Page 9 of The Woman Left Behind

A bit surprised, after what had happened yesterday, she looked at him with lifted brows.

He shifted uncomfortably, his sunburned cheeks turning a deeper shade of raw. “Uh—I’m sorry. About bumping you during the run.” Once he got those words out without choking, he took a deep breath and continued. “It was just, I don’t know, all of a sudden it felt like a race and—”

Enough said. Donnelly had always seemed nice enough, so she wasn’t going to hold that one slip against him. “Yeah, I know. I have brothers,” she explained. “One older and one younger. It’s okay. I got you back, so we’re even.”

He shifted, winced, leaned down to rub his left shin. “Yeah. Anyway, the big dogs pulled you out of the group. Special training?”

She snorted. “You might say that. After telling me they’d leave me behind if I couldn’t keep up, and that every other person on the team was way more valuable than I am, they tried to kill me and make it look like a training accident. None of them were thrilled at getting stuck with the only woman.”

Donnelly frowned at her. “Don’t they know you had the high score?”

“High score on a computer game doesn’t mean much to them.”

“But that’s the whole point of us being here.”

That’s the way she saw it, but the “big dogs” saw it differently. “They’re all worried untrained, unmotivated amateurs might get them killed.”

“Hey, I’m motivated. I’m motivated to keep my job. Paychecks are nice things to have.” He shifted again, winced again. “But I have my doubts about living through this. My feet have blisters on their blisters.”

“We need boots,” she said, “to keep the grit out. That’s what the guys on the team were wearing. Baxter, too,” she added thoughtfully.

“I couldn’t get boots on my feet right now,” he said glumly. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? We should be freakin’ superheroes before this is finished.”

After bouncing around on broken shocks, watching the pavement through the hole in the floorboard, and getting a headache from breathing exhaust, they arrived back at the training ground. Baxter met the van, grinned as he watched them all limp and stumble out of the vehicle. “What’s the matter, everyone a little sore?”

Glowering silence met that gibe, and his grin grew until his eyes were wrinkled slits. “That’s what I thought. I’m gonna take it easy on you today, because you didn’t know you were going to get thrown into the shark pool, so to speak, and had no opportunity to get in better shape before training started.”

Jina looked around, searching for her personal tormentors. She didn’t recognize anyone, though again there seemed to be dozens of men moving around the area, heavily armed, blowing up stuff, kicking down doors. Baxter noticed her. “You’re back with us, Modell. Ace’s team got called out early this morning. He said to tell you to keep your ass in gear and be in better shape when they get back.”

“Peachy,” she muttered. “When are they due back—tonight?”

Baxter shrugged. “Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. You never know. Some situations blow up, nothing you can do.”

Jina blew out a breath, caught in a jumble of relief and annoyance. She’d geared herself up to deal with Levi—not just with him, but all the others, too. She had a lot of animosity and grievance stored inside her, looking for a target, and now she had to bank it down. On the other hand, she wasn’t going to die today.Thank you, God,she thought fervently. She’d take whatever reprieve she could get.

And she’dshowhim. She’d by God show him.

Four

The team’s absence at least gave her time to get over her extreme muscle soreness. She and the others moved painfully through Baxter’s routine, which he thankfully limited to stretching and some calisthenics that still hurt like heck. Then they were taken to a classroom where they began studying the leading-edge drone they’d be piloting in the field and probably in surveillance situations, though that wasn’t spelled out. Jina was totally on board with sitting in a cool, dim room and moving not much more than her fingers.

The drone simulation program was awesome. The graphics were so lifelike there wasn’t much difference between the program and reality. The drone’s capabilities were way beyond what she’d thought drones could do, not that she’d ever paid a lot of attention to drones before other than knowing some of them were causing problems at airports. Now that she was seeing firsthand what their capabilities were... wow. This was serious stuff.

Donnelly took the station beside hers, but there was very little conversation between them; mostly they concentrated on their own screens. She was able to lose herself in the screen the way she did when she was gaming, grunting occasionally, muttering under her breath. This wasn’t running up a score or winning points or gaining magic weapons; this was learning how the drone responded, how to zoom the camera in on tiny details, how to decipher what she was seeing. What amazed her the most was that she knew this was just the tip of the drone’s capabilities, that she was taking baby steps; each new stage of training would reveal more.

She’d have loved this part of it even if she hadn’t been able to sit down, rest her sore muscles, and not sweat herself half to death. For the first time she felt a frisson of enthusiasm for this new assignment. Yeah, it was geeky of her, but she was okay with that.

The following days settled into a pattern. On the third day, Baxter ran them through hard physical conditioning again, then on the fourth day their tired muscles were allowed some time to recover, and they spent more time on the drone program.

The fifth day, they had half a day off, and Jina forced herself to drive to the nearest mall and buy a couple of pairs of boots that were suitable for running, plus a multitude of thick socks. The boots that looked like the guys’ boots were, unfortunately, made for men and slipped up and down on her heels, but she figured she could glue extra padding to the insides. If that didn’t work, she’d see what she could order online, maybe from Army Surplus, but she needed something other than sneakersnow.

By the tenth day, she was doing some extra running on her own time, and Levi’s team still hadn’t returned. She was fine with that. She could tell that her stamina had improved, and she’d dropped a few pounds, but she wanted to be in much better shape before she was subjected to the team’s training again. The boots worked okay, after she beat them with a hammer to soften them up and added insoles to make them fit better. They were certainly more protective of her feet and supportive of her ankles. After she’d worn them a couple of days, the other guys began showing up in boots, too. They were all learning.

Donnelly asked her out, then they mutually decided they were too tired and maybe they’d have the energy for an actual date in another month or so. Then again, maybe not. Jina didn’t feel any real attraction to Donnelly, though she liked him okay, and she didn’t think he was wildly attracted to her, either. Besides, training took all her time and attention.

Seventeen days after they left, Levi and the guys were back. The first hint Jina had was when she got out of the van—for reasons known only to the PTB, the trainees still weren’t allowed to drive their own vehicles to the training site, unless it was to prevent escape—and spotted a big, black pickup truck parked in the lot.

The bottom dropped out of her stomach, and every muscle in her body clenched. Oh, shit. Her “vacation” was over.

---