WHERE ROGUES RIP

We all stopped in our tracks. I almost ran into Jonah's broad back, but my hair whipped out and grabbed a nearby tree to stop the crash.

No one saw my cool move though since all the action happened behind the two guys.

Ben and Jonah exchanged looks, and then they dropped back behind the tree line. I didn't really need them to tell me, they were going to flank around the three goons.

Because, yes, all three of them were here. I sensed about for more wolves, but it was just the three Morning Light Goons... They were actually a proper distance away. Ethan wasn't making any effort to keep his volume down.

Neither were the other two.

"Shut up!" Nix said.

"Is either one of you gonna dig?" Marlow's low voice demanded.

"Nope. Just you." Ethan laughed again.

There was some growling, and Ethan quickly changed his tune, "I'm digging! I'm digging. Hahahaha..."

Since Ben and Jonah had taking a left, I took the right. It just felt right. (Get it? Taking the right felt right?)

When Ben realized I wasn't going to follow, he threw his hands up. I threw him a mindlink before he could double back to where I was, {Just go. I'll meet you guys there.}

{Oh, NOW you wanna open your mindlink.} Ben grumbled, but he tapped Jonah's shoulder and nodded for them to continue.

Ben made it sound like I kept my mindlinks closed on purpose.

I didn't wait to watch the guys back as they picked their way through the trees. I quickly found a path round the other way. There were less trees on my side, but I don't think the goons were expecting company.

My plan was a dart quickly for the thicket and then scoot around that jut of a rock - why was there a rock like that in the middle of nowhere? And then hopefully the trees just behind that would give me enough cover.

Wait, why were we sneaking around?

Okay, so Ben, Jonah, and I weren't supposed to be here, wherever "here" was, but this was really some kind of "here". I could tell because of that jagged rock just plunked there. Someone had dragged this huge rock from somewhere all the way to this goddess forsaken side of our woods where the soil smelled pungent and some other smells I couldn't place, but it gave me enough indication that this wasn't a good part of the woods to be hanging around.

Especially since noticing that one of the trees bore scars that resembled the shape of the jagged rock. Boundary markers - something Grandpa Alpha showed me when I was still a pup.

The one Grandpa Alpha showed me had a motif of a wave.

"What's this?" I had traced the wave with my finger. It looked like the tree had been repeatedly cut every year over the same pattern.

"Boundary Marker." Grandpa Alpha answered, "It means anyone who crosses it would go down to the bottom of the lake."

"I want to go to the bottom of the lake!" I imagined it to be a bit like visiting fish in the aquarium.

Grandpa Alpha laughed, "Not this one, puppy. This one is cold and soulless. Those who go in never come out again."

"Why?" I mean, if the water was cold, shouldn't they come out and get warm?

"I'll ask them if I ever see them again." Grandpa Alpha promised.

I was a little afraid of the trees with the wave sign after that though. I mean, I didn't quite understand what "soulless" was, but Grandpa Alpha had said it in a way that I imagined the lake to be dark. Maybe it was a very deep black lake. I don't know. Because I never went past those trees to see.

I did make sure to tell Grandpa Alpha that I think the lake must be dangerous and he should NEVER go there either. Whatever would we do if Grandpa Alpha never came back? But Grandpa Alpha only laughed, "You have good instincts, puppy. Listen to them and they will protect your life."

And then I forgot about it because Grandpa Alpha brought me to this part of the woods where all the trees were orange trees. We ended up picking a whole crate of oranges to bring home.

"Remember this place, puppy." Grandpa Alpha told me as he hefted up the crate to go, "There are more than oranges here."

"Okay!" I promised because I thought we could come get free fruit every summer.

But then I forgot about that too. The next year, Grandpa Alpha was busy with the vineyard because "the foxes got to them".

I'm sure my family would be visiting Night Forest again this Summer.

Whatever would we do now that Grandpa Alpha is never coming back?

Whatever would I do?

I was snapped out of my reverie by a small commotion.

"Aieeeee!" Ethan the hyena had screamed. I think he also dropped his shovel from the sounds of it.

By now, I had gotten myself halfway around the clearing. Not too bad. I could see Nix, Ethan, and Marlow on the other side of the jagged rock.

Ethan had dropped his shovel. Marlow too. In fact, he had his rifle out.

It looked like they were burying bodybags, but that wouldn't make sense unless this was...

"Yo." Ben said, quickly identifying himself before Marlow shot.

Marlow lowered the rifle and Ben and Jonah stepped out into the clearing.

"Do you have clearance for that?" Ben nodded at the bodybags.

I had never imagined it, but for someone who made it his mission to break every rule ever applied in the Beta Household (and there were very, very many rules there), Ben was really turning out to be quite a stickler for them now that he was beta.

"What the hell, beta." Nix took offence immediately, "Do I look like a paper pusher to you?"

"F*** beta." Ethan was still thumping his chest, "I nearly had a heart attack."

"Don't come out of the bushes like that." Growled Marlow putting his gun away.

"What...what are you guys doing here?" Jonah looked about nervously. Was he looking for me?

Nix noticed and turned around to scan the area. I dropped back behind a particularly large tree. It was really by instinct. I'm not even sure why I was hiding. I was the Alpha dammit!

And then Jonah noticed someone odd about the pile of bodybags, "Are those what I think they are?"

I could see the blue bodybags too. Night Leaf bodybags were bright blue. This had nothing to do with our new official warrior navy blue. This IKEA blue was because Gamma Harry and Gamma Endo liked to compete who bagged more rogues whenever we had to do joint border controls.

Morning Light bags were army green, so Night Leaf started using blue bags. Gamma Harry found that this shade of blue was unexpectedly cheap.

"Very good!" He had showed off the newly procured bags to Dad and Beta Lucas, "It's very easy to spot. We won't ever accidentally leave a body out again."

No one else liked it though. So now we only used the cheap blue ones Gamma Harry had gotten in bulk for the unlucky rogues (the lucky ones would get whatever other color we happened to have on hand.)

The warriors used to call them Ikea bags. When warriors returned from an eventful patrol or were dispatched for anything, sometimes they'd be ask, "Brought back anything from Ikea?"

Which meant if they had to bring back any bodies.

Usually, there would be some guffawing because the answer was no. Night Leaf didn't have as many situations as Morning Light where these things happened.

There was this one time though, when Flynn and Hank came back from something, someone yelled across the Packhouse dining hall, "Hey, you're back. Bought anything from Ikea?"

And Hank said, "Yes. But its delivering in a truck."

There was this stunned silence. And then everyone realized all at once that Hank was really talking about a shopping trip because he had also recently moved house. It was the story of the week and I proudly told Dad and Mum all about it over dinner that night.

But it wasn't the fact that the Morning Light Goons were messing with Night Leaf bags that seemed to be the problem.

"What the hell." Ben was immediately alarmed, "Where are the others?"

"The others?" Nix scratched his head, "This is it, beta."

"There are only four bags here." Ben said, "We made 9."

"Maybe someone's already dealt with it." Nix shrugged.

"Don't f***ing 'maybe someone' me." Ben snapped at that, "Who gave you clearance to dump them here in the first place?"

Nix raised his hands, "Look, I dunno anything okay? My dad told me to get a couple of guys and clean up the s***. When we got here, this was what we found."

"F*** that Endo." Ben said.

"Uh, no offence." Jonah added.

Nix shrugged, "No worries. I think so too."

"He just can't say it." Ethan pipped in, "Cos that's his daddy. So he can only scream like a girly boy, 'F*** you, Daddy!' Aiehahahaha..."

"Wait, so do we keep digging here, or are we filling up?" Marlow wanted to know since he was the one doing the actual lifting here.

Throughout the exchange, Jonah kept scanning the tree line nervously. Jonah wasn't the most subtle wolf.

"What?" Now Nix got worried too. He looked over his shoulder again, "Is your dad around?"

At the thought of Gamma Harry maybe being around, all three of the Morning Light Goons became alert. I decided to step out before I was found out.

"No, worse… it's me." I announced darkly.

"Alpha Princess is here." Ben deadpanned.

The three hyena brothers broke into sarcastic laughter, "HAHAHAHAHAHA."

No respect, these guys.

Now that I was in the clearing with them, I recognized the bodybags too. They were the ones Ben had brought out to fill with the poisoned soil from the Alpha's backyard.

"Anyway, you can't bury these bags here." Ben said, "I know its the Rogue Graveyard, but you can't use it as a toxic waste dump."

"Although we used to bury my mum's cooking here." Jonah admitted.

"Aiyeeehahahahaha." Laughed Ethan, "Why? Because her cooking went rogue?"

But now that Ben said it, my suspicion was confirmed. We were at the Rogue Graveyard. And the large jagged rock was the shared tombstone of every rogue that had ever died in Night Leaf hands.