Where was I?  What was happening?

             Eliza rolled over and fell off the bed with a thunk.  It was two days after she and Aunt Kerry had come home, and in that time, she had gotten less than an hour of sleep.

             Home.  No, it wasn't home.  Home was in Montana with the horses, not in this steel-and-glass apartment building.  This was… a shelter.  A temporary shelter.  Home was in Montana.

             Peering out the window, Eliza watched the rain fall. Two days, seven hours, twenty-one minutes, and fourteen seconds since Aunt Kerry kidnapped me.  That was what she kept telling herself.  Kerry had kidnapped her and she would be home as soon as her mom and dad came to rescue her.

             Some of her Aunt Kerry's friends were coming to dinner that night.  They had a girl Eliza's age.  Eliza didn't care.  She didn't want to make any friends.  Friends would only be someone else to say goodbye to when she went home.

             "Come in, come in!" Kerry invited. "I'm just finishing the table."

             Eliza peered out of her room to see the girl she was supposed to be friends with.  Aunt Kerry's friends were Abby and Luka.  Luka, the man, was carrying a boy who looked to be about eleven. "Hi, Daniel!" Kerry greeted him.

             The boy said something Eliza didn't hear.

             Next in line was another boy, this one younger. "And Jacob, you've gotten so big!"

             "Hi!" Jacob said enthusiastically.

             Two girls stood behind their brother. "Maggie and Olivia, what kind of trouble are you getting into?"

             "Not much," the taller one said.  The younger one said nothing.

             Maggie.  So that was her name.

             "Eliza!  Please come out here and meet our guests!" Kerry called.

             "Hi," Eliza said.

             The girl regarded her with stony dark eyes.  Her mother, however, was more pleasant. "So you're Eliza.  Nice to meet you.  I'm Abby."

             "Hi," Eliza repeated.  She was feeling like a "Chatty Cathy" doll.

             "Eliza, here, put this on the table," Kerry said, and handed her a basket of rolls.

             Eliza did so.

             "How old are you, Eliza?" the man asked in an accented voice.

             "Twelve," Eliza answered. "Almost thirteen."

             "Cool," said the younger boy. "Maggie's thirteen."

             "Neat," Eliza said, but her voice held no emotion.

             Somehow she got through dinner.  Somehow she endured their chit-chat conversations, their endless discussions about subjects that wouldn't matter in twenty years anyway.  Eliza was tired of it.

             She wanted to leave, wanted to go home, wanted to go anywhere that wasn't here.  But there was no way.  She was just one girl, and there was no way she could go anywhere.  She didn't even know where Clarey and Davy were.  If she could find them, everything would be okay.

             Outside the window, more rain sleeted down on the apartment building.  Two days, seventeen hours, thirty-six minutes, and twelve seconds.  Eliza pressed her fingers against the window, as though by just touch, she could somehow go home, back to Montana, where she belonged. I'll never give into this, I'll never give in.  It's not my home and I don't belong here.

             Kerry found her the next morning, curled up underneath her bed, fast asleep.