Bobby and Jordon had made it back faster than Ward to the barracks to get cleaned up. Bobby had noticed that Ward was dropping farther and farther back when they had been walking. He had tried to talk to him, but Ward didn’t answer and he couldn’t be read. He felt Ward’s energy enter and waited until he was within earshot. Bobby had waited in the shadows outside and watched what Ward was doing. Once Ward was inside it took him very little time to strip off his once black pants and shirt and let them fall on the floor. He was looking forward to washing off the layers of mud that had dried on his skin. But he had had time to think about things while he waited for Ward to go inside and the more he thought about it the more upset he was that a girl had bested them all.
“Damn. What in the hell was that?” Bobby said in anger, not really expecting an answer. He was just walking into the shower stall in the men's locker room next to Ward. Ward had already thrown off his mud-encrusted clothes and gone into the showers to try and remove the layers that still clung to him. Ward had trained with these men before and their reaction to the mini training mission they had just been on was interesting. “Is she some sort of freak?” Bobby continued as the spray hit him and the mud began to puddle at the base of the stall.“They said she was good when we set up the training mission,” Ward put his head under the water and closed his eyes. He had been planning this since he had put in for a transfer to the Phoenix office. Part of it had been curiosity, part of it just another way to meet up with her again, but he hadn’t bothered to tell Bobby, his best friend or comrade, that. Closing his eyes and placing his face back under the water he could clearly picture her. He couldn't help but smile at the outcome of this training session. It didn’t surprise him that he had a good helping of admiration for her either. She had beaten them thoroughly. Her performance during the training session had not been anything less than extraordinary. Nothing he hadn't expected after he had looked at her file, after all they were PED agents. They were well trained in all types of areas to make them virtually unstoppable. No one could yet beat her time in assembling a firearm in pitch-blackness. It was pure pleasure to mentally watch as she moved through terrain that was best left to swamp creatures. She then switched her weapon under live fire. She had allowed him to watch all of this through her mind. It was only toward the end when they had tried to block each other that the true strength of her talents had shined. She had been the only mind reader he had ever met that could pick off a trained blocker in pitch-blackness. He was hoping he would get a chance to ask her about that.“Yah, but how did she find us in all that mess and pitch black conditions? She picked us off as if we were standing in the middle of an open field at noon. I couldn't even read that she was anywhere around,” Bobby vigorously rubbed shampoo into his matted hair, “Could you read her?”“Genetic freak, that’s what she is,” the only other man on the mission made his comment as he got into the showers. The training mission had included just the four of them, Jan had been set up as the one they had to capture and bring in. One woman had bested all of them, and egos were now hurting, all except for Ward’s.“We’re all genetic freaks if you want to get down to the nitty gritty and no, had no clue she was even around,” he wished he could have said the last part with more conviction. Since the first time he had seen her in the office, he had never stopped feeling her when she was around him.
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