Page 16 of False Flag

She rolled her eyes even as she took the green stick. “You know what I mean.”

He grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. “What if I did?”

“Why? So you could hit on me?”

“No. So I wouldn’t have to shoot you.”

“Chicken.”

“Absolutely. Now, do you want me to spread that paint on your face…or anywhere else?”

She was foolishly tempted to say yes.

No. No way. Everything about this guy was wrong. And it wasn’t just that he was a fan of the worst person in the world. He was also Rand’s teammate. She and Rand might have broken up forever ago, and he was no longer on the team, but there was still a slur for women who screwed around with SEALs on the same team. At least, she assumed there was.

It shouldn’t matter. Staci was the last person to truck with slut shaming. She’d been branded with that label by ignorant assholes from her first shift waiting tables at Double D. No one was allowed to tell her—or any woman—where she could work, what she should wear, or who she could sleep with.

Truth was, her aversion had more to do with being afraid of discovering the nasty side of some of the men on the team. It would be so disappointing to discover Chris and Rand’s friends were sexist pricks. But with sixteen men in the platoon, there were bound to be a few bad apples.

It might even be the hot man who wanted to rub grease paint on her skin.

Did he know her history with Rand? Would it change his interest in her?

She swiped a few stripes across her arms, putting in a token effort at camouflage. She didn’t like the feel of it on her skin, and she’d be wearing a protective mask on her face during the game, thankfully.

She noticed Cressida—Ian’s wife, who she’d met for the first time today—wasn’t preparing for battle. “You aren’t playing?”

She shook her head. “No. I won’t ever touch a gun again. Not even paintball.”

Staci was certain there was a story there. Maybe someday, if they became friends, she’d get to hear it.

“I’ll be inside, binge-watching Ted Lasso, if you get bored playing war,” Cressida said.

“Ooh. That does sound fun. Maybe I’ll let Yellow team shoot me early.”

All the members of Red team within earshot let out a sharp complaint.

“Kidding… Mostly.”

Twenty minutes later, they had all test-fired their weapons and the rules were laid out. The two teams had an equal number of Raptors, but with 17 SEALs—Rand plus the 16-man platoon—they had an uneven distribution and SEALs made up the majority of Staci’s fifteen-person team.

Red team was led to their forest headquarters by Ian. There, they would receive an envelope identifying their exact role and their game token—the piece they would collect or surrender when a player was taken out of the game.

Staci followed Jake Burns on the trek through the woods, admiring his ass while wondering if it would be unethical to frag a team member.

Jake examined the map that gave his start point for the game: a ten-minute hike from HQ.

This wasn’t your typical game of capture the flag. In honor of the mission of the Valkyries, the game was centered around three artifacts that the two teams needed to find and rescue before they could be trafficked. Six players were the traffickers—and no one knew who they were as they were embedded on the two teams. Three traffickers per team.

No one knew what the three artifacts were, but they were told they’d know them when they found them.

Jake studied his team and tried to guess who the traffickers were.

They’d all pulled envelopes from a bag that identified them as trafficker or not and gave them their start point in the forest, where they would find supplies specific to their role. Except for the Raptor team members—who knew the forest well and would have an unfair advantage if they were traffickers—it was a random drawing. Even the couples who hadn’t wanted to be divided could find themselves at cross purposes.

It was a clever setup, really, as even the six traffickers didn’t know who their allies and enemies were and would have to use the clues found in their packets to identify the others and locate the artifacts.

They were given fifteen minutes to find their start point and prepare. Then a horn would sound, and the game would begin, ending only when the three artifacts were safe in a team’s HQ or removed from the field entirely by the traffickers.