“Rose, where are you going?” I held the phone to my ear and tipped it a bit more to the left doing everything I could to help the cell phone reception. Maybe if I stood on one foot . . . I lifted my left foot, balancing just so. “Can you hear me now?”

After the shower incident, I’d spent the morning searching through want ads for jobs that caught my eye. There weren’t many this time of year in New Hampshire. But it didn’t slow my search. I sent in applications for online assistant work—I’d done some for my sister in the past, so it seemed a good fit, and it would allow me to work my own schedule. Not that I had anything else going for me. But that felt like a hail Mary for something that would keep me busy but not fulfill me.

Rose laughed, and the sound came through loud and clear. “What are you doing, Dominique? You sound like you’re constipated!”

I laughed and put my foot down. My best friend was nothing if not honest in everything she said, and I loved that about her. “The usual, trying to keep the connection clear and failing miserably.”

“No, not miserably. I hear you just fine. And to answer your question, I’m headed south.”

“Already? I thought you were leaving tomorrow?”

“No, I couldn’t wait,” she said. “The warm, sunny waters of Miami beach are calling to me, and they should be calling to you, too, you fool. You don’t even have a job, which means you should be with me.”

I took a few steps and then leaned on the kitchen island, smoothing my hand over the granite, catching a glimpse of my reflection on the perfectly smooth, and highly polished, stone. “I can’t. You know Ally asked me to take care of her place until it sells.” Which wasn’t really the truth. Seeing as she’d told me to stay as long as I liked and sell it if I wanted to move on. She had no need of it, and money wasn’t an issue for her.

A twang centered around my heart tugged at me. My sister Ally had moved on in her life, and all the money she made writing books, the house she’d built with it, and the future we both thought she had was gone. Mind you, she’d given it up for a pretty good cause, even I could see that. She was head over heels in love, and her men weren’t even jealous of one another. It was nauseatingly sweet.

I made a gagging motion even though no one was there to see me.

“Dommy, what are you doing? The gagging thing again?” Rose’s voice sounded more distant so I pushed off the counter and hurried through the house, instinctually going south as if I could follow her and improve the reception.

“Yes, I was gagging. Sorry.”

“Don’t be jealous of your sister. It’s not becoming of a lady.” She laughed and I laughed with her.

“I am no lady. Do you recall the burping contest we had with the boys in college? We won, if I remember right.”

She laughed hard enough, she wheezed her words out. “Oh, my God. I’d forgotten about that.”

“Bullshit,” I laughed softly, but the sound dried up. “Rose, how long are you going to be gone?”

“I’m thinking ten days. Long enough to get some color on my curves. You know that my ass gets more attention in the south than up here where everyone wants you to be model thin.”

“Oh, come on, you’re, what, a size eight?”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean. I carry my extra in my ass instead of my boobs like someone else we know.” She cleared her throat and I looked down at my chest, the curves of my breasts pushing upward through the thin shirt.

“Well, sure, but it seems we always get the guy who wants what we don’t have, right? Like I always get guys who want flawless skin,” I said with a bitter laugh on the tail end.

There was a heavy silence and then she yelled at me. “Then they are fucking stupid if they can’t see past what happened to you. It wasn’t your fault, Dominique.” She paused “You never told Ally, did you?”

I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. “No, I never told her. She was going through her break up and I didn’t want to worry her when there was really nothing to tell her. And don’t you dare rat me out! Do you know how much she would worry about me if she knew what happened? I would have told her eventually, but not now. Not when she’s so happy.” I sighed and ran my hands along the table.

“You should give her more credit. She’s a tough one,” Rose said softly and I could just imagine the look in her big dark eyes. They’d be all soft and gentle, but that hid a sharp wit and tongue that I’d been at the receiving end of more than once.

“It’s not that she isn’t strong enough to handle the truth. There isn’t anything anyone can do about it, Rose. The plastic surgery will just make more scars, and honestly, I don’t ... I don’t want to ask Ally to pay for it.”

“Okay, but . . .what about a tattoo then? We’ve talked about that, something that will cover it. You know that I don’t care. I love you to bits no matter what but maybe it would make you feel better? That’s what plastic surgery is for. You, not other people.”

She was right about that, but I wasn’t sure. Tattooing was as permanent as surgery and in some cases almost as expensive. “I’ll think about it. It’s weird because the scars don’t bother me until I see the look in other people’s faces. Maybe it would be worse if I could remember what happened, you know? But . . .it’s fine. Me and Bob are fine.”

She snorted. “You and Bob, you need more than a battery-operated man, Dom. You deserve more than that. So, you do what you’ve got to do to figure out what will make you happy. A new job. A tattoo, a booty call from a sexy man whore. I want you to be happy. You need to face your life.”

I smiled. “Listen. That’s the pot calling the kettle black, Miss Always Running Away when things get tense,” I pointed out. But I smiled as I said it because I understood Rose better than she understood herself. She had a past that made mine look like child’s play. Her family were complete assholes, not to mention the abuse she’d suffered. The fact was she was my hero, always looking for the best in people, always working toward a better life.

“Dommy, let me tell you . . .wait, hang on. I need to focus here,” she said, her voice pitched with an urgency I didn’t like.

There was the sound of something strange, like the shush of tires on the snow, which was impossible since there was no way I’d be able to hear the tires unless the window was down. Then came a crack of metal on metal, the sound screeching through the phone. I gripped the phone. “Rose, talk to me!”

Horror flicked through me as the line went dead. I pulled it from my ear and stared at it. This was not happening.

My throat closed and my heart kicked into high gear as I dialed Rose’s number. “Come on, Rosie, pick up.” I breathed the mantra over and over, but the phone kept going straight to her voice mail.

“You’ve reached Rose Duvall. You know what to do, gorgeous!”

I bit my lower lip, clicked the end call button, then dialed her again. Just the same voice mail.

Shaking, I called 9-1-1, fearing the worst. The line picked up and a woman was on the other end, her voice bored. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“I think my friend was just in a car accident,” I said, the words tumbling out and over one another.

“What do you mean you think she was? Are you in the car with her?” the operator asked, the sound of her keyboard clicking away as she spoke.

I frowned. “I think if I were in the car I’d know for sure, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, of course, but you seem confused.” She bit the words out and I grimaced.

“Look, I was on the phone with her to keep her company while she drove—”

“She shouldn’t be driving and talking on the phone, especially at night, especially in a snowstorm,” the operator said, condescension dripping from her voice.

“Stop lecturing me and help me help my friend!” I yelled into the phone. “She was driving south on the highway. Are there any police in the area. . .”

I trailed off when I realized she’d hung up on me. My eyes bugged a little. I had to admit that when Ally had told me a 9-1-1 operator had hung up on her when she’d tried to get help, I hadn’t believed her. What were the odds I’d get the same snotty operator? There it was, the Swift Girl’s luck at work again.

I stared at my phone and pulled up the “Find a phone” app. Good friends had to have each other’s backs. I put in Rose’s information for her cell, knowing her password which happened to be talldarkandhandsomeplease. After our last night out together, she’d given it to me because she’d lost her phone, leaving it behind at the bar.

“Come on, hurry, hurry!” I stared at the app while it slowly pulled up the coordinates and gave me directions. A forty-five-minute drive in good weather. Which the day most certainly was not. Didn’t matter, there was no way I was leaving Rose out there by herself.

I ran for the garage and grabbed a heavy coat, shoes, and several blankets. I threw it all into the back of Ally’s second vehicle, a four-wheel drive truck. “Hang on, Rose, I’m coming.”

I knew there was a medical kit somewhere in the garage and I ended up chucking more than a few boxes across the space before I found it buried next to the extra refrigerator. I grabbed it and ran for the truck, threw it in, and jumped into the driver’s side.

Slow down.

The words calmed me and my heart slowed as I turned the key in the ignition and hit the button to open the garage door. “I have to get to her.”

Her story is not yours. Do not put your life on the line for her.

Shit, I was really taking this whole talking to myself a bit too far. “Shut the hell up, whoever you are. She’s my best friend!” I slammed my hands against the steering wheel, twisted in my seat and backed the truck into the blowing snowstorm that hadn’t let up all day.

At least, it was still light out. I had that going for me. I set my phone up so it would read the directions, telling me when I got close to Rose.

I whipped through the urban areas, passing more than one snowplow making a valiant, if futile, attempt to keep up with the falling snow. The sides of the road were easily three and a half feet high between the snow coming down and the plows pushing it off.

“Come on, come on!” I yelled at a sedan in front of me, the driver’s head barely visible above the back of the headrest, the gray hair bobbing.

Teeth gritted, I pulled around the short, old lady driver, and hit the gas, fishtailing a little as I picked up speed. But the four-wheel drive kept me moving forward. I breathed a small sigh of relief. “Thank you, Ally,” I whispered as I hit the on ramp to the highway. The vehicles around me were going slow, and I wove my way in and out, knowing I was being reckless but not caring because I had to get to my friend.

Ever since we were children, we’d looked out for each other. We’d hidden from her drunk and raging mother together. Rose had been my rock when I’d lost my parents, and since Ally had moved on with her life, Rose had been there for me. How would anyone know she was in an accident? What if she’d gone over the edge, or what if the snow had already covered her? No one would know where she was, and I couldn’t take that chance.

Behind me a semi-truck blew its horn and I glanced in the rearview mirror, seeing it coming too fast.

Far too fast.

“Oh shit.” I breathed the words as terror filled me. I locked my eyes forward and hit the gas pedal harder, shifting into a higher gear. Speed in this weather, with this lack of visibility, was dangerous, but not as dangerous as the fifty-ton semi-truck speeding toward me, blasting its horn. The crunch of metal on metal snapped my eyes upward again and my mouth dropped open.

The semi was plowing through the cars behind me, jackknifing as the driver fought to slow it down.

I thought it couldn’t get any worse. I thought this was as bad as this day could get. I really wish I’d been right about that.

A second semi-truck burst through the trailer of the first one, horn blowing, cars being eaten up in its path like a dragon on a rampage going after the villagers. Chunks of metal flew as it rammed more and more vehicles. Snow sprayed up in a wave to either side as cars were shoved in all directions.

I wove around the car in front of me and then I saw the worst possible thing.

There was an accident scene ahead of me with Rose’s car in the middle of it. Emergency vehicles and a short line of stopped cars would slam into Rose when the two semi-trucks reached them.

“No, no!” There was no way the semis would be able to stop in time; they were coming too fast. A minute, I might have a single minute to get to the accident and get Rose out of the way. Probably more like thirty seconds.

I pushed the gas pedal and cranked the wheel to the right, taking the truck into the snow filled median. The truck slid hard and I fought with the wheel to keep it moving in the right direction, keeping it moving even though the tires spun and struggled for purchase. I would not give up. I would not let her die.

My throat was tight, my body singing with adrenaline and then I was there, as close as I could get. I leapt from the truck and sprinted up the small incline to the accident, counting the seconds in my head. It was going to be too close. I knew in my gut this was it for both me and Rose.

Behind me, the slam and crush of vehicles, the tearing of metal and the horns exploding through the snow-filled air were like a nightmare come to life. I screamed at the first responders. “We have to move!”

Only there was no time. I could see the reflection of it in their eyes as they stared past me. Rose lay on a stretcher, but no one so much as took a step. I turned and looked over my shoulder.

The two semi-trucks were on us, hardly slowing at all despite the wreckage they’d encounter. They were twenty feet away and still coming fast. I dropped to my knees and grabbed Rose’s hand. “I won’t leave you.”

Her hands were cold. That was all I could think of, and that I wished I’d brought the blanket from the truck to give her that last bit of comfort. But I’d been in such a hurry to get to her and this was all I could do. Hold her hand while we both were crushed under the weight of the two trucks. Together to the end, at least. Just like Thelma and Louise.

The blur of a dark blue cloak swept beside me and I looked up at the impossible. His face was covered with a cowl, and his chest wasn’t bare but I knew him. “Spanish?”

“You are trouble,” he growled and then swept his hands up. Green light flowed over his fingers, dancing and sparkling, as they twisted and then he threw his hands outward. The light exploded around us and a sonic boom rattled my ears. I looked at the oncoming semis, unable to believe what I was seeing. They’d stopped, wrapped in the green light that had come from Spanish’s hands.

People were screaming and running, the white noise in my ears that had been death coming for me was gone and replaced with the cacophony that was a massive accident scene. Chaos reigned.

“Am I dead?” I whispered up at him. “Is that why I’m seeing you?”

He crouched beside me, but something drew my eyes outward again. Three more cloaked figures flitted between the vehicles. Black, maroon, and emerald green. I swallowed hard. “What . . .what are they doing?”

“Saving who they can.” He held a hand out to me and the first responders were suddenly there shoving me out of the way.

“Ma’am, we need to get her to the hospital.”

I fell backward as they scrambled to get Rose up and into the ambulance. Spanish hadn’t moved. “It’s time to have a discussion that is not in your dreams, Dominique. Though, I doubt you ever thought this day would come.”

I pushed along the snow-slicked ground on my ass away from him, because I could not believe this. I kept looking over my shoulder at Rose. “Where are you taking her?”

One of the ambulance attendants took pity on me. “St. Martin’s Hospital.”

“Dominique, we must go.” Spanish continued to hold his hand out to me.

“What. No, I mean. Who. How. This isn’t real. Am I asleep? I have to be asleep, which is good because it means Rose was not just in an accident.” Relief flowed through me and I slumped where I was. “She’s okay. Right?”

“You are not asleep,” Pompous swept up beside us, his cloak green. “Come, we must go before the humans realize we were here. We have broken enough rules as it is. We do not need our discovery to come from one of them.”

Spanish reached out and took my hand and helped me to my feet and the four of them followed me back to the truck. He helped me into the driver’s side and then they all got in with me, three of them squeezing into the narrow back seat, and I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. The adrenaline and fear bubbled out into a flood of laughter that was completely out of control. “No, nope. This is a whole lot of nope. This is not real.”

Spanish leaned over. “Can you drive?”

“I can drive.”

“Then take us to your home where we can discuss all of this.” His words were soothing and I noted that he had more of that green sparkling shit going on, though it was far subtler than what he’d used on the trucks to stop them.

I had a lot of questions, but he was right. Only I wasn’t taking them home. I was going to the hospital where Rose would be, because even though I wanted to think this hadn’t happened, I was logical. She was in an accident and now I was hallucinating. Maybe I needed to be at the hospital with her and get a CT scan for myself.

That got me moving more than any other words could have from his mouth. Rose needed me and I wasn’t going to let her down.

I got the truck moving, angling it so we could climb out of the valley between the lanes of the highway. The back end slid a few times, but soon enough, I was back on the road on the far side of the accident scene.

“Your home is north, not south,” Pompous said.

“Yeah, well, St. Martin’s hospital is south and that’s where Rose is going, so I’m going there,” I snapped. “You know what, Pompous, why don’t you just be quiet. Hallucinations should not be back talking their creator.”

Chuckles bent at the waist, howling, the sound of his mirth filling the truck. “Pompous, that’s the name you’re giving him? Really? I thought that was just for the dreamscape.”

“Yes, Chuckles, it is.” I glared at him in the rearview mirror. I didn’t know what to make of these four men, of their sudden and very real appearance in my life. But none of it mattered, not when Rose was . . . God, what if she was dying? My throat tightened and tears filled my eyes, but I didn’t slow down. I was a good driver. I’d been dealing with the northwest weather my whole life and I was not going to let crazy emotions derail that ability.

The men were quiet for a moment, but it didn’t last. “How far to the hospital?” Cranky asked, his voice a deep rumble.

“Probably thirty minutes in this weather,” I said. “Why?”

“Perhaps Pompous should explain a few things before we get there,” he said. I noted more than a hint of irritation in his voice.

I shot a look to him in the rearview mirror. “Why are you being nice? Shouldn’t you be trying to make me cry?” Not that he’d ever made me cry in the dreamscape—if that’s what it was really called—but he’d been the least forthcoming, and the most irritable.

“I’m not being nice. I’m being practical. And I would never actively try to make you cry. Crying women are . . .difficult to soothe.”

Chuckles leaned forward. “Please tell me what you call him again. I love hearing it from your sweet, soft lips.”

“Cranky Pants.” My lips, the lips in question twitched, and Chuckles fell apart again. Normally, I would have joined in with the laughter, but I was too worried about Rose.

“What are you?” I blurted out. “You’re not vampires, seeing as you were out in the sun.”

“No, we are not,” Spanish said. “You saw my magic?”

“I saw your, wait--” My jaw dropped. “Magic?”

“Yes, magic,” Pompous said behind me. This was the strangest, then swung to most terrifying, and then swung back to strangest day again that I’d ever had. “We are Warlocks.”

“Okay, so ... why have you been coming to me in my dreams then?”

There was a shifting of weight on the leather seats that made me narrow my eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Chuckles leaned forward. “You’ve been calling us to you, Dominique. It was you who brought us into your life. And we’d like to know why.”