And I had already lost a few hours and night was falling fast. I took off running, away from camp, the Council, my family: running towards Rose, who was somewhere beyond the birch-beaded edge of the woods, running towards an idea of home that I wasn’t willing to lose, not even if it meant running away from the family I had already found. “Ahneen.” I almost tripped over my own feet at the sound of her voice. Sure enough, there was Rose, sitting on a log about twenty meters into the bush, her backpack at her feet. Most of her newly shorn curls were piled on top of her head in a messy bun; a few
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