Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 45 - THE FINE ART OF SCREWING UP

Hello everyone! Happy Leap Day! As always, slay the typos. And thank you all for being so patient with me, both with the speed of these updates and ... the speed of other things ;) Speaking of which, I'm going to call this chapter PG 13. Don't get too excited about that. Or do. I dunno. I'm not the police.

I never stood a chance. Not really. There were a dozen people between me and Joel, and they were all chock full of adrenaline. One of the lads managed to catch a handful of my shirt, and two more of them were blocking the way with their bodies without even meaning to.

They shouted at me, demanding to know what I was doing, but I twisted and writhed and fought to escape that iron grip. The element of surprise was no small advantage. I managed to throw myself between two lumps of muscle and lash out with the blade.

The very tip of my knife snagged in Joel's sleeve, leaving a line of frayed fabric. But that was as far as I got. My collar was twisted, choking me back the way I had come, and soon there were hands on my arms, on my clothes and everywhere else. I didn't dare turn the knife against them.

I'd lost my footing. One of my ankles turned itself outwards, and I went down with a string of curses, hissing as my knee scraped the stones. I'd lost the knife. Someone had caught hold of my wrist and twisted sharply, and it was gone, somewhere under all those heavy feet.

One of the taller guys bent down to lodge a punch under my ribcage. There was no reason for it, really, given that I was disarmed and on my knees. While I was still trying to suck the air back into my poor, crumpled lungs, another fist caught me around the ear. It was probably accidental, but it made me want to throw up, and the entire world flashed white.

And that was when Liam arrived. The nearest guys were shoved back, giving me enough room to find my feet again, and I stumbled backwards. I knew when to give up. There was blood in my mouth and more dripping down my neck.

"Enough," Mason snapped. "The next person who moves will live to regret it."

The others had closed ranks around their prisoners. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, and I didn't have a hope in hell of breaking through. I stood quietly, feeling my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath and calm myself down. The adrenaline had me all jittery and excitable.

Joel craned his neck to see the place where my knife had torn his shirt. He'd been fighting, too, trying to break free of those rough flockie hands to get that little bit closer.

Sometimes, the younger raiders got captured because they hesitated. They saw the immediate choice between fighting to the death and surrendering, and they took a second too long to choose. If that had been the case for Joel, he'd realised his mistake. I reckoned he would have jumped onto the blade, given half a chance.

Felix didn't seem to realise we were all being chill now. That, or he was just jumping at the chance to put me in handcuffs. He muscled his way through the press of bodies towards us, shoving his pack mates when they were too slow to move.

He stooped down to pick up the knife. Not for the first time, I thanked the Goddess that I'd carved E.M. into the handle and not E.L. He turned it over in his hand, doubtless noticing how smooth the wood was, worn by years of use. Maybe he saw too that the blade was crooked in places from its hundreds of meetings with the whetstone.

"The hell was that?" Felix demanded, looking at me now. "You're carrying a knife around, like a bloody rogue? And you're trying to kill our prisoners before they can tell us shit? Do you realise how that looks?"

That was a little too close for comfort. I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Mason was faster and an awful lot more annoyed. "Be quiet. She's not a sleeper, Felix. I've told you a dozen times now."