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"Relax, I'll be just a minute," Michael said. Then he leveled a serious look at Max, who nodded. Something was going on… that much, Liz could see. And she was instantly alert. They had covered hundreds of miles in the last three days. They were in Washington State, and Roswell was far behind them now. When they had left town on the night of their high school graduation, they had assumed they had left many of their problems behind.

A small town on the southern border of Colorado named Stonewall had shown them that that wasn't true. Still, as they increased their distance from Roswell and Stonewall, Liz felt herself relaxing. The mood in the car had lightened, and the spirits in the car had been high… remarkably high, considering that they had just escaped assassination by the Special Unit on graduation night and an encounter with a new and malevolent alien race in Stonewall. They had done some real good in Stonewall. They had also taken on a powerful group of aliens and won.

They had won.

Four women were now back with their families, and the aliens would not likely return. Now what? Liz wondered, considering the look that had just passed between Max and Michael. "Max?" Liz said.

He simply raised his hand and shook his head, keeping his eye on the rearview mirror. Liz scanned the town around them but didn't see anything unusual. They were in a medium-sized town, where they had eaten lunch at a local deli and then picked up some supplies at the auto parts store.

It had all felt normal. In fact, it had all felt good.

In the days since their experience in Stonewall, Liz and the others had felt indestructible. Even at the time, Liz had known that the feeling was false… and dangerous. Alex had been one of them and he had died. Kyle had almost died again in Stonewall. Liz had been taken by the aliens, almost forever. And then Max and Michael had nearly been spirited away by their ship.

Liz knew they had not been indestructible then. They had been very, very lucky.



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