The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 235

Chapter 235: 235 | The Watermelon Question

The second mile separated the wheat from the chaff, to use an expression I’d never fully understood until I watched half my cohort start falling apart. Eden’s face turned a shade of red that matched his hair. Rina dropped so far back I couldn’t see her when I glanced over my shoulder. Percy maintained his position with the kind of methodical determination that suggested he’d calculated his optimal pace to the second and refused to deviate.

Steele ran alongside us.

Not in front. Not behind. Alongside. Matching whatever pace the leaders set with the effortless stride of someone who could do this all day and probably had.

Her legs ate ground with mechanical consistency. Each footfall landed with the same controlled power as the last. I watched the way her thighs flexed through the compression material and immediately regretted having eyes.

"Dude." Caden’s voice was barely audible between his wheezing breaths. "Do you think Steele’s thighs could crush a watermelon?"

I stumbled.

Literally stumbled, my right foot catching on nothing because my brain had decided to prioritize processing that mental image over coordinating my motor functions.

Steele’s thighs. Watermelon.

Yeah. Probably.

Actually, definitely. Those thighs could probably crush a lot of things. Cars. Steel beams. The hopes and dreams of anyone who disappointed her.

I was so busy imagining this that I didn’t notice Steele had dropped back to run directly beside me until her voice cut through my very inappropriate thoughts.

"Belmont."

I flinched so hard I almost tripped again.

"Ma’am."

"Your pace dropped by twelve percent in the last thirty seconds." Her eyes stayed forward, tracking the field. "Either you’re more tired than you should be at mile two, or something distracted you. Which is it?"

My brain scrambled for an answer that wasn’t "Caden asked if your legs could crush fruit and I got way too invested in the question."

"Momentary lapse, ma’am. Won’t happen again."

"Hmm." The sound she made communicated that she knew I was lying but hadn’t decided whether to push it. "Eyes forward. Legs moving. Whatever your friend said isn’t more important than your time."

She accelerated, leaving me in her wake with a view of her back that I absolutely was not going to let myself appreciate because that way lay madness and probable death.

Caden wheezed out something that might have been a laugh. "Oh man. Oh man. Your face."

"Shut up."

"Your face when she ran up next to you. I thought you were going to swallow your own tongue."

"I’m going to kill you."

"Worth it. Completely worth it."

The third mile was when things got serious. Steele started calling out names of students who were falling behind, her voice carrying across the field like a judgment from on high. Rina’s name appeared twice. Eden’s once. Someone I didn’t recognize from the back of the group got pulled aside entirely and told to walk the remainder while everyone else continued.

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