Broken Lines |✔|

6.

When warriors turn 16, their training is moved to a different stage.

It becomes a pressure of time to make sure that they are really ready for the transformation that will occur when that year is up. At the age of 17, the soul of the wolf comes to us. We either are strong enough to accept it and make it our own, or we fail.

Failure was not an option for me.

We are moved into different living quarters, housed in a separate space.

And the leader personally oversees our training alongside with the instructors. He is there watching and monitoring.

He had already been present before, but these were passing moments. Moments that let him know the warriors were still surviving and making it through their instruction.

This was a different level of hell.

Each morning we rose before the sun. We ran and ran and ran. We ran so much that I felt as if my legs would run away without me and leave the rest of my body behind.

The instructors and leader were merciless. They did not give an inch. Nothing. Nothing to soften the training or the blows we received. It was harsh and cruel, and I felt like crying with some of the males who would break down.

But I only had to look at the leader and his smirk. His smile as he watched and waited for me to fall completely. Just his look would be enough to make me stand again.

I know the instructors were uneasy keeping me in the course. They had predicted long ago that I would eventually drop. That I would give up with my threats towards their leader and end my desire in wanting revenge.

But I never did.

And now I was in the final year. They were helping to create and tame the monster in me, and I knew they were conflicted on if it should be done. Should they continue to put forth the strength and training and effort towards molding and shaping me into a weapon that would one day turn around and be used against them?

But the leader never once looked away or questioned my place.

I am reminded of that night. That night - the first night- and the look in his eyes as he took me in. He had not seen a child in front of him. He had seen another leader, just like himself, who had their home and title stripped from them.

He had a sense of dignity in letting me fight for my goal. He had a sense of pride, in not backing away from the challenge I had issued long ago.

"Is that the best you can do, Vera?"

The instructor's taunts would come out as shouts of anger or curses. But they had eventually realized that the leader took special pleasure in watching me and being the one to make me turn back to look at him and snarl. Slowly, through the months, they had stepped down and given the role of who issued taunts and insults to me- to be solely him.

"How do you expect to kill me when you are this weak?"

I flicked him off. He only laughed knowing there was nothing I could do to him when he stood above me on the platform and I ran below in endless, useless circles.

I catch up to the male that I used to regularly meet behind the training building. In the two months since we had been put in this hell, we had only been able to gather twice.

He looks just as miserable as me.

"Tonight?"

His mood immediately brightens.