“What time is it?” Emma asks.
Tom sits down on the floor and checks his watch. “It’s 2:10 a.m. I think it’s just safer for everyone to be downstairs in case of an emergency.” The room lights up when lightning strikes outside. Olive starts shaking in my lap.
Scared. So scared.
I reach down and pet her lightly on her back. “It’s going to be okay.” When I finish my sentence, the power goes out and the room plunges into darkness. All the electronics stop running. The house is eerily silent. I snuggle closer to Colton and tighten my grip on Olive.
“Okay, night time,” Emma says. I laugh, but that actually seems like a good idea.
However, the loud thunder thinks otherwise. I can feel Colton laugh as I jump again. Besides the lightning striking outside, the room remains dark. Loud creaks let us know the damage the storm is having on the forest surrounding us. The house moans against the impact from the strong winds. I wish I could do something to protect the forest, or stop the storm, but the cell is too big for my magic.
We all just sit in silence, waiting for the storm to pass. When the thunder lessens, I am finally able to relax a little. I snuggle into Colton’s side and let myself get comfortable. I drift to sleep, knowing that if anything happens, he’ll wake me up.
“You might want to fix her clothes,” Liam whispers beside me. “You know that Larkin will have something to say if he wakes up and sees her like that.” I feel a hand brush against my thigh, pulling the edge of my shorts down a little, then against my stomach, fixing my shirt. I move a little, but don’t open my eyes. Colton’s chest rumbles beneath me. “He only does it because it gets a reaction out of you and makes her blush.”
“Ahh, so it’s the girls again. Always the last to wake up,” I hear Bragden say.
“And you might want to be quiet; we don’t need three tired, cranky girls wreaking havoc on us,” Logan says.
“Especially that Ryanne,” I mumble against Colton but still don’t move. “I hear she can be a hassle sometimes.”
“Especially her,” Bragden says. I slowly open my eyes and find everyone still in the positions they were last night…sort of. I scoot off of Colton and let him stretch. I’m sure it’s not very comfortable to be stuck in the same position all night. All the guys are awake. Emma is still asleep in David’s lap with her head resting against the armrest. Natalie is curled up into Liam’s side, also still sleeping.
I run a hand through my hair and stretch myself. Looking over my shoulder, I see Tom in the kitchen making coffee. The power must have come back on sometime during the night. My eyes move over to the far window, and I see that it’s still cloudy but doesn’t appear to be raining anymore. Olive isn’t sitting in my lap like she was when I fell asleep last night. My eyes scan the room looking for her, but I don’t have to look far. Apparently, I move too much in my sleep because Olive moved over to Colton’s lap.
I push myself off the couch and walk over to the back door. The storm knocked down trees and scattered them haphazardly across the yard. We’re lucky that none of the larger ones fell because they would have hit the house. I open the backdoor and step onto the porch. A cool breeze hits me, and goosebumps instantly spread across my skin. Taking a couple more steps out, I look toward the beach. The beautiful beach is covered with debris. Tree branches and random pieces of trash line the shore.
“Come back inside. It’s chilly out here.”
“I could clean this,” I inform Colton. It will take a lot of magic, but I’m sure that I can do it. This land is so pretty. It’s sad that something Mother Nature creates could bring so much damage to such a beautiful area.
“That would take too much magic,” Colton says as he starts to pull me back inside.
“So…? I pass out for a couple minutes; at least the yard would be clean.” When I am back inside, I shiver. I didn’t realize how cold it was outside. Colton wraps his arms around me, surrounding me with his body heat. “Wow, it’s really c-c-cold out.”
“Why would you pass out?” Liam asks me.
“She wants to clean up all the debris in the backyard and on the beach with magic,” Colton answers while still trying to warm me up. I’m not as cold anymore, but I’m still shivering. It went from sweltering heat to chilly over night.
“I could do it,” I mumble. Colton steps away from me and walks upstairs. What is he doing? I walk over to the couch and sit back down beside Liam. Emma and Natalie are both awake now, but they both look incredibly tired. They are sitting up, but neither seems to be looking at anything in particular. Conner laughs at his sister while David tells Emma to go back to sleep. She leans back and rests against his chest but doesn’t go back to sleep. Colton comes back downstairs and hands me a sweatshirt of his. Gratefully, I thank him and put it on. Because he is so much taller than me, the sweatshirt hangs down to my mid-thighs, completely covering up my shorts, and the sleeves swallow up my arms, but it is incredible comfy and warm.