Anora’s fingers instead brushed over Darsby’s chest, his muscles surprisingly firm beneath the thin gown. She pulled away and inhaled when he turned to her, unsure of what to expect from this odd man. A couple purple sparks flashed into life around her fingers at her uncertainty.
	“Because you’re the only other person here with powers!” she answered his first question, her voice hushed.
	As soon as it left her mouth, she questioned the validity of the statement. [i]Was[/i] he the only other person in the building with powers? Or could there be others—in the hospital, or even anywhere else in the city—lurking about, hiding what they could do, just as she had?
	Darsby did not give her time to think about it. At his accusatory words and his reminder that she had hit him, her teeth snapped closed and she glanced away.
	“I’m [i]sorry,[/i]” she offered quietly. “But if it’s not you doing it, then [i]who?[/i]” She looked up at him, but he had already turned and started toward the receptionist’s desk.
	She frowned, irritation at being ignored mingling with her guilt. She hurried after him. Anora’s steps faltered as the movement of him checking his ammunition caught her eye.
	She stepped up beside him, keeping a wary eye on the weapon. Her attention turned instead to his face when he looked to her and spoke. 
	Her brow rose at the understatement of everything being just a [i]little[/i] crazy. She watched him, her irritation giving way to concern at the tremble in his hand as he ran it through his hair. Whether he shook from fatigue or fear was anyone’s guess with his unchanging expression.
	Anora glanced to the “average” people when Darsby gestured to them. [i]Does that mean there’re magic communities out there?[/i] she wondered, a spark of excitement igniting in her chest. 
	She let out a snorted chuckle at his comments about himself. “At least you’re self-aware, I suppose,” she said with a smirk. 
	But the expression vanished nearly as quickly as it had come.
	Gunshots rang from further in the hospitial. The teenage girl in the waiting room shouted in shock, and the family huddled closer together. Anora’s breath caught in her throat as she looked, wide-eyed toward the door through which one of the police officers had left. The door that had muted the shots.
	Her head twitched slightly toward the female officer at the sound of her talking on the radio. Anora's heart skipped a couple beats when only static answered the woman.
	She glanced to Darsby, who looked disturbingly calm. He knew something, but seemed to have no inclination to share with the rest of the panicking class. 
	She bit her lip as the officer headed to the door, wanting to tell her to stay put, that whatever was going on was probably beyond the woman’s pay grade, but she resisted. There was nothing she could say that the woman would believe. 
	Startled, she flinched away, more purple sparks flashing into life around her tensed fingers, when Darsby spat out his cigarette and it burst from existence with a fiery pop.
	Anora’s attention snapped to the receptionist when the woman finally noticed Darsby. Anora glanced between the man and the receptionist just to make sure, then to where his cigarette had exploded. Its swirling gray smoke had nearly dissipated, apparently lifting whatever spell it had cast to keep Darsby hidden.
	She focused back on Darsby and the situation at hand as the woman called out to him a second time.
	“HEY!” Anora shouted in a panic when he pointed the gun at the receptionist.
	In a swift motion, she extended an open palm toward him. In the span of a blink, her eyes glowed gently, their colors intensifying, and sparkling gold lightning and purple mist shot from her palm to encompass the gun a second before he began to lower it.
	At her mental direction, her powers formed a solid bubble around the barrel and reached toward his wrist, the translucent violet streaked with gold. But it did not hold.
	Anora gasped as a sensation she had never felt before emanated through her. She [i]felt[/i] as her powers dripped away from his gun as it lowered, sliding from it and melting into a fine lilac mist before vanishing.
	Her hand dropped to her side and she let out a shaky breath.
	Darsby spared her scarcely a glance and faint sigh before heading through the door. It closed behind him, leaving Anora staring at it.
	Darsby had brushed her powers away as if they were little more than an irritating gnat. She raised a hand in front of her and looked down to it, her phone still clutched in the other. Purple and gold flashed to life, jumping between her fingers. They licked over her hand, making her skin tingle pleasantly with the power radiating from it.
	She took a deep breath. Terrified whispers and a conversation heated by panic between the elderly man and the young receptionist sounded behind her.
	Whatever caused the power outage had to be powerful. Though she had no clue how much more so—or less than—Darsby, she could not even stop [i]him[/i] from shooting someone had he wanted to. 
	She glanced over her shoulder as the receptionist tried to calm the elderly man, his wife clutching at one of his arms. She considered staying, to make sure these people would be okay if anything came bursting into the waiting room. Even if she could not do much, she could at least [i]try.[/i] But that meant letting her only link to the world of magic walk away. It meant letting Darsby, still recovering, face whatever danger lurked about alone in his injured state. That she may never get the answers she wanted, [i]needed.[/i]
	“Miss?” the receptionist called uneasily out to Anora.
	She exhaled slowly, her decision made. She shoved her phone in a pocket and her powers extinguished. Before the receptionist could address her again, she hurried through the door after Darsby.
	Though he had quite the head start, she could still see him further down the hall, his shock of pink hair and limping gait hard to miss. She adjusted the straps of her backpack, then ran after him, closing the distance between them as quickly as she could.
	Doctors and nurses scurried about like ants under a magnifying glass, creating obstacles she had to skirt around. The hall was an echoing mess of noise. Shouts from the staff carryied from adjoining halls as they tried to rush patients to safety, shutting doors or ushering people into the safety of tornado shelters. Those they had yet to get to called out from their rooms, some even daring to venture outside for answer. Various machines powered by the backup generators or their own power supplies beeped, buzzed, and clicked away madly.
	The angry red lighting bathing the halls did little to help the situation. It turned carts, wheelchairs, and stands for IVs into a menacing-looking mix of shadows and tinted light.
	“Darsby!” she shouted. She slowed to match his pace as she neared. “If you’re actually sorry about getting me dragged into this, then at least tell me what [i]’this’[/i] is! I’d even settle for the Cliff’s Notes version!”