Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 2 - KIDNAP

Hello to our readers from India, Germany, Down Under, and the USA. There might be a Brit around too (holler if you exist), but that could be me reading comments, because there were loads of them! Hehehe. Good work y'all. Do me proud.

***

The wolf's skull was small. The canines were shorter than my fingernails. And the longer I stared at it, the more certain I was that it had belonged to a kid. The packs had started adding shifter remains to their bone fences about ten years ago — rogue corpses displayed as a warning for the next trespassers. I had seen my fair share of those skeletons, but never one as small as this one.

"Ignore it, Eva," Nia told me. She was scratching the mark on her neck absent-mindedly. "They're trying to scare us off."

"Well, it ain't working. I'm just getting mad," I retorted. That skull could have belonged to my little brother. It was the right size, and he was thirteen years old.

"Mad is good. We can use mad," she murmured, reaching over to squeeze my arm.

I readjusted my weight on my elbows. We were lying on our stomachs beneath a holly bush with a clear sightline to the border. Nia was in front, then Lily pressed against her to fit, then me and the six-foot-two guy we'd brought to do the heavy lifting. I'd asked his name, but I'd forgotten to listen to the answer, so he could have been Chris Hemsworth for all I knew.

It had been ninety minutes, and it was only now that we could see the patrol approaching from the east. Three wolves — two timbers in front looking for any obvious disturbances in the bone fence, and one semi-arctic behind snuffing for scents. They trotted straight past us and disappeared into a patch of ferns to the left.

The guy behind me kicked my ankle in a clumsy attempt to get up, and I growled at him.

"Stay put," Nia snapped.

He gestured incredulously at the place the patrol had vanished. "This is our—"

"I said stay put, dumbass. Ember uses split patrols."

The packs had thought up dozens of ways to catch us trespassing. The oldest and most annoying of those was split patrols. It was simple. Half of the patrol would lead the way, and the other half would follow a minute behind. Most rogues would only cross the border right after a patrol had passed to get the maximum amount of time before their scents were found, so most rogues got caught.

Other popular methods included patrols which ran thirty metres inside of the border, patrols which turned around to retrace their steps every so often, and patrols which sat in the undergrowth and waited near the most popular crossing points. They had all originated from New Dawn Pack — damn them.

But Nia was smarter than that. She had learnt a great deal from our parents. The packs improved their defences, and we upped our attack. That was war.

The second half of the patrol was four minutes behind. There were just two of them, and we could have thrashed them easily ... but not before they could raise the alarm. So we lay there and watched them slink through the ferns.

"That smaller wolf looks hot, don't you think? Big eyes, fine whiskers..." I muttered under my breath. "Maybe I should go say hi, get his number or something..."

Truthfully, he was looked like a drowned rat and smelt like old sweat, but I had been lying still for a long time. I was halfway through sitting up when Nia caught my shirt collar and yanked downwards none too gently. "You think you're funny? Shut up."

My chest collided with the ground, and I made an involuntary oomph noise as the breath was knocked out of me. My laughter came in rasps.

"What?" I groaned. "You might be getting laid, but I ain't. A girl's gotta put herself out there."