This week we have LittleLoneWriterGirl's version of Eva up top :) I'm sorry this chapter is a little bit late, but exams are over now (for a while, anyway), so I'll see if I can't speed things up and get this book finished by the end of summer.

It was the shouting which woke me up. And I wasn't best pleased about it. But they were loud, and they were barely twenty feet from my head, so it was inevitable, really. Beside me, Liam had rolled onto his back, going from sleepy to high alert in less than a second. He sat up around the same time that I did.

Rhodri turned his face into his pillow and groaned loudly. I didn't think he'd be able to help us much even if he did rouse himself, so I didn't bother to wait for him before pulling my shoes on and venturing outside the tent ... only to feel goosebumps erupt across my skin.

Nothing was on fire, and no one seemed to be dying, so I didn't feel too guilty about ducking back inside just long enough to grab a coat. The forest was damned cold in the mornings. Especially when the sun was only just beginning to peek over the horizon.

There were raiders scrambling around in all directions, but most of the shouting was coming from further away, where I couldn't see. I couldn't understand why anyone would be out of bed at this hour, let alone making a racket, but I didn't get much time to wonder about it before Hayden came running up, breathless and wild-eyed.

"Whoa, whoa," I said. "What's the hurry? You trying to escape?"

"No," Hayden panted indignantly. "Of course not. Your mother sent me to fetch you. It sounded pretty urgent."

"Shit, Lloyd," I said. "Alright then. Let's go."

It was worrying that Mam had resorted to using our hostage as a messenger. It told me that she was so preoccupied that she didn't even have the concentration to rouse us through the link.

Rhodri was now sat in the tent entrance, peering out with tousled hair and a bewildered look on his face. Honestly, it was a miracle that he was awake, but he didn't stand a chance in hell of getting up from the ground. His legs hadn't healed properly, and all the nerve damage had made them very weak.

Liam offered him a hand, and because he had some actual upper body strength, he helped Rhodri kneel up. Hayden trudged over to help for the actual lifting bit, and I handed him his crutches when he was practically standing.

And then we were off. Hayden led us through the trees at a breakneck pace. I was still sleepy and working on an empty stomach, so I wasn't sure how much use I was going to be.

"What happened?" I asked him. It wasn't like we were short of breath. Rhodri couldn't go very fast.

Hayden rubbed the back of his neck. "No one tells me much, but from what I've heard, the packs found another camp this morning and slaughtered anyone who didn't run fast enough."

My parents were outside the med tent with all the important people in the camp arrayed around them. It seemed like a strange place to hold an emergency meeting, but everyone knew where it was, and Aunt Cassidy couldn't stray far from it anyway, and it certainly kept the patients entertained. Today, that consisted of Eira, Hannah and one of the kids we'd rescued from Silver Lake's prison, who had a serious chest infection. They were all sat watching us with wide eyes.

"Eva," Mam said by way of greeting. "I won't insult you by asking if you knew about this."

I stopped near the crowd of important people and stuffed my hands into my pockets, uncomfortable with so many eyes on me. "Nah. Of course not. Which is a little bit worrying, ain't it? They can't trust us very much."

She acknowledged that with a distracted tilt of her head. It was Liam who thought to ask, "Which packs?"

Mam looked to Uncle Ollie, who reeled them off, easy as anything. "Lowland. Riverside. Pine Forest. And the hired westerners. It seems like it was a very coordinated attack."

Shit. Shit. That was a lot of flockies. Enough to sack a camp while all the raiders were home and then put them to the chase ... which was undoubtedly what was going on now.

But while I was panicking, Liam was pulling his phone out, and he had it ringing in about two seconds flat. He was hiding his worry behind a slightly patchy mask of indifference. "Okay. Let's see if they feel like boasting about it."

Mam gave him a wolfish grin. "If you can get me a current location and - Goddess willing - some numbers, I'll give you my firstborn."

"Hey," I said, but no one was paying me any attention, save for Liam, whose lips twitched upwards for a split second. I hoped he knew she wasn't serious. It was just an expression. Or so I hoped, anyway.

Before I could kick up any more fuss, he was already talking into the phone, his back turned as he went to find somewhere a little quieter. I was left with Rhodri and Hayden on either side of me. I would have gone with him, because I knew how much he hated phone calls, but the Alphas had a habit of hanging up and pleading technical difficulties whenever it was me on the other end of the line.

"Hello, Vincent," he was saying. "Is there something you've forgotten to tell me? ... I know you're busy. That's why I'm ringing. ... Well, maybe my scouts are just better than yours. ... Do you want my fighters or not? Because if you do, you're going to have to watch your manners."

He was soon too far away for me to hear. And the attention of the emergency council turned to a young man who was sat nearby with his back against a tree and his eyes shut tight. It was Turner. And that meant his raiding team was the one under attack and he was trying his damned best to mind-link them.

"Any luck?" Mam asked him.

He shook his head without even opening his eyes. "Not yet. Last I heard, they're still heading north-east."

"I'll warn you again, Turner," she said, rather sharply, "if they keep doing that, they'll run right into us. Tell them to change direction and fast."

"I'm trying," he said indignantly, "but I'm not getting much in the way of replies. Maybe we should start moving. They feel close."

Mam swore quietly. She rubbed at her jaw, scanning us all with sharp, calculating eyes. Her gaze eventually came to rest, as it so often did, on Uncle Rhys.

"You're not too old to scout, are you?" she asked him dryly.

Given that he had already stripped down to his shirt and jeans, it wasn't hard to guess the answer to that question. He gave her a quick grin. "No."

"Good. Go on. Take a couple of the faster runners with you. We're going to err on the side of caution here. Ollie, Fion, get the kids up and into the cars. The rest of you can start pulling tents down."

We were all moving before she had even finished talking. But we didn't get very far. There was a burst of sudden, urgent shouting from nearby, and then wolves were running into the camp. They seemed to be everywhere - more than a dozen at least, slowing amongst the tents from a dead sprint.

There was a horrible second - a really horrible second - during which we were all half panicked and ready to shift as we tried to work out if these new wolves were friends or foes. It wasn't easy to catch a scent, but when they had come to a near stop without taking a chunk out of anyone, I felt safe enough to just stand there and wait.

But it didn't bode well when the first thing they did was turn around and face the trees they'd come from. A quick count told me that there were only thirteen of them - and the majority were littered with bite wounds and looked absolutely drained. But I felt a fraction of the tension draining from my muscles when no one immediately followed them out of the trees.

One of them had shifted and pulled on a pair of shorts when he was offered them. He was panting, but it was hard to miss the words that he forced out. "They're ten minutes behind us. If that."

That was all it took to get everyone moving again. This time at double speed. At times like these, we used the cars to evacuate the children, who couldn't shift at will, and anyone who wasn't in good shape physically. That was the priority. The rest of us could run for it. But we also tried to take as much of our gear as possible because it wasn't easy to replace and it wasn't easy to survive in the wilderness without cooking utensils or tents or warm clothing. So we all had a lot of work to do in ten minutes.

There were soon people running in all directions, scrambling to get everyone packed up and loaded into the cars, which would be full to bursting of people and gear by the time they were through. We could break camp in five minutes, let alone ten, but no one wanted to leave it down to the wire.

It was amongst all that chaos that I found myself staring at Hannah. She was sat in the med tent, presumably because she'd had a hypo in the night, but she didn't look all that unwell now, and she seemed to have pricked up her ears at the promise of flockies so close to us.

It was a rare opportunity for her, I'd admit. She wouldn't have to run very far to make an escape attempt stick. I remembered that she'd been so desperate to leave camp yesterday. I remembered her insistence that she would 'figure something out.' It wasn't that I didn't want to help break camp, because I did. But there was some base instinct telling me to stand there and watch her like a bloody hawk.

"You've led them right to us," Mam snapped at the raider.

"Yeah," he spluttered. "Because we need help. They're running us ragged and we don't have the numbers to spook them. I figure now they'll think twice."

"Except that they won't. This camp is full of our most vulnerable people. We have more children than raiders here. What you've done is so unbelievably stupid, I can't even begin to-" She stopped there, rubbing at her jaw, before she could really get going, seeming to realise that she was about to shout at the wrong person. "Where's Syd? I'd like to talk to him."

"Dead. Along with everyone else we sent back."

I was not sorry to hear about Syd Jacobs, who was my least favourite raiding leader by far. I was only half-listening, because most of my attention was still on Hannah. She stood up slowly. Every now and then, she would glance at the trees, her face a still, unreadable mask. I reached up and unzipped my coat, just in case I needed to shift in a hurry.

"The children?" Mam asked next, visibly wary. He had been left alone to face her while his friends let their aching muscles rest, half of them sinking to their bellies to pant because they knew they would only get a minute's reprieve before they had to run all over again.

One of them I recognised. Joel's pelt was a mix of ashy grey and black. It made sense that he'd joined up with Syd's raiding team, given that his old one had been slaughtered, but it seemed that he'd been unlucky a second time. He was watching me and me alone ... with the sort of intensity that I could do without. So I did my absolute best to ignore him until he tired of it and slunk away.

The raider just shrugged. "Safe. Mostly. But a lot of us died to buy them time to run."

"Thank the Goddess for that, at least," she murmured. And then it was all business again, because the situation hadn't got any less urgent. "Let's get these tents down. You want to help, flockie?"

That question was directed at Hayden. And he nodded amiably enough and began putting his back into the work with remarkable enthusiasm. I was left standing there. Hannah was now out of the tent.

It was just me and Rhodri left, and he should have been heading to the cars, because he could hardly walk, let alone run. But he was staring at Hannah, same as me. He could see it too.

"Come here, yeah?" he said, not very gently. "Let's get the cuffs back on before you make any poor life choices. I promise you won't make it ten metres into those trees before Eva breaks your leg."

She did approach him, somewhat reluctantly. But something had shifted in her gaze, and now she was watching him with a strange intensity which I didn't recognise at all. I thought she was going to punch him or some shit. But she didn't. Instead, she closed the distance a little too quickly and grabbed hold of his collar ... and kissed him.

It wasn't a shy, tentative kiss either. She was properly going for it - tongue and all, I'd bet. Rhodri's eyebrows rose sharply, and he looked about as confused as I felt, but it didn't take him long to reciprocate. I was left standing there, staring and utterly perplexed by both of them.

It was, in many ways, the perfect distraction, because neither of us noticed Hannah's hand straying into his pocket.

After what felt like a lifetime, Rhodri finally pulled back, looking faintly amused and more than a little pleased with himself. "As much as I enjoyed that, flockie-"

He didn't get to finish that sentence. Hannah had flipped out the knife she'd taken from him and buried its point in his stomach.

He lashed out reflexively, catching her in the ribs, and I lunged for her, but she was already lurching backwards, out of our reach. And before I could close the distance, she turned around and grabbed the closest person - Eira - and wrapped an arm around her throat. The knifepoint was soon nestled beneath her chin.

I stopped moving. Stopped breathing. We were so screwed. Because she didn't even need to escape. All she had to do was stand there for another five minutes or so, and the flockies would be here. She and Hayden would be safe. But my little sister would be slaughtered, and so would anyone else who stayed.

"Hannah..." I said weakly. "Let her go. Please."

Rhodri was bent over beside me, swearing filthily, one hand pressed to the tear in his abdomen and the other fighting to keep him upright. There was a lot of blood. I didn't turn to help him, although he could probably have used it. I kept my eyes fixed firmly on Hannah and the knife she was holding to Eira's throat.

The raiders around us were starting to realise what was happening. There was shouting and cursing, and soon a ring was starting to form around us. It was made up of furious, vicious-looking raiders. The noise sounded distant to me because the blood was roaring in my ears, but it was probably very loud in reality. So it wasn't long before Mam caught wind of what was happening.

I watched all the colour drain from her face. And as terrified as she looked before it was all carefully shoved down, I let out a shaky breath when she came to take her place in the circle. It meant that I wasn't responsible for fixing this Goddess-awful mess.

"If anyone so much as twitches in my direction, I'll kill her," Hannah said, and I reckoned she meant it. The words seemed to be mostly directed at my mother, whose eyes were now cold and stony and full of the promise of violence. "If anyone touches my mind, I'll kill her. We clear?"

Mam gave her a slow nod without breaking eye contact. "Yes. We're clear. But you need to think about what you're doing, kiddo."

"Oh, I've thought about it. I want to go home," she snapped. "Everyone can take a few large steps backwards. Hayden, come here."

Hayden had been standing amongst the raiders, wide-eyed and wary. He'd noticed the ruckus, like everyone, and now he edged forwards to take his place at her back. She looked a little bit calmer now that she wasn't having to crane her neck every few seconds to make sure no one was sneaking up on her.

"Han," he murmured. It was supposed to be too quiet for us to hear. "What's the plan here? People are going to get hurt if we keep them here much longer."

Rhodri had slumped onto the ground, still trying to stem the bleeding over his stomach. Although he was breathing hard, he still looked closer to furious than mortally injured, but one of the raiders went to check on him and lend some pressure to the wound anyway.

"People have already got hurt, jackass," he snapped at Hayden. "That bitch stabbed me. Call her off."

But Hayden didn't open his mouth a second time. He just eyed Hannah and eyed the rest of us and looked increasingly uncomfortable because every second we were delayed here was another second we weren't running for our lives.

"They're free to go," Hannah said. "But we'll be staying."

"You have a knife to my daughter's throat. This only ends one way for you, and it's not with me walking away," Mam said coldly. But she did give a pointed nod to the rest of the raiders, and more than half of them took it as an order to get back to what they had been doing. The rest of them closed the circle and palmed their knives. Whatever Mam's idea was, I suspected it would be fast and messy. But I wanted to try something first.

"Han, listen," I said. "You've got to let her go. Stress is one of her triggers. You know that. You don't want to give her a seizure, right? Let me take her place."

That wasn't a lie, but Eira had been on a new human epilepsy medication recently that seemed to be working for the most part. Hannah didn't know that, but she glanced nervously at Eira's face, or what little she could see of it, as if trying to work out if that was true. Her hesitancy was obvious.

"No offence, Eva, but I don't really trust you," she said. "Drop your knife and then we'll see."

"I'm not carrying. Alright?" I told her. Just to prove it, I turned my pockets inside out and slipped my jacket off, despite the biting wind. "Look for yourself. I'm not going to try anything. I just want my sister safe."

I put my hands up for good measure, and then I took a few hesitant steps towards her. She didn't try to stop me. She hadn't needed much persuading. Lucky for me, she didn't want to be threatening an unwell fifteen-year-old with a knife. And I was the perfect hostage - just dangerous enough that she'd be willing to kill me, but not dangerous enough to overpower her.

"Eva, you stay where you are," Mam snapped. And despite her intentions, I think that actually helped sell it to Hannah. "Leave my children out of this. You want someone to threaten, let it be me."

Hannah didn't hesitate to shut that down with a big scowl on her face. "No. I don't want you within ten feet of us. Eva can stay with me, and I'll let her go when you're all gone - I swear."

I didn't listen to my mother. I kept taking careful steps forwards. I reckoned I had surpassed any need for her protection when I had walked into an Alpha's bedroom with a knife in my hand. Plus, it didn't hurt that Hannah and I had some rapport. I didn't have any trouble believing that she would let me go once I'd served my purpose. She wasn't cruel. She was just cold, like we all were. Cold and ruthless and doing her damned best to survive in this shit-awful world.

So I just kept creeping closer, and Hannah let me. I was about a metre away, still not daring to walk too fast in case I spooked her, when Eira caught my eye and gave me a look. She'd been standing quietly this whole time. But she knew, like we all did, that we couldn't afford to lose Hannah and Hayden now. They knew way too much ... and they were the only thing keeping Alpha Jace in line.

I thought maybe she would make a grab for the knife. And that worried me. I didn't want to pit her strength against Hannah's. She would lose.

But she wasn't asking for my permission. A heartbeat later, she went limp in Hannah's arms, forcing the older girl to take her weight at a moment's notice. Hannah swore as she fought to keep Eira upright, only to find the weight was dragging her down. She moved the knife clear instinctively, probably assuming that it was the promised seizure.

But she had forgotten somewhere along the way that the kid she'd taken hostage was a Llewellyn. Eira had grown up with a knife in her hand, fighting with the worst of us. She was not - and never had been - helpless.

So Eira began to jerk and shake. She was a good actress - I'd give her that. But since she never remembered her seizures - and the big tonic-clonic ones were rare anyway - she didn't actually know what they looked like. But neither did Hannah, who began lowering her to the ground, more out of panic than anything.

Eira made a grab for the knife then. And it descended into a brutal, desperate scuffle. It was so quick that I couldn't tell what was happening, but I lurched towards the pair of them. My shoulder smashed into Hannah's ribcage, and I practically tackled her to get her away from my sister, heedless that I could have run straight onto the knife.

Hannah and I grappled, each as desperate as the other. I kept one eye out for the tell-tale flash of steel, but Eira had managed to bury the point in the mud. She didn't help much after that, simply lying there to catch her breath and stay out of the way, wisely enough. No amount of bravery could overcome muscle atrophy and tremors in a physical fight.

Hannah's hand found my throat, so I didn't shirk from lodging a fist into her face. No sooner had I done that than Hayden was dragging me backwards none too gently by a handful of my t-shirt. I lost my balance very quickly and ended up tipped onto my arse. I reckoned he was just trying to separate us, but if he'd intended to do more, I'd never know.

Because as her back-up arrived, so did mine. And within five seconds, Hannah was on the floor, her arms wrenched behind her back so that every misguided attempt to shift was doomed to fail until someone arrived with the handcuffs. Hayden was sensible enough to let go of me very quickly and put his hands up, but it didn't spare him some rough handling by my father and Emmett Byer. I didn't know when they'd arrived, but I sure was glad to see them. Realistically, as much as it pained me to admit, both of the flockies were more than capable of beating me up.

I helped Eira to her feet. She was grinning away, having thoroughly enjoyed her role in it all, I'd wager. She trudged over to return Rhodri's knife to him with smugness radiating from her in a noxious cloud.

"This yours?" she asked him cheerfully.

He snatched it from her and tried to rise. I reckoned he would have given Hannah a taste of her own medicine had his first-aider not tugged him back down again. I moved into his path and eyed the hole in his abdomen. It could have been a lot worse. The bleeding was already slowing, and only the top third of the knife was bloodied, which meant Hannah hadn't really been trying to hurt him.

And speaking of Hannah... The flockies were being led away now. She kept glancing back at us, even as the raiders shoved her along, and the look on her face was more desperate than ever. She'd managed to screw up a perfectly good escape attempt.

I stopped staring after her when someone tugged me into a relieved embrace from behind. It was my mother, and she'd caught Eira in the same hug. Dad wasn't far behind her. And although we both groaned and wriggled, it didn't save us. When they released us again, it was only to turn Eira around for a quick check-over and some fussing before they were satisfied that she was unharmed. Rhodri was next to be assessed. He had finally stopped swearing, which was probably a good sign.

"Get up. Get to the cars," my mother told them. "You too, Eva. I don't want them catching your scent."

That was a good point. A very good point. And with everything going on, it hadn't even occurred to me. But the flockies running rampant across this campsite was going to be dangerous. They would know Liam and I were rogues, and they'd know Hannah and Hayden had been here at camp, and all of that would be Bad with a capital 'b.'

But it seemed like my mother had already thought of that. She was shovelling smouldering charcoal into a cookpot, and I trailed behind her as she did the same at the next fire, and the one after that.

"I'll go in a minute," I said. "I need to find Liam first."

She was heading the same way Liam had gone, so I took a cookpot from her, using my sleeve to grasp the burning hot handle. I knew this routine. We often did it when we moved camp to make it harder for the flockies, but today there was added importance.

We walked upwind until we were out of the camp entirely. And then we poured out the charcoal into neat piles, each a dozen paces apart. Carefully, we stoked them up into open flames and then covered them with wet leaves and foliage until they were giving out plumes of thick grey smoke.

It was too much to hope for rain. The sky was eerily clear. But the wind was blowing viciously through the trees today, and it carried the smoke across the entire campsite - which was, admittedly, barely a campsite now that all the tents had been pulled down - obscuring most of the scents we had left behind.

We found Liam in less than a minute. He was still on the phone, and he gave us a thumbs-up we came closer. That felt promising. He must have made some progress with our persecutors. And although I was increasingly beginning to feel like we were running out of time, we stayed to listen, not daring to interrupt the conversation.

"That's near Coed Ysbryd, right?" Liam was asking. "See, this is why you should consult me before you go romping through the woods, Vincent. There's a rogue campsite in that area that they love returning to. I'd be careful those fugitives of yours aren't leading you into a trap. ... Yeah. How many fighters have you got there?"

There was a rather long pause in which Mam's lips twitched into a smile. Sure, she was happy. This had been her plan, after all, and now she had an Alpha on her side and all the benefits that came with it. I tried not to feel too proud of us because I was still slightly resentful that she'd sent us into Silver Lake in the first place.

"Fifty?" he repeated for our benefit. "Oh. Is that all? I'd pull them back if I were you. Wait for reinforcements. It doesn't look like it'll rain today. You can follow the scent trail in an hour when you have the numbers. Better that than waste the morning's work by losing fifty good men. ... Okay. I'm glad to hear it."

He hung up the phone and broke into a grin. It had all been play-acting, of course. Fifty would have been deadly to us. But Vincent didn't know that, did he? The Lowland Alpha would never have a clue how close he'd been to killing us all.

"He's ordered a halt," Liam said. "I don't know how long it'll last, but that should buy us a few minutes at the very least. A few hours if we're lucky."

I closed my eyes and let out a long, relieved breath. When I opened them again, Mam was clapping him across the back with obvious delight. It was more than we'd dared hope for.

"Good work," she told him. "I mean that. These days, you're more useful than the rest of us combined."

Rare praise indeed. Liam looked astonished. He'd always been a little hypervigilant around my mother. Unable to relax. I'd never asked him why, but I guessed I understood it. She didn't scare me because she was my mam, but she scared everyone else. And Liam of all people was especially skittish with authority figures.

There was so much smoke in the air by then that I had to turn away and cough until the maddening tickle at the back of my throat was mollified. Mam covered her face with her sleeve as she bent down to cover the last of the fires with leaves.

"Done," she said, straightening up again. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

***

I was in danger of getting a headache as we arrived at the pub that evening. I'd been in a car with Nia's little sister, and she could be loud when she wanted. I took a deep breath of cool evening air and went to join the growing swarm of my family members in the doorway. A tired-looking waitress was staring at us with wide, alarmed eyes.

It was a miracle we'd made it here, in all honesty. Everyone was tired. We'd broken camp and then set it all up again, miles and miles away up in the hills in a place the flockies would never find. We'd all been swaying on our feet by the time the fires had been lit.

"Can we have a table for-" Mam began. "Um, shit. I'm not sure. How many?"

"I think ... once Nia and Lily get here ... twenty-two," Dad said after a quick headcount, which was no easy task while the little kids were running around like headless chickens. They were excited. We didn't really get to go out for meals.

"Twenty-two," Mam repeated, slightly apologetic.

The poor waitress looked at us all and then offered a bemused smile. "Sure. Come inside. We'll see what we can manage."

In the end, she didn't have to do much at all. Once she'd shown us into a corner and identified a few tables we could take, it was the 'big strong boys' who dragged them all together and wrangled the chairs into a suitable arrangement. They were always so weirdly keen to do physical labour, and the rest of us were more than happy to let them.

The few locals who'd already been in the pub fell silent at the sight of so many newcomers. These tiny villages were very tightly knit communities, and they were always wary of strangers. I'd heard enough of their conversation to know that they'd been speaking Welsh.

A few murmurs of noswaith dda as we passed them provided reassurance that we weren't English tourists. But it was also a warning - that we'd understand if they started bitching about us. Because sooner or later, I knew we'd get on their nerves. It was inevitable. There were too many of us, and we were all too loud, so we'd probably drown out their rugby game before too long.

I took the seat to Rhodri's left. The stab wound had healed, but his pride hadn't. He didn't bother to hide his scowl as his dad walked Hannah in, keeping a firm grip on her arm. I tensed a little as he sat her down beside me and cuffed her arm to one of the table support struts, much to her disgust, and then he sat down on the other side of her.

"How am I supposed to eat with one hand?" she asked testily.

"Honestly?" Uncle Rhys asked. "I don't care."

Hannah had made it abundantly clear that she didn't want to be here. Not one bit. And since it was warm and cosy, and there was going to be good food, I couldn't help wondering why. She'd kicked up a huge fuss in camp when they'd told her she was coming to the meal. It wasn't like we wanted her here, because we didn't, but the adults were reluctant to trust the raiders to watch our hostages while they were all so worked up about the camp being overrun this morning.

Across from her, Hayden was pulling out a chair. He was allowed to sit there, hands free, because he hadn't threatened to kill anyone today. And I reckoned he was basking in it to some extent. There was a part of him that just really wanted to be liked. He was holding an animated conversation with Bryn, because those two were now firm friends, and it was only every minute or so that he would cast a guilty glance in Hannah's direction.

She didn't seem to notice. She was just staring down at the tabletop like it had offended her somehow. Her next question was, "Can't I just stay in the car?"

"No," Rhys said, placing a menu down in front of her with unnecessary force. "Pick something."

I didn't even bother looking at the thing. Hannah was the only one who was getting her own meal. The plan was to order everything on the menu and then share it between us all. And I already knew what I wanted to drink.

I leaned towards Hannah, because I hadn't had a chance to talk to her since everything had gone so wrong that morning, and I asked in an undertone, "Why today?"

It had been bothering me. Every time I'd glanced at her, I looked a little bit more closely, past the scowl and the furious eyes, and it seemed to me like she had been trying not to cry this entire time.

"It doesn't matter," she told me quietly.

I shook my head. "Clearly, it does. A lot. Why today?"

She didn't answer me. Just stared down at the tabletop. And before I could press her anymore, hands squeezed my shoulders, and someone messed up my hair rather aggressively from behind. I didn't have to turn around to know that Nia had arrived.

As it turned out, I was just a pitstop on the way to Rhodri. Nia leant over, wrapping him in a clumsy half-hug for as long as he'd tolerate. It was his birthday we were celebrating, after all.

"Look at you. All grown up!" she laughed. "What you drinking, pup? I'm buying. Shit. Today's the last day I can call you that."

"Liam's buying, actually," Rhodri told her. "But while you're up, you're welcome to go fetch me a whiskey..."

Nia raised her eyebrows in gentle scorn. "Sure. That'll mix well with your painkillers."

I didn't think I'd ever seen him look so smug. He simply glanced further down the table, where the woman who was both his mother and his doctor was listening in with narrowed eyes.

"He's been off them for the last two days," she said, not bothering to hide her exasperation.

"Because the pain's gone?" Nia asked.

Rhodri just laughed to himself in a way that made it very clear that the pain was not 'gone.'

"Specifically so he can drink tonight," I explained.

Nia gave him a wide-eyed look that was somehow both impressed and disgusted. "You bloody idiot."

But she did stand up again, and she did go and get him a drink, and then a tequila was dumped in front of me with no explanation whatsoever. She knew what I liked. It tasted expensive, but that didn't really matter tonight. Liam had one of the pack credit cards, so there was no limit on spending.

As I sipped it, I caught Liam's eye down the table and gave him a private little smile. We were further apart than I would have liked, but I reckoned it was probably good for us to have some separation. These days, we hardly spent a minute apart, and as much as I enjoyed it, there was a part of me which knew it wasn't very healthy.

That being said, we didn't go longer than a few minutes without making eyes at each other for the entire evening. He had my little brother and sister for company, and I had Rhodri, who only got livelier the more he drank, but there was something inherently warming about that stolen eye contact.

I'd tried a little of everything that I could reach. It was all delicious, but more than the food, I was enjoying the loud, boisterous conversations that happened every time my family were all in the same room. I didn't take it for granted anymore.

After I finally set my fork down, stuffed full to bursting, there came an exclamation from further down the table, and I saw our resident babysitter lean backwards in his chair to berate a small someone.

"Jess. Oi. Come back here."

Jess Llewellyn was a little shithead, so it was no surprise when she ignored that order in favour of wandering down the table. It was way past her bedtime, but she looked positively bouncy as she knocked into Rhodri's chair and held her arms out.

"Hey, trouble," he said. It was a greater effort than usual for him to swing her up into the chair with him. And I saw him wince as he settled her weight on his legs. She didn't seem to notice. He was still her big brother, and he was invincible as ever, as far as she was concerned.

"Rhodri gets to stay home with us all day now," she told me, beaming. Because that was her entire take on it. She got to see him more now that he was stuck on the side-lines.

"Really?" I asked. "That's pretty cool. I hope he's being nice to you."

She just wrinkled up her nose and shook her head, knowing damn well that would get her a laugh at the very least. She was always delighted when we laughed. Rhodri mussed up her hair and then confiscated the bread knife that she'd stolen from his plate while we'd all been distracted.

On my other side, Hannah was pricking her finger - a process that didn't look at all fun to me. It took her a while to squeeze out a suitable drop of blood. The reading on the meter was a little low. But that wasn't really surprising, because she'd injected enough insulin for an entire plate of steak and chips and then barely managed to eat half of it. Something was up with her. She'd spent more time looking at the clock than eating.

"You want a coke?" I asked her. She couldn't go and fetch it herself while she was handcuffed to the table.

She sighed at the glucose meter. "Yeah. A pint, please. I have a feeling that this one is going to be stubborn."

I trudged over to the bar, not for the first time that evening, and I caught the barman's attention with an awkward wave, even though one of the regulars had been waiting to make their order.

"Coca-cola," I said. "The sugary kind, please. And could you make it fast? It's kinda an emergency."

"Sure," the barman replied. "You want that on the tab?"

I hummed my agreement.

As he was filling the glass, he gave me a sidelong look that was not entirely friendly. "You know ... I really hope you can pay for all this. It's starting to rack up, and your sort aren't exactly known for your honesty. I'd hate to have to get the police down here."

The other guy at the bar sniggered, and I felt inclined to throw something at both of them. He meant travellers, of course, and I had to shove down a flash of anger. He had finished filling the glass, so I took it from him, not bothering to be polite about it.

"Yes, we can pay for it," I asked. "But I'm now thinking that maybe we won't bother."

I walked back to the table, leaving him to glower at my back. Rhodri was laughing hysterically at something his brother had said, if the pleased look on Bryn's face was any indication. I put the coke in front of Hannah and then nudged my cousin.

"It's nearly midnight," I told him. "You want to go back to camp? Just in case?"

He'd dumped his sister onto my chair, where she was happily finishing off my chips. Rhodri regarded her fondly while he mulled it over. It was a while before he shook his head. "Nah, it's okay. We can stay until everyone's finished eating. But after that..."

He grinned, not needing to finish the thought. He'd be looking for his mate tonight. If she was back at camp, the chances were that he'd already slept with her, which would probably break the ice between them if nothing else.

"Okay," I murmured. "As long as you're sure."

Jess didn't look like she was going anywhere, so I skirted around the table and slid onto the bench beside Liam. My thigh was pressed against his because there wasn't quite enough room, and I leant my head against his shoulder to fight the exhaustion that had been creeping up on me all evening.

"Hey," he said quietly.

"Hey," I replied.

And that was it. We were trying to ... not fraternise while we were back at camp. I didn't want my family to know about our weird, nonexclusive, unclassified fledgling relationship. I had a feeling they wouldn't approve of it. Unless we turned out to be mates, it felt like we were only setting up to break each other's hearts.

But I could enjoy the warmth of his body, and I could enjoy the feeling of hyperawareness where our legs were touching, and I could listen to everyone else talking without feeling any pressing need to join in. They all seemed to have a lot more energy than I did tonight.

Before long, I looked over at Hannah, just to check on her. She seemed to have sunk down in her chair. A third of the coke was gone, and now she was just watching the clock with the look of someone who was walking to the gallows. It would be a while longer before she needed to recheck her blood sugar, so ... what was so important about the time?

I looked at my cousin. I looked back at her. And finally, it hit me. Much, much too late to do anything about it.

"Oh, shit," I breathed, sitting up straight.

Liam turned to me with big, worried eyes. "What is it?"

Rhodri hadn't even been paying attention to the time. Not really. It didn't make much difference to him that it was now his birthday, because we were already celebrating it. He'd been reaching over to take a plate from his brother when he seemed to freeze in place.

I couldn't find the words, so I just shook my head and repeated myself. "Shit. I'm such an idiot."

Ever so slowly, Rhodri turned his head towards Hannah. The plate was still hovering in mid-air, and Bryn was looking increasingly bemused. But his big brother was utterly entranced and oblivious to everything except a pair of miserable brown eyes.

Hannah couldn't seem to tear her gaze away from him. She'd clearly been dreading this moment for weeks. And now that it had arrived, she looked like she wanted to sink into the floorboards, never to be seen again.

"You've known this whole time, haven't you?" Rhodri asked her. By the sound of it, puzzlement was quickly giving way to hurt and anger. "When were you going to tell me?"

The rest of the table was going quiet as they realised something was up. It didn't help the tension between them. As the noise level fell, I could hear my heart beating louder and louder in my chest.

"I wasn't," Hannah said quietly. "I thought it would be easier that way. Because ... honestly? I don't want any kind of relationship with you. Not now. And probably not ever."