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But she wasn’t like him—or even Micha and, to an extent, Naomi. She was slower. Weaker. The equivalent of her “trying” to keep up turned out to be epic failure across the board.
She never knew it was possible to feel so sore. All over, she ached. Her hair was caked with mud, her body slick with a mixture of sweat and earth. Her legs trembled at the thought of taking another step.
But still…
Beneath the exhaustion was a thrill of excitement, she couldn’t deny. It grew stronger with every second she spent out beneath the wavering branches and in the rolling fields. A hunger almost. For more. More freedom. More running.More!
Though, perhaps that excitement was nowhere near Micha’s. He beamed as she extended her hand and allowed him to yank her to her feet.
“Again,” she choked out. Then she ran.
Her eyes were on the white barn in the distance—her target destination for the past two hours of this “training.”
This attempt, she barely made it two feet before she wound up on the ground again, coughing up dirt.
“That makes it ten deaths in a row. I think we should head back,” Micha said tiredly.
Loren followed him without comment. Her mind was a whirl during the entire trek toward the house. McGoven seemed to think this would help her. But how?
After their talk, he led them to join Micha and Naomi—only to leave with the latter while she remained with Micha. Since then, the younger man had her run laps and try to evade him, only for her to fail each test miserably.
Beating herself up would change nothing—she knew that. Still, she couldn’t resist seething over her lack of strength and speed. If McGoven had danced around the issue before, this brief training session had all but cemented his fear. Of the four of them, she was the weakest link. The one who wouldn’t survive an attack should those men return.
The one holding him back.
No,a part of her growled.We aren’t weak. We held our own once. We can do it again.
But whatever happened in the field that day with the intruders seemed to have been a fluke. She hadn’t felt that same impulse around Micha. Not even McGoven. The only animalistic tendencies she’d shown so far today had been an uncanny ability to wallow in the mud.
But she was the outlier. Naomi apparently had already mastered whatever task Bill had given her, sans the dirt bath. Both figures stood on the back porch, watching them approach.
“We’ll stop for today,” Bill called as Loren mounted the porch steps after Micha. “Sonia made lunch. We can eat and then figure out the rooming situation for the next few days.”
Apparently, he wasn’t a fan of everyone sleeping on the floor of his living room.
When he entered the kitchen, Loren expected him to pull her aside and explain what went wrong. How to improve her instincts. Something.
Instead, he vanished, ceding the spotlight to Sonia, who greeted them with a mass of hot food waiting on the center island.
While Micha and Naomi didn’t show their exhaustion as much, they ate ravenously. Even the normally chatty Micha was too busy shoving food into his mouth to spark any conversation. Between the three of them, they wolfed down their first helpings and were already onto seconds. With a nervous laugh, Sonia remarked that she would have to scrounge up something for Bill.
A pang of guilt struck Loren at the thought of him going without, though food seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind. Like a shadow, he appeared in the doorway to the living room, his arms crossed, his gaze thoughtful. He was sizing them up again, reassessing whatever judgment he had made earlier that morning. Micha and Naomi had apparently passed their tests.
But her… His gaze lingered in her direction, and she fidgeted beneath the scrutiny.
“Well then.” Sonia seemed to pick up on the tension and seized the moment to change the subject. Despite spending the night in her car, she looked bright-eyed and well rested. Sometime during the day, she’d dressed in a blue sweater and jeans and smoothed her hair into a ponytail.
“We’ve tried to figure out a sleeping arrangement for the next few days,” she went on. “The house is pretty small, but, Micha, there is a cot around here somewhere. You can take the living room.”
“Cool!” he exclaimed around a mouthful of pasta.
“Loren, you can take the room upstairs, along with Naomi, should you decide to stay here.”
Loren instantly felt her appetite wane. Not only at the thought of sharing a room with the prickly blond, but because of what that arrangement meant without stating it outright. Someone else wouldn’t sleep beside her.
Her gaze was drawn to him, but he was no longer looking her way.
“I’ll mostly keep watch,” he explained grimly, “and find sleep when and where I can.”
