BPOV

When the assassins attacked I knew what to do. I went for the largest clump of men and possessed one of them. I turned and shot all the men around him, and then shot myself in the head. I was launched out of his body.

I looked around. There was complete chaos. Even I couldn't see through the fog. "Ava?" I called. A bullet whizzed right through me on it's way to its target. I ran through the room, taking out as many men as I could. It was getting easier to step right into a person and make them do what I wanted.

Then I found Ava, she was lying face down on the ground, in a pool of her own blood. "No!" I screamed. I turned around looking for help, but everyone was fighting. If I got anyone else killed because of her, Ava would never forgive me, in this life or the next.

There was the sound of a few dozen ringtones going off. Then the assassins started to retreat. Everyone walked out into the open and looked around at the casualties. Then Derek looked in my direction. "Ava!" He ran towards us, pushing one of the other wolves out of his way. He dropped down next to her. He touched her shoulders lightly; as if he was afraid she would shatter. "It wasn't supposed to be you," he said quietly.

Kira and Scott ran over, with the others right behind them. "Is she…?" Kira trailed off.

Chris knelt down next to her. He checked her pulse then looked up at Scott. He shook his head. "There has to be something you can do!" I screamed at them. Of course no one could hear me. "A whole room of supernaturals and no one can-" On impulse I lunged at Scott. As soon as I was in control I dropped down next to Ava and grabbed her arm. Then I sunk my teeth in. I threw myself out of Scott's body and watched.

Everyone stared at Scott, who looked confused. "What just-" He stopped. "Brooke."

Chris helped Derek turn Ava over. She was covered in blood and her eyes were closed. So the bullet hadn't killed her, she'd bled out; she had been alive long enough to close her eyes. Maybe she'd been alive when we found her. Derek pulled her into his arms and cradled her. I remembered seeing him do the same thing in that warehouse, just after the Darach had thrown her into a support beam. Right before Derek told Ava he loved her.

Scott looked at Chris. "Will it save her?" He asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe if she still had a heartbeat, even a faint one. But…"

They all looked at Ava, I knew what he was going to say. But she didn't have a heartbeat.

I leaned over Ava, close to her face. I saw her eyelid twitch, it was tiny, but it happened. "Ava!" I called out "Your still here, I know you are! You have to listen to me, there's a way out of there. Turn around and follow my voice." I paused. "I know it's dark in there, I know you see the light on the other side of that bridge. But if you turn around you'll see the light on this side too! Please come back!"

I stopped yelling. Maybe I was wrong; maybe I'd just imagined the twitch. Then she sucked in a deep breath. "Oh my god," Kira said.

Chris checked her pulse. "It's faint, but it's there."

"Let's get her back to loft, I'll have Deaton meet us there," Scott said.

Derek kissed her forehead. "I told you, you're a survivor."

Two Days Later

Derek and I stayed by Ava's side while she slept. Her condition hadn't changed since we brought her back the loft. She was alive, but she wasn't conscious. Deaton came and went, he didn't have much faith that Ava would wake up. I had tried reaching out to her again; calling for her to come back to me, but there was no answer. I even tried possessing her, but I couldn't feel her presence at all.

"What if I trapped her here?" I whispered to Derek, pretending for a moment he could actually hear me. "What if she never wakes, but…but she never dies, either? She could be trapped in limbo forever, all because of me."

Derek reached out to hold Ava's hand. He hadn't said much in the last two days, to me or to anyone else. I touched his shoulder and he shivered but looked a little less pained, as if knowing I was still there helped.

A loud beep startled me and I turned to see a flashing red light on the wall behind me. Derek jumped to his feet, Ava didn't move. "What is that?" I asked, as the low beep continued. Derek grabbed his gun and walked towards the front door. He threw it open. My confusion was mirrored on his face as we both looked at Lydia standing the doorway, soaked from the rain. She screamed.

I heard a gasp behind me and turned around, Ava was sitting up on the bed staring at the wall hungrily sucking in air. I rushed towards her. "Ava! Oh my god. You're alive, you're really alive!" I hugged her, but she didn't respond.

Derek walked over to us slowly. He sat down next to Ava and reached towards her, she flinched. He pulled his hand away, confused. "How are you feeling?" He asked her. "Should I call Deaton?"

She shook her head. "I need-" She stood up quickly, her balance was shaky and I thought she was going to fall back onto the bed. "I need to be alone." She started for the stairs.

"Let me help you," Derek said, going after her. For a moment, she resisted. Then she stopped, and he put his arm around her. She leaned into him for support, suddenly looking limp, like a rag doll. He helped her upstairs and into her room. Once in bed, Ava pulled the covers around her and stared at the wall. Derek hesitated in the doorway before leaving. When we got back downstairs, Lydia was gone.

OoOoO

I wasn't sure how long we sat in the living room in silence, long enough for the sun to come up, at least. Periodically I would go check on Ava, just to make sure we hadn't imagined it. Ava was alive. Derek did call Deaton, he told us to be patient and to call back if this behavior continued into tomorrow.

When Scott came by that afternoon, it was a welcome distraction. He sat down a duffle bag on the living room table. Derek eyed it curiously, and then unzipped it. The bag was full of money. "Someone's bounty?" Derek asked. Scott nodded, he looked worried. "Okay."

"Don't you want to know why it took so long for me to return it?" Scott asked.

"How much do you make at the clinic?"

"Minimum wage."

"That's why," Derek said. "Everyone can be tempted, even a true alpha."

"So…you're not mad?"

Derek shrugged. "It's not even mine, it's Peter's."

"Where's your money?" Scott asked.

"You're standing on it. I own the building. Ava wanted the loft, and I thought it would be safer this way."

"You bought an entire building for Ava?" I asked. "That's kinda sweet."

"I have my own bank accounts," Derek continued. "All the money in the vault was Peter's." Derek zipped the bag closed and stood up.

"I know Lydia was here last night," Scott said. "Deaton is still trying to figure out what Kate did to you. If anyone can help you, it's him."

Derek nodded. "I didn't even think last night, about what it might mean," he said quietly. "It woke Ava up."

"Ava's awake?" Scott asked surprised. "Is she okay?"

"I don't know. She asked to be alone. I tried to talk to her, but she won't tell me anything. I'm sure Brooke has tried too."

I possessed Scott. "I think she must have been standing on the bridge," I told Derek. He looked confused, then realized what I'd done. "The stuff she would have seen there, without a guide to push away the bad things, would have terrified her. Imagine waking up from the worst nightmare of your life. The kind of nightmare that seems to last forever. It feels like everything you've ever been afraid of is happening at once. I'm sure you heard how traumatized she was after the wolfsbane incident at the motel. Imagine that times a thousand."

"So you're saying she has PTSD?"

"Hopefully it'll fade," I told him. "I barely remember the other side. It's like a dream, something I can only vaguely recall." I leaped out of Scott and Derek relayed the information to him.

OoOoO

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," I said barging into Ava's room. "It's time to get up." She gave me an annoyed look. "Ah, perfect. If you're feeling good enough to roll your eyes at me, you're feeling good enough to get out of the loft."

"I'm tired."

"You've been asleep for two days."

"Brooke, please."

"Scott asked Derek for the loft, he wants it for his first date with Kira," I told her. "So you need to get your ass up."

Reluctantly she stood up. I heard her stomach growl across the room. "I'll only leave the loft if we can go eat at that diner down the street with all the fried food. I'm going on day three without anything to eat."

"I'm almost one hundred percent sure fried foods are not the best option for someone who almost died three days ago." I shrugged. "But whatever gets you out of bed."

She looked down at her clothes, a Beacon Hills Lacrosse t-shirt and shorts that we'd put her in after peeling off all her bloody clothes, and shrugged. "Let's go."

OoOoO

Our waitress sat the food on our table. An order of mozzarella sticks, a slice of greasy pepperoni pizza, a chicken tenders basket with extra fries, and a cookies n' cream milkshake for Ava. A cheeseburger and Coke for Derek. And nothing for me, because, well, dead girls can't order milkshakes. I was seriously considering possessing one of them, for just a moment, because I'd actually forgotten the taste of food.

For a while Ava and Derek just ate and I just watched. "Brooke, please stop staring at me, you're creeping me out."

"I watched you die," I said quietly. "Give me a minute to process the fact that I saved your life."

She sat down the slice of pizza she'd been eating. I regretted saying anything. "How are you feeling?" Derek asked.

"Physically I'm great," she said. "Mentally is an entirely different issue."

Derek hesitated. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shrugged. "I don't know." She paused, took a sip of her milkshake. "It wasn't just the things I saw, it was how it felt. If I was just seeing a bunch of creepy ghosts or whatever, I probably would be fine. But…it was like I could feel their pain. It was building up until I thought I was going to go mad. You said I was asleep for two days, but it felt like two months. The other side is awful, I don't know how you did it, Brooke."

"That wasn't the other side, not really. Not the side where mom and dad are. It's the bridge that's awful. It's purgatory. A land full of lost souls who got stuck while crossing the bridge, or souls who weren't allowed to cross for whatever reason. Or souls like me who chose to stay there toeing the line. Everyone has different near death experiences. It depends on how far they get across the bridge. Some people get really close to the other side. That's when they start seeing loved ones calling out to them and all that. The side closest to us is more of the life flashing before your eyes kind of thing. Sounds like you made it somewhere in the middle, the literal slums of Purgatory."

Ava explained it all to Derek. Then she paused. "When will I know?"

"Know what?" He asked.

"If I'm a werewolf."

"On the full moon."

"What if I'm not?" She asked. "What if the bite turned me back into a succubus?"

"Then we deal with that, together."

I hadn't even thought about that when I made Scott bite her. All I thought about was saving her life, not the consequences. But I didn't regret it. My sister was alive because of me.

"I'm finished eating, do you think Scott's done at the loft?"

"I sent him a text, but he didn't respond."

"If he and Kira are having sex on my couch, I swear to god."

I smiled. This was Ava, she was back. She was going to be okay.

OoOoO

When we got back to the loft it was empty. It was also a wreck. "What happened?" I mumbled as I looked around the room.

Ava gasped, I followed her eyes to the large window that covered one end of the room. It had a huge hole in it. "That's going to be a bitch to get fixed."

I heard footsteps in the doorway and turned to see Stiles and his dad. "Scott and Kira never showed up at the lacrosse game." He looked around. "What the hell happened?"

"It was supposed to be a date," Derek said.

Stiles reached for his phone. "Hello?" He fumbled to hit speaker.

"Scott's been taken," I heard Lydia say.

"Yeah, and Kira too. We just don't know where."

"Mexico," Deaton said. "And if you want to save his life, that's where you're going too."