Page 4 of Brutal Collateral

CHAPTER ONE

Hadleigh – U.S. Navy SEAL BUD/S Training Coronado, California – Seven Years Ago – Age 20

“If you don’t get yourfat ass out of my face and move, I will throw you in the sand, hold you down until you can’t breathe, and fuck every hole you have until you die,” a voice behind me yells his daily dose of threats in a shrill voice that rattles my eardrums.

Rand Miller, the relentless prick in my squad, is determined to break me piece by piece. With limited available spots in the Jump School phase after BUD/S training, the competition is fiercer than ever.

Being hazed is part of the training. All the guys here give me a hard time. Only Miller whispers threats of death and rape. The first time it made me want to throw up. Not unlike this brutal thirty-foot highCargo Netclimb I’m currently screwing up. I’m slowing down my classmates behind me, and Rand Miller is promising to make me pay.

I want to hate the guys here, but their take-no-prisoners, no-mercy, cold, calculating, and ruthless attitudes arefeaturesthe Navy wants in a SEAL. They’re not quirky bugs they hope these maniacs will lose once they’re out of training.

This is my second time going for the Trident. The first time I made it toHell Week.I failed out when I collapsed during a thirty-mile run in the Southern California heat after not sleeping for two days.

Other women have tried before me since they started inviting women to the challenge. No one with a uterus has made it through.

I am fucking determined to be the first.

Cherise Broussard, who Miller callsCherry, cries out, tugging desperately at the coarsely braided climbing ropes while the instructors below curse and yell about her ineptitude. We lock eyes. She’s my competition, but we’re not enemies. We’ve got each other’s back. A win for one of us is a win for all women.

Only, the Teams don’t want us here.

Just locking gazes with Cherise fuels me to keep going and energizes me with a second wind. Despite the purposeful lack of food and sleep—a SEAL in the field might have to go days with no food or water on a rescue mission—I find the strength and power in my aching arm muscles to lift me to the next knot.

Before I know it, I’m swinging over the wall.

Going up is brutal on the legs, going down is a bitch on the arms. Mine are fucked from these drills. But I hold on.

I jump from the net, worrying I’ll twist my ankle, but these boney fuckers are strong for all the hell they’ve been through. I scurry across theBalance Logs. They are deceptively easy. But if I’m not careful, I’ll fall, hit my head, and land face down in the sand.

This damn sand. I’m still digging it out of crevices all over my body from the last class.

I know I shouldn’t stop or look back for Cherise. I need to get myfat assto the next station. A good finish will get me off the instructors’ radar. I swear they are harder on Cherise and me.

I filed a report after the last class I went through, complaining how I’d been given impossible tasks duringHell Weekwhile others appeared to get preferential treatment.

Thisclass seems even harder, and I’m guessing my big mouth got me into trouble.

Hearing a grunt and a thud, I glance back at Cherise, who didn’t land as smoothly as me from the logs.

“Cher! Can you keep going?”

“My ankle is fucked. Arms still work.”

She hobbles to theTransfer Ropes,and I let her go ahead of me. But I’m trampled by two men who I kept waiting on theCargo Netwall.

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