Miriam had a thousand ideas at once. The first was to run, but that wouldn't work when there were hundreds of soldiers waiting to chase them. Another was to do try and get Echo to flirt with the talker so they could get away. It would be difficult to get that idea through to her. When Miriam considered that she would have to first explain what flirting was, it was downright impossible.

She could take the knife from Davis and attack the men who could not see her, giving the other three a chance to run away, but they might hurt one of her companions. Caleb couldn't even run, the way Echo had him tied.

All of this raced through her head as the men turned around and began walking. Davis gave her a pleading look before following them.

Caleb seemed to disturbed by being hung upside-down and swinging from Echo's shoulder to know what was going on. Echo walked on, totally unaware or any problems. Miriam was the only one who was able to do anything.

What would her mother do in this situation?

She'd act dumb and ignore it, all the while hoping that it would go away by itself.

How about her father? He'd try to bully his way out.

Aaren would know what to do. He'd have a perfect plan. No, he'd have never gotten into this trouble in the first place. His first plan would have been better. He would have never have gotten his friends in this kind of trouble. She had to get them away safely. She needed a diversion. Maybe she could make one, like how Anbel had used the fireworks to help them before.

That was it!

She looked at Davis and mouthed:

"I've got a plan."

He nodded and whispered back. He barely moved his lips. The sound of his voice seemed to come from the earring rather than his mouth.

"Be careful. Be especially careful of Ensio. My big brother has an eye for detail and will notice if you do anything too obvious."

Miriam stared at him, and then at the man he had been disturbed by before. The only brother Davis had mentioned was Jace.

Before this was all over, he was going to answer every single question she had.

_________________________________________

Davis tried hard not to watch her go. In the corner of his eye, he could see her fading away. He kept his eyes glued to Ensio, watching for any reaction that he knew about Miriam. If there was the slightest sign that he was going to hurt her...

In all honestly, Davis knew, he was just looking for an excuse. Ensio was working for Kain. That alone was enough of a betrayal. They had to get away from him, and soon.

Once Miriam was safe, Davis could go back to looking for his little brother. Maybe he could even convince her to help.

No, that idea wasn't even worth entertaining. Even if they somehow got to her, Davis would be lucky to survive the encounter.

Ensio hadn't reacted to Miriam leaving. It seemed like he didn't know or suspect anything. At least that was something Davis could be glad about. Now it was up to her to get them out of here. Even though it was all her fault that they were there.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Davis clenched the fist that just a few moments before had been holding her soft hand, and waited for her to make her move.

___________________________________

Miriam slipped between the soldiers. It was harder to find what she was looking for given that they all had their own lights. She sniffed the air, trying to find a certain scent. Soon she smelled something that had to be food and ran towards it.

The campfire was made of five torches instead of wood. Each torch was a long piece of rock, wrapped heavily in oil-soaked cloth. There were two large lizards cooking over it and a few men sitting around.

One of them was the centre of attention, talking about a certain girl and using his hands to describe some of her more discerning features. They would notice a log suddenly vanishing is she just went up and grabbed one. She looked around.

Near her was a discarded game that looked a little like a chessboard, with many pieces worn with use. She picked up a few of them and picked a decent spot to take aim.

The first almost-chess piece hit the man telling the story on the shoulder, making them all look around. The second hit him hard between the legs.

"Hey," said one of the other men to the group of men standing behind Miriam. "What's with that?"

"What's the problem?" asked one of the groups of innocent men behind Miriam. The men by the fire stood up. Miriam hit them all with more pieces, hitting one in the face.

"You bastards!" screamed her victims as they charged into a fight with the other men.

Miriam danced away from all of them and ran to the fire. She picked up a torch and ran.

She held the torch in place until the fabric of the tent took the flames. She wasted no time watching the flames that quickly spread up. She went directly to the next tent, and then the next.

As she ran up to the next tent, she noticed that it was bigger that the others. She stopped and stood rooted as Lord Kain stepped out of his tent to see what the problem was.

______________________________________

Ensio stopped walking when he heard the screaming. The smoke and light from the man fires were visible from where they are.

"That's too close to Lord Kain's tent for my liking. We better go see what that it," he said, sounding annoyed. "You, Hunter, if you want that reward you'll stay here."

Davis shook his head and offered in a voice that wasn't his to help with the fires.

"Thank you, but no. We'll deal with our own problems."

________________________________________

Miriam should have kept running, running and burning until she got back to the others. But she was curious.

The man before her didn't look like a man who led a vicious army, he didn't look like someone that would inspire terror.

He didn't look normal either. He was a very pretty boy with a long delicate face. His eyes were big and his eyelashes were longer than most of the girls Miriam had ever met.

He had the same kind of surreal beauty as the forest woman. It made Miriam want to turn away from him and at the same time she was couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to touch that soft, smooth skin. She could look at him forever.

Then he looked in her direction. She held her breath. He wasn't looking at her, but there was no one else he could be looking at.

"What is it, Lord Kain?" asked a soldier near him. He furrowed his eyebrows, bringing her attention to those unfairly brown eyes.

"It's nothing. I just got a strange feeling. It was...familiar."

"Do you feel ill, Lord?"

"No, it was just a feeling," he said.

Then he smiled, and Miriam's heart forgot what it was meant to be doing for a second and then raced to catch up to where it should be.

"It was a nice feeling," he said. "Nostalgic. Anyway, let's get these fires under control."

Then he rolled up his sleeves to work with his men to get the problem dealt with. Miriam paused at his now empty tent, the torch still in her hand. Then she passed it to set fire to the next set of tents.

She threw the torch in a clump of uniforms after that and ran to meet the others. Davis took a few steps towards her as she ran to them, unable to wait for her to reach them on her own legs.

"Are you all right?" he asked. She nodded, feeling a little breathless and knowing that it had nothing to do with the run. They walked through the camp, Echo untying Caleb on the way.

He jumped away from her as the last of the knots fell apart. He took off, running full speed. They ran after him, trusting that he knew where he was going. Soon they were approaching the high hedges. Davis took off the scarf and let it fall to the ground.

"HEY." came a voice from behind them. "STOP!"

Behind, Ensio had noticed that they were running and was trying to organise people to chase them. The chaos over the fires was making this difficult. Davis took off the mask and let that fall as well.

Davis turned and looked at his older brother. Ensio stopped yelling and stared, shocked, at Davis. Davis watched until it was his turn through the entrance of the hedges.

"Wait!" said Ensio.

Davis jumped through.