Disorientation gripped me as I shifted on a surface that wasn't solid. I was laid out on my side. The darkness my eyes fluttered open to was complete, uninterrupted, further increasing my confused state. It was hard to think past the heartbeat throbbing in my head. Where... am I?

There were voices. My hand went to my head when my pulse slowed. I could hear more of what was going on. I think the voices must have been talking for a while, the discussion taking place beneath me, though I couldn't put them into a timeline that made any sense. Had I been sleeping? Did I just wake up? No, no I had been awake for a while, possibly.

The voices are downstairs, and I am upstairs, back at the house. This is my pillow, I identified the soft lump my legs were wrapped around. I was on my bed. Why was it so dark?

And why did I feel so... A shudder shook my entire body, core deep, and a light sweat broke out, inducing goose bumps and more shivering. I was cold, but I was also hot. My mouth was parched. I wasn't sure if I had to pee or vomit. Come to think of it...throwing up...might make me feel better.

Coherent thinking was like forcing thought bubbles through a gelatinous mass of anti-thought pudding. One thought rose slowly after the next, disjointed, breaking the surface with an almost audible pop. Ugh, what was wrong with me? Did I have the flu?

A stab of nausea shot through my middle and I wretched and curled in on myself, wrapping my arms around the pillow in a desperate hug.

The voices were becoming angry. The heated discussion broke off when a yelp of agony escaped me—another stab, but higher this time in my chest. I held the pillow to my face, biting it as I waited for the wave of pain to crest, then wash away. The house became silent, except for my harsh respiration.

"Aurora?" Someone called out from somewhere close. Inhaling in frustration, the struggle to lift my head eased when I realized my hair was pinned under my arm. I finally got free enough to sit upright, still clinging to the pillow—and I found myself staring up into a cloudless storm. What in the...?

Fear seized me as the absolute black was sliced by ribbons of light, white-hot arcs of power streaked in jagged, soundless, erratic patterns. A storm indoors. It was impossible. It was irrational. It was terrifying. I threw my pillow at it and sprang away, bare feet hammering across the floor as I fled.

I was jerked to a sudden halt when a blanket was thrown over my head and arms wrapped around my waist. Breathing hard but not fighting it, I dangled in mid-air and reached out, fingers touching something solid inches away from my nose; he had caught me before I ran headfirst into the wall.

He said my name again, telling me that things were going to be okay, given time. His voice was muffled as the sound of my pounding heart filled my ears.

"Alex?" I said as the blanket shifted, and he lowered me until my feet found the floor.

Turning in his arms, I hugged his waist through the blanket, just now recognizing it as the sheet from my bed—not the slippery blanket from the other night. The cotton fabric was a cool, dry whisper across my skin.

His voice was better heard as a vibration in his chest as he tightened his arms to press me close. "I must have been gone for way too long if you're mistaking me for the sodden one."

Micah. "Micah, you're back?"

He grunted when my grip on him squeezed. "You found me in the woods."

His chest expanded, inhaling, when my hold loosened. "You say that as if you think it was a dream." His voice wavered some.

I could smell his apprehension, spicy hot, through the sheet. He was worried about something, the emotion overwhelming the anger leftover from arguing, presumably with Indy.

"It could have been a dream. I dream about you all the time."

"All the time?" he echoed, and I nodded against the sheet, wanting it away from my face.

But I couldn't locate a way out. I must touch him, the thought came to the surface, the need to break free building to desperation even as I went on to tell him that ever since the rescue in New Mexico, my subconscious was stuck on him. I can't fall asleep without seeing his face behind my eyelids.

"What's with the sheet over my head?" My frustration finally burst on the tail end of a painful shudder that took my breath away.

My heart. It was beating with that hard rhythm again, and as I sagged in Micah's arms, he scooped me up and took me over to the bed. He sat me on the edge and kept an arm around my waist because there was no other way to position me; I simply refused to let go of him.

"I want to touch you," I rasped through the pain raking my chest. "I want to see you. Micah, please!"

"Aurora, you need to calm down. I don't think seeing me now will help with that."

"Why not?"

"It just...it just won't—" His voice broke, and he swallowed hard.

Making an angry sound, I let go of him and struggled against the bed sheet, successfully ripping it away as he said in a strangled voice, "I'm frightening—" Finding fresh air, my heart gave one last forceful beat, and then settled.

"—to you," he finished disjointedly as I watched a jagged brightness lick up the side of Micah's face and disappeared into his tangled hairline. "My elemental nature—I am what frightens you."

Against the total darkness of the room, the arcs of electricity that snaked around him from one second to the next lit up his profile. His body glowed with it.

I took my bottom lip between my teeth and held very, very still, watching it all for a while. He sat there with his eyes down. The longer we stayed like that, quietly breathing while my heart sought out an easier rhythm, the better I started to feel. He, too, seemed to be finding a state of calm, although it was tentative.

"The electricity," I finally spoke, and he started, as if anticipating the words would slap him. "The electricity spills over when something makes you angry," I finished gently.

He nodded without raising his eyes.

"It lessens to nothing when the anger fades?"

"It does," he was finally able to say.

"I am not afraid of you."

The corner of his mouth twitched as if he didn't believe me, so I shifted closer. I leaned against him and noticed that he was sitting on his hands. The shirt he wore was long-sleeved and prevented skin- to-skin contact, otherwise he wouldn't have allowed me to get so close. He doesn't want to touch me directly. He's afraid it'll be too much.

"I am not afraid," I said with more conviction. I was beginning to get mad. "Sure, I'm a total flake when it storms. I am phobic, but I'm not foolish."

The statement got his attention. That and the fact I was now gripping his shirt. The material was stiffer than I expected. Was he wearing a coat? My fingers came across a grouping of small shapes sewn on the sleeve. Uniform badges?

"A person who is afraid of snakes shouldn't be afraid of the man who charms them without fear. Concurrently, it would be foolish of a person who is afraid of storms to fear someone who handles them. Because that is what you are, right? A manipulator of lightning?"

This time when I tried to slip my arms around him, he let me. He even put an arm around my shoulders, although he kept his hand from contacting any exposed skin.

"I have no reason to be afraid of you."

"No reason?" Micah mumbled when I turned to lean my head against his chest.

He settled his chin on my hair. Apparently that was okay, deemed safe, and as a shudder broke over me when my heart took another spell, my guardian pulled me close. He held me together during the few minutes it took to pass, and toward the end, he was holding one of my hands. The dwindling electricity snapped harmlessly between our entwined fingers.

"It kind of tickles," I commented weakly. I held our hands up, weary, but fascinated.

Each soft snap was a visible flash in the dark. Only the glow of his eyes remained in the calm darkness his emotions had settled into. They were a beautiful purple lit from behind as he looked up from our hands.

"I missed you." He smiled, and I brought our hands to my face, resting my cheek against them. "I wanted to call you every night, but it wasn't allowed."

"They have cell phone service on the astral plane?"

A light chuckle vibrated against me as he joked, "Yeah, running water and electricity, too."

"Um, isn't the electricity thing a given?"

"My gods, you don't know how good you are for me," he said, laughing without holding back now, as he finally seemed to relax.

I could see it in his eyes, his adoration for me. He truly appreciated the way just being with me soothed him, treasured it even.

His amusement faded until it was a diminished rumbling in his chest. I drew strength from it, even as the pain of my fitful heartbeat continued to seize me over and over as the night went on.

He laid me back on the bed with the covers pushed away. He left my side only once to raise the shades covering the windows, letting the orange industrial glow in. My eyesight was back to normal. Apparently placing me in a dark room had given my eyes the opportunity to relax and readjust.

Watching as he returned to the bed, the smile I gave him was feeble, reflective of how awful I felt. I took a hold of his coat sleeve when he unbuttoned and shrugged it off to place it over the headboard. He wore a T-shirt underneath. Now that there was light, I could see the coat had a metallic sheen, possibly bronze. I asked if it was a uniform of some sort, and he told me it was the official garb of those who trained in the ways of guardianship. His answer made me wonder about Spatula Guy's clothing. Had he been wearing a guardian uniform?

"It has a cape?" I asked, my frail tone almost teasing as I tugged at an extra amount of material attached to the shoulders.

"It's not a cape. It's a mantle," Micah insisted as he sat back on the bed.

He touched the strap of my tank top, and with an unspoken thought pinching his eyes he asked if he could see how well my shoulder had healed.

Wincing, I wrapped hands around his wrist in slight alarm. I suddenly understood that he was aware of Thursday night's misadventure. He knew I left the valley. But how...?

Apparently, Alex's cousin had contacted Micah to let him know he needed to "get a better handle on his ward's tendency for wanderlust before it got her into deeper trouble." Bettihemae tattled on me? The corner of my eye twitched.

Sitting upright as the tremendous guilt of it rushed through me, I tried to apologize, however Micah would have none of it. Grasping my shoulders gently, he eased me back on the bed, saying that the only thing he was concerned with now was getting me through the night. Anything else could be discussed later.

"What's wrong with me? It isn't the flu, is it?" I focused on Micah's face when he shifted close to hover over me.

My breath stuttered as I gazed beyond his amethyst eyes into an immense reservoir of strength. It was pooled there, as if it was waiting for me. I could reach out and draw upon his strength, find relief in it. But only if he let me.

"All I was able to get out of Indy is that she gave you something," he replied.

I blinked once, still watching Micah's strength hovering, swirling, beckoning. "It's got to be the blue drink. She gave it to me earlier this evening, and then I started feeling..." Why was my aunt doing this to me? I lurched forward into another spasm, my gaze never wavering from Micah's.

"Take what you need from me," he insisted.

My need sprang forward to brush against his heart, making itself known to him. His hand found the back of my neck, and his head came down. We were nose to nose, his breath a warm invitation against my face.

My mouth moved, and I heard myself saying, "Your strength—I can tap into it..."

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Bettihemae "tattled" on Aurora?  Oh boy! Girl's gotta mind her own business, haha :D

VOTE if you know the feeling/wish people would mind their own affairs/keep their nose out of yours ;)