TAINTED | Zayn Malik

Chapter 19 | Follow

"Are you seriously running? Like for real? Because that is fucking pitiful if it is."

I couldn't help myself from groaning loudly, feeling the need to express my anger. The remaining time of my week other than school and therapy, Zayn decided with Taylor that it would be good to train me.

At first, it was a bit difficult to understand the reasoning, I was almost certain that it held a lot of meanings behind it and I was just left out the picture. Harry suggested that it could be just something for myself, a way of learning to properly learn about self-dense. I wasn't opposed to the idea, in the beginning, I was actually giving it the benefit of the doubt. I felt pride knowing that I could enhance my skills, I wasn't sure that it would ever be needed. I was contained from the closures of the world, it felt like I was in my own universe. It was like my body was here but my soul evaporated and I couldn't stop myself.

But then reality kicked in and it was pretty damn ruthless after I finally agreed to train alongside Zayn. I was regretting every decision after the first couple of days, and it was just a warm up compared to his hourly schedule to prepare for a fight. My mind was trying to persuade me into proving him wrong, my body just refused to listen. Every instinct of giving up kicking in, making me loose the battle of sanity I had left.

"I'm gonna need you to speed up, firecracker." His voice was becoming one of the things which made me cringe in a bad way. The authority and need to humiliate me in the most possible ways, the sad part was that I had to agree not to fight back on this.

I bit my lip, jogging around the arena one last time before doubling over and wheezing as my lungs contract at the lack of oxygen. My skin was beginning to become a tad lighter due to the lack of sun, not turning me pale but enough to see the olive in my skin fading like a bad detergent on clothes. My cheeks felt hot, I didn't need a mirror to know that I was probably bright red and covered in sweat.

He decided to work as if I was the one who needed it most, his instructions became almost impossible. No matter and how hard I tried, it was never done right to him. Either I was jumping too high, kicked too low, ran too slow, my breathing patterns were awful. He always found something to hate, and it was putting a major damper on my mood.

He also seemed to appreciate working at night, after dealing with studying and therapy, he decided that was his time. And I realized that he also liked to plan at night, catching him training to himself whenever I was left with a task.

"You need to focus on your breathing, didn't I tell you?" I could hear the echoes, he started backing away from me. Yet, I always felt his eyes and that was the worst part. I could never tell what he was thinking, but me, I expected the worst so I figured it couldn't be good.