2

When Jae woke up, he tried to get out of bed. But he couldn't. There was a box around his heart, it seemed, and it was just getting tighter by the second. He was just lying there, looking into the dim lid room. The loss of his daughter would never go away, would it? As he was listening to the ticks of his alarm clock, he thought of how it would be if she was still alive. Would she be okay? Or would she have a lifelong injury? If she did, would she still be her happy self? She probably wouldn't. She would be sad. Sad that she now had an injury that withheld her from the things she wanted to do. But Jae would be there for her. He would make her happy, search for things she wanted to do in life. And search for things that would make her happier. Jae would cheer her up when she was sad, and if Rose was there...- But Rose wasn't.

Jae groaned and dropped his face in his pillow. Why wasn't Liv here to cheer him up... It was all because of the chauffeur that day. He hit her, it was his fault, everything was his fault, from Liv's death to Jae's feelings right now. Jae wished that he could make him feel like he felt now. Then he wouldn't be so happy. Then he wouldn't have walked out of the court with that smile on his face, no. Then he would know that the consequences had yet to come. But Jae couldn't do that, unfortunately.

He decided to prepare for work, something which felt like a pure chore to do. He got up, showered, changed into formal clothing, and walked downstairs. He wasn't really hungry, so he skipped breakfast. He grabbed his stuff, locked the door behind him, and walked to his car. As he drove through the streets, his eyes were darting around his surroundings. There were a lot of kids walking with his parents, probably all on the way to school. Jae turned every corner carefully and drove with such a speed that was fine for the other road users and what was slow enough to suddenly stop if someone would run up the road.

He got to work without any incidents. He parked his car on the spot reserved for him and got out. When he walked in, he got greeted by many. They were saying things like "Good morning Jae!", "Hey, Tae, how are you?", or "Where have you been these days?". Jae doubted that someone at work didn't know what had been going on in his life lately, just wanting to hear his part of the story. But Jae just replied kindly; 'Good morning', 'I'm fine, thank you', 'Just personal business'. When he walked into his office, he got greeted by a cheerful yell.

'You are back!', Quinn shouted happily, jumping up from his seat to walk to his friend and give him a quick embrace. 'How are you? You know...- After yesterday. But! You don't have to answer if you're uncomfortable doing so, I just thought, I should check up on you and-ahh...' Jae chuckled at the younger's behavior.

'I'm fine, Quinn.', Jae smiled. 'I just- don't really want to talk about it.'

'Oh, that's fine.', Quinn said, shrugging. Jae smiled at him and walked to his desk. 'But you can talk to me if you want!', he added quickly, returning to his own desk.

Jae sat down with a sigh, running his hand through his hair. He booted up his computer and threw his coat over the back of his chair. That was when he realized there was a small note in the middle of his desk. He took it and it read;

'We will all be supporting you through this time, Jae. We're sorry for your loss.'

And with that, all the names of the ones working on the station. Despite Jae's sadness about Liv, he couldn't help but smile that all his colleagues thought of him. Of course, Mavi's and Kane's names weren't there, but Jae couldn't say he was surprised. Mavi was - of course, the two didn't like each other, that was kind of obvious. Kane was a colleague of Jae as well, also working as a detective. Most of the time he teamed up with Mavi, whereas Jae teamed up with Quinn. Kane and Jae had never gotten along very well. Kane was incredibly impatient, loud and obnoxious - so Jae thought. And Jae knew that Kane didn't think as nice over him as well. They were kind to each other, but that was it. Jae also disliked him, because he gave him the feelings of a "bad cop".

Jae worked through the morning quickly, without being interrupted. In the break, he was outside, smoking a cigarette while Quinn informed him about what happened the last week. There weren't any cases Jae had missed, so that was good news for Jae and Quinn took everything on himself that he could do to make Jae's work less for when he came back, and Jae was really grateful for that. He promised that he would take Quinn out for dinner once as a thank you, but Quinn snorted and said; 'You don't have to, it was nothing!'

When it was two pm, there was a lot of noise in the hallway outside of their office. Jae had looked up from work, his chin still resting on his arm as he looked to the door. There were obviously two people arguing loudly. Jae rolled his eyes as he heard Kane's voice overrule the other person.

'This is bullshit! Witchcraft doesn't exist!'

'But all the paths lead to-'

'Shut up!'

There were loud footsteps and then the door got thrown open. Jae hadn't expected it to be their office they would burst into, but to his annoyance, it was their office.

'You.', Mavi shouted, pointing to Jae. 'You are the "expert in witchcraft" or whatever bullshit name you came up with, so explain this to me!' She threw a document on the table and crossed her arms as if saying there would be consequences if he did not explain her. Jae cocked up an eyebrow and looked at the younger woman. Her brown skin, which was perfect with her dark hair, which was in a loose bun so locks of here jumped out. Her eyes were black - "as black as her soul" as Jae liked to refer to - and she was tall, almost as tall as Kane was who stood next to her. Kane's hair was black and his eyes brown. His gaze was like a hawk as he stared at Jae as he finally opened the document to see what the hell they were talking about.

When he opened the document, there was a picture and some information. It was a picture of a middle-aged woman, lying dead on the streets. It could have been a normal crime-scene-picture if it was not for the way her skin was. Her skin was grey, there were pitch-black lines on her face, which trailed her veins by the seams of it. Her mouth was opened in a silent scream, her eyes wide and completely black, no whites in her eye anymore. On the back of her hand, Jae noticed a purple pentagram, but he didn't think too much of it – probably a tattoo.

'There is no cause of death!', Mavi exclaimed, gesturing at the next page where the information stood. Jae now glanced at that.

"No wounds, no position, no asthma-attack, no death by choking..." and so on the list went. There was no explanation for this death. That made Jae frown.

'And-' Kane stepped in. He tapped firmly on the picture. 'Her hair was blonde.' That made Jae glance back at the picture. Her hair was clearly black.

'She didn't dye her hair or so?', Jae asked, not looking at the others yet.

'If she did, we would have found traces of hair dye.', Mavi said in an "oh-so-obvious" tone. Jae rolled his eyes at the tone. 'You say you studied witchcraft - which is, by the way, super weird - but you can explain this to us.', Mavi demanded, crossed her arms again and waiting for Jae's explanation. That's when he placed the document down and pointed at the picture.

'This isn't the first victim, is it?', he asked, looking through his eyelashes to Kane and Mavi.

'This is the sixth.', Kane answered. 'We need answers, Jae. And since you haven't been absent for a while...', he fell silent after that, scowling and rolling his eyes. Jae clenched his hand underneath the desk. Quinn's curiosity had been too much for him and he was now standing behind Jae to look at the document. Jae leaned back in his chair and folded his hands together.

'There is a curse.', Jae started. 'In every witch-family. -' Jae saw how Mavi rolled her eyes and how Kane scowled. 'There can be a witch in the family without any powers. If that's the case, this witch will die when they turn thirty. The curse comes up to them in the last ten years of their life, in which the powers - if they have them - are most likely to be discovered. Their hair will change and- it's true, I'm not making this up.', he added, glaring at Mavi, who looked like she didn't believe a word of it. 'The hair will turn pitch-black, one hair at a time. It can be hard to see if the witch in consultation has dark hair, but the ones with a bright color or dyed hair are most likely to discover it earlier. There is no cure for this, it won't go away.', Jae dug through his mind to find any other answers for them.

'But this can't be it!', Mavi exclaimed, pointing at the document in front of Jae and turning to Kane. 'How the fuck are we going to solve this bullshit?!'

'We can't solve this.', Kane said - rather simply. 'I think we just need to make up something because nobody is going to believe your witchcraft bullshit.', he finished, turning to Jae, who was still thinking.

'Come on, we'll think of something.', Mavi snatched the document of the desk and they walked back to the door.

'Unless...', Jae spoke. 'They made a deal with her.' Mavi and Kane stopped walking and turned to Jae, even Quinn was looking at him with a frown.

'With who?', Mavi asked, walking back to the desk. 'Who are you talking about, Jae?', she asked as Jae didn't answer.

'Loona Riddle.',