There were so many different ways to run. Once, it had just been a thought drowning, body affirming activity to fill the empty hours of her life. Two hours ago, it was terror and flight. Now, it was playful and joyous.

Amy dashed across the lawn at half speed focused less on the trees in front of her than the tremors generated by the feet behind her. Two of those feet belonged to Moore and she made sure not to outpace them.

The game had no rules, as far as she could tell. Its start was arbitrary, with first one girl, then another, tearing off in a sprint. The boys, slow to catch on, trailed. Were they just trying to keep up? Or were they trying to catch their prey? Amy had no idea. But from the giggles and shrieks of pleasure from Lucy and Beth, the goal seemed to be about getting the boys to follow and keeping them out of reach.

If she was serious about winning this game, she would have raced as fast as her legs were capable. But part of her knew in this game there was victory to be had in defeat.

Also, where would she be if she hadn't let her friends catch her when she tried to run earlier?

When she had spotted Kevin, time lost its taut rhythm, winding down to a crawl as he reeled backward. His companions clutched at empty air trying to support their friend who was staggering away from them. "It's still out there," Kevin shouted into the dead quiet store, repeating it more than once. Amy lost track of what was actually being said and what was being echoed by the harsh space. Kevin, still retreating, bumped into a pyramid display of jam. A jar fell over crashing against the tiles and an explosion of viscous, red jelly covered the floor. Then things moved very fast.

People were rushing to Kevin. People were rushing from Kevin. Everyone was talking. Everyone was yelling. And Amy moved through them all like she was crossing a busy dance floor, until she reached the door and the icy night air hit her lungs.

The vista of escape opened up before her. Paths and routes fanned out in all directions. Her mind calculated vectors and probabilities for each. Amy zeroed in on the space between a fenced in ATV dealership and a condemned looking garage, where a narrow gap of dirt led to the barren hills beyond. Her pace accelerated from a slow, confused lurch to a full bolt.

And she would have been gone—vanished—through the town, and into the wilderness, shedding her skin as she went. She would have, except for a voice that called out after her.

"Wait."

It was that one word that stopped her in mid-stride. The rest of what Moore said didn't matter. That first word held her there just as though a hand had reached out and grabbed her.

"That Walsh kid has issues. He's on all kinds of meds. Who knows what he thought he was seeing in there?"

"Yeah," Lucy said, suddenly outside crowding in on Amy and Moore's moment. "He's a total spaz."

"Don't say that."

"Well, it's true."

"He watched someone shoot his parents."

Campbell stepped out the door and responded to Moore's sympathies. "Well, that don't make him Batman."

"It's not even like they died," Beth added.

Somewhere, as two became three, then five, then eight, the incident in the 7-Eleven was forgotten about. No one tried to talk Amy out of running away because, they were all going to the park. And of course, Amy was coming with them.

She was one of them now.

Teenagers, like wolves, needed a pack and it mattered little what her feeling were toward Lucy or Beth, or that jerk Campbell, it was better—it was easier—to be part of them. And sticking around did have the advantage of being with Moore.

Talking loudly, the group trudged their way past the school, the rocket shaped water tower, and the Baptist church until they reached the playground at the park. One by one, they climbed up onto the monkey bars with movements ingrained by frequency.

The structure was one of those childhood devices with four ladders forming a dome with a fireman's pole in the center. The seats up at the top circle seemed to be the most desirable and the pecking order was established by those who got them and those who got the ones below them. Amy didn't mind grabbing a spot on a bar two rungs down from Lucy. What did it matter? It was better than all those days she got any seat she wanted, all by herself in the cell. She looped her legs around the freezing metal bar and hung on.

Campbell had used Kevin's outburst to shoplift some beer and the bottles were passed around while Joe rolled a joint. Beth leaned in close to him creating a windbreak to keep his work from blowing away.

When it was done, it went around the circle with the remainder of the beer. Amy declined each time either came to her. Part of her didn't want to be any more of an outsider. She seemed to stand too apart from this tribe already and she would have gone along with anything to not feel that way. But there were some lines she wouldn't cross.

Her parent's warnings and the posters at school cautioning against drug use had worn away in her memory like newspaper left out in the rain. She didn't avoided the offers because of right or wrong or what she should or shouldn't do.  She said no purely because of fear. Not simple fear—but the complex maelstrom of dread which crowded her vision and blocked out all but the image of one possible outcome from imbibing.

The wolf had run free last night and was satisfied to take a back seat to the girl. The control was easy, but Amy wasn't willing to test it. She had never taken more than a sip of wine in her life and she had no real idea what these things would do to her. The others were falling into abandon. Joe and Beth were laughing at untold jokes, Tammy was practically dozing on the bars. Amy couldn't risk any lapse of self-control. One moment of lost focus could see the wolf coming out and ruining everything.

When the beer and the weed were finished, Lucy hopped down followed by the other two girls. Not wanting to be left out, Amy jumped down after them and soon they were all running across the grass, through the trees, and into the cemetery with the others following them.

Amy leaped gleefully through gravestones. The churchyard stretched ahead of her, beautiful in the darkness like a fantasy realm from one of her books. Peaceful and forbidding, it was a distant land, where the dimly visible monuments were ruins from another time. Somewhere to her left Beth cried out in a mixture of shock and pleasure. One of the guys, Joe probably, had caught her and swooped her up off the ground.

Where was Moore? Why didn't he run faster?

The clouds veiled the sky like a white smoke that almost seemed to glow. No moon showed but the invisible tether was there and Amy could have pointed to it with her eyes shut. It was low on the horizon, bloated and full. The urge to throw back her head and bay was strong.

It wasn't long before the other girls were captured, leaving Amy up ahead. Alone.

No, not alone. Moore was still behind her.

Amy was running outside and she wasn't alone. It was a perfect moment. It was the happiest she had ever been in her life.

White speckles danced in front of her face.

A light snow drifted down around her like hundreds of fireflies in the air. Amy giggled, twirling with her arms outstretched as she passed a large monument topped with a marble angel, hands spread wide in benediction.

An uneven patch of ground and her own glee sent her stumbling.

When she hit the ground, her joy vanished along with graveyard.

She was no longer outside. Amy didn't even need to look around to know where she was. It was the most familiar place on Earth.

"No. No. I can't be back here," she said to the white tile floor of her bedroom.

Amy struggled to get back on her feet and stepped up to her bed. The covers were mussed into a warm oval and the pillows were piled against the headboard near the lit reading lamp. She might have just put her book down and gotten up to get a sweater or go to the bathroom. Amy stroked her chin as if to dispel the confusion.

"No. I got out. I was free. Or was it all a dream?" Because that had always been the sneaking suspicion: it was too good to be true. She was never meant to leave this room and the rest of her life would be spent in here. Everything else was a dream—a wonderful dream.

"Who's there? Who are you?" a voice asked.

Amy gasped and staggered back. A girl who looked just like her stood across the room in her pajamas holding a limp stick of licorice in her hand. They stared at each other, both afraid to make a move.

"Ylva? Ylva? Where did you go?" Moore called out from some other world breaking the spell that had stopped her brain from functioning.

She had been here before. She had this vision only a few days ago, even though it felt like months. So much had happened since then. Meeting her new friends, the long drive, the exhilarating and terrifying feeling of freedom, the escape.

The escape!

In her vision, she was warned about it. Right before it ended,  the woman she had taken for Ylva had rushed to tell her how not to be seen. And this vision ends any moment. Panic seized her, if she didn't tell herself to duck and avoid that guard, she'd never get out of this prison.

"Do exactly as I say: when the alarm sounds, get low."

"I don't understand. Where have you been?" the other Amy asked.

Her mind swarm with everything she could tell her about where she'd been and where she would go—if only there were time.

"If you want to be free, you have to get low," she repeated. "Pretend to trip and scurry for the door."

Arms grabbed Amy and she was no longer in her bedroom. The cold winter air of the cemetery was around her again and so was Moore.

"Gotcha," he said.

Amy's mouth hung open with no words coming out. She wasn't sure what was real any more.

"Who were you talking to just now?" His mouth was smiling but concern etched a hardness into his eyes.

"Myself." Then she added, " Do you think I'm strange?"

Their faces came together and Moore planted a shy kiss on her mouth.

"Come on." He tugged her forward. "There's something I want to show you."

Amy followed in a daze. All her thoughts fell into the deep well created by her first kiss.

Her heart was racing.