Page 48 of Attraction

Chapter 14

It’s hot, the air’s dry, and in the rough sandy terrain it’s hard to hold formation. Keeping the correct distance apart is nigh on impossible.

They’ve marched a long way in armpit soaking conditions, having been dumped unceremoniously by parachute, into the middle of nowhere. A classified location of barren wasteland which, with its high daytime temperatures and cold nights, gives a varying range of operating conditions.

The military owns this god-forsaken desert for one purpose—testing the special forces.

Kat looks around and smiles. This could easily be a film set, staged as it is with varying props: villages, booby-trapped abandoned vehicles, landmines, and IEDs. The arena also comes stocked with token tango’s—a highly trained group of military personnel or instructors signed up to try to kick the butts of operators—failing miserably on most occasions. Add in vehicles and helos arriving from nowhere depending on the scripted scenario each Commander or team leader chooses, and it’s a great place to train.

This time Darius implemented an endurance test—a physically demanding, long-haul trek to drain their energy and push their stamina levels to the extreme limit.

After a twelve-klick hump across the vast desolate scrub, Kat’s already starting to wonder what other surprises their leader might have in store—sure that just walking in midday-desert heat won’t be enough for him to test this team. She’s also starting to notice the strain on her calf muscles from the rough rocky ground and soft sand, which feels like walking in quicksand.

The pace is intense, and she’s convinced the further they go the faster Darius leads them. Sweating profusely, the back of her shirt is soaked and with her kit weighted against her spine it doesn’t allow air to circulate. Sipping water from her camel-pack, the armor plate on her tactical vest feels heavy against her chest, making her uniform stick, and breathing is difficult. All that sweat and kit rubbing is going to lead to some serious chaffing issues in various crevices of her body.

“Zak… you need to drink some more; I noticed you’ve hardly had any in the past fifteen minutes.” He ignores her, and she sighs loudly. “Zak, did you hear me. You need to—”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you! Who the hell can’t with your constant whining?Do this Zak… Do that Zak!I think I preferred it when we didn’t have a medic. So, what, are you keepin’ tabs onmenow?” He turns around, his deep-blue eyes glare fiercely and he slows his pace, dropping back in the line until he’s walking beside her. “You know, just cos you got Diggs by his balls, it don’t mean you got me. I might behisnumber two, but that don’t make me yours—are we clear?”

“Yeah … um, sure. Sorry but what the hell is this about?” She frowns. “All I meant was you need to keep up your fluid intake in this extreme heat. It’s kinda my job you know?”

“Yeah right… well, I’m just makin’ sureweunderstand each other. I ain’t no lap-dog for your pussy, right?” He’s hot and frustrated and stepping up his pace, he quickly moves back to his original position, distancing himself from her.

She takes a breath, confused. Feeling awkward about his comments, she turns around looking at Ozzie—he’s bringing up the rear behind her and he smiles silently mouthing, “Don’t worry, ignore him.”

She nods and smiles. But what Zak said, it’s about her relationship with Ryan and as she feared, it’s already interfering with the team. Now looking up, she grins, watching as Zak takes a long drink of water and turning again she smiles at Ozzie. He winks knowingly as he hands her half his candy bar, and she thanks him, it’s small but right now a welcome gesture.

As she turns back facing the front Zak’s steely blue eyes now focus, looking at her. It makes her uncomfortable and ignoring him she looks to the front of the line where she can see Digby and Darius striding forward. She smiles watching them, noticing the way they walk side by side—making it hard to tell exactly which one of them is actually leading the team. Watching Digby, she can’t help thinking how sexy he looks, his large muscular frame dressed in full combat gear.

“Mmmm…” She sighs, taking a breath. Then checking herself, she squashes the feelings because this isexactlywhat she didn’t want to happen.

“Hey…” Ozzie’s at her side, having picked up his pace, and he walks backward next to her—which concerns her in case he might fall. “Be ready.” he mouths quietly.

“Why? What’s going on?” She frowns.

Zak also drops from the line—next to her, on the opposite side. “He means to be ready because things are about to go down,” he whispers.

“What do you mean? What’s about togo down?” She’s confused and looking around the vast barren landscape she can’t see anything of concern. A nervous apprehension sets in and her heart beats faster, as her eyes continue scanning the open empty sand.

“Darius, he’ll be dropping a tonne of shit on us soon—you can feel it in the air. There are tangos out there somewhere, you can count on it.” Looking up in the clear blue sky, he takes a long deep breath. “Up there!” He points skyward. “Somewhere is a helo filled with live rounds, ready for us.” He grins.

She swallows nervously, shouldering her rifle, clutching it tighter in preparation. He’s right, she can feel it, the air is static and now she can hear a very faint but distant whump of rotor blades. Taking a breath, she prepares herself ready for whatever comes.

Then it’s there.

Out of nowhere, it’s like all hell broke loose and bullets zip past her ear, another whizzing over her head.

“Fuck!”

She drops quickly to the ground and Ozzie and Zak crawl in beside her, closing ranks—protecting her from either side. Her heart’s beating so hard she thinks it might burst out of her chest, and even though she knows this is only an exercise, the speed and ferocity with which it happens makes her adrenaline levels surge.Would he seriously get authorization for a live fire exercise?She doubted even Darius could pull that off, but then Digby had already warned her—though that may have been a scare tactic. “Darius just likes to make it more real. The team deserves nothing less in a full-scale training exercise. Where the hell’s the excitement if it’s not real?”Is what he told her, andshe could tell from his face when he said it the idea thrilled him. Her, not so much, and now she’s hoping it’s not true. But if it was, then she’d prepared thoroughly, making sure, though it added extra weight to her pack, that she had all the supplies she might need for anyrealcasualties.

As they lay on the ground pinned to the spot, the helo makes another low sweeping pass, smattering the sand in front of them with a raining hail of bullets. The noise is deafening as they fly in low—blinding them with yellow sandy dust.

“Oh man!” She grimaces as something wet splatters against her cheek.

“Fuck!” Ozzie cusses loudly as a bullet grazes the top of his arm—shredding his jacket, the blood splattering on Kat’s face.

“You okay?” she asks, rapidly moving in closer and pulling medical supplies from her kit. She triages his arm. They look up to a new sound—a loud booming voice—Darius!

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