The 9 lives of Cats and Gods (Merry Men Book 1)

Life 7

1.
Robin
Thanksgiving is a muted affair, it's not my holiday really anyway, but I'm always up for food. Friar Lightman cooks a turkey and we all help with the sides, and we stuff our faces to our hearts content. On Friday, Rocket and Marianna and I sit in his room and play video games, we occasionally surface for snack food and the like, but other than that I lie with my girlfriend in my lap, and doze off. The jet lag has the best of me and I'm remarkably content being lazy. I haven't picked up a bow in days. I'm walking around in sweats with no socks, being an ordinary person. Is this how ordinary people are? I wouldn't know.
We barely discuss murder or Bash or cases. I call Courdelion but only to narrate the Thanksgiving Day parade, and the dog show. I do both incorrectly, using weird metaphors for everything, and different accents appropriate to each dog, it's very funny for me and Courdelion usually can't keep a straight face. I video call him to ensure that he's appropriately amused by my bullshit. Naturally he is.
I'm aware our reprieve will end but I quite like it, or I want to like it. I don't know which is the true thing but I'll take either for now. In it I have no idea why I want to leave, but once I leave I have no idea how I could go back.
Normalcy. Common people. It's all an eerie peace.
On Saturday Alan comes up crying demanding if I'm dead. Yeah he knows by now exactly what I am, he's sworn to secrecy of course and takes that very seriously so whatever guess we have a new member.  Anyway as he's up we feed him and have a nerf gun war out in the rain, amongst the trees. We play until we're all soaked, and laughing. Rocket and I go barefoot and push each other in the mud until we're both covered.
Common people. Ordinary people. Just teenagers playing in the rain and laughing. Nothing at all off. Of course, deep inside, I'm still the same. I've got blood on my hands.  I use a false voice and a false name.
But for now I'm ordinary. And I fall asleep in front of the TV and chase my girlfriend in the rain and eat pizza for breakfast. And all is quiet here.
Reality rocks back home on Monday, when the others go to school and I'm forced to remain at the monastery in hiding, due to my ah, legal death. Marianna and Rocket are quite disgusted, in that they have to go AND they have to put up with a forty five minute assembly in honor of Bash's and my tragic deaths. They just have Bash as dead now. I say I don't think he's dead, but the school doesn't care they actually like light candles for us. I get pictures of that along with vomiting emoji's from Rocket, who takes a picture of himself flipping off the phone standing in front of a memorial for me. Yeah people see him, and they get like super mad at him for that and he can't explain that I'm not dead so it's not disrespectful.
I for my part am bored all day. I practice archery for a few hours but that is not enough to occupy me the entire school day, and I can't focus on reading. In short, I'm bouncing at the end of the drive as my friends trudge up, bringing Alan with them.
"So you know how I run the Archer Watch appreciation facebook page?" Alan asks, bouncing in a circle as he holds up his laptop. That's as hazardous to the laptop as it sounds and Rocket rescues it.
"Yes," I say, shrugging. He runs like twelve of these.
"Someone messaged him," Marianna says, "Let's go inside."
"What is it?" I ask, following.
"It's to do with Courdelion's case, the person says it's evidence."
" 'I can't leak this myself but perhaps you can'," Marianna reads aloud, off her phone, "It's a massive file dump of insider documents."
"It must be a whistle blower," Rocket says.
"Is it legit?" I ask, as we gather around the laptop in the courtyard.
"It looks it," Alan says.
"I think it is—there's enough here to put Courdelion's awful brother behind bars and clear his name, if it's legit," Marianna says.
"If we leak it now, they'll discredit the whistleblower, or try to cover it up. We need to send a message," I say.
"I sense you being stir crazy after one day," Rocket says.
"You would be right but even so—," I shrug, "If they find this stuff—say, in Special Agent Courdelion's possession—,"
"They can't ignore it," Marianna says.
"We've got tabs on his schedule already, this weekend, where will he be?" I ask.
"Yacht," Marianna says, grinning as she sees me grin.
"Let's do this," Rocket says, "Just tell me I get to set part of the yacht on fire?"
"Absolutely. How else is harbor patrol gonna know to come look?" I ask.
"Can I help?" Alan asks.
"Can you swim two miles in the dark?"
"Can I stay behind?"