Page 19 of Ethan

“Shit,” Ethan whisper-yelled as someone aimed and fired, barely missing him.

Hank pulled him right back against him, behind the corner.

“That worked better than I expected,” Hank said, also pushing away a flare of embarrassment at how breathless he sounded.

Only because this whole thing was exciting. Thelaser tag. NotEthan. Not at all.

“Shit, man, who do you think that is? Charlie?”

Hank huffed out a laugh. “I was too busy running to figure out who it was,” he admitted. “Why does it matter?”

“I just wanna get a really good hit on him. At least one.” Ethan looked over at him. His eyes were sparkling, bright and happy, and Hank’s insides clenched, inconveniently.

“Let’s try not to get killed first,” Hank suggested.

“What do we do now?” Ethan asked.

Hank had no idea. But the positive was that whoever had been hiding behind the obstruction hadn’t followed them. Which meant that they were either alone or in a much smaller group and didn’t feel like they could risk coming after Hank and Ethan.

“We can’t go back in there,” Hank said slowly. They’d have no way to get to whoever it was, not without being totally exposed. Maybe they’d only get one of them, but they’d getoneof them.

“There’s no way around that room.”

He was right; there was only forward.

“We’re gonna have to risk it,” Hank finally said. “Or go back with Max.”

“No way,” Ethan scoffed. “You can cover me, pepper the room with some fire. Maybe that’ll give me a chance to go get Charlie.”

“We don’t know that it’s Charlie,” Hank reminded him.

“Oh, whoever’s back there is hiding, scared. That’s totally Charlie.”

“Ouch,” Hank said, chuckling. “I guess we can try that. You sure you don’t want me to go first?”

He didn’t say that it was a much riskier choice to go first, especially with Hank’s subpar shooting skills.

“Nah,” Ethan said. “I got it.”

If Hank thought that Ethan would hesitate or go in scared—apparently like Charlie, though Hank had spentenoughtime around the guy, though obviously not as much as Ethan had, to know he didn’tplayscared—he was wrong. Ethan straightened and only a few seconds after he declared that he was good with the plan, he was charging ahead, right into the room, barely giving Hank the time to get into position.

He sprayed to the left of the room with his laser fire, hoping to draw whoever’s attention away from Ethan as he crept around the room’s perimeter and, at the worst, make them hesitate to uncover themselves long enough to shoot Ethan.

Once or twice, Hank thought he saw the barrel of the laser gun pop out, but it never shot, not until Ethan nearly finished edging towards the pile of boxes.

Hank had felt safe enough to come a little farther into the room, shooting as he went, taking care to avoid any shots that would come too close to Ethan. So he was actually in a decent position when the figure behind the boxes straightened up unexpectedly, taking aim right at Ethan.

“Eth!” Hank yelled and took aim himself.

Ethan ducked just as Hank shot right at the guy, his chest plate blinking red, indicating that he’d been hit.

“Shit,” Ethan exclaimed and then repeated himself as the guy pushed his goggles back, and of course, it wasn’t even Charlie. It was Danny, and he was making a hilarious, sulky face.

“Shit’s right,” he said. “This is what happens when you volunteer to be the advance scout.”

“Should’ve gotten a kick-ass partner like me,” Ethan said, lifting his hand, and Hank fist-bumped him.

“Should’ve,” Danny agreed.