I wasn’t the type of person who eavesdropped, but this conversation was in no way a secret. I bet Lucas was thrilled I was hearing it. I bet he thought it made them look appealing. All these girls throwing themselves at shifters because they were muscled and powerful and could turn into fierce creatures.
Few humans were privy to our existence. Most people still believed we were fictional beings, which packs perpetuated because not everyone was hot and bothered over a person who could morph into a beast. There were those who despised what we were.
Like the hunter who’d killed my father with a silver bullet.
People often hated what they didn’t understand.
No one understood why a girl was born to the pack, and that inspired hatred.
The paintballing arena resembled a post-apocalyptic junkyard. A rusted old bus with blown-out windows sat at the center of muddy earth strewn with various corroded car parts and scraps of metal tall enough to shield a body-and sharp enough to slice through one, too. A plastic tunnel linked the north part to the south part of the arena. A row of brick walls arranged like a labyrinth ran the length of the western fence. A log cottage sat along the arena’s northern fence. The rooms were dusty, the furniture disemboweled and overturned, the cabinets crooked and broken, their doors flapping like broken bird wings.
On the east side, there was a narrow tower with a winding staircase, and a platform with a plank leading down into a wooden boat that seemed to have washed up from a playground. The round windows were grimy and the corridors tight and dark.
A couple minutes ago, we’d been given long-sleeved overalls, walkie talkies, helmets with visors, heavy guns loaded with paint pellets, and a mission. Besides defeating the enemy team, we had to locate five clues hidden amidst the junkyard.
Everest’s grumpy mood lifted. Even August seemed somewhat less encumbered. These boys loved playing wargames.
Everest was on my team, but not August. He was on the red team with Lucas. Liam and Matt were greens like me. The teams had been predetermined before we showed up. Not that I would’ve chosen to be on the red team. I was plenty happy to have Lucas on the enemy team.
I had my back to the brick wall. On the walkie talkie tuned into a special bandwidth only accessible to our team, I heard Liam’s voice crackle, asking for Matt’s position. Matt mentioned the tower. I looked up and spotted him, and then I spotted the barrel of his gun aimed straight at me. Something hard blasted against my stomach.
The bastard shot me!
I was his freaking teammate. He grinned, and then his voice grizzled on the walkie talkie, “Oops. I shot one of ours. Sorry, Clark.”
I glared at him, which just increased his wolfish grin
I walked off the field, gun and hands raised to indicate I was on a timeout. Two pellets flew at me. One from a red. The other from a green. Did these assholes not know the rules? I’d never played before, but I’d listened to the briefing.
I sat in the green camp, waiting for my coach to give me the go-ahead to return to the field-not that I wanted to return. I listened to the voices crackling over the walkie talkies. Heard one of my teammates announce that they’d located item number two and were bringing it back to the camp. Then heard another one announce he was on a timeout. A couple seconds after he walked in, I went back out and raced toward the wooden boat, where I found Everest.
“Fucking Matt shot me.”
“I heard.” He pulled open a trapdoor just as footsteps sounded above our heads. Dust flaked off the low ceiling. “The rusted pipe’s somewhere in the boat apparently. Search the back.”
I walked toward the hull, bumping into a hard body steeped in shadows. The green light on his helmet told me he was on my team, even though I couldn’t see his face.
A pellet burst against my back. I jerked, then gritted my teeth as I turned. Through the fog forming on my visor, I met Lucas’s pleased leer. “You’re out, Clark.”
Lucas didn’t shoot my teammate. He kept the gun leveled on me. “Better run along before I shoot you again.”
“Play nice, Lucas,” I heard the person behind me sayLiam
He circled around me and then retreated, the weathered boards groaning beneath his footfalls. I hadn’t expected him to stay, but I had expected him to be shot. He wasn’t.
I marched past Lucas, shoving him with my shoulder, and he chuckled.
“Asshole,” I muttered.
I walked back to the camp, not bothering to lift my gun. I was hit six more times, once on the jaw. The pellet broke the skin.
After a minute of stewing inside the camp, nursing my newest wound, I decided that if they weren’t going to play fair, I would play dirty too.
The second I was back in the game, I went to find Lucas, disregarding direct orders from our team captain-lo and behold, that was Liam-to assemble on the north side to strategize. I noticed Lucas’s black hair first, peeking out from underneath his helmet, and shot him square between the shoulder blades. He turned, arms raised. I shot him again. And again. I took great pleasure in seeing the colorful paint splatter his overalls.
When I was blasted on the waist by one of his teammates, I didn’t even care. I stalked back to the camp and refilled my ammo.
“Don’t know north from south, Clark?” Liam asked, barging into the camp seconds after me, a large splash of paint on his chest.
“Are we playing as a team now? Because if memory serves me, Matt and two other people from the greens shot at me. You probably didn’t notice, though, too wrapped up in barking orders.”
“Matt thought you were-”
“Oh, don’t give me that! I have a freaking green light flashing on my forehead.” I wiped the fog from my visor. “Who got you?”
“August.”
I smiled.
We didn’t speak after that. Liam was way too busy studying the video feed of the arena. Our coach radioed in that I was clear to reenter the field.
“We’re still missing the compass and the pair of yellow pliers,” Liam said without turning away from the monitor. “I think the compass is in the tunnel. Want to come with me to find it?”
“Are you planning on shooting me in the back?”
“I don’t shoot people in the back.”
Sure you don’t.
He held my gaze. “I’m not sure what you heard about me, but from the way you’ve been treating me, I’m guessing it’s all bad.”
I didn’t answer him.
“I’ll cover you,” he said. “Come to the tunnel with me.”
“Whatever. Fine. But know that if you shoot me, I’ll make your life hell.”
He had the audacity to smile. “More than it already is?”
I erupted from our bunker and headed toward the plastic tunnel. While Liam radioed in our position and asked if anyone had eyes on the exit, I peered inside. An, “all-clear,” crackled over the walkie talkie.
“Search the middle of the tunnel,” Liam said.
“Sending the girl in first. How gentlemanly.”
Liam’s eyes flashed behind the fog in his goggles. He pushed past me and flopped onto his stomach and started creeping down the tunnel. “Cover methen.”
So I shielded him. I thought I caught the glow of red. Sure enough, someone from the enemy team shifted inside the dilapidated cottage. I raised my gun and fired through the window. My pellet hit its mark. The guy turned in my direction. I couldn’t see who it was, but did it matter? He retreated into his camp’s bunker with his gun and hands raised. On the other side of the tunnel, I noticed another red light. I clambered over the dirt piled atop the plastic tunnel and shot at the person before they could duck and locate Liam.