Piercing The Fold (11 page)

Our rooms are very spacious, about 700 square feet, give or take. I have my own commode, shower, mini fridge mainly for leftovers, a nice queen-size bed, an oversized chair with ottoman, desk, and chair. The lighting in the room is canned, not the yellowish fluorescent I hate. I have wall hangings to compensate for the lack of windows.

The first night I slept hard. I’m sure the silence had a lot to do with that. No dreams. No nightmares. I can’t remember the last time I slept so deeply.

At 5:00 a.m. a knock on my door wakes me. Well, it is more like a pounding on my door.

With the initial pound, I sit straight up in bed. The second pound has me falling back onto my pillow and covering my ears. Then, the continuous pounding with Ezra’s voice behind it.

“Jesca! Rise and shine. See you in the cafeteria in twenty minutes! Oh, and wear something lightweight, like running gear!”

He starts pounding again.

I crawl and scurry to the door to give him a mouthful. By the time I have the door open, he is gone.

Damn it, Ezra!

Not the ideal way to wake up on day one of training.

I crawl back to the bed. I think about what I have ahead of me, today, tomorrow, and from now on. With that simple thought, feelings of fear start to flood into my mind. I rise and get into the shower to wash away the thoughts, quickly.

Fifteen minutes later, I am in the cafeteria with a tray full of breakfast comfort foods! Angela, Nick, and Nate file in and sit at the table with me. They look like zombies.

Nick mumbles in a sarcastic tone, “Good morning, ladies and gentleman.”

Angela and I simultaneously let out a low grunt.

Patrick, the chef, delivers a huge carafe of coffee.

Nick shows his appreciation by grasping Patrick’s forearm. Then he stands and embraces him. Patrick looks at us and slowly, but cautiously completes the embrace with Nick.

Nick releases him finally. “Thanks, man. I love you, Patrick.”

Nate laughs at Nick.

I look over at the mentors. They look like they have been awake for hours.

Nick calls after Patrick as he walks away. “Hey, can you just, like, hook me up with a java drip?”

Patrick snickers, waves his arm at Nick, and keeps walking back to the kitchen.

“What? I’m just joking, man!” Nick returns to his chair and laughs.

Siobhan comes over and stands next to Angela and I. “Morning, little ones! Ahh, day one.” A big smile spreads across her face. She looks back at Luke, Jake, and Ezra. They look down at their food and cover their growing smiles with their folded hands. Siobhan turns back to us. “I’m not gonna lie. Your asses are going to get kicked today. Tomorrow will be painful, too. But you will condition quickly at the rate we will be training.”

The four of us lowly trainees look at each other briefly, sensing the mutual feeling of intimidation.

“Just keep up and endure, kids. That is the only way you will get through today.” Siobhan sighs and smiles. “All right! Fifteen minutes, then meet up with your mentor. Training will run from 6 to 11:30 a.m. Then you will shower and meet back in here for lunch at noon.”

Luke interrupts, “Yeah, we don’t want to smell your five and half hours of sweat over lunch!”

Jake and Ezra laugh and then stand.

Ezra wipes his mouth with his napkin. “You heard Siobhan. Get a move on. We’ll be waiting for you in the gym. Remember, exit the cafeteria, take a left, and then pass three corridors and take a right at the hallway. Go straight ahead into the gym.”

Angela whispers, “Don’t worry, guys, I have this place memorized like the back of my hand.”

Apparently, Angela’s abilities encompass a perfect memory and the ability to store loads of information accurately. Having already read her thoughts this morning, I didn’t doubt she had already mapped out the entire facility.

The gym is about the size of a football field.

Luke steps up to us. “Jesca, Ezra wants you on the circuit for an hour. Angela, you and Siobhan are going to hit the trails. Nick, Jake is in the pool waiting for you.”

Nick nods. He salutes us and heads on in a jog.

Luke continues, “Nate, you and I are going to do some endurance training.”

I see Ezra on the left side of the gym in a glass-windowed room. I walk over to the room. I see free weights, benches, and all types of contraptions. I assume this is my circuit training area. Ezra puts some upbeat music on loud enough to make his yelling voice barely audible.

“Have you stretched?”

I yell back, “Huh? No, not yet! I just got here!”

Ezra yells, “Well, get moving, Jes! You’re burning training time, girl!” He winks and smiles.

That was the last smile I saw for the next hour. I must have lifted, pushed, pulled, and stretched every piece of equipment about thirty times each. The rotation did move quickly with Ezra in command, but that also cut out breaks between sets. Ezra laughs at me when I ask for a water break.

Halfway through the training session, I start to see stars and feel like I am going to pass out. I give Ezra my most pitiful look.

He yells, “Stop!”

He walks over to me and puts his hands on both my shoulders. “Jes? Do I look like I’m that much of a pushover? Keep going!” He walks over to the music dock and cranks the music up louder.

What a jerk!

That, of course, has the effect he is looking for. His comment pisses me off enough to spur me on through the second half of the session.

When the hour is up, I look like my clothes have been soaked by a fire hose. My skin is crusted with layers of sweat. I smell horrible.

“Can I get a shower?”

Ezra says, “Shower? It’s not even 8:30, Jes! We still have hours of training before lunch.”

“C’mon! You don’t want to have to smell me for the next few hours, do you? I mean, I really stink!”

“I’ve smelled worse, love! Let’s hit the trails.”

Ezra runs with me on the trails.

“You keep up pretty well for an old man!”

Ezra responds, “Yeah. Well, you don’t do so bad yourself, little girl!”

We run through the cutouts onto the switchbacks. We pass the cavern with the beautiful pool of water. God, I want to jump in so badly.

Ezra breaks away and heads toward a cutout to the left, and I follow. I have not been on this path yet. It is like a rollercoaster. The turns are sharp. The dips are unexpected. The ground is rockier than the gravel I experienced yesterday.

This must have been the trail Nate was on.

The gap between Ezra and I begins to widen because of the terrain.

Ezra hollers back at me, “Don’t slow down on me now, Jes! We are almost to the turnaround!”

This gives me hope, and I pick up speed again. My right foot starts to slip on something. I look down and see a drop-off to nowhere! I see a rock wall to my right just in time to keep my footing clear of it. I slow to look over the sharp ledge.

I holler after Ezra, “Thanks for the warning!”

The canyon drop-off must go a long way down, since I hear a void of sound to my right. I slow to a stop to listen closer. No sound reverberating or echoing off the canyon at all.

Ezra appears in my peripheral vision and yells, “What are you doing?!”

It scares the hell out of me.

Even though he is standing a few feet away from me, I yell back mostly out of frustration. “I was checking out the cliff where I almost met my death, thank you very much!”

Ezra elbows me casually. “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. C’mon, it’s time to head back.”

I stop him from moving by grasping his arm. “Wait! What is this, this hole, this canyon?”

Ezra says, “It’s a sinkhole. We found it about two years ago when we made this cutout. This is the most recent cutout, as you can tell by the rugged, unmanaged terrain. Siobhan and the gang decided to leave this cutout trail rugged for more rigorous training.”

I respond in a sarcastically sweet tone. “Aw! Thanks, Siobhan!”

Ezra pats me on the top of my head. “You’re welcome, green pea.” He winks and starts running back in the direction from which we came.

I quickly follow him, not knowing the way on my own. My mind starts to wonder about all the uncharted territory this facility still has, just waiting to be discovered.

The rest of the morning, I am in the pool. I thought that it would be heaven compared to what we had been doing.

But I am so wrong.

Ezra smirks. “You ready?”

I grit my teeth and force a smile. “Yes.”

Ezra looks me up and down, examining me. “No.”

“No! Why? What now?”

Ezra jogs over to this huge storage closet, opens it, enters, and begins digging around.

“Need help in there?”

Ezra yells back, “Nope, I’ve got it!”

I see him appear in the doorway with a pile of black, plastic, air duct tubing. It looks like a gigantic, black anaconda suffocating a little man.

It is partially wrapped around Ezra and partially dragging on the floor as he walks back toward me. When he gets to me, he drops the entire pile, letting out a heavy breath.

“Now you are ready!”

I am drawing a blank.
What the hell is he going to have me do?

Ezra stands in front of me with his arms crossed. “When you get into a water-related situation, one of two things will happen. You will either be fighting against someone…” Ezra looks me up and down again, “…most likely much bigger than you. Or you will be trying to save someone that could also be much bigger than you.”

Ezra kicks the black tubing. “This is going to prepare you for those two situations. Now, get into the water.”

If he does what I think he is going to do, that tubing will drown me.

Ezra becomes irritated by my internal commentary. “Jes, it will not! Now get in!”

I snap at him. “Stop that! Stop reading me!”

He shoots back with a coy smile, “In training, it is imperative I read your thoughts. So don’t put up your magic wall, Jesca! Get into the water, please, with a cherry on top!”

He is so getting under my skin.

“Fine!” I jump in.

He throws the first part of the tubing toward me. Like an unwinding garden hose, he keeps letting out more and more of the tubing, slowly at first.

“Start wrapping it around you from your waist up. Just like that. Push it down around your waist.”

I am treading water and simultaneously trying to wrap tubing around me as quickly as I can. At first I am fine. Then the weight begins to pull me under. My treading becomes increasingly labored. Ezra starts to toss the endless tubing faster. My head starts to bob in and out of the water. The tubing is inching up my torso, now wrapping around my shoulders and neck.

Before I go under, Ezra yells, “Sink! Then when you touch bottom, begin unwrapping yourself, and break to the surface!”

I can’t hold myself above any longer. I watch the hanging fluorescent lanterns with metal wiring around them move further away, getting smaller, then blurrier. The drop to the bottom of the pool feels endless. The sensation to release some air out of my mouth starts.

Wait! Wait until I touch bottom. I won’t last if I release air now!

My ears are popping from the pressure as I continue to sink.

Then I feel my feet touch. I try to look down, but I can’t because the tubing is constricting my ability to move my neck. I try to unwrap methodically at first, thinking it will make the job easier. My hands are testing any loose areas. I find a spot. I am rotating to the left and unwrapping the tube to the right. I have to unwrap under one arm, then the other. I feel the urge to let out air again. I speed up the unwrapping, knowing that I can’t hold it in very much longer. With all the twisting and turning, I wind up reversing the unraveling.

No! Damn it!

I finally release some air. I feel my body react to the brief release of air and its craving for more, the inhalation of oxygen that I couldn’t give it. I feel my body begin to tremble—adrenaline. My hands, arms, and muscles work with more power, unnatural power. The tangled tubing is coming off at greater speed now, and I feel the weight of it releasing me briefly.

Ezra is thinking,
C’mon, Jes. Just hold on! You can do this!

I release more air, and I look up, feeling myself levitate a fraction after every sweep of unravel. When I look up, I notice the light from the lanterns above the pool are less blurry and closer now.

Maybe ten feet away from the surface. God, I hope so.

I look down at my fumbling hands. The tube is taut around my waist.

Just my waist.

I start to feel the urge to inhale again. My body is starting to revolt. It’s starving for air. Unable to stop it now, I release more air. I close my eyes to focus on removing the tubing. I try to propel myself upward, but it is pointless. The weight of the tubing is still too heavy.

So far away. I’m running out of time.

Suddenly the tubing shifts downward from my waist.

Yes.

My excitement is short-lived. The tubing has moved down over my thighs, making it harder to tread.

I’m sinking again.

My heart is pounding in my throat. I start seeing shards of light streaking in front of my eyes. It’s like hundreds of shooting stars.

Stars? No, not again.

I feel my body begin to go limp. I am no longer in control. Darkness starts to absorb me. I’m passing out.

I feel arms around me.

Ezra thinks,
Hold on, Jes. Don’t breathe in yet.

A second later, I am out of the water and on the deck.

Ezra is commanding me, “Breathe, Jes! Now, damn it! Breathe! Open your eyes, Jes!”

My mouth and eyes aren’t listening, even though I want them to.

Then, my eyes shoot open and focus on Ezra’s. My mouth opens and responds with the sound of starvation for oxygen.

Ezra’s hard face softens when he sees me gasping for air. He runs his hands through his hair. “Jes! That was amazing for your first time! You are going to be unbelievable!”

I am panting with wide eyes. I finally catch my breath. “Are you freaking kidding me? I could have drowned and you are congratulating me?”