Written in 22 minutes.

Robin Scorpio blinked blearily at the medical journal spread out over the table table. She had read this paragraph six times and the odds were in her cousin hadn’t burst into the break room, she might have gone for seven.

“Have you been outside?” Nadine Crowell demanded, her blue eyes flashing with worry.

Robin stared at her for a long moment. “I’m a resident. I don’t get to see natural light unless it’s a special occasion.”

Nadine rolled her eyes. “God, it’s always medicine with you. There are more important things in this world—”

“Yes, there are,” Robin said. “But this is the little corner of the world I get to control. Was there an accident? Is there a blizzard?”

“Oh, for—” Nadine roughly pulled out a chair and sat across from her. “Thunder. Lightening. Three quick cracks of it.”

“Oh.” Robin sat back and idly ran her fingers over the pentagram in her palm. “I guess that answers the question.”

“Yeah, I guess it does. Because the only reason Liz would ever come home is if the mark came back.” Nadine peered down at her own hand. “Your mom call from Italy yet?”

“No.”

The day the marks had returned, Robin and Nadine had taken their questions to the only woman who might have answers.

They were descendants of Filomena Soltini, the strong-willed woman who had married an American GI who had fought in the war. She’d returned with her husband to Port Charles and had raised three daughters. Anna, Maria, and Graziella.

Only Anna was left.

“Did you get the sense that Aunt Anna wasn’t….” Nadine bit her lip. “That she wasn’t exactly surprised?”

Robin looked away and shrugged. “I guess. Maybe she wasn’t. I thought it was mostly that…well, I know she says Aunt Maria and Aunt Gracie didn’t—that it wasn’t because of the mark.”

“She said they didn’t have it.”

“That Nona and her sister had broken the curse, yeah. But…” Robin bit her lip. “Maybe she wanted to believe that.”

“I think she knew,” Nadine announced.

“Bullshit—”

“I think she knew something. C’mon. You know the way this works. How powerful the number three is. Three girls born on the third day of the third month?” Nadine rolled her eyes. “What are the odds that those three are cousins?”

“Nadine…”

“And then the mark comes back on our twenty-fifth birthday. We only have Nona’s word for it that she broke the curse. Maybe she thought she did. Maybe she was lied to.”

“If there are answers to be found, Mom will find them. And besides, we don’t have to worry as much,” Robin replied. “It’s childbirth that starts the clock, and neither one of us has kids.”

Nadine tapped her fingers against the table. “Do you think Liz—”

“She would have told us.”

“No, she wouldn’t have,” her cousin said softly. “Because neither of us have heard a single word from her since she left. And if it weren’t this—” She held up her palm. “She wouldn’t be back.”

“We don’t know that she is back—”

“I think that if this mark showed up and Liz already had a kid or was pregnant, that’d be why.” Nadine lifted her chin. “And if she is here, you’re going to be nice to her.”

“Hey.” Robin closed her journal. “Liz made her choices. If she’s here to figure this out, we’ll do that. But she left.”

“She left for good reasons—”

“And she’s only back because she needs something. Typical of her.” Robin got to her feet. “I have to get back to work.”

“God, you’re such a brat,” Nadine muttered. She glanced down at her pager. “I gotta go, too. Pip needs me at the nurse’s station. Be nice—”

Robin wrinkled her nose as her cell phone rang. She looked down and frowned at the return number. Morgan’s Auto. Why was Emily’s brother…?

“Hello?”

“Robin?”

Robin closed her eyes at the sound of her cousin’s voice. “Elizabeth.”

“Hey. I’m sorry. You…I didn’t know Nadine’s number. I, um…I’m here. In Port Charles.”

“And at Morgan’s Auto. You work quick.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Robin wanted to snatch them back, but there was no use. The silence was deafening.

“My car broke down.” Elizabeth’s voice was quiet when she finally spoke. “I’m going to check into the Econo-Lodge across the street—”

“You don’t have to do that,” Robin said. “We should stick together right now—”

“I’ll call you when I know what room I’m in. Goodbye.”

“Damn it,” Robin muttered as she stared at the phone. She’d go find Nadine and tell her to take off work, to get someone to cover. That’s what she should do.

But old habits died hard, so Robin put the phone in her pocket and went back to work.

——

Several blocks away, Elizabeth handed Jason back the phone. “Thanks for the loan.”

“Not a problem.” Jason took it. “Robin or Nadine coming by to get you?”

“Oh.” Elizabeth lifted Cameron into her arms and slid her purse over her shoulder. “No. I’m going to check into the motel across the street. Um…” She eyed the car where her suitcases were still tucked in the trunk.

“When you’re settled in and your phone is charged,” Jason said, “give me a call. I’ll bring your stuff to your room.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Elizabeth began.

“It’s not a problem.”

“I like your truck,” Cameron said as he sleepily rubbed his face in her shoulder. “I got one, too.” He held up the small plastic truck Elizabeth had retrieved from a bag.

“Yeah? Looks just like mine. Except mine doesn’t talk.”

“We better get going. He needs a nap.” She started for the door and turned back. “Thank you. I mean it. I’ll call when I know my room number.”

She left him behind, along with most of her worldly possessions and started across the street, hoping that she wasn’t wrong. That this time…her intuition wasn’t steering her the wrong way.

She didn’t think she’d be able to survive it again.

+1

Written in 40 minutes.

Port Charles, New York, was one of those kinds of cities whose residents thought of themselves as living in a small town with a lot of people.

Located on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, the city did a great deal of bustling trade and saw tourists passing through into Canada. Nearly fifty thousand people lived inside the city limits proper, and another twenty scattered throughout the suburbs.

And only one highway that ran through the entire city—Highway 51. Whether you were entering east or west, you took 51 in and out. And no one generally came in from the south. In or out, one way.

And now, sitting in her busted and smoking 1996 Dodge Plymouth Breeze with its rusted vomit-green paint, Elizabeth Webber remembered why.

This area was rural, the cell phone towers were almost non existent, and no one apparently drove around here for hours at a time.

“Mommy.”

She twisted in her seat to find her three-year-old son blearily rubbing his eyes. “Baby?”

“Don’t wanna sit here anymore.”

“I know, Cam.” She sighed and faced forward again, staring at the empty road and the vast swathes and wheat fields on either side. Jesus, you’d think she was somewhere in the middle of Kansas and not upstate New York.

“Someone’s coming.”

She hoped.

Her cell signal had been dim at best and she’d left a message with the mechanic recommended by a Google Search. An hour ago. Her gas was running low and the air conditioning in her car wasn’t more than a dim breeze at best.

She should have stayed in Ohio. Or Oregon. Or Idaho. Or any of the hundred places she had lived in the last seven years since she’d left home.

“You can’t go home again,” she murmured. “There’s a reason for that.”

“Mommy?”

His voice was doing that wind up whine that she dreaded. Once Cameron hit that point—once he slid over the edge between cranky and temper, calming him down took more than just hugs and kisses.

And after hours of driving, she wasn’t sure she had the energy.

Though she had hadn’t had a great deal of energy since the week before when she had woken up, washed her hands…

And saw the pentagram on the inside of her palm.

She looked at it now, the small purplish birthmark with which she had been born. All women in her family were born with the mark, and most were lucky if it disappeared in the first five years. Hers had. So had her cousins.

And when it went away, you were allowed to live your life. To breathe. To be free.

If it stayed…well there wasn’t much point in doing any of that.

Her mark had faded by her fifth birthday, but here it was, twenty years later as bright as she had ever remembered it.

So she’d come home to Port Charles.

A blur appeared on the horizon—and then it crystallized into a truck. As it drew closer, she could see the swinging tow hook. The driver pulled to a stop and then spent a good five minutes reversing and arranging his car until he had pulled in front of her.

“I’m going to talk to the tow guy, Cam, k?” She pushed open her door, grimaced as it swung right back at her.

In front of her, a broad-chested man with sandy blond hair cut short stepped out of the truck. He wore a pair of dark blue jeans and a gray uniform shirt, a name patch in white stitched across his left shoulder. She couldn’t read the name from here.

She finally managed to get out of the car. “Hey. From Morgan’s Auto?”

“Yeah. Sorry about the delay.” He approached her, a hand extended. His mouth was unsmiling but his blue eyes were friendly, and something about the lack of a friendly, insincere smile set her at ease. “I don’t normally open on Sundays, but—”

Which meant there’d be extra charges. “Oh. I’m sorry. The web site was—” She managed an irritated laugh. “I didn’t even look at the hours. I’m…” She gestured back at the car where Cameron’s booster seat was visible in the back seat. “With my son.”

“I figured I’d come out and make sure you were okay. Jason Morgan.”

“Elizabeth Webber.” She shook his hand, ignored the tingle, and took her hand back quickly. He was cute—okay, hot, she admitted—but she didn’t have the patience for her…gift to assert itself at the moment.

“We were driving—plenty of gas. And then I couldn’t steer. It started to smoke, so I pulled over.” She pressed the button to open the hood, and he disappeared underneath.

Elizabeth unstrapped Cameron and lifted him out of the car. “Hey, want something from the cooler?”

“No.” He laid his head on her shoulder and looked ahead. “That’s a truck, Mommy.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“It looks like Mater.”

“Yep.”

“I like Mater.”

“I know you do.”

“Where’s my Mater truck?”

“Somewhere in your bag, sweetie.” Elizabeth rocked him slowly, relieved that the cranky whine was gone. Trucks always distracted him.

“Alternator belt is busted.” Jason stepped back from under the hood, wiping his hands on a rag he had pulled from his back pocket. “I’m going to need to tow it into town.”

All of the energy slid out of her at that statement. She didn’t want any of this. She didn’t want to be back.

She didn’t want this mark on her palm telling her how little future she had left. She didn’t want to call her cousins. Not like this.

After a moment, Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Okay. I, ah, I don’t—” She tried to think how long it would take for someone to pick her up, but she hadn’t talked to her family in so long. “No one is…it’s a surprise I’m coming, so I don’t know…”

“Okay.” He studied her for a long moment and she looked away, uncomfortable with his direct gaze. “Why don’t I drive you into town? You and your son. I’m downtown, near the hospital.”

The hospital. That was lucky.

And yet..she hesitated.

Cameron lifted his head to peer at Jason. “You a man.”

“Yes, I am,” Jason responded simply as if it weren’t a silly question asked by a tired toddler.

“Don’t like man,” he mumbled. “Man mean.”

Her stomach twisted as she met and then looked away from Jason’s understanding eyes. She didn’t want to be understood.

She wanted to get rid of the mark and get on her with her life.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said, directing his words to the little boy.

Cameron frowned at him, as if confused by the somber tone. “You not mad.”

“Why would I be?”

“I appreciate the offer,” Elizabeth jumped in before Cameron could tell him why exactly kindness from men was such an rarity. “I’m just…I’m not sure how long before my cousins could come get us.”

“I get it.” He waited a moment. “Your car isn’t drivable, Ms. Webber. I can take it into my place. We can wait for your cousins—”

“Can we drive in Mater?” Cameron interrupted.

Jason turned and squinted at his truck before looking back at Cameron. But he didn’t answer the boy—seemed to understand that Elizabeth might still say no and any promise to the little boy would only exacerbate the situation.

“We can drive in Mater,” Elizabeth said. She thought he was a safe, good man, but she’d never been able to read her gift all that well.

Still, maybe it was better now. More accurate now that the mark was better.

“Okay.”

Jason helped Elizabeth arrange the booster seat in the backseat of his pickup truck, and then he stowed a few of her bags in the backseat. While Elizabeth was strapping in Cameron, he hooked up her car.

Ten minutes later, they were on their way into Port Charles.

“You said you have family here?” Jason asked.

“Yeah. Um, cousins. Some aunts and uncles.” She glanced at him. “Did you grow up here?”

“Yeah. Port Charles High. Graduated…” He squinted. “Ten years ago.”

“I went to St. Andrews. Seven years since I graduated. Um, how far from the hospital are you? My cousin works there—”

“About two blocks. My sister is a resident there. Emily Morgan, maybe she knows—”

That’s why the name had leapt off the Google results, and relief spread through her. “My cousin is Robin Scorpio. She’s mentioned your sister.”

“Okay, yeah. Robin. That means Nadine is—”

“Also my cousin.” And the bane of her existence. She had never seen eye to eye with the flighty woman. Had been happy to leave her in the dust seven years ago.

“They don’t know you’re coming?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” Elizabeth murmured.

And then they crossed the city limits, past the “Welcome to Port Charles!” sign.

The blue June skies exploded into dark angry thunderclouds and three quick flashes of lightening.

And then it was gone. The blue skies returned.

Jason slammed on his brakes. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Yeah.”

So much for a surprise.

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