She showered, tossed on her leather jacket, and walked toward the dining hall. She pictured herself successfully running the course. Overcoming obstacles. Returning fire. Apprehending and interrogating a suspect. She captured every image in her mind.
She could do this. She could absolutely do this.
She had to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FOUR MONTHS OF CONSTANT WORK, of staying on the straight and narrow and keeping her nose as clean as possible, all came down to one more exam. The first-year recruits had finished a morning of grueling written tests; the practical test was next.
The students, dressed in their black-and-blue athletic uniforms, were ushered into a boat and then into a van as they traveled to an undisclosed location. Teddy’s brain had melted from the seemingly unending list of multiple-choice and essay questions about forensic procedure and the pineal gland, and the drive gave her time to collect her thoughts. She kept her face pressed against the window. Eventually, the streets of San Francisco gave way to the hills of Northern California, and the van turned in to a military facility. Sign after sign warned visitors to keep out, but the van barreled forward. Teddy tried to replay the major lessons she’d learned this semester: Dunn’s breathing techniques, Boyd’s torturous workouts, Clint’s empathy lectures. Clint: she couldn’t think about him without her mind spiraling out to other questions, about her parents, Sector Three, and the past he had kept from her. Her thoughts were jarred as the van hit a pothole, rocking the car. Next to her, Dara swore.
They drove past a razor-wire fence, through an electronic gate, and into a compound of enormous metal warehouses. The car stopped in a circular drive where Clint, Dunn, and Boyd stood waiting. The first-year recruits exited the vehicle and gathered around their professors. Teddy shifted her weight between her feet, anxious about the next part of the exam.
The fog still sat low on the horizon, obscuring the skyline. It seemed like they were in another world, an alternate universe of metal warehouses and clouds. “Welcome, recruits,” Clint said. It was cold. He wore a cap pulled down over his ears. Teddy couldn’t help thinking of the hat as a kind of costume that made him look more serious, more official—something that he really wasn’t. She stood her ground, preparing for what was coming next.
Teddy watched as a SWAT officer signaled to Clint, who pulled the cap off his head and put a handful of folded papers inside. Without looking, Professor Dunn reached inside the cap and withdrew a name. “Zac Rogers.”
Boyd reached in and withdrew the next. “Dara Jones.”
“Team One,” Clint announced.
Zac and Dara stared at each other, appalled.
The instructors continued, randomly pulling names to create teams. Jillian Blustein and Henry Cummings. Lucas Costa and Ava Lareau. Theodora Cannon and Kate Atkins.
Anyone but Kate, Teddy thought. Why couldn’t she once—just once—catch a break? Teddy glanced across the group at Kate, whose lips tightened into a grim line as she returned Teddy’s nod. At least Kate seemed as determined to succeed as Teddy.
Teddy watched as Ben Tucker and Liz Cook were paired up, which left Molly Quinn and Jeremy Lee. Lucky breaks for them.
Boyd explained that they were about to enter an obstacle course like ones used by local police departments, SWAT forces, FBI, CIA, and the military as a training ground designed to test and perfect combat techniques. Whitfield recruits were expected to meet the physical challenges of the course and go one step further, using the lessons from Dunn’s and Clint’s classes to complete tasks. One team member would run the obstacles while the other remained outside the facility, telepathically sending the instructions required to complete the course. In addition, special “enemy combatants” would be situated throughout the course. Teddy had heard that these were special-ops marines whose job it was to take down as many recruits as possible. The fact that there was no live ammo was little consolation. Teddy could only guess what else awaited them inside that warehouse—they were told to trust no one but their teammate.
Clint passed a radar gun and a padded radar-sensitive vest to each team. On the back of each vest was a brightly colored triangle. Teddy and Kate were the red team.
“There are four checkpoints. At each, you’ll find a color-coded card that corresponds to your vest. Collect all four cards, as well as a color-coded key, which will unlock the exit door. If you don’t, you fail. If your vest lights up, you’ve received a fatal hit, and you fail. If you shoot a fellow recruit, you fail. You have one hour to complete the course. If you don’t make it through in the allotted time, you fail. Is that clear?”
Teddy thought, A lot of ways to fail.
“I’ll stay on the outside,” Kate said. “I’m better at projecting telepathic messages than receiving them. And we don’t want to risk you going all astral on me in there.”
Teddy hesitated. She knew Kate was right. Her astral powers were unpredictable. Still, Teddy wasn’t great at taking direction, psychic or otherwise.
“Of course, I’m also better at running obstacles,” Kate said.
“How good are you at keeping your mouth shut?” Teddy asked. “I’m going in.” She shrugged on the vest, grabbed two pairs of handcuffs and a wooden baton that had been given to each group, hooked in to the straps, and holstered the radar gun.
Kate gave the belt on Teddy’s vest an extra tug.
“Too tight,” Teddy objected.
“Can you breathe?”
“I guess.”
“Then it’s not too tight. You don’t want the vest bumping around while you run. It’ll throw off your
