Special Forces: The Recruit. Cindy Dees

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СКАЧАТЬ self-combusting. The heavy pack hammered her feet into the ground with every step she took. But onward she staggered. Step after miserable step. At this point any reasonably fit person could walk beside her faster than she was running.

      But she. Did. Not. Stop.

      She’d asked for this insanity—begged for it, even—which made her misery even worse. It stripped away her right to complain. All she had left was anger.

      She reached for her old friend, Fury. Born of rage at being powerless to control her life, it rose from her determination someday to become a strong, independent woman whom no man would ever push around.

      Her steps stabilized. Her stride stretched back out into a full run. Less than a quarter mile to go now.

      “Damn. Thought we had you there, Wilkes,” a male voice said sardonically from behind her.

      She didn’t bother turning around to look. Lambert. A recently arrived instructor, he always wore mirrored shades and a baseball cap, which meant she had no idea what her latest tormenter actually looked like beyond that lean, chiseled jaw. And a physique modeled after the great masters of sculpture, of course. He never participated in harassing the trainees. He just watched. Mostly her.

      He’d been hanging around pretty much continuously the past few days. Either he was studying her for who knew what inscrutable reason, or he was stalking her. Whatever. They could throw their best head games at her and run her till she dropped. When she got back up, she would just keep on going.

      “Ahh, well. We’ll break you next time,” he murmured from just behind her. “Or the time after that. If you won’t quit coming after us, we won’t quit coming after you.”

      His lightly delivered comment sent a chill through her. He was not lying. They would keep coming after her until they destroyed her.

      The finish line of today’s “sprint” loomed ahead, and she pushed herself to reach it by envisioning a big glass of ice water waiting for her. She crossed the finish line and stopped cold, not taking one more running step than necessary as she panted in the oven-like heat.

      She’d done it. One more time they’d failed to break her. A stone-faced instructor looked at a stopwatch and recorded her time on a clipboard without comment. She caught Lambert looking over Clipboard Guy’s shoulder. Both men pulled disgusted faces, then Lambert peeled off to head for the instructor’s building.

      Screw them. She’d given it everything she had. Just because her triumph was their failure didn’t make it any less of a triumph for her. She bent over, planting her hands on her thighs, sucking in great, awful lungfuls of parched, scorching air.

      “Wilkes!”

      She looked up sharply at her barked last name.

      “My office. Now.”

      Crap. That was Major Torsten summoning her. No one knew exactly what he did around here, but even the instructors treated him with deep respect. Frankly, he scared her to death.

      In an act of bald-faced defiance, she forced her protesting legs to run to the door of the Quonset hut Torsten loomed in. One corner of his mouth quirked up for just an instant before settling back into its usual tight, disapproving line.

      Torsten disappeared inside the building as she trotted up the steps after him.

      “Sit.” He pointed at a wooden chair in front of the desk he’d moved behind.

      She slipped off her pack and sank into the chair not a moment too soon. Her legs felt entirely boneless. They would have collapsed on their own in a few more seconds. In fact, her entire body felt like a marionette’s with the strings cut. She was going to hurt like a big dog in a few hours. Cool air-conditioning wafted down on her, as blissful as angel’s breath.

      “Enjoy the run?” Torsten asked drily.

      As if she would give him the satisfaction of showing even a hint of weakness. Not a chance. She shrugged. “Nice scenery. And I’ve done worse.” Which was a total lie.

      He opened a cabinet behind his desk and tossed her a bottle of water. She snagged it neatly midair and downed it greedily. Meanwhile, he opened a brown manila folder on his desk and lifted out papers one by one, glancing through them at his leisure. She just enjoyed being still and letting her body temperature return to something resembling normal.

      At length, he closed the file and stared at her long and hard enough that she had to consciously tell herself not to squirm. She’d gotten used to the mind games they played around here and had learned not to break awkward silences unless she had something specific to say.

      “You’re out,” Torsten announced without warning.

      Out? As in out of training? Her mind went completely blank. A single word took shape and popped out of her mouth. “Why?”

      “You are underperforming. Your run and swim times aren’t coming down fast enough and your physical fitness test scores are not coming up fast enough for you to stand a chance in the remainder of this course. You’re out.”

      Shock slammed into her, wiping her mind clean.

      Ten years. Ten grueling, miserable, painful years she’d been training in hopes of one day having a shot at the Special Forces—practically around the clock. God, the things she’d sacrificed for this. A normal social life. The relationships she’d let pass her by. The friendships lost. Jobs turned down. She’d geared her entire life around this.

      It simply couldn’t be over.

      Besides. She already met all the minimum required scores to pass this training! And just like that, she was out?

      “Are Jones and Peterson out, too?” she blurted. They were men in her class. Men whom she consistently outperformed and outscored.

      “I’m not discussing any other trainees with you, Wilkes.”

      She looked up at him, then. Stared into ice-blue eyes that did not for a second flinch in the face of her silent outrage. Arguing with him would be useless. Both trainees and instructors called him the Iceberg behind his back because the bastard never thawed and never budged.

      The Special Forces did not want her. They had tested her and found her wanting. And they were not going to debate the decision with her. Just, “You’re out.” Done. Pack your stuff and leave.

      Anger exploded abruptly in her gut, knocking the air out of her lungs, and leaving her panting with fury. This sanctimonious bastard dared to hide his misogyny behind her performance numbers? Why not just call it what it was? These male chauvinist pigs just didn’t want to let a girl into their little boys’ club!

      She pressed words past her clenched teeth. “I get why you are resisting allowing women into your hallowed band of brothers. But it’s a mistake. Not many women have what it takes, but a few of us do.”

      He leaned back in his leather executive chair and merely continued to stare at her, his entire demeanor cold and emotionless.

      She warmed to her subject and ignored his body language shouting at her to shut the heck up. “We have talents and skills that would be an asset to the teams. You guys are weaker because of our exclusion. Other countries СКАЧАТЬ