“BecauseIwent back for him and had everyone else go ahead!”
“Because Itrustedyou would, and I didn’t leave you when your speed wasn’t working, did I?”
That hit him, just for a breath. Something in his posture loosened.
“You didn’t,” he agreed.
“I’m not sorry.” I placed my hands on my hips. “I’m not here just to pass a class, no offense, Professor Hunting. I’m here so I can train to survive and make sure my entire squad can survive the real thing when it comes.”
His gaze dropped before coming up to meet mine again. “You think I don’t care about survival? I care about more than myown. I care about—” He snapped his mouth shut. “Just don’t do that again.”
“Try and stop me.” I crossed my arms.
“Uh uh.” Slater tugged me against him and tilted my chin up with his index finger and thumb. “Youpushedme into a portal and headed into danger.”
“I made a call,” I said weakly.
His brow raised. “And if I made the same call?”
I scowled. “I get it.”
“This isn’t over,” he warned me in a low tone I hadn’t heard from him before. It sent chills down my arms.
Hunting cleared her throat. “You improvised. You adapted. Most of my cursed students end up dead during this simulation. He wasn’t.” Her gaze flicked to Hawk. “Some of you are too soft, though.” She flicked her gaze to Aura. “You noticed the curse, didn’t you? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Aura flicked her gaze to Hawk and back to Hunting. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to say something and cause panic only to be wrong.”
“Listen to your instincts. Supernaturals shouldalwayslisten to instinct.” She scanned our squad again. “Rune and Dimitri, highest marks. Despite the arguing at the end, you work well together.” She looked deliberately at both of us. “Everyone else passed as well. Dismissed.”
I rubbed at my chest, wondering why it bothered me so much that Slater and Dimitri had gotten upset with me. I was used to making calls like this when I trained with Mom’s agents. I just wasn’t used to working with men that I had feelings for.
koa
. . .
Resistand Endure’s final sucked.
Hunting locked us one-by-one in a coffin-small room with no windows, no time, and no magic. It was total isolation, and the air tasted recycled. Then, the drills wound up: stress loops, pain-echoes that weren’t real but made my muscles seize anyway, spells that scraped marrow from my bones until I felt like they were hollowed out.
Three rules Hunting drilled into us this quarter played on a loop in my head:
Time your heartbeats.
Don’t give them anything classified.
Breathe.
I counted my heartbeats until numbers got slippery, and then, I started over.
When Hunting finally opened my door, I walked out steadily. I tried not to show how much isolation fucked with me because that was only a taste of what my dad must’ve been dealing with these past fifty-one years.
“Passed,” Hunting murmured.
My passing meant our entire squad moved on to quarter three; Hawk was told he was on thin ice, though.
Hawk ran up to Rune before we cleared the classroom. “I tried,” he told her. “I really tried to pass.”
“Try better,” she said, bluntly. “You can, so do it.”
