Chapter 57 – Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Sasha’s POV


I saw Ovi go down right after he took out Dasha. I was able to hit Sam but the next thing I know is that I’m pinned down by Jackie and Neuvy. I knew that there was another girl out there. I just couldn’t find her. Every time I tried to move into a different position someone shot at me.

“We already caught Stecks so give up,” Jackie said. Shit! Stecks was gone and so was Ovi.

When I didn’t respond they opened fire again.

“Okay! I surrender!” I shouted.

“Throw you gun to us,” Neuvy said.

I pushed it out and away from me. Jackie was there to pick it up while Neuvy pointed his at me. They took me back to their HQ where I saw Stecks on the ground blindfolded and tied up with duck tape and a bandana. They did the same to me. We were there for maybe 15 minutes before I heard someone say Mike and Jeff were out. Damn it. How did they know that? How did they manage to pick off three of our guys and capture me and Stecks? We’d underestimated them.

A little while after that I heard someone come up.

“We captured Varly.” Damn. “Tie him up and put him with the rest.”

That was Nef’s voice. I heard someone move toward me and the next thing I heard was “when my team wins this, you belong to me.” Shit. I’m in trouble. Big trouble.

I heard them making plans for how to get the last two and capture our flag. Where there really only two of us left? Three we left behind to guard up while the others went to capture the flag. It didn’t take long for them to come back cheering. We were marched outside and made to kneel on the ground. They took off the blind folds and we saw that our team had been decimated.

“You lose,” DeeDee said before we were each shot in the back ending the game.

They untied us before they started jumping around celebrating.

“We win!” Jesse shouted. “We kicked your asses!”

The girls started chanting “firing squad” over and over again so we lined up in front of them to accept our punishment.

“Wait! Wait a second,” Sam said.

We all turned to look at her.

“We’d like to give you another option,” Nef continued. “You all can accept the punishment.”

“Or,” Jackie jumped in, “You can give us Varly.”

“What?!” Varly said. “No, not fair.”

“You or him,” DeeDee said. “What do you say? We’ll give you a few minutes to decide.”

“I sorry!” he tried. “I not mean it bad on you! You all very beautiful. Prettiest girls ever! Dasha, help me!”

Us or Varly? I really didn’t want to face the firing squad. The girls’ team was lining up. Four were kneeling on one knee with their guns at the ready and the other five were standing behind them at the ready. What the hell is this? Why did it look like they had military training?!

“Sorry Kid, but I vote we hand him over,” I said. I wanted to spare myself as much punishment as I could. I should have known that betting against Nef was a silly thing to do.

“No, we not hand him over!” Varly said to me. “They kill me.”

“Tough luck. You should have kept your mouth shut,” Mike said.

“We’re a team. We lost as a team so we all take the punishment.” Nick didn’t want to sacrifice Varly.

“Two minutes to decide,” Brooks called out.

It was an even split. Half of us wanted to take the punishment and the other half wanted to hand over Varly. The girls’ team was laughing at us, watching as we turned on each other.

“You guys are supposed to be a team. How can you turn on him like that?” Rachel asked laughing.

In the end we couldn’t decide so they decided for us.

“You all get it,” Brooks said, “line up against the wall.”

We lined up against the wall of their HQ. They hadn’t given us back out helmets, just our goggles, so we had to protect our heads with our hands and arms, leaving the rest of our bodies open.

“Ready,” Nef shouted. This is going to suck.

“Aim,” she called out again. This is going to hurt.

“Fire!” Crap.

As soon as the first ball hit I knew we had made a mistake. They were aiming low, at our chests and thighs. Crap this hurt. We were jumping around, trying to dodge the paint balls. At one point we were trying to hide behind each other. We should have handed Varly over!

“Ouch!” I screamed. “Enough! Stop!”

I got hit in the chest, in the thighs, on my sides, butt, and back. Damn. They stopped firing and we thought they were done but they weren’t. Instead they all took aim at Varly and fired the rest of their rounds. He screamed and tried to run behind us but we pushed him forward. The girls were aiming below is waist. They were aiming at his…that’s just cruel! He eventually dropped to the ground and curled into a ball. He would be bruised later.

“That should teach you to keep your mouth shut!” Jackie taunted.

Once they had spent all their ammo there were fist bumps and chest bumps all around their team.

Later that night I was soaking in a warm bath that Nef had drawn for me. I had little paintball bruises all over me. She rubbed down my arms and back, waiting until I was out of the tub to rub down my legs.

“Evil,” I said to her. “Cruel. Mean.”

She had been massaging my legs and she pressed down rather hard on one of my bruises.

“So you want me to stop rubbing your legs? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No! Not stop, please.” See what I mean? She’s evil and cruel and mean.



Nef’s POV


I had fun today. It was good to see all the guys and girls again. DeeDee and Rachel had been extremely helpful last year in teaching me how to handle the guys during the playoffs and after the being eliminated in the first round. If I hadn’t had them to talk to I don’t know how I would have been able to handle Sasha’s moodiness and sullenness.

Since Sasha had come back to DC he’d been excited for the start of the new season. He’d put last post-season behind him and was determined to move forward. The first preseason game was next week, Wednesday in Columbus against the Blue Jackets.

“Do you think you’ll play on Wednesday?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The first games Bruce likes to play the guys trying to make the team. Last season I didn’t play until the last 2 games.”

Made sense. The guys who already had roster spots didn’t need the playing time while those trying to crack the roster need all the time they could get to impress the coaches. They were leaving Tuesday afternoon after practice to play the Blue Jackets then off to Nashville to play the Predators on Saturday.

“I be back late Saturday night.”

My fall semester had just started. I was about 3 weeks into classes with only two more semesters before graduation. Sasha had had been more cognizant of my school work. He asked my questions about my classes; not just “how are you doing in this class?” but “when is your next assignment due?” and “Don’t you think we should stay home so you can study for your test next week?” Last year it had been largely up to me to moderate when, how, where, and how often I studied or did work. With Sasha’s busy schedule I had ample time with him gone. Now that this year’s schedule was not condensed he was worried about him being around me and being a distraction.

I had a test on Monday that I had been preparing for. He insisted that I spend the morning studying before we went paint balling because yesterday we’d spent the evening with my family and I hadn’t done a lot of studying.

“I want you to come watch practice tomorrow but maybe you should stay home and study,” Sasha said as we were lounging in bed.

“I can come. The open practice is in the afternoon, right?”

“Yea. It’s at 12:30.”

“So I’ll go to the library in the morning and watch practice in the afternoon. I don’t cram the day before tests. I can’t learn that way.”

Sasha’s schedule for tomorrow was a session with strength and conditioning coaches followed by an on ice practice and a goal meeting with Bruce and the assistant coaches. There were three important meetings that the coaches had with every player, every season. The first was a goal meeting where the player and the coaches would set goals and expectations. They looked at past performances and the direction in which the team was going to map out what would be the best uses for the player career-wise and team-wise. The second happened mid-season and was an evaluation meeting to see if the player was on track to achieve their goals or if the goals needed to be re-evaluated. The third and final meeting, a post-mortem, happened after the post season. In this meeting the discussed whether or not personal and team goals were achieved, what went wrong, and what went right.
Sasha’s goals were one of the many things we’d talked about over the summer. What he wanted to do, where he wanted his career to go, and how I fit into all of that. We’d also talked about my schooling and where I was going with it. We were coming up on our anniversary marking our first year together. Wow, had it really been almost a year?

“I love you,” he whispered to me, just before he fell asleep.

“I love you too,” I said kissing his forehead.