The Good Girl Who Went Bad

Chapter 22: Toughen Up

The next day was... tough. And so were the following weeks.

I had to train to become an agent.

The first day was pretty funny, looking back now. Although it wasn't at the time.

I remember Dan and all the other agents being down in the basement of the hotel (Dan told me that Drake's agency owned this hotel for special purposes...). I found out what those special purposes were when I got down to the basement, and found that all the other agents were down there, waiting expectedly with big smiles and smirks on their faces.

'So,' I looked at Dan and Olivia, who were standing next to each other. 'What's going on?'

'Good morning, Poppy,' Olivia said, walking towards me. 'Today, you're gonna start your training.'

When Dan had said that I would be training the day before, I thought it would just be two or three agents training me, not the whole group! That would be embarrassing.

'Oh,' I said, noticing all the, ehm, equipment around the basement. Well, it wasn't even a basement. It was a gym full of objects that I knew straight away I would be using shortly. Or trying to use.

Someone suddenly jumped on my back, and my reflex was to elbow them, and chuck them off my back. And I did. Pretty hard.

My arm bent at the elbow, and shot back and hit whoever it was in the chest area, and then I swung both my arms behind me, grabbed the arms of whoever was grabbing onto me, and swung them around so they fell off me and landed with a thud on the floor.

All that happened in a about two seconds. Literally. No joke.

The agent who had jumped on me made a little groan, and rubbed his chest where my elbow had caught him as he lay on the floor. He looked pretty tough, and was quite muscly. I was surprised that my elbow had actually hurt him a little, and the fact that I had actually managed to get him on the floor.

'I'm, sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you,' I gushed. It must have been a spur-of-the-moment adrenaline-rush, or something. It felt pretty awesome...

'It's alright, darling,' he said, smiling, and jumping back up. He was a tall, light haired man, with bright blue eyes, and probably around his mid-twenties, a few years older than Drake. 'That was part of your training. And your reaction was actually pretty good. The only person who threw me off before in their training was Drake, and your elbow was almost as strong as his punch.'

I didn't know whether to laugh, or say I was flattered.

I went for the laugh.

That must have been the cue for Dan, because he and Olivia gave each other a smirk and started walking towards me.

'He's right, Poppy,' Dan said. 'That was a pretty good reaction. We've got high expectations of you... And our gut instincts tells us that you're gonna be an amazing agent.'

That made me laugh even more, and Olivia gave me a look that said he was being serious, and there was no joke about it.

I immediately stopped laughing, and said, 'So, what's next?'

'Well, you've already got quite a good body build, but we still need to toughen you up. The gym is gonna be you're top priority for a while, now. Press-up's, weights, sit-ups, and many more things you're gonna find out about pretty soon. So, if I were you, I'd go back up to your room, and instead of wearing that tight v-neck top, and those super skinny denim jeans you're wearing, I'd wear a loose top, and some joggers. With trainers, not heels.' He turned away with a smirk.

I wasn't that bad.

'Oh, and get a big bottle of water, too. You'll need it. And tie your hair back, please.' He called as I was walking out the room.

Okay, I thought to myself. This is definitely gonna be tough. I'm petrified... What if, when I actually get in there, I end up getting myself killed, and then Drake gets killed too...

'Oh, pull yourself together, you silly cow, another voice interrupted in my mind. You want Drake back don't you?'

'Yes...'

'Then fucking grow a pair, and get on with it.'

Now THAT was what I needed. A strong, confident voice, and a kick up the back side.

I did what the voice told me, and got on with it. And although there was that worry in my mind that I wasn't gonna be good enough, I still carried on.

After a while, I was already seeing a difference in myself. The worry started to disappear, and I was getting tougher.

All the agents were very proud of me, and said that I was doing VERY well, much better than themselves.

That also helped me with my confidence, too.

Being told by an experienced killer agent that you're doing better than they did really does help.

I was also getting more ideas for my own plans.

*      *      *     *     *     *     *

It took less time than I imagined to get onto the next part of my training.

For just over a week, I had been going through the same routine.

Wake up at 5am, cold shower to wake me up, and then get dressed.

That bit only took around 10-15 minutes.

Then it was time to go downstairs to the gym.

I'll be there for about an hour, and then I would have something to eat. Usually, it was a low fat thing, or some fruit. There was no crappy food aloud.

That was good, though, because I didn't really like fatty foods anyway. But I was a bit upset that I wasn't aloud a lot of chocolate... I was aloud a bit, but it had to be dark chocolate, so it wasn't so high in calories, but I'd always hated dark chocolate, so I just went without.

I had more important things to worry about, anyway.

So after I ate, I'd wait a few minutes for the food to go down, because if I got up and started excersicing straight away, I'd be sick. And so the few extra minutes gave me some free time to think.

The only thing I ever thought about was my plan.

After I was ready to exercise again, I would be in the gym for hours. I would have a small break now and then, but apart from that, I was exercising and going over what I knew about the weapons for the day.

Dan said that going over what I knew about the weapons every day would help me memorise them better, and so I would learn faster.

Then in the evening, I could finally relax. 

I would go to the spa, most of the time, and then I'd go upstairs to my room and have a nice, long, hot bath, with some gorgeous scented candles that I had bought.

I had only gone out once so far, and I wore a great disguise. It was simply amazing...

I called it Drop Dead Tramp With Cash.

I was drop dead gorgeous underneath, looked trampy on top so no one would wanna come near me, and had quite a lot of cash that some shop keepers thought I had stolen when they saw me hand it to them.

Quite funny, actually.

After my bath, I would stay in my room for the rest of the night. I'd crawl into bed and watch some TV, or read a book or magazine.

Sometimes, I even stood in the living room and looked out the large window towards the warehouse, wishing that Drake was with me instead of in that dump.

I would be there with him soon, though.

One day, I woke up, and was getting ready for the gym, when Dan knocked at the door.

'Change of routine, today, Poppy,' he said. I was actually getting used to my new name, now. Everyone was calling me it. 

I was happy that I would finally be doing something different. I get bored of the same things over and over...

'What are we doing?' I asked curiously.

'WE are gonna be teaching YOU how to kill people, using weapons.'

Oh, God.