fear of making a peep. This was going to be way harder than he thought it would be…

He looked on as the monumental girl stretched her long, toned arms to the heavens in a tired yawn, the intimidating cords of muscle on her back very visible from his perspective. She stood back up and paced over to the door, closing it and locking it with her key, which she then went and placed in the top drawer of her cabinet, alongside that mammoth dildo of hers.

Turning to the wardrobe, he saw her smile crookedly.

“Ohhh Jaa-ack,” she cooed, sending chills down his spine.

Reaching into her bra, she produced the small, antique key he had seen her take from the wardrobe earlier, and strode lazily over to the keyhole and kneeled down.

“It’s play-time, you little shit.”

She inserted the key and turned it, but it wouldn’t twist properly. Slowly he saw it dawn on her face that the door wasn’t locked, and the teen’s expression turned into one of abject horror. With a sudden bang she threw the door open, only to see a t-shirt and a dress piled in the corner. Jack held his breath as the girl picked up her t-shirt, aghast, and several small fragments of ripped sports tape fell onto the floor around her feet...

Caitlin’s mouth opened wide, and she let out the most agonising, ear-splitting scream he’d ever heard. It wasn’t a high-pitched shriek, it was an eruption of sound; a roar of fury that reverberated around the room like a shock wave. Jack flinched, tears filling his eyes as he fought to keep himself still.

She snapped her neck around, and for a moment it looked like she was looking straight at him… his heart stopped. Her face was contorted with rage, mascara running down her cheeks as tears flowed freely. He had no empathy for the monstrous female, but this was raw, and terrifying, and brutal.

Scrambling to her feet, she dove under the bed headfirst, and he heard the cardboard boxes getting torn to shreds. The mattress rose up as she smacked her head on the slats underneath, “No! NO! How?!” she howled over and over.

He heard the laundry basket being upended, and lots of clothes being thrown around, but he couldn’t see over that way from his vantage point. Lots of clanging and banging signalled that she was searching around her fitness equipment, before she made a beeline straight for the bathroom.

He allowed himself to wriggle slightly after the angry giantess left the room, almost as if he was checking that all his limbs were still there. The panicking Beta took a few deep breaths and swallowed hard, he felt sick to the stomach and couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling that he was going to be found and torn in half by an insanely mad, alcohol-fuelled Alpha.

More screaming and yelling, the sound of plastic bottles being thrown around, the shower door being slammed.

“Aaaaarrrgh!!! she shrieked, “Where the FUCK ARE YOU HIDING??!!”

Caitlin stormed back out and stood in the doorway, looking around in furious disbelief at her bedroom.

“I KNOW you’re in here!” she yelled, baring her teeth, “And when I find you, WHEN, you will WISH you were dead you tiny FUCKING DICKHEAD.”

She came straight for the bed, and Jack braced himself for impact. Lunging for the pile of toys, Caitlin started throwing them off the bed, and before he knew it he was flying through the air and landing hard on the floor face down.

Luckily the bear had plenty of padding so the impact wasn’t so bad, but he now had no idea where he was and couldn’t see a thing. He could still hear Caitlin throwing things around angrily, cursing loudly, though her voice was starting to waver now as each subsequent minute passed without her being able to locate her prey.

He prayed that she wouldn’t step on him by accident, it would only take one misplaced stomp for her to snap a leg or crush his ribs, and then he would be found AND injured. He began to hyperventilate at the thought of it… he just had to hang on a little longer, she had to have searched everywhere by now.

The banging and crashing came to an abrupt halt, and to his surprise he heard the enormous girl crying softly, sadly, like a child. Her anguished sobbing was ragged as she sniffed between big gulps of air, and he heard her slump to the ground not far from where he was positioned.

“I know you’re in here, Jack, I just know it…” she whispered under her breath.

“Please, just come out, I won’t hurt you, I promise, just come out,” she begged.

Crocodile tears, he thought, stay vigilant, don’t fall for it.

“Jack, please, I promise I’ll take you home,” she continued, the tone of her voice rising in intonation to try and sound more sincere, but only succeeding in hardening his resolve.

He heard her sniff loudly, and wipe her face with her arm, “I’m sorry Jack, I just got angry, I won’t hurt you.”

There was a long pause as she waited for a response, but nothing was forthcoming. He kept absolutely still, awaiting her final angry outburst, her parting shot, but it never came. She simply gave up.

Psychotic she might be, but it was hard to shake the feeling that she felt something for him, and this was hurting her deeply.

The stricken Alpha moved around the room quietly, inspecting the mess she had made, and began tidying up the toys she had thrown. Jack felt a big hand reach down and grab the teddy bear’s paw; he immediately let his body hang limp, with the exception of his arms folded across his chest, as she picked up the toy and carried it carefully back to the bed, dumping it on its side next to several large pillows. She didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary – it was such a large toy that his extra weight wasn’t too noticeable, thank god.

He lay there, careful not to move a muscle, keeping his breathing as shallow as he possibly could. Again, he couldn’t see where she was, but he heard her blowing her nose on some tissue in the bathroom, and then the sound of water running and teeth being brushed.

A short while later Caitlin re-entered the room. She had changed into a tight-fitting pink t-shirt with the word ‘CUTE’ written on it in block capitals, and a tiny pair of white hot pants. Her smudged make-up had been mostly wiped off, but her lips were still glossy and clumps of mascara clung to her long eyelashes.

She lifted up the duvet cover and climbed into bed, her face right in front of Jack’s recumbent teddy bear as she laid her head on the pillow. She was so close he could smell the minty smell of toothpaste on her breath as she sighed heavily, stifling a slight waver in her breathing as she still hadn’t fully calmed down yet.

Jack was petrified but couldn’t do anything, she was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. One sniff, one twitch, and the game was up. The pressure was immense, so it was with great relief that the enormous redhead rolled over to face the other way, her long ginger locks washing over the pillow like a cascade of fiery ribbons.

“How did you escape?” the giantess said quietly, possibly talking to herself. “How could you possibly escape?”

He witnessed her stretching her arm out towards the wardrobe despairingly as her mind struggled to cope with the reality of the situation. It was really weird; strangely touching, but at the same time completely absurd. This mountainous girl was behaving so timidly, like she was the victim, and yet she had imprisoned him, abused him, hurt him and molested him.

Without warning, the girl turned back around, and reached both arms out and wrapped them around her big teddy. Jack was silently screaming in his head as she enclosed her arms around the oversized toy and brought it in towards her body, hugging it tightly against her chest. He tried not to breathe as the gargantuan schoolgirl caressed her toy delicately, nuzzling up against it and drifting off to sleep.

It was going to be a long night for him.

Jack couldn’t sleep a wink.

Caitlin’s booze-fuelled coma probably meant she was damn-near unwakeable, but the fear of capture was such a terrifying prospect he daren’t drift off.

His eyes felt like bullet holes as he endlessly stared at the nape of the enormous girl’s neck through the chunky knit material as her breathing rose and faltered. It would perhaps be impolite to call it a full-blown snore, but her breathing was very heavy – she was the definition of a slumbering giant.

He had no idea what time it was but it felt like it had been at least 3 or 4 hours. He hadn’t felt like this since Christmas Eve when he was a kid – lying awake all night trying to drift off but too excited. One time he even held his eyes shut for so long he got crust in them without ever losing consciousness. This was not the giddy anticipation of a 7-year-old, however, this was fully-blown adult terror; waves of anxiety at the prospect of Caitlin waking up, discovering his hiding place and taking her anger and aggression out on him physically.

In this exact moment though, in the twilit calm before the storm, Jack was concentrating on staying focused and alert. If he kept quiet and awake, he knew he would be fine for as long as the Alpha stayed unconscious - he had to control all the variables. If he slept, he might snore, fart, cough, wake up screaming – any sort of lapse would derail everything he’d worked so hard to accomplish since first freeing himself from his bindings inside the wardrobe.

His mind was also busy digesting the various permutations of what would happen in the morning. There was no doubt in his mind that Caitlin would look for him anew, probably like an angry bear with a sore head, but with natural daylight and a far lower blood alcohol content counting in her favour. If he stayed silent, and had good fortune enough to avoid being stood on, sat on, or in any other way compromised, he could last a good long while – long enough, in fact, for Caitlin to reach the Occam’s razor conclusion that he had indeed escaped.

The giantess shifted in her sleep, squeezing the teddy bear closer to her with her immense arms, and then sliding it up against her hefty body. Jack could feel the top of the bear’s head deflect as she pushed her face against it sleepily, murmuring softly and then began to breathe deeply once more.

It was like being next to some huge and dangerous reactor or engine, the power and size of which was immeasurable and very daunting. All of the cute, girly qualities Jack envisaged a young woman possessing were very intimidating and literally overwhelming when scaled up to such an abundant size. Experienced from this proximity, every little move Caitlin made felt momentous and imposing, whether she squeezed her toy a little tighter, constricting him, or even the occasional sigh she made as she slept, which made his heart beat a little faster for just a moment. The smell of her hair, and the scent of her t-shirt, was omnipresent - not overpowering but a constant reminder of how close he was to her.

Gradually, he noticed the light levels increase as sunlight returned. His vantage point was still near the girl’s neck, unable to see much beyond. More light meant he could pick out the surface of her skin more clearly, able to observe the delicate hairs and freckles and faint lines in fine detail for what felt like hours.

Just as his mind truly began to feel like it was wandering in circles, an unrelenting daze of tiredness, frayed nerves and bubbling-just-under-the-surface panic, he noticed the first signs that Caitlin was beginning to awaken.

First, her breathing became a lot shallower, almost silent. He couldn’t see anything except her neck, so for all he knew, her eyes could be wide open, waiting for a noise – it was petrifying. This seemed to go on for maybe 20 minutes, and then the gargantuan Alpha went through a phase of readjusting her grip and pushing and pulling the teddy bear uncomfortably. It wasn’t that it was painful or anything, but the pressure of being a human ragdoll and adjusting to fit various positions without attracting attention was remarkably taxing.

Eventually, teddy was released and laid on his side by two long, powerful arms, and Jack was afforded his first view of Caitlin once more. The girl’s long red hair was fairly bedraggled, and her t-shirt had ridden up to show her tanned, taut stomach. Good god, he then noticed her boobs again, almost unfathomably big, shrink-wrapped into a t-shirt that was clearly too small. Whatever growth hormone she had taken, it had given her a lot more, proportionally, than was feasible, it didn’t look physically possible. These weren’t artificially round plastic tits either, they were simply really, really large breasts, utterly perfect.

The mountainous female hauled her torso upright and stifled a yawn, scratching her bare tummy absent-mindedly. Turning away from Jack and the teddy bear, she swung her long, shapely legs around to place her feet on the floor. The room was a complete mess, clothes had been thrown around and most, if not all of the doors and drawers were half-open with their contents spilling out.

“Fuck,” he heard Caitlin utter quietly, wiping her eyes and then putting her head in her hands.

Standing up sluggishly, the prodigious teen started systematically checking every nook, cranny and corner of the room. It appeared that she was being calm and calculated, but one glimpse of her face told a different story. The girl’s expression was pouty and sour, he couldn’t tell if she was upset, cross, or both simultaneously. After she had investigated just about everywhere she could think of, the Amazonian girl unexpectedly smashed her fist against the wardrobe with a loud crack and looked down at the floor. The sudden violence made Jack jump out of his skin.

“Who would have a key?” she muttered to herself angrily, “Who knew he was here?”

She continued to pace around, picking up all the items she had discarded, putting them back more-or-less where they belonged. Jack saw that the wood where she had hit the wardrobe had splintered badly, she had used some force…

After the room had been cleared, she stood defiantly in the middle of the room and ran her fingers through her messy hair, sweeping it back behind her ears.

“If you ARE in here, better start praying,” she said.

“And when I find you, and believe me I will, I’m gonna break your little legs so you can’t run away…”

Cold sweat began to form on his skin as he watched on, helplessly, as she scanned the room for any sign of movement, any clue as to his whereabouts. Nothing. The girl gritted her teeth in frustration and stomped towards the door, grabbing her key from the bedside drawer, unlocked it, and closed it behind her. He couldn’t hear her footsteps pounding into the distance, only silence, which was weird. She hadn’t even locked the door behind her.

With a great whoosh the door flung itself open wide; she had tried a simple ruse, to no avail. The annoyance was palpable, writ large on her face as she scowled back into the room – he could even see that her muscles were clenched, coiled like a spring, she was ready to explode at any moment.

Slamming the door huffily behind her, he heard her lock it and test the handle several times to ensure it was secure, and then those heavy footsteps marched off. He figured he had a few minutes while she searched the rest of the house - it would probably be his only chance to check the tablet. It was right there, staring him in the face.

“Fuckkk…….” he exhaled.

This was risky…

Twisting around, he frantically cleared away some of the compacted stuffing that had settled around him overnight and dragged the zip down far enough to squeeze out. The teddy rocked slightly as he dragged himself free, clambered down to the tablet and unlocked it with trembling hands. He logged in as quickly as he could, listening intently over his shoulder for even the slightest noise that could signal Caitlin’s return. The time in the top corner was 11.21 AM.

There were two notifications, he tapped the icon, one message from Delon, tap, he read through it as fast as his eyes would allow.

Saturday 10.32 AM

Fucking hell dude, this better not be a sick joke.

I sent you a couple of texts last night, thought you were just in a bad place about stuff and wanted to be alone. Didn’t think to check my messages till now.

If what you say is true, you gotta get out of there. I’ve heard a few things about Caitlin; a guy I knew had to move away from town after claiming he was repeatedly bullied by her - there were some pretty bad rumours going round about what she did to him. He was pretty much our age now and she was maybe 14 then. His folks got the police involved and in the end they were prosecuted themselves and forced to move - her dad is seriously well-connected. They’ll just see it as an attempt to blackmail the Reids out of some money again, mate, I’m really sorry, I’m not ruling it out but we need to be smart about this.

I’ll talk to a few Alphas I trust and see what they say – for now I’m gonna tell your folks you’re staying at mine this weekend so they don’t worry.

Hang in there man, if she finds you try not to make her mad, she’s got a hell of a temper, I hope you’ll be able to get back to me though.

Delon.

Tears began to form in his eyes as he read the message. He knew that the police were probably not an option but Delon’s words confirmed it; he was on his own.

Wiping the wet, salty drips onto his sleeve he turned his attention to the other notification.

Message from Penelope Lévesque.

His heart skipped a beat.

Tap.

Friday 7:14 PM

Hi Jack,

I’m sorry about the other night, I got very upset and I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, I really hope you’re feeling better now.

I didn’t come in on Friday morning as I was unwell but Shen told me in the afternoon that you had tried to find me. You seemed to have gone home by then so I thought I’d send you this message. I don’t have a phone or a computer so I’m at the city library as dance rehearsals went on for ages, I don’t use my account much so I’m not really sure how this works.

Anyway, I’m really sorry if I’ve upset you, this is all really new to me as I don’t have many friends here, I hope you’ll get back to me soon and that you’re ok.

Penny x

His hands were really shaking now. He didn’t have time to think about this, Caitlin could be back any moment. He swiftly re-opened Delon’s message thread and typed two words into the reply box.

Tell Penny.

Tap. Sent. Log out. Swipe the app away. Switch the screen off. Put the tablet back as it was found. Dry tears from eyes.

This was all a blur, he wished he could re-read what Penny had put to check that he wasn’t just hallucinating from sleep deprivation, but his survival instincts screamed loudest. Clambering back up towards the oversized teddy bear, his ears picked up the sound of a fridge opening and being shut from the kitchen – Caitlin was close.

He checked to make sure none of the fluff had escaped from the back of the bear and none of it had, so he slid back inside as quickly as he could and zipped it back up. Reaching behind himself he adjusted the stuffing, and not a moment too soon as loud footfalls thumped up to the bedroom door, and a key was inserted in the lock. The door opened to reveal Caitlin holding a tall glass of orange juice and a breakfast bar in her right hand, whilst pinning a smartphone to her shoulder with her cheek and opening the door with the other hand.

“Yeah, she got so wasted, I know right?” she continued, closing the door behind her and keeping one well-built leg held against it as she reached to put her glass and snack down on the bedside table.

She locked the door, checking it once again, and kept saying “Mmmhmm” in agreement to whoever was on the phone.

“Well, you’re still coming over, right?” she asked abruptly.

There was silence as she listened intently to the reply, the voice on the other end was definitely female.

“Aw thanks babe, I knew you’d help me look for it,” she went on. “I’ll see you in a bit, ciao!”

A big chill went right down Jack’s spine.

Caitlin sat down on the bed with her back to him, consumed her breakfast bar hurriedly and washed it down with OJ. She spent the whole time tapping away on her phone, scrolling through her social media and messaging people with surprising dexterity and speed for someone so large.

Standing upright, the lofty teen then paced over to her exercise equipment, put down the empty glass, wrapper and phone and proceeded to stretch and unfurl her long arms and legs in what looked like some kind of warm-up routine. Jack watched in silent awe as she picked up one of the lurid pink weights he hadn’t been able to budge as if she were plucking a penny from the floor, and effortlessly starting doing arm curls with it. Caitlin’s bicep repeatedly grew into a substantial ball of muscle with each rep of her mighty arm - after a dozen or so she swapped arms and continued to admire herself from the other side.

The power in her arms was immense, she wasn’t even breaking sweat as she lifted the dumbbell over and over again like a metronome. She then picked up the other weight in her first hand and did reps with both arms. It wasn’t like it was erotic or sexy in any particular way, but it was hypnotic to watch and he again felt that peculiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. This girl was dangerous, but fucking hell was she hot. Her strength, the way she looked, her confidence… stop it, he told himself, control yourself, keep focused. Don’t let her get to you…

After maybe 20 minutes of working out, he heard a car pull up to the front of the house. Whoever Caitlin had been speaking to, she was here. Odds were that it would be either Alex or Hannah, their loyalty to the richest, most popular girl in school was unwavering, and their indifference to his wellbeing had been confirmed rather unpleasantly by their complicity with what happened to him on Thursday afternoon.

The doorbell rang out loudly, so Caitlin dumped her weights on the floor, unlocked the door, checked the room for movement then closed and locked it behind her. Jack heard the big girl jog over to the front door and excitedly greet her visitor. He couldn’t make out specific words, but this mystery girl had a much higher voice than Caitlin’s booming one. The voices got louder as the girls approached, then the key was turned in the lock and the door swung open.

“So what have you lost, again?” the girl asked loudly.

The voice definitely didn’t belong to either Hannah or Alex. Jack watched as a very tanned Alpha girl with shoulder-length, highlighted hair strode imperiously through the doorway with a small carry bag, her eyes flitting around the room. He recognised her immediately as the girl from the photo on Caitlin’s tablet.

She was wearing a bikini top that left little to the imagination and a pair of daisy duke shorts, the girl was in great shape, not amazonian and muscular like Caitlin or Alex and not as curvy or petite as Hannah, but slender with a trim waist and probably below average-sized breasts for an Alpha – though not small by any means. Her face was attractive but quite stern, with small, pointy features and a tight-lipped smile, she was very clearly one of the popular kids but Jack was certain he had never seen her before.

Caitlin closed and locked the door behind her.

“Ok, so here’s the thing, I kidnapped this manlet…” she said.

“CAIT! Oh my god, you didn’t!!” shrieked the girl wickedly.

“Yeah, I did, only he’s escaped, but I don’t think he’s got far,” the redhead continued. “I locked him in this room and there’s no way out, I bet he’s still hiding in here.”

The girl’s eyes lit up instantly, “No way!” she exclaimed, “Who is he?”

“Some little squirt called Jack, he’s like the weediest kid in school,” Caitlin said, “But Amber, remember, he’s mine, ok…”

He hadn’t heard that name before, he had no idea who this Alpha girl was. He was also curious as to why Caitlin would warn her, what the hell was SHE like?

“Yeah yeah, I get it, duh,” Amber replied, rolling her eyes and dropping her bag to the floor carelessly.

“Come out come out wherever you are!” the new girl called out excitedly, dropping to all fours and prowling around like a giant cat.

Jack bit his lip and stayed perfectly still, he felt the first pang that would need to go to the toilet before too long and there was no way that would be a possibility. Now he had to avoid two pairs of eyes and ears…

“You check the bathroom and I’ll check round here,” Caitlin instructed, walking purposefully towards the bed where Jack was hidden.

The colossal schoolgirl then began to ferry her menagerie of stuffed animals from the bed onto the floor whilst Amber walked off to the bathroom nonchalantly. Jack’s heart rate shot up as each successive toy was picked up and placed in the middle of the room. Very soon, she’d reached the teddy bear.

He crossed his fingers, something he’d never felt tempted to do before, and said a little prayer as Caitlin’s large, manicured fingers wrapped themselves around teddy’s arm and lifted it up like a victorious prize-fighter. He felt his feet press firmly against the leathery pads at the bottom of the bear’s legs as the toy was pulled upright and into the air. The way his weight was balanced had shifted completely, with some effort he managed to keep himself in position, but it was really awkward to try and hold still without inadvertently wiggling the stumpy little legs.

The oversized toy swayed gently as it was carried, and was then deposited with all the others, Jack let his body go limp to absorb the impact and stifled a yelp as it landed. The bear came to rest on its back, which was actually quite comfortable for him as it took the strain off his legs.

Caitlin continued to drop toy after toy into a heap, as Jack watched nervously through the thin fur around the bear’s neck; from his perspective he was basically a candid camera. Again, under other circumstances this would have been a bit of a teenage fantasy come true for the impressionable young Beta…

The towering redhead finished moving her collection, and then proceeded to lift the mattress clean off the bed and place it against the wall without any visible effort whatsoever, demonstrating her unreal strength in a very lackadaisical way. His view wasn’t great so he couldn’t see what she was up to, but she appeared to be inspecting the whole area very thoroughly and moving things around.

After a few minutes, she placed the mattress back on the bed frame and put the pillows and duvet on top of it. She sat down on the bed, and then picked up the tablet, which she must have put to one side, and unlocked it. He held his breath as she examined the screen with a furrowed brow, the suspense was electric, but, fortunately for the boy, there was no moment of realisation; she simply tapped away at a few things for a while and then locked it again, placing it on the bedside table. He let out a tiny sigh of relief…

“Cait, what’s this?” Amber called out from the bathroom.

The enormous teen launched herself to her feet and strode into the middle of the room as Amber walked out holding something in her hand. The two girls ended up facing one another directly above the heap of toys as Jack noticed, to his horror, the damp fleck of fibre stuffing held between Amber’s finger and thumb.

“I dunno,” Caitlin replied, puzzled, “looks like some kind of fluff.”

“It was in the toilet bowl, like someone had tried to flush it,” Amber explained.

Jack looked up at the pair as a couple of tiny droplets of water fell from the wet stuffing and landed onto the leg of the jumbo-sized teddy he was concealed inside with a soft pit-pat. Amber’s hazel-coloured eyes slowly lowered as she peered down to look at the drop marks. Jack kept absolutely still, but there was this unnerving look in her eye, his stomach lurched as a familiar feeling of dread rose up within the pit of his stomach.

Without saying a word, Amber bent at the knee and reached down for the oversized toy, picking it up around the waist with a little more effort than Caitlin would have, and carried it over to the empty bed. Jack kept completely quiet, scrunching his eyes shut and gritting his teeth, battling the urge to whimper or yelp.

“What’s up, Amber?” Caitlin asked.

Jack’s balance shifted as teddy was laid flat on his back, and Amber’s giant fingers poked and prodded at the bear’s furry exterior, not really able to ascertain if anyone was inside the toy but she was definitely onto something.

The stuffed animal was then rolled over onto its front, and he heard Caitlin walk up alongside.

“You’re not seriously suggesting…” her voice trailed off.

Jack heard the clack of varnished nails on metal as a feminine hand discovered the zip. He was hyperventilating massively, he’d spent hours trying to prepare for the reality of this dreadful moment but now his mind was completely, hopelessly blank.

With a *zzzzzzztttt* the zipper was pulled down and long, red nails clawed their way inside the bear’s insides, invading the soft cocoon he had been concealed in for so long.

“He’s here! He’s inside!!” Amber yelled, wrapping her index and middle fingers around his right arm. The boy tried to wriggle his arm free, but the large digits were way too strong as she began to pull firmly on the inside of his elbow. He yelled out in pain but the girl would not relent, it felt like she was going to dislocate his arm. She was able to dislodge him enough so that her other hand could grab onto his shoulder tightly and gradually wrench him out.

“No, no, no, NOOOOOOOO!!!” he howled, his voice breaking into high-pitched screeches as his desperation intensified.

The terrified Beta screamed and screamed as he was removed from the toy, kicking and flailing his arms and legs wildly. He felt warm liquid run down his thighs and realised he had peed himself in his panic, adding to his unbearable humiliation.

“Urgh, the little freak pissed his pants!” Amber yelled in disgust, abruptly letting go of his diminutive body so he sprawled head-first onto the bed cover.

“Don’t get it on the bed!” Caitlin shouted angrily, grabbing the back of Jack’s shirt in a flash and carrying him at dizzying speed across the room and into the bathroom, dropping him in a heap on the cold, tiled floor.

He was crying hysterically now, squirming to try and back away from the enraged giantess. His eyesight had become all blurry as he realised his glasses had fallen off his face during transit.

“Thought you could hide from me, you piece of shit?!” Caitlin bellowed.

Jack couldn’t even speak, he was crying so hard, all he could do was inhale or wail uncontrollably.

“How the fuck did you get out of the wardrobe? Huh?” she fumed, the frustration in her voice bubbling dangerously close to the surface.

“Answer me!”

He didn’t even attempt to respond, he was too distraught.

Amber came and stood next to her friend, and they both looked down at the pitiful boy by their feet. Amber barely even came up to her shoulder; the fire-haired teenager was simply brobdingnagian, even in comparison with other Alphas.

“I found his glasses, wanna break ‘em?” she suggested eagerly, holding them up in her hand.

“No, not yet anyway,” Caitlin replied, plucking them from her grasp, “Maybe if he doesn’t ‘fess up…”

“Let me try something,” Amber interjected, stooping down and grabbing the boy’s arm roughly, then twisting it so hard the breath temporarily escaped his lungs.

It was like someone was trying to remove his arm, the pain was astonishing, and she just kept twisting it further and further.

“My arm, MY ARM!!!” he squeaked.

If she kept twisting it any more, it was going to snap. He contorted his body to try and counteract some of the rotation but she just corkscrewed his arm some more.

“How did you escape?” the abhorrent girl asked, as cold and disconnected as if she was talking into an answering machine.

“I’LL TELL YOU, STOP, JUST STOP!!!” he yelled.

She gave his arm one last wrench as a parting shot, sending a flash of searing pain along it, before released it reluctantly.

“See Cait, he’ll learn,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How did you escape?” Caitlin asked again, slightly calmer this time, but still raging inside.

The boy didn’t even look up as he tried to catch his breath. He couldn’t think of a convincing excuse, all he could do was tell the truth.

“I… I… picked the lock,” he said eventually.

“With what?” she demanded, bluntly.

“Coat hanger…” he replied.

“Clever little bastard, isn’t he?” Amber interjected.

To a bystander she would have almost sounded impressed, but to Jack this sort of comment was utterly typical of routine Alpha-Beta interaction. It was the same kind of back-handed compliment you might offer up to a Beta athlete who could successfully high jump an Alpha-size track hurdle; not bad for a second-class human being.

Caitlin’s phone punctured the moment by ringing loudly, causing Jack to jump.

“Amber, you watch this little shit while I let Hannah and Alex in,” Caitlin ordered, standing up to her full height, “Don’t let him out of your sight.

The big redhead stomped off to pick up her phone, whilst Amber crouched down, staring at him the whole time with this creepy half-smirk on her face.

The faint odour of urine began to creep into Jack’s nostrils as he lay on the unyielding floor, peeking up at this new, dangerous Alpha. Caitlin could be heard on the phone, telling them to park up and unlocking the door to head out of the bedroom. Amber’s head loomed down incredibly close to his all of a sudden, and he felt her large fingers grip his skull like a vice.

“So you’re Jack,” she said dangerously, her voice quiet but very, very deliberate, so that only he could hear.

The Alpha girl twisted his head so that he faced her, so Jack shut his eyes to try and avoid her gaze - but she increased the pressure on his head so that his eyes shot open again. He clasped his hands on the outside of her fingers and winced but there was nothing he could do to stop the pain.

“Don’t ignore me, you little prick,” she said in a cruel, sterile voice.

“Caitlin and the others want to have some fun with you today,” she continued sternly, “but when they’re done with you, I’m gonna take you home with me.”

He felt like he was going to be sick, what the fuck was going on? This girl was as bad as Caitlin.

Her face then broke into this really sinister tight-lipped smile, there was something truly unhinged about her mannerisms, it just didn’t feel right. She held his face right there, pointed at hers, just staring at him.

She eventually released her grip on his head, much to his relief, but then immediately flipped him over onto his front with one quick motion of her hands. Tucking a couple of sharp, nail-clad index fingers down the back of his pants, she dug out the rear of his y-fronts, and before he knew it, started giving him a full-blown wedgie.

Her other hand sealed itself over his mouth like a facehugger as he went to scream, muffling his cries so that Caitlin would not hear him. The Alpha snorted with derision as his child-like hands tried to grab onto his underwear and stop her from pulling the cotton tighter and tighter. She didn’t utter a word.

The stretched material chafed between his legs horribly as she stood up and lifted him high into the air, easily over ten feet from the floor, dangling him in front of the mirror and bouncing him up and down like a yo-yo. He could feel she was straining a little to keep him elevated as she was nowhere near as strong as Caitlin, but it was still devastatingly easy for an average-sized Alpha girl like Amber to inflict this type of humiliation on him.

Through eyes flooded with tears he kept catching glimpses of her face in the reflection, smirking with glee at her own depravity, his screams of discomfort muffled by the warm, cloying embrace of her palm. Suddenly, with a sickening snap, the back of his underpants gave way to the strain mid-bounce, sending him flying towards the earth.

Amber reacted quickly, managing to hook an arm around him in mid-air and pinning him awkwardly against her body, then clamping her other hand over his face before he could cry out. Falling to her haunches, she brought his restrained body in against hers like a toddler, then looked over to the doorway to check if anyone had seen.

Jack squirmed in her grasp, he couldn’t even move his lips she was gripping him so tight, and he was beginning to feel weak. His ball sack stang red raw from the super-sized wedgie he’d had to withstand and it was more than likely he’d have some kind of friction burn down there.

As she held him to her, Amber methodically started to undress him with her free hand, removing the shoes and socks from his kicking feet, and dragging the sodden jeans off each leg. He struggled against this enormous foe, but he was powerless to stop her from stripping him. His tattered y-fronts practically fell off by themselves so she proceeded to pull his t-shirt off his torso as he writhed and wriggled, then slid it quickly over his head before clamping her palm back over his mouth.

This was hugely embarrassing, he knew that the others would be back any moment and Amber had now restrained his arms so he couldn’t even protect his modesty.

Excited female voices got louder and louder as Caitlin and her friends walked round the corner and into the bathroom. Hannah noticed him first, shouting out and almost dropping the bottle of spirits she was holding.

“Oh my god, who is that?” she yelled, scampering over and getting down on her knees to inspect him.

“Why is he naked?” Caitlin frowned, her enormous, tree-like legs stepping closer, making the ground shake underfoot, or so it seemed.

“Mister pissy-pants here needed a change,” Amber explained frankly, shuffling back on her knees and relinquishing her hold on his arms and mouth. Jack fell back onto the floor and covered his nether regions with both of his hands. He was now surrounded by Alpha teenagers on three sides.

“He’s so cute!” Hannah squealed, reaching out to touch him on his leg, causing him to flinch.

“Isn’t that the little dude from the other day?” Alex asked gruffly, remaining slightly distant from the other three and watching from the doorway.

“Yeah,” Caitlin explained, “Jack here has volunteered to have some fun with us this weekend, and he knows that if he says nothing, WE say nothing, right girls?”

Hannah and Amber nodded in approval as Caitlin looked around at them, Alex was a bit hesitant and appeared reluctant to agree but the others didn’t seem to notice.

Jack tried to pluck up the courage to try and dissuade these four giants; he started to shake his head, and looked up at his captors, trying to say ‘no’ but his voice was too weak to make anything more audible than a peep.

Before Caitlin could think about it further, Amber took the initiative and grabbed the small boy around the arm, lifting him up so that he dangled in the air, his feet clear of the ground.

“Careful with him!” Alex warned, nearly taking a step forward.

“He’ll be fine, Alex, don’t be such a spoilsport,” Hannah laughed, “These little guys are tougher than they look.”

Jack wriggled around, still holding one hand over his privates as his whole body twisted and shook as she carried him out of the doorway and through the bedroom like a ragdoll toy.

“Are you sure about this, Cait?” he heard Alex’s voice say behind him as he was borne away, his suspended form swooping through the enormous Alpha-sized kitchen and out of the back door into the garden. He never heard the response.

He squinted as the full light of day hit his eyes; a cool breeze washing over his naked body as his vision tried to attune to the dazzling sunshine.

Just as he began to adjust to the brightness of his surroundings he felt the arm carrying him swing his body back and suddenly hurl him forwards through into the air, sending him hurtling for what felt like ages until he landed with a cold, all-engulfing splash into what seemed like a vast body of water.

It was like a sensory explosion and left him in shock and totally disorientated; it took a few seconds of blinking, gasping panic to figure out what had happened and propel himself towards the surface, breaking through and taking a huge breath of air.

As his ears cleared of water the sound of Hannah laughing loudly at his predicament started leaking into his consciousness, and then Amber and Caitlin’s voices too as they talked animatedly with one another.

Looking around, spluttering water from his nose and mouth, Jack saw that he was in a large back-yard swimming pool, probably in the deep end (it was hard to tell as it was so big), and the others were busy stripping down into swimming attire not more than 20 feet away.

Mustering up as much energy as he could, he began to swim towards the opposite end of the pool, away from the girls.

As Jack started to swim across the pool, he heard one of the girls yell “Geronimooo!” at the top of her voice, and caught some movement in the corner of his eye.

Turning his head, he saw a blur of flesh as a large figure plunged into the water a few feet to his left with a huge explosion of spray, noise and waves. His body was buffeted sideways towards the pool’s edge, and then Hannah’s head burst out from under the surface, her neck-length blonde hair noticeably darker now that it was wet. She shook her head, spraying droplets everywhere, checked up on where the Beta had got to and then beaming at her friends

“Come on in, guys!” she whooped gleefully, gesticulating for them to join.

Amber was next, having taken off her daisy dukes to reveal bikini bottoms that matched her top, she jumped high in the air, tucking her legs in and cannonballed between Jack and Hannah, buffeting him against the poolside and then resurfacing towards the shallow end, blocking that route off to him.

Jack pushed off from the side and started to swim across the pool diagonally, away from the two girls, heading towards the ladder in the corner of the deep end. He’d maybe gone three or four strokes when an enormous displacement of water smashed into him, pushing him down towards the bottom of the pool and spinning him around. A strong arm grabbed one of his legs and dragged him backwards along the bottom of the pool, water rushing right up his nose as his grasping fingers slid across the smooth tiled surface uselessly.

He was raised out of the water by his leg some three or four seconds later, coughing and gagging as water gushed out of his nose and mouth. Hanging upside-down, his eyes began to focus on a muscular, sculpted torso that could only belong to Caitlin. Pushing his chin against his chest he surveyed the herculean schoolgirl’s upper body; she was holding his leg effortlessly in the air, her long ginger hair somehow even redder and fierier now that it was wet and strewn across her broad shoulders.

Just as he had caught his breath back and wiped the water from his eyes, the colossal teen dunked his body back in the pool roughly - deep enough so that he couldn’t get his head out of the water even bent over as far as he could go. He clawed at her wrist feebly as the air leaked from his lungs, and after what felt like an eternity she lifted him back up again, the sound of cruel laughter filling his ears. The blood was rushing to his head and he could feel his face start to glow red, partially from the embarrassment of being held like this, allied with the fact he was completely naked in front of these titanic young women.

Scanning around with eyes stinging from the chlorine, he saw Alex dive into the pool head-first like an Olympic swimmer, glide towards them and get to her feet in the shallow end as well. She was wearing a black all-in-one costume, he noticed – nearly backless with a very high-legged waistline.

Hannah was busy splashing Amber and giggling childishly as they too approached the shallow end and could stand upright. He could see that Hannah was wearing a very attention-grabbing bikini outfit to compliment her buxom frame – red with white polka dots, emphasising her Monroe-esque curves.

Without warning, Caitlin released his leg and he dropped head-first into the pool; he was able to take a quick breath as he plunged into the water, righting himself quickly only to see four enormous pairs of feet converging on him along the bottom of the pool. Even though this was the shallow end, it had to be around 6 feet deep; around hip height for most Alphas, but noticeably higher than he would be if he stood on the pool floor.

With nowhere obvious to go to, he swam straight up to the surface, paddling on the spot and looking around at the girls apprehensively. He was belly height to Amber and Hannah, level with Alex’s crotch, embarrassingly for him, and not even as high as the top of Caitlin’s thick thighs – she was simply gigantic.

Amber was again watching him intently, which he realised was going to be a fairly constant and unnerving thing.

The girls took turns picking him up and holding him, passing him between them and comparing his puny body to their own astronomic proportions.

Amber at one point rushed out of the pool and grabbed her phone to take some pictures, but after taking a few humiliating snaps Caitlin realised it could be incriminating and ordered Amber to delete them.

Jack was in a kind of numb trance, he’d given up trying to fight these girls, instead just trying not to get hurt as they toyed with his pint-sized body and splashed each other. Amber and Hannah seemed to enjoy holding him more than Caitlin and Alex, Amber especially seemed to enjoy dunking him and holding him against her chest underwater – he had to hold his breath for as long as he could but fortunately someone, usually Caitlin or Alex, would intervene and make sure she brought him back up in time.

“Alex, wanna play catch?” Caitlin asked spur-of-the-moment, grabbing Jack around the waist, picking him up and tossing him across at her friend as if he weighed nothing at all.

He screamed out in surprise, it was all so sudden. Next thing he knew, Alex had caught him around the midriff and the three other girls had begun to wade out into a big circle.

“Come on, throw him!” Amber cheered, waving her arms in the air.

He felt Alex lower him down into the water and then launch him up into the air powerfully, a horrible feeling of weightlessness hit his stomach as the surface of the pool shot away from his flailing limbs and then began to grow larger again as gravity did its job.

He landed feet-first just in front of Hannah, who crouched down in the water and wrapped her arms around him before he could try and get away, pressing him against her tummy and delighting in the feeling of holding the small, slippery boy against her skin once more.

“He’s so diddy,” she chortled, rubbing an arm idly along his body, inadvertently brushing his member, “I just want to hold him.”

“Come on, throw him,” Amber complained, striding over, froth churning around her hips as she broke through the water’s surface.

She reached over and snatched at Jack’s arm, causing the girl to turn her back to protect her diminutive prize.

“Hey!” exclaimed Hannah light-heartedly, “It’s my go!”

Amber was nearly a head taller than Hannah and had a bit more reach, so she was able to grab onto the boy’s leg and tried to pull him free of her grasp.

“Guys, come on, there’s plenty to go around!” Caitlin yelled, half-jokingly, as Hannah let out a playful squeal in response to Amber’s hustling tactics.

For Jack though, this was no joke, there was a sharp pull on his leg and he let out a small yelp.

“Leggo, Hannah…” Amber pressed, more menacingly this time.

“Get off!” the blonde replied, trying to step away but being flanked by the taller girl as she did so.

“I said… let ME have a turn,” said Amber forcefully, yanking even harder this time, and Jack screamed out in pain.

The force of her tug meant that Hannah lost her grip on Jack slightly and the boy slipped from her arms into the pool. Amber was quick to grab him and lifted him up above her head like a trophy, making sure Hannah couldn’t reach him.

“No fair, Amber!” Hannah complained sulkily, giving up rather easily and instead resorting to splashing her friend in frustration.

“Just be careful with him, ok?” Caitlin warned the pair.

“Yeah yeah,” Amber muttered, rolling her eyes, “Think fast, Cait!”

Bringing her elbows in by her sides, she then shoved her arms forwards with great speed, catapulting Jack in a kind of netball shot towards the off-guard amazon some 10 or more feet away.

The boy hurtled across the divide at terrifying velocity and smacked meatily into the right side of the girl’s mammoth torso as she went to catch him, her massive boob cushioned a lot of the blow to his lower body but his arms and chest impacted her shoulder with a sickening thud.

He slumped his head over her shoulder, winded, as her hands snaked under his body and peeled him off her mighty frame, oblivious to his pain.

“Ooh, let’s play piggy in the middle,” Amber suggested with relish, already on her way to the middle of the circle between Caitlin and Alex.

The tall redhead obliged, tossing Jack higher than before, just above the reach of Amber’s outstretched arms, whooping with excitement as her throw cleared the piggy successfully.

Alex caught him with her arms, trying to absorb some of the impact by bringing him in towards her body as she caught him, stooping into the water and using it to break his fall. It was still an uncomfortable landing for him, clattering against her athletic frame, and as she stood upright he clung onto her like a tiny monkey.

The raven-haired tomboy hesitated as she felt his little fingers clasp her arm, his frail body weak from the repeated dunkings, throws and impacts.

“Hurry up, Alex,” Caitlin shouted, as Amber closed down the space.

“I think he’s hurt,” Alex replied, looking down at the small boy cradled in her arms anxiously.

“Let me have a look,” said Amber, coming over and grabbing Jack by the shoulder to turn his body towards her. The wind had well and truly been taken out of his sails, he just rested there limply, gasping silently for air.

“Seems ok to me,” Amber shrugged, conveniently choosing to ignore the fact that he was clearly exhausted.

“Just give him a minute, for fuck’s sake” said Alex firmly, her impatience with Amber flaring up for a moment.

The other girl, offended, took a step back and glared moodily, her eyes full of barely-contained anger.

“He’ll be fine, Alex, he’s just playing dead,” Caitlin called out, “You know what these sneaky manlets are like.”

The concerned girl carried Jack over to the side of the pool and gently laid him on his back, his small chest rising and falling as he took shallow gulps of air. She lowered her head down toward his face to gauge his expression and he looked at her with pleading eyes, wet with tears.

“Please help me…” he whispered. “Please… Alex… please.”

“What’s taking so long?” Hannah exclaimed loudly, clearly bored by the hold-up.

“Alex is taking pity on the shrimp,” Amber replied dismissively, the caustic tone in her voice all too evident.

“Alex loves Jaack, Alex l-o-v-e-s Ja-ack” chanted Hannah in a sing-song voice, making her way over.

The prone boy stared up at Alex’s face, he could see the conflict in her eyes; she was reluctant to defy her friends but she wasn’t enjoying this nearly as much as they were.

“Do you loooove him, I bet you loooove him! K-I-S-S-I-N…” Hannah’s voice rang out as she reached the side of the pool, leaning her head in next to Alex’s.

“Shut up, Hannah,” Alex spat, turning her head away and staring off into the distance.

“He looks fine, come on, lazy bones,” the petite Alpha said, grabbing onto Jack’s arm to pull him back into the pool carelessly.

He yelped as she twisted his arm awkwardly, dragging him across on his back. He then felt a particularly sharp pain in his shoulder, like a twang, and howled out in pain like a wounded animal, emitting an incredible scream for someone so small.

“What the fuck have you done, Hannah?!” Caitlin bellowed angrily, ploughing across the pool.

“I didn’t do anything,” the baffled Alpha insisted, protesting her innocence and releasing his arm for good measure.

Jack clutched his shoulder and rolled around on the hard surface of the pool’s edge, whining through gritted teeth.

Amber rushed over under the pretence of inspecting the writhing boy and took the opportunity to jab her finger viciously into his shoulder blade when she thought Alex wasn’t looking.

“What the fuck, Amber!” the girl yelled, appalled, pushing her away from Jack and shielding him from harm.

“What?” retorted Amber, putting her hands in the air, a faint smirk visible on her lips as Alex placed a large hand on Jack’s side to try and comfort him.

She looked closely at his shoulder and delicately touched it, checking for damage, it didn’t seem too bad, maybe a strain or a pulled muscle.

“If you’ve damaged him, I‘m not gonna be happy,” Caitlin boomed, signalling her arrival, and moved to tower right over Hannah as the shorter girl looked around sheepishly with her hands clasped together. She looked thoroughly forlorn, it was clear she hadn’t intended to deliberately hurt him, but she was probably more upset at the thought of pissing off Caitlin and losing her place among the tight-knit group of best friends.

“It doesn’t seem too bad, you know, though he may have pulled a muscle,” Alex said to the group, tentatively massaging Jack’s sore shoulder joint and leaning in to talk to him quietly.

“Nothing’s broken, Jack, it’s ok,” she reassured him as he buried his head in his hand, whimpering quietly.

“Ha, that’s nothing, he’ll be fine,” Caitlin laughed, nudging into Hannah knowingly as if to illustrate her benevolence; the blonde looked especially relieved to hear the news.

Alex turned to face Caitlin and it was clear she wasn’t impressed, “I don’t think Jack is fine, do you?”

“Oh, taken a shining to the little runt have we?” the towering Alpha jeered, mocking her.

“No… I mean… You’re just torturing him now, this isn’t fun and games at all,” Alex replied falteringly, careful not to offend the overgrown teen but unwilling to continue subjecting the Beta to more humiliation.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Hannah said in a small voice, walking over to Alex apologetically, “He’s just so tiny.”

“You’re both being way too soft on that pipsqueak,” Caitlin declared, looking to Amber for approval, which she got in the form of a nod.

“Well in that case, I’m gonna go,” Alex said abruptly, “I don’t want any part of this anymore.”

Jack reached out and held her fingers gently, she might have realised this was his way of begging her to stay but it was now too late, Caitlin was already processing her request.

“Ok fine, I’ll see you later,” the brattish redhead spat, “In fact, all of you can get lost, and you can thank Alex here…”

Amber spluttered into protest, “But Cait, you said…”

“Nope, my decision’s final, Amber, you too. I’ll see you all tonight”

The girl let out an exasperating cry of frustration and raised her head to the heavens and grit her teeth. She smashed her fist into the pool and then glared over at Alex with an evil look in her eye.

“Way-to-go, Alex,” she hissed sarcastically.

Hannah, meanwhile, started getting teary-eyed at all the commotion, as she felt responsible for it all.

Amber was the first to get out of the pool, drying herself huffily with a towel and storming off without a word.

Alex spent a few moments trying to stretch Jack’s arm so that she could ease his suffering, before Caitlin came over and shooed her away.

“I don’t see what’s made you so upset, Alex, we’re just having a little fun,” Caitlin sneered.

The girl bit her tongue and briefly shared eye contact with Jack, before putting her arm around the emotional Hannah and leading her out of the pool.

Jack heard the sound of a car, presumably Amber’s, fire up from the other side of the house and screech off noisily.

Caitlin stooped down and looked imperiously down at the weakened boy, staring intently at his shoulder and pushing her fingers against it coarsely – it hurt but it felt like she was trying to do something similar to Alex.

“Are we still on for tonight, though, Cait?” Alex asked hesitantly, holding a bundle of clothes under her arm whilst Hannah dried her hair with a towel.

“Meet at Oscar’s at 8, tell Amber as well will you, the moody cow,” Caitlin replied, watched as her two friends walked out of the garden through the house and disappeared from sight.

Jack lay on the poolside, trying to catch his breath. His shoulder hurt badly; the pain kept ebbing and flowing, washing over him in waves as he held it in place. He hoped Alex had been right, and it wasn’t broken; he didn’t care that a serious injury might give him grounds to prosecute Caitlin, he just wanted to be home, safe and out of harm’s way, and never go outside ever again…

Caitlin hauled herself out of the pool, her hulking physique spraying him with water as it caught the breeze, and towered over him at her full height, blocking out the sun. He couldn’t see her expression as she was silhouetted against the light, her form completely in shadow except the edges of her toned limbs and torso gleaming with moisture, accentuating her muscularity.

Stooping down, the girl picked him surprisingly carefully for one so large and brusque, scooping her hand under his ass whilst supporting him with the other, then carried him back inside the house. She laid him down on the hard, stone-like kitchen countertop relatively gingerly, and then opened the freezer door, stooping down to retrieve what turned out to be a large bag of ice cubes.

Without saying a word, she pulled Jack’s arm flat against the work surface with an oversized hand and pressed the freezing-cold bag against his shoulder, side and chest, causing him to wince and let out a smell yell. It was about the size of a large pillow, but full of, what were to him, quite substantial blocks of ice – he quickly felt the left side of his body going numb.

“Don’t be such a fucking wuss,” she said, noticing his teeth had started to chatter and he was shivering from the cold.

“It’ll reduce the swelling,” she added.

He nodded imperceptibly, confused as to why she was taking care of him when every previous experience would have led him to predict precisely the opposite treatment.

“Th-th-thank y-y-you…” he blurted out, trying very transparently to curry favour with the mountainous teenager, though he soon realised that was a mistake.

“Don’t get comfy, peewee,” she warned, bringing her big head down towards him.

Her expression was clearly one of annoyance, not concern. She was probably really pissed off that her Beta toy had been injured by Hannah’s carelessness, but if she could minimise the damage to him, then everything could continue as planned.

“C-c-c-caitlin…” he said in a small voice, her huge blue eyes turning to look at him curiously, almost amused that he would try and talk to her.

“W-w-why won’t y-y-you let m-me g-g-go…” asked the boy through chattering teeth, curling his legs and arm against his torso for warmth.

He had nothing to lose, this was as calm as he’d seen her, he figured it was better to risk her wrath now as he lay there injured than later on when she was more in the mood to torture him for his impudence.

The massive girl rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue into her cheek, looking away from him momentarily before making eye contact once more.

“Do we have to go through this again, are you retarded or something?” she said cruelly, suppressing a smirk.

“B-b-but…”

“But WHAT?” she shot down, small flecks of spit coming from her lips and landing on his pale skin.

“Deal with it, short stuff, you’re mine,” the commanding redhead continued, lowering her face down towards his, her nose almost touching his lips as those twin pools of blue scrutinised his every twitch, feeding off his fear, his misery, his frustration. He could see his own expression in her eyes; submissive, terrified and close to tears.

“My girls will have some fun with you again tonight, I’ll play with you tomorrow, then you get to go home and think about what a puny, insignificant runt you are,” she said conclusively, reaching up and brushing a lock of ginger hair from her eyes.

Then there was nothing, as the gigantic teenager stared at him in silence, satisfied that she had extinguished yet another pathetic attempt at debate by reminding him of her superiority.

But… stupidly… Jack felt the rage within him rise up.

The anxiety, the fear, was displaced by this kinda brave, very stupid, all-consuming desire to speak his mind.

“No!” he shouted, taking the enormous girl by complete surprise.

“You can’t d-do th-this t…” he stammered, his body shaking from both the adrenaline and the oversized bag of ice.

Caitlin’s huge hand smashed against the countertop barely 2 inches from his face, cutting him off mid-sentence and scaring the absolute shit out of him.

Her face betrayed her emotions; she flushed red as her own anger began to burn.

“And why not?” she said threateningly, removing the bag of ice from his arm almost automatically.

Jack swallowed, he was terrified, but he would try not to be intimidated by her.

“W-what have I d-done? Huh? I’m f-fucking m-miserable! I’ve been looked d-down on my whole l-life!” he screamed.

The leviathan glared down at him impassively, still incensed but perhaps now more curious to see where this was going to go. It turned her on a bit to see this plucky side of him, not that it would help him much…

“You little worm,” she went on, “You actually think you have the right to lecture me about fairness, when generations of women have been persecuted at the hands of men like you.”

Her titanic body seemed to grow larger, looming over him as she defended her position defiantly.

“I-I haven’t d-done anything,” the boy pleaded, tears beginning to stream down his face.

“I just want be n-normal, to b-be equal, even with s-someone like y-you,” the boy continued, beginning to say the first things that popped into his head as his sleep-deprived mind struggled to keep his inhibitions in check.

The giantess remained unmoved.

“W-why are y-you putting me through hell…? This is g-gonna scar me for l-life… I feel l-like I’m… n-nothing.”

“Good,” the heartless schoolgirl replied curtly, crossing her burly arms as she towered over him, her temper seemingly abating, as if the things Jack kept blurting out were pleasing to her in some weird way.

He lay there, trying to control his sobbing as the giant teen looked down disparagingly, he had expected the anger, but in a way this was worse. She seemed to be taking pity on him.

 “Listen Tiny Tim, you’re a fucking joke, a plaything, a pet,” Caitlin explained coldly, “That’s life, suck it up.”

“The most you can look forward to is a cuddle with a big girl who doesn’t find you completely repulsive, and even then you’ll be dropped as soon as the first Alpha guy shows up,” she went on, laying it on thick as Jack struggled to stem the flow of tears.

“You just need a bit of the fight knocked out of you, for your own good.”

He looked up at her in disbelief through bleary eyes, her words echoing ominously in his mind.

“You w-wouldn’t… you c-c-can’t…” he stammered, squirming around as he tried to curl up into a ball.

“Oh can’t I?” she exclaimed in mock surprise, shifting her weight with a slight shimmy of her hips and placing the ice bag on the counter. She firmly grasped his skinny arms in her hands and placed them across his tummy to make a little x, then laid her left palm on top of them, pressing his arms into his midriff so that he could not move them.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your little escape stunt,” she warned darkly, a devilish smile on her lips.

“Caitlin, nooooo,” he whined, beginning to wriggle his legs in discomfort.

“I mean, it’s kind of cute, you know, wanting to be my favourite toy, but you needn’t be so coy about it…” she said playfully, plucking a stray ice cube from the bag on the worktop, and examining it between her long, pink nails.

With deliberate suspense, she slowly brought the chunk of ice towards Jack, hovering it in front of his face for a moment before sweeping it down towards his waist. The boy closed his eyes and then yelped as she pressed the freezing cold block against his scrotum nonchalantly, clenching his teeth and trying to buck his hips away from it. The girl used her long fingers to keep his thighs flat against the counter whilst grinding the ice cube against his fragile nutsack and shaft, causing him a great deal of misery.

He felt tears stream down his face once more as he was humiliated, unable to move a muscle as the biting sensation of melting ice stang in such an intimate area, and cold water dripped across his midriff. But then, as soon as he felt he could take no more the ice was removed, and he felt the intoxicating warmth of warm skin replace the dull numbness of the ice.

“Mmmm,” he heard Caitlin purr mischievously, confusingly, what the fuck was going on?

Jack opened his eyes in disbelief to see the redhead delicately examining his shrivelled penis between her enormous fingers, comfortably enclosing his meagre length in her giant palm and squeezing it softly.

This is crazy, he thought, she’s crazy.

The gargantuan girl manipulated his limbs so that she could lift his feeble body from the counter and carry him back to her room, sweeping the duvet from the bed and depositing him on the side of the mattress that was flanked by the poster-filled wall. The space he currently occupied had previously been covered with stuffed animals, but they had all been thrown on the floor.

With surprising grace for such a behemoth, Caitlin slid her scantily-clad body onto the bed next to Jack, cutting off all escape as he lay there motionlessly, all sorts of conflicted feelings welling up inside of him.

He daren’t look at her, but her physique was something to behold, the sculpted musculature of her arms and legs, her tremendous breasts nearly spilling out of her pink bikini top. He felt his eyes wandering, and he knew she knew it too.

The girl’s mammoth hand placed itself on his chest as she lay facing his puny body, her large fingers idly moving up and down on his skin as if a giant crab was walking across his torso.

“If you try and escape, Jack, I will tie you up again,” she stated matter-of-factly, her fingers padding their way down his body to his midriff.

“Not only that, but I guarantee you that you will experience a great deal of pain,” she continued, tracing her fingers around his groin nonchalantly, but not quite touching him, causing him to shake gently.

“But if you’re a good little manlet, and do as you’re told…” the girl went on, “I’m sure it’d be a lot better… for the both of us…”

Jack was shivering with both anticipation and fear. He didn’t trust her one bit, but what choice did he have? He was confused as to why she was attempting to bargain with him, when she could easily overpower him, but maybe this was some kind of mind game she was playing.

“I know you’ve never been with a girl, you midget runt,” she breathed viciously, manoeuvring her prodigious body nearer to him and positioning her head above and behind his own. He felt the sexual energy of the encounter beginning to escalate, he was so, so out of his depth it was alarming but he wasn’t stupid – he knew she was about to violate him.

Her hand grabbed him by the waist and reeled him in, sliding his body across the silky fabric towards her, positioning his body so that his back pressed against one hefty tit, his butt resting against her hard stomach.

“You couldn’t refuse even if you wanted to.”

His pulse started to race as he realised the danger he was in. Caitlin was going to do whatever she wanted to him.

The big redhead reached over and dragged the vast duvet cover over the both of them, almost completely obscuring him underneath it. She then returned her hand to his pint-sized body, but stopped short of restraining him, instead she brought her thighs up so that his little feet were resting on them, and then one huge arm curled around him from behind him, an imposing bicep that swelled in size as she crooked her arm to support her head in her hand.

 “So, how about it, tiny?” the titanic female asked rhetorically.

Jack was a complete passenger at this stage. He didn’t want to look at her, but he was shaking at the prospect of this teenage giantess toying with his diminutive body.

He felt her large, soft lips, brush against the top of his head, as she whispered seductively in his ear.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Her hand moved up to grip him around the jaw, slowly but forcefully twisting his head towards her flexed bicep. She pressed his puny face into the swollen muscle and let out of a small moan of pleasure as he wriggled awkwardly in her grasp.

He fought the urge to cry out or scream, as it would only make her more determined to hurt and humiliate him further.

After holding him there for a while, squishing his cheeks and lips between her powerful fingertips to ‘kiss’ her bicep, she released his head and reached down to grab his ankles. She dragged him further under the covers, parting her thighs and rotated both their bodies so that he was lying on his back looking up at her as she straddled him. He didn’t even try and fight her, instead choosing to lie there timidly as Caitlin’s mammoth tits filled his field of vision; a pair of giant orbs straining against her skimpy top, hanging overhead as an unmissable reminder of her sheer scale.

As soon as she released him, the brobdingnagian girl pressed her mighty bod down on top of him, grinding herself crudely against his upper thighs and midriff with her stomach and crotch, and let out another sensual groan. Her gigantic frame was so unyielding and muscular, it felt like carved granite; her rock hard abs crushing his dick back against his own belly as she ground onto him, like he was trapped under some monstrous flame-haired mountain.

Reflexively he tried to push her away, reaching up and shoving his hands ineffectually against the massive Alpha schoolgirl as she slowly but firmly writhed atop his hopelessly outmatched body. Without thinking, his hands found the elephantine circumference of her oversized tits as he panicked, his fingers sinking into the taut underside of her bikini top as she lowered her chest down on top of him also, plunging him into near darkness as they eclipsed the last glimmer of light from the duvet opening and thumped his head back against the mattress, his face smooshed in-between the undersides of her sizeable mounds with barely any room to breathe.

His thin arms snaked either side of her colossal ribcage in what would probably look to an outsider like a feeble attempt at a hug as Caitlin repeatedly mashed his child-like body against her mattress, crushing her tiny captive into submission in a very self-gratifying way. His penis kept finding its way into the girl’s oversize navel, and the powerful oscillations were beginning to give him a hard-on, despite his increasing discomfort.

It was becoming a very claustrophobic environment for Jack, as the precious air space left became heady with the scent of her arousal, and he felt his own sheen of sweat develop as the enormous female continued to pound her substantial Alpha curves into him.

He felt her mountainous body finally raise up, lifting her midriff away from his, and then her breasts too, allowing him some brief respite. This fleeting moment allowed for some light to seep in, and from his position he saw the herculean redhead curling her lengthy arms behind her back to unfasten her bikini top, freeing her prodigious assets, and then reach down and thumb her matching panties away, leaving her very much as naked as he.

The dim light picked out every muscle, every glorious detail of her magnificent body as she adjusted her position, like a coiled tiger waiting to spring on her prey. Jack lay there, frozen, too scared to move, too entranced by what was happening to really think of anything beyond the immediacy of the moment. He was aroused, understandably, but he was certain this towering woman would have no need for his miniscule length, the thought of what her colossal needs were left him feeling startlingly inadequate.

She pushed down on his waist with a huge hand so that he couldn’t crawl away, and shifted her herculean thighs either side of him, dwarfing him, imprisoning him. Too late, he realised what she was lining him up for.

Caitlin forced herself onto his face without hesitation, abruptly cutting off his sudden squeal of panic, burying him under a literal tonne of girlflesh and covering his mouth and lips with her hot, wet groove. For Jack it was a feeling he had only imagined in principle, but nothing could prepare him for the reality of being smothered by a teenage giantess. Her pussy was dripping wet, humid and oppressive - he simply could not breathe at all, writhing in agony as the big girl harnessed his suffering for exquisite pleasure. His little arms tried in vain to gain purchase on her skin, clawing at the inside of her muscular thighs, exciting the depraved leviathan more and more with every frantic moment.

The boy began to gag on her juices, Caitlin raised herself off him so that he could inhale a few ragged gasps of air before planting herself atop him once more. It was absolute torture for him. The pressure on his neck was brutal as she began to lose herself, intoxicated on the power she had over him, rocking back and forth, grinding herself onto his helpless face and emitting long, drawn out noises of satisfaction. Jack simply could not cope with this nightmare, it was only a matter of time before he passed out from the strain, he just prayed she wouldn’t snap his neck.

“Use your tongue, lover,” she cackled mercilessly, grabbing his head in one oversized hand and guiding him to her clit.

A powerful spasm of pleasure rippled through her as her moans became louder and more high-pitched, her breathing increasingly more ragged as her Beta slave fought to remain conscious. He was lost in a bewildering world of tastes and smells completely alien to every previous experience he had ever had. Again and again his face was thrust against Caitlin’s gigantic mons as the savage redhead had her way with him, his hair thick and slimy with her fluids and his body and soul utterly, completely broken.

The Alpha finally roared out in ecstasy, her enormous frame shaking with a thunderous orgasm as Jack’s limp body was released. He passed out to the sound of her deafening shrieks of pleasure.

Jack regained consciousness. Slowly.

His body was really flushed and hot, like he was in an oven, and his face felt rank and sticky. It had dried somewhat, so he figured he must’ve been out of it for a while.

Gradually he began to get his bearings, realising that he was pressed up against Caitlin’s naked, muscular body, still under the claustrophobic confines of the duvet. Her enormous form radiated an incredible amount of body heat, and he simply couldn’t get his head around the amount of energy she was giving off.

His legs were trapped beneath one adamantine thigh and his front tucked up against her torso, his head facing the lower swell of her ample breasts, which occasionally his hair would brush against as she shifted her upper body slightly.

An oversized hand rested across his back, pressing him gently to her abdomen as it rose and fell, although she wasn’t exactly breathing heavily – he couldn’t tell if she was awake or not, and he wasn’t going to risk finding out.

Every part of him ached, like he had been thrown around in a cement mixer. His hair felt matted in places from where he had been grabbed roughly, and he smelt strongly of Caitlin’s scent; the thought of which made his stomach turn a little.

As he lay there, trying to be as still as possible, he felt the duvet draw back and bright light flood in. He shifted his head instinctively to shield his eyes. It was only a tiny flinch, but sadly for Jack, it confirmed to Caitlin that her toy was no longer unconscious.

“If it isn’t Lil’ Romeo himself,” she mocked, guiding the cover down over her hip with a long, sculpted arm, allowing cool air and natural light to wash over his now-trembling body.

He looked up at this overgrown bully of a schoolgirl. He couldn’t do anything. It made him feel sick, she had all the power at her disposal – size, strength, money, influence… and he had nothing to defend himself with at all. Even if he could muster up the energy to take a swing at her, not only would it barely register as a love tap to someone so large, she could easily crush one little fist in the palm of her hand with just a fraction of her unreal strength and power.

“How was it for you?” she asked, amusing herself enormously. Her nose wrinkled up slightly as her mouth creased into a smile.

She seemed relaxed, playful almost, and her freckled features eyed his expression curiously, inspecting her pet with wide-eyed fascination.

This new, calm demeanour only drew attention to her undeniable allure; high cheekbones, intoxicatingly blue eyes… how was such a beauty capable of so much terror?

Her smile held for a while, faded, then re-emerged as she sensed his unresponsive, kitten-weak demeanour was not an act.

“Now don’t gimme that face,” the girl mollycoddled.

She nonchalantly pressed an idle digit into his face, smooshing his cheek, completely unaware of the severity of the trauma poor Jack was struggling to process.

He was in a state of shock, it was like he had been drowning, suffocating on her… under her… he didn’t want to think about it, but it kept playing over and over in the back of his mind.

If that’s what he had to look forward to, as a man out of scale, to be used, abused, and discarded like he was nothing, what sort of future had he? Maybe Caitlin wasn’t so unique, maybe she’d just be the first in a long line of Alpha girls that would treat him as a shrunken body to pleasure themselves with. Perhaps, that was all he was good for…

But what about Penny? Even Alex had shown some concern, was it pity?

Sure, they seemed liked they cared, but how did they see him? A little pet? Someone they could talk to, but who posed no threat.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was beginning to see some truth in Caitlin’s words.

The girl was now gently caressing his back with her giant fingers, delicately, almost affectionately, like stroking a small pet. Her big hand would occasionally run up to his shoulders and neck and press more firmly, like she was subconsciously massaging him. It felt nice, incredibly surreal, given his circumstances, but a nice respite.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was somewhere else, and that the finger tips he felt belonged to a girl his size, someone he could be intimate with, someone he could…

He had been in his own little world for a few seconds, disconnected from the moment, and in that time Caitlin had seemingly said something to him. His eyes opened up as he felt her calmly placing both of his hands inside one enormous palm; her long fingers enclosing around his fists, wrapping them up in an unbreakable grasp.

Before he could utter a word of protest, she raised his flimsy arms up above his head and dragged him up towards her head, but stopped short of sliding his legs completely free, both feet were still anchored beneath her immovable thigh.

He was now stretched out on his back, as if on a rack, and whilst it was obviously humiliating, she wasn’t using enough of her strength to make it truly uncomfortable for him.

Her free hand skirted across his body, the span of her fingers appearing almost comically large in comparison to him. Ever so gently, she began to brush her digits against the sensitive skin by his sides, underneath his armpits, causing his muscles to spasm as his body tensed up in response to her soft, teasing touch.

“Ticklish?” she asked, increasing her efforts to make him squirm.

He gritted his teeth as she grazed and prodded him delicately with her fingers, tears forming in his eyes as she toyed with his skinny body. She seemed to especially enjoy poking him in his armpits, stroking at the small tuft of fine hair there which was especially ticklish as he fought off the urge to laugh out loud.

As amused as she was, she did eventually lose interest as Jack wasn't giving her the response she desired.

“Let's try something else,” Caitlin said softly, mirroring the way she spoke to him shortly before she had her way with him. She was trying to play the coquettish babydoll now, not just the domineering vamp.

He swallowed silently. What was she doing?!

“I can be very… gentle, when I want to be,” she continued, sweeping the fingers of her free hand ever so gently against his thigh, tracing tiny circles on his delicate skin.

He begin to shiver as the proximity of her jutting breasts to his pint-sized member began to become ever more noticeable.

“Very… soft.”

The heft of one of her enormous tits slowly descended onto his hip, dwarfing him as she rolled over towards him; her pillowy boob spilling luxuriously across his lap as it pressed down like a giant, fleshy water balloon. A large fingertip then brushed along one side of his nutsack as he fought the urge to let out a small gasp.

He hated her. He hated her for this. But it felt so good, so un-fucking-believably good.

“Does that feel nice, peewee?” she asked breathily, claustrophobically, sexily.

“D-don’t… I don’t w…” he spluttered suddenly, recognising his helplessness at the hands of a giantess who was going to debase him for kicks. Again.

There was her delicate, unbearably erotic touch again, this time tracing a line along one side of his miniature dick as blood started to flow south.

“So bigggg,” she purred, biting her lip and pressing her mammoth boob against his stiffening shaft and balls, causing him another involuntary wave of pleasure.

He started to feel the cold sweat of fear, and arousal, his body barely resisting the urge to buck into her pliant flesh.

He had wanted his first time to be with someone he cared for, to feel a girl’s body against his, to become one with someone else. Nothing, nothing at all like this… invasive, forceful humiliation. He knew it would have been a long shot, and that the romance he craved might only exist in the movies of a bygone era, but the visceral, inescapable reality of his current predicament just ate away at him despite the overwhelming eroticism…

Gripping his foreskin lightly between finger and thumb, his captress began to stroke him gently, agonisingly, deliberately, stretching out the exquisite sensations to emphasise her complete control over him.

He could barely move a muscle, stretched out like a prisoner awaiting torture. This extreme physical subjugation only made the delicacy of her merest caress all the more intense, and she definitely knew it.

Her touch was expert, or maybe it was just because he was so inexperienced sexually. Either way, every movement of her fingertips, every drawn-out moment she allowed him to savour, was heaven.

“Please… n-not like th… not l-like th-” he stammered up at her, to no avail.

“Ssssh peewee,” she hissed, ignoring his pleas.

The redhead loomed over him; her incredible physique, her striking features turning him on with barely the subtlest expression. She slowly parted her lips, exhaling sexily, and he could not tear his eyes from this display. She had him just where she wanted him.

The girl relinquished her gentle grip on his rod temporarily, which now stood proud and erect, like a little flagpole. She waited, watching intently as it remained upstanding, occasionally pulsing as Jack’s body anticipated further intimate contact.

Her mammoth tits began to shake as she started to laugh at him, “See what I can do to your little body, Jack.”

He gasped as a long nail ran along one side of his shaft.

“Your tiny manlet brain can’t cope with big girls, girls who could snap your puny dick clean off.”

She wrapped her great digits around it, swallowing his length wholly within her grasp, and slowly increased the pressure of her fingers until he couldn’t help but scream out in pain. It was like his dick was caught in a giant clamp, and even after he started to holler, she didn’t loosen her grip until she was satisfied he’d got the point.

Her hand unfurled and his penis, visibly redder, fell back against his abdomen, semi-rigid.

“Ooh... I hope I didn't break it..." she mocked, poking it with a long pink nail.

“P-plea… no…” he gasped, yet again fighting back the tears.

Gentle fingertips began to work him up again, expertly taunting him.

“No m-more… n-no more…” he reiterated, beginning to feel the familiar spasms of arousal as his foolish loins responded to Caitlin’s ministrations. He wasn’t sure he could handle another squeeze like that.

Was she trying to train him to associate this with her total control over him? He closed his eyes again and tried to distance himself mentally from the sensations he was experiencing, but it was useless to resist.

He felt the familiar, heady flow of blood pumping down toward his waist, his excitation gradually building as he regained his former rigidity. Caitlin’s toying fingers eventually released themselves once she was certain he was completely hard once again

He opened his eyes to see that the girl was grinning devilishly, enjoying this far too much. Her big hand came down and enveloped his member a second time as he shook his head frantically, whining and wriggling pathetically as he now knew what came next.

Her mighty hand ramped up the pressure as he squirmed, but instead of crushing him, she quite deliberately began to service him, squeezing him powerfully with long, slow tugs that seemed to pull every last fibre out of him.

Jack could feel his chest tensing up, his arousal building - inching closer to release with every languorous pump of her unyielding hand. His heart thudded louder in his ribcage as she leaned over him more, watching his little face, his eyelids flickering and his mouth hanging open as the sensations overwhelmed him.

She could clamp down at any moment, and he was terrified that she would, every single time her hand milked him, but instead he was getting increasingly close to coming in her steely grip. The torment was not knowing if she would, or if these incredible, overwhelming sensations would continue.

Her beautiful face was amused, authoritative, unyielding. Just one brobdingnagian hand was bringing him to the threshold of release with strong, unrelenting strokes.

She was machine-like, completely unlike the way he had ever touched himself before, a leviathan determined to force this orgasm from him. It was like she was making him yield to her, imprinting on him as his first ever sexual experience. Her power was unreal, at any moment, she could crush his dick to nothingness in her mighty hand.

Please god, don’t let her, don’t let her, he kept thinking.

Then he heard her breath, as she too let out a soft groan of arousal. Getting him off… was getting her off too.

“Aaaaaa…” he yammered, fearful of the consequences of cumming but also desperate for climax, looking up at this monstrous, beguiling girl.

“C… C-Caitlin…” he gasped, his throat cracking as it had run completely dry, feeling her massive tit rub against him once more.

His heart thumped like a ten-tonne drum.

It was so big. So soft. She bit her lip as she concentrated on milking him dry.

She wasn’t going to crush him to dust, she was going to make him come.

Oh fuck.

“Caaa…” he cried out…

A lock of red hair fell onto his face softly, like it was in slow motion, tickling his cheek ever so slightly.

It was so innocuous, so at odds with everything else. A few strands of a girl’s hair.

Jack’s eyes scrunched shut as he felt a hot jet of cum flood out of his body and ooze onto her oversized fingers. The Beta let out a high-pitched squeak at the moment of release, and shook and writhed his way into a mind-bendingly intense orgasm far more powerful than anything else he had ever experienced.

He’d envisaged what it would be like for a girl, especially an Alpha, to bring him to climax, but this was beyond any reality he could imagine.

He completely ceded control of himself over to this most intense of feelings, his whole body going limp as waves of pleasure shot through him like sparking jolts of electricity. He heard himself making the most pitiful, helpless sounds, like when you get caught on a bit of barbed wire and have to pull free.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaa… aaaaa… aaa…” he gasped, the girl continuing to milk every last ounce of jizz out of his increasingly supple organ, squeezing him tightly in her prodigious grasp.

He could hear her laughing at him, scoffing at how pathetic he was.

She gradually ramped down her ministrations to a halt, eventually releasing him from her hand to inspect the gooey mess he had created.

“Ewww,” she said fussily, her voice rupturing the deathly silence, and he heard her wipe her hand on the bedcover a few times.

All in all it had barely taken a couple of minutes or so to completely break him. He could sense the satisfaction radiating from her; in the end, he had been utterly, comically unable to resist her.

He shivered and twitched, guilt-ridden and empty-hearted, forlorn, alone.

Torn between euphoria and abject humiliation, he didn’t know how to feel about what had just happened.

“What a cinch,” she breathed wickedly, her mouth close to his ear, ensuring that all he would be able to think about on the comedown was how worthless and inadequate he was compared to her.

Jack was close to tears as his Alpha captor released her grasp on his hands and rolled away from him, allowing him to dwell on his thoughts, albeit momentarily, for the first time since the relative safety of an oversized stuffed toy.

The giant redhead whipped her long, shapely legs around and off the bed, and hopped to her feet in rather ebullient fashion, causing the whole mattress to rock as her considerable weight was removed from the springs. He was only vaguely aware of what she was doing, but in the corner of his eye he saw her sashay across the room and grab some clothes straight from the floor, slipping a pair of blue panties and a short, loose-fitting wife-beater style vest top over her powerful build.

She then walked over to her exercise bike and out of sight, and seemed to root around on the floor for quite a while before striding confidently back over to her prey. She looked down on him again, smirking, a hand resting on her cocked hip. Her long fire-red hair had been tied back into a ponytail, affixed with a blue scrunchie this time.

As she ran her other hand along one side of her bare midriff absent-mindedly, Jack noticed she was carrying what appeared to be some kind of coil of multi-coloured rope in it. He could definitely see rubber grippy handles at each end, so he figured it must be a jump rope, which would explain Caitlin’s trip to her workout area. The beleaguered boy lay there, his arms still splayed out above his head in the position they’d come to rest in, blinking back the wetness that repeatedly formed in his eyes.

The pertinacious titan reached down, her vast torso pivoting at the waist and looming over him like an enormous trash compactor. She didn’t encounter any kind of resistance from him as she methodically wrapped the jump rope around his thin wrists separately, and then bound them together in an unconventional but firm knot using one end of the rope.

Jack felt nothing as she tied his arms, a total absence of feeling. He was acutely aware of this self-imposed apathy; he couldn’t influence what was happening to him and it was mentally exhausting to keep trying and failing. Internally it seemed simpler to not put up a fight and avoid giving Caitlin an excuse to teach him more lessons.

He realised that this meant that her ‘training’ had worked, succeeding in making him docile, compliant and ineffectual – basically a Beta-sized puppet. That was probably why his eyes were full of tears, even though he didn’t even feel upset or angry any more… he just felt… like he wasn’t even there, like it was happening to someone else.

Happy that her makeshift bindings wouldn’t come undone any time soon, the monumental schoolgirl stood up to her full height and pulled on the end of the jump rope she still held, sliding Jack’s listless form across the bed a couple of feet towards her. Raising the rope high towards the ceiling in one hand, she succeeded in lifting his upper body off the mattress, his little arms forced above his head like a reluctant child having a shirt changed, or a pet being dragged by its leash.

Again, the commanding Alpha giggled girlishly at her scrawny prisoner; he looked so wretched and pathetic. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of trying to resist, but to be honest, it felt like anything that he did would be mocked.

She started dragged him awkwardly across the bedsheet towards her, and he realised he was going to go off the edge. He tried to pull against the rope, but only succeeded in raising himself off the mattress slightly as he skated across it. His legs flailed about as she hauled him off the side of the bed, kicking out ineffectually as he swung in a pendulum-like motion by his tied hands, his feet a good couple of feet from the floor.

As the swaying began to slow down, he forced himself to stop struggling, her laughter echoing in his ears. He just wanted the world to swallow him up. Now.

Caitlin lowered him to the floor, his legs buckling under him as they touched the ground, but she held him up enough so that it was obvious he was expected to stand on them. Tired, numb and beaten, Jack got his weary limbs in order and stood to his feet, his back hunched over slightly from his many exertions.

He was hungry, dehydrated, and almost out of energy – there was very little left in the tank. Blind obedience was basically his only option, he had to just hope and pray that Caitlin would go easy on him. He didn’t want to bet on it, though.

Jack was also visibly unclean and sweaty from all of the experiences he had been through, his face and hair were a mess, not to mention his recently depleted loins.

The statuesque girl was meanwhile busily tying the other end of the jump rope around her left wrist in a messy-looking knot, forcing the handle through a loop in the rope so that it would not come undone, and then putting her arm by her side and winding the rope around her wrist a few times to shorten its length. It was quite clever really, he had to admit, like an improvised leash to stop him getting too far away whilst still giving her a degree of autonomy. She could do what she wanted without having to hold onto him, or tie him up somewhere, and she clearly didn’t want to risk leaving him unattended again.

He suddenly found himself getting yanked roughly as she began to move off without warning. His legs collapsed under him as he was pulled forwards, and his toe knuckles dragged across the bedroom carpet painfully. He heard her tut loudly, lifting him off the ground using the rope and dropping him heavily back onto wobbly legs.

“Pay attention, pipsqueak,” she chided. He didn’t even bother looking up to see what her expression was.

This time he was prepared, and when she started to move he quickly stumbled forward, picking up momentum and driving his legs as the Alpha girl walked much more quickly than he could. He had to scurry along haphazardly, watching his feet and hers all the time as she marched out through her doorway and into the kitchen, coming to a halt just in front of the enormous refrigerator.

The vast appliance’s door opened with an audible ker-clunk, and Caitlin started eyeing up her options, absent-mindedly winding the loose rope around her left hand, drawing the undersized boy closer to her colossal left leg.

She kept wrapping more and more of the rope around her hand until Jack had no place to go, he had been dragged right up against her smooth, muscular pin, and his hands were practically in her palm now – there was no excess rope to reel in.

He had to turn his head to one side to avoid having his nose smushed against the solid mass of her unforgiving quad as she rested her hand against the very top of her thigh, just below her hip. His ribcage was touching the upper part of her kneecap and he was having to straddle his feet either side of hers. Looking down he could see that he could easily put both of his feet on the top of her foot like a skateboard. This didn’t seem like a good idea, though.

As the Alpha started reached into the fridge and rummaged around with her free hand, his eyes were drawn upwards.

His hands, almost inside Caitlin’s rope-bound palm, were barely a few inches away from the capaciously stretched Y of her blue panties. The fact began to register, that with his feet on the ground, at full stretch, his hands would only just be able to touch her… down there.

His vision may have been fuzzy at long distance, but he was so up close and personal with her lower body that everything, including the underside of her breasts, was in pretty sharp focus. The girl’s gigantic tits bounced mesmerically in the loose-fitting vest top. The material was thin, and within the bright environs of the expensive Alpha kitchen he could make out their hefty silhouettes jostling against one another whenever her arm moved, the bottom of her vest rippling loosely over her stomach like a sail catching the breeze. Far above, he could only occasionally catch a blurry glimpse of her nose or hair from between those mighty orbs.

Caitlin’s left hand drew up towards her stomach to scratch an itch, lifting him first up onto tiptoes and then, as he struggled to keep his footing on the ground, into the air but sort-of held against her leg. He couldn’t help but press his face into the girl’s rock-like upper thigh as she just held him like that, seemingly without effort. He pointed his toes but he couldn’t quite reach the top of her gargantuan foot.

High above, he observed the girl finally take out a large plastic tub of what looked like pastries. Closing the fridge door, she took a step towards the built-in breakfast bar, her knee pushing firmly into Jack’s gut, conforming him to the shape of her colossal leg like a life-size action figure as it drove forward and planted itself on the ground. Her well-built leg pounded repeatedly against his weakening form, battering into him like a punching bag, and even though she only needed to take a few steps to reach the table, it was enough to knock almost all of the wind out of him.

Completely indifferent to the tiny man’s struggles, Caitlin placed the tub down on the bar and opened the lid. The countertop was actually above Jack’s eyeline, even though his view was technically higher than it would be as he was dangling above the ground, so he couldn’t see what she was about to eat until she picked it up.

The giantess grabbed a fairly large, apparently cream-filled pastry, topped with small strawberries, examined it between her fingers and thumb and raised it up to her lips, taking a large bite out of it. Whilst chocolate bars, cereal, junk food and other artificial snacks were made predominantly at giant scales, strawberries, like other naturally-grown fruit and veg, were the same size they had always been. For Alphas they were like little bursts of flavour, and were often put on top of pastries and baked goods to give extra sweetness.

His view up her imposing figure was once again blocked by her titanic rack, but a handful of small flakes of crumbly pastry fell like confetti down her torso and onto the floor. He could hear the mulchy, wet sound of her greedily chewing the food, and then an exaggerated smack of her lips as she popped the last piece of the pastry in her mouth.

“Mmmmm...” she purred, rubbing her tummy idly with her left hand, causing Jack to rock gently against her herculean leg.

Reaching down she grabbed another one, and swiftly consumed it, and then a third. Jack was beginning to feel light-headed as he hung there, being taunted by this selfish Alpha girl’s appetite. As she reached for yet another and brought it to her face, a big fleck of cream dropped down and landed on her thigh about 6 inches away from his face. She didn’t seem to notice, and Jack just stared at it. His stomach was almost too afraid to rumble.

Caitlin was preoccupied with devouring her fourth pastry, so he took a risk. Wriggling slightly, he got himself a little closer to the blob, straining his neck as far as he could. He extending his tongue out to reach it, and was able to lap a good portion of it off her skin. It tasted… heavenly, definitely a cream filling. Even a tiny bit of this food would give him that extra bit of energy; it felt crucial that he should maximise the opportunity. If he had been thinking straight, he would’ve thought to check he was in the clear before hastily trying to lick the rest of the cream.

“…the fuck are you doing?” the giantess snapped, catching him in the act.

He recoiled, moving his head away from her leg and looked down at the ground submissively.

She lowered him so that his feet touched the cold tiled floor; her left hand moving down to touch the half-licked splat of cream with her index finger. Her immense leg then bent at the knee, pinning him backwards against the veneered wood panel of the breakfast bar as she inspected it, a smile forming on her features.

Reaching down with the half-eaten pastry in her hand, she squeezed the bitten side against the spot where the cream had landed, smearing the filling along her thigh messily and then straightened her leg, unpinning him.

“Knock yourself out, short stuff,” she said, placing the now-crushed pastry on the countertop, “Clean that up and I’ll let you have more.”

He looked up at her, it was one thing when he had tried to do it surreptitiously, this was quite another.

“Well, what are you waiting for, dickweed?” she boomed, her impatience growing.

Hesitantly, he stepped forward, examining the thin trail of cream that she had left for him. Her leg twisted away from him, presenting him with cords of powerful muscle, and she pointed her foot to get them to bulge intimidatingly.

As if in a trance, he leant forward and began to lap at her quad. He heard her half-utter something in delight, obviously thrilled to see him so obedient and docile.

He tried to ignore her, it didn’t matter how humiliating this felt, any food he could get would only help him in the long run.

It took him about 10 seconds to lick the cool, sweet-tasting filling from her mighty gam. He wanted to hide his desperation, but at the same time, if he took too long she might become angry.

She laughed when he had finished, her impressive leg muscles rippling as her body shook.

“Good! Good!” she boomed, slapping her other thigh firmly with her right hand, almost as if she was congratulating him. She then reached over to the squished pastry and knocked it to the floor with a lazy flick of her hand. It bounced off the hard tile floor and came to a rest next to her jumbo-size foot.

Jack looked down at it, he just knew she was going to ask him to eat it off the floor…

“Your reward,” she said coolly, lifting her foot up and, to Jack’s dismay, pressing it down on top of the half-eaten pastry so that it crumbled into lots of little flaky pieces. Grinning, the uncaring redhead raised her foot up to reveal the crushed mess pressed into her fleshy sole and toes, with little red smears of strawberry and spots of cream stuck to the skin.

Jack felt himself gag at the thought of having to eat any of the mess she had created.

“Don’t keep me waiting now…” Caitlin advised, wiggling her big toes expectantly.

Kneeling down with his arms still elevated above his head, he inched closer to her hovering foot and shot a look up at the awesome female in all her formidable glory. Despite his blurry long-distance vision, he could see she wore an expression of amusement and utter disdain. He wanted to beg and reason with her, but she had given him every reason to suspect his pleas would fall on deaf ears.

She had consciously left him no real choice other than to place his head on the floor beneath her monstrous foot, and this prospect frightened him more than he could bear to admit. It was a fact informed by simple physics – her weight was so prodigious that his head would simply pop beneath her foot like a grapefruit if she decided to press down, deliberately or otherwise.

“I… I… can’t”, he croaked, his throat dry as a bone.

There was deafening silence as he waited for her furious response.

“Please… not l-like this…”

The giantess swept her elevated foot over towards him forcefully and knocked him down on his side without a word, unwinding the jump rope from her left hand so that his arms fell loosely in front of him, albeit still tied together at the wrist.

She rolled him on his back with another heavy collision from her foot into his ribs, before placing it onto his chest and face, her long toes seemingly wrapping over the top of his head. He dry-heaved as the splattered food and bits of horrible fluff and muck on the pad of her foot came into contact with his face and mouth.

“Sorry runt, did you say something?” she mocked.

She ground it onto him with a carefully measured, but no less painful weight for a good few seconds until she was happy he had suffered enough.

The torment was over quite quickly, but the unpleasant smell and sheer grubbiness of something as mundane as this Alpha girl’s oversized foot would haunt him for some time.

She planted her foot back down next to him and hauled him upright by his arms with ferocious force, almost pulling his arms clean out of his sockets as he cried out in pain.

“Ugh. Do you have to make everything a fucking chore?” she spat.

He lacked the strength to even stand up now, it was surely only moments before he would faint outright.

Like a little ragdoll he hung, as Caitlin resumed eating her pastries. He couldn’t even count how many she ate, or how long she took to consume them, it was all becoming a kind of endless, nightmarish blur.

His eyes were now half-closed, his vision a haze of bloomed white and grey, unaware of his surroundings. He felt his little body jolt around and his feet brush and skim the floor as he was moved somewhere else.

He was raised up high, and placed limply on the kitchen work surface like a marionette. The sound of the fridge door cracking open again, Caitlin removing a large bottle and pouring something fizzy into a glass before shutting it behind her.

He was swept from the cold, hard counter and sent whooshing through the air again, in a kind of trance, her heavy footsteps thumping across the hard, tiled floor and onto a softer spongy-sounding carpet, and into a different space that seemed warmer and less clinical than the kitchen.

Suddenly, the sensation of falling, and bouncing gracelessly on some kind of firm, faux-leather surface that was quickly depressed by Caitlin’s considerable mass, and his strengthless, wilting body was picked up and manoeuvred by her substantial arms.

He felt himself propped up and covered with rough, hemp-like material; a throw of some kind, and the warmth at his back which led him to suspect he was resting against the giantess herself.

His head lolled back, nestling against something warm, round and cushioned, it was soft and fragrant and… very comfortable.

He knew something was different; he wasn’t being forced into an uncompromising position, and she wasn’t trying to make his life hell, at least, not yet.

“Oi… peewee. Drink some of this will ya…” he heard her announce brusquely. She wasn’t able to completely hide the trace of concern from her voice, though.

Curiously, he forced his eyelids open a crack wider to see a large glass of green-coloured soda tipping itself towards his tiny mouth. Opening his lips, he felt the thick rim press into him, jarring his teeth slightly, and cold, invigorating fluid rush down his gullet and flood over most of his lower face messily.

His parched throat creaked as the sugary nectar flowed down, a kind of muted gargle, and the glass was removed from him. He spluttered slightly as his epiglottis switched back to breathing mode, and opened his eyes a bit wider.

Blinking around, still very spaced, he spied a large TV in the distance, which sparked into life and began blaring some kind of obnoxious teen-oriented programming of Caitlin’s choosing. He slowly acclimatised to the fact he was reclining on her massive body as she sat on a big, Alpha-sized sofa. It wasn’t as straightforward for him to take stock of his immediate surroundings as he might have hoped, as his head was sunk quite far into what felt like a very large, spongy pillow. He rotated his face to his left very, very slowly, and realised it was in fact Caitlin’s enormous vest-covered breast that was providing much needed support for his weary head…

The cool liquid beginning to settle in his stomach ushered in an alien feeling of calm. He just couldn’t fathom why she was suddenly allowing him such an obvious moment of respite, it was maddening. Like when she put ice on his arm, or when she couldn’t find him and resorted to crocodile tears in an attempt to coax him out. I mean, they seemed like crocodile tears…

He was so overwhelmed, he found himself burying his head into her bosom without realising, tears silently streaming down his face as his breath got caught in his throat. He felt a large hand rest on his lap through the throw, like she was giving him a kind of support, and he let out a full-blown whimper that he couldn’t contain any more.

If you’re going to be nice to me, just be fucking nice to me, his inner monologue screamed, smashing imaginary fists against his imaginary prison.

He let out an anguished scream, muffled by the extraordinary heft of her gigantic boob, and to his surprise, he could hear Caitlin turn down the TV volume and shift her weight, perhaps to look down on him better.

“Good boy,” she soothed, “Let it out.”

“Let it all out.”

He bawled into the vast girl’s cotton-wrapped chest, scrunching his fists and drawing his arms into his body for comfort.

Big fingertips traced along the side of his neck gently, attempting to placate his cries of anguish and shame.

Still, he cried, hysterically, his body shaking and heaving in waves.

Quite how he was able to muster up the energy for such an outburst was a complete mystery to him.

Caitlin’s body shifted again, tipping her body forwards so that she could roll his face away from her shapely orb and look him in the eye.

“Ok, I think that’s enough whining for now, don’t you?” she said, in a measured, unexpectedly gentle voice.

He snatched for breath raggedly in between hiccup-like gulps, blinking with red, teary eyes and looked up at her, nodding sadly like a scolded child.

“Now let’s get comfy,” she added, flashing him a small smile that did, actually, seem to be sincere.

She lay back, propping him up like before, with his head resting on her luxuriant rack, and went back to watching her show. She didn’t, however, turn the volume back up, so he got the feeling she wasn’t particularly focused on it, perhaps it was just something to do while she sat there, enjoying the feeling of this tiny person snuggled up against her.

If she could only stay put for a while he would definitely be able to recover some energy. In fact, she was probably counting on it so that she could have some more ‘fun’ later, he thought.

He rested, exhausted, but unsure if he was falling asleep or not. The presence of Caitlin’s awesome frame, acting as a kind of improvised giantess deckchair for his tiny body, was a constant, gnawing reminder of the horrors he had faced.

It felt like hours were passing, but it probably hadn’t been much more than ten minutes.

He still couldn’t understand why this was happening to him, of all people. She had kidnapped him because he was so small and helpless, as she so often liked to remind him, and almost definitely because of his first run-in with her after school. Was it a coincidence, a complete spur-of-the-moment decision that made her take him, or had she planned it all out after humiliating him in the bathroom stall?

What did she hope to achieve? She couldn’t keep him hostage forever, and it was hard to think how she could go back on her word to release him on Sunday, and not arouse suspicion. He was apprehensive though, because if there was a family wealthy and influential enough to cover up something like this, it was the Reids, and he couldn’t 100% rule out Caitlin being callous enough to manipulate her Dad into unwittingly masking his abduction, especially if she successfully broke his spirit and made him into a little slave or something.

He closed his eyes once more, praying for the strength to withstand her. Every fibre of his being burned, united in rejecting the injustice of being turned into a sub-human plaything by anyone, no matter how gigantic, or scary. It reminded him of a section of a poem from a bygone age, long before the advent of GH therapy, which read:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

     To serve your turn long after they are gone,  

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

His grandfather had read that poem to him at his bedside when he was much younger, back when he had aspirations, and felt anything was possible. He had always found it very inspiring, especially the final part:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,  

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

As his mind wandered, Caitlin’s long fingers slid up against his body and swallowed his little hand in their enormous grasp. He flinched, tensing his body for the worst. Was she going to pick him up now, toss him around like a ragdoll, put him on the floor and tread on him with her monstrous feet?

Instead, the girl closed her fingers around his, like she was holding his hand, and then went back to watching the TV.

She must have thought he was asleep.

His relief was so overwhelming he almost couldn’t process it, she wanted to grip his hand in hers?

He wanted to laugh out loud, to allow himself, for one second, to feel silly and upbeat for expecting the worst and being rewarded with an act of such simple humanity.

Emboldened, by this, his heart began to race. His captor, the unfeeling, giant redheaded girl who seemingly everyone was afraid of, was currently enjoying the, admittedly fucked-up, sensation of companionship with her tiny prisoner.

Perhaps this was part of her twisted outlook. If she could make him bend to her will, then she could ‘have’ him, to hold, to fuck, to do what she liked with. Even if that simply meant someone to cuddle with on an idle Saturday…

It was just a theory, and a dangerous one to buy into given her propensity for violence and anger, but in his addled mind, there seemed to be a lot of evidence adding up here. He was still super-emotional, and it was unlikely that he was functioning on all cylinders, but he wanted to at least try and say something to her, before she decided it was time to play rough with him some more.

“C-caitlin,” he whispered almost inaudibly. There was no response from the giantess.

“Caitlin…” he repeated timidly, slightly louder this time.

Her beautiful face tilted down, she seemed relaxed, perhaps even a bit drowsy.

“Yes…?” she replied curiously, looking down her nose at him and pursing her lips gently.

“What d-do you want… from me…? He asked softly.

She looked away from him thoughtfully for a second before responding.

“I dunno, tiny,” she replied, “It’s fun to watch you squirm, I guess.”

She gave his hand a squeeze. He took a deep breath.

“I’m… scared… Caitlin. I’m sc-scared y-you’re going to ruin my life…” he stuttered anxiously, fidgeting with his legs under the rough fabric of the throw.

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but her expression remained neutral.

“I… d-don’t want to… I mean…” he faltered, aware he was on a slippery precipice with this kind of talk. It dawned on him that he was probably making a particularly stupid error in trying to speak to her like this.

He started to tear up just thinking about her impending reaction, but the words were already flooding out.

“…This is n-nothing to you, this k-kidnap. But f-f-for m-me…” he paused, gulping back a load of nervous saliva that was forming in his mouth.

“…I’m n-n-never going to f-feel safe ag… again.”

Her lips pressed together firmly as she stared at him impassively. She could easily interject, berate him for his impetuousness, or even look away and ignore him entirely, but instead, she watched him spill his guts.

“…I’m s-sorry for w-whoever m-made you f-feel this way… I know I’m n-never gonna change your m-mind… b-but if… if you w-want someone to l-l-l…”

The words tumbled from him like dominoes.

“…to love you…  …then w-who told you you h-had to force them...”

The giantess was completely taken aback.

“…what did you just say?” she said. Her face wasn’t angry yet, she just seemed to struggle to process her disbelief at what this tiny boy was coming out with. If anything, her expression was one of pained curiosity.

He drew his legs up towards his body, subconsciously adopting the foetal position in anticipation of her imminent anger and aggression. He tried to remove his hand from hers, but she tightened her grip so that he couldn’t budge it from her grasp.

“D-d-don’t hurt me…” he murmured quietly, almost under his breath.

“You… you think I have feelings for you… some insignificant Beta cumstain of a man?” she said, her tone darkening, her body moving slightly underneath him as she grew agitated by the sheer audacity of his remark.

“No… no…!” he cried, trying to stem her anger, she was getting the wrong end of the stick, “You w-want me to l-love… you?”

There was momentary silence between the two. After a short while, she snorted with contempt at the utter garbage he was proposing.

“So you think you’re a psychologist, do you, Jack?” she sneered, “You think there’s more to this than just me teaching you your place in the food chain?”

He looked up at her, he had nothing to lose.

He nodded.

The colossal redhead laughed down at him, her big booming voice echoing off the walls.

“You’re stupid as shit, even for a manlet. Can you imagine… me, and you?”

He looked down, abjectly, his plan to root out the truth in tatters. Perhaps it was worth it, to find out once and for all, but right now it didn’t feel that way.

“Don’t make me fucking laugh, shrimp.”

“And, as for ruining your pathetic little life…” she went on, “Don’t pretend you don’t dream about getting with this…”

She grabbed his head roughly with her spare hand, and pressed it into the swell of her gargantuan tit as he struggled against her, so that he understood exactly what she was getting at.

“If anything, you should be thanking me,” she laughed, sticking her tongue into her cheek quite literally.

Jack fought to remove her fingers from his head, figuratively and actually trying to shake his head free from what she was saying.

“N-not like th-this!” he screamed, succeeding in evading her fingertips, though it was almost definitely because she let him go.

He turned to face up at her, his emotions running away with him again.

“You know w-what, Caitlin?” he cried, the blood pumping through his veins.

“Perhaps I sh-should believe y-you… p-perhaps in your head, this is what I want…”

“But…” he continued, “…I think you’re full of sh-shit. I think y-you know exactly what you’re doing to me… I just w-want you t-to know…”

He paused. Waiting for the right words.

“…breaking m-me won’t make you h-happy, in the end.”

She stared at him, waiting, raising her eyebrows at him as if to ask if he was done boring her yet.

“Said your piece, then, Jack?” she said, smacking her lips together cattily.

“For the record, if I was trying to break you, we wouldn’t be having this pitiful excuse for a conversation, I’d be too busy stuffing you inside the tumble dryer,” she warned.

“You have no idea how good you’ve got it, shrimp, and god knows how much Amber wanted me to knock all the fight out of you.”

He felt the colour fade from his face at the mention of Amber’s name. She noticed the effect name-checking her had had on him, which only seemed to encourage her.

“I’m quite touched though, honestly, that you think so highly of me,” she teased, pressing a finger into her cheek and pouting at him in a coochy-coo kind of way.

“But guess what, pipsqueak, you mean nothing to me.”

“Why a-are y-you holding my h-hand then…?!” he replied.

It was honestly the first thing that popped into his head. He had no inkling at all of the effect it was going to have.

Her confident, cocksure demeanour evaporated instantly. Her expression revealed a sense of vulnerability, she didn’t know how to answer.

“I…” she said, but no words came.

“W-why are you h-holding me like this…” he continued, pouncing on her hesitation.

“You d-don’t have to comfort me… at all… but you w-want to…”

She got her act together, cutting across him before he could get up a head of steam.

“…and so what, you midget fuck? I feel sorry for you… does that compute in your tiny brain?” she spat, but her actions belied her words.

The giantess was unstuck by this. He’d drawn attention to something that maybe she didn’t even realise herself.

He didn’t think that the nicey-nicey thing was just an act designed to soften him up, if anything, he suspected it might be the exact opposite. It was just a tiny point of light, a hint of a hint of a thing for now, but despite his incredibly compromised position, he felt like he had made some headway in trying to figure out the motivations behind Caitlin’s treatment of him.

He wasn’t naïve enough to think this moment of weakness would go unpunished however. She didn’t like being made a fool of.

“You think I’m being nice? You’d rather I break you in, huh, Jack?” she bellowed, sitting upright and forcing him off her lap and onto the sofa in a heap.

She wrapped the loose coils of jump rope around her arm and dragged him up by the wrists sharply, standing upright and marching him back towards her room.

With frightening speed she smacked his little body against her wardrobe, holding the jump rope high above him and letting him hang down.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you, you half-size cunt, but then you had to open your tiny trap a bit too fucking wide.”

She hurriedly undid the knot tying one end of the rope to her arm so that she could swap hands, but still held him there, strung up like a puppet.

She grabbed him by the legs with her left hand and pulled him out towards her as if pulling on a swing, then smashed him squarely against the hardwood surface painfully, clouting his head and back against it with tremendous force.

Dazed, he tried to regain his composure but was immediately rocked by her massive hand slapping him in the face from the side, causing his jaw to crack audibly and he could feel the warm, wet sensation of blood trickling inside his mouth.

“I was going to let you go, but I have a feeling you’re not going to let this shit slide, and you’re going to blab about this to all your Beta buddies at school,” she went on...

Her mouth was so close to him he could feel her spittle fleck onto his naked body.

Again, he felt her smack his face, from the other side now. He could feel the bruises forming.

 “I’m…. sorry….” he gasped.

He turned his head to look at her and saw a wetness to her eyes, a thin trail on her cheek that led to a solitary tear.

“You are so… WRONG… about me,” the giantess yelled square in his face, “You don’t know ANYTHING.”

He anticipated another impact, but it never came, instead he felt himself being lowered into a heap on the floor.

From the other room, he heard her mobile phone ringing, piercing the silence.

Caitlin’s massive legs stomped straight out of the room with barely a moment’s hesitation. He was no longer tied to her by the rope, which gave him a window of opportunity to scramble somewhere, but he was in no state to take advantage of it. He didn’t have the energy to get to his feet, his knees even, anything. He had nothing left to give, there just wasn’t anything in the tank. His legs refused to move, his arms were bound. Blood dripped from his hanging mouth, leaving small blotches of red on the carpet.

This was it, his chance, and he couldn’t take it. He was as good as dead.

He would never wish this feeling of helplessness on anyone. Not even Caitlin.

“What the FUCK do you mean it won’t start?” he heard the Alpha roar from the other end of the house.

“Ok ok, I’m not angry at you, Alex, take a fucking chill pill,” she continued, hastily retracting her misplaced anger.

 “Well I’m not leaving him to come and pick you and Hannah up, so you’d better think of something.”

Her voice got louder as she returned to her room.

“Uhuh… uhuh… k…” she said as she rounded the corner, laying eyes on him immediately to verify that he was still where she’d left him.

“I’ll give her a ring and ask her to come over right away,” she said finally, hanging up abruptly, probably cutting Alex off.

She raised her head to the heavens and gave an exasperated growl, forming her hands into claws and taking a moment to calm down.

Jack trembled with fear, it was bad enough that she had snapped at him, but now her stress levels were threatening to push her over the edge.

She punched something into her phone and brought it up to her ear, resuming her death stare with him as it rang over, and over, and over.

He heard the muffled sound of someone’s voice, but judging by Caitlin’s reaction it was voicemail, and when she spoke, it confirmed his suspicions.

“Hey Amber, Cait here, look, I need you to drop what you’re doing and get straight round to mine. Don’t ask questions ok, just do it, and see to it that our little… present is secure. I’ll stow it in my room for safe keeping, you’ll know where to look… see ya later.”

His blood ran cold. He began to shake his head, knowing that Caitlin was watching his every move.

She swiped at her phone, and pressed the button on the side to turn off the screen.

“You made your bed, dickhead, now enjoy sleeping in it,” she said coldly.

He felt like screaming, but he couldn’t, he was frozen with fear, imagining what Amber would do with him if left to her own devices. Caitlin was throwing him to the lions.

He mouthed the word ‘please’ at her, his trembling becoming more violent, as she stepped closer to him, looming over him like an imposing, giant executioner.

She wiped the remnants of the tear he had seen her shed off her cheek hurriedly, as if she didn’t want him to see, and stooped down to grab one end of the rope. With absolutely no concern at all for his bleeding mouth, she swiftly wrapped the rope around his body and legs, making sure to cross it over his ankles and coil it round so that he was basically hog-tied.

She stood up and walked over to her sports bag, removing the adhesive tape that had so successfully done the trick when she first kidnapped him, and returned to him, pulling out lengths of the tape and wrapping it around his head and over his mouth several times so that he couldn’t move his lips, let alone scream.

When she felt she was finished she picked him up, both hands around his waist, and walked him over to her laundry basket, dropping him atop the handful of clothes still in there, and covering him with the rest of the dirty laundry she had unearthed earlier. He found himself weighed down by the mass of countless pairs of socks, panties and t-shirts, which smelt strongly of her deodorant, and also of dirt, sweat, and other unpleasant odours he didn’t want to think about.

This was nothing, his brain kept reminding him, nothing, compared to what was in store. He felt himself hyperventilating, not helped by the fact that his mouth was completely sealed, it just meant his nostrils kept inhaling copious quantities of stale, repugnant air from the clothes around him.

The basket’s wooden structure creaked as the lid was placed on top, and then groaned some more as something heavy was placed on top of that to seal him in. There was to be zero change of escape, not that it was even seriously crossing his mind.

The next few minutes consisted of listening to the faint sounds of Caitlin getting herself ready to leave the house, fastening her shoes and getting her car keys from the side table, and then finally, her bedroom door closed with a heavy thud, was locked from the outside, and he was on his own.

He prayed to god that the next face he would see would actually be Caitlin, returning after picking up Alex and Hannah.

Something told him he would not be so lucky.

Claustrophobia.

Fear.

Sweat.

Blood.

Tears.

Panic.

His own sense of time could not be trusted.

It was entirely possible that the gut-wrenching dread he felt was stretching out time so that every minute he thought had passed was 20 seconds or less.

Or maybe every 20 seconds was more than a minute?

He had no way of telling, and that was the thing that was killing him right now…

He didn’t even know how long he would have.

Caitlin was going to pick up Alex and Hannah, and he didn’t know how long that would take, but it was obviously a significant enough detour for Caitlin to call Amber and instruct her to go straight to hers. 15 minutes? 20 minutes? Half an hour or more?

He started to speculate, nightmarishly, that Amber received that voicemail immediately after deliberately refusing to pick up. In such a scenario, she would already be well on her way by now. He recalled her storming off in a rage earlier, furious with Alex for cutting short her playtime. She would have a bone to pick with them all, and this was just the kind of opportunity she would likely grab with both hands.

He tried to block out the bone-chilling prospect of Amber bursting through the bedroom door, tearing him from the laundry basket and torturing him from the get-go. Caitlin had essentially given her permission to do whatever she wanted to him by not telling her to go easy on him. She didn’t need to say a thing, she just needed to give Amber the space to do it of her own accord whilst she was out. It was not a massive stretch of the imagination to picture Caitlin taking her sweet time with the pick-up, to ensure that her toy would be well and truly ‘trained’ by the time she returned to finish the job…

What about Alex, he thought, remembered her flashes of concern at the poolside. He doubted she’d be keen to stand up to the others again, and risk being cast out from the group. Given Caitlin’s mood, he didn’t think Alex would be able to do much to help him even if she was prepared to put her neck out. Hannah? He would’ve laughed if he remembered what that felt like…

A noise.

Someone was in the house.

A key was inserted into the lock of the bedroom door.

It had been barely a few minutes, surely… He knew he was pretty addled but it could not have been more than 5 minutes, tops.

And then he realised with horror…

Amber.

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit.

She had been waiting, she’d probably been parked around the corner, waiting for her chance.

Maybe she’d sabotaged Alex’s car to force Caitlin out of the house?

Fear consumed him. If he had been scared beforehand, it was nothing compared to what he felt like now. He bucked, kicked, tried anything, anything at all to free himself, but it was utterly useless.

This was how it was going to end. How he was going to end.

The lock clunked and the door swung open with a drawn-out creak.

He stopped moving instantaneously. Change of tactic.

He remembered that Caitlin’s explanation was vague, perhaps because she didn’t want anyone to monitor the call.

If he could stay perfectly still, there was a chance she might not find him. A ridiculously, comically slim chance, but better than attracting attention to himself for no reason.

He could barely hear anything, it was petrifying to think that at any minute he’d hear her cruel voice mock him. She’d stand over the basket, removing whatever was weighing down the lid, and then the clothes would be removed. One. By. One.

His pulse was absolutely galloping as his fight or flight reflex kicked in. It was hard to make out any noise at all because all he could hear was the sound of his own heart smashing around in his chest like a jackhammer.

There was a footstep, and then another. They sounded nearby, and then the sound of the wardrobe being opened.

His heart jumped into his mouth, a sharp pain jolting through his body as his insides hurt so much from being worried sick.

Oh god, it’s only a matter of time…

A process of elimination.

Amber hadn’t said a single word though. That didn’t seem right, especially if she didn’t know where he was. She was not the kind of person to hold her tongue if she knew that a vulnerable, terrified Beta was tied up in her best friend’s room.

A curious sensation slowly began to form in the pit of his stomach, and expanded rapidly to fill the rest of his body. It felt like… doubt.

“Jack…? Are you in here?”

Penny.

That unmistakeably gentle, kind voice.

It was her.

It was really her.

Tears started to run down his face uncontrollably. His body, still gagged and bound, writhed around madly as he tried to make some kind of sound to alert her.

He couldn’t hear much as there were clothes all around him, muffling both his own movements from outside, and the outside from him. It sounded like Penny was continuing to explore the room, looking for him. He began to panic that she actually wouldn’t be able to find him in time… Amber might still turn up at any moment.

“Pnnnnneeeem” he tried to scream, muffled by the many layers of tape wrapped over his mouth.

He heard her hesitant footsteps clack against the tiled bathroom floor, going inside to investigate.

“Jack?” she called out anxiously once more, her sweet voice echoing slightly as it bounced off the walls.

He was losing his mind trying to shout out her name.

“PNNNNEEEEMM” he bawled, realising only now the depths of his despair, now that salvation was close at hand, but might slip through his grasp.

His energy reserves, already critically low, had reduced his squirming to the occasional twitch of his shackled limbs as what felt like eons of silence passed. It was probably only a few seconds. Time was not something he could follow reliably any more.

He thought he heard the sound of a zipper being undone, some stuff getting moved around.

“Pnneeeemm…” he breathed, trying to stay conscious, burning through the last few embers of adrenalin left in his frail body…

Footsteps approached slowly.

The sound of wood creaking as whatever had been placed on top of the basket was carefully removed. The lid was lifted away, and he could feel the vibrations of the basket as Penny pulled out article after article of clothing.

“Pnnnm…” he groaned.

A firm hand grabbed onto a large t-shirt that lay on top of his torso, her fingers brushing against him as she lifted it away, revealing his body.

“Oh my god! Jack?!” Penny gasped in horror, reaching in with both arms to bring him up to her and cradle him in her grasp.

She carried him over to the bed quickly, lowering him carefully onto the duvet, and it then fully dawned on her that Jack was tied up with rope, gagged, and completely naked.

She had to avert her eyes in shock for a moment, trying not add to the poor boy’s embarrassment. Composing herself, she delicately started to pry the tape away from his mouth with her nails, at least enough to allow him to speak. She had to be very careful, as it was particularly strong adhesive tape, and she didn’t want to hurt him or tear any skin. She eventually got some purchase on one end of the tape, and gingerly unwound it from him, trying to avoid pulling his hair too much.

“Penny…” he croaked.

“I’m here, Jack, I’m here… I’m going to get you safe,” she explained. With the tape removed she swiftly untangled the cat’s cradle of coloured jump rope, unwrapping it from his fatigued limbs whilst trying not to draw attention to his fragile, naked form. She was so embarrassed for him, but she couldn’t afford to waste any time either.

“…have to go… Amber… any moment…” he said, straining just to get the words out.

“OK,” she said, “We’ll be out of here in a second.”

With his limbs freed, he curled into the foetal position and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to cover up his exposed body. Looking at her properly for the first time, he saw she was wearing a jacket, a snug-fitting one with a faux fur lining, and a rucksack over one shoulder. As he watched, she undressed her outer layer, sliding both the bag and her jacket off her arms, and he could see she was wearing a black and dark-red tartan dress with short sleeves, dark tights and black boots underneath. Her long sandy-brown hair was untied and windswept, as if she had been walking in a strong gale. She carefully laid out her jacket on the bed, and put the rucksack strap back over her shoulder.

“I’m going to pick you up, Jack, bear with me,” she said softly.

She grabbed him gently in her slender arms and placed him onto the jacket, then wrapped him up in it so that he was cocooned, a bit like a swaddled baby. The jacket lining was some kind of soft, fuzzy fabric that felt nice against his skin; at least he wouldn’t catch a chill. With a little effort she was able to carry him in this improvised bindle by pressing him against her chest with one arm. She quickly threw some of the dirty clothes back into the laundry basket and placed the lid back on, then grabbed the gym weights from the ground one at a time and placed them on to. He looked on, knowing full well how heavy they were; for her to lift them one-handed so quickly meant she had strength that belied her slender build.

Satisfied that she had covered her tracks, at least well enough to hold up under a cursory glance, she exited swiftly, locking the bedroom door behind her and placing the key into a drawer in a small cabinet in the main entrance space of the house. She certainly seemed to know where she was going, Jack noted. Walking lightly on her feet, she crept back out of the front door, checking to make sure no-one was in the vicinity of the house, and shut it behind her.

It was getting late in the day, and whilst it was still bright out, the shadows had lengthened and everything was washed with a slightly redder hue than normal. It felt like it would be light for no more than an hour or so, until the sun finally dipped below the horizon and night would draw in.

Kneeling down, all the while holding him close, she slid a large, gold-coloured key underneath the welcome mat, and then stood up and walked away from the house determinedly.

“…Penny…” Jack whispered as she held him tightly to her, her long, bare arms sealed around the outside of the jacket, shielding him from harm.

“Shhh… please save your energy Jack, you’re very weak,” she instructed, her face etched with concern.

“I don’t mean to be mean, I’m sorry…” she said delicately, “I’m just worried, when I’ve got you safe I’ll be less of a cow, I promise.”

He smiled, drawing a reciprocal smile from the Alpha teenager as she transported him further and further away from the Reid’s privileged neighbourhood with each long stride.

Taking several short cuts across tree-filled lawns, Penny avoided the pavement as much as possible on her route, perhaps for fear of being spotted by people driving by, and probably to avoid other pedestrians who might be suspicious of her carrying a large bundle around. Jack hadn’t really seen anyone on their journey so far, save a couple of joggers in the distance. It was perhaps a reflection of the relative affluence of the areas they were moving through – rich kids didn’t need to play in the street, and hardly anybody nowadays seemed to want to do anything as mundane as go for a walk.

He could hear Penny breathing quite hard as she kept moving, and even though he probably didn’t weigh that much compared to what she was capable of carrying, it was obvious that she was walking very hurriedly indeed.

He was at a total loss to explain his gratitude to her for her strength and courage. He only hoped that when he regained some of his energy he would be able to articulate how indebted to her he was, and make her realise, if she didn’t already know, what she had saved him from.

After a short while, she slowed and started to walk around the side of a small, relatively old-fashioned house surrounded by trees. The daylight was starting to fade and the sky was turning a burnt reddy-orange colour as dusk approached.

“OK, we’ve gotta be super quiet,” she whispered, “My folks don’t know I left the house,” she explained, giving him an adorably cute expression, like she had been doing something really naughty.

He blinked at her to show that he understood. The rangy girl hugged the side of the house, checking as she went to make sure that any windows she passed were clear, and snuck in through the back door, replacing the bolt cautiously so as not to make a sound.

In a nearby room, Jack could hear the noise of a TV blaring away; it sounded like a panel quiz show, and he could tell by Penny’s face that that meant her parents’ attention was occupied.

Still clutching him to her chest, she crept along the hallway, and quietly made her way up the stairs. He noticed that to one side of the staircase were Beta-sized half-steps, often found in older houses that were designed to accommodate both scales more readily, or families expecting children, instead of having child-friendly areas on the ground floor as was the custom nowadays.

On the landing, she turned right and came to a door covered in stickers and photos of movie stars, though he couldn’t really make out who they were because his vision was so fuzzy without his glasses on. A large sheet of notepad paper was stuck to the door just above the handle; and he could just make out that it read ‘Do Not Disturb – Revising xxx’ in green highlighter pen. She opened the door and went inside her bedroom, closing it behind her and wedging a doorstop under it so that it should at least slightly delay her parents if they decided to enter her room very suddenly.

Her room was surprisingly small; the roof was angled, like an attic room, which made it feel very cosy, like a kind of den away from the world. The walls were covered with many more photos and film posters, including black and white headshots from the golden age of cinema. She had a small TV at the end of her bed, a bedside table with a lamp, and some bookshelves and old bits of furniture crammed into the corner alongside lots of books and sheets of paper.

She placed him gently on the bed, and leaned over to the window, drawing the curtains across slightly and kneeling down to switch her bedside lamp on.

She turned to him, placing her hand on top of the jacket, “Are you ok? I’m going to get you something to eat and drink, and then you can get some rest.”

He nodded weakly, looking into her beautiful green eyes, the stresses of the last day or so slowly beginning to melt away as he realised… Penny had rescued him, it was a miracle.

“Ok, I’ll be back in a sec,” she said sweetly, placing her hand on his head for a brief moment as if to say, I’m here, you’re safe now.

She stood up and walked over to the door, removing the doorstop and opening it.

“Oh, and I’m going to make sure my parents know I’m still busy revising, so they won’t come in unexpectedly,” she added, “So don’t worry about that.”

He blinked at her in acknowledgement, this marvellous girl had thought of everything.

She closed the door quietly behind her, and he heard her footsteps go down the stairs, and then he was left alone with his thoughts once more.

He lay there, thinking about his miraculous escape, one that he could scarcely believe had happened. He prayed that he would not wake up from this dream and find himself buried in Caitlin’s laundry basket still. He pinched himself in the arm hard. Never had he been more pleased to feel the sharp pain of nails digging into his own skin. This meant this was real, that he was safe, that Caitlin couldn’t get to him, and Amber couldn’t find him, at least for now.

He didn’t want to think about the future, not yet anyway, he just wanted to look forward to the next handful of moments that he could spend with Penny, his guardian angel.

Penny returned shortly, holding a plate and a very small mug that must have been Beta-size. She put them both down on the bedside table, and jammed the door shut with the doorstop once more. Jack looked at the plate and saw that she had cut several pieces of bread, meat and cheese into small-ish pieces, along with a handful of grapes, a banana, and a couple of blocks of what looked like dark chocolate.

“I didn’t know what you would want, so I just grabbed some small bits,” she explained warmly, kneeling down next to the bed and looking at him with those luminous green eyes.

He didn’t have the strength to even sit himself up, she quickly realised, so she grabbed a handful of pillows and gently moved his body so that he could lean against them with his upper body propped up.

She held a piece of cheese between finger and thumb and offered it to him, he reached out and took it from her, taking a small bite out of it.

“I also made you some cocoa, if you’d like some?” she said, “It’s in a little mug, I’ve got a, err… a bit of a collection of Beta stuff like that.”

She was shy about it, embarrassed almost. He found it incredibly endearing, he wished he had the energy to tell her how perfect this all was.

“Anyway, I guess I should explain…” she went on, running her hand through her long hair to comfort herself, like she was nervous talking about this.

“Your friend Delon sent me a message. I didn’t see it until earlier today, as I don’t go online very often, but he said that there was some kind of situation involving you, and that he might need my help.”

“I needed to stay in the library to study anyway, so I was able to talk to him a bit online and he said not to tell anyone, but you’d been taken by Caitlin and that you were in a bad way.”

 “At first I couldn’t believe it, it seemed so…” she paused for breath, “You know, so unbelievable.”

 “But then he messaged to say that a girl called Alex Eberhardt had been in touch, and that she confirmed our worst fears, and…” she looked away from him for a second to regain her thread, before making eye contact again.

“…and that’s when we decided to make a plan.”

Jack looked at the girl, in full, rapt admiration of everything about her, hanging on her every word. He knew he needed to keep eating, and nibbled at the cheese every so often. He felt like a little mouse, being treated to some food by a benevolent giantess.

“So yeah,” she moved on, still running her hands through her hair restlessly.

“This Alex girl explained that Caitlin was acting extra weird and had sorta taken you as her prisoner, and that she was worried you were going to get injured or killed and she couldn’t bear the thought of you getting hurt because she was too afraid to do anything.”

 “She said that the only way she could think of getting you out of there was to stage a distraction, get Caitlin to leave for some reason, and then someone run in and grab you before she got back.”

“Honestly, it’s all her idea, Jack. If anyone deserves the credit for this, it’s Alex. She even rang up Caitlin herself to say her car had broken down, and she told me exactly where everything was so that I could get to you.”

He was amazed to hear of the lengths that Alex had gone to to help him. She was someone he had never really considered to be much more than Caitlin’s stooge; one of the popular kids. Hell, she was complicit in his maltreatment that first time in the girl’s changing room, and had showed him nothing but disdain for 99% of their interactions.

He couldn’t count the number of times she had bumped into him, broken one of his pens or rulers ‘by accident’, made a joke at his expense in class… but this had all changed, and he was moved to hear by how much.

He was confused, however, by how transparent Penny was being in trying to discredit her own role in his great escape, insisting that Alex took the plaudits instead of her. Was he not being looked after by her right now, eating her food, taking advantage of her generosity? Hadn’t she been the one taking the greatest risk in trespassing at the Reid’s’ place, carrying him in her arms for what felt like miles…?

“Penny…” he finally said, his voice returning along with a little strength, “You saved me…”

The kind-hearted girl looked down at her arm bashfully, still touching her hair.

“I owe all of you s-so so much… but, I’m… incredibly lucky, to have found someone like you…”

“Without you… I’d still be a prisoner…”

She raised her head and looked at him appreciatively.

“It’s nothing, Jack… I’m just sorry I couldn’t do anything sooner,” she replied.

Jack finished the piece of cheese, and Penny reached over and passed him the tiny mug, her fingers highlighting how much smaller than her it was. He grabbed it in both hands, enjoying the soothing feeling of warmth against his palms, and took a couple of careful sips.

Her eyes widened as she remembered something, “Oh shit! I need to let Delon know I’ve got you safe – he gave me his number in one of his messages.”

“I can use the landline to make a quick call, my parents won’t care,” she explained, almost talking to herself. Reaching for her rucksack, she unzipped the main compartment and pulled out a small notepad.

She then banged her head with her hand, like she’d done something stupid.

“Uh, I’m such a scatterbrain, I should have told you – I found your clothes in the bathroom, but they seemed a bit soggy and… err”

He knew she was trying be discreet; she would have found a torn pair of underwear alongside his jeans, t-shirt and socks.

“Well, they’re probably not good to wear… but anyway, I’ve got them, but I couldn’t find your glasses. I’ll look to see if I’ve got anything you can throw on for now so you don’t have to stay wrapped up in my jacket all night,” she smiled, “I hope you don’t mind if it’s a bit… girly.”

He shook his head as he tipped the last dregs of cocoa down his throat. He had drank it really quickly as it was so delicious, and now his insides felt warm and toasty.

“Anything… thank you Penny, t-thank you so much for all of this,” he said sincerely.

She reached forward and grasped the empty mug between thumb and forefinger, putting it down on the tabletop, and then headed out again to make the phone call.

“I won’t be long,” she said, and then closed the door behind her.

Rolling his weary head to one side, he closed his eyes. He could definitely fall asleep right now, now that he’d eaten something, but he was excited, and nervous, for totally different reasons to before. The opportunity to spend time with Penny, especially after such hardship, misery and humiliation, was some kind of heaven-sent experience he could barely have wished for. He didn’t believe in karma, but he wanted to thank the cosmos, the big man upstairs, his lucky stars – whoever, whatever, for shining down on him like this.

Caitlin and Amber were probably going absolutely apeshit around now, tearing apart her bedroom and asking themselves how he could possibly have escaped. Alex, his other saviour, would have to play along…

He began to realise what she had done for him. Penny was right, she really had done something astonishingly selfless for him, and trying to maintain the illusion of innocence would not be easy if either Caitlin or Amber suspected a thing. He felt a pang of guilt, wary that other people were being forced to come to his aid because he was too small and helpless to save himself. A sobering thought, and one that he would now have to compartmentalise and work through as part of the healing process.

That could wait, he told himself, for now he had to rest, and enjoy spending time with someone who was not only kind, and beautiful, and friendly, but someone who he felt he could trust.

Looking around as he waited for her to return, he inspected some of the images stuck to the wall nearest the bed. Most, of course, were of Hollywood actors and actresses, some recent, and some from longer ago. He even recognised a few black and white headshots of early movie stars.

In the corner, a bit more hidden from view, were some actual photos, a bit creased and warped, that seemed to be from Penny’s childhood. A picture of an empty beach, a blurred view from a moving train, a few kids posing in front of a building, that sort of thing. He counted about 8 or 9 photographs, including one of her parents, if he had to guess, and a close-up of her on her own, in front of a castle or some kind of very posh, old house. She looked around ten in that image, but he could see she had the same haunting green eyes, the same long, flowing hair.

His attention was drawn back to the group shot of all the kids, he strained his neck to get a better view, to see if she was in that photo too. It was taken a bit earlier, everyone looked about 5 or 6. It took him a couple of seconds but he spotted her, towards the side of everyone, probably the shortest there actually, definitely not the tall, willowy girl she was nowadays. Her hair was done up in pigtails, which he hadn’t expected to see – she looked very cute, like someone’s kid sister.

As he looked, it slowly dawned on him that he recognised some of these kids. Derek Chang; a kid he’d grown up with, Billy Feldman, Jayati Kapoor, even Lucia Torres. He hadn’t really associated with them for years, they’d all gone on to have their GH therapy and he hadn’t been friends with them since. Judging by when this picture was taken, it was probably only a matter of months before they went in for their primary ‘booster’ shot.

And then, on the other side of the photograph, he saw himself. Standing at the back, about 6 years old… a young Jack Crawford.

What the fuck?

He had no memory of this. At all.

In the picture he looked happy, standing with one of his legs out in front of him mid-pose with a grin on his face. He noticed he was actually one of the taller boys in the group and this surprised him greatly, he hadn’t really thought about that for years. The fallout from not taking GH-X2 had kinda taken that boisterous side of him away completely, as practically every other kid outgrew him within months.

But then, he couldn’t really figure out what this meant. His brain was not up to speed. Did he know Penny when they were little? Did she know him? Was there something he was missing…?

He looked back at the tiny girl in the group photo, she looked a year younger than most of the others. She was sporting pigtails, and a timid smile, and she did look a little bit like Penny but he was beginning to doubt if it definitely was her. it could be some other kid, surely Penny would have been quite tall and slender, even at that age. But, if it wasn't her, why on earth would she have a photo of him and his friends on her wall?

Maybe he was seeing things. Maybe he was hallucinating the whole thing. He rolled his head away from the wall, tired from all the overthinking, desperate to just collapse into a deep sleep, so that when he woke up, his brain would behave itself.

Penny returned, closing the door behind her, making sure it was secure again. She looked relieved.

“I’ve just spoken with Delon, he said everything’s fine,” she said breezily.

“He’s told your parents that you guys are just hanging out doing revision and not to worry. They said to tell you that they’ve been checking in at the Hospital for visiting hours to keep your Grandad company, and reminded you that you don’t have to be a complete stranger all weekend!”

She gave him a little smile, amused by his parents’ tongue-in-cheek advice.

He was glad to hear the news, truly he was, but now he couldn’t shake that something odd was going on. The photograph, Penny being so nice to him, maybe he was being paranoid or needed to sleep, but he suddenly didn’t feel as comfortable anymore. His face must have betrayed his feelings…

“Jack, what’s wrong?” she asked, sitting down next to the bed. He could see that she was carrying a couple of children’s t-shirts folded up in her hand, and some shorts and jogging pants at a similar size.

“There’s a photo in the corner,” he said, his face going pale, “And I’m in it.”

“What’s going on, Penny, am I going completely mad?” he pleaded, his eyes glaring at her as he was close to losing it.

Her face fell, and she placed the little clothes down on the floor by her knees. She seemed apprehensive, a bit hesitant to explain, but she began as best as she could.

She took a deep breath, “It isn’t what you think, Jack, please don’t look at me like that… I can’t bear it…”

He blinked twice, and tried not to stare at her so fiercely, this was really, really weird.

“When I was little, and I mean actually little, you and I kinda knew each other, Jack,” she explained.

“There was a big group of us kids, some with Beta parents, like you. My folks are Alpha and lived only just down the road from your place. I even used to come round to yours with the other kids sometimes, and I think you probably came round to mine at some point too.”

He looked on, incredulously; this sounded improbable, but he couldn’t shake the feeling it would have to be true, why would she make something like this up?

“I can remember, when I was around 5, you holding my hand when I was really scared during a big party with all your friends. You were a year older, and you were one of the bigger boys, but you would always make sure I was ok. Derek Chang tried to throw water over me, so you went and kicked him, and your parents were really mad with you.”

“I can’t remember any of this, I’m sorry…” he interjected, trying not to get too emotional as he struggled to think back to his own childhood, “I just… I’d remember you, I’d remember a girl called Penny…”

“Wait…” he said, thinking hard, “I remember Derek Chang trying to soak someone, but not anyone called P… Pen…” There was someone, he realised, a little girl, but she had been called…

She looked at him earnestly, her eyes tinged with sadness

“Poppy. Her name was Poppy, wasn’t it, Jack?”

“Oh my god,” he said, taken aback.

Poppy. There was a name he hadn’t heard for years and years. He definitely knew a little girl called Poppy, but he could barely remember her. She had moved away, a long time ago, or at least, that’s what he could remember.

She couldn’t be the same girl, could she, after all this time?

“My parents used to call me that when I was little,” she explained quietly, “They thought it was cuter than calling me the whole ‘Penelope’ – I only started called myself Penny years later, you know after… this.”

She gesticulated at herself.

“When I turned 6, my parents put me on GH-X2 like all the other girls, but I shot up by a whole foot the first month. The doctors said they didn’t know why I was growing so fast and were worried the drug would cause my bones to become frail. I was bedridden and in hospital a lot for a really long time, and they did test after test. We were forced to move closer to the hospital and into a smaller house because of all the problems. Eventually my growth slowed down to a more manageable rate, and they gave me a low dosage to try and get me to a normal height, but I managed to overshoot that by quite a bit.”

She looked down at the ground disconsolately, fidgeting with the carpet by pulling at it with her fingers.

“I can still remember when I was finally well enough to visit your house again; I had to get on my knees to get through the doorway… It was your 9th birthday party, and some of the Alpha boys, who were nearly as tall as I was, played a prank on you and you got upset, so they crowded round you and called you a baby, picking you up and passing you between them. I got mad and told them to stop, but because I did they dropped you in the mud, shouting that you needed a girl to stand up for you. I went over to comfort you because you were crying and you pushed me away, saying you didn’t know who I was but you never wanted to see me again.”

He saw that tears were streaming down her face now.

“My parents thought that you’d hit me or something because I was so upset and I wouldn't tell them what happened, and they had a bit of a falling out with your parents about it. I think your folks thought I’d thrown you in the mud… and given the way the boys were treating you, and my size, maybe that wasn’t so far-fetched. They knew I’d had problems with GH-X2, which could cause aggressive behaviour, and from then on my parents decided to keep me away from the other kids a lot more…”

She took a moment to clear her throat. Recounting all this was taking its toll on her.

Jack felt humbled, and raw, to hear this story, something he had forgotten about for years, but everything she was saying was true. He could remember that day, though he hadn’t thought about it for years. It was Billy who humiliated him, picking him up and passing him around like a baby in the back garden when the adults weren’t around. Derek had joined in, as per usual, and he had even got into a bit of a fight, which was as one-sided as you might imagine. Even at 9 years old, Derek and Billy were well over 7 feet tall, and he was probably giving away 3 feet in height, plus a preposterous weight and strength disadvantage to those giant boys. Even now, he remembered the tall, gangly girl who tried to break things up, how humiliated and dehumanised he felt when they used her as a scapegoat to justify his suffering, and how horrible he was to her, just because she was in the firing line. He had screamed at her, called her an overgrown, stupid monster, and ran inside, shutting himself in his room for the rest of the day.

He had no inkling that this was the same girl he had known when he was younger, and that this girl would grow up to become the kind, wonderful person he saw before him. Penny had had it no easier growing up than Jack had, and he had been so unkind to her because of her size. Even now, he was still torturing her by failing to acknowledge the truth. They were both crying like drains, even though he didn’t fully realise it until now.

“I’m so sorry,” he said between sobs.

“I’m sorry too,” she said back, wiping her tears and sniffling. She still looked down at her knees, afraid to look up.

“I do remember you, I remember Poppy, and I remember the girl at my birthday…” he continued.

“I can’t believe I didn’t recognise you,” he said sadly, shaking his head in disbelief. It was so obvious now – it was all coming back to him.

Poppy was a kid he didn’t really hang out with much, because she was just a girl, but she always seemed game for playing with the boys in his class and was a bit of a tomboy herself. He remembered that she was always far too eager to join in with the rough stuff, and he’d had to protect her a few times from the some of the more boisterous occasions where the guys tried to play karate, and she would just throw herself in despite her small size.

Christ, he remembered that he’d earned an almighty shiner when Chris Yarland had tried to do a roundhouse kick in the living room of his house, and Poppy ran past at just the wrong time. He threw himself in the way to stop her head from being knocked clean off, the daft girl. The memory brought a stupid smile to his face, how had he forgotten all of this?

“I can’t believe I knew you, Penny, it’s like meeting a ghost…” he said, drying his eyes, “…do you remember Chris Yarla…”

“I do,” she interrupted, turning to face him, “You had a black eye for 2 weeks, if I remember,” she smiled despite her tear-strewn expression.

“You always protected me; you were like the big brother I never had, Jack. You were my hero, even if you didn’t really notice.”

She was right, he never really saw her as a mate, as bad as that sounds. She was kind of a little sister, always getting into trouble, always in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t even think he had been that nice to her, really, he just didn’t want her to get hurt.

It was crazy to think that, now, the roles were almost completely reversed; she was his hero now, protecting him, like she’d tried to do at his birthday party before he acted like a complete imbecile.

“I can’t express in words… how… unbelievably grateful I am to you for s-saving me,” he said falteringly, heavy emotion in his voice. “Anything I did to look after you all those years ago is… nothing… it’s not even comparable to what you’ve r-rescued me from.”

She looked at him with a mixture of concern and alarm as he threatened to break down in tears yet again. The horror of his kidnap drew back into focus, causing him real grief as he had only just been able to distract himself from it, and it just didn’t feel real. None of this felt remotely real at all.

“What on earth did Caitlin do to you, Jack?” she asked quietly, putting her hand over her mouth, “I didn’t want to ask you, I just… I have no idea.”

“I can’t… I…” he croaked, “She… noooo,” He placed his head on the pillows and puffed out a long stream of air, as if he was going to be sick. His eyes scrunched closed as he took several deep breaths.

“Jack, it’s ok, you don’t have to talk about it, I’m sorry I asked… all that matters is you’re safe now,” she said hurriedly, trying to keep his mind off it. Her expression was definitely one of huge concern, she didn’t realise this was so serious, even though it should have been obvious. Whatever it was that she had done to him, she wasn’t going to interrogate him about it and make him relive it so soon after being freed.

She picked up the clothes she had brought for him and put them on the bed next to where he was.

“I found these, you might look a bit… silly,” she warned, trying to change the subject.

“But they’re clean, and comfy, and I can clean your other clothes for tomorrow.”

He nodded, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him.

“In fact, I’ll go and quickly wash your other clothes so they can dry overnight, and you can get changed, if you’re able?” she asked sweetly.

“I… I should be able to…” he replied, “Thank you, again,” he laughed nervously, sniffling slightly. Her kindness knew no bounds.

“I just want you to know you’re safe now, ok,” she said, standing up and giving him a pleasant smile. She placed her hand on his head again as he closed his eyes.

“This is clearly a very emotional time, for both of us, but tomorrow is a new day,” she continued, as ever, proving to be the level-headed, pragmatic girl he was coming to rely on so much for support.

“And I will always be your friend, Jack, no matter what.”

Penny collected his small bundle of clothes from her bag and quietly slipped out of the bedroom, snatching a quick look back at Jack before she left. Her body language was a bit subdued, which suggested to Jack that she was uncomfortable or embarrassed about what had just transpired and was trying to hide it. He himself felt particularly insecure about the depth and scope of the revelations, though he was sure about one thing – after all he’d been through recently, if he could be anywhere in the world right now, it would probably be here.

He smacked himself lightly on the side of the cheek with his hand and rolled his eyes, trying to snap himself out of this… stupor. Now was a good opportunity to put on the clothes Penny had brought for him, despite his aching and exhausted body feeling as if basic movement was beyond it.

With considerable effort, he forced himself to sit up and remove the jacket covering him, stretching forward and reaching through gritted teeth to grab at the pair of baggy, green jogging pants and haul them back towards him.

The pants were almost definitely something Penny used to wear as a child, and whilst he wasn’t really trying to look at the size he caught a glimpse of the label – Age 9 Girls (A). What was even more humiliating, though, was how baggy even these children’s clothes were when he dragged them over his weary limbs – he had to pull the drawstring out to quite some length to scrunch the waist of the trousers tight to his hips, and even then he had a good number of inches of excess leg to pull over his feet and ruck up to his ankles.

The accompanying pastel-yellow t-shirt was mercifully much closer to his size – Age 7 1/2 Girls (A). It still looked a bit like an overly large and suspiciously short tee on Jack’s skinny frame, but the slightly faded, oversize Wonder Woman logo on it was a dead giveaway.

Satisfied he was at least now clad in something clean, and adequately covered, he fell back onto the bedcover expecting to feel relief, but the brief exertion instead drew focus to all the various parts of his anatomy that were aching and sore. His face and mouth particularly felt like they had borne the brunt of Caitlin’s physicality when she had struck him; his teeth felt a bit weird, like they were too light and a bit loose to the touch, and he knew the bruises and dried blood would need to be examined later, when he regained the strength to clean himself. The rest of him, especially his arms and legs, just felt dirty, weak and lifeless, having been bound, stretched, contorted and manipulated in ways that he quite frankly didn’t want to revisit right now. It felt like he’d had the workout of the century, or been run over by a steamroller… a bit of both, really.

The physical pain was one thing, but more painful still was knowing that the person who had subjected him to so much physical and mental torture could do so again easily, and without warning, if he attempted to go back to his life ‘as normal’.

It was so horrible and fucked up, and yet… the way she had handled him, the way she had made him feel, it had been so highly charged at times. Now he was safe, and not in fear of being hurt or abused, he could finally process the idea of her incredible body touching him, her prodigious assets…

He fought the urge to visualise it, it was wrong, she was dangerous, unhinged. The things she had done to him, any ordinary person would be horrified, he couldn’t afford to be side-tracked by just how attractive he found her, and how much he maybe actually wanted her… to do stuff… to him.

It wasn’t exactly a revelation, he had been fantasising about the giant girls at school since he could remember, but to be unable to separate Caitlin the abusive misandrist from Caitlin the supersized vamp; what the fuck was wrong with him?

It made him feel sick to the stomach to think about how pathetic he was… how even a woman abusing him couldn’t keep his mind from sexual thoughts.

He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else for a while…

Oh.

He didn’t even realise he had fallen asleep. The bedroom was very dimly lit, illuminated softly by some kind of night-light in the corner of the room and the artificial green-ish glow of an LED alarm clock display by the bedside.

His brain was alert in seconds, surprising even himself. He’d expected to wake up with a scream, struggle to locate himself, take a few minutes to calm down, but no, he was on Penny’s bed, aching quite a lot as his body recovered, but overwhelmingly in a safe, secure place.

He could see that Penny had fallen asleep, clad in a t-shirt and pajama pants on the floor with just a pillow and a shawl, and he looked down at her sleeping on her side, facing towards the bed. Her expression looked very peaceful, her eyebrows raised up slightly as she slept, giving her a look of innocence, almost childlike. Her long hair was swept underneath her head and shoulders, and her long limbs were tucked into her body.

He felt bad that he was depriving her of her own bed, and that she had to sleep on the floor so as not to disturb him. The glowing display told him that it was 1.36 AM so he had probably been asleep for something like 3 or 4 hours.

Out of nowhere, his stomach grumbled something fierce, and he realised that he was in fact ravenous. Recovery was clearly hungry work. Grimacing, he slowly contorted his stiff limbs so that he could sit by the bedside table with his baggy legs hanging over the mattress edge, able to pick at the smorgasbord of bits Penny had generously provided for him earlier. It tasted a little bit stale and had warmed to room temperature, but fundamentally it was food, and mouthfuls of meat, cheese, grapes and chocolate were put away in double-quick time until his belly felt much rounder and happier indeed.

Sitting there, especially after a proper rest and a feed, the surrealness of what was transpiring began to rise up inside of him. Here he was, in Penny’s room, sitting on her bed whilst she slept on the floor. He would have given anything to be here, but with the exact circumstances he had been put through, it felt particularly bittersweet. Lord knows he was grateful, and excited and anxious to be so close to someone, anyone, like this, but everything that went before… he could still feel the hangover of his imprisonment, the sleepless subterfuge, discovery and repeated humiliation and degradation enveloped his skull like an enormous, wet sponge he couldn’t shake off.

He kept telling himself not to think it over, but it was too much to ignore, especially now that he was conspicuously alert and well-rested after over 24 hours of being seriously out of sorts. More than anything, he felt a bit like an imposter in Penny’s private space, particularly because she was unconscious and he could look intently at this gigantic girl without worrying about the repercussions.

He felt creepy and it made him a bit uncomfortable. It wasn’t his fault he had no palpable connection to girls his age, and it was only natural to be curious and enamoured with the intangible, almost hypnotic appeal of watching her sleep, her soft features, her long, slender form.

It wasn’t lustful, it wasn’t a sex thing, he just felt so much… he didn’t know what… but it was directed towards this person in front of him. He wanted her to know that he appreciated her, that he wasn’t just some pathetic beta guy dreaming of fucking her or something, it was a bit hard to explain.

Sliding down off the bed, before his brain had really caught up with his actions he had already taken a couple of delicate footsteps around the sleeping giantess. He wanted to do something as if he was in a romantic movie, like stoop down and kiss her delicately on her soft lips, or gently on her cheek, but he knew he couldn’t do it because it would be taking advantage of her. As if he hadn’t already leant on her enough for her support, he couldn’t assume that this girl would be so forgiving of him for stealing something so intimate; and he didn’t want to put her in an awkward situation as a reward for showing him so much kindness and bravery. She deserved so much more.

He could smell the fabric softener on her t-shirt, and the fragrance of her hair, all these ‘girl’ smells that were still new to him, intoxicating and exotic to a Beta of such limited experience. Even from a short distance away he could feel the heat and power of this enormous human as she slept, how close she was to him, but how far away, in many ways, he was from her.

He already felt so incredibly inadequate around girls of Alpha height, and this feeling overwhelmed him yet again. How could Penny see him as anything other than an inferior version of a ‘normal’ boy her age, a miniscule, weak, defenceless creature who would fall helplessly in love with anyone who showed even the merest morsel of affection or understanding to?

He shut his eyes and shook his head a couple of times to try and clear the thoughts from it. Instead of standing there and feeling mawkish and disillusioned, he turned his attention to Penny’s room, only just realising that she had draped his extra small clothes over a radiator in the corner to dry them off.

He quietly walked over to them, checking to see how damp they were (only a little), and then moved gingerly over to check out her collection of books and movie posters. As he cocked his head to read some of the titles, he heard a sort of rustle as Penny seemed to stir, with a bit of a sniff and the sound of long limbs snaking out across the carpet.

“Uh?” she said softly, rolling her head towards him abruptly. Her eyes were barely open, but he sensed that she hadn’t spent much time asleep, probably because it wasn’t very comfortable to sleep on the floor.

“Hey Penny,” he whispered, self-conscious of how he would have looked sneaking around when she was asleep.

“I didn’t mean to wake you. I had a bit to eat and… just felt restless.”

“Ah, ok,” she said sleepily, stifling a yawn, “I saw that the clothes fit you ok,” she smiled.

“Yeah, just about…” he said quietly, pulling a bit of a face as he stretched out the fabric of one leg of the capacious jogging pants to illustrate just how baggy they were on him.

She stifled a giggle, putting her hand up to her face, “Ha ha, I’m sorry, it’s all I could find.”

The girl sat up and a wave of hair cascaded across one side of her face before she swept it over her shoulder.

“You can’t sleep then? I could put a film on if you want,” she offered, blinking her eyes repeatedly to try and wake up a bit quicker.

“I don’t want to be a pain, I feel really bad as it is,” he explained, watching as she stretched her arms out, inadvertently feeling himself panic a little as the Alpha girl’s dimensions were so much greater than his own. It was hard to keep himself from jumping every time people this large made sudden movements, even completely innocuous ones.

“Nah it’s cool, I’m just pleased you’re ok,” she said with a smile, her expression then faltering slightly as she bent her neck to one side and put her palm against it as if it was sore.

“Have your bed back though, I’ll sleep on the floor,” he insisted, “You should have woken me up and I would have moved.”

“You needed the rest a lot more than I did, so don’t be silly,” Penny said candidly, and slid her legs around so that she could crawl on her knees towards a cabinet which appeared to contain lots of video cases.

“Come and have a look,” she beckoned, sliding the cabinet door open and gesturing for Jack to join her. He was self-conscious of moving close to this enormous girl, but she didn’t seem to notice his hesitance, perhaps because she was still waking up and concentrating on the cases instead.

Jack was used to walking alongside the forests of legs in the corridors at school, and occasionally interacting with the teachers or his Alpha peers when they crouched down, usually to intimidate or talk down to him, but to be in the presence of a giant in such a disarmingly relaxed setting felt very novel for him.

He stood alongside her long torso as she rested forward on her knees to reach into the cabinet and select several video boxes, which she then placed on the floor. He could sense her eagerness to show him her collection of movies, something they had discussed briefly when she had walked him home the other afternoon.

“Have you seen this?” Penny asked, showing him a cover with two men wearing tuxedos holding up a blonde-haired woman. It was an old black & white comedy from shortly before the use of growth hormone became prevalent; a film he’d heard was a classic of its genre but which he’d never actually seen.

“No I haven’t, but I’ve heard it’s good,” he replied.

“Oh, it’s one of my favourites,” she said excitedly, resting back on her heels so that she was kneeling, popping open the case to reveal a large silver disc around 10 inches in diameter.

The tall girl smiled, “My Mum always used to put it on when I was a kid, apparently it was one of few things that would hold my attention for more than a couple of minutes!”

She got up to her feet, catching Jack by surprise and almost knocking into him. He took a step back as the fellow teen towered over him, trying to hide how panicked he had suddenly become.

“Oops, sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to… err…”

“I’m fine, it’s fine,” he insisted, looking up at her to make sure she could see he wasn’t afraid. Way up. Being friends with an Alpha was going to take some getting used to.

“If you hop onto the bed I’ll stick it on,” she instructed, walking into the corner and pressing the eject button on a combination TV/video player she had on her shelf.

“No no, you have the bed, I’ll watch from here,” he insisted, parking himself down on the floor, staging a mini sit-in to show that she couldn’t change his mind.

“If you insist,” she laughed, putting the disc into the tray and pushing it closed. She turned the TV on and set it to play the movie, gauging the volume so it would not be so loud as to attract attention, and then clambered into her bed, pulling the covers over herself and propping up her pillows behind her head.

Jack was a bit shocked to see that the bed was only just long enough to accommodate her elongated form, she was so tall, even for an Alpha, that the bed was probably too small for her to fit in it comfortably, at least length-wise.

“There’s plenty of space to sit on the bed, too,” Penny suggested brightly, “You are my guest, you know.”

The thought of going and sitting right next to Penny was an electrifying one, but he felt awkward about it, and his body language betrayed the fact. Before he could stop himself, he felt the familiar tell of his fingers scratching his nose.

“Oh, errr… I’m fine, thank you,” he said unconvincingly.

“It’s not a problem, I won’t crowd you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she continued, and he could see she had moved as far away from his side as she could to make space.

It’s not about that, he thought. I can’t tell you the reason…

He was about to make an excuse, but he didn’t have anything.

“Come on!” she urged in a forced whisper, “I’ll prop you up with pillows.”

“And if I snore, you can kick me out,” she grinned.

That got him. He smiled.

Getting to his feet, he had to sort-of jump to get onto the bed, a bit like climbing out of a pool, but once up he was able to get himself settled near her torso, and, good as her word, she propped him up so that he could see quite comfortably.

He tried to hide it, but his heart was beating so fast just to be near to Penny. She didn’t seem to notice how big a deal this was for him, she was very kind, and friendly, and nonchalant, oblivious to how her every move, the proximity of her arms, the little glances she gave him, were affecting him.

It wasn’t particularly awkward or anything, he was just super aware of everything, and she quite clearly wasn’t – she was quite enjoying having a little buddy, but it felt a bit like that, like he was a little kid having a sleepover, not a 17-year-old boy lying next to a girl his age.

He tried not to dwell on it, it was so easy for him to sink into maudlin introspection of things, and this was a pretty massive thing for him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Penny wasn’t even aware that he was a teenage boy in the way that Caitlin so clearly, and inelegantly did. It’s not like he expected her to, or anything, it was just a feeling, an unpleasant one that had been gnawing inside, that she didn’t see him the same way he saw her, at all.

The film began, opening with a gangster car chase in Prohibition-era Chicago and soon introducing the two male leads, a pair of musicians performing inside a Speakeasy. It hadn’t started off as particularly comedic, but Jack was intrigued, and it was always a treat to catch a glimpse of the pre-GH world, where everyone and everything seemed to effortlessly have their place…

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but something wasn’t right.

He was still in the bed, and Penny was asleep with her back turned away from him, her body rising and falling as she inhaled and exhaled softly, her long, sandy-brown locks strewn across her shoulders, occasionally tickling his arm.

The door. The door was open slightly, he could see the light from the hall.

That’s when it hit him, there was a silhouetted figure inside the room.

“Miss me, Jack?” a familiar voice boomed.

He screamed, turning to Penny and started frantically pounding her back with his hands to try and wake her. He smacked her again and again, but her body didn’t budge, he only succeeded in throwing her hair everywhere as the imposter stooped down so that he could see her face lit by the pale green glow of the LED alarm clock.

Caitlin reached down and grabbed him firmly by the shoulder, an evil smile spreading wide across her freckled face.

“Jack! Jack, it’s me.”

He struck out at the hand holding his shoulder, which quickly released him.

He wasn’t screaming, but his mouth was open to, and he was making gasping, rasping noises as he was in complete disarray. He tried to look around but realised his vision was actually really blurry, and it wasn’t night-time at all. His eyelids flickered as crusty bits of sleep got caught in his lashes, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

“You’re safe, you’re safe,” Penny said over and over, the strain in her voice very evident indeed.

He couldn’t really speak, his brain was slow to engage, he heard himself make a kind of murmured, creaky noise, and his eyes were beginning to adjust. Penny was right next to him, her hands raised above him as if she wanted to do something but didn’t know what would help, her right arm was tucked back against her chest and fingers were scrunched up. He realised he had hit her, and this was why she had drawn her arm in like that.

“Oh god, what do I do?” she said, her voice breaking up, “Shit shit shit.”

He felt her large body clamber right over him as she got out of bed from the far side and went and sat down by the bedside, still looking at him and figuring out what to do, pressing her head into her hands.

He fought to control his breathing and coughed a couple of times, trying to calm himself.

“I’m ok…” he croaked, holding his arms up to his head and resting his fingertips on his forehead. “Nightmare.”

There was a pause as he realised that Penny was crying.

Her fingers were clasped over her face, and he could see the wet trails of tears between them. She was shaking.

“It’s me isn’t it?” she rationalised, “It’s because I’m the same as the rest...”

“No no no,” he coughed, rolling himself onto his side, “Penny, it’s not you.”

She still continued to sob.

“I’m a monster,” she whispered, turning away from him and looking at the ground.

Jack slid the duvet off of his body and swept his legs over the side of the bed, dropping to the floor. He wanted to console her, to apologise for upsetting her. It wasn’t her fault, it wouldn’t ever be.

He was completely spaced, unlike last night, he was struggling to get up to speed, and his balance was a bit wobbly.

“You’re not, at all,” he said in a ragged little voice, blinking to get the fuzz from his eyesight.

“That’s what I feel like, Jack,” she continued, head down, “It scares me.”

“What are you scared of?” he asked, confused as to how she, the towering Alpha girl, could possibly be frightened of anything.

“Being a freak. Being so much bigger than another person. Hurting you…”

He swallowed, “You’re not a freak.”

She looked at him, even sat down with her shoulders slumped her face was still higher than his, her luminous green eyes shiny with tears.

“I’m literally a freak, Jack, I spent a lot of time in Hospital because of what GH-X2 did to my body.”

She sighed heavily and looked up to the sky.

“I wish I’d never been put on it.”

“And I wish I had, Penny, I wish every day that I was normal, you know, the same height as Alphas…” he shot back, not angrily, but to try and explain that it wasn’t as simple as that.

“It’s not normal though, is it? You’re normal, we’re all giants,” she insisted, “And I’m extra giant…”

She bit her lip.

“In a world of giants, being normal is abnormal,” he said sadly, sort-of agreeing with her on that, at least.

“I just want to be happy, you know,” she said, “I feel very alone, even though I’m… normal. I do understand you, Jack, it must feel like life grew away from you, but with me, I grew too fast, I grew away from my friends.

“I was close to death, and my reward for surviving was to be bullied for being too gangly, too freakish, and I was pushed away for not fitting in. I don’t get to talk to too many people, other than my folks, and they’re not the most worldly of people,” she half-smiled wistfully.

 “I’ve always been interested in the world before growth hormone, but looking into it, watching old movies and such, it reminds me that I’m not of that world, and won’t ever be. Going to museums and everything is so tiny, so fragile, I can’t ever experience what it’s like to drive an old motor car, ride a horse, go inside a church or a temple or any old building, for that matter, without crawling on my hands and knees.

“And to top it all off, I always wanted to be an actress, but at 12’ 7” with perhaps a couple inches more to grow, the only roles I’m going to get are lesbians or aliens or something, they can’t have me towering over the male lead…”

She paused, realising that she had spoken at length without really stopping for breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to unload on you, I just, seeing you like that really scared me… brought some stuff to the surface I guess.”

“Did I mention I don’t really get to talk to people much,” she laughed nervously, wiping her eyes with her fingers and sniffing.

Jack looked at her, a little overwhelmed to be honest. Despite her face being red and flushed from crying, she was still incredibly pretty, especially with her big eyes looking right at him intently.

He took two paces forward, and before he knew it, kissed her straight on the lips.

Penny pulled away in shock, and he began to realise what he’d done. She didn’t look disgusted, or angry, just surprised and confused.

“Oh ssssshit… I’m s-sorry,” he gasped, “I…” his voice trailed off. He felt so embarrassed, it was almost an involuntary reaction, like he’d daydreamed of it but in fact it had actually happened.

A wave of anxiety flushed over him, why the fuck had he done that?

She didn’t do anything for a moment, and he just stood there, he took a step back to show that he wasn’t going to do anything further.

“I didn’t mean it, I… I don’t know what came over me,” he said, half-truthfully.

She just looked back at him, almost blankly, before giving him a concerned smile.

“I feel so stupid, I dunno, but you’ve been so kind, and…”

She leaned forward and gave him a peck on the forehead, her warm lips spreading out slightly as they touched his skin, and before he knew it, they were gone.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said warmly, reaching out and touching him on the shoulder.

He felt like a prize idiot, her reaction was very sweet, but if anything it confirmed all of his friend-zone suspicions. She was probably too nice to say so, but he’d handed her a massive chunk of evidence over on a plate, and she’d just sort-of shrugged it off.

He felt a bit angry, a lot hopeless, a real tumult of shitty assumptions and hypotheses bubbling away. It was only made worse because he’d just witnessed Penny open up to him so much, as if she’d extended a hand of understanding and companionship and he’d just jumped into it headfirst like a lovesick fool.

“I just don’t want to hurt anyone, you know,” she said finally, mercifully carrying on as if the awkward kiss hadn’t happened. “And when you’re bigger than almost everyone, especially Betas, I don’t know… it just makes you feel useless, clumsy, a bit of an oaf.

“I know that you won’t appreciate me saying this, not after what you’ve been through, but I do often wish I was shorter, then I could fit in, and not stick out like a sore thumb. Even if I was a Beta, I could go and explore the old world, it’s only here in the West that growth hormone is widely used, there’s so much more to see.”

He could see her point of view, even if he could not agree that it was as bad as being too small.

“I’d trade with you in a heartbeat,” he admitted, “I would give anything to stand up for myself, to not have to rely on the kindness of others, to help you, to repay you, because as I am right now, I just can’t.”

“There’s nothing to repay, Jack,” she said, smiling at him, still holding his shoulder gently.

He felt guilt, again, at how he couldn’t handle his emotions, but he could also see that Penny struggled similarly with coping with life, from her own perspective, and maybe helping one another, whether by talking, or just being there, was as important a thing as he could have wished for.

He could feel her eyes wandering as she examined his face, and he remembered that he probably still looked like a bit of a mess.

“I should probably get myself cleaned up,” he suggested, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, let me just check if the coast is clear,” she said helpfully, scooching back to give him space and then standing up to go to the door.

Jack walked over to his clothes draped over the radiator, they felt nice and dry so at least he could put them on after a quick wash. He grabbed them and tucked them under his arm.

“My parents sound like they’re cooking breakfast downstairs,” Penny said, “So I’d say you’ve got a window.”

He followed her out of the door, and across the hall to the bathroom, struggling to keep pace with her long, pajama-clad legs. Entering the bathroom, she moved a little stepped stool next to the sink as if to guide him, and then went back to the doorway.

“Try not to take too long, but I’ll be right outside and I’ll let you know if the situation changes,” the lofty girl advised, stepping out and putting her hand on the door handle.

“I’ll knock when I’m done,” he said, “I’ll only be a minute.”

She nodded and closed the door, leaving him to contend with the Alpha-size bathroom.

First of all, he scaled the step stool, a fairly old-looking thing, possibly, like the staircase, a remnant of the cross-compatibility stages of growth hormone adoption. It was about 3-4 feet high so it enabled him to reach the taps and fill the sink with warm water, so he was able to set about washing the dried blood from his around his mouth using hand soap and examine his appearance. Fortunately, he wasn’t nearly as bruised as he felt, though the purple-ish discolouration might be visible if someone really, i.e. his mum, really looked at him closely.

He peeled off Penny’s makeshift outfit, and very quickly gave himself a body wash, conscious that at any moment she might open the door if her parents did something unexpected. It wasn’t exactly thorough, but it made him feel a lot better to check that everything was intact, if you know what I mean. He stepped off the stool and used a hand-towel to dry himself quickly, before dressing in his clothes and pushing the stool into the corner. It wasn’t exactly comfortable to have to go commando, but infinitely preferable to wearing nothing at all, or Alpha girl’s clothes.

He walked over to the door and gave a couple of quiet knocks, and watched as the enormous plane of panelled wood swung out towards him slowly, wary of bashing into him. High above, Penny’s face appeared around the door and looked down at him.

“All done?” she asked, to which he nodded.

They walked back over to her room, and she closed the door behind them and wedged the doorstop underneath for security. She sat down on the bed and he walked past her, spotting the video case from last night by the side of the bed. Penny glanced at the alarm clock and he turned to see that it read 9.57 AM.

“Delon told me last night he would aim to stop by and walk you home at 10.30,” she mentioned casually, turning to look at him, completely puncturing his mood out of nowhere.

She hadn’t ever mentioned that he would be staying for any length of time, so it was purely his assumption, but it still hit him in the gut. A part of him, no, almost all of him, had been looking forward to spending time with this girl so badly.

She could almost see his face fall, it was hard for him to not look crestfallen in that moment. He could see her expression soften as she recognised what he must have felt.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to stay…” she explained hesitantly, “I’ve just got a load of stuff to sort out with my parents today and I wasn’t expecting… company.

“I should have told you last night, I didn’t think,” she said apologetically, “Everything was a bit of a blur.”

He stayed strong, he didn’t want her to see that it got to him.

“No, it makes perfect sense, I don’t want to inconvenience you,” he said rationally.

“If I have time, I’ll try and swing by later on,” she said hopefully, though he couldn’t tell if she was just saying that to appease him, to make him feel better.

The bitter, more twisted parts of his psyche were busy scoffing at what she said, turning everything she uttered into a Machiavellian sub-plot to completely ruin any ideas of him being anything more than a little Beta buddy to this willowy, kind-natured Alpha girl. How he hated his brain, in this instant as much as any other. He had 30 minutes left with her, and he just had to cherish them, because they’d be gone as soon as he blinked.

“I’m sure Delon will be much better to talk to than me too,” she continued self-effacingly, shrugging slightly, “I’m sure he won’t just inundate you with his problems like I did!” she said, as if trying to force a laugh out of him. It didn’t really work, and he felt like a shithead for not playing along with her, but he just didn’t feel like it.

There was a bit of a pause, it felt awkward for both of them, he didn’t know what to say, she didn’t know what to do.

“I’ll, umm, be just a sec, I’ll put on something a bit more suitable,” she eventually said, standing up and going over to her wardrobe.

He watched her flick through some of the clothes hangers with a plastic click-clack sound, selecting a pair of jeans and grey t-shirt, before she left the room.

As soon as she left, and pulled the door to behind her, he thumped himself in the head roughly with his fist. He could feel the tears welling up, but he had to control himself. What the hell was working him up so much?

The juxtaposition of being given so much harmful attention by Caitlin, and feeling like he was in the friend-zone with Penny because she was so careful around him that he couldn’t even tell if she just being nice or if she actually liked him was seriously stretching his emotions thin.

He paced around, vowing to himself to get a handle on his overthinking, hyper-reactive brain, and to get himself home, figure out a way to get out of school for a few days, and not worry about anything Alpha-related for a while. Watch a few movies, get his head straight, refresh… reboot.

Penny came back in a short while later with her hair tied back into a kind of bun, she was obviously wearing the attire she had selected from her wardrobe, and if anything the slim jeans and t-shirt emphasised her long, slender proportions as much as anything he’d seen her wear before.

He could see that despite her relatively skinny physique, she had a surprisingly wiry build, perhaps due to the GH-X2, which made Alphas naturally very conducive to putting on muscle. It didn’t really change the way he viewed her, of course, as his feelings for her stemmed from something more than how physically attractive she was, but it was something that did not escape his attention.

Jack felt bad, he felt overemotional, upset, and quite frankly he felt like he was being an arse.

Penny didn’t deserve this, he had no right to expect her to swoon over him, to see him as some kind of miniature Romeo, he just… he just wanted her to look at him the way he looked at her, more than anything. Especially given what she said about their past, how she had been fond of him, and especially because she was by far the closest thing to an Alpha friend and confidant he had ever had, or dreamed of having.

All of this was just happening crazy fast… his head was reeling. It was probably a good thing that he was going to go home shortly, he could rely on Delon for support, as his oldest friend, and then go straight to bed and mope, over-analyse and slowly come to terms with things over an extended period of time, without completely alienating Penny and making her think he was a peculiar, creepy little guy.

She had asked him what he wanted to do about 10 seconds ago. He’d just sort-of gawped up at her without really saying anything, and the cute smile that was forming on her face suggested that she thought it was pretty funny.

“I’m sorry Penny… I’m just not myself,” he said suddenly, as if sparking back into life.

She looked down at him, her gentle expression suggested she understood. She took a couple of long strides and sat down on the bed, then beckoned for him to jump up and sit next to her.

He walked over and hauled himself up, resting his legs over the edge and taking in the sensation of sitting so close to her, nearly falling into the dent she made on the mattress, quietly marvelling at the length of her limbs compared to his own.

Without saying a word, she slipped an enormous hand over his, and gently sealed her fingers around it, and whilst it was as gentle as could be, he knew only too well the power that an Alpha could wield without trying.

He couldn’t tell if he was more scared or enthralled, but deep down he knew she wasn’t the kind of person to do anything sinister, so he kept his fear in check and looked up into her pretty face as she looked down at him.

Her expression was sad, but warm, as she gripped his hand so delicately. She didn’t say anything, but he knew what she meant, and he was grateful for it. He rested his head against her arm without really thinking about it, it just seemed right, and the pair of them sat there for a short while, simply happy to be in each other’s company. 

The alarm clock blinked away, keeping track of the minutes he had left. As he sat silently, absorbed in the feeling of being close to the gentle giantess, he looked down at her colossal hands and fingers, entranced by their size compared to his own.

Her nails were quite short, in fact, it looked like she had been biting them - a sign of nerves perhaps - but her fingers themselves were long and slender, very soft to the touch and quite pale. He could see the criss-crossed grain of her skin, freckles and small imperfections a bit like his own, only magnified in scale. 

Penny also had a distinctive, pleasant sort of aroma, which was weird to think about but perfectly normal - everyone has a kind of scent. Because of her sheer size, the sensation of being close was synonymous with the smell. It was hard to describe, it wasn’t overly flowery, or unclean, it was… sort of comfy. Caitlin had smelt aggressively of perfume and body spray and Penny just didn’t smell like those hyper-feminine things at all, she smelt more like soft fabric or something.

She was also warm, very warm, which, he was beginning to understand, was a trait common to all Alphas.

With a gentle squeeze, she released his hand, so he moved his head off from her arm to look up at her. She was staring straight ahead, lost in thought. He considered asking if she was alright, as she seemed a bit distant and he didn’t know why. Ultimately, he felt it was better to not draw attention to it.

“What do you have to do today?” he ventured, breaking the silence.

“Just… parent shit,” she said, rolling her sparkling green eyes.

“They want me to apply for this, and for that, and then we’re going shopping and I should probably think about how I can survive by myself at college, or get a part-time job, and I should be cooking more or doing more around the house…

“And then we need to move a load of stuff out of the spare room, and my Dad thinks he’s done his back in and I’m the youngest, strongest one so of course so I should do it…”

She looked down at him knowingly, “You know, parent shit.”

“Bummer,” he smiled.

“Yep,” she smiled back, “But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, unless I want to be out on the street.”

“True,” he replied.

Things went quiet for a bit.

“Jack?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Are you going to be ok going back to school?”

He sat for a second, he was almost certain it wasn’t an option for now.

“I… well, no, no I don’t think I can go back in for a bit,” he admitted.

“…oh,” she said, “That’s probably sensible though…?”

He nodded.

He still didn’t know how to avoid Caitlin long term, but short term he just had to keep clear until the fallout cooled down.

Not sure what to do with himself, Jack lay his body back on the bed, sinking into the duvet cover, and crossed his arms behind his head so that it was still slightly propped up. From this perspective, Penny’s torso truly looked like that of a giantess, not just a tall Alpha girl, but like a really colossal figure. Her back loomed over him like a sheer wall of fabric.

Penny didn’t notice at first, but soon turned her head around and spied that he was reclining. The boy gave her a little smile, which she reciprocated, and lay down next to him. She was careful not to bang her head on the far wall, or knock him with her long arms, such was her stature even in an Alpha-sized environment.

He closed his eyes, and wished he could stay right here, lying comfortably on Penny’s bed, for the rest of the day. He wasn’t ready to go, he wanted to be close to her for longer.

“Ok, lazy bones,” she announced playfully after what only felt like a couple of minutes, rocking the bed as she hauled her torso upright, “I should probably sneak you out of here…”

He sat himself upright, watching as the long, leggy girl effortlessly stood to her full height of 12’ 7” and stretched her arms, turning around and affording him an enviable view of her slender physique. She was so pretty, he couldn’t get his head around why this enchanting girl would consider herself a freak.

“How do we do that?” he asked, sliding himself off the bed and dropping to his feet, noting that he was eye level with the bottom of the pocket on Penny’s upper thigh.

“I’m hoping they’ll be eating in the kitchen, so if you follow me down the stairs, I can just say I’m popping out for a quick walk,” she explained, looking down at him.

He nodded up at her, and she shrugged at him bashfully, “I go out for walks… a lot!

“But… if anything goes wrong, just hang back, and go jump under the bed or something,” she continued.

“Under the bed?” he queried, turning around to look beneath it.

“Well, hopefully it won’t come to that,” she said brightly, holding her arm out and crossing her fingers.

She walked over to the corner of her room and reached deep into her rucksack, plucking out first one, and then a second shoe that Jack immediately recognised. The Beta sneakers looked almost comically small in her grasp as she brought them over, she could practically rest them side-by-side on her outstretched hand.

He took them gratefully and bent down to put them on and fasten them up, whilst Penny slipped on a pair of her own pumps by the door. She then removed the door stop and slowly opened it, listening intently and scoping out the hallway. Jack kept close to her, standing a few feet back from her lengthy jean-covered legs.

“Coast’s clear,” she whispered, taking long, but deliberately-placed strides towards the stairs as Jack kept a slight distance just in case he needed to sprint back into her room.

She took a few more careful steps down the stairs and craned her neck in the direction of the kitchen, before swiftly heading down to the bottom and waving for him to follow. He was able to walk down one side of the staircase using the Beta half-steps he had noticed the night before. As he got closer to the ground floor he could hear the sound of talk radio coming from the direction Penny had been focused on, though he couldn’t make out what was being said. As he reached the bottom, she allowed him to pass in front of her, and guided him round the corner to the front door, before crouching down to his height.

“Ok, just wait here, I’ll tell them I’m off,” she instructed quietly, her lovely face just inches from his, before standing up and heading back through the house.

He waited patiently, just about able to hear the faint sounds of conversation over the drone of the radio. A few short moments later, Penny returned and opened the large door for him, allowing him out into bright sunshine and fresh air.

God it felt good to feel even vaguely normal.

He heard the sound of the door close, and then a soft, giant hand place itself lightly against his back.

“I told Delon to meet us round the corner from here, it’ll only take a couple of minutes to walk there,” Penny said, stooping once more to his level. Some strands of her hair not tied back in the bun she had fashioned were blowing gently in the breeze, catching the sunlight and occasionally falling across her face.

He felt the urge to tell her that she looked very beautiful, and in a brief moment, he thought it might even be a good idea, but then his more pragmatic senses caught up with him and quashed the urge out of existence.

“Ok, thanks Penny,” he said sincerely.

Standing up again, she started to walk and he picked up his pace to make sure that she wouldn’t have to dawdle too much.

It was honestly stunning weather, super warm and bright as if to herald the oncoming summer. They walked past a couple of houses and Jack, despite having fuzzy-ish vision without his glasses, could see well enough to tell that he was in an area of overflow housing that dated back to the onset of growth hormone adoption. It was a nice area, but nothing like as well-maintained and pristine as Caitlin’s rich neighbourhood had been.

There were a handful of people around; a guy washing his car, a couple of women chatting across the road, but he couldn’t really make out their faces. Nobody appeared to look in their direction, maybe they thought he was a little kid walking alongside his much older sister. That’s what it would look like, he guessed, not two teenagers…

Penny kept checking on him to make sure she wasn’t walking too fast, but he was doing fine. He did ache, and he was not 100%, but he liked walking places, and being with her seemed to energise him a fair bit – he didn’t want to appear too slow for her, even if she was deliberately walking to his pace and not her own.

As they approached a slightly shaded area by a crossroads, situated beneath several trees, Jack was pretty certain he recognised the familiar gangly outline of Delon loitering by a pair of benches of either scale.

As they approached, he appeared to notice them and walked out into the sunshine.

“Hey, how you feeling?” his friend asked, in an affable enough way, but there was a detectable hint of concern. They embraced, slightly self-consciously in front of the towering girl.

“I’ll be ok, thank you,” he replied, stepping back from Delon and looking up at Penny, momentarily catching a frog in his throat. He had clocked the anxious look on Delon’s face and it only made the situation worse; it made the reality sink in. His friend never looked concerned, and he didn’t really want to look at him for a moment because it might set him off.

Fighting back a sudden onset of emotion, he took a deep breath and introduced the giant girl and the gangly Beta to one another: “Penny, this is Delon. Delon… Penny.”

Delon reached up and shook Penny’s hand awkwardly, though he was friends with a few Alphas they tended to be at the shorter end of the crowd, Penny was quite a bit taller than what he was used to.

“Nice to finally meet you, Penny,” he said politely.

“And you too,” she replied warmly, “Jack is very lucky to have a friend like you.”

He saw Delon look away, a broad smile spreading across his features.

“Aw no, don’t be like that,” he grinned, embarrassed, clearly uncomfortable with wearing such a compliment, “This loser’s been keeping me down for years.”

Delon’s smile was like a tonic for Jack. The guy would find humour in anything, and whilst the seriousness of what had occurred was palpable, the lightening of the mood felt very much-needed.

“Thanks,” said Jack, glaring at Delon in mock annoyance.

“Joking aside though,” Delon carried on, his smile fading away as he turned back to Penny, “Without your help, Jack would still be in there. And Alex’s too, of course… I didn’t do a lot, you have these girls to thank, Jack.”

Penny’s face flushed slightly pink, though it was hard for him to see as it was a good 6 and a half feet up from his own.

“It was nothing… I’d hope anyone would do the same,” she said quietly, holding her hands together.

“Penny pretty much organised it,” Delon explained, looking up at her, “Obviously Alex was reluctant but we persuaded her, eventually.”

“I thought it was Alex’s plan?” asked Jack.

“Well sorta, she knew how to get in, but only after Penny and I insisted we had to do something drastic,” said Delon, expanding on things.

“I think Alex knows some stuff about Caitlin, and in the end, that’s why she agreed to help us.”

Jack fought back a tear.

“Well, I just… I… can’t thank all of you enough,” Jack said, looking from Delon way up to Penny.

Her head was silhouetted in the sunlight, her loose hair still dancing in the breeze.

“And in due course I’ll have to say thank you to Alex too,” he added, looking back to Delon.

“I think she wants to keep a low profile,” Penny said, turning to Delon.

“Yeah, Caitlin can’t suspect a thing, so don’t contact Alex just yet,” he warned, “She said that none of us should.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Jack concurred.

It made perfect sense. He couldn’t afford to implicate Alex, she had risked more than any of them, in some respects.

“Well, I probably need to get back fairly quickly,” Penny said sadly, looking down at the pair of them, “But I will try and speak to you later, Jack,” she added, smiling at him sweetly.

His heart jumped at the thought of her not being there.

He didn’t want to leave her side, she made him feel so much safer, like her mere presence could keep him out of harm somehow. Delon was his best friend, and probably who he needed right now to keep him sane, but with Penny, it meant everything to him to have someone like that who actually gave a shit about him. He hadn’t known a feeling like that was possible.

 “Take care of him, Delon,” she added, kneeling down, and embraced Jack.

He thought it might be awkward, in front of his best friend, with this enormous girl, that he’d feel embarrassed or something.

Not a chance.

He felt himself melt into her long arms. He could feel her strength, how careful she was being, how incredibly, indescribably wonderful it was to be held by her.

And then it was gone.

She stood up and shook Delon’s hand very gently, gave Jack one last heartfelt smile, and quickly set off back to her house.

He looked at Delon, fighting, the whole time, the urge to turn back to Penny. Fighting and fighting. His friend smiled at him, “Shall we get you back home, then?” but all Jack could think about was Penny. Was she out of sight yet? Could he get one last look?

“Let’s go,” Jack said abruptly, stepping off so that Delon would turn to face that direction. As his friend turned to walk alongside him, he quickly span his head to look back.

It was too late. She was already gone.

The walk back home went slowly, he figured it was a fairly long ways to go anyway, but the energy spike he had had when alongside Penny had long since evaporated and he wasn’t walking with much purpose any more.

His best friend could sense it, the listlessness, and suggested they sit down for a bit. He had successfully been keeping Jack’s mind off everything by talking about other stuff, but when they reached a couple of benches and sat down he felt now was the time to ask.

“Are you able to tell me what happened?” he asked apprehensively.

A shudder went down Jack’s spine, and Delon sensed it.

“I dunno, I’d rather not get into it…” he replied.

Truthfully, Jack didn’t want to talk about it. It was too embarrassing for him, and whilst he knew that he probably should open up to Delon so that he realised the extent of what had gone on during the abduction, he also didn’t want to revisit the full extent of his powerlessness, and make it feel real, especially now he could almost pretend things were normal again. Almost.

Some of the more… sexual things were too embarrassing to mention, and they lingered in his mind’s eye for a few moments.

“Ok man, I’m not gonna push you, I mean… but, are you going to try and press charges?” Delon asked.

“I don’t know…” Jack said, looking straight ahead; a thousand-yard stare.

His mind snapped back to when Caitlin positioned herself on top of him. He blinked his eyes a couple of times and tried to refocus.

“I feel like I should, but it’ll get messy, and it’s not like we’ve got the money to take things further.

“And what would my parents think…” he trailed off, starting to well up, wiping his eyes on his arm.

“They’d be m-mortified, they believe keeping me as Beta was the best decision they ever m-made…”

Delon was listening, his face grave with concern, trying to support his friend as best as he could.

“I just, I… want it to go away, I just want to go home, and stay there, and wait long enough that this will go away…

“Then, I don’t have to talk about it, think about it, anything.”

His friend gave a solemn nod, and patted his back gingerly.

“Look, Jack, you’re a good guy, my best mate, I’m with you whatever you decide to do,” he said staunchly.

“And I’m sure Penny will do the same, and perhaps even Alex too. No-one else knows about this, and we’re not going to do anything unless you say so, ok?”

“Ok…” Jack sniffed, looking at Delon, “Ok.”

The gangly teen put his arm around Jack and gave him a bit of a squeeze, inadvertently triggering thoughts of his enormous captor once more.

“For now, let’s put this behind you, get you home, get you rested.”

Delon then changed tack.

“But before that…” he continued, a faint smile creeping onto his face, “I need to know what’s going on between you and this Penny girl.”

Jack felt a pang to his heart, like a jab from a sharp stick.

“Oh,” he said, taken aback, “I dunno, she’s like the only Alpha who’s ever talked to me and stuff,” he explained, trying to appear more unconcerned than he felt.

“I remember you asking about her on Friday, man, how long have you been ‘talking’?” he grinned.

“It’s not like that, Delon,” Jack said sadly, looking down at his shoes.

“Well, she’s tall… nice figure… clever… everything you’re not,” Delon teased.

Jack grew a bit exasperated, even though he knew this was only joshing to cheer him up. Delon didn’t really know what he had been through, and he couldn’t expect his friend to behave in a deathly serious manner if he himself chose to avoid talking about it.

“Shut up, dickhead,” he said, channelling this frustration into a mildly-amused retort.

“Opposites attract, dude,” the gangly teen insisted, “but, fair warning, I ain’t gonna let a girl come between our love,” he joked, rocking Jack’s shoulder back and forth slightly.

“Ah come on, man,” Jack said, smiling wanly and lifting his head up as Delon released him from their makeshift hug, “There’s no chance, I just… I just met her, you know. She rescued me, she… she friggin’ saved me.”

Delon’s grin faded slightly as he straightened up a bit.

“I know, man, I know, she cares about you, you can see it,” he said, “And don’t be so down on yourself either, you’re a good guy, remember that.”

“I guess…” Jack responded.

He sat there watching the world go by for a brief while, and Delon left him to his thoughts, putting his arms behind his head and enjoying the sunshine.

“By the way, I told your mum and dad we’ve been revising at mine,” he finally revealed.

“They’re gonna think we spent the whole time playing video games, but they’re not suspicious, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, thanks Delon,” Jack said, “That makes sense.”

“As for how you’re gonna bunk off school, I dunno, you look pretty spent, I’m sure you could say you’re coming down with something,” his friend added.

Jack shrugged his shoulders, “Could work, I don’t really pull sickies so might be an option, they’ll probably go for it.”

He turned to his friend, “Do I look like complete shit or something?”

Delon gurned a bit by curling his mouth into a grimace, tipping his head from side to side.

“That’s a yes.”

“You’ve looked better,” Delon said, “I’m not saying hedge backwards territory, but you look tired, you need a rest.”

He looked closer, inspecting Jack’s face, “Are those bruises?”

Jack’s face fell, “Are they noticeable?” he asked anxiously.

“Err… not really, but I wouldn’t let your mum look at you too close.”

“Shit,” Jack breathed, puffing his cheeks out.

“I just want to go to bed,” Jack sighed, “And stay there forever…”

Delon looked at him uncomfortably, Jack could tell he was a bit troubled about the bruises, but daren’t ask about them.

As he looked ahead, he also realised with a slow, gnawing sensation that he’d lost two pairs of glasses in a matter of days, and he didn’t have another spare pair. He’d either have to admit to his parents that he’d been incredibly careless, or borrow some money and sneak off into town to get another pair.

His bag, as well, which contained his phone and house keys, was still in his locker at school, so someone, i.e. Delon, would have to retrieve it for him tomorrow.

It was beginning to dawn on him, that even if he managed to stay off school for a few days, it wasn’t going to be easy to make things appear normal…

He put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, his friend hadn’t said anything for a while.

“I’m sorry for getting you caught up in all this, Delon, I really am,” Jack said eventually.

“I’m gonna need your help to get my bag from school and I need to get my glasses replaced as well…”

Delon turned to him and looked at him with a sympathetic expression, “Just don’t worry yourself, man, I figured your glasses had been broken or lost or something, I can maybe spot you some money but not right now…”

Delon had a part-time job that meant he usually had a bit spare, usually to spend on video games, or his girlfriend, Candace, whereas he himself hadn’t needed much cash to get by, until now.

“I appreciate it, Delon, I’ll see what my parents are like, though it might be better to say I left them in my bag and buy some time to figure out what to do.”

“Ok, that’s a plan. Where’s your bag then?” Delon asked.

“It’s in my locker, you remember the code? 7-23-12,” Jack told his friend, and waited as he got out his phone to make a note of it.

“Seven, twenty-three, aaaand twelve, ok, got it.

“So… assuming you’re not in tomorrow, I’ll try and bring your bag round after school,” he said, putting his phone back in his pocket.

“Trust me… I’m definitely not coming in tomorrow,” Jack said firmly, his voice wobbling slightly.

After a few more minutes discussing the way they could keep things on the lowdown for a day or so, Delon encouraged him to get to his feet, and they slowly continued on their way. He didn’t push for info about Caitlin or Penny, or anything more to do with the bigger conundrum Jack found himself in, instead turning the conversation towards sports and movies, distracting him and keeping his mind off things quite successfully.

Before long, he began to recognise familiar sleepy, tree-lined roads, and realised he was only a few minutes from home.

They’d both agreed that the best course of action was to start sowing the seeds that Jack was coming down with something, Jack’s mum would be the hardest to convince, but she held a soft spot for Delon so if he played his cards right and put in a top drawer performance, she’d go for it.

Jack got to the front door, and knocked on, his mum opened it after a short wait.

“Nice of you to show up, Mister!” she said, putting a hand on her hip, standing to one side so that the two boys could come inside.

“Thank you, Delon, at least one of you has their head screwed on,” she added, Delon smiled broadly.

“So I hear you haven’t got your keys and phone on you, or even your glasses, by the looks of it?” she berated Jack as he walked inside, clocking his lack of eyewear immediately.

“Left my bag at school,” he said weakly, avoiding eye contact.

She rolled her eyes and tutted, looking at Delon who did his best ‘what is he like’ look.

“Well, at least you’re safe, that’s the main thing,” she added finally, “I suppose you want feeding.”

“I’m not feeling too well, mum,” Jack complained in a small voice, to which she cocked an eyebrow and instinctively turned to Delon for confirmation.

Delon hit his marks to perfection.

“There’s a bit of a bug going round school, Mrs C, a couple of my mates had it last week,” he said sincerely.

“Oh right,” she replied, her eyes narrowing, “I didn’t hear anything from the school.”

“It’s not, like, an epidemic or anything, he’s only just started coming down with something so I just hope I don’t catch it either,” Delon explained.

“Hmmm. You sure you boys haven’t been drinking?”

Delon laughed. Jack was less amused, he knew his mum was referencing an incident where Delon had had to escort him home after a laughably small amount of booze had knocked him for six after getting served underage at a pub on the way home.

It was more embarrassing than anything, spending the night with his head in the toilet whilst his parents ‘helpfully’ suggested remedies and took maximum enjoyment from his teenage folly.

“I wish!” Delon exclaimed, “Honestly though, I’m getting shot of him now, before I get infected.” he added cheekily, amusing Jack’s mum no end.

“I’m sure you’re not a slovenly bum like my boy, though!” she said with zeal, causing Jack to groan.

“No m’am,” Delon agreed.

Jack’s dad suddenly walked past, holding a newspaper.

“Oh, nice of you to make it, Jack, it’s a bit early for you to be awake isn’t it?” he jested.

“I really have to go to bed,” Jack groaned, not really having to embellish his symptoms that much – he was honestly shattered.

“He’s ill, apparently,” Jack’s mum explained, “Bug going round.”

“Too much necking, eh?” his dad suggested, twitching his eyebrows.

Oh god, when would this end?

Delon laughed, ingratiating himself fully within the tried-and-tested family dynamic of heckling Jack, not that he needed any invitation usually.

“Did you get any revision done?” his dad asked.

Delon quickly stepped in.

“To be honest, we did get a fair bit done yesterday,” he lied, “But last night you started to feel a bit run down.”

“Poor little soldier,” Jack’s dad said, with the merest dollop of sympathy.

“I’ll be alright, I just need rest,” Jack said, motioning that he was going to head to his room with his weary arms.

“Ok ok, well get going then,” his mum said, turning back to Delon, “And thanks, Delon, for bringing him home, at least you’re not a hopeless scroat.”

The gangly teen beamed, “I try my best,” he said.

“Catch you soon, J,” he added, raising his arm as Jack slowly ambled off towards his bedroom, “Rest easy.”

Jack raised his arm feebly as a goodbye and pushed against the door, entering his own space for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

He closed the door behind him and went and sat on the bed. Curiously, his room now felt strangely claustrophobic, rather poky and restrictive. His bed seemed so tiny, like he was some kind of dwarf, living in a little house. Perhaps he had acclimatised to the Alpha environments he had been in recently more than he realised, and his sense of scale had skewed.

Taking off his shoes, he lifted his legs up and got under the covers fully-clothed, then turned onto his side and closed his eyes. Whilst tired, he wasn’t sleepy, his head was careening all over the place, unsure how to worry about Caitlin, Penny, going back to school, and everything else.

He still felt incredibly empty, almost sick to the stomach, and brought his knees and arms into his body to kinda hold himself in the foetal position.

Without having to stand on ceremony, talk to anyone or pretend things were ok, tears wormed their way out of his tightly scrunched eyelids and streamed down his face as he finally allowed himself to think about it all.

Abject humiliation was the thing at the forefront of his mind; he had never felt so vulnerable, weak and defenceless. He’d been either roughhoused or ignored for years by the Übermensch-like Alphas, but in fact he’d underestimated how effectively he could be neutralised if any of them truly trained their sights on him. It wasn’t just the physical mismatch, there was a psychological chasm between what he felt he could do to one of them, and what they all knew they could do to him. That self-confidence came so easily, so nonchalantly, that the only thing stopping him from being forced to endure misery after misery at the hands of unstoppable giants was that most of them barely cared that he existed.

And then Penny, the outlier. As tall as any Alpha he’d ever met, Caitlin excluded, but her demeanour was so different to the others. He began to wonder if something was in fact wrong with this gentle giantess, before tightening his fists until his knuckles went white, resolving to never again think something as heartless and idiotic. Something about that girl… affected him deeply. Maybe he wasn’t truly in love, but he felt an infatuation, a deep desire to be a part of her life. Perhaps it was selfish of him to think that way, to view her as some kind of solution to his plight. She wasn’t an angel sent to give him hope, or some kind of protector, she was just a teenager struggling to deal with life, exactly like him.

He felt a pang of guilt, terrified he was imbuing this burgeoning friendship with misplaced yearning and unrequited love that she simply could not return.

Turning his head and pressing it into the pillow to blot out the tears, he attempted to rid himself of the idea that Penny could truly feel the same way about him. 

After a while, he felt himself slowly returning to his senses, his feelings of grief, despair and heartache, which had been whipped up into a frenzy, gradually became less intense. They were still there, of course, churning away in his belly, but for now, he had released the valve.

Rolling over to face away from the wall, he stared blankly at his room; the movie posters, books, angle poise lamp, swivel chair, all exactly as he’d left them on Friday morning.

With great effort, he hauled himself upright and transported himself from bed to swivel chair, shunting himself over to the desk and prising his laptop open.

The fan kicked into life and he entered his password, opened up the browser and logged into his social networking page.

A couple of messages lay in wait, one from Delon… and another from Penny…

He clicked his friend’s name first:

Saturday 11.35 AM

Ok dude, will do.

D

A quick response to him being instructed to talk to Penny.

Don’t think about it.

I said, do not dwell on it, he told himself firmly.

He clicked on the other notification quickly, his heart aflutter.

Penelope Lévesque has sent you a friend request. Do you wish to accept? 

His hand immediately moved the cursor to the ‘yes’ box, almost breathlessly, of course he would accept.

As he hovered over it, though, a terrible thought crept into his mind. What if Caitlin was monitoring this?

He couldn’t afford to risk it – he barely ever added anyone, let alone an Alpha girl completely out of the blue. It was the sort of thing that might be publicly visible, depending upon which settings had been reset to default in the most recent update. It just wasn’t worth taking a chance, not if Caitlin, or one of her friends, put two and two together.

Agitated and unstuck by how such a simple action could have such serious implications, he clicked back to the messages page and stared at the screen forlornly.

He could still talk to her via the messages, of course, but if this was a taste of how careful he was going to have to be to keep this painful episode secret, he didn’t like it one bit.

Selecting her name from the list on the messages page, he re-read her message from Friday night over and over without even thinking.

He was acutely aware that he was probably driving himself mad, but still, he read the salient points over and over again.

I don’t have a phone or a computer so I’m at the city library

I’m really sorry if I’ve upset you

I hope you’ll get back to me soon and that you’re ok

Penny x

x

He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips.

Stop it, Jack.

Now.

He clicked the back button and skimmed his newsfeed without much interest, then he caught up on some current events and sports headlines, and when that had lost all intrigue he loaded up his online movie subscription website.

He was beginning to feel incredibly depressed once more, so he scrolled through his favourites until he arrived at something that would, at the very least, keep him occupied for the next 90 minutes.

Dragging the power lead over with him, he returned to the bed and put his laptop on his bedside table so he could watch it comfortably whilst lying on his side.

His eyes registered that the film was on, but he felt utterly, utterly numb for the next hour or so as it unfolded.

There was a knock on his bedroom door about 3/4 of the way through, so Jack reached out an arm and paused the film.

“Come in,” he said in a raspy voice, his vocal chords stiff after being neglected for a while.

The handle rotated down and then up again slowly, followed shortly by his mum backing into the room carrying a plate and a glass of juice.

She walked over and placed them next to the laptop on his bedside table, he could see that the plate held a sandwich cut in half alongside a decent handful of crisps.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, sitting down on the side of his bed delicately.

“Weak,” he replied honestly.

She could see his eyes were a bit puffy, and he did look rather unwell.

“Your Dad and I are going to head to the hospital, and then into town to do some shopping, so I’ve made you some food just in case you get hungry while we’re gone,” she explained, reaching out to place her hand on his head.

“Thanks mum,” he said croakily, shifting his position under the covers as she felt his forehead.

“You haven’t got much of a temperature,” she noted, “What sort of symptoms do you have, again?”

 “Feel sick. Chest tight, very weak, headache,” Jack murmured, throwing in a delayed cough for emphasis.

“You might need a painkiller,” she suggested, her expression showing a non-committal blend of concern and incredulity.

“Yes please,” he said quietly, slow-blinking his eyes to show that he was struggling a bit.

Her face softened, and he knew she’d figured it wasn’t worth treating him with suspicion any longer.

“Ok baby boy,” she smiled softly, leaning in and kissing him on the forehead.

She stood up and walked out of the room, returning a minute later with a couple of small, chalky pills that she placed next to the glass on his bedside table.

“We’ll be back around 5ish,” she told him, “If you can try and sleep whatever this is off before tomorrow morning, that would be best. This is a crucial time to pick your tutor’s brains before the exams, there’s every chance…”

“I know, I know mum,” he interrupted, rolling his eyes as she threatened to lecture him again about the value of education, blah blah blah…

“…well, you know all this, anyway,” she trailed off.

“I love you,” she said meaningfully, “We’ll see you later.”

“Love you too,” her son replied, hunkering down under the covers.

“Get well soon, kiddo,” his Dad added, Jack hadn’t even noticed him standing in the bedroom doorway.

He was wearing his coat already and was jangling his car keys from one finger.

“Alison, we’d better get going,” his father advised.

“Alright Paul, keep your hair on,” she exclaimed, looking at her boy and shaking her head in mock disapproval.

She stood up and walked over to her husband, admonishing him for his impatience.

Within a few seconds, his parents had gently closed his door, and he heard their muffled voices discussing the shopping plans as the front door was closed and locked behind them.

Jack loved his parents.

More than anything, they were like him. Arguably he was more like his mother than his father, she was quite an intense person, loving, kind, that’s why she became a carer for elderly Betas. She only wanted the best for her son, that was one of the reasons why they opted out of GH therapy for him in the first place, he figured.

His father worked at an electrical components factory just on the outskirts of town which produced parts for mobile phones and tablet computers, microchips and the like. He self-identified as an engineer, but didn’t appear to enjoy the job as much as he claimed to - it was a career path borne of necessity, to provide for his family. His Dad was very much into music, and played several instruments, perhaps, in another lifetime, he could’ve made a career out of it.

For Jack, being raised as an only child by two hard-working Beta parents had meant a great deal of time left to his own devices, figuring out who he was, becoming quite inquisitive and self-reliant. As a youngster, he’d been quite well-liked and regularly stayed over at friends’ houses, completely unfazed by their predominantly Alpha-size parents – all adults were giant in some form or other compared to young children.

As he grew, he realised that other kids, specifically his friends’ older sisters or brothers, would go away for a month or so to a kind of summer camp, and return significantly bigger. He even remembered asking his mum about it, and the far-away look on her face when he did.

“Some children are put on special medicine,” she had explained to him, “But you don’t need any medicine… you’re perfect just the way you are.”

Certain that mummy knew best, Jack thought nothing of it when all of his immediate friends started talking excitedly about going to ‘Growing School’ for the first time.

“I don’t need any,” he asserted proudly to anyone that would listen.

“But everyone goes to Growing School,” his friend Billy had insisted.

“Not me,” he boasted, “My mum says I’m perfect!”

When the other children came back, much taller and stronger, and continued to grow, and grow, Jack realised that something was wrong.

“Mummy,” he said, tugging at her arm in the kitchen as she prepared his tea, “Why am I growing so slow?”

“When will I catch up?” he asked, eyes wide with innocence.

She sat him on her knee and explained it to him as best she could.

He wouldn’t grow like the others, he’d grow to be mummy and daddy’s height, which was just as good, she promised him.

Except it wasn’t.

Not when his friends stopped talking to him the same, not when he had to kick and fight and struggle for everything, and not when every waking moment was a brutal reminder that he wasn’t big enough for this new chapter in life.

He’d always liked to spend time on his own, even if he played with his friends and made himself the centre of attention, he was equally happy to quietly read a book, play with his toys, or entertain himself with colouring-in.

As he felt himself dwindling, comparatively, to his schoolmates, he receded inside of this shell more and more. He read voraciously, especially classic novels and history books, and increasingly consumed TV and film from his parents’ own era with unbridled interest far beyond his years.

His parents weren’t blind to this separation from his Alpha peers, they knew the choice they had made for him, but because he rarely hinted at the frustration building up inside, and more time seemingly studying, concentrating on schoolwork, increasing his knowledge, could only be a good thing for his future prospects, they never doubted their decision.

Entering his last few years at school, Jack felt like he had built up a very clear picture of where he stood in life, and the implications of the decision taken when he was 6. Very clear indeed.

He loved his parents, he really did.

He just felt like they’d made the wrong decision.

Jack was in a strange classroom.

All of the tables and chairs and things in it were scaled for his height, so clearly this wasn’t his real classroom, because it would have been far larger.

A teacher was writing on the blackboard, and as Jack looked around he could see that there were other people around him who were the same size as him.

There was Alex, he realised, at the next desk over as always, but she was normal, you know, normal size.

She looked so… ordinary. Attractive, sure, but approachable, just a teenager like himself.

Looking to the other side, Delon was sat there, at the same scale as Alex; still gangly with his short, scrubby hair.

Jack’s pulse started to race, standing up from his seat, inexplicably he ran from the room, and careened down the corridor.

There were younger students all around him, noticeably shorter, maybe between four and five feet tall, as he sprinted between them, slaloming from side to side.

A willowy figure appeared, as if silhouetted against a great white light at the end of corridor. A familiar outline began to reveal itself.

“Penny!” he shouted, getting closer and closer.

“Penny! You won’t believe it,” he cried.

The figure turned as Jack finally reached her, and looked… down, definitely down into her radiant, smiling eyes.

He knew that couldn’t be true, that this was not reality, but somehow this felt right, that this was what it was meant to be like.

“We’re both the right size!” he exclaimed happily, reaching down to slip his hand in hers.

Her fingers felt so delicate, so slender in his grip.

She didn’t say anything, she just looked up at him with those wonderful green eyes.

“It’s… unbelievable,” he said again, far too wrapped up in this incredible experience to notice something particularly dramatic had started to happen.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked, confused, as she shook her head slowly, her eyeline creeping up ever so slightly.

That was when he realised, he wasn’t looking down at her as much as he had been just moments before.

“Wait…” he breathed in disbelief as he felt her fingers lengthening against his, her frail grasp strengthening as her hands expanded.

They were looking directly into one another’s eyes now.

Exactly the same height.

“What’s going on?” he said, panic creeping into his voice.

He found himself looking up at her as she began to loom over him, she hit 6 feet within a matter of seconds, and with every moment, more inches seemed to separate them.

Her expression slowly morphed into one of sadness, as her now much more substantial fingers loosened themselves from his grasp as she grew.

He looked around, there was no point of reference, the hallway had dissolved away to reveal an infinite white vacuum in all directions.

Still the girl grew, her face etched with what looked like pain.

“Penny, no… please,” he begged, reaching for her hand and trying to hold onto her large fingers as they slid higher and higher. She must’ve hit 8 or 9 feet by now.

“Why, why is this happening,” he cried out, stepping backwards and shaking like a leaf, looking up as the girl hit the 10 foot mark.

He closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them she would return to her initial height, only to realise that she had topped out at over 12 feet tall, the size he knew her to truly be.

Her eyelids flickered and blinked, her eyes lolling backwards in their sockets, and her long, slender form abruptly buckled at the waist, her body collapsing forwards on top of him.

He cried out as her heavy frame descended, putting his arms up to try and catch her, but everything went dark as she enveloped him like an enormous cloak…

Jack awoke with a startled yelp to find himself flat on his back on the floor of his bedroom, several feet from his bed.

The bedcover was wrapped around his legs like cotton candy, like he’d gotten tangled in it, or tried to walk somewhere.

With wide unblinking eyes he surveyed the scene, telling himself it was just a dream. Obviously it had to be a dream.

His heart was absolutely pounding away, it had, yet again, felt so so real.

A waking dream so powerful it had physically taken him out of bed.

He was safe, he reminded himself, you’re safe.

You’re safe. 

It was now about 3 in the afternoon, his film was still paused on his laptop so he resumed watching it, curling up into a little ball and surrounding himself in a cocoon of soft, life-insulating duvet.

The sandwich had gone a bit stale, and the crisps were pretty soft from exposure to the air, but he still picked at them to try and keep his energy levels up.

At least he was able to focus on the movie a bit better this time. The obligatory romantic story arc was fairly paint-by-numbers but the comedic aspects of the plot were on point. As it reached its conclusion he checked his emails and messages once more; noting nothing from either Penny or Delon.

Feeling deflated, he dived into some videos online, but quickly lost interest and momentum. It was like his attention span was shot to bits, he just couldn’t concentrate on anything for long without either thoughts of Caitlin or Penny creeping into his head.

He rolled over and spent some time staring at the wall and thinking.

He hadn’t felt even the most basic bodily urge in what felt like forever. It had been over 24 hours since he’d passed anything, and since then, nothing. Similarly, since he had been… tormented… he’d been unable to get an erection at all, in fact, he’d not logged a single erotic thought.

Extreme stress has a powerful effect on the body, he already knew that, he just didn’t know how devastating it could be. Lying in bed all day had made his limbs feel less sore, but at the expense of their strength. His mind was also flitting around jaggedly as it tried to log the physical and emotional peaks and troughs.

He must have let the video playlist go through about 6 or 7 ‘Let’s Plays’ that he barely followed when he heard the front door unlock and his parents step inside.

They dropped their bags and his mum came in to check on him. Her dripping coat was covered in countless rivulets of water from the driving rain outside.

“You ok sweetie?” she asked, peeling her jumper-clad arms from the sodden sleeves.

“…still feel like crap,” he replied, grimly.

“Oh well,” she sighed, “I passed your love onto grandad anyway, he’s feeling a lot better.”

“That’s good,” Jack responded with a slight smile, he was genuinely pleased to hear his grandfather was on the mend.

His mother rested her cold hand on his head, the temperature difference from outside, and the fact that he had been cocooned for hours working in his favour.

“You’re definitely coming down with something, Jackie,” she said, pursing her lips with concern.

After his Mum checked on him he returned to his self-imposed malaise, listless and increasingly angry at himself for desperately hoping Penny would send a message.

Every few minutes he was refreshing the page just in case, to no effect.

The time slowly ticked by; 6, 6.30, 7… it was almost certain she wasn’t going to be sending him a message this late.

His mum brought in a plate of beans on toast for him shortly after 7.15 and suggested he take a bath, something he reluctantly agreed might help.

After eating maybe half of his food, he took himself to the bathroom wearily and ran himself a scalding hot tub, and had a good long soak in it.

Lying back, submerging his head under water, he let the warmth of the water pulse against his beaten face, holding his breath for a while and attempting to meditate, or at least vacate his mind of some of the worry.

His body was massaged by the hot water, soothing his aches and pains, ushering in some form of physical recovery, if not a small morsel of peace of mind.

Whilst drying himself afterwards though, waves of nausea began to rise up within him as the prospect of ‘tomorrow’ began to rear its ugly head.

He didn’t want to appear too ‘well’, though being worn out, mentally fatigued and nauseous would probably put paid to any short-lived afterglow he might experience post-bathing.

At about half eight, back in bed and in a clean t-shirt and jogging pants, he received a message from Delon:

Sunday 8:27 PM

Hey man,

How you holding up? I’m still good to pick up your bag tomorrow, plus I also managed to scrape thirty bucks together, would that cover a new pair of glasses?

D

Initially he skipped a beat when he saw the notification - not to be harsh on Delon, but it was not the one he had been craving all day.

He quickly replied:

Hey Delon,

I’m doing ok, still bed-bound, feel really rough. Parents seem to have bought into the illness thing, I don’t look well, so that helps.

30 would be perfect, obviously I’ll get the money back to you when I can. I reckon I can get the same cheapo pair I got last time, they were only 25 and they already have my prescription. You’re a friggin life-saver btw.

See you tomorrow after school, my mum doesn’t get back till 7 or so.

Jack

He pressed send, the nerves were still there, but the message had helped ease them a little. He just had to make sure he still looked completely out of it in the morning.

He had a funny feeling it wouldn’t be an issue.

Still, he was upset, Penny surely had a good reason for not being in touch, he appreciated that she might not have had time to get to a computer, of course.

It wasn’t fair on her.

Calm down, Jack, he told himself.

Stop thinking, for once, and go to sleep.

Eventually, after a long time, he did.

His eyes blinked open slowly. It was daytime, just.

He could see a dark clouded sky against the curtains, it looked positively bleak out there.

He felt… tangled up, he’d been fighting with his bedcovers again.

If he’d had a dream, or a nightmare, he couldn’t really remember it, which was a relief of sorts.

Swivelling his eyeballs to look at his laptop, still paused from last night, he spied that it was just before 8am. His dad would’ve already left for work, whilst his mum wouldn’t leave to catch the bus until around half eight.

He felt a lot better, truth be told, though he didn’t really know if he looked any less bedraggled. That deep-rooted sensation of nervousness was right there though; the ominous butterflies that told him things were not quite right.

Tip-toeing out of bed gingerly, he quietly opened his wardrobe and grabbed a couple of warm sweaters, taking them back to bed with him and cuddling up with them to provide extra warmth. He wrapped one of the sleeves across his forehead and pressed his head against his pillow underneath the covers, to try to generate a little extra glow.

He could feel the rasping heat from his breath in the claustrophobic pocket of air he had formed with his face pushed into the pillow. With any luck he’d have about 30 minutes before his Mum checked on him, enough time to cultivate a flushed appearance.

At around 8.25 or so, he heard a little knock on the door, and carefully slid the jumper of his sweater down under the covers where it wouldn’t be discovered.

He stayed silent, mindful that it was better to appear to be thoroughly out of it than even vaguely lucid.

His Mum turned the handle, opened the door slowly and came to his side, he feigned to stir a little in his ‘sleep’.

“Jack?” she said quietly, placing her hand very gently on his forehead. He’d cupped a little exhaled air into his hand for a while and wiped the condensation on his head to try and improvise a slightly sickly sheen, which he could subsequently feel against her fingers.

Without trying to wake him further, she silently got to her feet, removed the half-eaten plate of food from his bedside, and exited the room.

He lay there, listening out for the all-important sound of the front door being closed, the final confirmation that his deception had succeeded, and finally, after about ten minutes, he heard his mother leave.

He was still panicky, but his heart-rate slowed a little as the realisation began to dawn on him: he would not have to face school, and more specifically, Caitlin, today.

The relief was palpable, and he began to feel a new wave of energy overtake him, urging him to get out of bed, to test his legs, to return to normality.

It was as if a welcome stranger had returned home. Hope.

He grabbed the sweaters from his bed and threw them onto his chair, and slowly opened his door to make doubly sure his mother was not around. Walking around the house, he could verify that she had gone, and made himself a bowl of cereal to stem a rapidly-improving appetite. Stuck to the fridge door was a little post-it note in his mother’s handwriting:

Jackie

Soup and ready meal in fridge - just heat in microwave

Back at 6.30 rest up & get well soon

Mum

xxx

Crunching down spoonfuls of sweetened ‘o’s, his thoughts began to turn to what he could do with a much-needed day on his own. Obviously he needed to recuperate some more, but it was important that he plan for what would inevitably happen when he had to return to school.

Delon would not be around until later, so he probably did not have a big enough window to do anything much before his Mum came home, and there was a lot of time to kill until then anyway.

Looking outside, the weather was still overcast but brighter, like the sun was trying to burn its way through the cloud.

After he finished his bowl, he returned to his room and placed his laptop back at his desk, unsure as to whether he wanted to do something proactive, like play a video game, or write something, watch something. He drew a blank.

A familiar pang of regret hit him, Penny.

She hadn’t been in touch.

He ran his fingers through his hair, he didn’t want to be reminded about it, but it was on his mind again.

He wanted to maybe send her a message, to see why she hadn’t contacted him, and simply to ask if she was ok. It seemed innocuous enough, but he was worried he might come across as difficult, pushy, clingy.

No, she wouldn’t mind, I’m just asking, we’re friends, he rationalised.

But I don’t want to her make her feel uncomfortable or aggravated, either…

He stared at the friend request he had received from her last night on the screen. He didn’t click yes, or no, but instead on the profile picture itself, which loaded up an abridged version of her profile page.

Breathlessly, he clicked her profile picture, which expanded to fill the screen. It was a slightly out of focus shot of her somewhere outside from a low-ish angle, her long hair catching in the wind. Her expression was soft, neutral, caught a little off-guard by whoever held the camera. Her eyes still sparkled a little, even in a photograph.

He clicked to go through her other images but that was it, that one candid photo, and no others.

There was very little information of note on the page, just a few basics that he already knew, like her school, and a few shared and tagged ‘public’ posts to do with theatre events, acting classes and the like.

Clearly she didn’t give a lot away online, which was sensible, but in this case, a bit disappointing. He didn’t want to feel like a creepy stalker-type, but he had hoped to find something more, if only to learn more about her, perhaps just to verify that this person was indeed who he thought her to be.

And then an entirely different kind of wave rose up and hit him.

Caitlin.

Part of him didn’t want to type her name into the search bar. A large part, in fact, an overwhelming part wanted to forget it ever happened, but the crazy part, the morbid, curious, frightened… stupid part of him; that part wanted him to do it.

As he typed the letters in, he repeatedly reassured himself that she wouldn’t be able to see that he had viewed whatever stuff she had made public. He was almost certain that a girl like her, without making too bold a generalisation, would have a lot of unhidden stuff made public for her ‘followers’.

The words Caitlin Reid stared back at him atop the search bar on-screen, and he held his finger over the enter key.

After a moment’s hesitation, he pressed the key down with a decisive ‘click’.

The page loaded quickly, Caitlin’s powerful visage dominated the top left corner of the page, posing in some kind of glamour-shoot-style photograph.

He hadn’t imagined it, this girl was dangerously attractive, but the sight of her narcissistic smile made his stomach start to turn. So confident, so powerful, so cruel. It didn’t seem fair.

He decided against venturing into the about section for now, but instead began to scroll down the page. As predicted, there was precious little in the way of modesty; pictures from nights out, tagged statuses with popular friends, glamour shots, fitness stuff, social standing fused with sex appeal and physical prowess at every turn.

The fear gripped him like a vice, but insatiable curiosity held his index finger hostage to the incessant scrolling of the mouse wheel, further and further back he went. There was so much to take in - it was like a crash course in ‘Caitlin’.

It was almost like the more he saw, the more it steeled him, galvanising him further. There were so many photos of her pouting, curling her muscular arms or showing off her physique, wearing outfits that left little to the imagination. It got to him, but strangely, seeing her from a distance, on a little screen, made it feel a bit further away, almost like it wasn’t real - like looking at a celebrity in a magazine. A face he had only really seen terrifyingly up close was now staring back at him, not in anger or smug satisfaction, but the picture of youthful exuberance, all joyful and full of energy.

As he continued further, the time stamps between posts began to get further apart, and the photos began to show a younger, leaner girl. It was subtle, but the definition in her arms wasn’t as pronounced, the posing and leering at the camera less unabashed, the height gap between her and most of her peers less severe, but still noticeable.

The photos stopped about 7 or 8 years back, and it was clear that she wasn’t yet the confident, cocksure teenager she was to become. Her natural beauty was clearly evident, even as a much younger and far less developed Alpha girl, her trademark red hair tied up in a ponytail, and a slightly buck-toothed grin that had possibly necessitated dental correction at some indeterminable, and apparently undocumented, period.

He stared at the image of this alternative Caitlin, almost as if this version was from a different timeline entirely. She was by no means a spindly kid, several years of presumably high-grade GH-X2 treatment had already made her surprisingly stocky in appearance, a little pudgy apart from her face, but always a bit taller and bigger than the next nearest girl her age, more like she was a year older…

Except… wait. Wasn’t she secretly a year older? Of course.

He remembered the password he had entered into her tablet – the year before he was born. She was very likely to be at least a year older than him, and probably the other children in the photos.

She must have been held back very early on, or was never even entered into her appropriate year for whatever reason.

That might explain something. He didn’t know what, yet, but definitely something…

Scrolling back up the page, he re-examined the posts to try and focus on mentions or photos of Hannah, Alex or the dreaded Amber.

It looked like she had been friends with Hannah from childhood, and then Alex in school, and Amber a fair bit later. He knew that Amber was older than the others, possibly by a couple of years, so maybe she got to know her through something other than school.

Browsing through the photos, it was strange to see Alex, a face he for so long associated with fairly routine classroom bullying, belittling and teasing, and envisage her as someone who would actually make a stand for him. It was with great trepidation that he saw her now as someone who would help, maybe even a friend, or at least a person he could trust.

She always had an enviable figure, one that he had often glanced at in class when he hoped she wasn’t looking, and inevitably usually was. Many an ‘accidental’ collision or less accidental ‘torment the manlet’ scenario had played out as a result of being caught looking. It was interesting to see that, compared to the other girls, she actually dressed a lot more demurely, when she wasn’t sporting active wear down the mall or her pyjamas at a sleepover or whatever.

She also had a particularly nice smile, which she showed off on a few occasions on nights out, but not as many as he’d expected. He’d rarely seen her smile in person, she had quite a stern demeanour, though that perhaps was more a reflection of how she had behaved around him.

Hannah was Hannah, a bit ditzy and seemingly happy to be there, and Amber too looked as he expected. Her perma-tanned skin and sharp haircut smacked of a girl who knew full well how good she looked to the opposite sex. She was slim and toned, neither too tall or too short to categorise, but with small, slightly narrow-looking features.

As the photos became ever more recent, he could see her position with the group slowly evolve from being merely one of the group to being by Caitlin’s side, or the one closest to her, in nearly every shot.

He knew that the girl had been especially sadistic towards him, which might colour his view of her, but even in these pictures, it definitely looked like she was toadying up to Caitlin, goading her into drinking more when Alex and Hannah were clearly ready to go home, daring her to take sluttier and more provocative selfies… Photos of just the two of them began to appear more and more, at what looked like her own place; a city centre flat presumably.

She rarely appeared in the mall or daytime pictures, but her presence was synonymous with drinking, partying, nights out and getting with guys, a number of whom were pretty stacked, but not quite enough to compare with the Amazonian redhead herself.

Arriving back at the top of the page, he took a dry swallow and loaded up her profile pictures, browsing through a series of either selfies or glamour shots. In a number of the photos she was posing with weights or dressed in her track or tennis gear, which wasn’t entirely surprising given her sporting prowess and good looks. Coming from a wealthy family meant these things were probably more commonplace than he imagined; it was a different lifestyle and a different world for her. Totally unlike his, anyway.

A bit exhausted from researching the subject matter, and from doing something that felt so inherently underhand and a tad voyeuristic, he gave himself a little breather.

He’d spent a surprisingly long time looking through her profile, and it was approaching 11am. The weather had done anything but improve, the spots of rain on the window pane and flailing trees beyond hinted at the blustery, stormy conditions that had set in.

After pouring himself a glass of juice, he put one of his sweaters on for an extra layer. It wasn’t impossible for his mother to return around lunchtime, though it would be unprecedented for her to get the bus back and then out to work again, especially as she had put 6.30 on the post-it. It wouldn’t hurt to stay nice and warm just in case, though.

He picked up where he’d left off, and whilst it wasn’t perhaps the most upbeat or calming way to spend a morning, he continued to delve into the profiles of Hannah, Alex and Amber in search of any information, clues or revelations that might help him avoid the group in future or talk his way out of a potential flashpoint at school.

It was perhaps a way of taking control of his fear, to remove as many unknowns as he could, to grit his teeth and calm the nerves in his heart.

Caitlin scared him, but Amber maybe more so, as an unknown quantity who appeared to be an influential outsider within the group. She seemed calculated, determined, and very deliberate in her friendship with Caitlin, and it wasn’t hard to imagine why. The towering girl was rich, attractive, influential, and about as recognisable and popular around these parts as it was possible to be.

It was a no-brainer that someone like that might attract certain friends for all the wrong reasons…

Finishing his cup of tea, he diverted his attention away from stalking social media, and towards how, and when, he’d be able to fix his glasses.

The cheap second pair he’d lost were bought at the optical department of a nearby discount superstore on the way into town. He was fairly sure the prescription with them would still be good as it hadn’t been a particularly long time he’d had his eyes tested there. Specialist eye doctors for Betas were something of a rarity, other than for very young children of course. It was only a few really large retail chains and older independents that maintained their old or adapted Beta set-ups to sweep up the remaining elderly or typically less well-off customers.

Assuming his details were on the system, he could probably just ring up to order them, but because he couldn’t pay for them online, he’d have to go in person and hand over the cash. That meant he would have to wait until Delon stopped by later, and by then, there wouldn’t be much of a window to go there before his mum came home. That, and he wasn’t sure if he was up for facing the Alpha world just yet.

As he browsed the website to check if his frames were still available, he thought he heard a knock on the door. He stopped immediately, hands hovering over the keyboard.

He swiftly tapped the button on his keyboard that muted the sound, and waited to hear if there was indeed someone at the door.

There was a knock.

He felt nervous, it could be anyone; people ordinarily didn’t visit this house.

It wasn’t an especially loud or heavy knock, so he supposed that whoever it was was probably a Beta.

Building up his courage, and also readying himself to present as a very ill, very bed-bound kid off-school, he slowly got up and walked over to his bedroom door.

There was yet another polite knock, whoever it was was being quite persistent, and no less patient. He figured it could realistically be Delon, off from school at lunchtime, but he would have texted, and his knock was a lot more… boisterous.

The thought had crossed his mind that it could equally be Penny, but then the more paranoid side of him suspected it could also be a trick, a ruse by Caitlin, or even Amber. He was almost certain that neither of them knew where he lived, but it would be foolish to rule it out entirely.

His heart was really starting to really pound as he opened his bedroom door, and cautiously crept through the house to a position where he could peek out through the front blinds without drawing undue attention to himself.

He slowly inched along the window, changing his angle so that he could see closer to the front porch, but still he couldn’t make out the visitor.

As he watched, he saw a giant pair of legs round the corner, and momentarily froze. His initial shock was sudden, and completely understandable, but it quickly became clear that these limbs did not belong to either Caitlin or Amber.

The long, legging-clad legs crouched down and knelt on the grass, and a familiar and very lovely face dropped down into view, looking into the house, but not in Jack’s direction.

Penny squinted in, and held her hand over her eyes to try and aid her vision as she scanned the windows for life. She was wearing a dark brown jacket, her long hair cascading over her shoulders, and her big saddle bag swung down by her side.

She looked concerned, maybe even a little confused, and kept looking at the house uncertainly.

Jack almost keeled over with a mixture of relief, delight, and the sheer swell of his heart.

He tip-toed over to the front door, opened it and stepped out in his bare feet. The front porch was cold, damp and dirty, but he didn’t care one bit.

He called out, in a much feebler voice than he’d anticipated, and hoped, for.

“Penny, I’m here…” his throat rasped, the vocal chords apparently half asleep.

“Jack? Oh good, I was beginning to think I’d got the wrong house!” he heard the gentle giantess respond from around the corner, the warmth of her voice a sweet tonic to his ears.

She came into view, an embarrassed look on her face.

“I’m really sorry, I think I’ve left two divots on your lawn when I knelt down,” she said, brushing her knees off.

“Don’t worry, my parents won’t notice… I hope,” Jack said, his voice coming back to him a little.

Letting the statuesque girl clamber inside, he closed the door behind him and turned around to see her lying herself down on the floor with her long legs stretching back to the tiled area by the welcome mat.

“They’re a bit muddy,” she explained, bumping the soles of her boots together gently, “But anyway, I have something for you.”

He was suddenly very conscious that he was wearing a scruffy pair of jogging bottoms, an old sweater and bare feet, and shrunk slightly into himself, wrapping his arms around his torso as if to cover and comfort himself.

Without ado, she reached into her satchel and produced his little rucksack for him, handing it to him via a long, slender arm.

“Delon said he was going to bring it round after school, but I said I could do it at lunchtime for him,” she explained bashfully, almost embarrassed by the fact she had helped.

“Thank you so much, Penny,” he said, giving her what he hoped was a winning smile and took the bag from her grasp.

He walked into the house a couple of steps to be closer to her body and sat down on the carpeted floor. Reaching into the bag, he began depositing the contents in front of him to check it was all accounted for. Penny wiggled her legs slightly, straightened her arms to rest her palms on the floor beside her and twisted her torso around to look inside the house curiously, much like the first time she had visited.

“I’ll just be a second,” Jack said, conscious that he was basically ignoring his guest. His hands were trembling slightly as he sorted through his things as fast as he could, like he was sitting on the edge of a wave of adrenalin.

“Oh, I’ve also got some money that Delon told me to give you,” she remembered, reaching into her jacket pocket and removing three small notes which she handed to him delicately.

Her fingers were so much bigger than his own, he almost brushed her giant fingertips as he took the money from her grasp.

“That’s amazing, thank you,” he said appreciatively.

“What’s the money for?” she asked inquisitively, then interjected herself, “I mean, if it’s not too rude to ask.”

“Errr… to get new glasses,” he explained, looking up at her, and then forming his fingers into circles and holding them up to his face in a dorky kind of way.

Well, that was stupid, he thought instantly.

“Oh, of course,” she said.

She smiled at him, but it felt like she was holding back, which made him a bit more self-conscious.

She looked down at the ground, and picked at the material of her leggings a bit around the knees, which made her suddenly seem quite apprehensive.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you yesterday,” she announced unexpectedly, almost as if she was nervous to talk to him about it and wanted to spit it out.

“I didn’t have a chance to get to the library, or come over, my parents were being… extra demanding.”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” he said, looking up at her to show her he was being sincere.

“I did want to see you, to check you were ok…” she tapered off, her green eyes burning into his with intensity.

“I’m fine, I duped my parents into thinking I was ill,” he smiled.

“Delon told me,” she smiled back, “But I’m sure you’re still hurting from… you know.”

His smile faded slightly, but he daren’t act on it. She wasn’t trying to be mean, she was being honest with him, and whilst uncomfortable, it was also necessary and valid.

“I’m feeling more human now,” he said, with a very dry mouth, “And as I said yesterday, I can’t thank you enough, for all your help.”

“I’m really glad you’re feeling a bit better,” she replied, crimping the side of her lips into a half smile, but for the most part she still looked more concerned than upbeat.

“Do you want a cup of tea or something, or do you have to get back to school right now?” Jack asked reluctantly, afraid that she would inevitably have to go, especially as she hadn’t ventured much beyond the doorway and it was a bit of a walk back to school.

“Well, I probably shouldn’t stay for long,” she said, looking at him with a muted expression.

“No worries, I completely understand,” he said, inwardly frustrated that he was right, but saying the right thing in spite of how he felt deep down.

She had been generous enough to come round and bring him his bag, it was far more than he would have expected her to do in the circumstances.

“Although, it’s not like I need to go back,” she continued, lighting a little flame of promise inside of him.

“What do you mean?” he asked curiously, trying but not completely able to hide a slight crack in his voice.

“I’m allowed half-days at my discretion, you know, because of my condition,” she explained, her features morphing into a gentle smile as she saw his own brighten slightly.

“I thought I could make it up to you, a bit, for not being able to hang out yesterday.”

“That would be… wonderful,” he stammered, almost rushing his words out too fast, then attempting to disguise the overwhelming happiness washing over him and keep his cool.

She seemed to enjoy his reaction to the news, and it was hard for him to prevent the lightweight feeling of giddiness from rising up inside…

“So what would you like to do?” the giant girl asked.

He was still taken a little aback by this unexpected good fortune. Penny was right in front of him, like an enormous, living, breathing diorama. It still didn’t feel real, which could well be, in part, due to the vividness of his most recent night terrors.

She waited patiently, smiling a little at his momentarily lost, blank expression.

“…I could get you a cup of tea,” he suggested politely, snapping back to the now.

“We could watch something, or… ummmm…” he said, pressing his lips together nervously.

He drew the hum out a bit to buy time as he was a bit stuck for suggestions. Fundamentally, he just wanted to spend time with her. He hadn’t even considered what socially-acceptable activities that might ultimately incorporate. His fuzzy brain slowly gravitated towards the three banknotes he still clasped in his palm.

“…err… well, honestly, I probably need to go get new glasses ordered, at the supermarket out Brookfield way…” he explained hesitantly, conscious that this might not be exactly what she had had in mind, or what he actually *wanted* to do.

“The ALDA…? Oh yeah… I know where that is,” she said brightly, before furrowing her brow slightly.

“That’s a bit of walk though, isn’t it?”

“It’s maybe three miles,” he explained, “Not that far really.”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean…” she blurted out suddenly, a look of regret immediately flashing across her face.

“…didn’t mean what?” he asked, confused.

“I didn’t think it was too far for you to walk, I didn’t mean it like that,” she backpedalled hurriedly.

“No no, I didn’t think you meant that at all,” he said, still a little perplexed, trying to reassure the apologetic giantess in front of him.

She looked relieved, a little red, even.

“Are you ok to come with me, it’s just… important to try and get my glasses replaced ASAP. I know it’s not very exciting…” he said.

“Yes, yes, of course,” she replied, nodding and making her long sandy-brown hair ripple in waves.

“Thank you, I’ll be really quick,” he said appreciatively, “Just gotta get dressed in something… warmer.”

He scurried straight to his room, anxious not to delay things, closing the door behind him quickly.

Puffing his cheeks out, he let himself breathe, and leant back against the wooden door momentarily. His heart was fluttering because Penny was nearby; he could barely control his excitement at being on the cusp of serious time spent in her company.

Taking a moment to compose himself, he hurriedly adorned himself in some comfortable, fairly nondescript clothes. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself, though ordinarily a Beta kid was next-to invisible anyway, at least to Alpha eyes.

Pulling on a pair of old trainers, he grabbed his phone, wallet and watch, and after consulting the window to gauge the conditions outside, a woolly hat and a blue waterproof jacket.

Reappearing from his room, Penny was still sat laid out where he had left her, dwarfing the familiarity of his home in a way that continued to feel vaguely unreal.

She turned her head to look at him, “Ready to go?” she asked in that uplifting voice of hers.

It was grey and blustery outside, the kind of day where even the grandest or handsomest house, tree or vista seems bleak, cold and uninviting.

Having allowed Penny to extricate herself from the doorway, averting his gaze like a perfect gentleman, Jack locked the door and started walking beside the enormous girl.

Raindrops would fall onto his face and into his eyes each time he peered up at her, but he simply blinked them away; each one a tiny reminder that he was really walking with her. He wasn’t paying complete attention to where he was going, occasionally lowering his head down to double-check the route, before angling it skywards once more.

She was, again, very mindful of walking at the same pace as him. He was trying his best to keep things brisk, but her legs were so long that she seemed to be dawdling even as he tried to open up what to him felt like a decent stride and pace.

As they walked, Penny went into a bit more detail about why her parents had been difficult the day before. She explained she’d been trying to finalise her university choices, the ‘big plan’ for the future, with them. She said that it felt like they were trying to pressurise her towards somewhere close to home, and attempting to dissuade her from pursuing a career in drama or the arts, perhaps concerned about the way she might be treated, or judged, or her lack of potential earnings.

Jack lent a sympathetic ear, before he too talked about his choices with an added year’s worth of experience, which Penny seemed to take great interest in. He explained how he had applied to several universities in cities in the north-east, an area where he knew Alpha-Beta co-habitation was much more prevalent and accepted due to the large areas of historical i.e. Beta-scale buildings.

He was reluctant to emphasise how enamoured he was with the idea of ultimately finding a place where he could feel at home, perhaps for fear of going down a dark and depressing hole or in any way offending her. It was essentially a fundamental rejection of his current predicament; a pipe-dream of moving somewhere with far more Betas, other Beta students, Beta girls… He could envisage a brighter future somewhere like that, but the reality was that the requirements he had been set for acceptance were high; grades he was struggling to achieve. He didn’t want to admit it, but he could already feel it slipping away from his fingers, and with the latest developments closer to home, the prospect of not making it ‘out’ filled him with real terror…

The keen-witted Alpha girl was, as always, unbounded in her positivity, however - her eyes lighting up as he mentioned some cosmopolitan, openly liberal cities as potential destinations. She explained how there were many, many places – theatres, museums, old buildings, that she was desperate to visit, to experience some ‘proper’ culture that their nondescript provincial city was sorely lacking in.

They arrived at the ALDA after about 45 minutes of fairly quick walking, Jack could feel a bit of lactic burn in his legs after keeping up a consistently rapid pace. Penny, of course, looked like she had barely walked anywhere at all, despite already getting to his house from school in addition to their own journey.

Making his way to the optical department of the supermarket, Jack spied the Beta counter, and walked over to it a little out of breath. He tried not to lean against it too obviously but he was internally quite taken aback at walking at such pace. Penny lingered nearby, inspecting the eyewear in the adjacent Alpha section, trying out a couple of frames and smiling over at him occasionally to make sure he was ok without resorting to looming over him like an overbearing protector.

After a short while, he was surprised to see a Beta lady emerge from the smaller of two doorways and spy him waiting patiently. Each time he’d been here in the past, it had been a male Beta optician who had been on duty.

“I’ll be right with you,” she said brightly, holding a couple of pairs of frames in her hand, and moved over to some mirrored cabinets to return them to their homes.

She looked like she might have Indian heritage, maybe mid-late 20s or early 30s, shorter than him, but not by a lot, maybe 5’5” or 5’6”. She was wearing fairly typical supermarket eye doctor attire, a look that was meant to come across as professional, but was undone by hard-to-miss swathes of ALDA-brand yellow. As she walked over to the counter, and more into focus, he could see her straight, black hair was fastened up out of her face, and she wore a pair of startlingly red rectangular glasses, which clashed quite noticeably with her uniform.

It was not a complete rarity to see a female Beta, of course. He had met Delon’s girlfriend on a couple of occasions, and growing up he had seen his fair share of other adults, his parents’ friends and relatives, but in recent years, apart from a few situations out shopping with his parents, almost all of these interactions involved women noticeably older. Precious few young women were destined to remain Beta, and even if they did, they tended not to stay in the area, so, all things considered, this woman was perhaps one of the youngest he had seen for a couple of years.

“So what can I do for you today, sir?” she asked, giving him a polite smile. He could detect the faintest trace of an accent, but struggled to place it.

“Hi… I’d like to order some replacement glasses, I think you… um… you should have my prescription?” he ventured falteringly. Acting like a grown-up was something he was never much good at.

“And what is your name, please?” she replied, hovering her hands over a computer terminal that had seen better days.

“Jack Crawford,” he stated, “Cee Arr…”

“…Crawford,” she dictated back, interrupting him but without intending to be rude, “No problem, sir. And this would be the prescription from last October?”

“Yes… please,” he hesitated, “I’m slightly short-sighted, in my prescription…” he added for confirmation.

 “Yep, that’s great, and do you want the same basic frames as last time?” she asked.

“If that’s possible, yes,” he replied.

“Ok, perfect, just give me a moment,” she said, raising her eyes to look at him briefly, before returning her attention to the keyboard.

He could see her name tag, which read ‘ANITA’ in all caps. Looking over at the other section, he could see Penny absent-mindedly trying on a pair of glasses in a mirror, but she was too far away from him to make out which style.

“Ok, that comes in at 25 dollars, please. I’ll try and get them made up as quickly as possible; they’ll definitely be ready on Thursday if you want to come by and pick them up - we’re open until 8pm,” she added warmly. That was roughly when he’d expected, though he’d hoped for Wednesday, he’d just have to make do until then.

He unzipped and reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the three notes, realising in the process how scruffy and ill-prepared this looked, but the lady didn’t seem to notice.

He reached out to put the money on the countertop, but as he was about to, she placed her hand out for him to deposit the notes in her grasp. A delicate band of silver around her ring finger signified that this young woman was married. He hesitated - the novelty of touching an unfamiliar Beta woman’s hand, which was noticeably smaller and frailer than his own, was strangely fascinating to him. She looked him in the eye as he hesitated, but her look was friendly and non-judgemental.

He watched her as she used the till, placing the cash into the correct compartment and then removing a 5 to return to him. It just felt odd, perhaps reassuring, to see a Beta not a million miles from his own age doing something mundane, everyday… normal, in this world of giants.

He took the note from her grasp and stuffed it in his pocket, almost zipping it up before he realised she was printing a receipt for him also.

“Bring your receipt with you when you collect,” she instructed him helpfully, making direct eye contact again, “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“Err… no, thank you,” he said politely, taking the receipt, conscious of how he was looking into the eyes of this smaller woman whilst still acutely, inescapably aware of the background context of Alphas pushing oversized shopping carts barely ten yards away.

“Well have a great day, sir,” she said, and smiled at him in a way that was a lot more genuine than he’d expected. Her attention turned immediately to an elderly Beta man who had approached the opposite end of the optical department, and she walked over to offer her assistance to him.

Jack made sure the receipt was stowed away safely, and walked back over to where Penny was browsing, traversing the threshold between the dilapidated, old-fashioned retail units they maintained for people his size, to the towering, metallic racks that contained the Alpha eyewear.

“What do you think?” she asked, noticing him as he approached and stooping to afford him a good view of a pair of gaudy, jewel encrusted sunglasses she was sporting. He couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not, but the delicate smile that formed rapidly convinced him it was the latter.

“Very fetching,” he complimented, “A really… err… strong look,” he added.

“I know, right?” she agreed, smirking, bringing her long fingers up to the side of one ear and unhooking the shades from her head.

“Did you manage to get your glasses sorted?” she asked.

“Yeah, I did. I’ll have to come back on Thursday to pick them up, but I’ll figure that out closer to the time,” he replied.

“Oh right, I guess it takes time to fit the lenses,” she noted, replacing the sunglasses back on the rack a few feet above his head.

As she did so, he heard her stomach rumble quite loudly, which took him a bit by surprise.

She looked down at him sheepishly, appearing above-averagely embarrassed that he had noticed.

“Woah, are you hungry?” he asked, perhaps a little rudely.

“Yes, a bit. I haven’t eaten a lot today,” she explained, “I’m a bit of a fussy eater, I don’t really eat. I mean, I don’t really like eating in front of people.”

“I won’t look if you don’t want me to,” he offered semi-seriously, the willowy girl suppressed a nervous smile.

“I bet you think that’s a bit weird, I just… I don’t know…” she said dejectedly, “I’ve never liked eating much.”

Jack didn’t really know what to say, he reached over and gingerly touched the sleeve of her coat to show that he was supportive, but then felt self-conscious about it and retracted his hand.

“I don’t mean to blurt these things out to make it awkward either, I’m sorry, I just feel like I can talk to you,” she said, trying to compose herself better. “It’s better to be honest, at least, I’m being honest with you anyway.”

“You can talk to me about anything,” Jack said quietly, “I don’t think you’re weird at all.”

He wasn’t sure if he heard her, he’d practically whispered it, but the way she looked down at him made it seem like she had. Her eyes were so incredibly intense at times, even from so far above him.

“I’ve still got five bucks, I can buy you something,” he offered, going for his pocket.

“Oh no, I’ve got some money, don’t be silly,” she reassured him, her face brightening up.

She accompanied him to the aisle for ready-to-go food, sandwiches, salads, which was near the tills quite close to the exit.

The Beta-sized products were, as you might expect, located in the lowermost shelving close to the ground. The range of the fare on offer was very limited in comparison to the Alpha food above, each year it felt like the options shrank as demand dwindled. He could remember when the pasta bowls and wraps would each fill a row but nowadays it was all condensed down to a single lowly shelf.

Penny checked out the top few rows of sandwiches far above his field of view as he looked around at his own potential options. He felt a little bit hungry, the walk had given him an appetite, but the strange butterfly sensation of being around her made his stomach feel light and unnatural and it was hard to gauge.

“I might get this, but I won’t manage it all,” Penny said, leaning down to show him a large cheese and salad subway roll she had selected. “If I tear a chunk off, will you eat it?” she asked.

“I can give it a go,” he said graciously, noting that even a quarter of the giant sub was comparatively as large as a couple of Beta ones.

She stood to her full height and headed to the check-out, always mindful of where he was in relation to her, and paid for the sub. She returned the purse and her sandwich to her bag, and explained she’d rather find somewhere to sit and eat nearby, not in the supermarket itself, just to get away from everyone.

Penny said she knew of somewhere nearby that wasn’t far, and they set off immediately, she seemed to be quite motivated to leave and he wasn’t really sure why. He had no love for the supermarket, and being amongst Alphas was dispiriting at the best of times, but he’d assumed if she was hungry she’d just want to eat then and there.

They crossed over the main road, and skirted around the perimeter of a nearby park for a short distance before she veered off towards a thick patch of woodland that wasn’t particularly well-maintained, encouraging him to follow. Weeds and long grass obscured an area that might once have been a small pathway or trail, and as they passed through between the trees it became more difficult for Penny as the thick canopy of branches closed around her tall frame more and more.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Jack asked cautiously. He wasn’t too apprehensive, Penny had never been anything other than kind and gentle towards him, but this was a bit strange; leading him away from civilisation wasn’t a move that put his mind at ease.

“You’ll see - we’re nearly there,” she said encouragingly, crouching down a bit and protecting her face from the spindly, scratchy branches with her long arms as she pushed through. Jack was small and agile enough to avoid most of the foliage, not to mention that Penny was acting a bit like a bulldozer, flattening or snapping a lot of the more prominent obstacles as she kept moving forwards. Not a flattering comparison, he thought, but quite an accurate one.

Very shortly, she emerged into a clear patch where the trees suddenly stopped, and Jack followed her through. Looking around, he was confused, as much as anything, to see what looked like an abandoned Beta school, overgrown and forgotten, seemingly surrounded on all sides by the trees…

“This used to be a private school, a long time ago,” Penny explained, making her way across a meadowy patch of long grass and wild flowers that stood between the trees and the front of the building.

The damp, slimy grass was up to Jack’s waist, slowing his progress a little as Penny’s much larger strides cut through at a comparative knee-high level.

“I think it was an all-boys school, but it’s been abandoned for years,” she said, turning around and waiting for Jack to catch up to her.

“Wow,” Jack breathed, genuinely impressed that this was tucked away out of sight. This was a proper, old-fashioned building, probably over 100 years old and nothing like the vast majority of buildings he knew of locally which had been built in the post-GH era. It was in a pretty dilapidated state; Mother Nature had returned with a vengeance and the whole place was covered with moss, creepers and bushes of all kinds. The windows themselves were mostly shattered glass, though the door appeared to still be in place.

She seemed delighted by his awed expression, “I thought you’d appreciate it,” she smiled softly.

“I’ve been here a couple of times - it’s too small for me to go inside but I love the old brickwork, the details above the doorway, it’s so intricate,” she continued, pointing out parts of the building.

“Have you not been inside at all?” Jack asked.

“Well, I could do, perhaps, I just don’t want to get stuck or damage it or something…” she said, stepping out onto a front driveway of weathered tarmac with plenty of wild grass poking through the cracks. She sat down cross-legged on the road, swinging her bag around her body and reaching in to extract her sandwich. Jack sat down next to her, resting his weary limbs and eventually lay back, staring up at the sky.

The rain had held off for now and the clouds were starting to break up, revealing hints of blue-grey sky beyond.

He could hear the giant girl tucking into her food, but remembered her mentioning she didn’t like to be watched, so he stayed laid down and instead savoured the sensation of being out in the fresh air, away from the bustle of humanity.

“Here’s your bit,” Penny said, offering him a significant portion of the sandwich, which he sat up to accept gratefully and attempted to gnaw at.

The bread was so thick that he struggled to get purchase on it, it was like trying to chew a baguette that’s way too big to fit your mouth. Improvising, he opened up the sandwich instead and took small bites from the inside. It was pretty tasty, and as he ate he realised that he was actually pretty hungry after all.

He knew there was no pressure, it was just a bit of food, but it felt strangely intimate to share something like that with her. It felt like a proper friendship, which still hadn’t sunk in for him at all. He still didn’t know this girl very well, but he felt both instinctively comfortable and frighteningly self-conscious around her.

He ate what felt like a lot of food, but he’d barely got through half of the chunk he’d been handed before admitting defeat. Penny wrapped it back up in the packaging it had come in and placed it back in her bag, before lying back herself, looking to the heavens.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him softly, still staring up at the sky.

“I feel better, thank you,” he responded, leaning forward and hugging his knees with his arms.

The girl sighed gently, and rolled over to face him.

“That’s good,” she said, looking at him intently with her luminous green eyes.

“Can I make a really weird request?” she said, the intensity of her eyes flickering slightly.

“Yeah ok,” he replied, curious as to where this was going.

“Can you come here?” she asked quietly, gesturing for him to sit a little nearer.

He scooched himself a little closer, bringing himself near to the giantess’ large torso, looking down on her slightly as she lay there. She brought a long arm over and placed a very big, very soft hand on top of his own, gently gripping his hand in hers and lifting it up.

With almost childlike fascination, she compared her hand to his own, the oversized texture of her skin and the larger-than-life nails, digits and knuckles of her big hand dwarfing his own.

“I’m sorry, I just… I still can’t get over the size difference,” she explained, looking almost wistfully at the size comparison.

“I guess it’s a pretty big difference,” Jack replied, placing his hand on top of hers, measuring it against her own fingers.

“If this is just really awful and creepy, just tell me to stop,” she added, half-laughing in an insecure way.

“No, it’s fine, I don’t mind,” he said, telling her the gospel truth.

He could feel how warm her hand was, how close to her he was again, her gigantic face close enough to touch. He felt a pang of excitement, and then, embarrassingly, another pang, a more… intimate one.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t envisage her in that way, he just… hadn’t been thinking of her in those terms because she was so nice, and kind, and wonderful…

His attraction and affection for Penny were based on things that were pure and meaningful, so to him it almost felt like his body was betraying him by responding to her in a physical way.

It was also very hard not to feel very melancholy about any potential attraction, not only because he was convinced Penny only saw this as a platonic thing, but because of his traumatising experience at the hands of Caitlin. She had done a great deal of damage by associating his most sexual thoughts towards the overabundance of the female Alpha form with dominance, humiliation and utter helplessness, things that did not just brush off a person’s psyche overnight.

Everything about Penny was very calm, cautious and controlled, the polar opposite of Caitlin. Despite her size, she was careful with him, and the respect that she gave him was incredibly rare.

He looked at her oversized but wonderfully feminine body and could only imagine how wonderful it would be to curl up in her arms, to have her look at him the way the women in those old movies did, in this impossible, romantic, overwrought way he had fantasized about for so long.

It made him feel like a love-sick idiot.

She let go off his hand after a while and he repositioned himself so that he could minimise the obviousness of his present situation. She was thankfully completely oblivious to his dilemma, and rolled back to look up at the clouds again.

A very large black cloud was beginning to fill the sky, rolling in with the wind as it picked up once more.

He saw her close her eyes, and he took the opportunity to close his own, trying to think of something boring, and unromantic. Trains, Maths homework, anything…

It didn’t take long, though, for the raindrops to arrive, darkening the unforgiving grey tarmac around their bodies.

“Let’s get to cover, quick,” he found himself announcing without thinking, rising to his feet and heading towards the school building as if on autopilot.

“Are you sure we can get inside?” she said, sitting upright, practically at eye level even with him on his feet.

He went over to inspect the front door, it was a hefty-looking wooden one, but it was ever-so slightly ajar. He ran up the steps and pushed against it, but it wouldn’t budge. It was broken off its hinges slightly but it was too heavy for him to shift, like it was caught on something.

“Think you can push it open?” he asked, as the sudden downpour began to turn from a shower into an all-out onslaught of water.

“I don’t want to break it!” she protested, getting to her feet, her long hair growing slick from the intensifying deluge.

“It’s already broken, you just need to move it,” he yelled over the hiss of the rain.

“Ok, I’ll try,” she said, striding over to the big door as he stood to one side, and placed her hands on it. She had to bend down slightly to get good leverage, but the heavy wooden entrance was no match for her strength, swinging open with a loud crack as a rusty deadbolt gave way.

“Woah,” she exclaimed, surprised by her own strength, “That was… pretty easy.”

Jack darted inside, beckoning for her to follow. She crouched down as low as she could and followed him in.

It was dark, and musty, and the noise of thousands of raindrops ricocheting against the old metal roof sounded like sustained gunfire – it was really throwing it down outside.

The entranceway opened into a long corridor, the tiles of which were dirty and cracked and covered in a layer of dirt and dust. There didn’t appear to be much around other than broken tables and chairs in each room, most of the doors had been kicked open; the place had probably been looted several times over the years. A few books were strewn across the floor in one of the rooms he looked into, but anything of real value had long since been taken.

“Can we go in there?” Penny asked. Her voice, ordinarily soft, was quite loud and echoey in the enclosed hallway space.

He looked at her to see where she meant, and then saw the entrance to the school cafeteria space a little way further along to the right.

He entered the room, which was larger than the others, with a slightly higher ceiling. Penny was still unable to stand straight, but she took the opportunity to get up from a crouch and bend herself at the waist instead.

“Definitely not built for me,” she laughed, looking on as he wandered around the abandoned cafeteria, examining the debris all around.

“This place is really cool though, it’s a shame it’s so unloved,” she added.

The sound of the wind and rain outside was very spooky. It was quite dim inside the building, and he could hear the rattle and creak of the old building as it withstood the sudden turn in the weather.

“It’s like a haunted house,” he said, noticing more and more stuff was littered everywhere; broken plates, rusty cutlery, what looked like a salt shaker - all very antiquated in design.

“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” she asked incredulously.

“Well, no, they’re not real, I’ve never seen any evide…” he continued, nudging at an old spoon with his shoe, as he saw a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Boo!” Penny exclaimed at the same moment she grabbed him lightly on the shoulder, startling him and causing him to flinch.

“Oh ha ha, very funny,” he said sarcastically, recomposing himself and trying to act like she hadn’t just given him an almighty jump scare.

“Sorry, it was too tempting,” she admitted.

They had a bit of an explore around, but Penny expressed hesitation when Jack suggested they look upstairs. There was no telling if the floor would be strong enough to support her weight, and whilst he was more than welcome to go off on his own, he decided against it, he would rather stay with her.

They returned to the cafeteria space, and Penny sat herself down on the floor, allowing herself to stretch her limbs and not be hunched over double the whole time. Jack walked over to the wall, where he could see an undamaged chair, and dragged it back to where Penny was so that he could sit next to her on a more eye-level basis.

The rain was still bucketing down, and it made no sense to try and get home in it as they would be soaked to the bone. It would be much more prudent to wait until it relented slightly.

All the walking around had afforded him some time to put his ‘urge’ out of his mind, and instead, his thoughts had started to dwell on what would happen back at school.

He really wanted to confide in Penny, and tell her his fears, what he’d been through with Caitlin and make her understand why he was so… so pathetic, and timid, and scared. He would need her help, along with Delon and perhaps even Alex, if that was even an option, just to get through the day.

“I’ve been thinking about tomorrow,” he said, as the giantess turned to face him.

“Oh,” she said, wiping her dusty hands off onto her denim-clad knees, and sweeping her hair away from her face. She was quiet, and patient with him, allowing him time to articulate his thoughts.

“I’m going to have to go in… to school, that is, and I’m really, really worried about it,” he admitted, taking a dry swallow.

“I don’t feel safe, even if I don’t run into her tomorrow, it’s just a matter of when, and… if she comes to find me… I…” 

Penny’s expression mirrored his own; worried and downcast. She didn’t like to see him get upset.

“I’m sure between Delon and I, we can try and accompany you around school as much as possible,” she explained, “We already discussed it, actually, although only briefly.”

“I just… it’s complicated,” he said forlornly, pressing his fingertips into his cheek.

For the next 20 or so minutes, Jack explained to Penny what had actually happened with Caitlin the first time Penny had found him in the cubicle, and then went on to chronicle the further degradation he had experienced during his kidnap, before she had rescued him. He was acutely embarrassed, and felt like he was blurting things out that he shouldn’t tell her, or even anyone, but he was strongly compelled to tell her everything because something about the girl was… special, he felt he could confide in her in a way that perhaps he hadn’t ever been able to with another person before.

He used language that described some of the more sexual things he had experienced in a less specific way, but the picture was a wholly complete one, and as cathartic as it felt to finally let it off his chest, every time he looked across as Penny he could see how distressed and horrified she was. As he went on, his voice cracking on occasion and requiring a few long pauses to compose himself, Penny’s hand raised itself further and further over her mouth in shock. He couldn’t tell if she was appalled because of how he had been treated, or if this was a whole arena of experience she was completely unaware of, but her concern and disbelief were palpable and genuine. At several points, she went to wipe her own eyes, and appeared to be on the verge of crying herself. It wasn’t his intention to upset her, shock her, or make her pity him, in ways it was more about letting it out, and she was, more than anyone, the person he felt could help him release the bottled-up emotion and angst he felt.

As he reached the end, explaining the rescue from his perspective, trapped in the laundry basket, Penny abruptly leaned in and cradled him with her much larger body, incredibly carefully and gently, but also with all that underlying power and size. Her giant frame was shaking gently at the emotion coursing through the pair of them, and for Jack this was a powerful and validating show of affection from a person who, to all extents and purposes, was as capable of debasing him and forcing her will on him as someone like Caitlin.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she finally said, releasing him and repeatedly brushing away the tears that were forming in her eyes.

“I… I thought it might be bad, but she’s sick… it’s dehumanising,” she continued, “I don’t know what to say… are you sure you can’t get the Police involved?”

“Delon thinks it’s too risky, Caitlin’s family are too well-connected,” he said quietly, blinking back his own tears.

“But she can’t get away with it, it’s not right,” Penny said, anger permeating her usually gentle voice.

With a sudden move of her arm she slammed her fist to the floor, knocking up a cloud of dust and sending a loud ‘crunch’ reverberating around the old school. A fist-shaped hole in the ground, full of cracked tiles and dirt, was visible after the dust settled. He could see bits of debris stuck to her whitened knuckles as she clenched her hand for a few more seconds.

“Believe me, Jack, I’ll do everything I can to help you,” she explained, loosening her fingers, her shot of adrenalin seemingly evaporating as quickly as it had descended. He could see what looked like small rivulets of blood forming where the broken tiles stuck in her hand, and quickly, without thinking, got down on his knees and ran his fingers over the back of her knuckles, removing any of the ceramic shards that he could find.

“Penny… you’re bleeding,” he said, concerned, “Does it hurt?”

“Not really,” she replied, a dismayed look washing over her face, “I’m sorry for losing control, I didn’t mean to get angry.”

“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself,” he explained, “You might need to get it disinfected, I’ve got some solution at home.”

He got to his feet after removing as many bits as he could, and looked at her as she looked right back at him sadly. She was looking at him differently to before, as if she was struggling to say something.

“We should probably go,” he suggested, noting that the din from the roof was much less noisy than it had been previously, and he wanted to see to her hand as soon as possible.

“Yeah, I think so too,” she replied, carefully getting up into a crouching position and patiently following him as he led her back through the building. 

Outside, it was still raining but a lot less heavily, more like a kind of drizzle. Jack made sure that his jacket was securely buttoned up and strode forwards towards the patch of long grass, Penny flanking him from one side, her towering, lengthy form overtaking him easily and venturing ahead to show him the way back through the trees.

They didn’t really talk for a while - he was lost in his own thoughts, and just tried to walk as fast as he could alongside Penny. Quite quickly he realised was getting exceptionally tired, and he was struggling to keep up the pace. He knew Penny could sense this, but he didn’t want to let her down, he kept his head down and grit his teeth, concentrating on the relentless path ahead for what felt like a pretty long time.

His legs were beginning to fail him. His footsteps were clumsy, uneven. There was probably still a mile or more left as they approached a Beta-scale bench by the roadside, where he finally succumbed to his exertion and sat down to get his breath back.

“I can carry you from here,” Penny suggested kindly, “If you’re tired.”

“No no, it’s fine, I just need a second,” he gasped, visibly out of breath. It would be emasculating, and a bit embarrassing, for her to carry him like a kid brother or something. He’d already said he could do the walk, maybe he was still deceptively weak from everything; he certainly should be able to walk further than this.

The tall girl sat down next to the small bench, and looked at him intensely, worry etched on her face. She looked away from him momentarily, and then turned back. Despite the grey and moody weather, her eyes shone brightly.

“I just want you to know, Jack, that I think you’re very brave,” she said suddenly.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, and I don’t think, if I were in your shoes, I could have coped. I know how you feel about Alphas, and I know that what Caitlin has done will forever colour your experiences with people bigger than you, but I will never, ever make you feel the way she did.”

He noticed she was nervously fidgeting with her hair as she continued to speak. It seemed like she had been waiting for quite a while to talk to him.

“It means a lot to me that you would tell me something so… personal, and difficult, I feel like it’s rare to have someone who would open up like that… and I appreciate the courage it took.”

He wanted to thank her, but she appeared to be searching for more words. He listened intently, much like she had patiently listened to him earlier.

“I think it’s only fair to be honest with you too… I have been really worried about how much larger I am, and how you view me… It will probably seem creepy to you, but for years now I wanted to talk to a Beta my age, and share my interests and passions for Beta things… I’m worried that, in my desperation, I will scare you off, and with all you’ve been through, you can only see me as a giant and not as an equal.”

He noticed her eyes were glossy with emotion as she bowed her head despondently.

“I never… wanted, to be this way, but around you, I sometimes forget the size difference even though it’s so obvious. I just… I don’t know. It feels different. And I want you to know, that if me being this way can help you, I want to help you, I really do… more than anything. It does nothing for me, I don’t need or want to feel this big, or this awkward or clumsy, but with you, it makes me feel… useful, like I can help.”

“I’m sure this is coming across as really stupid,” she laughed nervously, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve, “But being around you makes me feel a bit better about myself, and, I guess I don’t want that feeling to go away.”

He wanted to say something profound and seize upon this moment, but his tongue was stuck in his throat. He wanted to tell her that he felt there was something special between them, but he had no prior experience with which to compare, and he doubted his own feelings that bit too much. He wanted to say that he admired her far more than he could begin to explain, and to reassure her that he understood exactly the point she was making, but words failed him.

“I just want to help you without making you feel small, I think that’s what I’m trying to say,” she summarised, looking over at him sadly.

“Because… I just see you as a person.”

He nodded soberly, blinking away his own tears.

“I know you do,” he said eventually, his voice cracking, his lips quivering as he clammed up, trying to compose himself.

“Please, Jack, let me take you home, you’re obviously very tired, I don’t want my size to force you into over-exerting yourself,” the giant girl said, placing a large hand next to his on the arm of the bench.

“…You’re right…” he admitted, “I just don’t want you to think less of me, to take pity on me.”

Her eyes widened slightly, she looked astonished.

“Pity?! Jack, I’m still trying to come to terms with how much braver you are than I could hope to be, I couldn’t pity you if I wanted to!” she said, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of his statement.

“You’ve got the heart of a lion, you know that?” she continued, “Don’t let anyone take that spark from you.”

His face flushed slightly red, he didn’t expect to hear such wonderful, empowering words. Not least, because this incredible support was coming from someone he looked up to so much.

“You’re a beautiful person, Penny,” he said, looking into her eyes deeply.

She smiled back at him, and then looked down at her hand, removing it from the arm rest before hauling herself to her feet, towering high above him.

“Ooh, I’m all nervous now,” she said from her lofty position.

“Why?” he asked, in a small voice, craning his neck.

“Because I’ve got to pick you up,” she explained, looking down at him.

She bent her knees down until she was crouching right in front of him, and extended her arms forward either side of him, a coy little smile on her face.

“I feel stupid now… I shouldn’t have made such a song and dance about this,” she admitted.

He made it easier for her by standing up, allowing her to scoop an arm around his back and under his legs so she could cradle him carefully and raise him up to her torso. It felt completely surreal; he knew he’d been carried by her before, but he could barely recall the mechanics of that situation, it had been such a stressful and sudden thing.

This was very different, he was completely aware of the warm, careful hold she had on him, and being so close to her was intoxicating. He was terrified that at any moment the sheer proximity would trigger something acutely embarrassing, especially seeing as he was so close to the gentle swell of her bosom and the soft embrace of her arms, but so far he appeared to be holding his nerve.

“Are you ok like this, it’s not too uncomfortable?” she asked, her beautiful face turning to face his, barely inches away. Her wide, glorious eyes, lightly freckled skin and delicate lips were not just close enough to touch, they were close enough to kiss.

“I’m fine,” he said, sheepishly, to which she returned a cute smile, pressing her lips together as if she was holding something back.

“I don’t want to tease you, but you’re light as a feather,” she disclosed impishly, her warm breath washing over his face. It wasn’t unpleasant, merely a reminder of the vast size disparity.

“Maybe you just don’t know your own strength,” he replied, a mite cheekily, to show he was game.

“Touché,” she responded, setting off along the pathway, her enormous frame swaying slightly as her hips set in motion.

It was exhilarating to be up so high, with a very different vantage point of his neighbourhood compared to normal. The sensation was a little like the flying one you sometimes have in your dreams, where you inexplicably hover up in the air, but arguably it felt more like being in the crow’s nest of a ship or something, rolling with the gentle motion of the sea.

Occasionally, he would point the way, or tell Penny something about the area, which she listened to with interest as she carried him effortlessly. She didn’t seem remotely perturbed by holding him so close, and even though he still felt awkward about it. That feeling was being replaced with something more… nourishing.

He still felt the spectre of potential embarrassment hanging in the air, especially the prospect of someone seeing him in her arms like a child, but both the inclement weather, and the speed at which she was whisking him home, reduced the likelihood of that occurring with each passing step.

It didn’t take long for her to round the corner of the road, and approach the house. She let him down gently at the porch, and he unlocked the door, inviting her inside.

“Oh shit, what time is it?” she said, sliding her sleeve back to reveal a small, old-fashioned style watch.

Jack felt his heart sink a little, his time was with her was going to be cut short once more.

“Crap, it’s nearly 4 ‘o’ clock,” she read out, aghast, looking down at him with a pained expression, “Jack, I’m really sorry, I need to get back home right now, my parents are going to be expecting me very soon.”

Masking his disconsolation as bravely as he could, he gave her an appreciative smile.

“Ok, no worries,” he said positively, standing by the porch as the giantess gingerly knelt down. To watch her compact herself down from a 13’ foot tall titan to something approaching his level was so extraordinary, a very simple action, but a very meaningful one.

“I will be there for you tomorrow, ok?” she said, bringing her hands either side of his shoulders and gently gripping him with her long, slender fingers.

“Stay strong,” she smiled, tilting her head forwards a fraction so her eyes appeared to be burrowing fiercely into his, giving his shoulders a noticeable squeeze. He could feel her power, which ordinarily would have been quite scary, intimidating even, but in this instance it triggered a surge of electricity to rush from the balls of his feet to the back of his neck, making his hair almost stand up on end.

This girl believed in him.

“I will try,” he said, almost involuntarily standing that little bit straighter, taller, prouder.

As time slowed down, Penny leaned in and gave him a soft kiss on his left cheek. He closed his eyes. He could feel himself welling up, and fought to push the feeling back down. Unlike the quick sympathy peck on his forehead at her home, he could feel the warmth of her lips as she lingered slightly, as if to calm him, the larger-than-life sensation of her enormous lips being so delicate was… overwhelming.

She removed her lips from his skin as his eyes reopened, still looking at him radiantly, and she got to her feet surprisingly lightly for one so large.

“Bye Jack,” she said softly, giving him a little wave, all at once very shy and timid, almost embarrassed.

“Bye,” he replied in a whisper, barely audible even to himself, and watched as she carefully turned on her heel and walked back towards the main road.

As she began to stride away, she turned back to him, her eyes meeting his, and whilst his vision was blurry at that kind of range, he felt, for the very first time, that maybe her kiss was a sign of something more. 

Someone was outside.

Jack could tell, he’d got into bed to rest, but someone, or something, had just moved past the window. Panic gripping him, he cautiously slid himself out from the covers, still more-or-less fully clothed from earlier.

Moving down the hallway, almost crouched, he looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever might be out there through the windows.

‘It couldn’t be Penny - she went home’ - his brain posited and analysed immediately, adrenaline levels skyrocketing as he ruled her out of the running.

Walking into the kitchen silently, he peered through the curtains, but everything was suspiciously calm and quiet outside. It was like there wasn’t even any wind, the scene looked dead, grey, empty.

Opening the door to the small utility room beside the kitchen, he crept to the back door, looking through the panelled glass and out across the small back yard he had grown up playing in. Weeds and bare patches of muddy, thinly-seeded lawn showed the lack of attention it had received over the winter.

As he stared, his eyes were drawn slowly, inexplicably, to the keyhole on the back door. The key was normally left very deliberately in the lock, at a 90 degree angle to prevent anyone from using it from outside, and for convenience from indoors when anyone needed to quickly head outside.

The lock was empty.

Someone was outside.

His eyes flicked back to the window, he swore something had moved out there.

And then, he saw her.

Like a creature from a lagoon, or a monster from a B-movie, the enormous red-haired girl raised her legging-clad leg over the 6-foot fence, hurdling it with almost nonchalant ease.

Bolting like a missile, he tore back into the kitchen and absolutely hurled the key drawer open, almost tearing it from its rails. He recognised the back door key immediately by the keyring, a grey and blue chunk of plastic promoting his father’s tech workplace.

Snatching it between trembling fingers, he sprinted back into the utility room only to see the handle turn and an enormous, burly arm extend inwards like a piston, swinging the unsecured door open without hesitation.

He slid heavily to the floor with a clumsy thud as he tried to retreat back out of the utility room doorway, his feet giving way as he rapidly changed momentum, jarring his head hard against the unforgiving tiles and dropping the key somewhere on the ground. He scrambled to get upright, his feet skating against the tiles as he used his hands to push his body upright, all the while the Alpha giantess continued her unwelcome breach into his tiny home.

He just about got to his feet and careened into the main hallway by the front door. Behind him, he could hear large, cumbersome movements, a mop or ironing board falling over as the leviathan squeezed through the utility room.

He ran to the front door to open it, but remembered in an instant that he’d locked it and taken the key back into his room with him. Cursing, he tore across the house and burst into his room, staring glassy-eyed at the floor, the desk, the chair. Where the fuck was the key?

The back of his neck felt completely aflame, his heart was smashing around inside of his chest and he felt like he was likely to collapse. His vision started to blur as he realised with a sickening wave of dread that he could not for the life of him remember where the key was.

Turning around, he saw Caitlin’s hulking form emerge, crouched down in the hallway, her substantial arms supporting the weight of her upper body as her muscular legs tucked underneath her. She turned to face him, her long red hair sweeping loosely across her face to reveal an expression both predatory and wrathful. She immediately started closing the distance to him.

Jack let out an anguished squeal of terror, frantically grasping for the edge of his bedroom door and hurling it shut in the futile hope that covering the visage would make it somehow not real. Angling his shoulder, he leant into the door with all his might and spread his legs apart to try and hold it firm. Twisting his arm at an angle, he braced his right hand against the door handle, trying to prevent it from turning, but within a matter of seconds, he knew he was beaten.

First, the door handle rotated effortlessly, nearly spraining his hand as he desperately tried to stop it with his fingers, and then the plane of the door he was braced against inched open with an eerily unrelenting force, his feet skating ineffectually across the carpet as Caitlin comfortably forced her way inside.

A mammoth arm reached around the door and grabbed a hold of him, securing his forearm in her steely grasp and dragging him like a ragdoll to the middle of the room as she seemingly expanded to occupy the poky confines of a small Beta bedroom.

With his free arm, he reached out to grab at the phone on his desk in a vain, last minute attempt to somehow escape the certain fate he had sealed for himself. If he could only press 9-1-1 with his thumb at least there'd be a chance someone might become aware of his plight. Miraculously, despite his desperate flailing action, his fingers wrapped around the phone’s slim body and secured it to his palm, but as he turned to look at his prize and try to punch the number home, Caitlin was already greedily pawing at his puny hand with her own, plucking it from his grasp as if his fingers were made of straw.

“N-noooooooooo…. Pleeeease..” he whined as the girl contemptuously inspected the miniature device, an evil grin carving into her freckled features as she enclosed her robust fingers around it and crushed it to a shattered pulp in her oversized palm.

He was crying now, overwhelmed with distress, on the verge of puking at the sheer powerlessness he had.

Using her leverage over him, Caitlin threw his body around almost in mid-air with one brawny arm and slammed him down onto his own bed, winding and temporarily dazing him.

As he fought to regain his breath he saw her other arm reach out for the laptop he had at his bedside, picking it up and lining it up between her gigantic hands as if she was about to open a small pocket book.

Lowering her eyes to his, her smile unflinching and demonic, she slowly began to bend the computer between her oversized fingers, the silvery plastic casing warping, discolouring and rupturing like shrink-wrap before finally snapping violently as she ripped it apart in two pieces as easily as if she were tearing a slice of bread.

In open-mouthed horror, he watched her drop the two destroyed halves of his most important possession, the receptacle for all of his work, his writing, his window on the world…

She reached out for him, her hands covering his face and engulfing his mouth so he could not breathe…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH!!!” he screamed, smashing his head into the something hard and wooden.

He could feel something wet and warm beginning to spread across the back of his skull.

Panicking, he swept his arm behind his head to stem the flow of blood and reached around to get his bearings, his bleary eyes taking a while to adjust.

He was in his room.

There was no Caitlin.

He was on the floor.

Pressing his hand against the sharp pain at the back of his head, he began to take stock of what on earth had happened. He had had the most vivid waking terror yet. His laptop lay on the floor by his side, thankfully in one piece, but presumably had come to rest there after a sudden, impromptu trip to the floor.

His duvet was in a kind of exploded heap, half removed from the bed and hanging near his fallen legs; it resembled a kind of chest-burster exit wound, almost perfectly preserving the conditions under which he had thrown himself from the covers and to the ground.

The blow that had woken him up had been a sickening impact against the base of his bedside cabinet. He had probably fallen first, and then writhed over towards it before finally delivering the killer reverse-headbutt at the end, he determined.

He could feel that there was a fair bit of blood seeping into his scraggy scalp, so he got to his feet on wobbly legs and made his way into the bathroom, dabbing at it with a clump of dampened toilet roll whilst mixing an antiseptic solution haphazardly in the sink from one of the bottles his parents kept for emergencies.

Dipping the wad of soggy paper into the solution, he pressing it to his head, gritting his teeth as the sting of antiseptic on wound kicked in, making sure to keep it held against the sore patch to mop up most of the blood and disinfected the area.

After a few more wads of toilet paper had been gingerly put to use, and the trickle of blood had seemingly been stemmed into a clot that would scab over, he drained and rinsed the sink and flushed the evidence away. He picked up the small vanity mirror his mother used for make-up and tilted his head away from the main mirror, trying to use a double reflection to catch a glimpse of the back of his head. From what he could see, it was no more than a small cut, a nick against a sharpish corner of the wooden cabinet, but it still hurt like fuck and looked no prettier.

Suddenly, he remembered with startling clarity Penny’s fist crunching into the floor of the old school. The rivulets of blood streaming from her knuckles, the power and emotion of that moment. He had meant to have her come home and clean the cuts, he recalled, but it hadn’t quite come to pass. Instead…

The memory of her kiss came into focus now, the soft imprint on his face, and he reached to touch his cheek, looking at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t one to admire his own reflection, but seeing himself as Penny did - his relatively wise-looking, currently dark and bleary eyes contrasting with his still-boyish features - it wasn’t beyond the realms of crazy that she could perhaps find him attractive, that she might see him in that way. Tousling his own hair lopsidedly, he put the vanity mirror back down and splashed cold water on his face to try and wake himself up.

Grabbing a fresh handful of paper roll, he walked himself groggily back to his room, stuffed it into the back of a woolly hat, and affixed it to his head. The migraine-like headache was beginning to set in, but a sharp blow to the head was the least of his worries though. What seemed like a good opportunity to rest up and calm himself had turned into a sleep punctuated by the most unnerving and upsetting hallucination yet, it had been barely an hour since Penny had departed and already his confidence was descending into a death spiral.

Grabbing his laptop wearily and inspecting it momentarily for damage, he opened it and reattached it to the power cable by his bedside. Propping himself up in bed, his aching head cushioned against the backboard by the hat, he started to type.

Slowly at first, he falteringly began to get down the facts. It would help to make a record of everything, just in case there ever would be some kind of justice.

He couldn’t feel much worse, so it wasn’t like it was even that emotional or raw any more, he just tried to list what had happened.

The words began to steadily flow until it was practically a deluge, pouring unfettered from his tormented mind. He hadn’t written like this for some time.

Things shot into his consciousness, he would then write them down without a moment’s hesitation. Word after word, sentence after sentence; it felt cathartic to try and purge his thoughts and for them to come tumbling out so freely. He barely even noticed the passage of time, before long, his mother was home to check on him, at first pleased to see that he looked better and apparently keeping up-to-date with his work, later more concerned that he hadn’t touched the food she had left for him to heat up.

A bowl of soup and a minor lecture later, he continued to dissect, document and take stock of everything that had transpired recently, hoping that in the retelling he could find some semblance of hope or a way to keep himself out of harm’s way. The bleakness of the predicament never left him, but the act of putting it down in black and white made it strangely more bearable, like it was more of a story, and less of a brutal, inescapable reality.

After a few hours, though, he had exhausted his reserves. The words were becoming strained rather than flowing forth freely, and reluctantly he had to put it to one side and begin to prepare himself for the day to come. His heart was increasingly in his mouth and it felt like he might hurl at any moment, but there was a little more steel in his mind since Penny’s impromptu pep talk. He would try and hold himself together, if only to see her again as soon as possible.

He loaded up his web browser and logged into his social network. Almost immediately, Delon’s chat box popped up in the corner.

D: You ok, man?

J: Hey Delon. I’m alright, feeling a bit better

D: Good good, been worried about you. Penny drop off your stuff alright?

J: Yeah, she did, thanks

D: Nice one. About tomorrow…

Jack waited as Delon typed for a short while, the blinking ellipsis – the little trail of dots – signifying his incoming message.

D: I’ll meet you outside school, I can stick with you for most of the day, I don’t know about Alex but Penny said she’d try and look out for you too

J: Yeah, I’ve spoken with her, she’s going to meet up with me but I don’t know when

D: Oh good, hopefully we can both cover you over the day

D: You walking in or getting the bus btw?

He paused, it would be safer to go in on the bus, blending into the crowd of giant kids would both reduce the chances of being spotted, and in the event of Caitlin appearing, would provide witnesses if she tried anything.

J: Bus I think. Meet me at the bus stop at school?

D: Ok yeah, good shout

D: Strength in numbers

J: Yeah, keep my head down

D: True

There was another lull in the conversation.

Jack decided he might as well admit what he was feeling.

J: I’m really scared

D: I know, man, we’re here to help though

J: But what if Caitlin just just takes me again?

A shudder went down his spine.

D: I dunno, man, don’t go anywhere alone, keep your phone on you at all times, ready to record stuff if anything happens

Jack recalled his nightmare. Caitlin crushing his phone in her bare hands with barely a squeeze.

J: Yeah

He was unconvinced that that would work.

D: Just an idea, if she does anything we’re all on the lookout

D: Remember, Alex said she would try and keep her ear to the ground

Alex.

Jack had forgotten about her completely.

On a Tuesday she was in a number of his classes, more than Delon, actually. She’d surely have to keep up appearances, otherwise Hannah or Caitlin would notice something was up. It was unlikely that he could rely on her help if something were to really go down, but this new outlook on her at least meant that if something were to happen, there’d be an insider able to report back.

Small comfort, but just the sort of thing that tiny, flickering hopes grow from…

D: I gotta run, dude, ma’s shouting, but I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?

D: Try to rest up.

J: Cheers D, I appreciate it.

Delon’s icon went grey.

Jack put his laptop down to one side, clocking the time.

8:57pm.

Less than 12 hours until school.

He put his head down and tried to rest.

He was going to need it. 

It was not an easy night for Jack.

Fortunately for him, there was to be no repeat of the vicious, sickening nightmare that had caused him to throw himself out of bed, but in its place was an unsatisfying, uneasy wait through the small hours and into the rising dawn.

He must’ve dropped off countless times, only to awaken what felt like moments later in a tangle of arms, legs and cover. No position felt comfortable for more than a few minutes, and rolling over and over provided his only method of finding temporary reprieve.

He knew he had to rest, but his body was far more preoccupied with testing out various doses of adrenaline. Time and time again his body reacted to the knowledge that he would be back in the fray once more, churning his stomach, spasming his arms as if he was about to be hit, his nerves reacting to countless invisible body blows and unseen enemies.

He did not lose consciousness often enough, or long enough, to pull together anything like enough real sleep.

After what felt like hours and hours he belatedly started checking his laptop through the gloom, and counted the hours and minutes as they bled away, waiting until it would be too late to realistically run away and join any passing circuses, and he’d just have to deal with it.

The backlit sky slowly trickled into being, it was cloudless and serene; a dazzling expanse of blue.

His mother came in to check on him a little earlier than usual, and he looked at her with tired eyes. She offered encouragement, a little kindness, and her usual mini-lecture on education, as his mind worried about other things entirely. He got up, had a quick wash, and dressed himself in as unobtrusive an outfit as he could throw together.

Grey t-shirt, black hoodie, jeans, scruffy trainers, rucksack.

He picked at a cereal bar and drained a large glass of juice. His parents were having a ‘discussion’ about something meaningless in the utility room, something to do with ties or shirt collars, and the sheer mind-numbing mediocrity of it put him at unease.

His mood was sour, and a thousand-yard stare and a trembling leg did not help either. Each time his mind attempted to tackle the day ahead, his heart rate would shoot up and his palms began to perspire, so he preferred to cocoon himself from the reality of the situation via adolescent disillusionment. Focusing on his parents’ foibles at least took his mind off the impending plank-walk he would have to undergo.

Rinsing the glass and leaving it by the sink, he threw a load of crap from the fridge into a tupperware box for lunch (an apple, some ham, a yoghurt…) though he doubted if he would even have the stomach to eat it when the time came.

He trudged back to his room to have a little alone time before the big plunge, and sat on his bed, whipping out his phone and staring at the clock until he definitely had to leave. His leg was really developing a tremor by now, and he had bitten his nails right down on both hands without really giving it a second thought.

His parents gave him a quick hug as he went to go, they must have known something was up, but the tedium of their own lives took precedence for now. Jack was not a cheerful kid, so they’d long since decided it was better to be passively supportive than to try and figure out what had put him in a mood lately, and in some small way, he didn’t blame them for their lack of concern as much as he perhaps should’ve done.

His mother asked about his glasses as he went to leave, and he feigned forgetfulness, saying he’d get them from his bedroom in a second, which she paid no heed to, turning to her husband and continuing their conversation.

He left without bothering to embellish the lie, a sense of pointlessness overwhelming what little compulsion he had to try and keep up the act in front of his parents. He hadn’t been this disillusioned with them in quite a while. It’s not that he wanted to tell them what had happened particularly – he was very wary of Caitlin’s family’s supposed influence and he knew there would be some revelations he didn’t want to put them through – but he did feel like they just expected him to manage his own unhappiness at times, that because they had a Beta community to fall back on that he would be in the same boat. They were so blind to the reality…

It was not far to the bus stop. The two kids he’d seen last time were already running around on the grassy verge, playing boisterously in the crisp morning air.

The Alpha bus arrived within 5 minutes, and after letting the pair embark, he stepped up himself.

“Hey lad,” said the driver, giving him an approving nod. He responded as politely as he felt, smiling at the man, before turning to the interior of the enormous bus. His stomach was rocking on the high seas by now, but there was to be no turning back.

Yet again, there were no seats immediately visible with his slightly fuzzy vision, but he could make out the pig-tailed girl who had been so bratty with him last time was busy gossiping to one of her friends and had not spotted him.

Taking advantage of her preoccupation, he opportunistically slunk past her and walked a little further down the bus, holding onto the massive metal bars as the driver jammed the thing into gear and clunkily lurched back out onto the residential road.

“Can I sit here?” he asked a young Alpha boy who was probably only about 8 or 9, staring out of the window on his own, occupying the window side of a large double seat.

“Sure,” he said dismissively, turning to look at Jack briefly, apparently uninterested in what he saw, and then turned his attention back to the world outside. The kid was close to 7 feet in height, so not incomparably tall, but proportionally much larger and stockier than any Beta adult would realistically be – a literal overgrown child.

Jack hauled himself up to the seat, sitting next to him, and stared straight ahead like a zombie, ignoring the shrill yells of glee, anger and chaos all around him.

It didn’t take long for the bus to reach the school, there weren’t many more stops on the journey between his neighbourhood and Oakwood High due to the route it ran, and as his anxiety crescendoed, the school bus rounded one final corner and came to halt behind the others.

Jack waited patiently for most of the other kids to exit the bus, before making his own way off. The young lad who’d been sat next to him trudged down the steps behind him carelessly, seemingly in a world of his own.

As Jack dropped to the ground from the last step, he looked around for Delon, spying his outline about 20 feet away by one of the trees that lined the road. He was instantly recognisable as a gangly, Beta-sized silhouette in baggy shorts and a baseball cap.

Looking both ways to make sure he wasn’t broadsided by an onrushing giant, he hastily walked over to his friend, who gave him a firm embrace and a knowing, familiar smile.

“Nice to see you, man,” the lanky Beta said, “Stick with me, stay strong.”

He felt like he was about to puke, heading into a building where Caitlin would also be right now. The nerves were frankly obscene, it was actually hard to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

Delon stayed just in front of him, guiding him, obscuring him somewhat from view with his superior height. As they stayed close to the sides of the corridors, Jack looked down, following Delon’s footsteps. He kept resisting the urge to raise his head, he didn’t want his face to be seen by the Alphas above, neither did he want to accidentally lock eyes with the person he feared above all others. Sod’s law dictated that if he so much as looked up once, she would be the one to spot him.

They reached the first classroom of the day and he sat himself down at his Beta-sized desk nervously, the urge to vomit at the forefront of his mind. His peripheral awareness slowly bled in, a little like when you raise your head from underwater and your senses gradually return.

Alphas essentially surrounded him on all sides except in front, Delon was sort-of diagonal off to one side, not far away, but not close enough to feel the benefit of his presence.

Glancing to his left, he recognised the brand of sneakers as belonging to Alex, and very cautiously raised his eyes to look at her, almost afraid to.

The girl was wearing tight grey shorts that showed off her athletic legs and a slightly baggy red hoodie, but her attention appeared to be glued on something at the front of the class, her head fixed forward, not looking his way.

He looked up at her, gripped by his own feelings of panic and turmoil at once more being in the presence of enormous people who could belittle him whenever they fancied. Her eyes briefly flitted in his direction before her gaze shot forward, as if she was avoiding looking over at him.

The class went as normal, and Jack tried to maintain his focus and not give in to the gut-wrenching anxiety that bubbled away. It was a strain to see the board clearly without his glasses, but as long as he looked in the right direction and paid some attention, he almost looked like he wasn’t a complete wreck. Almost.

As the bell rang out, and those around him packed away, Delon approached him, checking if he was alright. He practically shivered as the long legs of Alex strode off to the side of him as she left, stealing a quick glance at the back of her as she exited the classroom.

Delon seemed to be fully aware of what was on his mind.

“She said she can’t talk to us, remember?” he reminded sagely, which provided literally no comfort to the jumpy teen at all.

The next couple of classes were a blur of overwrought, restless panic. He kept his nose in his books and tried his best to concentrate on what was being taught, but he felt increasingly faint and uneasy. He began to worry that even if it were to be a completely event-free day, he would still have a breakdown by the end of it.

Delon led him around like a sick puppy; they waited the short morning break in a corner of the library where people rarely ventured before the next stretch of lessons began. Delon did not share the two classes before lunchtime, and was unsure how to proceed. It was agreed that Jack didn’t have much choice but to be quick, inconspicuous and keep his head down.

The thought of having to traverse the cavernous corridors without a wingman watching out for him filled him with dread.

Penny, too, was notable by her absence thus far in the school day, which added to the floundering feeling of Jack being out of his depth. She’d said she would see him, but without a way of contacting her directly, how would that even work?

Lesson #4 passed without incident, but then Delon had to part ways. Jack kept his eyes to the floor and made his way to his class as swiftly as he could, reaching his desk and sitting down with a thud, exhaling a wobbly stream of air as he successfully completed another gruelling mini-odyssey. He saw the familiar grey shorts and toned legs a little way off to the left, but daren’t look over. He didn’t want to look at any of the Alphas in the eye any more in case it might push him over the edge – he arguably felt as vulnerable as he had at any point in the day.

It was one thing to see the occasional giant, but to be surrounded by them, all of them his peers, and to be constantly reminded of their physical superiority, was bad enough on a normal school day, but with the added reminder of Caitlin, and the stress of roaming the same halls, it was unbearable. The only bright light on his horizon was Penny, the only person who had ever made the idea of ‘giant’ signify anything other than dominance, humiliation and inferiority.

As the fifth lesson finished up, he hurried to pack his books away into his rucksack but conspired to tip the contents onto the floor; the strap catching on the chair in his haste, scattering his books and papers over a localised area. A hot wave of shame passed over him as he scrambled onto his hands and knees to sweep them all back into a pile and stow them away. He didn’t have time to lose – he simply had to get to the next class as soon as possible to blend into the crowds.

A few of the Alphas laughed and cat-called at him as they left, and he was quickly left behind, stuffing everything into his bag carelessly, not a second to spare.

There was a slight squeak of sneaker on floor beside him, and he turned to see the cause of the noise. Alex was stooped down, one of his books in her oversized hand.

He froze, a look of embarrassment and fear on his face, and her impassive expression melted into something between guilt and sorrow.

“Hey,” she said, softly, her big, dark chestnut eyes glancing over at the classroom door to make sure she wasn’t being observed.

“Hey,” he said back, feeling an enormous wave of emotion rise up within him from absolutely nowhere as his eyes started to water inadvertently. He wiped at them with his sleeve, not wanting to cry in front of her. Seeing her brought back a vision of him clutching his shoulder by the poolside, and begging her to help him.

“Oh god,” she said softly, reaching out to put her large hand on his shoulder to try and comfort the tiny boy. He gasped slightly, sniffing back the tears.

She slid her bag off her shoulder next to her and reached inside the front pocket, producing a small bundle of fabric, like a handkerchief. Unwrapping it gently, she revealed a Beta pair of glasses, the exact pair, in fact, that had been left at Caitlin’s place.

“Quick,” she said edgily, “What’s your next class?” looking again at the doorway.

“French,” he sniffed, taking the glasses from her large grasp and putting them in his pocket instinctively, composing himself.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice wavering, “You didn’t have t…”

“Are you in 3A or 3B?” she interrupted sharply, glancing down at her phone.

“Err… 3B,” he replied, looking on as she stood up to her full height.

“Go, quickly,” she encouraged, her face nodding forwards impatiently, not in an especially stern way, more… apprehensive.

He zipped up his bag, threw it over his shoulder, and rushed to the door, poking his head out and making his way along the corridor. There were still quite a few kids making their way between lessons, and as he hurried along, he realised that Alex was following him, a short distance behind.

It wasn’t the longest walk to 3B, but the school was at such a scale it took about a minute, all the while he could feel that Alex was behind, trying not to look like she was on escort duty, looking at her phone idly.

His heart rate was insanely elevated as he made his way round the last corner and got to the door, he paused as he went to enter and looked back to see the girl stood about 20 feet away. She looked back at him with a neutral expression on her face, but momentarily flashed him the tiniest little look that said ‘You’re ok now’, and turned on her heel, putting her phone away.

He went inside the classroom and sat down, puffing his cheeks out. He reached into his pocket and brought out the glasses Alex had recovered for him. He had expected them to be warped or broken in some way, but they were absolutely fine. It was his back-up pair after all, so the clarity wasn’t perfect and the prescription was slightly out, but as he slid them back on he couldn’t believe the difference it made.

The slightly fuzzy, scary world of towering, blurry people was gone, and he could see around himself properly once more. Turning his attention to the board, he was able to concentrate on what the teacher was saying without straining his eyes or pretending to see, and it freed him up to treat the lesson for what it was, which kept a little of the panic at bay for now. His leg still bounced relentlessly, and he still felt like he was one hard pat on the back away from spewing, but at least he could distract himself.

As for Alex, grabbing his glasses was something he would not have expected from her, especially because Caitlin would surely have noticed their absence and asked questions. He could only speculate that she had picked them up as soon as she left the pool, which meant that she had already made her mind up to help him in some way. Penny herself couldn’t find the glasses when she had rescued him, so it did check out.

During the lesson, he felt his phone vibrate a few times, but was unable to check until the class was over. At the bell, he quickly packed away his things and made his way to the library, his improved eyesight empowering him in a way that was startling in its simplicity. Previously it had been like tunnel vision, with a bewildering backdrop of peripheral movement that he couldn’t afford to concentrate on. The glasses enabled him to be that bit more aware of his surroundings; the leg speed and direction of the giants around him could also be judged more clearly so he could stay out of harm’s way that bit better.

Before long, he was in the library, and found the same corner that Delon and he had notifications from earlier.

As he went to swipe the screen, a very tall figure approached from off to one side, looming over him.

He turned to look as a wave of sandy-brown hair descended down towards him, the gorgeous face of Penny sinking down to his level, her eyes sparkling as no-one else’s seemed to do.

“Hi Jack,” she smiled, speaking extra quietly so no-one but him could hear.

“Hi Penny,” he said, his heart fluttering. 

As Penny crouched down to rest on her knees next to him, Jack immediately felt himself welling up with powerful emotions he couldn’t control.

She’d barely settled herself for a second before he found himself stepping forward to her more extensive frame, almost tripping over her folded legs in his haste and wrapping his little arms either side of her torso, startling her with suddenness of his actions. He squeezed the bigger girl’s body as hard as he possibly could with his arms, knowing that even if he used all of his strength, she would barely notice the difference.

Long, gentle limbs wrapped around him in return, temporarily blanketing him from the world.

He melted into her, pressing his face against her chest as his eyes glistened with tears once more.

“It’s ok,” she whispered down, giving his body a gentle squeeze.

He felt so vulnerable and tiny in her arms; he was holding her to him as firmly as he physically could, hard enough that his muscles were trembling with the effort. It probably felt as fragile and delicate to her as her own compassionate, restrained hug was for him.

“It’s ok…” she repeated softly, unfurling her arms as he continued to cling to her for a few more moments before stepping back, wiping the moisture from his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, embarrassed at his own sensitivity and how intense he had made the situation.

“Don’t be,” she replied with a warm smile, sitting back on her heels and putting her hands on her knees. He hadn’t fully taken stock of her appearance in the sudden onrush of emotion, but she was sporting an old-fashioned style summer dress which revealed a lot more of her body than the more unassuming outfits she had worn prior. She looked absolutely perfect; her long sandy-brown hair tucked over her shoulder and her willowy but surprisingly svelte arms exposed.

“So… um… how are you?” She asked nervously, a look of concern in her eyes, stooping her body a little to look down on him less.

“I’m holding together,” he said, his voice trembling slightly.

She noticed his glasses, reaching out and touching the side of his face ever so delicately with her large fingers to examine them.

“Wait… aren’t these…?” she began.

“Alex,” he explained, “She grabbed them from… you know... I think.”

“That’s… really nice of her,” Penny replied, looking surprised and perhaps a little impressed.

“I know… right?” he said, puffing out his cheeks then inhaling deeply, wanting more than anything to fall back into the towering girl’s arms once more to feel safe.

An idle daydream flashed into his mind of doing so, causing a rush of butterflies to fill his belly.

“Hey…” a familiar voice said, a voice belonging to Delon.

Jack rubbed his eyes embarrassedly before turning around, attempting to disguise the rawness of his mental state from his friend.

“Hey… Delon,” he coughed, clearing his throat, his eyes slightly red from the tears.

“You doing alright, man?” he asked, looking at Penny and giving her a concerned look.

“I’m fine, just been tough today is all…” he said quietly.

“Keep going, you’re doing fine,” Penny said, giving him a warm smile.

“Yeah, stay strong, dude,” Delon added reassuringly, “Nearly there now.”

“Thank you so much, guys,” Jack smiled, sniffing and laughing dorkily.

“New glasses already?” Delon asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, um… Alex, actually, she managed to grab them and gave them to me,” Jack explained.

“Oh… wow,” Delon said, taken aback, “Alex eh? Mad.”

The three of them quickly agreed upon a plan of action for lunch; Delon would scope out a quiet area, Penny would accompany Jack there, and they would make sure that he was safe until lessons resumed.

Delon left swiftly, and Jack and Penny were alone in the library once more.

As Jack waited for a text from Delon, he spoke to Penny quietly before finally getting round to checking the notifications that had buzzed in his pocket the lesson before lunch.

Penelope Lévesque (friend request pending)

P: I hope you’re ok today

P: I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help, I’m in the library now

P: If you can come here at lunchtime I’m sure I can help you and Delon

P: Stay strong, I know you’ll be ok

P: Penny x

He started to well up again, looking from the screen up at Penny herself as she gazed off to one side thoughtfully.

Her profile was lit by a brilliant ray of sunshine that cut through from the window across the way, picking out her features against the dim library interior.

She turned back to him, the beam passing across her face causing her to squint slightly, and her expression softened as she saw the look in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she said, ducking out of the dazzling sunlight to see him better.

“…nothing,” he replied quietly, pressing the button on the side of his phone to turn off the screen.

“I’m sure you’re thinking about… her,” Penny ventured reluctantly, her eyes drifting downwards a bit before shooting back to meet his gaze sharply.

“I know you’re nervous, but we will protect you as best we can,” she explained quietly, a steely resolve underpinning the gentleness of her voice and mannerisms.

“Thank you, Penny,” Jack said, his face betraying how much it meant to him, how close to crying he really was.

She brought her long arms around him again, the lightly freckled skin and soft hairs so clearly visible at such a scale, and held him for a number of seconds as he allowed himself to sink into the beautiful feeling of security she gave him once more.

Before too long, Delon texted him with a location, and he and Penny carefully made their way through the school, the lofty girl shadowing him and keeping watch discreetly so as not to draw unnecessary attention to the pair of them.

Delon had found a secluded corner of the school grounds near some leafy trees, both Penny and Jack approached him quickly and sat down with their backs leant against the tree trunks. It was secluded and out of the way from where most of the students would go. Jack reached into his bag and brought out his Tupperware lunchbox, fishing out the yoghurt pot and stabbing at its contents with a small plastic spoon indifferently.

No-one really said anything for a while, Delon ate his food seemingly within a matter of seconds, as usual, and Penny didn’t appear to have brought anything to eat. Jack offered her some of his as he wasn’t especially hungry, but she shook her head, encouraging him to eat as much as he possibly could. It’s not like it would have been more than a few mouthfuls for her anyway.

His appetite was shot, butterflies constantly fluttering throughout his insides as thoughts about where he was, and who that meant he was in the vicinity of, kept rising to the surface.

A couple of times kids ran past near where they were, and Jack had to fight the urge to duck or scramble out of sight entirely, and Penny seemed to sense this, looking across at him knowingly, soothing him, intentionally or otherwise, with her warm smile.

“So, Penny,” said Delon, flipping his long-since-empty Tupperware box from hand to hand carelessly like a football, “How tall are you exactly?”

Jack felt a pang of something strange. Almost like… jealousy… like Delon asking this question to her was inappropriate, or untoward… when, of course, it really wasn’t.

“Oh… I’m twelve seven,” she replied, looking over at the gangly Beta, “Though I might have a few more inches to go,” she added, her expression hard to place.

“You’re still growing?” Delon asked, turning to look at her quizzically as he popped the box up in the air and caught it between his fingertips, spinning it round and placing it down on the ground between his legs.

“…Yeaaah,” she said in a drawn out way, brushing her arm gently and bringing it against her body, “Not loads, but not done yet, it seems.”

“Wow,” Delon said, looking over at Jack, who was beginning to feel uncomfortable, though he wasn’t sure if it was because he felt his best friend was being a little impolite, or if he was just being way too precious over Penny.

“I’m sure it’ll stop soon,” Jack said weakly, looking over at the girl to see if she was still inexpressive. She turned back to him and her eyes lit up a little.

“Perhaps,” she said, “Or maybe I’ll just keep growing forever,” she smiled, looking right at him with her eyes twinkling.

“I thought you didn’t want that?” Jack replied, confused, momentarily forgetting that Delon was right there. He felt bad as soon as he said it, realising too late how blunt he sounded.

“Oh… well, yeah… I guess not,” she said quietly, the glint fading from her eye as she drew her arms in close. His stomach lurched as he realised he had put his foot in it yet again, and closed his eyes in frustration.

Delon said nothing for a moment, perhaps sensing the awkwardness.

“Well it’s English this afternoon, just a double period of that with me and then you’re done,” he said eventually, punctuating the silence.

“Mmhmm,” murmured Jack, still trying to undo his last comment in his head, distant and very apprehensive about being outside.

“I can… walk you home if you want to stay after school…” offered Penny, “If Delon walks you to the library again we can wait until most people have gone.”

“That would work,” agreed Delon, looking to Jack for confirmation.

He paused, weighing up that it was probably a better option than trying to make it to the school bus, which usually ran late anyway - he did not want to be stood outside school waiting for any length of time.

“I guess… if that’s ok with you, Penny…?” Jack asked, looking over at her, afraid to catch her disappointed expression after his latest stupid comment.

A gentle smile signified that if he had upset her, it was only temporary, and this gave him a great sense of relief.

They spoke a little about school, and the teachers that they knew mutually despite the year’s difference, until it was approaching time to get back to class. Penny headed off first, giving Jack a little squeeze of the shoulder as she did so, and after a few minutes Delon escorted him through the throngs of giant schoolchildren and to the classroom, keeping watch vigilantly without looking too obvious about it.

They arrived in plenty of time, before all but a couple of the other students had arrived, and he got all of his stuff out on his desk and waited patiently. Delon turned around to check on him a couple of times, flashing him a supportive smile. All he had to do was see this through and get to the library, and then he could spend some more time in Penny’s company – a thought that filled him with such warm feelings.

The classroom soon filled up, and Jack caught a snapshot of familiar grey shorts and long, toned legs as Alex walked past his little desk and sat a short distance away at her own oversized one. He cautiously turned to look at her as she rooted into her bag and took out her things, she seemed a bit perturbed, puffing her cheeks out as if she was tired or run down. Her eyes snapped over to him, and Jack felt himself freeze, but her stare wasn’t harsh or unfriendly, she looked at him almost with weariness, like she was slightly upset, even.

She blinked at him subconsciously and went back to fetching her books, before focusing her attention on the front of the room as the teacher began the introduction to their latest assignment.

As the teacher spoke at length, Jack found himself propping himself up, first with one arm, and then both arms, as the strain of the day began to catch up with him. The teacher’s voice was pretty monotonous and he was finding it hard to pay attenti-

“NOOOOO!!!!”

The sound of 20 or more Alpha students braying with laughter immediately flooded his senses, his eyes darting around in panic only to be confronted with leering faces peering down at him, some even rising out of their chairs to get a glimpse of the hapless Beta.

He realised, by virtue of the slight drool trail in the corner of his lip, that it was he who had screamed out loud after falling asleep at his desk.

He caught a quick glimpse of Alex as his gaze met hers, and hers was one of the few faces not contorted in grotesque mirth at his sorry predicament. His face flushed red as he then saw the teacher, Mrs. Greenbaum, a petite (for an Alpha) middle-aged woman march towards him with an unimpressed expression plastered on her face.

“Crawford, care to contribute something?” she enunciated sharply, glaring way down at him, an eyebrow raised in disapproval.

He felt himself beginning to shrink in his chair and well up as a couple of the others called out; one of the lads towards the back contributing a slightly-too-loud “What a little pussy,” during an inopportune lull in other peoples’ chatter, drawing the ire of Mrs. Greenbaum, who immediately turned her attention to him instead. With the class’ focus drawn towards the Alpha outcrier, Jack felt his classmates’ attention leave him and then follow the teacher as she paced back towards the front of the room once more after berating the other boy.

“I hope for your sakes there are no further interruptions,” she said pointedly, glancing over at both of them in turn before continuing with the lesson.

Jack allowed his head to sink down onto the desk and tried to stem the wave of embarrassment. He just wanted the world to swallow him up then and there.

The rest of the double lesson passed without further embarrassment, though it became a fight to keep himself awake towards the end, the fear of drifting off jabbing sharply at his heart whenever he felt like he might close his eyes briefly and succumb to his exhaustion.

When class finished, Jack slowly packed his stuff away as many of the Alphas strolled past, some of whom still talking about his outburst with glee and gesticulating down at him. He tried to ignore them, but looked up in fright as he saw Mrs. Greenbaum standing not 4 yards away from him, her expression stoic, but not angry or domineering.

“What was that little outburst about, Jack?” she said calmly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she towered over his seated form.

“I don’t know…” he said, intimidated at having this adult woman loom over him. He was not used to one of the teachers paying him so much attention, at least not for having done something wrong.

“I’ve not been feeling well today,” he said, zipping up his bag and looking up at her, cradling it to his chest like a security blanket. He caught a glimpse of Alex’s tall form sidle past the teacher, her red hoodie catching his eye as she exited the room.

Mrs. Greenbaum looked down at him, pressing her lips together. He could tell she wasn’t buying the ‘I’m not well, Miss’ excuse, but she probably wasn’t especially concerned about the disruption such an insignificant student might stir up. She arguably felt it was her duty to follow things up, but whether it was pity, or indifference, she quickly lost whatever incentive she had to berate him further.

“Well let’s just try to keep interruptions to the class to a minimum in future… it’s not like you to want to be the centre of attention, I expect it from students like Collins,” she said, meaning the boy who had been caught shouting out, “But not from you – you’re usually quite the invisible man.”

Her words were matter-of-fact, but the truth behind them was quite the back-handed observation.

“I am sorry, Miss, it won’t happen again,” he said, looking up at her and trying to put on his most earnest expression.

She nodded at him sagely and then turned on her heel, going back to her desk to pack her own things. Jack rushed to his feet and walked briskly to the door, very grateful to find Delon waiting just outside for him.

“You ok, man?” he asked, starting to walk alongside his clearly agitated and jaded friend.

“Let’s just get to the library, please,” Jack replied sharply, his energy level rapidly becoming a concern.

Delon led the way, with Jack following close behind. The library wasn’t very far, only a couple of corners and a corridor, but it was busy, and he was still incredibly scared that he would be discovered with the end so very nearly in sight.

As they hugged the side of the wall and avoided some of the larger bodies, Jack happened to look up and see Hannah, the buxom blonde, walking in the opposite direction. He kept his head down and was relieved to see her curvy stride continue apace, but reminded himself to not be so lax in future. He was insignificant enough to not be spotted if he just kept his face out of sight, and avoided detection – easy enough at Beta size, with the Alphas’ attention usually fixated on a much higher plane.

As soon as he finished giving himself a telling-off, a colossal set of very toned legs ending in pink and white trainers strode purposefully past. His neck locked in place, forcing his head down. His breath caught in his throat as the temptation to verify it was exactly who he thought it was clawed at his brain. He kept his feet moving, focusing on Delon, putting the blinkers on, and distance between himself and the person he wanted to bump into least.

His heart pounding with fear, they made it to the library. Delon pressed the button to open the library doors and they passed through the Alpha-sized anti-theft gates, making their way to the corner of the library where Penny had agreed to meet them. He felt safer here; there was zero reason for Caitlin to venture inside, but the spectre of her haunted him.

He could only assume he’d passed within a couple of feet of her. It was more than enough to startle him half to death.

He wasn’t sure if the panic was showing on his face or not, but as he and Delon waited for Penny to arrive, the two barely said a word to each other.

Jack suspected that his friend might well have noticed who they had walked past too, and was probably trying not to alarm him in case he hadn’t noticed her. Delon reached out to snag a book from one of the nearby shelves and flicked through it idly, making eye contact briefly as if to verify Jack was ok. Jack snuck him a half-smile, which was reciprocated meekly, and Delon’s eyes returned to the book. Truth be told, his friend seemed just as startled as he was.

It didn’t take long for Penny to rock up, Jack turning his head as her towering form appeared around the corner of the bookcase that shielded them from view, breaking into a smile as she spied him.

“Hey you two,” she said breezily, crouching down to their level, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to have two tiny friends. A simple gesture to accommodate for them, but one that could never be taken for granted; it was all too rare for Alphas to be so considerate for those smaller than themselves.

She clocked the peculiarly downcast expressions on both of their faces, and looked at Jack anxiously.

“Has something happened?” she asked intuitively.

“Um… I’m pretty certain we walked past… you know who,” Jack said hesitantly, looking from Penny to Delon and back again.

“You saw her too? Shit, man,” Delon blurted out, almost spinning on his heel at the realisation. “I wasn’t going to say anything, just in case…”

 “She didn’t see you, though, right?” Penny asked, her fingers fidgeting nervously as she knelt in front of the pair.

“I don’t think so,” Delon expanded, “I didn’t really look at her, though. As soon as I saw her head above the crowd, I kept my eyes down and hoped Jack was doing the same.”

Jack nodded, thinking back to how foolish he’d been by looking up at Hannah – a mistake he would not be making twice.

“She probably would have done something if she saw either of you,” Penny said, before a flash of regret made her face flush.

“Shit… I don’t want to think about it, I’m sorry, me and my stupid mouth,” she said apologetically.

“No, you’re right, she would have,” added Jack darkly, “So that simply means she didn’t see us, and that’s a good thing.”

“Yes… very,” Penny said, looking at them both with relief, her fingers prising themselves apart almost subconsciously.

“You’ve hung in there today, mate,” Delon added, his face returning to a more familiar smile as the gut-wrench sensation of encountering Caitlin began to recede, “You survived.”

“Thanks, Delon,” Jack said, “Thank you… both of you…”

He drew a lot of strength from the two people who cared for him so much. Delon, his oldest friend, and Penny, the only Alpha confidant he’d ever had. He was scared, but having seemingly walked past the enemy unnoticed, there was a little more steel to his resolve now; that he could maybe cope with all of this stress and stay out of trouble did not seem quite such an impossibility.

“Well, I suggest you wait here for about half an hour, and then I’ll walk you home, ok?” Penny ventured to Jack.

“That would be perfect,” he replied, looking from Penny back to Delon.

“In that case, I’m gonna head, guys,” Delon said, putting the book back on the shelf and slinking past Jack, giving him a quick shoulder hug as he did.

Penny scooched over to one side to allow the Beta past, “Stay safe, Delon,” she told him.

“Cheers, and make sure this little one gets home,” he replied, giving her a little wink as he passed her by.

“Until tomorrow,” he said to them both in a half-whisper, aware that this was still the library, and strode off purposefully, leaving the two alone in one corner of the library.

Jack took a moment to register that Delon had gone, and sat himself down on the Beta chair that had been snuck into this specific corner, clearly very tired, but relieved that he was so close to the end of the school day.

“You sure you’re ok?” Penny asked anew, moving a little closer but trying not to crowd him. Her sandy-brown hair swayed slightly from side to side as she manoeuvred herself, the scent of it washing over Jack. She still smelled of comfort, of soft fabric… of safety.

“I think so,” he sighed, “I mean… I’m a bit shook up, but nothing happened… maybe I can stay under her radar for a while… maybe it’s not so bad.”

“I hope you’re right, I don’t mean to worry…” she said, still looking crestfallen, “I really don’t want you to worry either… you’ve been so so brave.”

“I just keep having to tell myself I did it,” he said quietly, “This was the tough first step, I hope it gets easier.”

“I hope so too,” she agreed, “But let’s not talk about it anymore… what do you want to do until we head off?”

“I dunno,” he admitted, “Read some books?” he shrugged, a small smile forming.

“Such a comedian!” she said, feigning wide-eyed astonishment, going along with him effortlessly.

She was so lovely. And kind. Now that the worries were receding, at least for today, he begun to feel a lot more carefree. For the first time in a long time, that part of his brain was switched off. It was liberating to just enjoy talking to someone he liked so much, and not think of anything or anyone else for a while.

They spoke at length about their favourite books, his: sci fi, adventure, the classics, some fantasy, hers: romance, a little horror, the classics, some fantasy. The overlap between what they’d read, and what they’d watched, was genuine, and he felt so at ease in the company of this charming, articulate girl. They took turns disappearing off to grab particular books to show one another, she’d bring oversized copies of things he’d coincidentally already read or at least heard about, and he’d respond by handing her tiny versions of things she seemed to derive great interest from also.

They discussed all sorts of stuff until eventually it felt like a good time to leave, so they gathered their things, and she escorted him from the building and out along the road that led towards where he lived.

“You don’t have to walk me all the way home if you don’t want to, by the way,” he interjected half-jokingly as they continued to talk books and movies. He was a little concerned that she felt he was so… vulnerable, but curious to see if she would still insist on accompanying him – he would rather her stay, of course, he just didn’t want her to do it out of a sense of obligation or pity.

“Oh it’s fine, I’m more than happy to do it,” she replied, smiling down at him. “Besides, I’ve got nowhere better to be.”

A surge of endorphins rushed through his body; the knowledge she wanted to spend time with him was like a natural high.

It didn’t take half as long as he’d hoped to reach his house. Even though it was a fair distance, time absolutely flew by as they spoke, and when he saw the familiar one-storey dwelling come into view, a part of him crumpled, as this was the tipping point where he would be left to his own devices once more. The prospect of another dispiriting evening worrying over going into school once more did not fill him with much joy, especially alongside his parents’ petty squabbling and general disinterestedness in anything beyond their direct field of vision.

“We’re here,” Penny exclaimed brightly, pointing out the thing Jack was so reluctant to acknowledge.

“We are indeed,” he replied, sounding a little tense, thoughts playing on his mind.

“Are you alright?” she said, picking up on his tone immediately, and with good reason.

“No, I’m fine… it’s just…”

He wanted to say that he wanted to spend a little longer with her before she had to go, and that talking to her had made his worries melt away, even if only for an hour or so.

He wanted to say that, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

“I dunno, I feel a bit funny, that’s all.”

“How so?” she asked, “I mean, I’ve got a little time, want to talk about it?”

“Well… if you would,” he said, brightening up significantly. She didn’t appear to notice it might have something to do with her continuing presence, but having a positive effect on his mood seemed to embolden her.

“Sure, of course,” she replied.

“…thank you, Penny,” he said, his heart filling up as he realised he was being gifted this wonderful, and unanticipated, extra time with Penny.

He unlocked the front door quickly and the towering girl stooped down, taking her satchel off her shoulder before entering the doorway and gingerly moving inside so he could close the door behind her. Her dress billowed out a little bit and she had to pat it down, giving him a cute ‘oops’ face as she fought to avoid any embarrassment. She was so pretty, and her outfit looked so good on her; it was strange to see someone he thought of as a friend and confidant in such terms. It was almost as if she had blossomed, and it was hard for him not to have his heart-strings pulled by her radiance; she had no idea how lovely she looked, and how it made him feel around her.

“Do you want a drink or something to eat?” he offered, removing his jacket and putting his bag down in the hallway.

“I’m ok actually,” she said, “…but thank you.”

“Where do you want to sit down, then?” he asked, not really sure where to go…

“Wherever’s comfy, or wherever you’re comfortable,” she responded, “I’m easy.”

“We could go in my room?” he suggested, half-hoping. The idea he could invite someone like Penny into his own personal, intimate space was… overwhelming.

“Yeah, sure, will I fit?” she joked, giving him a crooked smile.

“Only one way to find out…” he warned, gesturing for the giant girl to follow him.

She clambered carefully so as to avoid knocking anything with her long limbs, and made her way to his doorway.

“It’s maybe a bit of a squeeze but don’t worry, if you don’t want to go in you don’t have to,” he said sheepishly, fully aware that this was NOT the most obvious place to entertain an Alpha guest.

“No, I want to peek at your stuff! You’ve seen mine, remember?” she exclaimed, nearly pushing past him to check out what his room was like.

“Ooh, nice,” she cooed, manoeuvring her way into the middle of his room surprisingly easily and sitting with her legs stretched out back towards the door.

She was still slightly taller than he was, even though it was just her upper body that was upright. If he walked over to her he could look her practically square in the eye, if he ever felt the slightest inclination to do something so… forward.

“I like it,” she said, “I think it’s roomier than mine.”

He looked at her with an incredulous face, there was no way his Beta room was even close to her Alpha one.

“Relatively…” she continued, spotting his expression and laughing, “Compared to you, I mean… god…”

“Oh, perhaps,” he said, feeling like a dolt.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit tired… slow on the uptake,” he admitted.

“No, I get it, it’s been a long day,” she said, “You’ve done so well.”

He stepped over her recumbent legs as she looked around nosily, and sat down on the bed a few feet from her torso. The vista he had, of her sitting on his floor, was surreal in the extreme. He had wondered countless times what it would be like to have someone so out-of-scale in this room… the truth was… it was incredible. She dwarfed everything, dominating the room, but she was perfectly happy to be there, looking at everything with interest.

“I like your posters,” she said, gesticulating at the two he had on his wall; a black-and-white photo print of a skyscraper, and a movie poster from an oldish sci-fi flick he’d mentioned to her in passing earlier.

“Yeah,” he said, “If you’ve not seen it, I highly recommend it,” he explained.

“I’ll definitely check it out,” she said, looking back to him with a slightly more serious face, giving him her full attention.

“So, what’s on your mind?” she asked, leaning her torso forward and resting her long arms on her knees, propping up her head.

“It's not just one thing, it's complicated...” he replied - it wasn’t so much being home, as feeling alone, not being able to talk to her in particular, being left to dwell on his darkest thoughts and concerns.

“It’s gotta be all this Caitlin stuff, I can understand if you’re still unable to process it…” she went on.

“Some of it is,” he said, “I just feel… listless… useless… pathetic…”

“Oh…” she said, taken aback a bit, “…that's not good.”

“It’s like I don’t know who I am right now, in a way,” he said, saying the first things that came into his mind, but avoiding making mention of how, right now, the thing he was dreading most was having to watch her walk out of the door and not see her for a while.

He took a breath.

“I used to think I had stuff figured out; work hard, keep your nose clean, it’ll pay off in the end… I haven’t felt like that for a while. When I’m on my own, my self-doubts consume me a bit, I can’t find things to distract me anymore, like I’m trapped in my own head…”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” she said.

“Do you get like that too?” he asked, rubbing the side of his head with his fingers as if to relieve the strain on his mind.

“Yeah, quite a lot, especially when I was struggling with the growth hormone when I was younger,” she said drily. “I used to long to go outside, or meet more kids my age, but I wasn’t really able to, I became very introverted, just sat thinking about things and wondering.”

“That’s tough,” he said, “But you’re a lot better now, right?”

“For a few years I’ve been pretty stable, so I’ve been able to catch up for lost time a bit. The growth is constant but manageable,” she replied candidly, “It will stop eventually, or so they keep telling me, but for the moment at least, they won’t intervene, even if I’m still slowly getting taller.”

“Do you worry that it won’t stop for a while, and you’ll get too tall?” he asked, a little on-the-nose, but she didn’t seem too fussed by the directness of the question.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I mean, I don’t mind being tall that much anymore, I’ve already overcome a lot of… problems, so a few more inches now won’t change anything.”

“You like being tall?” he asked.

“Yes and no. I definitely don’t like being singled out, people still call me things behind my back, though that’s perhaps also because I’m an oddball, but I don’t react to it. Being tall has grown on me though, and it’s not like it makes much difference with us, does it? I bet us giants all look the same to you anyway.”

“Not really,” he said “I can see you’re taller than most other Alpha girls, but it’s all relative.”

“I was never meant to be this tall, you see,” she stated, “My parents aren’t, they’re pretty short, actually. The growth hormone really did a number on me.”

“…I’m sorry,” Jack said sadly.

“What for?” she replied, her face genuinely curious.

“I don’t know… being nosy… asking about your height… that people have been mean to you,” he shrugged.

“I just wanted friends, now I have a few, even though I’m mostly seen as this awkward lanky girl… I’m happier now than I’ve been for a long time… and I get to be friends with you too…” she added, smiling at him.

“You lucky so-and-so,” he said self-deprecatingly, allowing himself to smile.

She smiled back, scratching the back of her arm as if she was nervous.

“Jack, can I ask you a serious question?” she said suddenly, her eyes sparkling with an intensity that was not there a moment ago.

“Yes…” he replied, straightening up a little, curious to see where this was going.

“Would you like me more if I were Beta?” she asked, very directly.

She had absolutely pinpointed the thing he had pondered at length, dreamed about, even. He wasn’t fully prepared for the question, but he knew the answer he should probably give.

“You’d still be you, I think I’d like you no matter what,” he said calmly.

“But if I were… you know, smaller… like you,” she pressed.

He felt awkward. He would maybe feel less intimidated around her if she was a Beta, but, if he was honest with himself, he loved who she was right now; he loved that she was so tall, yet so kind, it encompassed everything that he found so noble, and admirable, about her.

It was like a part of his mind was suddenly thrown into crystal clear focus - would he ever have wanted her to change, did he really look at her and envisage her being any different? The real answer, the one he was looking for, was no. She was perfect just the way she was.

“Well… would you prefer me if I were an Alpha?” he asked, straight-batting it back at her, not really sure entirely himself why he didn’t want to answer her question directly.

“No,” she replied instantaneously, “Of course not.”

“Not at all?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she reiterated.

He paused thoughtfully. His own non-answer now weighing a little heavily on his mind.

“I don’t think you see yourself the same way I see you,” she said.

“I guess not,” he shrugged, almost trying to shrug off the importance of what was being discussed. He was aware he was being a bit flippant, a sign that he was tired, and not quite himself.

“Well, what do you think I see when I look at you?” she asked, shifting her weight as she remained seated.

He could sense the gravity behind her words.

“I dunno…” he said, realising he really had to start giving some answers here.

“Sometimes, I think you see me as a little guy who needs saving all the time…” he said bleakly.

“Someone who can’t look after himself, who is vulnerable, gets upset all the time, I don’t know… I don’t know what you see…” he admitted, feeling his mood turn sour.

He had felt like this before, the first time she had walked him home. This had the same sickening inevitability about it.

She looked at him, her expression becoming noticeably wistful and sad.

“I don’t see you like that at all,” she replied quietly, almost like she was talking to herself.

The girl looked down.

He knew he was being downcast, and that he should not pass his frustrations on, but it was how he felt right now. Penny was so open; he trusted her, and whilst he didn’t want to hurt her or make her feel bad, he would rather be honest, even if it made her want to leave. He was still not in a good place, and talking wasn’t easy for him sometimes.

“Jack, do you remember when you kissed me.”

The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up.

“…yes…” he said in a small voice, embarrassed that she had not only remembered it, but was making mention of it out of the blue.

Penny’s head was still bowed.

“Why did you do it?” she asked softly. There was a slight tremble of emotion in her voice.

He felt his heart rate elevate, discomfort and panic setting in as he didn’t know how to respond.

“I don’t know, I was tired, emotional… wasn’t thinking,” he said, vaguely aware of how… blunt… that sounded, yet again, but numb to it.

“Oh…” she said, “Ok…”

It slowly hit him just how harsh his words might have sounded, and what she might well have been trying to find out…

He was almost certainly in the midst of fucking everything up again… alienating someone who didn’t deserve it in the slightest, and he had brought it all upon himself…

She just looked down at the floor, neither of them could think of anything to say… it was a heart-breakingly long pause.

Neither Penny nor Jack were able to conjure up any words from the ether.

It was agonising.

“I should probably go…” Penny eventually said.

“Please… don’t,” Jack said, leaning forward abruptly.

“I’m sorry for asking awkward questions…” she began, her head still bowed. He could hear she was very upset, “I’m not helping at all, you need rest, not me causing you grief.”

“Please don’t go,” he reiterated.

“Why not?” she asked, not cattily, but out of curiosity.

He paused.

“B-because…” he stammered, his throat going dry as a bone.

He might as well admit it.

“Because…I don’t want you to leave…” he admitted quietly, barely a whisper.

Her head finally raised up and he could see that she was flushed red, just like him, and her face was stained with tears.

“I don’t want to leave either…” she said softly, drying her eyes clumsily.

She truly was as vulnerable as him.

“I feel like I can talk to you, really talk to you… I like you so much, Jack,” she said, welling up a little.

“I really like you too,” he said, struggling to contain his own emotions.

He wiped a tear from his own eye - the emotional distance between them had been reduced to zero. The connection they’d currently established was as unbroken and unyielding as steel; their eyes were locked, trying to come to terms with the moment.

“I thought you’d not want anything to do with me, that you’d be scared of my size, or that you’d avoid me like other people do. I saw the way other Alphas treated Betas, how it was expected to be, and I kept my distance, but I saw you round school all the time… you hadn’t really changed from how I remember you.”

He was in quiet disbelief at the words tumbling from this beautiful girl.

“I wanted to reach out, and say hi, but you had no idea who I was, you’d be wary, assume I was just another giant looking to take advantage of you or throw you around… and I convinced myself of that the whole time…”

She wiped her eyes, still looking at him intensely.

“But when you kissed me… it lit a spark in me… that maybe you might see me the way I see you…”

He swallowed hard, the tears were flowing from his own eyes to match hers.

“That I wasn’t just some big clumsy thing, that you saw me as more than that girl you used to know… I know we’ve not spoken that much, but it feels like I’ve known you such a long time… I’ve liked you for such a long, long time…”

He didn’t know what to say. He was overwhelmed and dumbstruck at all of this. He’d known she was fond of him, that much was obvious, but the depth and similarity of the feelings she was expressing was almost too much to process. This towering, wonderful girl seemingly reciprocated his own complex, heartfelt emotions, and despite their obvious differences, their spirits were kindred – bonded by their experiences and the level of affection they shared.

“If this all sounds really stupid and I’m barking up the wrong tree just tell me to stop, I don’t want to embarrass myself further…” she added finally, looking to him to put her out of her misery one way or the other.

He was acutely aware he hadn’t budged an inch, hardly taken a breath, since she started speaking.

“…”

Her expression was slowly morphing into one of agitation, his reticence adding to her sense of having done something idiotic, of having judged this whole situation completely wrong, and freaking out someone who was under so much stress already. He could see her start to falter, and did the only thing he ever really wanted to do all along...

In one movement he stood to his feet and brought his face towards hers. Before his agitated mind could talk him out of it, he leant forward and pressed his lips to hers and closed his eyes. She didn’t move a muscle for a few seconds as his mouth sunk into the intoxicating warmth of her much larger lips, he felt the silkiness of her oversized skin, how unspeakably close he was to a human being so much larger than himself. He could feel a slight stickiness to the surface of her cheek where she had been crying; the subtle scent of tears drying on her sweet face.

With surprising gentleness, he felt her lips press back against his with real emotion, and enormous fingers clasp over the right side of his face ever so delicately, cradling his head as she kissed him back passionately.

He could feel her breathing deeply through her nostrils, the sound of the rushing air almost like being close to a steam locomotive. She was so much more powerful than him, but the feeling was of absolute, unshakeable security; of being cherished more than anything else in the world for this singular moment in time.

She overwhelmed his lips for a few seconds with her maw’s considerable embrace before hesitating and withdrawing, concern etched on her face, which was, if anything even redder than before.

Tears rolled down her face once more as what happened began to sink in, her face etched in half-joy, half-disbelief.

Neither of them spoke.

They didn’t need to. 

“… I’ve… never really kissed anyone before,” Penny finally uttered.

Jack felt his gut turn as he recounted that the same was not true of himself. It was not Penny’s fault, but she saw the flash of recollection on his face, and immediately realised what that meant.

She reached out and framed his face with her hand once more, the touch of her monumental fingers soothing him almost apologetically.

“I care for you very much,” she said.

“I care for you too,” he said back.

“I just feel like a silly little girl around you sometimes,” she admitted, “I get so nervous.”

The irony of this gentle giantess explaining that she felt… nervous, around him, was not lost on him. She saw him only as a human and an equal; the fact she could overpower him or impose her will on him were almost alien concepts, and it was this, more than anything else, that spoke of her true character.

“I don’t know how you’d ever be in awe of me,” he replied, “With you, it’s obvious, you’re so much bigger, and you’re very pretty…”

“You think I’m pretty?” she said, trying not to cry again.

“Well… yeah,” he replied.

She blushed, “It’s not every day a cute guy compliments me… that’s all.”

“…cute?” he queried, making a face.

“Oh god, you know what I mean, handsome, not because of your size.”

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s just… my mind’s in bits right now… please bear with me.”

“Imagine how I feel,” he replied, his heart still racing.

“Well, I don’t want to scare you, Jack, but this Alpha girl thinks the world of you. I have liked you for such a long time. I didn’t think for even a minute you could ever like me back, especially not after all you’ve been through.”

“And I was worried you just saw me like some kid brother…” Jack explained, “But you’ve been… everything… to me recently…”

He could feel himself welling up anew, and sensing this, Penny brought her head down and pressed her forehead to his gently. The pair of them huddled together, just enjoying the sensation of closeness to one another.

“I really don’t want to, but I probably have to get going soon,” she whispered after a short while, her voice making his skull buzz due to the contact they shared.

“I know you do,” he said, “You have no idea what it means to me that you stayed to talk to me, Penny.”

They moved their heads apart, and he gently kissed her on the cheek. The temptation to kiss her more passionately was there, and he knew it probably would have been reciprocated, but he was already more than overjoyed at what had come to pass, and wanted to show her that this was not just about a kiss, it was what it meant.

She wrapped her arms around him, taking him by surprise and pretty much scooped him in towards her, really embracing him and holding him close. He could feel his body being pressed against the softness of her bosom as her head and neck leant down over his shoulder, and he was practically pinned in place by the intensity of her hug.

“And I want to show you how much you mean to me back,” she said, unaware of quite how forcefully she had a hold on him, even giving him an extra squeeze that compacted his lungs momentarily so he could not breathe. He could feel she was shaking; that this was her release, to hold the person she cared for, and as much as it was overwhelming for him and little much to handle, it was indescribably wonderful to experience.

She eventually released him, noticing for the first time that in her enthusiasm she had squished him a great deal more than intended.

“Oh god, I didn’t crush you did I?” she asked apologetically.

“I’m fine,” he said, faux-coughing, pretending to be severely winded, “I guess I must mean a lot to you…”

She laughed, wiping a dried tear from her eye, “Mhmm, just a little bit. Sorry.”

“Will I get to see you much tomorrow?” he asked.

“Of course, we can try and do the same sort of thing, meet in the library, I can walk you home later, I’m sure Delon will be on board,” the girl said brightly.

A sense of calm slowly began to settle in his stomach. The stunning idea that something like this could actually happen to him felt almost completely inexplicable, but it did put things in perspective. This incredible person had come into his life just in time to help him overcome something unbelievably difficult and turbulent, and whilst it would not be easy, he felt he had something to fight for other than just himself now… he had this, whatever this was.

She looked at her watch, “I do really need to leave now, just to be safe, I’m really sorry.”

He was ready for it this time, “It’s fine, I will miss you like mad, though,” he admitted.

She smiled.

“I will miss you too.”

Jack carefully stepped away from her, and made his way to the front door, not wanting to stand awkwardly to one side whilst Penny extracted herself from his room – it seemed more gentlemanly, at least.

She got to the front door and grabbed her bag, shimmying through and standing up to her full height. Once outside, she stretched her arms out wide after being cooped up in his room for a little while, something he realised she did without any protestation, purely to be with him.

It took him a moment to realise that this huge figure was the very same person he had just shared such an intimate and touching experience with… what on earth compelled such a towering girl to have anything to do with him?

The look on her face answered his question completely. She was so happy, like she couldn’t contain herself. He felt himself smile back up at her, so there they were, two smiling idiots just stood outside a little bungalow, not sure how to part from one another.

“I’d kiss you again, but what would the neighbours think?” she joked, bending over slightly and grinning. Her giddiness was infectious.

“Go on, get going,” he told her, “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” she insisted, crouching down in front of him on the pavement leading to his house.

“I will see you tomorrow,” she reassured him, taking his hands in hers and squeezing his little fingers gently. “Please don’t worry, everything will be fine. I just… I have a feeling, ok.”

“I believe you…” he said, watching her stand up again. She pressed a fingertip to her lips but couldn’t decide whether to blow a kiss at him or not, so just spun on her heel and started walking off.

She looked back at him briefly and they both grinned again, it was corny really, completely stupid, but for once, he couldn’t give a flying fuck.

Penny liked him.

She really really liked him.

And there was nothing anyone could do to take that away from him.

He closed the door behind him, his head an absolute whirlwind of ‘did that really just happen?’ and ‘am I even awake right now?’.

He pinched himself hard in his side, winced, and took a sharp intake of breath. The throbbing pain reassured him of the reality of what had transpired, and he could not be happier that it hurt…

As he reached his room, he heard the front door open, which completely threw him. It couldn’t be Penny, had to be one of his parents or something…

He turned around and took a few steps as his mother walked in. She was most definitely early, and this was not in any way a regular occurrence… he couldn’t remember her being home at this sort of time for maybe 6 months, perhaps even a year.

It hit him straight away that he was incredibly fortunate this hadn’t happened five or even ten minutes earlier. He didn’t even want to imagine how awkward it would have been, and said a silent prayer to whoever it might be up there to thank them for not delivering that reality his way.

“…hey Mum,” he said, a bit confused by the commotion, “Everything ok?”

She dropping her bags on the floor in the hallway and took off her coat. She seemed a little out of breath.

“Had to leave early, there was a bit of a… dilemma, but it’s all sorted now,” she explained.

She’d obviously been in a rush, which wasn’t unusual for her, but he sensed there was something else going on. She looked at him a couple of times, and she didn’t really know what to do with her bags.

“Oh, right, well it’s good it’s sorted anyway,” he said

“Yep,” she said abruptly, eyeing him up suspiciously. Now she was unburdened, she seemed poised, as if to strike.

“Jackie,” she said, looking at him square in the eye.

“Mum…” he said, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.

“I might be going mad, but I swear I saw a very tall Alpha girl walking away from this very house not 30 seconds ago…”

“Oh…” said Jack. Not a very convincing response.

She looked at him, and he could see a slight smile, like she was amused, but still incredibly suspicious.

She was giving him ‘the look’.

Jack hated ‘the look’.

“Oh you mean… that was my friend from school. She needed something so she dropped by,” he explained, feeling his face flush slightly red.

“Your friend, eh?” she said, holding back her smile like a dam might hold back millions and millions of gallons of water.

“She was very tall… not too tall for you, is she?”

“It’s not like that…” he said, rapidly growing annoyed at his mother.

“Sure sure, I know… well whatever,” she said, shit-eating grin still threatening to break through.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, “And anyway, she’s my friend, what’s her height got to do with it?”

“Well, Delon’s got a nice Beta girl, are you sure he can’t hook you up with someone?” his mother suggested knowingly.

“Because there’s no Beta girls at school,” he spat, “You should know that by now.”

“Alright alright, no need to get angry,” she protested, her smile diminishing but not disappearing. Her inquisitiveness was becoming truly unhelpful, and she’d unleashed this old can of worms again.

“I’m just saying a nice Beta girl would be… good for you… that’s all,” she reiterated, “I don’t mean anything by it, I’m sure your Alpha friend is lovely.”

He felt himself react and tried to mask it. She was so much lovelier than his parents would ever have expected; he simply didn’t want them to know… they should stay out of it. He wanted to keep it secret from them, at least until he had figured things out better, so they wouldn’t ruin anything, ask annoying questions… generally just make things super difficult.

“I’m just gonna get on with my coursework, ok?” he announced huffily, and walked back to his room, closing the door behind him, and crashed onto his bed.

His mood was so up and down, from the elation of 10 minutes ago, to the frustration of his mother’s unexpectedly early return. He reached over and turned on the TV, and zoned out for a bit, running through the events that had transpired over the last 12 hours or so.

Dinnertime arrived soon enough, and he skulked into the main room to sit with his parents as they fussed over a casserole.

“Are you sure it’s meant to be in for 55 minutes, I thought that was from frozen?” his Dad piped up.

“Feel free to read the instructions on the packaging if you think I can’t manage,” his Mum called out exasperatedly from their utility room.

“Um… nah, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” his Dad backtracked, the possibility of having to actually get up and verify the information seemingly one chore too many.

Jack sat down opposite his father, and after a few minutes of small talk about school and the weather, and his Grandad being pretty much on the mend, his mother dropped him in it completely as she served the casserole up.

“Oh Jackie, tell your Dad about your ‘friend’ who stopped by,” she said, with particular emphasis on the word ‘friend’. A dollop of casserole splatted onto the china as an audible full stop to the silence that greeted her words. It would have been funny if not for the frustration that coursed through him the moment she had said it.

He glowered at her, his father slowly cottoning on that this was more than just general gossip.

“A ‘friend’, so… not Delon?” he asked, his curiosity piquing.

“It was a girl,” his Mum blurted out, placing a plate in front of her husband and grabbing the next one to serve up her son’s portion.

“A girl?” he said, making an impressed, but highly exaggerated face.

“Yep,” Jack said angrily, snatching his plate from his mother’s grasp, “And what of it?”

“She’s an Alpha,” his Mum added, “You should have seen the size of her.”

Hearing Penny treated like a freak, no matter how innocuously, really lit a fire under him, and he felt his fists clench under the table.

“An Alpha girl, eh? Well, I guess you’re not gay then,” his Dad joked.

His father’s grinning visage really sank into Jack’s vision.

One straw too many.

Not today.

Jack picked up his plate of food in both hands, and slammed it down onto the wooden tabletop so hard he cracked the plate right down the middle.

He was breathing like he’d run a 4-minute mile, eyes aflame.

“Jack! What the hell?” his mother yelled at him, shocked at what she was witnessing.

He stood up, almost astonished at his own reaction, and unsure whether he was going to fall down and cry or scream. He made a snap decision to vacate the premises before he did anything else untoward, and walked to the front door, opening it before stepping out onto the porch.

“Jack?” his mother called out, but he closed it before she could say anything further, and just marched along the pavement and down the street.

He walked and walked, until he reached a bench by a tree near the park, and sat.

His heart rate was still through the roof. He was so unbelievably upset.

It was already rather grey, but almost as soon as he sat, the rain started to fall steadily, completely soaking him through.

He didn’t care anymore.

He’d lost his temper, and he wasn’t even sure what he’d lost his temper about, now that he thought about it.

His mother was antagonistic, but she meant well. His father too. They always teased him, and though he disliked it, he’d never really been upset by it to this extent before.

His feelings for Penny were still so raw, it was like they were poking fun at him about her, even though they didn’t know anything at all. They didn’t know her name, they didn’t even know there was anything going on, they were just prodding him… because like it or not… this was new territory for him.

It wasn’t just he who would be shocked that this towering girl saw him that way, his parents would be too.

Delon would probably understand, as he’d been there throughout all of this, but other kids would probably think it was hilarious, Alpha and Beta alike. Mixed-scale couples did exist, but rarely between everyday smaller men and Alpha women, and in a smaller, provincial city like this, the prevailing opinion was that it was a bit weird, and neither group was particularly ok with it, especially from an Alpha perspective.

He can’t possibly satisfy her, he imagined people whispering.

Oh, she probably just took pity on the poor wimp.

He must be rich or something, how else did they end up together?

Wait till she gets with a real man, then he’s history…

The tears flowed freely.

It had been another overwhelming day, full of stress. It was so incredible to know that his feelings were reciprocated, and he had to remember to hold that fact very very tightly to his heart and never let go of it.

The joy that he felt was key to this – nothing could take that away from him. Not even Caitlin would be able to remove it from him. The dark fears she represented still churned away beneath everything, rippling the waves, and were probably the root cause of all the anguish and the depth of his emotions today.

He sat as the rain fell, and contemplated things for some time.

Eventually, the sheer folly of sitting out in such inclement weather forced him to come to terms with his outburst and head home. He trudged back, and knocked on the door, to see his mother’s troubled face.

“Oh Jesus, Jackie, you’re wet through.”

She welcomed him in and scampered off to fetch him a warm towel, which she had draped over a radiator nearby

“We were so worried about you… Jack, your Dad wandered up and down the road with an umbrella for an hour, we were just going to get in the car and go searching,” she explained, wrapping the towel around his shoulders.

Water dripped from his damp hair, and his mum scrabbled his locks with one end of the towel to dry them off somewhat.

His Dad rounded the corner with a wet coat on, clearly just about to head out again, car keys in hand.

“Bloody hell. Thank god you’re safe,” he said with audible relief, coming over and hugging his boy, all traces of what'd happened earlier were completely gone.

“I never meant to upset you, I know you’re under a lot of stress, don’t scare us like that again,” he said.

“I’ll t-try not to,” Jack mumbled, shivering from his cold, wet clothes.

“Come on,” his mum instructed, walking him back to his bedroom where she’d laid out some clean pajamas for him to change into.

“I’ll be back in a minute, put these warm clothes on,” she instructed, heading out of the room and pulling the door to behind her.

As he pulled the fresh nightclothes on, he could hear his parents’ voices. His mother’s was raised, as if berating his Dad, whose voice was much fainter and less easy to judge the tone of. He got the feeling his Dad hadn’t fully accepted that it was something he said that had triggered Jack’s outburst, and his Mum was making him keenly aware. He didn’t want to get involved, they’d both managed to torpedo his feelings… it had been a team effort.

All he really wanted to do now was to fall straight to sleep, and with some luck… dream of Penny, and how she had held him so close, and made him feel so safe.

The door opened a short while later, as he was tucking himself into bed, and his mother came in and sat on his bedside to talk to him, placing a bowl of casserole on his side table.

“I’m sorry, Jackie, I know we were teasing you, and this isn’t the easiest time of year, but I think you’ve overreacted. We were very… well… your Dad and I are worried something’s up, something serious. Is there anything we should be concerned about?”

He still didn’t really want to confide any of what was on his mind to his parents, it would make things more complicated, and he wanted to spare himself the inevitable intervention and upheaval to his life that would surely follow.

He wanted the freedom to be able to see Penny, and not have his every move scrutinised or fretted over, despite the other risks and worries he had.

“I’m just under a lot of stress,” he explained, “It’s schoolwork, exams, everything, all of it…”

“So it’s not one thing in particular, your Dad and I… or this girl, perhaps?” she ventured.

“It’s a lot of things…” he said, trailing off, not wanting to give specifics.

“Are you mad at us?” she asked, looking particularly upset.

He looked at his mother. She was not a bad person, much as she upset him sometimes.

“No,” he said, “I’m just under a lot of pressure… I’m sorry I ruined dinner.”

“We couldn’t eat much after you left…” she said, giving a sad smile, “You might not be hungry either so I’ll just leave this here,” she explained, meaning the bowl she’d placed down.

“I know this is a crucial period of your life, Jackie boy, I wish I could make it easier on you. I promise we’ll shut up and stay out of your way if your friend comes round in future, she’s very welcome, and trust me, your father has been given a stern talking to regarding his ‘gay’ remark…”

“Ok,” he agreed, a pang of resentment at his father’s words threatening to rise up within him, but he forced it back down.

“Now, you get some rest, and we’ll put this all behind us. We love you very much, we just want what is best for you, and we’re sorry if we’re adding to the pressure you feel…”

“I know…”

“I love you, Jackie,” she said, bending down and giving him a peck on the forehead.

“I love you too, mum,” he replied.

Jack was stood in a long corridor.

It looked a lot like the corridors at school, both sides adorned with lockers and doors, except, the more he focused on where he was exactly, it wasn’t much like his actual school at all.

Not a soul was around, as if it had been abandoned or evacuated, and as he wandered, this strange place appeared to consist entirely of never-ending corridors intersecting other never-ending corridors. He wasn’t tall enough to look inside any of the rooms, and to be honest, he was more concerned with finding his way out than figuring out where exactly this… was.

The library. He had a vague recollection – the library surely had to be the way out.

Of course. He stopped in his tracks. Was there even a library in this peculiar place? He took a step rearwards to about-face and felt something firm against the small of his back, not the sheer, flat surface of a door or a locker, but the hard, sculpted shape of…

Something caught his eye, he looked down at his shoes. Barely either side and a foot or so behind his own, gigantic pink and white sports sneakers…

Panic gripped him, he could barely breathe. The sound of powerful draughts of air being inhaled and exhaled far above signified the enormous girl’s breathing as she loomed over him, like she was fit to burst.

“No,” he thought quietly, “Please god no.”

As if in a daze, the tiny boy turned to face his aggressor, craning his neck to look up at her hulking form. Caitlin was puffed up like a bodybuilder; every single muscle along her colossal, brawny legs stood visibly proud, her posture clenched and imposing and the face 7 feet above his own barely visible, as if shrouded in a kind of dream-like mist. He reached up to adjust his glasses habitually and realised that he wasn’t, in fact, wearing any…

The giant female bent over at the waist and reached down to grab him as he let out a yelp, pinning his arms to his sides with her monstrous hands and lifting him high up into the air, legs kicking frantically.

She spun at the hip and smashed him against the wall of lockers to her side, forcing his arms behind his back with her powerful fingers and pressing her torso against his so his knees were pinned against her sturdy abdomen, rendering his legs immobile. His midsection was similarly flattened by her voluptuous chest, and his arms were completely trapped behind his back, but his shoulders and head were left unpinned so he squirmed around helplessly as she glowered down at him… her face far larger than his but barely a foot or so in front of, and above, his own.

 “I know you hate me, Jack,” she stated in that overbearing, supremely confident tone of hers, a smug smile spreading across her features, “But I also know a little part of you doesn’t.”

The smile widened, her face appearing almost demonic, Cheshire-cat-like, leering at him.

“A part of you loves this… a big thrill for such a tiny freak…”

He felt himself respond against his will, her vast frame overwhelming him and seductively grinding him into the locker so powerfully he felt he was going to snap in two; her vast assets pressing against his midriff in a manner that confirmed she knew exactly what she was doing to him.

“Admit it…” she barked, the anger in her voice erupting to the surface.

“No… he whispered… please n-“

Her lips sealed themselves over his little mouth, her tongue forcing its way slickly down his throat, filling it and causing him to gag uncontrollably.

Her body seemed to rise up and roll against him like the crashing of an enormous breaker against a sea wall, slamming him flat once more, rhythmically pounding him against the locker doors again and again.

He couldn’t kick, or struggle, or even scream out, as his senses were completely overloaded. The only part of his body that he could feel in isolation was the one part of him he feared she was fully aware of… completely rammed against her heaving tit in the most obvious way, and becoming ever more turgid with each earth-shattering impact.

Her tongue slowly extricated itself from his gasping, wet mouth and she lapped at his frightened face with its thick, pink tip – her tongue alone was powerful enough to press his nose flat, although he was too preoccupied with gulping in mouthfuls of air to even register that she was toying with him so lasciviously.

“And the thing is… you know I’m right… you pathetic little perv,” she reiterated spitefully, with such disdain in her voice it made his heart crumple.

He felt his eyes fill with tears.

Caitlin’s vast maw descended over his once more, determined to finish the job of humiliating him completely…

Jack awoke with a start, completely tangled in his duvet and drenched in sweat.

He took stock of his surroundings, home, bed, night-time… and tried to slow his heart rate down.

He was mortified to discover that he was, despite his fear, at full attention, holding firm and showing no signs of abating. He felt immediate shame at associating sexual thoughts with the nightmarish Alpha once more, and not with the beautiful moment he had shared with Penny mere hours beforehand, thoughts of which came flooding back into his head. His body had not really responded physically to intimate thoughts of any kind since his kidnapping, and it felt like the ultimate betrayal for it to have been his darkest fears that triggered a sudden resurgence.

The feelings of guilt overwhelmed him; this was the sort of thing he might have fantasized about before all of this began, but armed with his new-found experience, there was now conflict and despair deeply associated with such desperate longings.

Calming himself as best he could, a quick sweep of his bedside table for his phone revealed it to be 5.15am, and he rolled back over to face the wall, trying to ignore his obvious state of arousal and force himself back to sleep. It was imperative that he try and recoup as much energy as possible for the day ahead to prevent a repeat of the tiredness he experienced toward the end of Tuesday. He had to be at full strength.

He drifted off slowly, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach… thoughts of Caitlin’s cruelty juxtaposing against Penny’s affection and kindness in his mind, vying for attention as he tried to switch off entirely…

Wednesday morning began much the same as Tuesday had, his mother checked in on him, he washed and dressed, picked at his breakfast and then threw random items into a Tupperware box for lunchtime.

He was worried, of course, but kept it hidden deep down. He knew he had done it before, and thoughts of Penny kept him going. He had to be strong, for her, and for himself.

The bus journey was thankfully completely uneventful; he managed to sit himself next to the same quiet kid as the day before, and didn’t attract any unnecessary attention at all. His heart rate began to elevate as the bus drew close to the school, arguably the single most dangerous moment of the day in terms of being spotted out in the open, but Delon was waiting for him by the trees as expected, so he kept his head down and followed his friend until he was in the comparative safety of the classroom.

The first classes passed by quickly, and his thoughts started to turn to Penny ever more excitedly, the memory of her kiss lingering in his mind and sending warm sensations throughout his body.

The first break at the library came and went, and, same as the day before, Penny wasn’t around, which preyed on his mind a little, but it was presumably going to be lunchtime before he’d finally get to see her again. He had considered telling Delon what had happened between the pair of them, but it had a kind of kiss-and-tell quality to it, so whilst a part of him was bursting to say something, another part of him, like with his parents, wanted to keep shtum until he actually needed to mention it.

Fortunately, all of his lessons on a Wednesday were with his best friend, so there was a reassuring feeling of everything following a set plan throughout the day. He caught the eye of Alex in a couple of lessons after the break, but she was a little distant, as expected. He still flashed her a polite smile to try and communicate with her in some way - it didn’t seem to register much, but as she left she was hesitant in packing away her things and lingered just long enough that it felt like she was letting him leave the classroom before she did. He couldn’t see her face but it felt like a gesture of some kind, unspoken but hanging in the air for him to pick up on.

Lunch simply could not come soon enough, and as Jack followed Delon to the library after the 6th class, his heart rate started to quicken; a slight bounce detectable in his footsteps. His head bowed until he reached the anti-theft gates, Jack entered the library and looked around eagerly, making for the corner of the library they had made their usual rendezvous.

Penny was not there.

Delon was concerned, but tried not to show it. They waited for a few minutes, but it became clear she wasn’t going to just turn up… she would have been there by now.

“I’m going to have to eat something,” Delon said eventually, “Shall we head for the same spot as yesterday?”

There was a pause. Jack didn’t really know what to do… this was not how today was supposed to go.

“I don’t feel like eating,” Jack admitted bluntly, torn between the fear of leaving the safety of the library and the devastating realisation that Penny would not be around to comfort him at all… he had looked forward to it all day.

“I understand,” Delon said gently, putting an arm on his buddy’s shoulder. “I can wait a little longer but then I’m going to have to find a spot to eat. I’ll come back after, then we can go to afternoon class.”

He took a breath, exhaling in a cheerless way.

“You know she’d be here if she could, man, my gut tells me something’s up, maybe a problem at home.”

Jack nodded, it didn’t make it hurt any less, but his friend was right. Penny would not have bailed for no good reason, plus she had no way of getting in touch with him if she wasn’t able to get to a computer. He could think of a number of valid reasons why she might not have been able to make it into school off the top of his head, her health being the first thing that sprang to mind.

“I’ll be back in like ten… fifteen minutes,” Delon explained, “Are you sure you don’t want to come with?”

“I’m sure,” Jack said sadly, “I’ll be right here, see you in a bit.”

Delon scurried off, trying not to elongate his lanky stride too much and attract the ire of the school librarian (who was notoriously strict on people who cut through the library, whether Alpha student, Beta student, or even members of staff).

Jack turned instead to his favoured corner of the library and sat down at the Beta-size table he had commandeered, consulting his phone and bringing up the conversation with Penny to read it once more.

He was feeling hurt and emotional, but he obviously wasn’t angry or upset with her, just at the situation itself. The kiss still hung there, like a blanket, reassuring him and batting down his more negative thoughts, calming him and keeping the tears at bay.

He wanted to send her a message, but asking why she wasn’t at school just felt wrong. Like he was berating her… accusing her… that was not how he wanted to come across.

She was unlikely to read it until her next foray to the library anyway, which would hopefully be around the next time they met, so it seemed pointless to vent or say anything that he would not prefer to say to her in person… like how much he had been thinking of her… how much he had missed her… how much the kiss had meant to him.

Delon returned fairly quickly, noticeably a lot perkier after having eaten – one of his favourite activities, and something his comparatively large Beta frame necessitated at regular intervals. Jack hadn’t even thought about his own food, and felt that would probably be the case until he got home.

Home…

Penny would not be able to walk him home.

He explained this to Delon, who looked back at him ruefully. Delon did not live particularly close by, and accompanying Jack home would be a pretty long detour and subsequent walk home, not to mention the fact that if anything happened, he was merely another Beta to sweep out of the way. Penny, despite her gentle and considered demeanour, at least had the size to provide a little security, though the thought of putting her in harm’s way made Jack’s stomach tie itself in a knot.

They decided the best bet was for Delon to wait with Jack just around the corner from the bus stop, out of sight from most of the students leaving for home, and then rush to the bus once it was almost full and hope to avoid any kind of… entanglements, much like in the mornings.

It wasn’t a bulletproof plan, but with Penny AWOL it was probably the best compromise available, and certainly better than walking home on his own or asking Delon to add an hour onto his own journey.

A full 6 periods of comparative ease, with the promise of Penny for the latter half of the day, had turned into something rather more stressful and anxiety-inducing. Delon could sense the unease settling over his friend, and reassured him it would all be fine; he just had to keep his head down, not panic, and get on the bus home when the time came.

Jack puffed his cheeks out and agreed. He could do this.

His thoughts meandered as Delon flicked through a book on some sport or other - he was worried about what this afternoon now held, but equally, he was very concerned about Penny. What if she had been taken really ill… what if she wanted to see him just as much as he did her… but couldn’t get in touch?

A part of him was considering ringing up the hospital to see if a girl by the name of Penelope Lévesque had been admitted, but what would that really achieve? He would be exposing himself to more danger if he tried to make his way there, and even if she was in a ward or something, her parents would have no idea why this random Beta boy was getting in contact let alone coming to visit, and questions would inevitably follow.

He felt guilty. He had only considered his own feelings of loss at Penny not being there, but he knew that she would probably be feeling worse still, upset at not being there for him, and concerned about his reaction to her apparently letting him down.

Time was steadily ticking away, and with some heavy feelings weighing him down, he and Delon made their way for the last two classes before home time beckoned.

Both the Mathematics class and History passed by without significant drama; he was weary and beginning to regret not having eaten at lunch, but his appetite was still essentially at zero given the circumstances, and the prospect of waiting for the bus ensured it remained so.

Bag packed and hallway beckoning, he followed Delon obediently as they hugged the side one final time. They weren’t in an enormous rush, but they had agreed that getting out to the bus stop amidst the mass Alpha exodus and finding a place to conceal themselves was the best strategy, rather than waiting for 15 minutes in the library, and then trying their luck when it wasn’t busy enough for cover, or empty enough to be completely safe.

Just like in the morning, it was bustling with overly energetic kids of various ages and sizes, looking forward to getting the hell out of the building. Barely a handful of Betas still attended the school and it was actually quite rare to encounter another in the corridors during the mad rush home, usually via shared glances that included eye-rolling at the sheer implausibility of trying to negotiate the corridors, or mutual respect at having survived in the first place.

They passed the library entrance and began to sweep along the side of the main corridor that led to the front entrance. A number of kids just in front were definitely being boisterous, and Jack was having to force himself not to look, keeping his vision fixed on Delon’s legs as he escorted him. Voices were raised suddenly, and Jack sensed trouble.

Delon’s hand dropped by his side and he held his palm flat, his legs stopping abruptly as something had blocked their progress.

Jack could hear a scuffle, but was far too fearful of looking up. Delon’s legs suddenly sprang to action, as he quickly side-stepped… but next thing Jack knew, he was sent spinning as something or someone far bigger than he was clattered into him.

His glasses gone, and completely dazed, Jack tried to look around. He had no sense of his bearings at all, other than a vague sense he had travelled a good number of yards from where he had originally been standing.

Flat on his back, rucksack still attached, a crowd of Alphas of varying ages seemed to be looking down on him like a beached turtle, amused and not remotely concerned that he had seemingly withstood the impact of a freight train. He could hear others laughing, the scuffle still seemed to be going on, but further away now.

“Ah fuck,” he breathed.

“Watch out, he might be hurt,” one of the larger Alpha girls seemed to say, showing a level of concern that felt utterly alien to him, arousing his suspicions.

As he blinked over and over, trying to get his broken eyes to work again, he was grabbed deftly by soft, feminine hands, and brought into the body of someone very curvy indeed.

“I think the little dude need some air,” he heard the girl explain matter-of-factly, beginning to move through the crowd, away from the fracas.

Frustrated that she seemed to be making the decisions for him, he went to protest but his face was pressed firmly into large, pillowy breasts by strong, long-nailed fingers. He was humiliatingly pinned to her body like a sickly child clinging to its mother, unable to speak or really move at all.

A shimmer of blonde hair swept across his peripheral vision at the giantess’ neck level.

Hannah…

Jack was unable to prevent the buxom schoolgirl from carrying him swiftly from the scene under the pretence of helping him.

He knew for a fact that none of the other kids would bat an eyelid, probably not even if she were to have picked him up by the throat and dragged him away, but her insidious approach enabled her to be granted the benefit of the doubt given the circumstances…

He couldn’t cry out for help, let alone attract anyone’s attention. Clawing at her curves was completely ineffectual. Despite being a comparatively petite Alpha, she was still utterly enormous compared to him, and could overpower his mismatched body without any real effort, like a little ragdoll.

His first frantic thoughts turned quickly to what her plans would be, and it didn’t take much brainpower to figure out just where, or rather who, that might lead.

“Oh hey,” he heard Hannah exclaim brightly, slowing down and tilting her body back as if to show off who she was carrying.

Jack feared the worst…

A shadow fell over Jack’s shivering body as someone noticeably taller than Hannah came closer. His heart stopped.

“Is that who I think it is?”

The voice was not the booming, terrifying one he had feared.

This was Alex’s voice…

Hannah giggled, causing her body to jiggle in all the right places.

“Yep, I know! Cait’s been so eager to see him,” she said in a cutesy voice, angling her face down and rocking him from side to side.

“I’m sure she’ll be delighted we bumped into each other,” she added devilishly, giving him a little squeeze.

His eyes were wide. He couldn’t even see Alex but he knew she was there. He wished he could see her face, just so at least then she could see he was frightened, or just share a glance… but he was held firm, and couldn’t twist or move his neck at all.

He wasn’t in the lion’s den just yet, but even with Alex stood right there she couldn’t very well save him, Hannah would know what her intentions were the moment she tried anything too obvious.

He needed Alex to talk Hannah out of it, or say Caitlin was busy, or ask to take him to her himself. Something sneaky…

“Come on, Han, let’s go find Caitlin then, I’m sure she’d be delighted to meet our little friend again,” Alex said matter-of-factly, and started to lead the way.

What?

What???

Jack started to struggle anew.

No.

God no.

Hannah walked along bouncily, following her friend obediently all the while keeping her little captive pressed exquisitely into her substantial bosom.

What the fuck was Alex doing? Throwing him to the wolves? Was the glasses thing just a ruse, a way to keep his guard down? Had she been keeping Caitlin informed all along?

Tears began to form as the prospect of being returned to someone who was not only going to be cruel, unmerciful and royally fucked off, but all too eager to punish and torture him to find out who had facilitated his daring escape.

Penny would be in the firing line too, if Alex had indeed told Caitlin exactly what had gone down, and the idea of her being harmed was just as harrowing as his own sorry fate.

He couldn’t see exactly where he was being taken, at first, just the bustle of Alphas thinning out as they left the school, but it soon became clear that it was the Sports Department he was being whisked towards, which strongly suggested Caitlin was already there.

There was to be little chance of escape if she could get her hands on him in there… she commanded the utmost respect, intimidating all of the staff, with even the most senior of the coaches practically in her father’s back pocket. All this, in addition to the prestige his track and field star daughter lent the school, and how much they bent the rules and overlooked things already to keep her happy.

As Hannah eventually came to halt, he could just about detect that they were in an empty girls changing room, though there were still piles of clothes and bags strewn about untidily. Whilst it was shortly after the school bell, it was likely that the girls were doing extra practice, including Caitlin.

His body was shaking; the anticipation was building horribly and he kept mentally checking out and then panicking anew, almost as if this wasn’t really happening… just another nightmare. He scrunched his eyes closed, but the heartbeat of the Alpha holding him was proof this was real, that this was the thing he had feared all along.

“Can you go check to see if Caitlin’s still out there, I’ll look after the little doofus, he’s not going anywhere,” Alex suggested, chillingly.

“Oh, good idea Alex, he’s not that heavy, but sure,” Hannah replied cheerily, clearly making the assumption Alex was offering on account of her arms getting tired.

Jack felt the grip relinquish from him as he was passed from Hannah to the taller girl. He went to yell out but his face was pressed tightly into Alex’s shoulder before he could so much as utter a peep, and she restrained his body quickly, the humiliation of his betrayal building and building.

He tried to kick and yell as, through his peripherals, he saw Hannah walk off through the exit towards the playing fields, but as soon as she had disappeared he felt the grip on the back of his head relent and he was lowered to the ground gingerly.

He was poised to scream bloody murder, but his first glimpse at Alex’s face told him everything he needed to know.

he had never seen her look more scared.

“How fast can you run?” she said quickly, urging him with her eyes to respond immediately.

“Errr… not very fast,” he said, confused, but rapidly realising that Alex was, in fact, trying to save him.

“Shit,” she exhaled, her face strained with the pressure of the situation, “Ok, I have another idea…”

Jack looked up at her intently, adrenalin surging through his veins, fight or flight in full flow.

“D’you trust me?” she asked suddenly, making direct eye contact.

He honestly didn’t know, but he had to, she was the only thing standing between him and oblivion.

“I don’t have a choice…” he admitted bitterly.

“Ok, we haven’t got much time….” she said, biting her lip, “Come here.”

She took a couple of strides to one side, swinging open a locker door on the lower row of a big block by the changing room entrance.

“Get in,” she instructed.

He hesitated.

“It’s now or never… please…” she said, her expression softening, betraying her own anxiety.

“Ok ok,” he stuttered, scampering to the locker and ducking slightly to clamber inside. There was a musty grey-t-shirt crumpled at the bottom, a hairbrush, a deodorant can, and loads of loose hair pins and elastic bands littered about.

The Alpha girl got down on her knees and made sure he was fully inside, before reaching in with her hand, momentarily frightening the life out of him. Her expression was still one of uncertainty, but she appeared to be concentrating on something.

“Bite my hand as hard as you can.”

“Wha…” he said, taken aback.

“There’s no time, just do it… hard as you can.”

As instructed, he leant forward and tried his best to chomp down on the fleshy part of her hand by her thumb. He felt like a moron, this was so utterly surreal, but he gave it his all, not that she could tell - it didn’t seem to register on her face at all.

He removed his jaw from her skin, but there was barely a mark, perhaps if you looked really hard.

“It’ll have to do,” she said, giving him one last concerned glance before swinging the door closed and spinning the dial to lock it, plunging him into near-darkness, the gloom illuminated only by multiple narrow slits in the metal door, through which he could just about make out what was going on.

She quickly took up a standing position back towards where she had first requisitioned him from Hannah’s grasp and inspected her hand closely. He could hear Hannah’s sprightly footsteps getting louder…

“Ow, ow, fuck,” Alex yelled out, letting herself go a bit wobbly at the knees, and not a moment too soon.

Hannah came in within about 5 seconds, a worried look on her face.

“What is it, Alex??” she asked loudly.

The taller girl held her own hand gingerly, shaking it slightly as if to ease some kind of pain, and then pointed at the door leading back to the main corridor.

“The little shit bit me,” she spat, feigning anger commendably, “He ran that way.”

“Oh… are you ok, is it bleeding?” Hannah said, growing visibly upset and coming over to inspect her friend’s hand.

Alex very deliberately allowed her to look closely at the bite mark, as meagre as it was, before making a big deal out of the fact Jack had ‘escaped’.

“Come on, he can’t have gone far, I’m fine I’m fine,” she insisted, shooing Hannah towards the door, but having judiciously allowed enough time for the Beta to have ‘theoretically’ fled to safety.

Hannah looked positively mortified for Alex, and scared that she had done something wrong herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said, though it was clear she didn’t really know what she was apologising for. Jack almost felt sorry for her, in fact. She wasn’t a monster, she just worked for one.

The girls headed off in pursuit, Alex pausing briefly to allow Hannah to venture forth first, her eyes flitting over to the locker for a fraction of a second. She seemed to make eye contact with him, though it was highly unlikely she could have seen him directly, then they were both gone.

Jack leant back against the locker, his rucksack forming a kind of cushion for his back. From the depths of despair to temporary sanctuary within 60 seconds… fucking hell.

His heart would not stop racing; he had felt so certain of his surprise betrayal by Alex, and of the imminent realisation of his worst nightmares at Caitlin’s hands, that he could barely fathom where he was or what had actually just happened.

All he knew was that Alex had done something he perhaps had not expected, even allowing for his new perspective of her. He didn’t know how to feel, except grateful, and bewildered.

He wasn’t safe yet, Alex presumably had to figure out a way of giving up the ‘search’ and returning back to him alone to let him out of the locker before the school was closed up for the night. Then and only then he could get… home…

Delon…

Reaching into his pocket, Jack produced his phone and immediately started to message his friend.

J: Delon, you there?

There was a pause of maybe 5 seconds before it registered as read. The blinking ellipsis appeared instantly.

D: Jack?? Shit, are you ok? I’m near the bus stop, where the hell are you?

J: I’m safe, did you not see what happened?

D: There was a fight, last thing I saw was you getting knocked across the corridor, couldn’t see you anywhere

Jack paused, it was hard to get across the gravity of the situation, but he did his best.

J: Hannah picked me up from the floor, and started to take me to Caitlin, but Alex was there and managed to trick her and convince me I’d run off

J: I’m hiding out in a locker, so I’ve got to sit tight until Alex returns

The ellipsis blinked for quite a while as Delon replied at length.

D: What the fuck… are you sure you’re ok, man? I’m so sorry, I couldn’t see exactly where you went, the fight was pretty rowdy and loads of people were in the corridor screaming and shouting

D: I had a look round once it was broken up and couldn’t see you, so I went straight to the bus stop to try and find you

D: I’m still here, the bus will probably be here soon, are you gonna be able to make it?

J: I don’t know, I can’t get out of this locker, I’m locked in

D: Oh… crap

J: I might be stuck here for a while

D: I don’t know what to do, man, do you want me to come find you?

J: I dunno

D: Where are you?

J: Girls locker room in Sports Dept

D: WHAT?

J: Yep

D: I can’t go there, man, even if I wanted to, you’re gonna have to wait for Alex

Jack had no idea what to do next, Delon was right, he was stuck there for the foreseeable future, completely dependent upon Alex to get him out.

D: I can stick around for a bit, but I have to go home eventually, I don’t know what to suggest

J: I’ll sit tight, man, if nothing happens soon, go home, I’ll figure it out

There was a pause before the ellipsis appeared again.

D: I’m sorry

J: It’s not your fault

D: I should have done more

Jack was getting upset. His friend hadn’t done anything wrong.

J: You did everything you could, I’m safe right now, I’m fine

D: This is getting too dangerous, Jack

D: I think we might need to talk to someone

J: You’re probably right

D: Are you sure you’ll be ok

J: Just stick around for another 10, if nothing, then go

D: Ok

Jack held his phone in front of him, his face illuminated by the screen’s glow.

He had enough battery - 67% - so it was just a case of waiting this out.

It was 3:44PM now, if it reached 3:54, and he was still here, he would tell Delon to go home.

3:55PM

J: Ok, I’m still stuck in here, no sign of Alex, get yourself home

D: Sorry dude, hang in there, I’m sure she’ll be back soon, don’t worry

J: I’m trying not to

D: I’ll be in touch on here, just message me if you need

J: I will

D: Let me know as soon as anything happens

J: I will

And with that, any obvious safe route home seemingly evaporated, and he really started to wonder if Alex was actually going to be true to her word after all, or if she might not actually be able to make it back to free him.

If she couldn’t, he at least had some food in his bag, he wouldn’t die or anything, but it would be a pretty bleak and weird situation to have to cope with until morning. He could text his parents and say he was staying over at Delon’s, but it would all be a bit awkward.

The prospect of being double, no, triple-crossed however, was beginning to leave its familiar paranoid hallmarks on his brain.

Perhaps she had imprisoned him in her locker to present to Caitlin as her own prize, perhaps trying to curry favour with the Alpha predator herself. It seemed far-fetched, her concern seemed genuine, but he couldn’t rule anything out. He was so vulnerable, and so scared. There was of course the worrisome suspicion that she was working for Caitlin all along, or had promised to retrieve him as recompense for being found to have assisted in his rescue in the first place. It made his head hurt to think of all the variables, and the longer he sat in the gloom, the more his worries escalated.

As he waited, getting increasingly agitated, it became apparent that a group of girls was drawing ever nearer from outside.

Judiciously turning his phone first to silent, and then to the setting where it wouldn’t even vibrate or notify him of activity at all, he peeked out through the metal slots to see a small group of student athletes returning in from the field.

His vision was, of course, fairly blurry without his glasses, but he could make out most of what was going on. His heart skipped a beat as he saw by far the most statuesque of the girls barge her way through, clearly head and shoulders above the rest.

Caitlin’s flame-red hair was tied back in a messy ponytail that she loosened within seconds of entering the locker room, practically treading over her schoolmates to sit down on a bench barely a handful of yards from Jack’s hiding place down by the locker room floor.

Even from here, he could see the glistening sweat on her muscular limbs as she stripped down to just her underwear, and after talking briefly to an athletic-looking black girl who was changing next to her, took herself off to the showers.

The other girl was a great deal shorter than most of the others, Jack noted – but powerfully compact… for an Alpha, at least. He heard the other girls addressing her as ‘Tia’ – she was perhaps only second to Caitlin in the physique department, with very strong-looking legs and arms.

A couple of the other girls skipped the showering part, and quickly dressed and headed off. Jack couldn’t help feeling like a voyeuristic little dweeb, but every time he tried to look away, he convinced himself it was better to be constantly on top of what was going on, rather than just listening in abject fear for when Caitlin returned.

After a short while, the redhead emerged, her damp hair draped over her powerful shoulders loosely, and Jack listened intently for any clue as to her current mood, or if she might namedrop Alex, Hannah, or even Amber. Unfortunately it was hard to concentrate on much of what she said as a number of the other girls were in the process of leaving, saying goodbye to one another and walking in front of or using the lockers, so he could barely make anything out beyond a few vagaries. Unsurprisingly, she disagreed with her coach on training methods, and she was looking forward to decimating the competition at the next meet in a week or so. So far, so Caitlin.

The Tia girl had finished getting changed by now and said her own farewell to Caitlin, who she appeared to be fairly close to, perhaps as a fellow sprinter, or maybe genuinely as someone she got on with. It was strange to see the colossal bully being so open and normal and friendly; it lit a fire under him to see her behave in such an easy-going manner when he knew how capable of dark, unpleasant, unthinking conduct she actually was.

Perhaps this was the true irony of everything. To Caitlin, Alpha life was mundane, boring, she had done it all and had nothing to prove. Everyone looking up to her as queen of the school, guys wanting to fuck her, girls wanting to be her… there was nothing left to ‘do’. The hard-nosed domination stuff was something she could explore that did not fit into that… exciting, dangerous, deviant… destructive… hurtful… cruel… No-one would miss a little manlet, right? Who would even care?

Caitlin was one of the final two girls to finish getting dressed. Jack found himself unable to tear his eyes away from her as she covered up her incredible form with a pair of skin-tight jogging pants and a sporty green t-shirt. Her rapidly-drying hair was pulled into a ponytail once more, whilst the other girl, a svelte and trim brunette with a languid stride, finally headed off, leaving him alone in the presence of his greatest adversary. Of course, she had no idea he was there, but that didn’t stop Jack from feeling completely petrified that it was just the two, like watching a lion stalk around its cage and praying it doesn’t come over towards you.

He dry swallowed as the enormous girl stood up, looking admiringly at her own figure, and patted her prodigious chest as if plumping two pillows. She truly was infatuated with her own appearance, though it could be argued that it was impossible not to be, considering the effect it had on everyone around her, and how it separated her from the rest of her peers. Her display sent a shiver down his spine, recalling the nightmare from the previous night… a huge part of him was still so drawn to her as a physical specimen… still simply the most incredible human being he’d ever laid eyes on.

With a few stretches of her burly arms, she packed her things into her bag… the very same one that he himself had fallen victim to the previous week. He shivered as he watched her zip it half-closed, and then abruptly head straight for him, her powerful legs filling his vision almost completely. He had a grandstand view of her tremendous calf muscles flexing as she rummaged in the locker above and to the side of the one he was currently inhabiting.

He was practically counting down the seconds until she would be gone as he witnessed those very same legs crouch down, and a huge hand reach for the locker door he was hidden behind.

He shrunk back in an instant, trying to huddle away from the door as much as possible without making a sound or kicking anything. He grabbed the deodorant can and held it to his chest to stop it from clanging against the metal walls by accident, his hands trembling.

Was this the moment everything fell apart?

Had Alex betrayed him after all…?

He could barely see anything except the movement of dark and light patches through the holes in the door. The metal frame rattled as he felt her grip the locker dial and turn it, spinning it and stopping, then pulling.

He took a sharp, silent intake of breath.

The door clanked in protest, not opening, as perhaps the Alpha on the other side of the metal was expecting.

She tried once more, twisting it and pulling at it to no avail, and then span the dial in frustration.

“For fuck’s sake, Alex,” he heard the irate schoolgirl mutter under her breath, before standing up.

Jack leant forward cautiously. The giantess’ shins stood still for a few seconds, as if the behemoth were temporarily lost in thought, before they pivoted and marched their way out, her pink and white sneakers offering one last glimpse as she passed through the doorway and away.

He could breathe once more…

That had been too close for comfort. Way too close.

His heart was pounding. Why had Caitlin gone for this locker? This was Alex’s locker, right?

Why would she go into her friend’s locker?

Had he been left deliberately? But if so, it was locked, and Caitlin seemingly didn’t know the code…

As his heartrate slowed, it began to sink in that if Caitlin actually had opened the door, Jack had had no plan, no way of escape, nothing. He shuddered to think of how naïve he had been. Whilst he had been sat in the locker feeling comparatively safe, he should really have been considering his options in case the worst was to happen, because, if he had learned anything today… it was that fortune might not favour him at all.

He at least had his phone on him this time round, and seeing as he had been in contact with Delon, he knew someone trustworthy was aware of exactly where he was. It wasn’t much, but there was a little leverage there; he could have an ‘I’m being kidnapped’ message prepared to send, and even if she removed his phone from him as soon as she could, he could claim it or others had been sent. It was debatable whether it would make her reconsider her actions – as Delon had expressed, the usual channels of justice were unlikely to apply because of her standing within school and society, and her father’s wealth and influence - there was a chance, however, and it was just about all he had to fight with…

Taking his phone from his pocket with trembling hands, he checked the time, just to see how much longer he might have to wait.

4:15PM

Alex had been gone for a long time, which was concerning, but seeing as Caitlin had only just left the changing area, that might have been the trigger she was waiting for…

That was of course, assuming she was coming back. That her intention was actually to help him, not lock him in there for some malicious reason. The constant gnawing, agonising, infuriating uncertainty was beginning to weary him.

He quickly composed a very short message, and saved it to his notes on the phone.

Caitlin Reid has found me - being kidnapped – call police

He copied it and pasted it to his messenger app just to check it worked, and once satisfied it could be done fairly quickly, then deleted it from messenger so he didn’t send it to Delon by accident and give him a heart attack.

The exact wording was not only to alert Delon, or whoever, to his plight – it was also to try and make it look as damning and serious as possible if Caitlin grabbed his phone and read what he had put: her full name, the nature of the offence, and the immediate threat of police intervention.

Caitlin discovering him trapped in the locker would pretty much be a doomsday scenario though… with no-one around to intervene, and Alex’s subversion being revealed either as treachery towards Caitlin, or towards him… shit would hit the fan all round. In addition, seeing as he had already escaped from her house under suspicious circumstances, her immediate reaction was not likely to be restrained, or pleasant.

The dominant girl was more than capable of cruelty to get her way; she could easily punish him, torture him, force the truth from him and in turn train her sights on Penny or Delon, or even Alex. The idea that she’d break his spirit and not only would he suffer terribly, but the people who had tried to help and protect him would be put in harm’s way too, that was excruciating to think about. He could barely envisage having the strength to withstand her now; his experiences had left him humbled and frightened that she was capable of far more than she had already showed him if she really felt like injuring him, or delivering more ‘life lessons’ to the fragile Beta.

Penny… he thought. He was still so worried about her absence, what it meant and why.

How he wished she had been in school today… not only would none of this have happened, but at least he would have known she was ok…

He leant his head back against the cold metal interior of his locker ‘cell’ and tried to focus his thoughts, closing his eyes, lowering his heart rate. Think of Penny. Think of getting out of this place. Caitlin’s gone, it’s just a waiting game now…

His eyes had adjusted a bit after he had stopped looking out of the locker grille, so now he could see the contents of the locker much more clearly.

The hair accessories and deodorant can gave no clue as to the owner, they were generic and unlabelled. Not even a lurid shade of pink, or a big letter C or A. So far, so unremarkable.

Rummaging underneath himself, he pulled out the grey t-shirt he was half-sat on. It didn’t smell particularly of Caitlin’s perfume, and the listed size was a large number that could theoretically have been either girl, he just didn’t have a good enough idea of Alpha dimensions to even speculatively guess. There was no name tag or any way of differentiating it from any other musty old t-shirt left lying in a locker, not even a brand name or a pattern, so it was essentially a dead end.

As he inspected the shirt, he noticed something was positioned right in the back corner of the locker; an object he hadn’t noticed due to the massive t-shirt obscuring it before… an Alpha-size blue inhaler with the prescription sticker scraped off.

Alex didn’t strike him as the asthmatic type, in fact, he’d never really considered that Alphas, who generally seemed in such great shape, suffered from things as mundane and… human as that… but in truth, why shouldn’t they? She was sporty and he knew that athletes sometimes suffered from shortness of breath, an inhaler was not completely unprecedented.

Caitlin though… she was so colossal and powerful. She’d barely broken sweat when working out in her room and was so obviously, utterly dominant. Surely it couldn’t be hers…

He inspected the inhaler and, again, there was nothing to identify its owner. It could be either girl’s, or maybe it wasn’t even theirs… though it would be weird for it to have just been left there and forgotten about.

He put the blue plastic cylinder down next to his feet and sighed. His attention was drawn back to the hair clips, and the hair brush. His eyesight becoming more responsive to the dark by the minute, he noticed that there were a few strands of hair embedded deep down between the plastic bristles of the brush.

He picked the paddle-shaped brush up and looked at it closely, holding it closer to the dim light that came from the locker door.

The hairs were very shiny and dark… raven-coloured, in fact.

Footsteps began to approach, so he moved his head closer to the door to see who it was. His eyes took a few moments to adjust to the brightness, ruining his night vision, but he simply couldn’t afford to sit and wait.

Jack’s main concern was that it might be a janitor locking up, but the steps sounded more light-footed, most likely a girl wearing sports shoes. It was difficult to tell exactly, because the metal cube he was trapped inside did strange things to the sound, but with his ear pressed against the door it definitely sounded like that, though the rhythm was a bit uneven.

A slight cough was heard just before the person walked into the locker room.

He twisted his head to look through the vents, and from his vantage point he see the legs as they entered; clad in black sweatpants, quite shapely and adorned with white and red sneakers.

It was Alex.

A sense of relief began to wash over him… but it was to be very, very short-lived.

“I still don’t get why you locked it…” a familiar voice boomed, seemingly filling the locker.

A second set of slightly heavier footsteps, ones he’d not picked up on initially, signalled the arrival of the person he feared most. Two enormous pink and white sneakers strode purposefully in, stemming from a pair of powerfully-built legs.

“I dunno, Cait,” he heard Alex explain bluntly. Her voice sounded relatively calm, no sign of panic. Either she was holding it together… or this was the part where she betrayed him…

She would open the locker imminently, whatever her intentions, so he had to hide somehow, without making so much as a sound.

“What’s been up with you recently anyway? You’ve definitely not been your usual self,” he heard Caitlin ask Alex, as he panicked silently, trying not to kick over anything as he slid to the rear of the locker. The two girls’ voices echoed throughout the cramped space, Caitlin’s especially almost seemed to reverberate right through him.

“Just school stuff,” Alex said wearily, “It’s been tiring.”

“Hm,” Caitlin said thoughtfully, “Anything I can do to help? It’s not your sister again is it?”

Jack pushed himself flat to the back of the locker and pulled the big grey t-shirt over himself as best he could, huddling down and trying to conceal his body as if he was merely a bundle of fabric. It felt pointless, it wouldn’t take a moment for him to be found, but it all depended on Alex…

Wait, Alex had a sister?

“Nah, she’s not been too bad,” Alex replied, “It’s just the workload and other things, getting stressed and not thinking straight sometimes.”

He heard their shoes squeaking as they moved slightly. Down by the ground, those movements seemed magnified, shadows passing in front of the locker from their huge frames.

“Well feel free to just come over whenever, my parents don’t give a shit… we could go out, hit the town. Amber’s always up for anything and you and I can crash at her place, or mine…” Caitlin replied.

Again, it was so odd to hear these mundane, everyday problems. Caitlin was even being open and supportive. It seemed to reinforce to him that their experience of this world was not like his, he could never dream of experiencing a life that was so… free and limitless. Going out was an undertaking he simply couldn’t dream of doing, even if he wanted to, not just the underage part but the fact that being trampled underfoot by drunken Alphas would be his likely fate.

He heard Alex crouch down as her shoes groaned against the hard locker room floor, and then the sound of a bag being placed on the floor.

His phone was still silent in his pocket, and he could always claim that he’d just sent a message off to say he was being kidnapped. It was all he really had… a bluff, a hope and a prayer…

“Thanks, Cait, I‘ll think about it, but not tonight,” Alex said, her voice much louder at his level.

If Alex was betraying him, he was fucked every which way already, but deep in his gut, he felt something. It didn’t seem likely that she would go to all this trouble just to suddenly reveal him. He still had to brace himself for the worst, but hope that Alex was genuinely looking out for him, because if she was, he had to play his part too, and be completely still.

He felt the locker rattle as Alex methodically unlocked the door with the dial, and after a couple of rotations, swung it open.

He didn’t move a muscle as the light streamed in, hidden under the musty canopy of thick grey cotton, his other senses heightened to compensate for his lack of sight.

The Alpha girl’s hand reached in, he could hear and feel it moving around but it didn’t come for him, occasionally brushing against him but never reaching fully to the back, instead moving the hair accessories around a little before alighting on something.

“It’s here,” Alex said over her shoulder, speaking away from Jack.

He sensed her grasp an item and pick it up, presumably passing it to Caitlin.

“Oh thank god,” Caitlin announced with palpable relief, and the next thing he heard was a click, as if a button was depressed, and then a sharp intake of breath…

Fuck. She had been looking for the inhaler…

His brain struggled to take that in.

Caitlin was… asthmatic?

He heard the formidable girl slowly exhale a steady stream of air, though it was hard to make out by virtue of being quite far above his level. She stifled a cough, and he could hear her voice was a little dry and throaty.

“I needed that,” she said, after a slight pause.

“Yeah, sorry about that, Cait, I must’ve forgotten to leave the door unlocked,” Alex explained.

“It’s fine,” Caitlin replied, “Just… wait a sec.”

His heart stopped.

‘Wait a sec’ could mean anything. Grab my t-shirt. What’s that in your locker. Anything.

He heard the click and wheeze again as she took a second drag.

There was a pause, and with a slight exhale, she began to speak once more.

“My chest just felt a bit tight in training today, it’s been happening a bit more recently.”

“Are you worried?” Alex ventured.

“Not really,” she said, the strength in her voice returning, “As long as I can keep a handle on it, no one needs to know.”

“Hmm… well, I can just keep it in my locker for the moment…” Alex offered.

“… if that’s alright,” Caitlin replied, her voice softer, more vulnerable than he’d ever heard her before, “I don’t want coach or the other girls to know, that’s all.”

“What are you so worried about?” Alex replied, as he felt her arm reach in and place the inhaler back inside the locker, quite close to where he was huddled up, before retreating once more.

Caitlin sighed loudly.

“I don’t know…” she said, “I mean, it’ll cause a load of drama. Coach might sit me out of the next meet… I’m desperate to improve my times and I don’t want the other girls to see me as weak, or sense an advantage…”

“I’m not sure anyone can accuse you of being weak, Cait…” Alex said pointedly.

“No I know, but I can’t… I don’t want anyone to know, ok…”

“I’m not going to say anything.”

“I know you’re not, it’s just… coach has been on at me for ages about working out too hard, I know something like this will give him just the kind of excuse to rest me and give someone else a chance.”

Jack felt the locker door clang as it was swung to by Alex, reverberating the walls around him, but there was no spin of the dial this time round – she had not locked it.

“Isn’t your Dad paying him to be here, to tutor you specifically?”

“Well yeah, but he doesn’t care, he still gets paid either way and he’s getting bored of me not listening to him… if he finds out about this inhaler thing he’ll just tell my Dad and use it as an excuse… then my Dad will kick off at me for concealing it.”

“Yeah…”

“Anyway, they’re never gonna find out so none of this matters… what would I do without you, Allie?” he heard her say.

“Asphyxiate, probably.” Alex replied drily, standing to her feet with a slight squeak of heel on floor.

“Yeah yeah, you funny bitch,” Caitlin laughed, a sound that tore right through Jack’s heart.

It was only at the joke Alex had made, but all the same, her laughter was hard-wired to mock him.

“Hey…” he heard Alex complain light-heartedly as the two sets of shoes padded their way back out of the locker room, and down the hallway.

Jack did not move for a short while.

He was fairly certain the two girls were well gone, but it was better to be safe than sorry. At least with the locker door now open all he had to do was exit the changing rooms and get clear of school… but he was reluctant to move, as if moving made things too real and he couldn’t face that just yet.

It was with some effort that he eventually convinced himself to drag the t-shirt off of himself and look at his phone.

4:26PM

He really needed to get out of there fairly quickly, before parts of the school became closed off, but what had just taken place… well… he just needed a minute to process.

Point 1 – Caitlin was asthmatic, or at least required an inhaler sometimes.

Point 2 – Alex hadn’t ratted him out, and had, against all the odds, managed to protect him from Caitlin, and Hannah, without blowing her cover and under extreme pressure.

The former wasn’t particularly important in the grand scheme of things… at least not now, but the latter…

He felt himself well up a little, she must have only locked him in because she knew Caitlin might root around for the inhaler. It had probably been her only choice to hide him there, to give Hannah a convincing explanation for his disappearance; a rushed decision, but in the end… a good one. It seemed like her explanation for the locked door had also been accepted without question too… even if Caitlin knew something was up with Alex, it had been masked well and Caitlin clearly trusted her.

Whatever was shining on him today, it had largely depended upon Alex’s ability to think on her feet, and he was at a loss to express how much she had saved him… and not for the first time.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, under his breath.

“Thank you, Alex.”

Jack forced himself into action, dragging himself from the locker. His limbs were stiff from having to stay so still for a long time, but not as achy as he’d perhaps expected - just a few joint clicks here and there. He rearranged the locker contents so it wasn’t as obvious that he had been there, and then his eyes came to rest upon the oversized inhaler…

It was one of the blue ones he knew was a ‘reliever’ – to be used in the event of shortness of breath. He’d met a boy with asthma many years back, on holiday at some lakeside place up-country. The kid had had a much smaller version, which he’d used a couple of times after they’d been running during some of the more sporty activities.

Jack was staggered that someone as athletic as Caitlin could possibly need an inhaler, but that was obviously part of the mystery. It was obvious she was hiding its existence from everyone, and Alex was in a position to cover up for her, much like she was shielding him from Caitlin.

He swung the locker door to, leaving it as it was, and paced swiftly through the school. The building was verging on empty by now, and he would easily be able to hear any Alphas approaching by just their footsteps. He was still wary, but it wasn’t anything like as nerve-shredding as during the school day proper. He just had to stay calm, exit the building quietly, and get home as quickly as possible. It was a little blurry without his glasses, but he could see well enough to get by.

It took about 5 minutes to traverse the giant hallways, avoiding an Alpha janitor and a couple of students milling around, and head out via the less-conspicuous side entrance. A further 5 later, and he was well past the school environs and on the path home.  Conscious he was still easily visible from the road, as soon as the carriageway opened out into suburbia, Jack abandoned the sidewalk and stalked between the trees and foliage, to shake any latent paranoia that he was being followed somehow, just in case.

After about half a mile hugging bushes and flowerbeds, Jack came to a rest next to a birch tree and leant against it, pulling out his phone to check the time and take stock of things.

4:48PM – still plenty of time to get home – he could take a moment to compose himself.

The overriding emotion he felt was relief. Thoughts of Alex were starting to pile up inside his head, analysing how she had acted, how she had asked him to trust her.

He’d seen how she’d used the closeness of her friendship with Caitlin and Hannah to manipulate the situation expertly to keep him out harm’s way, but what he didn’t understand was why. Was this really the same girl who’d gotten satisfaction from crushing his pen flat?

Penny had been missing today, for whatever reason, and in her absence he had been forced to take risks, and it had very nearly resulted in disaster. He had been very unfortunate to fall practically gift-wrapped into Hannah’s clutches right on the verge of leaving school, but equally lucky in that someone else had stepped up in Penny’s absence and gotten him out of harm’s way.

He missed Penny, in all manner of ways, but his heart beat more strongly when he thought that Alex too was capable of kindness; another Alpha who, seemingly, gave a shit about him.

Sliding down against the tree trunk until he ended up sat on the grass, he felt overwhelmed.

It made him sick to think he was still so vulnerable to abduction; staying away from school, no matter how difficult it would be to facilitate, was looking more and more like the only real solution. His own feelings towards getting in contact with the authorities were also shifting, from the intimidating prognosis that Caitlin’s father would pull all the strings, to more of a ‘nothing to lose’ mentality. He felt it was rapidly reaching a point where he might have no choice but to take things to the next level, no matter where it might lead.

The girl had abused him, and was apparently looking to do so again. The more evidence he could collect, whether a voice-recording, some photos, or even someone like Alex’s testimony, if she was willing to give it, would make it increasingly difficult for a cover-up to occur. He knew people could be silenced, and he would be risking more than just his own skin if he took things down that path… but the efforts of those involved encouraged him to at the very least consider taking steps towards framing or outing Caitlin, or creating a body of evidence to disprove any counterclaims she might make.

To Jack, Caitlin was this all-powerful, vindictive giant, but in the wider world that she belonged to, she was still a teenage girl… well-built, imposing, a bully… but still someone’s child, a person with a lot to lose… and he needed to remember that.

The phone resting in his hand slowly began to burn its way into his brain - he really needed to relay to Delon that he was ok.

He brought up his friend’s contact details, and pressed the number to call him immediately.

The phone rang a few times before Delon eventually picked up.

“Hey… Jack?!” he said anxiously.

“It’s me… I’m fine, I’m good… walking home right now,” Jack explained.

“Oh thank fuuuck,” Delon breathed, a rush of air buffeting the receiver.

“Just get home as soon as possible man, did Alex come back in the end?”

Jack paused, “Sort of, yeah…”

He briefly explained what had happened, eager to highlight not only that Alex had come through in a tight spot, but also Caitlin’s ‘secret’.

Delon, as always, listened intently and was, in his own way, supportive, albeit without having much to say.

“I’m just really happy you’re ok, dude,” he said finally, “Just get yourself home, and I’ll chat to you online.”

As Jack was about to say a rushed goodbye, he remembered something important.

“I’m having second thoughts about talking to the cops, D,” he admitted, his voice suddenly cracking with emotion. As Delon paused, Jack stifled a fresh set of tears, covering his mouth and nose with his hands to try and prevent his friend from hearing.

“I get it…” Delon said finally, “I mean, I know it’ll create a whole new set of problems but you can’t go on like this… we can’t watch over you every moment of the school day…” he added.

“I know…” Jack replied, sniffing slightly, “I’m… not going to do anything just yet, but I have to figure out what to do… tell my parents, tell the school… but even if I do, it doesn’t mean my chances of being kidnapped will stop… you know…”

Delon made a thoughtful ‘mmm’ noise, he knew exactly what Jack was saying. If he could hear that his friend was fighting back the tears, he didn’t make any mention of it, but there was a gentleness to his tone that suggested he could sense Jack’s emotional state.

“It might make her think twice though,’ Delon soothed, “It would also mean she’s on their radar and if she tried anything, people would be on the lookout.”

“I suppose,” Jack said, wiping his eyes, “I need to think about it, my mind’s a mess…”

“It’s understandable, man,” Delon said, “You’ve been through a lot, again…”

“I miss Penny…” Jack’s words leaked out before he could think. He’d not told Delon about the kiss they had shared, but he knew his friend was aware, at least vaguely, of the closeness of the relationship he had forged with the tall Alpha girl in such a short time.

“I’m sure she just had something come up,” he reassured with conviction, possibly for his friend’s sake, “I bet she’ll be in school tomorrow.”

“I… I might not go in…” Jack admitted hesitantly.

“Oh…” Delon paused, “I guess I don’t blame you, will your parents go for it?”

“Unlikely,” he sighed, “But right now I can’t face going back…”

Not without Penny. That was what he meant. If she wasn’t there again, he wasn’t sure he could cope.

“I understand,” Delon said quietly. “Look, just get home, have a think, I’m always on the other end of the phone, or messenger.”

“Cheers, Delon,” Jack said quietly, drying his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

“Be safe, dude,” and then, with a click, his best friend was gone.

Jack put his phone in his pocket, and with a familiar feeling of hopelessness, began the final leg of his journey home.

Fortunately, it was an empty house that greeted him, and he could afford himself a little ‘me time’ by fixing himself something quick and hot to eat; instant soup and some bread and butter. His appetite was still poor, but having skipped lunch, his body was crying out for even this meagre consolation.

He stirred the contents of the mug with a spoon cheerlessly and stared straight ahead, uncertain of how to proceed. This latest brush with danger had been averted, and he would not be trying to escape school at ‘rush hour’ ever again, but coping with the perils of school was not the only thing on his mind.

Penny’s kiss had been supplanted as the dominant feature of the last 24h… and yet her absence left a hole in his heart that was just as painful, if not more so than his near-miss abduction.

Taking his phone out again, he brought up their messenger feed in the app. Staring at the blank text box, he yet again felt hollow, like if she had not contacted him then it was pointless to contact her, even to express his concerns and convey his great worry over her wellbeing.

He toyed with what he could even say that would express how he felt, and then the screen timed out and faded to black, revealing his own morose expression staring back at him in the reflection.

The rest of the evening came and went in a bit of a haze. Time seemed to pass him by and his parents were, yet again, too involved in their own lives and the general hubbub of work, dinner, tv, etc to really notice anything untoward, or suspect anything other than Jack being in one of his quieter, more insular moods.

He went back to his room under the pretence of ‘revision’ but found himself staring into space once more, unable to figure out either a plan of action for getting himself out of school in the morning, or for notifying the authorities of his predicament. He knew he needed to do something, but no matter how hard he tried, his brain was just unable to move forward, like it was stuck between two gears, unable to function properly.

He felt a wave of anger and frustration rise up within him, and punched a pillow in silent agony, on the verge of tears. He couldn’t outsmart all of this, it was just too much to bear.

Beleaguered and upset, he curled up into a ball and held his face in his hands.

Jack was woken by his mother.

The sky outside was still dark, his bleary eyes slowly focused on his bedside alarm clock.

5.47am.

“What’s going on…?” he asked, half-asleep.

“Jackie, it’s about Grandad,” his mum said, her face looked grave.

He realised she was fully dressed, shoes on and everything.

“He’s… well, there’s been a… complication,” she tried to explain, falteringly.

“Is he ok?” Jack asked right away, sitting upright and forcing himself to pay attention.

“For now,” she said, pausing, “He’s stable, but things could deteriorate quickly…”

“Are you going to the Hospital?” Jack asked, interjecting without meaning to be rude.

“Yes,” she sighed, “Your Dad and I feel it’s best, just in case…”

His mother’s eyes began to fill with tears.

In that instant, Jack’s focus completely snapped to his family.

His Grandfather, his mum’s dad, was his only surviving grandparent. A fiercely proud man from a generation that largely predated the sweeping socio-economic changes GH-X2 would wreak, he had been quite influential in Jack’s life growing up, and someone he had looked up to.

“I’m coming too,” he said firmly.

“I think that would be best…” his mother agreed, wiping her eyes, “Just in case… you know.”

“He’ll be just fine,” Jack insisted, trying to be the strong one, placing his hand atop his mother’s, “He’ll be fine.”

The cold air outside was crisp as he followed his Dad to the car. Bundled up in a jacket, he sat in the back seat as his Mum locked the house behind them, all around was still and dark and quiet.

The engine fired up and soon they were cocooned together, unsure of what to say to one another as the sodium streetlights whipped past overhead.

After a few minutes he saw his mother slump down in her seat, sobbing, and his father reached across to comfort her.

“It’ll be alright, Alison,” he said quietly.

Jack reached his hand forward to try and comfort her too, resting it on her shoulder.

It took about 20 minutes to reach the hospital. Traffic was dead, so parking was straight-forward enough, despite the ever-dwindling size of the Beta lot. The walk to the ward was, again, mostly silent, the occasional glance or comforting word aside. Both Jack and his Dad were focused on keeping his Mum together, as the situation was threatening to overwhelm her.

At the front desk, the tiny family were confronted with the sheer scale of a public building designed for Alphas. There was a makeshift reception step ladder that his Dad ascended to attract attention, and after catching the eye of an on-duty nurse, the Alpha woman was able to escort them to his Grandad’s bed.

As his parents spoke at length to the lady, who stooped down to hear them and held a couple of oversize doors as they passed through, Jack couldn’t help but marvel at the way everything had been designed to suit both scales.

Every set of swing doors had a half-scale swing-door inbuilt, and one side room he saw contained a single Alpha bed, whereas the one next to it contained 4 Beta ones with partitions. Clearly the staff were mostly Alpha-sized, but he did catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a Beta doctor scurrying down the end of one of the corridors.

Eventually, they reached a ward that was filled with Beta-size beds with partitions between them, and the giant nurse gently slid back a curtain to reveal a frail old man surrounded by several pieces of medical equipment.

“We’ve put him under, and we’re monitoring the situation,” the lady explained, getting down to her knees and gingerly inspecting the notes to verify he was still stable.

Jack’s mother escaped her husband’s grasp and went straight to her father’s side, gripping his hand in hers as the nurse looked on sympathetically.

“We’re hoping that he’ll pull through relatively quickly,” she explained, “But there is of course a small risk that he might not respond to the treatment.”

“I understand,” his mother said, not taking her eyes off her father, “Thank you for letting us see him on such short notice.”

The nurse pressed her lips together, acknowledging her words, and began to stand up.

“I’ll let you have some time together, let me know if you need anything,” she offered, before taking her leave.

Jack’s father scratched the back of his head, fighting the tiredness they were all contending with, but he too wore an anxious, scared expression.

Jack daren’t ask about the severity of his grandfather’s condition, but he understood the gravity of the situation.

Walking up to his mother, she turned to him and gave him a sad smile, one of concern, but also of affection for her son.

“He’s a fighter,” she said quietly, letting go of her father’s hand and gently embracing her boy.

“And you’re right,” she added, “He’ll get through this, I just know it.”

She went back over to Jack’s dad, who wrapped his arms around her, and Jack was suddenly acutely aware of the slender, fragile human fighting for his life in the bed before him.

It was so strange to see him like this. Even as he got older, Jack’s Grandad had kept himself fit and able, always going for long walks, even after his dog had passed away, and keeping his mind active with puzzles and reading.

To see him so… helpless… was difficult to process. Unable to speak, just breathing down a tube, it was artificial-feeling, uncomfortable… scary.

He had no idea what to do, whether to say anything or hold his grandfather’s hand as his Mum had done, so he stood there awkwardly for a while, as if paying his respects before going back over to his parents.

His Dad had fetched a chair and was in the process of finding another, so Jack made sure his mother was sat down, to which she responded by fishing in her bag for some tissues to fix her running mascara.

“Thank you for coming, Jackie,” she said, “I’m sorry about all this, especially with your exams and everything… it couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

“It’s ok, Mum,” he replied, shrugging as if to say it was nothing, “I’ve not been to see Grandad since he went in, I should have visited…”

“Well you’re here now,” she said firmly, “We’re all here now, and that’s all that matters,” giving him a look that forgave everything.

His Dad reappeared with another chair, and Jack gestured that he should sit and Jack himself would stand.

“You ok, son?” his Dad asked, before sitting down.

“I’m ok,” he replied.

“Did you forget your glasses?” his Dad asked, tracing the outline of a two circles on his own face.

Jack hadn’t even realised. In the rush to get to the hospital it hadn’t crossed his mind, but it dawned on him that the blurriness was not just down to being sleepy.

“Yeah,” he nodded sagely, not wanting to admit that they were probably lost or broken in the scuffle at the school entrance.

“It’s understandable,” his father said sympathetically. “Just make sure you grab them next time.”

They stayed for about an hour, as the sun started to rise up, and Jack’s focus began to wander as the prospect of school started to reappear.

The Nurse popped back to check on them, and his grandfather, and was pleased to see that his vital signs were improving, albeit only slightly.

His Mum was reluctant to go anywhere, whilst Jack’s dad wandered off to find a vending machine, so Jack was left alone with her to gather his thoughts.

“I don’t think I can go into work like this,” she said quietly, looking at Jack, “I’m too worried.”

He nodded sagely.

She fished for her phone in her bag, and brought it out.

“Are you going to be ok for school?” she asked, eyeing the time.

He paused.

“I…”

“Look, I know it’s hard at the moment,” she interjected, “And lord knows you need to be in there getting everything up to scratch for the final push… but are you going to be able to concentrate today?”

He looked back at her blankly. He daren’t manipulate her like this. Not today. The prospect of using the situation made him feel utterly vile.

She sighed, half-laughing.

“You know, he’d laugh at me for this, you know,” she smiled, gesticulating at her father. “He had no qualifications, barely went to school, played hooky half the time apparently,” she smiled, adding with a wink, “Your great-aunt told me all about it, god rest her.”

Jack smiled back; regardless of the situation, it was nice to talk family for a change.

“And still he pushed us, he did, but he had his moments. He used to get into trouble for taking us out of school before the end of term, to go on holiday and save a few bob. He always told us that hard work was the best way to success, but all work, and no play…”

“Makes Jack a dull boy… I know.”

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” she said, welling up slightly and dabbing at her eyes with what was formerly a tissue, now more of a clump of peeling, papery mush.

“I think we’ve both earned a breather, sometimes life’s too important, you know?”

Jack nodded.

His Dad returned, empty-handed.

“Bloody machine’s broken,” he opined, tone-deaf to the situation at hand.

It was agreed that Jack and his Mum would get a taxi home, whilst Jack’s Dad felt willing and able to go and work.

Jack said his own goodbye to his grandfather after his mother had spent some time by his side, and chose to plant a kiss on his head, and said a couple of quiet words when no-one was listening.

He hoped it would not be the last goodbye, and that he would soon be able to visit a fully-conscious, albeit fully-cantankerous grandparent, but just in case, he felt more at peace having visited.

The taxi ride back home took a bit longer than the journey there, battling through rush-hour as the Beta driver cranked up music of indeterminable origin, and he felt his mother’s head slide onto his shoulder as she drifted off, exhausted by the morning’s drama.

Jack woke her up as they approached the house, the fare ended up being particularly steep, but neither of them felt that it was really worth arguing over given the circumstances.

They paid the driver, and took themselves off to bed once they’d re-entered the premises.

Jack’s head barely touched the pillow before he was quite, quite asleep…

Jack woke at around midday, fully clothed on top of the bed. Despite everything, he felt refreshed, almost as if what had had happened that morning was a peculiarly surreal dream, but one that had brought him back into the bosom of his family… and mended some of the fractures in his relationship with his parents.

He was worried for his Grandad’s health; the idea of him slipping away was an upsetting and complicated one, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. His grandfather had lived to a good age, and lived through so much of history; both the good, and the bad. All they could do now was wait…

He could hear his mother boiling the kettle in the kitchen, no doubt for a pot of tea, so she was wide awake and busying herself.

Sitting upright, he swung his legs out from under the covers and yawned, picking up the phone he had basically flung onto his bedside table, and noticed immediately that there were notifications from messenger.

Unlocking the screen, he maximised the window and saw two conversations in bold; one from Delon… and one from Penny.

His heart skipped a beat, but he forced himself to read Delon’s message first, out of protocol. Head over heart.

The first time stamp was from just before 9am. 

D: Hey dude, I take it you managed to convince your folks

Then there were two together, timed at just past 11. 

D: Jack, you ok?

D: Haven’t seen Penny in today either, just hoping you’re alright, mate?

He quickly typed a response. 

J: Grandad ill overnight so went to hospital this morn

J: Not coming in today so code green

He really should have written more, to clarify things and make sure Delon was fully abreast of the situation, but his heart wouldn’t let him wait any longer.

Swiping Delon’s convo off the screen, he tapped on Penny’s chat icon.

P: I’m so sorry, Jack

P: I know I let you down

P: I understand why you don’t want to talk to me

P: I am truly sorry

Jack’s heart dropped.

What had happened?

He didn’t know how to even begin to respond…

“Jackie, do you want a cup of tea? Jaaaack?” he heard his mother yell out.

He just sat there, phone frozen in hand, unable to respond to either development.

He heard the sound of footsteps as his Mum approached. Pressing the button on the side of his phone, he turned off the screen just before she swept the door open.

“Ah good, I thought you were awake,” she said, in a surprisingly upbeat manner. “Cup of tea?”

“Yes please,” he said, accentuating his reply with a drawn-out yawn to confirm that, yes, he had only just arisen.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, draping a tea-towel over her arm.

“Tired,” he said, glancing out at the garden through the bedroom window, “How about you?” he asked, turning back to her.

“I’m… coping… I guess. It’ll all be alright in the end, just got to give it time,” she replied, giving him a weak smile, then turned on her heel and headed back to the kitchen. “Now get up and have something to eat, will you?”

Jack didn’t reply, instead he opened up his phone as soon as she was clear, and stared at the chat screen.

I let you down

I am truly sorry

Oh, Penny…

His stomach growled as he drank the hot tea, standing next to the dining table with his Mum close by.

She was quiet, reading the paper, occasionally looking out of the window with a sort of fixed stare, very much lost in thought.

He fixed himself a bowl of cereal and ate it slowly, acutely aware of the crunching sound as each fresh jawful punctuated the silence.

“I might go for a walk round the park or something,” she announced, “It’s been forever since I last did that.”

“Uhuh,” he mumbled, finishing off his mouthful and letting the spoon rest in the bowl momentarily.

“Do you want to come with me?”

He didn’t, to be honest. Not that he didn’t want to support her, but more that he wanted time alone. He knew she’d probably want to talk, and he just wasn’t sure he could take it. His mother had a tendency to interrogate rather than communicate, and he wasn’t feeling up to that particular challenge.

“I don’t know… probably not,” he replied, “…sorry,” taking another spoonful.

She shrugged, but clearly it didn’t bother her too much.

“It’d be good to get some fresh air,” she said, more to herself than to Jack.

He was too preoccupied with worrying about Penny’s message. How to respond. What it even meant?

“I’ll be back in a bit,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. He’d been lost in his own little world, and hadn’t even noticed her putting her boots and coat on.

“I love you, Mum,” he said without thinking. It even took him by surprise a little bit.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” she said, her eyes going slightly dewy. She gave him a kiss on the forehead, and then headed to the door “I’ve got my phone with me, I’ll be back in a bit.”

Jack nodded, and his mother closed the door behind her.

He finished his cereal, which had begun to turn to mush after sitting in the milk too long, and then rinsed the bowl clean in the sink.

He wandered back to his room, collapsed on the bed, and reached out to grab his phone, which he had left on charge.

There were a couple of new messages from Delon:

D: Oh shit, I hope he’s ok?

D: It’s good you’re not in school, but hope you’re alright

D: Keep me posted anyway dude

Obviously, nothing further from Penny.

He felt absolutely awful, not necessarily for her or for himself, but for the situation itself. He had been so looking forward to seeing her, what could possibly have happened? Had she chickened out? Did she somehow not care as much as she had made out?

What about the kiss, the things they’d last shared? Had it not meant anything?

He had to say something. He had to find out. Just initiate a conversation, comfort her, make things right.

He tapped on the arrow that loaded the on-screen keyboard and began to type.

J: I don’t know what happened but of course I still want to talk to you

J: It’s ok

J: I’m ok

He didn’t know what else to put. There were so many conclusions he could jump to. It made his head hurt just to think about it.

After reading and re-reading his replies for a while, half-hoping that the little icon would move down to show that they had been read, he had to close the app for his own sanity’s sake.

He checked his emails instead, realising with a flash that today was Thursday.

The email from ALDA was right there. That lurid yellow logo.

Hi Jack!

Your glasses and/or contact lenses are available collection today from 10am. 

He’d completely forgotten about his trip to the optical department.

Absolute life-saver, and just in time to replace the pair he’d lost the day before. He simply had to find a way to go and get them.

If his mother got back, it’d be tricky to try and explain why he was going out for a walk right after she’d just gone for one. That, and yet more lying to her face. Better to leave a note and head out ASAP, and if there was a problem, wing things later.

He quickly checked to see that he had his bag, wallet and keys to hand, then grabbed the post-it pad and pen from next to the fridge. Quickly scrawling something about her being right about needing the fresh air after all, he slapped it on the fridge, threw a coat over his shoulders, and forced his trainers on, crumpling the battered heels even more than they already were. After a quick spot-check to make sure all the windows were fastened shut and the back door was dead-bolted, he headed out of the house, and got up to speed.

It was another blustery day, but clear enough, with a few high-flying clouds. A few bits of rubbish were dancing along the road, a reminder that this was not the idyllic suburb of years gone by.

ALDA was a good 45 minute walk away, but Jack’s legs felt good, almost like he’d gotten a second wind for today. It wasn’t like he felt he was in control of his destiny or anything, but getting to the superstore was both a welcome distraction from his feelings and much-needed motivation to not mope around the house.

He made steady progress, occasionally checking his phone to see if his Mum had texted him… or if Penny had seen his messages.

She had not.

Eventually the superstore loomed from around a bend in the road, and he traversed the car park, watching carefully for the enormous Alpha cars that threatened to flatten unsuspecting Beta pedestrians despite several designated, highly-visible crosswalks.

The store itself was fairly quiet for a weekday, just a handful of shoppers of both scales; little old Beta pensioners in mobility scooters, Alpha stay-at-home mums rushing around with tiny kids in tow, and the occasional college student, no doubt nursing a hangover.

He made his way over to the optical department, flanking the spill-over tills that only opened at the weekend, making sure to keep his distance from the aisles as it was not uncommon for an enormous trolley to suddenly shoot out and broadside an unsuspecting Beta.

The half-size counter he arrived at was unoccupied, but it only took a moment for the Alpha optician to spot him there and walk over from his own section.

The guy wasn’t the biggest Alpha Jack had ever seen, but still easily 11ft tall, and on the portly side. He looked to be about mid-thirties, with an unkempt-looking beard and thick-framed glasses.

“What can I do for you today, sir?” he asked, bending at the waist and looming over Jack in that not-so-endearing way that Alphas tended to do subconsciously.

He could already tell that this guy was not overly used to dealing with Beta customers.

“Hi, um, I’ve got some glasses to pick up,” he stammered, tripping over his words.

The optician’s face crimpled into vague confusion, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite make that out, sir,” he said, leaning over even more awkwardly and angling his ear towards the smaller person.

“I’m here to pick, er, pick up some glasses,” Jack repeated, more loudly this time.

“Ah yes,” he said, satisfied that he had understood the request. “I’m afraid Anita isn’t in today, but I can have a look and check if they’re ready. Do you have your receipt with you?”

“Oh… yes,” Jack said, hurriedly dropping his bag and scouring through it to find the scrap of paper he needed. In a few seconds, he had what he needed, and handed it up to the giant, who inspected it closely.

“And what’s your name, sir?” he asked.

“Crawford… Jack,” the Beta replied, again a little louder than he would have ordinarily. He could feel that he was almost standing on the balls of his feet, an occasional side effect of talking to Alphas was the subliminal need to stand as tall as possible. To be seen, and treated, as equal as was feasible.

The rotund optician headed off through a door into the back of the store for about a minute, before returning with a tiny case grasped almost between his thumb and forefinger.

“Ok, let me see,” he said, crouching down to look at the Beta-size computer at the desk. He managed to operate the keyboard with some difficulty, as it was designed for far smaller fingers, snapped open the tiny case and lifted the glasses out. His hands were shaking slightly as he inspected them, before offering them to Jack to try on.

Jack couldn’t help but notice the dirt in the giant’s fingernails, and the smell of his breath. Evidently he had eaten recently, it smelled like onions, and something sweet, maybe chocolate. It was unappetizing to say the least.

“Can you just check if they fit, sir,” he suggested, washing Jack with his breath once more.

Trying to avoid looking at the man, Jack slid the new pair on; they fit rather well. He looked into the mirrors by the side of the counter, testing to see that the arms were snug to the side of his head, which they were.

“They seem fine,” he said to the Alpha, “They’re not going to slide off, I don’t think.”

“Excellent,” the man replied with well-practiced enthusiasm, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“No thank you, I’m good,” Jack said politely, to which the giant responded with a smarmy smile as he rose to his full height, and walked back to his larger counter.

At least that’s over with, Jack thought to himself. He put the new case safely inside his bag, and once again was struck by how razor-sharp the world had become. After a while his eyes would become used to things being a bit blurry, but the return to clarity was ever-welcome. Throwing the strap over his shoulder and returning his older specs to his face, he turned to head out of the store, the giant optician glancing his way as he walked off. 

That’s when he heard his phone blip.

Taking it out of his pocket, he could see that it wasn’t a text message from his mother. It was a chat message. From Penny.

The hairs on his arms pricked up ever so slightly as he tapped the screen.

P: Can you talk now?

His heart beat a little faster. He paused momentarily before typing out his reply. 

J: Yes

Almost as soon as he’s sent it, the little icon moved down to show that she had seen his reply. In a matter of moments, the screen flashed up with an incoming call.

Call from Penelope Lévesque (friend request pending)

With trembling fingers, he tapped to accept.

“H… Hey,” he said, his voice breaking with nerves.

“Jack, hi…” he heard her say anxiously, her beautiful voice slightly distorted because of the connection. “Before you ask, I am… so sorry for not being there yesterday… I can’t begin to express how sorry I am…”

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” he said, simply overjoyed to hear her voice again, just glad to know she was still there.

“You know I would’ve been there if I could… but, there’s been… something’s happened…” the girl said, her voice tightening up, as if this took effort to talk about.

“Oh…” he said, a pang hitting him in the chest. This sounded serious.

“To cut a long story short… I took ill the other night, couldn’t sleep, I was in… a lot of pain. That morning I could barely move, my parents had to ring the doctor and they rushed me to hospital.”

“Oh god…” Jack said quietly.

“By the time I got there, I was unconscious… they took me straight to A&E, I think they did tests… I don’t think my parents want to tell me what happened exactly but this morning I slowly came round… I was a bit groggy at first… it’s all been a blur…”

Jack was getting upset at the thought of her being in pain or scared. He’d feared something like this might be the case, but he had hoped against hope it would have been something more innocuous.

“They’re keeping me in for observation and I have very little strength at the moment, hopefully all the test results will be in tomorrow and I might get the all-clear if I recover… I do feel a bit better this afternoon…” she added.

There was a short pause

“You still there, Jack?”

“Yeah I’m here Penny… I’m just… I’m so sorry to hear that…”

“But what about you, did you get on ok, I am sooooo sorry I wasn’t there for you… I really am… I don’t know what to do.”

He could hear she was getting upset, and he wanted to rid her of any responsibility. Telling her about what had happened, with Hannah and Alex and Caitlin, would not help one bit - it just wasn’t an option.

“I’m fine, I just missed you… that’s all,” he said, trying to soothe her.

“Aw… I missed you too,” she replied, “I’m just stuck here now, I wish I could see you.”

“Which hospital are you in?” he asked, going to stand over by the wall out of harm’s way.

“I’m in Pinevale General, I think,” she said, half-laughing, “Oh god am I spaced…”

Exactly the same hospital that his Grandad was currently residing in.

Exactly the same.

“Yeah it’s Pinevale General. There’s a lady in the bed over from me, she’s been letting me use her tablet while she sleeps. I think they’ve put me on some really strong painkillers though, I can barely think straight.”

“It’s ok,” Jack soothed, “You’re in safe hands.”

“I know,” she said, “It’s just a bit scary, not knowing what’s wrong…”

“I’m sure it’ll be ok,” he said, “Do you know which ward you’re in?”

“…yeah, Ward F,” she replied, “Wait, you’re not coming to visit are you?”

He paused.

“Jack?!”

 “I don’t know,” he admitted, pacing along the supermarket wall, changing direction and then marching back, running his fingers along the bricks.

“No, you can’t… just stay in school, aren’t you in the library now?” she asked, puzzled.

“Not exactly,” he replied.

“Don’t risk coming to see me, Jack, stay out of sight, don’t take any risks…” she pleaded, her demeanour beginning to shift, “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. I’d never forgive myself if anything…”

He could hear her starting to hyperventilate.

“It’s ok, I’m safe… I’m not coming, ok?” he interjected, admonishing himself for making her upset.

“Don’t ever risk yourself for me, Jack,” she whispered loudly, as if the tablet was right up next to her face, “Promise me.”

“I… I just want to do something to support you,” he said weakly, “I want you to know I’m here.”

“I know you’re there,” she said softly, “I really do.”

There was a brief pause where neither of them said anything. It was enough for them to just be on the end of the line to one another.

He could hear her breathing gently, still holding the tablet close to her face, and it was strangely comforting. It reminded him of when she was asleep in her room, how much he had wanted to kiss her in that moment…

“I hope you feel better soon,” Jack said finally, “Please don’t worry about me… I need you to concentrate all your energy on getting better.”

“I will,” she said quietly, “Look, I probably have to go, I think Amanda’s waking back up.”

“Ok, take care, Penny,” he said softly.

“Thank you, Jack,” she breathed, and after a couple of seconds, the line went dead with a blip.

How would you rate your call?

He turned the screen off and rested his head on the wall.

He had a decision to make.

He didn’t want to pace around the ALDA any longer, so he left via the enormous sliding doors and started crossing the car park.

He had two options:

Go and see Penny.

Go straight home.

Going to see Penny would require some degree of explanation. Visiting his Grandad would be the foil, but it felt… disingenuous… not to mention risky.

Going home would be relatively straightforward, but then what? Wait for School on Friday, fresh in the knowledge that Penny would not be there, and that she was sick, and in pain…? Truthfully, that felt worse.

Picking up his phone, he scrolled down to his mother’s number, and stared at it. Knowing full well the consequences of his actions, he pressed the call icon, and held the phone to his head.

“Jack? I’m almost back, are you ok?”

“Yeah Mum, I’m good, I’ve just gone for a walk too.”

“Oh right, well… good, it’s good to get out. Are you nearby?”

He paused.

“Not really, I went for a bit of a walk.”

“Ok…” she said. He knew that tone. She was worried. Jack had a tendency to disappear, either to his room, or just ‘out’, usually to Delon’s.

“I might go and see Grandad again,” he ventured, gritting his teeth slightly in anticipation of the response.

“Oh,” she said, taken aback, but not in a particularly negative way. “Well, ok… I mean, if that’s what you want to do, Jackie. It’s a long way to walk, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I needed the exercise…” he explained.

“Ok, well,  your Dad and I will probably stop by the hospital when he’s finished work to see Grandad anyway… but are you sure you’re ok?”

“I’m fine, Mum,” he replied pointedly, drawing deeply upon his natural teenage urge to shrug off the nagging of a loved one.

 “Alright then, well, I’ll ring you in a bit, just to check on you,” she said, still a little unconvinced. “And you ring me if there’s any issue, ok?”

“Uhuh,” he mumbled.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And with that, he had engineered himself a window.

The Hospital was still a good couple of miles further, out towards where the ring road met the main commuter routes in and out of the city. It was probably a similar distance to the walk home, but he wasn’t as familiar with it, so he switched on the location tracking on his phone to get the fastest route.

He knew it would drain pretty quickly, so once he was on the right track he turned it off until he needed it again. There would definitely be signs when he got within a mile or so, particularly as the route looked like it was taking him alongside the main trunk road across town.

His legs were definitely heavier than they had been on the walk to ALDA, but he was determined. Having a goal in place made it easier for him to convince himself that the extra effort was justified. Each step brought him closer, and closer… and closer.

Whilst Penny had told him not to, what she didn’t know was that he hadn’t even been into school today. There was no sneaking out of the premises, no tricking his parents… well, no more than needed anyway, and if he timed it right, he could see her and his Grandad, and nobody would be any the wiser.

The troubles with Caitlin felt, at least for today, far behind him. She was stuck at school, probably running laps with the other sporto jocks, and he was literally miles away, far beyond her reach, and with a little luck, fading from her bull’s-eye.

He hit the first blue sign right on cue. The traffic was getting busier, so he knew he must be getting closer. Crossing the roads was now a case of waiting for the lights and jogging across, as a lot of the newer intersections barely acknowledged the time it would take for a Beta to get across. That was why so many elderly Betas were given mobility scooters, or at least that’s what he’d been told. His Grandad always refused to have one, one of the reasons why he’d kept himself fit for so long.

After about half a mile, he could see the Hospital buildings quite clearly. They dwarfed the few trees that grew either side of the road, and Jack was genuinely surprised to see how much bigger it all looked during the day than in the small hours… or maybe that was just because of the glasses?

Following the signposts, he made his way to one of the receptions, whereupon he was able to consult a full map of the complex. Ward F was one of the ones closest to the A&E department, which tallied with what Penny had said over the phone. He wasn’t 100% sure which ward his Grandad was in, but after a bit of examination he recognised and retraced some of the route he and his parents had taken that morning, from Beta Car Park B into Reception Area B, and then on until… tracing a path with his finger… Ward R.

It was connected to the building that housed Ward F, but via a very circuitous and meandering route. In some ways that was good, because he could make his way between the Wards without arousing too much suspicion, but equally, there was a small chance that he could bump into Penny when he was with his parents. Would they even recognise her? It probably wouldn’t happen. Right?

Regardless, all that was in his mind now was to make his way straight to Ward F, and hope that Penny would be pleased to see him, not angry at him for taking ‘unnecessary risks’.

A quick trip back outside the building and on to the next entrance led him to the correct corridor, and then on towards Ward F. He followed the signage, making sure he wasn’t in anyone’s way as staff and patients moved around, some in wheelchairs, some simply shuffling slowly whilst wheeling drip-bag stands. The Alpha medical staff were fairly attentive of him, often spotting him early on and keeping their distance, an entirely novel and refreshing change from the packed school corridors he was used to. There were even a handful of Betas, a couple of older men who looked like surgeons, and a middle-aged woman holding a fairly large x-ray sheet scrolled up under her arm as she marched purposefully down the hallway.

It was as he passed the entrance to Ward E that the nerves began to kick in. He was really going to see her. He went through the double doors, and began to scan the giant beds, unsure as to where exactly she would be.

A portly black Beta nurse, probably in her 50s, spied him looking around.

“Can I help you?” she asked, walking over with a clipboard tucked under one arm.

“Er yes, I’m looking for Penny Lévesque…” he asked, trying his best to appear unflustered, and succeeding, somewhat.

“Oh, the Alpha girl?” she asked, looking him up and down.

“Yes,” he replied flatly.

“Friend or family?” she enquired, again, eyeing him up with undisguised curiosity.

“Just a friend,” he said, a bit unnerved.

“Ok,” she said, her expression softening, “Just follow me.”

The lady led him off to another side of the Ward he probably would never have found on his own. As they passed row after row of oversized beds, some with patients in, some empty, she turned to look at him once more.

“Sorry, I just assumed you were lost,” she explained, “Don’t get many Beta visitors over this side of the hospital.”

“Oh right,” he said thoughtfully.

“Miss Lévesque’s not been very well, bless her,” she continued, “Her parents were here this morning, I think they said they’d be back again later.”

Jack nodded, trying to convey that he was in the loop, that he was definitely, totally, one hundred percent not just turning up out of the blue to visit someone he still didn’t really know all too well, and whose parents he hadn’t laid eyes on for the best part of a decade…

“We’ve put her on medication to dull the pain, so she might be quite drowsy or, well, not quite herself,” the nurse added, scrunching up her face expressively to suggest that it might be best not to expect too much from the patient.

“No, I understand,” said Jack, trying to take it all in, whilst at the same time, bursting with anticipation to see her again.

Finally, the nurse stopped outside a room, and slowly opened the oversized door. It had a kind of piston mechanism so that even a Beta-strength push would cause it to glide open seamlessly. Inside, there were two beds adjacent from one another with large windows in the wall behind them. The one on the right appeared be empty but unkempt, the covers all dragged to the end of the bed, whilst the one on the left was occupied by a reclined girl… with very long sandy-brown hair.

“I think she’s asleep again,” the nurse said quietly, “Poor thing’s not reacting well to the painkillers. Just wait here a second.”

Jack looked on as the lady walked quietly over to the side of the large bed and climbed up a small stepladder to be level with the sleeping patient. She reached out gently, and tapped Penny on the arm, to which she seemed to stir.

“Penny, you have a visitor,” the nurse said in a sing-song voice, smiling back at Jack as she did so.

“Mmmm-mmm,” groaned the Alpha sleepily, stretching out an arm and nearly knocking the tiny assistant off her perch.

“Ooh, careful darling,” the lady soothed, surprisingly unperturbed by the larger person’s near-miss, perhaps out of experience.

“I’ll just give you a minute to wake up, he’s right there when you feel ready.”

The woman clambered down again and walked past Jack, smiling at him as she did so.

“Give me a shout if there’s a problem, there’s a big button next to the bed,” she advised.

“Thank you,” he said, giving her his own half-smile back.

The door slowly closed behind the nurse as she walked down the corridor, and then it was just the two of them.

Penny’s head raised up slightly and she rubbed her eyes. She yawned, emitting a strained kind of whine as she did so, before stopping suddenly, and sweeping the long strands of hair from her face.

“Jack?” she murmured incredulously.

“Hey,” he said bashfully, putting his bag down and beginning to walk over.

As he approached the bed, he began to get that familiar sense of being fully out of scale, almost like minor vertigo.

He was barely tall enough to see over the top of the mattress; the top of his head well below the height of the safety rails.

Penny slid her legs to one side, sitting up and sweeping the covers over herself. She was wearing pale blue pyjamas, and he couldn’t fully tell if they were hospital ones or her own.

“Jack… why are you here? I told you not to come…” she said, struggling to come to terms with his sudden appearance. She was torn between being angry, and relieved, and upset… just totally overwhelmed and not fully awake yet.

“I know, I can explain…” he said apologetically, looking up at her torso as she loomed over him, even when in bed.

“Oh god…” she sniffed, wiping her eyes, “…it’s so good to see you.”

Jack reached out and put his hand on top of hers.

“As long as you’re safe,” she reiterated, beginning to calm down.

He smiled at her, to signal that he was, of course, safe, and started to climb the stepladder as the nurse had done before.

When he reached the top, it was a slight hop and a jump to sit on the side of the bed, which he proceeded to do, as Penny had generously allowed room for him.

Absolutely as soon as he had parked himself, two long arms enveloped him from behind, swaddling him in crisp, white sheets, and her chin came to rest on the crown of his head.

He could hear her breathing, shallow and fast, but so loud, like turning the volume up on surround sound.

“I’ll admit it,” she sniffled, “I wanted you to come. Badly.”

“I know,” he said, almost coming across as smug, but succeeding in amusing her, as he could feel her shake a little with joy.

It was then that he noticed the long catheter snaking out of her right arm, which sent a metallic sensation down his spine.

“Oh…” he paused, looking at it. He followed the length of plastic tubing as it led behind Penny’s body, but he couldn’t see what it was hooked up to.

“Are you in pain?” he asked as she unfurled her arms from him. She was still so much taller, even stooped, her eyes were a good three feet above his.

“Not so much,” she admitted, “Occasionally it aches, but the morphine helps.”

“Do you know what’s wrong?” he probed, drawing a soft sigh from his giantess friend.

“Well, I overheard one of the doctors about an hour ago,” she whispered conspiratorially, “And they think it’s another big flare-up.”

“A-what now?” Jack queried.

She looked nervously at him, as if this was something she really didn’t want him to react badly to.

“Do you remember me explaining about my health?”

“Yes… of course,” he said.

“Well, it’s that. A GH surge. Again.”

“Growth Hormone?”

“Yep,” she said, pressing her lips together to emphasise the ‘p’ sound. Her face looked crestfallen.

“So you’re growing taller?”

He could see her eyes start to water.

“Yep.”

“Please… don’t cry…” he said gently, shifting up to his knees and reaching up to wipe the tears from her face as it threatened to crumple up entirely.

She bowed her head, smooshing his little hand into her cheek as she attempted to control her outburst.

“I should be used to it by now,” she sniffed. “I just thought it would stop, I’m already so tall.”

Lifting her head back up slightly, she looked down at him, his face a picture of concern.

“I don’t want to be a freak,” she spat.

“But you aren’t, and won’t ever be,” he told her firmly, looking her straight in the eye.

She nodded a little, the corners of her mouth lifting up as she tried to feign a half-smile.

“You don’t think so?” she asked plaintively, wiping her cheeks.

“Never in a million years.”

It took a minute or two for Penny to calm down.

The drugs weren’t helping her get a handle on her emotions, and it was stressful enough to be stuck in the hospital without truly knowing how long she would have to stay.

Jack tried to stay strong for the giant girl, she kept apologising, and he kept telling her it was ok, and it became a bit of a running joke.

She was clearly feeling vulnerable, about as vulnerable as he’d ever seen another person, and that in itself was so strange, and wonderful, and emotional. To be so close to her during these moments, to be… allowed in, with no judgement, and to have a positive impact… that was something he had not really expected to experience.

After she’d gathered herself a bit more, Penny reached out off to one side of the bed by the wall, and swung out a small, by Alpha-standards anyway, yet impressively boxy TV monitor on a swivelling metal arm.

She pushed one of the four buttons, which turned it on, and then pressed the right arrow, which changed the station. Arriving on some movie channel or other, it was muted, but Jack could see the headphone socket right on the side.

It took him a few seconds to notice, but it was an iconic fantasy film from a few years back, one where all the Elves and Goblins and Humans fight a great war to free the kingdom from the tyranny of blah, blah, blah…

Interjecting the silence, Penny spoke to him directly.

“I think you should know that it’s why I’ve not been eating,” she admitted.

“Because of the growth?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said morosely, “I’ve been worried about it, trying to eat less made me think that perhaps I wouldn’t grow as much.”

“But you need to eat, Penny,” Jack replied, quietly shocked that it was her fear of becoming too big that was the underlying cause.

She shrugged, looking down bashfully at her arms folded across her chest.

“That’s unhealthy, and at worst anorexia,” he blurted out, before realising how he was unlikely to be providing much comfort.

“You’re right,” she conceded bitterly before he could backtrack, “And it needs to stop. This relapse proves that it didn’t work anyway.”

But what are you so afraid of growing for?” he asked gingerly, eyes full of genuine curiosity. “Being tall isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s something to embrace, take pride in, surely?”

“Maybe,” she said dejectedly, “But it hasn’t felt much like that so far. I finally felt like I was going to be a reasonable height, that there were a few girls taller than me out there, but now that’s going to change.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Jack said, confused but, in truth, more worried for Penny’s wellbeing than anything. “I don’t think it matters as much as you fear, as long as you’re still the same person.”

She wrapped her arms around him once more, constricting him in an especially tight hug that was startlingly claustrophobic, but fierce with emotion.

“Please don’t leave me, Jack,” she whispered down to him, “I need you so much right now…”

If he had been able to say anything at all, he would have said something soothing and perfectly-judged, and then asked her politely if he was allowed to breathe now. Instead, he just waited, hoping that she would let him go before he passed out.

It would have been scary in literally any other scenario, but he knew this girl’s motives, and he trusted her judgement. With a slight creaking of what sounded like his ribcage, she released his diminutive frame, and sank back down next to him, curling her knees around him and laying her head down on the pillow so they were at the same sort of level.

Jack regained his breath without making too much of a show of things, and reached out to stroke the girl’s hair as her eyes peeked out at him. She was clearly still so tired and discombobulated, she might not even remember his visit at all, though he definitely would.

“That’s nice…” she said, referring to his hands running across her sandy-brown locks, and closed her eyes. Before he knew it, her chest started to rise and fall; she had drifted off entirely.

Jack watched the muted movie screen for a while, checking on Penny as she snored lightly, occasionally reaching out to brush the hair around her cheek, and he felt strangely serene.

The clock in the corner of the room showed that time was ticking on, but he still had a few hours until his parents would come to visit his Grandad.

He had wanted to explain the situation to Penny, but there hadn’t been a convenient moment, and she was clearly a little out of it. It made sense not to give her too much to worry about, as long as she knew he was there for her, that seemed to be all that she needed right now.

He also didn’t really want the nurse to come back in and find him so intimately acquainted with her patient. Questions might well arise anyway when Penny’s parents returned, as the lady would surely make mention of a Beta visitor. He silently cursed himself for not thinking it through, but figured that, at worst, he would be described as a fellow kid from school… pretty nondescript, some Beta boy, totally harmless…

Sliding himself to the edge of the bed, he clambered down the ladder and went to pick up his bag. He noticed the other bed had quite a lot of detritus spread around it; on the cabinet next to it and on the windowsill. Cards, a box of chocolates, some flowers. He figured this was the ‘Amanda’ that Penny had mentioned before; the lady with the tablet. He was lucky that she hadn’t been in bed, or returned whilst he had been sat with Penny, because he wouldn’t have been able to say or do any of the things he just did.

Swinging his bag over his shoulder, he returned over to the bed, and gave Penny one last gentle stroke. Kissing his fingertips, he brushed the hair above her eyes, and proceeded to exit the room.

Finding his way to Ward R was as convoluted as he had predicted, but astute sign-reading and a half-decent sense of direction meant that he ended up in a semi-familiar hallway, and after following a couple of other visitors, he arrived at his destination.

His grandfather was still hooked up to the machines, much the same as that morning, and he appeared to be in a medicated sleep still.

Putting his bag down next to the bed, Jack stood next to his Grandad and held and squeezed his hand. He felt a bit self-conscious, but he knew there was a chance, no matter how small, that the fragile old man might feel it somehow.

Under his breath, he whispered:

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

                 Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!

Jack’s parents swung by to visit the hospital at about 6 ‘o’ clock that evening. By that time, Jack had almost run his phone battery flat, had had at least two power naps, and had spoken briefly with a male nurse who had come to do a routine check-up.

His mother was pleased to see him, especially so because he had made such a ‘grown up’ decision to come and visit his Grandad, and she was still very emotional about the whole ordeal.

A different nurse stopped by, a Beta one accompanied by a Beta doctor who gave a cautiously optimistic prognosis for the recovery, and explained that what they all needed now was rest, and to wait and see how things would unfold. He was very particular in his word choices, which led Jack to suspect that things were not as rosy as they were being led to believe, but not truly life-threatening, at least not yet.

The car journey back home was sombre, as it began to sink in that his grandfather might well be bedridden for a long time. His mother was no longer visibly upset, but her jaw was set in such a way that it was clear she was not coping with this at all. Jack knew better than to poke or prod, just to stay quiet and be supportive if at all possible. His Dad, by way of comparison, just looked straight-up shattered. Exhausted after working a long shift with Friday still to come, he was trying to support his wife as best he could, but the energy levels were fading.

They got home and she fixed them all a simple hot supper, sausages and chips, whatever they wanted for dessert, and then his parents fell asleep in front of the TV in each other’s’ arms.

Jack crept over and made sure his Dad’s alarm was set to the requisite time on his phone, and draped a throw over them, before taking himself to bed.

He considered sending Penny a message on his tablet, and lord knows he wanted to, but other than sending a kiss emoji, he couldn’t think of a single constructive thing to say. He didn’t want to add to her already addled state, so he decided to let it slide until there was something more meaningful to share.

He knew he would have to go into school in the morning, but today had encouraged him to think a little bigger. Being decisive, adhering to a plan, and putting in the effort had given him his some small measure of reward today, and he had the strangest feeling that, if put into practice, a similar outlook could pay dividends in the morning.

He was going to stick to Delon like glue, avoid the front entrance like the plague, and keep his head down, but above all, he was going to have a little chat with Alex Eberhardt.

Jack’s mother woke him up when she opened his bedroom door. There was light outside, at least, which meant that this wasn’t another disheartening early-morning wake-up call.

“Time to rise, sleepy-head,” she cooed, unusually affectionate for this time in the morning, then left him alone to get up.

He could see from the alarm clock that there was no great rush to arise just yet, so he allowed himself a few minutes to blink back the sleep from his eyes, and eventually plucked his phone from the charger to check it. He’d sent Delon a few messages shortly before going to bed, but, as per usual, his friend hadn’t even looked at them yet.

The ‘got to go to school’ nerves were right there, simmering away in his gut, but perhaps a bit more under control today. It was Friday, so if he could get through today, he would have the weekend to take stock of everything and hopefully speak to Penny some more.

A glass of OJ and an oaty breakfast bar later, he heard the familiar blip that signalled he’d received a message. Sure enough, Delon would meet him outside school and they’d head to the side entrance to avoid any front-of-school complications.

With a fleeting farewell to his Mum and a quick hug, as she was still very worked up over his Grandad’s condition, Jack headed out and waited at the bus stop for a few minutes, keeping himself to himself. When the bus arrived, he waited for the Alpha kids to board first and then swiftly navigated his way to the rear to sit next to the quiet boy from Tuesday and Wednesday. So far so good.

As he settled into the oversized seat, he spotted that the pig-tailed girl had turned to catch a glimpse of him. He stopped himself from looking back in her direction too obviously, but during the journey he repeatedly noticed her turning round to look his way. It was a little unnerving, but Jack was so focused today that he just had to trust he would avoid an incident. If he was to get through the school day and make it to the weekend, he just had to be smart and steer clear of anything that could possibly cause a problem, oversized brats in particular.

When the bus arrived at school and all the Alpha kids piled off, Jack held back slightly so that he didn’t get caught up in the chaos. When he jumped off the last step of the bus, he quickly checked to see where the girl was, then snuck away before she could notice him, right over to the tree where Delon was waiting.

Ordinarily, a bro hug would be in order, but it was action stations right now, and Delon knew the drill.

“Nice to see ya, dude, let’s go,” the lanky Beta ordered, putting an arm around Jack’s shoulder as if to shield him from the crowd, then led him across the road.

The side entrance was definitely quieter than the front one; mostly small groups or lone kids keeping to themselves rather than boisterous hordes of teens and pre-teens screaming and shouting. It was reasonably plain sailing for Jack and Delon to get straight to their classroom before the crowds rolled in, arriving at their desks with plenty of time to spare.

“Made it,” Delon whispered, quietly enough so only the two of them could hear, winking at his friend and giving him a small smile.

“Thanks, D,” Jack replied, giving him a light slap on the back, and headed over to his desk.

He got out his books, and began to compose himself. Today, he needed to stay in the zone. After slowing his heart rate back down to normal after the speed-run through the corridors, Jack looked up to see that Alex had entered the room.

She was wearing tight-fitting navy blue leggings that hugged her toned form and a baggy-ish grey t-shirt, with her jet-black hair tied back into a bun. At first she didn’t notice him, but when her eyes alighted on him, her expression changed a little, not really out of shock, more out of familiarity.

She sat down at the big Alpha desk to Jack’s left, and got her things from her bag. The classroom still wasn’t that busy, so she glanced down at him to instigate eye contact, as if to verify that he was ok.

“We need to talk,” Jack mouthed at her silently. She didn’t seem to follow, looking quizzically back at him and shrugging her shoulders slightly. He didn’t want to be seen talking to her - so he quickly tore a scrap of paper from his notebook and hurriedly scribbled a message down.

Balling the note up, he leant down as if he was reaching for something in his bag and tossed it as close to her leg as he could - it landed right next to her foot, and she surreptitiously picked it up and read the contents.

Angling her head slightly, so as not to draw too much attention, she locked eyes with him and slowly nodded, before placing a finger to her lips to signify that they needed to be discreet.

When class finished, Jack was deliberately quite slow packing his books away, allowing almost all of the students to filter out so he could try and speak to Alex covertly. The big girl got up from her chair, took a couple of strides as if she was walking past him, then crouched to tie her shoelace, giving him a short window of opportunity.

“Library,” he whispered loudly, “Morning break.”

“I’ll try,” she responded under her breath, finishing the knot before returning to her full height and stepping away.

Jack watched as her legging-clad legs, each taller than the waiting Delon, made short work of the distance to the door.

His friend was wearing a concerned expression.

“What was that?” he asked as they exited the room together.

“I’m going to talk to Alex,” Jack replied calmly, throwing his bag over his shoulder, “In the library, first break.”

“Wait… what? Are you sure that’s a good idea, at school I mean?” Delon cautioned.

“Probably not, but there’s stuff I need to ask,” he responded defensively, his determination showing through, “I’m not sure how else to go about it.”

“Alright alright, just be careful, ok?” the taller boy warned, “Keep your head down and let’s get you to class.”

The next lesson was a double-header which focused primarily on preparing the students for the forthcoming exams. In amongst everything else that was going on, it was a timely but unpleasant reminder that shit was hitting the fan as far as his future prospects were concerned.

The twin period dragged on for far too long before the bell rang out to signify morning break. Jack loitered close to the doorway until Delon appeared, they then made their way to the library post haste.

“You sure about this?” Delon clarified mid-conversation as they strolled to the far corner, looking around to make sure that no-one was listening in.

“Yep,” Jack replied curtly, beginning to feel a bit nervous now. This would be the first time he’d really been face to face with Alex for more than a moment. She was still quite an imposing character, ostensibly much more like Caitlin than Penny, plus her extensive history of picking on him in class meant this recent about-face still felt very fresh. It was hard to override years of hard-coded avoidance instincts.

“Do you want me to keep a look out?” Delon suggested.

“I think so…” Jack replied, unsure how best to go about it.

“Ok, I’ll go over near the librarian’s desk, that way I can see who comes in and out,” the taller boy explained. Jack understood the impulse – it was risky meeting Alex at school, just in case someone noticed them talking and gossip made its way round to Caitlin, Hannah, or another member of their clique.

As Delon walked to the spot he’d suggested, Jack noticed Alex stepping through the anti-theft gates. She strolled down the library looking this way and that - clearly searching for him. The Alpha noticed Delon by the librarian’s desk, who tipped his head in Jack’s direction, to which she turned and made her way over to him, stopping right in front of him.

“Ok, fire away, but I have to be quick,” she explained, looming over him like a giant tower.

“Yep… ok, that’s fine, just come round here,” he stuttered nervously. This was 12-foot-plus of intimidating popular girl after all. He gestured for her to follow him round the corner to the most secluded part of the library, then paused as she figured out she needed to kneel down to his level to hear him surreptitiously.

He double-checked that they were alone and no-one was listening in, then began.

“I… um, I wanted to thank you, for yesterday,” he explained, fighting the butterflies that ever so surely had crept up on him.

Her perfume was surprisingly strong. It reminded him of Caitlin, but it wasn’t exactly the same scent, just a similar aura.

“No problem,” she replied calmly, putting a hand on her knee, her statuesque face unencumbered courtesy of the bun pulling her raven-coloured hair back tightly.

“No really,” he continued, “I don’t know how to thank y-”

“Look, it’s fine…” she cut across him, evidently trying to hurry him along. “It was a close call, but it worked out.”

“I needed to ask you something important…” Jack paused, his voice cracking slightly, “This is going to sound stupid… but I need to know why you’re helping me.”

Her face shifted into an expression that was complex to describe; she looked a little pained at the inference of the question, but at the same time her it-girl façade held firm.

“I dunno, you were in trouble, I had to do something,” she replied bluntly with a half-shrug, as if that explained everything.

“But if Caitlin finds out-” he began to explain.

“She won’t,” Alex interjected, blinking a couple of times in quick succession, betraying what looked like nerves, “I’m on top of it.”

“But what if she does?” he laboured.

“I don’t know,” Alex said candidly, looking him straight in the eye, “And I don’t want to know.”

He dry swallowed.

“Uhuh… well, there’s things I need to ask you, about Caitlin, about this… situation,” he continued.

“Ok…” she said reluctantly, as if this was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

“I mean… there’s the inhaler, for example, and your friendship with Caitlin…” he trailed off.

She looked down at him, her expression hardening.

“I can’t really get into that, ok? I haven’t got much time as it is.”

“But if there’s anything that can be used to stop her…” Jack blurted out.

“Stop her?” she repeated incredulously, “I’m helping you as much as I can, but there are limits.”

“Limits?” he asked, feeling the conversation start to heat up.

“Yes. Limits, as to what I can and can’t do,” she explained, as if this was obvious.

“Like… what? You’re saying this is just gonna keep happening and I’m supposed to avoid Caitlin forever and there’s nothing anybody can do about it?” he protested, trying not to raise his voice, but unable to hide how exasperated he felt. Had she no idea what he was going through, had been through…? She’d even seen it for herself for goodness’ sake.

The Alpha took a quick breath and sighed, her façade slipping again to reveal the worried teenager behind the mask, then her brow furrowed in realisation.

“So, wait… you want me to blackmail her, is that it?” Alex said angrily. “If she finds out that it’s been me protecting you she’s going to lose her mind, and she’ll hurt you, and she’ll hurt me, and then where will we be?”

The big girl seemed to shiver as she mentioned this, a fact not lost on Jack.

“…you’re… that scared of her?” he said in quiet disbelief.

“I didn’t say that…” Alex retracted, but without enough conviction for it sound like a legitimate rebuttal.

“She’s my friend but… that comes with certain… pressures,” she conceded, trying to remain vague, but it was obvious that something was under the skin.

Jack looked on, dumbfounded. It was pretty surreal to see an Alpha girl like Alex act as seemingly kowtowed as this. She had become so edgy now; in fact, the entire conversation had taken a real turn.

“So there’s no chance we can report her then? Not to the school, or the police?” he asked hopelessly, feeling the determination and belief draining out of him.

“I don’t know how seriously they’d take it…” she countered, “I know that sounds like such bullshit, but the amount of crap Caitlin gets away with… it’s just… it’s like she’s untouchable.”

The giant girl paused, as if she was biting her tongue. She closed her eyes, clearly weighing up what to say next.

“She… enjoys tormenting anyone much smaller than her. Boys, girls, Alphas, Betas. It’s like this… power trip thing… and you know, I don’t mind a bit of teasing or whatever, and I didn’t think anything of it, pushing you little guys around, you seemed to take it, but when I saw you at Caitlin’s place…”

She averted her eyes for a moment, then returned her gaze back to him, like she was ashamed.

“I was really shocked, ok? I didn’t think she’d actually kidnap and humiliate someone in front of us.”

He felt a part of him well up as he recalled the exact moment she spoke of.

“It made me question everything. Everyone heard the rumours that went round a few years ago, but it all seemed so far-fetched… she told us that that kid’s family just wanted money in an out-of-court settlement, and the case just kind-of fell through… but then I just… I guess I wanted to hear what I wanted to hear.”

“I couldn’t stand idly by, and I know that makes me a hypocrite because I turned a blind eye to her bullying people before… myself bullying people before… but if that’s what it took to open my eyes, then, that’s what it took.”

Her shoulders had become really stiff and tense, he could see she was getting emotional too.

“I saw a side of Cait I couldn’t ignore, and I saw how helpless you were, so I told myself that if I could help you, I would, because it was the right thing to do.”

He was a bit stunned, but this was what he had sort-of expected, maybe more hoped for, deep down. This was why Alex was helping him… because she wasn’t a bad person… because she hadn’t backed away from what she’d witnessed.

“I don’t want to lose my friendship with her, she’s my closest friend, but I’m torn… we’ve been best friends for years, since we were seven or eight…”

She laughed at herself slightly.

“Why am I unloading all of this?” she rebuked herself, as if she was getting way off-topic.

“Because it’s important for me to know, I guess…” he said quietly.

“Urrrghhhhh…” she groaned under her breath, turning her head away and gritting her teeth, “Fucking hell, Alex…” she muttered to herself.

Jack stepped forward slightly, placing his hand on her oversized arm, noting the soft hairs on her skin. The frustrated girl stopped what she was doing immediately, turning to look at him.

“You’re doing the right thing. Please don’t let Caitlin win… you can’t…” he hesitated slightly, “…I can’t… cope,” he said sadly, shivering a little at having instigated contact with the towering Alpha girl.

“I’m trying,” she said quietly, flexing her fingers gently against her knee. “And Jack…”

He looked her square in the eye. “Yes?”

“I’m really sorry for all of this. I really am.”

He looked up at her, blinking in polite acknowledgement. It meant a lot to him that she was able to see him as more than just the little dork from class - the girl who had been so callous towards him for so long, finally changing her spots.

“And I do really have to go now,” she said with what felt like genuine reluctance, allowing him to remove his hand from her arm before she stood back up.

She looked all the way down at him; her face felt so far away, scrutinising him from above. It was as if the trip down to his level had made both of them forget just how tiny he was compared to her.

“I’ll see you in class, then,” she said awkwardly, shifting her weight.

“Yeah,” he replied, unsure of what to say back.

With an apologetic half-smile and a big whoosh of air, she turned on her heel and strode off.

He took a moment to consider what she had said, and after about 10 seconds, Delon rushed round the corner, seemingly relieved it was all over.

“Well?” he asked, leaning against the bookshelf, “What did she say?”

“It’s a bit complicated, she’s frightened of Caitlin too,” Jack said cheerlessly, “She tried to hide it, but she is… I’m just going to have to lay low, Alex isn’t in a position to do anything except try to keep me from harm’s way when the shit hits, but she’s too scared to go up against Caitlin.”

“That’s heavy…” Delon sighed, “But at least she’s on your side,” he added, trying to brighten the outlook.

“I guess,” Jack admitted. His friend was right, it was better that than nothing at all.

The next three lessons passed without much in the way of drama. Delon shared the first two with him, but not the class before lunch (Alex was in that one), though he did escort Jack to the door.

Jack kept replaying what Alex had said over and over in his head, especially because she was sat quite close to him in that third class in particular.

What he couldn’t quite wrap his head around was the level of fear that Caitlin seemed to instil in those whom she considered close friends. That he would feel intimidated and vulnerable was completely understandable, she was more like an enormous predator to him than a young woman attending the same school, but for Alex, someone who was popular and sporty and independent in her own right, to be so reluctant to stand up to her was a worrying sign.

He knew that bullying was a fact of life, regardless of scale, and that it often had nothing to do with the threat of physical harm, he just hadn’t expected other Alphas to fear Caitlin the way he did.

The ‘revelation’ that Caitlin got off on bullying people smaller than her came as no real surprise to Jack – he’d known about her penchant for picking on the smallest and weakest for years – but it was still quite raw to hear it described in such frank terms by one of her contemporaries. Whilst most Alphas were dismissive of Betas and treated them with either disdain or ignorance, she actively sought them out for sport, and that made her far more dangerous and difficult to reason with.

He still didn’t fully know why he’d been singled-out specifically to be abducted by her, but the pool of Betas was small, and he was basically the only kid his age for miles around who wasn’t from a minority group or in specialist education. Perhaps she’d patiently been waiting for her opportunity, to corner him, kidnap him, and abuse him in particular.

The bell eventually rang out to signify lunch break had begun, and he tidied up his things slowly to allow time for Delon to reach the door. He felt Alex’s legs woosh past, her powerful stride giving him a little more breathing room than some of the other, less conscientious Alphas as they traipsed off for lunch. He felt strangely put out, and he was having a hard time figuring out exactly why. It wasn’t that his conversation with Alex had been particularly awful or anything, but it had left him feeling emptier than before. He had truly expected to make some headway or at least get some answers, but it had felt rushed and left him no closer to an answer. The hypothesis that maybe she pitied him more than wanted to truly help him was gnawing its way unpleasantly into his mind, and that wasn’t helping his mood at all.

Lunch was quiet. With no Penny, and still no real appetite, Jack was really just picking at his food and thinking to himself. Delon didn’t seem too talkative either, even after demolishing his own food, though it could be argued he was just giving Jack time and space to think. Eventually, the gangly Beta turned to his friend and puffed out a stream of air, as if attempting to release the pressure of the silence between them.

“Are you alright, mate?” he asked finally.

“Sorry,” said Jack, “I’m just a bit out of it again today.”

The weary boy put his lunchbox down and lay back on the grass, closing his eyes.

“Are you worried about your Grandad,” Delon suggested.

“A bit,” he replied, it was definitely a contributing factor, but he had faith his Grandad would pull through.

“Penny too?” probed Delon.

Jack realised that he had neglected to mention that he’d been to see her at all, and couldn’t believe he’d overlooked telling his friend such vital information.

A little more animated, he began to explain to his friend, piece-by-piece, the story of how she’d gotten in contact, and he’d gone to visit both her and his Grandad in the afternoon. He was reluctant to mention exactly what she was in for and was a bit vague on the details, but he insisted that she seemed fine and was on the mend.

It cheered Delon up no end to hear that Penny was ok, and though he was alarmed that she was in a ward, he himself had had a cousin admitted to hospital at a similar age and had returned fighting fit just a few days later, and he sought to reassure Jack with this fact.

There was more of a glow to Jack’s heart now, remembering the time he had spent with Penny, and how he had been able to comfort her, even just a tiny bit.

He checked his phone to make sure he hadn’t received a message from her today – he hadn’t, but he would send one to her later, he promised himself.

The final two periods arrived, the first was Mathematics with both Alex and Delon, and it was yet another mock test, on Mechanics this time. He did his best, which is to say, he answered all of the questions to the best of his ability despite an ever-dwindling sense of certainty that what he was doing was correct, right up until the bell cut things short and it didn’t matter any more anyway. The teacher weaved around the classroom collecting all the papers as Jack packed away his things, letting Alex et al stomp past, then went over to the door where Delon was waiting for him, ready to escort him to English.

“Last one,” the lanky boy noted optimistically, “Nearly there.”

Jack gave him a half-hearted smile and started to step off, but as they were about to cross the threshold, the teacher called out after them.

“Delon, can I have a quick word please,” he asked, gesturing for the gangly teen to stay behind.

“Uh…” Delon paused, as he realised instantly that this would scupper his ability to accompany Jack. It was a request he couldn’t readily refuse without good reason.

“It’s about your college application, shouldn’t take 2 minutes,” the teacher went on, placing the collected exam papers into two trays – the Alpha-sized ones right next to Jack and Delon’s far smaller sheets.

Jack’s pulse began to race as he realised he’d need to do this corridor run solo. He made eye contact with Delon as if to say, ‘it’s ok, I’ll be fine’, despite the fear in his veins.

“Yeah… of course…” Delon replied to his teacher, taking a step back inside the room before turning to Jack.

“Be safe, head down, walk fast,” he said with concern in his eyes.

“I will,” Jack said, with more conviction than he felt.

The corridor was busy, and without the comfort blanket of Delon guiding him through the maelstrom, Jack was completely and utterly petrified. He tried to keep his head down, but it was hard to find his bearings without looking up every so often – the school had several sections where it was only really possible to gauge exactly where you were by the numbers on the doors, especially when most of your field of view was blocked by the bodies of giant children jostling in front of you.

He split off from the main corridor to head towards the English department when he saw something that made his heart stop dead in his chest. A face visible through a gap in the crowd, taller than the rest, with fiery red locks, glaring down scornfully at the younger, more excitable members of the school as they bustled around in front of her.

He instinctively stopped in his tracks, fighting the urge to yelp out loud, and span his head around to see if he could join the stream of giant bodies heading in the opposite direction. If he could at least stay ahead of her, he could hide in a corner and let her past, then at least he’d know the way she’d come from would be clear.

Judging a gap to perfection, he threw himself across to the other wall and hugged it closely as he stalked back to the main corridor, re-entering the fray and working his way towards to a bank of lockers off to one side. As he did so, however, he failed to factor in that a 13-year-old Alpha boy with a short brown buzz-cut had cut across the flow of traffic whilst talking with his friends, and Jack barged straight into him, knocking a stack of books loose from the boy’s arms.

It wasn’t the most violent impact; it was mainly the shock that caused the books to scatter, but the boy was most displeased. As Jack checked that his glasses were still on his face with floundering hands, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his knee as the boy kicked him from behind.

Jack yelped in pain, crumpling onto his side in a heap and clutching the back of his leg. His glasses clattered to the floor by his side.

“Watch where you’re going, you little turd,” the 13-year-old spat, looming over him, his dumpy face reddening with anger and what looked like embarrassment. A Beta had startled him and made him look a fool in front of his friends, and as they laughed, the boy placed his thick rubber-soled boots on one of Jack’s sprawled legs and pressed down hard, causing Jack to yell out once more. The sharp edges of the new rubber threatened to cut his skin even through his jeans, such was the pressure, and Jack prayed his leg would not break from the careless and spiteful actions of an angry child.

“Stop it,” he screamed in agony, “Stop iiiit!”

“Make me,” the brat sneered.

As Jack tried to twist his body around to try and push the boy’s boot off, he saw a huge arm swoop in and grip his assailant by the scruff of the neck, lifting him clean off the ground and freeing Jack’s leg in the process.

As the initial shock of the searing pain bled away, Jack’s eyes followed the arm back to the enormous, muscular body looming almost directly over him. Fire-red hair, jutting breasts, powerful legs.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

“What’s going on here?” Caitlin’s voice asked firmly, but calmly, as if she was asking for the time, not breaking up a fight in a school corridor.

“N-nothing,” the buzz-cut kid stammered, bringing his hands up to grip Caitlin’s bulging forearm and alleviate the strain on his precious shirt collar.

“Had a little accident?” she suggested, cocking her head to one side at him.

The boy nodded frantically, petrified of what the oversized senior was considering doing to him.

Jack was too scared to move or scream or draw any kind of attention to himself. All eyes were on Caitlin and the whimpering Alpha boy she had raised up towards the ceiling.

After a second or so, it seemed to dawn on Caitlin that nobody was moving away, and she glared around at the small crowd that had formed, daring them to get caught in the crossfire.

“Does this concern you?” she said menacingly, scowling down at one of the boy’s particularly awestruck friends in particular.

“No m’am…” he replied, momentarily forgetting he wasn’t talking to a teacher.

“Then get lost,” she instructed, swivelling her head around to show that she was referring to everyone in the vicinity.

Jack, meanwhile, was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack.

All of the feelings of terror and vulnerability and insignificance were overloading his brain. She was simply colossal. He was right down by her shins and he might as well have been an inch high given how enormous she looked.

His faculties were returning, slowly, and it was becoming increasingly obvious he had to either make a break for it now or be completely at her mercy in a few seconds’ time. Reaching out very slowly and carefully, he swept his glasses towards his body, pocketed them, and prepared to run.

Caitlin’s focus returned to the snivelling schoolboy she held in her grip, and she extended her arm to push his back flat against the bank of lockers.

“You get lucky this time, kid,” she snarled at him, giving her arm a sharp jolt to slam him against the locker door a second time, “You pick your books up and scram.”

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he pleaded.

“Good,” she cooed sarcastically, beginning to lower her arm.

Jack bolted.

The pain in his leg was bad, but he found the fight-or-flight push he needed to scrabble away before Caitlin had time to react, as she was too busy man-handling the Alpha kid.

He didn’t look back as he hotfooted it to the spur off the main corridor and tore between the giant pairs of legs to try and put as much ground between himself and Caitlin as he possibly could.

After a good twenty to thirty paces it dawned on him exactly how weak his leg actually was as the immediate surge of adrenaline faded. The English department was going to be too far, she’d surely catch him despite a head start.

Thinking fast, he noticed that the Beta toilets were just ahead on the left; a half-size door in a sheer wall between classrooms, often overlooked by those that never used them.

With another mighty effort, he grit his teeth and forced himself over to the door and clattered through it, stumbling over to the far cubicle before his leg completely collapsed under him.

He heard the washroom door thud closed automatically, and pulled himself up to sit on the toilet lid, backpack against the cistern, closing and securing the cubicle door by sliding the bolt shut. He ran his hands along his damaged leg, grimacing as he felt where the sharp indents from the boy’s sole had broken the skin. There was a little sliver of blood soaked into his jeans where a particularly deep indent had pressed into his shin near the knee, and another one half-way up his thigh where the toe of the boot had pressed down.

Nothing was broken, as far as he could tell, but it hurt like buggery and would probably need disinfectant when he got home, plus a regular dose of painkillers to deal with the aches to come.

He didn’t want to roll up his trouser leg to view the damage the boy had caused, but he knew it wouldn’t be pretty; it would all come up in lovely purple-and-yellow patches before the day was out.

He cursed his luck once more. The one time he was on his own, of course she would show up, and of course some dumb-ass kid would happen to get in his way.

Pressing his head to his hands, he fought to contain the urge to scream, the sheer terror of the moment and the knowledge that Caitlin was now aware he was back on campus threatened to engulf him.

A creak of the washroom door.

He froze.

The sound of a person coming into the room, but it was not a Beta walking in, this was someone far larger, making far more considered an entrance.

He had the most terrible feeling.

Drawing his injured leg up onto the toilet lid with a wince, and then his other one, he tried to stay calm, to stay deathly quiet.

The door was still open, but someone was hauling themselves inside, a slight clunk on wood as a foot or knee bumped into the door, and then the mechanism slowly closed with a thud.

He was not alone, he could hear the Alpha’s breathing as whoever it was got closer and closer to his stall.

Jack tried to hold his own breath, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

As his heart threatened to burst from his chest, the arresting, stern features of Caitlin Reid raised themselves up over the top of the cubicle, her expression settling into one of vainglorious satisfaction.

“Oh, boy, if it isn’t my little buddy Jack,” she crowed, barely able to contain her toothy smile.

He was cornered. Nowhere to run.

The singular fate he had tried so hard to avoid was finally upon him.

His mouth opened to call for help but barely any sound came out, just a raspy, reedy puff of nothing. His body felt as if it had been completely immobilised, his throat stuck, muscles torn between the twin instincts of fight or flight.

He knew that he needed to yell at the top of his lungs to attract someone’s attention, but, agonisingly, he could not, and now all of the things he had tried to push out of his head that week began to flood back in.

The giant redhead swept a burly arm over the top of the door and reached down for the lock exploratively, pinching the bolt between forefinger and thumb and sliding it open with a metallic squeak. She was preposterously out of scale with her environment, like an adult checking in on a children’s Wendy house.

“N-o…” he strained to say through ragged breaths, frog well and truly wedged down his gullet.

She swung the door wide with a roll of her shoulders and slid her huge body into the space, completely filling Jack’s vision with her mountainous torso, shrink-wrapped in a low-cut white training top with her prodigious chest framed by her hefty arms. Jack shrank back onto the toilet seat as far as he could go, but there was nowhere to hide.

Her face peered down at him; freckles, soft lips and piercing blue eyes, all impressively set into her granite-like features.

“Trying to hide, pipsqueak?” she said coquettishly, reaching out with an elephantine digit and poking him in the ribs with force, jabbing her nail in a manner that was intended to provoke him.

He winced, refusing to dignify her with a response, just staring up at her in denial, his head slowly shaking from one side to the other in silent horror.

Her smile only grew broader.

“Giving me the silent treatment already?” she asked, rhetorically, and tutted sarcastically.

“Tell you what…” she continued, “Let’s play a little game.”

A huge hand raised itself from her side and meaty, inch-thick fingers wrapped themselves gently but unyieldingly around his jaw and upper neck.

“I’m going to ask you a question…” the giantess explained, lifting her arm up just enough so that Jack could feel the strain on his Adam’s apple. His hands snaked up to clasp at her fingers helplessly, knowing that he would never be able to pry them off his windpipe.

“…and when I do, you’re going to answer,” she continued patronisingly, cocking her head to one side as if explaining something achingly obvious to a particularly stupid child, “Got it?”

No response. The giantess rolled her eyes theatrically. She hadn’t expected anything less from him.

Her face descended close to his own, a few strands of fine red hair that weren’t pulled back into her ponytail tickled his cheeks as her mouth hovered level with his.

“How did you get out of my house?” she asked firmly and directly.

The smell of chewing gum and half-digested lunchtime fare washed over his face like a layer of thick smog. Her large, ice-blue eyes were so close now, glistening wet as they examined him with tiny micro-adjustments, her expression hardening as he continued to refuse her request.

“Don’t test me, runt,” she warned, blinking her long lashes, her powerful grip squeezing around his windpipe with a momentary flex of her wrist to show she meant business.

He could make out the little squiggles in her hauntingly blue irises, the near-circular shape of her overlarge pupils defined by the wrinkle of muscle that surrounded it.

He had to say something. If he didn’t speak she would get angry, and if she got angry she would make him pay.

He tried to shake his head, but it was locked in place. With some effort, he managed to splutter out a response.

“I d-dunno,” he choked in a thin, raspy voice, watching her expression closely to gauge her reaction.

“You don’t know…?” she repeated incredulously, almost amused by his bare-facedness, the fire behind the eyes flickering.

“You expect me to believe that?” she snarled, lifting him clean off the toilet, right up to the bathroom ceiling in one sudden, disorientating motion. He frantically tried to reduce the strain on his neck somehow, squeezing his little fingers between the gaps of her larger ones, trying to somehow hold his weight up enough to stop her from strangling him outright.

“P-p-please …” he half-gagged, his eyes lolling down to inadvertently marvel at the striated muscles of her forearm as she held him aloft so easily.

“How?” she demanded, glaring at him furiously.

He hesitated, trying to cope with a compressed larynx that was making his eyes water.

“HOW?!” she repeated aggressively, shaking him like a ragdoll, smacking his rucksack into the ceiling a couple times.

He could barely breathe, his mouth opening and closing uselessly as the pressure on his neck refused to let up. He couldn’t have responded now even if he had wanted to.

“Ugh…” the schoolgirl spat, lowering and dropping him onto the toilet seat petulantly, causing his ass to bounce on the lid in a manner that would have been comical if it weren’t so utterly humiliating.

Jack’s hands went straight to his neck, gasping for air, before the angry giantess resumed her interrogation.

“Listen up, fuckwad…” she began again, looming over him once more, forcing him to crane the sore neck he had just begun to nurse.

“…if you don’t tell me, I may have to repeat our little… sleepover,” she added, flexing a shoulder in anticipation, “Just to see if you can repeat the trick. Would you like that?”

Jack dry-swallowed audibly. He was beginning to tremble uncontrollably as it dawned on him just how royally fucked he was.

He couldn’t think of anything to say. He couldn’t tell her he had been helped by anyone, and he couldn’t think of anything to lie about it. He just stared up at her as her jaw set harder… and harder… and harder.

“Fine, we’ll do this the hard way, dipshit,” she said finally, her jaw jutting off to one side to show her displeasure.

He felt a large hand swallow up his right arm.

“Please, n-no…,” he pleaded.

“You had your chance…” she spat brusquely, reaching around with her other arm.

He began to protest, but a near-8-inch-long finger pressed itself into his lips firmly, smearing his mouth off to one side and forcing him to stop talking.

The first hand began to wrench him by the arm towards the girl’s vast body, dragging him off the seat easily and twisting his torso down and in towards her chest.

His objections were muffled out as she pressed his little head into the soft prison of her enormous cotton-wrapped bosom, then curled her giant arms around his body and backpack like she was carefully cradling a toddler to her for safety.

“Consider this the first part of your punishment,” she explained matter-of-factly.

“You can’t be serio-!” he tried to scream, but his face was smushed right up against her right yam so forcefully that his cry was cut short. “BCH YRABCH GTFME YUBXCH” he continued to yell in muffled fury as she methodically peeled his jeans down the back of his skinny legs with a finger and thumb and then slid his tiny underwear down too.

He was fully blubbering now, flaring his nostrils in the hot, stuffy pocket of air trapped beneath her titanic breasts, tears of pain and anger and humiliation streaming down his cheeks as the overgrown teenager nonchalantly prepared his keister for the inevitable.

A playful pat on the rear was enough to set him off yelping, he could feel her whole body rock with perverse laughter as he convulsed and squirmed to no avail.

Jack felt an incredibly hard blow to his backside, like he’d fallen down ass-first onto a concrete floor from a significant drop, and it momentarily stopped him crying due to the shock.

“PWWEEEEEASE STPPPP,” his muffled cry refrained as the giantess’ arm geared up for another strike.

The second was far harder, it felt like his spine was being set upon by a pile driver as her shovel-sized palm hit him square and true, not only knocking the stuffing out of him but catching his genitals in the process, sending a sharp pain through him like a knife.

“CAITLLIIIIIIN,” he bawled to no avail, trying to somehow free his pinned arms and protect himself from the blows as both his back and backside threatened to burst from the pain.

The third impact made him feel violently ill. He was extended so far beyond his limits now. Any more of this and she would surely crack his spine. Her power was simply unspeakable, his fragile body just could not cope. He felt himself on the verge of blacking out as his limbs went slack; he just crumpled weakly in her grasp as the fight left him completely… she sensed it immediately.

“Barely three licks… pathetic,” he heard her scoff, her torso twisting once more in anticipation of another devastating blow.

He screamed violently into her prodigious tit as he felt her enormous arm whip around, but the impact never came, instead, shrill laughter could be heard as the overgrown bully mocked his suffering, placing her palm gently on his backside, causing his entire body to flinch.

The pain in his rear end was almost unbearable, added to the soreness of his trampled leg and his battered pride, Caitlin had once again reduced him to a gibbering wreck purely for her own sadistic amusement.

She extricated him from her ‘embrace’ and dumped him unceremoniously on the floor, his bare ass smacking onto the hard tiles with an undignified thud as he sobbed. It was absolutely burning, he half expected it to be bleeding given the severity of the flogging she’d dished out in just three blows.

She was lapping this up, all of it. His misery was her pleasure, in all manner of ways.

“Aw honey,” she pouted at him, her powerful arms returning to her own body as she rested her spanking hand on her mighty thighs, “Are you sowwy?”

He didn’t dare look up.

“Ha,” she laughed, sneering at his bowed head and submissive posture, “So fucking pathetic.”

He shook his head slowly, almost imperceptibly, a tear rolling down his cheek.

She was toying with him so effortlessly. He was as weak as a baby compared to her, and she had demonstrated it in the most on-the-nose fashion imaginable.

She lowered herself down towards him, enjoying every last morsel of his distress, but he kept his head bowed.

Strong fingers gripped the top and sides of his head firmly and wrenched it up so that he could do nothing but stare at the horrible schoolgirl.

“Guess what, Jack, you’re even more of a cuck than I recall,” she boasted.

Her glossy pink lips stuck together slightly as he went into a kind of trance.

He could clearly see the slightly cracked, oversized texture of her lips, the slight smudge where she had applied the gloss too hastily, and the little hairs on her upper lip that you can only see when you get incredibly close to someone.

“Last chance, if you tell me how you escaped,” the colossal redhead continued, “I won’t break you… for now.”

He began to shiver uncontrollably, but still he said nothing.

“And believe me,” she mouthed hypnotically, her voice more of a seductive whisper than the booming roar he was so accustomed to, “Nothing would be easier than breaking you again, runt.”

“F-fuck you,” Jack spat, taking her aback, “Fuck… you.”

Her expression dropped as it took her by surprise, but it was only for a brief moment. His words had seemingly shocked her, as impossible as that seemed.

Perhaps she had hoped for an easy win, that by spanking him, he would crumble. He was pleased to disappoint her.

It lit a fire under him. He was tired of begging, tired of being manipulated into the pathetic Beta puppet she so desired. If he was going to face this, he was going to be as difficult as possible. He couldn’t let her break him, he couldn’t let her win.

Her face contorted into one of savage rage, almost of betrayal, and she squeezed his head so hard so that his vision blurred and he felt instantly light-headed.

He went to scream out, but her other hand clamped over his mouth, snuffing out his cries of anguish in an instant, her fingers threatening to crush his little skull in on itself as she bared her teeth in fury.

He knew for certain that this would be the last thing he would see before he lost consciousness, but the pressure let up almost as suddenly as it began, and he could see the anger fading from her eyes. She had perhaps figured out that he had got to her, and wanted to regain her composure, and thus her control over him.

“Cocky little shit, aren’t you?” she admitted, her tone dripping in condescension, “Getting a cheap rise out of me, but it won’t work for long.”

He stared her down defiantly, but a smile had now returned to the giantess’ features. This was still a hopeless no-win scenario for Jack, and she fully planned on delivering.

“I was probably going to let you go, if you’d told me the truth,” she continued, “But now I think that maybe you’ve earned yourself a little more… thinking time.”

“Y-you were always g-going to do this to me, C-caitlin,” Jack spat out bitterly, “Don’t play games with m-me.”

She feigned mock disbelief, her Cheshire grin omnipresent, “But I thought that’s what you liked,” she pouted, “For me to play games with a little toy like you?”

“I d-don’t want any of this,” he stammered quietly, staring up at her as she gripped his fragile head between her gigantic hands, “And you kn-know it.”

“Oh save it,” she spat, wrenching him towards her in one quick motion and seemingly immobilising him in an instant. He felt her big hands forcibly remove his rucksack, then flip him and pat him down as he struggled to stop her with desperate grunts and squeals.

“You won’t be needing this,” she explained matter-of-factly, waggling his miniature phone in front of his face before tucking it inside her t-shirt top, pushing it deep into her sports bra with one long, pink-nailed digit. He tried to shout out in protest but she quickly shoved his face hard into the underside of one of her breasts, twisting his neck painfully. His flailing arms ineffectually pushed and probed at her vast rack and biceps as she continued to easily contort his frail body and verify that he had no further possessions that could help him contact the outside world.

She was preparing to abduct him again. He knew it, and it was obvious that this time she wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. He wanted to beg her to reconsider, to appeal to her better judgement, but deep down he knew she had made up her mind and it would only excite her more to hear him plead with her. She wouldn’t risk carrying him out of the bathroom, so she would likely knock him out here, and then return with her sports bag, tie him up and gag him.

He knew Delon would know, he’d figure it out when got to class and noticed his friend would be missing, and if Alex hadn’t already noticed Delon would tell her immediately… but none of that would change anything immediate… he was still in grave danger.

His thoughts turned to what Caitlin would do to him… was currently doing to him. She had beaten him already, choked him, nearly cracked his skull, not to mention the leg that had been stood upon barely a few minutes ago. He was so fucked, so so fucked…

He was getting light-headed, and short on breath, and it felt like Caitlin was just allowing him to weakly pummel at her chest with his arms, probably getting turned on by the whole thing, but to lie there and accept his fate meekly would be even more humiliating. He could feel her body shift, and she lifted her chest away from his face, seizing his little head between her long, talon-like fingers once more.

She had what she wanted, she had him, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

Without a further word, she clamped her fingers down firmly over his mouth and nostrils, cutting off his air supply as his frightened eyes darted around.

Everything began to go blurry… and dark… and then he was unconscious once more.

Jack slowly came to, his eyelids fluttering as he awoke from what felt like a terrible dream.

He was claustrophobic and flustered, his body just didn’t feel right, something was up.

His eyelids slowly peeled themselves open, and his pupils adjusted to a confined, dark space illuminated by several strips of light in front of him.

As he went to rub his eyes, he realised with a start that his arms were completely restrained, and an experimental wriggle confirmed that his legs were fixed in place too. He tried to turn his head to the side, but that too was fixed in place with a long strip of tape that covered his mouth and forehead, with only his nose to breathe through. 

He began to realise he’d been taped in a spreadeagle position against a hard, metal surface. It at least felt upright, not like lying on a floor; gravity’s pull was definitely down his body and not against it. He could wiggle his hands and feet a bit, and pivot his wrists and ankles, but the bands of tape across his arms and legs were unyielding.

His eyes darted from side to side and up and down in panic as he tried to diagnose his predicament, slowly registering that the slotted grill several feet in front of him was the inside of a giant locker door, and the glow was from the school hallway beyond.

He couldn’t look down far enough to see anything but the tape across his cheeks, but an exploratory stretch of his feet led him to believe he was taped in place roughly a foot from the bottom of the locker.

The cold, sterile feel of the tall metal box was unnerving, it was the perfect prison for a Beta, high and wide enough for him to be secured in place, discreet enough so that no-one but the owner knew he was there… and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, who this particular locker belonged to.

The smell of Caitlin was everywhere - body spray mixed with perfume and the faint odour of musty sweat, likely from an item of clothing thrown into the clutter at the bottom.

As his eyes got used to the darkness, he could see a few crinkled and ripped posters and stickers dotted around the locker’s sides and door, the same sort of stuff she’d had in her room - Alpha sports stars, topless guys, pink & red hearts and kisses drawn on with marker pen, and a range of stickers, some sports ones as well as emojis and the like.

These were familiar and troubling sensory inputs, ones which triggered countless memories of his first kidnapping and associated degradation and humiliation. The smell in particular forced him to recollect his very first experiences of being tied up in Caitlin’s bag, then trapped in the wardrobe, and eventually her laundry basket.

He tried to pull and twist his arms and legs, hoping for even the slightest bit of give, but Caitlin was far too shrewd and single-minded an adversary and she had done quite the thorough job.

His left leg was still sore, but ironically, it felt a bit better than it did when the injury was fresh. It was more of an ache than a jabbing pain now, it felt less serious, though he had no way to verify that for certain.

It was his head being locked in place that was bugging him the most though, the urge to scratch his nose, or to scream out loud, or even just to look down and see what was at the bottom of the locker… he was agonisingly incapable of doing anything except waiting, knowing that at the end of the wait, Caitlin would make his life even more miserable.

Closing his eyes in frustration, he groaned through his nose, and tried to push the thought out of his head.

The minutes ticked by as Jack silently considered his fate, and before long, he heard a bell ring out to signal the end of classes for the day. Soon the hustle and bustle of students laughing, running and clanging their lockers open and shut around him filled his ears, sending vibrations right through his little body as the cold metal backplate behind him shuddered with each door closed or pulled open in haste.

He tried to moan through his nostrils to attract attention on several occasions, but the din was just biblical; it was a struggle to quickly fill his lungs with the tape sealing his mouth completely, and feeble attempts to groan or hum loudly failed to generate enough volume to be heard.

As the excitable chatter and thumping feet began to subside, voices became less frequent and before long it was close to silent again. The occasional set of footsteps would thud louder and louder, then softer and softer, as they walked past, and Jack could feel and hear lockers a bank or so over being used, feeling truly helpless as he just wasn’t able to make them aware of his presence.

And then, it was back to the eerie quiet and anticipation of what was to come. The impending return of Caitlin. The grim inevitability of her kidnapping him yet again.

His heart felt white hot, burning inside, as he thought about it.

He was so very fearful, not only because of what she said she would do to him, or what he feared she *could* do to him, but because of her determination to make up for last weekend. He was worried that he likely wouldn’t last more than a few minutes under duress, and even then, if he told her everything, it was highly unlikely that it would stop her from escalating her maltreatment of him.

He sighed heavily through his nostrils - a wobbly little exhale - and closed his eyes for a moment, entering a noiseless, almost meditative state. 

This was probably the endgame now, whatever was in store ahead, there was no way back. If it ended up with him in a ditch somewhere, or the police knocking on Caitlin’s door, so be it.

Heavy footsteps approached.

He practically knew it was her, just from the sound.

Evidently she had waited, quite deliberately, for the best part of an hour after school until no-one would be around to spoil her fun.

The locker door flexed as the dial spun first one way, then the other, and then it was opened with a sharp yank.

A sudden rush of air whooshing out from around Jack’s body as the pressure changed, daylight blooming into the void.

His eyes closed reflexively as he was assaulted with bright light, squinting out at the imposing, broad silhouette before him.

He could hear her chuckling cruelly under her breath as she beheld her prize, presumably admiring her handiwork and congratulating herself on a sterling job of taping a Beta to the back of a school locker.

The fuzzy, brilliantly illuminated rectangle slowly began to crystallise, he could see the corridor now, and then the dark, dangerously muscular shoulders of his captress, and then the way the light caught the wisps of ginger hair to the side of her neck. Her high cheekbones and the slight swell of her lips curled up slightly in a smile were next, picked out amidst the backlit shade.

His eyes came to rest on hers, the twin dials of dimly-lit blue that were almost at the very roof of the locker, looming over him, soaking up his discomfort and fear.

He felt himself trembling, his throat tightening as he tried to dry swallow.

“Wakey wakey, peewee,” she gloated, her voice low and sultry.

Jack just glared up silently, his arms and legs flexing almost imperceptibly against the binds of tape.

“Did you miss me?” she asked wickedly, moving her huge torso a little closer, flexing her sculpted arms and propping them up against the sides of the locker’s frame.

Her shadow dominated the space, threatening and vast.

The huge girl then lifted one of her hands up, a giant fingertip placing itself gently against his taped-up mouth and tapping it ever so lightly.

He shuddered at her touch, but otherwise tried not to show any weakness.

“What am I saying, of course you did!” she teased, her tone playful but threatening.

Jack’s nostrils flare wider as he begins to breathe more heavily through his nose. Caitlin’s emasculation of him quickening his heart rate and making his face burn red.

“What’s that?” she says, cocking her ear towards him, “You want to say you’re sorry?”

Her fingernail started to trace a line down from Jack’s lips to his chin, then under his jaw and along the underside of his neck.

Caitlin’s tongue quite literally pressed into one side of her cheek as she delivered her barbs with metronomic precision.

“For being so small, and weak, and pathetic?”

The sharp point of her nail pressed into his t-shirt by his sternum.

“For being a failure of evolution?”

Her nail descended further, squishing his little body inwards at its softest part around the gut.

“And for being a whiny, chicken-shit half-a-man…” Caitlin purred, continuing her finger’s journey southwards until her nail tucked inside his jeans.

*Pop* - The sound of Jack’s jeans button giving way.

The tip of her finger pulled against Jack’s belt until the buckle gave way, so that both ends now hung down uselessly from his waist.

“Apology… not accepted, squirt.” she mouthed with dark satisfaction.

Jack tried to move his head furiously, but he couldn't do anything to stop what was happening, he couldn't even make a sound.

Caitlin’s hand closest to him rotated so that her finger and thumb could clasp his tiny zipper, and slowly drag it down.

Jack couldn’t see what was happening, but he could feel everything. His body started to feel light and shivery as what she was doing to him began to take effect.

He strained even more, but it was no use.

“If only there were some way…”

Caitlin finished tugging his zipper down to the base of his jeans, and Jack felt her hard nail return up to his stomach, grazing his skin delicately first to the left, and then to the right of his navel.

“...to demonstrate to you…” she explained, her eyes wandering down his little body.

Jack’s eyes darted down, frantically trying to gauge what she’s going to do, his eyes wide.

Her nail twisted suddenly, then plunged down inside the waistband of his boxers.

“...just what a puny…” Caitlin continued.

Her finger bent into a hook shape and started to ease the fabric of his underwear down.

Jack began to moan through his nose, trying to get the towering girl to stop.

“...inadequate…”

The cotton slowly peeled away, his flaccid dick flopped out, exposed and defenceless for Caitlin’s amusement, hanging limply as she dragged his underwear down.

Jack’s brow was beading with sweat as he tried to squirm, his nostrils pulsing open and closed as his heart rate elevated.

“...itty bitty manlet you are.”

A smirk rapidly expanded across the big girl’s face as she had unwrapped her prize.

With a jolt, the giant redhead allowed the boxers to snap back against Jack’s undercarriage painfully, causing him to flinch.

What the fuck is she going to do?! - Jack thought to himself.

The band of his underwear had snapped back just under his scrotum, leaving his bare genitals out in the open as she regarded his miniscule length with derision.

Caitlin’s huge face slowly descended into the locker. With Jack’s head fixed in place, he had a front row seat as her neck, then chin, then mouth lowered themselves down to his eye level, all framed by wispy locks of long red hair.

Both sides of her head were backlit by the corridor, so he could make out the delicate fuzz picked out against her freckled skin, the gentle curves of her high cheekbones and the chiselled angularity of her powerful jawline.

He looked into her eyes fearfully, her nose was barely half a foot away from his, the monumental redhead looked like a living, breathing movie poster come to life.

Then, with a barely-noticeable smirk creasing the corners of her mouth, she pursed her lips, and slowly leant in closer to Jack’s face.

Jack’s eyes could see the glossy, shiny surface of her slightly cracked lips as they got closer and closer, before she pressed their soft, sticky weight over his nose, covering from his upper lip to almost his eyelids. 

“Mmmmmmmm” the girl purred, the sound of it vibrating through his skull and she pushed his head back firmly against the locker with the force of her ‘kiss’.

All Jack could really see was a blurred view of Caitlin’s freckled, softly-haired philtrum and her huge nostrils just beyond, as the giantess’ hot breath washed into his eyes, causing them to flicker and water.

She continued to hum lustily, smothering his nose and cutting off his air supply, as he rapidly realised that he could not breathe with his mouth covered in tape and his nostrils sealed by her full, fleshy lips. 

He tried to hold his breath, but after 10 or so seconds his lungs were beginning to burn and his eyes were flitting up and down in panic.

Caitlin’s murmur slowly turned into a deep, resonant chuckle, and she slowly removed her lips from his face, the sticky surface prying free from his face in little increments with a slight ‘smack’ sound as they did. 

“Such a little slut…” she breathed.

Jack was too busy sucking back air through his nostrils to notice, but what Caitlin was referring to soon became apparent. His little dick had stiffened noticeably without him even knowing.

He realised with trepidation that the wicked girl’s intentions were more to do with forcing him to get worked up than to punish him, at least for the moment.

Her huge eyes were locked on to his midsection, and as air finally began to settle back in his lungs her head started to lower towards his now semi-erect member.

He couldn’t see far enough down, only the top of her head was visible, her tightly-pulled-back ginger tresses gathered up into a white scrunchie to form a ponytail, and some loose red hairs swinging gently as her head moved.

“Haha - I almost forgot how small it was,” Caitlin finally said, matter of factly.

Jack dry-swallowed, being taped to the locker made him feel so insanely vulnerable, and especially being unable to see what was going on made his heart rate skyrocket. 

“A dick like this is basically a cruel joke. You couldn’t satisfy a 5th grader. If it wasn’t for me having a little fun with it, it would only feel your pathetic little doll hands jacking it off every night.”

She stifled a snigger, immensely proud of her own efforts to humiliate him.

He both heard, and felt, Caitlin puff her cheeks and blow a firm stream of air directly at the head of his cock. The sensation was weirdly overwhelming, simply because of the force of it coming from an Alpha mouth… 

His dick twitched noticeably as the jet of air continued to buffet it, and then, as the airflow stopped, he felt her tap at it with a big fingertip and push it back up against his t-shirt-covered belly, pressing it harder and firmer into his stomach with every moment so that it quickly began to really hurt.

“You’re going to be my little toy for the weekend, ok pipsqueak?” she explained darkly, her head rising back up so she could look him in the eye.

“And if you’re a good little manlet, maybe I’ll play nice.”

She backed this up by relenting the pressure on his organ and gently caressing it with her fingertip instead. As she did this, she raised her other hand up to her chin, and extended her pinkie straight up to her lips, barely touching them, tracing a line along her bottom lip to the corner of her mouth, and then along the upper lip before slowly sinking it into her mouth in a impossibly suggestive way.

Jack stared back, his eyes unblinking and wide. His penis was swelling up by the second.

“But…” she emphasised, withdrawing her slender digit from her mouth and pursing her sultry lips at him, “If you disappoint me…”

The finger that was caressing his length so gently down below, now pressed itself hard against him so that her pointed fingernail was spearing his prick painfully.

He blinked at her repeatedly to try to let her know that he understood the message she was so bluntly delivering.

“Ha… good boy… so submissive now,” she clucked, ridiculing how easy it was with him restrained and completely incapacitated.

Shifting her lower hand, she placed her big palm against his throbbing member and with a sudden motion, smeared it into his abdomen so hard that he actually felt its girth flatten against his midsection; his head went light-headed and he felt a sudden wave of nausea.

It was like a knockout blow to his libido, the lights went off in his dick immediately and it slumped back between his legs uselessly as she snickered at him,

She was just showing him how effortless it was for her to toy with his desires and override his fragile body’s limits.

Asphyxiation was becoming a big part of what she was doing to control him… smothering him against her body clearly excited her and made her feel gigantic, but he was beginning to realise, the feeling of being overwhelmed to the point of passing out did something to him, whether he wanted it to or not.

The huge girl was about to say something else, when from far down the other end of the corridor a door was thrown open violently and hurried footsteps began to approach.

A visibly surprised and annoyed Caitlin hesitated only momentarily before swinging the locker door shut and spinning the dial, plunging Jack into darkness.

The footfalls got louder as someone approached at pace.

“Cait… Hey, Cait, wait up,” a female voice said.

“Yeah, what?” Caitlin responded, her voice terse, betraying her irritation at having her fun cut short.

The other person finally arrived on the scene, they sounded slightly out of breath.

“You up to anything fun tonight?” the voice asked.

“I’m not free, sorry,” Caitlin replied succinctly.

“I was just thinking, you know, Hannah, you and I could, you know…” the voice tried again.

Alex… Jack thought.

“Nah sorry, I have other plans, maybe tomorrow night,” Caitlin interjected.

There was a pregnant pause.

“What plans?” the other girl said, her tone becoming strained..

“What do you mean, what plans?” Caitlin responded cattily. Jack felt something press up against the locker door, most likely an arm or a hand. “I’m probably going to watch some TV and get some pizza. I’ve had a shit day, I’m not good company, ok.” 

“Look c’mon Cait, can’t I join you, I’ve got nothing to do and I’m super bored…”

“No, I’m not in the mood,” Caitlin said dismissively, as if that was final.

“Uh… well, ok,” the voice went on, “Then can I just quickly check if I’ve left something in your locker… I can’t find my bracelet anywhere…” the girl continued, sounding a little frantic.

“What?” Caitlin reacted, audibly losing patience, “Jesus, Allie, I’ve not got it, you’ve probably put it down somewhere… it’s just a bracelet, it can wait.”

“It’ll only take a moment,” continued Alex, and Jack felt the dial rattle as it was grabbed firmly.

“What’s your code, Cait, I’ll just quickly have a look.”

“What the fuck’s got into you, get off my locker…” the larger girl protested.

“C’mon, I let you use mine all the time… it’ll take two seconds…” Alex insisted.

The dial slowly clicked round.

“4-20-something right?” she asked again, her voice starting to falter, she was starting to sound strained and desperate, “4-25? 26?” 

“Get off my locker, Alex, right now…” Caitlin warned.

“God DAMN IT CAIT, JUST GIMME THE CODE!” Alex suddenly burst out, her voice cracking, sounding close to tears.

Jack heard a loud thud, and the door of the locker flexed inwards momentarily as something hit it and then fell to the floor.

He heard the sound of gasping low down to the ground, and then something almost like… crying…

“Don’t you EVER, EVER tell me what to do!” Caitlin growled, her voice as brutal and inhuman as he had ever heard it.

“You… hit me… you fucking hit me,” he heard Alex whimper to herself in complete disbelief.

Jack couldn’t believe what was happening. Caitlin had snapped at Alex, there was no going back from this.

“What’s in the locker, Cait?” Alex asked, sniffing back the tears.

“None of your business,” she replied.

“I said, what’s in the locker, Caitlin,” Alex repeated, emphasising the hard C sound.

“And I said, none of your fucking business,” the towering bully reiterated firmly.

“Is there a Beta in there, huh?” Alex asked, her snivelling starting to subside.

Caitlin went silent.

“Oh yeah, like I forget what you get up to,” Alex spat, her words tinged with sarcasm, hauling herself back to her feet. “Another little guy for you to kidnap and molest.”

Holy shit, thought Jack. Holy fucking shit.

“Well, guess what, I’m done… I’m done pretending I’m ok with this… with being your little yes-girl, covering for your asthma, turning a blind eye to all this… bullshit. I am so done.”

Caitlin didn’t say a word, Jack couldn’t hear her at all, which was probably the most worrying thing of all.

“And yeah, I know there’s a little guy in there, first thing I’m gonna do is call 9-1-1 and get them to-”

“You wouldn’t dare…” Caitlin interrupted coldly.

“Oh yeah, and why not?” Alex replied, challenging Caitlin to threaten her.

There was another prolonged silence, Jack was practically holding his breath.

“That’s what I thought…” said Alex, her voice a little quieter, but still shaking.

“You’re my best friend, Cait, but this… this isn’t right.”

There was a loud metallic bang as Jack heard what sounded like a locker take the brunt of a punch.

“So… it was you,” Caitlin breathed, her voice rising as a realisation dawned on her, “You’re the rat who squealed last week.”

There was a long pause. Oh no Alex, Jack thought…

“You stupid bitch…” Caitlin hissed, “You’ll ruin everything.”

“Stupid?! Just look at what you’ve become, Cait, you’re a serial abuser, what happened to the girl who just wanted to play ‘tea time’ and loved twirling around in pink fairy dresses…”

“Back off, Allie,” Caitlin said loudly, “You have no idea, absolutely no idea what I went through.”

“What does that even mean, are you talking about the hormone treatment? It’s the same for everyone… What makes you so special?”

“EVERYTHING!” roared Caitlin at a volume so loud that the locker door practically rattled.

Stunned into silence, Jack heard Caitlin take a step forward towards Alex.

“You don’t know the sacrifices I’ve made to get here, you’ve got no idea of the pressure, the expectation…”

“What are you talking ab-”Alex began to say, before Caitlin cut in.

“If you think I’m going to let you, or anyone else, take this away from me, you’d better think again…”

“Cait… you’re scaring me… stop it,” Alex said quietly, clearly unnerved.

“Go on, go on Allie, go call the cops,” Caitlin said in a horrible, sarcastic voice, “But if you do, you can kiss goodbye to your future, I can make quite sure of that,” she added, her voice ice cold and terrifying.

“You wouldn’t…” Alex gasped.

“Wanna find out?” Caitlin growled, taking another step forward.

“Oh Jesus…” Alex whispered, “What’s happened to you, Cait.”

 “Just fuck off, Alex, I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone,” Caitlin rumbled.

Jack heard Alex starting to cry as she turned on her heel and began to walk away, her footsteps getting quicker as she put distance between herself and Caitlin..

“Yeah that’s right, run, Alex, just run away and cry like always,” Caitlin yelled after her.

The footsteps picked up pace as they grew ever fainter before eventually the door at the end of the corridor opened and slammed shut loudly.

Jack didn’t know what on earth to think.

Alex had been his secret protector through almost all of the past week. It was she who had notified Delon, ran interference for Penny’s rescue, returned his glasses and thought on her feet to stop Hannah delivering him to Caitlin.

She had finally tried to stand up to the mountainous redhead, and it had panned out exactly as they had both feared. Now, for the first time since he had been cornered in the bathroom, he realised that help probably wasn’t going to come.

Alex was likely too frightened to call the cops. Delon might be able to, but would they really pay that much attention to a Beta seemingly crying wolf on a rich, influential student athlete at Oakwood High? And Penny, poor Penny was in Hospital. She had no idea any of this was even happening, Jack knew she would be absolutely mortified if she learned of this…

He could hear Caitlin tapping away on her phone furiously. It was only a matter of time before her attention would return to him, and he had to steel himself for her wrath, especially in light of the confrontation with Alex.

The enormous girl paced backwards and forwards, her vast silhouette moving past the locker every few seconds as she punched message after message out. He could occasionally hear her let out aggravated noises and mutter under her breath, but it was too faint to truly make out what she was saying.

After what was probably about 2 minutes, her restless pacing stopped, she put away her phone and he heard the familiar rattle of the dial as she opened her locker.

Closing his eyes in anticipation, the door swung open violently, flooding the space with light. Squinting, he could just make out Caitlin stooping slightly as one of her giant hands entered his peripheral vision. The hand descended to his level, and her oversized forefinger and thumb pinched at the sports tape covering his mouth.

With a sudden rip, she tore the entire thing off his face.

Jack screeched with pain,

“Aaaooowwwwwwww… fuckkkk!” 

It felt like she’d removed some skin in the process, he was genuinely worried for a moment that some of his lip would be hanging off the tape; his face felt so red and raw.

“Oh can it, you little bitch,” Caitlin sneered, dropping the strip of used tape to the bottom of the locker.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll answer everything I ask, and maybe, just maybe, I won’t break your little arms and legs.”

Jack gulped audibly, staring up into the steely blue eyes of his horrible captress.

This was going to hurt, one way or the other.

Caitlin leant forward and her enormous, beguiling features honed in on Jack’s smaller ones.

Her expression was one of barely-concealed anger and frustration. He might even have described her as looking vulnerable, upset and conflicted, if only she weren’t about to abuse and torture someone smaller than her simply because she could.

“So I take it you heard our little chat, eh, Jack?”

He glowered up at her, he wasn’t going to be loquacious for the sake of it.

“Don’t test me, runt, I know full well what a sneaky little shit you are. Now tell me, did Alex help you get out of my house?” she asked, her eyes now barely a foot from his as she studied his face for tells.

He stared at her in silence, gently biting his tongue, trying not to be drawn.

“If you want to do this the hard way, I’m happy to indulge you…” Caitlin explained, her soft pink lips pressing together firmly as she geared up to inflict something terrible on him.

He blinked slowly, she was now going to inflict great pain on him… unless he thought of something, and fast.

After a few more seconds’ hesitation, Jack took a risk.

“A-are you happy now?”

Caitlin’s well-groomed ginger eyebrows raised slightly, her eyes boring incredulously into his.

“...what?” she spat, looking at him with an expression bordering on disgust.

“You struck your best friend… and f-for what?” Jack continued.

He could see the anger smouldering inside of her at his impudence.

“*I* ask the questions, you fucking leprechaun, don’t you DARE speak to me like you know me or my life,” she thundered, her eyes widening, her pupils making micro-adjustments as her gaze flitted from one eye to the other.

Jack fell silent once more, looking right at her, his face fighting to stay calm.

“Did Alex get you out of my house that night?” she asked again, slightly louder this time, pressing for an answer.

He kept his mouth firmly closed.

One time too many.

“Have it your way, dumbass,” she leered cruelly, thumping her coiled index finger into his defenceless ballsack without warning.

“Aaaaaahhhh fffuuuuccckkkk….”

Jack saw stars, whining and sucking in air from the surprise attack, writhing in agony as his hands and feet balled up in pain.

“Last chance, big shot,” the malevolent schoolgirl announced almost casually, pinching his little balls together between thumb and forefinger, “Unless you want to say bye-bye to your little peanuts.”

Jack began to puff out his cheeks like crazy, he didn’t really know if Caitlin was bluffing or not, and no part of him could guarantee that she was.

“Clock’s ticking,” she advised, ramping up the pressure the tiniest bit on his gonads, causing him to grit his teeth in pain. 

She began to twist and pull them, treating them with the contempt she clearly felt for his entire existence. 

“Ok ok… I’ll t-talk,” Jack cried, “Just… don’t… do that.”

“Do what?” Caitlin asked, feigning innocence before smiling evilly, pulling them a little harder.

“Aaah… that, Christ please, s-stop,” Jack groaned, his little hands flapping as he tried to resist the pain.

“I’ll think about stopping when you spill the beans about Alex, you tiny fuck,” Caitlin spat.  

She pressed ever harder, they were starting to throb and ache from the discomfort now.

“Did Alex take you from my house, yes or no, dipshit?!”

Jack closed his eyes, trying to bear the strain, he was starting to feel sick with how much it was hurting.

Any more of this and she was going to pop something. He knew it, and she definitely knew it.

But… the way she had phrased the question. Jack actually had an out… she had inadvertently given him an out.

“No… no… she d-didn’t… ok, it wasn’t her,” Jack cried out eventually.

Caitlin’s finger and thumb didn’t budge.

“Liar…” she breathed quietly, “You’re a fucking little liar.”

She twisted even more.

“It wasn’t Alex… it wasn’t Aaaaaaaa-” Jack shrieked as Caitlin gripped him firmer than ever.

“Then who was it, huh? Who the fuck broke into my house?!”

“I… I…” Jack started to say, but his higher functions were being compromised by the fear that he was about to lose one or both of his testicles in a fit of pique by an incensed giantess.

“It wasn’t Alex… it… wasn’t h-her… ”

“Then WHO? WHO goddam it!” Caitlin berated the tiny boy, spittle flying from her mouth and spattering onto his face.

“Wasn’t… Alex…” Jack gasped, his eyelids flickering, he was about to pass out from the pain.

The colossal redhead slammed her free hand against the base of the locker and let out a shriek of exasperation and fury.

“I swear to god, I am going to make you suffer, Jack, I am going to make you wish you’d never been born!” she roared.

She released her grip on him, and stood up to her full height.

“And whoever you are protecting, I am going to find out who they are, and I am going to destroy them too.”

Jack was too busy hyperventilating and blinking back the tears to congratulate himself on holding out. Caitlin was in a rage, yet again, and he wouldn’t have much respite before he would resume punching bag duties once more.

With another punch of her fist against the locker frame, Caitlin suddenly bent at the waist, dipping below Jack’s field of view, and he could hear her unzipping her sports bag in readiness for his abduction. 

She stood back up and glared at him one last time before slapping the used piece of tape back over his mouth hard with the palm of her hand and pressed it down hard, causing Jack to emit a muffled scream.

“That’s enough out of you for now,” she explained curtly, giving his face a playful slap, before grabbing both of his arms and peeling them painfully off the back of the locker as he moaned and groaned through his nose in protest.

She next ripped his entire torso free of the tape, causing him to hang forward awkwardly at the waist with his legs still taped down. The giantess nonchalantly bent his arms behind his back and taped them down with the excess, patting it all down firmly so there was no way he could get free.

Finally she coiled each of her huge hands around his exposed thighs and simply pulled him free of the back of the locker with pure brute strength, the tape digging into his flesh painfully before tearing away in shreds.

His jeans were still around his knees with his little boxers bunched up under his ballsack. Jack could see by Caitlin’s face that she found it hilarious, and as he squirmed and wriggled in her grasp, she reached down and gave him another vicious pinch down there to make him writhe in agony. 

“Don’t struggle too hard, big guy, you’ll need to save your energy for later,” she scoffed in a sing-song voice.

Blinking back the tears, his head lolled back to the sky as she pulled his boxers up and over his tender genitals, snapping the waistband back and then dropped him without warning into the bag below. He crumpled in a heap on top of the pile of sweaty training clothes, his legs flailing as he did so. He tried to reorient himself, but the gargantuan schoolgirl dropped his own Beta-size backpack hard onto his stomach, winding him, then shoved his head down roughly with one massive hand and pulled the zipper closed over his prone body, sealing her tiny prisoner inside.

Kicking and floundering around inside the bag, he felt it being lifted up by the handles, and Caitlin shook it knowingly to remind him who was boss, as if it were ever in doubt.

The beastly teen could be heard chuckling to herself as she closed the locker door, and the sea-sickness-like lurching of the bag forwards and backwards began as she strode confidently out of the building.

Jack kicked and squirmed occasionally out of pique but this soon died down as he knew he just had to accept how pointless his efforts at reprisal were. Caitlin wasn’t bluffing - he needed to save his energy, not waste it with petulant attempts to ‘resist’ an impossible situation.

The giantess eventually arrived at her car and threw the bag into it carelessly. Jack experienced a sudden unexpected rush of hang-time before landing heavily on his back and shoulders as he and the bag collided with the interior of the car.

Caitlin wrenched open the driver’s door and got in with a considerable weight shift; the car audibly groaning on its springs as she entered, before she closed the door behind her and started the car’s engine. Aggressively-loud hip-hop with female vocals exploded through the car speakers as he felt the car lurch forward, gather speed, then slam to a halt.

Clearly, Caitlin was neither a patient nor refined driver.

The bag would slide around each time the vehicle turned a corner or braked – sometimes smacking against what was either the back of the trunk space or a seat – and during the quieter moments in the deafening soundtrack he could hear busy traffic; heavy vehicles like trucks or buses moving past or idling.

Quite a few times he heard her yelling at something unfolding in front of her, but with the music thumping away it was impossible to hear what she was actually saying.

He tried closing his eyes to try and calm his heart rate down, the familiar sickly, earthy smell of Caitlin’s athletics gear filled his nostrils as he tried to take stock of the situation he now found himself in.

Instead of the white hot terror he felt when she had him directly in her clutches, he now felt the drip, drip, drip of overwhelming dread – a horrid, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach acknowledging the horror of the coming hours… no, whole days of his life.

The one thing he had been so desperate to avoid had finally come to pass, it felt… strange, surreal and wretchedly inevitable. A small part of his headspace found the predicament darkly amusing, he allowed an ironic smile to cross his features for just a second before he crumpled back into sadness, his eyes scrunching tight and shedding a few soggy tears. His fate had proven exactly as inexorable as he had catastrophised about, and he was especially bitter that he had made it so far, and been so close to making it to the weekend… the last lesson, on the last day… if he didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all.

As the traffic outside the car seemed to grow heavier and louder, the car was spending more and more time at a standstill. Jack surmised that the journey Caitlin was making was taking too long to be to her house… if anything, it felt like she was getting closer to the centre of town. He could faintly hear the bustle of pedestrians and the electronic pips of crosswalks each time the vehicle came to a stop, even with the din of her music drowning most of it out.

She might be heading to a hotel, or perhaps a city centre apartment the Reids owned, either of which would potentially make an intervention or rescue attempt more difficult, but as he thought about it, ever so gradually, an even more chilling realisation began to form in his head, one pixel at a time...

Caitlin was taking him to Amber’s apartment.

Existential panic started to fill up his insides like a pitcher of beer. His brain had all-too-readily sought to erase the memories of Amber and how she enabled Caitlin and mistreated him herself when she’d been left alone with him for barely a minute at most. His thoughts rewound to when he’d heard her name mentioned, the photos online of her cosying up to the powerful redhead in alcohol-soaked nightclub selfies, the vivid memory of her jabbing her finger callously into his injured shoulder by the poolside...

Now he was trapped like prey, bound and gagged, helpless and heading to an apartment god knows where… He just had to hope against hope that somehow Alex wouldn’t flake and that she and Delon would actually do something. It had firmly crossed the line to necessitate a phone call to the police, but would the cops even listen, and would they react in time to catch Caitlin in the act, or miss his abduction entirely? 

Oh god, please… his thoughts returned to hearing Alex crying, how coldly and violently Caitlin had reacted, could he really count on her help now? As much as he wanted to believe that she would try, he worried deep down that she would now be far too scared to do anything.

The car turned sharply to one side, and the bag slid at speed before crunching heavily against the car interior yet again, smacking Jack’s shoulder against it. The suspension lurched as the car passed over some kind of speed bump and then the bag slid fully to the other side of the vehicle, this time causing a thump to his legs as the car descended down a steep ramp.

The drone of the engine became a little more noticeable as the vehicle levelled out; it definitely sounded like the car had pulled into an underground space like a basement car park, but before he could make anything else out, the engine cut  abruptly, ending the music with it. He stayed completely silent, listening out for any further clues, but Caitlin didn’t say a word. He could faintly hear the occasional plasticky ‘tap’ of her using her phone, and a few ambient bips and tones as she sent or received several messages. Nothing else happened for at least a minute, until he heard the door swing open with an audible thud and a slight groan of metal, followed by a heavy ‘clunk’ as it slammed shut a few seconds later. The giant girl’s heavy footsteps made their way round the vehicle, opening another door and dragging the bag that contained him out by the handles, before adding a few other items to her payload as he heard her big body reaching around.

With another firm ‘clunk’ the car door was closed, and a couple of piercing electronic pips confirmed it had been locked as she walked away. He tried not to make any obvious twitches or jolts despite his discomfort; he figured it might be worth trying to aid the illusion that he was either asleep or had passed out with exhaustion, or even just to signify that he was prepared to be more cooperative… though in all honesty, as soon as she got to her destination it probably wouldn’t make much difference. The bag was rocking backwards and forwards quite violently in time with the girl’s pounding footsteps as the handles squeaked from the strain.

He heard the Alpha tap a few buttons into a keypad and push open a door, then wait for a lift, stepping inside the metallic chamber as an electronic voice crisply announced ‘Floor 2’. She punched a button, and it only took a few moments for the lift to ascend to ‘Floor 4’ and the doors to open with a pre-recorded ‘bing’.

The fear was reaching its crescendo now. He was in completely alien territory, somewhere in the middle of downtown, probably in an Alpha apartment building, and only Alex would have any idea where it was.

The rhythmic swaying of Caitlin’s movements came to a halt yet again, and he heard the sound of a keycard being used in a door, and then, without so much as a pause for breath, he was in…