Once the plan expanded on a bit more and was explained to all included parties and information was collected, everyone was finally ready. The critical information had just been collected; Anna had somehow tricked Chris into something he could not take back. I was still staying at David's cabin with Anna the day before the ball when David came back from work with three large plastic bags filled with God knows what.

"David?" Anna got up from the card game we were playing on the bed.

"Hey. Look what I got for us." He walked down the small set of stairs and towards the bed.

"What is it?" I asked cleaning the cards off the bed as he set the bags on the bed.

"Something for you girls." He beamed.

"Hmmm, I wonder what it could be?" Anna motioned for me to open the bag.

"I just thought you could use something for the ball." I opened the bag that was laid on top. It was a tux.

"Whoops, that's for me." He picked up the bag. I shook my head and started to open the second one.

"Oh my goodness. It's gorgeous David." Anna exclaimed. I handed her the dress that was definently not for me and started opening the next one. It was the most beautiful dress I'd ever seen. It was sort of a metallic black thin-strapped floor length dress that shone kind of a greenish-blue when moved around. I looked over at Anna's; it was sort of a sleek modern dress in total black but also floor length with a strap on one side and what looked to be the remnants of a sleeve on the other. She was hugging David; apparently she liked her dress too.

"I was thinking you could wear running shoes underneath, you know, if need be." Anna slapped him on the shoulder.

"There's the David I know; always thinking practical before fashion." She laughed.

"What do you expect? He's a doctor, not to mention a man." Laughing seemed to make my nerves settle down for once; though Anna said it's always good to be on your toes. I guess this was a well need break from the anxiety about the day ahead. I suppose the feelings would compare to those of the days before a championship basketball game or something of great importance like that. David told us that in the morning he would double-check with everybody about what exactly they were to do when the time came tomorrow night, and the rest of the night we relaxed, ate pizza, and watched some movie David had rented. I forget the title or what it was about but it made me laugh the night where I thought doing something like that would never happen. The next morning I spent the day with Anna; again, not that I minded at all. I liked the way she talked me or about me, for that matter; like I was a competent well-adjusted adult who could be trusted not only with secrets but to do something other people sometimes couldn't. She talked to me like my ideas mattered and sometimes even made adjustments according to my advice; which was a rare occurrence to happen in my life. We were at the cabin, which had almost become like a third or fourth home to me after Wildwind and Myrtle's, while David was still out double- checking. She spent pretty much the whole day teaching me some basic self- defense moves that she had learned in her days as a spy.

"Thanks again." I told her after she had finished. I went and got a bottle of water for each of us from the fridge.

"For what? The defense moves? They were nothing. Everyone should have basic knowledge on how to defend themselves." She took the bottle of water from me and sat down in one of the chairs.

"Yea those. But thanks for everything else, too." She looked confused.

"Well, I mean thanks for, well, saving my life for one thing." She smiled.

"No problem. All in a days work."

"Definite gratitude over here, but there's other stuff, too." I took a sip.

"Like?"

"Treating me like an adult, for another thing. I found that's very rare in my life. Most people just want to protect me from the world all the time and I know you want to protect us from Chris but you also let me do a lot of stuff other people wouldn't. And I just like that, I guess.

"Well, I think everyone needs protection but there comes a point you just kind of have to push the bird out of the nest and watch them fly, you know what I mean?" She replaced the cap on her bottle.

"Yea, I know what you mean. And that's another thing; you ask me stuff and take into account what I have to say instead of just kind of ignoring me. I mean, before this all happened, I had to yell at my mom once just for her to 'let' me be friends with Frankie. It can put a girl down after awhile, you know. Big depression causer." I put the two water bottles back in the mini fridge.

"I think I'll have a little talk with your mother after this is all over. I know she doesn't like me and all but this is crazy. No offense, but you shouldn't be happy that I treat you like an adult. It should come naturally, you're going to be eighteen soon, right?"

"Yea."

"Okay, I'm seriously going to have a little chat with your mother before that day comes. And just so you know, these past couple of weeks have been a nice adjustment for me too. As I suppose you know, about ten years ago I was in a plane crash with my husband. Everybody thought I was dead for a long time; and I missed out on all that time raising my daughter. But now that I'm back, she's all grown up and off living her own life now. So I suppose these weeks I've been making up for lost time." I smiled. She was tough on the outside but on the inside all she wanted was to go back, be with her husband and raise her daughter the right way.

"Yea, well I figured it was something like that." I laughed.