I arrived back at the camp in one piece, having shaken the pack wolves off of my tail, though my leg was still half broken. I could feel the bone knitting itself back together, a sharp tingling like terrible pins and needles, but at least the damage was healing. I reached out through the link, feeling Nate and Gwenna were already back at the camp before checking on the rest of my team. One of the younger boys, Ralph his name was, had been injured, but he was alive and safe, so that was a win in my book.
Except that I didn't achieve the one thing I wanted from the raid, of course.
I spent the rest of the day in my own head, my foot propped up on a stone to let it heal as Nathan reported on what we had found to da and I came up with a new plan. In the end, I settled on giving myself a decent reason to be in the doctor's office and then being able to distract her enough to snatch the sedatives I would need.
It was going to be a little tricky. Not starting a brawl, that was easy enough, but getting the timing right. For now, though, I picked out Lucy and Adam, two of the three teenagers on my raiding team who were always at each others throats and were never considerate enough to get in a fight away from everyone else, so they'd knock into someone and it would escalate into a brawl. So I subtly body checked Adam and filched his shiny new pocket knife before ducking into their tent and tucking it under Lucy's pillow.
Maybe I should have felt bad for pitting them against each other, but in my defense they were always scrapping anyway and I was a little distracted with what I would have to do next. Because now I needed to go and get myself hurt badly enough to warrant a doctors visit.
For that, I quickly surveyed the rogues scattered about, picking out Carrie, who had the worst temper of anyone here. Taking a deep breath and making sure my knife was in my pocket, I strode over to her with a fierce scowl, letting the dominance of my wolf roll out of me in waves.
"You been picking on my brother, eh?" I snarled, pushing into her. Instantly, her wolf clashed against mine, fury rolling off of her as she turned to square up to me. We were about even in stature, and she was about as good at me in a fist fight, not that I would be trying to win.
"The hell you talking about, Natalia?" She snarled, getting in my face as I tugged on my link to Nate and Gwenna, calling them to me. And then I threw the first punch, catching her squarely in the jaw and making her stagger back, swearing. She came at me and I blocked her punch, then caught another one in the stomach before I felt Nate get close enough to warrant the next step.
I pulled my knife out just enough for her to see the glint of silver, being the first to break the rule of no weapons used in fights. She was quick to respond, pulling out her own knife and stabbing it towards me, towards my heart, no less, which I wasn't expecting. A cheap shot to the shoulder or leg, yes, not an attempt to bloody kill me. Her temper was getting worse. I only just managed to turn it, making it hit high in my thigh and bury deep in my flesh. I roared out in pain as Nate arrived, barreling into her and throwing her away as I grabbed the hilt of the knife to stop it tearing more or being ripped out.
One glance down told me it had done enough damage; it would have been a fatal wound for a human, but I would just need some stitches to make a hasty recovery. Nate had delivered a sudden and harsh blow to Carrie's temple, knocking her out, and was now rushing over to me.
"I'll kill her, I'll bloody kill her." He muttered as I noticed that Gwenna was nowhere in sight, slinging one of my arms over his shoulders and beginning to rush me towards the doctor's office.
"If it's Carrie, no you bloody won't, I started and escalated it. Gwenna you can kill though. Where the hell is she?" I hissed, honestly hurt that she hadn't come when I asked for her. She always had before. If it weren't for the wound on my leg, I think my wolf would have forced a shift so she could go and wrestle Gwenna until she remembered who her alpha was. Just because she had a mate now didn't mean she could forget the hierarchy.
"With Ada." I knew it. I would deal with her later, I needed to further my plan now. With the help of my brother, I hobbled into the doctor's office, smiling at Lexi sheepishly even though I was beginning to feel a little light headed.
"Bloody hell, who have you been fighting with now? You know what, don't answer that, I don't care. Just get on the table so I can stitch you up and send you away already." Lexi snapped, rolling off the camp bed in the corner. Nate half lifted, half dragged me onto the table, stepping back so the doctor could take a look at me. As she prepped the needle and thread and yanked out the knife to patch me up, I busied myself feeling down the link to Adam, not that I had to go very far to feel his anger radiating back. Good. When I leant towards Lucy, I felt her anger again, followed by a stab of violence. They were scrapping. As Lexi plunged the needle in and out of my skin, I turned to Nate.
"Lucy and Adam are fighting, could turn into a brawl. Go split it up." I told him, Nate nodding and rushing off. Lexi was almost done with my stitches, and I deemed them at a decent enough state that I could finish off without dying, so I waited a few seconds before gasping and going glassy eyed as though I'd just heard something through the link.
"Adam just stabbed Lucy!" I cried out. Lexi stopped immediately, swearing foully.
"Everyone's just stabbing all over the place today, aren't they? No one cares that I wanted the day off. You can tie the thread yourself, and then clear off!" Lexi snapped, grabbing a battered first aid kit and fleeing the room. I didn't tie the thread off right away, just pulling my pants up and retying them before going to her unlocked medicine cabinet and rifling through. I found a bottle of strong sedatives and pocketed it, before closing up the cabinet and fleeing the room. I limped back to the den, tying off my stitches with a groan. I couldn't keep the drugs on me, so I snuffed the air to make sure no one else was near and then opened up my little hiding spot.
It was a flagstone that was loose under one end that I had lifted up and hollowed out a space beneath. When we returned to this camp, I realised that I had hid food under there. A caramel yogurt, to be precise. It hadn't been a nice clean up job.
But for now I shoved the pills down there and covered it up again, leaning back against my sleeping bag and thinking through the next stage of the plan. I had to figure out a way to get the drugs into a night guard's food without being scented, and choose a good day for an escape. Not a full moon, more on the dark moon cycle so people's senses were dimmed, not enhanced, though that would put at a disadvantage as well.
However, it was how most sneaky rogue operations happened. It was easier to get onto pack ground on a dark moon, which meant that a good few raiding teams would be out of the camp. If I could keep mine here, then I would have the perfect opportunity to sneak the alpha out and back to his own place. So, given the next dark moon was in a week, I decided that that would be the day I made my move. It was easy to sneak into the chore tent during dinner hour when no one was around and switch my name with someone else on the cooking rota. I was certain they wouldn't have looked at it yet.
There was a lot more to do, but I spaced it over the span of the next week to avoid arousing suspicion. I had other duties as well, from doing my father's busy work, to keeping up my scheme I had with my trio, to running my raiding team.
I asked around until I knew who was raiding where, and made my excuses as to why my team wouldn't be going out. Then I dug out two changes of clothes from the spare bins of them we had lying around. For ease in a shift, we stuck to clothes that were a couple of sizes too big for us, rolling up the ends and tying them tighter with string if it was needed. They were all scrounged from charity shops or donation bags people left outside, so most were already well worn. We also didn't have anywhere to do laundry other than the icy, muddy river, so they weren't the most well kept outfits in history.
But we were rogues, so why should we care?
To mask the scent, I hiked into Silsden, the nearby town, with an empty jerry can and a length of hose in the night. It was Tuesday, but the people living here didn't wait for the weekend to go out drinking so I stuck to the outer residential streets, the ones without much CCTV. I picked an old car and used my knife to pop open the petrol cap and feed the length of hose into it until I heard it hit the bottom of the tank. I opened the jerry can and pulled the other end of the house into my mouth, sucking for a moment before sticking it into the can when I felt the petrol starting to come up. I buried my head into my jacket to cough my lungs up, because it was bloody hard to do that without inhaling some fumes, and then waited for the jerry can to fill.
On the night of the dark moon, I'd go and change into my spare set of clothes by the river and douse myself in the petrol to smother my scent. After I returned, I'd burn the clothes, use soap I had nicked from the supplies to get rid of the petrol scent, and then roll around on the forest floor to get rid of the suspicious soap smell before getting dressed in my original clothes and then creep back to bed.
Of course, I'd also need transportation to get him back to his territory, because I couldn't risk letting him shift and the journey would take too long on foot. After a day of prowling the streets, I found an old car that wasn't under camera view, was nearest to the camp, and would be easy enough to hotwire.
It took me until the night before the dark moon to get everything in order and figure out my timings, and I barely slept at all. Which was a shame, because I needed all the rest I could get for the next day.