The next time that I opened my eyes, rays of sun were shining onto the bed through the unopened window and my skin felt warm. I must've fallen back to sleep when I rested on the mattress. I sat up, looking for the clock to see how long I'd been out. Damn. Two hours? Mom was going to be pissed. When I looked up, I saw that a post-it had been pasted to the door, full of Aiden's cursive.
Had my mom called him again to find out why I wasn't home?
I stood to get a closer look at the note. After just a couple of steps, and with no warning at all, my legs crumbled from beneath me. I fell to my knees, overtaken with the same pain I'd experienced earlier, multiplied by a thousand degrees.
Surges of white-hot flame burst from deep within me, working its way through as an agonizing trail, waiting for me to release its energy. I knew, without knowing from anything I'd ever experienced, that this was a part of my powers. It felt as though an outside force beyond my control was digging around my insides and tearing them away.
Becoming unbound had never hurt before—this was unnatural.
Something was wrong.
My body curled into itself at the center of the floor, and I couldn't move without knifes being stabbed into my flesh. Balling my hands into fists, I pressed them into my stomach, just below my ribcage, hoping that it would relieve the building pressure. Somehow, it was the right thing to do. The release was slow but powerful. The filmy white curtains blew with the breeze in the room, impossible with the window closed. Drawers rattled as though they were stuck, and sparks flew from the lamp on the nightstand beside the bed, though it hadn't been turned on.
None of that compared to the soft glow forming like a layer of compressed light hovering over my skin, rippling as though it was truly white fire.
"Hey, Nora, my dad said to tell you that your mother called forty-five minutes ago to say that she was expecting you a couple of hours—"
Nancy's voice stopped when she took in the scene within the room and her eyebrows arched high to disappear behind her hairline. She flew to my side with a mixture of concern and terror. Her hands hovered above me, obviously wanting to comfort but afraid to touch me. Whether it was to keep from causing me more pain or enduring her own, I couldn't tell.
"What's going on?"
"My powers..." I moaned and the overhead lights from the chandelier began to spark, the radiance I was emitting growing larger until it burst.
I felt a moment of calm as the luminosity of my skin dulled, then began to wretch.
Nancy grabbed a crystal bowl from off the fireplace mantle before placing it underneath me with seconds to spare as my stomach emptied itself. Glad not to have ruined her parents' high-end carpeting, it didn't dawn on me that I'd just tossed my cookies into an even more expensive dish. The seizure-like convulsions crippled me until long after my throat burned raw, and such rationalizations were beyond what my body could endure.
Giving in to her baser instincts now that I no longer appeared to be a fire hazard, Nancy rubbed my back in slow, soothing circles while I continued to heave.
My whole body hurt. My abilities had a mind of their own, too powerful for me to control. The pillows tore and feathers fluttered to the floor in a vision of white. Light bulbs shattered from the ceiling and inside of the shaded lamps. Even when I couldn't see through the bright light stemming from within my vision, I could smell the leftovers of the destruction I had caused. Acrid smoke and pulsating waves of unnatural heat made it hard to breathe, settling like ash on my tongue before burning through to my lungs.
"What the heck is going on in there?"
Nancy's parents, dressed in coordinating colors, arrived in the doorway of the guest room. Their eyes widened in shock and then narrowed onto our positions on the floor. Neither had a poker face to hide behind, their concern and disbelief at war within their expressions.
He cast a look to his wife and then darted his eyes back to us. "Nancy, what's going on?"
"I don't know, Dad. I walked in and Noreena was already on the floor, a—and... everything around us was either flying around or rattling and sparking. All she has managed to say is that it is her powers or something like that." She paused to look up at her parents but didn't remove her hand from my back. "This isn't normal, is it? Is this what she must deal with in order to use her power? If so, hurry the hell up and bind her. Please. She is in so much pain."
Her parents exchanged solemn looks and her mother brought herself down to the floor to sit with us.
"No, this is not normal. Noreena won't be in pain once her powers are restored," Aubrey-Lynn told her, though she shifted her gaze between us both. With total disregard for her designer pantsuit, she lifted my head onto her lap and stroked my hair out of my face. "This will pass, and her powers will be back. Then she won't be in pain. Not—" She sighed. "Not physically."
Aubrey-Lynn glanced back at Aiden and I knew there was something they were afraid to voice. The three of us sat there in silence, Nancy rubbing my back while Aubrey-Lynn continued to stroke my hair. The activity of the past ten minutes settled and the room, which had made me feel like I was relaxing in a spa, looked like a mosh pit had just been broken up.
A half hour later, I found my voice as the doorbell chimed downstairs, and Aiden went to investigate.
"I'm sorry about the room," I moaned. Dread filled my chest like a balloon of hot air was swelling with no room to expand. Tears pooled in my eyes, and I tried to blink them away. "I—I tried to stop. I did. It just kept coming and I—I couldn't keep control it through the pain. I'm sorry."
"Shh, it doesn't matter," Nancy said. "A room is just a room. Mom, what the hell is going on?"
"Nancy," Aiden called from the door. Although he didn't sound angry, it was clear that what he wanted wasn't up for discussion. I'd rather be forced to live a lifetime filled with the pain I had just endured than be made to join their conversation.
As it was, I knew I couldn't avoid taking a turn.
They went into the hall and closed the door. For the next five minutes, I tried to listen for their voices while Aubrey-Lynn used her other hand to rub my back as she continued to stroke my hair, but their whispers were too low to be heard. When they returned, it looked as though Nancy had begun crying, though she was trying to control her emotions. She switched positions with her mother and Aubrey-Lynn went to Aiden, once again making sure that they closed the door.
"What did your father say? Why are you crying?" Why wasn't I?
"Do you feel any better now? The pain—is it gone?" she asked. "Do you think that you could get up and come downstairs for a—a, uh, little while?"
"I guess, maybe. If you help me, I think I could stand up and try."
I motioned for her to take my arm and we stood together. Walking as though I was recuperating from a broken leg, and what seemed like a thousand baby steps following through with their promise for pain, I sat on the edge of the bed. My entire body was sore and tender, the discomfort worse than I imagined a shock therapy patient would be in after a session. I ran my hand down my face and forced myself to take a few cleansing breaths. Finally, I stood to face Nancy again, resolving to handle whatever came next as my mother would—with grace and the façade of an outer calm despite having my emotions torn to shreds.
"Maybe you should sit down? You don't look like you should be standing." Nancy fidgeted, looking over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door. Her parents had been out in the hall for a while. "Just sit back down until my parents are back, please."
"No, Nancy," I argued. My voice sounded strong, more authoritative with the added benefit of my powers. "Let's go."
"No."
Nancy moved to stand in front of the door, though we both knew that nothing she could do would stop me now that my powers were unbound. I raised my eyebrows and waited. Did she want to test me? Now?
Her parents chose that moment to re-enter the bedroom and looked between the two of us.
"Noreena, there are a couple of people downstairs who need to speak with you," Aubrey-Lynn said with a sniff. Her shimmering eyes were red and puffy, and the minimal make-up she'd been wearing was smeared.
Without saying a word, I nodded and took a step towards the hallway leading to the main staircase which would deposit us in the open foyer below. If the banister wasn't so sturdy, there's no way I could remain steady on my feet enough to avoid tumbling to land in a heap of broken limbs. Aiden nodded and stepped up to place a guiding hand on my shoulder.
Even with his support, I had never been calmer, though my power seemed stronger than ever. I felt it churning within. This time, as my powers were unbound, I'd felt something click, even through the pain. Along with the disintegrated binds, my lack of control had disappeared.
I closed my eyes and imagined the bedroom as it had been, drawing strength from the tranquility I'd found there. They wouldn't realize it was back to normal until much later, far too long to wonder how I'd fixed it. With everything that they'd done, and what they were about to do, it was the least I could so to show my gratitude. So long as it worked.
For some reason, I felt like I knew it would.