But the rage inside him died stillborn because he knew the defiance would do no good. He'd dreamed over and over of getting to the child-care facilities. He'd arrived late every time. When he hadn't dreamed about being late, he'd dreamed about leaving the house last night without saying good-bye to Chris. He'd heard Chris in this room, playing with his action figures, doing the voices for all of them.

Some of those voices had even been different. And Joey had slithered out the door like a spy in a James Bond film.

Joey closed his eyes and wiped his face.

All he'd had to do last night was step into the room for a minute. "Hey, Squirt. I'm outta here. Catch you later."

And Chris would have said, "Okay, Joey. Have fun. After while, alligator. "

Now he never would.

Guilt smothered Joey like one of Grandmother Gander's homemade quilts. He didn't know if getting to say good-bye to Chris would have changed how he felt now, but he couldn't get the thought out of his head that he would never have the chance again. He reached down and picked up Chris's tattered teddy bear, then tucked it tenderly under one of the blankets on a pillow.

The voices continued. He thought he heard someone crying.

Thinking about jenny and wondering if she was still there, wondering if his mom was going to have anything to say or ask about Jenny and not knowing how he was going to handle that, Joey walked out into the hallway in his socks. Last night his mom hadn't asked too many questions about Jenny. Learning that Chris had disappeared had blown her away. He'd never seen her cry so much.

And he couldn't help feeling so much of that was because of him. If he could have told her he was with Chris when he disappeared, maybe it would have helped.

Or maybe he would have disappeared with Chris. At least then Chris wouldn't be alone, wherever he is. Joey still had no definite ideas about where that would be.

The news programs all had people on them speculating about why the disappearances had occurred. The theories ran the gamut from aliens from another world to terrorists to some kind of weird fluctuation in the space-time continuum that had drawn the missing people over into an alternate time stream where they were actually supposed to exist instead of the one they were in.

If the guy giving the presentation about the space-time continuum theory had looked more like Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation instead of Yoda, Joey might have bought into that one. But the Yoda clone looked like he was a recovering homeless person.

The voices grew louder.

"What am I supposed to do, Mrs. Gander? I need to find my mom.

Bewildered, Joey stopped and stared into the living room.

At least twenty kids were gathered there, some of them flopped on the couch and the easy chair. More of them sat in the floor. Most of them looked like they'd just gotten up from bed. All of them watched the television news footage about the disappearances and the fighting going on in Turkey and Syria, like the TV might hold the answer to all their unsolved problems.

Joey recognized some of the kids from around the base. He recognized others from the files his mom sometimes carried home from work. Of course, he was never supposed to look at those files, but he had anyway because who could have resisted them just sitting there in her file case. He'd wanted to know how messed up other kids' lives were, to get a better idea of where his own life had gone wrong. He felt guilty about looking at the files now.

All of the kids in the files had been dealing with problems: anger management issues, new stepparents, divorced parents, dead parents, parents who cared too much and parents who cared too little, drug problems and drinking problems, poverty, self-esteem, and learning disorders. Compared to them, he was normal. He just wasn't happy about it and didn't know how to change it. He stared at the kids.

What were they doing in his house?

"I'll tell you what we're not going to do, Anna," his mom said from the kitchen. "We're not going to panic. We're going to take this one step at a time. As soon as the phones come back on again, we're going to find out where your grandparents are and how they're doing."

"My grandparents?" Anna slapped the kitchen table. "Mrs. Gander, I can't live with my grandparents! My mom didn't even want to live with my grandparents!" The young teen's voice was almost a shriek.

"Anna," his mom said patiently, "calm down. We're in the damage control phase. You remember the damage control phase from counseling, right?"

Dazed, Joey walked through the living room to the kitchen, having to step over the bodies that nearly covered the carpet. He detected the aroma of fresh-baked cookies. His stomach rumbled in anticipation.

His mom stood at the stove, using a spatula to remove fresh cookies from the baking sheet. She wore an apron. Baking was something his mom used as an outlet for her stress. Joey could always tell when his mom had a bad day because she would turn the stove on, get the apron out, and pull out her to-be-tried recipes. During days when the weather had been too wet or too cold, she'd also spent time baking with Chris. She'd never done that with Joey.

Jenny stood at the counter with a couple of young teen girls. They poured flour and other ingredients into a large mixing bowl.

Other young teens and some older teens sat around the dining room table or on the floor up against the two back walls out of the way of the baking. A young teen girl with braces smiled shyly at Joey. A boy with a sullen expression said, "Mrs. Gander, Joey's awake."

Joey's immediate impulse was to ask the guy who'd made him watch commander, but he curbed the words. No matter what was going on, he had the definite impression that a smart-alecky remark wasn't going to be a good idea.

His mom turned to face him. Flour marked one of her cheeks and her bangs. "Good morning, Joey."

Joey nodded.

"We have company," his mom said.

"Yeah," he said sourly. "I kind of got that."

His mom hesitated, then looked over at jenny, who was looking back at her. "Jenny, could you talk to Joey and explain things?"

Jenny smiled. "Sure. You've got another batch of cookie dough ready here."

"Good."

Jenny wiped her hands on a dishtowel. "We'll need some more flour and sugar before we make another batch. We scraped the bottom of the canisters to get this one."

"Okay." His mom nodded, already making decisions the way she did when she got on a mission. At least, that was what Goose called it when his mom got into the get-it-done-yesterday mode. "We'll work on peanut brittle next. I was planning to make some for Easter, so I have the necessary ingredients. Maybe Joey can go to the commissary for flour and sugar later." His mom looked at him. "You wouldn't mind, would you, Joey?"

He didn't answer at first, too stunned to reply. Chris had vanished, Goose was in a border war, and she was baking with juvenile delinquents from all over Fort Benning. "Sure. I don't mind." But he did mind. He just couldn't tell her that.

"Let's go, Joey." Jenny looped her arm through his in a manner that was just too familiar after everything they had been through last night. She pulled him after her toward the utility room off the kitchen.

Joey reluctantly followed her, suddenly resenting the fact that Jenny was still in his house. At me same time, he knew from the looks on the faces of most of the teenaged boys in the kitchen that he was the envy of them all with jenny on his arm.

Jenny led him through the small utility room and out the back door. They stood on the covered back porch amid the ceramic pots that would hold plants and flowers a month or two from now.

If things ever get normal again.

The outside temperature was still cold enough that Joey could see his own breath for just an instant before it faded away.

"I know things must be confusing for you right now," Jenny said.

"Hey," Joey said hotly, "contrary to popular opinion, I'm not exactly a little kid." The anger and resentment got away from him before he could contain it. "So you can save the baby talk."

Jenny took a step back and wrapped her arms around herself. "What's wrong with you?"

"Me?" Joey couldn't believe it. "It's not me, Jenny." He waved toward the house. "My house is filled with people I don't even know. I can't even talk to my mom without somebody hearing me."

Jenny's eyes narrowed. "Those are kids that your mom is counseling. All of them are missing their parents, brothers, or sisters. None of them had anywhere to turn."

"So they have to show up at my house?"

"That's kind of selfish, don't you think?"

"Selfish?"

"Yeah. I think them showing up here says a lot for the kind of person your mom is."

"They're in my house!"

Glancing over her shoulder, jenny said, "Why don't you try to keep your voice down."

"Because I don't want to," Joey said, exasperated. "This is stupid! My little brother disappeared last night! I thought my mom was going to totally freak out! " He let out a pent-up breath because his lungs were suddenly too full to breathe. "I get up this morning, she's got a houseful of strangers. And she's baking cookies like everything is all right. Everything is not all right! "

"Your mom is just trying to help those kids." Jenny eyed him deliberately.

"She's my mom. Not theirs."

"I don't think you realize what has happened here, Joey. These disappearances, they happened all around the world. A lot of people are scared. A lot more than just those kids in your house."

"That's not my problem."

"It's a good thing we're not all as narrow-minded as you are." "Good for who?"

"Those kids in there need help, Joey."

Unable to stand still any longer, Joey stepped off the porch. He gazed at the flower beds, remembering all the times he'd chased baseballs into them when he and Goose had played catch back there. The tire swing that Chris loved so much still hung from the tree above the covered sandbox he had helped Goose build three summers ago.

This was his house. His yard. And he had been invaded.

"Russia is threatening war," Jenny said. "They think the United States is somehow responsible for all the disappearances. It's all over the news." She paused. "Are you listening to me?"

Joey wheeled on her from halfway out into the backyard. "What are you still doing here, jenny?"

"I'm helping your mom."

"Last night you seemed like you were in a hurry to get home."

Jenny's voice turned cold and measured. "Last night," she stated, "I offered to come here and help you because your dad is over in Turkey, probably fighting for his life, and to be with you when you picked up your little brother. The only time I was ever in a hurry to get away from you was when I found out you'd been lying to me."

Tears burned at the backs of Joey's eyes but he refused to shed them. "Why are you here now, Jenny?"

"Because your mom could use some help. Because she asked me if I would help her if I didn't have anything better to do." "And you don't?"

Jenny was quiet for a moment. Her lower lip quivered for just an instant, then stilled. Her gaze turned cold and distant. "No, Joey, I don't have anything better to do. I live with my dad. He's an alcoholic. My mom couldn't take it anymore, so she ran away. At least, that's the excuse she used for leaving us when I was fifteen. I've put myself through school since then, got my dad up and going so it took him longer to finally get fired from jobs that he stopped showing up late to." She took a breath. "I started to work at McDonald's when I was sixteen because somebody needed to pay the rent in those crummy apartments where we lived. I work at Kettle 0' Fish to pay the rent in the crummy apartment where we live now. We've lived in that apartment for over two years. That's the longest I've ever lived in any one place."

Joey stared at her, not knowing what to say.

"I have to hide my money around the house because my dad will spend it on alcohol and beer if he finds it. These days, since I've been able to pay the bills, my dad works less and less. I don't go to college because it would cost too much. I change jobs a lot because sooner or later my dad will find out where I work and come in there drunk and cause a scene."

"Jenny, I-"

up, Joey! " Her voice was fierce. "I don't want to hear 'I'm sorry.' I get that enough from my dad. 'I'm sorry doesn't pay the bills or put food on the table or give me back any of my self-respect." She paused.

Joey let the silence stretch between them, not knowing what to say. He got the distinct feeling that whatever he said would only cause her to take his head off.

"Do you want to know why I don't date?" Jenny asked in a strained voice.

Joey didn't answer. Too much was coming at him at one time, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

"Because when I dated in the past," Jenny said, "I heard my dad say things to me I never thought he would say. Awful things, Joey. He accused me of stuff I didn't do. Stuff I don't do. He talks to me the way he used to talk to my mom. Only I'm not her; I can't yell back at him the way she did. And even if I did, things would just be worse. I watched each of them put the other in the emergency room when I was little. More than once."

"I didn't know," Joey whispered.

"Of course you didn't know," Jenny snapped. "I don't let anybody know. I don't want anybody to know. You look at me and all you see is a body. You don't even know me, but all of a sudden you're convinced you really like me, or maybe you're even falling in love with me." She let out a ragged breath. "But you don't know me. You don't even try to get to know me. You just like the way I look."

Embarrassment burned Joey's face.

"Guys come around and hit on me," Jenny said. "They think that I need them. I don't need them. I'm making it on my own. Maybe it's not anybody's dream world, but it's what I've got to live with."

Joey waited for a moment, wanting to make sure she was done. He knew he should just wait her out, wait until she went back into the house. Instead, he asked, "Why don't you leave?"

"Leave my dad?"

"Yeah."

"Because he's my dad," Jenny answered. "And because everyone else has left him. My mom. His parents and brothers and sister. His friends. Oh, he still has drinking buddies, but they only come around when he's got money and he's buying." She paused. "Kind of the same way guys come around me because they like what they see and not because of who I am."

"Nobody should have to live like that." Joey thought he was being supportive, but judging from the look of reproach on jenny's face, she hadn't taken it that way.

"Grow up, Joey," she said. "It's not a perfect world. Sometimes you just have to take what life hands you. If I left my dad, he would die or end up in jail. I hate living with him, but I don't want that to happen." A single tear tracked down her cheek. "He's my father, Joey, and I'm not going to leave him. He's been left by too many people."

Joey shoved his hands into his pockets. His anger had wilted, but the pain inside him still resonated, stronger now because he could feel the pain inside jenny.

"And you're not the only one with a fake ID, Joey," she said. "I'm not twenty-three. I'm nineteen. So if I can handle this, I know you can." She nodded at the house. "I think your mom is a fantastic lady, but she has her hands full with those kids in there. She could use some help." She looked at him expectantly.

Joey stared back at her. "You lied to me. You told me you were twenty-three. "

"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"

"No, it isn't. If you hadn't lied to me, I would have never lied to you. And you don't know everything there is about living here."

"And what don't I know?"

Joey thought about the feelings he'd been having for months, about how Chris had seemed to consume the attentions of his mom and Goose, about how he had been relegated to the role of baby-sitter. The way his mom took in the kids who showed up at his house was a perfect case in point.

And now Jenny was using her own problems to try to make his seem insignificant. That was wrong. He was entitled to his feelings, and there was no denying how things had been around his house. Everybody had an excuse for why things had been that way. But in the end, that's all they were: excuses.

Disgusted, frustrated, and hurting, missing Chris, Joey turned away and threw an open hand back at her. "Forget about it, Jenny. It's not worth talking about." He walked away, heading toward the base, not knowing what he was going to do but knowing he couldn't stay there with all the pain and strangers inside his house.

He felt her eyes on his back for a long time, but when he turned around a couple blocks away, she wasn't there. He kept walking, feeling more lost and alone than he ever had.

United States 75th Rangers 3rd Battalion Field Command Post 35 Klicks South of Sanliurfa, Turkey Local Time 1542 Hours The world hung suspended from a single strand as thin as a gossamer spider web above the gleaming jaws of death.