"Your mother wants to know why you're not answering her calls," Nia told me, the amusement in her voice evident.

"Um, because I don't need an earful right now," I retorted. I'd been fending off Mam's attempts to mind-link all night, and I'd had to put the burner phone on silent. "Tell her to quit trying."

"She says she ain't gonna yell."

I laughed both aloud and down the link. "Oh, sure. If you believe that, you'll believe anything."

"Well, I got off lightly. But she did shout at Uncle Rhys, and I ain't never seen them two fight before. I was going to explain it weren't his fault, all nice and calm like, but Rhodri beat me to it. The idiot." Here, she paused to sigh heavily. "He yelled at your mother, and now he's cuffed to Hannah. He's going to stay there until he cools off."

"We didn't mean to get anyone in trouble," Liam said. "We're really sorry."

Nia set the link to warming with a tired smile. "Nah, kiddo. It ain't your fault that Rhodri's a prize jackass. The rest of us put our heads down and looked all meek and got away with it. Well ... mostly. My raiding team is being swapped for Emmett's, so this here is our last little chat."

Emmett's raiding team. That meant Finn and the associated awkwardness, and it meant Joel and the associated urge to wring his neck. It was lucky we wouldn't have to see their faces. Unless they got themselves caught, of course, and if that happened, we'd have much bigger problems.

"But you're still doing the training thing, right?" I asked hopefully. "We're not going to anti-trespass for just anyone."

"We'll see about that. If things are rocky right now, you shouldn't risk it, Eva."

I chewed on my lip. I was so fed up of flockies that I would've risked just about anything for one of her hugs right then. "Okay, well, I miss you."

"I miss you too, pup," she said cheerfully. "But I do have to say goodnight now. We gotta move camp before the flockie scouts find us."

"Goodnight?" I asked. I was literally looking at the sky right now, and it was baby blue.

"You're sleepers," Nia explained, and I could feel her sniggering at her own joke like the nerd she was deep down. Liam and I sent our fond disgust right back. "Oh, screw you — that's funny."

She cut the link. We were left to look at each other, utterly bemused, and then Liam put an arm around me. I leant into him. We were trying to look like a couple this morning, because apparently we weren't convincing anyone.

"Crab cake?" one of the servers asked, brandishing a platter of featureless grey blobs.

I wrinkled up my nose. "No, thank you."

She waved the platter more aggressively. "Are you sure? I've been told they're lovely."

"We're sure," Liam said. And she listened to him, surprise surprise, because he was really tall and his wolf was grumpy this morning. We watched her walk away, and then we went back to scanning the room. We were in the canteen, but all the tables had been pushed against the walls, and it was full of people instead.

I'd done plenty of funerals in my lifetime. But never for a flockie, and never like this. Rogue funerals weren't exactly formal events. You turned up, you got piss-drunk and then you paid your respects to the dead by living more loudly for a few hours. You didn't have to tiptoe around the relatives, and they didn't have to endure an endless stream of condolences. This was just ... in a word ... miserable.

"Ew," I said. My eyes had landed on Mason, and he was chatting to a group of pack elders. They were all laughing and smiling away at everything word that came out of his mouth. "They ... like him?"

Liam followed my gaze and shrugged. "Well, yeah. You gotta remember that our last few Alphas were absolute garbage. Plus, they like Mason's brand of politics. Oh-so-friendly with the other packs, tough on rogues."

A familiar figure came siddling up to us. She was wearing a long black dress, and her eyes were suspiciously red. I clammed up because I was awkward by nature and because I still felt responsible for what had happened to Will on some level. This was his funeral. We had a nerve even being here.

"Hi," Lin said. She seemed more like herself this morning, but there was a dullness to her manner which was so unlike her. "No condolences, please. I've had enough of hearing that Will was a hero — came over here for a break, actually. Now, what were you saying? Something about rogues?"

Oh, fudge. Liam and I exchanged a slightly nervous look, and then I stammered. "Nothing, really. Just that Mason is harsher than most of the Alphas where they're concerned."

Lin's forehead furrowed. "Firm but fair, in my opinion. Rogues killed his grandfather, his uncle, his father, and even one of his brothers. Poor kid was only about ten years old... So yeah, the Alpha has every right to hate them."

The irony was not lost on us. I winced a little, because she was using Liam's murder to make a point while he was standing right there. He just looked faintly amused.

"Yeah," Liam said. "Poor kid. I can't imagine what those nasty rogues put him through."

I turned to look at him incredulously, and he managed to keep a straight face for approximately two seconds before breaking into a grin.

"Oh, you think this is funny?" Lin demanded. "I don't think it's funny. They killed Will for no damn reason, and I for one would like to see them rounded up and exterminated once and for all."

I knew I should just bite my tongue. She was angry, and I supposed that was fair, because she'd lost her soulmate yesterday, but there was something about her tone which rubbed me up the wrong way.

"Even the kids?" I asked quietly.

Lin looked ... I would have to say ... outraged. She stepped closer, her eyes flashing and her mouth set into a thin line. "Careful, Eva. You don't want to be labelled as a rogue sympathiser. Not in this pack. I don't know what New Dawn is like, but we don't tolerate that shit here."

I stared at her. I kept staring her until she turned and walked away. Lin made a beeline straight for the drinks table, and then she threw back a glass of Prosecco like it was cranberry juice.

"I don't think she likes me anymore," I told Liam with a heavy sigh.

He shrugged helplessly, but I recognised the look in his eyes, and it was pure, unadulterated mischief. "Well, there is a lot of stigma surrounding prostitution, Eva..."

"If you want to play it like that," I muttered, "then I hope you and the flockie are very happy together."

"Of course we are," Liam laughed. "I'm a catch, and he's filthy rich."

I growled quietly. He'd hardly said two words to Hayden in all the time we'd been forced to spend with him. But before I could identify the emotion heating my blood as jealousy, I saw the smile fall from Liam's lips.

"Here we go again," he murmured.

Mason had noticed us. He was still talking to the elders, but his eyes were fixed firmly on Liam, and he looked so unbearably smug. The uncertainty from yesterday was gone, it seemed, and arrogance filled the hole it had left. Mason was dripping with it — that cocksure attitude Alphas loved so much.

Even as I watched, he broke off his conversation with what I assumed was an 'excuse me for a moment' and then ... then he came strolling in our direction.

"Um, he's coming over," I told Liam in an undertone. "Wanna skedaddle?

"Nah," he said, the muscles in his jaw rippling. "I've had enough of this. What's the worst he can do? The whole bloody pack is watching."

My eyebrows flew upwards. We were doing a U-turn on our Mason policy, apparently. "Is this your wolf talking?"

Liam looked amused by the question. "Don't think so. I can't really feel him."

I could feel him. We'd lowered the dose of the pills this morning, and Liam's wolf had first made his presence known a few hours ago. Even at half strength, it was enough to make mine cower and grovel and regret pushing her luck these last few days. It was like an aura of don't screw with me. And ... I'd kinda missed it.

"Okay, well, if you're sure. He'll probably play it subtle, right? He won't want to make a scene in the middle of the—"

The words died in my throat, because Mason was close enough to hear me, and I was close enough to feel the force of his wolf. There was a wave of dominance coming off him which should have made me squirm. Except that I was standing next to Liam, and he was shielding me from the worst of it.

Mason stopped walking. He was close. Too close. And he was staring. That would have been all fine and dandy, except that Liam was staring back. They were the same height, as far as I could see, and I could have cut the tension between them with a knife.

"Hello, Liam," Mason said. "I must say — death is treating you well."

Oh. Okay. This was happening. My stomach was free-falling, and I'd forgotten how to breathe, but I was ready to step in there and then until Liam squeezed my hand. It was a very gentle request that I stay out of this.

"I'm not sure what you mean by that, Alpha," Liam said. He wasn't making any effort to sound convincing — if anything, it was the opposite.

"You don't?" he drawled, the sarcasm dripping from his voice. "You know what? Fine. Okay. Have it your way for a little while longer. But sooner or later, Liam, you and me ... we're going to talk."

Liam just kept staring. And then Mason reached out to thump his shoulder. It was a friendly gesture, as far as I could tell, but Liam still flinched. It was only slight — hardly noticeable in fact — but Mason saw, and his smile grew wider like all of his suspicions had just been confirmed.

"There it is. That look. I wasn't sure at first, you know. I am now."

Liam lifted his chin a little higher. "Touch me again, Mase, and see what happens."

That was not something you said to an Alpha. Not in that tone, and certainly not while staring them down. It should have been enough to start a fistfight as a bare bloody minimum, but Mason, for reasons I wouldn't ever understand, seemed to find it funny.

"That's not very nice, is it?" he laughed. "If I were you, little brother, I'd find some gratitude, and I'd find it fast. You're only breathing because I'm letting you."

And with that, Mason gave Liam one last lingering look up and down. Like he was sizing him up. He followed it up with another smirk. When he was done, he turned and walked away, nonchalant as anything. He was headed back towards the pack elders.

The second his back was turned, Liam closed his eyes tightly. I tangled our fingers together as gently as I could manage and waited. It took him a moment to shove the panic down and find the forced calm beneath.

And when he did, he turned to look at me, trying to convey all that misery and frustration in a single glance.

"That was brave. Maybe a little too brave," I said quietly. "He was ... um, he was surprisingly cool with you talking back."

If anything, he'd been more playful than angry, and that unnerved me more than any amount of snarling would have.

Liam gave me a tiny shrug. "He's always been surprisingly cool with it. He wanted me for a Beta, and you know how that goes."

A man stopped nearby. He seemed more interested in the food table than us, but he was close enough to eavesdrop, so we both fell silent. I thought I recognised him from somewhere. I was so catastrophically bad at paying attention to my surroundings that I didn't even try to work it out.

He stuffed an entire handful of crisps into his mouth and then asked, "How's the shoulder, darling?"

He was talking to me, and I froze like a rabbit in the headlights. Maybe he was the paramedic from yesterday. The one who'd sewn Micah up and then given me a sling. Yeah. We'd go with that. I hadn't told anyone else about my shoulder, and he smelt faintly of blood, so it was a safe bet.

I flexed my arm to check. There was an ache, but the shoulder moved smoothly enough. My elbow, on the other hand, was still a little crunchy from that time Hayden had broken three bones in one chomp.

"I haven't tried running on it yet, but it seems okay."

"Dammit," he muttered. "I do love a good orthopaedic op."

I gave him a funny look, hoping he was kidding. Doctors were weird. I knew that, but it didn't make me feel any less uncomfortable.

The guy cracked a smile a moment too late. "Seriously, though — stay out of trouble. But if you do happen to rupture a cruciate or get yourself a comminuted fracture ... you know where to find me."

He took another handful of crisps and stuffed them all into a trouser pocket, and then he ducked away with a wink in our direction. I looked at Liam, and Liam looked back at me, neither us sure whether to be amused or concerned.

"Hey, Eva," Liam said. "I've got an idea. Your dream job was 'running' and 'outdoors,' right?"

"I mean ... my dream job is raider, but I understand that isn't feasible here, so I'll take what I can get."

He stepped a little closer to me and looked around, checking that no one was close enough to have heard that. The set of his jaw told me that he was more exasperated than worried. "Oh, say that a little louder, can't you?"

I bit back a smile. "What's the idea?"

Liam nodded towards the doctor's retreating back and let me work it out for myself.

***

"It's not that I don't like working here," I said. "It's more that I'm not very good at it. You get me? I reckon my talents would be best utilised, as it were, if I could be one of those paramedic people."

Felix looked up from his paperwork just long enough to snort. "No."

I shifted my weight from foot to foot and swallowed. "No? But I can run really fast, and I'm not squeamish about blood or anything. Can't I just—"

"No," he said again. "You cannot. Since you don't like this job, and I don't like having you around, you'll be transferring back to the kitchens. Now screw off, would you?"

Well, shit. I'd been told that I had to ask the Beta because he was in charge of assigning jobs to the females. You'd think that might be Lilah, but no. A Luna couldn't be given any responsibility which verged upon actual power.

I sat down opposite Felix. He had a whole mountain of papers in front of him, and it looked like he was having to sign every single page. It had been a mistake to bring this up before he'd taken his lunchtime hit. He was already sweating, and the grumpiness was plain to see in the sour twist to his mouth.

"Look," I said. "You really don't want me cooking your dinner. Trust me on that."

"Look," Felix shot back, his upper lip curling. "You really don't want to piss me off. Just because you're a girl doesn't mean I won't—"

Lilah picked that moment to come into the living room. Her daughter wasn't far behind her. And Felix trailed off into a furious silence.

"What's going on?" she demanded.

"This little bitch needs to learn when to shut up," Felix muttered. "You're the Luna. She's your problem. If she talks back to me again, I'm going to break her jaw. There. That's fair warning, isn't it?"

Lilah crossed her arms across her chest and threw a pointed look at the toddler. "How many times, Felix? Language."

"Oh. Right. Whatever," he said quietly. He pushed the paperwork aside and hauled the little girl up onto his knees without missing a beat. "Hey, squirt. You want to help me with all this?"

She giggled.

"Okay, then."

He eyed Lilah sheepishly even as he let his niece scribble all over his 'important' documents. She wasn't interested — not in that, and not in an apology. She just turned to beam at me.

"Hi," Lilah said. "I didn't know you were here! Can we talk? I know Felix won't mind watching Vee for a minute."

She sounded way too serious for my liking, but I nodded anyway. And I let her lead me back into the bedroom. Fortunately for me, Mason wasn't here, but it was still in desperate need of a clean.

My eyes went automatically to the photo of Liam and all his brothers beside the lake. And then I found myself swallowing hard. Last time I'd been in this room, it had been covered in a thick coating of dust. I could see a few fingerprints in that dust now, like someone had been staring at it. Mason wasn't as unaffected by all this as he'd have us believe.

"So ... I realised I never properly thanked you," Lilah began hesitantly. "You saved my life the other day, and you saved my baby girl, and I ... I just ... thank you. It was the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"You ... uh, you don't get out much, do you?" I asked, only half-joking.

The truth was, it had been my mess to clean up. They were civilians, and I should have taken them much, much further away from the fight. And I hadn't done that because I'd wanted to watch.

Lilah scowled at me, but it was playful enough that I didn't start cowering. "Hey. Lose the attitude. I'm trying to show my gratitude, alright? If there's anything I can do for you ... just name it."

Oh, that was the wrong thing to say. There were a lot of favours I could have asked of a Luna, and none of them were particularly easy. Today, one shining example came to mind. Felix had said no, and Felix outranked Lilah in practice, but she had one advantage that he didn't. The ability to decide if the Alpha got laid tonight.

"Well, there's one thing, I guess," I blurted. "You may have noticed I'm not great at the whole domestic shebang—"

"Yes, I've noticed," she acknowledged, smiling from ear to ear. "Proceed."

"And I'd just ... I'd really love to train as a medic."

A slow smile spread across Lilah's lips. "Consider it done."

Well, that was fast. I stared at her, hardly daring to hope. "Really?"

She nodded. "You literally saved my daughter's life, Eva. This is the least I can do. You already asked Felix, I'm guessing?"

"He wasn't keen on the idea," I admitted, grimacing in the direction of the living room.

"Okay," Lilah said and chewed on her lip. "This might take some careful manoeuvring, so just play along, yeah? I don't want to get you in trouble."

Oh, I was starting to like her. She was going to replace Lin if she kept going like this. I was trying to bite back a grin as she marched out into the living room, her arms folded and her eyebrows drawing up battle lines.

"If she wants to change jobs, you're going to let her," she told her brother-in-law.

Felix put the kid down. He did it with such abruptness and annoyance that she ran to her mother and clutched at her legs, those big dark Vaughan eyes wide with fear. Neither of them paid her the slightest bit of attention.

"You went crying to Lilah?" he snapped at me. "Bloody hell."

No sooner had I opened my mouth to say something I'd regret than Lilah had scoffed indignantly. "I told her to ask you, Felix, because I'm the one who thinks she should transfer. If she hadn't gone to help Micah yesterday, he might have died. The doctor said so."

"And what a tragedy that would've been."

"You don't mean that," Lilah said firmly. "He's your brother, and you love him."

Felix gave her an empty, dead-eyed stare. But he didn't say anything, didn't scoff or correct her, and I reckoned that fear was dampening his temper. Fear of someone. Lilah genuinely didn't know, I realised. Not about how they'd grown up, and certainly not about her mate. And Mason was making sure things stayed that way.

"Look, girls can be nurses," Felix explained in a slow, overly patient voice. "They can't be doctors, and they can't be paramedics. They go into active combat — to treat rogues alongside pack members, and we can't risk that."

I would've liked the sound of that ... if I hadn't known that they treated the rogues against their will. The flockies wanted them alive to go under the knife, because torture was the only way they ever found our camps these days. And when they did find a camp, we had to build pyres for children and elderly folk and everyone in-between.

"Eva knows how to fight," Lilah shot back.

Felix smirked at me. "Does she? Mason had to rescue her from an overgrown kitten."

I bristled like a startled hedgehog. "Yeah, well, I didn't see you lining up to fight that thing."

Felix stood up entirely too fast and with too much anger. I was so done at that point that I would've fought him — and probably lost — but Lilah stepped between us rather hastily. Felix's attempt to circumvent her was met with a shove to the chest.

"Move," he told her.

"What, so you can hit her?"

"Yeah."

The kid burst into tears. Still, Lilah didn't offer her the slightest bit of reassurance, and I found myself wishing I'd never opened my big fat mouth. If I had to spend the rest of the month tiptoeing around the Vaughans and cleaning up their messes, so be it. Even that was better than ... whatever the hell this was.

Mason seemed to think so, too. He came through the door just in time to see his brother and his mate squaring up. His daughter was verging on hysterical, and I was desperately trying to squirm my way past Lilah without hurting her. She had me backed up against the sofa.

"What's going on?" he asked in a voice that was much, much too quiet.

"What does it look like?" Lilah shot back.

The toddler let out a particularly agonising wail. Mason looked at her, and she fell silent. This time, I felt it. He'd been clumsy with his mind, and it smashed into my walls, too. I knew how he got her to shut up now. He was fiddling with her head, and he wasn't doing it gently. I was willing to bet Lilah didn't know about that either.

Then Felix took another step forwards, because he was just that suicidal, apparently. Lilah shoved him back again. He was still staring at me, but I could see that nervous edge in his eyes now. He was genuinely terrified of Mason.

"Felix, sit down," Mason said. He sounded bored now, but I knew better than to believe that.

Felix's eyes flickered towards his brother and then came right back to me. They were pitch-black. For whatever reason, he wasn't backing down. The muscles in his jaw popped and writhed, and he just stood there. Something told me this whole stand-off ran a lot deeper than my insult.

"Felix," Mason repeated. He didn't sound bored anymore, and this wasn't the playful tone he'd used on Liam. "Sit down."

He gave him three seconds to obey. When he didn't, there was another mental shockwave. This time it rocked me to my bones. I liked to think my walls were formidable, but they crumbled like extra mature cheddar. And that was only the overspill. The attack was directed at Felix, and he got to enjoy the full skull-cracking force of it.

It was lucky he wasn't aiming for me, really, because my mind was overflowing with rogue. One glance, and he'd have known who I was. I scrambled to rebuild the walls, knowing damn well he could knock them down again in a heartbeat if he felt like it.

Felix sat down abruptly. Lilah wouldn't have known anything was wrong with him, because his eyes didn't budge from their usual coal-brown, but I saw the sudden clumsiness. The rigidity of a body controlled by a stranger.

And suddenly, all was calm. Mason seeped back into his own mind, and Felix was left to sit there, broken and dazed. Lilah stepped forwards, releasing me at last. The first thing I did was crouch down and give that poor, terrified toddler a hug. She let out a few muffled sobs into my shirt. At home, we got the kids out of the way before we picked a fight with anyone.

"Mase, can Eva transfer to the paramedics?" Lilah tried. "Please?"

I stayed where I was, keeping my head and not even daring to look at him. I could feel his eyes on me — heavy and tinged with annoyance.

"Yes," he said, after the longest minute of my life. "She can. But I'm not paying her."

Felix wiped his nose. There was blood on his sleeve when he was done, and I could see his hand shaking, but somehow he found the guts to say, "Screw this. She just went over my head because I said no."

"I'm aware," Mason snapped. "I'm the person who's over your head. Lilah and I will have a conversation about overstepping authority, but we don't need your input, thank you very much. Do your bloody work."

It was a backhanded blow. The satisfaction fell from Lilah's face, and it was replaced very quickly by an expression best described as 'outrage.' It said something along the lines of try me, bitch. And while I'd have loved to watch as she made Mason regret being born, he noticed me loitering.

"Get out," he said.

Happily.

***

For once, Liam was home before I was that night. I'd been sent on a wild goose chase for tea towels, and it had gone eleven o'clock by the time I came huffing my way through the door. I stopped just long enough to kick off my shoes before crawling into bed.

Liam had been sat on the sofa. He had a laptop balanced on his knees, and he seemed to be falling asleep, but he got up quick enough when he noticed me. "So?"

That got me grinning for the first time in hours. "I start tomorrow."

He looked delighted, if a little surprised. "That's awesome, Eva. Because I've got you something."

He came over and dropped a box onto my lap. It was surprisingly light for its size, and I gave him a puzzled look while I cracked the lid. We didn't ever have the money for presents, and besides, my birthday wasn't for another month.

A pair of trainers was nestled inside. Good ones, too. There was an S on the side which I recognised all too well. They looked brand new. I didn't have to check the bottom to know they were my size — Liam was good with stuff like that. I spent a good few seconds just gazing at them, hardly daring to believe it.

"For all the running you'll be doing," he said. "I know yours are falling apart."

"Holy shit," I breathed. "Oh, you— Wow. Where did you even get these? Commissary doesn't sell shoes. I checked."

Liam scratched the back of his neck. "Oh, you know. Bought them off some lady who didn't want them anymore."

It wasn't very convincing. He could lie much better than that, and the words had been too slow in the coming. I switched over to the mind-link, my entire face lit up with wicked delight. "You stole them, didn't you?"

"Misappropriated," he corrected me ruefully. "They were just sitting on a doormat, all neglected like..."

"Rogue," I said.

That accusation never failed to make Liam smile. Maybe because he was still called 'flockie' more often. Maybe because it always came wrapped in fondness. Either way, we'd been in this house long enough that it couldn't hurt to remind him of his other, much cooler family.

"Maybe don't wear them around the pack house," Liam mumbled. "Just in case the last owners decide they want to ... um, re-misappropriate them."

I was laughing as I kicked off my current shoes and pulled them on, heedless of the clean bedsheets. There was no frayed fabric, I couldn't feel them rubbing, and they didn't smell like death.

"Is it okay if I hug you?" I asked.

He nodded. "For you, Eva, it's always okay."

So I did. I wriggled out of the bed and threw my arms around him. He squeezed right back. I could have stayed like all day, warm and content, but I knew how overwhelming it could be for him, so I kept it short and gentle.

"Thank you," I whispered, and then I stood on my tiptoes to kiss to his cheek. I got to watch his eyes go wide and a stunned smile spread across his lips.

"I'm guessing you like them?"

I nodded vigorously. The hug seemed to have run its course. But as I pulled away, something crinkled in his pocket, and I snaked it within a literal heartbeat. The sibling instincts had kicked in. "What's this?"

"Nothing," he said much too quickly.

"Liam?" I asked, uncertain now, because I was holding a brown paper bag that smelt ... off.

"It's nothing."

I peered in the top. One glance at a plastic sachet and the white powder inside was enough to stop my heart dead in my chest. I looked at him, I looked back down again, and then I growled long and low. "Is this why you were so chill today?"

He shook his head vigorously. He was on the defensive, and the words came rushing out all at once. "I never did any. And I wasn't going to. I just ... I don't know. I guess I wanted to have the option."

That worried me. That worried me so much that I wondered, not for the first time, if I should pull the plug on this entire operation. I crushed the bag in my hand, my knuckles turning white, and I gave him a flat look. "That doesn't really make sense."

"I know."

"How long have you had this?" I demanded.

Liam squirmed in place. "Like two days."

"And you haven't had any?"

"No."

I scowled at him. "Are you just telling me what you think I want to hear?"

"I think you want to hear the truth," Liam said quietly, and it did sound sincere.

"Good," I replied, lifting my eyebrow. "Have you had any in the past?"

He switched back to the link, quick as anything, and looked at me with big, wary eyes. "Sort of."

"What do you mean sort of?"

Liam's throat bobbed. "Felix spiked me once or twice. Sometimes coke, sometimes heroin. He thought it was funny, but I was only a kid and he wasn't very good with the dosing. I ended up fitting, and then Mason made him stop."

So he knew what it felt like. And Goddess, that was screwed up. Every time I thought I knew everything that had happened, he'd drop another casual bombshell like that, and I was scrambling all over again.

"I'm sorry," Liam said. It was so quiet that I almost missed it. "I'm an idiot, and I should never have—"

"You're not in trouble," I told him, shoving the bag into my jacket pocket. It was going to be confiscated and hidden somewhere he'd never think to look. "Sit down, alright?"

He did. I padded over to the table where we kept the alcohol, and then I poured a generous glass of rum. We'd have to share it. Less washing-up, that way. I took the first gulp and then passed it to him.

Liam downed half of the glass in one go. He winced at the taste, and then he swilled the rest around. "How is getting drunk better than getting high?"

"Well, first of all, it's less likely to kill you," I muttered. "And second, this stuff will make you sleepy. We like sleep, don't we?"

"I guess."