Page 2 of Knox

A paint pellet grazes Damián’s face and hits the tree next to me, splashing blue paint.

“Careful about losing your face, Dami. We don’t want Ollie to dump you,” I tease, pointing at a squad of five NYPD officers rushing out from behind a collapsed pillar.

Damián follows my gaze and turns. “Hahaha! The joke is on you, hermano!”

The terrain is uneven, so he drops to one knee to get a better angle and shoots.

Clack-clack-clack-clack!

Red paint splatters across their visors and chests.

Damián does a dramatic combat roll, landing next to me, and looks up with a grin. “Ollie loves me for my dick.”

“Ugh, too much information.” I fake-gag just to piss him off, then shoot two cops who come out from behind a tree.

“Not enough information!” Björn adds over the comms, and we can hear cops screaming in his direction.

Jeez, F1…

He does know this is a mock game, right?

“Come on, lover boy. Let’s go before Björn blows something up,” I say as I help Damián up, and we continue on our way.

“Out! Out! Hit!” the cops we shot at yell, waving their hands as we run past them without slowing down.

“Have a great day, officers!” Damián waves back, and I laugh.

We jog through the forest, passing a bunch of trees, crumbled walls, and a weird-looking wooden statue without seeing a single cop.

“Knox, keep going north up the hill. You’ll find six armed men near the river,” says Alexios as we sprint deeper into the woods.

We reach a broken fence, jump over it, and then follow the creek.

“Isn’t using Alexios as our eyes and ears cheating?” asks Leif through the comms.

“It is not. They asked us to play this the same way we would raid in real life,” I say, hitting three cops right in the middle of their vests.

“And I am always in your ear in real life. Besides, there are forty-two cops against five of us.”

“Pff! They should have added ten more cops to make it even,” Björn snorts, and the whole team bursts into laughter.

“They are lucky the jefe, Tae, and Expecto Pa-Bullet aren’t here,” Damián replies. “They would need thirty more cops just to slow us down.”

“Expecto Pa-Bullet!” I laugh, firing at a cop hiding behind a rock. “I hope I’m there when Law loses it with your nicknames and chops your pinky.”

“Hahaha, culero.”

Damián and I push up a steep, rocky ridge, continuously shooting anyone who gets in our way.

A pair of snipers hiding in a hollowed-out concrete pipe? Painted.

The three officers trying to flank us from the creek? Painted.

The cop attempting to climb a tree? Painted.

So far, we’ve counted sixteen.

We cross the river, crest the hill, and circle an abandoned shelter, only to find a group of officers waiting for us with their rifles already raised.