âWha- Iâm honest!  Iâm always honest!  Itâs not exactly my fault I get into weird situations!â Kayla retorted.  âBesides, Iâm a trouble magnet!  Incidents happen around me!  Bears loathe me!  I have an awful sense of direction⊠except when I donât!â  She paused for a moment, deep in thought, staring at her feet.  When she looked up again, her expression had changed from its previous mixture of exasperation and desperation to a disturbingly smug smirk.  âOh, and things tend to explode around me.  A lot.  Because of Incidents, which tend to happen most often when Iâm left⊠unsupervised.  So⊠you could leave me alone and risk explosions, bears, cults, undead, Incidents, etcetera⊠or you could show me around and keep me out of trouble.  Well, try to keep me out of trouble.  Please?â
        Kaiba stared, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, as he listened to the woman and her wild explanation. Did she really expect him to believe her? Ridiculous.
       ââŠIâve never met anyone who puts that much effort into their lies,â he quipped. âAs long as you donât cause any trouble of your own, Iâll allow you to stick with me. For now.â He put as much emphasis on that last point as he could. He didnât want to be stuck with someone following him around for too long.
At the mention of lies, Kayla recoiled, hissing in rage.  âExcuse YOU!  I may be many things - trouble magnet, Incident Instigator, perpetually lost, etcetera - but I am NOT a liar!   That stuff I mentioned - life-threatening stuff - thatâs  basically BUSINESS AS USUAL for me.  If you wanna be skeptical, fine, but donât call me a liar to my face!â  Stepping back, the irritated teen continued to grumble under her breath before realizing that, just before her angry outburst, this (apparently helpful, but also skeptical) person had agreed to help her out.  That is, if she didnât offend him with all her yelling⊠honestly, Kayla needed to learn to keep a lid on her temper.
âUm, wait! Â Sorry, but I donât like it when people accuse me of stuff I didnât do, Â like lying, which is definitely a thing I donât do, except when itâs really important and lives are at stake, which isnât the case right now. Â So Iâm sorry I yelled and could you please still show me around?â











