Bad Habits z.m. (BWWM)

Chapter 1

"Captain Malik, take over." He gets up from his chair nodding at Sergeant Gutierrez. He stares at all of the men, his lips in a thin line, then his eyes land on me. He paces back and forth in front of the line. His boots are the only sound in the room.

"If you don't know my name already, it's Malik. Don't you ever call me by my first name. Am I understood?"

"Sir yes sir." We all respond, of course my voice is the highest of them all.

"You will do whatever I say whenever I say it. Is that understood?" He says walking past me looking me up and down. His jawline is set straight ahead, strong and defined.

"Sir yes sir." The team says in unison.

"Alright. Today will be inspection day. I will give you a set of drills. If you can't do them you are out. Do you all understand?" He stops in the middle of the line and backs up for everyone to see him. I am tempted to consciously touch my hair but keep my hands behind my back. He puts his hand up to his forehead with an evil grin. We raise our hand and he salutes. We salute back and follow him as he exits the room.
•
"I expect you all to know how to do these exercises." He says with his whistle hanging on his toned chest. His thin green shirt barely showed his muscle but it was obvious that he had something. I will myself not to stare. "At the sound of my whistle, you will begin sits-ups. Alright?"

"Sir yes sir." We respond. My brown fingers tingle as I wait for the sound of the whistle. Then it sounds and we all drop to the floor.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven." We continue counting. I feel my abs burning as we approach 80. We get to one hundred and his whistle breaks through our counting. I happily jump back up to my feet. This isn't gonna be that bad.

"Now, when this whistle blows I want you to give me push-ups. This time, I'm counting." He says eyeing everyone with a scold. He blows the whistle and we drop to our hands and feet waiting for his count.

"One." We go down and come back up.

"Two, three, four, five, six." He yells loudly picking up the pace. We get to twenty and he holds us in the up position for ten seconds. Every ten push-ups he adds another 10 seconds. I feel myself becoming slightly winded.

"Follow me." He says walking away, not even giving us time to say a breathless sir yes sir. We end up at two sets of bars.

"Two lines. Now!" He yells. We form two lines easily. Of course I end up in the back, but it's cool.

"I want each of you to do 40 pull-ups. You fall, you're out. Got it?"

"Sir yes sir." We all answer. I can feel the air getting thick. Nobody wants to leave. Everyone here has a significant reason to be here and knows their capabilities.

"Alright. At the sound of my whistle, you go." I wait expectantly for the sound as I look straight ahead on the back of Colton's neck. A nice kid, a potential drunkard, but still nice. The whistle blows and the first guy in our line, that I can't see, jumps up and starts his pull-ups. He yells out the count loudly as he easily pulls himself up and down.

"Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty." He says dropping down to his feet. Then he runs to the back of the line behind me. As he walks past me I give him a quick high-five. It's Zach, he's always working on his upper body.