Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 19 - THE CALM

I stretched out like a cat, letting my aching muscles groan their complaints about the way I'd been sleeping - curled up in a little ball with my back against Rhodri's. We always kept the door of the tent open for Liam's sake, so it was laughably easy for me to wake up when the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon.

The rays were blinding me now. Rolling onto my stomach, I reached out with one foot and prodded Liam awake. It was always best to do it gently. We'd been up at about three a.m. because he'd been dreaming again, so he took nearly ten minutes to wake up enough to sit up in bed and yawn.

"I need to go to bed earlier," he told me, running a hand through his hair.

I snorted. I was already pulling my socks on inside the sleeping bag. "I've been telling you that for years."

"Yeah, you have." Liam stretched out then scrubbed at his face. He was still half asleep, and it showed. "Is that my shirt?"

"Mm-hmm."

I crossed my arms over it and turned away, because I wasn't wearing anything underneath it. Like all his shirts, it was far too big on me, of course, but that made it perfect for sleeping. Once upon a time, I'd used to nick Rhodri's. He'd got so fed up of it that he'd filled one of them with goose grass and told me that he'd knock me on my arse the next time I touched his clothes. I believed him.

"Well, you'd better give it back," he told me dryly.

I smirked. If I waited long enough, he'd probably forget about the whole thing, and that was how I acquired most of my clothes. "Sure, whatever."

As I wriggled out from under the sleeping bag, I began the subtle art of changing beneath the shirt. Liam turned around to face the side of the tent. I could have done it before I'd woken him, in hindsight, but my brain wasn't entirely functional at this hour of the morning.

"So, which of us is going to bite the bullet?" I asked, gesturing at my cousin, who was still snoring.

Instead of answering, Liam showed me a fist. We rock-paper-scissored for it, naturally - the only correct way to make decisions like these. He won, but only because I was dumb enough to choose paper.

I let out a strangled groan. Before I followed through, I laced my trainers and swapped my pyjamas for jogging bottoms, because I'd need to make a fast escape from the tent once the deed was done. Liam was already outside, sat cross-legged on some ferns and rubbing his eyes. I retreated right to the tent entrance, I winced in anticipation, and then I kicked my cousin.

***

Half an hour later, the three of us were trekking through the sleeping camp. All of us were physically awake now, and none of us were being persecuted for waking someone up when they'd specifically asked to be woken up. Rhodri was not always a pleasure to be around before lunchtime, to say the least.

"This one here," Liam said, pointing at a tent which had been repaired so many times that it resembled a patchwork quilt.

"Awesome," Rhodri replied. "I'll be back in five minutes."

He took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders, and he started towards the tent, but I caught the back of his shirt. "Don't be stupid. I'll lure him out into the woods, and you can do it there."

If he started a brawl in the middle of camp at this hour of the morning, they would get pulled apart before Joel had a chance to grovel. And we would all get into a steaming heap of trouble. Fights between raiding teams were not allowed. You could thrash your own guys without interference - that was just sorting out the hierarchy, but anything else ran the risk of starting feuds.