"Stop what?"

He pointed overhead. "Stop raining on me."

Good gravy, the cloud hallucination was back, and it was following me!

I'm not ashamed to say that, for a moment, a wild irrational fear gripped me. "I'm not doing that!" I wailed, then shook my hand free of Theo's and raced up the hill to the safety of the pub.

"Portia—"

The damned cloud followed me the whole way, raining harder and harder with each step, so that when I arrived at the pub, my breath coming in big rasping gasps as I clutched the stitch in my side, I was soaked to the skin.

"Portia, stop!" Theo had been right beside me as I bolted, a look of concern on his face. "You can't outrun it. You have to make it stop."

I spun around, water flying from my sodden hair. "I cannot control the weather!" I yelled.

"Yes, you can." We stood outside the pub in the parking lot, which was thankfully unoccupied at that moment. Theo grasped my forearms and looked me deep in the eyes. "You have the Gift. You do not wish to acknowledge it, but you must in order to control it."

"It's impossible for a person—"

"Don't you have any faith in yourself?" he asked, shaking me slightly.

"Of course I have faith in myself!" My teeth started chattering with cold.

"Then prove it! Prove that no matter what situation you are in, you believe in yourself."

"This is asinine. I can't control the weather!" Overhead, my cloud rumbled ominously, the hairs on my arms standing on end with the feeling of static electricity.

"Yes, you can," Theo yelled over the noise. "You can make it stop, Portia! The power is yours. Will it to go away!"

Rain pelted down on us with such force that it stung my bare skin. I looked around frantically, but there was nowhere to hide from it except the pub itself. "I'll go inside—"