Fools Rush In
Pamela stared at her tired reflection in the mirror that faced her. The harsh fluorescent light in the room gave her already paled face a ghostly look, the only ounce of colour being a deep purple bruise that was forming on her forehead; and a few dashes of red where blood wept from many small cuts. Her left arm lay limp in her lap, the bone shattered to such an extent that she couldn't even feel it anymore. She was on the verge of tears for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day, her right hand shaking slightly on the cold metal table that she was sitting at.
The door opened, the comfortable background noise of the police station flooding in for a brief second before the door was closed after the two detectives had walked in, leaving her once again the silence, "Here's your water." One of the detectives said as she put a glass of water down on the table. It was Detective Strane, the officer that had brought her into the holding room.
"Thank you." Pamela croaked in response. Talking was proving to be a tall order with a swollen lip.
"Pamela, this is my partner, Detective Barnes. He's going to ask you some questions." Strane said, presenting the man next to her. Barnes remained silent, glowering down on Pamela with cold blue-grey eyes as he sat down, although such an action seemed to disgust, as if he was displeased at the thought of lowering himself to her level.
"Can't this wait?" She asked tiredly, silently pleading with Strane through her eyes, "I need to go to the hospital and check on everyone else… They were a lot worse off than I was and I want to make sure-,"
"A man is dead, Miss Walker," Barnes cut her off sharply, "And seeing as how you seem to be the only witness that is up to talking to us right now, we had better deal with this quickly while it's still fresh in your mind." He informed her harshly, staring intently into her eyes as if she had a replay of what happened in her pupils. "Or, you know, before you get a chance to formulate a story."
Pamela's eyes narrowed, "You're talking to me like I'm a criminal." She growled, receiving no answer from either cop, "Alright, you want the full story? I'll give it you." She said venomously, looking from one detective to another, "It all started this afternoon…"
Dean was grinning from ear to ear as he massaged Gwen's stomach, his ear pressed against her bump as he did so. "Oh, yeah, now I definitely know for sure." He said firmly, raising his head and smiling at Gwen, who had watched her boyfriend's behaviour in deep amusement for the last few minutes, "We're having a boy for sure. I can feel it!" He beamed, looking down at her stomach again, "Hey, my little boy! This is your dad!" He murmured excitedly to her belly, causing Gwen to roll her eyes and let out a small laugh.
"You know, I should have got this on tape, because Pam is never going to believe that you were talking to my stomach!" She said in an elated tone, leaning back on the sofa and staring at the ceiling. "It's weird. I always thought that getting pregnant at this age would be Hell on Earth, but…" She bought her head back up, smiling at Dean, "I've been so happy these past few months, its unreal."
"Me too." Dean said back, still grinning as he leaned in and kissed her deeply, placing his hand on her face and gently cupping her cheek.
They were interrupted when the door opened, allowing Pamela to enter. She made a beeline for the kitchen, smiling brightly at the couple before she bent down behind the fridge door, out of sight, "Hey!" She called out cheerily, remerging with a bottle of water in her hand, "What are you guys up to?"
"Uh… nothing." Dean replied with a frown as he sat up properly on the sofa, eyeing his sister with a curious stare, "So… Did Keith get on his plane alright?" He asked nervously, crouching a little he as spoke. Keith's flight had been earlier that afternoon, and Dean had been expecting Pamela to be a terrible mood when she came back.
"Yeah, I'm assuming so." She took a swig of her water, shrugging casually, "Unless he tripped in the tunnel to the plane, which is actually pretty likely as its just one big tunnel made up from tons of little tunnels and they have bumps on the floor where they connect and you could easily trip on one of those as you walk." She responded, her words coming out of her mouth faster than she could form them. "Anyway, I'm gonna get changed. I just put anything on this morning because I was in a hurry to help Keith finish packing and these clothes stink! Catch you crazy kids in a few!" She shouted perkily as she vanished down the hallway, leaving both of them dazed from her behaviour.
"Did she just act insanely happy around you guys as well?" Jordann asked as she walked in through the open door, Trent and McKenzie following in after her, "Because I could have sworn I just heard her say 'Catch you crazy kids in a few!'" She said sourly, staring in the direction Pamela had vanished in.
"Oh, yeah!" Dean exclaimed, getting up off the couch and walking towards them, "I take it her goodbye with Keith went pretty smoothly?"
"On the surface, yeah." Trent replied, leaning on the kitchen counter, "But come on, this is Pam we're dealing with here. You may not remember this because you were too young at the time, but when she was eight, Dad took her to the movies on the opening day of Practical Magic, only to find out that they were fully booked until the next day. She acted completely fine with it for the rest of the day, and then in the middle of the night, Mom found her in the bathroom pulling her hair out." He stood up to his full height, reliving the memory with a slight cringe. "This is how Pam reacts to this kind of stuff. She'll either get angry, or she'll suppress it all and press the self-destruct button at a later date."
"So, what are you saying? That we should take turns watching her tonight to make sure she doesn't start pulling out her hair?" McKenzie asked sarcastically with a raised eyebrow, "She's twenty one; I don't think she's going to do something like that. Besides, Keith leaving means you guys have now got a room for your baby." She said with a smile, turning to the couple on the sofa, "When are you due anyway?"
"Any day now." Gwen replied cheerily, rubbing her stomach with a small smile on her face. "Now that we're this far down the road, I just want to get it over and done with already so I can start being a mother."
"And so I can start being an uncle!" Trent replied jovially, swinging an arm McKenzie's hips all of a sudden and catching her off guard with a rushed kiss. Her eyes widened in surprise, before she realized what was happening and eased herself into it, placing her arms around his neck and returning the kiss with just as much passion.
Jordann rolled her eyes at another sudden display of passion from the couple. They had been happening more and more recently, and with Trent being a frequent visitor in her apartment due to her roommate, the feral was starting to get sick of it. She turned to Dean and Gwen, hoping to share her disgust at this with someone else, only to find that they had followed suit and were now in a lip lock, "Okay," Jordann said sourly, "Now I'm going to have to start pulling out my hair!"
"You were listening in?" Barnes asked with one eyebrow raised questioningly
"My friends love to psychoanalyze me." Pamela responded bluntly, "I don't see how me eavesdropping on their latest session is any bigger a breach of trust than what they were doing to me, but I don't really care what you think. I need to leave now." She snapped with sarcastic politeness, pushing herself into a standing position by putting her right hand on the desk while her left arm hung limp at her side.
"Sit down, Miss Walker," He droned, looking up at her with a hard stare and forcing her to lower herself into the chair again with a frustrated sigh.
Barnes opened the beige folder before him and produced a photograph, sliding it along the metal table so it was in front of her. Pamela's heart began to thump when she saw what it was of. A large, silver pistol lay on a dirty wooden floor, a crime scene investigation measurement marker next to it, and a bloody handprint on the handle, as if the person holding it had been covered in it. This caused her to look down at her own palms, which had been dyed a pale red from dried in blood. "We recovered this gun at the crime scene. It's registered to your name." He said darkly, "We also did a gun shot residue test on everyone we found with you. Basically, we see if you have any gunpowder on your hands from firing a gun recently. Your test was the only one that came back positive. Care to explain that?"
Before she could answer, Detective Strane reentered; her face apologetic for interrupting the interview. Pamela's face instantly regained hope at the sight of the woman, who seemed to be a lot more sympathetic than her partner, "Did you find out how my brother is?" She said desperately, her eyes pleading with the detective to give her the information she wanted.
"… He's still in surgery." Strane replied quietly, looking down at her clasped hands awkwardly.
"Well, what about Gwen?" She asked, her voice getting higher along with her stress.
"Who?"
"Gwen!" Pamela repeated, her brow arching in anger, "You know, the pregnant girl you who was probably scared to death?" She resisted the urge to stand up and be at eye level with this example of incompetence, as she knew she wouldn't be able to manage it without causing herself considerable pain. Especially since having lost her temper for a brief second and letting her breathing become erratic, she was pretty sure that one of her ribs was broken.
"Oh! The pregnant girl!" Strane stammered, suddenly standing to attention as if she had just been scolded by her superior, "She's-,"
"I think that's enough personal questions, Miss Walker." Barnes snapped, steamrolling over his colleague's words, "Now, would you care to answer my questions?" He asked hotly, a sneer appearing on his face.
Pamela's gaze flickered back to Strane, who looked a little peeved at her partner completely ignoring her skills as a detective, before she turned back to Barnes, her eyes hardening to the colour of ice under this light, "I was nearly killed in a mugging a few months ago." She replied, pointing to the everlasting scar that run through her face, "I bought the gun for protection. And yes," She said wearily, "I did fire the gun; I'm not going to deny that."
"The man that you shot…" Barnes began, sliding another crime scene photo towards her that made her skin lose all its colour almost instantly and suddenly gave her the urge to vomit onto the table. She had to look away from it as the detective continued to berate her, "Was he the man that mugged you? Is that why you shot him?" He asked coldly, glaring at the side of her head before she turned to him to answer.
"No and no."
Pamela, having now changed into a pair of faded black jeans and a dark grey waistcoat top, paced her room in a manic fashion. The notebook in which she had transcribed parts of the Book of Shadows before coming to New York was open in her hand as she walked around her bed. She held her free hand upwards, spinning it round continuously as she muttered under her breath, trying to commit something to memory before she gave a sigh and threw the notebook onto the bed, soon joining it with a thud. She stared at the ceiling, her hands resting on her stomach and her fingers drumming against her body before she turned slightly to the picture on her nightstand. "Don't look at me like that." She said to the picture. It was of Jordann, Keith and Trent at Bridget's twenty first birthday party a month ago. Her eyes focused in on Keith, who looked more startled than anything else, "I'm only doing what you told me to…" She murmured, closing her eyes and exhaling gently.
"Do you remember what you promised me last night?" Keith asked her, ducking slightly so he could put the strap of his shoulder bag over his head and let it rest against his neck. The mutant raised an inquisitive eyebrow when she didn't respond, and placed his hands on the strap of his bag with a smile, "Okay, well, I'll refresh your memory. You promised that you were going to drop this witch hunter thing for a little while and focus on something else."
Pamela sighed and turned her head away from him, putting her hands on her hips, "I don't remember making such a deal." She said flatly with a hint of amusement, staring at the floor until he placed his hand under her chin and turned her head back to him, forcing her to look into his stormy eyes.
"I'm serious." He said darkly, "I don't want you going after this guy and getting yourself killed just because you didn't have the sense to deal with this properly. Besides…" He took his hand away from her face, smiling again, "You're probably nothing in a fight without me coming to the rescue."
She scoffed at this, shaking her head with a grin, "You wish!" She said, before the laugher subsided, "I'll think about it, okay?"
"No. I want you to promise me that you'll find something else."
"Keith come on-,"
"No! Promise me!"
"Alright, fine! I promise!"
"Pam?"
The witch's eyes blinked a few times at the disturbance, bringing her out of her daydream as she rolled over in the bed to face whoever was standing at the door. "Oh, hey." She greeted Trent, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and facing him properly. "What's up?" She asked with a bright smile, casually brushing her notebook behind her back so he wouldn't see the numerous glyphs she had drawn on the front of it for protection.
"Mac and I are going across to Brooklyn to visit her sick aunt, but we're gonna be back at around seven, so I was thinking we could all meet up for dinner or something." His eyes twinkled when he grinned at her, "It'll be my treat, so you don't have to pay for anything." He said, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms, raising an eyebrow, "Come on, fine wine, good company, great food… it'll be fun."
Pamela sniggered slightly, "And where did you get all the money to pay for this? You're a cop in training; you're not exactly on the world's biggest salary." She said with an inquisitive frown, waiting for an answer.
Trent shifted uncomfortably, standing up properly and not using the doorframe for support, "… My trust fund kicked in when I turned twenty one a few years ago. I don't use it that much, but I dip into it now and again for the odd thing. Mom and Dad left the three of us one each. The last big thing I used it for was my student loans… Oh, and to pay for my car."
"Oh…" Pamela said, her face lighting up in realization, "That's probably what all those letters from the bank have been about since I turned twenty one." She caught his confused stare and saw he required an explanation, "They basically send me polite letters all the time to tell me I'm overdrawn, which no one likes to hear."
Trent chuckled a little, "Alright, so are you coming or not?" He sighed when he could see the clear hesitation in her eyes before she looked down at her lap, "Look, I'm not going to force you, but it's better just to swallow the sadness and get on with your life, than just wallow in it. Trust me."
"So, swallow, not wallow?" She replied with an amused smirk, which he returned.
"Exactly." He replied with another grin, "So, what do you say?"
"Alright then."
"Why are you trying to drown us in this irrelevant garbage?" Barnes snapped, running both hands through his hair before standing up suddenly, slamming his hands down the desk and boring his stare into her head as Pamela looked away from him, "Just tell me what happened that led to this man…" He prodded the crime scene photo, "Being shot dead by you."
"You're a lousy interrogator." Pamela spat, leaning forward and returning his glare with double the ferocity, "I'm sitting here, telling you everything that happened, and you keep stomping all over my words. Here's tip, if you want someone to tell you something, don't interrupt them with hissy fits every five seconds!" Her eyes shifted to Strane, who was leaning against the presumably two way mirror, "How do you manage to work with this diva?"
Strane suppressed a snigger when her partner's face went crimson. Barnes shook his head with an angry sigh and walked over to his fellow detective, whispering something in her ear, before storming out of the room, glaring heatedly at Pamela before leaving, slamming the door viciously as he went. The two women exchanged a glance as Strane sat down in her colleague's former seat, looking down at the folder.
"Okay, just pick up where you left off." She said calmly, "I'll listen without any unnecessary interruptions." She said; writing down a few notes on a piece of paper in the folder before looking up, ready to listen.
"Well, there's not really much to tell about the next few hours." Pamela responded, "I basically just hung around the apartment until we had to go and meet everyone else. I help my brother and his girlfriend pick out a few baby names, wrote a little bit of my column. It's nothing big, just a little blurb in the back pages of the newspaper. Uh… dinner was pretty uneventful too, until…"
"Until…?"
Pamela hesitated, cringing a little. "… Well, after I got mugged, a lot of my friends were murdered." She stated sadly, "And the fact that they were all witches as well-,"
"Wait a minute, witches?" Strane asked with a frown, giving Pamela an odd glance.
"It's not like we make potions and think we have magical powers or anything." She joked as a reply, "Witchcraft is more about herbal medicine, and sisterhood aspect of sharing the same believes as so many other people. It's more a way of life, than a label." She explained. Past encounters with the police never went well with Halliwells, so Pamela thought she would try a different tactic and get the witch thing out in the open immediately, just not tell the entire truth about it. "Anyway, my witch friends were being murdered, so the rest of us decided to set up a system, where if one of us felt like we were in danger, we could contact everyone at the same time and come together. You know, safety in numbers."
"So, the recent string of young female murders lately… all of these people have been a part of Wicca?" Strane asked politely, making Pamela smile inwardly. She clearly just the truth, and didn't judge what she uncovered along the way.
"Some males too, but yeah. He seemed to be going after people who were witches, so we set up this system." Pamela looked down at her lap, "And it was because of that system that I left the restaurant a little early…"
"Thank you." Pamela threw a bill into the front seat of the taxi as she got out onto the curb, closing the door behind her and letting it drive off. The witch looked up into the twilight sky, searching for the serene comfort she usually found within the golden hue that fell across the city at this time in a summer evening. It did nothing for her tonight. In fact, it made her feel even less at ease. The sky looked like it was on fire. Something wasn't right.
She noticed her friend Valarie sitting on the sidewalk across the street, isolated from the mob that had gathered around the main entrance to the apartment complex. At the sight of the fellow witch, Pamela's shoulders instantly drooped. The feelings of shock and overwhelming guilt, so paralyzing that you couldn't even stand. She knew exactly what Valarie was going through, because she had gone through it when she had found out that Madison had been killed. "Val, what happened to Billie? I got your message." She knelt down in front of her friend, her chocolate skin unnaturally pale, something that was clear even in this hour of dim light.
"It all happened so fast." Valarie whispered; her eyes wide and bloodshot. "I called for her whitelighter, but he couldn't do anything… The window just smashed and then she was…" Valarie's jaw quivered, before she swallowed slowly, trying to suppress her tears so she could talk properly. "He shot her." She said finally, "He must have either blessed the bullet that killed her, or he just blessed the gun… Either way, her whitelighter wasn't able to heal her. Then we wasted an hour trying to figure out what to do…"
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me… Guns?" Pamela breathed tiredly. He had escalated to guns. He wasn't even giving his victims a chance of survival anymore.
They both turned when the crowd seemed to part, making way for the paramedics who were coming out the building. They were wheeling out a body bag on a gurney, causing both witches to flinch when the mass of black vinyl shifted violently due to gurney being brought down off the sidewalk in a rather callous manner before being put into the back of the ambulance. There were no sirens, and the crowd began to disperse once the vehicle began to drive away. Nothing but silence. "There's something else too…"
Pamela turned back to her distraught friend, frowning, "What is it?"
Valarie looked down into her jacket, fishing in one of her pockets and producing her cellphone. She flipped it open and began to press the buttons, "I got this voicemail the moment when we walked into Billie's apartment. I turned around to tell her about it, and… that's when it happened."
"Three guesses where he called from…" She looked up to the roof of the building across from the apartment complex, glaring intensely at it as if the witch hunter was still up there, taunting her. She pressed the phone to her ear and listened to the voicemail. It was short, but it was enough to make Pamela go pale almost immediately. Her mouth fell open, and her breathing instantly became ragged. She never thought that three little words could scare her so much.
"It ends tonight."
Pamela didn't even register the apartment door opening as she sprinkled viper ashes into the bubbling potion. Her eyes gleamed with silent mania as she didn't look up to see who had entered, focusing on the concoction in front of her before looking forward to the other potion that was simmering on the other part of the stove. Finally bringing her gaze up, she saw Dean with Gwen, who looking at the jars of ingredients littered around her, staring wide eyed at them. "What is all this stuff?" She asked incredulously, grimacing at the stench emanating from the pots.
"Herbal medicine, feeling kinda down." Pamela gave her rehearsed answer robotically, going back to her potion making, not taking notice of her brother's clear panic at this blatant display of witchcraft.
"Uh… Honey, why don't you go out into the balcony and get away from the smell of this stuff?" Dean suggested with a beaming smile, gently taking away the jar in her hand before she could read what it said on the label. "Go on, I'll join you in a minute." He guided her in the direction of the large sliding doors, watching her walk off to the other side of the room to open them before turning back to his sister, "Okay, I know you've been through a lot today. I'm not denying that. But have you completely flipped your lid?"
"Just because you like denying who you are, doesn't mean I do." She said in a matter of fact tone, once again not even giving him eye contact as she stirred the potion closest to Dean. She looked up at him when she heard am angry sigh, realizing that she had hit a sensitive spot, "Look, Dean, I'm sorry, but right now, you choosing to hide your demonic genetics from your girlfriend is the least of my problems."
"I thought Keith told you to lay off this witch hunter thing. Why are you doing this?"
"Keith told you about that? Why?"
"Oh, come on, like he was going to trust you to restrain your own determination." Dean replied sourly with a roll of his eyes, a move that Pamela was certain he had got from her. "You know what? I'm not going to let you do this." He said firmly, lifting the pot closest to him by the handle and walking towards the sink.
"No!" She boomed with a raised voice, putting her hand up to make him stop. "It's not for the witch hunter, alright?" She sighed as he stopped, narrowing his eyes and placing the pot down on the counter, "It's so I can find out what happened to Stewart and Joanna…"
Dean stared at her for a few seconds, before silently lifting the potion pot up once again and returning it to the fire it had been sitting upon. "What?"
"I wasn't going to tell you until I knew it had worked, but I couldn't have you going and destroying the last two hours of my life…" She gestured at the pot he had picked up.
"Take me with you." Dean suddenly urged softly, surprising his sister, as he was usually so adamant about staying away from anything to do with magic, "I don't care what you're doing. Whether you're going to go into a trance, you're gonna go back in time… I don't care, I want to see. Trent should too. The three of us should do this together, we deserve this."
"I know, believe me," Pamela replied strongly, trying to make sure that they both remained calm, "But I just don't have the power anymore. That's why I'm making all these potions. If I was at full strength, then I wouldn't need all the potions, but I'm not and I do, so I can barely make this spell affect me, let alone three people." She stared sorrowfully at his bowed head, realizing that this news must be devastating for him, as he too had sought the truth for so long, "I will tell you every detail, alright?"
"Why do you even need to do this at all? Why don't you wait until you're back up at full power until you do anything?"
"Because it's not a matter of waiting for my powers to return, I need to kill the witch hunter to get them back." Pamela said with a small smirk, "And since I'm apparently off limits from going after him, I need something to distract myself. Besides, this has been eating away at me for so long… I can't just let this opportunity pass by without doing something."
He stared at her, his brow creased in frustration as his jaw clenched, "You'll tell me every detail?"
"Every single detail."
"Wait, hold on," Strane held up her hand, frowning curiously at what Pamela had just relayed to her. She looked up from the file, where she was scribbling furiously what she was being told in note form, "You just said that you were making herbal concoction to help you remember what happened to your foster parents eight years ago. Why did you think that something like that would work above everything else?"
"The thing that I was making gives off a special kind of aromatic smoke." Pamela explained; wincing as she accidentally scraped her teeth against her injured lip, "It's kind of like incense. The smell lets you relax, eases your mind, and allows you to remember things that you thought you had forgotten."
"It lets you relax?"
"I wasn't high, if that's what you're asking." Pamela replied sharply, glaring at the detective for even suggesting it.
"Okay, so what happened after that?"
Pamela froze up at this question and began to visibly shake. Raising her hand up to her face, she nursed her bloody lip with handkerchief once again, before heaving a sigh as tears prickled her eyes, "… I remembered…"
She struck the match against the side of the box, her eyes following the tiny flicker of light in her darkened room as she held it against the wick of the final candle that remained unlit. Pamela bit her lip nervously as she blew out the match and placed it on the metal tray that her ritual urn was on, kneeling down in front of it and making sure that all five candles were positioned correctly, before picking up the small Tupperware box next to her. "When you invoke time, you can pretty much do anything…" She murmured to herself.
Opening the box, she cringed at the pile of grey-black muck that was within. All she had done was wipe her hand along the mantelpiece in the Walker's bedroom, expecting just a pile of dust, not all this. It was better for the spell through. It would give it more power if the dirt was thicker. And anything that ensured the success of this spell was a positive in her book.
After all, she couldn't go out tonight and face the witch hunter with this still hanging over her head.
She dipped her hand into the box, filling her fist with the ancient mixture and held it over the urn, slowly beginning to sprinkle it into the potion that she had been working on earlier, "Dust and dirt, soot and grime, give to me my sands of time, heed the words within my rhyme, and take me back to the scene of the crime…"
As the dirt first fell from her hand, it began to sparkle with a golden light during her chant. Once she had emptied her palm, a pulse of dazzling energy shot from the depths of the pot, blinding the Halliwell witch and forcing her cover her eyes from the blast. She was suddenly overcome with an odd sensation, as if her insides were being sloshed around inside her like a washing machine. It only lasted a few seconds, and when she brought her arms away from her face, she was no longer in her room, and she was no longer sitting.
Pamela was surrounded by an eerie silence and it was now, in the dead of night, she realized that even in its prime the Walker apartment had been extremely creepy to be in. She stood at the end of the hallway, the flawless wooden floor gleaming in the moonlight that was flooding in from the dining room to her right. The piano stood proudly, perfect, nothing like its current state where it lay in pieces after Keith was thrown through it. Some of Dean's toys were splayed out on the marble floor of the main room, bringing back fond memories that were so strong she almost wanted to go into the dining room, sit on the floor, and play with the toys herself, but she was here for a reason.
She walked down the hallway for a few feet before turning to the left and into the Walker's bedroom. Her chest tightened immediately when she saw them both, alive and well through the crack in the doorway. Almost instantly, the familiar scent of perfume that she could sometimes smell in the present day apartment assaulted her senses, making her close her eyes as tears began to flow from being hit with such a memory.
"Joanna, would you please just come to bed?" Stewart beckoned her irritably from the bed as Pamela entered. She assumed that they couldn't see her, or were even aware of her presence, as neither of them looked up when she pushed the door open and walked in, "Trent always does this after we have an argument with him, ever since he learned how to drive…" He said grumpily before lying back in the bed and tightly shutting his eyes, making Pamela snigger and roll her eyes. He was always grumpy if he was tired, like a child.
"I know…" Joanna replied, still not changed for bed, "It was just something in his eyes before he left. I hope he doesn't do anything stupid… And even more than that, I don't him to go off to college in the fall hating our guts."
"He shoved Pam to the floor in the dining room!" Stewart replied indignantly, not even opening his eyes, "You know how dangerous that could have been. What if she had hit her head on that marble? Or what if she had decided to use her powers on him? Although I can't say I would have blamed her in that situation. Not to mention, she didn't even do anything to provoke him as far as we know. And there's a five year gap between them, so even if she did do something, he should have known better than to abuse his obvious strength advantage. Let it go, Jo, and come to bed."
"He's always been jealous of the attention we gave Pam and Dean." Joanna continued, ignoring her husband, "He's never seen that he didn't need us as much as they did. From his point of view, they stole his parents. He's never treated them with any love…" Joanna looked out the window, her body language making her despair clear. "I feel like such a failure."
Pamela frowned at this information. She may have forgotten a lot of her childhood, but she never remembered Trent treating her and Dean horribly. She couldn't say for certain, but this just couldn't be true. They had all got along so well recently, and if what Joanna was saying was true, then Trent would never remotely like them, let alone love them.
Before Stewart could respond to his wife's statement, the sound of the front door opening echoed throughout the apartment, causing both Walkers to turn to the door of their bedroom. With an angry sigh, Stewart rose from the bed, "Get Pam and Dean, and stay in here. I'm going to deal with him once and for all." He snapped, leaving the room.
Pamela gave chase to him, briefly looking back to see Joanna entering Dean's room before resuming her tailing of her foster father, who had just slammed the heel of his hand into the wall, turning on the light in the foyer and giving the witch a fright at what she saw as a consequence.
A younger Trent stood there, just closing the door as he let two other men in. The three of them together didn't look that menacing, they looked rather normal. Both of them seemed to be a little older than Trent, with rough faces and small eyes. The only things that separated them were their height and their hair, the taller one having no hair, and the short one having a burst of black hair.
"Trent, what have we told you about having friends over after midnight?" Stewart droned, folding his arms, clearly not intimidated by the duo his son had brought into his house.
"They aren't my friends, Dad." Trent replied with a smirk, resting his hands on their shoulders, "They're my brothers in arms, charged with one very important purpose: To purge the world of all its filthy, disgusting evils." He said with disdain, grimacing as if he could taste his own words. "You see, around a year after you decided to spread your wealth and adopt two strangers into our house, I did a little research, and do you want to do what I found, Dad?"
Pamela's heart sank, and she leant on the wall for support as her legs began to betray her. It couldn't be.
"What?" Stewart questioned sharply, snarling at his son.
"Our very own Pam and Dean are evil." Trent responded simply, "Sure, Dean's evil, but at least his kind embraces it. Demons are true to themselves, which gives them a sliver of dignity and something to respect. Witches on the other hand…" He let out a sick laugh, "I can't believe I lived with one for so long… The dirt will probably never come off." He turned to his father, giving him a frightening stare, "You see, pops, witches try and blend in with normal people, except they're not normal. They're always using their powers to change the concept of normal so they fit into it. They're human filth. Hell, they're not even human. They're just filth." He took a few steps forward, a nauseating smirk appearing on his face, "So, Dad, are you going to be the guardian of the garbage, or are you going to step aside and let us take the trash out?"
Stewart swallowed hard, his eyes flickering between the two men that stood behind his son. All of a sudden, his fist swung at Trent's face, throwing him into the table in the foyer and knocking over a vase, "I don't know where the hell your mother and I went wrong with you, but we're certainly not going to repeat those mistakes on those two amazing kids."
Trent touched his bloody lip as he recovered, chuckling slightly, before suddenly lunging at his father, his blade drawn, and throwing it into Stewart's gut. Blood immediately began pouring out onto Trent's hands, before he shoved his father to the ground with a thud. "I hate getting good blades dirty for no reason…" He growled; stepping on his father's wound and watching in sadistic pleasure as the light vanished from his eyes.
"No!" Pamela screamed, finally finding her strength and running to him, dropping to her knees and skidding along the smooth wood to his side. She traced Stewart's pale face in the air around it, as she knew she wouldn't be to function anymore if she saw her hand go right through his face. She whipped her head around to Trent, who was still looking down at dead father, "What the hell is the matter with you?" She shrieked, angry tears pouring down her cheeks, "You're a monster! You bastard!"
"C'mon, my mom's probably protecting them in the bedroom," Trent said darkly to his partners, not even hearing Pamela as he began to walk down the corridor towards the bedroom.
"No…" Pamela breathed through her tears, "No!" She scrambled to her feet and ran down the hallway, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of her incorporeal body passing through three people as she overtook them, running to the bedroom where Joanna was kneeling down in front of the children, her back to the door, "Please! You have to get out of here! He's going to kill you! Run!" Her throat was burning from the volume she was shouting at. She knew no one could hear her, but it didn't stop her from trying, "Run! You're going to die! Please, just run!"
"Mom, get out of my way." Trent growled menacingly from the doorway, holding up his bloody knife for show. Joanna turned and stood in front of Pamela and Dean, holding her arms back slightly in an attempt to protect them. "I already tried to explain things to Dad, but he wouldn't listen. He never did…"
"You killed your father…?" She asked, barely able to get the words out, "What is wrong with you?" She suddenly screamed, causing the two children behind to cower even more, tears beginning to spring from their faces as they realized their foster father was never coming back.
A range of emotions crossed Trent's face within a few seconds. First, it was the crashing disappointment of his mother betraying him, when she had been the parent he had loved the most. Then, it was of unfathomable anger, "You're taking his side too?" He asked manically, suddenly running at his mother putting his hand under her chin as he spun her around so she was facing Pamela and Dean, "Then you'll die too, and they're going to watch…" With one brutally swift motion, he slashed her neck, sending blood spurting across the two children and all over the floor in an arc shape before dropping her to the floor, "Traitors…" He growled, before a large energy ball suddenly plowed into his shoulder, sending him flying back into the wall before crashing down onto the floor.
The younger Pamela looked to her side and took a few steps back when she saw that Dean's skin had turned a dark blue, a luminous green tribal mark glowing furiously on the side of his small face. He bared his enlarged teeth at the two other witch hunters, before wheeling his arm back and releasing an energy ball that even an adult demon would have trouble throwing, casting them back and away from the door also.
In fear for her life, the young girl used the chaos to make a run for it, "No! Wait!" Pamela shouted after her past self, not wanting her to see Stewart's dead body. It was too late, the younger version of herself lingered in the foyer for a few seconds, before she heard the window smash, presumably Dean escaping in his demonic form. Fresh tears flowed down her face before she ran to the door, racing out of the apartment and running as fast as she could.
Pamela was back in the apartment, sitting the gloomy darkness of her room. The candles had burned out in her absence, and tears still run down her cheeks at what she had witnessed. Trent was the witch hunter. He had killed his parents because they had tried to protect her from him. This was all her fault. All the deaths that had occurred recently, all the friends she had lost, the reason her life was like this. It was all her fault. Her being a witch had made Trent this way.
She jumped with fright when a muffled banging suddenly reached her ears. She turned around, and saw light pour in through the gap at the bottom of the door, telling her that Dean was seeing to it. Her eyes widened as she started to apply her newfound knowledge to what was happening, and she got to her feet almost instantly, "No, Dean! Don't!" She shouted.
"What? Why? What's going on? Have you been crying?" He asked, noticing the tear tracks on her face before the banging on the front door suddenly started up again, this time making both of them jump as a groggy Gwen joined them in the living room, clearly just waking up.
"Pam! Open the door! Please!" McKenzie's panicked shrieks came from behind the door. At the sound of her distressed friend, Pamela went towards the door and looked through the peephole before immediately undoing the latch and letting the mutant tumble into the apartment. She was absolutely hysterical with panic, nearly crashing straight into the sofa as she flew in, desperate not to be alone for another second. "It's Trent! He's the witch hunter!" She screamed, staying still long enough for them to see that her bare feet where bleeding badly. She had run here without any shoes.
"Mac…" Pamela murmured, going up to her friend and holding her head at the sides, "Mac!" She said with slightly more authority, stilling the girl's manic sobbing for a second, "You need to tell me what happened so I can stop him. Where did he go? Where's Jordann?" At this question, McKenzie dissolved into crying once again, causing Pamela's heart to skip a beat, "I she-?"
"I don't know!" She cried, wincing with each step as she was guided to the sofa so she wouldn't have to stand on her torn up feet for any longer. "I…. I just got up for a glass of water and he was there with a knife and-and… an amulet around his neck." She reached up to own neck, massaging it gently and bringing attention to the angry red colour her skin around there had become, "I tried to scream but then he choked me then Jordann came out of nowhere and threw him off me and then they started fighting…" She didn't seem to realize she was babbling as she attempted to calm down her breathing, "I just ran! I don't know what happened to her… Oh, God, if she's dead…"
"Don't think like that, alright? None of this is your fault. The only person whose fault this is, is Trent, okay?" Pamela assured her, looking deep into her bleary eyes, "Look, Jordann was one of the strongest ferals of her kind; her powers would have been able to protect her regardless of that amulet, so-,"
"Wait a minute!" Dean suddenly bellowed, "Trent… He's not a killer. He can't be the witch hunter. He just isn't, alright? He's our brother, Pam!" He shouted, apparently forgetting Gwen was even there with them, slowly getting paler and paler as she listened to the people she thought she knew talk as if they were insane.
"He's not our brother." Pamela growled, "He's a monster. He killed Stewart and Joanna because they tried to protect us. I saw it when I cast the spell…"
"Okay!" Gwen suddenly cut through, placing both hands on the kitchen counter as she looked at the trio before her, "Is this like one big massive prank to freak me out? Because I gotta tell you, I'm not finding it funny and neither is the baby." She said breathlessly, her eyes flickering for a brief second and causing to Dean to rush to her side, letting his sister slide by him and storm off down the hallway.
"Pam! Wait!"
As Dean entered her room, he saw that she was leaning out of her window. Before he could even inquire why, he got his answer. "Arc!" She bellowed out into the night sky, leaving her window open as she turned around to her bed and vanished from Dean's sight. He could hear things being shifted around, before she finally reemerged from underneath the bed, making him recoil back in fear at what he saw in her hand. "Pam, what… what the hell are you doing that?"
"Protecting myself…" She replied darkly, not looking up from the gun in her hands as she took out the magazine to make sure it was fully loaded, before slotting it back into place with a resounding click. As she did, her hair was blown into her face by Arc whooshing into the room, landing gently on the edge of the bed, somehow not breaking it even due to the fact that he was made of stone.
"You called me, Miss?" The gargoyle questioned politely.
"Yeah, get ready to fight. I'm going to need you."
"Pam! Would you please just stop for a second?" Dean protested, rubbing his head as he tried to gather his thoughts, "Even if what you're saying is true, you can't just go and kill him! He's our brother! We've known him for years. We need to turn him into the police or something… I'm going to call the police…" He said, beginning to walk off before he heard the gun cock.
"Don't." Pamela ordered firmly, still making sure the gun was ready for use, "First of all…" She looked up, "What I'm saying is true; I saw it with my own eyes. And second of all, I'm not killing him, Dean. Killing is when you take the life of a human being, and vanquishing is when you take the life of a monster, therefore, I'm vanquishing him." She grabbed her jacket and swung it around her shoulders, slipping the gun into one of its pockets as Arc floated along behind her, "Dean, get out of my way."
"No! I-I can't accept this! There has to be an explanation!"
"You want an explanation? Alright, you did ask for every detail after all. That night, when he came to kill us, he was met with resistance in the form of our foster parents. The moment that they put up a fight, he killed him." She was slowly advancing on him, making him walk backwards towards the door as she did, "Stewart was the first to go. He got one good punch in, then Trent stabbed him, dropped him to the floor, and stepped on his wound to make his death even more painful. Next? Was Joanna. The very moment she voiced problems with his actions, he took his knife and ripped through her throat, covering the two of us in blood because we had been standing behind her as she been trying to protect-,"
"Stop it!" He suddenly shouted, angry tears beginning to sprout from his eyes as he dug his nails into the doorframe he had grabbed onto to balance himself.
"Look after Mac, and call Bridget, tell her what's happened, and tell her that she needs to get her ass back into the city, pronto." Those were her final words before she stormed past him, Arc following obediently behind her, getting led to battle as they left the apartment, ignoring Gwen's near panic attack when she saw what she had once referred to as the "fugly statue" flying and talking.
"God, I really need you right now, Keith…"
There really was only one place he could be. After all, his problem was with her, and there was no better a place to end it all than in the place where it had started.
Pamela walked wearily into the Walker apartment. It seemed to be even more terrifying now that it had been when she had seen what had happened all those years ago. It was freezing, which was odd, as they were in the height of summer and the heat would always get everywhere. It wasn't until after a few seconds she realized that she was sweating, her palms clammy to the touch. Her senses were all over the place.
She decided to keep her line of sight strictly linear, not wanting to look down at the floor and see the blood pool where Stewart had died in the foyer, her hand in her pocket all the way, clenching to the handle of the gun as if it was the only thing keeping her anchored to her composure. Her only comfort was the gargoyle that she knew was close by, and the fact that she knew that he was slinking around in the darkness was the only thing that stopped her from flinching and turning around at every tiny noise or flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye.
The witch stopped dead when a blood curdling scream echoed through the apartment, bouncing off all the walls and surrounding her. Her blood run cold instantly, causing another shiver to travel up her spine and send her into another shaking fit. It had come from the large dining room, the main room of the apartment. She pursed her lips, trying to swallow her terror as she neared the doorway. That had been Jordann screaming. She knew it.
The moonlight poured into the long room, illuminating Trent's skin in such a way that he looked like the walking dead. He didn't even look up from his project as Pamela entered the room, "You know, I really should gag you, but to tell you the truth…" He leaned into Jordann's ear as she weakly struggled against the ropes that were binding her to the chair, "… I love it when you scream." He growled with the same sadistic smirk Pamela had saw during her spell, before he took the knife he was holding and took it across Jordann's exposed arm, adding another bleeding welt to the many that now littered her arms, face, and the exposed part of her chest. Another chilling scream filled the air as tears flowed down her face, running through her bloody cuts and probably causing them to sting. She was still in her pajamas, still with bare feet. She hadn't been prepared for the torture she was now facing, "What about you, Pammy?" He asked causally, finally turning her way with a smile, "Are you a screamer? I wouldn't imagine you are; you're far too proud for that."
Pamela didn't even respond. She glanced at her friend, who looked like she would rather take death over anymore of this torture, and immediately, her soul all but shattered. She then turned to Trent, whose eyes were dancing with malevolent glee. Her jaw quivered in a mixture of rage and fear. All she had to do was keep him talking, and it would all be over. "How did you do it?" She croaked weakly.
"What the devil are you talking about?" He asked brightly, happy curiosity all over his face.
"When I was first attacked, you were in Mac and Jordann's apartment with everyone else." She explained, her eyes narrowing as she took a step forward, "How did you manage to attack me while you were up there entertaining guests at the same time?" She looked at the window that stood far behind Trent to his left, seeing the silhouette of a gargoyle against the misty glass.
"Oh, I wasn't me that attacked you." He responded simply, "You see, I always planned to do it like this… holding one of your friends hostage and torturing them while you looked on helplessly, so I couldn't have you figuring me out too soon. So, I got one of good friends to inflict a permanent wound on you with one of my blessed weapons so I would be the one who got your powers. I struck lucky when I came back to New York and you weren't around. It gave me some time to get stuck into your friends without you around to cast suspicion on me before they learnt to trust me. It was just a matter of who was more receptive to me. Jordann here wasn't interested," He laid a hand on her shoulder, causing her to flinch, "But McKenzie… She was so desperate for anyone to love her; she would worship anyone that gave her any scrap of affection. I could count on her allegiance for when you did come back and started spreading your poison. Although, I have to admit, I wasn't expecting Dean to be such an ally. I was expecting for you to have already turned him against me by then."
"Believe me, I tried." She growled in response, "But then again, that was probably just me starting to remember how horrible you were to us when we were kids. You're lucky you're traumatized us both to the point where we blocked out our childhoods, because if you hadn't, then your little game wouldn't have lasted so long…"
"Game? Pammy, it's very callous of you to refer to me killing so many filthy witches as a game… It was sport." He said sarcastically, chuckling a little.
"Why…?" Pamela breathed, tears streaming down her face as she watched Arc's shadow take flight in front of the window and ignoring his heartless comment, "Why me? Why did you have to kill so many witches just to get to me?"
"Because you're evil!" He bellowed, his eyes widening threateningly and breaking his cool exterior, "Your kind are pathetic and disgusting, thinking that having powers makes you better than the rest of us… You tore my family apart with your very presence, being such a poor, damaged puppy that needed more attention than their own son!"
"I wasn't the one who killed them!" She screamed.
He ignored her, continuing to talk, "Although I got to admit, your powers are pretty awesome. And I think, after all these years of killing your fellow rats, I've realized that it's all about the motivation behind the power, and that way, I can justify using your powers to serve justice." He regained his cocky composure, smirking, "Hell, I used one of them just before you got here. What was it called…? Oh, yeah!" His eyes narrowed, somehow destroying all her hope with just a glance, "A premonition!" He boomed, suddenly gesturing at her and causing the gun in her pocket to fly from her grasp into his with her telekinesis. "Now you're screwed…" He chuckled, throwing his hand out again and sending her flying down the massive room telekinetically. She landed heavily on her left arm, unbearable pain suddenly shooting up and down it the moment it cracked against the marble.
The window caved in as Arc made his entrance, his stone face crumpled into an angry grimace as he held two energy balls within his palms. He didn't even get time to use them. Trent rose to the gun to him, shooting him twice just to stun the gargoyle, causing the two projectiles to fizzle out from the interruption before he hit the wall from being blasted back from the barrage of bullets, small chips now appearing in his body where he had been shot. The witch hunter than opened his mouth, releasing a supersonic scream of audiokinetic energy and pummeling Arc with it. The gargoyle was pinned to the wall under the pressure, and he slowly began to shake. Pamela's heart broke when one of his stone legs fell off, plummeting to the floor and disintegrating into white dust. The rest of Arc's limbs followed suit, before he was completely ripped apart, blowing up into a cloud of dust that fell to the marble, leaving nothing left.
"No!" Pamela screamed, trying to push herself up to her feet without her left arm. She had lost someone else. She shouldn't have brought him. It was all her fault.
"That really was stupid…" Trent growled, turning on her and raising her own weapon against her, preparing to shoot.
Panicking, Pamela made a run for it, bolting towards the door just as she heard the wall that she been standing in front of a few seconds ago cave in due to an explosion suddenly detonating and spraying her back with debris, making her ears ring from the noise. He was using her powers against her. She let out a small scream when she heard a gunshot, still continuing to run. She had barely got out of the dining room when the wall to her right suddenly blew up in a shower of wood chips and dust, the force of the explosion throwing her into the room she had been passing. The Walkers' bedroom.
"Kinda fitting that it should end here for you as well, don't you think?" Trent boomed manically as he strode into the room, covered in dust from walking through the aftermath of the destruction he had wrought. Pamela looked up from the floor to face him valiantly, only to be met with his fist as he punched her, knocking her out and leaving her completely defenseless. "After all these years…" A euphoric expression spread across Trent's face, "It's finally going to be over."
He raised the gun, and almost pulled the trigger, before someone suddenly leapt on his back, throwing off his aim and knocking the gun from his hands. The witch hunter growled when he recognized the watch on the arm that was around his neck, "You should have stayed away, Dean!" He shouted jovially, before grabbing hold of his little brother's wrists and throwing him telekinetically over his back, sending him flying into the wall upside down and causing him to smack his head off the floor.
Nevertheless, Dean got up, his lip now bleeding, "Don't you dare touch her, you bastard!" He roared, before running at his big brother again, only to get effortlessly tossed through the air once again, this time hitting the floor and rolling the rest of the way until he hit the wall. He went to get up, before Trent suddenly kicked him forcefully in the gut, causing him to hit the ground once again as the older man continued to kick him violently.
"You little son of a bitch!" Trent growled, continuing to kick Dean in the stomach before moving onto his head, slamming his foot into his little brother's face numerous times, "The only thing you've achieved…" Another kick to the face, "Is that…" Again, "You'll die before-,"
Three loud, successive bangs silenced Trent almost immediately. The wall in front of him was sprayed with blood as all the bullets went right through him, stopping in the wall. Blood began to trickle down the side of his mouth, he struggled to turn around and face his killer, seeing Pam barely conscious, holding the gun shakily in her right hand. He tried to speak as she stumbled to her feet, staring at him, completely dumbfounded by her own actions. Just he thought he had found the words, he fell to the floor with a thud and began to choke on his own blood, the crimson liquid rising so far that it spilled out his mouth. He was gone. It was over.
"Dean…?" Pamela called weakly, not even hearing the sirens in the distance as she limped over to her little brother, who was bleeding badly, "Dean?" She called out more strongly as she collapsed to her knees beside him, resting her hand on his arm and gently shaking him, "Please, Dean, please wake up! I can't lose you!" She sobbed, leaning in to his bleeding face to see if he was still breathing, "Dean, I can't lose you too. Wake up! Wake up!"
"… And that's what happened." Pamela said quietly, tears now freely flowing down her face as she finished retelling the story. She let out a sigh and scrunched up her eyes, before using the handkerchief she had used for lip on her eyes, dabbing her cheeks with it in an effort to pull herself together, "I swear, that's all that happened. I don't remember anything else."
"But what about the explosions you said happened? How did Trent manage to rig them together?" Strane asked desperately, frustrated as a lot of this information was useless to the investigation.
"I don't know. You'd have to ask Trent that…" She murmured with a sniff, "Can I please go now? I need to know if my brother is okay."
"We're not done here, Miss Walker!"
The door suddenly flew open, revealing Bridget in the hallway before she stormed in, her eyes wide with rage, "What the hell is going on in here?" She demanded, looking at Detective Strane in shock.
"Who are you?"
"Bridget McAvoy, third year law student at NYU!" She boomed proudly, placing her hand on Pamela's shoulder and glaring down at the police officer, "I'm assuming you know, detective, that if a witness is found injured at a crime scene, their health takes precedence over the case. That's simple protocol, and respect to the witness' rights. Miss Walker is clearly injured! Her arm is broken, she has an abundance of open wounds, a black eye, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's cracked a rib." The mutant gently helped Pamela to her feet and put her coat around her shoulders, "This interview is over." She said angrily, "I'm taking my friend to the hospital, and if you bother her or her brother while they're in recovery, I will slap a lawsuit on this entire department so fast, it'll make your head spin! C'mon, Pam!"
Bridget stormed out of the interview room, her face turning completely white as she walked to the elevator like a zombie; Pamela followed her, amazed at the normally quiet girl's sudden display of assertiveness. She had even left Detective Strane speechless, "That was awesome." Pamela breathed as they waited for the elevator to come. Her friend could only stare at the floor in response.
"Dean called me a while ago, but it took me a while to get through the traffic…" Bridget explained, taking a deep breath to process what had just happened, "I've never done anything like that before in my life!" She gasped as the elevator doors opened, stunned at her own anger. "I can't feel my fingers…"
He looked so still.
The monotonous beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room as Pamela, her left arm now in a sling and the scar under her eye in stitches, walked towards her brother, who still hadn't woken up from his life saving operation. She was tempted to stay where she was, as with each step closer, he looked worse. Large, hideous bruises had begun to appear on his face and vicious scars lay on top of them, looking even worse. White bandages had been wrapped around his head and chest was barely rising and falling. This wasn't her brother. It was his shadow.
"Hey…" She breathed quietly, gripping his hand tightly and thankful that it was warm, "… You never told me that you left Gwen here, in labour, to come and save me." She said with a small smile, "… I guess with everything she found out, along with seeing Arc fly and talk made her water break, huh?" The only response she got was the beep, "Anyway… she's resting after her c-section, and you are the father of a beautiful little girl! Although you wouldn't know she got some of her looks from you with your face right now…" She joked, mainly for own benefit, because if she properly faced up to this, she would crack again, and couldn't have that happen. "… Apparently, Gwen told the nurse before she went in for her operation, that if it was a girl, she wanted it to be called Joanna… You never even told me you had decided on that name…" Tears began to flow down her cheeks silently once again, "It's a beautiful choice!" She proclaimed, letting out one choked sob before composing herself with a loud sniff, "Okay… I'm gonna go and deal with one more thing, but I promise I'll come back. I mean, you saved my life. The least I can do is make sure you wake up and live the rest of yours…"
She was reluctant to let go of his hand. She felt like she was abandoning him at a time where he needed her the most. But this had to be dealt with now, if only to completely end this entire nightmare before the sun began to rise.
Pamela wearily pushed her apartment door open, shuffling in to find McKenzie sitting anxiously on the sofa, her feet apparently now having been tended to, as she was now wearing a pair of Dean's socks and a pair of Pamela's own sneakers. "Oh, thank God!" She exclaimed, shooting to her feet and wincing slightly as she did, "I'm so glad you're okay! Dean left hours ago to take Gwen to the hospital after her water broke. I was going out of my mind with worry before Bridget called and got me up to speed."
The Halliwell witch sighed tiredly as she lay her keys down on the counter, "Are you sure you weren't going out of your mind with guilt?"
McKenzie's face fell, "What are talking about?"
"Do you think I'm stupid?" Pamela asked her sadly, shaking her head, "Trent had your power, which means he must have been frequently injuring you so he could complete taking it. He targeted witches that I was friends with, which is information that only you and Jordann know, and lastly… You escaped!" She raised her voice, "You, reduced to a powerless mortal, managed to escape from a witch hunter with my powers, while Jordann, who kicks seventeen kinds of ass in a fight, was taken and nearly killed!" She stepped forward, "What did he do? Rough you up a bit before telling you to run forty blocks to my apartment without shoes while he attacked Jordann?"
"Pam, I don't know what you're-,"
"Don't lie to me!" She screamed, "After everything I've went through tonight, don't you dare lie to me!"
McKenzie, now on the verge of tears herself, let out a crumpled sob before speaking, "Everything was fine in the first few months… but then he threatened to kill me if I didn't go along with everything he said, and if I tried to tell you, he would kill you too, and I couldn't let that happen. I was trying to protect you!"
"No, you were trying to save your own ass by giving him the names of my friends so he could get under my skin!" Pamela responded angrily. The two of them shared a silence, before she spoke again, "I want you go home, pick up everything you need, and leave town, because if I ever see you again after tonight, I won't be responsible for my actions."
McKenzie looked down at the floor in despair, crying freely now, before she walked slowly towards the door, giving Pamela one last pleading look as she walked past her. "You could have found a way to tell me." The witch said simply as her former friend left, making her stop in her tracks, "And you know what? Even if you had told me yesterday, when my relationship with Trent was at its best, I would have believed you, and I could have helped you… But he's dead now, so you've missed you chance."
"I'm sorry…" McKenzie whispered sadly, before leaving Pamela in the apartment alone. Nothing but silence around her.
Yesterday, she had had everything. Now, all she had was silence.