I purse my lips, following her in. “I want to defend my country and help people, but that kind of treatment seems wrong.”
Jordan shushes me, and she’s right to. Despite Malone’s promise that no one is going to erase my memories—if I ever get them back—Fitzpatrick’s threat hovers above me like an executioner’s ax. I cannot give anyone here any reason to know just how corrupted I became on the outside.
Oh yeah, I’m feeling very off balance this morning. Not the best thing when I’m about to face some hand-to-hand combat practice. And Fitzpatrick’s wrath.
Chapter Fifteen
Sunday Morning: Present
The gym Jordan leads me through is not merely a gym, but an all-purpose training center on several floors. She points out the indoor firing range and the pool, then takes me down a flight of stairs. We pass a room filled with weight-lifting equipment, another filled with ropes and climbing walls, and finally we enter the last one on this level.
This room is a large, open space with two mirrored walls facing each other. Mats are spread out on the floor, and the rest of my unit has already assembled. Cabinets line one of the non-mirrored walls. One of the doors hangs open, revealing sets of practice blades.
I really hope today’s session doesn’t require the use of weapons. Given Fitzpatrick’s comment earlier, I suspect I’m going to come out of this broken. I’d rather not add stabbed or sliced to my future wounds.
Everyone except Cole crowds around me, continuing to press for information. He hangs back and tells them to stop bugging me. Footsteps echo out in the hall, and we break apart as Fitzpatrick enters the room.
She crosses her arms and waits for us to line up. “We’re picking up where we left off on Friday. Warm up.”
Cole leads us through a series of stretches while Fitzpatrick stalks among us. Mostly she says nothing, but occasionally she takes the opportunity to point out that I’m not as limber as I once was. It wouldn’t do me any good to point out in return that I couldn’t train for hours a day at RTC. Besides, she must be right about me. I’m not as flexible as the others.
“Two, Three, you’ll be supervising,” Fitzpatrick says once we’re done. “Pair everyone off and practice Friday’s drills. One and Seven, with me over here.”
One doesn’t look happy as we head over to her. He probably thinks he should be supervising.
Fitzpatrick takes us into a far corner. “My task today, and for however long it needs to be, is to see how much Seven remembers and get her back into fighting form. One, since Malone’s designated you to help, you’ll be her sparring partner.”
Oh, good. Because it’s not like Cole isn’t eight inches taller or fifty pounds heavier. Sure I fought off those guys in South Station, but Cole’s had the same training as me. He knows everything that I don’t know I know.
“Get in positions.” Fitzpatrick leans against the wall, looking smug.
Cole circles around. “Do you care what moves I start with? I’m thinking of running her through some basic defensive—”
“Anything,” Fitzpatrick says. “Attack her. Give her the best you’ve got, and we’ll see if she can defend herself. If not, you’ll keep backing up from there until we discover what she can do.”
Yeah, right after he breaks me.
That thought must pass over my face because Cole’s jawline hardens. Our eyes lock, and my muscles tense in anticipation. Let it go, I tell myself. Conscious brain off. Muscle memory on.
Cole seems to be waiting for me to take some sort of defensive stance, but I don’t know what it is, and my body isn’t adopting it on its own.
Fitzpatrick’s patience runs out. “Get on with it.”
I’m standing in the wrong position when Cole rushes me. I twist around, barely maintaining my balance. He hesitates a fraction of a second, giving me time to recover before he comes at me again. My arms don’t fail, thankfully. They move on their own, blocking his punches, but my feet remain clumsy. Cole attacks from my left, and I stumble over his foot as I move to counter. It’s over in under ten seconds. With a dull pain, my knees hit the mat and my hands follow. I hold my breath to keep from hissing.
Fitzpatrick snatches my arm and drags me upright before my knees are ready to support me. They buckle slightly as she lets go, and again I’m fighting for balance. “I said attack her, not toy with her. Not go easy on her.”
Cole’s hands open and close at his sides. “Injuring her isn’t going to help anything. There’s no point—”
“That was an order.” Fitzpatrick steps toward him.
“She’s missing large chunks of her memory. You’re not going to beat them out her.”
“But you might shake something loose. Hit her.”
Cole doesn’t move.
Wetting my lips, I peer to the side and catch the rest of my unit in the mirrors. They’re trying hard to look busy, but they’re clearly watching us more than each other.
It’s not just me, I realize. Fitzpatrick’s baiting Cole too. She knows he doesn’t want to hurt me, and that’s why she chose him as my sparring partner.
Fuck Fitzpatrick, I tell myself. She’s nothing. She’s beneath me—a tool to make me stronger. I have to focus on what’s important. And what’s important is that a student at RTC is counting on me to keep them safe, and I’m failing them. I have to pull myself together and remember who I am even if it means remembering things I don’t want to know.
I take a deep breath. “Hit me,” I tell Cole.
Startled, he spins around. “Sev—”
“The camp sent men after me in Boston. I didn’t know who they were and so I fought them off. I did it. I don’t know how, but the knowledge is obviously locked somewhere in my brain. We need to get it out.”
“There are better ways.”
“Do it, or I’ll attack you.” When he still doesn’t move, I close my eyes. I have no doubt Cole can defend himself from anything I do, so I let the worries nagging me float away.
Then I rush him.
Despite my speech, he isn’t expecting it. I land one solid hit to his stomach before his training kicks in. He’s stronger; I’m faster. So long as I keep my gaze from his face, the instincts keep my consciousness from intruding. I feel every blow that he lands, every hit that I block, but the pain doesn’t last. It passes right through me like I was trained to let it.
We’re well matched, as we should be, and I maintain this twisted Zen state for longer than I’d have believed possible. Then Cole gives me an opening, and I kick. He recovers, grabbing my leg and flipping me to the mat. My other leg shoots out, and I take him down with me.
All it takes is a second of rolling on the mat with him, and my mind jumps to RTC. To tackling Kyle. The scent of the grass, the cold, dry leaves against my cheek, the giddy emotional high. I can’t separate here and now from there and gone. A hole opens in my chest. My anxiety soars.
Cole lands on me. He pins me to the mat long enough to make his point, then releases me. As I climb to my knees, I discover he’s grinning. “You’re right, it is in there.”
It warms me that I made him happy, but the satisfaction does nothing to ease the pain of missing Kyle. Stretching my bruising limbs, I join him on my feet.
Just as quickly I’m knocked back down. But not by Cole.
Completely unprepared, I barely get my hands out in time to save my face. My nose slams into the mat. Nothing cracks, but fiery pain spreads across my nerves. I’m too shocked and angry to bother repressing it. I revel in it.
“You still don’t watch your left,” Fitzpatrick says.
Her words smack me harder than the mat did, triggering another memory.
Judging by the direction of her voice, Fitzpatrick’s right behind me. I try not to get flustered, but I swear I can smell the sweat and coffee on her. Somehow it’s more powerful than the bitter tang of gunpowder clinging to th
e air or the comforting scent of the pine needles beneath me. Fitzpatrick drinks so much of the stuff it must be seeping out her pores.
I push the thoughts of her away and put my earmuffs on. Fitzpatrick is a distraction, and I can ignore distractions. I have to. We’re being tested not only on accuracy but on speed.
I run through my checklist. It’s been five minutes since I fired my last shot and conditions haven’t changed much. Humidity is an oppressive eighty-five percent. Wind speed is fifteen miles per hour from the southwest with occasional gusts of thirty-six miles per hour. That’s almost directly perpendicular to my trajectory, and my target is eight hundred meters away across a ridge.
As an added bonus, the sun is directly in my eyes.
My hands work on their own, adjusting the rifle’s scope and performing the necessary compensatory calculations. To my right, Octavia fires. On my left, so do two others.
I take aim and hold my breath until my bullet strikes the target. This shot is supposed to hit the painted-green dot. If it’s perfect, I’ll obliterate the marking.
It’s not. I’m off by an inch. Damn.
Turning my binoculars to other nearby targets, I see that Octavia missed by twice as much, Summer did about the same as me, and Jordan nailed hers. She’s the only one besides Cole, Jules and Eva who did. But Jules took the longest to take his shot, which should count against him.
After everyone finishes, I take off my earmuffs and await the inevitable insults. Fitzpatrick stomps behind us, taking note of how we did. I try not to fidget. Though the ground is cool, the air is not. Sweat rolls off me, and pine needles and other bits of the forest stick to my skin. They itch.
“Unacceptable.” Fitzpatrick says at last, and I roll over so I can see her. Hands on her hips, she plows through the underbrush. “Only four of you made that shot. Do we need more incentive? Should I start putting apples on your heads and making you use each other as targets? Would that motivate you to do better?”
“If I could have my old equipment back,” Octavia mutters.
But that’s part of the point. Sometimes in the field we’ll have familiar rifles, but sometimes we won’t. We have to get used to compensating for a new weapon quickly.
“Again,” Fitzpatrick says. “Yellow squares.”
We shoot four more times. I make two of the shots dead perfect, but fifty percent success doesn’t impress Fitzpatrick. Never mind that if I were shooting at real people, their brains would be larger than a two-inch square. My shots would still be kill shots.
Although my performance isn’t the worst, Fitzpatrick takes particular delight in berating me. I suffer through it in silence because really, what else can I do? Mouthing off to her will only get me punished. Been there. Done that. Bear the scars.
She dismisses us eventually with the dire warning that we’ll do better tomorrow or else.
Summer and Jordan whisper curses as we trek down the trail, rifles and supplies slung over our shoulders. Partway down, I realize I don’t have my jacket with me. I left it on the ridge.
“I’ll catch up with you in minute,” I say, and turn back.
The trail ends in a couple steep switchbacks near the top, and I pause. Cole is on the ridge, and he’s talking to Fitzpatrick. I know I shouldn’t listen, but I can’t help myself.
This past year, Cole’s gotten more assertive. He’s been our unit leader forever, but for most of our lives that didn’t mean much. Lately though, he’s been expected to meet regularly with Fitzpatrick to discuss our progress. And there are other meetings too. Ones he doesn’t talk about, but which take him away a couple times a month. There’s speculation that he’ll get sent on his first mission soon—that’s why.
I’ve always held him in high regard—I hold everyone in my unit that way—but Cole is special. He’s taken his leadership seriously, even when it meant nothing, and stood up for us. Usually that would get him smacked down by Fitzpatrick, but I had to admire his nerve. Now, finally, it seems he’s been given permission to speak his mind.
“I don’t appreciate you threatening our unit cohesion with talk about pitting us against each other,” Cole says. “We already have to deal with that shit from everyone else.”
I smile. Go Cole.
“And you need to back off of Seven.”
My smile fades.
“She wasn’t the worst, but you were on her case twice as much as anyone else.”
“You were far down the line,” Fitzpatrick responds. “She wasn’t the worst, but she fidgeted the most. You couldn’t see it.”
“According to you, she’s the worst at everything. Even when she performs the best, you single her out for criticism.”
“And you’re always just as quick to jump to her defense.”
My whole body tenses, and I ignore Cole’s retort. It’s true. From both of them. Fitzpatrick’s never liked me, and Cole—perhaps because of it—has always risen to my defense faster and more loudly than to anyone else’s. Right now I hate them both for it.
Figuring I paid for my eavesdropping, I purposely snap a few branches and kick some stones down the trail. Cole and Fitzpatrick shut up as I appear around the trees.
“You left your jacket.” Fitzpatrick motions toward it.
I grab it from the dirt. “That’s why I came back.”
I storm away without glancing at either of them. It’s unfortunate that I have to sit through Bondar’s class this afternoon. Not only has bomb making never interested me much, I could really do with working off some aggression. By which I mean kicking some ass in the gym.
“Sev, wait up.” Heavy boots pound the trail.
I grit my teeth in frustration but do as ordered. “Why?”
“So I can walk with you?” Cole swats my ponytail. “Why do you think?”
I can’t tell if he’s being obtuse on purpose, or if he truly has no clue that I overheard his conversation. “I mean why did you have to single me out with Fitzpatrick?”
Cole makes a gesture to silence me. I strain my ears but don’t hear her coming down the trail. But fine. Voices carry in the woods. I keep my mouth shut. Though it feels like we’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s only a five-minute hike into the camp proper, and I’ll attack him then.
Cole takes his jacket off and slings it over his shoulder with his pack. Irritated as I am with him, I’m drawn to the way the muscles move in his arms, straining against our tight, regulation T-shirts. We’ve been required to lift weights for years, but it’s only been in the last few that puberty dramatically changed the way our bodies respond to the exercise.
And changed the way my body responds to the changes. I hate myself for it, especially now.
The sun blazes overhead, and the tree canopy isn’t much help. It’s worse, though, as we exit the woods and step into the grassy field connecting the trailhead to the camp roads. The sun reflects off the metal buildings and soon it also turns the asphalt under our feet into a frying pan.
I wrinkle my nose, missing the sweet pine aroma that’s been replaced by gasoline and rubber. “So why do you do it?”
Sweat beads along Cole’s brow, and he wipes it away. “You have to ask? She singles you out, and it pisses me off.”
“You don’t think that maybe she singles me out so much because you’re always so quick to jump to my defense?”
“No.”
Damn. Since I’m itching for a fight, I want him to launch into some big denial. Just the single “no” makes it much harder. But I try anyway. “You’re always doing this. Always rushing to stick up for me. You don’t treat anyone else that way—don’t even try denying it. I want to know why. Do you think I’m that much weaker than everyone else?”
I adjust the rifle strap against my shoulder, annoyed at myself. Anger is acceptable to express. Admitting fear—and that’s what this is—is not. I hadn’t intended to let it slip, an
d I regret my big mouth.
Unbelievably though, Cole flinches. He stops dead in our path and only corrects himself in time to get out of the way before an oncoming jeep has to hit the brakes. The driver swears at us and keeps going.
“If that’s what you think, you’re wrong.”
I cross my arms. “Am I?”
“Yes.” His eyes drill into my skull, and he lowers his voice. “I think you’re one of the smartest, most competent people in our unit. That’s why it pisses me off that Fitzpatrick is so hard on you. I used to think she did it because she saw the same traits in you that I did, and she wanted to push you to reach your potential. I’m not so sure now. The more I meet with her, the more I just think she’s a sadist. But then again…”
He thinks I’m one of the most competent? I want to believe that but can’t let myself fall into that trap. Or get sidetracked. “Then again what?”
Cole runs his fingers through his hair. “Fitzpatrick’s been in charge of us since we were very young. If you were tasked with training children to do what we do, you’d probably want to turn off your softer feelings too. Once she’s done with us, we’ll be sent out into the world to die. Not purposely, but we’re going to work black ops. Hell, we’re a black ops project already. The odds of us surviving until old age are slim, and she’s had to live with that since we were only as tall as her knees. Is it any wonder she’s cold? Or that we get yelled at for being too attached to each other? One day our family’s going to break up. Some of us will die. And Malone, or Fitzpatrick, or even me will be the one responsible for sending that person to their death. It’s got to be one thing to train an adult for that sort of life. But they’ve known us, and we’ve known each other, since we were born.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way before, and though it makes sense, it doesn’t make me hate Fitzpatrick any less. Yes, I’ll probably have a shorter-than-average life. But as compensation for that, don’t I deserve as much warmth and kindness as can be crammed into it?
Revive Page 17
