Anna breathed a sigh of relief and started her white Kia Optima, driving away from her apartment complex. It had been a long few days. Her thighs and butt still hurt from the first hour-long horseback lesson she’d shared with the boys, with another scheduled in a few days when they recovered. Eric had given them all some initial karate lessons that hadn’t been so bad. Matt’s sign language work was less painful, at least. She was a little sore from her first jog as well, but things were coming along. She just needed a break from it all.
A girl’s night out was just what she needed. She had avoided her girlfriends a bit since the reappearance at Stonehenge, partly because everyone had so many questions and fending them off was the opposite of relaxing. She expected a few more queries tonight, but felt more comfortable dodging them now. As much as she enjoyed the boys, she had to get away from everything involving them now. She had spent all of her free time on preparing for their new reality. The worst part was the pressure—the feeling that every minute counted because someone could summon them without warning. They needed years of expertise but had no time to gain it. And they felt lucky to not have already been taken again. The stress was getting to her.
She put it from her mind with an effort. Five minutes later, she picked up her dance instructor friend Jade, an Asian woman who wore her jet-black hair in an asymmetrical bob, the front past her chin on one side, a dash of green through it. Ten minutes after and they met roommates Heather and Raven, who piled into the back. Ann headed for the highway, a night of dinner, dancing, and drinking with them ahead of her.
“So girl,” began Raven from the backseat, “Anna, what’s up with you hanging with these boys all the time? You doing a foursome and not inviting us?”
Anna blushed as they all laughed. “I don’t have that much stamina.”
“I do!” said Raven. She lifted up her phone and started videotaping their conversation, as she liked to do, sometimes posting it online with faces blurred out. She had a decent online following.
“I would go for Ryan,” said Heather, pushing blush on her white cheeks. “I like my men big.”
“Who doesn’t?” Raven asked, cackling.
“I think average is just fine,” said Jade from the front seat.
Raven said, “That Eric is supposed to be a karate guy or something? That’s hot. I like flexible men.”
Laughing and already feeling her stress melt away, Anna asked, “Is there anything you don’t like in men?”
“What about Matt?” Jade asked, turning to look in the backseat, which is when Anna realized her friend hadn’t put on a seat belt and told her to, but didn’t get a reaction as Jade added, “I think he’s cute. I like smart guys.”
“That’s because you’re Asian,” began Raven. “Your boys all got big brains.”
“Seriously, though,” started Heather, “first you disappeared with those guys in England for three weeks and now you’re hanging out with them all the time. Come on, what’s going on?”
Anna sighed, noticing Raven’s camera recording. She’d ask her not to post anything about what Heather just said, or her response, because it would reveal her identity.
“We’ve just been hiding out from the press. They were driving us crazy and the only people who understood what it was like was them. I didn’t have to explain anything to them, or answers questions I can’t answer.”
“You really don’t know where you were all that time?” Jade asked.
Anna repeated the agreed upon lie that Ryan had told Daniel.
“I don’t know where we were during those three weeks,” Anna concluded. By now, her car had reached the highway and they were doing 70 mph in a big block of vehicles, heading south on I-270 against rush hour traffic toward Rockville.
“Maybe you need one of those healers that people keep talking about,” began Jade, still not wearing her seatbelt. She was making Anna nervous. “They could get your memories back or figure out how three weeks of time went away for you.”
That was just what Anna needed, someone poking around and forcing her to make up more lies. She felt stressed by it, but she knew they were just making small talk and would likely drop it soon.
“I think you mean a hypnotist,” Heather corrected.
“No. I don’t. We could find one of these people and they could answer the mystery.”
“That shit ain’t real, girl,” said Raven, still taping on her phone. “Come on. And you know Anna don’t believe in that.”
“Yeah, but they showed that one on video,” said Jade. “The guy’s leg was mangled and it just went back to normal.”
That surprised Anna. She hadn’t heard of that story, but then she’d been too busy and not really catching up on these stories as much as she should, especially when it sort of concerned her. She would get on that tomorrow. “Seriously, Jade, please put your seatbelt on.”
“Come on, that video was fake, like the moon landing.” Raven let out a cackle, since she wasn’t serious.
“Would you let someone heal you?” Jade asked Anna, putting her seatbelt on with an eye-roll.
Seeing that, Anna relaxed. “If it actually worked? Yeah, sure.”
“See?” Raven asked. “She had to qualify that.”
“I would want a hunky doctor type to heal me,” began Heather, “and then I could show him my gratitude.”
They erupted in laughter and Anna said, “I’ve really missed you guys.”
Her face hurt from the grin, and then she felt a tingling in her stomach. A moment passed before an awful realization struck. Her wide eyes went to Jade beside her, then the cars hurtling along around them. A glance in the rearview mirrored showed a freight truck a little too close behind. White light blinded her, but it wasn’t coming
