Holt, who was watching the twins with amused but annoyed interest, had told me that he couldn't believe they were related to me until they opened their mouths. They looked like angelic cherubs, with their heads of big blond curls. Jordan was taller than Jessie by a head, and Jessie was shorter than me, which meant it was easier to grapple her bad attitude out of her when I needed to. What she lacked in height, she made up for in brains. She was the mastermind who dreamed up elaborate plots and social games, while Jordan charmed his way through life the way only a handsome boy can get away with. They were both loud, though, as Holt noted, and skilled in trash talking. It was a dangerous combination.
I ignored the twins for now and explained our training for the day. It was simple but challenging. "Our goal is to work together on coordinating an attack on larger creatures. I've personally witnessed and participated in several fights like these. Immortal creatures are often massive, truly overwhelming in their size and capabilities. It's common to come across them and realize that they have poison breath that can rot your flesh down to bone. You have to work with your team at all times, both to check your backs and figure out an efficient way to take down the monster. Luckily for us, the Leftovers provide us more remote areas to fight in, so we have fewer civilians to worry about." My fight in Moab with Lyra and the others against the empty swarm, those enormous hell-bugs that considered metal a light snack, came back to me.
The Hellraisers were going first as the example for today’s exercise. I was nervous, given that we hadn’t run the drills since the twins had integrated into the group. They were on special restrictions as the youngest additions, something that made me feel better as an older sister having to watch her siblings jump into the supernatural fray.
The crowd was largely silent… except for Jessie and Jordan. They giggled over something to one another. My eye twitched. I shouldn't have chugged a coffee before coming out here; I’d been spurred to do it after a late night of hearing Kane's voice. My siblings were my pride and joy, but they were no exception to the rules.
"If you're chuckling right now, I can guarantee that you won't be in the face of a shrieking decay. I've seen one melt a woman right in front of my eyes. I'll never forget that smell." Jessie and Jordan stopped. Everyone glanced toward them, fellow Bureau soldiers outside the Hellraisers who now smirked as they watched the drama unfold. "If you’re done, Taylor and Taylor, I'll carry on." From the corner of my eye, Hindley lifted her chin with an approving glance. She was a stickler for the rules, and I respected her even if rules sometimes annoyed me. My siblings gave me the stink eye from afar. They might be plotting a counterattack or prank on me later, but they'd soon realize I was being nice. Hindley would've torn them apart and sent them packing to do grueling extra labor.
The twins didn't mean to be rude. They’d just grown up rough. My family was always rowdy and undisciplined, but the twins took the cake, since they’d come out of the womb with a built-in partner in crime. They shared a strong bond from our childhood that enabled them to scheme their way out of everything. Ultimately, the twins showed impressive initiative. They had risen quickly through basic training and impressed their superiors by showing creative problem-solving talent years beyond their age and skill levels.
Their problem was that they tended to live in their own world. I used to joke that they might as well have been joined at the actual hip, with the amount of time they spent together. They always thought they were right because they constantly confirmed each other’s beliefs. I needed to get them to move past that if they wanted to progress as solid members of the Hellraisers worthy of going on missions. Or at least to stop giggling during important training seminars. I might have been a bad influence on them, though… I taught them to be freaking confident and believe in themselves no matter what, and unfortunately, that includes challenging authority figures. Perhaps I should've also taught them that there was a time and a place for challenges, and training for monster hunting was not one of those.
The other soldiers chuckled, and we moved on. Good. I needed to keep things moving before my head burst from all this stress. I hated explaining things, since I preferred jumping into the action, but it had to be done.
"We're going to start our official training exercise for the day," I informed the crowd, stepping to the side to gesture to the large machine. The contraption rested in a padded area covered in various rock-climbing walls specifically designed to test different holds and styles of climbing. It was a modification of an exercise taught in field training, but this one came with a twist. The walls wouldn't move from their location, but
