My Shades of Gray

Shade 27 ~ Dumbbells

The next two days also went by like that. I made coffee for Hunter in the morning. Then we go for a run. After coming back, he made me his sour taste protein shake, and I went to college and then work.

Even at college, I go from one class to another running, so I get used to it. Everyone watched me like I had lost some screws, but what do they know about what was going on in my life.

Every night I'm worn out and sleep soundlessly without a care in this world. But I didn't forget my mission.

Whenever I got the time, I searched for the girls from Riley's high school on social media and tried to match their faces with the twenty-four girls I saw in the videos. But it wasn't easy to do since I had no names and only blurred faces.

There was no progress with the search, but I was progressing with the training. On Thursday, after drinking the coffee, Hunter stopped me when I was ready to walk out of the house.

"We're not running today."

"Why?" I frowned.

I was used to it now, and I wasn't heaving like I did the first time.

"It's time to get serious." He said, striding towards the door next to his room. "Come on."

Wait... He's taking me to his secret workout room, or whatever it was!

Gulping, I followed him, and he opened the door. I saw stairs that led down to the basement and I went after him. There was darkness and I couldn't see anything until he switched the lights on. I blinked my eyes to adjust to the light, and my eyes widened in astonishment.

Holy shit, I was right!

It was his personal gym space.

There were a lot of muscle-building machines like Lat Pull-down, Bench press, cable and pulleys, a pull-up bar, and a lot of different shapes and sizes of dumbbells. A huge wrestling training mat was in the middle of the room and a boxing bag was in the corner, attached to the ceiling. Huge wall-size mirrors covered the right side and the vibe of the room screamed power.

Only the sight of the room hyped me up and I began stretching my arms and legs.

"Alright." I cracked my neck. "What do I do first?"

"Push-ups."

I paused. "Uh, what?"

"Give me ten push-ups, Bella."

"Seriously?" I arched my brow and gestured toward his machines. "With all these present here, you want me to just push up?"

"Before any of these. You need to build strength in these." He poked my thin arm. "So you can punch."

"I know how to punch." I reminded him.

"Anyone can punch like that." He rolled his eyes. "But the point is to learn how to hit someone without getting hurt yourself." He pointed at the fading bruise on my knuckles. "Go on and give me ten."

"Just ten?" I scoffed. "I can do that."

I got in the position and forced myself down. My arm vigorously shook, and I groaned as I got back up.

"One."

"That wasn't even half." I heard Hunter snort. "Your chest needs to touch the floor."

"Fine," I grumbled as I tried to go down more. "T-w-o-fuck!" My arms gave up, and I slammed on the floor.

I was puffing like I just ran a marathon. I heard Hunter click his tongue, and I sat on the floor, glaring at him.

"That's zero point five." Hunter chuckled. "If you go like this, I'm sure you'll be able to do ten in like... A week."