Forget You

Recruits

It wasn't until 11:00 that night that we returned to the bar we had first gone to.

"Hey, Nigel!" Devan called him. "Is that guy here?"

"Tobey? Yeah, he just got here. He's on the other end of the bar. Should I send him to a back room for you to talk to?" Nigel asked.

"Not yet. I wanna see how he is for a little bit first."

So Devan and I watched Tobey as he got drunk and went out onto the floor. It wasn't long before he was in an argument with someone and they went outside to settle it. We followed them and watched from the side.

At first it was just Tobey and the guy he was arguing with and Tobey was winning, but then the other guy's friend decided to join in and the fight was no longer fair. Tobey was being beaten badly, and that's when Devan stepped in.

"Hey! Get off him." Devan pushed his way in.

"Get out of 'ere," One of them tried to push Devan away.

Devan punched him in the head, knocking him out and his friend cleared out quickly after that.

Tobey struggled to his feet. "I didn't need your help," He muttered to Devan.

"Maybe not, but I need yours," Devan said.

"What for? You took care of him fine enough." Tobey motioned to the unconscious man on the ground.

"I am Devan Rake, and I think you are a worthy recruit."

"Rake?" Tobey seemed to sober up a bit at the name.

Devan nodded. "Are you interested?"

"Definitely."

"Great. Come by the base tomorrow, be there by noon."

Devan walked back over to me.

"What about the two that Tobey was fighting with?" I asked. "Are you not interested in them?"

Devan shook his head. "They were clumsy about it. Nothing of what I'm looking for."

"Can we get home now?"

"I think so."

Devan called one of the other boys to let them know that he was going back early and then we headed home. As soon as we stopped in the driveway, I ran inside the house, discarding clothing on my way to his room until I was sitting on his bed in my underwear.

"You don't like to take it slow, I see," Devan said as he entered his room.

He pulled off his shirt and then crawled over me so I was laying beneath him. I smiled and pressed my nails into his back, keeping him close to me even though he would be much closer during the night.

Neither of us woke up until about 10:00 in the morning and we were woken up by Nate knocking on the door and telling Devan to get up and get ready for the new recruits that were coming.

By noon, all of the people that the boys had found last night were standing in the front yard of the house, and all of them were hung-over. I couldn't help but laugh at the scene. I stayed off to the side on the porch with Melly to watch and the five boys stood in front of the line of recruits.

"Welcome," Nate said, stepping forward. "Now, before we begin, is there anyone who would like to back out now?"

Only one person turned and left.

"So we have thirty four-"

While he was talking, I decided to go and join the men in the line, trying not to laugh at Nate's accent.

"What are you doing?" Devan asked me.

"Proving a point," I replied.

Nate looked at Devan to question if he was going to let me do this, and Devan just shook his head and said 'whatever'.

"So we have thirty five selected individuals who we thought would be worthy members of the gang. You will go through a month of training to see if we actually want you here. Any time throughout that month, you are able to leave, but once you are a member, there's no going back."

When he said that, three other people left.

"Just because you are here now, doesn't mean that you are going to be chosen to be a member. We may take all of you; we may take none of you. If you are selected, you will start at the bottom and will hopefully work your way up."

Now Kyle stepped forward to speak. "We will be testing your stamina, strength, aim, and mental abilities. How long can you fight? How hard can throw a punch? How sharp is your aim? How are you under pressure? How well can you come up with strategies? How long can you last being tortured for information and not give in? Are you able to kill a person? Can you clean up the evidence?"

I glanced down at the men and saw that most of them pretty much sobered up at these questions.

"You will also be taught a few medical things," Will spoke now. "Like the best way to stop a bleeding wound and how to set a broken bone. For those of you who don't know, I am William, this is Kyle, Nate, Owen, and your leader, Devan."

We then followed them around the house to the garage where there were a few tables set up with papers on them.

"Fill these out and give them to Kyle when you're done," Will told us.

I wondered why Devan wasn't doing much talking since he was the leader, and why Owen didn't talk at all either. Marcus would do all the talking when we got someone new.

I skipped on filling out the paper work, which was pretty much a resemé. Then we all stood and waited while the five looked through them.

"We're going to sort you into groups based on experience," Kyle told us.

The men were surprised when I was put in the group with the most experienced. There were five groups, one for each of the boys. Owen was with our group. I don't know why, but I still just didn't like Owen. He just bothered me for some reason.

He stood before us, looking us over for a moment before he spoke. "You are going to be with me for the first six days of this month. I will be testing your skills with tracking."

"What are we tracking? Animals?" Someone asked, earning laughter from the rest of the men.

Owen threw a knife that landed right next to the man's foot and they all silenced.

"Attitude will not be tolerated." Even though Owen was younger than all of them, he was easily placed on top, his strict tone and sharp eyes made sure of that. "We are tracking people. Some people think that they can get out of debt and trouble by running away and hiding, but it's not true. Some of you may know that." He looked at me for a second and retrieved his knife. "I will be teaching you how to hack into security cameras and secret files that you didn't know existed."

We then walked to a building that had many satellites on the roof. Inside it was filled with computers and a few people working on them.

"Now," Owen called us to attention once we were each sat at a computer. "We are going to put you through a simulator. Your task is to find someone. He owes us money and decided that he was going to try to run off. Your job is to find out where he is. The information that we know is in a file on your computer. Get to work."

"What?" Someone next to me asked. "He just expects us to know what to do just like that?"

"No, he doesn't," I said. "It's only the first day."

"I wasn't talking to you."

"Sexist bastard," I muttered.

When 6:00 rolled around, we were dismissed. We were supposed to go to this small apartment building thing where we were going to stay for the month, but I went back with Owen to the house.