You Have No Idea What I'm Capable Of

Chapter Three

Into the early evening the rain was falling in buckets, and the wind blew so hard that it forced the water pouring from the sky to travel at almost a horizontal angle. By about six in the evening, everyone in town had lost power. Regina's phone lines had failed and the mayor found herself in her kitchen surrounded by candlelight and covered in sweat. She felt unlike herself. It could have been the heat, or her growing fear that danger could actually befall her town, or that the curse could be unraveling. She decided it didn't matter, all that mattered was the oppressive heat and she had no way to escape it.

The mayor sat on the kitchen floor, the only place with cool tiles, feeling cut off from the rest of the world. Henry had gone upstairs and was reading his book with a flashlight in nothing but his underwear. She thought to reprimand him, but the heat was so overpowering, she wished she could remove her clothes as well. Instead she settled for a white cotton T-shirt and a pair of thin running shorts.

Regina thought about hatching another scheme to rid herself of the overly troublesome Emma Swan. She had already tried intimidation, poisoning, bribery and reverse psychology, but every plan had been a miserable failure. There must be a way, Regina's brown eyes darted back and forth in the dark. There must be. As if on cue, Regina heard the obnoxious sheriff's voice calling from the other side of the front door.

"Madam Mayor, are you alright?!" Emma had been knocking on the door incessantly with no response, a fear that something may have happened to Henry took her over. The wind and the rain were so loud she could hardly hear herself over it.

A few moments after calling out for the mayor, the door opened. Emma was surprised at the sight of Regina in not just casual clothes, but workout gear that clung to her body due to the apparent moisture on the mayor's skin. Her usually perfect dark brown hair was a sweaty mess, and there was a strange look on her face.

"Mayor, are you okay?" Emma asked again. Wind howling behind her.

"Just perfect Sheriff Swan, I do enjoy sitting in an oven with no phone and no power." Regina answered coldly, and didn't move from the door to allow Emma in from the rain. The cold splashes of water felt good against her hot skin. She decided that a cold shower would definitely be the way to escape the heat.

"I have been trying to reach you," Emma shouted over the thunder, "but couldn't get a hold of you by phone."

"Well I suppose the conclusion that the phone lines were blown out in this wind is rather radical." Regina continued to enjoy the wind whipping around her, but Emma didn't look nearly as comfortable.

"You are one of the only people apparently without a phone line, and I couldn't risk assuming that was the case. What if something had happened to Henry and we had no way of knowing?" Emma's frustration was growing by the second and after standing in the doorway all that time the sheriff pushed herself in to the mayor's house, forcing Regina to take a step back and let her in.

Regina narrowed her eyes at the blonde who had just barged into her home and traipsed rain and mud all over her foyer. "What do you think you are doing?" Regina asked incredulously as she watched Emma remove her boots and a thick blue raincoat that said "SHERIFF" in bold yellow letters on the back. Regina shut the door ushering in a still silence.

"Relax, I just want to check on Henry, and I don't want to hear a speech about how I dared track mud through your mansion." Emma's spoke without stopping her undressing and without looking at the mayor.

"Well, that is not at all appropriate. You can't just come into my house and disturb my son unannounced and uninvited." Regina was sure to emphasis the last word.

Emma straightened after removing the last of her wet gear and stared right at Regina. Green eyes again challenging brown. In their bare feet Emma realized she was taller than the mayor, and it gave her a strange but welcomed feeling of superiority.