Page 3

“Don’t ask; I’m not sure,” she said.
I looked around the room, and everyone was eating without any problems.
I saw the Lieutenant leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his muscular torso and his foot bent at the knee behind him. His dark eyes slowly looked around the room to make sure everything was in order.
Until they found mine.
I felt a flutter in my heart. I don’t know if I was nervous because I had been caught looking at him or because he was so hot but out of my league. I swallowed and kept my blue eyes on his.
His eyes got sharper, and from across the room, they told me to look away, but I didn’t. I looked into his sad eyes. His eyes were a beautiful shade of mahogany brown, even from across the room. Almost amber-colored, especially when the sun shone on them. His eyes looked kind, but his personality was full of danger.
He had a sly smile on his lips that made me feel like I was going to die. It was a smile that told me he was going to make me pay for standing up to him. But I still couldn’t stop looking.
I was used to breaking all the rules. I never did well with people in charge, but for some reason he made me want to test him. I would act up to make him angry and show him who was really in charge.
A lowly lieutenant in charge of hundreds of training army recruits or a girl from a small town who held up a convenience store with her gang leader ex-boyfriend.
I couldn’t help but smile slowly, just like he did. He noticed because his beautiful eyes narrowed into a frown.
Lieutenant Mason, it’s game time.
I wish I could say I was very warm and comfortable, but that would be a big lie.
My bed made my body itch and the springs of my mattress hurt my back. But when the alarms went off like an air raid siren, my eyes opened wide and I jumped out of bed.
“Are we being attacked?” I screamed in a panic.
Raven laughed and rubbed her tired eyes. “It’s four in the morning, the first light of day, and it’s our turn to shower. You better hurry up; you only have five minutes to wash and shower before we have to leave and go to the field.” She grabbed her shower caddy from the side and walked to the door.
Four in the morning! What is going on? Why would anyone want to get up at this time?
I got out of bed, picked up my clothes, towel, and shower caddy, and put them all in one place. I’m slowly walking to the shower block.
A queue of my roommates was outside, and I dragged myself to the back of the queue, where I waited patiently for my turn.
There were three small brick cubicles in the shower room, each with a mouldy blue shower curtain hanging in front of it.
I stepped inside and was very aware of how dirty the floor probably was because I was barefoot. Then I turned the silver shower knob to let the water flow.
“F**k!” I yelled, moving out of the way of the running water and falling back into the curtain.
“Yeah, it’s cold,” Raven said with a laugh.
“Cold? It’s freaking ice water!” I stepped back behind the curtain to hide my nakedness from the other girls. It took me a few seconds to get the courage to go back under the water.
I chanted to myself, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” as I quickly washed my body. I chose not to wash my hair. It didn’t need it, and I couldn’t stand the water on my skin.
I went outside and wrapped the towel around myself. After me, another girl took a shower, and I got dressed with my teeth chattering and my body shaking.
It didn’t take long for me to eat one apple and then wait in a muddy field with the other recruits.
There were hundreds of them, all standing in a queue and looking straight ahead. Some of the guys were checking me out, but I can’t say my own eyes didn’t wander either. It was a group of people of both sexes.
“Attention!” Lieutenant Hotty yelled from the front. The people in queue stood up straighter and raised their arms in a salute.
I copied them, but I probably didn’t do it as well as they did. He walked between the rows and stopped at each person to look at their uniform.
Then he came to me, and I slowly raised my eyes to meet his. He almost missed it, but his whole body froze and his eyes opened up a little bit.
They were alive with a burning flame, but it wasn’t like the warmth of a hearth; it was more like a wildfire that was getting bigger and more out of control. Mason blinked slowly and then moved on to the next person.
I thought he would call me out for not being respectful, so it surprised me when he didn’t. I didn’t expect him to make up for me going too far.
He yelled orders at us from all sides in the hot August sun. Making us go through a very hard obstacle course. We climbed over, under, and through mud. We lifted heavy things, climbed ropes, and ran the track over and over.
I literally went beyond the feeling of dying and just landed dead. The sun began to set, and my body hurt in places I didn’t even know were there. I swear I lost at least five stone from working out today.
“I need a long soak in a hot bubble bath,” I said to Sierra, who was lying on her back and breathing heavily to calm down.
“Attention!” Lieutenant Demon yelled.
She got up right away, as if it were no big deal. I climbed up to mine, having trouble finding my balance and swaying from side to side.
Standing up straight hurt.
It hurt to raise my hand to say hello.
Being alive hurt.
“Get out of here,” he said.
The recruits let out sighs of relief and marched away right away. I marched along, eager for my bed, using up all the energy I had left.
“Not you Rivers,” he yelled. “Fall out of line,” he said, pointing to his side.
He waited until the pitch was empty and it was just me and him. His eyes searched my body with kindness, and I could barely stand up.
He laughed to himself, which was so unlike him that I was interested.
He straightened up and cleared his throat, as if he remembered who he was. The smile left his face completely. He was back to being both stern and in charge.
“I would tell you to be ‘at ease’ right now, but you’re not standing at attention,” he said in a stern but quieter voice.