Peter and the storm

i'm going to post this scene in a few separate pieces because it's such a long section. i didn't want to cut the first few parts out, since i think they offer valuable information for the story later on. but i also didn't want to bore you with 15 odd pages of my rambling. :) so, this scene starts after the group decides to head off to the desert they've seen in their dreams. it's a long drive, so they pass the time "getting to know each other" for lack of a better phrase (a first step they were forced to skip under the unusual circumstances of their meeting). we learn that Peter is only eleven months older than Haylee and that they have lived pretty much on their own since their mother died when they were younger. this bit passes while they discuss it:

"Were you raised by your father then, like me?" Marc asked after a moment, still interested.
"No..." Peter said, hesitating, "Our mom was... seeing a couple different guys at the time we were born, so she wasn't exactly sure who it was." The tips of his ears were red. "But Hal and I looked so much alike that she figured we had to have the same dad, you know?"
"Yeah," Marc said, clearly sorry to have made Peter feel uncomfortable.
"No big deal," he said, watching Marc in the rearview mirror, "we did alright."

they continue to chat this way, talking about their childhoods and the lives they had before everything changed. Dakota finds herself utterly invested in her new life and the people who have become her family:

Soon, I found myself talking and laughing in a way that I couldn't remember having ever done before. I was being myself and I was not ashamed. Faced with the end of the world, hunted by undead beings, surrounded by warped and distorted realities that may or may not include super powers, I had finally learned how to just be myself. It took an apocalypse and three very interesting strangers, but I had found myself in them.
As the clock on the dashboard read 2:15am, I could feel my eyelids closing. Haylee and Peter whispered together in the front seat, and Marc was running his hands through his hair again. I smiled. Whether it was the elation of having such a wonderful conversation, the quiet and darkness of the car, the lateness of the hour, or the fact that I had stretched myself to my limits in the past day, I somehow felt brave. I took a breath, slid across the seat, and laid my head on Marc's shoulder. He jumped a little, surprised, but then I could hear him smiling in the dark. He wrapped his warm arms around me, pulling me closer, and rested his chin on the top of my head. I was nearly asleep when he bent and whispered in my ear, "Dream sweetly, Dakota. Thank you for saving me." I smiled and slipped into an unconsciousness filled with laughter, grass, and strawberries.

but of course, it couldn't all be so simple. what fun would that be? when Dakota opens her eyes, the car is broken down in the middle of the desert, they are completely lost, and they are almost out of water... thanks to Peter:

"Maybe if you hadn't GONE OFF THE ROAD," Haylee shouted angrily to her brother.
"Haylee!" he shouted back at her, "it was a road when I got on it, it just stopped being a road at some point!"
"Well," Haylee called back, "that still makes you an idiot!"
"SHUT UP!" Peter roared. The water bottle that Marc was drinking from burst, drenching him and sending water sizzling into the sand.
"Peter, STOP IT!" Marc yelled. "You've ruined three bottles, we only have one left!"
"Don't yell at me!" Peter bellowed, the last bottle of water sitting in the sand made a painful hissing noise, but did not explode.

so, they decide to try walking. they attempt to get back to the road they came from, but of course, they have no idea where they are. they find themselves in bigger trouble than they thought was possible:

The word "hell" could not even begin to describe the temperature after walking for five hours under the baking sun. We hadn't been led here to learn anything, we had been led here to die. Haylee and Peter had their backpacks slung over their heads to protect their faces and eyes from the blinding sun. Marc had pulled off his shirt and tied it over my face and neck, refusing my protests that he would die of exposure with no shirt on. He walked a few feet ahead of me now and I could see bright blisters already forming on his burnt shoulders. The water was gone and had been gone for a while. We had walked about two hours before finding nothing and deciding that we had to turn back to the car. If nothing else, the car would be protection from the pounding rays. However, as we tried to make our way back, our footsteps had been covered by the blowing sand and the sun was disorienting. We had now gone nearly twice as far as we had come and were completely lost.
Peter stumbled and fell into the sand, scrambling to get up as the surface burned his hands. He stumbled again and Haylee stopped walking. As Marc and I drew even with her, we froze in our tracks at her appearance. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, as was the bridge of her nose from exposure to the sun. Dried blood was caked on her cheeks and her hair clung to her forehead with sweat. "Look at the water," she croaked, pointing a shaking finger to the distance. We followed her gaze but there was nothing but miles and miles of sand. "I want to get to the water," she said, a tear running down her cheek and drying up before it had gotten half way.
"PETER!" Marc called, terror in his voice. Peter stopped ahead and ran back toward us, falling again and again. Haylee looked at Marc.
"Please give me water," she whispered, reaching out and grabbing the straps of the bag slung over his shoulders.
"Haylee, honey, come back," Marc said, shaking her slightly, "we don't have any water. I'm sorry."
"Please," she begged. The straps she was holding began to smoke under her touch. Marc pulled her hands away as Peter approached.
"What's wrong? Haylee?" He looked no better than she did. All she could do was stare off into the distance and beg for water.
"I'll have to carry her," Marc said, stepping forward and putting one arm around her waist.
"I'll do it," Peter said. He slowly gathered her into his arms and lifted her weight. She was only inches off the ground when Peter collapsed under the strain. Marc scooped her from the sand and I pulled Peter to his feet.
"Let's go," Marc said, laboring forward.
We had only gone a few feet when Marc cried out and dropped Haylee in the sand. "Be careful!" Peter cried, falling forward to her. Marc rubbed his bare chest, where an angry red welt spread across his skin. He gathered her up and continued forward. This happened again and again, Marc yelling out into the heat and letting Haylee slip from his arms. She was sobbing and screaming for water incessantly.
"I can't," Marc gasped, rubbing the skin of his arms that were swollen with angry blisters, "she keeps burning me, I can't hold her." Peter tried in vain to lift her again, only falling forward, crying out in an angry sob. We knelt beside her, desperate to help but with no where to go.
"Peter?" she choked, staring out at nothing.
"Yeah, sweetie, I'm here, I'm right here," he was removing his shirt and mopping her head with it.
"I'm so thirsty, please. Please, Peter." His shoulders shook as he continued to wipe her face.
"She's going to die if she doesn't get water, we have to do something," Marc whispered desperately.
"What can we do?" I cried, "We don't even know where we are. What can we do?" Suddenly, Peter jerked his head up and stared into my eyes, his face determined. He jumped to his feet. Haylee moaned quietly and a little fire sprang up in the sand near her feet. Peter pulled me up and looked at me with blazing eyes.
"Yell at me, Dakota," he said.
"W-what?" I said, stunned.
"Yell at me!" he cried desperately.
"I don't understand what you're saying!" I screamed, my voice cracking, my head swimming. Haylee cried out and fell still. Marc leaned over her, pushing back her hair, and jumped up as another fire sprang from the ground.
"I don't know if she's breathing!" Marc wailed, unable to approach her as fires erupted all around.
"HIT ME!" Peter bellowed. I swung my hand back and slapped him across the face.
"AGAIN!" he screamed. I slapped him again.
"DAKOTA, YOU HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THAT!" I balled my hand into a tiny fist and cocked it back as far as it would go.
"Hey, Pete," Marc called. He was standing almost twenty feet behind us. Peter turned, I let my fist hover behind my head. Marc folded his arms across his chest, a cruel smile unfamiliar on his face.
"Your mother sounds like a whore."
A rumbling ripped through the silence, pounding out into the hot air, radiating from deep within Peter's chest. His whole body trembled, his face furious. "Dakota," Marc said without moving from Peter's heavy gaze, "RUN!" I slipped back in the sand, scrambling away. I stumbled back toward Haylee, surrounded in a ring of fire. Then, incredibly, the sand darkened. A low roar of thunder sounded from above. I lifted my head to see thick purple clouds racing from all directions, chased by an invisible wind, rolling and plunging to the place where Peter stood on a low dune in the distance. They converged, blackening the sky and blocking out the sun. Great peels of thunder tore through the air.
"COME ON, PETER!" Marc screamed over the crashing air, "IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR SISTER?" Peter clenched his fists and pulled his head back toward the sky. An incredible roar issued from deep inside his chest and he lifted his hands to the clouds. Then the rain came. Great, pounding drops beat against the sand, drenching everything. Haylee's fire was out within seconds and I ran to her, gathering her into my arms. The water soaked through my hair and clothes. I pulled Marc's shirt from my face and filled the folds with the huge drops. I rang the water into her mouth, wiping the caked blood from her face. After a moment, her eyes fluttered open, and she stared bewildered at the storm pounding around her. We watched as a great funnel of water swirled around Peter, obscuring him from sight, amplifying the sound of his laughter against the cry of the wind.
Marc began to make his way toward us across the sand. Suddenly, he froze, turning his gaze up into the sky.
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!" he screamed, and then he was gone. I gasped and sprang to my feet as he appeared over a hundred yards away. A great bolt of lightning stabbed at the earth exactly where he had been standing a second ago. How had he moved so quickly? A second later, he vanished again and appeared even further away. I screamed as another fork of lightning raked the earth where he had been. Again, Marc flew invisible across the sand, barely dodging another deadly bolt of fire.
"STOP IT! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL HIM!" I screamed, running forward toward Peter.
"DAKOTA, DON'T!" Marc yelled and vanished again, missing the lightning by a second. I fell to my knees and barely noticed Haylee sprint toward her brother. She approached the cyclone, one hand shielding her face from the wind. She paused outside the solid wall of water, squared her shoulders and plunged in. A moment later, the lightning ceased. The rain slowed to a drizzle, the thunder rumbled softly. The funnel of water thinned, revealing Peter holding Haylee against his chest, and then crashed to the ground. They made their way over to me, still kneeling in the wet sand in shock. Peter walked past me and lifted the backpacks onto his shoulders. Haylee pulled me to my feet, squeezing my hand. Fifty feet away, Marc stopped, watching Peter with wary eyes.
"Are you alright?" I called to him.
"Yes, are you?"
"No." I was trembling. He smiled.
"I see the car," he said, pointing. Sure enough, less than a mile away, the dull glint of the metal shone against the dark clouds that still hung over everything. Marc approached slowly. Twenty feet away, a sparkle of static electricity ran up his arm. "OUCH!" He cried, swatting it away. Peter grumbled something about getting what you deserve and turned toward the car.
When we reached it, I fell into the backseat and curled up in a tiny ball. Marc pulled another bag from the trunk and bent over something in the sand under the little palm tree.
"Will the clouds last?" Haylee asked Peter in a low voice.
"Yes," Peter said, glaring at Marc who was setting up a small tent.
"I think we should sleep then," she said. Without discussion, she covered me with a sweater and curled up on the front seat. Peter continued to glare at Marc.
"I'll sleep over here, thanks!" Marc called sarcastically, waving to Peter. Another jagged line of static ran up his leg. "OW!" he cried, throwing himself into the tent and zipping it closed. I was asleep within minutes.