Lucca looks over the remaining six of us. His gaze pauses on me for a moment and moves on. He picks Ania and two of the men. When the pistol goes off, they all dive in. One of our team members is a sturdy-looking blond guy, circling the water and looking for the yellow bag with a “T” on it. They all look heavy and lumpy, I suspect they’re filled with rocks. Or lead. This administration is that sadistic.
The blond swimmer spots our bag and heads for it at the same time as three swimmers from other teams. Apparently, no one likes us for winning the first challenge. Ania glides through like an orca, effortlessly knocking aside two of the challengers as our third member goes for the bag with an “R” on it.
“Crap, that’s Aleksandr’s,” I said nervously.
Lucca glares at me. “Whose team are you on?”
“Yours,” I said, squeezing his arm, “always.”
Several of the students are writhing underwater like eels, battling each other for the bags.
“Hey!” I shouted, “What the hell!” I point to where Ania just got hit in the back with one of the bags, and it’s heavy enough to knock her into the side of the rock wall.
“Ania!” Lucca shouts, “Are you okay?”
She looks up long enough to nod and dives down again. There’s a trail of red through the water from a cut on her back.
When our team finally makes their way back to the entrance, they have our bag and the one belonging to Miguel Herrera, a short, powerful-looking Leader who’s set to take over his father’s cartel. Unfortunately, we are also the fourth team to finish. Mateo, the little slime, places first after his swimmers knocked competing players unconscious with their bags of rocks.
“Good work,” Lucca says warmly, “we’re still in a strong position for the third challenge.”
“Leaders,” shouts the Dean, “gather your last three players and meet us at The Barrens.” She smiles with all the happiness of a rabid coyote catching a ground squirrel.
“Merda, shit,” mutters Lucca. “The Barrens.”
There’s a row of rifles waiting for us at the next stop, and I’m feeling some cautious optimism. I can shoot well. I can help Lucca win this. Eyeing the boulders scattered across The Barrens, I wonder what the plan is. They’re all massive; some nearly twenty feet high, left over from some prehistoric glacier.
Konstantin and his team are standing next to us, and I give Mariya a smile. She’s covered in blankets because she took part in the last challenge. “I had no idea how vicious you were,” I whisper, “I have never admired you more.”
She’d stolen another team’s bag and fended off an attacker by biting him hard enough to make him let go of it.
“Thank you, honey,” she says demurely.
“Here’s your third and final task,” shouts Fukumoto, “your team will be armed with rifles. They may shoot members from any other team. If they accidentally shoot one of their own, the team is automatically disqualified. The first player through the course wins for their team.”
“That’s not so bad,” I whisper to Lucca, “like paintball, right?”
“The rifles are loaded with percussive paint capsules,” the professor continues. “If you are hit, they will knock you off your feet, expect it. Since a shot to the head could be deadly, you will all wear helmets.” He smiles, and I wonder if everyone who teaches here is fresh out of a hospital for the criminally insane. “The helmets have a heavily shaded visor that will reduce your vision by 75% or so. You will need all your other senses to make it through this obstacle course.”
Lucca pulls me and the remaining two players aside. “Get a good look at each other,” he says, unzipping my jacket and peeling it off me.
“Hey, what-”
He cuts me off impatiently. “Take off your jackets. It’ll make it easier to distinguish you from the other teams.” We’re all wearing black tank tops, and while the ever-present wind is tearing through the boulders, my adrenaline buzz is keeping me from feeling it.
We’re handed our rifles and I check to make sure mine is loaded, then adjust the sight. “Our capsules are green,” he instructed, then grinned savagely. “Cover every one of those bastards. Paint this course Toscano green!”
I can do this, I think, tightening my grip on my rifle. This is so much better than the underwater fight to the death.
Lucca fastens the straps of my helmet under my chin. The professor wasn’t kidding. The visor is so heavily smoked that I can hardly make out the shape of the boulders, and the other players are just blobs of black. Seeing the bare arms of my teammates will at least help me tell them apart from our opponents.
“Mateo’s guys are looking over here,” Lucca warns, “I’m sure he told them to target you. But you’re quick, and he’s picked a couple of his biggest idiots to run the course. Be careful of Schmidt, though. He’s smart and a real bastard.”
I know that guy. He’s one of Mateo’s most irritating hangers-on.
Nodding, I try to sound firm and not like I’m about to wet myself, “I have this.”
“You get through this course unscathed and I will eat you out for an hour tonight,” Lucca whispers, “I won’t stop until you come six times.” He gives me a filthy grin before giving me a pat on the top of my helmet.
Oh, I am so winning this thing, I think, fingers tightening on my rifle.
Chapter Nineteen
In which there are dirty tricks and oral sex. Not at the same time.
Lucca…
Tatiana leaps into the boulder field like a fleeing deer after hearing the pistol shot. We’ve run through The Barrens before when I was training her, but I don’t know how much she remembers about the layout. Since she’s essentially running blind and holding a rifle, I’m cursing myself. I should have put her on the first challenge. She’s so light. She could have scampered across those logs like a spider monkey. Instead, I’ve sent her out into a minefield with a group of rifle-toting assholes who won’t let her out of there unless she’s covered in contusions and paint.
The Leaders have access to a platform above the course, so we can watch our teams, but we can’t shout any instructions. I can see Liam racing through the south end of the boulder field, Freddy Martinez, my third player, just shot three paint bullets, one hitting a member of Alek’s team square in the chest. He yelps, leaving the field.
Scanning the boulders, I can’t see Tatiana and I curse under my breath. Then she pops up behind a limestone outcropping and deftly shoots an opponent in the shoulder. I suck in a sigh of relief until I see another player creeping up behind her, she dodges his paint bullet and it splatters against the rock. The color is purple, Michael Doyle’s team. He’s just behind us in the rankings, so it looks like he might have had his team target my players, too.
Tatiana darts around another rock outcropping and nails the Doyle player in the chest, he flies backward, dropping his rifle and she takes off for the end of the obstacle course. Just then, Liam gets hit in the neck, the orange paint splattering across his jacket and then a streak of red, too.
“Dr. Giardo!” I shout, he looks up and I point in Liam’s direction. “It’s O'Neill, he took a hit to the neck and he’s bleeding.”
The doctor looks over to where Liam is slumped against the rock. “He’ll be fine until the task is over,” he says dismissively.
“No!” I head for the stairs, “He’s bleeding from a neck wound.” One of the security guards steps in front of me.
“No entering the challenge field,” he recites indifferently. I’m about to punch him and take a leap over the side of the stand when Aleks shouts over to me.