Marked by the Alpha Team (Luna Merrick) novel Chapter 142

Luna’s POV

After Knox’s explanation, which was surprisingly reasonable despite how insane his methods seemed. I finally decided to stop fighting him and give him the benefit of the doubt. At this point, I was running out of options anyway, and every solution that had been presented to me so far had involved giving up before I had even tried Maybe Knox was crazy, and maybe bringing me all the way into the woods to stand under a waterfali was completely ridiculous, but the more I though about what he had said regarding fear and control, the more I realized that there was at least some logic behind it

I had spent the last several days terrified. Terrified of exposing myself, terrified of losing tay scholarship, terrified of failing and terrified of my own strength, so perhaps he was right. Maybe before I could learn to control my abilities, I first had to stop being so afraid of them.

Taking a deep breath that did absolutely nothing to calm me, I looked at him and forced myself to nod. “I’m ready.” I said, trying my best to sound more confident than I actually felt.

The moment the words left my mouth, Knox released my hand and stepped behind me. Even though his grip had only been gone for a second, I immediately missed the stability it had given me. The current seemed stronger now, almost like i had been waiting for him to let go before trying to knock me flat on my face again.

‘Hold your balance and keep walking,” Knox instructed from behind me in a calm voice that somehow carried over the roar of the water. Even though I couldn’t see him properly anymore, I could feel his presence behind me, steady and unbothere by everything around us. “If you fall, I’ll catch you,” he added, sounding so confident that it almost annoyed me.

How was he so relaxed while I felt like I was seconds away from becoming one with the river? Despite my nerves, I nodded and started moving forward again. Every step felt harder than the last. The current pushed against my legs relentlessly, trying to force me backward. The water seemed determined to reject my presence entirely, and several times my foot slipped against the rocks underneath, but each time I felt myself losing balance, Knox immediately grabbed my arm or shoulder from behind and steadied me before I could fall.

Strangely enough, he never commented on it. He never told me I was doing well or encouraged me to keep going He simply kept me upright and allowed me to continue. The further I moved, the more exhausted I became My muscles burned, my legs trembled, and my breathing became uneven. Yet somehow I kept forcing myself forward because ING back now would mean admitting that all of this had been for nothing.

By the time I finally reached the area directly under the waterfall, I was already struggling, but the moment I stepped at the crashing water, every bit of difficulty I had experienced earlier suddenly seemed insignificant. The freezing was slammed into me with terrifying force. It crashed against my head, shoulders, and back so hard that I genes chos might knock me unconscious.

The shock made a scream rip out of my throat before I could stop it. My ciftire body instantly tenses. Wer p eyes splashed into my nose, and somehow found its way into my cars. It was everywher

could barely hear my own thoughts, much less anything else the cold felt sharpeesseng me streamed that I needed to get out immediately Meanwhile Knox shipped mula sa k entirely too comfortable While I was glading for my life the idiot actually looked asset ward to tirow a rock at hun

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wiping water from my face again.

Every part of me ached, and Kould barely stand upright. The current was constantly trying to pull my feet out from under me. The fact that Knox was calmly telling me that we were not finished yet felt deeply unfair.

“There is,” he confirmed without even pretending to feel guilty about it. He folded his arms across his chest and looked entirely too pleased with himself. “Get in position.” he instructed, and immediately. I frowned at him.

I had absolutely no idea what position he was talking about. At this point, my only goal was remaining alive and upright Anything beyond that felt ambitious. “What position?” I asked while trying to keep water out of my eyes long enough to actually look at him.

The confusion on my face must have been obvious because Knox sighed like I was the difficult one in this situation. Then he gestured toward me and took a step closer. “You’re about to run,” he explained calmly, as though he were announcing omething perfectly normal. For several seconds I just stared at him. Surely I had misunderstood him because there was no way he expected me to run under a waterfall.

You’re going to run without moving from where you stand,” Knox clarified when it became obvious that I was questioning is sanity. His voice remained calm and serious despite the ridiculousness of what he was asking. “You need to run at the xact speed you want to maintain during the race, not slower or faster. Run exactly the speed you want.”

The more he explained, the more impossible it sounded. I was already struggling just to stand here. The current was ttacking me from one direction while the waterfall attacked me from another. Water was filling every possible opening in ny face, so the idea of controlling my running speed while dealing with all of this sounded completely absurd. I opened my nouth, fully prepared to tell him that this was impossible and that he had finally lost his mind, but before I could speak. <nox narrowed his eyes at me as though he already knew what I was about to say.

Don’t decide it’s impossible before you’ve even tried,” he said firmly. There was something about the confidence in his towe hat made me pause.

He pointed directly at me. “The only thing you should be thinking about right now is your speed, he continued. His expression had become more serious than I had seen it all day. “Not the water, the current, the noise, or your tear T on your speed and stay on your feet.”

hated how reasonable he sounded, and I hated it even more because a part of me understood exactly what he mea discovering what I was, every single thing had become about fear. Fear of losing control, fear of messing up fear at bes exposed, and fear of failing. Maybe that fear was part of the problem. Maybe I had become so focused on everything could go wrong that I wasn’t giving myself a chance to focus on what I actually needed to do.

Slowly, I got into position. My legs felt like jelly, and the freezing water continued crashing into me with me MIS muscles were exhausted from simply standing here. Even so, I planted my feet firmly under me coquqund out Taking a deep breath, I tried to move my legs, but the second attempted to runem place pushed against my legs, the waterfall distracted me, qud my balance disappeared sinc

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