The Darkest Minds - "I'm a red,"

4.

Our training follows the same routine for a few months, practicing our abilities in the morning, then training in hand to hand combat. On the fun days, the Instructors teach us how to drive, in case we never need to learn on an op.

Now that we're approaching the three month mark of our training, they switch things around.

Once the instructors feel we've mastered our abilities, they alternate our Op training with ability practice, we never know which we're doing. The mornings are split now. Hours doing op training, then weaponry. It's death. Running five miles straight out of bed?

"As this is the first day of your field Op training, there are a couple of things we need to go over," Instructor Fiore starts, talking to our teams. We have a different instructor for each subject we cover.

"First, is you always listen to your leader. No matter what's happening, a gun fight, a second away from being captured, you do whatever your leader tells you to do. On your Ops, that will be one of the senior agents. Your minder may be the leader, but not always. Repeat it back to me," in a chorus of voices, we repeat what she said.

"Next, if you lose your com or your leader is killed, you listen to your team leader. Your minder will decide who that is, sometimes you might be the only one from your team on an op, so you listen to yourself. But first, it's always your leaders, it's how we keep each other safe. Got it?" Instructor Fiore asks and we all respond yes.

"I want you all to be aware that when an agent is captured, they are disavowed from the League. That is no different for you. We will not come for you. So, don't get caught," some eyes widen at that.

"This training focuses on how you will function on an Op. We're going to train you to turn off your feelings of fear. They need to be replaced by calm, you can't work if you're afraid, high on adrenaline. You make stupid decisions. We call it controlled panic. Panic because of the situation, control because you're the predator. That's what we're here to teach you. How to be the predator,"

Instructor Fiore goes through the basics of the Ops and how we can enable that Controlled Panic. That when we're in a dire situation, we need to reset and resort to this training we're about to receive.

After Op training is weaponry. This is a different Instructor. His name is Instructor Rogers.

"Guns are not toys. They will be your primary weapon on any given Op and you need to know how to be safe with one and how to use one to protect yourself and your team. Because of this, we start by learning how to take them apart and put them together, how to clean them. Once you can do that, we move on to handling them,"

Vida and I put in the hardest work, we work out on our off time, practice putting together and deconstructing guns, and quiz each other about the Op strategy. We want this so badly.

Jude has started his basic training, though Cate wanted to wait a bit for him to get settled in.

He's much more comfortable with us, maybe too comfortable. But I don't care, he's family now.

One of the days we come back from training to meet with Cate, she's crying in her room.

My face falls and I immediately run over and comfort her, kneeling down in front of her chair.