Cameron’s eyes danced around Justin’s face as he spoke, enjoying the different expressions he would make at the things he said. One thing that stuck out to her were his green eyes.  She couldn’t recall anyone in her village that had them but had heard of them before. They were fascinating to say the least, but when she caught herself staring, her cheeks grew red as she looked away.

Ah, the reason she never told people about her life. The questions.

“Well, I was always around boys growing up. The girls thought I was, well, a little abrasive,” she chuckled as she thought of herself as a child. “Back in the day, they didn’t ‘believe’ in guns,” she made air quotes with her fingers before continuing, “so most training was hand-to-hand combat. They wouldn’t let girls into the program, which was easy to enforce since none of the girls [i]wanted[/i] to be in it. But after enough begging and pleading, they gave up and let me train with them. They started teaching with other weapons a few years later. Knives were always my favorite,” she smiled faintly.

“A lot of women were unhappy, wanting more freedom, so some began to leave the settlement in hopes to find somewhere better for themselves.” Cameron paused. The next part of the story, she knew, would be difficult to repeat.

“After a while, they recanted their beliefs on guns, they began training with them. Said it wasn’t right for a woman to be handling such machinery, although they still let me do combat training. It caused an uproar, though, when more and more girls began showing interest in learning to fight after rumors were being spread around. They were saying that the raiders were attacking and raping women, leaving them for dead. Their plan to scare the women in to submission backfired. So,” she cleared her throat, “they tried to stop me from training all together a few years later, saying I was a bad role model for the kids. But they knew I wasn’t going to take it sitting down.” 

“Last year, a few days after my 24th birthday, I was invited out on a hunt with men that weren’t usually in my group. I didn’t think anything of it, but…” Her voice trailed off, and Cameron paused once more. “I was attacked by three of them while we camped for the night. Made sure I looked real bad and…” she figured he could use his imagination, so she didn’t go further into detail on the assault. “Any way, when we got back home, they blamed it on raiders so they could push their agenda for women not to be able to leave our walls. They instructed the healers to keep me heavily sedated, so no one believed me when I tried to explain what happened. They knew I had no family that would try to vouch for me. John was the only one who did, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It was planned out pretty well, I'll give them that.”

Cameron’s eyes shifted to Justin, trying to read him. She couldn’t. “So, after they released me, I killed one of my attackers in the middle of the night. That wasn’t my plan, but after I made my way into his house, all I could see was red.” She frowned for a moment. “The only reason I didn’t get executed for it was because they decided that, because of what happened to me, I couldn’t be fully held responsible for my actions. So, I’ve been on house arrest ever since. Explains why I can’t run anymore,” she chuckled nervously as she picked at the bottom of her boot. 

Cameron didn’t want her to think any differently of her, but she was sure he did. She didn’t kill this man in combat. He was killed in cold blood, on his bed while he slept. But, she sure as hell didn’t regret it.  Not at all. 

Feeling Justin’s stare, she looked up to him slowly. “I, uh, sorry. Probably a little too much information, huh?” Cameron didn’t plan on telling him all the nitty-gritty details of her life, but he made it easy. He was kind and protective, and she felt like he’d keep her stories safe. And keep [i]her[/i] safe. "Please, uh," she shook her head, "please don't tell any of your people about my past. They seem so... wholesome. I don't want them not to like me." 

Cameron looked out through the front window of the convenience store and saw that the sun was making the sky a pink color, which inspired a soft smile to take over Cameron's face.