For a long moment, Christi was silent, her breath frozen in her chest as she leaned her back against the tree. Elijah Craig. Now she had a name to a face. But the things he said, they didn't make any sense. He wasn't there to arrest her? It wasn't her fault? Of course it was her fault, she had been holding the knife, she'd made him angry. Of course it was her fault Mom was gone, she was here and Mom wasn't. If she hadn't been born, then her Mom would still be alive. All of it was her fault. 

Why would they want to help her? Everything was her fault. They shouldn't be helping her, they should be with her brother. Biting her lip and clutching at her arms, she again debated on what to do. The longer she stayed there, the more likely it was that Daniel would catch up with her. Or they'd just start looking for her.

And what about Eric Miller? That name didn't sound like one of Daniel's friends, but she didn't often see them anyways, or really know their names. 

[i]Maybe if I just... looked?[/i] She peered just slightly around the tree, and crouched to her feet, circling left. She made it nearly fifty feet before finally catching sight of him. He was... nice looking? She frowned. He didn't look like the boys that she would sometimes see Daniel with when they were in town. They were all big, brawny, and always looked like they had something stuck between their teeth that they just couldn't get out. Eric was... wiry. Thin, like the deer she shot. And the goggles on his head made him look... almost cute. Instantly burying her face against a tree, Christi banished the thought from her mind. She wasn't supposed to think about people like that, it wasn't right. The only person she'd talked about things like that with was Tillie, and now she was... 

Biting her lip again, she quietly tore another page from her journal and scribbled a single word, then laid it against the base of the tree and whistled up-down again, creeping away to watch from safety.

[b]Why?[/b]