Anya was lost in her own head for a moment. ‘You can't ask her to be honest and not be honest yourself,' she thought. Then out loud, “Actually, I used to be a model."

"THAT I believe," Jane said. Anya was a true beauty.

"I started when I was fifteen. I went to Italy, Spain, France, New York, Los Angeles . . . I was on every runway from here to Neverland, and it was a non-stop party. Literally non-stop. At first, everything was great. My agency and the clothing designers gave me everything I ever wanted. Money, cars, boys and girls to ‘play’ with, clothes, jewels . . . and in exchange, I made whatever it was designed Look good and sell well. Life was a continuous party." Anya paused and collected her thoughts.

"And that might sound great to some people, but it took a lot of energy. I had a serious cocaine habit by the time I was eighteen . . . my agents and ‘friends' wouldn't let me near heroine because I couldn't afford to get needle-marks on my arms.

Between the coke and the alcohol and trying to keep my image up, I would go for days without sleep. There were entire weeks of my life I couldn't remember. And not only did no one stop me, they kept egging me on. I was the life of the party, and it was killing me."

"I'm so sorry," Jane said.

"Don't apologize for me," Anya said crisply. Then her voice softened.

"I embraced that life with open arms, so I need to accept a lot of the blame. But then I woke up one day in a bed with two guys whose names I couldn't remember after a night I had forgotten in hotel I couldn't identify and didn't know how I got to. I knew I had to stop.

I tried to get my agency to give me some time off . . . to let me go into rehab. But they kept putting it off . . . booking me for new locations and new gigs. I felt like I was dying from the inside out, and they kept pushing me. I couldn't get away. One day, I ran away. Kind of like you I guess. I just wanted to disappear."

"And you did?" Jane asked.

"Not right away. I hitchhiked up her from L.A. and wandered the streets. My resolve broke down pretty quickly, and I started Looking for a fix. I was in the process of offering up a blowjob to one dealer when . . . well, when I was saved."

“The Strays?"

Anya smiled, mostly for her own benefit.

“Yeah. Actually, it was Red and Robbie. They had just gotten done cleaning out a nest of some kind of larvae demon when they happened upon me making the deal. I was on my knees and that creep was unzipping his pants . . . shit Jane. I shouldn't be bringing this up with you."

“It's my turn to say, ‘It's okay.’ Victor was a pig, but only because I let him be."

Anya wondered what Jane would say if she knew what Red had done to the girl's ex-landlord. Anya suspected he still had a number of broken bones and nightmares on a regular basis due to that red-haired woman.

“Well, Red and Robbie came out of nowhere, morphed out, roughed the guy up and tossed him in a dumpster. Then Red looked down on me, and . . . she said, ‘You can live on your knees, or you can stand up . . . right now . . . and come with us.' And despite everything I had told myself about wanting to start over, standing up at that moment was the hardest thing I ever did."

"But you DID stand." Jane was sympathetic and more than a bit teary -eyed. She was trying to learn to stand on her own as well.

"I was freaked, but yeah. I finally got up, the Strays took me in and the rest is history. Shit! Stop!"

The two girls had gotten so caught up in talking that they had reached the edge of the city, or at least the end of the area where Jane could move freely without fear of being detected. They were on the east side of town, and could see the Inland Bridge off through the trees.

"Just Like Ben said," Jane murmured.

“Let's go back to Chris and Robbie," Anya said.

"They'll be worried."

A few minutes later...