Nothing happened that night, but when I woke before dawn the next morning, I found that enemies surrounded us.

Trust me, seeing hooded men on every side of your camp, pointing bows and arrows at your head was not a good thing to wake up and see.

I nudged David with my boot. He just rolled over, moving his leg out of reach of my foot. "Harry, David!" I whispered the only two names of the group that I knew. "Wake up!" I did not have to whisper, but I was scared.

Harry shot up, and looked around; when he spotted the men, he froze. I was glad I was wearing Harry's jacket, it had a hood and it covered my fear filled face.

"Wake up!" Harry's voice filled the clearing; he put a surprising amount of authority into it. The men were all suddenly awake and alert. And I found myself surrounded by my men's bodies. Their backs to me, they were protecting me. I could not believe it.

Then the hooded men charged, and I could feel their impact on the bodies around me. The hooded men had, for some reason dropped their bows, and had switched to hand to hand combat. The men were rolling around on the ground within seconds.

I was grabbed from behind, and slammed to the ground with enough force to knock all the breath out of me. I twisted around in the man's arms, and flipped to where I was on top. I brought my fist back to punch, but as I did that the man's hood fell back.

I suddenly had to laugh. "Nick?" I squeaked out in a peel of laughter. My laughing caused every other man in the clearing to freeze. I did bring my hand down to Nick's face, but it was to rub his cheek, not to punch him as I had been about to do.

Nick laughingly pulled me into a hug as he sat up.

I looked around; my new men were all still frozen, confused. But all the men from my team had goofy smiles on. They looked like they were trying to figure out how they had let themselves get into that situation. "Hey guys." I said with a smile. Everyone visibly relaxed, My teammates had been waiting to see if the men were with me, and the men were waiting to make sure my teammates were really my teammates.

Nick studied me with a wry smile, "We've been looking everywhere for you. And when we finally do find you, you're perfectly fine. Safeguarded by your very own troops."

I raised an eyebrow at him, "Would you rather me be helpless, and surrounded not by good guys, but bad ones instead?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, "Hmmm… yes."

I shook my head at him, rolling my eyes.

"Hey Rach, did you kill all these guys by yourself?" Jonathan asked.

"Well you four sure didn't help me." I said sarcastically.

"Har, har, har... So you've killed ten so far? Nice!" He said.

"A- actually, I've killed fourteen… So far."

Everyone was silent.

"Is that bad?" I asked.

Nick suddenly laughed in my ear, "We've only killed three. And that was with us in a group of four." He told me.

"Oh." I said, feeling my cheeks heat. "Well, um, you would have killed these guys if I hadn't gotten to them first." I encouraged.

Andrew smiled, "Don't try to protect our man-pride, Rachel. We're so proud of you that it's enough to cover our lack of skills." Everyone had a good laugh over that.

"We should get going now. I've probably waited longer than I should have to bandage this." One of the men said, pointing to a deep slash on his stomach. In the light of day, my inflictions looked worse, and more painful. I winced, as I realized that almost every man had a bruise or a gash. Of course, I had my fair share of pain, but I felt bad for the men as some of them limped, or held there arm while walking.

"Hey Harry, here's your jacket." I said, pulling it off. I tried not to show how hard it was to do that simple task, due to pain racing through my back, but in spite of my I was sure I caught a flicker of worry passing across Nick's face. I handed over the jacket, "Thank-you so much for sharing it with me… I would have been a block of ice this morning if you hadn't. I hope the cold didn't disturb you too much."

"You're welcome. And don't worry, I've slept outside in much worse weather than last night. Oh, and I seem to recall a promise for fighting lessons…" He said.

"I haven't forgotten. Just come by my house anytime after this is over, I'll show you the basics." I told him with a smile. Then, addressing the whole group that was departing, "Everyone go home, get changed, take a nap, spend time with your family… Harry's not the only one who will be going through training. May I be the first to congratulate you; You ten are the first addition to my army." I announced. They all looked like they had won a great award as I told them this.

I looked to Nick, who was looking over the men in satisfaction, "Good choice." He whispered to me. I nodded, turning to watch the men leave. I knew I wouldn't regret that decision a bit.

The five of us walked lazily through the forest, waiting for someone to attack us.

"So, what has your strategy been so far, Rachel?" Peter asked.

I laughed, "Pretty much I've just been trying not to die." I said, kicking a rock out of the way.

"You've killed fourteen men, and you didn't have a strategy?" Jonathan exclaimed.

I shrugged, "I climbed a tree and knocked four guys out with arrows… I hid inside a hollow tree and sneak attacked ten men... I guess my strategy has been trees. Does that make any sense?" I asked, wrinkling my nose.

"I understand what you mean. It may not make sense, but I understand." Jonathan said in an overly dramatized solemn tone.

I shoved him, "You're such a dork." I said laughingly.

Nick slowed down to my pace, "Can I talk to you?" He asked quietly.

"Now?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay." I said.

We fell a little ways behind the group before he spoke, "So… where all are you hurt?" He asked.

I turned surprised eyes to him, "What do you mean?"

He raised an accusing eyebrow at me, then suddenly grabbed my hand, he had spun me around before I could even realize what he was doing. All he had to do was put one gentle finger on my back, and I jerked away from him. He had found my bruise. Not that it was that hard, my whole back was bruised, from my neck to my middle back.

I slowly turned to face Nick, he had a smug look on his face, "Where all are you hurting?" He asked again.

I closed my eyes, "Several places." I sighed.

"Show me." He ordered.

I first held my knuckle out. It was covered in blood from the tree I punched. The middle knuckle had a thick flap of skin hanging off of it. He frowned, "This may hurt a little." He said, before flipping the big flap back over the knuckle and holding it tightly for a second. It stuck.

Then I showed him the large thorn stuck deep in the palm of my left hand. He gently prodded the thorn until it was sticking far enough out of my hand. Then he took a good grip on it and yanked. When it started bleeding he calmly untucked the end of his shirt and used it to put pressure on my hand and soak up the blood.

Then I showed him a large potato sized bruise on the back of my right arm, I wasn't sure when I got that.

Then there was the rip in my palm from my hunting incident. He poked at it before deciding he couldn't do anything to help that right then.

Then I tenderly pulled the bandage off my left arm to look at it. It had been bothering me ever since I had been inside the tree. To my horror it was turning kind of blue. Nick muttered something under his breath, then spoke louder, "It's getting infected. Wrap it up again. There's nothing we can do about that right now." He said.

Then there was a small rip on the back of my ankle, but every time I stepped it felt like my leg was set on fire. He fixed that with a strip from his shirt.

When I finished showing him all my boo boos he tucked what was left of the bottom of his shirt back in and took my hand gently in his before hurrying to catch up to the rest of the group.

"Which poor dead bloke did you pull that useless thing off of?" Andrew asked, tugging on the thin camouflage jacket I had stolen.

I grinned, "Some tracker." I said, shrugging again.

Andrew stared at me, his jaw slack, "You really stole it from someone?" He asked, a strange awe in his voice.

I nodded in assent, "My shirt's really white; really easy to see in this forest. I was hoping it would also keep me warm… but it's flimsier than it looks."

"It looks pretty darn flimsy, so it must be really bad." Jonathan implied.

"Shut up, Jonathan." Andrew muttered. I could have laughed at how Jonathan got on Andrew's nerves so easily. There had always been tension between the two, but it had died down from wanting to kill each other violently, to just wanting to kill each other. I saw it as progress.

"Take it easy, Andrew." I said, patting his arm.

He sighed deeply, "I'm trying." He said.

Someone sneezed a little ways behind me, "Bless you." I called over my shoulder.

"Thanks." Someone muttered.

My eyes flew wide open, I held back a laugh and I leaned into Nick to whisper to him, "That was Matthew's sneeze. I'd know it anywhere. We're being followed."

The other guys overheard and their faces turned to battle mode. Nick smiled and nodded, "I thought there was something strange about that sneeze, but I thought it was just Peter or something. Try to keep up a conversation with everyone like you've been doing. Don't let them know we're on to them."

"That's a pretty bird." I said suddenly.

Nick leaned down to whisper again, "Don't over do it though." He laughed.

"No, seriously, look at that bird." I said, pointing to the red cardinal on a branch in front of us.

Nick smiled down at me, "You're easily distracted by attractive things, aren't you?" He didn't bother whispering.

"Like… you?" I asked dryly.

"You know that's not what I was talking about." Nick said, rolling his eyes.

"That sounds more like something I would say." Jonathan said.

"Yes, we all know you're conceited Jonathan." Andrew retorted.

Jonathan stuck his tongue out at him, "Don't be mean." He said.

"And immature." Andrew added.

"How about we stop here?" Nick suddenly interrupted. "If we haven't found them by now we might as well rest for a bit."

"I agree!" I said happily, I was hungry, and since we didn't have any food with us, I wanted to rest for a bit before we faced however many men Matthew had led to us.

I knew we were only stopping because the clearing had plenty of fighting room and a thick layer of trees on the side opposite us, so we would be tucked together in the nook of the trees, and no one could come around and attack us from behind while we fought the people in front of us.

I didn't get to rest though, as soon as we had come to a full halt in the clearing I heard Matthew's voice shout… "Charge!"

I sighed tiredly before turning to face the soldiers with my bow armed.

A/N

Two-Thousand-Forty-One Words! :D :D

Aren'tcha proud of me?

Sorry it took so long, writers block set in halfway through. Bleh.

Pokemonchen; I don't know if I should have David in the army... He does have a family. Buuut, Rachel won't be able to be soft on the battle ground just because the men she's about to kill have families. That's how you get yourself killed. I won't let David die if he does join.

Booksnake; First off, I'm sorry for taking so long, I was expecting to open my front door and find you standing there. In my imagination you didn't have a pitchfork,because you promised not to hunt me down with a pitchfork. You did however have a butcher knife. XD

Smiley!(Guest); I try really hard to make the characters their own person, I'm glad you recognize that :) Jonathan was originally supposed to be mean, but I'm a wimp. And I don't like mean people, therefore It's hard for me to make someone mean. I suppose Andrew was being pretty jerkish in this chapter (VICTORY!) Haha.

Express-Yourself101; Thank you for reviewing! I'm really glad you think so! The first one thousand words were for you :D

Kiki1forest; Thanks! Your review means a lot, I have a few things that are irritating me about it, I have the power to fix it, I just don't have the time. :/ The second half of this chapter is for you :D

Thanks to everyone who faved/followed!

Have a super-scrumptious weekend! Not sure what that means, just go with it.