Panic rose in me. I hated not knowing what was going on. There was somebody else in our playing field, and I hadn't a clue where he was! Or had I? I looked back over at Dylan, who was trying to feel for the blue blob on his back. He hadn't moved much, so I quickly calculated the angle the shooter would've had to hit him at. If Dylan was shot in the back and he'd been facing Corey, then the shooter who got him was in front of us both. Or behind me, when I'd been aiming for Corey. There was no time to help out Dylan. He'd be fine. I wanted to win. Both he and Corey were out of the game, now, and I was suddenly in a new one with someone I didn't even know.

I listened over my brother's and Dylan's complaining and thought I heard footfalls moving away from us. The shooter was running. This was my chance. Leaving my team member and sibling behind, I took off in the direction I thought I'd heard the steps. Whoever this trespasser was, he wasn't going to make it out of the woods without my green mark on his gray suit. What kind of a jerk would sneak up on us like that? It was cheating, if you asked me. We didn't even know there was a fourth person in the area. At the same time I was getting angry, I felt my blood rushing through me with excitement. Even if his sneaking up had been illegal, it made things a lot more interesting. Or it did for me, anyway, because I wasn't out yet. I was still in the game, still hunting. And hunting for an unknown enemy was more fun than hunting for my beginner little brother.

I tried to keep my eyes open for a moving figure, but I didn't see one. I was pretty much in the open, but I was fairly sure that the enemy was still ahead of me. If he'd stopped, I would've probably caught up to him by then. When I started to slow my speed, I began to recognize the area I was in. It was where the large boulders started popping up here and there. The boulders that people used as mini-fortresses to hide behind while shooting. And the enemy could be behind any one of them. If he was someone who knew Sloppy Soldiers and came often, he'd know the area, and that could be dangerous for me. Of course, I knew the area too, so we were probably on the same level.

Becoming more cautious, I started to move from stone to stone, edging my way around each one to check out the area beyond before I ran to the next. The deeper I got, the more boulders there were. I knew that if I kept on, I'd reach the place where all the rocks stood on their ends like a mini Stonehenge. Something told me that was where the enemy had gone.

I was there soon enough. The stones were bigger than me by nearly three feet. It was very quiet—too quiet, I thought. I knew that the person was around; I could feel it. He was probably watching me, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. But I wasn't going down easily. My goal was to get to the very farthest boulder. That way, I'd know he had to be behind me. Then I could start moving between them, looking for a footprint or smushed plant where a shoe could've stepped. I'd be strategic, not impulsive, like I usually was. Adam always told me that I needed to put more strategy into my game. So I would this time, but first I had to guess the basic location of my enemy. That was the tricky part.

I made it to the second-to-last boulder with no trouble at all. Sweat dripped down my arms and legs inside the suit I wore, and the hair around my ears and on my forehead was damp too. I was so hot I thought I'd burst if I didn't move faster. Moving slowly made me more hot than running. My heart was beating so loud that I was sure somebody would hear it. Now was the time when things were getting serious. Once I made it to the last boulder, I'd have to start back and check all the way around each rock. I wished I could see them from above; that would've given my enemy's position away real quick.

The last boulder was in sight. I'd start out slow, then move faster. I'd make it before even the birds could see me.

Step . . . step . . . step step step.

I was just crossing the ten-foot gap that would get me to the last stone when somebody jumped out from behind the trees to my right and stuck his paintball gun right up against my side. It happened so fast that I stopped dead in my tracks and actually dropped my own semi-auto. I'd been caught.

The guy didn't fire, so I just stood there with my hands sort of up in the air because I wasn't really sure what to do. Rules said you had to be shot to be out, so if he didn't fire, I wasn't technically out. I knew that if I started moving, though, I'd be a goner, so I stayed where I was and waited. Heat flooded through me as if it had all just caught up with me. It was definitely a hot August. Hotter than I could remember. That could've been my irritation building up, though. We seriously stood there for about a full minute, me waiting for him to shoot and him waiting for I didn't know what. Finally, since I was getting super frustrated, I pulled my mask off and said, "All right already! Just shoot and get it over with!" I also wanted to tell him that even if I had played along, it was still illegal of him to butt in on our game. But I didn't say that yet, because I had to admit he'd made it more interesting.

I turned to look at the guy when he started to take his mask off. Right when I noticed who it was, he said, "Geez, Cole. Same bad moves as ever. I haven't even played in two months, and I'm still better than you."

Not only was I surprised to see Adam, I was also really, really annoyed. He knew rules, and he'd broken them. "Maybe that's because you're a stupid cheater!" I cried, shoving his gun away from my side and facing him. If he had been anybody else, I don't think I would've been half as mad. "You aren't supposed to sneak up like that! We didn't even know you were here!"

"Yeah? Well I didn't know you were here until I called your house and your mom told me." The smirk on his triumphant face disappeared and he frowned. "How come you didn't ask me to come?"

I sighed. It seemed like a long time since I'd seen him. I figured I'd have to tell him the truth. "Because you wouldn't have come even if I'd asked."

"How do you know?" he said, getting angry. "You don't know what I would've said."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I do. You've been all moody for a long time and haven't wanted to do anything in weeks, and now you're going to try and get mad at me because I didn't ask you to come to Sloppy Soldiers? You know, Adam, if you say no a hundred times you can't expect people to keep asking you to do stuff. I wasn't going to hold out for a yes anymore. I got tired of waiting around for you to lighten up."

"Oh, sure Cole." Adam shrugged and lowered his semi-auto until the tip of it touched the dirt. All sarcastic, he said, "Because I don't wait around for you all the time."

For a minute, I had to think about that comment. Then I said, "I'm pretty sure you don't."

"Yeah right! I have to force you to do pretty much everything! You're a big chicken when it comes to anything besides paintball, and I even had to force you to try that at first. You freak out at everything! Why don't you ever try anything new on your own for once?" He was getting louder and more angry by the second. His mood almost looked dangerous.

"Oh shut up. For your information, I did do something on my own!"

"Yeah, right," he said, turning and picking up a couple of paintballs that had rolled out of a hole in the bag at his belt.

I was fuming. "You don't believe me? Ask Dylan, then. Ask him if I went to his house. Ask him if I didn't meet his crazy grandma and check out the freaky dolls in his backyard. Ask him! He's here, you know—he's the one you shot in the back like the fair player you are. That took a lot more guts than you coming out here and cheating at this stupid game!"

When he heard the name I'd mentioned, Adam straightened. He looked at me, and his features melted into some sort of weird, calm anger. Like there was some fury boiling under his skin but it would be too catastrophic to let out. In a real low voice, he hissed, "Doyle?" His dark-lidded eyes narrowed under the bangs stuck to his pale forehead. "I know you don't mean Doyle. There's no way that was him I shot."

I turned my nose up like a snob and didn't say anything. I didn't have to. He knew just by my face that I was telling the truth.

Adam stepped closer to me. "You brought Dylan Doyle out here to paintball, and you didn't even call me? You'd rather play around with that little asshole who's picked on you since third grade than ask your only friend to come out here?" He poked me hard in the chest. "That's low, Cole. Real low. You're messed up."

I momentarily wondered if he was right. Had I been a real jerk by not calling him? No. No, I hadn't been. He didn't tell me about a lot of the things he did, so why did I have to tell him everything I did? I bent over and picked up my gun. Then I looked back up at him, shaking my head. "You're the one who's messed up, Adam. Get over yourself for once." I didn't have to stand there and put up with him being rude to me, and I wasn't going to, either. I turned around and started walking, not even glancing over my shoulder to see what he was doing. I'd made him pretty mad.

By the time I got back to Dylan and Corey, I had no idea where Adam had gone. For all I knew he was still standing in the same place I'd left him. My brother and friend were waiting for me on the outside of the woods.

"What the heck happened to you?" asked Dylan right when he saw me emerging from the trees.

I think my expression said a million things, none of them very clear.

Dylan was confused. "Uh . . . ok."

"What's wrong, Cole?" cried Corey. "Who was that guy?"

"I don't know," I lied. "Just some kid."

"Did you get shot?" my brother went on. "Where's the paint? Hey . . . I don't see any blue on you!"

Corey was pulling at my suit, trying to see if there was any mark of defeat on it. "He didn't shoot me," I said quietly.

Dylan cocked his head to one side. "Oh. Does that mean you won, then? You didn't get shot."

"No," I quickly replied. "I didn't get him either."

Slumping his shoulders, Corey looked at me with his wide eyes. "Well, then who won?"

Starting off in the direction of the supply shack, I sighed. "Nobody. We both lost."