"Right, so todays the day, yeah?" Gwenna checked, far too giddy given it was six in the morning. I groaned, pulling a fold of my sleeping bag away from face so I could glare at her. She had woken up and yanked at the links to me and Nate until we both stirred, her excitement spilling over and into us. Or at least, it would be, if I wasn't so bloody tired. Nate had been up till three in the morning with some other linker kids, trying to get into the alpha's head, and I had stayed with him as though I could be any help if things went wrong. Well, I suppose I could rip his throat out, but at that point the damage would have been done and we'd loose our most valuable prisoner.
At three, Nate's nose had been bleeding heavily, so I had snapped him out of his own head and insisted we headed to bed. In true Gwenna fashion, she had crashed out hours ago, sprawled over our three beds and snoring loudly. It had taken both of us to drag her back into her place, because she thrashed in her sleep, but eventually we had managed it and fallen asleep ourselves.
"Fuck off." I grumbled, turning over.
"Lemme sleep." Nate slurred simultaneously, nuzzling further down into his sleeping bag. But Gwenna was too annoying to let us.
"No, come on! We're taking over our raiding team today, and you two want to sleep in?"
"Well done, you came to the correct conclusion. Now fuck off." I grumbled, hitting at her wildly. The first blow made contact, but then she grabbed my wrist and twisted, effectively immobilising me, and I didn't have the energy to break the hold. Given it wasn't outright painful, I was content to let it slide and slip back under-
And then the bitch twisted, and it got painful, and I let out an ear splitting yelp, the kind that puppies give when their littermate got too rough. It would have been enough to wake da up, who slept four rooms away, never mind poor Nate, who was a foot away from me. He groaned and lashed out at me as I brought my knee up to hit Gwenna, but our den was so cramped I scraped it over the jagged stones instead because she had already half wiggled out. Infuriated, I followed her, swearing and promising pain, with my brother not far behind. I chased her out of the ruins and into the camp, where I dropped my voice a little so I wouldn't have every rogue on my ass, wanting vengeance for waking them up. Not surprisingly, it looked like she was trying to curve around to keep within the confines of the camp, because out in the forest I could shift and properly kick her ass. To be honest, in human form, she would probably beat me, because she had a vicious streak I couldn't quite match, but it was more about honour right now.
Nat, are you aware that you're half naked? My brother hissed through the link, having been a coward and hung back so he could pull on a shirt and some pants before trying to murder our best friend.
I'm wearing a vest and shorts, that's fully dressed in the summer! I pointed out in return, slipping on a patch of ice and almost falling. It made me slow down, which was irritating, because Gwenna had this uncanny ability to never slide on anything, so she kept barrelling on, full speed ahead.
Its the bloody middle of winter! He snapped back, and I had no counter for that. Besides, the only witnesses I had were the few guards who could barely see me and the pack of feral children who were whooping and cheering Gwenna on. Damn rogues. Always cheering for the underdog, the one running away. I flipped them off as she made a break for the ruins, apparently not realising that Nate had never left. I tugged on the link and felt him dive under cover, waiting for Gwenna to approach before leaping out and tackling her firmly to the ground and pinning her in place to wait for me to arrive and enact my bloody vengeance.
And bloody vengeance it was. While my brother held her down, I began to tickle her, making her howl with laughter as she squirmed and thrashed. I began to yell at her, Nate joining in as we berated her for waking us up, Gwenna crying too much to defend herself or get a jab in.
"OI!" Da's voice boomed from behind us, making me and Nate leap away from the now breathless Gwenna. Unintentionally, we had done this in front of his room, rousing him from his sleep. And he was really mad about it. His hair was tousled, he wasn't wearing a shirt, and his eyes were shadowed, which made his scowl look even darker.
"It was Nate's fault!" Me and Gwenna said automatically, backing up until Nate was in front of us, and in the line of fire.
"It is half past six in the bloody morning, puppies. Go the fuck back to sleep, or get the fuck out of the ruins!" He snarled. At first, I thought we'd gotten off lightly as he turned to slope back off to his den, but then he stopped.
"You know what? For that little escapade, you can go to town and do some shopping for the camp. Get the list from Carrie and Cole and the money from my safe. I know how much is in there, and I want a receipt. Steal a penny and I'll kick all your arses." He threatened, staring all of us in the eye in turn, letting the dominance of his wolf lean on ours to hammer his point home. Well that has royally thrown a wrench in my plans; today I wanted to try and take over the raiding team, because tomorrow we would be eighteen and we would all start looking for our mates. Silent and pissed off, I started to slope off to the food tent, where Cole or Carrie, the chefs, could commonly be found, the other two following along behind me.
"Ok, if we're quick then we can still get back before midnight and take over the raiding team." Nate said optimistically as we entered the food tent, where Carrie was waiting with a list. No doubt da had linked her and told her to expect us. I took it off her with a sickly sweet smile and scanned over the words, swearing under my breath.
"No, we won't. This shit will have to be got from Asda, and the nearest one is in Keighley. Shit, we'll need to do several trips to get all this back, and by that time it'll be too late and we'll be too tired." I bemoaned, stomping out of the tent with a fierce scowl on my face.
"Unless we take one of da's cars." Gwenna murmured, a devilish grin on her face and a mischievous spark in her eyes. Me and Nate stopped, exchanging glances as we thought over the idea, a smirk spreading across my lips.
"That would make it quicker, and easier to get everything back." I reasoned slowly. We didn't have many cars, most of them jacked from the packs and used to shunt things, pregnant females and babies from camp to camp.
"Da never said that we couldn't..." Nate pointed out. Usually, everyone had to ask permission if they wanted to borrow one of them, but we knew the code to the safe where the keys were kept, and so long as we weren't seen jacking them, no one would alert the old man. Hell, he might not even notice till we got back, and the consequences for that would be a problem for future me to deal with.
"Yeah. Yeah, lets take a car." I decided, to quiet cheers from the other two. We'd already woken our da up, no need to piss off anyone else today. Until we kicked the raiding team leader's arse and took over her team. I don't think that could be done without pissing people off.
"Right, dibs driving." Gwenna demanded. I snorted.
"No you bloody aren't. You can't drive to save your life."
"Neither can either of you!" That was fair. None of us had a driving license; the lessons cost money, as did the test, so getting a fake was a lot cheaper. I knew the basics, and I'd figured out how to make the car go and not crash it after a fashion, but to say I was a good driver would be an outright lie. Nate was fairly good, all things considered, but Gwenna... she drove like she had nothing left to live for. You got in a car with her at the wheel, you would be dancing with the grim reaper himself.
"I second Nat, there is no way on earth you're driving. I will-"
"Nope, I will." I decided, leading the charge back up to my da's office. He had fallen soundly back asleep, so it was easy enough to sneak past his sleeping back and open up the safe. I retrieved two hundred pounds, eyeing the rest mournfully before carefully, slowly unhooking one of the sets of keys. I was the first out the door, leaving Nate to lock up while I escaped with the goods. Gwenna, the eternal coward, had opted to stay outside, ducking into our den to retrieve our fake licenses. I stuck my head into the room opposite to my da's, the guard on the door giving me a nod as I checked in on our little alpha friend.
He had been half asleep, I think, sagged against the wall he was chained to, exhausted by a late night of having the walls of his mind battered to hell and back. When I stepped in, though, light on my feet as I was, his head jerked up, eyes open, and he looked at me. I gave him a little wave as he began to struggle against his restraints again, muffled shouts coming through the gag.
"Look who takes a licking and keeps on kicking! I figured you'd be down for a good while yet. Want my advice? Ah, who am I kidding. I like the sound of my own voice and you are a literally captive audience. So just give it up, friendo. You can't beat us; we have infinite time and resources, and I don't think you can keep up the defence forever. Anyways, have a nice day!" I told him, ruffling up his hair with a laugh and ducking out of the room. I had been lying about our time and resources, as we could do to get this done before the council of alpha's started a full on man hunt for him.
"Goddamn it, Nat, you got the fiesta keys!" Nate cursed me out when I joined back up with the others, shaking the keys in my face. I snatched them from his hand with a scowl.
"It was dark in there, I couldn't see which I was grabbing! Come on, lets just go." I snapped, shoving past him.
"You know, Nat, you've been finding a lot of excuses to visit the alpha puppy recently. Does someone have a crush?" Gwenna asked me in a sing song voice, walking besides me and digging her elbow into my ribs. I snorted and shoved her away as my brother spoke out.
"Yeah, cos Nat's gonna have a crush on a stupid packling." Nate snorted as we closed in on the flat, muddy field we were keeping the cars in.
"Then why is she always around him?"
"Because I'm either there because I'm talking to da, protecting Nate, or rubbing the whole situation in the alpha pups face!" I snarled, irrationally annoyed. Me and Gwenna had always talked openly about these things, though we tended to do it away from Nate, but this was bothering me for some reason. Gwenna raised her eyebrows but fell silent as I unlocked the car, the two of them wrestling for the passenger seat until Nate succeeded and Gwenna retreated to the back seat.
"Right, seatbelts on and hold on tight. Its been a while." I warned them, starting the engine.