(Landon's PoV)

    Sgt. Blake came storming into our room, yelling at us to line up in alphabetical order, which led us to scrambling around asking for everyone's last names.

    Sgt. Blake sighed. "Forget it, I'll just split you up into three groups randomly."

    Relief swept over me after realizing that Price would have put me right in between Notham and Rosalez.

    Sgt. Blake assigning us groups wasn't the most ideal thing in the world, but I did get placed in group 2 with Gavin. Of course, we didn't completely luck out because we had Alan too.

    "Where are we going?" Ned asked.

    "To the gas chambers!" Sgt. Blake replied.

    "What?" We all expressed our alarm in unison. I was so taken aback, I didn't even have time to make a distasteful joke.

    "We're not killing you," Sgt. Blake told us, although he probably wanted to. "You're just going to see if your gas masks work."

    "And if they don't?" I questioned. We had spent a little bit of time this week learning how to use our masks, but I wasn't exactly excited to go apply that knowledge.

    "It's just tear gas," he emphasized. "And you'll have to take some of it in anyway. It's part of protocol."

    He and Lt. Jason led us through a trail in a forest near the training center. From the group behind me I could hear Justin spouting off information.

    "Well I did some research-"

    "Of course you did," Clayton huffed.

    Justin ignored him. "And it seems like we'll have to recite something while inside."

    After an almost twenty minute walk, we reached a small brick building. Sgt. Blake ordered the first group to go in after securing their masks.

    I wiped my hands on the edge of my shirt, trying to occupy myself.

    There were no windows on the building, so none of us had any idea exactly what was going on in there. After four minutes of waiting, the first nine guys came stumbling out with red eyes. All of them were practically coughing their lungs out. Andrew Freetley looked like he was about to faint.

    "It's not fun," Logan wailed between gasps. "Oh air, how I've missed you."

    Gavin smirked at me. " So I guess we're next." He gave a small laugh to cover up his nerves.

    We both put on our masks before entering with the other guys in our group. Through his own mask, Sgt. Blake ordered for us to line up against the wall.

    "Recruits! Now-"

    He was interrupted by Lt. Jason's heavy breathing. "Check it out guys. I sound like Darth Vader."

    Though we couldn't actually see Sgt. Blake's expression through his mask, I'm guessing it was unpleasant.

    "Lt. Schultz"

    "Yes?"

    "Shut up."

    Sgt. Blake then told us to unseal our masks. My hand shook as I undid the clasp.

    I started coughing immediately. He wouldn't let us reseal them until he was sure everyone had unsealed them first.

    "All right, now seal them back up," he demanded, which we were much more willing to comply with. Still, we had already taken in some of the gas, so resealing didn't help much. My throat was still burning.

    "Now take them off."

    My heart seemed to skip a beat, hoping he was kidding, but that was stupid of me to hope for. Sgt. Blake doesn't have a sense of humor.

    Apprehensively, I took the mask off my face. My eyes were watering behind my glasses, which were starting to fog up.

    Sgt. Blake told Trevor to recite the alphabet. He was able to do it all in one breath. The only thing was he sang it backwards.

    "Sorry, old choir warm-up," he explained before Sgt. Blake made him redo it.

    Luckily Gavin and I were on Lt. Jason's side. He had Gavin say the address of the Basic Training center and me count to twenty. I coughed and sputtered on nearly every word. I hated what this stuff was doing to my speech. It seemed like hours before we were finally let out.

    We all continued to cough violently.

    "Ew," Daniel complained. He was upset because he had accidentally sneezed on himself while inside.

    Sean cried out in pain.

    "What's wrong?" Marcus asked, wiping his own nose.

    The little kid was blinking rapid fire. "M-m-my eyes were h-hurting...so I rubbed them and...and now they hurt more."

    Alan rolled his eyes. "You can't rub your eyes with those chemicals on your hands. You'll just bring them further into your eyes."

    "Well I didn't know that," Sean squealed.

    Fortunately for him there was a small water station here. Connor, who had been in group one and was starting to feel a little better, helped him rinse out his eyes.

    After several more minutes, the last group came out looking just as miserable as the rest of us did.

    "May we 'ave a break?" Jean-Paul requested.

    "Please," Daniel begged. "I wanna take a shower."

    Sgt. Blake denied us. "Go to the track."

    (Matteo's PoV)

    Sgt. Bake followed us into the barracks after target practice.

    Great, just great, I thought to myself. I looked over to see that my bed was still made from this morning. Not that it mattered. I was sure he would find something that I did wrong. He always did.

    "Recruits," he said, snapping us to attention. "Tomorrow afternoon, you won't be doing your regular workouts. Instead, you'll be completing an obstacle course.

    Will and I looked at each other. We both shared the same apprehensive expression.

    "It's a series of land challenges meant to test your speed, strength, and endurance," he explained. "I would say intelligence too, but I'm beginning to doubt that some of you have any," he added, eyeing me in particular. "The obstacle course is also a race."

Connor and Aaron smirked and started to whisper to each other, but of course Sgt. Blake didn't notice them talking. How I'd love to beat them at the race. Especially Connor. I wanted payback for every single awful comment he's made.

Sgt. Blake pulled a thin, plastic card out of his pocket. "And the winner gets this."

"A credit card?" Isaac asked.

"A phone card," he corrected. "Ten minutes precisely."

My heart nearly burst out of my chest. I could talk to Emmy with that. Letters were okay, but with that card I could actually get to hear her voice. Her sweet, soft voice.

Sgt. Blake didn't tell us much after that besides, "ten minutes until lights out."

    I stood there motionless.

    "Matteo," Will said slowly.

    "I want that card more than anything in the entire world." I was growing breathless just thinking about the possibility of truly hearing from my girlfriend.

    "Well," Will bit his lip, trying to form the right response, "If it helps, in the unlikely event that I get it, I'll give it to you."

    "Thanks." I managed to give him an absent-minded smile. My thoughts could only form one thing: I had to get that phone card.

(Connor's PoV)

    The walk to the obstacle course was slightly shorter than the walk to the gas chambers.

    Sean was bouncing up and down with each step. "It would be so cool to win."

    Aaron shrugged. "Guess so, although I don't know who I would want to call with the phone card."

    "I just want it so Matteo can't have it," I pointed out. I would not be able to stand hearing him brag about how he got to talk to his girlfriend. Like we all didn't hear that word fifty times a day. The phone card really didn't mean all that much to any of us. Honestly, I'd rather have bragging rights.

    "I suppose I could use it to figure out the Super Bowl outcome," Aaron thought out loud. "But either way, I'm gonna win." He shoved me playfully.

    I pushed him back. "In your dreams."

    "I'm faster."

    "I'm stronger."

    We tried to stare each other down, but we both broke into fits of laughter within five seconds.

    "Line up at the start," Blake ordered. He explained how to do each of the obstacles and informed us that Lt. Jason would be driving around the field making sure we were doing them correctly.

    We looked to the right to see Lt. Jason driving a small cart around in circles.

    Sgt. Blake sighed irritably. "He will. I'll make him." He took out a starting gun and shot off a blank, signaling for us to begin.

    There was a lot of running at the beginning. Aaron and I were at about the same pace, but Matteo was right behind us. After only 15 seconds he looked like he was running short of breath. He wouldn't last very long.

    In front of us was Sean, who had already reached the tires. His small feet could easily fit in and out of them. While he managed to create a sizable lead for himself, he struggled with the wooden planks.

    It was this huge, titled wooden ladder that we had to climb up the underside, over the top, and back down the other side. Sean's little legs couldn't reach the plank above him, so he had to use more energy trying to push himself up. I missed my footing a couple times, but I found the obstacle pretty manageable.

    As we went through the course, Lt. Jason kept making comments from his golf cart.

    "It's Tarzan time!"

    Aaron and I looked at each other puzzled, but we eventually figured out what he meant.  A ropes course appeared to be next.

    We had to climb up onto a platform and swing from a series of platforms to get to the platform on the other side.

    After that there were several more climbing obstacles, which I didn't mind at all. The muscles I had built from sports and weight training helped me pass things like the rock wall, using a rope to climb up a flat wall, or the climbing net with relative ease.

    We knew we were near the end when we reached the mud crawl. Sgt. Blake had said that was the last obstacle.

    Aaron and I got under the wire and started to dig our elbows and knees in the dirt. I managed to get out first, but we still had another half-mile to run. We had both saved enough energy to sprint at the end, but Aaron's speed pushed him ahead of me at the end, allowing him to finish six seconds before me.

    "You're not upset about losing, are you?" He teased.

    I smirked at him. "Nah. I'm just happy somebody beat Matteo."

    Once everyone finished (which took way longer than it should have), Sgt. Blake handed Aaron the phone card. Several guys swarmed around him, asking him what he was gonna use it for.

    "I don't know," he replied, craning his neck over the crowd to see how crushed Matteo was.

(Aaron's PoV)

    I couldn't believe what I was doing. I didn't even like him. In fact, I actively disliked him. Nevertheless, guilt was eating away at me.

    Matteo was really upset, and it didn't seem like he was gonna snap out of it any time soon.

    "You didn't do that bad," Will tried to cheer him up yesterday. "I mean, I got my ankle caught on the climbing net. I would have hung there for the rest of the race if Daniel hadn't come back to help me."

    Matteo shrugged without saying anything.

    He wasn't complaining. He wasn't even talking. That's how I knew this was more than I anticipated.

    "Matteo," I said once I caught him alone. "I want you to have this." I pulled the phone card out of my pocket.

    He stared at me, his eyes wide with shock. Well, his right eye was as wide as it could be considering it was still bruised. "Is this some kind of joke?"

    "No," I responded. "I can't use it and feel good about myself if I know someone else needs it more."

    He took the card out of my hand and began examining it. "Thank you," he said finally. "You have no idea how much this means to me."

    I was about to walk back to the barracks but then I stopped myself. "Wait," I blurted out. "Just one little thing: can you please ask who won the Super Bowl?"

    He looked at the card and laughed a little. "Sure," he replied. "You deserve that."

    Even if we were going to find out the super bowl outcome, Connor still wasn't happy with my idea.

    "What the hell, Aaron?"

    "I know, but I felt bad," I replied. "All I wanted to do with it was find out game scores, and you only wanted it so he couldn't have it."

    "Which you kind of ruined by giving it to him," he pointed out.

    "It just felt like it was the right thing to do," I explained.

    "You're too nice." he told me. He folded his arms before continuing. "It's just dumb. All he wants to do is talk to his ginge girlfriend."

    "Could this anger be stemmed from the fact that you don't have a girlfriend?" I prodded.

    Connor scoffed and rolled his eyes. Lindsay Richards was a very touchy subject. It was obvious that he didn't want to talk about her, so I switched to a different touchy subject.

    "Are you upset about the fight?"

    "No," he shifted awkwardly. "It's his fault for starting it when he knew I was stronger."

    "It reminds me of a certain nine year old who attacked his fifteen year old brother," I told him.

    He stood up in defense. "That's totally different. He might've drowned you."

    I pursed my lips remembering the pain and fear of having my head held under the kiddie pool water.

    "But you do have a lot in common," I said. "You and Matteo."

    "No we don't," he retorted.

    I just nodded. "You're both determined, kind of aggressive," I punched his arm lightly, "fiercely overprotective of a ginger."

    We both laughed, but I noticed some of the muscles in Connor's hand twitched slightly.

    I kind of felt bad for bringing up Jordan. No matter how big Connor got or how far apart they were, his brother still scared him.

(Matteo's PoV)

    I gripped the card in my hand as I walked down the hallway to the pay-phone. I still couldn't wrap my head around why Aaron gave it to me. Still, I was glad to have the chance to talk to Emmy. I punched in the code on the card followed by Emmy's phone number. As paranoid as she was, I knew she'd answer even from an unknown number. She hates it when people don't pick up their phones.

    She answered it after the second ring. "Hello?" She said cautiously.

    I smiled instantly upon hearing her voice. "Emmy."

    I heard a gasp from the other line. "Matteo?" She began stammering uncontrollably. "But you...and...what...I mean how," she eventually managed to pull herself together. "Is everything all right?"

    "Yeah," I told her. "There was a race and the prize was a ten minute phone card. Can you keep track of the time?"

    "Sure," she agreed. "But so there was a race and you won?"

    "Well no," I corrected. "Another guy won, but he gave the card to me."

    "Oh my gosh," she gushed. "That's so nice."

    "That reminds me, I told him I would find out who won the Super Bowl. Can you look that up?"

    "I already  know that. It was the SeaHawks," she replied.

    I raised an eyebrow. "You actually watched the game?"

    "Heck no, football's boring," she responded. "I only know based on who was mad at school the next day."

    That sounded much more like the girl I knew.

    "So how are things?" I asked.

    "Well..."

    "Emmy you can talk to me."

    Her voice rose to a panic more and more with each word. "Like we expected, things are getting worse--but don't worry about me, I'm sure you have a million other problems--it's just I'm so scared of being alone. My mind is just too much to handle and my parents just keep getting angrier..."

    "When I get back, I will protect you," I promised.

    Some protector you are, my thoughts mocked me.

    "Is everything okay?" she asked me. "You got real quiet."

    I tried to respond, but my mouth went dry. I kept thinking about the fight. That didn't exactly fall into the realm of "okay", but I couldn't tell her.

    "Y-yeah," I stuttered. "Everything's fine. Nothing big has really been happening."

    My disgust for myself increased with each sentence.

    She breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh good. I've been so worried that you were gonna get hurt or that your temper was gonna get you in trouble."

    As if on cue, my black eye started to throb. I attempted to ignore the pain. I couldn't worry her. The last thing Emmy needed in her life was more fear. Not telling her was for her own good.

    "Don't worry," I assured her through my guilt. "Everything's just fine."

    She gave a small groan. "It's already been over nine and a half minutes. Oh Matteo, I wish we had more time to talk. I miss you so much. I love you."

    "I love you too," I managed to say before the pay-phone disconnected.