Now Rio was clapping his hands at her, rather like she was a misbehaving puppy, so she headed toward the mess hall at a run.
Only to find the passenger van idling, headlights sending beams of brightness into the steamy humidity of the night. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Lieutenant Slade was standing by the van’s door, and he opened it and motioned for her to get inside.
“Wait,” she said, stopping short. “What?” She pointed ineffectively toward the mess hall as the lieutenant herded her up and into the van.
Ashley wasn’t quite sure how he did it without touching her, but before she could sayhat, she was inside and sitting, and he’d pulled himself up and in, too, closing the door behind him to take the seat beside her.
She’d only had a few brief moments to look around before the interior light went off with the closing of the door, but it had been long enough to get a full dose of smug impatience from the three other team leaders, who’d been waiting for her.
It seemed unlikely that they’d all woken up and gotten down here to the van in less than five minutes, and she realized that Rio had probably intentionally pounded on her RV last.
Probably on Dunk or even Lieutenant Slade’s orders.
But she had other things to worry about right now—like, where were they going?
All of the SEAL instructors were in the van, too. Including the medic—what was it called in Navy-Speak…? Thehospital corpsman, Thomas King.
Dunk was behind the wheel, and as Rio climbed into the front passenger seat the vehicle moved out of the parking area and onto the long drive that led from the camp to the road.
The van lurched as they hit a pothole, and Ashley found herself pressed up against Lieutenant Slade’s shoulder. He looked down at her, his face even more craggy in the shadows, his eyes a flash of blue. She murmured, “Sorry,” and tried to steady herself by holding on to the seat back in front of her.
“For those of us, like, me, who are new here,” Slade then said loudly, as if he were addressing everyone in the van, “we’re heading out on the traditional night hike. Team leaders are paired up with team instructors, but it’s the TL’s job to lead the march back to camp. Dunk’s gonna drop us about five miles out—”
“Fivemiles?” Ashley murmured before she could stop herself.
But Lieutenant Slade spoke over her. “Like everything from this point on at SEAL World, it’s a race. First team in gets a head start on every activity over the next two days, which allows that team to continue to come in first and gain advantages for the entire week,” he continued. “Last team in gets literal shit—black tank evac duty for the RVs and trailers. For those of you who are RV-unfamiliar, the black tank is the one in your trailer that your toilet flushes into. And trust me, emptying black tanks isnotfun.”
Dunk spoke up. “We’ll be dropping you with your instructor in the order in which you arrived in the van.”
Ashley laughed. Of course. She and Jim Slade would be dropped last.
“It’s likely that some of you will get very lost,” Dunk continued, “since we’re giving you neither a map nor a compass and it’s dark out there. If after three hours, you haven’t made it back to camp, we’ll find you via a GPS tracker that you’ll be given when you leave the van. Winners and losers will be determined by their distance from the camp. Farther from camp, the bigger the loser, so… good luck.”
Ashley looked at Lieutenant Slade who was watching her again. “Do instructors help with the black-tank-emptying thing…?” she whispered.
He laughed and shook his head. “Not a chance.”
***
“Put on your hat,” Jim ordered as he handed Ashley some bug repellent wipes as the van’s taillights faded into the night.
“Um,” she said.
He held his flashlight overhead so that it lit both of their faces. And yes, the resigned look she was giving him was heavily tinged withNo, I didn’t bring my hat.
“Seriously?” he said. It was going to rain—at night, in this part of Florida, that was inevitable. And that was going to suck even worse for anyone without a hat brim to shield their face.
“My lack of hat isn’t our biggest problem,” she told him as she used the light to read the directions on the packet before tearing one open and rubbing the wipe down the sleeves of her shirt and the legs of her jeans. “It’s the five miles—more than that, if we go in the wrong direction.”
“I don’t know why you think that’s a problem,” Jim answered. “You can walktenmiles, easily, if you have to.”
“I canrunten miles,” she responded with a tartness that was refreshing. “In fact, I call thatTuesday evening after work. It’s not me I’m worried about—it’s you.”
Jim was surprised. “Me?”
“Yes, Mr. Braces-on-Both-Knees,” Ashley said. “I’m worried aboutyou.”
