G.U.A.R.D. Book #3: Recusant

-26-

    Team Blue. Cole Pierce. Oliver Watson. Holly Moffett. And me. Only four people. I was kind of smug about it.

That month, we worked on picking locks, escaping prisons, and everything else that happened to do with finding a way out of metal box with seemingly no escape. Pierce, who had been a captain before, was voted captain again for our team. The Trials consisted of all of us separate in rooms. I didn't even know where they got them. But we were required to break out of the rooms, then together break out of the hallway. We came second.

Bella Reed, Dennis Hansen, Ruth Cunningham, and I made up Team Red the next month. It was January. We got New Year's off, but it was back to work afterwards.

Our focus went back to guns. We still had to work a lot on our aim. We continued learning about health, escaping prisons, whatever. We jogged all the stinkin' time—even though it was raining a lot more often now.

I hated working with Bella Reed. She despised me. So I despised her. She was constantly giving me snide comments about my age and inferiority, and it really didn't help that she was once a captain. And apparently the rest of the group didn't enjoy her remarks, either, because... well... I ended up captain.

The Trial was capture the flag and a paintball war in one. After dinner, the instructors split down the territory into two areas. Red worked with Yellows, Greens with Blues. The captain of the Yellows? Miss Perfect. Julia Brooks.

As our teams began speed walking through the undergrowth, there didn't seem to be any separation. All of us had worked together on so many occasions, we naturally thought of ourselves as one unit instead of two.

The recruits wore bulletproof vests over camo gear. Despite the heat, I opted for the long-sleeved shirt to better disguise myself in the vegetation. With paintball guns strapped over our shoulders and gripped safely in our hands, we hiked until we were a good distance from the station.

"How do we disguise the flag if it has to be in plain sight?" Brooks asked, half to herself.

I frowned. I had been wondering about it the whole way over. "They're testing our creativity."

"And resourcefulness."

"Reds!" I called, motioning with my hand for them to step up. "Any ideas about the flag?"

There was some hesitation, but eventually Cunningham said, "I had one."

I raised an eyebrow. "We don't have all night."

"Does it actually have to remain in color?"

I tilted my head. Brooks frowned in thought. "River," she had given up on the first-name basis idea, "let me see the flag."

River, with her tall, muscular figure, guarded the object safely in her hand while carrying her gun in the other. She offered it, and Brooks held it up. Half of it was red, half of it yellow.

"Are we allowed to smother mud on it?" Brooks asked me.

"They didn't say anything against it in the rules. As long as it's in plain sight. I think I have an idea to take it one step further..."

So our teams collected dirt and leaves, pasting them on the flag with mud. When it wa the color of the earthly colors around, I grabbed my knifes and tore a few holes in it. Then we placed it in the shadow of a tree, as if it was a pile of rotting leaves.

Hansen and Cunningham were positioned next to a tree nearby to give the illusion that the flag was hidden elsewhere. River from Team Yellow walked around protectively, patrolling for any signs of the enemy. They all had easy view of the real location just in case.