--XLVIII--

Of course, I almost said "NO" with capital metaphorical letters, a small and maybe shy smile, and then a single flip with two twists in the opposite direction- except deep down I knew Carter had a good heart; he genuinely was trying to help me, and, like most people who went out of their way to make time for me, was not only kind- knew how to do the right thing.

MONDAY

8:59 AM

Northwest of Windcreek

I pressed the middle fingers of both my hands to the tops of my ears. I just wished I had told him- Carter, that is- not to put hands around my neck, because he gave me nightmares for about... oh, I don't know. Maybe just ten weeks. I'm so glad it was Carter and not Wyatt- because, probably, Wyatt would have just laughed; me having level-9,000-intensity PTSD nightmares for 2.5 weeks, because of a planned scrap in an airconditioned environment with a fellow agent. Probably it was just funny to him.

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I mean, probably- he did think stealing someone's lunch money was entertainment; was so comical, was such entertainment. Caleb took me home that day for dinner and then hacked into all of Wyatt's video game platforms. Caleb sold all of his... like, rare legendary items, or something. "That doesn't make anything right, you know," was what I had told him that night. It was 11 PM and I sat in front of their fireplace eating cereal. He told me that Kaylee would have done something even worse, and then wrapped his blanket around me.

I wiped a snowflake off my left hand. And then, I wiped off a tear, before it had a chance to really fall anywhere- and shut my eyes.

"Help."

I snapped out of it, not because he said "help," but mainly because I remembered being choked as a small child a lot and it was really, really not nice.

It was actually quite painful.

Kaylee always took the time, and took the effort, to remind me that we were the two Nightingale survivors- the only ones. We have the powers, and the minds and emotional intelligence that come only with being the strongest of the strongest survivors. At least for the most part- we certainly weren't perfect.

I stepped back with my left foot, calculated line and distance- and went all out.

This wasn't a workout. But if my body was going to do something nice for someone that day, then hey, let's flip.

--