The Secret Service [KINGSMAN]

ix. HAVE A BLAST

NINE.
HAVE A BLAST

After almost getting blown up by a land mine for the sixth time that day, Bex was starting to get really tired of Merlin's shit.

"Oh, fuck me sideways-!"

She threw herself forward, tucking her knees into a roll as she dove. Her hands barely had time to graze the damp, dark earth before the trees behind her erupted into flames. Bex hit the ground hard, knocked flat by the explosion. She allowed herself to lay flat on the ground for four seconds, her shoulder aching from where it had absorbed the impact of her fall, and her ears ringing, before she made herself get up. Bex stumbled to her feet, swinging her gun up to her face. She peered through the scope, scanning the surrounding woods for attackers.

Clear.

She was already on her sixth month of training, countless days spent in the complex and the shooting range, but she still hadn't quite gotten used to Merlin's flair for the dramatic.

Bex let out a sigh, rubbing her shoulder and rolling her eyes. God forbid they just learn how to shoot a gun. Oh, no, that would be much too simple. Apparently they needed forty acres of death traps to run around in, shooting each other while Merlin sipped freaking espresso from the safety of the mansion. He was a big fan of the exercises that pitted each other against each other, and Bex knew for a fact the guys in the tech department had bets running with him on who would make it longest. Jim from IT only had three pounds riding on her, which she found kind of offensive.

But even Bex had to admit she liked the competition. Even before, she always liked beating her opponent, whether it be a thug reaching for her in an alley or a bratty classmate. Bex loved winning. Board games, fist fights, exams, and even Merlin's exercises.

They were currently running Dante's Project. Merlin had taken inspiration from Dante's Inferno and his circles of Hell, creating a maze of concentric rings like a target in the middle of the woods. He liked to name their exercises after pretentious shit. Each sector had a different threat, and the goal was to reach the center without being taken down by any of your opponents or the obstacles that lay in the way. The bullets in their guns had been replaced with darts that only rendered the victim unconscious, but the land mines Bex was picking her way through were very, very real.

She had made it past the trees filled with snipers, the electrified creek that ran heart-stopping shocks through every patch of damp earth, and the acid fog, but the land mines were giving her hell. Bex may have been quick on her feet, but she didn't walk with any sort of grace. Between her natural clumsiness and the sharp rocks and twigs poking up from the forest floor, she'd spent more time tripping than walking. Bex had triggered so many bombs the ground was riddled with smoking craters like bullet holes.