Lost Cause

Chapter 23

Warning: Slight mature content

"They have laser tag here?" Micah's voice went high like it does when he gets excited.

"Dude we've been coming here for literal years, how did you not know they had laser tag?" Brett looks at him weird.

"That has not been here before you asshat." Micah shoves him.

"Yes it has fuckface."

"No it hasn't."

"Yes."

"No."

"No."

"Yes."

"Ha fucking got you loser." Micah points his finger in Brett's face.

"Are we really friends with them?" I whisper loudly to everyone else.

"Sadly yeah." Vi fakes a sigh.

"Your lives would be so lonely and uninteresting without us, admit it babe." Micah slides an arm around her shoulder.

"It might be peaceful. But I guess we'll never know."

"You're stuck with us and there's nothing you can do about it."

"So are we playing laser tag or no?" Nick asks.

Everyone agrees, since it's empty we get to go right in and the attendants help us put on the vests. They go through the rules and tell us what not to do, but one look at the boy's faces and I know that they're going to ignore all of those.

"So what are the teams?" Vi asked.

"Boys against girls?" Felix suggested.

"There's seven of you and only three of us, how is that fair?" I questioned.

"Good point. Okay um, how bout first team is Matt, Steph, Brett, me and Jaxon. Second team will be Micah, Nick and the girls. That work?" He asked everyone.

Everyone nods so one of the attendants opens the door and tells us to have fun before we're plunged into darkness.

A robotic voice rings out, "The game will begin in thirty seconds."

The girls and I immediately scramble to find a hiding place, Micah tries to follow me but I shoo him away knowing that his inability to shut up for long will have us found in a matter of minutes. He complies with a pout before running off to find Nick.

I find an alcove hidden behind a wall and crouch down so that the blinking light of the vest is hidden from anyone running by.

"Starting in three, two, one." The voice comes on right before a buzzer sounds off.

Loud music blares out, I assume to make it hard for the players to hear the others footsteps. But if you've been friends for your entire life like I have with this group you can tell who is coming by the sound of breathing and extremely heavy footfalls. Just like I know that it's Brett coming around the corner.

I wait until he's passed me to bring the gun up and shoot the plate on his back.

"What the hell?" He stops and looks back.

It's dark but that doesn't stop me from grinning and waving at him, "Gotcha."

"You're a pain in my ass Romano."

I salute him before standing and running in the opposite direction. Now that he knows where I was hiding I can't stay there. So I gotta find another place. It's times like this that make me thankful that my dad's in the military because he taught me how to sneak up on people without alerting them of where I am.