Erin turns on the lamp and twists on the bed, contorting until she's as comfortable as she's going to get on a mid-level hotel bed, no matter how strange the position looks. "You are not going to believe the nightmares I've been having," she says to K.B.. K.B. looks at her without saying a word, so Erin goes on. "No, seriously. I have these nightmares whenever we travel that everyone on every team is the same. Not the same from team to team, but the same on their team, you know? Like everyone in Seattle is LJ and really touchy-feely. Or everyone in LA is Lisa Leslie, and they're all really the same. And everyone here… well, except for me… is Becky. I think I've been watching too many B movies. Should never have let Loree talk me into watching 'Attack of the Clones' late at night."

K.B. still hasn't said anything. "Cat got your tongue? Wait. That didn't come out the way I meant. Not that you and Cat would ever- or have any reason to- why did I even go down that road? I don't want to know. But it's all really weird. I feel like I'm the only normal one left. Okay, I guess you're normal too. Stop staring at me like that, I don't know if it means you agree or disagree, or if you want to agree or disagree. You're impossible."

But K.B. just watches, her expression distant and a little sad. Erin laughs nervously and almost reaches out a hand, but she stops herself, because that's really not the kind of relationship she's going for. "I know I'm usually the talkative one, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Just answer me, would you? Because we just went to Indiana and I dreamed everyone on the Fever was Catch, and they weren't wearing hearing aids, so none of them said anything to us or heard anything from us, and everyone else was talking a lot of trash because everyone else in the dream was Becky except for me, so this is starting to creep me out and why won't you…

"Why won't you say anything?!" Erin gasps for air, sitting bolt upright in the soft, soft bed in her dark hotel room. Her roommate, an indistinct lump of shimmering blonde hair and thick shoulders under the fleece blanket, doesn't stir. Erin's learned not to worry herself about Laurie, or the rest of the Liberty. By now, if something happens in the middle of the night and starts to wake Loree, somewhere Becky will take control and Laurie will turn over and go back to sleep as if nothing's happened at all.

There's a lot missing on this team that they had before, even with all the losses: Loree's strength, Cat's wry sense of humor, Sherill's energy, Ashley's quick wit, Shameka's effervescence, Barbara's maternal fussiness. She got through it the first couple of years with phone calls and e-mails, keeping her lines of communication open with her former teammates, no matter how little they had known each other in New York.

But now… she shudders, even under the heavy blanket, at the image clear as day from this evening's game at Conseco: all of the Fever players, silent in their pinstriped home whites, all of them identical, brown-skinned and mute, watching the Liberty with undisguised hatred. She remembers, even if she'd like to forget, the woman in K.B.'s jersey and K.B.'s defensive stance, the woman with Catchings's face and Catchings's desperately pleading eyes. She'd like to forget the sudden nauseating wrench of recognizing the fall of Indiana, but she'll carry it with her as long as she lives.

Her carry-on bag, packed for tomorrow's flight, glows faintly in the darkness of the room. She rolls out of bed to see what it wants. Her phone, in the outside pocket, shows that she has a text message from K.B.

She doesn't even skim the preview text in the menu. She deletes it unread. She knew K.B. Sharp, but she doesn't know Tamika Catchings, and she doesn't talk to strangers. These days, that means she doesn't talk to anyone.

It'll be a long night, but not as long as tomorrow, or the night after that. Erin pulls her blanket over her head and waits for the morning to come.