Hello, hello, hello. I am now heading at full tilt into another exam season, but don't worry. As usual, my motivation to memorise medication names is at rock-bottom, while my motivation to write is all-consuming! So the updates should continue as normal. And what's this? More art? Yes, you lucky bastards. Local pest LittleLoneWriterGirl has been drawing again. The bridge features later in the chapter :)

"What if..." I began quietly. "What if it was Mal?"

Liam looked at me sharply, only to look away again just as quickly. He was sweating through his shirt, and his breathing was heavier than it should have been. I'd have to take a turn carrying Eira soon. At the moment, my only job was to lug around a backpack full of medical supplies and beat down the brambles so he wouldn't fall flat on his face.

"Shit," he said after a long moment. "Shit, it could have been..."

"It'd be our fault, if it was him," I murmured. We'd shown him the way to Haven, only a few hours before it had happened. We'd trusted him. Granted, we hadn't had much choice in the moment. Neither of us could drive, and we had needed to get away from the church.

Liam acknowledged that with a weary nod. "But ... it was him who was calling me, right before. Like he was trying to warn us. And he wouldn't have done that if he was part of it, right?"

"How would he even know to warn us ... unless he was in on it?" I demanded.

He just shrugged as much as he could with an unconscious wolf draped across his shoulders. And before we could speculate any further, I felt a hand on my arm and turned to see Dad. There was dried blood coating the side of his face and his neck, but he looked well enough, if you ignored the dark circles beneath his eyes and hollow, haunted look about him.

"We're stopping," he said. "Just for a few minutes. Don't get too comfortable."

I tried not to visibly sigh my relief. We'd been walking at breakneck pace for more than an hour, and my legs felt like they were made of lead. None of us had eaten. All of us were suffering from various degrees of blood loss. But our efforts seemed to be paying off so far. We hadn't seen a single flockie.

"Hang on," I said, even as Dad was already beginning to turn away. "Why are we stopping?"

He let out a long breath and then cast a glance behind him. "Matty won't wake up."

I was moving before he'd even finished talking. They'd laid the stretcher down, and Aunt Fion was now knelt beside him, checking the bloody bandages around his abdomen. She wasn't a doctor, but she was the closest thing we had now that Rhodri's mother was dead. I went to join her.

"Bryn responded to the fluids. Matt didn't," she told me quietly. "I don't know what we can do for him. I can't find what's bleeding. We don't have another bag of saline. We don't have the equipment to give him a transfusion. And there's only so much I can do with bandages and gauze. He's deathly cold..."

I nodded along absently. I'd touched him to try and rouse him and found that his skin was like ice. Ahmed's tiny wolf had crept up to lie alongside him. Trying to warm him up, no doubt. A few paces back, Bryn's dad was sat against a tree with a big, drowsy wolf lying across his lap. He was taking a hard-earned break, because he'd been carrying Bryn this whole time. The rest of us were passing the kids around between us to share the load. There were six of them.

Bryn himself was shivery but awake, and I was very glad to see that. He thumped his tail weakly when he saw me looking, as if to say he was okay. His wounds were mostly superficial, and his healing would take care of them soon enough.

But Matty ... he was not going to be so easy. If whatever was bleeding hadn't clotted by now, I doubted it ever would. I looked at our meagre pile of medical supplies, hoping for some inspiration. She was right. It was mostly bandages and gauze. I'd been rushing when I'd grabbed it all.

"We have some syringes," I said eventually. "That would work for a blood transfusion. It's not ideal, I know, but I think he'll die if we don't. I'm universal. So is Dad."

Fion eyed him for a long moment. I had no idea how she was finding the strength to help him, after what had happened to Poppy. "Alright. But he needs surgery. Sooner rather than later. I think most of the bleeding is internal now. Cassie would know. Hell, Cassie would be able to do it here and now with a knife and a fire."

I hadn't even noticed Mam watching on until she spoke up. "The nearest road is half a day's walk. That's where we're heading. All you need to do is keep him alive that long."

We could try. But even when we got to the road, we'd have to hitch a ride, which would take time, and we'd have to get him somewhere with medical facilities, which would be nearly impossible without walking him into a pack. But one problem at a time.

I opened the syringe packet. Frustratingly, we didn't know Matty's blood type. He was a kid — there had never been any reason to know it. And that meant we had to play it very, very safe when we were giving him blood. Dad and I were both close to universal, and we managed more than a litre between us — taken in little bits with reused needles, breaking every rule Seth had ever taught me.

Desperate times, desperate measures. And much like the saline, it didn't seem to help. We could have poured litres of blood into him without seeing a difference. He was losing it faster than we could replace it. But we had to try. Of course we had to try. He was ten years old, and he was dying.

***

We lost Matty in the night. He slipped away from us ever-so-quietly sometime before midnight. It was a few minutes before anyone even checked on him, and for all of our efforts to give chest compressions, he was already gone.

I'd thought I was numb earlier. But I was certainly feeling Matty's death. He had been old enough to understand that he was dying, and we'd had tears from him before he'd lost consciousness. No one talked much after he died. Not that we'd been talking much beforehand. We'd left him in a shallow rocky cave. It felt cold, and it felt wrong, but there was no time to build a pyre. Or even to bury him.

Hours later, I was almost too stiff to move. Once we'd lost the cover of the smoke, we'd started to walk in the stream to hide our scents. The rocks were slick and treacherous underfoot, and half of my family had shifted to make it easier to keep their balance. The other half trudged on with our shoes around our necks, carrying those who needed to be carried.

The sun was just beginning to come up when Liam nudged my arm. "I think we're stopping."

"Huh? Oh. Okay," I said. A glance back told me that everyone else was clambering onto the bank. Old Jeff, who had been steadily and patiently leading us for the better part of fifteen hours, swung his head back and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a meow.

I splashed towards the bank. There was a three-year-old clinging to me — one of the children from Emmett's raiding team. I'd had her for the last hour or so. She made me top-heavy, and I had to be very careful not to topple over as I clambered up the loose earth and collapsed in an ungainly heap at the top. I was too worn out even to arrange myself comfortably. She remained in my arms, sucking her thumb, too tired even to wander off.

Of all my problems, my feet were the biggest in that moment. They were painful even when I wasn't putting weight on them. The skin was tough after years of walking on the forest floor, but the stream was cold enough to have sucked all the feeling from my feet. They hurt in a dull, achy way that was hard to ignore.

I reached down to rub them and see if I couldn't warm them up a bit, but I couldn't actually feel my fingers on the icy, waxy skin. That scared me a little. They didn't feel like a part of my body anymore.

It was probably a few minutes of sitting there before someone nudged me gently from behind. I turned blearily to see Liam, offering me a folded Burdock leaf full of water. I just stared, too dumb to understand that I was supposed to take it, so he left it on my lap.

"I've had enough of water, actually," I said eventually in a voice that was much too quiet and much too hoarse. Just to illustrate my point, I nodded towards the stream. "Enough to last me a lifetime."

He sat down heavily beside me and just shook his head, evidently lacking the energy to think up a retort. "Drink it. You'll feel better."

I sighed at the leaf. "I doubt it somehow."

In fact, I was pretty sure that I would only feel better if I had a proper meal in front of me, if I could get a good night's sleep, or if five people came back from the dead. But dehydration would definitely make me feel worse. Even taking a sip felt like too much effort, but I did it. And that sip became several gulps.

Liam had stripped his jacket off. He had cleared a patch of earth, sweeping all the leaves aside, and now he was using a knife tip to cut the hem from his shirt. Even as I watched, he put the fabric aside and began shaping a short stick. It didn't take a genius to guess what he was doing.

"No flint?" I asked him.

"No," he said. "Not that I could see."

I watched for a little while longer. A few short, practised strokes of the knife, and he had a sharpened stake of sorts. He had to be as tired as I was. It was that knowledge alone that made me set the little girl down beside Aunty Fion and then go over to join him. I sat on my knees and helped make the 'bow.' It was a bent willow branch with two notches at each end to let us string it clumsily.

We had two knives between us all. And no lighters. No charcloth. Nothing to make our job the slightest bit easier. But yes, we did need a fire. More than a few of us were going to lose toes if we didn't get one soon. Me included, I'd wager. Our clothes needed to dry, because the wind was picking up, and most of the kids were shivering from head to foot because they hadn't been dressed to spend a night in the cold.

A few of the adults were gathering branches in the fringe of the trees. How they were finding the energy, I didn't know. My little brother came over with a handful of Silver Birch bark for us. His back was straight, and his eyes were solemn. He seemed to have grown up very, very quickly in the last day. I wondered if it would stick, or if it was just the shock.

It took a painstaking length of time to carve the three pieces of wood we needed. When the last one was done, I knelt up and leant my weight against the cap, holding the stake in place as Liam began to work the bow back and forth. Making fire from friction alone was not something we had to do often, and it took a huge amount of cooperation and patience for it to work.

The third time the little stake went spinning out of place, I swore filthily. I was too tired for this. Every mistake was another stab of frustration which tore its way through my gut.

"Gently," I snapped at Liam.

"Sorry."

We reset the stake. And the time it took was long enough for regret to well up inside me. He hadn't flinched, but I couldn't pretend like I hadn't seen him lower his eyes and tense up.

"No, I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm just tired. Let's go again. Just ... try to be a little less overpoweringly strong. I can only press so hard."

That earned me a tiny smile from him. And we started all over again. He had the harder job — there was no doubt about that. But he got it spinning again, and we managed a steadier pace this time. I tried to ignore the fact that everyone else had run out of things to do until the fire was started. They were all staring at us. And Hayden's eyes were widest of all.

"Keep it level," Mam said sharply. "Good. Nearly there."

We had smoke. And when Liam eased off, it was still rising from the tiny little coal we'd created. He placed it carefully into a bundle of birch bark. I watched on expectantly as he lifted it high and blew on the spark to wake it up.

It smoked for a while longer, but it didn't catch. He swore. I swore. And then we tried all over again. It was another few minutes before we had another coal and Liam was once again blowing on it. It took guts to keep your hands still when the flames started to take hold, but he did it, and when the whole thing was ablaze, he eased it into the waiting pile of twigs.

It was someone else's problem after that. Ellis came and fed it up into a proper fire. My parents brought the little kids closer to the flames. I just sat on the soft bed of leaves, leaving my toes near the flames to warm. I was so exhausted that even breathing was hard work.

Liam settled beside me. I let my head fall onto his shoulder, and his arm found its way around my side, pulling me closer still. The first sob took me by surprise. I managed to stifle the second, but I was crying all the same. I tried to be quiet about it. To my frustration, it only seemed to choke me up more.

It was inevitable that Liam had noticed. He didn't say anything, but I could feel his hand moving gently up and down my arm, soothing me. It would have been easier to stop crying if I'd had the slightest clue what it was about. But in all honesty, I didn't know, and I was past caring. There didn't seem to be anything in particular. It could have been exhaustion alone. But ... maybe Rhodri. The further we got from Haven, the more it seemed to be occurring to me that I was never going to see him again.

When I had calmed down a bit, we lay back on the leaves together. Every now and then, another little sob would force its way up my throat. But I could hear Liam's heartbeat beside me. It was faster than normal, but the longer I listened, the more it slowed to a nice, steady pace. I started to doze in that state that was neither true sleep nor wakefulness.

I would have thought hours had passed like that, but the sun was barely peeking over the horizon by the time I next moved. And even then, it was only to huff a sigh and roll over to appease a dead arm. Joel was back from scouting, apparently. And he was sat a little way off, his back against a tree, making a point not to look at where Liam and I lay. But he had been a little too slow to move his eyes away in the first place.

Old Jeff had crept very close to the fire. No one had bothered to dissuade him. He was lying flat out on his side, not two feet from me, his paws twitching in his sleep. Beyond him, Hayden was arguing with my mother. I'd been aware of it for a while, but I hadn't been tuned in until now, and only because their voices were getting louder and sharper. I would have preferred to ignore them.

"New Dawn is north of here," Mam was saying. "So we're heading that way, give or take a few miles. You'd do better to stay with us."

Hayden shook his head vigorously. "Not at this pace. Hannah needs to get home. And so do I. My pack can't be left unprotected."

Hannah was lying flat on her back beside him, utterly despondent. If it was about Rhodri, then I had very little sympathy for her. He'd been a brother to me. She'd known him a few weeks and hated him for all of that time. You didn't get to mourn for a soulmate if you rejected them. The more likely reason for her misery? We had no food with us, and in all the chaos, her insulin had been left behind. And that meant she was a ticking time bomb.

Mam had barely acknowledged that he'd spoken, but now there was a glint of menace in her eye that told me she had been plotting in that pause. "I know Riverside were part of the attack ... but was Jaden with them? It's important."

It was Liam who lifted his head then. "Yes. He was. I saw him."

"Well then," she said, the tiniest of smiles gracing her lips. "If Jaden is at Haven, he can't be at home, can he? You should go, pup. Get your fighters, march them over to Riverside, and take the pack house. We won't get another chance like this."

Hayden rubbed at the back of his neck, suddenly nervous. Why, I had no idea. It seemed easy enough for a tired and grumpy seventeen-year-old to lead an invasion on a neighbouring pack. "It'll take us hours to get there. He might be back by then."

"I doubt it," Mam replied dryly. "Like all the flockies, he's busy hunting us."

They didn't get a chance to argue any further, because Ollie came rushing into camp. And since it was safe to say that Ollie didn't rush anywhere when he had the choice, I sat up a little bit straighter. He'd been out scouting for the last hour. So I reckoned our luck might have run out.

"How are we doing?" Mam asked him.

"Not great," Ollie replied breathlessly. "There's no one on our trail, but I saw wolves from a hilltop. At least forty of them. Three miles back or more. They're heading this way, and they're looking worryingly purposeful about it."

I could hardly breathe, all of a sudden. We'd done everything perfectly. Hidden the scent trail. Come all this way. We'd pushed ourselves to breaking point. And they had still found us, and now it had all been for nothing, because we'd have to start from scratch.

Mam felt much the same way, if the look on her face was any indication. "Time we left, then. Are they casting for a scent?"

"That's the weird part. No."

"So they already know where we are," she said quietly. "How?"

"Probably the same way they found Haven," Nia piped up.

So ... maybe not Mal then. And maybe not Alpha Zach. But who did that leave? I knew there wasn't a traitor in this group. We were all rogues to our last breath. Well ... all of us except two.

Everyone was packing up around us. But I didn't see the point in rushing. With so many kids in tow, we couldn't go much faster than a jog. They would be running in wolf form at thirty miles an hour or more. We couldn't outrun them, so we would have to lose them, and we couldn't do that until we knew how they had found us so easily.

"Tell me none of you were stupid enough to bring a phone," Mam said. She seemed to be thinking along the same lines as me, which was very encouraging, because it usually meant I was being smart for once.

She was answered with a chorus of shaking heads. But it seemed I wasn't the only one who had some reservations about our flockie guests, because everyone's eyes seemed to land on Hayden and Hannah at the same time.

Hayden puffed himself up with indignation. "Goddess' sake. Why're you looking at me? Those wolves out there want me dead, in case you'd forgotten. And to be honest, the feeling's mutual. Why would I help them?"

Okay. He had a point. But he was still the most likely person here to have betrayed us. Him and Hannah, anyway. I was willing to entertain the possibility that it hadn't been deliberate. Because now I looked at him, it struck me, not for the first time, that he was the only one of us not wearing mismatched, oversized clothes from our bins. He was wearing a shirt and dress trousers. I sat up.

"Hayden," I asked slowly, "aren't those the same clothes you wore to the packmeet?"

He looked down at himself and then back at me in quick succession. "Yeah. Why?"

"Take them off," I said.

I'd never seen someone's eyes widen so quickly. Hayden took a rapid step backwards. "No?"

"Bloody do it. You'll have to shift anyway," Mam snapped. Evidently, she was out of patience. So I was a little wary when she turned to me next. "What are you thinking, kiddo?"

"His dad hugged him."

We had been planning to change his clothes and search him before taking him back to the camp, but in all the chaos, that had never happened. We'd been stupid to forget. But it had been intended to protect us against New Dawn and Jace, and they'd stopped being a threat the second his brother had put a knife in his back.

"This is such bullshit," Hayden muttered. But he did start unbuttoning his shirt.

Since we didn't have much time to waste, Mam sent my uncles and aunt off east with the kids. Emmett and Ryker went with them. They would get a head start, since they were so painstakingly slow on foot. Our makeshift camp seemed very empty without them all. It was just me, Liam, my parents, Nia and the flockies. And — of course — Joel, who had made a point of ignoring orders and staying exactly where he was.

While Hayden stripped off, Mam smothered the fire. In another few minutes, it would be light enough to see the smoke, and it would only draw them here all the faster.

We didn't have to get as far as Hayden's trousers, thankfully. I turned his collar up and found a small, flat black disc tacked in place there. I held it up to show him, my eyebrows raised accusingly. Already, anger was starting to get the better of me. We'd been careless in forgetting to search him, but I had assumed — reasonably enough — that Jace's plotting would have died with him.

"I didn't know that was there," Hayden blurted, eyes wide and panicked. "I swear to the Goddess, Eva. I didn't know. Dad must've—"

Mam cut him off before he could get very far. "Honestly, pup? I believe you. But the damage is done, isn't it? Your pack is that way. Leave now, and you should be home by breakfast time."

Hayden nodded after only a moment's hesitation. And despite Hannah's apparent apathy, she must have been listening, because she climbed to her feet now and began unbuttoning her shirt, ready to shift. They had a long run ahead of them. I didn't envy them. For once in my life, I was actually glad to be limiting my pace to a walk.

They were both in their fur when Dad stepped forwards all of a sudden, rubbing the back of his neck as he eyed my mother. "I'll go with them. To New Dawn."

She frowned at him, eyebrows furrowing. "You... What? Are you sure?"

"I grew up there. I know how to pass for a flockie. With a change of clothes, it'll be safe enough," Dad said. More quietly, he added, "I think Hayden could use some guidance. He's only a puppy."

Mam looked between them for quite a long time before she nodded. She wouldn't want him gone, of course. But she did recognise the logic of it. I did, too. I would have preferred that we all stuck together, but I reckoned Hayden needed my dad more than I did. He'd only just lost his.

I gave him a hug. Mam gave him a hug. And then I had to turn away, my nose wrinkling in disgust, because it turned to kissing at a frightening speed. And when I next looked back, I could only see a blur of grey pelt vanishing into the trees as he and Hayden and Hannah all took their leave. I slumped back down to the ground to steal another few moments of rest for my aching muscles.

My mother turned to look at the rest of us once Dad was gone. "Can we have some volunteers to run with the tracker? Preferably in the opposite direction that the rest of us are going? I'll warn you — it's not the safest of jobs..."

"I'll do it," Liam said, without even ... like ... hesitating.

Oh, come on. Didn't he realise that he was volunteering the both of us? I was hardly going to stay here without him. And normally, I'd have been raring for the chance to make the flockies chase me, but I was so worn out that even the idea of running was enough to make me want to puke.

Joel climbed to his feet and came forwards to join the rest of us. His eyes were firmly fixed on Liam. "And me."

Huh? What? Why? He hated Liam. There was no reason for him to volunteer for this. Maybe he was planning on killing him. Maybe he was just getting kicks out of confusing us. Or maybe he knew, bastard that he was, that there was no quicker way to make me sign up. I could hardly leave the pair of them alone together. And I was already holding the tracker...

Slowly, painstakingly, I forced myself to stand up again. My entire body felt like molten lead. But chances were, all of us felt that way. Someone had to cause the diversion. And it might as well be the youngest and liveliest of us. I caught Mam's eye and gave her a tiny nod.

"Good," she said. "The three of you, then. Make sure you leave them a nice scent trail. But please ... be careful. We can't lose anyone else. Not today."

"Tomorrow, then," I muttered without amusement. She didn't hear it, but someone else had. I felt a huge weight against my back. Two weights, to be specific. And then I heard a strange sound like snuffling around my neck.

"Oh, shit, it's behind me, isn't it?" I breathed. I got slow nods from the others. I didn't dare move. My instincts were to dart away and turn the knife on my attacker, but that would have been nothing short of suicidal.

Cautiously, I turned my head to see a massive green eye not two inches from my face. The big cat blinked at me, and then he pressed his skull against mine and began impressing his scent upon me. There was sleek, dark fur tickling the back of my neck, making me cringe. Once he was done, he dropped down to all fours again and stretched from head to tail, looking oddly satisfied.

"I think he likes you, Eva," Nia said dryly. It was lacking all of her usual energy. "Do you want to take him with you?"

I shook my head very vigorously. No, I did not want Jeff coming with us. I didn't want to be within a mile of him after what I'd seen. It didn't matter that he had the temperament of a well-fed house cat now. It didn't matter that what he'd done had probably saved all of our lives. I didn't know how he'd done it.

She just gave me a dramatic and sad little sigh. "Oh well. Come on, Jeff. Let's go somewhere we're wanted."

And they did. They all did. And I was left with two boys who'd rip each other to shreds given half a chance.

***

I swore quietly as yet another bramble tore the soft skin of my foot. I wanted to put my shoes on desperately, but the bank of the stream was so overgrown that we were being forced to keep crossing back and forth. And once shoes were wet, you could never get them dry.

We would have strayed further from the stream, but the undergrowth on all sides was equally thick. I could have sworn the brambles delighted in making themselves into impenetrable walls. And the wolves behind grew closer by the minute. We'd left them a nice, clear trail. They were following bloody footprints and the stench of urine and no doubt the tracker that I clutched in my palm. The aim was to make it stupidly easy for them, so that they would chase us and not the rest of the family.

"Do you hear that?" Liam asked. "I think it's the road."

I did try listening, but I didn't dare stop walking to do it. So all I heard, for quite a long time, was the sound of my own footsteps crunching on the dry leaves and the gurgling of the stream. But soon enough, I picked up a new sound. A faint rushing that came and went as the cars passed by.

"Thank the Goddess," I muttered. "Maybe we can catch a lift."

"I doubt it. We're all covered in blood."

"Oh. Yeah. Do you think they'll notice?"

Liam turned to eye me. "I think it's a possibility."

Our unwanted guest brushed past us both, clipping my shoulder as he passed. "Why don't you look where you're stepping, flockies? Wouldn't want you to fall on your pretty arses."

"I thought I told you to shut up," I snapped.

"You did. And I told you to go screw yourself, but that hasn't happened either," Joel retorted, grinning. This was all a game to him, probably, but I didn't see it that way. I didn't want him with us.

The way he was eyeing Liam, over and over, told me that we didn't have long before they came to blows again. And if it happened in wolf form, I wasn't sure what chance I had of separating them. They were both a lot bigger than I was, and there was no Nia to put the cocksure young raider in his place afterwards.

So ... maybe I would just have to do it myself. I was so done, so fed up, and so tired that I didn't have any of my usual inhibitions. And so, without even ... like ... hesitating, I pulled Liam to a halt and stood on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. He listened, his eyebrows rising with every fresh word that came out of my mouth.

"Will you?" I asked him.

He gave me the slightest of nods. "If you think it'll help."

"Do you think it'll help?"

Liam looked at Joel, then back at me. He shook his head. But it didn't matter. He would still help me, and I was still of the belief that anything was worth a try at this point. A heartbeat later, our moment of privacy was gone again. Joel had stopped walking abruptly.

The stream ahead had been swallowed by the shadow of an old stone bridge. The road sat on top of it. It was not very tall, so the channel where the stream passed beneath was gloomy and uninviting, but I could see a tiny bank there. And it was that bank I headed towards, passing both Liam and Joel as I went.

"Enough walking," I said. "They've clearly taken the bait. We need to shift and start running."

"Where are we running to?" Joel asked dryly.

Good question. We needed to go back to Silver Lake. The entire pack was useless without us to steer them aggressively into the pack war. But Silver Lake was not exactly nearby. We'd have to find ourselves a car if we wanted to get there in time to do anything useful. So for now, I didn't mind if we headed in the opposite direction.

Liam had caught up with me already. "We could just wave down a car and say we were attacked by some jackass with a knife or some shit. It would save us having to run."

I shook my head quickly as I clambered across the slippery stones and into the shadow of the bridge. "Don't want the police talking to us. I ran from them a few weeks back, and I don't think they'll have forgotten it."

I sat down heavily on the sandy bank, heedless that it was probably ruining my trousers. It was colder than it had any right to be in the little hollow. The air was frigid and had a bite to it, and the sand was so icy that it seemed to seep through my clothes and take the feeling from my backside.

Joel sat down alongside me and rubbed at the back of his neck ruefully. "Yeah, I've got an outstanding warrant for assault and battery. And also possession. And ... I think shoplifting? So let's not do that."

"Bloody hell. You've been busy, haven't you?" I muttered. "No humans, then. We'll just have to run for it. Let's go under the road and keep going straight. See where we end up."

Joel grunted his assent. He got up, turning around and reaching up to grab the hem of his shirt, ready to pull it over his head. He was going to shift. I had no such intentions. But I stood up anyway.

Liam had only been waiting for Joel to turn his back. He moved faster than he had any right to and caught him in an iron grip — arms pinned behind him. I wasn't much slower. I took a handful of Joel's shirt collar in one hand and drew my knife with the other. Together, we wrestled him down onto his knees and from there onto his stomach. He was breathing hard and so caught off guard that he'd barely managed to fight us.

His face was barely an inch from the water, and he couldn't lift it any higher than that without my knife breaking his skin. I was holding it to the back of his neck. It was, perhaps, not the most honourable way to do this. But I wasn't in the mood to be fair or tactful today.

"You bitch. What are you—"

"Stop wriggling. And just listen," I told him. "There's two of us. And one of you. You'd do well to remember that when you're walking around like you're the Goddess's own gift to shifter-kind."

Joel seemed to have got over his surprise. He used some of the filthiest language I had ever had the misfortune of hearing, and then he sent an elbow flying backwards, clipping Liam across the jaw. It didn't do anything to help him escape, but it did piss me off.

I put his face down into the water. I held him there for just a second or two before I let him up again. It would have been longer, because I wanted to properly scare him, but Liam was watching, and I was only just remembering a conversation about him being half-drowned as a kid.

Joel came up coughing and spluttering and very indignant.

"I said listen, because I'm only going to say this once," I snapped. "I've had enough of you picking fights for the sake of it. If you lay as much as a finger on Liam, I'm going to kill you in your sleep. Got it?"

He opened his mouth again, and more words came out, but they sounded a good deal more like swearing than assent. I pressed the knife harder against his neck and broke the skin there. That got him to quiet down a bit. I saw his throat bob.

"I said got it?"

I was crouched beside him so he could see me properly. He could see that I meant every word of it. I didn't enjoy meeting his stare. It was far too appreciative for my liking, considering that I was holding a knife to his throat.

I remembered Rhodri telling us that Hannah was hot when she was angry. I also remembered us figuring out that it had a lot more to do with the fact that it was the only time she paid him the slightest bit of attention. It felt like a long time ago now. But somehow, I didn't think Joel's psyche was much different. This ... well, it was the most attention I'd given him in a long time.

"Got it," Joel said quietly. His eyes were still firmly fixed on mine, and it was beginning to make my skin crawl. "Now tell him to get the hell off me."

He had sounded sincere enough. I gave Liam a little nod, and he let go of Joel. He did it in a fairly civil way — yanking him up onto his knees rather than letting him fall face-first into the stream. And then he turned away to shift. We didn't have any more time to waste, I'd wager. Our pursuers hadn't been all that far behind us.

Once I was in my fur, the cold breeze that had been raising hordes of Goosebumps on my arms seemed to roll right off me. I used my teeth to put my clothes and shoes carefully into a plastic bag, the tracker nestled amongst them, and then I clamped my jaws around it. And although I had passed the point of exhaustion hours before, although the shock of the day still made me feel like I was walking underwater, I crossed beneath the bridge and began my run.

***

The third time I stumbled, I stayed down, my legs crumpled beneath me. Only a heartbeat passed before I felt Liam's muzzle pressing into my belly, urging me to get up again. The flockies were close enough that we could see their forerunners, and it had been that way for hours now. They were fresher than we were, and it was all we could do to stay ahead of them, let alone outrun them.

I yielded to that gentle pressure on my side, gathering my legs beneath me once more and returning to a grudging trot.

All day we'd been running. We'd had no sleep, no breaks longer than a minute or two, and nothing to eat save for a few snuffled blackberries. They had been horribly unripe, and I'd felt ill afterwards. Now, the light was fading, and we were all close to dropping.

I would have ditched the tracker hours ago, but it didn't feel like that would help. Our scent trail was glaringly obvious. And there was no point jumping into a river when they could literally see us. It was beginning to feel like it would be impossible to shake them.

"They're forever driving us east," Joel said through the link. He probably meant to sound curious, but exhausted as he was, it came out as simple indifference.

"Because they know who we are," Liam replied, "and they know that if we reach Silver Lake, it's over for them."

The truth was, I'd given up on reaching Silver Lake a long time ago. The wolves behind us had been clever in their chase. Whenever we tried to turn to our right, we found them there, waiting and mocking us. We didn't dare go south, for fear of running onto Lowland territory, so we were left with east. The most useless direction of them all. It would take us into human settlements and the tourist-infested part of the National Park.

Joel snorted. "They know who you are alright. It's why they're keeping their distance. They're flockies, and they're pissing themselves at the thought of fighting an Alpha. They want us good and tired before they try it."

Well, if that was the case, then they'd succeeded. In our current state, we would only manage to kill a handful of them before they overwhelmed us. Another few hours of running, and we wouldn't even manage that much. Wolves weren't persistence predators, but humans were. They knew that if they were patient enough, they'd catch us eventually.

We were coming down the crest of a hill, and I could see further than usual. My burnt-out muscles appreciated the tiny helping hand that gravity was able to offer. I was trying to look at the lay of the land and watch where I was putting my paws at the same time, and it was not going well.

"I think we're closer to Wyst than Lowland now," I said through the link.

Joel swung his head around without breaking stride. "We're right bloody next to Wyst. I can smell the stench of it from here."

"Then let's go to Wyst. We have clothes, and as far as I can tell, our friends back there don't," I replied, even as I sniffed at the oncoming breeze, checking for that hint of warm garbage and air pollution that clung to every human town. He was right.

"I thought you said no humans."

"We can't keep this up much longer," I retorted. "The way I see it, we can let them run us down and end the day by being torn apart, or we can risk being thrown in jail. Which'd you rather, numbskull?"

Silence. I noticed I'd had no arguments from Liam. He was probably as desperate as I was by now.

We didn't have any time to waste, so I bumped my shoulder against Joel's impatiently. "Well?"

"I'm thinking," he snapped.

Idiot. I turned towards Wyst without hesitation, knowing that he didn't have much choice but to follow me. The wolves behind us certainly followed. Once we stopped and started shifting, we would have less than a minute before they formed up into a group and started attacking, so I figured it would be good to lose sight of them.

The woods ended quite abruptly up ahead. I could see the break in the treeline well enough, and to my surprise, a tall iron fence beyond it. That would work in our favour. If we could reach it without getting caught.

I broke into a lope before the pack wolves behind us could spot the fence and panic. I pressed my body against Liam's as I ran, guiding him to the right to be sure they didn't catch sight of the fence until it was too late. We ended up in a tangle of dense undergrowth. The brambles tore at us, ripping new wounds into yesterday's scabs.

We kept going. Another fifty metres. One hundred. One hundred and fifty. We'd twisted and turned so many times in the thorns that I was sure the flockies were wandering around frustrated with their noses to the ground. Liam and Joel and I ended up packed into a tiny little hollow, walled on all sides by thick leaves and branches. I could see the top of the fence poking up above a hawthorn bush.

And then, heart pounding, I shifted. It was a race to get dressed. Trousers and then a t-shirt pulled haphazardly over my head. I didn't bother with anything else. The bloodstains were huge and damning, even if they had dried to brown. So I rubbed a handful of mud over the worst of them.

Liam was forging a path to the fence. The brambles were so thick that we could scarcely move our legs. I needed my hands free, so I threw my bag over the fence. There would be plenty of time for shoes later. Right now, we had no time.

I could hear urgent hunting whines behind us and even the faint sound of twigs snapping. It wouldn't be long now.

"Shit," I breathed. "Hurry up."

There was one hazel branch that was too thick to snap. Liam and Joel had to clamber over it. I ducked beneath. And when I glanced back over my shoulder, just to check that we were still safe, I found that we weren't.

A wolf stood in the entrance to our thicket, staring at us with wide eyes. One paw was lifted, as if he had paused mid-step in his astonishment to see us shifted and so close to escaping him. I swore and lurched forwards, desperate to get over the fence before he attacked us from behind.

Joel was up and over the fence in seconds. We climbed more formidable barriers when we were raiding. Liam was waiting, though. Waiting to help me. I could have done it, given time, but the crossbar was at the very tip of my reach.

I jumped up to grab at it. My heart was beating so fast that I had adrenaline on my side when it came to forcing my tired, aching muscles to haul myself up. And then Liam hoisted me the rest of the way before starting the climb himself.

I fell down the other side of the fence, landing awkwardly on the edge of a concrete block. I groaned as pain exploded in my side. I could scarcely bring myself to roll away from the thing and put myself in a more comfortable position.

Liam had got halfway up before the wolf had closed his jaws around his calf. He was stuck there now, the extra eighty kilos of weight making him fight to stay in place, let alone climb any higher. I didn't think. I just scrambled forwards to reach the place where my bag fallen, to reach the knife inside it—

Joel didn't stop to think either. He reached through the fence and grabbed hold of the wolf's strained hindleg. He yanked it through the bars, and then he twisted it in the wrong direction until I heard a blood-curdling snap. The wolf released Liam to let out a strangled yelp before collapsing into a pitiful heap.

His friends were a few seconds too late arriving. By the time they got to the fence, Joel had reached over the top and used a handful of Liam's shirt to help pull him over. Liam fell heavily, knocking Joel down with him, but it was okay because there was now an eight-foot fence between us and the flockies.

We were safe. I abandoned my search for the knife and just lay back for a moment. A burst of wild laughter overcame me. The flockies paced up and down the fence furiously. Some tried to jump up, only to fall back down again, yelping. The one with the broken leg hadn't stopped screaming about it yet. Finally, they settled for snarling at us.

"Thanks," Liam said quietly. He'd managed to sit himself up, and he was now panting as he eyed the pack wolves.

Joel rolled over onto his back and blew out hard. A grin was creeping across his lips. For once, it seemed, they were both too worn out to remember that they didn't get along.  "You're welcome, flockie."

The wolves on the other side of the fence were starting to give up. A few had slunk away. A few more were trying to drag their wounded friend back into the undergrowth. If they wanted to get to us, they would have to climb the fence one at a time. And stark naked. It seemed like none of them were in a hurry to try it. I was very glad of that — I didn't think I had the energy for a fight.

Hell, even breathing seemed to hurt. It took me a while to notice that, but when I did, I lifted the hem of my shirt and found that there was a vicious-looking graze across my stomach from the fall. The skin was already reddening beneath it. But I'd live.

It was only then, much too late, that it occurred to me to wonder where we were. There were raised flowerbeds all around us, overgrowing with dandelions and the odd rosebush. A twisty paving-stone path ran alongside it. Beyond that, I could see a trellis that was beginning to collapse under the weight of a ludicrous amount of ivy.

I shuffled to one side, craning my neck to see around the trellis. And to my horror, there was a terrace of houses there. Fences on both sides of us. And an empty washing line was barely two feet from where I was sat. This was Bad with a capital 'b.'

We were in someone's garden. Covered in blood. And nearly too exhausted to move.