The Hidden Princess: Finding Hope (Book One)

Chapters Fifteen - You Know The Drill (e)

"Five minutes!" A voice called. I groaned as I pulled the blankets closer to me. My eyes sprung open as my blanket was ripped from my bed. I looked up to see Benedict standing over me.

"That was Erik! We have five minutes to be at the obstacle course or we get latrine duty all week," he said, grabbing me and pulling me to my feet. "Get dressed in clothing you can move in," he said before grabbing Alakay and pulling him off the top bunk sending him sprawling to the floor. "You should have been up by now you know the drill," he said to Alakay before going to finish getting ready.

I glanced to where Alakay lay sprawled on the floor at my feet. "Good thing I let you take the top," I said, reaching out my hand to help him up. He nodded with a yawn.

"I hate morning torture runs," he mumbled, as he dug around for clothing.

I hesitated. I didn't have time to get to the latrine and change. I didn't have time to wait for my brothers to leave. I glanced around and saw that they were all busy getting themselves ready. I took the chance and prayed no one would notice as I pulled my nightshirt off and slid into a simple shirt. "Thank you, Ally," I thought as I adjusted the tight tank top covering the strips of cloth around my breasts. If it wasn't for the tank top the guys would at some point see the cloth and question why I had my chest wrapped. I quickly pulled on my boots and ran over to the door where the guys were waiting.

We jogged in silence to where Erik stood with arms crossed and a grin spread across his face. "And I was hoping you wouldn't make it," he said with a chuckle.

"We got stuck with latrine duty last early morning run. I wasn't letting it happen again," Benedict said.

Erik laughed. "Someone has to do it and I thought with having Sam here you'd like to introduce him to all the aspects of Red Dragon life," he said. He didn't wait for a response as he walked over to the start of the course. "Brooks' group started five minutes ago. You start now. You have to complete the course without being caught and until you do no breakfast. Micah's group will start in five minutes. If they catch you then you start again. Go!" he said. None of us said anything as we started the course at a run.

I was kept in the middle of the group as we ran. The obstacle course consisted of six obstacles.

The first we came to was a belly crawl under fifteen feet of rope intertwined with thorns. We all quickly finished this section and headed to the next one. This one took us all a bit longer, but we made it. First, you climbed a net then crossed logs. Here you climbed a slanted ladder up to a thirty foot net. After that, we got to the four-level tower. The first level you had to get to was only a little over five and a half feet off the ground, then it increased between each level. Some teams tried to do it on their own, but the more you help one another the faster it went. The fourth obstacle was a thirty foot field with varying sizes of stumps in it. You used them to cross the field. It didn't matter which route you took, as long as everyone stayed on the logs. The next obstacle looked simple enough; it was a wooden structure with three ropes hanging from it and a log rail on the other side. You had to grab on to the rope and swing yourself onto the log rail over a ditch filled with foul-smelling water. If you failed to cross you'd fall in. This time none of us did, but we could hear Micah's group gaining.

We had one more obstacle... the wall. It was simply that, a twelve-foot wall that the entire team had to make it over. Just like the first time we did it they waited until Alakay and I were the last ones. Alakay had the best jumping ability so he needed less help getting up to where those at the top of the wall could grab him. I could jump fine but not high enough and that is where Alakay came in. He cupped his hands and as I jumped into them he hoisted me high to where Benedict and Louis could grab me and practically toss me down to where Shepherd was waiting at the bottom. Once Alakay was over we sprinted for the finish line. As we crossed we looked back to see Micah's team just reaching the wall. If we'd taken a minute longer we'd have to start over. We all looked at Erik to see if we succeeded. I thought we had done decently. I didn't fall into the ditch at all. I fell in every single time last time.