• tab Thud. My eyes shot open and I sat up in my bed. I peered through the darkness, my breath quiet, but fast. It was him. He never came unless something was wrong. I gripped the blanket.
    tab “Aurelie?” a soft voice called. I relaxed a bit, my hand letting go of the sheets.
    tab “Lazarus,” I breathed. He took noiseless, cat-like steps toward my bed. The curtain was open, moonlight shining on his pale skin. His silver eyes glowed with intensity, his long black hair falling over his shoulders, flowing around him.
    tab “Aurelie, we have to hurry,” he said reaching toward me. His fingertips almost touched mine, electricity arcing between them. I snapped my gaze to the open window. A translucent shape was coming through.
    tab “Konagona ni wareru!” I shrieked. The glass cracked and flew out toward the figure causing it to dissolve. Lazarus pulled me up, leaping from the bedside to the window. He effortlessly climbed through with me, careful not to touch the broken glass that was left. I felt his silky black hair brush against my cheek as he moved. “What’s going on?”
    tab “They’re coming for you. We have to hurry,” he said calmly as he put me down. That was what the translucent figure was, a ghost that was coming after me.
    tab “I thought we got them to leave,” I murmured as I looked up at the sky. It was dark and cloudy. There were no stars to help me, nothing to help me except the thunder and lightning in the distance. I would have to use them, pull them from the sky into my hands and power. Use us. We can help you. “I have to pull the weather.”
    tab “What! Are you crazy? Holding that much power could kill you,” he said frantically.
    tab “I know, but I have to.” I stopped in the middle of the street and traced a circle with the chalk that was in my pocket. Lazarus stood there watching me with worry in his eyes. I allowed my mind to be cast out, allowed it to open to the sky. I could feel the rumble of the thunder, the feel of the rain hitting my skin, every spark from the lightning. I pulled all the feelings out of the clouds and into my body, feeling the current from the lightning run through my veins.
    tab “Aurelie! Hurry up!” Lazarus called. I heard him take a step toward me.
    He cannot break the circle. Do not let him break the circle, I heard in my head. I needed to say it aloud, but I couldn’t speak or the circle would break. I couldn’t look at him to give him a look of warning. Most of all, I couldn’t stop pulling the power. If I didn’t complete it, I would die, but if he broke the circle we would both die.
    tab “Aurelie!” I heard his feet move closer. Everything was almost over, it was almost mine. “Aure!” I kept pulling, feeling the intensity get weaker. Then I felt nothing. It was gone, all of it.
    tab “Don’t come any closer,” I said, snapping my gaze to Lazarus. I lightly dropped silver dust around the entire edge of the circle. The outline that was in chalk was burned into the street. Lazarus would have to get rid of that.
    tab “Want me to get rid of the circle?” he asked. I nodded, still standing in the middle of the circle. He came close to it and put his hand over the edge, careful not to touch it. I watched as dark blue light pulsed out of his palm. The outline began to fill in, the circle disappearing. He walked around the circle until it was all gone. He slowly stood up as I stepped out of the middle. As soon as my foot touched outside of where the outline was, I felt the lightning arc to the pavement from my hands and arms. It hurt me, knocked me to the ground.
    tab “Give me a minute,” I said, sitting very still.
    tab “It wasn’t a good idea. You should have never done that,” he said quietly.
    tab “I had to,” I whispered. I waited until I couldn’t feel the sparks anymore so I could stand up. “We have to go.”
    tab “Where? You have too much power with you to go where I wanted to take us earlier,” he said, pulling me up.
    tab “I don’t know. We have to get away from them.” We began walking, not knowing where we were going. The sky was starting to get a little bit lighter, the sun peeking over the edge of the trees. I looked up, searching for the remains of the storm that I had absorbed, but it wasn’t there. I must have pulled the clouds in too.
    tab “Aurelie?” he called. I hadn’t realized that he was talking to me until he said my name. “What are you going to do with that storm?”
    tab “Use it. I only took it because it said it could help me.” I reached to the hematite necklace around my neck that I never took off. It was cold and full of power.
    tab “We need a plan,” he said.
    tab “I know, I know. I don’t know where there is a safe place for us to go and a place that’s safe…” my voice broke off in mid sentence. It was here, right in front of me. So close that it could touch me if it wanted to. It was a woman, or what was left of a woman. Her spirit floated before me, her gaze fixed on mine. The pale, translucent glow of the ghost illuminated the ground below it. Its robes were lightly blowing, glitter scattering from its body. She had a sad look on her face, as if she was in pain.
    tab Help me. I whipped around thinking the voice was coming from behind me. It wasn’t. Please help.
    tab “Is it you that’s talking to me?” I asked the ghost in front of me.
    tab “Aure? What’s going on?” Lazarus asked. I ignored him, trying to make contact with the ghost.
    tab “How am I supposed to help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong?” The ghost came closer. I held a hand out to her, waiting to see what she would do. She stretched her pale arm out, her fingertips brushing my palm.
    tab They want to hurt you. They want to bring you with them because you take their family away, she said.
    tab “I don’t mean to. I’m just helping them. They’re lost and need direction. Is that why they are after me?”
    tab Yes. They won’t stop until they rid the world of you. I looked at Lazarus, seeing something flash across his face. It was gone before I could tell what it was. He could obviously hear her talking to me.
    tab “Will you come with us? We could use your help,” I suggested.
    tab It would be my pleasure, she said, bowing to me. Her robes brushed the cement below her, scattering glitter across the road.