Chapter 2: No Place Like Home

He headed back home, however, instead of going back to Ms. Clare’s apartment, Ferral stopped in the back of a gym. He got off his bike, took out a pair of keys from his back pocket, and unlocked the back door of the gym. Then, he walked a small flight of stairs that led to a living room area on the second floor. “Hey!” Ferral called out, “I’m home!” A female head popped out from behind behind a couch. “Heeeey, Ferral!” The girl waved and got up from the couch. The girl was young, no older than 17. Her skin was a golden tan, eyes as yellow as dried grass, her large lion-like mane a golden brown with two black pigtails resting on her shoulders. “Hi, Loni. Where’s everyone else?” Ferral asked. “Well, most of them are downstairs helping out gym members, but Leona’s in her room doing her private training sesh.” “Sounds about right. What’d about you?” Loni walked back to the couch and grabbed a book, “I was reading probs the best romance novels ever written! A tale of deception, espionage, and very detailed sex!” Ferral raised an eyebrow, “You know you’re too young to be read smut.” She held the book closer to her chest, “Says you, Ferral. It’s fine everyone else, so shoo.” She waved him off and he rolled his eyes, “That’s because everyone else here is a degenerate.”

He walked off into a hallway with 4 doors, two on each side, one of the ones on the right was opened ajar. He walked toward it, hearing quiet grunting coming from the room. As he opened it, Leona could be seen doing pull-ups, her ankles crisscrossed with chains wrapped around them and at the end of the chain, a 500 lb weight. “Yo, Leona!” Ferral greeted, but she didn’t respond. It took him a second to notice she had her earphones in, he hadn’t seen it before because her back was turned. So he took out his keys, detached one of them from the keychain, and flicked it at her. The key hit her square in the back and she whipped her head around to see Ferral. “Oh, you’re back.” She said, letting go of the bar and landing on the floor. She took out her earphones, “Sup, Ferral.” She greeted with her back still turned. “I brought some dessert for dinner.” He said, raising the box of hodu-gwaja. She fully turned around, revealing the large scar she had gotten from near death against the clone of Dr. Amber. “Cool. And remember, it’s your turn to make dinner.” She walked past him, heading to the shower that was the second door on the right. He left the hallway and headed to the kitchen to put the hodu-gwaja in the fridge, then headed back to the bathroom where Leona was to put the medicine in the medicine cabinet.

As he entered, a burst of steam came out. Leona always took showers with the water on a high heat. He placed the medicine in the cabinet, then sat on the toilet with the lid closed. “So, I was crunching the numbers earlier at school for gym revenue.” He said. “Oh yeah? How’re we looking?” Leona responded. “This is the highest income we’ve had since we started this. Maybe now we won’t be barley afloat when I do the taxes.” Ferral and Leona had bought this building four and half years ago as both a way to have their own place and make a living. It was a gym that specially took experiments as members. “Not surprised, more places aren’t letting experiments in. That includes other gyms. Good thing we found this place when we did.” Ferral didn’t respond, remembering about all the pharmacies that kicked him out. But not just that, grocery stores, restaurants, and even many banks refused to give him any time simply because he was an experiment. He gazed at Leona’s silhouette behind the fogged-up shower doors, her tail flicking as she washed her hair. Unlike Ferral, Leona, Loni, and the others didn’t care about concealing themselves. About looking normal. “I’m gonna assume you came in here to do more than just stare at me, right Ferral?” Leona asked, breaking Ferral’s train of thought. “Hmm? Oh yeah, right. I was gonna ask if you could leave the water running so I can go next.” She sighed, “Sure, hand me a towel and look away.” She cracked open the left shower door and stuck out her hand. Ferral handed her the towel that was on the rack on the wall next to the entrance of the bathroom. He looked up at the ceiling while she got out and wrapped the towel around her body. “You can look now.” He dropped his head and then started to remove his prosthetics.

Starting with his right eye, he held it open with his left hand and took it out with his right. After that, he took off the glove that was over his prosthetic arm, then slid his fingers up the metal arm until reaching the base of it. Clicking a small button on the inner side, a series of quiet whirling sounds came from the arm. Ferral winched, causing Leona to turn her head in curiosity, and he took off the arm, revealing the five barbed screws that held his arm in. “Must hurt.” She jabbed. “Every time.” Ferral responded before he started taking off his clothes. Leona turned back around and left the bathroom. When Ferral had first gotten the new arm, it was a basic prosthetic. But over time he modified it, adding miniature shock absorbers to soften the blow when he would strike something, and barbed screws that were meant to hold the arm firmly in place. Each time the screws would tear through the flesh before locking in with the rest of his arm. It didn’t help the wounds heal faster than they would a normal person. As he stood in the shower, he was using his index finger to write out equations on the foggy doors. He scowled and wiped it off, waiting for the glass to fog up again.

After he was done, Ferral put on some more comfortable clothes and headed toward the kitchen to make dinner. Before he could, he was greeted by his other roommates. Needing workers for the gym, Leona enlisted the help of the remaining lionesses that followed Leonidas. There were only four remaining, including Leona made five and Loni was a stray that Leona had decided to take along to give her a home. Leona, Loni, Savannah, Venus, Aurora, and Zuri. Loni was the youngest at 17 and Venus, the eldest at 26.

“Ferral! Hiiiii!” Aurora, the third oldest waved. “Finally decided to come out of the shower, eh? You were in there for like two hours.” Zuri, the second youngest added. Ferral chuckled, “Sorry.” As he began to walk backward, he accidentally bumped into Venus. He turned around to apologize, but she grabbed the sides of his face and pressed her lips against his. The two locked in a kiss until Ferral pushed her off, his face beat red. “Awww, why are you ending it so soon?” She asked coyly, “You usually enjoy the taste of my lips.” He looked away out of frustrated embarrassment while the other lioness giggled, beside Leona, who rolled her eyes. “I’ve told you I’m not interested,” Ferral responded, wiping his mouth, “Now, unless you guys wanna starve for the evening, I have to make dinner.” He walked passed her and into the kitchen. Ferral enjoyed living with the lionesses, he couldn’t lie. They carried a bad reputation but weren’t all bad. They were nice, fun to be around, and were okayish sparring partners, but their perverted sides were often annoying. Both Leona and Ferral agreed on that.

Once Ferral was finished cooking, the others got their plates and served themselves. They all ate at a large table, chatting about how the day went, making jokes and smart remarks. Ferral laughed, forgetting about what happened earlier in the day. Forgetting all his problems and simply enjoying spending time with his friends. His family.