Book 1: What We Had in the Beginning

Chapter 4: Training Session

"Again." I order as Yelena swings her fist at me. We've been training for 2 hours now and she's doing a lot better than the past couple days. She's focused and determined and I have a feeling she'll make it pretty far in the program. I'm teaching her some of the techniques I was taught as a child but I'm not stupid, I can't teach her everything. I'm not even sure why I'm helping her, it's her fault she's the way she is. When Yelena first started out in the program she was very social and had a lot of friends. They spent most of their time talking and joking around instead of training. Eventually one by one her friends were killed off and she was left. If she just focused like the rest of us she wouldn't be at the bottom.

After a couple minutes of blocking her punches she finally lands one to my stomach. She smiles widely and starts jumping up and down. I can't help but smile as I watch her. I completely understand that feeling when finally doing something right, but it's not like I was allowed to jump up and down in excitement. She better not do that in front of Ivan or the officers.

"Get some sleep, we have a big day ahead of us." I say stepping aside so Yelena can leave the training room to go to bed. Out of nowhere she flings her arms around my neck, my hands immediately ball into fists and I get ready to hit her in the side. That is, until I realize she's hugging me.

"Thank you." She whispers. I pry her arms from around my neck and step back.

"You're welcome." I reply with a nod. She smiles and walks out of the training room. Closing my eyes, I shake my head and wait a few minutes before heading back to the basement. I need to stop helping Yelena. Not only does she think we're becoming friends but she's also taking up a lot of my training time. I need to be 100% ready for today. One slip up can cost me my life. This isn't fun and games, it's life and death.

*
When I wake up a couple hours later Ivan informs us that we won't be training together anymore. Which is weird because ever since the program started all of us have always trained together. While we're eating breakfast he continues to explain that while the Soldier's training one of us at a time the rest of us will be either with Madam Oksana or Mr. Volkov. So here I am going over my ballet routine for the 26th time waiting for Lena to finish her training. They're going down the list in alphabetical order so Lena goes first and I go last, which is driving me crazy. I'm so pumped with adrenaline I feel like I can take on an entire army. I need to calm down.

A half an hour later Lena walks into the room limping and covered in more cuts and bruises. Yelena slowly gets up and reluctantly heads to the training room for her turn. He's spending an hour and a half with each of us. I personally don't think that's enough time but I guess as our numbers get smaller we'll get more time to train with him in the future.

I notice Madam Oksana standing at the back of the room scrutinizing our every move. She was suppose to leave this morning to go back to Moscow but she's still here for some reason. She normally comes to see our improvement once a week, then leaves.

As I go through the routine for the 32nd time I find myself not doing the routine as we're suppose to. I begin adding in some extra moves and eventually I'm not even doing the routine at all. It feels nice to for once do something different. Don't get me wrong I love our routine, but doing it every single day over and over again can get frustrating. I sneak a glance at the other girls and sigh in relief when I find them not paying attention to me. I know Madam Oksana's watching me but she doesn't call me out on it so I continue doing my own thing. We normally don't get to do what we want the way we want to, so I'm taking advantage of it.

"Enora, you're next. The rest of you will be with Mr. Volkov." Ivan informs us, leading Yelena into the room. She's terribly beaten up but not as bad as I thought she would be. Her right cheek is swollen, her hair is matted with blood, and her lip and the corner of her forehead is bleeding badly. Since Ivan hasn't dismiss anyone to go to the infirmary she can't get stitched up, none of them can.