Chapter Text
Wyatt stood in the attic, ostensibly checking the protective wards for the third time that week, but really just avoiding going back to his dorm room. That room had been his parents’ idea; they wanted him to have a taste of a “normal 21-year-old’s life”. But all this attempt at life outside the Halliwell manor had done was to confirm what Wyatt had always known, deep inside: that magic was who he was. His identity. Truth be told, Wyatt had really never aspired to live a regular non-magical life.
And so he felt out of place in that dorm room: the manor was where he belonged, where he could protect his family. Admittedly, not much had happened lately that required his protection - no demons had attacked in months, no magical emergencies had pulled the family together in crisis. Wyatt knew he should have been grateful for the peace, but instead… Instead, he just felt like he was just holding his breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
After the lighthouse, after the healing chambers… nothing had really felt the same.
His phone buzzed. Another text from his roommate, asking if he was coming back tonight. Wyatt ignored it, running his hand along the carved symbols in the floorboards. The wards were still the ones Chris had altered under Rupert's control, then secretly fixed to protect Melinda. The Elders had offered to restore them to their original configuration, until they found that Chris's modifications were actually stronger than what had been there before, even if they'd been made under duress.
Chris.
Wyatt's chest tightened, the way it always did when he thought about his brother. A year ago, he could have reached through their bond to check on him, to feel his presence like a constant reassuring warmth at the edge of his consciousness. Now there was just... nothing. An absence that ached like a phantom limb.
The Elders had provided a clinical explanation: the bond had to be severed to save Chris's fractured mind. Wyatt himself had felt it, during the healing process. Felt how the connection between them had become corrupted, poisoned. How Rupert's manipulations had turned that unique connection into a weapon that only caused more damage.
So, severing it had been the only way to give Chris a chance at healing. Wyatt had agreed, of course. He would have cut off his own arm if it meant saving his brother. But that didn't make the loss hurt any less.
He moved to the window, looking out over the darkening San Francisco skyline. Somewhere out there, Chris was working the evening shift at P3, managing inventory or dealing with suppliers or doing any of the dozen mundane tasks he'd thrown himself into over the past year. Piper said he was good at it : organized, efficient, surprisingly charismatic with the staff. A natural manager. Contrary to Wyatt, Chris had perfected the art of being a normal, non magical human.
But Wyatt knew avoidance when he saw it. He could tell that Chris was hiding, burying himself in normal, non-magical work so he wouldn't have to confront the powers that terrified him now.
It had been one year.
One year since the lighthouse.
One year since Wyatt had watched his brother's mind literally tear itself apart, overcharged with Twice-Blessed magic that he was never supposed to channel.
One year since Chris had agreed to go through a process that had him screaming in agony every single day for three months straight while specialists worked to rebuild the barriers in his consciousness.
Wyatt had kept his promise. He'd been there for every session, every treatment, every moment of Chris's agonizing healing process. He'd watched his brilliant, brave little brother reduced to a sobbing, broken thing that couldn't tell which memories were his own. He'd held Chris's hand through the worst of it, powerless to do anything but witness.
And when Chris had finally emerged from the healing chambers, quieter, more guarded, but whole, Wyatt had thought the worst was over. He knew now how wrong he had been.
In theory, the process had been a success. Chris was functional, recovered. He had dutifully completed the training program that the Elders had designed for him. According to every test the Elders could devise, he was healed.
Yet, the Chris who came back wasn't quite the same person who had been taken. He had become a synthesis of his little brother and the hardened resistance leader who had given his life to save the world from an evil version of him. Chris was neither one nor the other, but somehow both.
And it was only getting worse. Lately, he had seemed increasingly reluctant to use any magic. He made excuses every time magic came up, claiming there was no need to orb when he could walk. He was always too busy to practice defensive spells with Wyatt or to help Melinda with her own training. How he sometimes flinched when he saw Wyatt use magic.
Chris stayed out of the manor as much as he could, claiming the commute to P3 was easier if he just slept in the office there. Never mind that orbing made distance irrelevant. Never mind that Chris had always loved the manor, had always felt safest here.
It was clear to Wyatt that Chris was not okay. But every time he tried to talk about it, Chris deflected with practiced ease, changing the subject or manufacturing an excuse to leave. It was as if Chris, his little brother, his best friend, no longer trusted him. It broke Wyatt’s heart, but there was nothing he could do. So he just threw himself into his whitelighter duties, accompanying Paige on charges' calls and helping young witches develop their powers. He took extra credits at college to stay busy. He spent hours maintaining the manor's wards to perfection, checking and rechecking protections that didn't need checking. He had even extended the warding to his mother’s restaurant and the club. He knew it was irrational, that there was no active threat that justified this level of caution. But it was his way of coping with what had happened, and his way of avoiding sitting still long enough to think about how his family was falling apart and how they had all become ghosts of themselves.
The manor felt too empty these days. Too quiet.
Melinda wasn't here either. His little sister, who used to burst into rooms with infectious energy, who'd always been the glue holding the family together. Now she barely came home except to sleep, spending all her time away or locked in her room doing homework. She'd become secretive in a way that reminded Wyatt uncomfortably of Chris during his investigation into Marcus.
Something was wrong there too. Wyatt could see it in the way Melinda's eyes slid away when anyone asked how she was, in the tightness around her mouth when magic was mentioned. But like with Chris, every attempt Wyatt made to reach out was met with deflection and distance.
His phone buzzed again. This time it was Paige: Got a call from a charge in the Sunset District. Want to come?
On my way, he texted back, grateful for the distraction.
He orbed to her location, a small apartment where he found Paige already done with the mission - tending to minor wounds sustained following a potion-making incident. He sighed inwardly: his aunt had never really needed him for this mission. He knew what that meant: she wanted to talk to him… or rather, wanted him to talk to her.
“Very subtle,” he muttered to himself as they orbed out to debrief.
The concerned look on Paige’s face gave him the confirmation he needed. "You okay?” she asked. No preamble needed. “Seems you've been… pretty intense lately."
“Mom put you up to this?”
She rolled her eyes. “She’s just worried about you. I agree with her, by the way.”
Wyatt pursed his lips. "I'm fine," he said after a while.
"Wyatt."
"I said I'm fine." He softened his tone slightly. "Just... busy. School stuff, you know. Exams."
Paige studied him for a moment, and Wyatt knew she saw right through him. She had been through her own share of trauma, had her own experience with family falling apart. But she didn't push, just sighed and changed the subject.
"Those temporal disruptions we've been tracking," she said. "I picked up another one this morning. Same signature as the others. It’s weak but definitely there. Fourth one this month."
Wyatt frowned. That was concerning. The disruptions were subtle enough that the Elders hadn't noticed them, or at least weren't doing anything about them. But Wyatt and Paige had been cataloging them carefully, noting patterns.
"Any luck identifying the source?"
"Not yet. But they're getting more frequent." Paige pulled out her phone, showing him a map with marked locations. "And look at this: they are forming a pattern that looks a lot like…”
She did not end her sentence. No need. They both knew exactly what it looked like.
Wyatt felt his stomach drop. "You think it's connected to Rupert?"
Paige shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe it's just residual effects from what Chris did at the lighthouse, temporal echoes that need time to settle." But she looked unconvinced by her own explanation.
"I don't like the pattern. It feels... intentional. We should -”
He did not get to finish his sentence. His phone buzzed. A call from Melinda.
His heart stopped. Melinda never called him. Especially not lately.
“Mel? What’s wr-”
“Chris is in danger, Wyatt!” she cut him hurriedly. “You have to help him. P3. I can’t - I have to leave. Please. Hurry!”
She had hung up before Wyatt had the time to ask any question.
Wyatt's hands were shaking but before he'd fully processed the message, his powers had already reached out instinctively for his siblings. Without the bond, he couldn't sense them directly, but he could track the family's magical signatures through the protective spells he'd been maintaining obsessively for months.
There it was. A flare of Chris's power, wild and uncontrolled, nothing like the careful suppression his brother had maintained all year. It was coming from P3. As for Melinda…
"Wyatt?" Paige's voice seemed distant. "Kid. Look at me. What's wrong?"
"I-I-. " The word came out strangled. "Something's wrong. Melinda - at the lighthouse. Aunt Paige, you have to go there. Find Melinda.”
“Why? Where are you going??”
“No time to explain. Please find her. I need… Chris is in danger. I have to go."
He orbed without waiting for a response.
—--
When P3’s kitchen materialized around him, all lights were out - the club was closed on Mondays. Even in the dark, Wyatt immediately spotted Chris. He was standing next to the oven, broken glass scattered at his feet. And he was not alone. Approaching him was... something. A creature that, at first glance, looked almost human, like a woman, tall and thin. But something about her demeanor was just wrong, her movements were too fluid and too jerky at once. She looked like a puppet whose strings were being pulled by different, very uncoordinated hands.
Her skin had an odd, mottled quality, patches of gray and pale flesh that didn't quite match. And her eyes... her eyes were completely black, reflecting nothing, like looking into an abyss.
Magical energy crackled around her in erratic bursts, temporal signatures that made Wyatt's skin crawl with their wrongness. The air around her seemed to shimmer and distort, as if reality itself was having trouble deciding whether she should exist.
The thing was barely a foot away from Chris... who was frozen. Not stepping back, not orbing away, not trying to defend himself. He just stood there, rigid as a statue, his face drained of all color.
"Chris! Orb away!" Wyatt shouted, but Chris didn't respond. He just stood there, paralyzed, his whole body shaking so violently that Wyatt could see it even from this distance.
The creature abruptly disappeared, as if she was out of phase with reality. It lasted for a second. Maybe less. And when she reappeared, she was so close to Chris that their foreheads were almost touching.
"Must… remove… him" it rasped, its voice layered with echoes of something that might have once been human. Multiple tones overlapping, some desperate, some tender, all of them wrong. “Save… child…”
Chris made a small, broken sound, but still did not move. It was not quite a whimper, not quite a sob. His eyes were wide and unfocused, seeing something that wasn't there.
"Stay away from him!" Wyatt's power flared, blue-gold light flooding the room, bright enough to cast harsh shadows across the kitchen.
But the creature ignored him completely, fixated entirely on Chris. Before Wyatt could react, her skeletal hands reached for Chris's temples, her long, cracked nails seeming to pierce right through his skull.
Chris screamed.
It was the same sound he would make in the healing chambers when the specialists were working to repair his shattered consciousness. Pure agony, wordless and primal, the sound of someone being torn apart from the inside.
For one second, Wyatt froze. Then, before he could think, his shield appeared between the creature and his brother, snapping into place with enough force to send the creature stumbling backward several feet. Chris’ legs gave out, blood running from his nose and ears.
Wyatt was moving before Chris hit the ground, orbing the few feet between them in an instant. He caught his brother, one arm wrapping protectively around Chris's chest as he pulled him close. Chris's head lolled against Wyatt's shoulder, his breathing shallow and erratic, his entire body shaking violently.
"I've got you," Wyatt said, the words coming out rough and desperate. "I've got you, Chris. You're safe."
Power crackled around Wyatt's free hand, ready to strike, ready to destroy anything that threatened his brother. The creature had recovered from the shield's impact and was approaching again, that same terrible recognition flickering across its distorted features.
"Protector," it whispered in that impossible voice, multiple tones weaving together in a sick harmony. "Child… not safe… "
The creature vanished mid-sentence, blinking out of existence like it had never been there at all. One moment she was reaching for them, the next there was nothing but empty air and heavy silence.
Wyatt spun, scanning the room for any sign of her. His heart was hammering against his ribs, adrenaline making his hands shake. But there was nothing. Just him and Chris, in that kitchen. Alone.
"Chris?" He adjusted his grip to support Chris's weight more carefully. The broken glass at their feet cracked under his soles. "Chris, can you hear me?"
Without really thinking, Wyatt telekinetically switched on the lights. The words died in his throat when he saw his little brother.
He was pale, so pale he looked almost gray. And there was blood everywhere. Running from his nose in twin streams, trickling from his temples where the creature's nails had pierced skin, leaking from the corners of his eyes like crimson tears.
“No-” he choked out. His breathing was coming in short, panicked gasps that didn't seem to be getting any oxygen.
"It's okay, you're okay," Wyatt said, the words automatic even though they were clearly a lie. "I'm here now. I've got you."
Chris's eyes were open but unfocused, staring at nothing. His whole body was trembling with full-body tremors that spoke of shock and trauma and something deeper. Something that went beyond the physical pain.
When Wyatt touched his shoulder more firmly, trying to get his attention, Chris flinched. Not just a small movement, but a full recoil, trying to pull away despite not having the strength to move.
"No," Chris gasped out again, the word barely audible.
"Shh, it's me. It's just me. It’s over." Wyatt kept his voice as gentle as he could manage, even as panic clawed at his chest. "Chris, look at me. Can you look at me?"
Chris's eyes finally focused, finding Wyatt's face. For a moment, there was nothing but blind terror in his expression. Then recognition dawned, and with it came something that might have been relief except it was tangled up with so much fear that it was hard to tell.
"Wyatt?" The name came out slurred, like Chris's mouth wasn't quite working right.
"Yeah, it's me. I'm here." Wyatt's healer senses kicked in automatically, assessing the damage even as he tried to keep Chris calm. He could feel his brother's injuries now that he was focused—a cracked rib on the left side, internal bleeding in his abdomen, and a severe concussion that was getting worse by the second. The creature's attack had done real physical damage in those few seconds of contact.
But it was more than that. Wyatt could sense something else, something his healing couldn't quite identify. A wrongness in Chris's magical signature, like the creature had left some kind of residue behind. Temporal energy, maybe, or something darker. Whatever it was, it was spreading.
"Where does it hurt?" Wyatt asked, trying to prioritize. "Chris, I need you to tell me where it hurts most."
Chris opened his mouth but no words came out. Instead, he choked on a sob, his face crumpling. His hands clutched at Wyatt's jacket, holding on like he was the only solid thing in the world.
"Okay, okay. I've got you," Wyatt repeated, holding Chris tighter. His brother felt too light in his arms, too fragile. "I'm going to heal you, Chris. Just hold still for me, okay? This won't hurt, I promise."
His hands began to glow with healing light, reaching first for Chris's head where the damage seemed most severe. The moment the light touched Chris's skin, his brother's whole body went rigid.
And then he started screaming again.
Not the single scream from before, but continuous, agonized shrieks that turned Wyatt's blood to ice. Chris writhed in his arms, trying desperately to pull away, his hands pushing weakly at Wyatt's chest.
"Stop! Stop, Wyatt, Stop!" The words came out between screams, barely coherent.
Wyatt jerked his hands back like he'd been burned, the healing light cutting off abruptly. His heart was racing, his mind refusing to process what had just happened. His healing had never hurt anyone before. It was warm and gentle, designed to soothe and repair. But Chris had reacted like Wyatt was burning him alive, like the healing light was causing more damage instead of fixing it.
What the hell is happening?
Chris had gone limp again, sagging against Wyatt's chest. His breathing was even more labored now, wet and rattling in a way that suggested his lung might have collapsed. Fresh blood trickled from his nose and ears; signs of severe cranial trauma that needed immediate attention.
But every time Wyatt tried to heal him, Chris screamed.
"Damn it!" Wyatt looked around desperately, but they were alone. No one to help, no other options. He made a decision.
Carefully, he scooped Chris fully into his arms, cradling him like he had when they were kids and Chris had had nightmares. Chris's head lolled against Wyatt's shoulder, his eyes half-closed, barely conscious.
"I'm getting you help," Wyatt said, not sure if Chris could even hear him anymore. "Just hold on. Please, Chris. Just hold on for me."
He orbed them both back to the manor, materializing in the living room with enough force that the pictures on the walls rattled. The sudden movement made Chris whimper -a small, pained sound that cut through Wyatt like a knife.
"Mom! Dad!" Wyatt shouted across the house, no longer trying to contain his panic. His voice cracked on the words. "It's Chris. I need help! Please, someone help me!"
Leo came running from the kitchen, Piper right behind him. They both froze at the sight of Chris in Wyatt's arms, bloodied, barely conscious, clearly in critical condition.
"Oh my God," Piper breathed, her face going white. But she was moving even as she spoke, her hands already reaching for her son. "What happened?"
"Something attacked him. A creature, I don't know what it was." The words tumbled out of Wyatt in a rush. "It did something to his head, and Mom, I can't heal him. Every time I try, he screams. I don't know what's wrong, I don't know how to help him…"
His voice broke completely on the last word. He was shaking now too, the adrenaline wearing off and leaving nothing but terror in its wake.
Piper and Leo exchanged a brief but meaningful look, the kind of silent communication that came from decades of marriage and crisis management. Something passed between them, some knowledge that Wyatt didn't have. But he was too focused on Chris to process it.
"It's alright, Wyatt," Leo said, his voice dropping into that calm, authoritative tone he'd perfected as a medic in the Army and later as a whitelighter. "I need you to put him down on the couch. Gently now."
Wyatt moved on autopilot, carefully lowering Chris onto the couch cushions. Chris's eyes fluttered open briefly, unfocused and glassy.
"Wyatt?" he mumbled, the word barely audible.
"I'm right here," Wyatt said, kneeling beside the couch so he could stay close without touching. Every instinct screamed at him to heal his brother, to fix this, but he couldn't. His power -the power that was supposed to protect his family—was the one thing that could make this worse.
Leo knelt on Chris's other side, his hands already moving over his son with practiced efficiency. His medic training kicked in despite no longer having whitelighter powers. He checked Chris's pulse. It was too fast. He examined his pupils. One was significantly more dilated than the other.
"Severe concussion, possible skull fracture," Leo muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.
"What about the internal bleeding?" Wyatt asked, his voice hollow. He could still sense it through his connection to the wards, could feel his brother's life force flickering like a candle in the wind. "Dad, his lung…"
"I know." Leo's face was grim, controlled, but Wyatt could see the fear in his eyes. "Wyatt, go get blankets from the hall closet. We need to keep him warm. He's going into shock."
"But-"
"Now, Wyatt."
Wyatt forced himself to move, to do something useful even if it wasn't healing. He grabbed every blanket he could find, his hands shaking so badly he nearly dropped them twice.
When he returned, Leo had positioned Chris more carefully, elevating his legs, trying to keep him stable. Chris's eyes had fallen closed again. His breathing was getting worse, more labored. Each breath seemed to take monumental effort.
Wyatt began draping the blankets over his brother with trembling hands, tucking them around Chris's too-still form.
"Stay with us, Chris," Leo was saying, his hand on Chris's shoulder. The only touch that didn't seem to cause pain. "Stay with me, son. Piper, where is Paige?"
“I don’t know, she’s not answering, she-”
Wyatt froze.
Paige. Everything happened so quickly that Wyatt hadn’t had the time to focus on Melinda. “Paige went to the lighthouse. I sent her there.”
Leo looked up, frowning. “The lighthouse? Wyatt, what are you talking about?”
“I- I don’t know, Dad. Melinda called me earlier, she told me that Chris was in danger, but it sounded like she was also in danger, so I asked Paige to go help her while I went to Chris, but I don’t know what…” Wyatt’s voice trailed off as his eyes fell on Chris again. This close, he could see how much blood there was. It stained Chris's hair, his clothes, soaked into the couch cushions. Too much blood. Way too much. “Oh my God, what if Melinda… what if-”
“Wyatt, breathe.” Piper said softly. “We’ll find Melinda.”
Wyatt swallowed, tried very hard to focus, but his breath was coming in short gasps and his entire body suddenly felt like it was about to shut down. He was having trouble thinking.
Chris suddenly started to cough, blood appearing at the corner of his mouth.
“PAIGE!” Piper called again. “PAIGE, we need you now! It’s an emer-”
Thankfully, Paige orbed in before she'd even finished the sentence. Melinda was at her side, looking pale but unharmed. They both gasped as they saw Chris on the couch, covered in blood.
“Melinda, get Wyatt,” Paige said, wasting no time. She knelt beside Chris, her hands already glowing with whitelighter healing light.
Melinda nodded wordlessly, and through the fog that was his mind, Wyatt felt her hands on his shoulders, softly guiding him away from the couch. He let her, although nothing really made sense.
He watched as Paige’s healing light flowed over Chris, warm and light blue. And Chris didn't scream. He simply relaxed into it, his breathing evening out, his features softening from agony into exhausted relief. Paige worked quickly, efficiently, repairing internal damage and mending bones with the practiced ease of an experienced healer.
Within minutes, Chris's physical injuries were gone. Piper sat at his side, holding his hand as he slowly stirred.
A few steps back, Melinda was still holding Wyatt, who had calmed down enough for doubt to fill his mind. "How… Why didn't my healing work?" he eventually asked, his voice small and lost. "Why did it hurt him?"
Paige and Leo exchanged a look. It lasted too long, carried too much weight.
"What?" Wyatt demanded. "What aren't you telling me?"
He felt Melinda’s hold tighten slightly around him. Leo sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Wyatt... there's something the Elders discovered during Chris's treatment."
Dread settled like ice in Wyatt's stomach. "What?"
"Your power," Leo said gently. "The Twice-Blessed magic specifically. After what happened at the lighthouse, after Chris channeled that much of it... something changed. The frequency of your healing magic, the way it interacts with Chris's consciousness…"
"It hurts him," Melinda finished quietly. "Your power causes him pain now, Wyatt. That's the real reason the bond had to be severed. It wasn't just about his fractured mind. It was because the bond itself was harming him, causing constant agony whenever you used your abilities."
The world tilted sideways.
Wyatt stepped away from his sister’s arms. “You knew about this?”
She looked down, sadly. “I’m the one who found out about it, Wy. Chris wouldn’t say a thing, but I could feel everything, through the bond. Severing the bond helped, but even then, if you use your power on Chris, it still… resonates with him. It causes him pain.”
"No." Wyatt shook his head. "No, that's not… why wouldn't anyone tell me? Why would you keep that from me?"
"The Elders thought it may be temporary." Leo replied. "We were worried about how you'd react, worried you might blame yourself…"
"Of course I blame myself!" The words exploded out of him, his power flaring with his emotion, making the lights flicker. Chris winced. "My power did this to him! I've been hurting him this whole time, and nobody thought to tell me?"
"Wyatt-"
"That's why you wanted me to move out to that dorm, isn’t it?" The realization hit like a physical blow. "That's why he won't come home, why he's been avoiding me. Because being near me hurts him. I'm what he's running from."
The room fell silent. Wyatt ran a hand through his hair, as he always did when he was frustrated. “I could have killed him! How could you keep this from me?”
“Because I asked them to,” Chris replied in a small, tired voice, causing everybody to turn in surprise. “And don’t be so dramatic, Wy. Your power hurts like hell, yeah, but only if you use it directly on me. And it wouldn’t kill me.” He sat up, wincing a little as he did. Paige had done a great job patching him up, but Chris still looked like he had been run over by a train.
“Chris, take it easy, baby,” Piper said softly, her hand still holding his.
“I’m okay, mom,” he muttered. “Besides, Wyatt’s spiraling makes it impossible to rest…”
“I’m not spir-”
“Yeah. You are,” Chris said, not looking at him. He gratefully took the wet cloth that Paige was handing him, and he began wiping up the dried blood from his face. “And it’s exactly why I didn’t want you to know about that power thing. I knew you would freak out.”
Wyatt shook his head in disbelief. “Of course I’m freaking out! I just found out I’m a threat to you!”
Chris sighed. “You are even dumber than I thought.”
“Chris, be nice to your brother,” Piper warned, her motherly reflexes still intact, even now that her sons were both young adults.
“Sorry,” Chris said, looking away. “But Wyatt, stop blaming yourself for a second and think about what you saw today. What do you think would have happened to me if you hadn’t arrived when you did?”
Wyatt paled, remembering the scene he had come to - his brother, scared, panicked… and absolutely defenseless. “You were - y-you wouldn’t orb…”
Chris was twisting his hands nervously on his lap. He nodded. “I tried, I swear I tried. But I couldn’t move. When that thing attacked...I was frozen. My powers wouldn't work,” he said in a low voice, his throat tightening.
When he finally looked up at Wyatt, his eyes were bright with tears. “So yeah, Wy. I won’t lie, it hurt like hell when you tried to heal me, but if you hadn’t come, that creature… it would probably…” he choked up.
“Shh, it’s over now.” Piper, who had sat down next to him, placed an arm around his shoulders.
He leaned on her, trembling. “It tried to do something in my head, mom,” he whispered. “Exactly like -”
He could not go on, but there was no need. Everybody knew what he meant.
Who he meant. Piper held him even closer.
Wyatt inhaled sharply. His instincts were screaming at him to step forward and take his brother in his arms too. But instead, he remained at a safe distance from Chris. Processing everything. He knew that Chris struggled. Of course he knew. But that it was so bad he couldn’t even orb out of danger? “What was that creature anyway? What did it want with you?”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t know. It just appeared out of nowhere and assaulted me. But… something was really strange when it attacked me. It felt… it almost felt as if it was looking for something, not trying to hurt me...”
Wyatt frowned. Somehow, despite the apparent horror of the attack, he had had a similar impression. “She said something, before she left. Something about helping a child, I think. And then she vanished. It was really strange.”
Melinda had been silent during the whole exchange, her face pale. When she spoke, her voice was shaking. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, Chris. You could have died… and this is all my fault…”