Page 99 of Kingmakers, Year One

“Someone will see the smoke.”

Irritated, Jules flicks his zippo closed.

That gives me an idea. I doubt Jules is the only student who smokes. It’s been six hours. As scared as they must be of Pippa, I bet her soldiers are getting pretty bored of hiding with that flag . . .

Instead of scanning for a scrap of black fabric, I start looking for a faint gray haze down among the trees. And then I spot it, half a mile to the west of us.

“There they are,” I breathe.

Jules peers in the direction of my pointing finger.

“There’s six of them,” he says. “And only two of us.”

I grin. “But we have the element of surprise.”

Quickly and quietly, Jules and I descend from our position. We creep up on the Seniors, two of whom are sharing a quick cigarette while a third checks his watch.

“We’ve got to move again in four minutes,” he warns them.

Barely whispering, I say to Jules, “Attack from behind. Grab as many tails as you can as fast as you can.”

He nods. Jules is quick, that’s why I brought him.

He circles around to get behind the Seniors. Then he bursts out from cover, snatching off two tails before the Seniors can even turn around. The Senior with the watch tries to grab him, but Jules slips his grasp.

That’s my moment, the second of distraction before they realize that Jules can’t possibly have come alone. Already two of the Seniors are catching on, about to turn and look for the rest of the attackers. Before they can do it, I’m already running full-tilt toward them.

The Senior with the watch dives for Jules, just missing him and falling on his hands and knees. I plant my foot in the middle of his back, launching myself off him like a step-stool so I can leap up and rip their flag off the pole mid-air.

I’m sprinting before I even hit the ground, running away as fast as I can without looking back to see what happened to Jules. He’ll understand—the flag is the goal, no matter the casualties.

The Seniors are chasing after me, howling with rage. I’ve got long legs and a clear shot ahead. That’s the weakness of Pippa’s strategy—her defenders are out in the middle of nowhere, and now they’re all behind me.

It’s almost three miles back to my own base. I run the entire way, leaving no chance for recapture.

Jules never rejoins me—I hope the Seniors didn’t rough him up too bad out of anger.

As I near our home base, I see a horrible sight: no white flag on top of our pole.

Hedeon is pacing around at the base of our empty pole, unsure whether to pursue the flag or wait for me to return. His face switches from guilt to disbelief as he sees me running up with the black flag in hand.

“RUN!” he bellows. “FUCKING RUN!”

He doesn’t have to tell me twice. Even though I’ve got a killer stitch in my side and sweat streaming down my face, I double myspeed, trying to get the flag back to base so I can set off our black smoke bomb.

Too late . . .

With a boom, the Juniors detonate their white smoke. They stole our flag and beat me back to base with less than thirty seconds to spare.

I have to drop the black flag where I stand, grimacing in disgust. One of Pippa’s soldiers comes to retrieve it, and twenty minutes later I see a puff of green smoke from the river bottom. They got the Junior’s flag, too.

Ares comes jogging back shortly after, a nasty gash on his cheek and his hands empty. Dean and Anna are close behind him.

“Liam Murphy stole the flag ten seconds before we got there,” Ares says furiously. “We were so fucking close.”

Dean stuffs his hands in his pockets, an inscrutable expression on his face. I can’t tell if he’s irritated that Pippa’s attack dog beat them out. Or if he might possibly be trying to hold back a smile.

17

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