I zip up my vest. “I don—” I look up to Bishop, only he’s not there.
“You say so much as another fucking thing toward her, and I’ll break your fucking jaw.” I walk toward Bishop, about to calm him down, when Cash takes my hand and pulls me backward. I look down to where his hand is then look up to his face. He shakes his head at me. Bishop continues, chest to chest with Brantley. “Are you forgetting who runs this show, pup? Or do I need to remind you who the fuck I am?”
Brantley searches Bishop’s eyes before he cuts them over his shoulder to me. “Nah, I’m good.” He bends down, picking up his gun and slinging it over his shoulder. What the fuck is his deal with me? It’s been no secret how much he has hated me, but I thought he’d got over it. We had a good patch, but since we’ve been here, he’s gone back to being a grade-A jerk. I already know he blames me for why he’s here, but Bishop said it’s no big deal, that they’re only here to keep his dad guessing. To keep him chasing us. I don’t—
“Madi!” Bishop growls, his eyes still on Brantley.
“Yes?”
“Got your vest on?”
“Yes.”
Bishop grins. “Good.” He points his gun at me, and before I can ask what the fuck he’s doing, he pulls the trigger and a heavy thud smashes against my chest.
“Ouch! Bishop!” I scold him.
“You’re out. Sit the fuck down.”
“But I—”
“I said sit the fuck down.” He points toward the log.
I huff and take a seat. Nate walks toward Tillie and points at me, and then she starts walking over, her bottom lip slightly puckered.
Plopping down beside me, she sighs. “I wonder what the big deal is?”
I shrug. “Who the hell knows with these boys? I mean seriously, right?”
Bishop Walks off, loading up his gun, with Nate and a few others following behind him. I look to Tillie and grin. “Who says we can’t join in?”
Smirking, she gets up from the log and reaches her hand out to mine. “Exactly.” Once all the boys have disappeared deep into the dark, gloomy forest, Tillie pulls out a gun from the bag she would have had. I walk toward her, bending down and picking up mine from the bag Bishop left behind too.
“Shit, shall we do this?” she asks, shuffling into her vest and looking from left to right, taking in her surroundings.
“What?” I mutter, loading up my paintballs into the gun. “Of course!”
Tillie laughs, shaking her head but following through with me. “Madi, you’re such a rebel. Won’t Bishop get mad?”
“That’s why I’m doing it.” I grin at her.
She shakes her head again as I swing my gun over my shoulder. “You’re so bad.”
We start tiptoeing into the forest, the thick branches instantly giving us coverage from the sun. “I’ll follow you,” Tillie whispers out.
I roll my eyes. “Yes. Follow me, but these bullets can’t kill anything that might try to kill us, so if like, a mountain lion or anything comes after us, I can’t help us.”
Tillie pauses just as we make our way through the clearing. “But you don’t actually hunt mountain lions and stuff, do you?”
I stop and turn to face her. “Of course not! But I would shoot to kill any human who does.”
Her mouth slams shut and then she laughs me off. “Oh, you’re not being serious.”
I laugh with her, though I’m very serious. My dad had to physically restrain me after some stupid bimbo slut and her bimbo-ass family uploaded a picture of them on Facebook with a dead lion that they had killed, holding its lifeless body proudly. One day, I’m going to reenact that very photo, only holding their first-born child.
Okay, so that was too far.
Yeah, that was a little far, but alas, whatever people think about hunters, I love animals. More than I love people. I—me and my family—have only ever hunted deer, unless it was duck shooting.
“Madi!” Tillie whispers into the back of my neck, her breath misting across my neck.
“What!” I hiss back, drawing my gun up. Tillie is following closely behind me, her chest rubbing against my back every two seconds. If we were in a horror movie right now, she would be the death of us.
“It’s getting dark.”
“Well, that’s what happens when it’s almost 8:00 p.m. Chill out.” I go to step over a fallen log, when I slip and fall to the ground, just as a bright green splatter of paint shoots over the trunk that’s near us. Tillie snaps out of her questionnaire, looks to the green paint, and then screams out in shock just as another splatter of paint hits her square in the jaw. I slam my hand over my mouth in shock. That could have easily knocked out some teeth. Rolling onto my stomach, I prop my gun up against my shoulder and peek through the scope, the diameter giving me zoom view. A bush rustles opposite us, but I know that’s too easy and was obviously set up. Noticing the bush moved from the right first, I whip the end of my gun toward the right where, sure enough, Brantley and Ace’s faces come into view, where they’re laughing at Tillie’s—and possibly my—stupidity.
I grin. “Boo-yah motherfuckers.” And then I squeeze the trigger, my gun pointing toward Brantley’s smug-ass face first. When I see the bright pastel pink splatter all over his shocked mug, I quickly point it toward Ace and squeeze again, this time getting him exactly where they got Tillie, on the corner of her jaw.
They both scream aloud. “Fuck!”
I laugh and turn back to Tillie, who’s weeping up against the trunk of the tree, tears pouring down her cheeks, smudging the green color on her face.
“Hey.” I shuffle closer to her. “It hurts, huh? Don’t worry. I got them.”
She shakes her head, the tears not threatening to leave. “It’s not that, Madi.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, shuffling closer to her, but my
