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Day thirteen.
I yawned and pulled on a pair of jeans, knowing full well where I’d find my brother.
After putting on a tee too, I left our room—where I was promptly turned into a crash test site by a half-naked boy darting down the hall.
“Oops!” Julian peered up at me and rubbed his nose.
I chuckled through a wince and patted the boy on the head. “You okay, trooper?”
“Yeah. I’m running from Daddy. Can you hide me?”
I snorted softly and offered my hand. “I reckon he’s tryna find you for a good reason. What’re you running from this time? Brushing your teeth? Bath time?”
He scrunched his nose. “I gots to put on clothes every day. It stinks.”
“You sound like Reese.” I grinned faintly and started ushering the boy toward the—
Never mind, Elliott rounded the corner just then, a sweater and a pair of mini-human-sized pants in his grasp, and he let out a breath.
“I swear, boy. We’re renaming you Houdini.”
“Hide me, Mister Rivvuh!”
Nope, don’t involve me in this family madness. Kids were so damn breakable, and I didn’t need that on my conscience. I’d already made one of Greer’s kids cry once when I accidentally threw a football too hard, and I’d felt like shit for weeks. So I just stood there and folded my arms over my chest.
Elliott let out a laugh and closed the distance in a few quick strides. “You should’ve picked a better bodyguard, sweetheart.” He scooped the boy up and threw him over his shoulder. “Breakfast in the mess hall when you’re ready,” he told me.
I nodded with a dip of my chin. He knew I had an errand first.
“Daddy, noooo!” Julian protested. “I don’t wanna wear pants!”
Hereallysounded like Reese.
The rest of my morning walk around the house was uneventful, and I ended up outside the command center a minute later. Upon opening the door, I spotted Coach and Reese by the wall of screens. One for each recruit.
Reese took a swig of his coffee and zoomed in on Shay’s screen. The beacon blinked red against the digital illustration of the terrain. Judging by the topography, Shay was moving through a valley not too far away from his last marker.
“How’s everyone doin’?” I asked, joining Reese at his side.
Coach was inspecting Ames Wilde’s screen. That young woman was something else. I’d been impressed by her determination since we’d arrived.
“Just one marker left for most of them,” Coach replied absently. “Finnian and Crew almost crossed paths during the night, and Shay’s heart rate spiked at around four after staying still for three hours, so I’m guessing wildlife woke him up.”
“He’s on the run again. All’s well.” Reese pointed to Shay’s screen.
Thank fuck. Encountering wildlife was to be expected, but it was never pleasant.
Reese extended his coffee mug without taking his gaze off the screen, and I took a couple sips.
The recruits were moving through a massive area of approximately four thousand acres, so running into wildlife was more common than stumbling across a fellow recruit. The terrain offered zero paths and roads; it was all thicket, trees, mountains, and valleys. Plenty of streams and rivers too.
A lot had changed since Reese and I had gone through the selection process. For one, we hadn’t carried heart rate monitors or beacons transmitting through a satellite network. We’d appeared on no screens. We’d had flare guns… For two, we hadn’t been able to contact each other out there either. These days, in case of an emergency, the recruits were allowed to reach out and perform first aid if necessary.
“Daddy, I’mhungry,” I heard a boy complain.
“One minute, baby—Daddy’s just gonna check in on the boys.” Ryan poked his head into the room and nodded at us. “Final stretch, eh? No more dropouts?”
Four dropouts wasn’t bad, actually. Three young men and one of the women.
