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Stephanie guided the steering wheel with a jolly smile plastered to her face, the cool Florida air seeping in through the partially rolled down window and fluttering through her hair with great ease. Nothing in Connecticut compared to the balmy spring days in Tampa, and it made her all the more grateful Chris had convinced her to move there after they had gotten married. The height advantage her diesel truck offered made her feel on top of the world as she sped down the road. Some of her friends, and even Chris on occasion, teased her about it being a man's vehicle, but trucks had always been her transportation mode of choice. Traveling down the fairly deserted back road that led to her house offered a freeing sensation she wasn't always able to experience while at home with a husband and two children, so she soaked it in for all it was worth.

'Stephanie, slow down.'

The emergence of the anonymous, commanding voice had all the startling power of a thunder clap, and Stephanie's eyes left the road for a few seconds as she searched for the mystery speaker. There was no one in the truck besides her, but no more than half a minute later, it came again.

'Stephanie, slow down.'

It became a mantra, as the phrase was spoken to her repeatedly throughout the course of the next minute. Wanting to return home to Chris and escape the terror being thrust upon her, she stepped on the pedal with added pressure and heard the roar of the engine as it lurched forward to reach her desired speed. Breathing in calmly through her nose and releasing it from her mouth, Stephanie sighed in relief as she spied the road leading to her home coming into view. She could almost feel Chris's arms wrapped around her when she rushed through the door to greet him. Surely he would have some sort of explanation as to the voices she was hearing.

But in a split second, her life was turned upside down.

The first indication of a problem was a tiny, red ball rolling into her path several yards away, and her gut instinct told her to obey the voice and hit the brake, but it was too late. A flash of color blurred across the road as the child, wearing a bumblebee-yellow sweatshirt with black track pants, ran after his prized toy. Her truck fell into a lengthy skid for what felt like an eternity, but was likely only a few seconds, as she slammed on the break. The last image she made out before impact was the horrified grimace of the boy, still in the process of reaching for his ball, as her vehicle continued to bear down on him.

The harsh thud of his body against the grill of her truck was the last sound she heard before she was thrown forward and slammed her mouth against the steering wheel, a flow of coppery blood trailing down her chin at once.

The voice was back again, but this time, it issued a chastising remark instead of a warning to be heeded.

'Stephanie, you should have slowed down.'

"No!" she screamed, shooting straight up in bed. Her eyes darted desperately around the darkened room for any source of light, and she found it in the form of one of the nightlights she had plugged into the hallway outlet for her children. Being as young as they were, her son and daughter were still afraid of the dark, so she often found a trail of places to plug in small lights to lead the way, should they have to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Chris's hand slipped underneath their sheets and trailed from her midsection right down to her thigh as he shifted on his side to face her and rubbed a gentle circle against her leg.

"Another bad dream, angel?" he whispered. His warm breath carried over her arm and sent a pleasureful shiver through her, followed by a second tremor when he leaned in and planted a kiss on her sweat-glazed skin.

"I think it was another premonition."

"Oh, one of those?" Chris asked.

To anyone listening in, they may have taken his words for sarcasm, but his response was anything but. Stephanie had a unique gift - - one that not only Chris, but her entire family, was aware of and was taking steps to eradicate. From the time she was a little girl, events played out in her dreams as they were set to happen in real life, but there was a small catch. The people affected by the occurrences during her sleep cycle never matched up with the person affected in real life. It was something of a gift to be able to know about something negative before it was set to happen, but not when she didn't have the capabilities to warn the correct person.

For instance, during the summer of 1987, when Stephanie was 11 and Shane was 17, she experienced a foreshadowing dream in which Shane would be involved in a terrible car accident. The same nightmare played out for her three nights in a row in great detail, from the crunching of metal when his car spun out of control down the embankment to the burning smell of rancid, black smoke trailing into the lit sky. Knowing she couldn't keep that kind of information a secret, Stephanie had relayed everything she saw to her parents and Shane, warning him to drive carefully on his way to and from school and work. It was because of the accuracy with which Stephanie had predicted past events that Vince and Shane heeded her warnings with great solemnity.

The night before the accident, all visions of it had ceased, but she knew it was coming, because an ominous feeling of foreboding hung over her the entire day. When Stephanie combed her hair before school that morning, she felt it. As she jogged down the stairs and into the kitchen to pick up the bagged lunch Linda had left on the counter for her, she felt it. When the school day got underway and she was called to the office only a little over an hour into class, she felt it again and knew she wasn't going to be receiving good news.

The patter of her shoes created a soft echo in the empty hallway, and when Stephanie rounded the corner and peered through the glass windows of her school's front office to find her mother dabbing at her eyes, she knew it had come true. Everything she had witnessed in the weeks leading up to the incident were the absolute truth, and it angered her. She was furious with her parents for not keeping Shane home when she urged them too and, as the little spitfire she was, Stephanie stomped to the office door and pulled it open. She was fully prepared to give her mother the best tongue-lashing a fifth-grader could muster, but Linda's words beat her to the punch and nearly knocked the wind out of her.

The accident had happened just as she predicted, only it wasn't Shane who was at the local hospital in critical condition - - it was Rodney, one of his friends since childhood.

From that point forward, Stephanie recognized her gift but acknowledged it was semi-faulty when it came to specificity.

"I thought I was done having them, at least for a while, but they're back," Stephanie announced as she pushed the covers off her body and kicked one leg over the bed, followed closely by the other. She pushed off the mattress with her fist to guide herself up and picked her cotton robe up from the chest at the end of their bed.

"Do you want me to get up with you?" Chris asked. The easy answer would have been yes, but Stephanie was hesitant to jerk him around in the middle of the night. It couldn't have been easy to deal with all her issues, yet he had known about every single one of them before he married her and welcomed it into his personal load, so a part of her felt she should accept that he was in it for the long haul. He wouldn't have entered a life with her and created two children if he didn't feel that way.

"I'd like that, yeah."

She remained in one spot as she heard the bed shift under Chris's weight and the soft thud when he placed his feet on the ground. When she started out of the room, he fell into step behind her, pausing to peek in on their children before shuffling down the stairs behind Stephanie. The basic drill had been the same forever, and Chris knew it well. Stephanie could never get back to sleep from a bad dream without going down to the kitchen and getting herself a glass of warm milk with cinnamon and ginger. It was the drink Linda made her as a child when she woke up from a bad dream, and she had carried it with her into adulthood.

While she busied herself with locating a pot in the lower set of cabinets, Chris trudged to the refrigerator and opened the door, simultaneously yawning and scratching his bare chest as he searched inside for some sort of snack. It wasn't great for his diet to eat at 3:00 AM and proceed to go to bed with all that food in his stomach and no way to work it off, but it wasn't an every-night occasion, so he allowed himself a dietary cheat every so often. His eyes settled on a sealed container of grilled chicken strips, and Chris pulled that out, right along with a bag of flour tortillas and shredded cheese. After setting the items out on the counter, he went back for some additional items in the vegetation compartment of the refrigerator.

"What are you making?" Stephanie asked, having caught sight of the food on the counter. The clicking sound of the gas aisle sounded before it roared to life, as Stephanie turned the flame on and reduced it to a reasonable heat before placing the pot atop it.

"Just some chicken soft tacos. Do you want a couple?"

"I don't know about a couple, but one would be good," she replied before coming up behind him. "Hand me the milk, honey?"

"Yep, here you go," Chris pulled the gallon of milk from the middle shelf and handed it off to Stephanie, but not without receiving a kiss on the cheek in her show of appreciation. While she busied herself with warming the milk, Chris pulled a knife from the wooden block on the counter to dice tomatoes and shred the lettuce head. "Are you gonna leave me hanging or tell me what your dream was about?"

"I killed a kid."

"You killed someone?"

"Yep, but it was on accident. I was driving down Pike Road, you know the back way we take sometimes," she reiterated as Chris nodded his understanding, "and this kid darted out in front of my truck. The creepy part was I heard a voice in the background even though I was in the truck alone. It kept telling me to slow down, and I ignored it at first, but when I finally did what they said, it was too late. This little boy ran out to get his toy and I hit him. It was so real, I mean, I felt the impact and everything."

"That's awful. I'm really sorry you had to see that."

"Me too, but now I feel like there's a bigger problem because I'm going to be on edge waiting for it to come true. Whenever I dream something like that it always comes to fruition, and then there's the issue of whether or not it'll actually happen to me or if it'll be somebody else like it usually is."

"Oh, I didn't even think of that," Chris turned to find her stirring cinnamon into her drink over low heat. "You don't think it will be me driving the truck, do you?"

"Gosh, I hope not," Stephanie cringed. "I can't say for sure, but make sure you're going at a reasonable speed if you take Pike Road anytime soon. Better yet, you might want to steer clear of it altogether for a while, just in case."

"You can't play with fate like that."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just saying whatever's meant to happen is going to happen. It doesn't matter how many precautions you or I take, because if there's some kid I'm supposed to hit for whatever reason, I'm not going to be able to avoid it. I don't think life works that way," Chris explained as he transferred some chicken into a bowl and placed it in the microwave. As he hunched over and squinted to view and tap the appropriate heat settings, Stephanie piped up again.

"I've never tried to interfere before, but that's mostly because I don't know who the premonition is actually meant for. Like, right now, even if I wanted to tell someone to be careful while driving so they don't hit a kid, I wouldn't even know who to start with. I have no clue who this thing is actually going to happen to, but it never seems to be whoever it appears."

"Your premonitions really are a gift and a curse, huh?"

"That's pretty much how I see it."

The food only took around another five minutes to wrap up, and Stephanie removed her milk from the stove just as Chris was setting their plates down on the table. After transferring her warm concoction to a glass, she took her place at the table and pinched the edge of her plate in between her index finger and thumb, sliding it closer to her. Foregoing the milk to allow it time to cool, Stephanie spied the steam rising from the glass as she picked up her chicken taco and took a bite, sighing her satisfaction. "Mmm, it's so good, hon," she spoke around her bite.

"Thanks, I'm glad. I guess I'm pretty good at throwing a snack together, even when I'm still half-asleep."

She opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by the soft scrape of slippers scooting across the kitchen floor and turned to find Brooks, their six-year-old son, rubbing his eyes and squinting around his little fists at them. Stephanie reached across the table for a napkin to wipe any taco residue away from her mouth that might have settled there and extended her arms for Brooks. "Hi, baby, what are you doing up at this hour?"

A sleepy stumble carried him to Stephanie's awaiting embrace as he replied, with a slight lisp due to a missing front tooth, "I was sleepin' and I heard talking, so I went to get you and to get Daddy, but nobody was in the bed, so I came down here."

"I'm sorry we woke you up," Stephanie ran a hand over his golden blond hair and pulled him close as they shared a hug. "Daddy and I came down here for a snack because I couldn't sleep, that's all."

"I just wanted to find you," Brooks pulled away from her with a silly grin before combusting in a fit of laughter, one which was apparently quite contagious, since Chris and Stephanie joined right in with him. Brooks slipped around her and went to Chris next, where he was wrapped in a bear hug and had his ear pretend-bitten off.

"Is your sister still asleep, bud?" Chris checked.

"I think so," Brooks shrugged before spying the food on their plates. He licked his lips and leaned in towards the aroma but shied away from asking if he could have a bite. It was common knowledge to Brooks that his parents didn't allow him to eat after hours, but he sure wished they would make an exception, because the spread displayed in front of him looked delectable. Avoiding the direct approach, he went with hint-dropping instead. "Mmm, what's that, Dad?"

"It's a chicken taco," Chris grinned. He didn't mind letting Brooks have a bite but watching him skirt around the actual question instead of just asking for what he wanted amused Chris to no end, so he allowed it to continue for a while. Stephanie must have had the same idea, because she tapped his leg underneath the table and chuckled under her breath.

"Mmm, chicken taco..." Brooks dropped his elbows onto the table and nestled his fists underneath his chin as he stared at the plate until Chris broke and couldn't take it anymore. He tossed his head back and succumbed to a hearty laugh before picking the taco up and holding it to Brooks' mouth.

"Take a bite, maybe even two, but then you've gotta go back to bed."

While Brooks was in the middle of his first bite, a shrill, panicked voice called out from the next room, "I want Mommy!"

"It's okay, I'm right here, baby," Stephanie hurried from her seat and made it to the bottom of the stairs just in time to find her young daughter looking terrified. Having been left upstairs all by herself, it made perfect sense that a four-year-old would have been startled when she woke up to find nobody around. She occasionally shared a room with Brooks on nights when she was extra spooked about being by herself, and that night, she had fallen asleep in the bed right across from him, so when she awoke and found him gone, it sent her into a tailspin. "Come here, my little munchkin," Stephanie scooped Molly up in her arms and carried her into the kitchen, resuming her spot in the chair next to Chris.

"We'd better hurry and get back to bed, Steph," Chris told her as he allowed Brooks another bite of his food. "I don't want this to turn into a whole family affair and stretch on for too long. If it were the weekend I wouldn't care, but they've got school tomorrow."

"I don't got school, Daddy," Molly mumbled against Stephanie's shoulder as they latched onto one another, Molly with her arms secured around her mother's neck while Stephanie rocked her softly. Brooks tended to take after his father in the looks department, whereas Molly was a carbon copy of her mother. They shared the same stunning eye color and shade of hair, and when a picture of Stephanie as a child was placed beside one of Molly, they appeared almost identical. The same could be said for Chris and Brooks, though.

"You do too, you've got preschool," Chris poked her in the side and she jumped in surprise before giggling at her daddy sticking his tongue out at her. Molly reached for him, and Chris grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

The single greatest thing about spending time with his kids was how easily they made him forget all the bad things. That wasn't to say he had many things in life worth complaining about, but his children were the constant bright spot in his day, and Chris didn't know what he would do without them or Stephanie. Each of their children had been planned, and he could easily admit they were the best plans he had ever laid. His family showed him what truly mattered in life, and for that, he would always love them more than any single word could ever express.

"All right," Stephanie interrupted, "I think Daddy wants us all to get back to bed, so let's start heading back upstairs."

Before she got the chance to move, Chris brought his hand down gently on her arm and gave a slight shake of the head. As he gazed around the table at the three people he treasured most, a deep love blazed in his heart that he wasn't ready to say goodbye to for the night, so he held on a little longer. "Actually, Steph, I jumped the gun on that. Let's stay up with them for a little while."

Her response arrived with smile of tranquility.

"I'm so glad you changed your mind."