When Lightning Ignites [COMPLETED]

Chapter 2: Visitors

"Julie? Julie, honey? Are you awake?"

She groaned. Her eyes opened briefly to make out the tall form of her father leaning over her, his dark hair falling over his intense grey eyes.

What did he want? "Go away, Lir. I'm sleeping."

"It's Dad. Stop calling me Lir." He snapped. A second later, he lightly touched her shoulder. She tensed.

If he wanted her to start calling him Dad again, keeping her from sleep when she was this tired was not going to help. He had lied to her and let her mind be manipulated. For months she had suffered, spacing out at the weird stuff around Seelie Island or strong negative emotions. It had been like an emotional lobotomy, so she was in essence forced to be happy all the time. For a while she was even half convinced that she was going crazy. Now she knew the truth.

"Go away. There's no school, and I'm so tired. I must be coming down with something." She was starting to dislike waking up in different places than where she fell asleep.

"Just letting you know we have company." He cleared his throat.

"Fine, tell them I'm sick and they can come back later." She pulled a pillow over her head. Why wouldn't he go away? Why was he being weird?

"I tried that and well..." He paused. "They're in here with me since you're too ill to get out of bed."

"What?" Her eyes flew open, meeting his, and she flinched a little. She couldn't help it. She knew what that gaze could do now. Well, she wasn't sure what exactly, but Jamie said he could do manipulate people's minds.

Lir frowned. He must have noticed her fear of him.

He leaned away a little so she could see that there were four people sitting on dining room chairs in her room, two men and two women.

Julie's eyes widened. What the hell were they doing in her room? She thought she recognized two of them from around the island, but they were all strangers to her. As usual all their hair and clothes were magazine perfect. One of the women shifted in her seat a little, her spine somehow becoming straighter.

"Sorry to wake you so soon after fainting again." Lir reached out to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. She glared at him, and he put his hand back with a sigh. "But they insisted on seeing you right away. Here, let me help you sit up."

She complied, thankful that Jamie had just dumped her in her bed with her clothes on. This was the most time she and Lir had spent together since she found out about everything, and she wasn't sure if she missed him or wanted him to leave. Right now, though, she didn't want to be alone with these strangers.

"Rory, Luke, Ike?" Her breath hitched, afraid of what she might hear.

He leaned in to tell her so the others couldn't hear. "They're okay. They're all sleeping like you were. They will be fine."

One of the women smiled and nodded. She didn't recognize the woman, but her eyes sparkled with a familiar look that Julie couldn't quite place. The others' expressions all seemed carefully blank.

"I'll ask them to leave if you don't feel up to talking right now." Lir ignored the mumbling over his shoulder that his comment brought.

"No, it's okay. I'll talk to them," Julie said. "They must be desperate to be sitting in here waiting for me to wake up."

He chuckled.

The other woman looked down at her hands, and a man cleared his throat. The other two kept staring at her intently. The man looked a little like Rory. She wasn't sure why, but his eyes and hair color were the same. The woman who smiled at her looked familiar too, but for some reason she couldn't place her. She was sure they'd never met, yet she looked like someone she knew.