Merry Christmas Everyone! These updates seem to be getting later and later (sorry!!) but you're gonna have to be patient with me for a few more weeks :/ Welcome to Italy, New Zealand and Romania.

I rolled onto my side and did some coughing. My lungs were still burning, but I could see again, so I reckoned I wasn't about to drop.

Somewhere to my left, five packlings were lying on their bellies and getting trussed up like pigs for slaughter. The police weren't being gentle with them, and I wondered whether they were enjoying being outnumbered and outgunned for the first time in their lives.

"Bryn?" I asked, brushing the hair out of his eyes. "Rise and shine, bud."

He didn't move. I lifted his head up, checking for any serious injuries, but there were only a few cuts and a handful of bruises. Before I could try any first-aid, one of the police officers pointed an assault rifle at my chest.

"Get down," he snapped. "On the floor, right now."

"Oh, you guys really suck," I sighed. "I am the victim in this here situation."

If I had been dressed like a respectable human woman, they would have left me the hell alone. I was covered in blood, my shirt was torn open and sodden with rainwater, and they had literally seen Kieran trying to blow my brains out. But I was wearing trackies and a threadbare waterproof. My tattoo was visible. I looked like trouble.

"Shut your mouth and put your hands where I can see them."

He had a gun, so I did what I was told. He had me kneel on the concrete while a regular police officer came over and patted me down. She didn't find anything, of course, but it was an extreme test of my patience to sit still and wait for her to finish while my cousin was bleeding.

And then they decided to search Bryn. He was unconscious and covered in blood, but he looked like trouble, too. One of them rolled him while the other checked for weapons. By the time they were done, I was having to wrestle with my wolf to keep a growl in my chest.

"You gonna cuff him next?" I demanded. "He didn't do shit. Me neither. We were the ones getting beat, if you couldn't tell."

"No, we're not going to cuff him. This is just a precaution," the firearms officer told me. "Barnes, call him an ambulance, would you?"

"That's better," I muttered. We'd have to bail before the ambulance got here, of course - humans found it a tiny bit weird when wounds started scabbing over before their eyes, but I appreciated the thought.

He looked me up and down, noting the blood. "What about you? Do you need one?"

"No," I said. My arms looked like they'd been through a cheese grater, and it felt like someone was kicking me in the chest every time I took a breath, but I wasn't about to drop dead. "Can I check on my brother now?"

Sometimes it just slipped out, and I will admit I didn't try awfully hard to stop it.

"I don't see why not. No sudden movements."

I crouched back beside Bryn. He was beginning to stir now, but not fast enough for my liking. I tugged on the link again. His eyelids flickered, and that was all. Since his nose was still bleeding, I rolled him onto his side and opened his airway like I'd been taught.

"Come on," I whispered.

I felt eyes on me. Not the police, not the onlookers - no, this was something different. Something sinister. All the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.

The car which had arrived just before the police was parked twenty metres away, but the engine was still running. The nearside window was rolled down, and there was a man in the passenger seat with jet-black hair and piercing eyes. He must have been about the same age as my parents - mid-thirties or thereabouts, and I knew exactly who he was, because I could feel his wolf even from here.

The Shadowless Alpha. He had noticed me watching him. His eyes slid very deliberately to the place where his Beta and four of his men were having their rights read to them, and there was a sort of glorious boredom in them which sent a shiver down my spine.

I thought about selling him out, I really did. One word to the police and I could probably screw up his entire day. But he pressed a finger to his lips, and I gave the tiniest of nods, because I wasn't no snitch. And because, although I'd never have admitted it, I was the tiniest bit scared of those cold, empty eyes.

The policewoman crouched down beside me. She checked my cousin was breathing and then felt for a pulse, which was I already knew was fine - I could hear his heart beating.

"What's his name?" she asked.

The impulse to be an idiot was, for once, too powerful to overcome. I looked straight at Kieran. I made sure to catch his eye and hold it. Then I raised my voice so that all of the flockies would hear me - the five who had beaten us and the Shadowless Alpha in his car.

"Bryn," I said, "Llewellyn."

Kieran scowled and muttered something unrepeatable. Zach Lloyd blinked, a smirk creeping across his lips, and I didn't like that one bit. It was bad manners to out Bryn without his permission, but I didn't think he'd mind. He loved screwing with Alphas, and, besides, those hazel eyes gave the game away every single time.

"Bryn?" the police officer asked. "Can you hear me?"

Bryn continued to lie there and be unconscious. I was starting to get worried, so I took a handful of rainwater and splashed it over his face and down the back of his neck, much to the policewoman's horror.

"Wakey, wakey," I said firmly, tugging on the link again, and his eyes flickered open.

He winced almost immediately, squinting against the sunlight. His pupils were as wide as saucers, the hazel nearly obscured. They weren't focusing on anything.

"Welcome back," I told him. "As you can see, there was some turning of the tables while you were out. I single-handedly kicked all of their asses."

"That's not what happened," the policewoman said sternly. "Bryn, I need you to lie still for me until the ambulance gets here."

"Lie what?" he scoffed. He got his hands underneath him and started trying to sit up, only to stop very suddenly. "Am I on a Merry-Go-Round?"

"No-" she began, but I cut her off with a vigorous shush.

"Yes, you are, and if you don't stay very still, you're going to fall off," I said.

He blinked. "Oh. Right. Okay then."

While we'd been fighting, the drizzle had turned to downright sheets of water. My clothes were already soaked through, so I could have cared less about that, but I was starting to shiver. Bryn might have been shivering, too, or he might have been shaking from his colossal knock to the head - no way to tell, really.

"I've got some trauma blankets in my trunk," the policewoman said. "Hang on a second."

She left, and her douchebag colleague watched me with narrowed eyes. I narrowed my eyes right back at him. We stayed like that for a full minute, probably, until his radio crackled and he had to answer it. The ambulance was twenty-one minutes away, apparently.

"You deserved it," someone jeered from behind me.

I turned slowly. A crowd of shoppers had gathered to watch the proceedings. There were a few police officers keeping them out of the way. It wasn't hard to see which one of them spoken - there was a woman glowering at me.

The man beside her spat on the ground. "Yeah, bloody gypsies."

It wasn't the first time someone had made that mistake, and it wouldn't be the last. Bryn tried to get up again, but I caught hold of his collar and twisted. It wasn't difficult to hold him still because he was only half conscious.

"Are you going to do anything about that?" I asked the officer.

"Just ignore them," he said.

I didn't know why I'd expected him to care. Hating travellers was still socially acceptable, somehow. To be honest, I didn't really get it. There were Romani groups who often passed through the Silverstones. If anyone knew about our species, it was them. On a few occasions, we'd ended up in their camps while running from flockies, and they'd hidden us and given us dinner, no questions asked.

These people wouldn't do that. If I showed up on their doorstep, hungry and cold, for all their supposed 'decency,' they'd be more likely to call the police than invite me in.

"I'll do it myself, then," I muttered, picking myself up. Before I could even take a step, there were hands on my arms, squeezing hard enough to leave a bruise.

"You'll sit back down," the policeman snapped, "or I'll arrest you for assault."

At first, I tried to settle with glowering at the couple. Then it occurred to me that if they were allowed to shout things at me, there was no reason I wasn't allowed to shout things back at them, and they were treated to a calm recital of every swearword and insult I knew. And there were a lot. The police didn't like it much, but there wasn't much they could do.

The policewoman came back with our blankets. They were made of foil, which was not the softest blanket material, but wearing one was like sitting in an oven.

Once we were warm, I knelt behind Bryn and helped him sit up inch by painful inch. The policewoman told us to stop, and she got annoyed when we didn't listen. Of course, she thought we were puny, breakable human beings. Even if Bryn gave himself brain damage, it would just heal itself by the end of the day. I tried not to imagine what it would be like to live without that safety cushion, but shit awful was a good guess.

Eventually, Bryn made it vertical and he used my shoulder for a pillow while he waited for his healing to kick in. It was quite satisfying sitting there with the foil blankets around us. I could plaster on my most innocent, angelic smile and stare at the flockies while they were pulled onto their feet and walked to the police van.

Kieran looked like he was about to burst a vein. I winked at him as he passed me, and, when I was sure the officers weren't looking, I blew him a kiss with my middle finger. His mobile number was still written on my hand. Maybe I'd sell it to some advertisers and let them harass him about PPI and accidents that weren't his fault for the rest of time.

I was cast into shadow all of a sudden. One glance upwards showed me a head of dirty blonde hair and a pair of worried blue eyes. Growing up, Sam's arrival had usually meant that the fun was at an end, so it was safe to say I had never been so relieved to see him in my life. And better still, there was no sign of the kids, so he must have left them inside, out of harm's way.

"Step back, please, sir," the policewoman said, getting in his way. "This is a crime scene."

"It's okay," I told her. "He's a friend."

The slightest of hesitations, then she moved aside. Sam came and knelt beside us.

"Oh, Eva," he sighed, and I could hear the edge of frustration in his voice - that he hadn't been able to help. Standing back and watching someone get hurt was an awful lot harder than getting hurt yourself.

"I'm okay," I told him, and that was the truth. I was shaken up and my ribs were throbbing, but I was alive, and that was good enough for me.

He took off his shirt and helped me swap it for my soaked, torn one. He'd brought a hoodie, so he wouldn't be walking around in his skin. Changing in the middle of the carpark scandalised every human in a hundred-metre radius. Their species were super pedantic about public decency, I seemed to remember, but shifting had long since knocked the modesty out of me.

"And you, Bryn?" Sam asked.

My cousin managed a long-suffering smile. "Oh, I'll be fine once the Merry-Go-Round stops."

Sam raised his eyebrows, and I simply shook my head at him. Don't ask, that look said, and he didn't.

"Can you finish the shopping?" I asked through the link. "Make the boys help if you have to. We'll meet you at the car when we get the chance."

It would have to be soon. The ambulance would be here in another fifteen minutes, and we needed to be gone by then. I let the link convey all of that as best I could.

"Alright, kiddo," Sam said, although he didn't sound too happy. "First sign of trouble, you link me, okay?"

I nodded, and he went back into the supermarket. I waited until he mind-linked to tell me that he was at the tills before I did anything else. It only took ten minutes. Then I wriggled onto my knees and began scanning the cops around us, trying to work out who was paying attention.

"Time to get off, Bryn," I said.

"It's slowing down," he agreed amiably. "Few more seconds."

I decided to just go ahead and pretend like he was functioning at full mental capacity. It would be faster that way. I opened a mind-link. "In a minute, I'm going to run, and they're going to chase me. You slip away to the car when you get the chance. Punch someone if you have to. Alright?"

"I don't want to punch anyone, Eva. Humans are fragile," Bryn said aloud.

The closest officers turned towards us in alarm, and I dug my fingernails into his wrist hard enough to leave a bruise.

"What did he say?" one of them demanded.

"Dunno," I laughed. "He's out of his head, ain't he?"

They didn't look convinced.

I nudged him. "Bryn, where are we?"

"On the Merry-Go-Round, duh. It's stopped now."

"See?" I asked, and the officers exchanged wary looks. They must have believed it, because they turned back to what they'd been doing. Bryn scrubbed at his face, and I could only hope he wasn't too messed up to put one foot in front of the other when the time came.

For another minute, I watched and waited. Then, when the policewoman was busy talking to a colleague and the nearest firearms officers had his back to me, I got onto my feet and ran like the bloody wind.

None of the cops had expected their victim to make a break for it. By the time they'd processed what had happened and the first 'hey' reached my ears, I was halfway to the exit. Doubtless guns were being lifted back onto shoulders, but they wouldn't shoot me. They weren't allowed.

I was only running, after all, and running never hurt anyone.

The pursuit was slow off the mark because the police were a fair way from their cars. Zach Lloyd was not. He stepped on the accelerator and pulled off with his tyres squealing. So I had him racing me, and I had two cops giving chase on foot.

The car park exit led onto a residential road which was packed with shoppers, since it was the summer holidays. Zach got stuck in traffic in the first five seconds. It didn't delay him long, but it gave me the time I needed to put some space between me and Tesco.

I couldn't shift, obviously, but I didn't need to. The cops were only human - I outstripped them easily. Even weaving in and out of all the shoppers barely slowed me - they were just like walking, talking trees. Yeah, maybe my ribs were on fire and maybe I was feeling a little dizzy myself, but I was enjoying myself far too much to let that bother me.

I turned right and right again in quick succession. Unfortunately, that left me in an empty side street where it was all too easy for Zach to break the speed limit and draw level with me again. He swerved left, trying to knock me down so I'd be easy to drag into the car, and I darted behind a lamppost. The policemen stopped to wait for back up at that point, because he'd nearly hit them, too.

I kept running. When Zach started to swerve again, I was ready for him. I stopped in my tracks and darted right. There was a wall of about my height alongside a nice semi-detached house. I jumped at it - got my arms over the top. It felt like my ribs were shattering into tiny little pieces, but I pulled myself up, and then I clambered onto the roof of an adjacent garage.

I could hear the sounds of them climbing the wall behind me, so I didn't bother trying to shimmy down the other side. I just jumped and landed hard and felt my knees scream a complaint. I was in someone's back garden. It was horribly overgrown, but that made it easier for me to slip into the bushes and lose myself before the flockies got eyes on me.

Another fence to climb, another garden to cross, another garage to traverse, and then I was back in the Tesco car park. And not a moment too soon. In my absence, Bryn had indeed made a run for it, but it was far from a clean break. He had gone in the wrong direction altogether and Sam had been forced to drive over to get him, and now the few remaining police officers were trying to surround our car. I ran towards it, although I was starting to slow down by then, because even I couldn't sprint forever.

A glance over my shoulder showed me that two of the Shadowless guys were perched on that last garage. They weren't going to chase me across the car park and risk getting arrested - too smart for that. The Alpha himself was nowhere to be seen, so perhaps he was getting the hell out of Wyst before the police put an alert on his plates.

Bryn opened the passenger side door, and I crashed into the car without slowing. I was sharing my seat with several bags of rice and a week's supply of toilet roll. It was a struggle to get the door closed without crushing my legs.

As soon as he heard the tell-tale slam, Sam stepped on it. If we were very lucky, we'd clear the town before one of the police cars found us. If it weren't, we would have to answer some very awkward questions.

There was a very strong stench of vomit inside the car, and all of it was coming from my cousin's footwell. He didn't look good - pale and gaunt, but he was more awake, somehow.

"You back with us now?" I asked him.

"Mostly," he groaned.

"Brilliant."

Sam made a hard turn onto a high street. He kept one eye on his rear-view mirror for flashing lights. The kids were cheering - this was the most excitement they'd had in months. Somewhere in the distance, we could hear sirens wailing and cars honking. They were chasing Zach Lloyd, then, and we were probably home free.

"I've got to hand it to you, Eva," Sam muttered. "You might be shit at fighting and dumb as a brick, but you certainly know how to make a mess."

"Prick," I said, but I slumped in my seat and grinned.