Stinger (A Sign of Love Novel)

I was already worn completely out from a day of brutal workouts that started at five a.m. We had begun with a Grinder PT, a four-mile timed run in our boots and pants, in the soft sand, which we were expected to do in thirty-two minutes or less, we ran sand dunes, and then we did a two thousand meter swim, and that was only before lunch.

But there wasn't a choice. All eight of us had lined up shoulder to shoulder as the instructors stood before us, looking at us disgustedly. "If you can't even be trusted to take care of a piece of equipment, how the fuck are we supposed to trust you with our lives in the field, shitbags?" We stood silently as the instructors berated us, telling us what fuck-ups we were. That was okay. At least it was a small break.

But then the beating had started. They had told us to run to the surf, get wet, and run back in two minutes. When we got back, Instructor Wegman had looked at his timer and shook his head. "Two minutes, ten seconds, shitbags. For every second you're late past two minutes, you do that number of eight-count body-builders." And so we had done our ten body-builders and then ran back to the surf again to try to do it in less than two minutes. The second time, it had been two minutes, and twelve seconds. So we did twelve, eight-count body-builders. Each time, we took longer and longer, our bodies physically unable to pick up speed in our exhaustion. This had been going on for five hours. We were now doing sixty, eight-count body builders, barely able to move, limping back from the water each time, wanting to crawl.

As my legs buckled beneath me on the way to the water, a guy next to me grabbed onto my waist and pulled me up. "Whoa, steady. I got ya. Take it slow and give it a minute to recoup in the water. There's no way we'll make it back in under two anyway. Let's just try to make it back."

I gave my legs a minute to stop shaking and continued on with him toward the surf. "Thanks, man," I groaned out, grimacing as bolts of pain shot up both legs.

"My first name's Noah."

I nodded. I only knew him by his last name, Dean. "Carson."

Noah muttered, "Fucking hell," as he dunked himself in the cold, nighttime ocean water and then stood up and closed his eyes for a minute, unmoving, letting his body rest. I followed suit and after a few seconds, we turned and started moving toward the shore again, this time our teeth chattering, shivering with cold. It was fucking miserable.

"I can't do this anymore," I ground out, my jaw unwilling to move it was shaking so hard.

"I bet you said that three hours ago, too," Noah ground out. "I know I did. And yet, turned out we were wrong because here we are, still doing it."

My face twisted into something maybe resembling a smile as we limped up the shore back toward the Grinder for another set of body-builders. Maybe a hundred this time.

I stumbled away slightly as a classmate next to me vomited onto the beach.

"Shitbags, don't fail knife inspection again," Instructor Flynn said, getting up from the platform the instructors had been sitting on watching us all night. We were dismissed.

As we started limping away, Instructor Flynn said, "Hold up. Before you go in, clean up all this sand you got all over the PT area."

An hour later, we limped inside to sleep for an hour before morning PT would start. As Noah turned to go toward his room, I said, "Hey, thanks again."

Noah just nodded, giving me his own version of something resembling a smile.

When I pulled myself out of bed an hour later, feeling like I had fallen off a cliff and hit every jagged rock on the way down, I thought to myself, there is no fucking way I can do this for another day. How the hell am I going to make it through Hell Week when I can't even make it through one brutal punishment for one night? Hell Week was going to be five days and nights like the one I'd just endured, probably much, much worse, on zero sleep. I was losing it from only having an hour of rest. How would I make it a full week with no sleep, and being tortured constantly? From what I heard, by Friday, most men were delirious and swollen so badly, they were asked not to go out in public. I simply wasn't cut out for this. It was a wrap.

I limped outside intending to ring the bell. In that moment, nothing seemed more important than getting back in bed and trying not to move. I felt half-crazed with pain and exhaustion.

As I stepped outside, the sun was just breaking over the horizon of the Pacific Ocean in front of me. I stood still, my eyes trained on that small sliver of brilliant orange. I closed my eyes and pictured Grace standing in front of me, my arms around her as we had gazed out at the same picture. Grace. An energy shot through me, giving me the smallest burst of strength, just enough to turn back around and walk inside, away from the bell and toward the showers.





CHAPTER 17


Fourteen Months Later, June

Grace



I moved a pile of mail aside, making room on the counter for the takeout salads I had just picked up for Abby and me.

She sat down on the barstool next to me and started opening and arranging her food.