A Fresh Start (Book 6 Arrow/SPN Series)

Into The Woods

I drifted off somewhere between beating myself up again for taking the Mark and wondering if I should go to Cougar's room and let him make good on his threat. The alarm went off, jolting me awake. I hate those things, I also hate mornings just on general principle. I rolled over, turned it off and saw that Sam was still asleep, or pretending to be.

"Hey!" I chucked a pillow at him.

"Mrhmghm."

That was about all I made out, "Wake up, time to move."

"I'm up, I'm up." He rolled over and looked up at the ceiling.

"Roy still with us?"

"Yes."

"You don't sound all that thrilled about it."

"I'm not. Are you?"

"No, didn't want to drag him this far down."

"Me neither. He has his bow in his car, said he's more comfortable using that then a gun. I gave him a machete and some knives from our stash." He sat up.

"Hope he's at least half as good with that bow as Oliver is or he'll be a liability."

"Yeah, I know. I'll go clean up, we were up late talking. I'll text him, see if he's up."

"Cool. I'll call her and see what's going on."

He nodded, grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom. I called her.

"Morning." She sounded wiped out.

"You sounding like that already doesn't bode well for the rest of the day."

"I got sleep, just not good sleep. Give me an hour, Cougar and I will meet you in your room."

"You sure you don't want to snoop around town first?"

"She's in those woods, trust me." She'd gone from wiped out to tense in about five seconds.

"Vision, hunch or both?"

"Hunch, backed by what Cougar told me when he got back from Jim's place. Someone tried to take them out."

That got me moving. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed, "What? Are they all right? Why the hell didn't you call me?"

"Cougar took care of it. Someone took a shot at them, he tracked them into the hills for an hour or so; didn't see them but saw enough hints. She's there, she has friends with her and it's not going to be an easy hike. Didn't tell you last night because there was no point. I'm not taking us into the hills at night where she knows the lay of the land and we don't. I need an hour to prep a few things. See you then." She hung up. As much as I care about her, the whole take charge and hang up on me gets downright irritating after a few times. This was her world, I trusted her but I've never gotten used to someone other than Dad giving orders and he's been gone for years. It's probably good for me, give me an idea of how Sam felt growing up and all that. I looked at it that way for about three seconds, didn't help. Since I was awake and wasn't going to be able to doze after that conversation I stood up and grabbed some of the food Sam had picked up. I was chowing down on some sort of pastry thing when he came out of the bathroom.

"Roy's up, he'll be over in a few. What's going on with Coyote?"

"She'll be here in an hour, she didn't sleep well, oh and someone took a shot at Cougar and Jim last night. It's okay though because Cougar took an unscheduled hike into the woods and found hints that Leaping Deer and friends are there. Nothing big or anything."

"Uh huh."

His face did that forehead wrinkle, eyebrow thing he does when he's trying to decide how truly insane we are."So, how are you?"