The woman stared at Brady. “No, we’re here to teach you how to get stronger. And to see what you’re capable of.”
“While killing us,” Layla deadpanned.
The fact that we were being forced to become more comfortable with this shocking topic of conversation just made my skin crawl all the more. I’d never wanted to run so hard, so fast, and so freaking far away from this damned place.
“We’ll be testing your limits,” repeated the man in the center. “Whether you die or not is up to you and your ability to defend yourself. I’ll warn you now, my colleagues and I are quite skilled at ending lives.”
“Great, totally fucking great,” Layla muttered before tipping her head to one side in consideration of the man. “How?” she eventually asked him. “How do you sound so, I dunno, intelligent and refined while still looking like you do?”
It was a bit of a weird question, maybe even a stupid one, actually, but I didn’t understand why every one of the man’s muscles stiffened and bulged—and there were a great many of them now on threatening display. He wore a sleeveless workout tank top and shorts that revealed most of his chiseled thighs.
Through gritted teeth, he asked, “Because I’m Black?”
Laylatsked. “No, not because you’re Black. Do I look like a prejudiced asshole prick to you? Your dark skin’s fucking gorgeous.I meanhow do you sound like a freaking textbook while also looking like you do?” She ran a hand up and down the air in front of his body. “You’re jacked.”
When he still didn’t relax, Layla elucidated some more: “How do you find time to develop your mind along with your body to such an extreme? From how ripped you are, it looks like you’d need to spend hours every day just keeping up your training.”
Finally, he visibly relaxed. “Ah. That’s one of the first things we’ll teach you. Of all the muscles you have, your mind is the most important of all. Though the saying, ‘mind over matter’ is a bit banal, it’s also true.”
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Hunt said, and I glanced at him, hoping he wasn’t about to follow up on Layla’s odd line of questioning. “From everything we’ve seen, Magnum only wants to test our ability to die and resurrect. Why would he want to train us so we become stronger in any way other than our immortality?”
None of our teachers had a ready answer. When the other two only glanced toward the man between them, he answered, “I’ve known Magnum the longest. While I won’t be sharing many of my impressions with you, I will tell you the man is remarkably perceptive and long-sighted. I think he’s training you for what’s to come farther down the path we’re embarking upon together. Also, he told us you were interested in training to become ninjas.”
I waited for at least one of them to laugh or snicker. They didn’t.
“Perhaps it’s simply an incentive or a reward for you at this time.”
An incentive and reward system, like we were actual lab rats. Since Magnum seemed to view us as nothing more than that, I supposed it made a certain morbid kind of sense that’s what our training would be about.
The man straightened his shoulders an extra fraction of an inch and clasped his wrists behind his back. “We’ve wasted enough time talking, and you were already late to begin with. The dog can stay for now. But if he becomes a threat or a problem in any way, he’ll have to go, no matter what argument you make.”
I scratched behind Bobo’s ears and beamed up at the man, who was maybe an inch or two taller than any of my guys, who were all around six feet tall. “Yeah, of course, I understand. He’s very well trained though.”
The man frowned in obvious disbelief, but I was taking the win for now.
“This is Yolanda,” he said with a nod to the woman. “This is Armando.” He tilted his chin to the man on his right. “And I’m Homer. You’ll find appropriate clothing and gear waiting for you in the locker rooms. In future, we’ll expect you to be changed and ready to go at the start of class time. For today only, you have five minutes.”
“We’ll be working out today already?” Layla asked. “I thought today was orientation only.”
“You assumed wrong. Every day not spent learning, growing, and bettering ourselves is a day wasted. Your five minutes are counting down.”
With a “follow” directed at Bobo, my friends and I tore off in the direction Yolanda pointed out to us and piled into a co-ed locker room. As I grabbed the pile of clothes under a label with my name on it and scooted into one of the many changing rooms, I had mere moments to decide what to do about the note still tucked into the folds of my sleeve. I could leave it with my clothes in the locker room and hope no one snuck in here to snoop, or I could take it with me, hoping there were no cameras here to spot me transferring it from one hiding place to another. Beyond the noise we were making, the training center was completely quiet. But in the same way I didn’t trust enough to let Bobo out of my sight, I didn’t trust leaving behind the potential help of our faux parents either. We were one hundred percent being spied on. Did that include rifling through our possessions when we weren’t looking? Short of someone sniffing our undies, I didn’t think anything was off limits around here.
Without a better idea, I pretended to wipe down my chest with my discarded shirt in case there were hidden cameras. I had no good reason to rub my shirt over my chest, but people did peculiar things all the time. The action could be dismissed as such an oddity. While I was “wiping,” I pushed the sleeve into my sports bra and managed to wedge the note under my cleavage, where it tucked securely beneath my boobs with the tight elastic band underneath keeping it in place. For now, it was the best I could do. My exercise clothing had no pockets, and I didn’t think the note would fare any better stuffed into one of my socks.
After possibly the fastest pee break of my life, the five of us and Bobo ran back out into the gym, only to find Homer studying a digital clock on the wall, one with a readout similar to that of a stopwatch.
“You’re fifteen seconds late,” he announced. “That’ll cost you fifteen laps around the gym, one per second.”
When we just gaped at him, he added, “Make that twenty and counting.”
I told Bobo to “follow,” and we broke into a steady jog. A narrow, open path skirted the entire length of the spacious building’s walls—and now I understood why.
Okay, so Homer was obviously a hardass. But maybe we’d learn a lot from him and the others. At least that part was genuinely exciting.
The killing part, not so much. In fact, not at all.
I pushed away the thought and the immediate panic it delivered. Still, my breath squeezed in my chest, and my heart gave an irregular thump that made me wince.
