I n f i n i t u m

Chapter Twenty One

"Screwing in a storage room with the door wide open?"

Lefevere pulled a face that showed his disdain, "You better not let anybody else catch you two like this."

My jaw dropped to the floor. Lefevere took one more disdainful look at us, as if we were insects soiling his floor, and walked off without another word. Silence blanketed the small space, uncomfortable to say the least, but Wren shattered it by doubling-over and releasing an entire chorus of laughter.

"You have the nerve to be laughing?!" I exclaimed, exasperated, "He thinks we were fucking in here! You better explain this to him!"

"Okay, okay!" he gasped, "I'll take care of it!"

Completely mortified, I stomped out of the room and went in the direction of the elevators, planning to hide out in the safety of my dorm for the entire day. I knew that I was going to see Lefevere again tomorrow for our morning training, so I considered the thought of ditching...or possibly avoiding him for the rest of my life. It was tempting, but that idea quickly went down the drain once I realized that it would be damn near impossible.

The following morning, I entered the gym and automatically headed to the track, as Lefevere was already sitting at the center with his stop watch and tablet. After running two miles nonstop, I was made to do endless reps of pushups, sit ups, and burpees, that by the end of it, my entire body was throbbing with the sensation of pins and needles. I wanted to crawl right out of my skin, it was so unpleasant.

"It's hurting right?"

I sufficed for a simple nod.

"That's how it's supposed to feel when you use your lightning. It's good that it hurts. Give the electricity a chance to course through your entire body, not just your arms. Familiarize yourself with the sensation. It gets easier and less painful with time."

That made more sense, I suppose. I asked, "Does it get more stronger?"

"The currents you can release grows the more it gets associated with its host."

I winced when I straightened, trying to stretch out my spine. Lefevere got up from the stool and looked to be about ready to leave, "That's it for today. Your team got put on for a mission late last night, so I suggest heading to the conference room in HC-223 before the go-down starts."

I blanched, "What? You couldn't have told me sooner? I'm sweating like I just took a dunk in the pool!"

Lefevere shrugged with a rather infuriating smirk plastered on his handsome mug, "Better be quick then!"

.

.

.

When I entered the conference room, everyone from my squad was already seated at the round table. I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. I quietly made my way over, but the man speaking from the monitor everybody's attention was directed at, paused.

"As I was saying, this scouting mission is strictly a non-combatant one. In and out. You are to go into this zone and take tabs, anything out of the ordinary, you report in."

Nods and affirmative statements came from everyone in the room before the screen finally switched off. Wren got up, signaling for the rest of us to follow him up to the locker room. I trailed after the rest of the guys broodingly, silently cursing Lefevere for making me miss my first mission's debriefing.

The last thing I wanted to do was go out those gates with my head in my ass, so while I rode in the back seat of the humvee, I got Hak to explain the details I missed. The place we had been assigned to was an area under the territory of a gang. From the stories that I'd heard jumping around the base, they were anything but a normal society of survivors. These guys were an organized international body of criminals, with the complex and ruthless behavioral code intact and all.