Be My Fool

Chapter Five

D: No, I don't own Alex.

xxxx

Was the river made out of concrete? No. But it sure as hell felt like it.

My bones shuddered as my descent slowed dramatically as I plummeted through the ice cold, black water. I hovered underwater for a second before the trapped air in my lungs carried me above the water's surface. Gasping like a drowned zebra [please don't ask me why I thought of that] I clumsily pushed my hair away from my face with my numb hands and blinked rapidly to try and get rid of the water from my eyes.

I could make out a figure in the distance, on the shoreline, jumping up and down and waving at me. Noticing the ginger hair I started to try and co-ordinate my disorientated arms and legs to swim towards that area. The current was quite strong so I was practically swimming sideways, but I eventually made it.

My feet bumped into the ground and I started to trudge uphill towards where they were waiting, getting colder each second, the more I came out of the water. Water streamed from my clothes and, once I was completely out of the water, my shoes squiged from the amount of it it had soaked up. Shivering violently I tried to brace myself against the wind which was picking up and joined the others.

Sam grinned brightly at me and stepped closer before I could talk to Chloe, 'You look like a rat!'

I glared at him and replied, 'Sh-shut the f-fuck up.'

Laughing he flung an arm around me and started rubbing my arm, 'You shouldn't be nasty to a person trying to help you. See, you're warming up already!'

My glare intensified but he was right, he was quite warm.

Chloe grinned at me, her torso wrapped in an army jacket, 'Aw, don't you two look so sweet together!'

I opened my mouth to reply but somebody beat me to it.

'Okay,' Fox announced, clapping loudly once and rubbing his hands together. We all spun to face him and he smiled – a lot more friendlier than any other of the soldiers had been before, 'So, this morning you lot were put through two endurance tests. You should be able to recall them, yes?'

He paused for a second and we nodded slowly. You couldn't blame us, it was sort of freaking us out.

'Yes, well, this afternoon we're testing skills. And that, up there, that performance was disturbingly bad.' He shot us all a small glare, something we were more used to, 'We're meant to be grading you to put you into new Units but if all of the others are going to give performances like that, this is going to be quite pointless.' He took a large sigh, his shoulders deflating slightly as he took all of our sheepish expressions in.

'We've never done anything like this before, sir,' Sam spoke up, shrugging slightly as he held Fox's gaze, 'Heck, we don't even know why we need to be good at anything like this. You can't really blame us for being bad at it.'

'Yeah,' Grace pouted, nodding her head like a bobble-doll and putting a hand on her hip, which was rather comical to say the least, 'We haven't even been told why we're doing this so what's the deal?'

I rolled my eyes slightly at her antics but kept my mouth buttoned.

'Look,' Cub snapped and our eyes fixated on his smaller frame, but not by much. His eyes were dark and narrowed in our direction, 'We're here to train you, end of story. We didn't expect you to be so worthless, we had higher standards. What Fox is saying is that now we have to have new criteria to put you into new units.'

Fox took over from here after a stern look in Cub's direction, even though he just shrugged it off anyway, 'That's why we need you to try your best, okay? The next task for today is orienteering. All you have to do is find your way back, through this wood to the other side to get back to the showers and cabin. We have some spare clothes here,' he pointed to two large tubs behind them, 'and also bags you can lend to put your wet clothes in. Once you're all ready, we'll start.'

'You mean, get changed right here?' Chloe blurted, eyes wide and cheeks tinted pink, 'B-but-'

'Get on with it,' Cub snapped at her before spinning and stalking away.

'I'll be back soon, ' Fox nodded before rushing off after him.

Chloe glared after them, 'PMS-ing much?'

Sighing I watched as the others didn't move a muscle and reached over to tug on her wrist, 'Tell me about it, I think he's on his man-period.'

'Man-period?' she quirked an eyebrow at me and allowed me to tug her forward, towards the barrels, 'What the hell is a man-period?'

Pondering for a second as I put one hand under the lid and the other on the side of the barrel I replied, 'Look it up in an urban dictionary, that'll tell you.' The lid snapped off and I dropped it to the floor before peering inside, 'But, for now, try and find something decent in here to wear.'

Chloe grimaced and held her nose dramatically as she stood on her tiptoes and looked down over it, 'Is that even legal?'

'I don't know, you tell me,' I yanked out a purple top that looked big enough to fit Sam, me and Wolf in and flung it onto her face.

I laughed at her as she squealed loudly and scrabbled at the material to discard it onto the floor. Her face was flushed and her eyes were narrowed into slits in my direction.

Spinning and tossing out an old pair of muddy cargo shorts I muffled my laughter and continued the hunt for clothes that would be fit for a teenaged girl... if there were any in here.

'Ew,' Chloe cried, yanking a pink lycra bra out of the tub and dropping it hastily, 'That is disgusting!'

'Well apparently the SAS don't think so,' I smirked at her and she pushed me. I knew she only meant it lightly but with my current lack of balance from almost-nearly drowning I ended up falling over – into the tub.

Sweat.

Ew.

Boisterous laughter echoed in the small, confined space and Chloe peered over the top of the barrel. I glared until she subsided into sniggers and commented, oh so angelically, 'Want some help there, Jen?'

I stood up and pushed her away from the barrel so I could climb out, probably blushing an unattractive tomato colour, before using both hands to help me jump onto the pebbles. I probably reeked of sweat by now but that wasn't what I was worried about. No.

What I was worried about was the humungous spider that was currently clinging to my right arm.

Chaos ensued.

Screaming the loudest I could, I batted the ugly thing away from me and started shaking my arm violently. It wasn't long for things to go absolutely ballistic though, things just kept on escalating. Chloe raised the alarm by squealing 'TARANTULA!' at the top of her lungs to which the girls started to run off in different directions and the boys tried to act 'cool' until they saw the size of the thing and then Chloe picked up a cloth and started to whack the thing and then Sam came over with a wet t-shirt to try and drown it and then ended up accidently splashing Chloe so she screamed and thought it was the spider and then fell backwards against the tubs which then fell over and then all the clothes spewed out and then Cub and Fox came back and then we were all told to shut up, get in line or else we'd get kitchen duty for the rest of the week.

Ahem.

Yeah, all of that happened because I laughed at Chloe in the beginning. In the long term, that is. In the short term, this would probably be... their fault. For supplying the clothes. Or maybe... whatever, but it was somebody's fault.

'Pick some clothes, get them on before we come back again,' Cub's eyes flashed dangerously, again, as he glared at us, 'Or I swear to damned God-'

'Spider!' I screamed loudly, pointing at a spot near Chloe's foot. She screamed too, jumping back but Sam, being the saviour that he is, stomped on it with his foot. I kept my eyes on the floor, afraid of what I would look up to. Nothing but the sound of the rushing river could be heard.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

'What did I say?' I recognised the voice that was currently whispering into my ear and resisted the urge to shiver. I wasn't sure whether it was because I was a) scared out of my wits or b) immensely attracted to him. I'd rather go for a) to be honest with you. I froze instead, hoping to God that he couldn't hear my heart thumping.

'That was a question, it requires an answer.' He hissed again and I could feel my face flush slightly and my hands start to shake. Jesus it was so freaking loud, how the hell could he not hear it?

Swallowing loudly I replied, to the now extremely interesting pebbles, 'To shut up.' It came out like a question and I added quickly, 'Sir.'

Silence ensued before a light pressure lifted my chin up to look at him. My brain couldn't even process anything but breathing at this point and those stupid, chocolate brown eyes that didn't even seem to comprehend what the hell they were doing to me.

. .

'Look at me when I talk to you,' he eventually muttered before taking a step back, 'And kitchen duty, tonight.'

'Yes sir,' I muttered in reply, wishing that people would stop looking at me. My cheeks were probably on fire by now, I could feel the heat radiating from them and at the bottom of my eyes. My body felt flushed but strangely cold now that he'd stepped away.

On the bright side, I could now breathe again and get oxygen to my air-deprived body – even my heart beat was starting to slow down already.

'Get your clothes, we'll be back soon,' Fox repeated, clearing his throat loudly to get our attention before nodding and turning away. Cub had already started to walk away.

Shit, he was even better close up.

Chloe giggled and I snapped my head in her direction.

'You two may as well of been shagging for all of that sexual ten- oomf!' I flung a bundle of socks at her to get her to shut up and spun away to hide my red face. She returned to giggling and searching for clothes and I looked around for something that I could wear.

No matter what, I vowed to myself, I will not let myself like Cub. I will not let myself like Cub. I will not let myself like Cub.

Yet... no matter how many times I said it to myself, the butterflies still kept on rampaging around in my stomach and my skin still burned from where he'd touched it.

xxxx

Fifteen minutes later I was lined up next to Chloe dressed in black Nike shorts, a three-quarter arm-lengthed navy top, white ankle socks and a pair of ancient coming-away-from-the-rim Adidas trainers. I'd also taken a blue bag and shoved my clothes in there before slinging it onto my back so that I wouldn't have to worry about it falling off.

Chloe passed me a bobble and a large comb after she'd done her hair and I started to try and put my hair up into a ponytail. See, the bright side of having Grace with you is that she always carries hair and make-up supplies. She was a canny bairn at heart 1.

'I just got word from Sam,' Chloe said, turning to face me, 'That tomorrow we're going to be doing 'Physical Fighting',' she put air quotations around the words as she said them, 'tomorrow morning before lunch and then, after 'lunch',' she used more air quotes, 'we're going on a 'short walk'.' She finished her third set of air quotes, looking exasperated, 'And then, for the next two weeks, we'll be training. Whoop-de-freaking -doo... But I guess that could just be bull from goodness-knows-who.'

I smiled sarcastically, finishing off my hair and passing the comb over to Grace again, 'I'll second that statement but, on the bright side, at least you won't have kitchen duty tonight so you can just konk out straight away.'

She smirked but we were interrupted, like before, by Fox as he clapped his hands once to get our attention.

'Right, now,' he announced, smiling almost genuinely at us, 'Each of you have, by your unawares, picked your number in turn to start. Flick over to look at the back of your map, who's number one?'

Grabbing my map from my back pocket I unfolded it and fipped over the A4 sheet to reveal a big, fat, red number 2. Crap.

Or... good. I'm not sure which to think at the moment, I felt a little like puking.

'Oh. My. God!' Grace squawked, face unnaturally white, 'NO!'

A lot of arguing and squealing later, Cub got her into the forest by saying she'd be on kitchen duty for the rest of her stay here if she didn't go in.

'Number two?' Fox rang out and I raised my hand hesitatingly, 'Off you go then, Gray.'

Nodding nervously I headed out into forest is what direction I hoped was south-west.

'Good luck!' Chloe called after me as I slipped under a fallen branch. The sunlight faded quickly below the canopy of trees and even the sounds of the river faded into silence fast. Soon it was just me, the forest and silence. The floor was slippery and the trees were covered in moss which made it no easier to navigate myself around. All I knew, according to the map, is that if I kept on going south-west for three miles then I'll end up next to the martial arts barracks and I know how to get to the shower block from there.

The first obstacle was easy enough to spot – it was a fan propeller. The map was quite accurate to say the least, there was a huge drop from this spot of land I was standing on to the spot of land two foot away from me. At an estimate, I would say about a thirty foot drop.

Stuffing the map into my back pocket I shimmied into the poor excuse of a safety harness and strapped myself on, following the aged instructions that were pinned to the tree next to me, and hovered at the edge. I teetered for a second before stepping off bravely.

Okay... maybe not. Maybe I hung around for a minute, teetering over the edge, when a bird squawked and I accidently fell off. I ended up in a heap at the bottom, my legs having gave way when I hit the ground.

'Nugh.' I muffled, spitting out mud from my mouth and scrambling to my feet. I just wanted to get out of here.

And fast.

A prickling feeling had rose the hairs on my neck and my pace picked up, my hands fumbling with the lock and I started to walk away quickly from the area. I was being watched. There was no doubt about it. My skin felt clammy and my adrenaline was pumping, something was going to h-

'Woah!' The 'floor' caved inwards and I was swallowed up into the dark pit. I hit the floor below and blinked a few times as the trap covered itself up again.

For a group of men who couldn't be arsed with us, they sure put in plenty of effort to make these courses.

xxxx

1 to people who don't understand that, it means that she's a good kid at heart in other words :)

LoveYou

InsignificantBlimp

**[[25thJune2011]]**