“I’ll be watching from the overhead catwalk,” Sabrina called over her shoulder as she headed into the house. “The training event will start when the alarm rings the first time. If you haven’t completed the course before it rings a second time, you fail and have to start over.” She gave them a pointed look. “By the way, keep your goggles on at all times. I wouldn’t want anyone to lose an eye in there.”
Okay, maybe she wasn’t going to like this woman, Alina decided as she slipped her goggles down from her forehead. She got the feeling Sabrina had a trick or two up her sleeve for dealing with Trevor and his shifter abilities.
At first glance, the building looked like a normal, everyday house, albeit in need of a fresh coat of paint. Then Alina realized there were no windows on the second floor and that the glass in the first-floor windows was bulletproof. The walls were probably reinforced as well. She hadn’t seen many tactical training shoot houses in the CIA. This kind of stuff was normally reserved for special operations forces. At least she and Trevor weren’t using live ammo. That would have been a little crazy. Then again, crazy seemed to be kind of the norm around here.
After Sabrina disappeared inside, Alina turned to Trevor and held up the paintball gun. “What the heck do I do with this thing? I’ve never fired one before.”
If Trevor was surprised by that admission, he didn’t let on. “The gas pressure bottle under here propels the paintballs when you pull the trigger,” he said, pointing it out with his finger. “The tube on top holds ten paintballs. Think of it like a magazine and reload accordingly. People who do this paintball stuff seriously use containers that hold fifty to a hundred at a time, but the training officers rarely let us get away with that.”
“I don’t know why,” she quipped. “I personally always like to have a lot more ammo than I think I’m going to need.”
Trevor smirked but didn’t laugh. “This is the safety. It operates just like the one on your normal sidearm. Just take the weapon off safe and pull the trigger when you’re ready to fire.”
Without another word, Trevor turned and headed for the door of the shoot house.
“Don’t you think we should talk about how we’re going to do this before we go in there?” she asked, hurrying to catch up with him. “This could get ugly if we don’t have a plan.”
He shrugged. “I’ll take the front of the room as we go in. You cover me and deal with the back side of the room. It shouldn’t be that complicated. I’ll be able to smell and hear Jake and Jaxson long before we get to them.”
Alina opened her mouth to ask what the heck he expected her to do while he was sniffing around like a bloodhound when a loud buzzer went off.
Trevor lifted his foot and kicked in the door with the heel of his boot.
Alina cursed and followed him inside. The first room had three doors leading off in different directions but was otherwise empty. Before she could even begin to wonder which room they should start with—or why the hell the place smelled like a litter box that hadn’t been cleaned in a week—loud music filled the house.
She did her best to ignore both the blaring techno beat and the god-awful stench, moving quickly to cover the blind spots to the left and right of the door they’d come in. It would have been a lot easier if she’d been working with a partner who was interested in communicating—and working as a team.
Fortunately, the first room was clear, so the fact that she had no idea which direction Trevor was going to move as he crossed the threshold didn’t come back to bite them in the ass.
Alina shook off her irritation, waiting for Trevor to figure out which direction he wanted to go. He paused, and she assumed he was sniffing for a clue. There were three doors to choose from. But then she realized he was standing there with a pissed-off look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” she shouted.
Trevor cursed. “It’s Jake. The damn guy knows exactly how shifters work—me especially. Between the loud music and cow piss he dumped all over the place, he’s taken away any advantages I have. I can’t hear or smell a damn thing.”
“Cow urine?” Frowning, she looked around and realized the floor and walls were suspiciously wet. “Okay, that’s officially gross.”
“The clock is ticking, people!” Sabrina called out from the dark catwalk above them. “Get a move on before you get the hostage killed!”
Alina looked questioningly at Trevor.
He shrugged. “I guess we do this the old-fashioned way.”
Heading for the closed door on the far side of the room, he kicked it open, leaving her no choice but to scramble to catch up. She turned her attention to the right side of the room just as a man-shaped silhouette popped up from the floor with the picture of a bad guy with unkempt hair on it.
Alina aimed her gun and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession, popping the target right in the center of the chest with pink paint. She was thinking the gun was surprisingly accurate when two more colorful splats hit the same target, even though it was her responsibility.
She threw Trevor an irritated look just as a green paintball exploded in the center of his chest. She spun in the direction the shot had come from, only catching a brief glimpse of a dark-haired man as he jerked back around a corner and disappeared. A split second later, she felt something smack into her upper back.
Crap on a stick.
She didn’t have to see the green paint dripping on the floor to know she’d been hit. All because she hadn’t been paying attention to anything except how annoying Trevor was. Her new partner had gotten her shot!
“Don’t bother starting over!” Sabrina shouted. “You haven’t made it far enough even to count as a good beginning. Keep going.”
Trevor growled and wiped his hand across the green dye painted all across his chest. His eyes were blazing yellow, and she could see the tips of his fangs extending over his lower lip as a rumble of anger continued to vibrate out of his chest.
He slammed his foot into the center of the next door, completely ripping it off the hinges and sending it flying across the next room.
