"What did you do that for?" Nathan asked in a calm tone.

Maintaining eye contact with the teen who looked like he wanted to bring the gremlin back to life just to kill it again. Besides that, he didn't think that the rogue, from the looks of it, had any right to steal his kill considering the fact that he'd just saved him and his entire squad from death or even worse captivity by what were basically aliens.

"They mocked us, toyed with us, and killed two others!"

The rogue had uttered those words evenly, pulling out his daggers from the gremlin's neck —so much bravado for someone who hadn't been able to make a difference till he stepped in.

Typical rogue.

Nathan hadn't met a rogue before, but he assumed that this was how they all behaved. Heck, even the system had referred to them as vultures, and this guy in front of him was doing nothing to clear up that accusation.

"Yes, but I'd handled them and I had my reasons for keeping him alive," Nathan said, his voice rising an octave.

"Oh yeah, reasons like what?"

"I don't answer to you."

Nathan glared at the rogue and the rogue glared back at him. Both young men were now on their feet, daggers and a sword at the ready. He couldn't even believe he was really doing this; the rogue had messed up everything for him. Eventually, the absence of these two creatures that they'd killed would be noticed, and no matter the crimes the pair had committed, there would be a search party out.

At least there should be.

One that wouldn't hesitate to report the dead bodies when they found them. Something Nathan had been expecting when he'd joined the fight, but he'd drawn out pros and cons on a legal pad in his head, and the pro was that he'd get information about the settlement. Unfortunately, he'd had the opportunity of meeting a rogue.

"You owe me," Nathan said, pointing his sword at the offending rogue.

"I don't owe you shit!"

Nathan's morals held him back in more ways than he could count. Why had he gotten entangled in a mess like this only to meet up with someone like this?

"Boys, I don't think this is the place to have a … measuring contest," a feminine voice spoke out. "Pirlo, stand down."

He didn't break eye contact with the vulture until the lady told the rogue to. Pirlo, if that was even the guy's name, seemed to huff at him before walking away to stand behind the lady. Nathan had to clamp down on his feelings when he saw her; she was calm and collected while he was like an enraged bull. If they were going to have a meeting leader to leader, then he'd need to tame his anger.

Nathan watched as she said something to Pirlo, the rogue mumbling something inaudible before walking to check out one of the corpses of their comrade. Clearing his mind, he stepped up to the lady, clearing his thoughts as he tried to appear calm and confident.

"Hi, I'm Ciara," she said, holding out a hand towards him. "Sorry for my second's behavior; he can be a little bit intense."

Nathan stared at the outstretched fingers before taking it. No point in losing two sources of information because of a single rogue. The first thing he noticed after clasping hands with the lady — Ciara — was that she had an iron-clad grip, not one that could do any harm to him considering his high constitution, but certainly one that was firm and tight.

Guess it's still a contest after all.

He didn't let his emotions show, and neither did he squeeze back on her fingers. He simply let her figure out that she wasn't his match before pulling back his hand. Trying and succeeding in hiding the smile that threatened to spill on his face, mostly because he could tell that she'd come to the conclusion that he was way higher up the ladder than her — something that the fight with the gremlin and dwarf should've been enough to prove.

She tried to hide it, though, but Nathan had always been a good reader of people. He could tell when someone was trying to mess with him or hide things from him, courtesy of his buried lifestyle.

"He sure is intense," Nathan said after a moment had passed between the pair.

"True," she said. "On behalf of my squad, thank you for saving our lives. I'm sure Pirlo appreciates what you did for us too; he's just been under immense stress like the rest of us."

Stress.

What kind of stress was the lady even talking about? They all looked a little beaten up, but for Nathan, they weren't even as bad as his second day on the island. Their clothes were mostly intact, and their shoes too. They barely had anything on them that suggested that they'd suffered anything remotely close to what he'd endured for the last seven days, and yet she wanted to talk about stress.

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If Pirlo thought he was stressed out because he attended some silly tutorials that simply got him a lecture on what they were supposed to do in what was apparently their new reality, then he was loath to find out what would actually happen after the rogue spent two days on the island.

"Suuuure, you've all been under stress," Nathan said, barely resisting the urge to snort. "We need to leave this place. Let's walk while we talk?"

"I agree. Excuse me. I need to speak to my squad."

Nathan hadn't even nodded in agreement before she'd turned to meet the rest of her squad, not like she worked for him or anything. He watched as she comforted the rest of her squad, seven in total including her.

The two bodies had been brought together, and they were apparently speaking a few words to the corpses. Tears were streaming down a couple of their faces. Pirlo's face was devoid of tears; in place of it was something much worse, something that Nathan had seen in the mirror back when the world was still normal — determination. Raw and unmistakable determination. The rogue was probably blaming himself for the lives lost today, a feeling that he hadn't experienced himself but could understand.

Ciara, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. She wore her facade so well that Nathan would've been fooled even with experience with things like that. She looked calm and collected as she went around the squad, patting shoulders and wiping away tears, probably offering words of comfort. At least he thought that she was offering words of comfort; he couldn't tell from where he stood.

Stand he did, even though he wanted them to get as far as possible away from the bodies of the gremlin and dwarf. Nathan wasn't as heartless as to leave the bodies in a rush, especially when they hadn't seen the settlement itself, when they hadn't experienced the real horrors of the island as he had. Rushing them would just turn the entire squad against him, not in a physical fight kind of way, but more of a psychological way. Plus, there was the fact that any input he had on the matter of forcing them to move right now would mean he was trying to override and undermine the power of their de facto leader, which was Ciara by the looks of it.

Politics.

A shiver went down his spine at the thought, but Nathan didn't let it bother him too much. It wasn't like he planned to form something permanent between him and the group; they'd simply exchange information and everyone would be on their way.

Huh, they'd decided not to move the bodies.

"We are ready," Ciara called out.

Nathan stared at the cute girl, trying to figure out if this was a power play on her end or if it was just her trying to notify him that they were done and ready to move. Shrugging off the question, he nodded as he got to the squad, taking his place at the fore of the group, hoping to discuss matters with Ciara as they walked. The squad leader seemed to have guessed the arrangement as she stepped right beside him, and for a single moment, their steps were in sync.

If this is a package deal, then it's a terrible one.

He almost groaned when he noticed that Pirlo had also come to the front. Ciara on his right and Pirlo on his left. The rogue was seriously getting on his nerves, and he hoped the bugger would bug off for a bit, but he didn't. The rogue just kept staring ahead as they continued to walk. Ciara, on the other hand, looked like she'd eaten a sour grape, and he had an inkling that she didn't exactly approve of Pirlo's man-marking.

"You got a destination in mind?" Ciara asked.

"Yeah, my place. It's a lot safer than out here in the forest."

"Okayyyyy."

Nathan pretended not to notice the snort that left Pirlo, and to the rogue's credit, he pretended that he hadn't even snorted, looking around the path as they walked, daggers in a tight grip. In a way, he was starting to see why Ciara had said the guy was intense.

The rogue wasn't jumpy intense, just a focused kind of intense that Nathan felt he could relate to a little. He definitely wasn't that interested in killing anything and everything, no questions asked, which was probably what someone like Pirlo did.

"So what was your deal with the gremlin?" Ciara asked.

He didn't look, but he could feel the rogue perk up at the question, which was good. Pirlo would have to learn how his actions had ruined a reasonable plan.

Sorta reasonable.

"There's an entire settlement of those two. I was trying to get useful information on the settlement before someone decided that I didn't need it," Nathan said in a clipped tone.

The flash of a wince he saw in the face of the rogue was enough to make him relax and in a way let the guy off the hook a little. Maybe the teen wasn't as cold-blooded as he'd thought, but the mistake had already been made, and the cost Nathan would have to deal with.

"Oh, we saw a settlement from afar; couldn't quite tell what it was," Ciara said while sucking in a deep breath. "Sorry for killing your would-be informant."

Nathan had to resist the urge to go, "He did it, not you. Let him apologize for his misdeed." Instead, he just let it slide, nodding in acceptance. After all, he highly doubted that the rogue would apologize to him.

A win is a win.

It was technically a bigger win than he'd expected because the de facto leader conceding that the kill by the rogue had been a mistake made Pirlo's actions look even stupider now, something that the rogue wouldn't shrug off in a flash.

"Yeah, that information would've been crucial considering the fact that they'd find the dead bodies. Hopefully, they'll assume that the four killed themselves rather than suspect there were others that had survived," Nathan said, not mincing his words.

As far as he could tell, burying the bodies wouldn't have done them any good either, so they were screwed.

"It's why we left the bodies, bless their souls," Ciara said in a somber tone.

Some of the squad mates behind her grumbled and mumbled, but Nathan paid attention to the path and soon enough he was rewarded for it.

Blood-rock.

"Welcome to my place," Nathan said.

Pushing the way into the eastern gate, they skirted around the corpse of the panther, no questions asked, which Nathan found a little weird. Regardless, he led the way into his stronghold, a little nervous about what their thoughts would be on it. That feeling quickly turned to dust as they made their way to the porch and his eyes settled on the fluffy animal on his porch.

The bunny.

"Oh, you have a bunny. He's so cute," Ciara said wide-eyed. A bunch of oohs and aahs came from the rest of the squad, excluding Pirlo — no surprise there. Before Nathan could respond to the statement, Ciara brushed past him, her hands going to pet the bunny.

Shit!