Chapter Twenty-Four

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When Yalina announced Hector would be her new assistant coach, Rachel's nerves of steel turned to butter.

She hadn't seen him since the night he'd kissed her and then called it a mistake.

The urge to flee the room rose in her but after her daring confrontation with Yalina, she couldn't quit now more than ever.

She would not let that woman be right.

"Pick your feet up. Come on, that's pathetic!"

Yalina had them running an obstacle course of pure torture. Diving under barbed wire, climbing fifteen foot walls and running laps around a room made to look like an outdoor field until their lungs felt like they would explode.

Rachel struggled at the wall, her freshly injured hand protesting every time she tried to climb.

Yalina's eyes watched from across the room as if waiting for Rachel to give her even the smallest reason to take her out of drill. But if Rachel had gotten anything from her mother, it had been her stubbornness.

She took the small towel slung over her neck and wrapped her bandaged hand with it to create a cushion. This made getting her hand into the holes in the wall more difficult but she made her way up painstakingly.

Beside her, Hector instructed people on the proper technique to scale a wall with a rope and she dreaded that after this course, that's where she had to go next.

Putting one foot after the other, she finally made it to the top of the wall, with her hand screaming in agony. She gritted her teeth and pushed through it, knowing she just had to make it through today. She'd resolved to taking things one day at a time but right now that seemed impossible.

The temptation to quit roared it's ugly head inside her for the second time that day.

"Get to the next course, Wilson." Yalina yelled up to Rachel.

Rachel descended the ladder on the other side and jogged her way--slowly--towards Hector's station, all the while keeping her head ducked low to avoid looking at him. Three walls, similar to the one she'd just finished scaling stood in front of her but instead of having footholds, these were merely decorated with a single, brown rope.

She looked at the two other climbers and then at the empty wall that seemed to taunt her with the promise of pain. Slipping on a pair of gloves sitting on a pillar beside the rope station, she readied herself for what was to be a grueling climb.

"Rachel, hey, what happened to your hand?" Hector asked, coming up beside her.

"Rachel, hey, what happened to your hand?" Hector asked, coming up beside her

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She focused on the rope held between her hands as she replied. "It's nothing."

"Are you sure you should be doing this? Maybe you should let that heal first."

"I said I'm fine."

Rachel tested the strength of the rope.

It seemed to hold so she placed one boot against the wall. When she went to lift her second boot off the ground, her hand protested with a sharp pain that made her suck in a painful gasp and loose her grip.

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