Chapter 292

I don’t have any words in response, completely overwhelmed as I am at the incredible compliment Jackson just gave me, at the impossible way that he sees me and how incredibly much he loves me. So I just stare at Jackson, and open my side of our bond completely, letting him feel all the love and pride and joy and fear that his words have raised – fear that he loves me too much, that I’ll never live up to his standards.

I can see the moment when my emotions hit him, the way his face bursts into a bashful smile, how he reaches for me. And I’m instantly on my feet, hurling myself up into his arms, him wrapping me up with a vicious snarl as he lifts me up off the ground.

“You already do, Ariel.”

“I love you too, Jacks,” I say, sniffing hard against my tears.

“We’re not supposed to cry in battle,” he murmurs, tucking his head down next to mine.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t supposed to do a lot of things.” I sigh as he sets me back down on my feet. I sniff again, wiping hard at my cheeks as he holds me stead for a moment, softly stroking a hand over my cap and down my neck.

I take a deep breath and straighten my shoulders, giving his shoulder a little shove. “Now go away – we have work to do.”

Jackson just laughs, taking a step away from me even though I can tell that he hates it. “Shoot straight, Clark.”

“Yeah yeah,” I say, forcing myself to turn away and unstrapping the gun from my back. “Go…be bossy. Or whatever your job is. Punch hard.”

“Earpiece on!” Jackson calls, starting down the little trail as I unstrap one of the magazines of paintballs and begin to load it into my rifle. I take a second to flick the switch next to my ear.

“You got it, Commander,” I say into the piece, knowing he can hear me now.

“Finally, some respect,” he says, sarcastic, making me laugh.

“You in place, Clark?” Rafe’s voice says, coming down along the line, sounding stern and a bit angry. “’Bout time. The other teams are already on the move – we need your eyes on them.”

“You got it, Sinclair,” I murmur, laying myself down next to my rifle and sighting down the scope before taking a few shots, each at longer distances along the side of our own cliff, wanting to test my accuracy but not wanting to let the other teams know where I am just yet. “Two minutes and I’ll get you the first report.”

“Make it one,” my brother says, dry, making me smirk.

And then, as a team, we finally get to work.

Rafe protests surprisingly little at the news that Jackson changed the plan and is now coming down from my vantage point to more fully join the battle. I marvel at Rafe’s flexibility on this point for a moment while I get used to my gun, taking further and further shots and adjusting my movements in tiny increments until I get it right.

But then suddenly I grin and look away from my scope when I realize that maybe Rafe was…counting on this. He knew Jackson wouldn’t listen to him when he said that Jacks shouldn’t babysit me the whole time, but Rafe certainly knew that I’d be bossy enough to send Jackson back down the cliffside instead of wasting his time sitting around by my side.

I laugh quietly to myself, shaking my head at my brother and taking one last shot with the gun. When I hit a very particular leaf at a thousand yards I nod, satisfied that I’m comfortable enough with the gun to land my shots.

Then I put my gun aside, turning to the ravine and lifting my binoculars, beginning to survey the landscape and using the impressive zoom feature to attempt to survey the surroundings.

“You ready to report, Clark?” Jackson asks into my earpiece.

“What do you want a report on?” I ask a little passively, looking around the valley and getting used to the landscape, noting its features. “Like, where should I look?”

Jackson laughs a little. “I left you the map, Ari,” he says, and I can almost hear him shaking his head. “Look to the red x’s where the other camps landed – see if you can see any movement.”

“Oh!” I say, realizing that this is – obviously – a great idea. I drop the binoculars so that they hang around my neck while I pick up the map, glancing up at the ravine and noting the different places that the teams have landed according to the natural landmarks that I see before me. We’re in a relative triangle; our team is on the other side of the ravine from the other two, but we’re equidistant between our enemies, in the middle. “Any indication,” I murmur to my brother and my mate, “of which of these two teams is more dangerous?”

“We don’t know which is which,” Rafe says into my ear, “though obviously knowing which one belongs to Wright is going to be useful. Both teams are going to be sending out runners – scouts – trying to get the lay of the land. Wright will probably use Luca for that. So, if you see Luca coming from the direction of one team or the other, we’ll know which camp is which.”

“Why do you think he would he use Luca as a scout?” I ask, curious, laying flat on my belly and using the binoculars to attempt to locate the camp that should be to our south, along the line of our canyon.

“Because he’s fast as hell,” Jackson says into the earpiece, his voice pleased and a bit entertained.

“Hey, where’s Jesse?” I ask, bright and interested.

“Could we please cut down on the chatter?” says another voice along the line, making me jump. “Some of us are trying to concentrate.”

I grimace a bit. I didn’t know the rest of the team was on the line with us.

“Watch it, Miller,” Rafe snaps, not liking his tone. A beat passes. “But yes, Clark, please concentrate and keep the questions to a minimum. Cadet Sinclair is out of range by now, out on his own mission.”

I smirk but do as my brother says, concentrating and attempting to locate any movement in the area around that southern landing space, wondering a little where Jesse is and hoping he’ll be okay.

Unfortunately, despite my excitement this morning, the majority of the Game is…boring as hell. I spend the vast majority of my time just looking through the binoculars, scanning the trees, looking for movement. I find that movement pretty fast on both teams, marking down the location of enemy soldiers on my map with the red pen Jackson left for me and relaying the information to Jackson and the team below.

Jackson uses that information to chart the movement of the enemy troops and give advice to Rafe about how he should move, predicting where the other teams might send their soldiers next and setting Rafe up to be on the defense.

As the hours slip by I listen to the chatter over the earpiece, my elbows starting to hurt because of all the time I spend laying on my belly propping up the binoculars.

War is so boring, I say to my wolf, who is laying on her back in my soul with her paws up in the air, her tail idly swishing back and forth.

Yeah, she replies, snapping her jaws at an imaginary fly, let’s get up and bite someone.

I smirk at her, shaking my head, but then flinch and refocus my eyes when the tinny sound of paintball guns shooting breaks the air.

“What’s happening?” I whisper, unable to help it, even though I know Rafe and Jacks will tell me what I need to know.

“It’s not us,” Rafe replies, sounding a little smug. “If the other teams were trying to work together to come for ours, then someone just broke.”

More sounds break out and then shouts as well as a great deal of noise and movement directly across the river. I shift my binoculars and begin to tell Rafe and Jackson precisely what I’m seeing, monologuing a bit into the earpiece but knowing that I’m their eyes in this situation. As I watch, I report that the teams seem to be in a heated fight with several soldiers on either side taking hits and thus being marked out of the Game.

As they’re hit, the soldiers scowl and slink off into the forest, I guess going back to their bases – I’m not really sure. But by the time the fighting stops, there’s only a few left – and none of them are anyone I know.

And each and every one of them turns towards us – or, at least towards where our camp is, directly across the river.

“What’s next?” I ask quietly when our line goes silent.

Rafe and Jackson exchange a few hasty words that I don’t understand – speaking in some kind of warrior-track shorthand that I haven’t learned. But then Rafe’s voice is darkly pleased when he turns his attention back to me.

“What do you think, Clark?” he says. “Can you make the shot?”

A huge grin spreads out over my face as I finally, finally reach for my gun. “Hell yes I can.”