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Gabriella didn't know why she requested to go to his house – to see his room, but she did. She knew she was going to receive odd looks at the first request she made being released from Eichen House, but she needed to see it. After explaining to Scott what happened in Eichen House and handing over the sword with the picture she needed to see something of Stiles who was trapped in his mind.
She needed to see his reality – his world – since she was deeply submerged in it.
No one was in the house. It was dark and empty. She expected it as everyone was still looking for the lost boy. She hated she couldn't be of any help, but the voices weren't talking and she knew it was because they were scared. Lydia, who hasn't left her side since her discharge, was outside in her car as she gave her cousin a moment to herself.
Lydia didn't agree in going to Stiles' house while the Nogitsune was roaming free with Stiles' body. She thought they should stay a hundred miles away since this creature left bruises on her face with a split lip and Morrell told them he was transfixed by their power. Gabriella didn't care. She needed this.
Immediately entering the house you could tell it was a male house that lacked a feminine touched or recent touch. The feminine touch was more fading as if they were trying to keep certain things there but time and age needed to replace it. Gabriella knew it was just Stiles and his dad. Despite her not being in school with Stiles when it happened it's not hard for her to feel the loss or for her to hear the cries of a mother who wishes for her son and husband happiness. Sometimes when she listened to the rain it wasn't always soothing.
Gabriella didn't snoop, but just made her ways up the stairs down the hallway to Stiles' room. It was if her mind already had the cognitive layout even though she only been to this place once in a dream. She remembered the light blue walls that passed for teal, his bed, and desk. She remembered the feel of his soft blue comforter as it was plusher than the standard off white ones issued at Eichen House. She also remembered this brown wooden door she warned him to ignore and to just come back to bed.
Gabriella reached his door and timidly pushed it open.
She lingered out in the hallway as the door creaked opened to reveal his room – his vacant room.
Behind all the pictures that littered his wall she saw his paint was a light teal color like the dream. His furniture was a dark mahogany, except his computer desk which was stark white, which complimented his walls. Gabriella stepped closer to one of his walls and behind the madness of his mind she saw Stiles mixed in there from his music posters that advertised groups she never heard of. She lightly traced the papers on the wall before her eyes caught a picture of Stiles in an athletic uniform next to Scott. They both looked younger as Stiles had a buzz cut and Scott was rocking shaggier hair. Gabriella picked up the picture frame and walked around his made bed and sat in the leather chair covered with a sheet. She felt sitting on his bed was too personal.
Her attention on the photograph she observed they both looked so happy and carefree in the picture. They had no idea how their life was going to turn out and whatever sport this was she assumed they thought there only struggle was going to be trying to maintain good grades to stay on the team, but she suspected that was probably a major struggle in trying to juggle supernatural problems. She placed the picture on his nightstand next to his bed that only contained a lamp and phone.
She could tell since Stiles went missing he hadn't made an appearance in his room. It was cold with absence. No one had been here probably since Stiles admitted himself into Eichen House.
Other than the absence, the room to her was what would be that of any teenage boy. Ignoring the plethora of photos of cases on his wall, he had posters, baseball trophies, more pictures, and a lot of other trinkets scattered around the room. He had more space than she ever had at Eichen House.
Gabriella wished she would have grabbed a cup of water to maybe get a clue or something in here although she wasn't getting any feeling from being here so she knew it would probably be useless. The Nogitsune would be found when he wanted to on his terms and he wasn't going to let a banshee spoil his fun.
Gabriella got up from the chair and gave his room another once over when she paused at the picture directly above his dark headboard where he slept. It was a picture of her. Her last grade school picture she took at the public elementary school.
She unpinned the picture from the wall as she took it in her hands and observed the then innocence Gabriella not yet surrounded by death and chaos.
She honestly doesn't remember life before Eichen House regarding school and she thought it was personally better that way as it didn't give her something to miss. She couldn't miss what she never had even though she thought that statement didn't ring true.
The picture started to waiver in her hold and salty tears began to scatter it. Gabriella released the picture from her grip on to the bed and walked out of Stiles' room and shut the door.
Only if she knew and felt what lurked behind the door with a dandelion in his hand.
...
Gabriella wiped her face as she went outside back to where Lydia was waiting for her in the car. Both of them hadn't said much and Gabriella wasn't sure how to act around her. As soon as Lydia picked her up with her aunt, Natalie, who didn't seem to thrill to have her, Lydia had been constantly apologizing and she didn't even know how much someone could apologize in twenty four hours.
But just from those hours, she realized how different – yet similar - she and her cousin were. She just didn't know how to interact with her cousin because she would be honest she felt a pinch of hurt from the radio silence on her family's part even after their grandmother died. She didn't know how to address that topic because she knew these looks of pity or sympathy wasn't going to cut it.
Plus she didn't know how she was going to transition from being in Eichen House to out in the real world.
Gabriella wiped her cheeks for extra measure being mindful of the tender bruises and sat in the passenger seat of Lydia's car. Lydia didn't say anything as she started the car and they made their way back home. Home a word that she needed to get used to.
Gabriella was watching the passing scenery when Lydia finally spoke up. "So are you okay?
Gabriella glanced briefly over at her cousin who was trying her best not to look over at her. "I don't know. I am just worried about Stiles."
"Well if there is one thing you can count on about Scott – this pack – is we will save him." Lydia told her as she looked over at her and gave her a smile before Lydia asked what she wanted for dinner. She knew that was her cousin's way of trying to keep her mind off Stiles and all the supernatural things that were plaguing the town, but she couldn't. She could only think of what happened if they couldn't save Stiles.
Gabriella looked around her new bedroom which was a lilac purple a similar shade to Lydia's own room, but while Lydia had white accents she had cherry wood. Her walls were bare except Lydia or Natalie dug out a picture for her of her and her dad that was hung on the wall next to her bed. It was at a party she presumed as both their faces were smeared with cake. Looking at the picture made her feel guilty as time went on she found that memories started to become brittle. They chipped away with time. Absence becomes a more prominent memory than ones that actually happened.
Gabriella walked away from the picture and stood back in the middle of the room in front of her bed. She was restless, yes, and this new environment didn't help. Plus, she couldn't stop thinking about Stiles since Lydia hadn't heard anything from Scott about what he discovered from that picture and broken sword.
She was also trying to get used to her new attire. When she looked through the drawers she was overwhelmed by all her options – all her choices – just to wear to bed. She eventually settled on some plaid shorts with a wife beater. She traced the raised flesh on her thigh self-consciously.
Gabriella walked back to her door to make sure it was locked as she decided she was just going to call it a night. Lydia and Natalie both had already come by to make sure she was okay and she was for the most part, but she told them she needed time for herself and if she really needed something she would let them know.
Gabriella pulled back the plush blankets as she lay back on the pillow top mattress. As she laid there she wondered how long her body was going to need to condition her body to get used to this luxury.
She also needed to get used to not having to share a room anymore. She knew she was going to miss Meredith and she worried for her friend on how she was going to survive in Eichen House alone.
Gabriella turned on her side and curled her covers around her as she willed sleep to come.
Gabriella turned over again when she felt a cold metal underneath her and a chill cover her body. She sprung her eyes open to find herself in a car and she sprung up she hit her head on the top of the car which was actually the bottom. Gabriella quickly crawled out of the car to meet hard cold dirt, leaves, and twigs.
Gabriella turned around and she instantly recognized where she was at. She was at the site of the wreck where her father – family – died.
She knew deep down inside she was dreaming. She had to be, but it didn't stop her from getting up from the ground and running through the woods. She was reminded back to Stiles' dream where they were locked in the school, but this time she knew what was after her.
Gabriella didn't even spare a glance as she ran. Her bare feet didn't wince in pain as she stepped on rocks. She didn't even flinch when branches nicked her skin. She just kept running until she slipped. She thought it was a puddle, but that metallic scent filled her nostrils as it splattered across her face and her body. The blood wasn't in the dirt, the surface was hard. It was concrete.
Gabriella looked up to find herself out of the woods and in a concrete cell with bars as a door.
Gabriella got up from the puddle of blood and tried her luck with the bar door and she already knew it was going to be no use. As she wrapped her hands around a bar and tried to open it, she felt the blood on her hands coat the bar and when she released them she saw it smeared around the poles. That's when she heard the crackling and when she turned around she saw them forming in the shadows and in the blink of an eye one had already formed and had its sword ready to plunge into her.
She felt the tip of the blade hit the taunt skin of her stomach when she sprung up from her bed throwing the covers off her since her body had formed a cold sweat.
She tried to resupply her lungs with oxygen as she wiped the perspiration off her body that felt a lot like the blood that coated her in her demented dream.
Then she felt that familiar chill travel down her spine as a voice spoke out to her in the dark, "What were you dreaming about?" The voice asked as it clamped her mouth shut as he silenced her scream.