4. Addie #2
My lips tugged up into a smile as she strutted away—then immediately dropped into a scowl as I locked eyes with a glowering German initiate across the room.
Her brows lowered as she zeroed in on my bloodied clothes, eyes probing for any sign of weakness.
I sent her my best the-fuck-are-you-looking-at glare as I rifled through my trunk, grabbing the first set of clothes I touched.
She broke eye contact first, and I smirked at the tiny win before storming out the door.
The drop in temperature in the hall was like a slap to the face.
My breath exited my body in visible clouds, blanketing me in the illusion of warmth, and the pain in my hands intensified.
A splitting headache greeted me, signalling that the adrenaline that had flooded my system to keep me alive was waving goodbye, leaving me alone with the consequences of surviving.
And only because there was no one around, I paused—just for a moment—resting against the wall just outside the door. The cold, grey stone called my name, and I closed my eyes, dropping my head against it.
Just for a few breaths. I can afford that.
Unfortunately, a side effect of an adrenaline crash was the post-adrenaline blues.
My face scrunched up with the effort it took not to fall to pieces right there in the hallway. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. My anger had given way to horror and the alarming re-realisation that death was but a moment away at any given point.
I could have died today. And then what?
Raised voices came from further down the hall, around the corner—a blessing in disguise. Startled out of my impending breakdown, I backed away as quietly as I could, knowing I wouldn’t be alone for much longer and I needed to get the fuck out of dodge.
“Fucking Pearce, the piece of shit!” they yelled. “Who does he think he is?!”
I knew that voice; that snarling bite.
Time to GO, Addie.
“I cannot wait to bring my father up to speed,” he continued.
Sebastos. Of course. And I’d be willing to bet his two sidekicks were in tow, meaning it was about to be three-on-one if I didn’t get the fuck out of this hallway.
Forgoing silence for speed, I bolted in the opposite direction, still half-focused on the words.
I sprinted around the far corner and slammed straight into a brick wall.
A brick wall that hadn’t been there yesterday.
A warm, damp brick wall that smelled of fresh rain and the faint tinge of heady cologne, with biceps the size of my head.
A ripped, toned, god of a brick wall that was glaring down at me for having had the audacity to run straight into him.
Hunter Beckett opened his pretty mouth to speak—no doubt to berate me on my lack of situational awareness or for getting blood on his shirt—but cut himself off just as quickly. His eyes darted to the corner I’d just flown around when Seb’s grating whine followed me.
“...Pearce, and his fucking little whore, Sinclair…”
Beckett’s gaze snapped back down to my face, a flicker of a question flitting across it before Sebastos continued his tirade.
“That bitch will be next in the graveyard.”
Great. There goes my sleep for the next six months.
Beckett stepped silently around me, pausing before disappearing around the corner. Without so much as a backwards glance, his fingers flicked minutely in the universal gesture of scram, kid.
“Varco!” he bellowed as I stumbled backwards. “A word. My office, now.”
“But—”
“That’s an order, not a request.” His footsteps thundered towards the dorms without another word.
At least he hadn’t chewed me out for the blood.
Never one to second-guess good fortune, I bolted down the hall and up the dusty staircase. I didn’t stop, not once, until I crashed through the bathroom door and slammed it shut behind me.
Lungs heaving and heart racing, I tried to blame the sprint. But deep down, I knew it had nothing to do with physical exertion, and everything to do with the two extra-large, extra-muscled bodies that had pressed up against mine in the last half hour.
My imagination was going to have a field day.
Fleur waltzed into our secret bathroom twenty minutes later, arms piled high with a bright red first aid kit and three different-sized bottles of various alcohols that came from fuck knows where.
“I picked up a stray along the way,” she joked, nodding to the tall, biracial man standing in the open doorway.
“Rude,” Ethan quipped, his nose scrunching in faux indignation.
Ethan was objectively gorgeous, even pulling faces like that. He was all limbs—muscular thighs so thick they could squeeze a watermelon in half, and arms that could hoist a woman over his shoulder fireman-style to carry her to safety. I mean, if a person thought of him like that.
“Hurry up and shut the door, Eth. I’m freezing!” I hissed, spurring the lumbering giant into action.
He winced, finally noticing that I was standing in the middle of the room half naked with arms folded over my bare breasts, then crossed the threshold and shut the door sheepishly behind him.
“Sorry, Ads.” Ethan recovered quickly with a roguishly handsome grin. “Do you need any help getting out of the rest of your clothes?”
I’d already tossed my ruined shirt in the bin and hand-washed the blood out of my favourite sports crop, hanging it up to dry over the thin wall of the shower stall, but no way was I taking him up on that particular offer.
“Gross,” Fleur scoffed. “Get a room, you two.”
Then I scoffed, knowing Ethan had already slept with every female in our cohort, and some of the men, too—including the lanky, blonde Frenchwoman currently rifling through the medical kit—except for me.
I was that last notch in his belt. A notch that had approximately zero inclination to sleep with anyone at the Academy, let alone someone I considered a friend.
My mind flickered briefly to two gargantuan instructors, betraying me in the lie.
But as hot as they both were, my vagina would remain closed for business.
I was not about to give the Academy any further incentive to throw me to the wolves—nothing more than my gender already gave them.
The only thing I wanted from this place was that one lonesome sniper assignment up for grabs.
I’d been working towards it for months, dedicating every spare second I could scrounge up to target practice, after I’d shown a sliver of adeptness with a Barrett M82.
Fleur had no such reservations, knowing she wouldn’t be given an assignment at all after Graduation. Her parents already had her whole future planned out: billionaire business heiress, set to marry a wealthy international politician's son, and have a trio of her own shiny, perfect babies.
Too bad Fleur had ideas of her own that her parents knew nothing about. She was going to run away, follow me on my first assignment, wherever in the world that happened to take me, and then we’d take our sweet-ass time heading to the next location.
We’d travel the world together—at least until her parents tracked her down and dragged her back into that perfect little existence they’d carved out for her.
“Ethan, darling, you know I love you”—he perked up at my saccharine tone—“but I’d rather turn up to formation naked than have sex with you.”
His face dropped into a scowl, then morphed into an expression of pure mischief. “Careful, Ads. I might just make that my next bet.” He winked.
“Ugh! Enough foreplay,” Fleur cut in. “Hands,” she demanded.
I held out both mangled hands, palm up, waiting for her to finish rummaging around in the med kit.
“Aha!” she exclaimed, holding a sad-looking little tube of medical-grade wound glue.
“I’ll do this one. You get the other, Taylor,” she ordered, with Eth as powerless to resist as I was.
She squeezed a thin line across each cut, ditched the tube, then pulled both sides of my hand back together until the glue set.
Ethan mimicked the action.
“Nice work, nurse Taylor,” I drawled, shooting him a wink.
“Now help me stitch this shoulder up, Taylor,” Fleur ordered before he could say or do anything in response to the jab.
Ethan’s deep-brown, half-moon eyes widened in real horror. “Uhh, Fleur… You know how terrible I am with a needle, right?”
She rolled her eyes before answering. “Yes, Ethan. I remember how shoddy your stitchwork is every time I look in a mirror and see this mess.” She lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing perhaps the only physical marring she possessed: a star-shaped, three-dimensional scar that ought to have been a simple, shiny patch of skin, but now looked like her lower abdomen got into a fight with a hot poker and lost—courtesy of Eth’s abysmal ‘stitches’ out in the field during an overnight assessment.
“Which is why I am the one with the needle and gloves,” she continued. “You just need to hold Adelaide still.”
“Hey, I can hold myself still,” I whined.
“Right, and the sun will rise in the west tomorrow,” Fleur shot back with sarcasm so thick I could taste it.
I scowled, knowing she was right but stubborn enough to deny needing help.
“C’mere, gorgeous,” Eth crooned from where he sat on the floor with his back braced against the porcelain bathtub, arms outstretched in invitation.
I grunted but plopped down in front of him, and he immediately draped one long arm around my torso—chivalrously ignoring my bare breasts—effectively pinning both arms to my sides. His free hand wrapped around my forehead, forcibly smooshing my face into the crook of his neck.
“What the fuck are you doing that for?”
My shoulder was throbbing by this point, all adrenaline completely drained from my system.
“I know you, Adelaide Sinclair,” Ethan murmured. “Once our mutual friend over there starts stitching, you’re going to start flailing.”
Fleur smirked.
“That includes your pretty head, and I’d rather keep my jaw intact tonight, thank you very much.”
He had a point—not that I’d ever agree with him out loud. Instead, I harrumphed and growled at Fleur to get started.