Page 93 of Shadow

He shook his head and picked up a weapon of his own. “I hope you’re ready to run, baby girl. And you better run fast.”

Chapter 25

“ALRIGHT,folks,howarewe going to take down the Doms?”

The group of submissives were gathered on the end of the backyard that had been designated as their base camp and Olivia had been appointed team captain.

“I think we should all head into the woods and start hiding ammo in places that we might use it,” Alley suggested.

“That’s a good idea. And I think you should let me go up into the trees with my self-suspension gear and act as a look out,” Marissa said.

Olivia lifted one eyebrow. “You self-suspend? That’s so cool.” As if she needed another reason to have a crush on the tech mogul.

Marissa flashed her a smile. “Thanks. It’s calming for me, and Lance likes to watch, so it works.”

“What about booby traps? Will that break Gage’s no other weapons rule?”

“Better to ask forgiveness than for permission,” Alley quipped with a mischievous smile. “What traps do you have in mind?”

They hashed out a few ideas, and when the timer said there were five minutes until the battle started, they headed for the forest.

Olivia noticed that the Doms all still seemed to be huddled in their base. Half of them were former military and trained in special ops, so they had an unfair advantage in her opinion, but that didn’t have to stop the subs from winning. They were all a creative bunch.

Marissa stopped at a large tree and looked up. “I think I can work with this one. It’s going to take me a couple of minutes to get up there, so a few of you are going to need to distract them.”

Olivia sent Alley, Carrie, and Nat back towards the fenced area of Exposure, while the other five headed for other parts of the woods.

The whistle sounded, indicating that the battle had begun. At first everything remained quiet, and Olivia wondered if the Doms were still back at the base.

Then she heard Alley shout, “Son of a bitch, they’re fast.”

Olivia parked herself behind the tree, and Marissa tossed a piece of rope over a branch and put her hardpoint in place. It was hard not to focus on the rope work as Marissa quickly tied a hip harness around herself, so she cast glances between her and the trees. Someone squealed, she knew they’d taken another hit.

“You did that really fast,” Olivia said when Marissa was up on the tree branch.

“And I’ll be able to drop and hang lower to fire. It will suck if I get hit and have to untie to go to the graveyard, but hopefully I won’t get hit.” Her words cut off sharply, and she clamped her mouth shut, placing a finger against her lips. Then she held up two fingers and pointed to a grove of trees.

Olivia readied her weapon as she heard the crunch of leaves beneath feet.

Edith and Michael stepped through the trees. Before Olivia could even pull the trigger on her weapon, Marissa dropped into an upside-down suspension and fired two shots, hitting both targets.

“Well, that was just hot,” Edith said as she slapped Michael on the back.

“To the graveyard we go,” Michael muttered, raising his arms.

When they were out of earshot and Marissa had pulled herself back up into the branches, Olivia looked up. “I will pay you money to show me how to do that.”

Marissa grinned. “Don’t be ridiculous. I would love to show you. In Chicago, I have a group of self-suspending friends. We get together once a month if we’re not busy and fly together.”

Olivia loved the rough way Ripley played with rope. It was chaotic and raw, and the focus was never on how the rope looked but how it connected them. What Marissa was doing was art, and she had a feeling that she was even more talented than this simple hip harness in a tree let on.

Olivia spotted Nat sneaking towards them, and Olivia aimed her weapon in case someone was following.

A Nerf dart bounced off Nat’s shoulder and she slumped dramatically before heading back towards the graveyard.

Ripley appeared, and Olivia’s heart nearly stopped. He’d stripped his shirt off and was drenched in sweat. Clearly, she and Marissa were missing all the action. Another Dom that Olivia didn’t know that well appeared behind Ripley and Marissa fired, taking him out. The commotion snapped Olivia out of her lust-filled daze, and she pointed the gun at Ripley. But he ducked and her bullet bounced off a tree.

Damn it. She fired again, then took off running, hoping Marissa would take him out and send him back to the front.

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