"We didn't think you'd understand," Tom explained.

"You hid the wire!" Travis blurted out.

"This is betrayal," Mark continued, ignoring them. "You have both betrayed me and all that we've worked for this past year. Whatever happened to sticking together? Whatever happened to showing Alexander we could do it?"

"Well, we can't." Travis sighed. "We're living in a dirty, filthy, muddy, wet hole in the ground and it's everything they threatened our punishment would be. I'm ready to live by their rules now. And if this is what it takes..."

This wasn't what Mark wanted to hear, so he turned his attentions to Peter, who had been standing apart from the others. "You," he spat. "You put them up to this, didn't you? And to think you were my sister's mate!"

"I didn't know they were coming until a minute ago," Peter said calmly. "If I had I would have suggested they tell you first. I didn't know they hadn't. And I didn't know you'd found any barbed wire. Though from what they tell me, neither of them did, either. You, on the other hand..."

Mark's eyes went wild. He leapt off the end of the wire and threw himself at Peter. Peter brought his forepaws up to defend himself but it was already too late. He fell beneath Mark and they rolled together into the corn. Mark growled as he struck out with teeth and claws, but Peter would only defend himself. He pushed Mark back with all his strength, but he wouldn't bite or scratch. Even now he didn't want to hurt Mark. They rolled over again and Tom and Travis leapt out of their way.

"Stop this!" Travis cried. "Stop it!"

Peter would have been glad to, but Mark continued to fight. He fell off Peter, landing behind him, and swiftly kicked him with both hind legs. Peter leapt up but was immediately knocked back down again. Mark charged once more and they rolled back through the corn, over and over, past Travis and Tom.

They only stopped when they rolled over the barbed wire. Mark reared back and winced in agony as the barbs pierced his flesh. Peter took the chance to escape and Tom and Travis immediately got between them to prevent another bout.

Mark climbed off the barbed wire and limped over to the other edge of the coil. He sat down, his body heaving with exhaustion. The others could tell he was in pain. He was trembling. One of his eyes twitched. When he managed to open it, they saw one of the barbs had punctured it and he'd already gone blind in that eye. There was blood in his fur coat, but not all of it was his.

Peter came over slowly. Mark didn't have any fight left in him. When Peter started to lick the wounds on his back for him, Mark didn't tell him to stop. He looked over at his brothers and shook his head sorrowfully.

"I failed you," he muttered. He had a tooth loose.

"We all did," Travis added with a sigh.

"I think that's what they wanted," Tom agreed.

"Make us learn our lesson."

"Do you really think they'll let us back in, Pete?" Mark asked.

Peter stopped licking for a moment and remembered the promise he'd made Alexander about coming back alone. "I think if you come back looking like this," he said evasively. "They'll be compassionate enough to take pity on you."

"Maybe you should rough us up a bit too, then, Pete," Tom joked.

Travis looked alarmed at the suggestion and shuffled backwards away from Peter. Tom burst out laughing. Even Mark chuckled. This was how Peter remembered Beatrice's brothers as being before their exile. He was pleased their good natures had survived their time in the wilderness.

So it was in high spirits that the four of them returned to the barbed wire coil. With their combined strengths they were able to lift it clear off the ground, so whilst it still snagged on corn it no longer got caught on sharp pebbles. The sun went behind the clouds for a while and when it came out again it was just above the trees in the west. Long shadows stretched across the cornfield and Peter worried they might not make it back to the warren before dark. All the while, Peter kept sight of the distant oak tree. If it got dark before they got back, he'd lose that landmark.

Peter knew he was close to home when the tree loomed over the corn twice as large as it had when he'd glanced homeward from on top of the burnt out car. The first sign that they were approaching the forty-metre limit was when they heard rabbit chit chat coming from the hedgerow. Two randy young bucks were discussing the potential of various female rabbits from the colony. One of them mentioned Mopsy without thinking, then they fell silent, and then they changed the subject.

Peter hesitated crossing the perimeter. As soon as he did that, he'd incur Alexander's wrath for bringing Mark, Tom and Travis back with him. The three brothers felt his resistance through the barbed wire coil and stopped.

"What's wrong?" Tom asked.

"I think I should go in alone," he replied.

"What?" said Travis. "Why?"

"It'll be easier to convince Angus that way," Peter explained defensively. "If he sees you he'll just be angry and I've got to talk to him coolly and rationally. Get him on side and then get him to convince Alexander."

"So what do we do?" asked Mark.

Peter looked around. "Hide out here," he said. "Take this into the hedgerow and wait until I come back. Don't let anybody see you. I don't want Alexander to hear you've come back from anybody other than Angus."

The three brothers glanced at each other across the wire. As often happens amongst close rabbit siblings, they'd developed their own form of communication that didn't need words. After a short pause, they all agreed.

Peter helped them carry the barbed wire into the hedgerow, where it promptly got stuck again, and he left them trying to disentangle it once more. He knew he'd crossed the boundary when Benjamin Bunny came bounding through the corn to meet him. The young rabbit ran a circle round him excitedly.

"Everyone's talking about where you went," he told Peter. "Did you see the exiles? Peter, you're all cut and bleeding! Did they attack you? Did you fight them all off? Did you kill them? Did you? Did you, Pete?"

If the colony had managed to turn Mark, Tom and Travis into monsters in his absence, Peter realised this was going to be harder than he'd hoped. "No, actually, I was attacked by a hawk," he said, quite truthfully. "And they saved me from it."

"Wow!" Benjamin breathed.

The sun had now set over the western horizon. Peter had got back just in time. As night fell, the warren came to life once more. There were rabbits awake at all hours, but it was in the few hours immediately after sunset that the entire warren was up and about. The entire warren, that is, apart from a certain night-sleeper.

"Have you seen Angus?" Peter asked.

"Angus? Yeah." Benjamin ran another circle round him, which was more of an ellipse now that Peter was walking. "He's been by Cotton-... underneath the oak tree all day. I just saw him go down into the warren."

Peter nodded. "Thank you, Benjamin."

The excitable bunny ran another circle around him, but didn't follow when he went down into the tunnels, springing away to report Peter's return instead. As he went through the tunnels Peter met other rabbits that were also surprised to find he'd survived his encounter with Mark, Tom and Travis, even if they didn't say so. They nodded in greeting, some even stopped to say hello. Most had just woken from their daytime slumber, however, and were heading to the surface to graze.

Peter followed the tunnels to Angus' nest. Unlike many of the older rabbits, such as Alexander, Angus' nest wasn't located in the older tunnels. These tended to be central, within the four points, and therefore situated off the busy main tunnels. Angus had used to live here, when he slept the same nocturnal hours as everyone else, but since becoming a night-sleeper he'd moved to a nest further away, which was just a little bit quieter for him. Peter squeezed through the narrow tunnels that led to it, then cleared his throat loudly to draw Angus' attention.

Angus' nest was at the very end of one tunnel. It seemed to turn a sharp corner, but actually all that was around there was Angus' little nook and a bundle of dirty straw. Peter peered round the corner. There was enough straw for Angus to hide inside. He coughed again. The straw didn't even move.

"Angus?" he said, his voice sounding loud in the empty tunnels. When there was still no response, he sidled up to the straw and swiped a forepaw inside. Angus wasn't there. Peter stepped back.

Angus was usually in bed by this time, but if he wasn't then he was probably already on his way, so Peter decided to wait. It might just have been the case that the old boy had further to come from the oak tree where that sprightly young thing Benjamin Bunny had seen him. Still, Peter wondered for a few minutes what was keeping him, and when he still hadn't returned a short while later, Peter ran after another rabbit who'd emerged from a nearby nest of his own.

"Have you seen Angus?" Peter asked him.

"Oh, Peter," the rabbit said pitifully. Peter didn't know him personally, but knew his name was Fiver. "I was so sorry to hear about what happened. It's dreadful. I only found out after the burial. Please, if there's anything I can do..."

"Yeah, but have you seen Angus?"

Fiver looked a bit thrown by Peter's bluntness. "Well, not in the last hour," he replied. "But I suspect he's down in the new tunnel. Have you looked for him there?"

Peter frowned. "What new tunnel?"

"Oh, yes, of course. You've been away."

"What new tunnel?" Peter pushed.

"We're building a new tunnel," Fiver explained. He pointed his forepaw back the way Peter had come. "Angus' idea. Follow the main tunnels to the roadside exit, but instead of going up onto the surface, take the tunnel going down."

Peter nodded. "Thanks."

As far as Peter knew, there was no tunnel going down from the roadside exit. This must have been the new tunnel, though he couldn't understand why they were building a new tunnel so close to the road. He left Fiver trailing behind as he headed back through the heart of the warren and along the main tunnels, just as Fiver had told him. There were few rabbits left in their burrows now, so nobody to hold Peter up with expressing their condolences.

He slowed as he approached the roadside exit. At the bottom of the upward slope he could hear the traffic on the road above. The number of cars had dropped significantly throughout the day so they were all able to maintain a lethal speed. And there, right where Fiver had said he would find it, was the entrance to the new tunnel. It curved away from the main tunnel and then sloped downwards.

The tunnel was narrow, as all tunnels were when they were first built. The aim was to reach the destination as quickly as they could to see if it was even possible first. Widening the tunnel and reinforcing its walls with straw and dried grasses came later. As Peter stood there, a dirty face appeared from the tunnel. A rabbit rendered unrecognisable by the mud in his coat shuffled out of the tunnel, pushing a little pile of muddy clumps he'd stuck together with his own spit in front of him.

"Hello, Peter," he said.

Peter didn't even recognise him from his voice. He stepped out of the way to let the dirty rabbit pass, who then pushed the muddy clumps up to the roadside exit and returned without them. Behind him there were several other rabbit miners. Peter waited until they were going back down into the new tunnel, then he followed them.

This tunnel sloped down at a far steeper gradient than any other normal extension to the warren, and veered what Peter considered perilously close to the road. He could hear the sounds of the speeding cars rumble down through the earth as he followed behind, and when the sound of rabbit digging reached him, he knew they'd reached the end of the tunnel. It was much wider here, presumably so that more rabbits could fit down it. The miners went back to work.

Peter spotted Angus supervising from a nook at the back, but when he went over to have a word in his ear, he saw whom Angus was already talking to. It was Alexander, who noticed Peter's arrival first. Unlike the other rabbits, he didn't look surprised Peter had returned. In fact, he looked downright suspicious of the fact.

"Peter!" Angus said, sounding quite delighted.

"What's going on down here?" Peter demanded.

"We're building a new tunnel," Alexander said.

"A new tunnel to where?"

"We're taking measures, Peter," Angus explained. "We're never going to let what happened to Beatrice and the children happen ever again."

"Where does the tunnel go?"

"Just after you left we heard your friends on the other side of the road start digging," Alexander went on. "And they were digging this way. We figured if there's going to be a tunnel under the road, we might as well meet them halfway."

"A tunnel," said Peter, "under the road."

"Yes," both Angus and Alexander said.

But it wasn't a question. Peter was fuming, but tried to restrain himself. "This is your solution, is it?" he said. "Another compromise. Mankind walks all over us and all we do is dig our holes deeper into the ground to avoid him? Fuck that!"

"Well, what would you suggest?" Alexander snorted. "Go out and pick a fight with them and their cars, Peter?"

"Maybe there's another way, yes."

"I'm listening."

Peter didn't get the chance to tell him. Just then another rabbit came skidding down into the mine, slipping on the freshly cut wet mud and landing in a heap in front of Alexander. He immediately leapt to his feet and gabbled something none of them heard. Alexander demanded he slow down and repeat himself.

"Intruders! Three of 'em! Caught in the corn!"

Alexander and Angus looked at Peter. They all knew who it was.

NOTES:
Apart from the first chapter, this was the easiest one to write so far. It's a chapter that started later than I'd planned and ended earlier. Still, beats my original conception of how quickly the story would speed by because the sixth chapter was originally going to end with Peter learning about this place called Roadkill Turnpike. I can't say anymore here, given that the character who tells him and the context in which he says it remain unchanged. They're just going to happen later, is all.