Jackson was looking at two young women and a guy. They seemed to be about the same ages. He looked around and saw that he was in an attic. He was getting really confused about what happened and where he was. He started looking around to make sure he could get away. He did not know who these people are but he needed to get away. Everything was so muddled for him right now.
The girl with glasses cautiously approaches Jack, "Jack, don't you remember? It's me, Melinda." Jackson steps back closer to the attic door. "Don't you remember the spell? Maybe you should sit down for a second." Jackson was giving the girl a weird look. He was slowly backing up to the door. He thought, "These people are crazy. And they're staring at me like I'm crazy. What spell is she talking about? I'm not involved in any weird crap. And where the hell am I?"
"Ummm…I should go now. I'm sorry if I'm been a bother," Jackson stutters. He turns around and tries to dash for the door. He sees it close shut before he could get to it. He stops in shock and stares at the wooden door that happened to close by itself. He turns back around slowly and afraid of what he was going to see. He sees the other guy holding a glowing ball in his hand. His eyes go wide.
"Sorry to do this Jack but we have to figure out what happened," the guy throws the ball at him. Before he could scream for help, Jacks eyelids close, and he falls unconscious.
****
"I hope he's alright," Melinda says. She's sitting in the living room with her cousins worrying about Jackson. "I was sure the spell would work."
"Well, I think it did work. But he doesn't remember us as well," Alex guesses. He knew something wrong was going to happen but he refused to make Melinda feel any worse. "Maybe this might just be a temporary memory loss."
"Yeah Mel, he must just need us to jog his memory. Your spell probably did change people's memories but you probably changed his too by accident," Trish supports.
"How are we going to talk to him? I don't he will trust us after what Alex did," Mel points out.
"Yeah, sorry about that. At least it was a sure fire way to knock him out without any irreparable damage," Alex says. He gives an apologetic smile to Melinda.
"Oh, I understand. Now, all I'm worried about is how we're going to retrieve his memories," Mel says. The three look at each other unsure what to do next. Suddenly they all look up at the sound of the front door slamming shut. They look at each other in surprise.
"Please don't tell me I just heard that," Mel says.
"Well, I think it sounded like somebody just left," Trish replies. "And I think that somebody is Jack."
"C'mon. We have to catch up with him before he gets too far," Melinda rushes to the door. The other two quickly follow after her. They run to the sidewalk but they don't see him anywhere.
"Okay, I need to detect him," Mel says. She closes her eyes for a few seconds and then, "There! I have a general area. Guys take hold of my hand and let's go." The three orb away.
The three land in a park. They start looking around to see if they can spot Jackson. Since it was getting late, they decided to split up to have wider search area. Melinda saw Jackson talking to a person but she couldn't tell who it was. A tree was blocking a clear view of who it was. An arm rises and points in her direction. Jackson turns around and sees Melinda. He crosses his arm with an angry look on his face.
"You might as well give yourself up. I have a police officer right here. I don't know why you decided to kidnap me from my foster home but you're in for it now," Jackson shouts. Melinda is shocked that Jackson ran into a police officer. She hoped that he didn't reveal anything about them.
"Please Jackson you have to believe me. Me and my cousins are your friends. I don't know what happened to your memory but if you'll just trust me, I can fix it for you," Melinda pleads. She walks over to Jackson quickly. Jackson steps back closer to the figure. But Melinda is not shocked at Jackson's behavior but the fact that he was standing behind what looked to be a warlock with an athame in his hands.
Melinda was afraid for Jackson, "Jackson, please step away from that person. I don't what he told you but he's not a police officer. Just step over here next to me and I'll protect you." Melinda reaches out her hand to signal Jackson to come to her side.
"I don't know what you're on girl. But I would be crazy to walk over to my kidnapper," Jack replies. He turns to the 'police officer,' "Well go on. Arrest her."
"No…I'll do something even better. I think I'm going to kill her," says the warlock. He gives Melinda an evil, predatory look. Melinda is still not afraid for herself but for Jackson's safety.
"What!! I just want you to arrest her…no this is wrong…something's wrong," Jackson says. He starts backing away from the warlock and Melinda. Before he could more than three steps away, the warlock grabs his arm and puts it under a painful grip. He tries to pull his arm out but the warlock only gripped harder. He was kneeling from the pain.
"Where do you thing you're going? After I kill her, I'm going to kill you too," the warlock revealed. Jackson's eyes went wide. "Oopps! Did my illusion fall off? Well I guess the Source's illusions had a time limit. Oh well, you're both going to die anyway," the warlock said. Jackson was frantically trying to get out of his grip now.
"Hey you over there, if you want me to trust you, this would be a good time to save my butt," Jackson yelled. All his struggling was no use against the warlock. Jackson was giving Melinda a look to tell her to hurry up. Melinda was about to use her power when she heard, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. You see your powers won't work against me. The Source made sure of that. So you can try to freeze me all you want."
Melinda laughed at him. "Who said anything about freezing?" With that, she used her new powers and banished him back to the Underworld. He screamed before his disappeared in blue sparks. "Thank god that worked," Melinda said in relief.
"YOU mean to tell that you weren't sure if it was going to work!" Jack yelled.
"Well, it was a new power. C'mon, I don't know how long he's going to stay blocked from returning. I haven't had much practice with this power yet so I won't be sure," Mel warned. She grabbed Jack's hand as he scrambled to get up from the ground. They never noticed the warlock blink behind them.
"Nice work witch. You just made me angrier." The warlock surprised the two. He grabbed their arms and said, "Looks like I have to torture the both of you before I kill you." He blinked them out before either of them could struggle or call out for help.
****
"Trish, did you find him?" Alex asked. They had worried look on their faces. They were supposed to meet back where they orbed after an hour and a half of searching. Alex had not seen Jackson at all anywhere, and he was waiting for 15 minutes before Trish arrived.
"Nope. Not a trace," Trish answered. "I'm also worried about Mel. You know she's always the first one to arrive at any meeting place, and I didn't see her walking toward here at all."
"I don't like what's going on here. Something's not right. Can you detect them anywhere?" Alex asks.
Trish looked unsure. "I'm going to try. The last time I did this I was only helping Mel. She's at least half-whitelighter. I'm only a quarter-whitelighter. My powers are more like Aunt Prue's. I don't even know if I have any whitelighter powers."
"You have to try. We need to find her and Jack. Not only are they vulnerable but that leaves us vulnerable too." Alex grabs Trish's shoulder and looks at her straight in the eye. "Hey, you can do this. I have faith in you."
"I'm going to try," Trish says with a little bit more confidence. She closes her eyes and tries to see if she can detect the other two. Her brow creases in hard concentration. "I don't know. I can't feel them. It's like they're not here anymore…that they don't exist."
Alex gives a worried look. "Try just a little bit harder. Maybe they're really far away." He was trying to be encouraging but thoughts of worse case scenarios were popping in his head.
"There!! I think I found them…" Trish cuts off her sentence in a gasp. Her head bows down, and she looks to be in a relaxed state.
"Trish what's wrong. Hey Trish! Snap out of it," Alex shouts. He was getting worried. Trish wasn't responding to him at all. "This is not good at all. First Mel and Jack go missing. And now Trish isn't responding. What am I going to do?" Alex thinks. "I know. Uncle Leo! Uncle Leo!" Alex starts shouting. He sees the blue orbs come from the sky and form into Leo.
"What's wrong Alex?" Leo asks in concern. He sees Trish standing next to Alex, head bowed down. He quickly comes over to her side. "What happened here? And where's the others?"
"I don't know what happened to Trish. But I can explain everything else after you orb us back to the Manor," Alex was trying to delay the truth about the mishap with Jack.
"Okay, let's go," Leo says. He was sure something wrong happened but he decided it would have to wait until the Manor. Alex was trying hard not to make eye contact with Leo. Leo grabs on to Alex and Trish, and they orb out of the park.
****
"Whoa! What was that? And where the heck am I?" Trish asks out loud. She looks around and finds that she's in some underground cavern system. It was dark except for the torchlights that were placed in intervals along the cavern wall. "Okay, this is very creepy."
"Trish, is that you?" a voice calls out. Trish is surprised by the voice but follows it around a corner. She sees a wooden door with a small window with bars. She looks into it and finds Mel chained into a wall.
"Mel, what happened to you?" Trish asks. She sees Mel with her head hanging down and swinging back forth. Her body was limp, and her weight was causing the manacles to cut into her wrists. "It looks like she's been drugged or something," Trish thinks. "Hey Mel! It is me, Trish. Where's Jack?" Mel looks up but has a glassy look in her eyes.
"I don't know…it's so cloudy in my head right now…I think…I think we're in some part of the Underworld. I found Jack…but…we were captured by a warlock. He drugged me and locked me up. He took Jack away," Mel tries to explain. Trish could tell what an effort that took for Mel to say because she can see Mel's head drop back down again. "Please…you have to find Jack. Get him out of here."
"Let me get you out of this cell first." Trish says. She swings her arm to the side but nothing happened. This time she swings harder and faster but nothing still happened. "What's wrong with my powers? It's not working. Hold on Mel. I have to…" Trish's body fades and leaves Mel alone in the cell.
"Trish?" Mel asks. "Gone. I must have been hallucinating again." She was trying to stand up again but it was taking a lot of effort just to keep her head up. For the last ten minutes, she has been trying to snap out it so she could use her powers but whatever potion she was given had really incapacitated her. "I've got…to snap out of it…I need to get out of here." She finally stood up but her body was shaking from the strain. Sweat was pouring down her forehead as she concentrated on getting out of her chains. Finally she orbed out of the room but the effort took too much from her as she fell down on the floor. Her breathing was heavy and labored. "I have to find Jack. We need to get out of here." She was interrupted by a scream of pain. She recognized it was Jackson screaming. "I have to…get to him." She got up off the floor and headed toward the screams. She was leaning against the cavern walls for support. She kept thinking, "Please let me get there on time. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I let Jackson die." She gets to a corner and takes a quick look. She sees the warlock and Jackson chained to a stone table.
"How do you like the pain? Does it hurt much? Maybe I should bring your girlfriend in her and do the same to her," the warlock mocked. Jackson, bleeding from the nose, stared at the warlock with pure hatred.
"If you so much as touch a hair on her head, I will kill you with my bare hands," Jackson said venomously.
"Brave words from the boy chained to the table," the warlock belittles. Then he took a glowing rod and pressed into Jackson's side. Jackson screamed in pain and started to convulse. "You know you're my favorite torture yet." The sadistic warlock jabbed him with the rod again and again. Melinda couldn't take it anymore so she stood in the open way with one hand on the opening for support. She was quickly forming a spell in her head.
"I would stop right there if I were you," Melinda warned. The warlock turned around in surprise but then gave a pleased smile.
"Well if it isn't the witch. And what are you going to do to me? Stare at me to death," the warlock laughed. Jackson turns his head to face Mel.
"Please Mel go orb away…you have to save yourself," Jack pleads. Pain was written all over his face. Blood, sweat, and tears were mixing as they fell from his face.
"Well isn't that sweet. Maybe I should just kill the both of you that way you could die together," the warlock mocked. He summoned his athame in the other hand while keeping the glowing rod in the other hand. "I'll just use this athame on you to steal your powers and since this one," he pointed to Jack, "doesn't have any powers, I'll just keep on using this pain rod." Before he could do anything, both objects exploded in motes of light. The lights were scattered and suspended in the air. The warlock saw Melinda waving her hands to use her new powers. "That won't stop me you know. Stupid witch! I'm just too powerful for you."
"You may be powerful but you can still feel pain," Melinda replied. She chants:
"The pain you have caused
Must return without pause"
The warlock drops down on the ground, mouth open in a silent scream. All the pain he has ever caused is returning to him causing him to roll around on the floor. The objects Melinda dispersed quickly reformed and dropped harmlessly to the ground. Melinda quickly went to Jack while avoiding the writhing warlock. She can see his eyes were closed and breathing unevenly.
"Come on, Jack. We have to go. I don't know how long this spell will last. I don't think it's powerful enough to destroy him with all the power the Source has given him," Melinda said, "Thank god you remember everything or all of this would be hard to explain". Jackson turns to her with a tired look in his eyes.
"I remember Melinda…I remember," Jackson then closes his eyes.
"Hey! Don't you dare die on me. Please don't," Mel pleads. She hugs him tightly. She starts crying uncontrollably. "You can't leave now. I won't let you." She grabs on tighter as if forcing the life to stay. She suddenly feels a hand on her back, stroking up and down.
"Who said anything about dying?" Jackson whispers. Melinda looks up shocked. "I'd like to think I'm tougher than that."
Melinda gently slaps his shoulder. "If you try to scare me like that again, I swear I'll kill you myself," Melinda warns. The pretend anger on her face was quickly replaced by a smile. She leans down and gives him a kiss. Then she looks into his eyes and says, "I mean it. No dying for me. No being heroic. I want to get to know you better, and you have to be here, alive, for that to happen."
"Yes ma'am," Jackson gives her an impish smile but he was still obviously tired and hurting from the brutality "Now can we get out of here before the spell wears off that guy."
"Yeah let's go home and get you patched up," Melinda says. She finally let's goes of her hug but keeps his hand tightly in hers as if he would flee if she ever let goes.
"Going home…with you…I like the sound of that," Jackson smiles at her. They orb away exhausted and hurt but free and alive to return to the Manor safely.