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“Why don’t you girls go and get rested up for the rest of the day and evening? Training starts early in the morning, and I do mean early,” Valencia told us sharply, sounding more tired than before. “And Azula.” I stopped in my tracks, silence greeting me until Carli and Mallory had disappeared through the door. “I really am sorry about your mother. She was a good… friend. And because I knew her, I expect big things from you. I won’t let you off easy now. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, and escaped as quickly as possible.
ChapterTwenty
“Line up,” Valencia barked at us.
I stumbled, sleep still fogged up inside of my mind and crusties pulling my eyes closed. I rubbed at my eyes, trying to pick the crusties out, and felt a hand jerk me into place. I tried to stifle a yawn, but it was no use. My nose crinkled as I covered my mouth as it went wide, making my eyes water. I sniveled, head rolling as the thud of boots hit my ears. Looking up with blurry vision, I took sight of the woman who was in charge of us. Her hair was slung back into a bun tightly twisted on the top of her head, a few stray strands dangling out over her ears, but I suspected as long as they weren’t in her face, it didn’t matter. She stood as straight as a rod, her eyes darting from each of us on both sides of the bunkhouse. Her lips were pressed, a thin line as she assessed the state of us.
As Valencia drew up to me, her eyes lingered longer on the disarray that was me from the night before. I could feel it in my bones. The thin cot that made the boards beneath poke at my back, and the pillow that was so thin, there was no comfort in laying my head. I’d had trouble falling asleep, tossing, and turning in desperation to figure out a comfortable position. It didn’t help that whenever I managed to close my eyes for just minutes, the images of my parents and brother and Timothy swam before my eyes. All berating me, all disappointed in me. Disappointed for what exactly, I couldn’t tell.
For not staying put, perhaps. For not succeeding in my own self-mission? It was a futile guess. Maybe because I wouldn’t become the woman they all imagined me as. Yeah, that one definitely struck a chord.
I was exhausted, and my shoulders slumped. I had no doubt it showed on my face too.
“A lot of you come from comfort, from cozy little homes that give you everything you want,” Valencia shouted, stopping right before me. “You don’t get that here. You are here to learn, to train. Comfort is for the weak and distracting. That’s why your personal items were taken. It’s why you have straw for a pillow and the lowest type of cot. Comfort breeds laziness, and I will not train lazy medics. I will train the best there is. Those who hurry, those who can wake and jump up to save lives in an instant. Not those who are so comfortable they roll over in bed and let people die. If you pass,” she pivots on her heel and continues her walk down the line, “you will be saving a lot of lives. Not just soldiers. Humans, vampires, werewolves, the works. You will be given opportunities that whatever place you come from will never be able to give you. Even if you don’t pass training, you will have opportunities here so great that you will return home and go mad from pure boredom. I can promise you that. I’ve had several cases where creatures like yourselves have been driven to the brink of insanity simply because of what they were able to experience here and have it taken away because they didn’t pass. If you don’t want to be in that spot, I suggest you work hard. I suggest you bust your butts. I don’t tolerate laziness.” She wheeled around at the end to face all of us. “Have I made myself clear?”
A murmuring of agreement rang through the bunkhouse. I kept my mouth closed but didn’t miss the way her eyes flickered to me, nostrils flaring at my obvious lack of joining.
“Have I made myself clear? Yes or no?” she asked louder, her voice booming in our ears.
“Yes,” we all said loudly, my lips moving instinctively, thinking now probably wasn’t the time to stay quiet again.
“I don’t train wussies.” She sneered and began her walk back, the same slow walk, but it was enough to put fear in all of us. “I train the best. Every morning you wake at the horn. You will make your beds, brush your teeth, put your hair up, and get your clothes. In that order. While here, the only ones you are competing against are yourselves. There is no need for petty fights amongst one another. Doing so will be automatic expulsion, and you will be sent on your way home. I have no time for that crap. While here, you will act like the adults you’ve so claimed yourselves as. Any fighting I don’t catch, you deal with it on your own. Telling is for children. If I get wind of it, you will be sent home. We aren’t here to play.” She stopped in front of me again, looking down her nose at me.
Again, that sensation of familiarity around her swept through me, and my stomach clenched. I raised my eyes to hers, refusing to back down as my shoulders squared in defense.
“Some of you have legacies to follow. I know who you are, and you best be expecting me to push you.” She spoke loudly for all to hear but was looking directly at me.
After her words, Valencia turned and made her way to the front of the bunk, to the wide-open door that streamed moonlight. Moonlight, which meant it wasn’t even daytime. I had every right to feel as exhausted as I did, to have it pressing at my bones, screaming at me to crawl back into bed and pass out.
“Four-thirty every morning is the time you will be expected to get up, regardless of how the night before was spent. Slackers don’t exist here.”
It was then I broke eye contact and looked to my side for my friends, but only Mallory stood on my left, and a girl I didn’t know on my right looked utterly terrified and perhaps about to wet herself.
“The foresters have been taken to their proper bunking, Ms. McEntire, if it’s your little forester friend you’re looking for. You can socialize with people as you please, in your own free time. But in order to keep focus, mixing with others does not work. They have a different time frame than we do. The wrong wakeup call will pull one of your focuses out of place, and we just can’t have that, now can we?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. I suspected she didn’t even want one. Valencia turned on her heel and left the bunk house and us to our own devices. It was morning. I was still half asleep, though, desperate to climb back into my bed, no matter how uncomfortable, and just sleep a few more hours. But I didn’t think that was the right decision to make right now.
Instead of doing what I wanted, I moved robotically to the side of my bed, picked up my blanket, and shook it off. I’d tossed it off in a hurry when we’d been woken minutes before. With wrinkles rolling up and down the blanket, I made my bed and went for step number two. A few girls around me were grumbling, moving with jerky motions to complete their tasks. Nobody wanted to be up this early besides Valencia.
“I know who you are,” a cold voice stated bitterly as I spit out my toothpaste.
Glancing up in the mirror, I took in the girl who stood behind me. Her eyes glittered, reminding me of dark chocolate. I’d only had it once, but the bitter taste lingered on the tip of my tongue now and again. A satisfying flavor and one I wanted again. But chocolate was a luxury and far too expensive for the measly money my father and I earned together to keep the household running. Now, all I had were my savings; one simple bar would cost me at least half of it. There was no telling how long I would need to spread it out. Training didn’t pay, but the money would start rolling in if I passed. I could buy all the chocolate and other luxuries I wanted then. I just had to wait it out first.
“You’re the McEntire girl everyone back home always talked about.”
I turned to face her full-on now. Her face was chalk pale, lips blackened. Either deliberately painted that way or naturally designed that way, I couldn’t tell, but a chill trickled down my spine anyway.
“The one that’s gifted. The one that all she has to do is wave a hand, and everything comes her way. All because your mommy was a gifted healer or something like that. Couldn’t have been so good if she got herself killed by a Skeletal.”
I bit my tongue to keep from lashing out and turned back around, turning the water on, so I could rinse my toothbrush off and focus on anything but her. I had no desire to get into an argument this early in the morning.
“Didn’t your boyfriend leave you or something? Probably found out—”
“He was drafted,” I interjected icily, forcing my gaze to stay on my toothbrush as I gripped it tighter. “That’s all.”
She snorted. “He answered it pretty quickly, didn’t he? Ran off almost instantly. Shame, Timothy was pretty good-looking.”
