adapt to your environment, you’re useless to FUC. Understood?”
The recruits had gotten used to responding by now, and let out a chorus of “Yes sir!”
“McKevitt, you’re up!”
Angela McKevitt was a lynx shifter, and if anyone could handle this course, Ben figured she could, with her feline agility and all. She didn’t seem to have a problem with the tires or the climbing, or even the balancing beam, but by the second round of climbing, it was clear she was out of gas. Falk yelled at her to keep going, but her arms gave out and she let go of the rope to collapse to the ground.
“You hurt, McKevitt?”
“No sir,” she shouted back, sounding winded.
“Good. Get off the field. I expect you to complete the course next week.”
Ben shifted nervously from foot to foot. Well, damn. If Angela couldn’t complete it, what chance did he have?
“Carter! You’re next!”
Ben shot Kellan a sympathetic look as his roommate stepped up to the starting line. Unlike Angela, Kellan barely made it up the first climbing obstacle. It wasn’t a graceful ascent by any means. He had to use brute force to lever himself up, and Ben could see his limbs shaking from exertion. But it was the balancing beam that did him in. He took two steps and tumbled to the thick bed of straw beneath it. He lifted a hand and shouted he was okay, and Falk told him to get off the field.
One by one, Ben watched his classmates attempt the course and fail. It was clearly impossible, and it made Ben wonder if this was another sort of test. In all of the classes they’d had so far, instructors had emphasized the idea of working smarter, not harder. Was that something they were expected to apply here? And if so, how?
“Beaufort!”
Ben swallowed as he approached the starting line. Work smarter, not harder. Smarter, not harder. I can do this.
“Go!”
Ben bolted off the starting line and embraced his bison self while still in human form. Bison didn’t dodge or climb or balance. They were the powerhouse battering rams of the animal world. They charged through. There was no point in trying to display agility he didn’t possess, not when he could obliterate the obstacles that stood in his way.
Work smarter, not harder.
He kicked the tires out of the way. He lowered his head and ran through the climbing wall, ignoring the gasps and shouts behind him. He used his bison’s strength to lift the balancing beam and toss it aside. He ripped the crawling portion’s wire out of the way and charged through the next climbing station. At the very end, he grabbed the climbing rope leading up to the bell you were supposed to ring when you finished, and yanked. The bell tumbled to the ground, clanging as it hit the hardened dirt.
Ben turned to find the entire class—and Oliver Zuraw—staring at him in stunned silence.
“What—what the hell was that?” Falk marched across the destroyed course, his face grower redder with every step. “Beaufort, what the hell was that?”
Oh shit. “I’m, uh…not very agile. Sir.”
“So you decided to wreck the course?”
“No sir. I thought—you know, work smarter.”
“Work smarter? Work smarter? Do you even know what that means? I’m going to guess you don’t, because this was the stupidest goddamned stunt I’ve ever witnessed in my years as instructor,” Falk fumed. “Are you going to smash through brick walls like you’re the Kool-Aid Man? Huh? Tear down fire escape ladders? Kick cars out of the way?”
Ben winced. “No?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s right. And do you know why?” Falk continued without waiting for an answer. “Because even if you could, it would give us all away. Instead of protecting shifters, you’d be exposing them. Maybe you need to rethink your presence here, Beaufort.”
“Simon, I’ll start him on a yoga routine.” Ben hadn’t noticed, but Oliver had stepped away from the rest of the crowd, easily making his way across the field of debris. “If he was confident in his agility, he wouldn’t have chosen this approach. Right?”
Even though he burned with embarrassment, Ben nodded. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to…you know, so I thought maybe this was a different sort of test…” His explanation didn’t do anything to reduce the redness of Falk’s face, so he let his voice trail off.
“Fine. He’s your responsibility, Zuraw. I don’t want to see him back here until you can assure me he’s not going to destroy my fucking course again.”
“It’s a deal,” Oliver said.