"Julie, Look out!!" Wendy screamed, just as Clark and Polanski took Kevin firmly by both arms, shouting in his ear over the whistling roar of the fireworks.

Julie clearly didn't hear her. Wendy hurried forward again, but the terrified horse charged past her, nearly knocking her flat. Julie looked up and dived to the ground at the last second. The horse raced past. Julie raised herself up on her elbows and looked around. The T-post at the end of the horse's rope was moving towards her, point first. She ducked, and it spun over her head, but the rope caught her across the neck and wrapped around. Julie choked as she was jerked backward and dragged behind the horse.

"No!" Wendy screamed. "Kevin. Stop that horse!"

Another firework went off, causing the horse to change direction once again. The rope slackened around Julie's neck, and she tried to pull the rope away, but before she could get it off, the horse charged away again, and the loop of rope tightened around her arm as well as her neck. Screaming in pain and fear, Julie saw an antique hay bailer that she was being dragged into.

"Julie!" Kevin cried. He turned and took the saber from a Minutema. He ran, cutting the rope with the sword. Julie came to a stop only inches from the hay bailer. Julie gagged and choked, trying to regain her breath.

Wendy, Amber and Perry ran to Julie and crowded around her. Wendy knelt beside Julie and lifted her head into her lap. "Julie," she said. "Are you okay?"

Julie's face was sweaty and pale with high, red blotches on her paper white cheeks. She clutched weakly at the left side of her chest, gasping. "I need..." she whispered through clenched teeth. "Meds... My purse...”

"Shit," Wendy cursed, looking all around them. "Where's Julie's purse?"

"She must have dropped it," Amber said.

"Run back to where you were standing and see if you can find her purse. Quickly now."

"Julie," Wendy said. "Stay with me Jules. Come on, I need you to keep breathing."

Another firework exploded directly overhead, drowning out the end of her sentence.

Perry appeared at that moment, triumphant with Julie's tacky, pink, plastic purse. "I found it," she said. "Julie, Wendy, I found the purse!" Wendy didn't get to respond. Before she could, a brass eagle erupted from Perry's sternum, covering Julie and Wendy with blood and bits of bone. The pink purse slipped from her fingers and fell into the bloody dirt.

Wendy shook her head and snapped herself forcibly out of it. Reaching for the purse, she began frantically sorting through the mess inside. Julie was always so disorganized. Wendy tossed aside gum and lipstick, Julie's uncharged cellphone, pens, scraps of paper, crumpled receipts, keys, and a single condom in a bright foil wrapper. Condom? Wendy couldn't help but think. Why would Julie need a condom?

Finally, at the very bottom of the bag, Wendy's fingers found the orange plastic vial that held Julie's emergency meds. She pawed at the childproof cap, struggling to open the damn thing until finally it popped open, spilling the pills in the grass around her knees. She scrabbled for one and then another and forced them between Julie's bluish lips.

"Swallow," Wendy said. "Come on, you need your meds, Julie."

Julie obediently dry swallowed the pills and for a few moments, the two of them were alone in the still eye of the storm.

"Are you okay?" Wendy asked, stroking Julie's sweaty hair.

Julie didn't respond. Her breathing was calming, but she couldn't take her eyes from Perry.

"Julie," Wendy said again, shaking her sister. "Look at me."

Julie turned her head to look up into Wendy's face and gripped Wendy's hand. For all her sexy clothes and make-up, and her precocious attitude, she looked exactly like she had when she was five, getting ready to be wheeled in for a new round of surgeries and clutching at Wendy's fingers.