Devious | Eric Coulter

22

UNEDITED

Four's team watched ours as we jumped from the train first, the sound of our footwear collectively hitting against the ground resonating through the dark night.

Eric led us further up front where we stopped at an abandoned funhouse. I held my breath as Eric turned to us with an emotionless stare.

"What's your plan?" His deep velvety voice caught all our attention.

"Shouldn't you be the one making plans? You're the leader after all," An Erudite transfer named Devon, said.

Eric narrowed his eyes and aimed his gun at Devon, "Watch your fúcking mouth, initiate. I am the captain, but you will be the one formulating plans. I'm here to guide you, not become your fúcking servant." He hissed.

Devon clamped his mouth shut and visibly shook at the sight of a gun pointed at him. I heard Eric scoff slightly, "Pússy."

"I think we should just do defence," Peter piped up from next to me, "I mean, they expect us to attack, yeah? So I say we should do the exact opposite, which is to stay and guard our flag."

Eric rolled his eyes at Peter, not surprised that he was the first one suggesting. He scanned the rest of us, "Anyone else with a better plan?"

No one answered him, either too scared to speak or they had nothing to contribute to win the game. "Alright, then. We'll follow Peter's plan. Follow me,"

We all trudged our way to an old looking building with box-like boulders in front of it. Eric split our group into outer and inner defence. He casted me on inner defence.

Eric directed the outer group to hide behind the boulders, and the inner group to stay inside the building and hide our glowing green flag. I followed Molly to an abandoned tower to hide it. The tower we were in luckily gave us leverage from the opposing team.

"Initiate," I looked behind me and saw Eric with a stoic look on his face.

"Yeah?" I answered him while lowering my gun.

"Serve as our eye. There's a small crack in that tower, I'm sure you'll see Four's team before they advance on us. Shout out if you see them."

I nodded my head in affirmation, "Yeah, of course."

I turned my back and immediately went inside the tower to assist Molly guard the flag.

Telling Eric about Peter's knowledge of our encounters had to wait.

🎡🎡🎡🎡🎡🎡🎡🎡

"When will they get here?" I heard Molly mutter frustratingly as she slumped against a wall.

I looked back into the small open space in front of me, my eye twitching slightly as I tried to see any signs of movements from intruders.

I widened my eyes when I saw light glinting a couple of feet from our base.

They were here.

Immediately, I ran towards the entrance to the top of the tower to shout at my teammates that were positioned below us, "Devon! Gigi! Warn Eric that Four's group is here!"

The two of them looked up and nodded. Devon lightly shoved Gigi towards the door and muttered hurriedly, "Quick! Eric's going to kick our arse if we don't inform him about their arrival."

I went back towards my spot and shakily raised my gun towards the opening in front of me. If someone were to retrieve our flag, they would have to face Molly and I.

"They're here," I heard Molly whisper softly as she gazed onto the large window.

I tried to calm my beating heart. My hands were shakily holding my gun up, the familiar feeling of my pointer finger resting on the trigger was frightening me a little.