Being a Hero

Chapter 14

The song for this chapter is "Be Here For You" by Sam Tinnesz.

"Sometimes to stay alive you've got to kill your mind." –Twenty One Pilots, Migraine

*Aurora's POV*

I nursed my tea while waiting for the elevator. I'd gotten the alert like all the others, but I had further to drive with my family's home being nestled deep in the forest that HCS bordered. The others were already crowded into the floor's waiting area when I stepped off the elevator. Tabitha had her left arm bandaged and immobilized in a sling, and the right side of her face was puffed out in a nasty bruise. She looked asleep and had that side of her face resting against John's shoulder where he had an ice pack draped. He didn't seem to mind the cold or the wet patch soaking into his t-shirt as he shakily sipped a cup of apple juice. The rest of the team and Mabel's husband, Braden, were in various stages of trying to stay awake or worrying themselves into hyperawareness. All except...

"Where are Kevin and Caitlyn?" I asked, drawing everyone's attention.

Kevin flickered into view briefly where he lay under the chairs, waved, yawned, and camouflaged again. Braden chuckled and explained, "It was the only place he could think of where he could take a nap and not get stepped or sat on."

"He got scratched but didn't need any stitches," John said quietly, trying not to wake his oldest friend. "Caityln...Mark's still trying to figure out what happened."

Well, if that didn't make my hair stand on end. "Where?"

Everett stopped his pacing to point down the right hall with a bandaged hand. "Only room with the door closed," He said distractedly.

I found the room easily enough. Mark's raised voice was a give-away. I knocked, then opened the door to Mark turning around and saying irritably, "How many times do I have to...Oh, Aurora. Hello."

"Hi, Mark, Patrick." I nodded to each and closed the door behind me, leaving the three of us with only the discordant beeping of Caitlyn's monitors for background. I recognized the heart monitor, but there was a second display that looked like a series of erratically scribbled lines. "How bad is it?" I asked Mark, my eyes on Caitlyn. Someone had changed her into a hospital gown, and there were electrodes stuck all over her head.

"Worse than I thought," Mark sighed. Turning to Patrick he made a shooing motion. "Go check if any of the others have a headache, will you?"

"Headache?"

"Yes," Mark pointed at an unconscious Caitlyn before quietly proclaiming, "This woman is a proximity hazard in her current condition. I can't imagine what her powers are doing to her feels any better." He rubbed his temples for a moment and winced.

"You're saying—"

"Yes! She can bloody well affect humans!" If the unflappable Dr. Turner swearing wasn't proof enough, I wasn't sure what was. "I thought it was just me, but one of the imaging techs, then Patrick started getting a migraine too. It's her, Aurora! She's not restricted to animals like we thought."

I sat down. A lot of things made sense with that bit of information, but I didn't have time to think deeply about it now. "What went wrong? Why is this," I gestured from him to her. "Happening?"

Mark summarized what John and Tabitha had told him. Garm hurt three of mine and tried to kill Caitlyn. If I ever saw that flea-bitten mongrel in West Haven again, I was going to personally skin him. I carefully filed that away for later consideration and returned my focus to the problem at hand. "So, this is why she doesn't work with humans?" I asked, trying to make sense of why the difference between a human and an animal mind could do this.