Safe
Star was the only one awake in the crowded quarters her new family shared. Marcus usually fiddled with something machine or another while everyone else slept, but he'd been working hard the whole week and now he was snoring gently, flat on his back. Blair was about to fall off the narrow cot she and Marcus made do with, but Marcus's arm around her waist held her in place. Kyle was in his bunk, she could hear him up there tossing and turning as dreams disturbed his sleep.
Dreams had woken her up only a few minutes ago. She'd been dreaming of her parents, back when they were all together. Her mom and dad each had an arm around her and they were all watching the sun rise over the desert. A storm had blown up faster then she could see. One second it was just one little cloud and the next it was a huge black tower of them, spreading across the sky, throwing blue and purple lightning everywhere. The clouds blotted out the sun and everything went dark except for the lightning. A ball of blue lightning struck down right in front of her and the ground blew up. The explosion had hurled Mom and Dad away. She ran after them, she could hear Mom screaming for someone to fix it and Dad yelling that something was very wrong. She almost had Mom's hand when another flash of blue lightning surrounded her and blasted away Mom and Dad and everything else.
She'd woken with a start and for a horrible moment, thought it had just been a dream. Frantically she had looked around, hoping once more that she'd see Mom and Dad there or even Aunt Savannah, but the dream wasn't a dream. She remembered it all happening. Mom and Dad had been running away, along with everyone else. The sky really had gone dark and it had been cold every day. Mom and Dad had been taking her somewhere to be safe, but something went wrong. There was blue lighting everywhere and she remembered Mom screaming at Dad to fix something, then they were gone and she was alone.
Kyle had found her the next day. For a long time she kept hoping that Mom and Dad would show up and they'd be together again. She knew, now, that wasn't going to happen. She hoped Mom and Dad were alright, where ever they were. She hoped they were taking good care of the little brother or sister that Mom had told her was on the way before the lighting came. She hoped they'd know, somehow, that she was alright.
She had Kyle and Blair and Marcus, even John and Kate. Blair and Marcus might not be Mom and Dad, but they loved her. Marcus made her feel safe, just like Dad had. Star knew deep down that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. Blair was always so nice to her, bringing her back pretty things from her trips and doing her hair different ways. She even let Star use her special makeup that she put on whenever she was going on a trip. Once, Blair had taken Star up in her plane. Blair knew that Star was upset she couldn't go with Blair on her trips. Everyone told her it was too dangerous, that sometimes Blair met bad people on her trips or that she had to avoid the machines. The plane ride had been Blair's way of making it up to her.
Blair and Marcus took care of Kyle too, when he needed it. He didn't let them do much for him anymore, not since he started getting settled in. More and more often he slept in the barracks with the other guys his age. Star's face screwed up as she thought about that; she didn't like most of them. She saw the way they looked at Marcus and Blair and she heard the way they talked about Kyle. Some of them were nice, though, she guessed.
John and Kate let her stay with them whenever Marcus went with Blair on a trip or if he ever had to go on one of his own. She liked staying with the Connors because it meant she got to play with Sarah. Kate told her that soon she'd be having another baby. Whenever Kate let her touch her belly, she remembered doing the same thing with Mom and wondered if Sarah would be getting a little brother or sister. She wondered which one she had, too. She hoped it was a sister; she didn't think she needed another brother. Kyle was her brother. Not really, she knew that, but in all the ways that mattered.
Star knew on some level that she wasn't going to go home. She couldn't say why, but something about the dreams let her know that she was here now and this was what she had. She laid herself back down and pulled her blankets up around her again. She heard Kyle turn over again in the top bunk and watched Marcus pull Blair away from the edge of the bed. No, she didn't have Mom and Dad anymore but she had Blair and Marcus. She didn't know her little brother or sister, but she had Kyle. Aunt Savannah was gone, but she had Kate and John. She even had Victoria, the nice old woman who had stood up to everyone around her to make sure that Star had something to eat and drink when she was hungry. Grandma and Victoria would have gotten along, Star thought.
As she drifted back to sleep, Star thought that Mom and Dad would be happy for her and her new family. They had found somewhere safe for her, even if it couldn't be with them. Just before she fell asleep, she saw that Marcus' eyes had opened and that he was smiling at her over Blair's head. She smiled back before she went to sleep. The nightmare didn't come back that night; she was safe.