Despite her attempt at resistance, the girl was just too tired to keep out the calming presence that seemed to radiate from the man. It encircled him and reached out to her with tendrils of warmth, calling to her like the siren of Greek myth. She had to accept, just this once...maybe everything would be okay.

She let it envelope her and slowly felt her heart rate decrease, the dizziness gently subside, and her breaths slowed to a normal pace. When she opened her eyes once more, she felt calm, relaxed, but still confused. The stran--Lucien was making sense, and somehow she knew that his words were true. If she had seen him in her future, happy, smiling, their arms interlocked...that meant that she was meant to be here, didn't it?

He came into focus again as he vision clarified and the smell of the meat in her hand wafted to her once more. She raised her shaking fingers to her mouth and slowly took a bite of the jerky, ripping it away with her teeth. Her mouth gushed with liquid as she chewed the morsel, and she swore that nothing had ever tasted this good...she closed her eyes as she ate and didn't swallow until the meat was only mush between her teeth. Once she had, she placed the other half in her mouth and ate it a little more quickly, following it with some water before she gulped that down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Middletown...that wasn't too far from home. She could get there, but not alone, not like this. Maybe this man and his nephew and his friend...maybe they would help her get there. Maybe they wouldn't, but the feeling that she got from Lucien told her that he would have a hard time refusing this request. She would walk there, if she had to, but she wanted to increase her chances as much as she could. She had to get back home, to see Izzy again. To take her with her, run away, just the two of them...before something bad happened to her, too.

Once she had finished eating and had drained the canteen in her hand, she decided it was time to speak. She held the container between her palms, the cool metal felt soothing on her aching skin. The pain was nothing compared to what it had been...but it was still there. How had she healed so quickly, though? Even if she had been unconscious for days, there was no way her condition would have improved this much. Besides, she couldn't have regained any strength, and they couldn't have given her food or water without fear of choking her if she had been asleep for that long. No, it had to have been mere hours, a day at most, so how had she healed so rapidly?

This was the question she had decided on next, something that she needed to know. If these people were...different as well, she wanted to know in what manner they deviated from normal people. [color=598527]"My sunburn..."[/color] she said finally as she looked down at her hands and then her shins, [color=598527]"The cuts and scrapes...where did they go?"[/color] she looked back at Lucien, her eyes sharp once more.