me sweat my ass off on the elliptical.
I want to collapse onto the ground in a heap but then Gryphon calls out, “That’s your warmup over with, get your asses into the control room so we can go over today’s lesson plan”
Warmup?
You’ve got to be shitting me.
I want to kill someone, I want it so badly that my gift stirs in my chest and I have to tell it to simmer down because I can’t actually lash out right now, or ever.
It takes me three tries to get my legs to work, but I stumble after the group and through the building until we’re in the control room, which just looks like a meeting room filled with security screens. They’re all on and showing the empty obstacle courses, the images flicking through until I want to weep, each of them looking impossible to get through.
Gabe leans against the wall next to me, his eyes on Gryphon as he sips at his bottle of water. I’d kill for some but there’s no way I’m asking him. Not when we’re jammed in this room with at least fifty other students, all of them listening and judging me, because the whole campus would hear about him telling me to shove it.
So I focus back on Vivian and my scowling Bond at the front of the class.
“We’re sticking to something easy. You’ll be splitting into two teams and the first to get everyone through the course wins. Simple,” says Vivian, scowling around at everyone, but he doesn’t fool me for a second.
There’s nothing easy about that. It looks impossible, freaking impossible, and when he calls out the names of people on the red team, I’m not shocked at the sounds of groans and bitching when he calls out mine to place me in the group.
I’m probably going to be the deadest weight my team has ever had.
When the teams have been named, everyone moves into the next room, grabbing armbands in either red or blue and tying them on. More than one person on my team makes snide comments about being doomed thanks to my presence but even if I felt like starting a fight, I can’t.
There’s no freaking way I’m getting through the course, not without help, and there isn’t a single person here who isn’t looking at me with open contempt.
Not even my own Bonds.
Okay, probably not the best example to use because of course the Bonds that I rejected are both looking around like they’d rather peel their own skin off than be in the same goddamn room as me. The second I get out of here today, I’m walking over to the dean’s office and demanding a schedule change. I’m not doing this shit all year. I could handle the training and the workouts— it’s brutal but doable— but working with other students who all would love nothing more than to watch me croak?
No.
No fucking thank you.
I’m the last person to grab an armband and Vivian watches me tie it on with a scowl. When it’s secure, I look up at him and he jerks his head to motion me over to where he’s standing. I take a deep breath, preparing myself for whatever bullshit he’s going to throw at me.
He’s an older man, his face a little haggard and scarred, and when he talks, the thick white line through his top lip distorts the sound a little, giving him the slightest lisp. “You’re at a disadvantage here because everyone else has done the course before and knows their way around it. I’ll pair you with your Bond just this once, so he can get you through it.”
Dear God, no. “I doubt he wants that. It’s fine, if I die, then at least I don’t have to do this again.”
He squints at me like he thinks I’m joking but then he glances over my shoulder at whatever face Gabe is pulling right now and shrugs. “Suit yourself, I don’t get involved in bond bullshit. There are three other people in the class with low-level gifts, they all do fine, but they all have their Bonded with them and are in better shape than you are.”
Great.
Excellent. Perfect. I nod and slink back over to the wall where Gabe is scowling at the ground like it’s personally pissed him off. The room is so loud that I almost miss it when he mumbles, “Fuck, I wish you’d never come back.”
The blue team gets let in from the left side of the course,