I tucked Kyla into the back of the bus.
I was fairly sure that she was absolutely fine but ever since she'd woken up she had refused to move even one limp and so I'd been left with having to carry her home.

I wasn't dumb enough to bring her to her grandparents like this. I knew them well enough to know that it would create only more conflict, which was probably Kyla's intentions.

I didn't really understand why she always had to provoke them like this.

"How's your head?", I asked, even though I knew that she was just faking.

"Better", she grumbled and buried her face deeper into her pile of cloth. "Are you going to bring them to the oldsters? Or did you fall in love with them so much that you now do want to keep them?"

I was sitting next to her legs that she had pulled towards her chest, curling up in herself. Distractedly, I tapped my middle finger on my thigh thinking about a horrible future where I would have to take care of more than ten children.
I would never be happy again.

"No, thank you. I already have enough work with you alone", I countered.

We stayed silent for some time.
It was nice to have silence for once.

"Did you plan this from the start?", I asked eventually.

Wind blew through the hole in the ceiling and I wrapped my jacket shut. I would miss the summer days when temperature was the least of our concerns.

Kyla nodded into her self-made pillow, not letting me see her face. "Obviously", she said.

Obviously. Nothing about this had been obvious.

"I knew about the camp the moment the men emerged from the trees."

I didn't answer immediately. Instead I let the moments up until now pass by once again in the light of this new-found information.
Could I have known if I had put more trust into Kyla?

Instead of finding an answer I listened to the birds singing outside. Another light breeze blew into the bus. This time the fresh air felt welcoming.

Usually there was nothing I loved more than silence but now something felt missing. I would have never imagined I could feel nostalgic at the thought of chatter.
Still, it'd been a long time since I'd last experienced an atmosphere this peaceful.

Tyler and Lily had taken the children down to the river to wash up and rehydrate and for once Kyla wasn't loud and obnoxious. This must've been a first.

She turned now so that she was lying on her back and stared at the ceiling of our home.

"Do you remember when Harper died, you know, right before you pestered me into training you?"
Slowly, I nodded. As if I would ever forget.

"I would say it was more pleading than pestering, though", I answered, trying to take on a lighter tone but not quite succeeding.

"I vanished for a few days, do you remember?", she asked.
"You vanished all the time", I told her. "It was normal."

Kyla sighed and moved her arms, so they would cover her eyes.
"I tracked that one guy who got away and he led me back to a similar camp. It wasn't as bad as this today, but ... I don't know ... it was still not a pretty sight. I watched them a few days and spoke with the children in secret."

She laughed.

"The oldsters were not happy when I brought them along. Grandpa Hank was so mad, he wouldn't stop shouting about how they couldn't afford to take care of so many children. Of course, they took them in, in the end."

Wait. I did remember. Kyla had been gone for days, so much longer than her usual absences.
I had thought she'd left for good that time. I'd thought I would never see her again.
I'd thought Harper's death had been too much for her to bare.

And then, one day, she had simply trotted back into the Glade as if nothing had happened. That'd been the day I had started asking her to train me. Now I even remembered why she had refused the first few times!
Until now I had always thought she'd said no because she hadn't liked me.

"Was that why you were limping for about a month after you came back?", I asked, my voice sounding harsher than I had intended to be.

She'd refused to tell me what had happened, no matter how often I had asked.
Once I had tried to look at the injured leg while she'd been asleep and for a second, just before Kyla had woken up, I had seen the big cut.

I remembered now. I had asked Jayden to do something about it but Kyla had, with excruciating efforts, climbed a tree and refused treatment.

We had given up after she had starved herself on the tree for three days.
I had never stopped feeling guilty about that.

"Yes", she admitted now. "The escape hadn't gone exactly as unnoticed as I'd planned."

Without asking I took her left leg and rolled her jeans up to her knee. Softly I stroke over the big scar I now knew belonged to a rescue mission.

"You're an idiot", I told Kyla and she released a resigned tsk."It would have healed better if you had let Jayden treat it."

"And you know that I know that", she told me, but her leg didn't move. I glanced at her without turning my head and noticed the smallest smile spread on her face.

"Did you kill them?", I asked silently, still looking at the scars on her leg.

"No", she said to my surprise. "I can't even remember why. They killed Harper – they almost killed you, for God's sake – I should have killed them."

"You were still a child", I told her.
She was only a child, even now. Deep down.

"Yeah, but still", she answered and I reached up to roll the jeans back down.
Suddenly Kyla's hand was on mine and I stopped all movement.

"Don't stop", she said. "It feels nice."

And as Kyla retraced her hand I let the fabric of the jeans go and moved my hand back to where it had been only a few seconds before. Her skin felt warm and soft underneath my fingers and for a second I could feel both of us relax.

We might have stayed like this forever had we not heard the others return.

The happy chatter and the loud footsteps were coming closer and closer and with each second it was harder to stay in the peaceful mind set I had been in before.

Eventually I opened my eyes again and let go of Kyla's leg as I stood up. I looked back at her and could see her pout.

"I know you're just being stubborn because you don't want to visit them", I told her and she looked away. "You know, the only thing I don't understand is why! They obviously love you."

Kyla turned away and I sighed. It was no use. If she didn't want to talk, she wouldn't.
And I would certainly not try and make her.

I had learned from past mistakes.

"I'll tell them you promised to come the next time", I told her instead of waiting for an answer and quickly evaded some object she threw at me.