Every Man For Himself

"Hey," I called, walking towards a familiar Jeep that was parked in my driveway. I smiled, standing up on the tips of my toes to greet Zac with a hug before kissing his cheek gently.

"Hey yourself. You look nice," his eyes grazed over my outfit.

"This?" I laughed incredulously, stepping back from him and pointing to the gray sweatpants and matching T-shirt that adorned my body.

"You told me to wear grunge clothes." I reminded him.

"You look absolutely perfect, for what we're doing," he put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me closer to him so he could kiss me.

"Oh, yeah," I broke away from him, the sense of curiosity killing me. "What are we doing?"

"Can't tell you."

God dammit.

"Wait, let me guess- wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?" I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms in front of my chest, absolutely despising the smug little grin across his face.

"Exactly. You'll love it, I promise." He claimed, leading me over to his car.

"Sure, whatever.." I smiled anyway.

"Absolutely not." I refused to step out of Zac's Jeep.

He's got another thing coming if I'm doing this.

"Oh, come on Maggie. It's fun." Mia walked over and grabbed my wrist.

"No," I said crossly, yanking it away from her before pointing out, "Besides, you've never done it before either."

"But it sounds like so much fun!" she replied happily.

Shut up, bitch. I felt like snapping at her cheery mood. This was beyond humiliating.

"What are we waiting for?" Taylor stepped out of Mia's car and joined us before I could answer her, now making it three against one.

"Miss Stubborn here," Zac pointed at me. I glared at him out of the corner of my eye.

What part of 'no' don't you guys understand?

"I said no." I shook my head.

For the fourth time.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Zac reached over me, unbuckled my seat belt and slipped his hands underneath my bent knees. To my ultimate surprise, he lifted me out of the car and started walking, carrying me in his arms. I squealed in protest, completely acting about one-fourth my age. Unfortunately, he was at least twice as strong as I was, not to mention just as stubborn.

"Maggie, you're going to do this and like it whether you like it or not." The look on his face made it hard for me to suppress my giggles, without much avail: I broke down and my shoulders shook against his chest. How could I not give in to him?

"Fine," I grumbled, noticing he still held me tightly. "But please put me down first."

"Geez, Maggie," Mia rolled her eyes at my melodrama, casually slipping her fingers into Taylor's hand.. "It's not like we're pulling your teeth out."

"No, this is worse." I grumbled in response as Zac and I followed behind them.

"Thanks," I said as I raised my arms so a worker could lift a red vest over my shoulders.

"That's-oww! Good enough," I exclaimed as he tightened the straps, nearly pulling me over backward.

"You look cute Maggie," Mia giggled at me.

"Thanks." My sarcasm was at a maximum peak, fueled by my embarrassment of what I was being forced to do. I glared at her through narrow eyes.

"I would still like it to go on record that I did not want to come here."

"Now where's your sense of competition? We're the only members on our team." Zac asked, walking over to the company's collection of extremely scary looking semi-automatic riffles. If I hadn't known they contained tiny canisters of paint, I would've guessed we were entering hunting season.

"I don't exactly see how me crawling around on the ground avoiding blasts of paint flying at me a hundred miles an hour while trying to capture their-" I pointed to Taylor and Mia, who were also suiting up,

"-flag can give me a sense of competition." I finished.

"I thought you didn't know anything about this game," he looked at me with surprise written in his eyes, an amused grin on his face.

"Surprise yourself," I smiled despite the unpleasant situation I was about to enter myself into. I joined him in front of the racks of paintball guns, completely ignorant as to which one I should use.

"Any advice on my choice here?" There had to be at least a hundred displayed in front of us.

"Hmm.. how much can you bench press?"

"Zac," I playfully punched him in the arm.

"They're not that heavy. See-woah.." I tried picking up the closest one next to me, surprised at the amount of weight the small thing carried, and nearly dropped it, catching it right before it landed on my foot.

"Oops."

"See.. Now put that down before you hurt yourself. " He picked the gun out of my hands and put it back in its place. After examining the hundred or so in front of us, he selected an exceptionally puny one and placed it in my hands.

"This is it?" I stared disbelievingly at the black metal gun, barely twice the length of my hand, before glancing up at him with a frown creasing my forehead.

At least it's not very heavy. I reminded myself.

"That's all I get?"

"Yup," he said before pulling one out for him.

"How come yours is like twice the size of mine? If I have to go into guerilla warfare, at least give me a decent weapon."

"I don't trust you with anything else." He reached out his hand and fluffed my hair.

"Hey, be nice to your only team player, or I might defect to the enemy." I flipped the strands of hair he'd flung in my face over my shoulder.

"Hey, if you guys are done standing around, let's play already!" Speaking of our enemies, Taylor spoke up. I turned around to see him and Mia standing in the doorway, completely adorned in vests and helmets, blue in color instead of red like Zac and me. I couldn't help but notice the gun resting against Mia's leg was much more impressive than the tiny little squirt gun my partner had trusted me with.

"Just a sec, we're almost ready," Zac replied, stuffing a helmet onto my head.

"Oof! Warn me next time you do that." I said as it slid down over my eyes.

That's not a good sign, a little voice warned me. I pushed it up so I could see again and slipped the set of extra paint canisters Zac handed me over my shoulder.

"Here we go." He sent me a large grin before we stepped out onto the playing field. I replied with a weak smile of my own.

"Mags, the ditch!" Zac cried as he ran past me when the starter bell rang. Ducking my head, I ran clumsily after him, feeling weighed down by the 'armor' I was wearing. Feeling even stupider, I dove into the small ditch on our left side after he did.

"Did you get hit already?" He inspected me over intently.

"Zac, they didn't start shooting at us yet," I pointed out the obvious.

"Oh, yeah," he grinned, his eyes flashing excitedly. After switching his gaze from my eyes to the field, he caught sight of Mia and Taylor making their way over toward a small patch of trees.

"Ok, here's the plan. I've played here before, so I know the territory." He surprised me with the seriousness and authority that rang out in his voice. I half expected him to pull out a stick and start drawing a map of the area in the dirt at our feet. I almost doubled over laughing when he did just that.

"We're here," he indicated with an 'X.'

"Our flag is here. Mia and Taylor are here, going here," he dragged the stick across the bottom of his map to the right-hand side.

"But their flag is here," he picked up the stick and moved it to the opposite corner. I tried to follow intently, getting distracted as my helmet fell down my forehead, covering my eyes again. Annoyed, I pushed it back in place.

"Now, this ditch here only goes so far.. to about here," he continued pointing the stick in the dirt with each description. "So if we split up from here, I'll cut across this way here, while you go around behind them this way by taking this path over here, which you'll follow along here until it takes you here. While you distract them by shooting and running from here to here, that will give me enough time to sneak from way over here to their flag, remember which is over here, snatch it, run the other way until I get here. Bascially, while I let you get shot while over here, I bolt it back to here. Got it?"

Huh?

"Umm.. You're letting me get shot?" was the only part I remembered.

"Yeah. You distract them long enough so I can get the flag. I planned around you sucking at this game. Now we only have," he checked his watch.

"Thirteen minutes left, so move, move, move!" he commanded in a loud voice.

"Yes sir!" I saluted him before heading off in the direction Mia and Taylor had gone, praying the next thirteen minutes would end quickly.

Although elaborate in its design, Zac hadn't mentioned one critical piece of information about our competition: Taylor knew this game like the back of his hand. It all started out so good for me and Zac.. I had no clue where Taylor and Mia had run off to; I'd spent what'd seemed like hours searching for them in the woods. Tired of running around, not to mention tired of pushing my helmet out of my eyes, I stopped to rest, placing my hand against a tree for support.

"Ahh," I gasped as a bright flash of blue paint exploded against the tree bark above my hand. I reacted the best way I knew how: dropping myself straight to the ground on my stomach. I lay quietly, trying to listen for any sounds of movement around me. Nothing. I lifted my head up and looked around. Nothing.

How annoying.

Not wanting to be seen again, I used my elbows to inch on my stomach towards a set of bushes on the left side of the trail I'd been following. I gasped quietly when I caught the sight of Mia's boots walking towards me on the other side of the bushes. Thinking quickly, I quietly rolled underneath them, my pitiful attempts at hiding.

My heart pulsed excitedly in my chest and I found my breath coming out in short, excited gasps, pushing tiny trenches into the dirt I'd buried my chin into.

Ok, so this is kind of fun. Not that I'd admit it to Zac, of course... Oh, I hope she doesn't see me, I hope she doesn't see me.. I prayed. Her black leather boots paused a few feet away from my face, causing my body to stiffen with fear.

She could easily shoot me right now and it'd be just Zac, I realized.

Well, the plan was for me to get shot anyway, I remembered, a feeling of annoyance building up inside my stomach against my partner's lack of support for me.

But where's Taylor?

You're not going to find anyone just laying around here, was my first thought after Mia regained her pace, walking past me. I tightened my grip around the trigger and raised it to eye level, aiming cautiously. After hearing the loud bang that exploded from my gun, not to mention the startling amount of force the tiny thing used to propel a paint ball out at, I nearly dropped it. Nothing was more satisfying than seeing the large red splatter of paint across her left shoulder and hearing the sound of a cry of defeat escape from her mouth.

"Oww. Those paintball thingies hurt," she turned around with an angry look on her face, reaching to rub her shoulder.

"Face it," I rolled out of the bushes and stood up, facing her with a triumphant grin on my face. "Got'cha."

Loser, I added in my head.

Despite my cat-like reflexes against Mia, I didn't have a prayer against Taylor. A few minutes later, as I caught sight of the back of his head between a few bushes, a second after he'd spotted Zac. I dropped my gun, dug my feet into the dirt, and lunged towards him with all my strength. Although a person with terrible aim, I managed to land on his back and knock him to the ground, flattening him like a pancake.

"Hey," was his cry of defeat. I sat on his back and held his arms eagle-spread down in the dirt.

"Ha!" I cried overconfidently. Glancing into the clearing, I first caught sight of a bright blue flag sticking out of a mound of earth. My sense of pride crumbled when I saw Zac shaking his head. My eyes traveled from his frowned expression to the splatter of blue paint across his chest.

"Zac.." I gritted my teeth, my eyes darting to the blue flag about fifteen feet in front of him. Without a second thought, I jumped off of Tay and bolted for the flag. A few seconds later, I felt my fingers closing around the soft cloth knots that bound it to a wooden pole. My heart racing, I turned around and leaped off of the pile of dirt and landed with a thump on the grass of the clearing, the blue trophy clenched tightly between my fingers.

The fact I hate running escaped my mind as I pumped each ounce of energy I had into my legs. Unfortunately, the Taylor I'd abandoned earlier was now pursuing me. Although I had a good twenty feet gain on him, his legs were much longer. Also, his gun was clasped between his fingers; he'd grabbed it from the ground after I'd carelessly abandoned him. Closing one eye slightly, he aimed and pulsed his index finger against the cold metal trigger.

A tiny sting. Right between my shoulder blades. It was enough to freeze me in my tracks. Not turning around, I reached my right arm over my shoulder and rubbed the now sore spot. Feeling something sticky coating my fingers, I drew my hand back to see the tips of my fingertips covered with blue paint. Taylor had shot me right in the back.