Chapter 645:
“Eyes front,” she said. Her voice wasn’t a scream, but it projected from her diaphragm, clear and sharp.
She turned around.
“Forward… MARCH!”
The command was a whip crack.
“Left. Left. Left, right, left.”
Her cadence was perfect. It was hypnotic. It tapped into something primal in the human brain. The students found their feet syncing up without thinking.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound changed. It became one massive heartbeat.
“Sound off!” Aurora called.
“ONE, TWO!” the squad roared back, surprising themselves with the volume.
They marched around the track. Aurora led them with a natural authority that couldn’t be taught. She adjusted the pace for the shorter students, then sped it up on the straights. She was conducting an orchestra of boots.
Brittany was in the back row, struggling to keep up. She was tripping over her own feet, furious that everyone was following “the nobody.”
“She’s going too fast!” Brittany whined.
Aurora heard her. She didn’t slow down.
“Double time… MARCH!” Aurora shouted.
The squad broke into a synchronized jog.
Stomp-stomp-stomp.
Brittany couldn’t handle the transition. She tangled her legs and went down hard, face-planting into the dust.
𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘁 g𝗮𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝗲𝗅𝘀.ⅽ𝗼𝗺
The squad didn’t stop. They split around her like a river around a rock, continuing their rhythm.
“Halt!” Gordon yelled, but he was suppressing a smile.
The squad stopped as one.
Gordon walked over to Brittany, who was spitting out dirt.
“Get up,” Gordon said. “You’re holding up my unit.”
“She tripped me!” Brittany lied, pointing at Aurora, who was twenty yards away.
“She’s at the front of the formation, Brittany,” Gordon said dryly. “Unless she has telekinesis, you tripped yourself.”
He looked at Aurora. He gave her a curt nod. It wasn’t friendship. It was professional acknowledgement.
“Good lead, Vance. Keep it up.”
Aurora nodded back. “Yes, sir.”
Brittany sat in the dirt, watching the squad look at Aurora with shining eyes. They liked following her. She made them feel strong.
Brittany realized then that she wasn’t losing a popularity contest. She was losing a war.
Wednesday was the “Urban Combat Simulation.”
The camp had a mock city—plywood buildings, burnt-out cars, and a maze of alleyways. The students were armed with paintball guns loaded with high-velocity rounds.
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.
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