“Are you ready for the Bianco Special?” Noah said, his mouth slightly smirking.
Vitt gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you sure they’re up to that, Noah? I don’t want to write them off for the rest of the day.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
They trailed after Vitt, who led them to a wide-open patch of grass. Zeke forced his heart rate to steady by taking long, deep breaths. He could do this. He would shatter their low expectations of him.
The ‘Bianco Special’ started with fifty squats. Splat shouted at him three times that he was doing them wrong, coming beside him to nudge his legs and back into position. He almost let out a cry of relief when the trio concluded they should stop at thirty for today. They went into twenty forward lunges on each side, followed by twenty-five push-ups. Frankie collapsed beside him at number nineteen with a low moan.
Vitt lightly kicked her. “Six more!” she said. Vitt, already finished with her own set, joined Frankie on the floor to complete her remaining ones with her. Zeke was so tired by twenty-three he cheated on the last two, barely raising himself two inches from the ground. He glanced up at Noah, waiting to be reprimanded. But whatever Noah saw in his face seemed to placate him.
“Two minute water break,” Splat said, throwing Frankie and Zeke their bottles.
Zeke struggled with unscrewing the lid, unable to control his shaky hands. He dropped the bottle onto the floor. Stared at it. Shut his eyes.
“Here.” Cold metal was pressed into his hand. His water bottle. Zeke opened his eyes to find Noah’s face looking at him with concern. The man seemed to wrestle with something before finding his voice. “The bars are next.”
Over the next forty minutes, Zeke and Frankie endured set after set of crawls, rushes, a hideous exercise called ‘bicycle crunches’ and side planks. Every time Zeke fell, Frankie picked him up, and he did the same for her.
Eventually, when he was drenched in sweat and Frankie looked like she was about to cry, Noah announced, “Last set before cooldown!”
The final round of torture was to be ‘squat thrusts’ and it horrified Zeke to discover they involved alternating between squats and push-ups.
“How many?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“Twenty!” said Vitt.
Zeke and Frankie groaned, but Splat chuckled. “If you think this is bad, wait until you try my workout tomorrow,” he said, jumping straight down to begin his reps.
Just twenty more. He imagined Splat’s gleeful grin and Noah’s disappointed expression if he gave up now. He bent down into a squat to begin. Fire shot up his leg in protest, but he ignored it. Squat. Push up. Repeat.Fifteen. Beads of sweat dripped from his nose. Squat. Push up. Repeat.
A wave of nausea hit him as he pushed down for his seventeenth rep. A strange sensation came over him. All his aches and pains faded away. There was only his heartbeat and the voices of the others—faint in the distance, as if they’d moved away from him. Blackness seeped the edges of his vision and he found that he’d curled into a ball. Cold. So very cold. He shivered as he felt himself violently retch onto the grass—thick, sour tasting bile spilled from his lips.
He turned on his side and closed his eyes.
six
Zeke
“Stop,Splat.Thatisn’thelpful.”
Zeke lay still, his eyes clamped shut. He had no inclination to open them. He would just lay here and wait to die. Better than being ripped apart by monsters when they sent him out in a few months’ time. Better than facing Noah and the others. He’d told Noah yesterday he wasn’t cut out to be a soldier. Why hadn’t he listened?
“Aww, boss, come on. You’re going easy on him,” Splat replied. What had Splat planned on doing before Noah stopped him? But Splat could piss all over him and leave him here to rot for all he currently cared. “They’ve only got eight weeks before we’re back out there.”
“I’m aware,” Noah snapped.
“Sorry, boss,” he mumbled. Footsteps walked away from them.
A gentle hand rested on his arm and shook him lightly. “Bates?” came Noah’s voice, directly into his ear. Zeke didn’t move. “Zeke, if you don’t sit up in five seconds, I’m calling for medical support. Unless you want the embarrassment of being carried all the way back on a stretcher, I suggest you open your eyes.”
Zeke cracked open his left eye just a millimetre. Noah was squatting in front of him, his arms folded. When Noah clocked he was looking at him, he gently pulled him up into a sitting position.
“Hey,” he said softly, his hand still resting on Zeke’s arm. “You did really well there. Don’t tell him I told you, but Splat bailed out halfway through his first time through that.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he winked conspiratorially.
A part of Zeke wanted to smile, laugh, to let Noah pull him up. Let him walk him back to the others waiting on the bench. Let him shape him into a member of his squad, become friends with everyone, and share in their inside jokes and secret smiles. Instead, Zeke pushed Noah off him with all his strength that remained. Shakily, he got to his feet and walked away towards the others without looking back.
When he reached them, Vitt and Splat smiled at him, looking slightly guilty. He threw himself on the bench, mortification sweeping over him in waves.
