“But—”
“We’re splitting into two teams. The Groominators and the Bridezillas. Friends and family of the groom, over this way. Friends and family of the bride, over that way.”
The two groups were not evenly matched, so Brian and Troy joined the Bridezillas since they were friends of both.
“What team am I on?” James asked.
“You aren’t on a team. You’re the prize. It will be the Groominators’ job to protect you from being stolen by the Bridezillas. Everybody gets three lives and we’ll be using the honour system so play fair. If you get hit, you’re ‘dead’ for five minutes. No one can shoot you and you can’t shoot anyone. The winning team will be the one with the prize after half an hour.”
The Groominators got red bandanas and the Bridezillas got yellow. Everyone geared up and the Groominators were given a head start so they could stash the prize and get ready to defend him.
The field was large and had stands of trees, dirt bunkers, fake ruins and outcrops made of rocks and odd cuts of cement. Tyson, Elle’s cousin and leader of the Bridezillas, claimed a pile of cement pieces as their base and crawled to the top to oversee the battleground and direct them via walkie-talkie. The rest of them split into three teams of two and fanned out.
“I reckon Andrew will have stashed him in the treehouse.” Troy pointed to the wooden structure amongst a stand of trees diagonally opposite them. “It’s easily defendable and there’s not a lot of cover around it.”
Brian studied the area. Troy was right. There was a lot of ground to cover and eight enemy troops out there, already hidden.
“Nah. Too obvious. It’s a trap.” Brian considered the options. “Andrew will have him on the move. Not stay in one place too long.”
Their walkie-talkie crackled and Tyson said, “Team Alpha, respond.”
Brian rolled his eyes. Tyson was taking this deadly seriously. “Team Alpha here.”
“You got two bogies on your eleven o’clock. They’re using the bunker as cover.”
“Got it. Team Alpha out,” Troy said. “Let’s go paint some arse!”
Laughing, Brian followed Troy out from behind their rock cover and they combat-crawled across the grass. They split up and each took one end of the bunker, Troy counted down using his fingers, then they reared up on their knees and caught the enemy in a crossfire.
“No fair,” one of James’s work friends cried, laughing as his fellow did a dramatic death scene.
“All’s fair in love and—shit!” Troy threw himself backwards as a third enemy popped out from behind a tree and fired.
Brian rolled into the bunker and the paintball harmlessly splashed against the ground where he’d been. Above him and the “dead” guys, Troy lay on his stomach and fired at the sneaky sniper but didn’t hit his target as the man ran back into the thicker trees.
“I think that was Mr. Rollins.” Troy levered himself up on his elbows.
“Can’t have been. He’s had two knee replacements.”
“He was wearing that godawful Hawaiian shirt.”
One of the “dead” guys laughed.
Brian scowled at him and crawled out of the bunker. “Let’s get out of here before they come back to life.”
Troy nodded and they moved into cover, radioing back to Tyson for orders and were told to scout the trees.
“Did you see Mr. Rollins running around over here?” Troy asked him.
“Negative. We had a skirmish in the southern quarter. Lost a good man. Mr. Rollins isn’t fast, you should be able to catch him.”
Brian leaned over and said into the walkie-talkie, “Troy missed him.”
“Alpha One, is that right?”
Troy sighed. “It’s true.”
“Don’t fail us next time, soldier. Temporary death to the Groominators!”
With that rallying cry, Brian and Troy moved cautiously through the trees, working their way towards a set of ruins. They got ambushed halfway and both of them “died.”
“It was him again,” Troy hissed when their killers left without revealing themselves to gloat. They were slumped against tree trunks, waiting out their five minutes.
Brian had to agree. There had been a definite flash of yellow hibiscus flowers on a red background. “I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Yeah,” Troy agreed wholeheartedly, then asked, “What’s not right about it?”
“Mr. Rollins definitely should not be moving that fast. And he’s got awfully good aim.” Brian rubbed his chest where the paintball had hit. “I think it’s a decoy.”
Troy nodded. “Andrew would do something like that. What do we do?”
“I think we should head to the treehouse.”
The wait until they could move again felt endless, but then the five minutes were up and they cautiously worked their way around perimeter of the field. Along the back fence they encountered the same two guys they shot earlier and Troy went down in a hail of paintballs.
“Go!” he shouted at Brian. “The fate of the world rests in your hands!”
Brian scurried erratically and somehow missed being hit. He got one of them and the other one disappeared to help his fellow teammates pinned down by Bridezillas at the ruins. As he crept up to the treehouse, a rifle mussel appeared from a window and tracked him. Brian ducked behind a tree and waited, peeking around to check out the lay of the land.
The ground was exposed under the treehouse, so he’d have to run across a no-mans land to get to the ladder. Then he’d be an easy target for whoever was up there. Except that he couldn’t stop the niggling sensation that it was too obvious.
Over there. Another set of ruins. Brian considered it, then zigzagged across no-mans land, drawing fire from above, but not from the ruins. Thankfully not getting hit again, he crawled up on the ruins and, back pressed to the outer wall, listened. There was scuffling and whispering. At least two people. Taking a deep breath, he leaped up and fired into the ruins, holding the trigger down and spraying paintballs in an arc and yelling, “Bridezillas for the win!”
Inside the ruins, the man in the purple tutu was splattered with paint, as was the other one. When Brian stopped firing he focused on the “prize.”
“Hello, Mr. Rollins,” he said pleasantly.
“Son.” James’s dad sighed and eased down to the ground.
“I guess that’s James out there in your shirt?”
“It is. Good work figuring that out.”
Brian shrugged. “I know Andrew and James. It wasn’t hard to work out.” He waved to the other dead guy, one of James’s cousins, then headed back to the treehouse. Walking up to it, he threw down his gun. “I surrender.”
A hand appeared out of the window and waved him up. Brian scrambled up the ladder and Andrew helped him through the hatch and into the treehouse.
“Should have known you would work it out.” Andrew pulled him close and kissed him.
Brian laughed against his mouth. “It wasn’t hard. You should have told James to run slower.”
“Knew there was something we missed. How did you know it was me up here?”
“Command position. You can see most of the field from up here. Clear line of sight on the approach.”