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Without even glancing up, Cybil said absently, "Unfortunately unmarried, but one out of two ain't bad. And there is no leader here. We're all equally lost and confused, unless you've got something you're not telling us." She was focused on Mark, trying to figure out exactly how to test him when she didn't know what she was looking for.

Why not sense for it? she thought. Try to get a vision, maybe. It was possible that she could control it, right?

She hesitated. Her visions of the future were not quiet events. They had gotten her rushed to the hospital before, with witnesses screaming about seizures and psychosis. Would having one now scare the others away? More to the point, would it scare Mark away?

Nothing for it. To find a way to test him, she had to know what she was looking for.

"Mark?" she said softly. "Will you give me your hand?"

Confused, nervous, he gave it to her.

She took it, and focused.

Picture him, in the future. Focus on him. What will he be doing, with this power? What will he need it for? How will he use it?

Slowly, her gaze began to cloud.

Cybil tried to build it slowly. Tried to take her time, focus on Mark and let all the rest fade away. And at first, it went splendidly.

She could see him. Had to be the future - his hair was a little longer, like he hadn't bothered to cut it in awhile, and his eyes held more purpose. He looked determined.

He had the notebook.

She made a note of that - she'd have to tell Miranda that it seemed that book was important after all. They'd have to research it, find a way to track it down.

Then, suddenly, the images began to spiral out of control, and before she knew it she was plunged back into the cycle.

Blood. Fire. Darkness. Screaming. Alone in the middle of it all, with voices whispering to her.

Daughter, daughter. Our daughter. So precious. Done so well.

Mark and Miranda were nowhere to be found, and somehow she understood they were dead. That she was alone.

And they had come for her.

~

For a moment or two, Cybil's vision seemed quiet, even benign. She remained still and calm, her head cocked slightly and her eyes vaguely glassy. Then, sudden as a pistol shot, her back arched, her eyes snapped wide, and her head fell back. Her hands fell limp in Mark's. Shocked and scared, he let her go, and she tumbled back on the bed, where she writhed and arched like someone in either the throes of a seizure or incredible torment.

It was punctuated by whimpers, a few little moans, the occasional terrified cry or shriek of pain. Her wide eyes were glassy and unseeing, but they still wheeled, full of agony and panic that was reflected in her face.

Mark looked at Miranda, terrified. "Wake her up," he pleaded. "We have to wake her up!"

Mark saw the flare leap in Cybil's eyes, and shifted forward instinctively. He gripped Miranda by the shoulder, ignoring any resistance she might have shown, and pulled her back. He set himself in her place just in time.

Cybil's hand flashed out first, aiming for Mark's throat. With the practiced ease of someone who had spent far too long dodging blows, he evaded her and grasped her wrists. There was a look of purpose in his gaze now, one that had been missing before.

"Cybil," he repeated. "Cybil. Wake up. It's okay."

He was parroting the words she had used to call him back when he'd gone nearly out of his mind after a bad trip. It just seemed like it was the thing to do. "Cybil. Cyb. It's okay."

With a shudder and a low, last whimper, the glassiness faded from her eyes. She blinked them open, confused, and raised her eyes to Mark. From him to Miranda.

"I..." she rasped. "Sorry...got ugly. Didn't hurt you, right?" She looked up at Mark. "Right?"

Cybil pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to force aside the migraine now banging gleefully away behind her skull. She sat up slowly, attempting to keep her head from moving any more than was absolutely necessary, and slowly inched backwards until the headboard supported her back. Then she returned her steady - if somewhat pained - gaze to Mark.

"No one's hurt?" she rasped.

With Cybil's awakening, Mark's determined look had vanished, and he now looked as tentative and shy as before. "Um...no. No one but...but you. You know."

They both seemed grateful when Miranda approached with the water mug. Wordlessly, Cybil took it. She closed her eyes and drank half of it off in one go, then looked up at Miranda. "Yeah," she said, her voice beginning to sound normal again. "Thanks."

She rubbed at her forehead again, trying to make the banging go away. "I got a few things before it all went nuts on me. Whatever else it is you get, Mark, you learn how to use it - you looked really confident. Strong." She was tempted to add healthy, but didn't. "That book you saw, you had it. I guess we're going to need it after all. Point for you, Miranda."

Taking another cautious sip of the water, she sighed. "But I still don't know what it is."

Cybil looked more than banged up; she looked beaten, defeated and as though she was already grieving. Whatever she might say about her visions not being set in stone, she obviously took them a lot more seriously right after having them. She sighed, leaning her head back against her headboard.

But her voice was light and breezy when she spoke, in direct contrast to her pale and devastated face. "I always act like that when I have my visions," she replied. "But as to what I saw this time? Well, you know. Blood, deaths of thousands, fire everywhere, the Apocalypse...just your normal everyday doomsday prophecy. Clichés R Us and all that."

She glanced at Mark, who remained stubbornly silent. Although Cybil was afraid she'd frightened him (terrified him, actually, she admitted to herself), she refused to try to draw him out about the problem.

Instead, she looked back at Miranda, shrugged. "Same thing I tend to see a lot these days. Does it matter?"

Cybil hesitated, a sarcastic retort on the tip of her tongue. At last, she showed admirable restraint (or so she decided to herself) and kept it back. Instead, she leaned her head back to breathe deeply a few times. "You can get used to anything, I guess," she replied with a shrug. "First few times I got it, I was a total wreck for days - it used to hurt more, too. I'm pretty casual about it now."

Her vanity, of which she had a fairly healthy amount, took a bit of a blow when Miranda mentioned her looks in relation to being run over by a truck. "Oh, well, thanks. s**t. I'll go look into that in a minute." Gathering herself again, she said lightly, "But this isn't about me right now, as much as I appreciate it. Point of the matter is, we need the book, we need to find out what Mark's unknown power is - I wonder if the book has something to do with it," she mused, struck by the idea.

Shaking her head, she returned to the topic at hand. "And to do all that, we need to find out some more about Abigail. There must be something about her somewhere, even if just legends or something. Let's start with the Internet."

She looked from Miranda to Mark, questioningly. "Okay?"

Cybil, already at the computer and beginning to regain her colour, glanced back. "Well, I can't help you with anything last-name related," she replied cheerfully. "My powers are all-- Wait. Wait a second. You saw Abigail in one of your visions, didn't you? What era did it look like to you? Like what time period? Did you recognize a place? A country?"

She clicked on her Internet tab, then looked back at them. "I figure it might be a little easier if we can narrow it down to a specific set of years. At least we won't get all of the Facebook pages if we specify, I don't know, ancient Rome or whatever. Uh, not that I think Abigail was an ancient Roman name. Just an example."

Mark sat on the edge of Cybil's cheap desk, leaning over sideways to look at the computer screen. There wasn't much room, but Cybil didn't seem to mind.

Then she frowned, her brows drawing together. It had nothing to do with their search, however. "Hey, Miranda. You still young enough to be living with your parents?"

Cybil glanced at the time on her cheap plastic wall clock, very deliberately. "Then maybe you'd best call them, ducky. It's almost five, and school, unless it's changed a ton since I finished, lets out at three-thirty. They're probably wondering where you are, and I am not interested in being hauled in for kidnapping by the cops. Phone is in the kitchen."

She turned back towards her computer and typed in "World War Abigail" and sat back. Since Miranda had not mentioned which World War, Cybil avoided adding any numbers.

"Oh, God," she muttered. "Five hundred and forty-one thousand hits. We're never going to find her in that."

There had to be a way to narrow this down. What exactly it was, she wasn't quite sure. If she had someone around with better computer skills than her own, it might help.

Her mother was good with computers. Not that it mattered anymore; they hadn't spoken in a couple of years now. But maybe Cybil could pull up some of the things she'd learned way back when, with Mark leaning over her shoulder and too obviously trying to figure out how to be helpful.