Chapter 9 - TWELVE MILES
At 0430, Maya stood under floodlights with a thirty-five-pound ruck on her back.
Rourke held a stopwatch.
“Quit anytime,” he said.
Maya tightened the straps.
“I’ll let you know.”
The route wound through wet training roads and low hills beyond the base perimeter. Tessa ran medical support in a vehicle behind the group. Connor started three positions ahead of Maya.
By mile four, Maya’s shoulders burned.
By mile seven, her right heel had opened into a blister.
By mile ten, two soldiers had dropped.
Rourke drove past in a government truck and rolled down the window.
“Still proving something?”
Maya kept walking.
“No, First Sergeant.”
“What, then?”
“Documenting.”
His expression tightened before the truck moved on.
Maya crossed the finish line under the standard.
Tessa checked the stopwatch on her own phone.
“Two hours, twenty-six.”
Rourke wrote something on the official sheet.
Maya stepped closer.
He had entered 2:47.
Twenty-one minutes slower.
“Wrong time,” Maya said.
Rourke capped the pen. “Official clock.”
Tessa held up her phone. “Mine says twenty-six.”
“Your phone isn’t official.”
Connor walked over, still breathing hard.
“My watch says twenty-five and change.”
Rourke looked at him.
“You want to join her problem?”
Connor met his eyes.
“Maybe I already did.”
For the first time, Maya saw Rourke understand that Connor was no longer under control.
Then a medic approached with Maya’s gear bag.
“Sergeant Bennett, this was open when we found it.”
Maya unzipped it.
Her spare gloves were gone.
In their place was a pair she had never seen before.
Tessa picked one up.
The padding had been cut almost completely away over the knuckles.
If Maya wore them, every strike would look like she had intentionally removed safety padding.
May you like
And the next event was combatives.
Someone was trying to make her fail and look guilty doing it.
