ArdenT DesirE🐺

Part 19: Benny

|{Benny Saint-Banks}|

The next day after school Benny stood outside his school waiting for his pops to pick him up.
His friends were all going over to some weird abandoned building in the city to party, which he thought was pretty cool, but he turned down the offer to tag along because he and Ice had plans to grab lunch and have some family time.
And he was really excited about it.

While he waited, Benny kept looking all around his surroundings. Ever since he got out of the hospital something strange had been happening to him. He constantly felt like there was a shadow hovering over him, like he was being followed or watched over. But each time he'd turn around and find nothing and no one.
He didn't even scare easy, but he was beginning to get a little creeped out.

He'd thought about telling his pops, but he didn't really have too much to go on. 'I feel like I'm being watched' is just speculation, not facts.
Ice would probably just tease him about being paranoid and leave it at that. Either that or he'd blow the situation out of proportion. It was either nothing or too much with him, there was never an in-between.

It was bad enough that Benny hadn't mentioned the fact that he'd seen that crazy nigga who shot him the other day. The way he'd felt when he saw that man was indescribable to say the least. He'd felt hatred like he'd never felt before, pure unadulterated hatred.

Hatred wasn't a foreign feeling to him, not by any stretch of the imagination. He'd despised people before, so he was quite familiar with the emotion. He hated his dad for being a piece of shit, he hated his mom for being weak and letting that man ruin her life, and sometimes he hated life for being so unfair to him. But what he'd felt for that particular dude was nothing like any of those, this was different— it was so heavy it shook Benny's core.

Benny sighed and checked the time on his phone screen, only to look back up and saw his pop's car approaching. Thank God, cos he was hungry.
The car pulled up in front of him, and the tinted windows came down slowly, revealing Bug behind the wheel.

His excitement disappeared instantly. It was a mix of emotions, because on one hand he was happy for any moment he could spend around Bug, even though he knew they'd never happen. But on the other hand he'd been excited to spend the day with Ice. He was very hurt.

Benny had so much he wanted to tell Ice, so much he hadn't had a chance to talk about because of how absent the man has been lately. Like Benny's mom sniffing around, and approaching him in school talking about getting custody. Or the strange old man who kept trying to talk to Benny about Ice, the man with the thick southern accent and the ugly necklace with the initials DD. Benny had almost run the man over with his car a couple of weeks ago.

"Sup kid." Bug said in the way of greeting when Benny eventually got into the car.

Benny cringed internally, he hated that nickname from Bug specifically. Ignoring it he asked the question that was really on his mind. "Let me guess, he's out chasing rats. Right?"

Bug looked at the kid sadly, he had some idea how Benny was feeling, he'd felt that his entire life. But he also knew Ice would never do the boy the way his biological parents did him. I mean, they threw him in the trash, literally. It couldn't get worse than that.

From Bug's understanding of recent events, two of Soul's pack members where missing after going out for a run. Someone had know exactly where and when they'd be out running, the attack had been planned out with inside information. Bug would be mad and obsessed about finding the rat too of it were him.

He'd been trying to get a hold of his friend since he got the info on who the culprit is, but the only thing he'd heard back from the alpha was for Bug to pick Benny up from school. Nothing more, nothing else.

"He loves you, and you're one of, in not the most important person in his life. And you need to understand that if he ain't telling you something it's for your own protection." Bug tried to reason with the hurt looking kid.

He hoped Benny didn't relapse for real. The boy had been a big mess when he'd first started living with Ice. It had taken a lot of patience, conversations, and some ass whooping for Ice to get this child to stop trying to die in the streets. Molding him into this semi level headed young man had been a tough road. So for the sake of his best friend's sanity, Bug hoped this miscommunication got resolved before they got thrown back to square one.

"Yeah whatever." Benny huffed, putting his headphones on and looking out the window.

Bug reached over and pulled them back out. "Rude ass. What you hungry for?" He asked.

"I'm not hungry, I just wanna go home." Benny lied, then put his headphones back on. He didn't take it off until the engine went dead half an hour later. Benny hadn't been paying attention, but when he looked up he found that they were in one of his favorite places to eat. He groaned and laid back down. "I said I ain't hungry."

"I don't care." Bug replied, tossing some money on Benny's lap. "Go buy some takeouts, it's your lucky day so you can get some variety. Now go."

"No."

"I will throw your scrawny ass out through the window if you try me kid. I ain't your daddy, I will beat your ass." Bug warned.

Benny groaned and stormed out of the car, shutting it loud as shit. And just like that, he didn't like this nigga nomo. He liked him when he used to let him have his way, now he was just annoying.

"This damn kid tryna fuck up my car. I hate kids bruh." Bug muttered to himself.

——

Later that night, Benny snuck out of the house to go get high at his homie's spot. He wasn't allowed to drink or smoke, but since the rule enforcer was MIA who was gon stop him?

He was only two minutes out of his destination when that same nigga who shot him stepped out of the shadows, scaring the shit out of him.

Benny's heart jumped at the same time as he pulled his gun out and pointed it at the intruder. "Step the fuck back!"

Banky rolled his eyes and hissed. "Put that down, you're not gonna shoot me. You can't, even if you tried."

"Wanna bet?"

"I just wanna talk to you okay? I'm not tryna hurt you. Can we just talk for a moment?" Banky asked in a pleading voice. He'd been so conflicted ever since he met this boy. Cut between his strong feelings for Milo, and his pull to this kid. He just needed some clarity.

"Talk to this, bitch!" Benny declared, as he shot Banky three times in the gut and ran away. He continued to run until he got home.

Banky laid there in the dark corner of the street, bleeding both physically and internally. Normally a mate shouldn't be capable of hurting his mate, much less so easily. With his mate however, it felt like the boy didn't feel any connection to Banky whatsoever, and for whatever reason that hurts more than being shot.

Right there and then Banky felt his clear eye get a bit blacker, bit by bit he was losing himself to the shadows. He was indeed turning into the demon wolf.