“You excited to get started?” he asks. “I didn’t do anywhere near as good as you did on the obstacle course. I could learn a lot from you.” His eyes take on a glazed-over look for a second, and I know where he’s headed before he even gets there. “To think,” he says. “I get to work right along the Black’s kid.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘excited’ is the right word,” I say, hooking one arm up over my head to stretch the ache out of it.
Sawyer spots Erin standing beside me, and quickly introduces himself in his usual, cheery, way. “Hi!” he says, sticking out his hand. “I’m Sawyer!”
“Erin,” she says so quietly I wonder if Sawyer heard. She shakes his hand with an equally unimpressive handshake. “I’m Avery’s roommate.”
“Cool! I’m stuck with Mr. Quiet over there.” Sawyer jerks his head toward Bennett.
“Oh, that so?” I ask. “What’s he like?”
I imagine him turning his half of the room into a full out den, or some kind of shrine to protein powder.
“He’s not so bad,” Sawyer says. “He’s just quiet. I don’t think he said one thing to me yesterday. He spent most of his time holed up with Party-guy and Mr. Bigshot in their room. I don’t mind. Kinda like having the place to myself.”
“FALL IN!” shouts a rough voice, and we all snap our attention towards the source of the noise. It’s our teacher, a woman who looks to be in her thirties and wearing athletic gear plastered with the Saint M logo. “And shut up!” she snaps, looking pointedly towards Piers and his crew. Owen, who had been talking, falls silent and scowls back while she turns her attention to the entire class.
“I’m Professor Davies. But in this class, you call me ma’am. That clear?”
We all stare at her.
“Okay; when I ask you a question, you all respond with ‘yes, ma’am’ or ‘no, ma’am’. So again: is that CLEAR?”
“YES, MA’AM!” we chorus at her. I try my best not to snort. I’m not sure if this hardass persona works on her; she doesn’t seem overly intimidating, what with her perfect blonde ballerina-bun and yoga pants. I guess I should learn soon that in this world, however, not everything is as it seems.
“Great,” she barks. “I have you all until noon. You’ll meet here wearing workout gear every morning, and if you’re late, I’ll bust your ass. Clear?”
“YES, MA’AM!”
“Follow me.”
She leads us further into the woods, and we all walk silently behind her. I spot the obstacle course from the trial flitting to the trees to our left, but we aren’t headed towards it. Instead, she takes us to a course much deeper into the woods. It looks older, and way simpler; tires in the mud, climbing ropes, simple wooden hurdles of varying heights, all integrated into the forest so that the trees themselves become obstacles too.
I can’t see the end of it.
“This is our simplest obstacle course,” Professor Davies tells us. “After a warm-up, you all will run this course over and over until I think it’s a good time to stop. I will be timing each of you. You may think there’s a lot of you and only one of me, and that it’s impossible for me to time each of you when you’re all running this together—but you’re wrong. I have my ways. Do not test me.”
She’s practically begging to be tested; I can see it in her eyes. Owen, Bennett, and Piers are itching to get started. I can see it in their nervous, twitching movements. They might want to test her, but I don’t. I have a lot to work toward, and I can’t gamble on my scores, no matter how much the competitive side of me wants to try and prove something to this loudmouthed woman.
Professor Davies leads us in some group stretches and some other warm-up bullshit; jumping jacks, a lap around the clearing. I don’t complain. I stay in the middle front of the pack. Some of the other recruits are still suffering from a bit of altitude sickness, but my body has already adjusted. Every so often I feel the slightest twinge of lightheadedness if I push it a little too hard, but that’s it. Not like Erin, who’s struggling just to keep up at the very back of the class. Her face is already a deep shade of purple when we circle back around to the start, but still, she doesn’t show any sign of giving up. She’s a determined little thing.
The teacher has us all line up single-file at the beginning of the obstacle course. She sticks her whistle in her mouth and blows it for the first person to start. Once they get going a bit, she signals for the next person to follow.
It’ll be my turn soon. When the time comes, I adjust my tank top and drop down, getting into a running position.
The whistle blows.
&nb
sp; I kick off.
The first stretch is just running, my footsteps melding pretty seamlessly into tires embedded into the ground. The whistle blows behind me, startling me out of my concentration and making my footwork sloppy. I need to focus. All around me are the noises and grunts of others running the course. There are going to be all sorts of noises and distractions out on a real hunt; I need to get used to it and learn to tune it all out to concentrate on myself. One false move here, and the worst that’s going to happen is a twisted ankle.
Out there, it could mean death.
I struggled a little on the trial’s obstacles, but today should be a different story. Now that I’m concentrated, I blast through the beginning of the course and make it to the part obscured by trees. I catch a flash of skin. Owen’s just ahead of me now, right on the other side of the barbed wire mesh blocking off the next part of the course.
I dive under the wire and start my crawl. My hair, pulled back and braided down my back, poses no threat today. Owen is just a few feet ahead of me, his jerky movements costing him precious seconds for me to catch up. Just before he scrambles out, he swipes his foot back and a clod of mud flies up to smack into my face. It clogs my eyes and nose, getting into my mouth so I have to stop for a moment. I cough chunks of wet dirt out of my throat but carry on blinded, crawling the rest of the way out from under the wire before I stop to wipe the mud from my eyes.