Clove was almost certain she was still dreaming. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut again and when she opened them, there was a young girl standing behind Cato, and delicately dropped a key into his open hand. She took a minute to look at the young girl, and a little twinge of recognition hit her.
She couldn’t be more than fifteen years old, with brilliant wide blue eyes and long blonde hair. As beautiful as she was, Clove wouldn’t have recognized her should she not have been standing beside Cato. They both had the exact same coloured eyes and their hair was the same fair shade of blonde.
She didn’t really have much time to ask questions, Cato and the young girl sandwiched her between the two of them and they began walking back towards the front door. Clove tried to take Cato’s advice, trying to act casual like she had been let out the legal way. But then again, when had she ever done anything the legal way? Cato’s sister Aeliana ran past them and walked up to the desk, and Cato gave Clove a shove in the direction of the door. Clove almost cried out in surprise, and she made a mental note to elbow Cato the first chance she got.
Clove held her breath as she and Cato strolled past the Peacekeeper at the gate, and she nearly screamed in excitement when they made it safely past the building, Aeliana running up and joining them a few minutes later. Of course, Cato took the liberty of laughing out loud and Clove delivered her promise of elbowing him in the ribs. “Shut up, my god they might hear you!”
Clove would have punched him in the face again after he made the remark about her neighbours not being close enough to kill, but she was too absorbed on looking at where they were going. Cato protectively pulled Aeliana behind him as they started threating through the alleyways, and as if on a second thought took the liberty of shoving Clove in line behind Aeliana. She would have bit his hand if he hadn’t bailed her out of jail, which she planned on interrogating his reasoning for, once they got to wherever they were going.
They arrived at a house that appeared to be theirs, because Cato quickly leaned up against the wall and hoisted Aeliana onto his shoulders, who jimmied the lock of the window and crawled in. “Come on” he snapped, pacing on the spot to tell her to step on his hands to jump up into the window. “You want me to go… in there?” She asked, pointing at the window. “No, we’re going to fucking Narnia. Now come on.” Well, she was glad that his temporary stay in jail hadn’t tainted his sense of humour. With more difficulty than she’d like to admit, Clove managed to hobble onto Cato’s hand and was flung through the open window, rolling like a ball through the window and landing on her ass. She sat there and rubbed her backside crankily, and a few seconds later Cato squeezed through the window, having to shimmy his way in since he was nowhere near as thin as the two girls. She looked around at the room she was in, and Aeliana answered her question. “this is my room. You can stay in here if you like.”
“Stay?” Clove repeated, still rubbing her ass. She had probably broken it. Was that possible?
“you want me to stay here? You guys just bailed me out of jail. If they figure out I’m missing you guys will get in so much shit. You’ve done enough for me, why, I have no idea but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you guys put your asses on the line for me.”
