Chris shakily hovered over the Book of Shadows like there was no tomorrow in sight. His crystalline green eyes searching every page for something he could use as he tore through the pages for some form of an answer to his problems. Something he could use to help him find out why. Why this was happening to him. Why this had even happened in the first place.
This wasn't supposed to have happened. It just had. It was crazy to think that this could possibly happen to him. His brother … his very own older brother had taken the first person he had ever really loved in his whole entire life away. Wyatt and Victoria hadn't even gotten along but Wyatt had found a way to steal her away from him.
Now, here he was standing alone in the dusty old attic. He was standing alone in the attic looking through the thick leather-bound Book of Shadows for something that could help him get her back or curse his brother for life.
His dark brown hair flew into his green eyes as he searched burning his sight as he tried not to cry over what had happened. He tried to stay calm but his heavy breaths raked through his body as he shook.
He had defended her to his last breath to his family. He had saved her life and her from being with Andrew's evil force. He had saved her from a curse that she had had to live with throughout each of her lives. He had been with her day and night for the last month learning everything he could about her, taking all of her time to fall even more in love with her, and now here they were.
They weren't anywhere really. He was here in the attic. She was there on the Golden Gate Bridge with Wyatt. She was there getting comforted by his brother. He was here alone.
The way his mind was working at the moment he was about ready to use any curse that came along. A curse. He could use a curse to change his brother into a frog and then he could throw him into some polluted pond somewhere else in the world. See how Wyatt liked being alone. See how Wyatt felt about revenge then.
Then, Victoria wouldn't be pulled in two different directions and she would be with him.
Chris didn't for one minute believe that Wyatt hadn't been trying to seduce her on to his side since day one. He had seen the way Wyatt had looked at her. Chris had tried to ignore it but now he couldn't ignore what had happened. Then, there were those seldom few times that they had been alone together. Chris didn't doubt his brother trying to get to her then.
Chris felt so stupid now. He should have paid more attention. He should have figured it out from the start. The time when she fainted, Wyatt had froze the whole club for her despite possible consequences, then there were all the times he had been angry towards her while Chris had been with her. Then, he had let Wyatt go and get her once she had fainted. He had let him go after her alone. Wyatt had had every chance in the world to change her mind. Chris had even helped him with it.
He had got to her though. Wyatt had to have been so proud of himself now. He had her finally. Wyatt now had the girl he had always wanted for himself. He now had Chris's girl all to himself. He must be so very proud.
"Victoria, why?" Chris whispered painfully into the sullen and heavy air around him.
Chris couldn't fight the tears anymore. They fell hard onto the illustrated pages of the Book of Shadows as he tried to fight them off. He knelt on the Book of Shadow's stand with his pale shaky hands behind his head in a tight clasp as he tried to stop shaking. He was so angry. So lost. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe what he had saw.
He didn't have to. It had to be a joke. He hadn't just seen her with his brother. He hadn't seen them smile at each other like they liked one another.
It hadn't looked as if they were in love at all. He had just jumped to conclusions. That had to be it. He had just overreacted over nothing and they were going to come home soon and laugh at him. Victoria would give him her famous sideways smile and then they would be together and alright and happy again. This would just be some joke that they had played on him.
But he couldn't help it. He couldn't help remembering.
She'd smiled so softly as he'd watched her lay there so comfortable in his own brother's arms like she laid in them everyday. Something Wyatt had said into her ear had made her smile.
It wasn't right. Wyatt never made her smile. Wyatt made her angry and annoyed but he never made her smile.
Chris had watched in horror as she'd opened her beautiful blue-violet eyes to the world. She was the only person with that color of eyes. A gods eyes, he had told her once when they had been kidding around.
She'd looked up at Wyatt then.
There was a pause in time. A rift maybe, Chris hadn't known for sure as his world fell apart around him. She'd looked back up at Wyatt with the same lovingly infatuated expression he was giving her. It was more veiled though. It had layers.
Had she ever looked at him that way?
She'd looked at Wyatt and a tear had fallen down her cheek as she did. She had looked so torn as if they were Romeo and Juliet and she had to let him go.
Chris had been standing there watching it the whole time. The cold wind had ripped through him as if he hadn't existed and he had just stood there taking it as if he were the one being thrown the punches. Chris hadn't known what to do. He hadn't even been able to speak. It was like a spell had been cast over him.
She had seen him then. She had seen him. Her ethereal blue eyes had given her away.
She had looked so guilty. Then she had slowly pulled out of Wyatt's embracing arms, but she hadn't ever made any conscious move to go towards him. She hadn't ever denied the fact that his own brother had been holding her so lovingly in his arms when she should have been with Chris seeing if Chris was alright.
"Chris," she had whispered rawly.
He had tried to rake his brain for something to say. He had tried to figure out something to laugh about in the situation or even have some sarcastic saying to spout off as if nothing had happened. Nothing had came to him though.
His heart had just closed up in an icy mask as he'd watched her. In the background, he had seen his very brother, the golden boy of the family, stand up beside in his spot. The whole time his brother's glowing blue eyes had never left her pale ethereal face.
It had made him sick to think of it. How long had this been going on? How long had she been with Wyatt and not him? How had he not seen it before?
"No," he said. "Don't even try to lie to me, Victoria."
"Chris, this looks really bad…" she tried to tell him as she came a few steps forward.
"I said no." he cried out angrily with burning emerald eyes glittering in fury.
"Chris, you don't get it. You don't know the whole story!" Victoria told him in a heavy voice.
Know the whole story? He didn't want to know the whole story. He had been the story once. Now, Wyatt had taken over. Chris sure didn't want to know how she had fallen for his brother or even why. He didn't want to know why they were together now and he wasn't still with her. No, the whole story was something he didn't want to hear.
"Don't even go there." he warned her in a tightly controlled but wavering voice.
"God, Chris. You can't just come in halfway and just make assumptions."
"I don't really need to. You already showed me what was going on between you two. I interrupted. Go back to what you were doing before I got here because I am leaving" Chris replied angrily waving his hands around him as he started to turn away from them. He didn't want them to be the last thing he saw before he orbed home. It wouldn't keep him sane if they were.
Victoria shook her head as the wind blew through and ran to him. Her hand connecting with his arm as he flinched away from her touch. "Chris?"
He hadn't intended to, but he had used his telekinesis on her. It had slammed into her body. She had flown a few feet back and hit the steel beams of the bridge hard. The sound of her body.. Her bones hitting the steal beam erupted through the air as he watched in shock. The wind that had been harassing her now erupted harder into him as he had then and he had almost lost his footing as he watched her slid down the beam.
Her dark reddish-brown hair cascaded down into her face as she had landed on the ground. Her blue eyes never leaving his as she did. She was in shock. Her body started shaking as hard as his was now. The wind ripped into her and pulled at her hair as she had sat in stunned silence. She looked so innocent. Her pajamas fluttering in the wind because they were too big on her as she gaped at him.
Chris shook a little too after he saw what he had done. He hadn't even thought of what he was doing he had just wanted her far from him. Then, she had hit the beam. He knew in the back of his mind that she had hit it hard. He knew something was going to be very wrong with her because of it. He shook that thought out of his mind thinking h was just overreacting.
"Chris!" Wyatt yelled at him instantly furious. He went to her to help her up and started to slowly get up from her position on the beam. Her forehead was bleeding from a large gash as she coughed hard against his brother's strong chest. "Stop this!"
Chris had never been able to be as built as his brother. He had always looked like a pip squeak to his brother. He had always been so tall and lanky while his brother had been tall and muscular. What Wyatt had always had Chris didn't. Now, he had Victoria too.
Chris didn't even know how he was controlling the weather around them. He just knew he was. He felt the wind bantering around him start to focus on Victoria and shriek through her body making her shake from the cold chill passing through her every second as it almost knocked her back against the beam again, but Wyatt found a way to deflect it.
Now, his brother was her knight in shining Armour. How wonderful for him.
"What, Wyatt? You gonna tell me how I screwed up again? Huh? How about you do that, brother? Tell me how much of a screw up I am and how stupid I was to not see you take her away from me. Go on, Wyatt. Tell me how easily you seduced her. Tell me how you did it right under my nose and I never suspected at thing." Chris yelled over the wind. " What's wrong now, Wyatt? Cat got your tongue?"
"It wasn't like that." Wyatt yelled back at him as his face became serious.
"Yeah, right, brother. Why her, Wyatt? Why, Victoria? Was it because you just couldn't help knowing that someone wanted me instead of you? Or was it a challenge? You wanted to see how long it would take? Who you would hurt? How long it would be till I found out? That was it, wasn't it?
"You had to have her for yourself. You didn't care who you hurt in the process as long as you got her in the end. You didn't care that I loved her. No, Wyatt, the almighty twice blessed, had to have what didn't belong to him."
"Chris," Wyatt tried to speak in shock.
"Don't even bother, Brother. You can have her now. You should both be so happy together," Chris spat at them and then he orbed away.
Chris looked up from the book and kneeled on the ground in weakness. "Victoria, why?"
He looked around the attic for an answer that never came. He just looked around himself in anger, but all he saw was the gray shadows of the furniture cluttering the attic. "I thought you loved me."
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked the quiet attic.
He tried to push the tears away then. He had smothered them all off of his face when he had saw the book come to life. The books pages started to flip through in a fast pace. They were being thrown from side to side by an unseen forceful wind as he swallowed hard a few times.
The pages finally stopped turning as they landed on a spell. Chris looked at it at first in apprehension as he read the title silently. It was the truth spell. He bit his lip for a moment reading about it and its consequences. Anyone who he came in contact with would have to tell him the truth and nothing but. It would work for twenty four hours. That was more then he needed. It was ingenious.
His apprehension faded as he nodded to himself and gathered his breath to speak the words.
"For those who want the truth revealed," he started slowly as he looked around the attic for any sign of confrontation.
While, downstairs Piper and Leo sat quietly on the couch. Piper and Leo were holding each others hands in worry as they listened to Phoebe talk. Phoebe sat on the edge of the chair with her arms folded over her chest. She was still in her white pajamas. She looked like a pessimistic saint as she stared at a patch of carpeting and spoke in a low voice.
She was finishing her statement. "I don't think we can trust Victoria anymore. I think that I misread the premonition I had of her. I think she's not on our side anymore. I think she might be a threat to us."
"Opened hearts and secrets unsealed." Chris read in a quiet tone.
Piper looked abashed the whole time and shook her head in confusion. Leo nodded as he listened to Phoebe. A pained expression passed over his tanned face. Everyone had accepted Victoria as one of their own in the family. She had fought with them before and she had been said to be on their side for years to come. It would be hard for any of them to vanquish her now.
"I think we need to vanquish her. I don't want to bring Chris or Wyatt into this though. They are to close to her and I don't want them to get hurt that way." Phoebe added as the silence infested itself in the room.
Piper answered. "I'm not killing or vanquishing anything. You're crazy. And for one thing, this magic concept you keep referring too.. Phoebe aren't you a little too old to be believing in magic. I mean come on. I though you grew out of that when Prue and I told you about Santa."
Phoebe gaped at her sister a second. Her hands slowly coming to her head as if a headache had come on and she met Leo's baby blue eyes and shook her head. "She's been acting like this all morning. Leo, what's up?"
Before Leo could answer, Paige orbed into the hallway muttering angrily to herself as she ran up the stairs to her room with her hands covering her head the whole time. She had been trying to cover up why she was home early from magic school, but it had not been lost on anyone in the living room.
Phoebe turned to look back at Piper and Leo. "Ok, I'm not seeing things right? Paige had green hair, right?"
"From
now until it is now again,
After which the memory ends," Chris
casted softly as he heard running footsteps coming towards the attic.
Just as his words were uttered and his gaze fell over the attic's door, Wyatt and Victoria orbed into the kitchen where Wyatt instantly ran over to the sink to grab her a glass of water. Her coughing hadn't subsided from when she had been thrown at the beam on the bridge but had gotten worse. Wyatt had laid her carefully across the table in the kitchen and then he had went straight to the sink. He quickly brought the glass of water to her pink lips and she drank thirstily.
The coughing subsided slowly as she drew back from the glass and gasped for breath.
"For
those who are now in this house
Will hear the truth from other's
mouths." Chris quickly said as the footsteps stopped and the attics
door flew open.
"You alright now?" Wyatt asked.
"Feels like…." she whispered. "It's coming back."
"But I just… You.."
"I have to kill this time," she told him as she held tightly to the glass and tears glittered in her strange violet-blue eyes. "You should have let me die."
