Starting days after, Thorn wasn't allowed to be unsupervised when leaving the house. She could no longer go alone, anywhere, despite essentially being an adult. Even Zero wasn't enough of an escort.

She felt her body burn in anger and humiliation. Her father had turned from understanding to paranoid.

Were her powers really out of control? Did he no longer trust her?

Everything was foggy from when she conducted the experiments in the lab, and she woke up back home with her parents, once again, looming over her. The feeling of being a helpless damsel was so annoying.

If she could only find a way to make it stop...

One foggy January evening, Thorn was sitting alone in the family room, reading one of her favorite books beside the fireplace as it illuminated the entire room. Zero lay loyally at her feet, sleeping soundly. The only sounds to be heard was the crisp snap of a turning page and the crackle of the fire. This quiet allowed Thorn's mind to wander freely, without restraint.

Maybe her parents feared her powers, and the talk she'd had with her father right before the incident at the lab that rendered her memory unreliable was a lie. Maybe he did see her as the downfall of Halloween Town.

It burned in her.

How could they think that? How in God's name could they not trust me? I've done nothing for them to fear me.

But maybe she didn't have to do anything...

"Thorn? Are you home?"

The sound of her mother's voice only did so much to calm the dark storm in Thorn's heart. Still, lashing out at her, when she was innocent, didn't sit right with her. If anything, her father was really the guilty one.

"Yes, Mama, I'm in the family room with Zero," she finally replied.

Her mother poked her head into the room slowly before walking in slowly. "How are you feeling, sweetheart?" she asked.

"Fine," Thorn said flatly, returning her attention to her book. Now go away. I don't want to be around you guys. No offense, Mama.

"I'm glad to hear that," Sally continued, "since you've been at the house for several weeks. Maybe you should get some fresh air?"

Of course. At times since the incident, her parents encouraged her to go out and stretch, but only if someone could be with her. In her unamusement, the room darkened only slightly, but she tried still to keep reading.

"Open a window, then," Thorn snapped.

Sally's expression turned to hurt. "Sweetheart," she began, but Thorn cut her off with a slam of her book.

"I don't feel like inconveniencing someone to babysit me while I take a light stroll. No. If I want fresh air, I can open a damn window."

"Thorn! Language!"

"I'm basically an adult now. So, I think I'm within my rights to curse every once in a while."

She then reopened her book and proceeded to read again, clearly done with the conversation. Her mother's presence stayed in the room a few long moments more, before she finally left, though the hurt she clearly felt still remained. Thorn was alone otherwise once more.

Good. Maybe now, I can have some peace and quiet.

All things considered, she didn't hate her parents. She was just angry and hurt. She wanted her freedom back, the independence she could easily demonstrate, and that she longed to have again.

Not only that, but she didn't feel like she could trust her parents anymore. It hurt her to know that they didn't trust her to run around on her own anymore.

"Some day," she whispered. "Some day, they'll stop, and they'll apologize for this and everything will be right again."

Some weeks later...

March.

The beginning of spring was upon Halloween Town, and with it, plenty of rain to add to the already dreary atmosphere.

In time, Thorn had become a hermit, reclusing herself to her bedroom and either reading or performing tiny experiments on a hand-me-down chemistry set she'd been gifted for her twelfth birthday. In secret, she'd sneak out of the house in the black of night in order to practice using her powers in a controlled environment. It had taken time, but she finally started to understand her powers and their effects, even with her emotions.

Jack and Sally, unknowing of her secret excursions, both feared for her, but they refused to relent on an escort, which further drove Thorn to reclusiveness. Finally, the time had come where Jack had had enough.

"You need to get out of the house," he scolded as his daughter sat on the floor, back facing him, working on a concoction of unknown specifications and qualities. "At this point, it's been months since the incident, and-"

"Are you done?" Thorn interrupted. "Your voice may set off the potion I'm working on. It's extremely volatile still and I'd like to concentrate, if you wouldn't mind."

Jack's anger burned throughout the room at her snip, but Thorn was unimpressed. She had become much more terrifying than he was, and acted like a bored child around him as of late. Her skills were developing quickly, almost too quickly, but Jack could not back down.

"Thorn Skellington, you look at me when I'm speaking to you, and you do not interrupt OR disregard me!"

Finally, Thorn set her work down, and rose to her feet. She was at her father's chin now, and almost done growing, but she was still just as lanky and frightening, possibly more so. It only solidified more as the shadows darkened the room a bit.

Her patience had run out.

"I'm sorry for any inconvenience I might have caused you. Perhaps I should inconvenience someone else to babysit an almost 18-year-old for five minutes, because her parents are so overprotective, untrusting, and PARANOID, that they can't even let their almost adult daughter out and about on her own, or take care of herself, all because of some mistakes from the past!"

Jack was stunned to silence, but Thorn wasn't done.

"And to make matters worse, you guys are afraid of me. Don't lie to me; I can tell you are. I can control my powers. I've been practicing even in this room out of sight. It's just when I get angry, I can't control every variable. I'm young; I'm not supposed to understand everything, let alone something as big as this, and I don't need to be sheltered just because of some big, bad psychopath that YOU can't properly get rid of for good!

"I may be your daughter, but I am not you, and the sooner you back off and let me be again, the smoother things will go, and the happier we'll all be again. Because I am miserable, Papa, and I know you know why that is.

"Now, get out. I have work to complete, and you guys setting me off like this may make it react."

She said no more, and sank back down to the floor, picking up her at-home chemistry project and ignoring her father completely.