salute [h.s]

chapter 20 - paintball problems & short-lived successes

"This is going to be awful."

Harry caught Piper's eye in the rear view mirror and furrowed his brow, confused by her reaction. So far, she'd been putting on a show for One Direction, pretending that she was excited about the paintball tournament. She'd practiced a lot with both Liam and Harry in the armoury (although bringing Harry to the armoury turned out to be counterproductive — they'd done very little actual shooting that day) and she'd been reviewing strategy techniques with colleagues from O branch. For all intents and purposes, she should have been stoked.

She was petrified.

Not only was she completely not ready for this but she was absolutely confident that she was going to embarrass herself out there on the field. Sure, she had One Direction playing alongside her but teams were supposed to have ten members. They were going to be outnumbered and she already knew that she was going to be the weakest link, the embarrassment of the team.

On top of that, she'd had a fucking awful morning. When Harry had arrived at her flat to pick her up, she'd been fighting with Curtis about the lease again. He wouldn't budge and she was starting to get more and more frightened to be staying in the flat. She had most definitely heard some sort of meeting taking place in Clive's flat a few days before. She'd tried to eavesdrop a bit but she was too scared to actually go up there and press her ear to the door and she couldn't think of any other way. Instead, she'd stayed downstairs in her bed with her standard issue Glock on the pillow beside her, ready for any danger that might come her way. To be honest though, she was scared out of her mind and she was barely sleeping these days with the added stress.

Harry was trying to get her to move into HQ and leave the flat behind but while the idea sounded nice, she couldn't afford it. And she wouldn't take handouts.

"It's going to be amazing," Niall countered excitedly as he turned in his seat, hovering over it so he could smile widely in her direction. He was about ten times more thrilled about this than she was. When Harry pulled into a parking spot in the lot a moment later, Niall leapt out of the car before it had fully stopped and whipped open her backseat door as he asked, "why would you think it would be awful?"

"Ugh, I'm just in such a shitty mood," Piper grumbled as she reached over to undo her seatbelt lethargically. Niall held a hand out to help her from the car and she placed her hand in his.

"Well, buck up buttercup. We've got some arse kicking to do!"

Once she was standing on her own two feet beside the car, Niall whooped and ran off in the direction of the entrance to the field. Honestly, he was like a toddler sometimes, unable to exert any degree of self-control over his own enthusiasm.

Harry had crossed around the back of the Range Rover with two helmets swinging from one of his hands, protective goggles tucked inside. He put his arm around her shoulders and yanked her toward him as they made the trek toward the field entrance together. "You're going to do fine, petal."

Trust Harry to see right past all of her whining to the real source of the problem. She was worried she wasn't going to live up to expectations. She was absolutely convinced that they were going to lose and that, in the end, it was going to be her fault. "I just don't want to fuck this up."

"Just do your best," Harry coached, giving her shoulder a squeeze where his hand had been resting gently. "You've got a good team at your back."

"Half a team," she grumbled. She was confused when a smirk spread over Harry's face and then followed his gaze across the field they'd just entered.

There was a big wide open space right inside the door that acted as the midline of the field. Milling about on one side were a bunch of agents she didn't know but that she'd seen before around MI6 — Samson's team. Closer to the entrance were Niall, Louis, Liam and Zayn, talking with four other familiar faces. Piper grinned up at Harry. "You got 5SOS to come?"