Anora blinked at Darsby as he got in, his answer to her references catching her off-guard. “It… was… a movie reference,” she explained, debating on whether or not he was messing with her. He did not strike her as the kind of person to make jokes.
	[i]The Men in Black were actually a [u]thing?[/u][/i] she thought incredulously. With a shake of her head, she shut the door then placed her hands on the steering wheel. She returned his gaze, her brows raised when he missed even the name reference. [i]Do people with magic live under rocks or something?[/i]
	She shook her head slightly, then reached to put the car to drive. Hand on the shifter, her attention returned to Darsby when he gestured to her.
	Her gaze flicked to his revolver, reminding herself of which of them had the quicker reacting weapon. Though he had shown no indication of using it against her, even when trying to stop him, the last thing she wanted was for it to be used on one of the police officers. The sooner they got out of there, the better.
	“My [i]deal?[/i]” She thrust the shift into drive, ready to go. Sarcasm dripped from her voice as she continued. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe getting—”
	Darsby interrupted her with a familiar snap of his fingers. She had spent enough time with her siblings to suspect his timing was on purpose, but she did not have the chance to dwell on it.
	She gasped when an unnerving sensation crawled over her. At least, she tried to. The action caught in her throat, the recoil that tensed her muscles freezing in place as her world exploded into pain and swirls of colors. Colors she could only just make out shapes in as they swirled in a dizzying, nauseating blur. Spinning buildings interlaced impossibly with twisted taffy roads as if someone had turned the world into a moving abstract painting. Worse of all, it felt as if her now non-existent body could not decide if it had been plunged into a fire pit, or shoved into an ice hole.
	But as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Everything reformed like molten steel being poured into its proper mold. Instead of a parking lot swarming with police and maybe even SWAT, a sprawling country road waited ahead of the windshield, fields of growing crops stretching out as far as she could see. A few patches of trees lined the road, standing tall in the summer’s afternoon sunlight.
	For a second, she could not move, body and lungs frozen from shock. Gathering her senses, she released both the steering wheel and gear shift and wiggled her fingers, making sure they still worked.
	“What… was… [i]that?[/i]” she breathed, looking to Darsby with wide eyes, glad to see he was at least still in the passenger seat.
	The sight of him, looking small as he trembled, made her shake out of her stupor. He looked like he was going to be—
	Darsby leapt into action with a retching sound, tumbling from the van.
	“Darsby!” She quickly returned the car to park, got out, and rushed to his side of the vehicle. She stopped a decent distance from his frail form, careful to avoid the foul-smelling puddle soiling the earth in front of him.
	His bout of sickness did not last long. As it subsided, Anora crouched just off to his side, her face scrunched in sympathy.
	Her brows rose when he commented on being weak. [i]How's that something you could forget?[/i] She gave pause, eyeing him, for the first time thinking that maybe he wasn't just a human with powers. Maybe he was not human at all. Which only added yet another question and set of worries to her ever-growing list.
	She watched him with concern as he continued to speak between pauses, the man apparently humbled by his physical fragility. Human or not, he was in worse shape than she had thought.
	“Well, that’s good,” she gave a small, amused smile at his statement of not being a god. Though it had not been on her list of possibilities, at least that was [i]something[/i] to mark off. “I’d feel sorry for humanity if you were,” she quipped as he seemed about ready to vomit again, trying to add a bit of humor to the dismal situation.
	She grimaced and stood as another round of heaves wracked his body. She bit her lower lip and took a deep breath. Her questions would have to wait. Not wanting to create a one-woman audience—nothing like having someone watch you throw up—she took a good look around, trying to get her bearings.
	[i]We could be in China for all I know,[/i] she thought with a sigh. But thankfully, they were not. She recognized this strip of road, a sign further down confirming her thoughts on where they were.
	“That’s lucky,” she muttered to herself. “Right,” she said a bit louder, still more voicing her thoughts than addressing Darsby. “We need to get somewhere you can recover. Preferably [i]without[/i] being attacked by some mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong.” She decisively slid the side door of the van open. She untied the hoodie around her waist and tossed it atop her backpack.
	“My grandparents’ old farm isn’t far from here.” She leaned into the back, looking to see what kinds of supplies the owner of the van had left inside. “One, maybe two hours' drive. Maybe less, depending on exactly where we're at.”
	Old newspapers, shopping bags, and a couple children’s toys and coloring books littered the seats. It smelled a mix of melted crayons, sour milk, and baby wipes. She silently promised herself she would make sure the van—and everything in it—got returned. Minus a couple small things she thought they would not miss.
	“Grandpa Jack abandoned it for the city when my grandma died,” she continued as she grabbed one of the discarded plastic bags. To her dismay, her hands shook slightly.
	She did not much care if Darsby listened or not. Talking helped keep her slowly rising panic and doubt in check, and her focus on the task at hand. She could decide whether or not Darsby was one of the good guys or bad ones once he looked less like he was about to pass out. And once she was sure [i]she[/i] would not be the one to pass out.
	She swallowed and focused on checking the bag for holes. Deeming it capable of holding liquid if Darsby had another bout of vomiting while on the road, she climbed further inside, kneeling on the seat.
	“But he’s held onto it. In case one of us kids wants it somewhere down the line.” She rummaged around in the mess, hoping she would not run into any unpleasant surprises. Finding the source of the baby wipe scent, she grabbed a closed tub of wipes. “It’s secluded on a good hunk of land.”
	Plus, they would be in place familiar to her, be on [i]her[/i] turf, not his. She knew the place from top to bottom.
	Though quite the drive from her city home, she had spent many weekends there. It was the perfect place to practice using her powers, to see how far she could push her limits. Being the eldest, she had been entrusted with a set of keys to the place. Keys, if she remembered right, that were still in her backpack from her last visit. 
	If not, YouTube had at least taught her how to pick a lock, and she was fairly certain she could form the tools by solidifying her powers if she could not find anything that would work. Or just make the lock explode. One of the two.
	Desperate times and all that.
	She placed the bag between the front seat, then hopped nimbly back out of the van. Better freed of the hoodie, the layered silver chains adorning the side of her shirt and matching black jeans clinked together pleasantly as she moved. She shut the door then stood in front of Darsby.
	She glanced to his gun again, wondering if there was a way to get it away from him without endangering herself. It unnerved her how, even in his sickness, he had not relinquished his hold on it.
	She stepped to the side nearest the revolver, hoping to find the right moment to reach for it without him noticing. She doubted he could fight her for it, but it would be a risk to try using her magic on him after he easily brushed it away the last time. All he had to do was pull the trigger faster than she could shield herself and it would be over.
	The thought made her stomach churn and a shudder run down her spine. She did her best to quell the question of whether she had made the right choice to go with him, and to not give away her thoughts.
	“Probably couldn't stay long before someone figured out I’d go there,” she admitted, thinking about all the cop shows she had watched with her mom and younger sister, Madelyn, “but it’s better than nothing. It’s still kinda furnished, just in case.” She opened the tub of wipes to offer him one. “I'd say you could do with resting in bed for a while. You look like Death's trying to remember your name.”
	She paused, shifting her weight. “You know, I doubt you need that right now,” she nodded nervously to the revolver, hoping maybe the easiest way to make him ditch the gun was to ask. It was worth a try. “We're in the middle of nowhere. And I doubt even an Alpha could survive being ran over if it got in the way.”