I'll Quit When I'm Dead

by Luke Smitherd

Genres: Horror; Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

In this page-turning, provocative horror novel, two desperate souls attempt to turn their lives around, with nightmarish consequences if they fail.

Madison has seen better days. Reeling from a bad breakup, self-soothing with junk food, and totally consumed by her lack of direction, she’s in need of a big reset. When she runs into an old acquaintance at the gym, Madison is shocked by how fit they’ve suddenly become. The cause? An all-female fitness boot camp led by ex-military guru Ellie Fellowes. The course is characterized by grueling reps and minimal contact with the outside world, and when Madison signs up to experience it herself, something doesn’t feel right. The other students keep acting strangely; Ellie seems almost superhuman, and her intense motivational methods are becoming bizarre, even dangerous. But Madison is getting results. How can she stop now?

Musician Johnny Blake has been struggling with a pain pill addiction after a very public, very bad fall. At the encouragement of loved ones, he retreats to a secluded cottage to detox. But Johnny isn’t alone. Something is lurking in the shadows of his new home—a creature unnatural and hungry, one that traps Johnny in a frightening bargain. If Johnny doesn’t stay off his pills and keep his end of the deal, he will be eaten alive.

As Madison and Johnny’s predicaments spiral into the unthinkable, they will have to look within to find the true and terrifying answer to the age-old question: How badly do you want it?

Nerve-shredding and compulsively readable, I’ll Quit When I’m Dead marks Luke Smitherd as a major voice in horror to watch.

Release date: October 14, 2025

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 384

Sample

THREE THOUSAND PLUS people roar their approval as the final chord rings out. The crowd is fully warm now, four songs into Johnny Blake’s set, loose and loud. Johnny holds up one hand, the other gripping the neck of his guitar, and tries to take in the screaming love. It’s hard to absorb, but they are all here for him. Tonight, he is their king—they want him to be—and that means he has a responsibility. They want a fun show, and he has to deliver.

“How you feeling, Birmingham?”

Another roar. That one got through; the hairs on his arms stand up. Okay. He’s here. He’s trucking. “You know, last night, we were in…” Where were they last night? Think. Jesus, that’s weird. “In, uh…” He blows air out of his nostrils, the mic picks it up, and immediately he can feel the audience tense.

Fix it.

Johnny lets out as genuine-sounding a chuckle as he can muster, and the audience relaxes a little, giving their own nervous laughter back to him. They want to. They want the King to be happy so they can be happy.

The air in the building is thick and sweaty, condensed in the packed town-hall-sized venue that is the Birmingham Academy. The smell of beer and the buzz of low-level conversation washing forward in a wave that rolls up onto the stage. It breaks and crashes over Johnny, and his heartbeat pulses strongly in his temple. It feels close in here tonight, even in a venue of this size, on a stage of this size. He shuffles his feet, avoiding the foot pedals at the base of his mic stand and wishing the stage lights weren’t so fucking bright. He looks at them and blinks three times, as he’s of course been doing all night.

“Jesus,” he says into the mic, wiping his face, and the audience chooses to laugh louder, deciding to accept this as rock ’n’ roll, baby. He’s never, ever enjoyed playing live, never been comfortable as the center of attention in any space. He’s a songwriter, not a performer. But the money is almost all in the touring now, or at least it is for someone operating at Johnny’s level. He doesn’t have much of a choice in the current streaming-industry climate. He’s lucky that he’s got enough of a following to make getting on the road almost worth it. But he isn’t a showman. The Guardian called him “personally unengaging but vocally gifted” in their live review. “Come for the music, but don’t expect a show.”

He’s been trying to turn it up lately, trying to learn from his musical heroes. Throw a wink in here, a bit of crowd work there. He can put on a show, right? He has to be the King, like it or not. Ivan told him that. “I think I’m as out of it,” he says, “as you guys are. Hell…” The audience roars in delight. You’re fucked up, we’re fucked up, and this is what we wanted; we wanted to go to a different place for a night.

That’ll do. What’s next? He looks down at the setlist, his whole body feeling hot: “Please Don’t Take Me Home.” Perfect. An old, old song of his; he could play it with his eyes shut. He glances over to his right at Mark, his bassist—an older, skilled hired gun just like the rest of the backing band. Mark’s brow is furrowed, noticing something is off; Johnny wonders if Mark realizes how close Johnny is to a full-blown panic attack. He’s come close many times, but never—

He can fix this. He’s already fixing it, it’s fine, it’s fine…

“You know,” Johnny says quickly into the mic, jerking forward and just fucking talking, remembering The Independent calling him “robotic” and “distant.” So he’ll talk. “I wrote this next song when I was fourteen.” If he can rattle off a quick, lucid intro, no one will know how bad he is right now. “I remember I had to do it quietly. You ever tried to write a song quietly?” Light chuckles. “My dad slept a lot in the evenings, as he worked nights, and if you woke him up, woof. Anyone here have a dad who worked nights?” Cheers. “You ever wake him up on the wrong fuckin’ day?”

Open laughter. That’s better. The King straightens up onstage. They’re here to see you. “Yeah, yeah, you know what it’s like.” He gently forms the opening chord with his left hand as he talks: G minor. “The guy would just… light me up if I woke him.” More laughter, but uncertain now. Johnny tries to correct it. “I’m talking, like… a fucking belt.” He forces another chuckle at the end, to make it clear that this is supposed to be funny, but he simultaneously realizes that (a) it isn’t and (b) he doesn’t think it’s funny either. The room is deafeningly quiet. Now it’s bad, fuck, okay, he can save it, he just has to make it showtime, he can do that, yes.

He quickly taps his thumb and forefinger together, 1-2-3, the stress making another of his little rituals kick in. The ritual doesn’t help, but then it never really does. He looks to his left, into the wings, and spots Ivan’s short, wide form looking tense, the older man’s shoulders set as he stands gripping a beer in each hand. Tonight is a rare night out for Ivan, Johnny insisting his friend and mentor come to a local gig while the show is in town, and the dude came to party. Ivan doesn’t look as if he’s in a party mood right now, though; he mouths something:

What’s wrong?

Johnny looks back to the audience, the edges of his vision starting to gray as panic grips his throat. “But fuck that guy, eh?” Johnny cries, throwing up a hand as sweat runs down either side of his face. Now there is very little laughter, and that which does come is nervous.

Play the song. Just shut up, play the rest of the songs, and thank them, then go home.

But it’s weird now, they all think he’s crazy, and he needs this to be fun for them because now they surely think that he’s some kind of fucking amateur.

He’s not, and he has to fucking show them—

“Hey—”

And then he’s throwing off his guitar, feeling lightheaded, and ignoring Mark as the bassist says whatever he’s saying, because Johnny knows that if the audience have a choice between saying he was weird or saying he was wild they will pick the latter, they want to, so if he gives them something wild to talk about—

Fuck it—

There’s a heavy and painfully loud clattering over the PA as Johnny’s guitar hits the floor, followed by a feedback whine that makes the whole room wince, but Johnny is leaning into his decision. This will work, I’m sorry you came to see me and I’m just not right, but I can make this fun, it can be chaotic fun that we all can—

The sound engineer mercifully kills the channel and the feedback cuts out, but Johnny is already grabbing the mic and deliriously barking two words into it as his vision of the audience swims.

“Catch me.”

He charges past the mic stand and runs up and over the monitor, pushing off it with his feet and catapulting himself into space as he flies off the stage.

His hang time in the air seems longer than he expected; he suddenly feels impossibly light and free, glorious even as he floats, completely and utterly present. He has time to see the upturned blank faces below him, briefly feeling as if he is taking off and will continue to rise higher as he hears three thousand people respond—more gasps than cheers, he will later remember, the audience’s concern taking all the fun out of it—before he sees something terrible.

The people below him are parting like the Red Sea.

Johnny tries to turn in the air, to twist and buck like a salmon in order to right himself and at least stand a chance of landing on his feet, but all that does is flip him all the way over, exposing his back. He plummets spine first toward the concrete floor.

The sense of dropping beneath the level of the crowd’s heads reminds him of that old trust game they used to play at school, the one where you fall backward and blindly let people catch you; the bigger kids would leave the save as late as possible to make the falling child believe they were going to hit the deck. Johnny remembers a flash of the exhilaration, the rush from the momentum of his then-child’s body passing the point at which he thought he was going to be caught and feeling as if he were dropping into the depths.

Tonight, there are no bigger kids to catch him. He has the presence of mind to get his hands behind his skull just before impact. The floor of the Birmingham Academy hits him in the back, buttocks, and legs with an undeniability so dense and solid that it takes away all of his ability to move, to think. The faces of the people who moved away now crowd back in around and above him, staring down at him and making him feel as if he were looking up out of a grave, but just as the pain begins to break through, Johnny’s vision starts to gray once more. He hears yelling over the PA system, but it sounds muffled; Johnny understands that he is falling into unconsciousness.

Thank God, he thinks, and lets the grayness take him.

MADISON CAN’T DO IT.

There’s copper in her breath, soup in her arms and legs where bones used to be, and a timing chip tied into her shoelaces that cannot be denied. Excuses are not an option. This irony is not lost on Madison as she stumbles into the final thousand meters, the home stretch.

Many other runners are keeping pace with her, all of them gasping and sweating in a spaced-out cluster. Beyond her temporary companions lie the roadside barriers, behind which a decent crowd stands two or even three people deep at certain points. They’re cheering, clapping, waving. She has a weird feeling that her mother is somewhere nearby, but looking for her would of course be useless. The sky above is surprisingly gray for an August race. Through Madison’s blurry, sweaty vision, the clouds blend in with the concrete of Coventry’s streets. She tells herself the line, the one repeated so many times that the words are almost completely drained of their power, a cold steak chewed until all flavor is gone:

You can do it.

The phrase stirs nothing inside her now, as recognizable and instantly ignored as Warning: Contents may be hot. This is just too hard.

She curses herself for all those extra hits of the SNOOZE button, those ten more minutes of screen time that turned into an hour, those days when she did a light session instead of the heavy one. Those tiny capitulations all added up, whispering away her discipline until taking the easy way out became the norm all over again. How could she have forgotten how badly she needed this? The problem with motivation, she knows, is that it has amnesia.

She’s furious with herself.

You didn’t wanna do the work? Well, for this home stretch at least, you are gonna fucking hurt.

Madison cries out, her feet bite into the concrete, and the other words rage at the front of her mind, the ones that of course have more flavor and saltiness than ever:

How the fuck did I talk myself into this?

Three months earlier

PureGym, Coventry

Madison stares at the contents of the vending machine, seeing the wall of protein bars and £8 locker padlocks for sale behind its glass display. She’s tried the bland, flavorless dough of the protein bars before. One of the padlocks, she thinks, might be the more enjoyable snack. Her brain unhelpfully conjures up a memory of the school vending machines of her youth: Twixes, Mars bars, KitKats. Then she’s suddenly glad they aren’t available. If they were, she knows she would be unable to resist. Imani is the one who can say no to chocolate.

“Hey, Madison.” A voice from behind her.

“Hi,” Madison mumbles, her response automatic and without recognition. She glances after the stranger who offered the greeting, and is suddenly struck for a moment by the incredible shape this woman is in. Her yellow spandex two-piece reveals a stomach so chiseled that she must surely be a professional athlete.

Of course many of the young women Madison sees at PureGym are fit, but this woman is something else. Every muscle in her abdominal wall is clearly defined and sharp. Her shoulders are toned and rounded, her legs strong and smooth without a hint of cellulite. She walks tall, her posture upright and strong.

The stranger smiles and gives a little wave, seeing Madison—and now Imani too—looking, and Madison feels a flutter of what she knows is incorrect recognition. Madison turns back to the machine and presses the buttons for one of the dairy-free, carb-free, gluten-free (and to quote Garfield, Madison thinks, flavor-free) protein bars: E5. The vending machines are situated near the gym entrance, next to the small seating area where members can work or eat, or where staff sit with new signees and upsell as best they can. Away to the right is the gym floor proper, the sounds of clanging weights and thumping house music echoing off the gym’s high ceiling. It’s peak time and the place is packed, another reason Madison really doesn’t like going to the gym.

“Is that Kelly?” Imani mutters behind Madison, not wanting her uncertainty overheard.

The woman’s face does look a bit like Kelly’s, Madison thinks, but then jerks her gaze away from the machine as she hears a surprised gasp. Imani is striding away with her hands on either side of her face.

“Jesus Christ, Kelly!” Imani cries. The stranger turns, pleased and shyly grinning—Shucks, you got me, but I kinda wanted you to—and Madison sees it is Kelly!

Madison’s jaw drops.

“Oh my God,” she breathes, openly looking Kelly up and down as she walks over, following Imani, who has wrapped Kelly up in a hug. “You look… Holy shit, Kelly.” Now Madison and Kelly hug, and Madison briefly realizes they’ve never hugged before—they’re only gym friends—but Madison is so delighted for Kelly that her reaction was instinctive. She remembers how Kelly used to try to cover her gymwear-exposed body with her arms as she talked.

“Is this where you’ve been?” Imani asks, gesturing at Kelly’s abs. “Putting this together? You sneaky cow, you only went and turned yourself into a Bad Bitch!”

Madison smiles, rolling her eyes. Typical Imani.

“Yeah, I went away to grind for a bit,” Kelly says sheepishly, red-faced again but now from aw shucks pride. The woman is glowing. “Thanks, guys! Nice to be appreciated.”

“Well, how could we not?” Madison says, still dumbstruck. This is not how Kelly used to look. “I’ve never—”

“Seen a change like it,” Imani says, shaking her head and speaking for Madison, which is one of Madison’s pet peeves about their friendship. She lets it slide, though. She’s been letting a lot of things slide lately, and she’s finding that, in the short-term at least, it makes life a lot easier. The long-term can be dealt with another day.

“How did you do it, Kelly?” Madison asks. “Seriously, well done! I am so proud of you!!” She hears herself. Is she being patronizing? She switches to her usual rescue tactic: self-deprecation. “I can barely get myself to put on a sports bra and get over here.”

“Don’t be silly. You look great—you both do.” Kelly smiles.

While the phrase is clearly meant to be kind, Madison also knows it’s a lie; she glances at herself in one of the nearby floor-to-ceiling mirrors. As always, her brain tells her that she hates what she sees: chipmunk cheeks, pasty white skin, piggy brown eyes, brown hair too long and greasy. Two weeks ago she paid to have her body mass index measured. At five foot six and a BMI of 26, Madison has now officially tipped over into the realm of the overweight. The news didn’t create any feeling of motivation, only resignation; she wasn’t lying about what she can barely get herself to do. She has the list of well-intentioned remarks from Imani to prove it: “Just come to some classes with me. It’ll be fun. Moving around will make you feel good.” And Imani does look great—not Kelly great but still slim and without a single fold in her smooth skin… none of which would be a problem if Madison had anything else at all going for her right now. That way she could say, None of that superficial bullshit matters; X is what matters, and actually mean it.

Imani, at twenty-five, is only two years older than Madison, and already she has many, many things going on.

“I just had to make a lot of changes,” Kelly is saying, “to my mindset, diet, training, everything. I can’t lie; it’s easily been the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I can imagine,” Madison says. “Bloody hell. Like, how long did this take?”

“About six months,” Kelly says, “although the hardest part by far was the first one. That was when I made all the changes. I did this course. It was a whole thing. Had to take a month off work.”

“They let you do that?” Imani asks.

“Used all my annual leave,” Kelly says. “I gave them plenty of notice.”

“You still at…” Madison begins, and then doesn’t have it. Shit, what was the name of where Kelly worked? “Barrington’s,” she finishes, making the save.

“Yeah, full manager now actually.” Kelly grins. “You still at Gilligan’s?”

Madison forces a well-practiced fake smile onto her face. “No, I left,” she says.

“Ah, okay. Working a job and studying at the same time can be a lot—I get it.”

Madison notices Imani stiffen a little at the statement. Madison reddens slightly. “No, I left university too, I’m afraid.”

Her shame multiplies by a factor of ten, not just by being blasted by the security-floodlight-level shine of Kelly’s transformation but also from having the aimlessness of her situation thrown into full relief. She wants to explain: There was this relationship thing that became a bad breakup, and university had—

“Oh!” Kelly says, embarrassed too. “Oh, I’m sorry. What’s the plan now, then?”

“I don’t know,” Madison says. “I’m job hunting…” She trails off, desperate for something to add. The book. “Actually, I’ve been, like, writing a novel. Just for fun.”

“Oh, that’s so cool,” Kelly says, grinning. “I always wanted to do that. Historical fiction, maybe. But you’re actually doing it!”

Madison smiles. Kelly’s nice.

“Meh,” she says, shrugging comically. “It’s not so impressive when that’s all you have to do. And I’ve still got to finish it, I have a little money though for now, so I can focus on plot rather than rent, if you get me.” Madison feels that little flutter of gratitude again for her mother’s financial gift, and the companion thought follows straight on its heels as always: At least the woman did something.

Kelly puts a hand on Madison’s shoulder and looks her in the eye. “You’re going to figure it all out,” she says, low and sincere. “And you’re going to be okay.”

Silence from the three women. Sounds of colliding and sliding metal all around them, behind all that the steady thud of house bass. Madison suddenly doesn’t know what to say; the conversation was appreciative small talk, and now here is the moment of open concern and sincerity… but it’s a bit odd. Overly sincere. Kelly isn’t Madison’s life coach, but she’s talking like one. Even so, there’s a warmth in Kelly’s gaze.

“Yeah, I hope so, thanks, yeah,” Madison says, scratching her ear and feeling awkward. “Hey,” she adds quickly, changing the subject. “You said something about a course? What was that?”

Kelly’s smile falters. She looks around the room and shifts uncomfortably for a moment. Madison glances at Imani; her friend is still smiling at Kelly in awe. She didn’t see it.

“I’ll have to get you the details,” Kelly says, beginning to turn away. “Oh, one of the squat racks is finally free. I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, no problem. Go, go!”

Kelly waves and hurries away onto and across the expansive gym floor, leaving Madison and Imani at the vending machines.

Imani whistles quietly. “Jesus,” she says.

“I know,” Madison agrees. The Twix, she remembers. It’s still in the machine. She turns to retrieve it.

Then she stops.

“Hold on a sec, Ims,” Madison says. She strides across the gym floor, trying not to think about what she’s doing, her eyes searching for that bright yellow. She finds it; Kelly is loading plates onto the bar. “Kelly?”

Her acquaintance looks up, surprised, and then gives a confused smile.

“Oh, hey.”

Whatever determination has propelled Madison over here suddenly vanishes. “Seriously. I just wanted to, like, say congratulations again,” she lies. “You’ve obviously put in the work and you look incredible.”

Kelly cocks her head, beaming and genuinely touched. “Thank you. You two have really made my day.”

Ask her.

“No problem,” Madison says, smiling herself. She is at least pleased that she made Kelly happy. But then she scurries away, the question unasked.

Loser.

Hey, forgive me for messaging you.

No, no, no. Too stalker-y.

Hey, sorry for chasing this but I simply had to ask!

That’s better. More pally-pally, more work colleague-y. If in doubt, add an exclamation point. They might be Facebook friends, but Madison doesn’t know Kelly well enough to send her a DM out of the blue. She never has before, certainly, and that makes this weird enough as it is.

Especially after I was really blown away today by the way you looked and just your overall energy. It was really impressive, but I noticed

Noticed what? How should she put it? She decides to just write the honest version for a first draft. She can always amend it before sending, if she sends it at all.

that when I asked how you did it you kinda ducked me?

If you’d rather not say what you did, I completely understand

Even if asking got her nowhere, she would have done something that made her uncomfortable; she could celebrate a small win. Maybe this could even be how she finally got back on track: picking smaller dragons to slay and chaining a few of those victories in a row.

… but I would love to know because I could use a win right now and I’d like to do whatever you did myself. NO JUDGEMENTS!

It wasn’t just Kelly’s weight loss or new muscle tone.

It was something in the woman’s eyes.

She looked alive, as if Madison was simply drifting through reality and Kelly was now mainlining it.

But your journey is your own and if you want to keep it private, I TOTALLY understand. Love you lots either way and again, you look amazeballs.

She rereads it. It’s not too bad as it is.

She hits SEND.

She waits for the sting of regret and shame to come—Why the hell did you do that? She’s going to think you’re a weirdo stalker, asking her private questions—but she manages to keep a lid on it. A little dragon slain. It felt unfamiliar, and good.

She even manages, over the rest of the evening in her tiny, messy apartment, to not keep checking for replies. She busies herself; she nearly goes to work on the mess, identifying a small dragon, but somehow ends up on the sofa with the TV on, staring at the ceiling. She can picture her dad standing over her now, criticizing, not getting after her for the mess itself but for the potential judgment of visitors, of how passive the mess is, asking if she wants to go and live with the Wintermans down the road or even the Barstows if she wants to be like those kinds of people. Why can’t you be more like your sister? Then she pictures her mother walking in and her dad clamming up, not wanting to risk setting his constant powder keg of a wife off…

Bloody hell, Madison thinks, hearing her internal spiraling. Relax.

She tells herself that not checking her messages again will be the next tiny dragon she can surely slay, but by the time 9:13 rolls around, even that pathetic creature wins. She allows herself another check.

Kelly has replied.

Madison reads, not knowing why she’s so excited by this but enjoying it anyway. It’s nice to be excited again.

Sorry, Kelly has written. I didn’t mean to. I guess I was a bit embarrassed because if I tell you what I did, you’ll think I’m mental! Even if you were impressed with the results. It’s personal development taken to the extreme. Physically intense with lots of mind games involved.

It’s definitely not for the fainthearted.

Madison’s heart sinks a little. She is definitely fainthearted. Previously that only meant failings such as not sticking with spin class. Nowadays she can barely bring herself to leave the fucking house.

I can tell you some of the basics here, Kelly says, but to really understand, it’s probably better if you hear the pitch from Ellie herself.

Ellie who?

But if you go through with it, Kelly writes, to use Imani’s phrase, you’ll become a Bad Bitch in a way you never thought possible.

Bad Bitch. A buzz phrase that always gets under Madison’s skin a little. She’s seen it used far too many times online, along with the other mantras: Rise and Grind. The 5 a.m. Club. Your Body is a Machine. Such jargon always stirs jealousy, resentment, and irritation in her that gets worse each time she sees it. She’s a person, not a robot. She wasn’t put on Earth to maximize productivity.

But dammit… she needs a little of that at least. And hell, today the idea sends the briefest little thrill through her: Madison as a Bad Bitch.

The course I attended is called NO DAYS OFF, it’s a females-only intake, it takes place in Vermont, USA, and it lasts a month. You won’t find anything about it online. Here’s my number if you don’t already have it. We can chat first and then you can see if you want to speak to her. It’d be nice to talk outside of the gym anyway.

Madison feels that twist she always gets when someone wants to get closer, that strange tension of craving connection and yet instantly feeling overwhelmed by the prospect. She’s trying to do better with it. She really is.

Vermont, she thinks. Would I really go that far?

She thinks of Kelly. Of her glow.

She types, and when she does, she manages to forget about her social anxiety and get excited for what she might become.

Hope. It’s nice to feel that again too.

Sounds great! Madison writes. When would you like to talk?

Two weeks later

A Coventry Memorial Park bench

Madison expected some kind of densely built six-foot-tall Amazonian, but Ellie is quite a lot shorter than Madison. Petite almost, and while it is hard to tell through Ellie’s jacket, it looks as if she carries the wiry frame of a long-distance runner. Her posture is perfect, her shoulders back, her lean neck proudly supporting a head covered in long black poodle curls scraped into a ponytail that rests upon Ellie’s left shoulder. Madison doesn’t know Ellie’s exact age, but based on her CV, the woman must be at least fifty. She looks it, but a good fifty.

Kelly set up this rendezvous. It’s a pleasant May afternoon. A gentle breeze buffets Madison’s shoulder-length hair, carrying the distant yelps of young boys playing some sort of game that involves a lot of happy screaming. Madison ignores them and listens to her companion, feeling the warm coffee cup in her hand and the blood jumping in her veins.

“Ninety-nine percent of people wouldn’t do it,” Ellie is saying. “Ninety-nine point nine percent, really. It’s a crazy idea, but some people need crazy solutions. And those are the people I’m here for. When I told my sister about my idea for the residential, digital detox version of No Days Off,” Ellie continues with a smile, “she said no woman would ever put herself in that situation.”

Madison understands. Kelly told her the premise of the No Days Off course, and it is crazy. “There are consequences for failure or refusal,” Kelly said. “And you can always say no to them, but then you go home.” She said a lot more than that, but the fire in her eyes sold Madison completely. Then she explained it to Imani, who told Madison in no uncertain terms that anyone would be utterly crazy for even considering attending this course.

Crazy solutions, Madison thinks.

“Like I say,” Ellie says, “ninety-nine percent of the time? My sister was absolutely right about people not doing it. But ninety-nine percent of people wouldn’t put themselves through a Navy SEALs Hell Week, and even the majority of those who do, drop out.” She smiles and shrugs. It looks a little forced, but that’s okay. Madison isn’t here to make a friend. She’s here to change her life. But she’s sweating. It’s warm out, too warm for the oversized coat she’s chosen to wear. She feels stupid about it now, but before she left home, Madison decided she didn’t want Ellie to see what kind of shape she’s in. Not out of shame, even though that is a factor in everything, but because she was told Ellie had to accept you into the course. Is the woman looking for athletes, then? The question was skipped like most of the others; Kelly remained fairly coy when she and Madison spoke, explaining some things, but not many. “Talk to Ellie” was the insistent refrain.

Ellie, dressed in a stylish white jacket, black pants, and pumps, agreed to meet Madison in Coventry for her one-hour consultation. “It’s equidistant for us both,” Ellie said. They each have a coffee that Madison bought from the nearby stand. Madison’s is a mocha with whipped cream, ordered out of habit. By the time she realized, changing it would have been weird.

Ellie’s is black.

“So,” Ellie says, giving the smile again that Madison finds a little unusual. It never quite reaches her eyes yet still manages to seem genuine and warm. Madison doesn’t think she’s ever seen a smile quite like it. “Light or Medium?”

Ah, now. This is something tha