Emotionless Lighters

Chapter Five: Lost Loyalties

Phoebe

My hands are shaking uncontrollably, but there's nothing I can do to stop them. I anticipated this, but at the same time it's too hard to believe. I am staring into the hard, cold eyes of my dead nephew. But he isn't dead. He's very much alive.

"Chris?" I ask him, voice shaking as well. I feel a tear run down my cheek, but don't bother to brush it away. "Our Chris?"

His expression seems far away, as if he can't hear a word I'm saying to him. Finally he says, "I forget the dreams when I wake. But this time I have not forgotten."

"Forgotten?" His words hover in my mind. He's dreamed of this moment before but never been able to put the pieces together, assumedly. "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

The water in his eyes has disappeared and once again he is distant and unfeeling. "I am fine."

"It's okay to cry," I tell him. "It's a good thing."

He looks down at his feet and for a hopeful moment I think he may give in to instinct and cry, as a normal child would. Instead he continues to stare, unresponsive. I decide that he should have a moment or so alone to let this all sink in.

"It'll be fine," I assure him. "You stay here, okay? I'm going to go tell Piper and Leo what we saw."

"No," he pleads suddenly.

I turn to him, startled, and wait for an explanation.

"The elders will take me again. It is useless," he reasons. "It is stupid."

"We won't let the elders take you," I say firmly. "You're staying right here with us, where you belong. No one's ever going to take you from us again. Do you understand that?"

He nods, though I can tell he's uncertain and doubtful, watching my back as I walk out the door and rush down the stairs to Piper and Leo.

"Where's Chris?" asks Piper, alarmed to see me without him.

"In Wyatt's room," I explain. "Listen, you guys, there's something I need to tell you both—whoa. Why do you both look like you're ready to kill each other?"

"Nothing," Leo says submissively. "Did you make any progress?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me first," I bargained, flashing them an innocent little smile. Piper glares. "What? I'm curious. I have a right to know."

"Phoebe," Leo says sternly, "this is serious. You can't possibly be blackmailing us with something as important as…" He sighs. "I give up."

"Well, if you must know," Piper begins, "we were discussing Leo's secret little excursions with my son in the late midnight hours."

I swallow nervously and hope they don't notice. In a moment she's going to have more than one son to talk about, and by the looks of things, she's not ready for another little surprise.

"Oh, really?" I say lightly. "What do you mean?"

"Sometimes Wyatt and I go Up There to train," Leo admits sheepishly. He frowns under Piper's angry expression. "Can you blame me? He's my son too, Piper."

"You abandoned us!" Piper cries. "I'm the one that's always taken care of him! I deserve to know if my son isn't safe in his bed at night as I presume him to be!"

"Well then I'm sorry that I wanted a little time with my own son," Leo rages.

"You should be," Piper snaps. "You—you have no right! You ran away like a damn coward when things started to go wrong, after the baby was kidnapped! You don't deserve any time with him! You certainly didn't want to be around to help me when he was a baby, did you? Where were you then, Leo? Hm? Can you answer me that?"

"Piper, I was hurt! I'd lost one of my sons! I thought I was invincible, that nothing could happen to our children, and one was stolen right out from under my nose!"

"I was hurt, too!" she argues. "But did you ever think of us? No! You ran!"

I can tell as they battle this out, eyes both leaking tears gone unshed over these years, that they're completely unaware of my presence. "You guys," I finally cut in, "that's enough. Seriously, you're gonna scare Chris. He can probably hear this all from upstairs."

"Well, it's not my fault Leo's a scary man," Piper spat.

That's when we heard the deafening crash from upstairs.

Leo's face pales. "Not again," he mutters, racing up the stairs.

Chris

My entire mind feels numb to all thought. The faces are reeling inside my head—Piper and Leo and Phoebe. These people aren't just foreign witches of earth. These people are connected to me.

I am a witch. Could that possibly be true? All my life I have been told we are training to protect witches. No, I couldn't be a witch. Witches were the reason all fifteen of us had been imprisoned for so long. Witches were the reason for all of our punishments, all of our pains—I couldn't possibly be a witch, never in my wildest nightmares had such a thought occurred to me.

Yesterday I didn't know who I was. Now, I'm a lighter, a witch, and a part of a family I've only just remembered for the first time in seven years.

The people downstairs are my family, or so the vision shows. They left me with the elders, I think to myself. All these years, I've been a real person on earth, assumed to be dead. Why didn't anyone try to find me? What will happen when I'm forced to return to the elders?

Out of the corner of my eye—or, rather, from behind me—I see blue lights twinkling. In half a moment, a boy is standing before me with blonde curls and blue eyes as cold as ice. It must be the Wyatt they were speaking of.

At first I am quite intrigued by this boy. It's the first boy I have ever seen near my age that doesn't have the mask of emotions on his face.

I immediately snap out of this interest and turn to defense when I realize that in place of a mask, he is showing a great deal of anger and confusion at my presence.

"Who the hell are you?" he hisses, his voice sinister.

"I am Chris," I answer, feeling a strange intimidation towards this boy and his great angers. "Are you Wyatt?"

"You bet I'm Wyatt. What are you doing in my room? What do you want? Get out!" he screams.

I hesitate. "Phoebe instructed me to stay in this room," I try to explain, but he interrupts me.

"I said, get out," he booms.

"I do not wish you harm—" I say desperately, though my voice is as even as it usually is. He cannot sense my fear, and I'm suddenly greatly proud of this knowledge. The mask isn't always bad. Sometimes it's a safe haven, a hiding place.

"GET OUT!" he screams, sending a burst of power at me. It's is blue and looks electric, coming right towards where I stand. I see in an instant it will be quite painful if it makes contact and a strange instinct overcomes me. I throw my arms up as if to shield myself and a great light floods the room, surrounding at least a five-foot radius and hurtling the blue energy towards the wall.

A great boom erupts and a hole ends up in the ceiling directly above our heads.

Leo

"What's going on?" I demand, bursting into the room and half-expecting to see a demon with his hands wrapped around the lighter's neck. But no—instead, I stumble upon my own son and Chris, face to face with each other, both staring up at a great, smoking hole in the ceiling.

There's a significant pause as the two boys stare each other down. Then Wyatt's eyebrows raise, crying shrilly, "Dad, he attacked me first. I had no idea who he was or why he was in my room, and he attacked when I orbed in here! It wasn't my fault!" He ran into my arms, turning his back on Chris in fear.

"That is a lie," Chris denies.

"Wyatt, you have to understand that Chris isn't used to earth and probably mistook you as a threat. It's a long story. Here, why don't you go over to your mother. She'll explain it all. After all, I'm not worthy," I say indignantly, staring at her.

"Don't try to embarrass me in front of my own child," she snaps.

Phoebe gives out a nervous little laugh. "Enough," she warns. "I have something to tell you guys—"

"What is the meaning of this?" I question Chris. "Why would you attack my son when he did nothing to you?"

Fury flares through the small boy's eyes, and they flash green. "I did nothing. The boy attacked me," he insists. "He lies."

"My son would never lie to me," I say to him. "I know that for a fact."

"How much do you truly know?" he asks me. His voice isn't angry or accusatory, merely inquisitive, as if asking, "Did you watch the football game last night?" or something like that.

I'm at a loss for words.

"Leo, you've got to admit that sometimes Wyatt can be—"

"Phoebe, I know everything there is to know about my son," I interrupt. "Just because you're a parent now doesn't mean that you're suddenly all-knowing."

Her patient face suddenly turns just as hard and angry as Piper's and I immediately regret my statement. "You know what, Leo? In truth, I know more about your son than you ever will. He's a menace at this age, in case you haven't realized it, and I could sense just now that he was lying. And up until just now, I've been the only one in this family that isn't badmouthing you. Now, I just don't know what to believe."

"Phoebe—" I plead.

But she's taken Chris by the hand already and walks out in a huff, dragging him to the attic.

"I'm sorry," I say lamely. But I know they can't hear me; they've already closed the door.

Phoebe

I'm not quite sure what to tell Chris now. He just finds out that this man is his father, only to have Leo distrust him and believe a liar instead. That's a pretty big blow, and he just came closer to being angry at someone then I've ever seen him before. He's only seven years old, and yet it seems as though he's seen everything in the world there is to see and then some.

"He didn't mean it," I try to convince him.

He shakes his head. "He did," he says, and I know he's right. He can tell the truth as well as I can.

"What really happened?" I ask.

"The boy orbed into the room with the blue lights and yelled at me, even though I tried to explain the nature of my presence. Then he sent the blue ball of energy at me, and I put up a kind of barrier to protect myself that I have never used before."

"You mean—he tried to kill you?" I gasp, horrified.

"I do not believe he intended to kill me," he says, though I can almost feel a hint of doubt in him. Suddenly he retracts the statement. "I am sorry. I should not be voicing my opinions."

"Don't be sorry, honey. That's a good thing. You're supposed to give me your opinion. That's the way life works." My mind is reeling with the possibility that Wyatt, the nephew I watched grow up since he was a baby, would try to kill something as defenseless and innocent as Chris. Well, maybe not entirely defenseless. Now I know that he has two powers: empathy and force fields.

"Your powers are probably increasing because you're on earth now, instead of Up There where they could monitor your magic," I explain. "Or maybe this is the first time you actually needed it."

"I have needed it before," he says.

With the ability to sense the pain he has endured over his short number of years, I am the only one who can truthfully say that I believe him.

TBC!