Of course, she was heading swiftly toward them, moving well into the verboten three meter no-fire zone. And she did get hit with three pellets at once, all aimed at her center of gravity. And nearly all of the shooters went for overkill with a double pop, so she didn’t just get hit once, she got hit again and again.
Ashley hit the ground and the walkie-talkie went skittering out of her grasp. But there wasn’t any time to curl into a ball—ow!—or deride herself for not immediately shoutingHold your fire!She just scrambled after the walkie-talkie even as she hauled herself back onto her feet.
“Hey, you’re dead, you’re supposed to stay down,” one of the men said, and what the hell? It wasn’t some random member of Team Three, it was Bull Edison. And Todd Grotto was standing right beside him.
Sure enough, most of the paint on her shirt was red—her own team’s color. Only one of the pellets that had pummeled her was Team Three’s yellow.
“Team One is having a medical emergency,” Ashley managed to gasp out—those punches to her chest had made her voice sound breathless. “You—Roger!” The Team Three man who’d helped to “kill” her was an older guy—some silver-haired bigwig CEO named Roger Something who was also a marathon runner. “Cell phones are down, and we’re having trouble reaching Lieutenant King. Run to the main building—see if he’s there. It’s Kenneth, the skinny kid from the UK? He’s having intense abdominal pain—he passed out. Bull and Todd—what the hell? Don’t answer that right now. Because frankly, I don’t really care. Just run back along the trail and help LT and Clark get Kenneth to the trailer.”
All three of them just stood there, staring at her.
So she clapped her hands at them. “Move! Now!”
Todd cleared his throat. “Bull and I cut a deal with Team Three. So if this is some kind of set-up or trap—”
“If it is,” she cut him off, “it’s illegal, it won’t count, because I’m dead.” She pointed to her paint-splattered shirt. “Exhibit A. Okay? Go!”
With that, they went. And Ashley went into the trailer to attempt to reach Lieutenant King via landline.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“We’ll be right behind them,” Jim reassured Ashley as the SEAL World van—Dunk behind the wheel with Clark riding shotgun, Thomas King in the back with Kenneth—peeled out down the drive toward the main road that led to Sarasota and the hospital.
“Let’s hurry,” she said, heading swiftly toward the path to the RVs.
Thomas—when he wasn’t apologizing profusely for failing to hear their walkie-talkied request for help—seemed certain that Kenneth’s appendix was inflamed, or had even burst.
Kenneth had been desperate for someone to go to his RV, find his phone, and bring it to the hospital so he could get in touch with his parents. Dunk had tried to reassure him that Lieutenants Slade or O’Donlon would call his folks from the SEAL World office, to keep them fully informed of the situation.
But Kenneth’s ability to be reasonable was hindered by the intense pain he was experiencing. And he didn’t relax until Ashley promised to find his phone and bring it to him. So Jim had likewise volunteered to drive her—which also allowed him to change his puke-encrusted pants.
Now, Ashley slowed as she clearly realized he was struggling to keep up with her.
She dropped a very uncharacteristic f-bomb. “You hurt yourself carrying Kenneth down the trail, didn’t you?”
“I’m okay.” No way would she have boughtfine. Not from the way he was limping. “Areyou?” From the amount of paint on her shirt, she’d walked—no, probably run—straight into an ambush. Although…
“I’m not the one with a potentially burst appendix,” she pointed out, “so I’m kind of great.”
Jim smiled. “Yeah, good way to look at it. Me, too. But I’m not sure why you’re covered in red paint. I mean, yellow’s in there, but…”
“Bull and Todd went turncoat,” she informed him. “Can they even do that? Is that even a real thing in paintball?”
He caught her arm at the fork between their two RVs. “Are you telling me thatBull and Toddshot you…?”
She nodded.
“I’m gonna freaking kill ’em.”
Her smile was beautiful, if over too quickly. “Thanks, but you don’t have to. I’m okay.”
“Those things can bruise.”
“I thought they onlystung.”
“Can I see? I want to see. Lift your shirt.”
Her eyebrows went up.
