Wren lowers her batons.
“You’re sloppy,” she says. “But stubborn.”
I blink at her.
“That’ll keep you alive longer than skill in the field. Barely.”
Then she turns to the boys. “One of you get her on strength conditioning before she dislocates something.”
The days blur.Not in a lazy, summer haze kind of way. In a battlefield tempo, survival-is-a-luxury kind of way.
Every morning starts at five am. No exceptions. No excuses. No ‘five more minutes.’ The alarms they blast through the intercom system don’t snooze, they scream. Having to cross the room to shut it off before coffee makes me incredibly cranky.
Tuesday, we bleed in combat.
Sparring. Conditioning. Weighted drills. More baton work. Jace runs drills with me until my arms feel like they’re going to fall off, correcting my form every time I falter. Wren throws me across a mat twice and tells me, “You’re improving.” I’m not sure if she’s lying or if I just don’t break something.
Wednesday, we get tactical.
Lucian leads the strategy meeting. We sit at a round table in the South Wing, staring at rotating 3D holograms of known black market networks. Red lines connect faces to ports to labs and secret transfer points.
“Patterns,” he says. “The war will be won by the ones who see the patterns first.”
I speak up once, connecting a name I remember from Daniel’s phone to a drop point in Budapest. Lucian doesn’t smile. But he nods.
Noah scribbles everything into a secure Guild tablet and mutters, “Nice, Ashthorne,” when no one else is listening.
Thursday, they shoot us.
Literally. Simulation day. Rubber rounds. Real vests. Real bruises. The scenario is a raid. Loud, hot, confusing. Smoke floods the room. Alarms blare. There’s yelling. Flashbangs. Noah’s screaming commands into an earpiece. Luca’s behind me cracking jokes even as we’re both getting pelted.Jace goes silent and surgical, clearing a hallway like he’s done it a hundred times.
Tex takes a hit shielding me. Later, I find a dark blue welt just under my collarbone. I press it gently and smile, because I didn’t freeze.
Saturday is recon and stealth.
One full day of sneaking past cameras, pressure pads, noise traps. I fail miserably for the first two hours, get caught whispering, breathing too loud, stepping too hard.
But then Luca challenges me to beat his score. And I do. By four seconds. He doesn’t let it go all day.
Sunday, we’re immersed in a full scenario sim. We’re split into pairs. Disoriented. Thrown into a pitch-black maze of abandoned rooms and coded doors. We have to get out using only what we know, tactical memory, combat instincts, and blind trust.
I get paired with Jace.
Neither of us speaks much. We move silently. Efficiently. When he lifts me over a ledge, his hands linger just a second too long. When I reach for him in the dark, I don’t hesitate.
We make it out first. Lucian watches from the control deck above. He doesn’t say a word. But I know he sees.
That night, when we all collapse in my room — sore, bruised, adrenaline still buzzing — there’s something electric in the air. Something earned.
The dorms are unusually quiet.No drills. No alarms. And my room is… full.
Luca’s on the couch, sprawled across it dramatically, a half-eaten protein bar resting on his chest like a fallen soldier. Noah is cross-legged on the floor with his tablet in his lap and at least three mugs around him, all in various stages of being forgotten. Jace leans against the wall near the window, reading something on his tablet with a focused crease between his brows. And Tex isin my desk chair, reclined slightly, one boot propped up, watching the room with quiet amusement.
I’m in bed still. For once, I don’t have to move. My body hurts. Like I’ve been hit by a truck made of rubber bullets and regret.
“Is it normal,” I croak, “to feel like I got thrown down a flight of stairs after only a week?”
“Normal?” Noah says without looking up. “It’s practically a rite of passage.”
