Kire listened to him explain what had happened after he ran away. What an ordeal that was, to survive an agonizing withdrawal, in the middle of the desert, and to find refuge under a city you had never seen before. She lowered her hand when he gently pried it from his face. She gave him a small smile. “Fair is fair. The next five are yours.” She had guessed as much when he pointed out that her boots were nowhere to be seen. 

She walked back along the beach just as slowly, reluctant to leave it. As much as she wanted to ask him what he thought of her questions, what [i]intentions[/i] he had read into them, she let him mull it over. She knew what he had just confessed to her was no easy thing to unburden onto someone else. “Thank you. For telling me.”