Amber discovered quickly that despite the kids being silent and awkward when they were all doing something together with her around, they were actually fairly good friends and talked amongst each other a lot. They spoke as if everything was a secret, even small things that had no meaning at all. As if talking amongst each other had at one point needed to be a secret. Amber wouldn’t be too surprised if it had, considering what little she knew about their background.

They all seemed to get along fairly well, which was good. The only thing that she was really worried about was the fact that Amelia and Sam left regularly into the forest, and would come back scratched and bruised and sometimes bleeding. They didn’t seem to mind, and none of the rest of the kids seemed to notice. Amber didn’t want to be too direct, so she often asked vague questions, to which she got either no answers or answer that were vague as well.

The kids seemed uncomfortable around Amber during the first two weeks of them all living together in the house. The neighbors had been by to ask questions, because no one really wanted a group home in their neighborhood if the kids were going to cause trouble. Amber assured them that the kids were good and they weren’t going to cause trouble, even though she wasn’t entirely sure that it was true.

Despite the awkwardness of the kids around her, living in the house went fairly smoothly. The kids didn’t really seem to like Brian either, but they helped out as they were asked and didn’t make trouble. They argued amongst each other fairly often, especially Derek and Sam, but other than that, it was peaceful at the house.

Until Amber told them all that they had a group therapy session the next day.

“Wait, no!” Savvy exclaimed, looking annoyed and moving closer to Naomi protectively. “I know you said we had to, but we’re not used to this yet. You can’t make us go!”

“Savvy.” Amber sighed. “It’s important. It will help you all talk about what you’ve been through, and that’s important because no one else can really understand that other than all of you.”

“Savvy and Derek don’t get it!” Amelia shouted. “They weren’t there very long at all!”

“Yeah!” Sam put in. “I’m not gonna talk ‘bout it with Derek! He wasn’t there long. I’d been there all my life. He wasn’t there. Savvy too.”

“It’s not my fault I was kidnapped when I was 12!” Savvy shouted at Sam and Amelia, looking pissed. “I still went through hell with all of you.”

“Yeah.” Derek agreed.

Savvy groaned and rolled her eyes. “Derek you don’t get to talk! You were there two years, if that, and half the time you were helping him hurt us!”

“It’s not my fault!” Derek shouted, and then everyone else joined in on the shouting. “I didn’t want him to hurt my sisters and none of you would understand that!”

Sam snorted. “He hurt all of us, Derek! And you helped him. He hurt us, he killed our friends, and he took away everything that was important to us!”

“I didn’t know what else to do! And don’t you say for a second that you never did what he said. I’m not the only one guilty of hurting people! You did that too! All of you! So you can’t go around blaming me for fuc-”

“Woah!” Amber shouted, standing up and getting everyone’s attention. “This is exactly why you all need the therapy.” She said, glaring at everyone. They all looked guilty and moved back to their seats. The woman took a deep breath. “I know it’s hard, and you all went through hell. But you need to talk about it in a controlled environment.” She was a bit scared, honestly, because they had all been getting along until now, and now they all seemed angry and annoyed at each other. It was probably about time that they snapped though. This was a different kind of life than they had been living, and it wasn’t going to help them at all if they were arguing. “So you are all going to group tomorrow, and after that, you will all have individual sessions as well. You’ll work through all of this. But you need to all get along.”