Shadow Lake Vampire Society - Wendi Wilson Page 0,4

and the windows rolled all the way down. Once our favorite song came on, I was singing at the top of my lungs, holding up a pretend lighter and hooting as if I were at one of their concerts. All the bad feelings melted away.

Until we pulled into the school parking lot.

Coco found a spot between a beat-up truck and a Jeep. People were flocking out of their cars and heading to the field between the tennis courts and baseball diamond, a wide-open area with lots of room, plus bleachers and trees that supplied cover. While the school didn’t sanction this event--too many students doing too many stupid things—they didn’t stop it, either. The staff just looked the other way.

The event would start with the players on the field, water guns and balloons ready. They’d be given twenty minutes to try to tag as many fellow classmates as they could before the survivors took off and continued the game elsewhere. People came fully armed. Glancing around, I spotted modified super soakers, water balloon launchers, and one guy with a backpack with a water gun attachment that reminded me, strangely, of the movie Ghostbusters.

“They don't play around, do they?” I asked as we stopped at the top of the hill, standing with the other spectators.

Coco laughed, pulling out her phone to record the madness. “Tyler Remington told me he spent a thousand dollars on water guns for him and his team.”

“God, the waste.”

Coco just snorted. She was busy getting ready. She had a pretty substantial social media following on a lot of platforms and spent hours a day cultivating it. I knew better than to interfere while she was in her "zone."

Instead, I watched as the masses gathered in a giant circle while the coordinator went over the rules with a megaphone. Finally, he began a ten second countdown, and everyone took off running, putting distance between themselves and their opponents.

Teens streaked across the grass, posting up behind trash cans and utility poles as the buzzer sounded.

“Let the games begin!” the announcer shouted over the megaphone.

There was a moment of tense anticipation, and then it began. The bravest ventured out first, tearing across the lawn and taking aim at the weakest targets. I watched two girls get blasted by a bandana-wearing, shirtless meathead with two super soakers, then I laughed as he got pegged by a water balloon from fifty yards away. Someone had built a catapult and was launching balloons from the far side of the tennis courts, way out of range of the super soakers.

I whooped and pointed Coco in that direction. She gave me a thumbs up and kept filming as she narrated the play-by-play.

Watching the chaos, I wandered near the baseball field, expecting to see more watery drama but froze as what I saw turned my blood to ice.

Two males stood in front of a female contestant in the dugout. She was backed into a corner, her hands out, her water gun long gone. Her shirt was soaking wet, showing her bra.

They’d already tagged her, so why were they continuing to soak her and close in as she cowered against the wall?

I had a strong suspicion I knew why.

My blood humming, I turned to find backup. “Coco? Coco!” But she was long gone, trailing down the hill as she tried to get a close-up on the catapult as another group tried to overtake them.

There was no one else I knew, no one else I could call an ally.

When I looked back, the two dickwads had the girl against the wall, and one stood in her personal space, leering.

The look on the girl's face was sheer terror.

Without thinking, I ran toward them.

I made it down the hill and across the infield in no time. “Hey!” I shouted as the douche put both hands on either side of her head, walling her in. “Stop!”

All three of them turned toward me, each of their faces lit up with surprise.

I skidded to a stop several yards away, my heart pounding as I realized that I’d managed to draw the boys’ attention. Relief flooded my adrenaline-soaked body as the girl took the opportunity to slip out and run in the opposite direction.

My relief was short-lived, turning to icy fear as the two boys trained their predatory stares on me.

“Piper, right?” the one guy said, a nasty smile curving his lips upward. “I know you. You’re the one whose dad died.”

I cringed, feeling as if he'd struck me. But, more than his insensitive