The instructors wanted to load Jabrowski into one of the ambulances standing by, but the Smurfs argued passionately as a group for him to get a chance to wake up and continue on.

Jab regained consciousness, and a medic declared him to have a mild concussion, recommending that he stop training. But Jab and the Smurfs made such a stink that he was given another shot at finishing Hell Week. Unfortunately, by midday Thursday, to the Smurfs’ dismay, he was hallucinating and had to be taken to the hospital. Griffin sidled over to her to mutter out of the side of his mouth that Jab would be rolled back a class and given another shot.

When she relayed that to her fellow Smurfs, they nodded and passed out, spooning together in the blessedly warm and dry sand of a dune near the beach. But then, so did she. She was so numb with exhaustion, cold, and physical agony, she had not one brain cell left to worry about anyone else except herself and her remaining teammates.

She honestly didn’t remember much of Thursday. She didn’t think she was delirious, but it passed in a strange fog of mental detachment. She watched her body being bruised and abused as she pushed it far, far beyond its limits. Pain still registered, but it didn’t even matter any more. She would keep doing the things the instructors told her to, stumbling forward from one evolution to the next until it either ended or she died. And at this point, she didn’t care which.

They lost two more Smurfs, one to a broken wrist, and one to voluntary withdrawal. Of one-hundred-sixty-two initial trainees, they were down to forty-four guys and a girl.

Then came the final run. An all-night sprint to the finish carrying a rucksack. It was a race through the desert, running from point to point to check in before being sent on. She was so stupid with fatigue she didn’t know where she was half the time. She just followed the guys in front of her and prayed they knew where the hell they were going.

It was a moonless night and so cold she couldn’t feel her fingers or toes. Which was maybe a blessing. What she couldn’t feel couldn’t hurt. She was at the point of trying to catalog what didn’t hurt instead of what did.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the other.

Griffin. Think of Griffin.

As always, he was her touchstone through this nightmare. She would never be able to repay him for the gift of giving her him to aim for. Without knowing that he would be waiting at the end of this horror, she seriously didn’t know if she would have had the will to continue on. At some point, she feared she would have just lain down and died.