STILES' POV:

I stood in his bedroom doorway. "You're leaving?" I asked Scott as he packed his bags. "You're just gonna leave?" When he continued packing I went on. "Look, I know things between us lately haven't been good, and I'm sorry, but you don't have to leave."

He stopped packing and threw me a pissed off look. "I don't have to leave?" His voice rose as he turned toward me. "I'm not staying here and I'm not listening to Deucalion's crap anymore. He's not going to boss me around like I'm some little kid."

I huffed, looking at his shaggy mop hair. "Scott you are a kid. Why do you think Deucalion did this to us? He wanted us to follow him. Why can't you just do that?"

He was working to control his anger. "That wasn't what I was born to do. Have you taken a moment to stop and think about what we can do with these powers? Why would you want to stay in this dumb and small town when you can go bigger?"

My shoulders shrugged. "This is our home, Scott. Where would you go that people would accept you for what you truly are?"

He snatched his bag off the bed with a smug look on his face. "You know, that's the difference between you and me, Stiles. You never fit in with anybody besides me. Even if you did want to come with me you still wouldn't make it out there. You think too small. That's why Deucalion likes you. He's not afraid of you." He pushed past me.

What hurt the most wasn't his words, even though they stung, but that we had gotten to this point. A month ago we didn't know about any of this stuff and we didn't care. Why did we let Deucalion turn us?

I followed him down the hall. "So that's it? You're gonna insult me then leave? What about your mom? What about my dad? What about Allison? I thought you wanted to ask her out?"

"What about them?" He asked nonchalantly. "Just because you brought up my mommy I'm supposed to stay? Deucalion is either going to kill me or send me packing. I'm choosing for him. Don't get in my way."

Instinctively, I grabbed his shoulder and turned him toward me. He twisted my arm back until we both heard a loud crack of bone. He punched my face until I was sure I was black and blue. "Stop." My arm screamed in protest as he pushed me against the wall. "Please-" I tasted blood in my mouth. My vision blurred.

I turned to see Scott's mom, Melissa, screaming by the front door in her purple scrubs. Scott ignored her.

"Scott, what are you doing?" Alarm was evident in her voice.

There was no remorse in his brown eyes.

"Tell her about your plan. Tell her how you don't care." I told him.

He growled at me before driving his claws into my stomach. I fell to the floor as I spit out blood. "Scott." All I heard was Melissa screaming and crying hysterically. "Scott!"

He circled me. He circled Lydia. I looked around the empty black woods, it was dead silent except for Lydia's hyperventilating.

"Stiles." She asked in the dark I was sure she couldn't see through.

My hand found hers. "Lydia, it's going to be okay." I brought her to my side.

"What's happe-AHH!" She screamed.

Scott snatched her from arms. He stood a few feet away with both the Old Lydia with her chucks and jeans and the New Lydia with her flawless hair and skirts. He had his claws at their necks. Old Lydia looked so scared and confused. New Lydia had angry tears in her eyes. Fear froze me in place.

"Who's it going to be?" Scott asked me. His shaggy hair and baggy clothes gone. "Which one do you want to save?" His claws dig into their throats enough to produce blood running down their throats.

I eyed them both. How could I save them both? "Why are you doing this, Scott?" I tried to stall.

"I'm trying to help you. Come on, pick one." He sniffed Old Lydia causing her to flinch as tears ran down her face, then whispered something into New Lydia's ear, making her roll her eyes. "Who's it going to be, Stiles?" He demanded with a twisted and sick way. He kissed New Lydia on the neck. His claws deepened.

Anger filled me as I charged forward, I grabbed Old Lydia and pulled her to me. She cried into my chest. I looked back in time to see New Lydia with her throat bloodied and ripped open as she fell to the forest floor. "No!"

Scott was nowhere to be found. New Lydia just laid there looking at me with vacant eyes. Tears stung my eyes as I growled. My heart felt like it was in my throat.

Old Lydia began shaking me. "Stiles." Her voice sounded far away. She looked scared for me.

"Wake up." She begged.

"What?"

"Wake up!" She screamed. She slapped me.

I jolted up, my heart pounding in my chest. My drenched shirt clung to my sweaty chest. A Hand

rested on my shoulder.

"Stiles, are you okay?" Lydia asked, concern laced in her voice. She pressed her other hand to my forehead. "You're burning up." She crawled across me to go to the bathroom, but I grounded her in my lap, hugging her in my arms. She was so warm as she hugged me back, which I didn't mind even though I was already burning up. After a several moments her moss green eyes gazed into mine as I looked up at her in desperation. "What did you dream about?"

There was lump in my throat. "I couldn't save you." I couldn't save the you that knew about all of this, but I could save the you that didn't.

Her features softened. She wiped the hair that clung to my forehead back on my head. "I know you don't want to hear this, but it's not your job to save me." Before I could protest she pushed her finger to my lips, my lips tingled under her touch. "You can't save everybody, Stiles. You never should've had that responsibility on your shoulders." Her eyes dropped to my torso.

I could hear her heartbeat pick up a little. She was checking me out. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"What?" She quickly met my eyes.

I smirked. "I just had a nightmare about you dying and now you're checking me out?"

She grinned. "Well, can you blame me?"

There was definitely hunger in her eyes. There was definitely lust rolling off of her. To make matters worse I was already struggling to keep control of the part of me she was sitting on.

"You're not helping my situation."

She met my eyes. "What situation?"

"Trust me, you don't want to find out." I moved her off my lap. She looked hurt. "Come on, Lydia." I sighed. "You know you're beautiful and that I like you a lot. I don't want you in the middle of this. I don't want you getting hurt."

"Well, I don't want you getting hurt either."

"I can heal faster, you can't."

She huffed, then went to her bathroom. I took the opportunity to look around her room. It was emptier than I thought. Maybe not emptier, but cleaner than Cora's. Usually Cora's room is clean once a week. Lydia was definitely more organized than Cora. I got up and walked over to what appeared to be a scrapbook. I looked through it, which was mostly pictures of her and Allison smiling or making weird faces. Some were candid. There was a black and white one of Lydia writing in what appeared to be a journal. Anyone would see a simple looking girl hiding in her clothes, but I saw beauty. The next was similar except she was looking up from her journal and smiling at who I assumed was Allison. My hand grazed the picture.

"Oh, God. You found my scrapbook." She had a wet rag that she placed on my forehead. "And you found that picture. I don't even know why I kept it."

I met her eyes. "Can I have it?"

Confusion flickered in her eyes for a moment. "Uh, yeah. I guess." She took the picture out of the plastic and handed it to me. "You should take a shower."

My brow lifted in question.

"I'm not offering to get in there with you if that's what you thought I meant." She teased.

"I wasn't thinking about you in the shower with me at all." I stumbled. "Definitely not you being naked and in the shower with me. No, definitely not at-I'm just going to shut up."

To my surprise she was laughing. I loved to see her like this with me. There was something about it, about her that made me want to have her beside me in every way. I know that I didn't want her involved, which was going to be hard to manage, but I didn't want her with anyone else. If I pushed her away, that's exactly what would happen.

"You're extra cute when you're nervous." She grinned.

To my embarrassment, I blushed. I actually blushed, which didn't go unnoticed by her. She didn't point it out, but I knew she noticed.

"It's weird how wrong we could be about each other." She walked into her oversized closet.

I hoped she wasn't going to change in front of me again because I was a guy and Lydia didn't exactly discourage my antics. "What do you mean?"

She shoved clothes in a large black tote bag. "I mean, I thought that you didn't know I existed and how wrong was I?" She tucked stray hair behind her ear. "And you thought I hated you when I was just scared of you."

"What do you mean you were scared of me?" I walked over to her.

She sensed my disappointment. "Not like how I'm scared of Scott. I was scared of you emotionally. Ethan knew that. He somehow knew how I felt about you at his party, before you even got there by the way."

I folded my arms across my chest. "Why doesn't he like me then? And why are you packing a bag?"

She met my eyes briefly. "I'm not staying here by myself the entire weekend." She shoved some shoes into the bag. "Ethan doesn't not like you, he does. He actually encouraged me to tell you how I felt on multiple occasions."

My brow furrowed. "Then why does he feel threatened by me?"

"I don't think he's threatened by you more like he's protective." She paused just as she was about to say something, but didn't go in. Instead, she headed for her bathroom.

"What is it?"

She put toiletries in her bag without looking at me. "The night Allison was admitted to the hospital he drove me to your house. I was going to tell you how I felt about you, but I saw you and Cora on the balcony. . ."

Shit. I thought back to that night, I never took into account that anyone actually saw us. I remembered how sad she looked at the hospital and I couldn't help but think that I played a role in that. "Lydia, nothing happened. I promise."

"Anyway, Ethan just wants to make sure that you don't hurt me. He doesn't hate you." She finally looked at me before she grabbed what I assumed was underwear from her dresser drawer. "So are we blowing this popsicle stand or what?" She headed for the door.

I laughed at her choice of words. "Who says that anymore?"

She shrugged. "I've always wanted to say it, sue mee."