𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍;
DEEPEST TRAUMA

— ELIZABETH SAT IN THE hospital chair with her hands clasped tightly together and eyes squeezed shut. The nurses had just finished checking over Reese, changing the bandage on her forehead and making sure the staples were healing nicely. Her near death experience had been enough to land her two nights in intensive care, but she was free to go home now — not that she was looking forward to it, considering that Elizabeth was now in on the whole this-prophecy-means-that-I'm-going-to-die fiasco, and Reese knew she wasn't too stoked about it. Reese avoided looking at her aunt, choosing instead to prod the thick gauze that was occupying most of her head.

This wasn't how Reese wanted her death to go, and it was exactly the reason she didn't want Elizabeth in on it. Ever since Flynn had left the hospital after forcing an explanation out of Reese, Elizabeth had been periodically staring at her with those sad green eyes that reminded Reese so much of her mother it made her chest ache something fierce. She felt the swirl of emotions press against her lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Voices — eerily similar to those that rose up from the depths of her subconscious when the tidal wave of anguish rolled back into the sea of pain and despair and surged forward, drowning Reese in the survivors guilt, and thus opening a chasm in her mind where the darkness talked to her — whispered incoherently, but all the succeeded in doing was making Reese's staples throb. She focused on her breathing, ignoring the rising wave threatening to smash her down into a pit she wouldn't be able to crawl out of, pulling air in through her nose and out of her mouth (like her mother taught her when she was young). Elizabeth must have heard the short gasps, because her eyes flickered over to Reese's trembling form.

The older woman made a move to stand up to comfort her niece, when the door swung open and the nurse that had been taking care of Reese entered. She grinning when she saw Reese, unaware of the panic attack the teen had just forced down to deal with at another time. "Well, your CT and MRI scans look great and your blood work just came back; everything is right where it should be. Your staples need to come out by Friday, so I'll see you then."

"Sounds great," Reese answered, giving her a stiff nod. "Can I go home now?"

"Dr. Cullen just wants to give you one last look over, so after he checks you over you'll be all set."

Reese blanched at the name. "Cullen?"

She had been pretty out of it for the past two days, and hadn't put two and two together until that point. Before the nurse could even reply, the door was pushed open once more and Dr. Cullen stepped in. He was just as pale as Emmett with the same golden eyes, he nodded at her in greeting and Reese felt uncomfortable with the fact that he probably didn't know that she knew what he was. She looked away from him, feeling her stomach roll uneasily. If Doctor Cullen knew what she was, he probably wouldn't be smiling at her. Not if he knew the damage her family caused to unsuspecting people (at least his family killed animals, the Logan's killed people they loved).

"How are you feeling, Reese?" Dr. Cullen asked her, standing on front and pulling a little light from his coat pocket.

"Fantastic," Reese muttered, following the light as directed.

"Good, very good," Dr. Cullen smiled. "Well, you seem to be in perfect health."

"Nice to hear," Reese spared a look at her aunt who still hadn't moved from her position. "Aunt Elizabeth, can we please leave now?"

Elizabeth peeled back her eyelids and stared at her niece, tears coating her pretty green eyes. "Yeah," she cleared the emotion from her throat. "Yeah, let's go. Where do I sign her out?"

Dr. Cullen led Elizabeth to the front desk and handed her the paperwork while one of the nurses helped Reese into the sweats and jacket that Flynn had brought for her. She felt a little dizzy, but figured it was more due to the stress of her aunt being in the loop rather than the wound on her head. Elizabeth was waiting by the exit by the time Reese stumbled out of her room, her aunt clutched Reese's arm tightly — not wanting to let her go — as she led the two of them to the car. It had been started already, keeping the December chill out of the vehicle. Reese couldn't believe how a whole month had gone by since she said goodbye to the home that had nurtured her from a wonder filled child to a teenager (a severely depressed teenager, but she digressed), it was only a few weeks until Christmas and only one month until she was going to die. She was hit with a shiver that ran down her spine, and not from the cold.

Part of Reese wondered how exactly she was going to croak, what it would be like to feel her life force drain away, it wasn't like she had some terminal disease ravaging her body that showed outwardly that her string of life was close to being snipped; the other part of her — the part that used to love singing to the wind and cherished the way her little siblings laughed when she tickled them — didn't want to know. Would she be scared? Would it hurt? Would she be alone? All questions her heart burned to know, but her brain disagreed. If Reese knew what dying would entail, the pain she might endure or the longing for someone to comfort her as she passed slowly onto the next world surrounded by nothing more than a still night, she might have second thoughts; and Reese Logan couldn't afford second thoughts. Not now, not ever.

"Were you going to tell me?" Elizabeth asked softly, pulling Reese from the edge of a tidal wave of darkness threatening to crush her in despair. "Or was I just going to get a phone call from a stranger telling me that you had died, leaving me to explain that to your brother and sister?"

"No, I wasn't going to," Reese replied honestly. "It's not your burden to bear—"

"Not my burden!" Elizabeth hissed, her hands clenching the steering wheel tightly. "Reese Penelope Logan how dare you! My sister is dead because of this curse; my father, my husband, my uncle, your parents, everyone that I have loved at some point is gone! If I knew what you were dealing with I could have helped you—"

"Helped me find a loophole?" Reese asked, the conversation a near parallel to the argument she'd had with Flynn about the same topic.

"Yes!"

"Well, you can't," Reese sighed. "Because I can't stop Morgana alive—"

Elizabeth laughed humorlessly, pulling into the driveway but staying seated. "Reese, I've been around magic my whole life, there is always a loophole. Witches love them, it's our way of saying that there is not one certain thing. No rule you can't break, no spell you can't get around, no prophecy that you can't change."

Reese finally glanced away from the frosty window, frowning at her aunt. "What do you mean?"

"There are spells that allow you to leave your body in death but you can find your way back," Elizabeth told her. "Didn't you read the grimoire?"

"Not fully," Reese shook her head. "We kind of just skimmed, a lot of it's in Latin anyway."

Elizabeth rubbed her eyes and handed Reese her phone. "Call Flynn, tell her to get over here. The twins are staying with a friend tonight, so we're going to do some research."

Reese held the phone in her grasp, but didn't dial any numbers. She felt tears burn in her eyes and her bottom lip quivered. "Aunt Elizabeth," she whispered.

"Yeah, Reese?"

"I saw her."

"Saw who?"

Reese nearly broke down. "Mom. I saw mom."

"How?" Elizabeth asked softly, the green eyes she shared with Mallory growing wide.

Reese sniffled. "Sometimes, if I get upset the voices of Chosen One's Morgana killed get in my head and they make me hear and see things. They talk to me. That's why I fell. I saw Morgana in the bathroom mirror. After I passed out, I saw the other chosen ones die. I felt her power get stronger. Then, when I was slipping away, I ended up on the other side. It was cold and dead and empty and Morgana was there. She was using this spell that drained me of my power, and then mom was just there. She was this bright light and she saved me."

By this point the two women were crying softly, Elizabeth was holding Reese's hand in a comforting manner. "That's what mom's do, they protect their children."

"She said something to me," Reese said. "She said to trust the cold one, that he could help me."

Elizabeth pondered over her words, knowing something that Reese didn't but also not sharing it. Reese didn't press it, choosing instead to dial Flynn's number. The girl picked up almost immediately, and Reese could hear her shouting to her mother that she was leaving the minute Reese told her that she needed to help. That Elizabeth was going to find a loophole. Reese could hear the relief in Flynn's sigh when she seemed on board about getting actual help and not dying; but it wasn't for reasons the others would understand. Reese still was okay with dying to save her siblings if they couldn't find a way around it, but Morgana was more powerful than she had ever imagined. Reese needed to know spells, practice real magic — magic that was controlled and not because of an influx of emotions — before she was sent to the afterlife for real. Elizabeth could help, and if Reese had to appease her aunt and friend by pretending to agree to finding a loophole to get the spells she needed then so be it. Call her a terrible person or selfish, but Reese knew what she was going to be facing and she needed to be prepared.

□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

— FLYNN HAD ARRIVED SHORTLY after Reese got home, flying up the front steps in a pair of patterned pajamas and furry slippers. Contrary to the usually simply decorated house, candles sat on every surface, each giving off a light orange glow (something that made Reese a little more wary than she'd ever admit, not wanting to look weak). The couched as been pushed against the walls, leaving the coffee table alone in the center of the room. Elizabeth had the grimoire opened in front of the three of them, other worn papers with spells on them littered the table. When Flynn had seen everything she'd jokingly called it Elizabeth's School for Witchcraft, but she didn't know how right she'd been. While Elizabeth and Flynn searched for a loophole that would allow Reese to retain her magic when she died and have her come back, Reese was given a few loose pages filled with defensive and offensive spells.

She stood in the living room, breathing calmly through her nose as she worked on raising the fire from the candles around her. She felt a surge of magic rush through her, as she read the Latin clearly, as if she'd been speaking it her whole life (which, spoiler alert, she hadn't seeing as her mother hid anything particularly witchy from her) and from the corner of her eyes Reese watched the candles glow brighter as the small flames rose higher. Her glory was short lived though, as memories of the field were forced into her mind.

Suddenly, Reese was no longer in the safety of her house but she was returned to the field where the candles became an uncontrollable wild fire. She raised her hands to warp the fire in the direction of Morgana, but when the wall of fire hit her she suddenly changed until her long blonde hair softened and her dress transformed into a pair of dirty jeans and an all too familiar light blue t-shirt. Reese's heart rate accelerated as the scenery changed and she wasn't staring at an open field but instead at the house on Sunrise Street; her parents lying in the flames shouting at her to stop.

"Reese!" Her mother shouted, the fire licking painfully at the shirt and singeing her skin. "Reese, stop!"

Reese wailed, loosing control of the fire and letting it swallow her. The small burst of magic she'd conjured to raise the heat from the candles rushed through her again, and Reese felt the flames brush her skin. She deserved it for killing her parents, she didn't deserve to live after what she'd done. Then, the magic was draining away. Reese opened her eyes, expecting to find the ashes of her home or even the field with Morgana, instead she saw Elizabeth frantically putting out a fire that had burned a ring around Reese in the carpet. Reese glanced down at her hand where Flynn held her tightly, the black lines like lightning bolts on her arm.

"What happened?" Reese whispered, once she'd felt the last of the magic flee into Flynn.

Elizabeth, hearing her voice, leaped up from the ground and pulled Reese into a tight hug. Tears brewed in her emerald eyes, and Reese clung to her aunt; it had been so long since she had been comforted. Ever since Mallory and Paul had been lowered into the unforgiving dirt, Reese hadn't been able to think of herself. Annmarie and Taylor came first, their tears needed to be dried and small bodies held tightly, Reese had been pushed to the back burner and she hadn't realized how terrible it felt to be drowning in her sorrows until then.

"I'm sorry about the rug, Aunt Elizabeth," Reese whispered, still holding on tightly to the only remaining parental figure she had.

"No," Elizabeth stopped her from apologizing any more. "No, I was so stupid for letting you do that spell. I— I wasn't thinking straight. After what you witnessed with Morgana and your parents, I should have known that spell would trigger something. I'm so sorry, Reese, for everything."

"I burned it down," Reese mumbled into her aunt's shoulder. "I hurt my family."

"It wasn't you," Elizabeth stated firmly. "It was just a fear fueled idea."

"It felt so real."

The house remained silent, the candles having been put out as soon as Elizabeth pulled away from Reese. She sat numbly on the couch, close to pinching herself just to feel something; anything. Flynn watched her carefully, rubbing her arm where the black lines had infected her. Reese could tell by the worry lines on Flynn's forehead that she was stressed about something, but she couldn't find the strength to use her tongue to ask how her friend was doing. Elizabeth, however, could. Once all proof of the fire that had done some damage had been magically repaired, she whirled around to face the two teens.

"Reese," her tone was soft, like she was soothing a wounded animal. "How did you gain control of the fire? Maybe we could replicate that with some of the other elements, controlling the ground would work on Morgana just as well as fire."

"I didn't," Reese finally got out after a few moments of figuring out how to make her tongue form the words. She wouldn't admit it, but even that took a lot of strength out of her. "I didn't control it."

"Well you must have subconsciously," Elizabeth decided. "The flames grew then started to spread, and then they stabilized—"

Her aunt stopped talking when she caught the brief glance Reese and Flynn shared. Elizabeth gasped, watching the way Flynn rubbed at fading black lines that took up most of her forearm. "My God," Elizabeth whispered, gripping Flynn's arm to see the lines more clearly. "You're an equalizer."

"A what?" Flynn asked, eyes wide and worry evident behind her normal cocky bravado. "What is that? Is that dangerous?"

"How did I not see it?" Elizabeth muttered to herself and then shook her head at Flynn's question. "No, you're a gift."

"I've been trying to tell people that for years!" Flynn snickered, although the darting of her blue eyes back and forth let in on how nervous she really was. "But why am I a gift?"

"Powerful witches are usually ones with deep trauma," Elizabeth explained. "My mother lost her father, Mallory lost her best friend, and Reese lost her parents. The feelings that follow are sometimes enough to make the magic stronger, more unstable. Special people, people who either share trauma or have a calming effect, have been able to absorb unstabilized magic. They're not witches so the magic uses them as a conduit, nothing more than a way to get back into the witch but in a more controlled way," Elizabeth turned to Reese, tears shimmering in her eyes. "Your father was to your mother, what Flynn is to you."

"I lost my dad," Flynn echoed a conversation that she'd had with Reese the first time they had hung out. "I could relate to her pain of losing a parent."

"Yes! Exactly," Elizabeth rushed to the grimoire, flicking through the pages so quickly Reese was sure they would rip. Finally, she found what she'd been looking for and motioned for them to join her. "You two come see this."

Flynn and Reese leaned over Elizabeth's shoulders at the pages she'd wanted to show them. "What is this?" Reese asked softly, running a finger down the length of the spell.

"This, Reese, is our loophole."

AUTHORS NOTE: okokok so thought id leave you guys with a little cliffhanger,,hope you don't mind !!!!! also don't mind but I'm going to be going through the book and editing dates and stuff like that,,reeses birthday has also changed to January third so she has like 1 month left )))': i also will explain more about flynn and change somethings about her bc my plot for her changed (maybe I'll finally start her book) but also Elizabeth is now in the know and had found a loophole (or has she????),,,also my poor bby reese just wanted to make some candles glow brighter but PTSD is a bitch and i feel like i haven't really shown how much it effects her lately so i thought then would be a good time !!!! let me know how you guys are liking the book and as always thank you for reading (((((: