Chapter 172. Convulsing in a Bathtub With Enough Painkillers to Kill a Horse
The morning sun bled across the training grounds like fresh wounds, casting long, jagged shadows that seemed to writhe across the blood-stained dirt. William stood in the center of the arena, his boots planted firmly on the packed earth, though every inch of his body screamed in protest.
A deep, throbbing agony radiated from his lower spine, each nerve ending firing like molten lead down his thighs. His legs felt like hollowed out husks, unsteady and trembling from the sheer physical devastation of last night.
Forty-eight rounds with Catherine had left him feeling less like a warrior and more like a corpse strung together by raw nerve endings and stubborn will.
’God, my back... arghhhh... my fucking back...’ he thought bitterly, a grimace threatening to break through his disciplined facade. ’It feels like my vertebrae have been ground into powder...’
’Every step is a negotiation with pain... My legs... they’re useless.’
’If I fall now, I might never get back up.’
’Maybe next time... I need to control myself or I might end up making a woman in a wheelchair for days, but I’m glad Catherine is doing alright, I guess...’ William thought while patting his back. ’But... I bet she doesn’t want to train at all and would rather stay at her desk working on those papers. ’
’Oh shit, yeah... I just fucking realize that I made her prefer work apart from training...’
’Anyway... I need to give my students some rest now because I’m the one that NEEDS it right now.’
Despite the internal torment, his outward appearance remained an unbreakable mask of authority. He scanned the faces of his subordinates, six individuals who stood frozen, their eyes wide with a mixture of shock and suspicion.
The silence stretched, thick with tension, broken only by the distant, mocking cry of a carrion bird.
"Today," William said, his voice cutting through the humid air like a blade through flesh.
He didn’t flinch when a sharp spasm shot through his pelvis, but his knuckles whitened where they gripped his belt. He watched the six faces stare back at him, their confusion palpable, hanging in the air like smoke after an explosion.
"...is a rest day. A real one..."
The words seemed to drop like stones into a still pond. One of the recruits shifted nervously, the sound of leather creaking unnaturally loud in the quiet.
"No drills," William continued, stepping forward, each movement a calculated battle against the grinding pain in his hips. "No evaluations... No secret assignments disguised as free time..."
"You can sleep until noon, you can wander the city, and the best thing about a rest day is... you can do absolutely nothing productive for the entire day, and I will not say a single word about it."
For several agonizing seconds, a deafening silence descended upon the training ground, thick enough to choke on. The air seemed to vibrate with the collective disbelief of the six women.
Ellie tilted her head to the side, her brow furrowed in genuine bewilderment, waiting for the inevitable punchline or the hidden trapdoor to spring open beneath their feet. Her eyes darted around the empty arena as if searching for concealed cameras or hidden instructors lurking in the rafters.
Beside her, Clara’s reflexes were so deeply ingrained that her hand had already instinctively seized the strap of her bag, yanking her journal halfway out before her brain could process the anomaly of the situation.
She froze mid-motion, the leather creaking audibly in the stillness, before sheepishly shoving the book back into its sheath.
Olivia, meanwhile, remained perfectly still, her gaze sharp and calculating the way she looked at anything that seemed too convenient, too perfect, or too suspiciously accidental.
It was Kaela who finally shattered the tension, stepping forward with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her eyes narrowed into slits of pure suspicion, the kind earned from years of being burned by instructors who weaponized the concept of ’generosity.’
"Wait... what the actual fuck...?" She jabbed a finger at William’s chest, her voice laced with accusation. "Hold on just one damn second!"
"Is this one of those fucked up psychological tricks?!" Kaela pointed at him. "You say it’s a rest day; let us drop our guard, let our muscles relax, and then..."
"...halfway through when we’re at our most vulnerable you storm in screaming about ambush formations and say, ’Surprise! This was actually a forty-eight-hour endurance test, and everyone who slept is a fucking failure’?!"
William felt a white-hot spike of pain shoot through his lower vertebrae as he shifted his weight. "Hahhhhhh..."
’Fuck, if she only knew how much I actually need to rest,’ he thought grimly. ’My spine feels like it’s held together by rusted nails and spite.’
"No," William said, his voice flat, refusing to betray the tremor in his muscles.
"Because that is exactly the kind of sadistic shit you would do," Kaela countered, stepping closer, her boots crunching aggressively on the gravel.
"It’s genuinely not," William insisted, though the effort to stand straight made his vision swim for a split second. "I’m not that sneaky."
"You absolutely are that sneaky," Lia interjected quietly.
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a weight of patient, weary skepticism that cut through Kaela’s aggression. William turned to find her watching him with an expression that wasn’t quite accusation; it was more like the disappointed look of someone who had seen the same trick performed three times already.
"You literally built an entire three-hour lesson around Clara pretending to relax during ambush drills just to see how long it took for her pulse to spike..."
"This feels disturbingly consistent with your entire personality."
William let out a breath that was half sigh, half groan. "Okay, first of all, I’ll take that as a compliment that you all think I’m capable of orchestrating a scheme this elaborate and coordinated."
"Second of all, no... For once in your lives, just shut up and accept the win."
"This is exactly what it sounds like... You have the day off, and I mean it... all of you." He paused, swallowing hard against the ache in his pelvis. "That includes me, for what it’s worth, since apparently I’ve forgotten what a day without a training schedule even looks like."
"And of course... I’m going to spend this precious rest day convulsing in a bathtub with enough painkillers to kill a horse," he added silently to himself. ’
Kaela didn’t move immediately. She stood there like a statue of defiance, her eyes scanning William’s face for any twitch, any tell, or any sign of a lie.
She was weighing the odds like a gambler facing a loaded deck. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of mounting pressure, she let out an exaggerated exhale and shrugged, letting her defensive posture collapse.
"Fine," Kaela snapped, though the edge of her hostility had dulled into grudging acceptance. "But let me make this crystal clear... if I wake up tomorrow and find out that this was all some twisted test of our ability to handle disappointment, I’m not blaming the universe, and I’m not blaming fate."
"I’m coming for you specifically, Instructor Wade... I will make your life a living hell."
William offered a grim, almost imperceptible nod. "Duly noted."
As the students began to disperse, some with hesitant steps, others with obvious relief William’s gaze drifted toward the periphery of the training ground. His heart skipped a beat, a rare jolt of genuine surprise cutting through the fog of physical agony that defined his existence.
There she was. Catherine.
She wasn’t retreating to her quarters or hiding away from the chaos. Instead, she stood near the far edge of the training grounds, leaning against a crumbling stone pillar.
Her arms were loosely folded across her chest, but her attention wasn’t on the scenery. A stack of official paperwork was clutched in one hand, the edges slightly crinkled from where she had been gripping them.
’What the hell is she doing here?’ William wondered, his mind momentarily racing faster than his body could follow. ’She should be in her office, buried under reports and requisition forms...’
’Why is she out here in the sun?’
The sight of her sent a complicated wave of emotion through him. Part of him felt exposed as if she could see through his disciplined posture and straight into the raw, throbbing wreckage of his lower body.
But another part of him felt a strange, grounding comfort.
Catherine caught his eye. She didn’t offer a grand gesture or a loud greeting; she simply gave him a small, knowing look, a subtle tilt of her head that spoke volumes.
Her eyes held a depth of understanding that bypassed words. She knew.
She knew the students had been pushed past their breaking points. She knew about the weeks of relentless drills, the terrifying ambushes, and the shadow of the conspiracy that had nearly claimed several lives.
She knew that while their wounds had closed and their bruises had faded, something deeper had been fractured.
It was the kind of exhaustion that no medic could treat, and no ointment could soothe. It was a hollow, bone-deep weariness that lived behind the eyes, a quiet erosion of the spirit that came from constant survival.
"You’re making the right call, William."