Page 30 of Resisted

Chapter 12

VINCENT

Silas knew something—somethinghe wasn’t willing to share with us. It was damn near killing me, nearly pushing me to the edge of defiance, hoping to guilt it out of him. I’d guessed it from the very moment I saw his reaction to us going to the barbeque, and my theory had only solidified as time passed. He was guilty.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that if you want to fucking blend in!” Silas yelled.

“Fuck off!” I shouted moments before a ball of paint slammed into the tree beside me, nearly missing my face. “Shit!”

“I’ve noticed you’ve gotten braver lately,” he called after me as I ducked, looking for a clear path to a row of bushes. I took off, missed shots trailing behind me.

“I’ve always been brave.” I raised my paintball gun just over the leaves, letting my gaze follow to pinpoint Silas’ location, before I rose to my knees and shot paint toward him. I missed, not because my aim was off, but because even all these years ticking by had done nothing to slow the fucker down. He was fast, sometimes quicker than the eyes could catch.

“Almost had me,” he taunted.

From my right, the sound of leaves moving alerted me that Boyce was approaching. I moved left, army crawling along the ground, then I waited until the sound of Boyce’s attack filled the silent forest and made a break for it. I was on my feet in an instant, running full-out to a cluster of boulders. When I reached them, I slammed my back into the cold stone and caught my breath, then I dared myself to turn and look.

From this vantage point, I suspected I could actually hit Silas. I eyed the rows of rocks in front of me, noting how they formed an almost crescent shape as they curved around. If I followed them farther down, I could sneak up almost directly behind him and get a direct shot. Or I could try now and risk giving away my location.

“Vince!” He shouted my name as if it would me force to stand up and wave a white flag. “Where are you?”

“You think that would do anything to make him surface?” Boyce asked as he took another shot, the bright blue of his paint hitting the tree that blocked Silas.

Silas ran, only without knowing my location, he ran toward my rock formation instead of away. He was making this easy, impossibly so. I stayed close to the rock as I traveled along its length, keeping my senses on alert as I tracked both Silas and Boyce. Boyce was aggressive in his pursuit, and in most things in life, an aggressive approach wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But paintball? With an alpha who’d been nothing but shady over the last few weeks? Not to mention the biggest douche about everything? Well, if you wanted to inflict damage, you needed to be stealthy.

I approached slowly, and I knew Boyce had seen me. His eyes locked on mine, and all it took was my finger going to my mouth, asking for his silence, for him to agree. He’d had his own issues with Silas since Bella had been staying with us. All of which I hoped could be extinguished through some violence only a shifter could love. Silas was ten feet. Then eight. Five. I raised my gun as Silas switched trees. He was concentrated so fucking hard on Boyce that he never thought to watch his back. If we were on a job, this would cost him his life. But here?

His body rocked as I pulled the trigger, releasing the faux bullets into his back. They pelted him in rapid succession, and I didn’t feel a bit of guilt for it. He would be the worst of grumpy ass bastards on the drive home, that was a promise. His whole body would ache, his bones healing from the crushing impact of the paintballs, but maybe he would learn to stop being a jackass.

He fell to his knees as I reloaded the cartridge. I should’ve felt sorry for him, but as I gave him another round, I reminded myself he deserved it. He’d picked the sport, he’d picked no protection. He knew I was coming for him, and fuck if he didn’t deserve my assault. It wasn’t until his palms hit the ground, his back covered in so much paint that the green of his shirt was no longer visible, that I stopped.

I approached slowly as I flung my paintball gun over my shoulder. “Well, that was therapeutic.”

Boyce’s eyes were wide as he shook his head no, silently urging me to just not fucking antagonize Silas. Too bad the temptation was hard to resist. I stopped in front of Silas, and his eyes looked up at me as he fought to catch his breath. Right now, I suspected he was barely making it through the healing stages of the mountains of welts on his back. “You’re a real fucker, you know that, Vince? You could have stopped at one cartridge.”

“But two was so much more satisfying,” I said with a smirk, and Silas growled.

Boyce reached a hand down, showing way more sportsmanship than I intended. Silas batted his hand away as he pulled himself up to one knee. “I’ve got it.”

Boyce shrugged, the happy-go-lucky attitude not affected at all. “Suit yourself. See you at the truck.”

I felt a bit of betrayal as I watched him walk away, watched him abandon me to deal with Silas and pay for the consequences of what I’d just done. I mean, since Boyce knew I was coming and didn’t stop me, wasn’t he an accomplice? A person of interest at the very least. Yet he got to walk away without a scratch.

“Welp, I’ll see you at the truck,” I said, pretending to be carefree, though I could feel Silas’ shift of temper.

“Stop.” His voice was hard and oozing with power. My feet stilled midair, unable to do anything but what was commanded of me by the leader of our subpack. “You’ve been toeing the line too hard these days Vince.”

“Well.” I swallowed. He could rip my head off for this and I’d probably deserve it for being so disrespectful. “You’ve been a fucking dick.”

The growl he emitted ruffled the surrounding leaves. “Just because you can’t always have your way, does not mean I’m a dick.”

“My way? What exactly am I trying to have my way with, Alpha?” I stressed the words. “I’m just trying to live my life with the common decency of a man and the wildness of an animal.”

“You’re never as innocent as you seem. Don’t the fucking welts on my back prove it?” He finally pushed himself to stand, bringing us to eye level, and he was fuming. I could feel the heat and fury coming off of him, and fuck, but I knew I should look away. But I didn’t, and that fact alone had to infuriate him.

“I’m sorry, Alpha. What exactly is the problem here? You’re mad that you lost a game of paintball?” I swear the flames in his eyes jumped.

“I’m mad because all you fucking do is push me,” he said with a growl.

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