“Good. But you combine the three-meter rule with the relatively low velocity of the paintball pellets,” he said, “and you get an astonishingly high rate of bouncers—pellets that bounce off without breaking. And what’s the rule, Team Leader, when a pellet bounces off of you without breaking?”
“Keep going,” Ashley said. “You’re not dead.”
“And what’s the consensus on wipers?” Jim asked. “Mr. DeWitt?”
“No one likes wipers,” Clark said as, interestingly, neither Bull nor Todd managed to hold Jim’s gaze.
Wiperswere the guys—people—who, in the course of a paintball game, attempted to cheat by wiping off the paint that marked them as “dead.”
“But hits to the head and face don’t count,” Jim reminded them. “So wipe away, if your mask gets splattered. Mr. Edison, our rule about blind-firing is…?”
Bull’s body language was pure nonchalant scorn—he was leaning back on his elbows—and his laughter was dismissive. “Don’t.” He leaned over to add to Todd, in a stage whisper meant to be overheard, “Get caught.”
“No blind firing,” Jim said. Blind-firing was when you hunkered down behind a tree or another obstacle, lifted your marker up over your head, and fired without eyes on your potential target. Without eyes on your target, there was no way of knowing if your target was three meters—or three inches—away. Without eyes on, you ran the risk of hitting another player—possibly even one on your own team—in the head. And at close range, that could be dangerous.
Jim felt his ire rising as Bull and Todd high-fived and laughed. These assholes… How did Ashley manage tonotgo off on them…? “And you’re right. Don’t get caught—so don’t do it, because youwillget caught. FYI, Dunk’s just seeded the playing field with an array of wireless mini-cams.” That was an exaggeration of the truth—Dunk had installed cameras in only a few key locations. Still, it was obvious Bull and Todd didn’t have the honor and integrity needed to follow the rules on their own merit. They needed to fear being seen. “Anyone caught blind-firing—or breakinganyof the safety rules—will be ejected not just from the paintball game, but from the camp session. Is that clear?”
Ashley was the only one who responded with, “Sir, yes, sir!” Clark and Kenneth nodded, but Bull and Todd still snickered and rolled their eyes.
So Jim repeated. Loudly. While glaring at Bull and Todd. “Is. That. Clear?”
“Sir! Yes, sir!”
The smug smiles were gone, and the response was delivered without any eye rolls. Which meant that Bull and Todd were spared from dropping and doing a hundred pushups—for the moment.
Jim cleared his throat. “And the number one safety rule…?”
“Masks on at all times on the field,” the entire team repeated.
Kenneth put his hand up, so Jim pointed at the kid.
“Aren’t we on the field right now?” he asked in his crisply proper accent. “I mean, the rule isMasks on before we step outside of the trailer, yet here we are and our masks aren’t on…?”
“Today is the sole exception,” Jim told them. “Masks also fog up in high humidity, and for this session, I want you to see clearly. Especially as we move the topic of conversation from safety to physics. In fact, I need a volunteer.” He didn’t wait—he pointed at Ashley. “Team Leader, if you will. Mask and marker, too, please.”
She sighed, but she didn’t argue. She just pushed herself up off the ground, wiping the seat of her jeans as she moved toward him, carrying her gear.
She wasn’t happy to be his “volunteer,” but she trusted him. Jim could see it—on her face, in her approach, in the way she met his eyes.
She trusted him—and he brutally quashed any regret or remorse he might’ve been feeling, before it even registered. He’d made up his mind during his discussion with Dunk. Jim was here to teach—not to be Ashley’s friend.
He told the rest of the team, “Before you put on your masks and do a little target practice with your markers—” he pointed to the outlined targets that had been painted onto a length of wooden stockade fencing that was positioned in the yard, some distance away “—TL and I are going to demonstrate how and why firing a paintball pellet from a marker is different from firing a real weapon up at the shooting range.”
But as he curtly ordered Ashley, “Mask on,” and took her marker out of her hands, she gave him a smile that made his heart break just a little.
And it was the ridiculousness of that—the idea that he felt anything at all, let alone something that could put a crack into his Teflon heart—made him more determined to do this—to get it done.
So he quickly attached the air canister to Ashley’s marker, and then added a hopper filled with bright red paintball pellets. He also jammed his own mask on his head—to find that she still hadn’t gotten her mask on properly.
“Hold this,” he ordered her, brusquely pushing the faux-weapon at her.
She clutched it as he moved her mask into place—again, roughly at first. He’d do this to the entire team—a smack and a yank, making sure their masks were secure—each time they left the trailer and took the field.
But then, he steeled himself and let his hands linger on the warmth of Ashley’s head, his fingers sliding through the silk of her hair, against the smoothness of her ears and jawline and neck. And Jesus, he hated this. What should’ve felt amazing—all that deceptive softness covering her runner’s muscles and pure female strength—instead made his stomach clench with disgust. He hated the entire sorry-assed world—himself included.
Because he was the genius who’d come up with this plan, after that long conversation with Dunk.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Dunk had warned Jim as they’d sat in his office, after Jim had told Dunk he wanted to try to push Ashley past her breaking point. “Some people just don’t allow themselves to get angry. It’s more than theydon’tlet anger in—they actuallycan’t.”
