Jonquille forced her mind to concentrate on just getting one foot in front of the other. She couldn’t think about the buildup of electricity and how the white-hot energy was zipping in circles around her midsection in a fiery display like the Fourth of July. She had to get away from the trees. From humans. She couldn’t start a forest fire or kill these men. She didn’t know if they were good men or bad ones yet.
Right here, Lightning Bug. Rubin’s voice soothed her. You’ve got this.
Just his voice allowed her to take a real breath, drawing air into her burning, raw lungs. Having trouble walking. Drug messed me up. Is there a way for me to combat it? Don’t want to hurt anyone. So close to drawing the lightning.
She kept walking, but she was like a blind drunk, stumbling, going to her knees, struggling to stand and then managing one or two steps before going down again. Her stomach lurched and her head felt like it might shatter with each step. All the while that energy built the power in her body so that the two sides, power and utter weakness, clashed and fought for supremacy.
You have a reservoir of healing in you, Jonquille. You saw how it worked. Pass your palm over your legs. Keep your palm about an inch from your skin. Visualize what’s wrong and repair it as you go. That will get you up faster than anything. Once you release the energy, you can heal the rest of you.
Rubin. She whispered his name again, as if holding on to him. She felt that if she let him go, she would lose him.
You can do this, my little lightning bug. I’ll come for you, no matter where they take you, I’ll come for you. We all will. Every single Ghost-Walker. That’s a promise. So, whoever is listening, you might want to tell your boss I’ll be coming for him. For all of you.
Of course Rubin would issue a challenge to the squirrel men. There was a quietness in him. He was like the mountains. Calm. Peaceful. But rile him, and he would bring the wrath of centuries down on you. He was every predator rolled into one. He would hunt them, and he had their scent.
She was already on the ground, shaking with the effort to contain the energy swirling around her. Very slowly, with care, she passed her palm over her left leg. Her muscles were like Jell-O. It felt odd to fix her own body, to bring up that heat inside her and pour it over her damaged muscles, shape them, firm them and make them strong again. She did the same with her right leg and then was on her feet and running.
Rubin. Her hero. Her man. Maybe even her fiancé for real. She wanted to believe there was a way for her to have a home and a family. She hadn’t believed it until she’d gone to the Sawyers’ with him. She’d actually been there all evening and not once had she had a problem. In time, with Rubin, maybe she could learn to control the energy that rushed to her.
She sprinted to the clearing. The clouds overhead swirled in an ominous display of power. Colors of purple, gray and black were stacked from bottom to top and they lit up over and over as lightning zigzagged in forks through the cloud, looking for a way out. The lead stroke was going to break free and come to ground, seeking a target. In a few more minutes the wind would have driven the clouds away from them, but it was too late. The energy in her body was too strong and too attractive to the lead stroke. It would come straight to her.
She made it to the clearing just as the charge around her built to an astonishing level and she knew the strike was coming. Lifting her arms, she released the energy, allowing it to meet the lead stroke, so that the two charges detonated into a blast of jagged lightning that lit the skies and sent thunder rolling, shaking the ground. She’d forgotten what it felt like to have that tremendous release after holding in so much energy. All the anger. All the fury. Even fear and sorrow. All emotion had energy, and those things found her when she was with others, weighing her down until she had to do this, stand in the clearing, arms outstretched, welcoming the lightning.
Jonquille let the lightning play over her for several strikes, washing away the drug in her system completely so she could think clearly again. She sent the lightning to meet the storm, great jagged spears that pierced the black and purple clouds so that they opened up and poured a cleansing rain down on her. The rain was warm, each drop on her skin a welcome purging.