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Smoke rises from his skin and the weeping willow is swinging in a windstorm, sending energy to me as my hair whips everywhere. A large limb flies our way, landing across the two of them. The tree limb catches on fire. The two men are on fire now with it.
I didn’t need to connect with the tree that way. Something’s different. It’s like there’s an abundance of energy available to me. Inside me. More than I can comprehend. I can channel it, I can bend it, I can feel it like it’s part of me. I can access as much of it as I want. I release it back into the sky and earth, gently, like setting down a delicate and priceless heirloom because I don’t know where it needs to go and don’t want to cause harm to anything other than the bad guys. I don’t know what that was or where it came from, but it was frighteningly effective. I don’t have time to ruminate, to dissect it because of what’s happening around me. I send my gratitude to the willow and rush back up the porch steps. I need to get back inside and stop that asshole from hurting Riley. I silently plead for more of whatever I need to make sure he hasn’t hurt Riley or his friends inside.
I hear the sound of a gunshot. And another. And yet another.
No!
Though it’s hazy with the smoke, I make out through the back kitchen window that at a distance, Joel and Jason are rising from the ground back there. They’ll help! One goes left, one goes right, and I know they’re racing around either side of the cabin as I turn my attention to the floor where that guy in full riot gear looms over Riley’s bleeding body, a gun in one hand, a knife in the other.
“No!” I scream and point at him.
He startles and looks at me with fear.
“No!” I scream again, an electrical charge building up inside me and I suddenly know I could set him on fire with rage at the notion of him hurting Riley. I can’t do it fast, can’t risk an out-of-control fire in here with Riley and his friends, so I slow it down. I slow it down and amid the smoke already hanging in the air, I’m fairly certain new smoke starts to rise from his riot gear as more sparks flit in the air around me. The bad guy lifts the knife again, and I know he intends this to be the end of the man I love.
I want to hurt him. I want to finish setting him on fucking fire, but Riley needs help.
I need him gone!
The universe answers my need with energy that whooshes out of the space, straight out the door. I feel the remnants of his energy, the most foul energy I’ve encountered and I don’t normally feel bad energy like Ronnie does. I needed it out of here, away from me as if it’s an infectious disease.
I plead with the universe, “Please let Riley be okay!”
I fall to my knees at Riley’s side. He’s bleeding from the right side of his chest, his shoulder, his side, and his leg.
Joel is suddenly beside me. “Erica?”
“Riley’s hurt! And two of the guys,” I cry out, eyes burning from the fog that’s still hanging in the air.
“I’m all right,” I hear Lincoln say. “Mase? You okay?”
“I’m okay,” Mason chokes out and I can see him in his human form on his hands and knees. He’s bleeding. There’s less smoke in here, but one of them is coughing. Now both are coughing.
“I’ll open all the windows; air this place out,” Joel says.
“The bullet was sucked right out of me.” Lincoln says. His shoulder is bloody.
“Out of me, too,” Mason says. “She sucked the bullets out when the asshole with the gun got sucked out.”
Did I?
I cough out some excess smoke and get a better visual of Riley on the floor. I drop to touch him, summoning clean energy, clean air; I don’t even know how I do it, but I do. The bad air is sucked out, quickly, like it’s being vacuumed out of here and everyone’s hair is blowing, it’s that strong.
It’s so strong, it pulls me a few feet away from Riley, so I set it down. Riley’s friends are staring at me with shock.
The smoke is gone, Riley is breathing clean air. So are the rest of us. Lincoln and Mason are close, looking at Riley with me. He’s bleeding in multiple places and bruises are forming on his torso. But he has a pulse. I somehow cleared out the bad air so he can breathe and at least he still has a pulse!
I channel everything good I have inside me into his skin.
“Be okay, be okay, Riley. I love you so much. Please be okay.”
