Page 113 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

Jackson looked down slowly at his chest like reality itself had offended him.

From somewhere across the field Jason screamed, “SHE GOT HIM!”

That was her mistake.

I leaned out, took aim, and fired once. Orange paint burst across her vest.

Her head whipped toward me. “Oh, you bitch!”

“You tagged Jackson,” I called back. “Actions have consequences.”

The game dragged on another twenty minutes before the final buzzer echoed across the field.

The sudden quiet felt strange after all the shouting.

I emerged from the trees with my marker slung over one shoulder, adrenaline still buzzing. My cat purred with smug satisfaction.

Near the fence Jackson paced with pink paint streaked across him, hair a mess from dragging his hands through it. The moment he saw me, the tension left his body.

He came straight toward me, caught me around the waist, and pulled me hard against him like I'd just walked out of a real battlefield.

He was impossible.

I pushed my visor up and grinned. “Told you I didn’t need backup.”

Jackson kissed me hard enough to steal the rest of my breath, then rested his forehead against mine.

“You did so well, baby,” he murmured. “Did Brian teach you how to shoot too?”

“Yep.”

Jason wandered over with paint streaked across his shoulder and half his mask pushed up.

“Dude,” he announced to Jackson, staring at me, “I think I’m in love with your girl.”

Jackson narrowed his eyes immediately.

Jason pointed at me dramatically. “If you don’t lock her down, I might.”

Jackson swung at him without a second's hesitation. "Try it."

Jason yelped, laughing as he danced backward out of reach.

After we turned in our gear and started walking back toward the parking lot the others argued about who had lost most pathetically. Lia insisted she would have won if I “hadn’t been lurking around the woods like some orange sniper demon.”

Personally, I thought I had been charming.

I was only half listening to Jason loudly reenact his own elimination when my cat stirred. Something moved near the tree line. I slowed.

“Wait,” I murmured.

Jackson immediately stepped closer to me like I had spotted a threat. But it wasn’t a threat.

It was a cat.

A thin gray-striped adolescent kitten, maybe four or five months old, with big wary eyes and a tail tucked low. He hovered half in shadow, half in sunlight, crouched and ready to bolt.

I crouched too, leaving him plenty of escape space. I made myself small, slow, uninteresting, and looked at the trees instead of at him.