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I don't think any of us let out a breath for at least ten minutes. Darkness seemed to be closing in around us. Images of Gordon's ugly face close to mine back in that motel room flashed before me. I drove faster, squealing around turns, riding on the shoulder of the road, fighting to maintain control.

"What are we going to do?" Raven asked. "We don't have any money or the credit card or anything."

"I don't care," I said. "We've got to get away from him."

"Well, where are we going?" she followed, turning to look back at the motel as if she expected to see him running after us. Butterfly clung tightly to Crystal.

"Away," I said. "As fast as we can."

All could think of was putting as much distance as possible between us and Gordon. Whatever came after that had to be better. Didn't it?

15 A Desert Oasis

Our fear kept us under a veil of silence. The station wagon's headlights sliced away some of the darkness, but without houses and lit windows, other traffic and activity, we felt alone in the night, far from any sign of civilization. Trees towered like sentinels guarding the clearing sky. I felt as if I was driving us through a tunnel from one world into another. Soon, the tree line disappeared and was replaced with long, barren fields. Any houses we did see were dark or only vaguely lit, their inhabitants surely snug in their beds. When I gazed into the rearview mirror, I saw that Butterfly had fallen asleep in Crystal's arms. Raven had her head against the window, her eyes closed. We had all sunk deeply into a pool of numbness.

The terrain changed again, this time looking more rocky. The sky became even clearer, now with only occasional, thin, wispy clouds drifting across the stars. I was no longer driving fast. The tires hummed until the road turned rougher and we began to bounce more.

"Where are we?" Raven asked after a particularly rough bump shook the vehicle. "I don't know. I haven't seen a road sign for miles and miles," I said. "Crystal?"

"I don't have the map anymore. The last house was back about twenty or thirty minutes," she added.

"Something should come up soon," I offered as a straw of hope.

We rode on with nothing but the same monotonous scenery. In fact, it became even more primitive. I spotted cactuses and then saw a long, dark line of mountains silhouetted along the western horizon. Butterfly woke when we hit another rough piece of road, making the wagon shake and rattle.

"I'm thirsty, Crystal," were her first words.

"Me too," Raven said, "but I haven't seen any place where we could even beg for water. Where are we?" she asked again.

A new sort of fear began to unravel at the bottom of my stomach. In our crazed frenzy to escape from Gordon Tooey, I had not taken any notice of direction. Now, with no signs to give us any sort of hint as to where we were or where we were heading, we were truly lost. It seemed we could only go from bad to worse.

"We better stop at the next sign of life," Crystal said, "and find out where we are."

I nodded and drove on, the road beneath us now turning into something only a little better than dirt.

"Maybe we should turn back, Brooke," Raven suggested.

"We've come so far," I said. "And I didn't see any other turns to take."

"This looks like it goes to nowhere, though," Crystal said leaning forward. "Raven might be right, Brooke."

Our anxiety began to boil. We were all leaning forward now, watching the road, looking for anything hopeful. A pair of rabbits crossed the road on what looked like legs made of springs. The tires were crunching over small rocks and gravel now.

"I think we did it," Raven said. "I think we reached the moon. That's what it looks like out there."

"It's molten rock that has flowed out to the surface of the earth through cracks or fissures. Lava," Crystal explained. "Very much like the moon's surface."

"Thanks I needed that explanation," Raven quipped.

"It does look like the moon," Butterfly said, "because no one lives here."

I couldn't drive anywhere near as fast as I had been driving. The road began to jostle us.

"This is crazy, Brooke. I think we should turn around and . . ." Raven began, but stopped when the engine sputtered. "Oh no, what's happening now?"

I checked the dashboard, something I should have done before we had gone too far. In our haste it never occurred to me that we would run out of gas.

"It's on empty," I moaned.