It was 7:30 in the morning. Monet looked over at the pile of blankets on Skylar's bed -- her roommate was still asleep, somewhere underneath those comforters and sheets. If she didn't get up now, she'd miss class. Gently Monet sat down on the edge of the bed and shook the blankets. "Rise and shine," she said.

Skylar groaned. "Leave me alone," she whispered, her voice hoarse.

Frowning, Monet pulled back the blankets. "Skylar, are you alright?" she asked. One look at her roommate answered that question.

Skylar's skin as white as the sheets and encased in a thin sheath of sweat. "God, Monet," she groaned, pulling the blankets back over her head. "Just let me sleep."

"You don't look well," Monet said. "I'm going to get Ms. Frost."

"I'm fine," Skylar said. She peeked out from under the covers. "Just woke up with a migraine, is all. Get me my pills and I'll be fine."

"Pills?" Monet asked. Skylar pointed to the bottom drawer of her nightstand. Opening it, Monet dug through bottles of aspirin and Vicks Vaporub until she found an amber prescription bottle. "Fiorinol," she said, reading the label. "Take one every four hours as needed for pain." She looked at Skylar. "You get migraines?"

"From my powers." Skylar reached for the bottle and shook out three of the white tablets into her hand, dry swallowing them quickly. She grimaced at the aftertaste. Then she plopped back on her pillow and sighed.

Monet frowned. "It said take one," she pointed out.

"That was the suggested dose," Skylar countered, draping an arm over her eyes to block out the light. "One ain't gonna do it."

"Are you going to be okay?" Monet asked, worried.

Skylar nodded. "It'll go away soon," she said. Out in the hall they could hear the slamming of a door, followed by Jubilee's loud laughter. "Don't let her in here," Skylar whispered, and pulled the blankets back over her head.

Monet gathered up her schoolbooks and quietly closed the bedroom door behind her as she left. In the hall she met Paige and Jubilee. "Where's Skylar?" Paige asked.

"She's not feeling well," Monet replied. "She has a migraine."

Jubilee reached for the doorknob. "A headache? Is that all? Tell her to get up and get at'em."

Monet blocked Jubilee's way. "A migraine isn't a mere headache," she explained. "You of all people should know that."

"Why?" Jubilee asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"Because you have the uncanny ability to inflict them upon others," Monet said, loftily. She started down the stairs, and Paige followed behind her.

Jubilee ran to catch up with them. "Is that an insult or something?" Jubilee asked. Pouting, she added, "It only works if I get it."

Monet tossed her hair back. "No, Jubilee. The satisfaction of turning a witty phrase remains whether or not you get it."

Turning towards Jubilee, Paige whispered, "She said you give people headaches."

"Hey!" Jubilee cried, her voice loud in the hall.

Monet held the dormitory door open for them. "Quiet," she cautioned. "Skylar already has a headache. Don't make it worse."

Jubilee glared at her as they left.

When Monet awoke the next morning, Skylar's bed was already empty. She must be feeling better, she thought, pulling on her bathrobe. I'm glad that headache of hers went away. Suddenly there was a knock on the bedroom door. Before she could answer, Paige opened the door and came in. "Monet," she said, breathless. "Skylar's really sick."

"Where is she?" Monet followed Paige to the bathroom, where Skylar sat on the floor inside one of the stalls, her head in her arms on the toilet seat. Reaching for her, Monet asked, "Is it your head?"

Skylar nodded and looked up at Monet. Her eyes were red from crying, rimmed with black bruises from lack of sleep. When Monet touched her shoulders, she could feel her shaking slightly. "Are you nauseous?" Monet asked.

"I threw up," Skylar whispered.

Without another word, Monet lifted Skylar off the floor and cradled her in her arms. Skylar's body felt hot to the touch. Turning to Paige, she asked, "Where's Jubilee?"

"I sent her to get Ms. Frost," Paige answered. Looking at Skylar, she whispered, "Will she be alright?"

"I don't know," Monet replied, half running, half flying from the bathroom. "Tell Ms. Frost to meet us at the Med-Lab. This isn't merely a migraine."

Paige hurried after her. "Do you think . . ." She stopped. "I mean, it couldn't be . . ."

Monet shook her head. "It's not the Legacy Virus. The symptoms aren't the same." She flew down the stairs, Skylar shivering in her arms. At least, she hoped it wasn't the Legacy Virus.

Emma Frost sat in the Med-Lab and watched Skylar through the window that separated them. The girl was feverish and said her head hurt, and yet she shivered as if she were extremely cold. Emma wasn't a doctor, but she had done the best she could do, at least until Dr. McCoy could arrive. Maybe he would know what was the matter with her. She only wished that the girl's powers would allow her to enter her mind, ease the pain just a little.

Skylar tossed her head fitfully, as if in the throes of a bad dream. As she did, Emma felt a psionic presence nearby, a mutagenic signature she didn't recognize. She reached out with her mind, searching for the other presence, but suddenly it was gone. In the other room, Skylar stopped struggling.

I wonder if she "turns off" her powers when she sleeps, Emma thought. Only one way to find out. Carefully, she sent out a probe, reaching out for Skylar's mind. She felt the wall of Skylar's mutant power that surrounded her mind, shielding it from psionic energy. But she was right -- when Skylar was asleep, her powers were lessened, and with just a few pushes in the right places, Emma managed to slide through the barrier and into Skylar's mind.

The inside of her mind looked a lot like a sordid neighborhood in a run-down section of a busy urban city. This must be her L.A., Emma thought, craning her neck to see the tops of the tall skyscrapers and high-rises that hemmed her in. The streets twisted around the buildings, doubling back over each other and crumbling around the gutters. Eyes gleamed from the shadows warily, and hands poked up through sewer grates, reaching for Emma's legs. And then she heard Skylar scream.

The sound echoed back from the buildings, scaring away the hands and the eyes around Emma until she was alone on the street. "Skylar!" she called out, and suddenly she found herself at the edge of a city square, an area where all the crazed streets met. Skylar stood in the middle of the square, at the center of her being, crouched down with her arms covering her face. All around her horrid monsters clawed and spat at each other, hissing in their fury, reaching for Skylar. But they were held back by a tall, thin boy who watched Skylar intently, his long blonde hair falling to his shoulders and covering his large blue eyes and wide grin. Emma recognized his psionic signature as the one from the Med-Lab, and she strained to hear what he said.

"One word," he purred, his voice like silk. "One word and they will disappear forever, Sky. One word and I'll make them go away. I'll keep you safe."

Skylar was sobbing now, her face buried in her hands. "Go away," she whispered, her words muffled.

The boy chuckled. "That's not the word," he chided, and the monsters surged forward slightly. One raked Skylar's cheek with its razor-like claws, drawing a thin line of blood across her porcelain skin. Reaching down, the boy gently wiped the blood away, and the wound closed under his touch. "See?" he said gently. "I can make it all better."

Without thinking, Emma lashed out with her mind. "You heard the girl," she said. The monsters dissolved as her psionic powers sent them scurrying back into the boy's psyche. "Go away."

The boy looked up at Emma, his eyes hard, his mouth set in a grimace. "You weren't invited to this reunion," he said. Suddenly worms and maggots covered Emma, squirming around her arms and legs, scurrying under her shirt, dripping from her hair. She felt one fall down the back of her shirt.

With but a thought, she wiped the bugs away. "Nice try," she said, coming towards them. Skylar looked up at her, hope and fear mingled in her eyes. "But I'm afraid that visiting hours are over."

Beneath them, the ground began to shake violently, and the streets broke open. Large hulking walls erupted from the fissures. "Skylar!" Emma cried, falling back from her. The walls curved around Skylar until she was obscured from view, and then more walls sprouted up around those. Emma recognized them as her mutant powers, blocking out the intruders in her mind, protecting herself.

"It's the only way," she heard Skylar say. "Go now, before you get hurt again. This is the only way to get rid of him."

"Who is he?" Emma asked, but the words were lost in the deafening noise of the walls as they tore up the streets and grew taller than the surrounding buildings. Soon the buildings would crumble, and the entire city would lie in ruins. When that happened, Emma's psi-force would ricochet back into her own mind, and Emma didn't want to go through that again.

As the walls continued to grow, she heard the boy cry out Skylar's name. "You're mine!" he shouted. "This won't keep you from me forever. Our blood is too thick -- these walls can't protect you."

And then Emma felt his signature depart, and pulled out of Skylar's mind as well.

Skylar sat on the examination table with a thermometer in her mouth. "I'm fine," she said around the instrument. "My headache's gone."

Emma pulled the thermometer out and read it. Ninety-eight point six. Normal. "I don't understand it," she said. "An hour ago you were hugging a toilet and now look at you." Narrowing her eyes, she looked at Skylar and asked, "How close have you and Angelo been getting lately anyway?"

"What?" Skylar asked, incredulous. Then she sighed, exasperated. "It wasn't morning sickness. If I'm pregnant you need to call the Pope. He'll want to document the second virgin birth of all time."

"Funny," Emma said dryly. "I was just covering all the possibilities." When Skylar had awakened, her headache was gone and her fever had broken, but she didn't remember anything that had occurred while Emma had been in her mind. Until now, Emma had been trying to force the girl to mention it, but she must have dismissed it as a dream. And whenever she tried to probe all she encountered were those thick walls, barricading the girl's mind. Finally, Emma sighed and asked, "Have you had these migraines before?"

Skylar shrugged. "I used to get them a lot when I was younger. When the Sentinels were always after me and my family. And sometimes I get them when I use my powers unconsciously, like when people are trying to read my mind without me knowing." She looked at Emma meaningfully. "Looking for something you left behind?" she asked.

"You do remember."

"Remember what?" Skylar looked confused.

Emma explained, "While you were asleep, I felt another psionic presence and entered your mind. Does any of this ring a bell?"

Skylar frowned. "I had this nightmare about monsters, chasing me through the streets back home. And this guy . . . and you . . . and then bricks all around."

"Who was that guy?" Emma asked.

"I don't know," Skylar whispered. But the way she avoided Emma's gaze said differently.

Later that evening, Skylar sat on her bed, her Calculus textbook and an empty notebook open on her lap. The textbook lay beneath the notebook, forgotten, as Skylar doodled on a blank page. Over and over again she wrote two words until they covered the page completely, and she still couldn't remember what he had looked in her dream. Every time she wrote the words -- "Jon Erik" -- she tried to remember his smile, his eyes, and every time all that came to her mind was an image of her parents sitting on a sofa, her mother sobbing into her father's arms, her father's stern gaze as he looked through her and said her brother was gone.

How old had she been? Seven maybe, the year that Jon Erik was kidnaped. Taken from the shopping cart in a parking lot as her mother loaded groceries into the car. Skylar remembered his wide smile and large eyes, and an unruly mop of blonde curls that made him look angelic. When her headaches started, her mother had another boy, and all of Jon Erik's pictures were put away, and soon after that Skylar was gone, too. After the police called it quits on their case, no one ever mentioned Jon Erik again, but Skylar had always wondered what had happened to her little brother -- if he was alive somewhere, never knowing of his real family, or if he had been murdered, buried in a shallow roadside grave. She had always wanted to know which.

The night of the football game, Skylar had dreamed of a tall boy with sandy hair that hung in his large eyes. He claimed to be Jon Erik, claimed to be alive somewhere, if only she could find him. Then she had woken up with an awful migraine, and thought the dreams were just fevered images brought on by the headaches.

But if Ms. Frost had seen him, then he must have been real. All she remembered was that he kept the monsters away, and then Emma had attacked him. Skylar wondered if he would come back again when she fell asleep tonight.

A knock at her door interrupted her thoughts. Turning to a clean page in the notebook, she picked up the Calculus book to look busy and called out, "It's open."

Jono eased the door open. *Can we come in?* he asked as Angelo pushed past him.

"Hola, chica," he said, dropping down beside her on the bed. "¿Como esta?"

"If that's Spanish for how's it hanging," Skylar said, closing the book, "then it's muy bien here at casa Skylar."

Angelo grinned. "Been watching those westerns again?" he asked. "Or just brushing up on your Spanish to impress me?"

Jono sat on the edge of her desk. *Cut the español, mates. This bloke never learned to speak anything other than the Queen's own.*

"Sorry," Skylar said, smiling at him. She could feel Angelo tense beside her. "So what are you guys doing tonight?"

"Not Calculus, that's for sure." Angelo took the book off of her lap. "It's Friday, Sky -- it's illegal to open a textbook again until Monday morning."

"I've had no better offers."

*How about coming back to our place,* Jono suggested, *play a few video games? Skin here's a whiz at Tekken 2.*

She took the book back from Angelo. "No offense, but getting my ass kicked isn't my idea of a good time. I suck at video games."

Nonchalantly, Angelo slid his arm between the wall and Skylar's waist. "Then maybe we could go into town," he suggested. "There's got to be something good playing at the movies."

"Your idea of a good movie is Halloween," she said. "I don't need to go to the movies to have nightmares."

*So we heard,* Jono said. When she looked at him, he looked away quickly.

Angelo whistled low. "She said not to mention it, man," he said.

Skylar turned and stared at him. "Who told you?" she asked. When neither of them said anything, she said, "Oh I get it. Ms. Frost thought it would be cute to tell everyone about her trip into my mind, is that it?"

*Skylar --* Jono started, but she cut him off.

"So now you two are here to comfort poor Skylar, right? Well, I don't need your sympathy." She opened up her Calculus book and slammed it on the bed angrily. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

"It's not like that," Angelo said, raising his arm from her waist until it draped around her shoulders. She tried to shrug it off but he wouldn't let her. "Ms. Frost said you were having nightmares because some maniac's entering your mind in your sleep. She told us so that we should be on the lookout for him, in case he enters our minds too."

"He won't," she said, pouting.

*Who is he?* Jono asked.

Skylar shrugged. She didn't want to tell them about Jon Erik -- what if it wasn't him? What if it was only someone pretending to be him? If that were the case, they might think it funny that she believed him to be her little brother. Besides, she didn't want to get her hopes up. If she didn't say anything, then she could convince herself that she was prepared for whatever happened. Angelo covered her book with his hand, spreading his skin out until it covered the page completely, but she was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice. "Earth to Sky," he whispered, suddenly very close -- she felt his breath tickle her ear. "You still want us to leave?"

She sighed. "I guess not," she said, letting Angelo close the book again. "Just let's not talk about this anymore, okay?" They both nodded, and an uncomfortable silence filled the room. And then, smiling, Skylar asked, "Do you have anything other than fighting games back at your place?"

Monday came around all too quickly, the weekend passing in a blur of sun and falling leaves. Skylar had decided that Massachusetts was the only place where autumn was something tangible, something more than a mere season or time of the year. It was a way of life almost, with the chilly mornings that warmed into lazy afternoons stretching away into tranquil evenings. As she walked with Monet to Computer Science, she breathed in the brisk air, tinged with frost, and smiled. If there was somewhere else she'd rather be, she couldn't think of it.

Skylar knew a little about computers -- back home Calliope knew this boy called Hacker who had shown her a thing or two online, so she knew her way around a keyboard. Hacker was one of those mutants who looked the part -- his mutant ability to communicate directly with computer systems had fused him to a mainframe, so that he was more cyborg than human, his very thoughts binary codes. When he spoke, it was through speakers installed in his hardware, an effect that always reminded Skylar of the Wizard of Oz. How Calliope ever met him, she never knew.

Thinking of Calliope is no way to start the day, she told herself as she sat down at her computer station. Walking by her, Angelo pulled out the chair at the station beside her and grinned. "Buenos días," he said.

"Hey," she said, looking at him. He wore baggy jeans and a large flannel shirt that hung open over a tight tank-top, and his hair was slicked back, still wet from his shower. If she touched it, she almost imagine that the ends would be tipped with frost from the morning air. Even from this distance she could smell the sweet miasma of his cologne. She sighed.

He grinned and leaned close to her. "Better watch yourself, chica," he whispered. "You're falling hard."

"What?" she asked. Then she smiled. "I'm not quite awake yet -- you'll have to ignore me."

"That's hard to do." His smile faded, and his voice took on a serious tone. "How're you feeling?"

Turning back to her computer, she said off-handedly, "Fine."

"No more nightmares?" he persisted.

She shrugged, but didn't trust herself to speak. When the boy hadn't returned to her dreams, she concluded that he had been merely a figment of her headaches, no matter what Ms. Frost said. But that still didn't make it any easier to fill the sudden hole in her heart that had opened up when she finally admitted to herself that he hadn't been Jon Erik. Glancing at Angelo, she muttered, "No more." And then she turned back to her computer screen as Mr. Cassidy entered the room.

A switch on the table turned on her computer, and she pulled close to the desk to avoid talking to anyone. The partitions on either side of her station effectively blocked her from view, and she tried to concentrate on the assignment Mr. Cassidy was writing on the board.

Suddenly she heard a blip! Looking down at her screen, she saw the Windows start-up screen disappear, replaced by a blank screen. Great, she thought, reaching for the switch. Broke the damn thing already.

Before she could reboot the computer, a sentence appeared at the top of the screen. Hello, Ricochet.

"Cute," Skylar muttered. She wondered whose idea it was to have their computers programmed to greet them. Probably Ms. Frost's -- she liked them to use their codenames when they could. She hit the Enter key and waited.

A few seconds later, another sentence appeared. Ricochet? Are you there?

Looking over her computer, Skylar glanced at the screens of the other students' computers -- they had the Windows 95 desktop on them, and were already starting on the exercise. Sighing, she flicked off the computer at the main switch and counted to ten. Figures I'd get the one with the bugs still in it, she thought, turning the computer back on. It began to boot up, but once it reached the start-up screen, the same thing happened. Only now the words weren't so welcoming.

Don't do that again, it warned. And then, when she did nothing, it asked, Ricky -- are you listening to me?

"No," Skylar whispered. Only one person in the entire world called her Ricky, a name she hated. Only one person called her that to piss her off -- Calliope? she typed.

The absurdity of the situation hit her -- how could Calliope be talking to her on this computer? As she started to delete what she had written, the cursor jumped down a line and began to spew out words. Where are you, babe? Nice of you to leave without telling me. Goner won't say a word but I think I know where you went. Your brother told me. What was his name?

Calliope was the only person she had ever told about her younger brother. Jon Erik, Skylar typed. How do you know --

But Calliope typed right over her words, and Skylar smiled. Just like in real life, Calliope was always in a hurry to say what she had to say, no matter who she had to talk over. He came to me in my dreams. Goner and Prayer have seen him, too, but won't tell me what he said. He told me you were at some school and he told me how to get in touch with you. He's in trouble, Ric, and he needs your help.

What kind of help can I give him? Skylar asked.

But Calliope ignored that. He wants you to come back. Skipping a few lines, she typed, I want you to come back.

I'm sure, Skylar thought. I can't, she typed. I've got things to do here. Why did he come to you?

He said there's a woman there who won't let him near you. He said she attacked him --

She was protecting me, Skylar said, but Calliope continued on as if she hadn't heard her.

He said he's in trouble, and he knows you can help him. He knows about your powers. I think you should come home.

Skylar sighed. This is my home now, she typed. I can't just leave --

Why not? You did that to me.

The letters glowed on the screen angrily, and Skylar typed, I'm sorry, before she could stop herself.

Then she reached over and cut off the computer again. Before the screen went blank, two words appeared. Come back. And then the screen grew dark.

Quickly, Skylar pushed back from the computer, reaching for her backpack. She slung it over her shoulder and turned to leave, only to find Emma Frost standing in her way. "Where are you going?" she asked, arms crossed.

"Um . . ." Skylar looked around. The other students were looking at her expectantly, but there was no way she would turn on that computer again, not if Calliope was still there, still trying to talk her into coming back. "I'm not feeling well," she lied. "I'm going to lie down for a little bit."

Dropping her voice so that none of the others heard her, Emma asked, "Was that him?" She nodded at the computer, and Skylar wondered how long she had been standing there.

"I've got to go," Skylar whispered back, and hurried from the classroom before Emma could say another word. She kept her head down, her gaze on the floor, and avoided looking at anyone as she left. She was afraid they might see the tears shining in her eyes.

When their afternoon classes were over, Everett and Angelo sat by the river, beneath the tree Monet liked to climb. Everett held a large box kite in his hands -- Leech and Artie had snagged it in the tree and played nearby while he tried to fix it. Beside him Angelo looked out at the water as it rushed by, lost in his thoughts. As Everett tied the final string back into place on the kite, Angelo asked, "What's wrong with me, amigo?"

Everett looked at him. "Besides the obvious, right?" Angelo punched him playfully in the arm and Everett grinned. "You're talking about Skylar, aren't you?"

Angelo nodded. "Sometimes she'll let me get so close that I think there's hope for us -- I've seen the way she looks at me and I know she likes me; I can see it in her eyes. But then she'll push me away and it's like there's no way I could ever reach her."

"Girls are like that," Everett said, shrugging. "They like to play hard to get."

"It's more than that," Angelo said. "I know she's had it rough but who hasn't? If only there was some way to prove to her that I'm not like everyone else she's known before, that I'm not going to try to manipulate her or control her or hurt her --"

Everett elbowed him. "Maybe now's your chance," he whispered, nodding over to where Leech and Artie were playing a round of catch. Skylar walked around the kids, her hands in her pockets, her head down, heading towards them.

"Hey guys," she said, stopping a few feet away.

Everett stood up, kite in hand. "Hey, Skylar," he said. Then, looking down at Angelo, he held up the kite and said, "Let's see if this thing will fly." He called out to the boys and hurried past Skylar.

She smiled at Angelo, who nodded to Everett's spot and said, "Have a seat." She sat cross legged beside him, her knee brushing against his thigh, and looked out over the river. He watched her pick at the grass for a few minutes, and when Everett and the boys were far enough away, he asked, "What's on your mind, chica?"

Skylar sighed. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she hugged them close and didn't look at him. "I've got to tell you something, Angelo," she started, "and it's not going to be easy to say. You're not going to want to hear it."

"Then why say it at all?" he asked, sure she was here to tell him she wasn't interested in him. This was what he had been dreading to hear from her -- he was so sure she liked him back.

"I have to tell you," she said. "I want you to hear it first." Before he could say anything else, she said, "I've got to go."

"Go where?"

She turned to him, tears rimming her eyes. "I've got to go back," she whispered, her lower lip trembling.

Her words began to sink in. "To L.A.?" he asked, and she nodded. "Why?"

"That guy -- in the nightmares?" He nodded, and she continued. "That's my brother. Calliope says he needs me."

"So do I," Angelo said. "What if Calliope's lying just to get you to come back? I wouldn't put it past her."

Skylar shook her head. "Calliope doesn't lie to me. She may twist things around, try to make it sound more important that it is because it's something she wants, but there's always truth in her words. If she says he needs me, I have to go back."

They sat in silence for long minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. The last time he lost Skylar, it was to Calliope. Why does she always have to win? he thought. "Just when things were going good between us," he said, letting the sentence trail off. He turned and found Skylar looking at him, biting her lower lip to hold back the tears. "Promise me something? When it's all over out there, promise me you'll come back?"

For a moment, he didn't think she would answer. And then she nodded slightly and whispered, "I promise I'll try."

The grass was tipped white with frost when Skylar awoke Saturday morning. Outside, the halogen lights around the school were still on, blazing a florescent green in the pinkish pre-dawn sky. She hurriedly shoved a few items into her backpack as Monet silently got dressed. At seven o'clock, they locked their door behind them and left the girls' dorm. No one else was up.

They met Angelo at the garage. He sat behind the wheel of a Ford Explorer, the engine idling rhythmically in the crisp morning air, the white exhaust bright in the gray light. He watched Skylar and Monet in the rear-view mirror as they put Skylar's bag in the hatch and closed the door. Then Monet slid into the back seat behind him, buckling her seat belt, and Skylar slid into the front bucket seat, her stuffed bunny Fufoo on her lap. "Ready?" he asked quietly.

Skylar nodded, looking ahead. She didn't trust herself to look at him.

They pulled away from the school grounds, and Skylar watched the buildings fade in her side-view mirror. "Items in mirror may be closer than they appear." The school looked so far away -- there was no turning back now.

An hour's ride later and they were the still only car on the two-lane paved road that stretched through the backwoods of Massachusetts. The morning sun had begun to slant through the trees, and when Skylar saw the single telephone booth on the side of the road, she sighed. She had hoped that Monet's memory had been wrong for once, and the pay phone she claimed to have seen by the side of the road on their trip to the mall a few weeks ago would just be a figment of her imagination. But there it stood, an icon of civilization lost out here in the middle of nowhere. Angelo pulled the car off the road and into the small clearing surrounding the phone booth.

Skylar left the sliding door open as she dialed the number she knew by heart. On the other side of the country, a phone began to ring. Behind her, Angelo leaned against the car, watching her, and Monet sat down cross legged on the ground, her eyes closed as she began to project her mind into the astral plane. When the line stopped ringing, Skylar turned back to the phone. "Den of Thieves," a brusque male voice at the other end said roughly.

"Is Goner there?" Skylar asked.

"Who?" the guy asked. And then, "Is this a prank call?"

Skylar sighed. "Buck, it's me. Ricochet. Is Goner there?"

"Ric? I thought you was gone."

Skylar rolled her eyes. Why did he have to be tending the bar this morning? "I am gone," she replied. "That's why I'm calling and not standing right there in front of you, Einstein. Now put Goner on or I'm hanging up."

"'Old on, already," he grumbled, and handed the phone to someone else. Skylar could hear the muffled sound of people in the background -- it must be four in the morning over there, and the party was still going strong.

And then a girl's voice hissed, "I told you to get outta here."

"Hi to you too, Goner," Skylar said, smiling.

"Ric, you know what Calliope will do if she finds out you called? Christ, I'm in deep enough with her as it is." And then, lowering her voice, she asked, "Are you okay?"

Skylar nodded as if Goner could see her. "I'm fine," she answered. "But Calliope found me --"

"Through Hacker -- I heard. She's pissed I didn't tell her myself."

"And she says my brother needs help."

Goner sighed. "We don't even know who he is. You know Calliope -- she'll believe anything she wants to. This guy pops up in our dreams and says he's your baby bro, and she don't question it when he says he wants you to come back here 'cause that's what she wants, too. But you listen, Ric -- stay there. You're too smart for this life. You're better off where you are."

"I can't stay here," Skylar said. "He came to me too, and I think . . ." She sighed. "I think I believe him, too."

Silence filled the long-distance connection, and then Goner said angrily, "Then why call me? You know I'd only try to talk you out of it. What else do you want me to say?"

"I want you to come get me."

"What? I can't do that."

Skylar sighed. "You can, Goner. I told a friend of mine about you and she thinks that you're not like other teleports -- she thinks that place you go to is what she calls the astral plane, and she'll meet you there."

She could hear the doubt in Goner's voice. "I've never gone that far before."

"Monet can help you. Trust me -- she knows what she's doing." Or at least, she thinks she does, Skylar thought. "Just look for her -- she's tall, dark-skinned, long dark hair, very pretty."

Goner sighed, and Skylar knew she would help. "Gimme a few minutes," she said, her voice low. "I'll see what I can do."

Skylar hung up the phone. Shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she walked over to the car. "She's on her way," she said. Angelo nodded, and Monet didn't respond. Skylar stood in front of Angelo and looked at him looking back at her with sad eyes. When she started to say something else, he ran his arms between hers and around her waist and pulled her close. She kept her hands in her pockets, and he leaned down until their foreheads touched, his hair falling around their faces. He looked into her eyes and sighed.

"Remember your promise," he said, and she nodded. His lips brushed hers in a gentle kiss, and she leaned against him slightly.

Suddenly, the air pressure dropped around them, and Skylar's ears popped. Turning around, she saw Monet, shaking herself out of her trance. Beside her stood a tall, gangly girl with shaggy blonde hair. She wore tattered jeans and a sleeveless vest over a dingy tank top. Blinking a few times, she looked disoriented, and when the chilly morning air enveloped her, she shivered and hugged herself. Then she looked around. "Angelo?" she asked, and then, "Ricochet? I thought --"

Skylar pulled away from Angelo. She felt his arms tighten around her before he let her go. "It's a long story," she said. "I see you made it alright."

Goner shrugged. "Should've told me it was freezing over here. I would've stopped to get a jacket."

Skylar got her bag from the hatch of the car and handed it to Goner. Then she hugged Monet. "Thank you," she said. "For everything."

"This isn't goodbye," Monet said in that manner-of-fact tone of hers. "You're coming back."

Smiling, Skylar joked, "Then make sure Jubilee stays out of my stuff. And don't let them give you another roommate -- I kinda like our arrangement."

"Deal," Monet said. Skylar turned to Angelo.

"Well," she said, her voice low. Before she could say anything else, he put his hands around her face and kissed her again. He tasted warm and spicy, like cider. Skylar never wanted him to let go.

Before he did, he whispered one word in her ear. "Remember," he said, his voice husky. As he stepped back, she handed him Fufoo. She had never been without the doll once since she had received it as a gift when she was just a little girl, but suddenly she knew that this would be a way to show Angelo that she intended to try and come back.

"Watch him for me," she said, tears in her voice. Angelo clutched the bunny close to his chest, and then Skylar turned towards Goner before she changed her mind. "Let's go."

Goner took her hand and Skylar smiled at her friends. And then, she closed her eyes. "Hold on," Goner whispered, and suddenly the cold Massachusetts morning disappeared, and Skylar couldn't feel anything at all except for Goner's hand, squeezing her own. She hoped she was doing the right thing.