Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“I’m taking the Motherfucker door,” I said to Ranger.

“No way. That’s my door.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell not taking the Pussy door.”

“It’s just a door, Babe.”

“Great. Then you take it.”

Ranger moved to the Pussy door and shoved it open. He walked through the front room and looked into two other rooms. “It’s an apartment. Looks like it was decorated by someone on ’shrooms. No one home.”

I opened the Motherfucker door and stepped inside. The door closed behind me, neon red, green, blue, and white strobe lights activated and flickered across the front room, and hip-hop boomed from overhead speakers. I opened a door. Closet. I opened another door and a crazy-eyed, woolly-haired, scrawny guy in too-big pants and too-big shoes shouldered a gun at me from across the room.

“Gonna put a cap up your pussy ass,” he said.

And POW.

I felt the bullet hit my shoulder, knock me back an inch or two, and something splattered out across my chest.

“What the?” I said.

“Run, Pussy!”

“What?”

“Run!”

And POW. I got shot again. POW. POW.

An arm wrapped around my waist, and I was lifted off my feet and whisked out of the room and back into the hall. Ranger kicked the door closed and set me down.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Paintball. Are you okay?”

“No! It hurt. It’s like getting hit with a rock. Why on earth do people do that? You’d have to be crazy.”

“It’s a game,” Ranger said. “Usually. This version is more like shooting sitting ducks.”

I checked myself out. I was completely splattered with blue, pink, and yellow paint. It was in my hair and on my shoes and everywhere in between. There was no paint on Ranger.

“You don’t have a drop of paint on you,” I said. “Why is that?”

Ranger smiled, liking that he hadn’t gotten hit. “I guess they were hunting pussy.”

“But I walked into the Motherfucker room.”

“Yeah, but babe, you’re clearly pussy.”

“That is so sexist and annoying. T

hese are my favorite sneakers, and now they’re ruined. I’ll never get this paint out.”

“I’m sure it’s water-based. Throw them in the washer.”

“I don’t have a washer.”

Ranger took my hand and tugged me toward the stairs. “Then throw them in your mother’s washer.”