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I feel ashamed of myself.
These past few chapters have been mainly about me, my buddies and my personal story and I figured I should tell you something about the beginning of this great war; especially since it's something that directly affects you too. And I would love to make this manuscript a kind of an educational experience on top of being incredibly entertaining.
So let me lay some background on you.
The beginning of this whole mess was exceptionally confusing.
Back in my days, most of the big nations actually stopped officially declaring war. For a short time in history, the tension in the world didn't seem to be high enough to democratically justify millions of deaths just for the sake of some minted politicians' personal gain. Moreover, with the whole world connected through the internet, I like to think people started to realise how little difference there really was between them and how absurd patriotism and other forms of useless group division were, so it was getting more and more difficult to shame them into some false sense of pride to fight and kill for their motherland.
Instead, professional armies were being dispatched on these 'fake trainings' and 'extended military operations'.
What did this mean in translation? It meant you could come up with any ridiculous reason to invade your neighbours and as long as you were powerful enough, no one dared to stop you.
“Oh, we just wanted to keep peace in this wild, torn land with no stable leadership.”
“We wanted to impose democracy.”
“We wanted to bring them freedom!”
In this way, the stronger nations were able to bully and occupy anyone weaker than them, free to take whatever resources they wanted and free to commit all sorts of horrible war crimes without actually having to face any consequences, because after all, they weren't legally at war with anyone. Right? And in a free, civilised, intelligent world, how are you supposed to punish someone who hadn't technically commited a crime?
It was a really filthy tactic.
All of that changed the day when one of the biggest bullies around decided to take a bigger bite than they could swallow. The opponent wasted no time in retaliating, their former allies were pulled in, their own allies joined the fray along with them and before any of us small people had the time to figure out what was going on, the whole world seemed to be at each other's throats.
What I'm essentially trying to say here is: Learn from our stupid mistakes, kids, and don't start the fourth one!
That being said, I haven't kept you updated on the situation in a world for a while and that's mostly because we haven't had any way to get to the freshest news out here in the forest and even after getting our new TV in the past few days, we've been pretty busy trying to catch the mad lightning bloke.
But now that we finally had some time off, the grave information came flooding in. And grave they were.
“This is probably one of the first big bombings,” El commented on the report going on in the TV.
“The first one we've heard about, to be sure,” James remarked, holding the 'remote' safely out of the two brothers' reach. “It's a little strange if you think about it. I would have expected them to go nuclear a lot sooner than this.”
“I think a big part of nuclear warfare is the general threat of using it and not the attack in itself. And besides, wars are always fought to be won, land is there to be claimed and people to be exploited. If you destroy the land and kill the people, then what is even the point of fighting in the first place? Funnily we might be, as of right now, avoiding complete apocalypse thanks to nothing less than human greed.” He knocked on his forehead knowingly. “I'd bet the guys who launched it were on a losing side and at their wits end. They wouldn't have done it otherwise.”
“It's gonna be a long war,” William joined in.
“How long do you think your state is gonna stay neutral?”
“Kingdom,” Will corrected him. “It's a kingdom, technically, even though we don't like to act like it.”
“I always forget about that.”
Their chin wag went on in a similar manner for some time afterwards, and I had to admire the calmness of the two outlaws. I was personally terrified, as I imagine must have been the rest of our little group, but, as I believe I've mentioned somewhere earlier, this story is mainly about us and the events of this day were about to end up being way more important to us than any gruesome news we might have learned about.
“Now… anyone wants to join me?” Elskan asked as soon as the program moved on to something a little more cheerful. “I'm gonna go outside and upgrade our security systems.”
A few days have passed since we subdued the mad terrorist everyone in the underground had started calling Einstein, and this first wild adventure was just the beginning of many more tasks to come, though none of them were as exciting.
We helped the Rebels hand out little rations of food to various families across the town, fed old people in a retirement home and slipped the head of the local fire brigade a nice little sum of dosh, among many other great deeds; everything done quietly and anonymously, of course, leaving no trace of our origins.
And despite her initial aggravation, Tommy, the Rebel leader, turned out to be more than grateful for our repeated services.
To name just a few of all the best new stuff we got: More clothes after Elskan destroyed the last batch, a big box of coffee, toilet paper, peanut butter cookies and most importantly, a 3D printer El had ordered. The machine had been sitting in our room for the past three nights, working away and making more traps and trip alarms to warn us of any unwelcome trespassers.
“I've nothing better to do,” I offered.
“You are supposed to be doing laundry later,” James reminded me mercilessly.
“Later, yeah, which means I have plenty of time to do it in the evening.”
“Damn. One of your recruits seems to be going rogue, El.” James turned to the other outlaw with a grin.
“I believe that's called puberty,” Elskan chortled. “Are you experiencing some pains, Tony? Hair growing in weird places or strange new feelings you were not aware of before?”
“That's really funny, you guys.”
“Right. I'll go grab the things. We'll meet outside when you're done eating.”
There was nothing exceptionally striking about this new trap design, as far as I could readily tell, except that we made sure to hang them way higher than the last time, cleverly hiding the mechanisms in between the leaves and thin twigs and expanding the grid to be on the safe side to catch any random passersby from much further away.
We walked in a big circle around the camp, moving the multi-coloured pieces of cloth that marked our territory into a new position every few metres, and as the work quickly got boring, we got to talking.
“That Einstein guy had some pretty fascinating technology down in that hole of his, don't you think?”
I have to admit I wasn't surprised by the choice of this topic. I myself have been thinking about the dead lady and the weird, sci-fi-ish way she had been murdered almost every night before I went to sleep.
“It was… pretty outlandish.”
“I think outlandish might be a bit of an understatement.” His laughther pierced the woods. “My only regret is that in all that chaos I didn't get a chance to properly talk with him about it. If he managed to make those devices all by himself, he might be one of the greatest minds I've ever seen, no matter his motives.”
“He didn't seem exactly talkative,” I felt compelled to say.
“I'm sure that could be arranged.”
“You seem awfully excited about all this.”
“And are you not? If you only knew what I've got up my sleeve-”
He ended the sentence unfinished and froze in place.
“Did you hear that?”
I did actually, and I stopped too, hiding among the bushes like some frightened animal. There was a weird thudding sound, followed by kind of a swish, as if something was flying through the air before hitting a solid obstacle.
“It's not that far.”
Only a few metres further on we came upon a small clearing, the branches parted and- I ducked just in time to dodge an arrow that would have lodged itself deep in my skull.
“Oh, what the hell?”
The shout came from Ashley, who was standing in the middle of the meadow with an actual bow in her right hand. She was wearing a short yellow shirt that bared her shoulders, and three more pieces of feathered wood were planted in the ground in front of her. She appeared shocked at the prospect of almost shooting someone and legged it towards us with her eyes open wide.
While I could do nothing but stand in place in the face of this divine sight, El stepped over the hedge and plucked the arrow from the scarred wood beside me. “What are you doing here?”
“Training?” she replied sarcastically. “I want to learn how to hunt!”
“On our territory!”
“This place is not just for you, you know? Anyone can come here!”
“Is that a bloody bow?” I'd finally composed myself enough to join in the argument. “Why do you have to have a bow now?”
“Are you even old enough to hold a weapon?” Elskan asked the girl who'd managed to blind James with pepper spray only a couple of weeks ago. He snatched it from her hands. “Where did you get this?”
“I made it out of a piece of board. Give it back!”
“Do you even know what to do with this?”
“I watched a video on the internet with Cameron Hanes.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“One of the best bow hunters in the world?”
“Oh...” El frowned. “So that makes you an expert?”
“Exactly.”
Shrugging, he handed the weapon back to her. “Alright, whatever. I can't stop you from invading our forest. I can't stop you from changing our lives. I won't stop you if you want to shoot yourself in the foot.”
“Yesss...” she fist-pumped in the air.
“Do you even know you messed up our first quest, by the way?”
“Messed up?” Ashley glared at him. “Tommy already scolded me for that one a few days back. You can call it messed up if you want to, but I consider Operation Swapped Papers a great success.”
“Operation swapped...” It took me a moment to realise what she meant by that. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Was it just my imagination or did she actually blush? “Well... I may have a confession to make. I might have known beforehand that a job for Clarkson was going to be something serious and I might have swapped your assignment with the people who were actually supposed to go there.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Look, I did you all a big favour.” She frowned. “I knew you were capable of great things, and I gave you a chance to prove it to the rest of the underground.”
“But-”
“And you did! And if you think Tommy is taking pretty good care of you now, just imagine what she'll do when she realises what a treasure she stumbled upon when she met you.”
There was a moment of strange, uncomfortable silence before Elskan looked at her with his face squashed in disbelief.
“Why would you do this?”
“I like you guys.” She looked at him innocently, then grinned like a little devil. “And I'm the one who found you, so who do you think gets all the credit for your achievements? Right?”
“I see... Did you see that guy we brought in? Einstein? He had like five meters and we had to find a way to beat him up. We could have all died there and Tony broke a nail. All because of you.”
“But you beat him! So brilliant work. Again. What are you doing out there?” she tried to change the topic, looking anywhere but into our eyes while El watched her like a man held back by nothing but his better self and then, his eyes rolling up, decided that biting the bait was the easier option.
“We're just walking the grounds, chatting, setting up traps to keep nosy people like you from coming in. The usual fun outlaw activities.”
“Don't forget I'm the one who brings you all the food.”
“Haven't seen you the last couple of days and we haven't had a problem.”
He turned around, gestured for me to follow him and started to walk away from the Rebel, before stopping at the edge of the glade.
“So are you gonna stay here or come with?”
The rest of our walk passed by in a much more pleasant way than the tiresome first half. Despite El's initial disagreement, the Rebel girl soon started helping us with the upgrades, moving the pieces of cloth that marked our territory and exchanging all the freshest news from the underground, and so together, having reinforced our defences, we decided that a longer walk along the threaded paths wouldn't hurt anyone.
We'd never properly toured the forest before, apart from a few short walks around the camp, and I was excited to see a wider extension of my temporal home. There was a strangely mysterious atmosphere about our woods once you chose to let it engulf you, and while there was usually wholly nothing more to be seen other than a sea of trees and a couple of occasional animals, it apparently hid many treasures we had yet to discover.
Green and golden light streamed in through the holes between the leaves and shone on as we made our way through the bushes and over the mossy rocks until, without ever expecting it, we forced our way through a family of thick hedges and a grim sight appeared in front of us.
It seemed way too similar to those scary mansions you might have seen in amusement parks or horror movies. A large, greyish building entered our field of vision, its size spanning the entirety of the glade in which it stood. Contrary to its deteriorated exterior, most of the windows appeared to be intact, except for a few empty frames nearer to the top. Though we were unable to see it from our low point of view, a big portion of the roof and part of the upper floor must have caved in, holding the shingles in a steep, dangerous angle.
A short path led a few metres away from the front door, immediately disappearing into the nearby vegetation as if it had never even existed in the first place.
“I had no idea you had a whole summerhouse villa out there,” I tried to jest nervously, but when I looked at El, I read the same confusion in his own face.
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“What?”
“I'm serious,” he added, seeing our confusion. “I've never seen this place before.”
Ashley glared at him like he was the dumbest person she ever met. “Are you telling me you have this whole forest all to yourself but you never cared to properly search it?”
“Don't blame me. This place might seem like it's not that much, but if you think about it, it's a pretty huge area. We have enough problems with our tiny bit of land. I don't care what's out there if it doesn't try to hurt us. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.”
“What?”
“That's just something people say! I don't know...”
Silence fell after his last statement and one of the windows creaked open as if inviting us inside.
“So are we going in?” Ashley half climbed out of the bushes only to be dragged back inside.
“Wait!” my roommate held her by the sleeve. “What if someone lives in there?”
That thought freaked me out. For some reason, the idea of someone living right next to us without us ever noticing them seemed incredibly creepy.
“All the more reason to go and say hi!”
El stared at her. “How have you managed to survive without us up to this point?”
“Creepy is just an adjective we use for something out of our comfort zone we refuse to understand. So let's explore the place and we'll know what it is.” She shook out of his grasp. “I'm going in whether you want it or not.”
And not wasting any time to get caught a second time, she went on towards the decrepit ruin. I didn't know about Elskan, but I surely wasn't about to stand around and let her get buried underneath a ton of collapsed rubble.
“I think I'm gonna go look after her.”
I noticed him looking at me in that annoying way your friends sometimes do when they notice something they shouldn't have; a raised eyebrow and that questioning glance…
“Oh, are you?”
“Yes. What's up with that stare?” I barked nervously.
“Nothing. Go on and help her, you white knight.”
Trying to ignore both the outlaw and the generally uncomfortable atmosphere of the place, I joined Ashley by the entrance.
“Can you help me push this?” she gestured to the heavy front door. It was quite rotten, and an ancient-looking knocker in the shape of a bird adorned the wood. It gave way with a loud creak that must have been heard across the whole building.
At a first sight it was clear no one lived here. No one could live here. The place was practically disintegrating before our eyes.
The main area we entered seemed to be a grand entrance hall, with a kind of a stall near the exit and a staircase leading up to a higher level.
Right in the middle of the hall, a small tree grew through the floor, pushing aside the boards to make room for its young roots and stretching upwards in its fight to reach the hole in the roof and the green light streaming inside.
The walls were covered in cobwebs. It was hard to tell whether the colour slowly faded or nobody cared to paint them in the first place. Ivy claimed most of the space under our feet. The sparse furniture looked to be new, though dusty and unused.
“What is this place?” Ashley asked in wonder.
“How would we know?”
“That was more of a rhetorical question!”
As we made our way to the upper parts, the second floor proved to be in an even worse condition than the first one. The roof was missing altogether in many places, exposing the interior to the unspeakable cruelties of the English weather, and Ashley almost fell through the stairs when one of the steps broke in and trapped her foot in a hole of rotten wood. We had to take care not to fall into the same trap a second time.
Having zero sense of self-preservation whatsoever, as she proved multiple times, the Rebel girl got really into the exploration of the area, running from place to place and yelping at every little discovery we made.
In my opinion, she would have made an outstanding outlaw.
Exploring around, I started noticing something strange about the architecture. The entirety of the upper part consisted of nothing but hallways and identical rooms squeezed together to accommodate as much space as possible. Like the person who'd designed the place wanted to live with as many family members as humanly possible.
The designs and furnishings, wherever they were, were all the same too. An identical bed in every bedroom, identical tables, identical showers attached to every one of the cramped rooms. Who could have planned to live in a place like this? And why?”
Just as I was about to turn to my two companions and ask for their opinion, I noticed a curious little detail on a nearby door; a little metal plaque stuck to the wood right next to the handle. The number stamped into the material read: fifty-five.
“Huh...” I came to a sudden realisation. Wiping the dust off the nearest door revealed a shiny fifty-six, then fifty-seven, fifty-eight… “This was supposed to be a hotel,” I shouted down the empty hallways to let my companions know about my discoveries.
“That explains the size of the place and the rooms.”
“It also means this is a private property,” I glanced over at Elskan as soon as they both caught up to me and the outlaw frowned. “If someone wanted to build here, they have to own this land.”
“Someone too poor to take care of their stuff. If we haven't had any problems with them up to this point, I don't think we ever will.” He dismissed my concerns with a shrug while Ashley skipped past me, exploring yet another closed door.
“I don't know, guys... I could get used to this,” she grinned.
At that moment the floorboards groaned somewhere below us, sending shivers down my spine and wiping the smiles off my friends' faces.
“That must have been near the entrance,” El proclaimed.
“Really? You can't tell where it was,” Ashley criticised him.
“Shush!”
“You shush!”
We all hid in the nearest room, number fifty-five, careful to close the door with as little sound as possible, the sounds of footsteps sneaking up the decrepit staircase already getting louder and louder by every second.
All three of us pressed together in silent anticipation, we listened to the mysterious phantom feet walking up the stairs and then seemingly appearing in the very hallway from which we'd just escaped.
Closer and closer.
I could see an understanding in their faces and as the steps came up beside us, I opened the door with a thud and with a ferocious war cry we all charged forward to meet our mysterious enemy!
The person in front of me turned around with a sudden start and all the bloodlust immediately left me when I recognised her familiar face. The dark ponytail sticking out from under a bowler cap, a sharp face and the same nose and eyes I knew from occasional glances into the mirror...
“Sam?!”
The woman in the uniform stopped and glared at me. “Tony!!?”
Everybody meet Samantha. My sister.
And I know! I know… What a strange coincidence, right? We randomly meet an officer right in the middle of our forest and of all the people it could be it happens to be my sister. It's way too convenient to be true, isn't it? Well, little one, you have to understand Nederstone used to be a really tiny town and all in all there were about ten policemen in active duty at any given time. You remember Foxglove? This was the reason the council-”
Sam lunged forward, shoving both my friends out of the way and hugged me so tight I'm pretty sure I heard some of my ribs crack. That was awfully sweet of her. Quite nice. Brilliant. And followed by two slaps from either side of my face.
“What was that for?” I instinctively raised a hand to my cheek.
“For leaving in the morning to buy some food and never coming back!” she started to rant, while the Rebel and the outlaw stared from one of us to the other, baffled by this sudden reunion. “For disappearing from the shop! For getting caught by the foxes! For pretending like it's all okay when you write me two weeks later without any explanation!” Each new statement was followed by another blow to the head, while I tried to retreat backwards, guarding myself the best I could.
“I had to break so many rules just to find out what happened to you!” The assault began to slow down. “And- What the hell happened to your nose?” She stopped.
Instinctively, I reached up to feel the weird new curve of my face, courtesy of one of Mark's neighbours.
“That's a long story.”
“Long story? Long story is an understatement. I haven't seen you in like a month!” Sam reached up to touch my face. “And you should shave too.”
“I'm sorry to interrupt your... whatever is going on here.” Elskan stepped in between us. “Who is this woman, Tony? Is she cool?”
“She is cool,” I confirmed, to Sam's displeasure.
“I'm anything but cool! What's going on in here?”
This was going to take a long time.
Over the next couple of minutes, after I introduced everyone to everyone and things had calmed down a little, we sat down on some of the more preserved chairs in the entrance hall and I finally got my chance to explain the whole tale to my sister. If a 'whole' tale is what we're going to call it.
The fateful morning, my unfortunate arrest, the first time meeting Elskan and our escape from the clutches of the army (I left out everything about the dungeons and the whole Lyonhall part, of course), meeting new friends and all the woes of a life in the forest…
When I got to the part where we first met Ashley and James got pepper-sprayed in the face, I stopped and looked over at the Rebel girl... All that followed in the story were the sewers, the Rebels, mysterious indoor lightning and evil scientists-
“And that's how we all met, basically...”
I wasn't sure Sam was ready for secret societies and mad terrorists in her life.
“Is it... should I slow down a little?”
Halfway through the story, my sister reached down into her pocket and lit a cigarette. It's an annoying habit she had ever since high school. Our parents never found out. To them, she was always the proper good girl and I was the one forever causing nothing but trouble. “I just need a moment to process all of this.”
“It's a lot,” I allowed.
“So you live out here like some weird hermits? That's mental.”
“That's what I told them!” Ashley grinned.
“This doesn't look like the most sanitary place.” She looked around. “I don't mean to sound like our mum, but...”
“We live in a different place! This is just some ruin we happened to find.”
“A different place. Can I see it?”
I could see the stab of panic in El's eyes as he looked at me. “I- I'm not sure about that.”
Thankfully, that seemed to be enough to satisfy her curiosity. Sam just nodded to herself and moved on. “Do you eat enough?”
For a second there I felt like I was ten again. “Don't embarrass me in front of them. Please.”
“We do have plenty to eat, fortunately.” My outlaw friend rushed to my rescue.
“And how about you?” I asked in a desperate attempt to divert the attention to her. “What have you been up to?”
“Oh, you know... The bog standard stuff. Looking for my lost younger brother,” Sam shrugged. “I didn't think much of it that first morning you went missing. You're an adult, more or less, and whatever you might have been doing, I didn't feel like intruding into your personal life. I got ready, took my things and went to work the same as every day. It was in the evening when I started getting really worried. It was kinda weird to find a hopeless loner like you away from home for more than a few hours.” She half grinned as I felt the stares of my two companions drilling into the back of my scalp. “I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, though. Maybe you finally made some friends or found a real girl or something.”
Sam took a second to shake the ash off her cigarette.
“You weren't picking up your phone and when I spoke to the landlady, she didn't see you either. I had to ask around the office to learn someone who looked like you had been seen in some hassle with the foxes. I didn't want to believe it, of course, but by the second day, I was starting to get pretty worried. This could be a dangerous town, after all. I tried looking around and asking whoever might have seen you and all I got were two weeks of pure bloody silence, a brief message and now… this.” She leaned closer to me. “So what happened out there?”
What happened out there?
Wait... so she didn't know.
She had no idea I'd been nicking from the shop. She had no idea what I'd been doing behind her back for the past few months.
I honestly expected her to have figured it all out by this point, but… Actually, now that I've had the time to think about it a little more; Foxglove never cared to lead any files on their prisoners. They didn't care about the police and they didn't leave any traces if they didn't have to. If that young officer failed to recognise me... From her point of view, I was just gone for a few weeks, sent her a few messages without any explanation and then reappeared in a completely random place in the woods. And that meant-
There comes a moment in the life of every adult man and woman when you're faced with your own terrible decisions. Will you be strong enough to do what's right and act according to your morals or-
“I have no idea,” I heard myself say. “They just snatched me off the street for no reason. I was on my way to the shop same as every day when they cornered me and loaded me up into the car,” I shrugged. “I literally have no idea why.”
For a split second, I thought I saw a shadow of disappointment run over her face. Then she frowned in disgust. “They think they can do whatever they want just because they have power. Typical Foxglove…”
“Typical Foxglove, yeah.”
“So what's your plan here?” Sam inquired. She was always more practical than affectionate.
“I mean, I'll probably just hide out here, the way I've been doing it up to this point.”
“I know. Sure. But after that?”
This response left me kinda baffled. After that? I'd never stopped to think about any 'after that' before. What did it even mean? I guess I'd been just way too busy these past few days to think about my own future.
Sam seemed to take my silence as a sign of uncertainty.
“I'm not being funny. Getting taken by Foxglove might well be the thing that ends up saving your ass in the end. The army is infamous for never taking any records on their prisoners. If you were taken to the station and given detention, you would be marked for life, but with the way things turned out, all you need to do is wait for all this to blow over and you might be able to... have a normal life again.”
“Blow over?” I said, pondering this new prospect.
“Foxglove will leave the town one day, either for a better contract or because they won't be needed anymore and this war can't last forever either. Things will calm down, eventually. All we need to do is wait and sooner than you think we'll all be back to the old routine.”
All this talk seemed to be way too fairytale-y to be true, but I'd known my sister all my life and she never tended to joke or take the matters lightly when things got serious.
“You think I could really... things could really go back to normal?”
“As normal as it gets,” she shrugged. “They always do.”
“For the time being, I can assure you your brother is safe here with us,” Elskan finally spoke up before succumbing back into a brooding silence. “If there's a better place to hide, I don't know about it.”
“As long as you're safe, I guess I can't complain,” Sam shrugged, addressing me, as Ashley followed with another curious question.
“Excuse me for asking, but what are you even doing all alone in the middle of the forest? Were you perhaps looking for him?”
“Oh, yeah. Believe it or not, I'm looking for a stolen car. In a forest!” she frowned, half-joking. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”
I don't consider myself to be the worst actor in the world, and Elskan wasn't exactly forgettable either. But at that moment both of our facades dropped in an instant. All we could do was stare at her with daft little smiles until Ashley, seeing our distress, decided to carry on in the conversation.
“Sorry. Haven't seen any cars around here,” she smiled reassuringly. “Is this what you usually do in the police?”
“Yes. As surprising as it may sound, my job is not as exciting as you might think to begin with, and now with the army nicking all our work...” Her expression changed and her eyes grew wide. “Actually, we had an interesting one just a few days back. Some bloke found his landlady burned to a crisp in his own house; probably faulty wiring in the walls or something. I didn't see it myself because we can't do murders anyway and they had some agent from Ipswich come over to do it, but it's still pretty wicked. While all the lesser crimes are a dime a dozen, we haven't had somebody die in a long while and this was the second time in a few weeks.”
That seemed to be one of the last straws for the already nervous outlaw, who started jabbing me in the back while still grinning from ear to ear. As nice as our little family reunion was, we'd already shared all we needed to and I think I understood it was nigh time to say our goodbyes.
We managed to keep the chin wag going for a little while longer and when Sam started talking about that strange practice in the streets the army has had a few days after my disappearance, I gently informed her of our very limited time and ushered her out of the door.
She was already turning to go when I realised I had one last question for her and I grabbed her by the arm. This was way too important to miss. “You didn't tell anything to mom, did you?”
“Of course I didn't! Am I daft? We had a Skype call last weekend and I told them you were out with some friends. Which wasn't that far from the truth, apparently.”
We hugged and patted each other on the back and I watched Sam disappear into the bushes.
Our little group waited in silence for a while, watching the shrubs sway in the wind, before I spoke again:
“Should we hide the car somewhere?” I hadn't expected anyone to come looking for it, but I suppose I was wrong.
“I think it's fine. We never use it outside of the forest. Also-” Without any warning whatsoever Elskan grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the wall so hard Ashley yelped in surprise. “Your sister is a damn cop?!”
“I- I was planning to tell you,” I stammered.
“Sure you were! Anything else you would like to confess?”
“Leave him!” Ashley tried to pull him off me. “The girl seems fine, doesn't she?”
“She is fine!” I shouted.
From the few centimetres, I could see something resembling shame flash in his eyes. “She does. She really does… I'm sorry, Tony. I understand keeping a secret like that can be complicated.” He let me go. “Family is important.”
After that the three of us stood at the door, huffing and puffing and not daring to look each other in the eye, while I watched the nearby bushes in a vain hope my sister might have heard something of our brawl and turned around to help me. She never did, though.
“What now?”
“Well… I think I've seen enough for one day.” The Rebel crossed her arms. “I'll see you the next time.”
“Wait, Ashley… just one more thing about this.” El caught her by the arm and I couldn't help but notice her flinch, as if expecting the same treatment I got. Elskan, however, appeared to be calm again.
“You won't tell anything to your buddies about this, and us...” he turned to me with a look and a slight nod. “We won't tell anything to ours.”
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