Once the laughing had died down, Evan clapped his hands twice to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, let’s split you into teams. Sam and Jared will each be a leader, which places them on opposing teams. I’ll be refereeing, since it wouldn’t be fair to have two commanders on one team.”

My team ended up consisting of Fletcher, Chico, Butch, Harvey, David, and Salem. As such, Jared had Reuben, Max, Denny, Damien, Stuart, and Magda. The bitch was staying as close as physically possible to Jared, of course. I shot her a ‘you better watch yourself’ look. She returned it, although she did seem nervous. She should be.

“We’re going to be playing lots of different games,” began Evan, “but before we start, we’ll do what’s called ‘walk the field’. This way, you can all familiarise yourselves with the place, see where everything is. You’ll find that on opposite sides of the field are the base camps, which are also the starting points for each team.”

It was as we were walking around that Evan explained, “The first game is called ‘Ammo Retrieval’. In the centre is the tallest of the buildings, which has the sign, ‘Bed and Breakfast’. Inside there is a crate of ammunition. Your objective is to retrieve the crate and take it back to your base camp. The team that manages to do that wins. Simple. If you claim the crate and think you have the time to stop, feel free to reload your paintball guns, as there are pods of pellets inside the crate.”

Having completed the walk through and studied the field – which was absolutely bloody brilliant and topped every Binding gift we’d been given so far – we returned to the supply hut. Evan gave us all the necessary equipment: a protective mask, semi-automatic marker, hopper, smoke grenades, paint grenades, a pod pack – which looped around the waist – and two spare pods of pellets. Magda also had to swap her high heels for a pair of spare boots that were too big for her dainty feet. We then each tied coloured ribbons on our sleeves; blue for Jared’s team, and yellow for mine.

As each team was ready to split and enter their assigned base camps, Jared smacked a kiss on my lips. I could feel the excitement thrumming through him. “Good luck, baby. You’re going to need it, since we both know I’ll win.”

“Sure, sure.”

“I mean it, baby, don’t expect any mercy. I’m going to beat your sexy little ass at this.”

I patted his arm. “It’s sort of cute that you really believe that.”

He laughed and jogged away with his team. Magda gave me a sly smile before trailing after them. She honestly thought it would bother me that she was on Jared’s team? Okay, it did bother me. But I would rather that she wasn’t on my team, since I planned to shoot the crap out of her.

Our base camp was a detached bare house on the border of the field further down from the supply hut. Jared’s base camp – also a detached house – was on the opposite side of the field. Due to the streets of buildings, their camp was out of our line of vision, just as ours was out of theirs. As the ‘B and B’ was in the centre of the field, both teams were equally far from it.

In base camp I turned to my team. “Right, although this is supposed to be all about fun, please understand that I have every intention of winning this. You all with me on that?” Everyone other than Fletcher nodded enthusiastically. “Good. When we need to get into position, I’ve found it often works best to form a ‘U’ shape. Any volunteers for the front? I’ll need two. I’d happily offer, but I’m not too proud to admit that – as a Sventé – I’m the slowest here.”

“I’ll do it, I used to play this a lot as part of my police training,” said Chico.

Salem raised a hand. “I’m fast, and I have a real good aim.”

“Me too,” claimed Butch.

I shook my head. “No Butch, I want to keep you as protected as possible. You’re the fastest here so you’re the obvious person to be responsible for getting the crate back to camp. Chico and Salem can lead. You and I will take up positions behind them. Then Chico can pave the way for you to get inside that ‘B and B’.”

I looked at the other three. “I’m going to put you all at the rear so—”

“Luv, I’ll be no good at this,” declared Fletcher. “I’m too scared to get hit. I’ve heard it really hurts.”

“It’s not that bad. It’s like a hard pinch.”

“I don’t like hard pinches. Seriously, luv, I’ll be hopeless at it.”

“Paintballing isn’t really that difficult. It’s about ducking, diving, creeping, running, and crawling.”

“I’m no good at stealth. I’d give away my location in seconds.”

He was probably right about that. I sighed. “I’ll tell you what: you stay back here and defend our camp. I doubt anyone will get past us but if they do, shoot them.”

He nodded, appearing both relieved and nervous. “I can do that.” It wasn’t so much a statement as it was him trying to convince himself of that.

“Great. Now, I have a few rules of my own. These will help us as a team. One, don’t ever go off alone. I’m not saying stick to someone’s side. I mean, don’t wander away from the rest of the team. You won’t last long if you do. Two, don’t hang around in one spot, keep on the move. If you don’t, you’re liable to be seen. Then all someone has to do is get a good enough angle on you to shoot you. Three, never stand out in the open; you want to be under cover as much as possible. When you move, you move to more cover. Four, always have your gun up, ready to fire. Lastly, enjoy yourselves.”

Harvey cocked his head. “Do you think Jared will cheat and use his telepathy? You know how competitive he is. He won’t want to lose.”

I had to agree with that, but I strongly doubted that he would cheat. “The glory would mean nothing to him if he did that, so no. Right, to sum up…Until we reach the street where the ‘B and B’ is located, we have the luxury of running without being seen. Let’s make that count. Once we reach that street, we form the U shape and we shoot any f**ker in the way, covering Butch so that he can go get our crate.” The boys all nodded, somehow managing to look serious and giddy at the same time.

At that moment, Evan’s voice rang out. “Both teams ready?” Hearing Jared and I respond with ‘yes’, he then shouted, “Three, two, one…Game on!”