The gnawing hunger made me wonder if running away from the group home hadn't been my brightest plan. My hands were starting to shake. If I didn't do something soon, I would have to turn myself in.

I played with the change in my pocket. Seventeen cents was all that I had left to my name, which wasn't even enough to buy a can of soup, not that I would have a way to open or warm it up, though I was hungry enough to not mind the temperature.

There was only one solution to my current problem, and it wasn't exactly legal. I tried to banish thoughts of possible repercussions as I stepped into the local grocery store. Thinking about committing a crime was surely going to make me look guilty, and I made a point to not make eye contact with anyone.

I wandered from aisle to aisle. If I was going to steal something, then it should last longer than one meal. Maybe I was losing my was left of my mind, but I could swear I kept seeing the same dark haired girl watching me. She smiled, and I turned away, hoping she'd get the hint and leave me be.

My eyes landed on a box of Poptarts, and my mouth watered. It was now or never. I snatched the box and shoved it into my jacket. Now all I had to do was make it to the door without drawing suspicion, and I was home free.

My exit from the aisle was blocked by an unhappy looking employee. "Whoa. What you got there?" she asked, looking at the bulge in my jacket.

My heart leapt into my throat, and I wondered if I could barrel past her and run. A basket came between the employee and I. Pushing it was the dark haired girl who'd been following me around. She smiled at me and said, "I've been looking all over for you," as if we were old friends.

Turning so that her back was to the employee, she whispered, "Just go with it." She took the Poptarts from my jacket and said so that the woman could hear, "Thanks for hanging onto that until I got a cart."

The employee's face softened. "You two girls are on your own?"

Without skipping a beat, the girl said, "My parents are outside in the car. They sent us in to grab a few things."

The employee cast one more suspicious look at me before nodding and saying, "Okay," before walking away.

A sigh of relief escaped my mouth. "Thanks," I said, "that was about to get ugly."

"Yeah, no kidding. You know that stuffing things under your shirt never works," the girl told me.

I looked down in shame until I heard her laugh. "You need one of these," she said, pulling out a gold credit card. "Lift some plastic, and you can buy whatever you want."

I smiled. "I'll remember that next time," I said, trying to sound cooler than I was. Grateful that I was not going to jail, or worse, back to a foster home, I turned and walked away.

"Wait," the girl said, stopping me in my tracks, "you're part of my cover now. So what do you say?" she asked. "Want to go shopping?"

I returned her smile and nodded. My luck was finally changing. "I'm Emma," I said.

"My name's Lily," she told me. "It's nice to meet you, Emma."

"It's nice to meet you too," I said and wondered if I'd just made my first real friendship.

We grabbed everything we wanted, which was something I'd never gotten to do. The few times I had been out grocery shopping with the group home, the mantra had been "keep your hands to yourself and be quiet". I could get used to this.

I kept expecting the woman who'd almost busted me earlier to jump out and say she knew we were thieves, but she didn't. No one bothered us, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was because of how confident Lily was. She held her head high as if nothing could touch her, not even the law.

By the time we got to the checkout line, even I thought we belonged there. The cashier didn't question our one hundred and fifty dollar purchase.

"You have a car?" I asked once we were outside, surprised when Lily steered our basket towards the parking lot instead of the street.

She smirked and pulled keys out of her pocket. "Yeah, I relieved it from the same person I took the credit card from."

I stopped in my tracks. "You stole a car?"

"Believe me," she said. "These people deserved it."

There was bitterness in her voice that I recognized. I'd heard it so many times in my own. This girl, whoever she was, had been hurt just like me.

"You coming?" she asked, and I nodded.

We loaded up the back seat with our groceries and got inside the comfortable sedan.

"So, where are we going?" I asked.

"Ever heard of Storybrooke, Maine?"

"No," I said. "I've never even been to Maine."

"Neither have I," she said, "but that's where my birth mother lives, and if you're Emma Swan, then I think your parents are there too."

My jaw dropped. I hadn't told her my last name or that I didn't know who my parents were. "How could you possibly know that?" I asked, wondering if I should jump out of the car and run from my new friend.

"It's complicated," she said, "but this strange old guy, who called himself 'The Apprentice' told me about my past and yours. The things he said were insane, but my gut tells me that he was right. I don't think I fully believed him until I found you."

Nothing she was saying made sense, but I did feel connected to the girl somehow in a way that I'd never felt with anyone else. "How did you find me?"

She dug into her pocket and pulled out a round object. "It's a compass," she said, "but it doesn't point north. It points at you."

I took the compass from her, and saw she was right. No matter how I turned it, the arrow always spun towards me. "How is this possible?"

"Magic," she said, and then started her engine. "So, are we going to Storybrooke, or not?"

A voice inside my head screamed at me to be logical. There was no such thing as magic, and anyone who said otherwise was either crazy or trying to sell something, but the allure of finding my parents was too great. If there was any chance that they were in Maine, then that was where I had to go.

Damn the consequences.

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