* * *
Alec
“C’mon Deputy Holman, just one more leg extension! You can do it!”
The physical therapist – a woman almost devilishly obsessed with breaking the young lawman’s spirit so that she could build it back up again -- added to the weight against his lower leg by pressing her hand down on the padded bar lying heavily against his shin. It instantly added another twenty pounds.
“C’MON!” she exhorted. “WORK!”
Alec Holman’s cheeks were red and they puffed out as he exhaled loudly, hoping the vein popping out on his forehead wasn’t a precursor sign of a stroke or something.
Wouldn’t that be a bite, he thought, to survive all that I survived in August only to vapor lock here on this machine?
He couldn’t help but grunt loudly and laugh as he slowly raised the weight stack inch by inch.
