27. Chapter 27
twenty-seven
“Okay, here’s the plan.” Lex crouched, speaking low despite the fact that the boys were on the other half of the wooded area, conveniently divided by the vehicles.
“With Colt as their team captain, they’re going to have a plan.
A good one. It’ll most likely be pretty cloak and dagger, especially where they’re all trained one way or another. ”
I nodded, my insides squirming with nerves, anticipation, and the distinct weirdness that came from seeing Lex in work mode. No wonder Max thought she was a machine if this was the only side he ever saw.
“So we strike fast, and we strike hard, all at once,” she continued.
“This won’t give them a chance to put their plan into motion and increases our chances of surviving and returning with their flag to our side.
” She met each of our eyes. “Instead of it being one shot and you’re out, it’s more like you keep going until you can’t anymore.
No one, not even Kris, can keep going while being shot by three or more people at once, so we’ve got to go together. ”
So we’d all get a chance to be shot instead. Awesome.
“They’ll expect Rowan or me to be the flag stealer, so I’ll be the front runner decoy.
” Lex repositioned her gun in one hand, using a stick to trace out a crude map in the dirt with the other.
“Now, the rules dictate that our flags must be easily accessible, stuck in the ground, and in plain sight. Because of this, their defenses will have to compensate.”
Kris raised a hand. “Question: if we’re all going together, who’s going to guard our flag?”
We murmured our agreement, our heads bobbing like tactical chickens.
“Ideally, if we’re fast enough, we’ll get back before they can grab our flag since they’ll be focused on defending their own.” Lex shrugged. “But, if you want, we can always have one person hang back and defend.”
If I was certain that our plan would succeed without any of the guys trying to get the flag, I’d volunteer to be the defender in a heartbeat.
Anything to decrease my odds of getting shot.
However, if even one of the guys came for the flag, I’d be outgunned.
Or at least out-skilled, which was probably worse.
“I can defend,” Kris offered.
“Uh—” I raised my hand like I was back in grade school. “Who’s to say they won’t have the exact same plan? Because if so, it’ll probably come down to who’s faster, right?” The dresses would undoubtedly slow them down, but we were in the same boat.
Lex chuckled. “I seriously doubt they will. Alec is too cocky to see us as the threats we are, Colt is too cautious, Booker will defer to Colt, especially in unfamiliar territory and with Colt as the team captain, and McBride is only semi-invested since he’s also the unofficial referee.”
I shifted uneasily. “What about Max and Isaiah?”
She dipped her head. “They’re probably the most immediate threats. If I had to guess, Isaiah will stay on defense with McBride. As for Max, well, I don’t know anymore.”
I rocked on my heels. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
She shrugged, exchanging a look with Rowan, who fielded the question. “He’s fearless, but there might be some other motivations in play that we’ve never had to deal with before.”
“Like what?” They all exchanged loaded looks, which only deepened my frustration. “Seriously, guys, like what?”
“Well, he has to make dessert if he loses.” Kris snickered. “But more importantly, he’s got it bad for you. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you if he tried.”
Oh . I wasn’t completely convinced yet, but the possibility jump-started my crushed hope back to life and gave it wings.
If they thought Max had romantic feelings toward me, it was more possible than was safe to let myself believe.
After all, they’d been right about him not hating me in the first place.
“ Anyway ,” Lex took control of the conversation again, “while we’re leading our charge, I want you guys to cover me, since I’m supposedly the flag thief. And, if our real plan fails, maybe that’ll be the case. We might just have to wing it if things go south.”
“But if they don’t, who’s really going to steal the flag?” Annie asked.
“You are.”
Annie’s free hand fell slack at her side as she looked at each of us as if waiting for the punchline. “Wait, what?”
“You ran track in high school, right?” Lex pressed. “And you were fast enough to qualify for state, right?”
“Yeah, but that was years ago.” Annie pulled at the lacey expanse of her skirt. “And I wasn’t wearing a dress.”
Lex shrugged, undeterred. “Well, aside from Dekker, you’re probably the one they’re going to underestimate the most. And being the underdogs—being underestimated—is our secret weapon.”
“Yeah,” Hattie piped up, ever the optimist, “it’s pretty hard to defend against us when we don’t even know what we’re doing.”
“Exactly,” Rowan confirmed, “we’ll be impossible to anticipate.”
Not exactly the pep talk I expected, but considering what we were working with, it could be a whole lot worse.
“Alright, ladies.” Kris set her gun down and lifted the extra fabric of her skirt. “Time to gird up our loins.”
She wrapped the cloth through and around her legs and tied it until it looked more like weird shorts over her spandex shorts. How she knew to do that was beyond me, but considering how often she wore dresses, she probably knew every trick in the book.
Those of us with flexible enough skirts copied her. Yours truly did not fall under that category. My bubbly skirt and I were in this together to the bitter end.
We worked out the finer details of the plan, and Kris got into position by hoisting herself up in a one-armed pull-up—which was apparently physically possible—into a tree near the flag.
To give ourselves as much time as possible, we’d placed our bedazzled beauty of a flag at the very back of our territory, so we made our way toward the halfway mark before McBride would signal the start of the game any minute now.
Hattie, Lex, Rowan, and I stopped at the edge of no man’s land, the narrow strip of land between the two cars parked on the edge of the woods. They weren’t super noticeable, but capture the flag was a lawless land anyway.
Within seconds, McBride’s shrill whistle pierced through the air.
Maybe we could’ve gotten closer to their flag before getting shot at if we didn’t sound like a herd of walruses crashing through the trees. As it was, we were impossible to miss, even without taking the white dresses into account.
By the time the first paint flew, everything blurred together in a haze of fight-or-flight instincts and panic. We took the brunette guy out first, with a lot of yelling on my part. Then it was eerily peaceful until Hattie broke off from our group at a sprint.
And by golly, that lady could run, especially considering her age. When she got a good twenty feet away, she started hollering and charging forward, dodging between trees.
I exchanged confused looks with Rowan and Lex, unsure whether to follow Hattie or stay with the rest of the group.
And then I saw what Hattie charged toward.
Concealed in underbrush, I almost would’ve missed the man if not for the bright white of his wedding dress. Hattie opened fire, missing horribly, but succeeding in giving the man’s position away.
“Quick, flank him while Hattie draws his fire,” Lex instructed, lithely advancing on the man with Rowan at her side.
I felt the hit before I saw it. Pain exploded across my hip, and I stumbled, graceful as always. This time, though, my klutziness saved me, since bright blue paintballs whizzed over my head.
“Dekker!” Lex returned fire at whoever shot me, apparently another guy we hadn’t seen hiding. “Are you okay?”
“I think I’m dying,” I groaned back, rubbing at my hip as I tried to stand back up. My hips had apparently acclimated to the lifestyle of a senior citizen along with my sleep schedule, since they were as brittle as toffee. Maybe I’d need a hip replacement at the ripe old age of thirty.
“Okay, she’s fine.” Lex signaled to Rowan. “You take out whoever’s shooting at Hattie, and I’ll get this guy.”
Holy cannoli , these paintballs hurt . I didn’t want to imagine how much it would hurt with a slimmer skirt. I never thought I’d be grateful for the loads of bubbly folds in my dress, yet here I was, staring at the sky and mentally writing an ode to poofy eighties dresses worldwide.
“What are you still doing down there?” Lex asked, towering over me. And let me tell you, as the taller sibling, that was a strange thing to experience.
She sported a bright blue burst of paint on her shoulder, though, unlike me, she stood tall and awesome like a supersoldier instead of groaning on the ground desperately pressing her LifeAlert button. Apparently she was impervious to paintballs. Or pain. Maybe both.
Well, she wasn’t the only Piper girl who was tough. She just happened to be tough like steel and Kevlar and I was tough like beef jerky and burnt cookies. Either way, I could hold my own. And I would.
I groaned again, forcing myself upright despite my hip’s protests. “Just writing my last will and testament, that’s all.”
She chuckled, helping me up. When did she get so strong? Good gravy , it was like I was the carrot, and she was the super ripped gardener. “Come on, Grandma. No dying at my party.”
“Wouldn’t want to be a drag on your special day, now, would I?”
“That’s the spirit!” She patted me on the shoulder, purposely ignoring my sarcasm.
I rubbed at my hip with my free hand, semi-limping like the granny I was. “Who shot me and what happened to them?”
She looked over her shoulder in the direction whoever had shot me had hidden. “Booker was the one Hattie found, but Colt was the one who shot you.”
“Did you avenge me?”
She shrugged, picking up the pace as a blue-speckled Hattie and a somewhat dirty but otherwise paintless Rowan joined us.
“Naturally. I don’t think he or Booker were planning on shooting us on our way in, at least not yet.
Their hiding spots were too good, especially since shooting once would give their position away. ”
No kidding. The pop of each shot made locating each shooter stupidly easy once you knew there was some white fabric nearby to find. Colt hadn’t been discovered until after he’d shot me to help Booker, and there’s no telling how long that would’ve been the case if Hattie hadn’t gone wild.
“So they were going to just get us on our way out?”
Rowan shook her head, looking every bit like a warrior maiden armed with a gun instead of a sword. “Or just wait for us to pass so they could ambush us.”
“We’ll see if any of the other boys are waiting further in to complete the attack,” Lex finished.
Oh. Ambush. Awesome.
When we finally reached the boys’ flag, we froze.
It sat in a small clearing surrounded by trees, underbrush, and dead leaves.
Completely alone. A light breeze taunted it, tickling the edges and flipping a corner without fully unraveling it in all its black and blue bedazzled glory.
With all our movement halted, only the sound of panting—and gasping on my part—filled the clearing.
I sucked in air, shoulders heaving. “What are the odds that this is a trap?”
Lex stared ahead, scanning the clearing. “I’d say about a thousand percent.”
“And is that going to change things in any way?”
Please say yes. Please tell us to retreat back to the relative safety of our own flag where I’d have Rambo-Kris to protect me.
“Nope.”
Awesome. Just super-duper awesome.
Lex straightened her shoulders, bending in preparation for a fight. “Let’s get us a flag, ladies.”
In all my years, I have experienced many situations where the term chaotic would accurately describe them.
The first test in culinary school. My brain, twenty-four-seven.
My great-aunt’s funeral when my cousin had a tantrum and threw a toy into the casket during the viewing.
But none of them could so wholly encapsulate the essence of chaos as what happened next.
We charged toward the flag, Lex and Rowan determined and focused, Hattie cackling like a witch, and me howling like a monkey on shrooms. As soon as we broke into the clearing, paint bullets whizzed past us.
One of them clipped Rowan on the shoulder, while even more buzzed past my ears as I galloped like a spazzy bronco in my wedding dress.
“Cover me!” Lex shouted.
Oh, right. A plan. We had a plan. What was the plan, again? Right now, the only plan my panicking monkey brain could come up with was “survive.”
I shot blindly at the source of the shots, apparently some trees on either side behind their flag. I must’ve hit something , since one of the shooters paused. Lex made good progress toward the flag until shots fired from behind us.
Well, sugar plums .
As the shots rained down on us like violent blue hail, all seemed lost. I fired into the trees at the remaining shooter behind the flag in a last-ditch attempt to clear a path to escape. The shooting from in front of us stopped, allowing my teammates to focus on the threat behind us.
At least, until the shouting from behind the flag started.
I saw Annie first, tearing through the trees like a Victorian bat out of Hell. She snatched the flag out of the ground but didn’t run towards the sides or back the way she came, where the shots were no longer coming. Oh no. She ran straight towards us.
“Run!” she shouted, gun pumping in her flagless hand. She cursed, which almost stopped me short. Annie never cursed. “I said run! ”
When the two shooters dropped out of the trees where Annie had just run, she didn’t need to tell me again. They’d left their hiding spots and were out for vengeance.
Except, instead of shooting, they ran straight towards us, too.
It wasn’t until I heard the faint buzzing amidst the scuffling that I realized that they weren’t running after us. They were running from something.
Sure enough, a shout from one of them confirmed the sinking horror in my gut.
Wasps .