THE GIRL IN front of Devora shrugged her shoulders once in dismay, a pout making its way to her rosy red lips as she assessed Devora's figure. She tapped the pen in her hand against the corner of her mouth, hesitating for a split second before scribbling profusely on her clipboard. As she wrote, her lips moved to utter words Devora couldn't quite catch. It was only when she strained her ears that she caught the words 'too skinny' and 'it's gonna be tough' murmured under the blonde's breath.
"Alright." Slapping her clipboard and pen on the metal table, the girl straightened up with a fierce glint of determination shining brightly in her eyes. "My name is Candice, I'm sure Nathan had already told you, and I'll be your trainer for today."
At her words, Devora simply nodded. She wasn't sure what she should say in such a situation. Nathan was supposed to be the one training her but due to a last-minute emergency, he got pulled out of the building by Julius Cain to complete a task. One in which Devora didn't have 'high enough of a clearance' to know about.
"Devora Evans... Is that how you pronounce it? Devora?" Candice raised a single eyebrow questioningly.
The twitchy little brunette nodded her head a few more times.
"Yes," she affirmed. "Deborah, but with a 'v' instead of a 'b'."
From the corner of her eyes, she could see a few other guys in the gym perk up in attention the second Candice voiced her name out loud. They giggled like a bunch of schoolgirls, some of them nudging their elbows against their friends' waists as they spoke in hushed whispers, their gazes constantly fixed on Devora. She squirmed under their scrutinizing gaze, memories of her days in school flooding back to her mind. These boys (they didn't deserve to be called men) reminded Devora distinctly about a certain someone that had mocked her one too many times. She had nearly forgotten about it with the rush of the previous few days but alas, the memory soon returned to her.
"Right..." Candice trailed off, toying around with the weapons she laid out on the metal table prior to the start of the training session. She reached past the clipboard and picked up a small blade, her finger stroking the gleaming metal tenderly. "Cute name," she commented.
Picking up the knife, Candice moved in a flash of movements. She turned around to face the boys behind her, swinging her arm swiftly as she sent the blade soaring. Her throw took not even a single second's worth of hesitation but it was aimed to perfection. The pointed tip was wedged into the wall right in-between two of the boys, the sharp end skimming against one's earlobe. They were all stunned silly, their voices lost in their throats. The guy that had gotten the blade closest to him reached up, touching his injured ear. When he looked down at his hands, his fingertips were coated with red. The cut had sliced through the skin, thus inducing blood.
Turning back to the metal table, Candice didn't even spare them a glance as she spoke. Her tone was monotonous but when looked at a little closer, Devora found hints of a threat laced in her words.
"Keep your mouths shut, boys," she warned. "Or it will be your throats next."
Almost immediately, the boys started to scramble away frantically, the injured one gently nursing his ear as he did so. The scene was so hilarious that for a split second, Devora had forgotten that they, too, were trained assassins and not the average teenage dirtbags.
"Now, where was I?" Candice calmly scratched her chin before she straightened up. Pressing her knuckles against the table, the joints popped under the pressure as she continued to think, absentmindedly moving her hands here and there to get all the air bubbles out. She brightened up after a few moments, grinning. "I know! Let's start with a quick round of stretching before timing you on the treadmill."
With her clipboard and pen in hand, she led Devora over to where the treadmills were. After going through a few stretching exercises with her to prep her for the run, she gestured at the machine, implying for her to get on.
"We'll start easy," she said, fiddling with the buttons on the sports equipment. "Three miles. I'll let you adjust the speed according to what you're comfortable with but let's aim for forty minutes. That should be easy for a beginner like you, right?"
Scribbling madly on her clipboard, Candice kept her eyes glued on Devora as the latter fixed a speed for herself to start off with. Once Devora was ready, her finger hovered over the start button. She cast a glance over at Candice, waiting for the blonde to give her a signal.
"Alright," Candice huffed out. "And your time starts now."
♕♕♕
Her timing was awful.
The first mile passed by perfectly. Devora had paced herself to make sure she would be able to meet both Candice's standards in regards to time and also make it to the end of the entire course. However, she didn't think that her body would buckle so soon. By the time she made it to the last mile, her legs burned and ached. She had forgotten about the wound that was just recently bandaged and had depended on her injured leg too much. As a result, the wound reopened and she had bled all over her pants.
Due to the pain of her wound, her speed got slower and slower. Ultimately, she spent the last mile walking instead of running or jogging. She had also gritted her teeth through the pain, refusing to voice out her discomfort. Hence, Candice, who was busy with writing down comments on her clipboard and offering tips to Leah who had entered the gym sometime during Devora's run, hadn't noticed something was off.
One of her pant legs were soaked through with blood by the time she had stopped. She hobbled off the treadmill like a newborn fawn, her legs wiggling like a plate of jelly before collapsing on the floor in a thud.
"Geez," Candice clicked her tongue under her breath. She had been on the other side of the room, coaching Leah with knife throws. When she noticed that Devora was finally done with her three miles, she made her way over. "You're finally done. Even my grandmother could run faster than you and the poor woman's already six feet under, God bless her soul."
On the floor, Devora made a gurgled groan in response.
Her eyes were shut, squeezed tightly together as she struggled to regulate her breathing. At the back of her head, she could faintly recall the words of her school's fitness teacher barking out reminders to not lie down after a bout of intense exercise. However, she couldn't find the strength in her muscles to stand back up. Her shoulders heaved up and down as she sucked in breath after breath but no matter how much she tried to breathe, the oxygen didn't seem to stay.
"You're going to kill her at this rate."
Through her hazy vision, she could faintly make out the silhouette of three newcomers entering the gym when she cracked one eye open. One of them walked over faster than Candice could, one of his hands gently pulling Devora up to her feet before leading her to the seat of an exercise equipment.
"Drink," the mysterious person instructed, shoving an opened bottle of water into her hands.
Instantly, Devora chugged the drink down like it was her last safety line. The bottle was emptied in seconds, water trickling down the sides of her mouth in her haste. Once she was done, her lips parted from the bottle with a soft 'pop', sighing loudly in satisfaction.
"Is this how you're taking care of my partner?" Devora couldn't quite see yet as her vision was still hazy. However, she was sure it was Nathan that spoke this time. "Maybe I should drop Cain a message to let him know you're planning on murdering his new recruits."
"She's bleeding!" This time, it was Travis who spoke.
Truthfully, Devora had forgotten about her leg and was only reminded of it when she heard Travis's words. It had dropped off her mind for a minute there.
"Jesus Christ."
Blinking furiously, the world slowly started to come back into view. Three people stood in front of her— Candice, Travis, and who Devora remembered to be Dallas. Nathan kneeled beside her injured leg, checking out her injury with a first aid kit right by his side.
Dallas, a young man that didn't seem much older than Devora was herself, glared at Candice. One of his hands was bandaged up and slung from his shoulder in a cast. He looked significantly worse for wear than the last time Devora had seen him which was in Julius Cain's office. A few bandaids were scattered around his face, covering up scratches and other small wounds he must've sustained from the mission he spoke of previously.
"She won't die so easily," Candice snorted, rolling her eyes. "If she lived through whatever hell she was placed in before landing herself here, she'll survive a few miles on the treadmill with a small flesh wound." Folding her arms, her frown slowly quirked up into a teasing smirk. "On the other hand, how's your arm doing?"
Dallas scowled at her question.
"Better, no thanks to you." He slightly shifted his bandaged arm, the white medical cloth decorated with a few scribbles in black ink, all well wishes to pray for his speedy recovery. "You practically left me there to die. It may be our last mission together but that didn't mean that I wanted it to be the last mission altogether."
"Oh, don't exaggerate, Dallas." Edging closer to him, Candice slung her arm over her ex-partner's shoulders, causing the latter to wince. "You know the rules. Whoever lags behind gets left behind. I tried, sweetheart. I really did."
"You took down three people and left the other twenty to me," Dallas deadpanned. Candice simply shrugged, amusement dancing across her face.
"Well, maybe if you weren't late I would've helped out more. I can't chip a nail just because of your incompetence."
Beside her, Nathan had cleaned out the reopened wound and was now wrapping layers of bandage over her leg. The bleeding had significantly stopped and the white medical cloth was only speckled with a few drops of red instead of soaking through the material.
"Since when did you care about chipping your nails?" Dallas snorted.
Candice raised a hand. Devora could barely keep her gasps contained when she realized that the blonde had no fingernails. Her fingertips were pink and raw, the flesh exposed.
"Since they got pulled out 'cause you were late to the mission instead of arriving on the priorly agreed time," Candice replied simply, her lips still stretched into a wide grin. However, the smile didn't reach her eyes. "Why don't I pull out your nails and see if you can still perform your best?"
Travis hissed audibly, cringing at the sight of Candice's lack of nails.
Nathan, who had tucked everything back into the first aid kit and was done with dressing Devora's wound, stood to his feet. He lightly slapped Dallas's shoulder twice in encouragement, whistling.
"That one's on you, man," he muttered. Then he spun around to face Candice, passing her the first aid kit before making his way back to Devora's side. "Candice, I'm going to have to steal Devora away for a short while. Boss's orders."
Candice raised a hand, gesturing for Nathan to do as he pleased.
"Go ahead," she said nonchalantly. "But if he's checking on her progress, I'll have you know that it will be long before she gets anywhere near ready. If you don't want to get her killed, it's best not to send her on any missions until she can at least keep up."
"I doubt it's a mission," Dallas commented. "He's still waiting for them to get assessed at the end of the month. It's a new safety precaution after losing so many newcomers just because they were unprepared. He wouldn't want to make that mistake again."
"Yeah..." Nathan hummed under his breath. With a hand on Devora's waist, he hoisted her to her feet, giving her time to balance before moving his hand to support her via her arm instead. His grip was soft, almost as if he was handling delicate china, and he was careful to walk slowly so that she could keep up without straining her leg. "I'll let you guys know later."
As they walked past Dallas, Candice, and Travis, Nathan lifted his spare hand and waved goodbye without turning around. They left the gym shortly after, the doors closing shut, leaving both of them alone as they journeyed down the silent corridor towards the devil's office.
————
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