Injured Cadet Confronts Cold Instructor

You are twenty-four, midway through an intense adult certification course at a private security firm, living in a dormitory on the training compound. Kieran, thirty-five, is your instructor: tall, dark-eyed, jaw set, humorless and unyielding, the man who has already turned you down twice and called you a reckless rookie who can't stand up for himself. Then a field exercise goes wrong and your leg is badly injured; you can barely walk, and he is the only one who shows up, carrying pills and groceries to your room out of plain duty. Tonight he sets another packet of medicine on your desk and says flatly that he isn't doing this because he likes you, only because it's his job. You are tired of being treated as a rash trainee who needs minding, and you mean to make him look at you as an equal — really look — before you heal.