GOLDEN REBEL HEART

Chapter 4

Taylor had been one of the few lucky people whose shack didn't burn down. One of the windows was broken, but she could bear with a little breeze since there were people who had to sleep in the cold now. And it's because of me. For the past three hours, a tiny and cruel voice has been reminding her that all of this was her fault. The attack, the people dying. Children losing their parents. Wives losing their husbands and vice versa. She was the reason behind all of this pain. She had caused all of this and the worst thing is that she doesn't even know how fix this.

She's about to treat the painful wound on her right thigh when suddenly the door opens quietly. She's laying on her bed, a few medications she had bought the day before scattered on her bedside table. Taylor is surprised to see Karlie standing at her doorstep, her arms crossed over her chest. When spotting the injured woman, the leader sighs loudly and closes the door behind her back. She quietly makes her way towards the bed, the American watching her every step as she holds her breath in anticipation. When Karlie stands beside her bed, Taylor stops moving and expectantly looks up at her. With another sigh, the leader sits beside her leg and takes the medication from her hands. The tall woman silently begins treating her open wound, firstly cleaning it from the excessive blood with alcohol. Taylor hisses, writhing and moving as Karlie firmly grips her thigh with her free hand.

The American blushes deeply when finally realizing that she's only wearing her underwear and a torn light blue shirt, and feeling the leader's long and thin fingers wrap around her naked flesh raises the invisible hair on the back of her neck.

"You don't have to do this," Taylor says through gritted teeth as she grasps the sheets beneath her. She whimpers, biting her bottom lip when Karlie finds and removes a tiny, almost invisible splinter.

"I wouldn't have to do this if you had listened to me today," the leader mutters.

She's breathing heavily by the time the tall girl wraps a clean bandage around her thigh, fully covering the long and deep cut. When she's finished, Karlie looks up at her and watches her for a whole minute, before shaking her head with pursed lips.

"You're so fucking stupid," she says matter of factly. Taylor lowers her head. "That woman told me that you saved her daughter today. She told me to thank you,"

The American glances up at her before embarrassedly averting her eyes.

"What you did today was risky, dangerous, and completely uncalled for," Karlie begins. "But it was also an act of bravery and goodwill. You were courageous enough to help the Golden Path handle the attack even though you know nothing about wars and guns and all that shit. You decided to risk your life today, and it could have gone terribly wrong, but I'm glad it didn't."

Upon hearing her soft and calm voice, Taylor knows that Karlie isn't mad at her anymore. Perhaps she was a few hours ago, but now she seems almost grateful. "I wanted to help. I felt useless the small amount of time you left me alone in the car,"

"I know," Karlie says and, unexpectedly, grabs her hand, squeezing it in a reassuring way. "I'm glad you feel this way, because I want to see more of this bravery from you. You remind me of my young self, when I started fighting this war years and years ago. We're stubborn. We're fearless. We risk our life for others and we don't care about ourselves. We only care about others and we are hurting when we see other people suffer," she says quietly. "I saw you, today. After we succeeded on counterattacking. You were distraught. You were in pain because you saw us in pain. And I think that's wonderful. I think that's beautiful,"

Taylor finally looks up at her and readily meets her soft and sincere gaze. "Thank you for understanding,"

Karlie smiles warmly at her before looking down at their still intertwined hands. She gets up, having nothing to say to the American woman, but then Taylor stops her by firmly grabbing her wrist.