* * *

  Sarah tested the weight of the gun. It was heavier than she expected.

  “You can sit this one out if you need to.” Pegasus leaned his elbows on the table, looking up at her. “How’s your foot doing?”

  “Good enough.” The healing cut on the sole of her foot was obnoxious, but it would be fine as long as she didn’t run around too much. She made sure the others weren’t within hearing range. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not dreaming this, am I?”

  “No, you’re not.” He deposited another handful of extra paintballs into her hands before moving on to distribute the rest of his stock to the others.

  Sarah shoved the paintballs that didn’t fit into the gun into her jacket pocket instead. Hopefully, they wouldn’t get squished in there.

  If this was a dream, it was a pretty harmless one.

  Her gaze wandered over to where Scorpion was checking her gun. She never thought she’d see the woman using anything harmless.

  Scorpion matched her stare and shrugged a shoulder as if she’d read her mind. “They don’t like it when I shoot my own team with real bullets.”

  Mermaid ran past her, waving two guns around. “Yeah, no.”

  Sarah opened and closed her hand before putting on a glove. The larger cut was all but healed. There was only a small skin flap that still bothered her when it rubbed against her shirt.

  Mermaid hid behind Unicorn, complaining about having to surrender one of her guns to Griffon.

  “Is this an excuse for you people to pretend you’re killing each other or are bragging rights the goal?”

  “What?” Mermaid asked, sounding—not too convincingly—offended. “This is a team-building exercise. The goal is to build a team by having me beat everyone equally.”

  “She’s competitive, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Unicorn said.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” Griffon called out. “Team one: Scorpion, Mermaid, Phoenix. Pegasus, Unicorn, you’re with me.”

  “I don’t see how that’s random,” Scorpion said.

  Mermaid pointed her gun at him. “Did you assign all the unhinged ones to the same team? Because if so, Pegasus was misplaced.”

  Pegasus gave her a mock salute.

  “Randomly selected, Madeleine.” By Griffon’s tone, this was not the first time they had this exchange.

  Pegasus placed the container with a few leftover paintballs down on the small table near Sarah. “Just so you know, Scorpion likes using people as bait.”

  Whether she caught what he said or not, Scorpion glared at him before signaling her team move into the starting position along the maze.

  Sarah stared at the paint-covered walls, waiting for the countdown to finish.

  Mermaid touched her arm to get her attention. “Wake up. You don’t get points for being the first to die.”

  Scorpion briefly outlined her plan. Sarah had never been in this maze before, but the others had it committed to memory. Mermaid would hold her position near the entrance to the maze, while Sarah tried to outflank the other team from the left and Scorpion took the right.

  The countdown came to zero.

  Sarah put on her goggles.

  * * *

  Sarah squinted at the white board, trying to make out the words at the bottom. She rubbed at her eyes. It wasn’t as if she could have become nearsighted during the last couple of minutes—right?

  * * *

  Sarah squinted. There’s no way these goggles had been properly cleaned since the last time they were used. She could hardly make out any details other than rough shapes.

  The sound of a paint gun being discharged came from her right, closer to where she figured Scorpion to be. She was moving slower than she expected, hindered by the stupid goggles.

  * * *

  Sarah checked her eyes in the mirror. There was nothing in them. Could it just be that they were tired?

  She hadn’t spent that much time on the computer yesterday. A couple of hours at most until Robyn started on about wanting to watch a movie.

  But then the movie also wouldn’t have helped. A screen was a screen after all.

  A loud noise startled her from outside, a brief flash of light coming from the window behind her and reflecting off the mirror.

  She clenched her fists as flames rose in the reflection, refusing to turn around. Closing her eyes, she listened for screams.

  Nothing but the distant laughter of the other students on their way to and from class.

  It wasn’t an explosion. It couldn’t have been. She squeezed her eyes tighter shut. It was a car backfiring, that’s all it was. A car was allowed to be real.

  Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. Despite the warm temperature, the mirror was covered in condensation, blurring her reflection. Sarah stepped back, unable to look away from the letters written there: WOLF.

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  How could that be her handwriting?

  * * *

  Sarah whirled around, surprised by the sound of an explosion. She stopped right as she was coming out of her hiding place, the thought of a car backfiring coming to mind.

  What the hell!?! That sounded nothing like a car backfiring.

  She crouched down lower, struggling to get her rapid breathing under control. There were no shouts from the others.

  Had there even been a sound? Or did she imagine it?

  Cursing herself, Sarah started moving again. Scorpion would have made it to the edge of the maze by now.

  She ran across a more open area, thankful her foot didn’t complain, and took shelter behind a makeshift rock along the wall. Some of the other team might have made it across to their part of the maze already, where Mermaid was waiting for them.

  When she looked up to see if the coast was clear, something little more than grazed her temple. She lowered her head immediately, but there was now a trace of paint on the corner of her goggles. She touched a gloved hand to the side of her face and came back with green paint.

  “I’m out!” She raised her arms up before slowly rising from behind her cover. She had no desire to get hit with a couple more paintballs to the face while leaving the maze.

  She caught movement on the other side of the maze, a blurry figure gone too soon. At least now she could lose the goggles.

  Unicorn was already out and was trying to wipe her neck with a moist cloth while watching the screens displaying what was going on inside the maze. There were several cameras along the path, for later analysis—or so they could laugh at each other.

  Sarah settled on the bench, putting away the paintballs she’d stuffed in her pocket earlier.

  A flurry of popping sounds echoed along the walls.

  Mermaid was the next to be eliminated, leaving Scorpion to take on Griffon and Pegasus on her own. She took out Griffon right before Pegasus got her by doing exactly what he’d said she did. Griffon had been the bait.

  As they exited the maze, Scorpion discharged all her left-over ammunition on Pegasus. That quickly devolved into a close quarters shoot out.

  Unicorn raised her hands up. “I bruise easy!”

  “Please don’t waste ammo,” Griffon said.

  Mermaid shot him in the back. “My finger slipped.”

  Laughing, Sarah ducked out of the way of one lazily directed shot in her direction. She did not, however, escape Mermaid’s hand when the woman slid it across her face, painting it a mix of green, blue and yellow.

  Sarah tried to use Mermaid’s water bottle as a makeshift reflective surface to wipe her face.

  Pegasus joined her without a word, watching her. Uncomfortable under his unwavering attention, she offered him a clean wipe to try to distract him. It didn’t work.

  “What are you looking at?”

  He smiled at her. “You.”

  “You’re making me nervous,” she whispered.

  Pegasus took a step closer, seemingly enjoying his effect on her. “I could try closing my eyes.” He took the water bottle from her hand and set it back down. “But what’s in it for me?”

  Sarah pulled him over to her the rest of the small distance. He went easily enough, wrapping his arms around her as he pressed his lips to hers.

  “What?” Mermaid shouted.

  Sarah went cold the next second. She’d forgotten where they were.

  Pegasus hugged her tight, allowing her to bury her face in his chest for a moment. “It’s alright. There’s no secret.” An aborted laugh made his chest rise and fall quickly. “Unless you’re embarrassed to be seen with me.”

  Sarah laughed, pulling away from him.

  “You’ll need to make a formal report since Phoenix is technically still part of my team,” Griffon said.

  “Wait.” Mermaid came hopping over, prying Sarah away from Pegasus. “What were his exact words? Did he ask you to go steady?”

  Sarah frowned at her. What were they, teens?

  “No? Then did he ask you to be his girlfriend? The wording is important, you know.”

  Laughter abounded all around, but Sarah was very much at a loss.

  “Have you read the paragraphs on relationships between team members?” Unicorn asked.

  Sarah had briefly glanced at that section. “I don’t remember.”

  “The wording is…”

  Scorpion disentangled Mermaid from Sarah. “What Mermaid is trying to get at is that without a confirmed, verbalized, official relationship, you don’t need to report anything.”

  “But we can still report you,” Mermaid said.

  Pegasus waved her off. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Just you wait and see next time you annoy me.”

  “We need to stop letting Mermaid eat chocolate before any group activities.” Pegasus threw an intact paintball at her. “Don’t you have somewhere to be and someone to stalk?”

  Mermaid tossed the paintball back at him before addressing Sarah. “We know they’re moving the weapons, but we don’t know where yet. My source hasn’t been able to help.”

  “Happy hunting then,” Pegasus said. “I’m off for the next couple of days.”

  Mermaid pointed at him and Sarah. “Did you seriously get a vacation to spend time with your girlfriend because she’s having a medical time-out?”

  Pegasus only shrugged as a response, but Sarah wondered. Had Zeus given him time off so it would be easier for him to watch her?

  When they parted ways, Pegasus followed her back to her room, scratching at the dry paint on his forehead. His skin was all red where he’d pealed the paint off.

  He headed for her bathroom. “I forget that I need to wash this off as fast as I can.”

  “Will I be able to train with the team going forward or was this a one-off?” she asked over the sound of water.

  He gave her a shrug as soon as he came back into view. “You’re still scheduled to train with us, but we’re gonna have to take this slow.”

  She pointed behind her at her collage. “This?” Then she pointed at the both of them. “Or this?”

  His lips twitched. “Either, both. It’s your call.”

  The com sounded. She gestured he go ahead and answer it. “I doubt it’s for me.”

  As she predicted, it was for him. She zoned out as Michael started relaying what sounded like a list of demands from Cypher.

  Her gaze wandered to the place in the wall where there should have been a mirror, captured by her makeshift board of clues and possibilities. There was a yellow sticky note in the corner that she didn’t remember writing: Wolf.

  It was near the scribbled notes saying hallway, explosion, smoke, fire, but she didn’t know how it had gotten there or why.

  * * *

  Sarah flicked the yellow sticky note currently stuck to her left index finger and flipped through her notebook. She’d written the word she saw in the mirror on it.

  Wolf.

  But there had been no wolves anywhere. And where was it even supposed to go?

  She stopped at the page where she’d been writing down some of her dreams.

  Those specific elements fit as a set of sort: fire, smoke, dark corridor, blue eyes, not dreaming.

  But where did the wolf come in? Was it supposed to be there?

  Was it a literal wolf or something like wolf in sheep’s clothing?

  And if a literal wolf, was it friend or foe?

  She grabbed the pen and angrily scribbled a few more question marks around the word.

  Robyn looked up from her book. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.”

  She closed her notebook in case Robyn decided to come check, but her sister had accepted the answer as easily as it’d been given.

  Did that mean she was becoming a better liar or was everyone around her getting tired of insisting on the truth?

  * * *

  Sarah snapped out of it when Pegasus touched her arm. She suspected she’d missed something.

  The world fell back into place, and the note with Wolf’s name was no longer there.

  She walked over to her cryptic collage, running her fingers along the space where the note had been as if expecting it to be hiding in plain sight. “There’s not a note here saying Wolf, is there?”

  “Should there be?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I saw it there, but I can’t tell if it would be connected to the notes nearby.”

  “Did you see anything related to it?”

  “No, it was just here.” She touched the empty spot on the wall again.

  “Are you alright?”

  “As much as I usually am.” That was close enough to the truth.

  “Do you want me to stay with you for a while longer?”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Only for a little while.” He nodded towards the com. “Apparently I have chores.”

  “I thought you had time off.”

  “Lies, cruel lies,” he said, over-dramatic, leaning in to give her a quick kiss. “But I can have a word with Cypher if you want me to stay.”

  “No, it’s fine.” They didn’t need anyone else thinking he was slacking off because of her. “I’ll call you if anything happens.”

  “It shouldn’t take too long to sort out. What are you doing next?”

  “Grab a shower, then a sandwich.” She picked at the paint on her left hand.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten an answer from Zeus yet about looking at Lore’s photo.”

  Sarah shrugged. Nothing much they could do about that.

  “I’ll see if I can speed that up. And I’ll also check if Wolf is scheduled for any missions, just in case.” He hesitated by the door. “Wait until I get back before you have any sort of meltdown.”

  “I’ll try very hard, but I make no promises.”