Rayah huffed, puffed and glistened with sweat as she did her sunrise run. Circling the Personnel Quarters for her third lap, she heard a voice calling out from behind her.
"You're doing it all wrong, Barbie."
She turned around and saw Vincent sitting on a bench, smoking and drinking coffee. He was without his black leather jacket, but wearing the same white shirt, jeans and boots.
"I'm sorry," she said, looking confused. "Are you talking to me? Did you just say--"
"Yes, I'm talking to you, and yes, I did say you're doing it wrong."
She walked up to him. "Oh? What was I doing wrong exactly?"
"You're doing everything in third gear," he said. The right way's to do it in second gear for thirty seconds, then sprint to fifth gear for ten seconds, then go back to second gear for thirty seconds. Rinse and repeat." He sipped his coffee.
She tilted her head and forced a smile. "I'm sorry, who are you again?"
"Vincent Reed." He flicked ash off his cigarette. "I'm been assigned to train you."
Rayah offered a handshake. "Oh, pleased to meet you, I'm Rayah Reyes."
He looked at her sweaty hand.
"I hope you don't mind if that I don't shake that clammy thing."
She wiped the sweat off it on her shorts and scowled. "Are you a better person after your morning coffee, or are you always an asshole?"
"Hey," He gave the teenager a reprimanding look. "Respect."
She bowed. "Sorry."
"Now go seven more laps, this time the way I told you to."
She held out her hands. "But I don't have a stopwatch."
"Then do the counting in your head, agent," he said behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Rayah ran as Vincent instructed. He watched her closely.
Inside the HQ's rock climbing gym, Rayah negotiated the climbing wall adeptly, going up from one handhold to another with respectable speed and relative ease. She reached the top and made her way back down with the same agility and grace. She walked to Vincent, who clicked his stopwatch and shook his head.
"Not fast enough, go again."
She sank. "But that's the fastest one so far, right?"
"Yes, but still off by point four from our target time. Go again, Barbie."
She sighed and went back to the wall.
On one side of the vast SAGE HQ Simulation Studio stood a twenty foot wall made of four inch thick hard glass. A wooden platform jutted out above it. Rayah stood on the platform in front of a long ladder that snaked downward.
"Okay," she said, holding a pair of long black cables. "Now, what?"
"Hook the cables on your shins," Vincent said, sitting on a stool below.
She complied.
"Now get the laser glass cutter to your right."
She grabbed a gadget that looked like a small hair dryer.
"Good," he said. "Now hang upside down, cut a hole on the glass big enough for you to go through, then squeeze yourself through it."
"Wait," she said. "I'm going to hang upside down?
YOU ARE READING
Wrath Of The Butterfly: Rayah Reyes Chronicles Book 1
ActionLourdes was just a typical teenager who'd recently graduated high school, until a heinous crime left her family dead and put her in a coma. Her medical condition attracted the attention of a mysterious international security agency, which took her i...
