*Sigh* Again, I'm sorry this is late. This really is unusual for me, but the reasons are the same song, second verse. Anxiety disorder sucks butt. And for some reason my toddler keeps walking circles around me as I'm writing this note and farting...

Anyways, I'm sorry if this chapter seems more like a drug trip than an actual chapter. I was trying to recreate the cool down process of what it's like for someone after something really traumatic like that has happened.

I'll stop stressing now and just let you read.

Chapter 9

If we got out of the mountains, that is.

Because not only were Naru and more or less trapped to our dry little alcove under some tree roots and ferns to avoid the rain, but we were once more in nothing but wet yukatas, and autumn isn't exactly known for its warm temperatures.

He tucked me close to him so he could wrap both his legs and arms around me. We had already done our best to squeeze out the water from our hair and clothes. Still we shivered, hard. To make matters worse, night was closing in, darkening the sky and turning the shadows of our hiding spot nearly pitch black. A high, whistling wind started up, clacking the branches above us.

We both knew we couldn't stay.

"Th-there's the b-b-blanket back in the car," I said through chattering teeth.

"Said car also has a broken window and a flood next to it." How he managed to speak without the interference of his chattering was beyond me.

"I-I-It would-d-d m-make it easier t-to find us. For Lin, th-th-that is. He should be get-t-t-ting there by now."

"Which is why we should stay put. It would be easier for him and his shiki to find us if we stay put, so just stop talking. You're going to bite off your tongue."

Groaning inwardly, I tucked my face beneath the cloth of his open yukata, pressing my burnt cheek against his chest. His heart beat quickly beneath my ear, probably frantic to create more heat through sheer exertion.

My head hurt.

As time passed and the world grew darker, the shelter of the ferns and tree branches failed as the rain turned to a deluge, dripping big, fat drops from their leaves onto us. Next thing I knew I was adjusting my leg and finding mud stuck to my shin like clay. If that wasn't enough to turn this into the worst day of my life, I had already brushed off several unseen creepy crawlies from my skin and from beneath my yukata. My toes and most of my feet had gone numb from cold. The only reason my hands hadn't was because I had tucked them up into Naru's armpits.

"N-N-Na-a-ru," I whined.

He gave me a squeeze. "He'll find us."

But it hadn't been Lin I had been thinking about. Every second more water was slipping down into our alcove, soaking into the earth. I felt a small, newborn stream slide past my ankle.

Just how much water did the monster need?

My fear started to build. My muscles couldn't tense anymore than they already had, nor could my prickled hairs go any higher for the cold. There was no running for me, now, on feet numbed by cold. I was sure to stumble on something, if my legs managed to unbuckle from their position.

As tiny whimpers started eking their way out from my clamped throat, Naru ducked his head against my own and breathed warmth onto the back of my neck. But he must have sensed something as well, for he said nothing.

A branch cracked in the distance and fell with a hollow thud. We both jumped. He held me tighter.

"Just the storm," he whispered.

I hardly heard him. An irrational fear had stiffened up like a startled cobra along my back. I started to hyperventilate.

"Getdddout of-GEdddout-" I couldn't get it out. Water, water all around me.

Naru's arms around me tensed till they felt like stone. A familiar pressure started to push at my skin, prickling, pressing against me like a solid wind.

"Did you know," he whispered, even as he lifted his shaking arm from my back. "That high levels of PK result in pyrokenesis?"

A snap, and light burst into my vision. Flame spluttered and hissed besides us in the alcove, fighting to feed on the damp twigs pressed into the mud. I could feel its warmth, and yet, oddly, I grew colder...and colder.

"Stop!" I cried, but it came out weak. The shadows around me were growing deeper, looming like a great maw leaning closer and closer.

"I'm okay, Mai. If I can just get the fire to catch, maybe-"

I blacked out.

I must have not been out long, because when I came to I was still cold, wet, and the sound of rain on leaves told me I hadn't left the alcove.

Naru was shaking me, calling my name. His limbs had, if possible, tightened even more on me. I barely had the breath to speak.

"I'm here."

"You went limp, did I-what happened? Are you okay? Crud, this isn't the time to experiment, you're..." he trailed off with whistled breaths through his nostrils.

There was a crack of twigs and a light burst down from us like a beam from heaven.

"Naru! Mai!"

I had never been more happy to hear Lin's voice in my life. I started to cry.

I don't know how Naru managed it, because he had to be just as cold as me, but he lifted me up to Lin, who stood on the top of the alcove, and took the flashlight from him. Occasionally a film or streak of light, or more like the afterimage of light, slipped past the corners of my eyes. Lin's shiki.

Lin took off his heavy trench coat and wrapped me up in it. Him being twice my size, it swallowed me.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I'm still not entirely sure myself," said Naru, grunting as he lifted himself out. "Some monster that Mai recognized from her dream appeared in front of us in the road. It's nothing like I've ever seen, and I don't think it's just a spirit. We think its somehow connected to the water, though."

Lin's hmm rumbled through his chest against my ear. It reminded me of a lion purring, and I let my eyes droop. I was safe now. Lin would keep me safe.

"Why attack you?" Lin asked. "And where are your shoes?"

"Kind of hard to run through the forest with complimentary thongs. I'll be fine. Did you get anything about the history of the property? Damn it, stupid tree-anyways, I thought my father would have bothered to look through it, he always does."

"He did. There's nothing. No record of strange murders, violent events, nothing. The springs were dug out of the mountain, so they weren't even around before the Edo period."

"So no written record that could be connected with a death and the water?"

"More research could prove something."

"It's difficult to out-research that man."

As Naru went on to describe the beast to Lin in hopes he had heard of anything like it, my awareness wandered off, drowsy and spent. Though I was still cold, it somehow seemed a distant sensation, as though it were happening to someone else. I drifted past trains of thought that didn't relate, but somehow all came back down to the long arms and gaping mouth and slits of eyes for the lack of a head.

What did it want?

Bloody water. The ambulance on fire. Our room in flames.

"Fire," I muttered.

I didn't think they heard me, but then I couldn't bring myself to care. The things ability to start fires wouldn't have anything to do with its ability to somehow always appear over a stream or something. Why else would that phrase 'get out of the water!' keep popping into my head?

An uneasy stirring passed through me. I had the tickling sensation as though somewhere, a friend I trusted was talking bad about me behind my back.

"Mai, wake up."

We were in a car I vaguely recognized as Lin's, only because everything was black leather and it smelled of cheap vanilla air fresheners. I was still wrapped tightly in Lin's coat. I could hear the car's fan blasting warm air into the car and the rush of water beneath its wheels.

"Where are we going?" Ah, that's nice. I could talk again. So sleepy.

"Try to stay awake until I warm you up. You've stopped shivering, but you're still like ice."

But I was safe, wasn't I? Wrapped up in Lin's coat, in Naru's arm, in a car zipping down the freeway.

The words of the only song I'd probably ever hear Naru sing passed through my mind: you've got a fast car...

I drifted through the hot springs, eagerly stepping in and waiting for the hot water to warm me up, though it didn't reach down to the core. Fog surrounded me, and a lanky, long-armed figure made a silhouette.

I've got a ticket to anywhere, maybe we can make a deal.

Naru really wasn't that bad at singing. Course his OCD, got-to-be-perfect-at-everything nature sort of stopped him from sounding truly awful, but he wasn't tone deaf. Maybe it was just because it was Naru who was singing that I thought that. Maybe he did sound bad.

I had a feeling that I could be someone...you got a fast car.

I woke up when someone shut the car door. Someone was holding me.

"Naru, let me take her."

"I'm fine. If you want to help, go start a hot bath."

"You shouldn't have let her fall asleep."

"What was I suppose to do, slap her? She's out of the cold anyways. She'll be fine."

And I-ee-I had a feeling that I belonged...

I half breathed a giggle. Okay, Naru had sounded funny when he had sung that part. The 'I-ee-I.' So sad that I would never be able to hear it again, especially if he so much as suspected that I was laughing at him.

Next thing I knew I was waking up with a start as someone peeled back my wet, warm cocoon.

"Let go, Mai. Lin needs his coat back."

I blinked back to awareness and let go of the coat, allowing myself to plop onto the cold tile floor. I started shuddering again in earnest. The big ivory bath tub was only half full. I blinked again when I realized that my husband, who was peeling me out of my wet yukata like a banana, was naked. When had I missed that?

"What are you...?"

He gave me a wan smile. "I'm cold too, you know."

"Yes, but..." I flushed, just a bit overwhelmed. My sleepy brain couldn't quite manage the shock of his deliciousness, and a few days of marriage weren't going to help that. And I still couldn't quite get my limbs to work.

So I didn't stop him when he picked me up and stepped into the half filled tub with me. Some water splooshed over the edge and onto the floor.

"Ah, this brings back memories," he said, almost dreamily.

"Of getting possessed in an old hospital?" Mmm, naked Naru. And oh, warm water. The heat was just about...oh yeah. Being lost in the forest was almost worth this.

Everything really was better now. We were going to be okay. All safe.

"And everyone finding us in a tub together, yes." He idly scooped up hot water to pour over my back. I had ended up sunk between his legs and cuddled against his chest. Noticing this made me realize for the first time how much larger his tub was compared to mine. It could actually fit two people comfortably.

We lay there like that for some time, and I drifted out of another doze whenever Naru shifted or when he put some shampoo into my hair.

"This is not the time for me to be turned on by this," he muttered.

"Home," I mumbled. I had meant to tell him we were home and safe so screw whatever the heck that was, I didn't care. Oh well.

"If it's connected to the spring, someone else could be in danger. If it's connected to us..." he shifted again and I made a little mewl of protest. I was finally warm and he kept waking me up.

"Come on, Mai. Being in a tub of water isn't the best thing until we know. Besides, this is starting to get uncomfortable."

But nice hot water. Fire.

"Mai?"

I didn't hear what he had to say next. The darkness of my sleep, which I had been skimming over the surface, rose up and I sank down like a rock through deep waters...to father.

Father had died when I was very young, so I couldn't quite remember his face, which was probably why it took me a moment to recognize the man who walked through the front door. Mother giving him a big hug was a good hint. Shrugging it off, I went back to my play, which consisted of a little Tupperware of marbles and a jar. Each marble landed inside with a satisfyingly loud clink. I tried to see how many I could pour in at once, but most of them would just spill around the narrow neck of the bottle and onto the floor, where I'd spend the next five minutes hunting through the carpet for the glint of sunlight through glass balls.

Father picked me up from my hunt and hugged me. He smelled like fire, or rather, like smoke. His arms were shaking, which confused me. He was so much bigger than me. Why would he have a hard time carrying me? Was I that heavy?

"You're not heavy," he said, though I couldn't remember what his voice had sounded like. "I'm sorry Daddy's stinky. Just let me hold you a bit longer and I'll go shower."

Did Daddy get in a fire? Did he go camping? Why didn't he take me?

When he put me down, I had the vague feeling that I had missed something very big. Children, although innocent and sometimes naive, are far from blind and more sensitive than they're given credit for. I thought he might drop me, his arms shook so bad. Mother was going with him to the bathroom, saying something with her tone too high.

A glass marble with a yellow swirl in it had been pressed into the carpet by his foot. I stared at it until it faded out and I found myself once more on the cold bathroom floor, held up by Naru's arms.

"Damn it, will you please stop doing that to me!"

Which annoyed me. "Like I choose when I...wait, what?"

He put a hand over his brow, blocking his eyes, taking a deep breath. He was still very much naked, though he had covered me with a towel.

"Just...forget it. Let's just get to bed. I'm done with today. So done."