WiFi

Chapter 22

My grip on Myla's arm tightened as I surveyed the scene before me.

Peter. Holding a girl we didn't know. And saying it was his daughter.

"Is she okay?" Myla gushed, "Oh my god, we need to get her someplace safe where we can help her! Hang on," she pulled her rucksack crudely off her back and fumbled with the zip before managing to open it, "Peter," she asked, focused, "Did you pack medical kits in here?"

Peter said nothing, eyes still solely focused on the girl in his arms, whose head was lolled back, slit eyes staring at Myla as she reached her arms into the bottom of her bag.

"Found it!" she announced, holding in her hand a small red bag with a black zip. It had a big white cross on it.

A minute later she was out of the Board and sprinting towards where Peter was standing, "Lay her down." Myla commanded. I hopped out the Board too after turning it off, and marched over to where they were standing.

I helped Peter lay the girl out on an even patch of floor, by this time the rain had soaked through our thin clothes and chilled our skin. But Myla didn't care, she was only focused on helping.

The girl was floppy in my arms, but life still held her gently. The corners of her lips raised up slightly and she looked at me with what I could only assume was a smile, though it looked more like a grimace. The freckles under her eyes were just darker than her skin, and her eyes themselves were smudged with black eyeliner. She had four piercings in both of her ears.

Myla turned back to me, eyes ablaze with worry, "Can you do something about the rain?"

Five minutes later and I had constructed a crude shelter from some plastic pipes I had found lying around in the wreckage and a tarpaulin that had been stuffed into the back of our Board for emergencies. It held decently enough, though it sagged from the weight of the rain.

The girl's eyes were wide open now, and her cheeks seemed to have gained some colour. Myla had fed her some of the food Peter had packed in the supply kits and tended to the bullet wound on her left arm.

Not once did the girl cry, she held strong through all of Myla's poking and prodding and ate the food she had been given. Her calculating eyes on Myla the whole time.

Myla sat the girl up against half a wall of the building behind us and the girl's eyes went blank for a minute from fatigue and vertigo.

"What's your name?" Myla asked gently, checking the bandage around the girl's arm before sitting back as if to admire her work.

The girl's voice was husky and cracked, but unwavering, and no grief spotted her words as she spoke, "My name is Adira Wren."

Peter's face blanched and a look of pain flashed in his eyes before he smothered it with a neutral expression, "How long have you been here?" Peter asked, trying to keep his voice steady though not really managing it.

Her gaze bounced off Peter as if he were something unimportant, and instead her eyes darted to me, she said, "I've been here for four days, sleeping in a hostel down the road that has now been destroyed."

"But you could have stayed with me!" blurted Peter, much to his own surprise, "Why didn't you."

Adira raised her eyebrows and a cold look settled on her face. I understood then that Adira Wren was a girl you never wished to fight against, and always wished to be by your side. She was fearless when she spoke, and as steady as the flow of blood coming from her forearm, "Why would I stay with a stranger?"

My eyes widened and Myla coughed loudly, Peter's eyes narrowed, though not in his usual calculating way- they looked full of regret.

Adira turned back to us and her gaze softened, "What are your names?"