Piper looked up from her spot lounging on the white couch's arm and noticed Victoria smoke into the room. It was weird. She never had done that before and here she was smoking the whole room up right after Piper had just polished all the wood and swept th day before. Sooner or later she had to give up cleaning up the house because one way or another it would just end up in shambles.
"What the hell?" she mumbled annoyed as she flicked her hands in Victoria's general direction.
Victoria quickly stood up instead of staying hunched over like she had been before and gave a mock smile at them as she stood, "Sorry."
"When did you start doing that?" Piper asked annoyed.
"Yeah, because you literally have to stop that because if you stick with the whole overdramatic smoke up the room entrance we'll just have to give you a fire extinguisher or something." Phoebe said as she waved the smoke away from herself and then coughed for a dramatic touch.
Just then Wyatt orbed in right behind her. He had a half irritated and half worried look on his face. He hadn't been able to get Victoria to stay with him so here he was coming in into the Manor right after her. You'd think that one day they could settle their differences and just stay on semi-good terms.
His worried look faded as he saw Victoria coughing a bit in front of him. He looked at his family in a 'hey, I can't control her' type of look and then he folded his hands deep into the pockets of his blue jeans. Piper's focus went straight back to Victoria from her oldest son. Victoria had been off lately. Why?
"What's with the smoke routine?" she asked her.
"My powers.. They are a bit off right now."
"You could say that again," Wyatt said.
"Victoria, are you sure you're okay?" Chris asked as he walked to her and held her chin up in his grasp to look her in her eyes lovingly. She looked into his forest green eyes with a small smile of reassurance and nodded and then she looked at everyone around her.
"I'm better now." she replied.
"How?" he asked.
"Yeah, that was a bit of a miraculous recovery wouldn't you say?" Wyatt asked as he leaned against the doorway to the sitting room. He still didn't understand why she had went all overboard on going to the Manor separately in the first place. Especially, when she had been so sick earlier. So, the best way for him to get at her for her display of distrust with him was with childish behavior.
She could have gotten herself killed or she could've ended up somewhere else.
Guess who would be blamed for that one? Even if he had tried to stop her if she ended up missing everyone would blame him for it. As if he could get her to do anything. She was against him and she didn't trust him at all. Who's lame brain idea was it for him to just go and take care of her and bring her back to the Manor in the first place?
Oh, wait. It had been his. Damn it, he hated it when his subconscious, and his built in morality ruled over him.
Phoebe flicked an irritated glance in his direction. Of any of them she hated it when he went out of his way just to start some fight with Victoria.
"Shut up, Wyatt." Victoria replied and rolled her eyes as she covered Chris's hand with her own.
"Why? So you can get away without answering any questions? Like how come you are feeling so much better out of no where while a few minutes ago you were almost comatose?" he asked as he folded his arms over his chest as he pursed his lips in annoyment.
"Wyatt, we have better things to worry about right now." Chris told him angrily as he changed the subject.
Chris moved in front of Victoria and blocked her from Wyatt's sight. He had the whole defensive bit down. Wyatt had to give his little brother that. He took a step back and laughed as he looked around the room.
"Are you sure, brother?" Wyatt asked darkly.
"Leave her alone, Wyatt." Chris told him just as darkly.
Everyone in the room stared at the brothers. They both were intensely watching the other for the others next move. Chris was stressed out over having to protect another demon along with deal with the fact that his girlfriend had a possible date with death. Wyatt was just annoyed that she got away with everything. He wanted someone else to voice out the fact that for being horribly weak and sick five minutes earlier she sure was in top notch shape in the health department right now.
Piper worried over her children as she watched them. She could almost see the smoke coming from their heads as anger passed through the room. She exchanged a look with Phoebe and then looked back at her two sons. She couldn't believe that they were behaving like this at a time like this.
She had thought they had gotten over this whole jealousy bit over Victoria before but she guessed not as she watched them.
Wyatt hated himself right then. He didn't know what it was but something brought out his defensiveness with Victoria. Alone they kind of got along but whenever he was in the same room with his family his defensiveness came right out when it came to her.
"Fine. What's our problem now?" he asked, unfolding his arms and watching his brother calm down a bit.
"We have an innocent."
"Like that's new?" he replied and smiled bitterly. "So, tell me who is lucky enough to be our innocent now?"
A shrill girl's scream pitched through the room at the end of his statement. They didn't have to look far to find out who the person was that was screaming. A minute later a girl with long golden curls came running into the room with Leo in tow. Leo tried to persuade her to calm down but she wouldn't hear any of it.
"Look, we are not going to hurt you. You just need to calm down and we'll explain to you what happened." he tried to say to her soothingly.
The lead singer of Red Helter looked around at the packed room.
What she saw didn't help the situation. There was Piper who had her head in her hands, Phoebe who had put her hands to her ears to skip hearing the girl's loud screams, Wyatt who was just staring at them listlessly and slightly confused, Chris who was still holding onto Victoria as he watched in surprise, Victoria who was frowning at the girl in repulsion and annoyment from her outburst, and then there was Leo who had chased her down the stairs trying to calm her the whole way.
"Oh, my god. Are you guys a cult or something? Are you like trying to keep me here against my will? Cause if you are I have a lawyer and my father is really, really rich and he will come after you so you better let me go now while you still have the chance." she told them as she maintained her distance from them and Leo. Then, she saw a small black lucky skeleton head, "Oh my god. You.. You have it's a .. you're gonna... "she cried out as her eyes never left the sight of the skeleton head.
Phoebe looked at the skeleton head and her chocolate brown eyes widened as she realized, "Oh, no, no. No, that is just a..."
She never got to finish her sentence because the lead singer of Red Helter fainted.
"Wow, the nut jobs you guys come up with." Victoria laughed aloud and looked out the window.
