“One fifty to two hundred with me!” a tall, bulky man called. He stood in the corner of the boot camp room.
I was number 187, so I walked to him, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves. It was starting to sink in that there was a real chance I might not be good enough to join. One in five.
“Hey, I’m Wallace,” the man said. He was one of those guys who was so muscular it almost appeared painful. Was it comfortable trying to sleep on all that hard muscle?
He also had four long, thin scars across both arms that had clearly been made by claws, and he was missing two fingers—the pinky and ring—on his left hand. I swallowed as I balled my own fingers into fists.
“We’ll be moving fast,” Wallace said. “Get used to it. We’re going to get into the fight as quickly as possible, so there’s no time for coddling. And before we get started, I’d just like to remind you that you’re free to leave whenever you want. No one’s keeping you here.” He held up his left hand to show off his three remaining fingers. “This isn’t a video game. This is real life, and trust me, fighting these things is no joke.”
His eyes skipped over the group, like he thought we might take the opportunity to run right now.
“Good,” he said when no one moved. “We’re scheduled to do running first today, then the obstacle course, then boxing, and back to the obstacle course at the end.”
“Oh, god,” a voice beside me whispered. It was a short, pretty girl with light brown skin and black hair tied into a high ponytail. She wore a bright pink T-shirt that said NORTH HILLS CHEER on it. “I’ve never boxed before.” She looked at me like I might be able to fix this.
“I haven’t either,” I said. She chewed on her lip like that didn’t make her feel better.
“Tomorrow you’ll go to the shooting range for target practice,” Wallace continued. “And you’ll do some hand-to-hand combat to see how you’d do actually fighting a scrab. We’re giving you lots of opportunities to show your stuff, and also the chance for each of us to evaluate you. I’ll be your point of contact for the next two days, but all the team leaders will be rotating through, watching you. Just do your best. It’s not a competition.”
It was definitely a competition. No one said it’s not a competition unless it was.
“All right, let’s get going.” Wallace clapped his hands together and started walking toward the exit.
“Right.” The cheerleader next to me let out a huge breath. “No problem. I can do this.” She had a hint of a Southern accent.
“For sure,” I said.
She flashed me a smile. I could see why she was a cheerleader. She had a smile that was impossible not to return. I glanced at the paper pinned to the back of her shirt as she followed Wallace. Priya Mehta 153.
We walked outside, where Wallace explained that we’d be running around the building, which they’d mapped as a little under a quarter of a mile for one lap.
“You won’t be running on a track fighting scrabs,” he explained. “First lap is half walk, half slow jog. Then we’ll really get started.”
I swallowed down a wave of nerves. Like Priya said. No problem. I can do this.
By the end of day one, my body felt like one giant bruise.
The running was fine, as expected, but the boxing portion consisted of getting repeatedly pummeled by a tall girl who giggled every time I fell. They paired me with two other girls, with even more disastrous results.
The obstacle course was a tire run (OK), hurdles (less OK), a net climb (bad), monkey bars (fail), and a rope climb (total fail).
I hobbled back to the bus and sank into a seat. My body was weak and heavy, and I was pretty sure I was starving, but it was hard to tell at this point. Everything sort of ached. I closed my eyes. Maybe if I just slept until tomorrow, I wouldn’t even care.
Someone dropped into the seat next to me with a giant sigh. I opened my eyes to see a boy with dark hair leaning his head against the seat in front of him. His tag said Edan Pearce 102.
Edan. That was the name Grayson called the thief who tried to rob Patrick.
Edan turned and straightened with a start. He was missing his leather jacket, instead wearing a gray T-shirt and black track pants. He had several tattoos down his left arm, and at least one more poking out from the sleeve of his other arm.
“Seriously?” I said.
“Seriously what?” One side of his mouth lifted like something was funny.
“You’re trying out?”
“Well, I didn’t just do that shit for fun.”
The bus jerked away from the curb, and he put a hand on the seat in front of him. His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
It wasn’t really a surprise that Grayson didn’t disqualify people because of a little criminal activity. Though it did make me wonder where he’d draw the line, if he drew one at all.
“Why?” I asked.
Edan turned to me again, lifting an eyebrow. He had truly impressive eyes—green, with a hint of gray—and I could just imagine him leaning closer to a girl, batting his lashes as he slipped her wallet out of her purse.
“Why’d you join?” he retorted.
I shrugged. “Why not?”
“I mean . . .” He started ticking the reasons off on his fingers. “Death, dismemberment, the fact that the US government hates us—”
“OK, I really—”
“The possibility of lifelong PTSD, we have to share a room with twenty people, the food is probably going to be terrible—”
“I don’t—”
“We’re headed off to exercise all day for weeks, and I don’t know about you,
