These Scars

Chapter Nine

"We have muscles to tone! Wake up!" Jackie screams in my ear.

I roll over to face her and narrow my eyes at her. Did she suddenly forget that she woke me up ten minutes ago? She smirks at me before walking into the bathroom. I take this as my hint to get out of bed and get ready for training today.

We've been here in Asheville for 3 days now. While Gary is off with the other half of the cast to film all the scenes in District Twelve, we have been left to train. My training consists of weights, lots of cardio, and of course knife throwing. Yes, they're actually making me learn to throw a knife. I may not be very good at it, but I'm getting there. Not all of the actual knife throwing scenes in the movie will be my throws, but some of them will.

I throw on a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. Jackie walks out of the bathroom after what seems like forever so I can go in to fix my hair. When I'm done, I follow her out of the room. Thank God she's around or I would be late to training every morning. Her room is right next to mine and I think she stole my extra room key or something because she's in here every morning.

We get in one of the shuttles to take us to the gym. It's only about a 5 minute drive. When we arrive, the two of us hop out and walk through the doors of the gym. I grimace at the smell of musty equipment and sweat. As usual, the smell seems to pass after a minute or two.

I walk up to the whiteboard that is hung on one wall to see my workout for the day. I let out a sigh of relief at my seemingly easy routine for today. Just the agility course, which is basically a big obstacle course. And then weight training as well as a little knife throwing when the props coach gets here.

The clang of weights hitting metal fills the air every once in a while. I glance over to see that Alexander, Jack, and Dayo are lifting weights. Dayo, Amandla, Leven, and some of the extras arrived the day after we did. Alexander sets the bar down on the stand behind him and sits up on the bench, waving and smiling at me. I realize I was staring at him and feel myself blush before turning away.

I approach the beginning of the agility course and stretch my legs a little. I pull one of my legs behind my back, balancing on the other. I quickly realize I do not have good balance when I start to fall to one side. I could have easily set the other foot down to regain my balance but I don't get the chance to. Someone's arms wrap around my waist to support me, pushing me back up on both feet.

"Thanks." I say, surprised whenever I turn to meet Ian's brown eyes. I force myself to smile at him. "Hi."

"Hi." He replies with a grin.

"When did you get here?" I ask him.

"Uh, last night actually." He tells me. He shoves his hands down into the pockets of his shorts.

A muscular arm wraps around my shoulder and I see another go around Ian's. I look up at Alexander's almost maniacal grin. "Aw, aren't you two just the sweetest?" he says in an exaggerated voice. "Now, I have the agility course next. I recommend you go ahead Isabelle. And Ian..." he says, trailing off. Alexander grabs Ian's scrawny arm. "Go lift some weights."

Ian gets a look of disgust and runs off to the weight area. Alexander smirks in triumph when Ian walks away. I roll my eyes and pull his arm off of me. Then, I begin the course. It's not hard at all. You just have to run on these big pillar things as fast as you can. You have to do it as many times as you can before you beat your time from the day before.

When I jump off the last pillar and hit the button on the end, it flashes my time. 1:09. I look at the time from the day before and groan. Apparently, I have to beat 1:07.

I jog back to the beginning and see that Alexander has yet to begin his run. He stands smirking with his arms crossed, exposing the flexed muscles.