A/N: I started this fanfic because it killed me that a Lydia and Jordan ship was dangled in front of us for so long with the perfect slow burn and then it was like the writers suddenly changed their mind mid-season about getting them together. Like what? I fell in love with their relationship throughout season 4 and 5 and eagerly awaited the scene where they finally gave in to their feelings for each other...and it never happened. I am going to correct this absurd injustice with this multi-chapter fanfic. It will generally follow the show and some scenes will be canon, but be warned, I will be changing some details, conversations, and scenes to fully support a Marrish ship. I'm hoping to interject some missing scenes and extended conversations into this fic that we did not see in the show. The MCs will always be Jordan or Lydia and most chapters will be from one of their POVs. I will work hard at posting new chapters weekly! Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Drawn to Death

Sweat dripped down his forehead as he carefully examined the homemade bomb before him half hidden in the ground. It had been spotted by the explosive detection canine that traveled with the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit Specialist Parrish was a part of. Jordan Parrish was always impressed every time K9 Rex would detect an IED. That dog was the best part of being on this team. Not only a valuable asset, but a perfect companion in these deserts overseas. Jordan loved that dog and was hoping to adopt him once the K9 hit retirement age. But first he had to do his job, defuse this bomb, and make it back home safe from this war-torn country. Nine more months to go, he thought.

His unit was already responsible for 16 IED disposals in the few months they had been deployed in Afghanistan. This bomb seemed to be no different than the others he had personally diffused, but you never can shake that nervous twist in your gut every time you come face to face with a live bomb no matter how many successes you have under your belt. He carefully cut the trip wire that had been set out across the road they were travelling and started to set up the blocks of C4 that they would use to purposefully explode the IED. As it turns out, the main method to defusing these types of bombs was to blow them up. There were no red, blue, and green wires where you had to make an educated guess which one to cut. There were no clock timers that were counting down to zero that you were able to stop just before they blew. Those scenarios were all Hollywood and rarely used in the real world. Even so, Jordan would never say no to watching a James Bond or Lethal Weapon flick, no matter how unrealistic they were.

In formal training, Jordan had been taught that just one C4 should do the trick on most bombs, but his Sergeant always made them triple it.

"We don't take chances on the 1 out of 100 bombs that one block of C4 just isn't enough," Sergeant Hinton would say. "The government calls it wasteful and I just tell them to shove it up their ass."

Jordan had just carefully laid the third block of C4 when everything went white and the air was punched out of him. The explosion threw his body back and all he could hear was ringing in his ears.

Jordan jerked awake and realized his phone was ringing. Groggily he answered, "Hello?"

"Parrish, I need you to come in. There's been a triple homicide," Sheriff Stilinki's voice rang out from the other end.

"On my way," Jordan responded, his heart still racing from the dream he just had. He ran a hand through his short brown hair. It was normal for soldiers to have nightmares or PTSD from their time during deployments; but ever since he got back, and left the military, the same dream plagued him. The dream would come and go, sometimes leaving him alone for weeks, but it seemed to always come back around. The strange thing about it is that during his time in the IED disposal unit, he had never had one explode on him. He had known a couple soldiers in other units who had been killed by IEDs that unfortunately weren't detected in time. He supposed that dreams fed on your anxieties, past or present, so maybe it's not that surprising that in his dream a bomb had exploded on him. He experienced that wave of relief whenever he awoke from the dream to find that he was indeed alive; and felt a pang of remorse for the ones who never made it back home.

But Beacon Hills was not home to Jordan Parrish. He had never really had strong roots anywhere throughout his life being a military brat himself, moving from one part of the country to another frequently. He hoped maybe this small town could become a home to him. Once out of the army, he decided law enforcement was a good fit and had applied to several openings. Beacon Hills had been quick to hire him as they seemed to be hurting for new deputies.

Twenty minutes later Jordan found himself in front of a beautiful two-story gothic style house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Beacon Hills. The entire street was lit up with flashing lights of cops, fire rescue, and EMS against the impending light of dawn. A small crowd of curious neighbors had gathered, craning their necks over the temporary barriers for a glimpse of what had happened.

"Parrish! Over here," called Sheriff Stilinski from inside the yellow police tape.

Jordan ducked underneath it surveying the scene from the front of the house. Despite the heavy police presence, the house looked like it couldn't possibly contain anything horrific inside. But Jordan's eyes wandered up to the second story and paused at the unmistakable bloodstain on the white railing of the balcony and noticed the small broken window behind it.

"Any leads on what happened?" asked Jordan

"We're still processing the scene and the bodies. Come take a look." Stilinski motioned him to follow.

Jordan squeezed past other law enforcement securing the outside perimeter and stepped into the front hallway. The house had every indication of a nice upper middle class family home. An ornate grandfather clock decorated the main hall, exquisite china sat unused in a decorative curio cabinet in the dining room, and photos of smiling faces greeted Jordan as he followed Sheriff Stilinski up the polished wooden staircase.

"The house is owned by the Walcott family. Mother, father, and two sons live here. The youngest son, sixteen year old Sean, ran into the emergency room in his pajamas, arms covered in blood an hour ago and collapsed. He seems mostly unharmed and his vitals are stable. The rest of his family was not so lucky." Stilinski led Jordan into the master bedroom and he saw red...literally. There was blood splashed on the walls, sprayed onto the ceiling, and coating the floors and king size bed. The father was slumped in a seated position facing the door. The mother was lying supine in the doorway to the master bathroom, wide eyes filled with horror staring up at something that was no longer there.

"It doesn't look like a gun was used and so far none of the neighbors heard any gunshots," Stilinski said.

"A knife?" Jordan asked, trying to get a closer look at the bodies without disturbing their positions or any potential evidence.

"Possibly, but preliminary thoughts are a hatchet or an axe was used."

"So we may have an axe murderer on the loose in Beacon Hills? I figured that only happened in the movies."

"You'd be surprised," said Stilinski running a tired but anxious hand through his hair.

Jordan wondered if he had been wrong about murder and other violent crime in small towns. In the beginning, he figured working at Beacon Hills Sheriff's department was going to be mostly teenage vandalism and petty theft. A quiet respite compared to the mayhem of war. He couldn't have been more wrong. He had been in Beacon Hills for over two months and in that short time there had been missing persons, bombs, murders, and not to mention the time he almost died after facing the sword-wielding masked men at the station. There were too many strange happenings that seemed to be a common occurrence around this area. He couldn't help but feel like he was being left out of all the details of the crimes here, and that Sheriff Stilinski was not always being forthcoming with him.

The oldest son's room was worse. He had been hacked at by a bladed weapon as well, but he had also been lifted up and impaled on one of his own pointed bedposts. Most younger officers would gag and vomit at such a scene, but after a couple tours in the Middle East and dealing with IEDs, this was sadly not much worse than the death that Jordan had already witnessed in his life.

Stilinski sent Jordan back to the station to start the tedious process of background checks and digging up any paperwork he could find on the Walcott family. What kind of person could try to kill an entire family like this? What terrible vengeance could be the motive? Jordan knew they had to find a lead soon because the more time that passed, the easier it would be for the murderer to slip away.

The setting sun cast tall shadows of the neighborhood palm trees as Jordan sat in his patrol truck across the street from the Walcott's house poring over crime scene photos looking for something they may have missed. After a long day of searches and interviews, they were no closer to finding a lead. Bank records had shown no money problems, no criminal history in the family, and no witnesses to any suspicious events leading up to the murders. No valuables had been taken so robbery had already been ruled out. With how brutal the killings were, it came across as a personal vendetta. But no one had uncovered a motive for revenge on this seemingly average middle-class family. Maybe this was the work of a madman or serial killer. Jordan hoped not as random killings were much harder to solve because the murderer has no connection to their victims.

He had hoped Sheriff Stilinski would come back from the hospital with more information and a lead they could follow, but he had arrived back at the station that afternoon with nothing new to report. The coroner had confirmed an axe shaped weapon was used along with blunt force trauma. Unfortunately, Sean, the only survivor, was not speaking to anyone. Maybe after a few days, he would start to talk and tell them who was in his house that night.

Jordan had a short argument with the sheriff about returning to the Walcott's house and looking for more clues. Stilinski did not want anyone at the crime scene, but Jordan had a nagging feeling that there was something there that they were missing. If he could just have a careful look around without any crime scene investigators crowding the scene, maybe he could spot something. But Stilinski had ordered the scene closed off to everyone until some expert from Quantico was brought in to look at the case.

Even so, Jordan found himself parked across the street, watching over the murder house like its guardian. He knew Stilinski would not be happy that he was here, but he wasn't going to go inside so he wasn't necessarily disobeying orders. He was just going to watch out front for a while for any suspicious activity. He had just looked up from one of the crime scene photos in his lap towards the front door when he saw a flash of color. There was someone inside the house! His heart gave a jolt of adrenaline and he stepped out of his truck drawing his weapon. He reached the front door quickly and cracked it open stepping inside.

"Beacon County Sheriff's Department!" he called out. "This is a crime scene, show yourself!"

He looked into the drawing room to his right, when a figure appeared down the front hall in front of him. He swung his gun to the left and aimed it right at a young woman. Her long strawberry blonde hair spilled in waves down her back. Her furrowed brows conveyed confusion and her wide hazel eyes held a gentle innocence. Jordan sighed with relief and lowered his gun. This girl was definitely no threat.

She looked at Jordan and asked, "Where am I?"

The voice echoing down the front hall jolted Lydia into her present surroundings. She found herself in a strange home that was certainly not her own. She stepped softly towards the hall just down on her left and found herself staring at the barrel of a gun and a fresh faced deputy that held it. There was no fear in her eyes nor quivering of her hands as she faced him. She was Lydia Martin, top of her class at Beacon Hills High, almost 18 years old, oh and not to mention a banshee who had faced many different creatures over the years in Scott McCall's werewolf pack. A deputy with a gun was nothing compared to the monsters she has faced before.

The deputy lowered his gun and she looked at him curiously before asking, "Where am I?"

He looked relieved as well as perplexed by her question, holstering his weapon as he answered, "This house belongs to the Walcotts and it's an active crime scene. Do you know them? Are you a relative or friend of the family?"

"No…" she trailed off while taking in her surroundings. "You said crime scene? What happened here?"

"Three of the Walcott family were murdered in this house last night. Excuse me ma'am, but no one is allowed in here right now. Who are you and why are you here?" the young deputy asked.

"My name is Lydia Martin and…" how was she going to explain to this new deputy her attraction to death. It's not like she walked around Beacon Hills telling strangers 'Hi, I'm a banshee and I find dead bodies and can feel when someone is about to die.' The last thing she remembered before he showed up was driving home from school; and somehow she had ended up here standing before this stranger instead. Damn banshee trances.

"Lydia...I've heard about you," he said surprising her before she could come up with anything to say to him. "Some of the other deputies have mentioned you before. How you have a habit of showing up at crime scenes. So why is that?"

Lydia turned and walked further into the house past the stairs, "I would try to explain it, but I've never gotten a satisfactory explanation myself."

The deputy followed her, "Just an unusual habit of showing up at places where people have been brutally murdered?" Was that judgement in his voice? She turned around and looked haughtily into those green eyes.

"Are you saying I have a reputation?" she challenged folding her arms in front of her.

"An unusual one," he shot back. Well he didn't beat around the bush did he? "Maybe your psychic," he surmised.

She scoffed at that and looked him up and down. She noticed the nameplate on his breast said his name was Parrish. "Don't tell me you believe all that?" Trying to dissuade his nosiness, but he was a cop; being nosy was his job.

His jaw twitched at her snark and she moved past him. "I'd like to say I don't believe in anything. But I keep an open mind. If you're looking for dead bodies I think you're a little late."

She didn't respond as she stopped in front of the wood panelling of the wall across from the stairs. He was right. If the murders had been last night and the bodies had already been taken to the morgue, then why had she been drawn here now? A sense of dread suddenly filled her gut and her heart rate increased. The wood panelling in front of her was different from the others. There were faces in the wall...screaming faces with empty eyes and horror-stricken expressions. Lydia could hear their imprisoned cries in the distance as the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

She reached out to the faces in the wood and pushed on the panel. It hissed as the wall cracked open towards them, a chill escaping into the air. With wide eyes she turned back to Parrish as he once again drew his gun. He put a hand on her shoulder indicating for her to stay back as he turned on his flashlight and stepped into the dark hidden corridor. Bricks and cobwebs lined the secret passageway and the temperature dropped at least 20 degrees. Lydia followed closely behind him, rubbing her arms against the chill looking around, paranoid that some monster may jump out from the shadows. They came to a soft lighted doorway on the left, covered by those thick strips of plastic that are found in large refrigerated butcher's rooms. The deputy looked back, meeting her anxious eyes before he pushed aside the plastic hangings, shining the flashlight all around the room. He found a switch on the wall and turned it on. Bright fluorescent lights flickered on to reveal a large room with plastic bags hanging from the ceiling in every direction. There must be about 20 of them.

"I think it's a game locker," he said. "Like venison. Hunting's legal in some parts of the state, but…" he continued, but trailed off as he got closer to one of the bags.

"What is it?" Lydia gulped as she hugged herself against the freezing air. That familiar dread was building up inside her telling her there were no deer inside these bags. She willed her heart steady against the rising panic and focused on controlling her breath which misted through the cold.

The deputy reached up with a hesitant hand and pulled down the zipper of the closest bag. Wet lanky hair framed the bluish skin of a dead woman's corpse. Her soulless eyes were open looking down at the floor with complete despair being her last expression before she left this world.

Deputy Parrish stated the obvious, "Not venison."

Half an hour later dusk had come and gone as Jordan and Lydia waited outside the Walcott house for the coroner's office to start the process of removing the bodies from the refrigerated locker and transporting them to the morgue. Jordan finished filling in another deputy on how the bodies were discovered and walked over to where Lydia was sitting on the curb, wrapping up a hurried phone call. She hung up and looked up at him, still covered in his jacket he had placed around her shoulders earlier. She had still been shivering even after they had emerged from the cold room into the balmy evening air outside.

"Are you ok?" Jordan asked her. A lot of people go through their whole lives without encountering a dead body. Especially an unexpected one...or twenty. Then he remembered the stories he had heard of Lydia finding dead bodies; some of them in a more gruesome fashion than this. She nodded up at him.

"Do you need a ride home?" he offered, wanting to help if he could.

She stood and slipped out of his jacket handing it back to him. "No, I can drive myself home. Thank you for the offer."

"I realize that I never properly introduced myself," he stuck out his hand. "My name is Jordan. Jordan Parrish."

She offered him a small smile and shook his hand. "Sorry to meet you under these circumstances," she nodded her head towards the house. "But I'm glad I didn't find a room full of dead bodies on my own for once." She sighed, dropping his hand. "Good luck Deputy Parrish. And welcome to Beacon Hills."

Jordan watched her turn and head towards her car. Lydia was an intriguing person who had obviously seen death like himself. Never once did she cry or dissolve into hysterics after finding the bodies. He could tell that she was the type that could take care of herself, but there seemed to be a deep sadness within her that she tried to mask. Jordan shook his head to himself, no one that young should see the things that she had seen. But he had not been much older than her when he had seen his first victim of war...which only reinforced his previous thought.

His thoughts turned back to the house. So now the plot has thickened. Why would this family have a secret room filled with dead people? Did they kill them? Who were among the dead? Had a loved one of the dead found out what this family had done and enacted their revenge last night?

His radio interrupted his contemplation, "OFFICER DOWN. I REPEAT OFFICER DOWN. BEACON HILLS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL. ALL AVAILABLE UNITS PLEASE RESPOND!" Jordan ran to his patrol truck, his blood running cold as the realization hit him. The only deputy that he knew was present at the hospital is guarding the door to Sean Walcott's room. Dammit! "10-4 on my way," he responded to dispatch. He threw the truck into drive and flipped the switch for his sirens. Please let Sean be alive.

A/N: I am always looking for reviews or constructive criticism on my writing as I am striving to become a better writer. Thanks for reading!