Yes, this is a day late, but it's twice the length of a normal chapter, so I'll just assume I'm forgiven. Welcome to Pakistan, Denmark, Sweden and Indonesia :)

Sam came around the corner. His trolley was nearly overflowing with food, so he'd done better than me. He stopped just beside the Tesco employee and plastered on a tired smile. "What's going on?"

"Are these your children, sir?"

"No, they're my brothers," Sam said. "Adopted — if you're wondering about the resemblance. Is their word good enough, or do we have to go and fetch their birth certificates?"

We definitely did not have their birth certificates, so this had better work. The man glanced between Sam and the boys and me, his eyes narrowing. He'd clearly given up on all four of us.

"They're disagreeing, actually," he sighed.

Sam caught Matty's eye and held it. "Have you been telling lies again, kiddo?"

Matty wasn't scared of him. No one was scared of him — he was a big teddy bear. No, Sam got his obedience by emotional blackmail, and it worked every single damn time. Even as I watched, Matty began to fiddle with the zip of his jacket and shift his weight from foot to foot.

"Yeah, we have," the boy muttered. He turned to the human with a sheepish smile. "Can we go now?"

"I suppose so," he said. "But if I hear another disturbance, I'll have to ask you to leave."

"They aren't going to make a sound," Sam promised. He took the boys by their collars and marched them towards me. I caught handfuls of their jackets and turned them around, ready for our escape. With my body as cover, I knocked their heads together, which only made them laugh, of course.

"Ha," Poppy shouted at them. "Shit brains."

The Tesco employee frowned at her, but we were already heading down the aisle. We were pretty damn far from the cheese section. Sam and I were going as fast as we could without drawing attention to ourselves. The boys followed at our heels of their own accord, nearly tripping over their own feet as they tried to keep up.

"I hope you're proud of yourselves," I told them. "There's flockies here."

"Really?" Ahmed demanded, looking far too excited for my liking. "Awesome."

"We can help," Matty insisted. "We can fight 'em."

"No, you can't," Sam said sternly. "If anyone throws a punch, you two are going to take Jess and Poppy to the nearest humans and look pathetic."

Matty and Ahmed exchanged dismayed looks. "We are not."

"Yes, you are, or you can explain to Skye that the girls got hurt because you were too busy playing at being raiders."

Twin groans. They didn't complain again, though — underneath all the bullshit, they were good kids.

"What's the plan?" I asked Sam.

"You're the only raider here, Eva. You're in charge," he told me. "So ... what is the plan?"

I winced. I didn't like being in the spotlight much — dangerous situations weren't half as fun when you were the one responsible for getting everyone out in one piece. "I was thinking we could just bail...?"

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"What? It's Bryn. Give him five minutes and they'll be feeding him cookies and milk."

"It's Bryn," Sam said, wincing. "He's going to get his pretty head smashed in."

"And would that be so awful?" I leaned on my trolley and let it carry me for a few steps. "I've had a headache since the day he was born."

He looked at me sternly. "Eva..."

"Alright, fine, whatever," I grumbled. "Have we got a phone?"

"Nope. Jess broke mine last week."

Brilliant. The flockies would have a phone. They'd have back-up on the way already, and their back-up was a lot closer than ours. We had sleepers in most packs, but I'd never met any of them. Still, maybe they'd hear that there were rogues cornered in Wyst and tell my mam. It wasn't worth betting on.

I closed my eyes and tried to mind-link home, but Wyst was miles and miles away, and I couldn't even reach Fion. She would have been able to reach me, of course, but she wasn't due to check in for another half an hour at least. Nia was down near Ember — closer, but still too far. Rhodri and Liam were in the east and utterly unreachable. We were on our own.

We passed the ready meals, and I could see rows of milk cartons ahead, so I lifted a hand to slow Sam, and the two of us peered down the next aisle.

Bryn had his back to a display of mild cheddar. His hands rested on his little sister's shoulders to stop her flying at the flockies. They were crowded around in a rough semi-circle to deter any attempts to make a run for it. All five of them were built like fighters, and their scent told me they were Shadowless, which was bad. Shadowless had executed rogues even before we'd gone to war.

If I'd been with Rhodri and Liam, I would have been confident of winning, so I would've happily thrown the first punch. But Bryn was only sixteen, Sam wasn't even a raider, and we had the kids with us.

Bryn had been right — the flockies were definitely in a mood. The chunkiest of them was holding a six-pack of beer, and it was him who was getting right in my cousin's face. He had dark hair and golden-brown eyes and couldn't have been older than twenty.

"We're going to take a walk outside now, little rogue, and we're going to teach you to respect your betters," he told Bryn in a voice that was somehow both sarcastic and deadly serious.

Shit, I dreaded to think what Bryn might have been saying to them. His inherent likeability was occasionally outweighed by the smartass streak which seemed to run in his family. You'd think he might give it a rest, outnumbered as he was, but nope.

"I think the hell not," Bryn retorted. "I like it in here. Nice and warm and full of witnesses."

The flockie smirked. "Looks like we got ourselves a coward, lads."

"Five against one and I'm the coward?"

"Rogues are all cowards — everyone knows that. Anyway, I wasn't asking," he said, and then he lifted the side of his shirt to show Bryn the gun tucked into his waistband.

"Oh, you're strapped? In a supermarket? That's real brave, that is," Bryn muttered. "What were you going to use it on? A slice of Brie?"

Goddess, as much as I loved this boy, he needed to stop talking. Flockies hated us enough as it was — they didn't need provocation. The humans watching were all that was saving him at the moment, and even that wouldn't last long if he kept running his mouth.

The leader passed the beer to one of his friends, who dumped it beside a box of mozzarella. He then took a fistful of Bryn's shirt and used it to strangle him. My cousin couldn't do a damn thing without letting go of Jess, and if he did that, she'd get herself punched for sure.

"There's nothing I hate more," the flockie said, "than rogues who try to be clever."

So, of course, Bryn tried to be clever again. He strung together a very creative rhyming verse of swearwords, and I'd certainly have decked him if he'd said it to me, so the flockies' self-restraint was ... impressive.

"We're gonna have to wash out that mouth of yours with bleach, pup," he growled. "Did it to one of your friends last week — man, you should have heard the screams."

Oh dear. This was my cue. Plan or not, I'd have to wing this one, because I couldn't wait any longer.

"Right, Sam, you're going to stay with the kids," I whispered. "Literally just stand here. I don't care if they start tearing us into bloody shreds. Don't let the bastards see you."

"Can I just say I hate this plan already?"

"You can, but I'm not likely to listen." I held out my knife. "Oh, and you'd better take this."

He didn't move to accept it. "There's five of them, kiddo. You're going to need it."

"Nah." I slipped the blade into his pocket and, after a moment's thought, I did the same with my lighter. And then I sidled up to the nearest human — a woman who was frowning at the gang of packlings because they were blocking her route to the Wensleydale.

"They've got a gun," I told her in an undertone. "Call the police."

Her eyes went wide, her jaw dropping. "I... What?"

"I ain't kidding. Tell them to leave the sirens off. They might get spooked and start shooting," I said. "You know what'd be best? If you kept your mouth shut and pretended like you're just browsing the yoghurt selection, yeah?"

The woman stared at the men and bit her lip. "I'm not... I don't..."

"Can you do that for me?" I asked, squeezing her hand to regain her attention.

"Yes, I think so."

I released her, already moving forwards. "Awesome."

Three more steps, and I was right behind the flockies. I rammed my trolley into the closest man's backside, making him jump half a mile.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I exclaimed. "I didn't see you there."

They turned fast enough to make themselves dizzy. Some of them took an involuntary sniff of the air between us, trying to work out if I was a clumsy human or a threat. Their faces scrunched up in disgust, so I imagined I smelt of earth and blood and wood smoke — very, very rogue.

"Another one! This day is getting better and better," the leader exclaimed. "Hello, sweetheart. Come and join your friend."

I stayed exactly where I was but let the trolley roll a few yards. "Can I get the kid out of here first?"

"Alright," he said, which was ... surprisingly nice. "We're not monsters. But if you get any clever ideas about running, darling, you're not going to live to regret it."

"Cheers," I said. "That's super reasonable of you, that is."

I slipped between the flockies and bumped shoulders with Bryn. I could actually feel some of the tension drain out of him, and he managed a smile as I took Jess from him. I used her as cover to slip my hand into his pocket and nick his knife and lighter, too. If he noticed, he didn't show it.

Jess was stronger than she looked, honestly, and it wasn't easy dragging her away from the pack wolves when all she wanted to do was fight them. She tried to bite me. I barely snatched my hand out of the way in time, and I swore at her under my breath as her teeth snapped together.

"Five," the flockie called.

I rounded the corner and almost knocked into Sam's trolley in my hurry. I gave Bryn's knife and lighter to Sam, whose face was pinched with worry. As for Jess ... she hadn't settled yet, so I picked her up and dumped her into the trolley. She could climb out, of course, but it would be easier for Sam to stop her.

"Stay here," I reminded him through the link, squeezing his hand.

"Four."

"I don't like this," he told me. "You two are going to get your dumb asses shot."

"Better my ass than my heart," I laughed.

"Three."

He shook his head. "I'm serious, Eva."

"Hi, serious, I'm—"

"Two..." the flockie growled.

"Shit, shit, better hustle," I muttered, then hurried back around the corner.

"One," he said as I stopped alongside his friends. One of them rested an oh-so-friendly hand on my arm and dug his fingernails into my skin. "Good girl. That's what we like to see. Come a little closer, yeah?"

I shook off the flockie and stepped forwards. The ranks closed behind me. The leader used my belt to drag me closer, and he patted me down. Pockets, waistband, boots — the usual places to hide a switchblade. If I made it into a flockie holding cell, I knew I'd be strip-searched, just to be thorough, but I was kinda hoping it wouldn't get that far.

Bryn was looking to me for an example, I was showing him flawless cooperation. I was showing him subtle delaying tactics. I was showing him calmness and composure. So, when they searched him, he squirmed around and made life difficult, but he didn't clock any of them.

"No knives?" one of the guys laughed. "Well, that was stupid, weren't it?"

"They're always saying don't bring a knife to a gun fight," I explained.

"Yeah. You're supposed to bring a gun, but you ain't done that either, you bloody halfwits," he snickered.

I blinked at him. "We were on a food shop, not headed to a bloody rumble."

"Be quiet, Wesley. They're trying to buy time, and we're not going to let them," the boss snapped. Just my luck to get one of the few smart flockies. He leaned in very close, until I could feel his hot breath on my face. It smelt like garlic bread. "Walk."

I just stared at him. There were dozens of pack fighters like this. They got all excited whenever they had power over a female, and that made them weird and flirty. It also made them easy to control. They were usually too busy staring at my boobs to see the knife in my hand.

He stepped around me, so he was standing at my back, and there aren't words to describe how uncomfortable that was. And with flockies on all sides, there was no point turning. I had to stand there, my spine arching involuntarily and my chin held high, as something cold and solid dipped beneath my shirt and came to rest on my hipbone.

Honestly, I couldn't resist. "Is that a gun or are you just real happy to—"

He twisted my arm behind my back, and I heard a distinct click, so I shut up pretty quick.

"I said walk," he snarled.

This time, I didn't dare disobey. Not when he could shred my guts with one twitch of his finger.

"Nice and slow," he said in my ear. "That's it. Hands in your pockets."

Behind me, Bryn was making a nuisance of himself. He reached down and snatched a packet of Cheestrings from the display. Two of the flockies shoved him, and then proceeded to keep shoving him for the rest of the way, because he was too busy eating his Cheestrings to walk at a reasonable pace. I didn't dare drag my feet while I could feel the icy metal against my back.

We reached the foyer, then the automatic doors which opened into the car park. We all paused there, because there was a steady pitter-patter on the roof above us, and the afternoon sky had turned stormy grey.

"It's spitting, mate," I pointed out. "Still wanna go outside?"

Even as we watched, the wind picked up and the rain started coming down in drenching sheets.

His grip tightened on my arm. "I do, yeah. Walk or die."

"I choose death," Bryn said. He still had a mouthful of cheese, so the words were barely discernible, but I regret to inform you that he was entirely serious about it.

"Take those damned things away," the leader growled.

"Sorry, boss," the nearest man muttered. He clouted my cousin around the head and snatched the packet from him. They ended up spilling onto the ground. Bryn frowned down at them with a hurt, puzzled expression which could have won him an Oscar all by itself.

"Stop screwing around," the ringleader snapped. "You think I won't shoot her?"

Oh, I was sure he wouldn't shoot me. Not in a crowded supermarket. Bryn kind of shrugged, but he did let the flockies push him out of the door and into the drizzle, so he must have placed some value on my life, I guess.

"I'll go, but I want my hood up," I sighed.

"Sure thing. We wouldn't want you getting your hair wet, darling."

Creep. And, just to make matters worse, he pulled my hood up for me, letting his fingers brush against the back of my neck. I started walking into the rain just to put some distance between us.

"I need to piss," Bryn whined. "All this water ... it ain't helping."

"Then you can wet yourself, can't you?" the flockie laughed.

I stopped walking. Here was an opportunity to buy a minute or two. "I need to go, too."

He stopped with me, and his friends followed his example. "You can go, sweetheart, but one of us will have to ... supervise."

My cousin spat on the ground and called him something impolite. That earned him another clout.

"That's so weird," I said dryly. "I've changed my mind."

The gun dug into my back hard enough to bruise. "That's a bloody shame, that is. Keep walking."

So much for buying time. The police station was just down the road, but the firearms unit would have to drive in from Bangor, probably, and that was twenty minutes away. I wasn't entirely sure they'd arrive before we got loaded into a car.

They took us around the side of the building, where the car park was nearly empty. The few people who were going past took one look at us, the seven youths who just screamed 'trouble,' and they turned their heads away and walked a little bit faster. We'd get no help from them.

I could see a Range Rover with tinted windows parked sloppily to our left. It looked like a classic pack car. Five men, five seats. They couldn't take us to Shadowless without leaving some of their friends here, at the mercy of any rogue reinforcements. So we would have to wait for another car to arrive, and that might just save our lives.

Bryn was shoved against the wall and held there. The flockie leader put me next to him, and finally, he let go of my arm, leaving it bruised and numb. But now my shoulder blades were scraping the bricks and my wolf was getting upset that we were cornered. She wanted to make a run for it, but there was still a gun pointed at me, and my cousin wouldn't have been able to keep up.

"Zach's on his way," the guy told us. "Have you met Zach? You'll like him."

No, I hadn't technically met Zach Lloyd, but I had seen him from a distance. And I was very, very sure that I wouldn't like him. However, on the bright side, I did now know that this random douchebag was not so random, after all. He was the Shadowless Beta. No one else would dare call an Alpha by his first name.

"You sure?" Bryn asked dryly. If I recalled correctly, his family had a bit of a history with Zach's father, but the tenuous friendship there had turned to bitter hatred in more recent years. These guys had no way of knowing that, though.

"Well, maybe not if you're Haven. Show us some skin, love," the Beta drawled, and I pulled down my collar. "Bit lower... Keep going."

I rolled my eyes skyward. My tattoo had been visible after the first centimetre, so his motives were fairly obvious. The collar stayed exactly where it was, and he had to overcome his disappointment. I felt rough fingers on my throat, probing at the ink for no reason at all.

"Nice, the chick is Haven. Check the boy."

One of them nearly strangled Bryn to get a look at his collarbone, but there was nothing to see.

"Nah, he's clean."

The guy frowned. "How come? Don't like needles?"

"He's not inked because he's a kid," I told him sharply.

"He don't look like a kid. He looks... You know what? I'd say he looks like a Llewellyn," the Beta said. "And that makes him fair game, as far as I'm concerned."

Oh dear. Bryn was classic Llewellyn, it was true — light-brown hair, hazel eyes and unfairly tall — but it was rare for a flockie to make the connection. He really did have something between his ears, and more's the pity.

"Lew-what now?" Bryn asked nervously. These were pretty high stakes — if he couldn't convince them they were wrong, his death would take days. Of course, Zach Lloyd would come along and take one look at him and know the truth, but he had to try.

"You're not helping your case, pup. There ain't a rogue in all of Wales who hasn't heard of the Llewellyns."

He shook his head. "I'm not real good with names. Are they the ones who broke a hundred rogues out of Corwen and killed the Silver Lake Alpha a few years back?"

The Beta narrowed his eyes. "Yes, they are."

"Damn. They sound awesome, don't you think?" he murmured. "Proper role models."

"I don't, actually." He took a step closer to me and regarded me like a piece of meat. "Let's have your names."

"Gilbert," my cousin sighed.

He had to use a fake name. He was named after a famous raider, and it was safer not to advertise that. Rhodri had to do the same. But me? No one knew who the hell I was. Go back a generation and my grandparents on both sides were boring packlings.

"Gilbert Llewellyn, I take it," the Beta muttered.

"Nah, I'm flattered, don't get me wrong, but I'm more own-brand cornflakes than Kellogs."

The Beta snorted to demonstrate exactly how far he believed that. When he was done, he raised his eyebrows at me.

"Eva," I drawled.

"Hi, Eva. I'm Kieran."

And, with that, he took my hand, pulled a Sharpie from his pocket and wrote a phone number on the skin stretching between my index finger and my wrist. I watched with raised eyebrows and unmasked amusement. It tickled quite a lot.

"In case you repent your rogue ways and become a respectable female," he said, and then leant very close and grinned. "Or you're just looking for a good time, I guess."

He wasn't hard on the eyes, but he was also full of himself and more than a little creepy, so I reckoned I'd pass on that offer. But no reason to tell him that — I was delaying, not looking to fast-track a beating. "What's the point? Your prick Alpha is going to have me executed."

"Not if his Beta asks him very nicely."

"Oh, that guy, right?" I asked, nodding at the tallest of the group.

Kieran's face hardened. He wasn't much older than eighteen, so he was new to this job and probably very insecure about it. A growl rumbled deep in his chest, and the guy I'd picked out shuffled from foot to foot, eyes wide.

"No, me, sweetheart."

"Really?" Bryn asked, his jaw hanging agape. "No offence, man, but you don't strike me as the authority figure type."

The Beta turned towards him, one eyebrow cocked. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just ... I dunno, just not getting the vibe, or whatever."

Kieran tucked the gun into his waistband, horribly calm, and went up to my cousin and threw a vicious, hateful punch at his ribs. Bryn doubled over, gasping, but there were two flockies to keep him still as the next punch fell .... and the next, and the next.

I felt my blood heating. If it had been almost anyone else, I might have been able to stand still. Most of the older rogues could take a beating and look bored about it. Bryn hadn't gotten the hang of that yet. It was like watching someone kick a puppy — his eyes were all reproachful, like he was losing a little more faith in humanity every time he took a hit.

"How about now?" Kieran asked pleasantly. "Getting the vibe yet?"

"Nope ... just ... a whole bunch of sadism," Bryn wheezed.

Another punch. This one caught the bridge of his nose, and Bryn let out a breathless groan. With the amount of blood there, it had to be broken.

"I told you — he's just a kid," I snapped. "Leave him alone."

Kieran halted one of his punches mid-swing and turned his head to glower at me. "Do you want to be next?"

Man, you could tell he hadn't met many rogues. I shoved the nearest flockie back a pace. "I want to be right now."

He scowled at me. "Well, I don't make a habit of hitting girls, but you're really starting to get on my nerves. Tell you what? We'll compromise. Wesley, you can hit her."

I hadn't saved Bryn. I'd just condemned myself. Brilliant work, Eva. Wesley turned out to be the blonde guy who was blocking my escape route sideways. He lodged a fist into my gut with enough force to knock the air from my lungs, and I was still fighting to breathe when his second punch caught me just above the jaw.

Blood in my mouth. The back of my head had hit the bricks, and the world was spinning around me. I staggered a bit. Time to fight back, I reckoned. Past time. I punched Wesley in the throat, kicked him between the legs and watched him fall like a ton of bricks.

The element of surprise was gone. A fist thumped home into my left side, and then everything was a mess of bodies and clumsy blows. I stuck my thumb into someone's eye and gouged until he cried out. A gap had opened up between two of the flockies, and I knew damn well that my best chance was to get my ass out of the circle and draw them away from Bryn — they would have to quit beating him if they were in danger of losing a prisoner.

So I threw my weight into one of the guys, knocking him backwards, and I made a run for it. I would have been home free had one of the flockies not managed to stick out a leg.

Down I went — crashing onto the concrete at breakneck speed. I landed heavily on my chest and left arm, and then I skidded about a metre.

And before I could even think about getting up, one of the flockies came and knelt on my back, crushing my chest into the ground. I couldn't breathe. Everything burned — my grazed, shredded skin, my ribs where I'd landed, and most of all my desperate lungs.

I felt something cold against the back of my neck, and I heard that awful mechanical click again. It was the Beta, then. No wonder he was so damned heavy.

"What I did I say," he began in a sickly-sweet voice, "about running?"

"Go to hell," I hissed with my last few drops of air.

"You first," Kieran laughed.

He reached past my shoulder and ripped the collar of my shirt. And I knew exactly what that meant. I had found more than my share of rogue corpses with their collars torn open. It was done to display the tattoo — to make it crystal clear as to why they had been killed. As if we didn't already know.

I stopped trying to breathe for a second and just lay there, staring at the concrete. I was, although I would never admit it, a tiny bit scared. I didn't want to die in a Tesco car park just because the police were a minute too slow. I didn't want to die at all.

I still couldn't breathe, but I was getting so dizzy that it didn't seem to matter anymore. I managed to turn my head to one side. Bryn was on the ground, too, and his eyes were closed. There was blood covering half his face now, and some of the flockies were still kicking him.

"Hey," I said through the link. "I need you to wake up, shithead."

My vision flashing black and white, and I could hear the blood roaring in my ears, but it wasn't my first rodeo — I knew how to fight it. I wouldn't pass out until I was good and ready. He did eventually wake up. Slowly, groggily, his eyes cracked open. One of them was nearly swollen shut, but the other fixed on me and widened in alarm.

And then I smiled, so at least he'd be able to say that I had. It was important.

Bryn knew exactly what that smile meant, and he could see my torn collar and the gun to the back of my head. He wriggled onto his stomach, trying to get up, but Wesley noticed and kicked him in the head, and that was that. He'd drifted into a place from which not even the link could rouse him.

There was a new car pulling in beside the Range Rover. The Shadowless reinforcements were here, so Bryn wouldn't survive either. He'd just die an awful lot slower.

Kieran readjusted the gun, angling it upwards into my skull. I could hear the trigger squeaking as he squeezed it, and I bucked my hips with the last of my strength — pure, desperate instinct.

I heard the gunshot. It was right beside my ears — it was like a firework going off in my head, but I didn't feel any pain, and I didn't, like, die or anything. The bullet had bitten the concrete an inch from my head, because that was how far I'd managed to knock Kieran off balance.

He swore at me and pressed the gun to my head all over again, but he was too late. There were humans appearing on both sides of us, uniformed and carrying semi-automatics.

"ARMED POLICE," they practically screamed at us. "DOWN ON THE FLOOR."

Kieran dropped the gun. He wasn't stupid — he didn't want to get shot. A second later, the weight disappeared from my back as he went to follow their instructions. I took a wracking, gasping breath, slumped against the ground and laughed hysterically into the concrete.

It was about bloody time.