Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 10 - BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Eira's face soured very quickly. "How about we speed run it? My back hurts, I can't see out of my left eye and both my feet are cramping. Pain score's about a four. No, I don't feel breathless, and I'm not dizzy. Anything else?"

Cassidy sighed, but she'd been dealing with my sister for years now, and she knew to pick her battles. "No, not for now."

At that moment, the dinner bell rang. Bryn and I twitched towards the door instinctively, because we both knew all too well that anyone who was late to supper could only eat after everyone else had taken their seconds.

"Hang on," my sister said. "I'm coming too."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Cassidy told her, trying to sound stern.

"I'm coming," she repeated, sitting up in bed slowly and painstakingly. "Try and bloody stop me."

To be honest, we could stop her quite easily if we wanted to. There was a problem with living in the middle of nowhere — the accessibility was shit. We had started laying a patio at the front of the cabin so Eira could use her wheelchair outdoors, but we were having to buy the stones slowly, whenever there was some cash spare, because they were one of the few things we couldn't steal from flockies. So, for the moment, if she wanted to get from the ward to the kitchen, she had to walk or be carried, and neither option was ideal.

Eira sat on the edge of the bed and let her feet rest on the floor. All three of us watched as eased some weight onto her toes, which were curled up tightly in the wrong directions. Just looking at them made my own toes tingle with pain.

"Nope," she muttered. "Nope, that's not happening."

"That's okay. We've got a big strong lad here, and he's got to earn his keep somehow," I said cheerfully.

Bryn took his queue and swapped places with me so he was beside Eira, and then he leaned down and put one arm under her legs and the other under her back.

"Gently, Bryn," Cassidy told her son, but the warning was hardly necessary. Bryn picked her up like she was made of sugar-glass, and then I opened the ward door for him. He carried her through to the kitchen, where she could sit in her wheelchair and wait for dinner to be served. Bryn and I took the chairs on either side of her.

When Mam came in with the kids, she was so astonished that she nearly dropped Poppy on the floor, and then Eira had to endure her fretting. She was allowed to stay, if only because Mam couldn't say no to my sister. The rest of the family weren't far behind her. The conversation was, as always, boisterous, to say the least. Eira was too worn out to participate for the most part, but she did enjoy listening. Bryn told her about Wyst, and I told her about my time with Nia.

She didn't manage to eat much. It was chicken pie, which was one of Sam's specialities, but she had barely two forkfuls before she scraped the rest of her supper onto my plate. I didn't complain — I was always looking to put on a few pounds, and Eira often got nauseous. Weirdly, Bryn didn't have much of an appetite, either. He managed to scoff down his vegetables, but he only picked at the pie.

By the time we'd finished our pudding — mugs of steaming custard — Eira was nearly asleep in her chair, and she didn't protest when Cassidy ordered her back to the ward. Bryn and I sat with her until she really did fall asleep, and then we sat there a little longer just because.

We went to find our own beds at barely nine o'clock, because it had been a long day, all things considered. Plus, the kids were playing sardines in the woods, so the loft would be mercifully empty, and I could get to sleep without listening to Matty and Ahmed giggling for an hour.

I had barely put one hand on the ladder when Bryn caught hold of my jacket from behind. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he offered me a sheepish smile. "Um, before you go up there, I should probably—"

Before he could finish, I twisted free and climbed up. At first, I couldn't see anything amiss. There was just mattresses and sleeping bags and the partition which separated the girls from the boys. It was only when I peered into the gloom at the far end of the boys' side that I saw it — a faint outline standing on the floorboards beside Liam's mattress.

"—explain," Bryn sighed. He had followed me up, and he was chewing on his lip while he waited for my reaction.

"Bryn Llewellyn," I said with a calm I didn't feel, "is that a chicken?"

He heaved a long sigh. "Technically ... yes."

"There's no technically about it. Where the hell did you get it? And ... why?" I demanded. The calmness was fracturing with every word, replaced by overwhelming confusion.

"The farm at Arlow," he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "I wanted to cheer Eira up. She's had a rough couple of days."

"And this was the first thing that crossed your mind? Not chocolates or a card or something? Poultry theft?" I spluttered.

"Actually, I was going to nick a goat, but they run too bloody fast."

I rubbed at my face. The chicken was pecking at our floorboards. I couldn't see the feathers very well, but I was pretty sure they were brown and speckled. It was ... bigger than I expected, somehow. I'd only seen chickens from a distance, and now there was one roaming free in my bedroom.

"Ahmed named him Cluck Norris," Bryn told me. "He's kinda a pain in the ass. He laid an egg on Matty's bed and shat on mine. I did have him in a box at first, but he didn't like it much. Kept bloody clucking. The adults would've heard."

"He is clearly a she," I pointed out.

Bryn's forehead furrowed. "Oh, right. Good shout."

Another chicken emerged from the girls' half of the loft. This one was grey and a bit smaller, but there was a glint in its beady little eyes that I didn't like one bit. It was looking at me like it wanted to tear me to shreds.

"Two of them," I murmured. "There's two of them."

"Of course. I didn't want him ... her, it, whatever ... to be lonely."

I swore at him, and he winced, to my satisfaction. "I suppose this one has a smartass name too?"

"Princess Lay-a," he whispered.

More swearing.

"You better be feeding them, Bryn," I said sternly. "What ... what are you even supposed to feed them?"

"No idea," he admitted. "They like grapes and bread, but they would probably murder each other for a nice, juicy worm."

I could definitely picture that dumbass rooting in the mud for worms to feed the stupid birds. Still, it was impressive that he'd managed to keep them secret this long in a house full of people with amazing hearing and senses of smell. I suspected the pile of cleaning products near the hatch had played no small part. All of the kids must have been in on it, the little devils.

"You're not going to snitch on me, right?" he asked, and those damned hazel eyes were wide with hope.

"Of course not," I scoffed. "But they'd better be gone by tomorrow night."

He wrapped me in a rather aggressive hug. "Thank you."

"I mean it," I warned him.

"Yeah, yeah, I promise."

Bryn was a big fat liar.