Paige stepped out of her shower and wrapped a towel around herself. In a daze, she wiped the mirror on her medicine cabinet, and stared into it, at herself and at Shane, whose face appeared through the steam.

“You know who you are now, Paige,” he whispered enticingly into her ear, into her very soul. “This is where your destiny lies. It lies not with your sister witches. It's for no one but you. This is what you've been searching for your whole life. This is why you have the power.”

Then, their reflection became the face of Jake Grisanti, the child abuser. "You can't stop me," he taunted from inside the mirror.

“Use your power for your desires, to seek your own revenge," the Source's voice coaxed. "Use your power. See into his mind. See the truth. And once you know their secret…punish them!”

***

The memory of Shane’s words still ringing in her fuzzy mind as she sat at her desk the following morning, Paige watched the meeting room door, waiting patiently for the right moment. When Jake and Carol Grisanti emerged, Paige got up to follow them. Neither the couple nor Mr. Cowan seemed happy about their discussion, but Paige didn’t notice that.

All she could think about was a single-minded focus to lay hands on one of them. That was how the sisters said her power worked. There would be no more hiding. She would know the truth at last. She would make sure Jake Grisanti could never hurt a child again.

Just as the Grisantis reached the exit, she grabbed the man's arm. At the moment of contact, it happened. Her body tingled as if submerged in cold water, and she felt a sudden lurching sensation in her brain, causing a sharp intake of breath and the closing of her eyes.

Paige watched as the Grisanti family's secret played out in her head. A blonde boy, eleven-year-old Aaron Grisanti, was being struck repeatedly by…his mother. A door opened and his father rushed in to stop it. The vision ended as abruptly as it had begun, and Jake Grisanti snatched his arm out of Paige's grip before he and his wife exited the building.

“It was her,” Paige muttered to herself. The truth was worse than she had imagined. She had been wrong. Jake Grisanti wasn’t abusing his son. He was covering for his wife. A mother hurting her own child… She needed to be punished. They both did. But Paige was the only person who knew. It was up to her. Overcome with rage, she followed the Grisantis outside.

***

"What would the Source be doing at Social Services?" Prue asked Cole, getting out of Piper's Jeep and looking around the parking lot with the enchanted sunglasses on. "Are you sure this is the right place?”

“The Source is here. I can sense him.”

“Maybe he’s here because Paige is?” Piper suggested, fumbling her taupe coat’s buttons nervously.

“Wait, isn’t that her,” said Leo pointing to the building’s entrance, where Paige had just emerged, wearing an indigo vest and black pants.

“What’s she doing?”

“I think she’s following that couple. She looks kinda mad.”

“There’s something wrong with her,” Prue informed them. “She’s got a shadow, like when Death is targeting someone.”

“The Source?” Leo asked Cole.

“No. It can't be. If Prue saw my demonic self, then she'd see his too,” he clarified.

“Wait, now what’s she doing?” said Piper in confusion as they approached Paige, who tore a branch off a tree, brandished it like a baseball bat, and stalked after the couple. “Oh!”

Cole and Leo ran forward and wrested the branch from Paige's grasp, but she struggled against them. Thankfully, the couple were busy arguing and hadn't noticed the danger behind them, but a few onlookers gave judgmental glances as they passed by.

“Move along, nothing to see here,” said Piper, before lowering her voice. “Paige, what are you doing?”

“They’re evil. They’re hurting their child. They need to be punished,” said Paige in a trance-like state.

“The Source must be manipulating her,” said Prue.

“Err, you think?” Piper sniped as Paige continued to fight them. “All right. You know what? Leo, take her. Go home.”

“I can’t, there are people around,” he justified.

“I know, just gimme a second, be ready” Piper explained, taking a focusing breath before raising her hands and immobilizing everything in the vicinity beyond their group. “Go, go, go, go.”

The moment Leo Orbed out with Paige, Piper released her power, freeing the few stationary people and cars that had been stopped dead as if frozen in time, hoping the second or two went unnoticed.

As they walked back to the car, Prue asked Piper uncertainly. “You okay with using your power now?”

“The Molecular Immobilization is fine…as long as I have some prep time,” Piper clarified. “Combustion, not so much.”

When they climbed into the car, Cole told them, “You two go ahead. I'm going to stay behind, make sure the Source doesn't follow you.” As the car drove away, he carefully connected with the Source’s aura, sure he was still nearby.

Still controlling Shane’s body, the Source emerged from the Social Services building in search of Paige, whose presence had inexplicably vanished from his radar. He tried to locate her with his sensing ability, but she was no longer within his range. Another presence lingered, though, making the foolish attempt to ascertain his location. Belthazor.

Spotting the traitorous demon, he approached him from the rear in an instant but Flamed out of the populated area immediately, hoping the demon was fool enough to follow him to somewhere more secluded.

Cole turned on the spot, afraid for a moment that he was about to find himself face-to-face with the Source, but there was no one there. In fact, his perception of the Underworld’s ruler had changed. It was further away yet clearer than before. With a surreptitious glance around the parking lot, Cole Shimmered to its location.

He reappeared on an isolated street. There was a human present with his back turned, but the Source’s pull was all but gone. Still, he was intrigued. He knew better, of course, but if this human was the Source, perhaps his guard was lowered. Perhaps, he was vulnerable?

Cole approached the human with soft footsteps, telling himself that he would never have another chance like this. With a powerful enough Energy Ball, maybe he could do it, maybe he could kill the Source like he had the Triad. It was the only way to put an end to the bounty hunters' pursuit, and it would keep Phoebe's sisters safe…for the time being.

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That wasn't what recklessly drove him to begin charging the Energy Ball in his palm, though. It was the memory of Phoebe; stabbed, burned, broken in his arms, unable to utter so much as a word of goodbye. Cole's rage, his loss, his love for Phoebe... They were enough to push the voltage of the crackling blue energy in his hand beyond its highest output, turning it scarlet, a feat he wasn't aware he could perform. Sadly, it was one destined to fail.

Before Cole knew what had happened, the man had turned, and run him through with a sword. This was no ordinary sword, though. This was the Source's blade, one wrought to inflict agonizing pain upon the victim before death. Cole fell to his knees as the blade was removed violently, unable to form words, barely able to breathe, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Don't die too quickly, traitor,” said the Source, raising a glowing hand to skim Cole’s mind for Paige’s location. “I want your beloved’s sisters to see their protector’s last breath. To feel the heartache of loss…again!”

***

“We’re home, Leo. Piper called as she and Prue entered the manor. “Where’s Pai—”

“Oh!” Prue exclaimed, squinting to channel her power with her eyes, just in time to deflect a book aimed at Piper’s head.

“I'm having a hard time convincing her that she is not evil!” Leo explained.

“I see that,” said Piper, taking in the upended furniture all around. “I almost felt it.”

Paige picked up the next closest object, a pretty glass-based lamp, and hurled it at them.

“Let’s see how she likes it,” Prue quipped.

“Prue, no!” Piper warned as her sister magically returned the lamp Paige’s way. “Leo, catch it!”

Leo dived and braced himself below Paige to cushion the lamp’s fall, but she unexpectedly Orbed out at the last instant, and the lamp continued its trajectory across the parlor.

When Paige returned a moment later, she flinched, as if unaware of what had happened to the incoming projectile, then flinched again at the sound of the lamp smashing against the wall behind her.

With an accusatory finger, Piper barked furiously, “That…was Mom's crystal!” She then charged Paige, tackling her to the ground.

"Oh my…" Prue said, raising her hand to her mouth in alarm before she and Leo rushed forward to assist Piper in restraining the girl.

Once Leo got a good hold of her, he asked, “What do you want me to do with her?”

“We just better hope there's some Wiccan exorcism in the Book of Shadows because—” Piper started.

“We can use the crystal cage,” Prue suggested as the lights flickered strangely. She made a beeline for the stairs with Piper in tow, when she stopped suddenly, spotting the man from the church standing in the hall. She didn’t need enchanted glasses to know who this was. Without missing a beat, she released a wave of Telekinesis using her eyes, but he did the same using an ability that turned his black.

The collision of similar magics knocked all parties present off their feet and affected the nearby furniture, including the grandfather clock, which toppled over with a *bong*. While the Source eerily righted himself immediately using an odd power, and Piper, Leo, and Paige struggled to their feet, Prue remained on the floor.

"Prue!" Piper fretted, but an instant later, her sister’s astral body appeared behind the Source and delivered a denim-clad scissor-kick to his lower back.

He fell forward but righted himself again, like one of those inflatable clown toys that won’t stay down, turning her way as he did, then fired a red Energy Pulse from his eyes, as he had at the church.

Prue tried in vain to deflect the attack with her hand, but her primary power still didn't work in astral mode, so she was hit, causing her astral body to vanish. The second she did, though, Piper hit the Source from behind with her Molecular Combustion power, blowing him into a million pieces.

Her heart in her throat as she turned to see Leo helping the real Prue up, Piper said, “We… We did it. Did we do it?”

As if in answer to her question, behind her, the Source’s scattered cells reformed, coming together like a swarm of flies drawn to a flame.

“Honey,” said Leo, alerting her to the danger with a nod as she huddled together with Prue, who began to inch forward.

The Source wasn’t attacking, though. He merely observed the group with a smile on his face.

“Your powers are strong,” he commended, “but will they be enough without the Power of Three?”

Paige looked white as a sheet, which was saying something given her fair complexion. “Shane, what's going on?” she asked in a state of shock, not only because of all the magic she had just witnessed, but because a considerable amount of it had come from the guy she was dating.

“It's okay. I'm here now," Shane reassured her, but his hold over her had obviously weakened.

“Stay away from me,” she replied.

“She still has free will. You can't force her to choose,” Leo stated.

“Oh, but she's already chosen, haven't you? Come with me. You'll be safe forever. I promise.”

“Don't listen to him. He's lying,” said Piper.

“Stay away from her,” Prue warned dangerously.

“They only want you for your power. You don't have to share it. It's yours,” the Source advised before he began Glamouring into different people, appealing to Paige through their guises.

In the form of Mr. Cowan, he said, “You've already seen what you can do with it, what nobody else can do.”

As Jake Grisanti, he said, “You nearly saved my son from his mother. From all the pain and suffering she's put him through.”

As the man’s son, Aaron, he said, “Please help me. Don't let her hurt me anymore. You're my only hope.”

Feeling the Source’s hypnotic pull return, Paige took the boy’s hand.

“No!” Prue yelled, running forward to grab Paige, but the boy turned before she could lay a hand on her, and his eyes flashed with fire before turning black.

The Source had intended to incinerate the witch, but it seemed her magic was too strong to burn up immediately, so he settled for torturing her instead, assaulting her body with electrical energy until she was suspended in the air, crying out.

Snapped out of her trance by the horrific display, Paige pushed the boy down forcefully, symbolically rejecting the Source and the evil he represented.

“Prue?” said Piper, caressing her sister’s face to rouse her as Paige joined them. They then helped Prue to her feet, just as the toppled grandfather clock began to chime. “Okay. Come on. Come on.”

The Source’s Glamour faded, and Shane creepily rose from the floor in the boy’s place.

“I guess blood's a little thicker than evil," Piper remarked as she, Prue, and Leo huddled around Paige, and the clock struck midnight.

With a glance at the fallen clock, realizing the mythological window had closed, the Source’s transparent astral form left Shane, who fell to the ground with a thud, unconscious. “I've broken the Charmed circle before. I'll do it again,” the demonic ruler taunted. “Besides, it wasn't a complete loss…thanks to Belthazor.”

Prue and Piper gave the Source steely glares, but their silence was interrupted by a man’s voice.

“Oh my God," exclaimed Inspector Cortez in amazement, who was standing near the front door, recording the Source of All Evil with a video camera.

“Inspector, would you get out of here?!” Piper snapped, flabbergasted by the policeman’s astounding timing.

"No!" Prue called out as the Source turned, but her body wouldn't move as she instructed following the fight.

Before Cortez or anyone else could react, the Source fired one of his red Energy Pulses, propelling the man into the coat hooks, one of which pierced his upper back, causing him to yelp in pain.

Piper gasped as Cortez dropped to the floor, revealing blood on the hook and the wall below.

When the Source Flamed out, the group raced to Cortez’s aid.

“Looks like evil wins again, huh?” the inspector commented dryly, even as his life was slipping away from him.

“Not if I can help it,” said Leo, kneeling beside the man, and reaching his hand around to the wound. The golden glow of his healing power began to light up the wall, which Paige marveled at. Seconds later, Cortez was shocked to find his pain gone and his wound closed, as if it never happened.

“How'd you do that?” Paige asked Leo as he helped the speechless inspector to his feet.

“That's what Whitelighters do,” Leo explained significantly. “We heal good people.”

Cortez remained silent, lost in thought.

“I didn’t like what the Source said about Cole. Do you think he killed him?” Prue asked.

“I hope not. Leo, can you sense him?” Piper added.

“I-I’m not sure,” Leo responded, his eyes closed in concentration. Sensing the half-demon was difficult at the best of times. “Wait, yes, but just barely. I can’t pinpoint him, though. He must be injured badly.”

“Alright, come on. You can tell me which way to drive,” said Piper, taking Leo’s hand. “Nice seeing you, Inspector.”

“Yeah, thanks for stopping by,” Prue added, with Paige on her heels, smiling sheepishly.

As the four of them left the house at a run, leaving him there looking bewildered, Cortez picked up his fallen video camera, then felt his back with his free hand. He was sure of it, he was alive.