“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.Now put your helmet on.”
He tightened the strap of the gun for me, his fingers brushing my jaw, making warmth spread beneath my skin.
“You’ll be fine, Cadence,” he murmured.“I’ll cover you.They have to take me down first before I let them touch you.”
The soft promise in his voice calmed me.A little.
We stepped onto the field the moment the horn sounded.Bright splatters covered the walls from previous rounds, and people darted behind barriers, laughing and shouting.Today, the place was having an open paintball night.The rounds were open to teams of eight if there were enough people, and they did rotations for people playing.There weren’t too many people there, with only a couple people sidelined for the next round.We were given ten minutes to shoot each other as much as we wanted to for fun.
Toby crouched next to me, his paintball gun in hand.There were a series of beeps and then a louder one, letting us know the match was now underway.
“Okay,” he whispered.“Rule one: don’t stand like a deer in headlights.Rule two: if you see someone aiming at you—”
A paintball whizzed past us, splattering the barrier behind us.
“—uh, yeah, do that.”
I swallowed.“Toby—”
“Shoot them!”he yelled joyfully, a big ass, slightly demented grin stretched across his face as he disappeared into the maze of obstacles.
I peeked around the corner.Someone was running toward me.I panicked, raised the gun, and fired.
I hit him.
“Holy crap,” I whispered, stunned.
I fired again.Almost another hit.My target had ducked behind a barrier just in time, even doing a fancy dive and roll.Okay, this wasn’t so bad.
I moved forward, heart hammering, my breath inside the mask heavy enough that I thought it was going to fog up on me, but it didn’t.Adrenaline buzzed through my limbs.I ducked behind a group of barrels lined up together, feeling like my doom was impending the entire time.
I peeked out and spotted someone across the arena.They were looking off to my right, so I fired off a burst that made them yelp and scramble into hiding.
A laugh bubbled out of me.
“I found you, candy sniper!”
Toby slid in next to me, crouching down low.Paint splatter covered his shoulder and helmet, but by the way his eyes were crinkled, I knew he was grinning beneath his mask.
“You good?”he asked.
“Yeah,” I said breathlessly.“Weirdly good.”
“Perfect,” he said, eyes gleaming.“Because we’re going to flank those two idiots over there.”
I followed his gaze.Two heads popped up, taking a look around the field.They’d be perfectly exposed from behind.
“Come on, you love sneaking.It’ll be like that Halloween maze.”Toby nudged me.“You dragged my sorry ass through that thing like you were born for it.”
I snorted.“I can still hear your screaming.”
“A very manly scream.”
“Uh huh.”
“Anyway,” he said, ignoring me entirely.“We’re channeling stealth queen energy.You ready?”
