CHAPTER ELEVEN
POWER SURGE
Melissa had gone to the station after her shift, running into her ex, who promptly corralled her into his car and took off towards the backwoods roads.
"What are you saying?" Melissa asked him.
"I'm saying the real question might be, how do we know he's not still asleep?" Rafael explained.
"You mean he's been asleep this whole time?" Melissa asked skeptically.
"Well, people who sleepwalk can do crazy things," he told her. "One guys goes down to the kitchen and cooks an entire meal. Another guy is found mowing his lawn—naked."
"Why's any of that matter?" Melissa goaded.
Rafael decided to go a different way, "You remember that townhouse apartment we lived in? There was that one night I came home drunk."
"Oh, one night?" Melissa snorted derisively.
He gave her a look, "Let me finish. So, I'm drunk, passed out on the bed. I get up to go to the bathroom. Then all of the sudden I hear you yelling 'what the hell are you doing?'"
"Because you were in the closet peeing into the laundry basket!" Melissa replied.
"Yeah, I thought it was the bathroom," he repeated.
"Oh, no," she shook her head. "You were drunk off your ass."
"Yeah," he agreed, stressing, "but I was convinced it was the bathroom. So, how do we know Stiles isn't just convinced he's in some kind of basement? And isn't actually there? I think when he called Scott and his girlfriend, he was still asleep."
Melissa let the idea sink in, "And is still asleep right now. Then where is he?"
"I got an idea on that too."
Stiles stared, terrified, as the stranger scratched the Oni symbol for 'self' into the wall with chalk. "You don't understand, do you? It's a riddle. Do you know any riddles, Stiles?"
The way he spoke, slow and calm, drawing out every word he hissed, unnerved Stiles to his very core. But he responded anyway, "A few."
"What gets bigger the more you take away?" he asked.
"A hole," Stiles answered.
"What gets wetter the more it dries?"
"A towel," Stiles sniffled, slowly losing the strength in his arms to hold his body upright.
"When is a door not a door?"
Stiles stopped short at that question, the ultimate question that spelled out the root of his problems, "When it's ajar."
"Everyone has it, but no one can lose it," the stranger continued. "What is it?"
"I don't-" Stiles exhaled deeply, shivering.
"Everyone has it, but no one can lose it," he repeated. "What is it, Stiles?"
"I don't—I don't know," the boy whimpered.
The stranger approached him, shouting in his face in Japanese. Stiles shuddered in fear under his spitting remarks he didn't even understand. Then suddenly, the stranger pulled on the chain connected to the trap that encased and immobilized him, dragging it and dragging him across the ground.
"No! No! Wait! Wait!" Stiles screamed, desperately trying to grab onto to something to hold him still, to stop him from being dragged off into nothingness.
Elsewhere in the woods, Jessie paused when she heard Stiles' desperate, agonized screams, "Wait! Wait!"
She ran towards the voice, "Stiles!?" She ran until she found the boy screaming, sleeping, having a nightmare, on the ground of a coyote den that smelled putrid to her sensitive nose. But she held her breath and rushed to Stiles side, wrapping her arms around him, "Stiles, it's okay. Wake up! You're okay!"
He thrashed in her arms, "Wait! No, wait!"
"Stiles!?" Jessie heard Melissa's voice. The woman ran over with her ex-husband in tow, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion when she noticed the girl, "Jessie!?"
"Stiles, you're all right!" Jessie ignored the woman and focused on warming Stiles up and waking him up. "You're all right, Stiles!" He settled in her arms, his eyes slowly opening and focusing on the woods around him, sans any industrial basement.
He laid his head back on her shoulder, his eyes falling on her face, "Jessie? You're-"
"I'm back," she told him gently. "I'm back. I'm not going anywhere, okay? You're all right."
Like a little lost boy, tears fell down his face as he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly. "I'm so scared."
Jessie stroked his hair as if a mother would, "I know. But you're gonna be all right."
"We need to get him to the hospital," Melissa whispered urgently.
Jessie nodded, letting Agent McCall pick the boy up out of her arms and letting Melissa help her off the ground. They started rushing towards McCall's cruiser when Jessie heard a rustling in the woods. Her head snapped over to the sound, stopping her in her tracks.
Melissa looked back at the girl, seeing her staring into the woods, "Jessie? Sweetie, what's wrong?"
"They're here," Jessie whispered fearfully, as if in a trance. "The Alphas."
Melissa panicked, looking back at her ex. He hadn't heard anything but she could risk that he would, "Take him into the car and turn on the heat. I'll be right there."
He ran off without another word.
Melissa slowly approached Jessie, like a hurt animal, "Sweetie, that's over. Remember? The Alpha Pack is a thing of the past, I promise."
"She's going to kill me," Jessie began to cry. "Jennifer, she's-"
"Dead," Melissa urged her. "She's dead. You don't have to be afraid of her anymore, I promise."
Jessie started to hyperventilate, hearing chanting in her ears, the Darrach's shadow looming closer in between the trees.
Melissa grew nervous as an invisible force began to shake the trees around her, "Jessie, I need you to calm down. You're safe, okay? You're safe."
"No one is safe anymore!" Jessie cried.
"Jessie!?" a voice with a deep accent carried through the woods.
Melissa looked over at him and recognized him from pictures she'd seen at Gavin's house. This was his brother. "Connor? Connor McGarretty?"
"Hello love," Connor greeted her, standing in front of Jessie and grabbing her by her arms. "Come on, darling, you know it's not real."
Jessie continued to cry, losing her breath.
Connor sighed, turning to Melissa, "I've got her. You get the lad to the hospital. Go!"
Melissa didn't know if she could trust this man but he was Gavin's brother. So, she decided to heed his advice and ran for the car to get Stiles to help.
Lydia and Scott sat in the hospital hallway with McCall and Melissa standing by them as the Sheriff made his way over, sighing tiredly, "He's sleeping now. And he's just fine. He doesn't remember much. It's a bit like a dream to him." The man looked at the FBI Agent and said sincerely, "Thank you."
"It was the repellent we sprayed in the coyote den to keep other animals out," Rafael explained. "I couldn't go near it without my eyes watering. It's just a good thing he mentioned it over the phone."
The Sheriff shook his head, "No, it was more than that. Thank you."
He shrugged, "It was a lucky connection."
The Sheriff deadpanned, "McCall, can you shut up please and accept my sincerest gratitude?"
Rafael stared at the Sheriff before slowly nodding. "Accepted," he said shortly.
"All right, you two," Melissa looked at Scott and Lydia. "You've got school in less than six hours. Go home. Go to sleep."
"Wait," Scott stalled, "someone has to tell Jessie he's been found."
Melissa took his shoulder in her hands, "She knows, sweetie," she led him and Lydia further down the hallway to speak quietly, "She was already there when we found Stiles."
"Where is she now?" Lydia asked confused.
Melissa shook her head, "I don't know. We were going to the car to bring Stiles in when she stopped thinking she heard something. She started talking about the Alpha pack and that woman, Jennifer, like they were still around."
"What?" Scott cinched in his forehead, thoroughly confused.
"It was like she was having a flash back of some sort," Melissa explained. "But then Gavin's brother showed up, and said he could take care of her. I called Gavin on the way here and he vouched for his brother so I know she's safe."
"Safe from him but what about herself?" Lydia's voice grew shrill with worry.
"I don't know what to tell you guys," Melissa replied helplessly. "But Gavin gave me the address of where his brother and her are supposed to be staying. I'll give it to you after, and only after school tomorrow."
"If she's in trouble..." Scott started, his mind instantly wondering to everything Stiles had been going through. Could Jessie be suffering the same fate?
"She's not," Melissa cut him off. "Who knows what happened to her while she was gone. Who knows how it all affected her – it's impossible for all of you not to be affected by it all at this point. But I'm sure that this Connor character knows how to help her. You can check on her tomorrow. Now, get your butt home and go to sleep."
Scott reluctantly led Lydia out of the hospital to her car, getting his bike from the back of Jessie's car. He'd have to take it back to her tomorrow. And he definitely would find out what was wrong with her.
Once the teenagers and ex-husband had gone, Melissa pulled the Sheriff aside to speak to him seriously about something that had been plaguing her mind since Stiles came into the hospital to see her. "It was the other day. I asked him some questions. Just symptoms and, um..." she didn't know how to break her theory to him without breaking his heart.
"It's okay," he whispered, understanding, "I think I, uh, I think I know what you're talking about." He pulled out his police issued note pad and flipped the cover open, showing her a list of symptoms that she herself had written down after talking to Stiles. "I've been writing these down for the past two weeks. I think we need to do some tests."
Isaac had gotten to the Argent apartment right after they found Stiles, but woke Allison up anyway. Her phone had strangely been turned off and when she turned it back on, she found numerous voice mails from a blocked number of a man speaking Japanese. So, in the morning they brought it to their history teacher. Even though he was Korean, he decided to help them as they played the voice mail for him.
"You're right, it's Japanese," he said. "Who left this on your phone?"
"I don't know," Allison told him. "All of the messages are the same and they all say Blocked ID."
"Can you translate it?" Isaac urged.
"Mostly," he nodded. "The man speaking is giving instructions, actually. The first line is, 'All evacuees are required to stay at least ten feet back from outside fences.'"
Allison and Isaac seemed more confused by the English translation. "What does that mean? What fences?"
"The fences surrounding a Japanese internment camp during World War II," he responded gravely. "After Pearl Harbor, Japanese-Americans were rounded up and put in camps. This man is reading instructions to prisoners upon their arrival."
"Well, where does something like this come from?" Allison asked curiously.
The teacher shook his head, "I don't know. Because it's fake." At their surprised expressions he explained, "It mentions the name of the internment camp as 'Oak Creek.' There was no internment camp named Oak Creek in California."
As soon as school let out, Scott texted his mom for the address of where Jessie was staying and then raced there on his bike, getting to a loft building fifteen minutes from the High School. He practically abandoned his bike and raced up the stairs to the fourth floor, pounding on the door.
A man he'd met once before was the one who answered it.
"Who are you? How did you get here and why?"
"I'm here to help," the man answered, Scott now noticing an almost Irish accent in his voice, "Alex sent me."
"You're what he meant by reinforcements," Scott realized.
The man nodded, "Among others. Name's Connor. And I've got a significant stake in Miss Hansen's future. It's only right I help her friend too."
"How do you know Jessie?" Scott interrogated protectively.
"I don't," Connor admitted, "But I will. Don't worry, mate, I'm on your side. But there are a lot of hands at play here and a lot of them want the Demi-Cruore under their control."
"Demi-Cruore," Scott murmured, "Deucalion called her that. What does that actually mean?"
"It means that there's a lot in store for her in the future and she's going to need all the help she can get," Connor answered him without actually answering him, "There's a lot to unlock inside of her and that's part of my job."
"And who exactly gave you that job?" Deaton panted.
"Her family," Connor answered, "Her – father's side of the family anyway. Listen there's a lot of rungs on the ladder you have to climb before you get the whole view, lads. And I've got a group of high strung hunters to meet up with."
"Hello again, Scott," he greeted the younger boy mock-jovially. "I assume you're here to see Jessie."
"Yeah, is she okay?" Scott rushed in, looking around the loft. It was spacious for one thing. There were tall windows and nearly no walls. There was a kitchen off to the right with a dining table and chairs next to it. His eyes paused on two prescription bottles sitting next to the sink and an empty glass, but he put that away for later. To the left of the set up was a couch with no television, but a lap top sat on the coffee table in front of the couch. There was a spiral staircase that went up into a second floor with no wall hiding it from view, but there was a railing. Scott looked up and saw Jessie walking around the makeshift bedroom, slipping on her short brown leather jacket over a white tank top and jeans.
She looked at him and he was shocked to see her eyes were still glowing cobalt blue. She slipped sunglasses on over them as she made her way down the staircase, "Scott, you're here."
"Yeah, I was worried," he instantly answered.
"Don't be," she waved him off. "I'm fine. It's Stiles I'm worried about."
"They're running tests on him at the hospital," Scott informed her. "My mom said that you-"
"We should go be with him then," she cut him off. "You still have my car?"
"It's still at the hospital," Scott replied slowly. "Jessie, we're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."
"Nothing is going on!" she rose her voice.
"What about your eyes?" he shot at her. "I haven't seen your real eye color once. They're always glowing."
"They won't not glow anymore!" she yelled. "Ever since they gave me that blood, my eyes have been blue. Not even contacts will cover it up so I have to wear sunglasses everywhere like a douche."
Scott gaped at her for a moment, "Why... why won't they stop glowing?"
Her shoulders fell, deflated, "I don't know. It's like I'm always in transition between human and whatever a vampire is supposed to look like and I can never calm down enough to make them stop."
"Well..." Scott trailed off, trying to think of anything he used to calm down that could help her. "What about your anchor? You've used it before to heal yourself and summon powers—can't you use it to calm down?"
"I don't have an anchor, Scott," she whispered, going over to the couch to sit down. Connor quietly excused himself into the hallway, sensing the two needed to speak alone.
"What do you mean you don't have one?" Scott asked her as he sat beside her. "Of course you do, I've seen you use it before."
She shook her head, "I don't anymore. I lost Isaac. My family is gone. I lost Alex..." She looked down at her hands on her knees, feeling numb to it all. She should be more upset, she knew, but she just felt empty. No tears to shed in an empty vessel.
"Then find a new anchor," Scott echoed the words she'd whispered in his ear once upon a time, seeming so long ago now that he repeated them. "Like you told me to." Immediately he wished he hadn't said that, remembering that it was his hallucination of her that told him this, not her in the flesh.
She gave him a confused look, her brows furrowing into a squiggly line on her forehead above the sunglasses she wore, "What? I never said that."
"Um..." Scott's mouth opened and closed a few times, eyes wide, as he searched for some verbal shovel to dig himself out of this hole, "Um... I meant... you're the smartest person I know. If I could find a new anchor after losing Allison, I know you can find one after breaking up with Isaac."
"What's your new anchor?" Jessie asked him quietly, looking right at him.
He wished he could look into her eyes and say, 'It's you. It's always been you. I was just too blind and scared to know it.' But it wasn't that simple. "The people I care about."
For a long moment they stared at each other, and Scott was worried that the true meaning to his words could be seen in his eyes, but she didn't say anything about that. Instead she stood up, "Well, I'll try later. For now, we gotta go be with Stiles."
The minute Stiles' eyes landed on Jessie, he leaped out of his hospital bed and wrapped his arms around her tightly, afraid she was just part of his waking nightmare. But he felt her hug him back almost as fiercely and Scott assured him that she was real. Georgie stood back, letting the long lost friends reunite. The teens then followed the MRI technician as well as Stiles' dad and Scott's mom into the MRI exam room.
"Stiles, just to warn you," the doctor started, "you're going to hear a lot of noise during the MRI. It's due to pulses of electricity going through metal coils inside the machine. Uh, if you want we can get you earplugs or headphones."
Stiles slouched on the MRI bed, fiddling with his fingers. He shook his head, distracted, "Uh, no, no. I don't need anything."
"Hey," the Sheriff got his son's attention, "we're just on the other side of that window. Okay?"
Stiles nodded as Melissa and his dad followed the doctor into the other room. But the teens stayed behind. Stiles chewed on his thumbnail, his other hand held in Georgie's, "You know what they're looking for, right? It's called frontotemporal dementia. Areas of your brain start to shrink... It's what my mother had. It's the only form of dementia that can hit teenagers – and there's no cure."
Georgie's hands tightened around his, she was trying to fight the tears in her eyes, "We'll figure something out – if you have it... we'll figure something out."
"She's right," Jessie added. "We're not going to lose you to this."
"If you do have it," Scott finally spoke. "We'll do something. I'll do something."
Stiles and Scott shared a look, both knowing exactly what he meant. Scott leaned forward and the best friends shared a tight hug, letting Stiles let out a little emotion he'd been holding back in his fear. Truthfully, he was terrified of dying the way his mother had. He didn't want that.
Derek had gone to Kira to try and figure out what Barrow had wanted with her. It took them all the way back to the place she was attacked, and where Derek made a horrible realization. He drove Kira to the hospital to meet up with Scott and tell him what he'd figured out. Kira got out after him but paused in her steps, not wanting to go inside. "I don't know if I should go in. You're going to tell Scott that Barrow might have used foxfire created by me to jump start the Nogitsune's power inside Stiles."
"Yeah," Derek nodded.
"Basically that I helped a dark spirit take control of his best friend," Kira gnawed on her lip.
Derek considered it when he heard her say it out loud, "You should probably wait here."
Stiles laid in the MRI bed inside the machine, hearing the doctor's voice over a intercom system, "Okay, Stiles. This will take about 45 minutes to an hour. Now remember, try not to move. Even just a little bit. Stiles, you're going to hear that noise now. It's going to be a loud clanging. Kind of like a hammer hitting an anvil."
A loud metal clang sounded over his head, introducing itself. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
Outside in the waiting room, Scott and Jessie sat across from Derek while Georgie paced back and forth between them. "You know the stuff you were telling me about chemo signals earlier?" Scott asked Derek. "It reminded me of the time you were teaching me to use anger to control the shift."
Derek sort of snorted at that, the noise didn't quite escape him but the intent was there, "I think you ended up teaching me more about that."
"Are you teaching me again?" Scott asked him seriously.
"Think of it more like sharing a few trade secrets," Derek hedged. "You know, I took Cora back to South America, right? It's where she spent most of her time after the fire. But that's not the only reason I left. I needed to talk to my mother."
"Your dead mother?" Jessie chimed into the conversation.
He nodded, "She told me something that changed my perspective on a lot of things. She said that my family didn't just live in Beacon Hills. They protected it. This town needs someone to protect it. Someone like you."
"And someone like you to teach me a few trade secrets," Scott grinned weakly.
"Protection..." Georgie murmured, stopping her pacing. "Stiles is always trying to protect us."
Scott abruptly stood up, "Oh my god. That's why he was on the roof."
They all got up and started racing up to the roof. When they got up there Derek asked what they were looking for.
"I'm not sure," Scott mumbled, "but I think Stiles wasn't just up here struggling with himself. I think he was struggling not to do something."
"Scott," Jessie called to him. Everyone looked over to see that she had found a large duffel bag full of wires and tools. Scott and Derek gaped at them and then looked up to see a black wire frayed.
The scan wasn't over yet but the doctor could see a picture start to form on the screen. And by his expression, Melissa and the Sheriff knew that it wasn't good. He sighed, "See this?" pointing to some areas of Stiles' brain. "The tissue here and there. Both those spots are showing signs of atrophy."
Alec stared at the scans, muttering hopelessly, "Atrophy."
"I'm sorry," the doctor sighed.
Inside the MRI machine, Stiles was beginning to feel dizzy. Suddenly, everything seemed darker and he was no longer inside the machine, standing outside of it with his own clothes on. In front of him stood the subject of his nightmares, the man in the leather jacket, wrapped in dirty gauze.
His mouth full of silver sharp fangs hissed, "Have you figured out my riddle yet? If you answer correctly, we might consider letting them go."
"Letting who go?" Stiles asked, feeling fear paralyze him.
"Your family," the Nogitsune looked through the window to where Melissa and the Sheriff stood close together. "Your friends. Everyone who ever meant something to you. We're going to destroy all of them, Stiles." He paused, whispering menacingly, "One—by—one."
"Why?" Stiles whispered, a tear falling from his eye.
"Everyone has it, but no one can lose it," the figure said instead. "What is it?"
"I don't know," Stiles insisted, getting sick and tired of all of this.
"Everyone has it, but no one can lose it. What is it?" it repeated. "What is it?"
"I don't know!" Stiles turned away from the dark thing.
The Nogitsune reached up and started rapidly unwinding the gauze around it's head. "Everyone has it, but no one can lose it. What is it? What is it?"
Stiles covered his ears, "I don't know!" But it was as if time stopped when the answer finally occurred to him and he whispered, "A shadow." He slowly turned around, seeing hair and a face sticking out of the gauze until it was gone, to reveal... himself.
The doctor, Melissa and the Sheriff all flinched when it went dark inside the MRI room, Melissa asking, "What was that?"
"It sounded like a power surge," he answered.
Alec was looking into the room to check on Stiles, only to see that the MRI machine was empty, "Where's my son?"
On the roof, the sparking frayed wire suddenly broke, sparks exploding over them. The thick black wire whipped down, striking Jessie in the face. Scott shouted her name as he saw her fall to the ground.
Everyone huddled over her but she sat up quickly, not a mark on her skin, but her glasses were completely destroyed. She pulled them off, revealing her still-bright-blue-glowing eyes.
"Your eyes..." Derek breathed in shock.
Jessie stood up, brushing her jeans off, "Later. Right now, we've got bigger things to worry about."
Stiles – now, really, the Nogitsune – stalked down the hospital hallway, the overhead lights flickering above him. An amused smile flickered on his face as he saw Kira's mother, Noshiko, standing in the open elevator.
She stared him down, her stance straight and powerful, "You know me. Then you remember that I won't be deterred by your choice of host. Even if it's an innocent boy."
The Nogitsune slowly grinned, "Are you threatening us?" He stepped closer to the woman, "Now I'm threatening you. We're not really afraid of your little fireflies."
As he began to walk away she called after him, "If the Oni can't defeat you, I know someone who will."
Kira was still standing outside as night fell when she heard something above her. She looked up towards the roof, seeing a large black electrical wire whipping and flailing in the air, dropping down towards her. She breathed, "Oh my god," just as it began it's descent for her.
I hope that you guys are still into this story, I know I've gotten slower.
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RegalGirl94
