Chapter thirteen: the end / epilogue

We stood around Stiles for a few seconds, wondering if it had worked, none of us daring to check if he was still alive. Then, he jerked awake, eyes wide as he started gagging. He pulled the tape off of his mouth and started pulling out a long piece of dirty white fabric. Once it was all out, he scrambled away from the pile that had formed on the floor.

I rushed towards him, crouching down on the floor. "Are you okay?"

He pointed a shaky finger at the floor behind me. I turned to see a black smoke coming from it, followed by a bandaged hand.

"It's coming for me," Stiles whispered, "Lora, we need to get out, it's coming for me."

"Okay, okay," I said, throwing his hand over my shoulder and helping him stand up. As fast as we could I helped him to the door and out of the house. We got a few steps away when Stiles' weight lifted from my shoulder. My heart sank into my stomach as I realised my mistake. One look at his face told me that this was not Stiles. I opened my mouth to scream, but he threw a purple powder at me that burned in my mouth. I tried to cough it out, but it seemed to have dissolved right away. Within seconds, my world turned to black.

The last thing I heard was Lydia calling out my name.

~o~

When I woke up strapped to an old hospital bed, chest down,, I wondered for a second if I had ever left Stiles' mind. Then I saw Stiles, or rather the nogitsune, standing in a dark corner of the room.

"Don't worry, the blood isn't yours," he said. I looked down to see the mattress was discoloured to a deep red, almost brown. "Not yet, anyway." He pushed himself off of the wall, slowly walking towards the bed. As he did, I saw something metallic shimmer in his hand. I struggled against the restraints, but it was no use. "You know, I expected better from you. A fellow trickster. With all the death that's been happening, you should be glad to have me around. It's probably made you stronger."

I refused to reply and let myself fall against the mattress. Little dust clouds puffed up around me.

The nogitsune chuckled. "You're a pathetic excuse for a Raven, you know that? I've seen them fly around, killing left and right. No rhyme or reason, just destruction. It was…" he took a deep breath before grinning, "delicious." His grin fell. "But you are just some annoying little bird." He pulled his hand from behind his back, revealing a rusty scalpel. "I think it is about time somebody clipped your wings."

My eyes widened in horror as he stepped closer. I pulled against the restraints again, praying they were old and rotten like everything else in this room. No such luck for me. The nogitsune walked around the bed, to the side I couldn't see. I felt the cold scalpel prick against my neck.

"Of course, you could decide to just die," he mused, pausing for a second before he cut deeper. I winced, already feeling warm blood run down my neck. Suddenly, I felt his lips press against my ear. "Bleed out like a dog." He pulled away. "But I think that you're too much of a coward to die." I heard his footsteps walk away, out of the room.

I tried my best to stay awake, knowing that if I did pass out, instinct would take over and I would shift automatically to prevent myself from bleeding out entirely. Only a few minutes after the nogitsune left, I could hear Lydia scream. I struggled against the restraints once more, desperate to get to her. This only increased my heart rate, and with it the rate at which I was bleeding out. Staying awake was getting more and more difficult. I was praying that somehow, the oni would be enough to kill this thing.

That hope was shattered when I woke up from an all-consuming pain taking over my body. I found myself freed from the restraints, but only after turning to face the room did I realise why.

Next to the bed stood an oni, blood dripping from its blade. My blood. The nogitsune stood next to it, smirking. "What, did you think I was going to use the scalpel?" He looked down at his feet, and I followed his gaze to see my wings lying there, soaked in blood. Involuntarily, I reached a hand over my shoulder, grasping at air. The nogitsune just turned on its heel and sauntered out of the room, the oni following him.

~ o ~

You'll have to forgive me for stopping here. I was technically there and I have been told that I did help trap the nogitsune, but I don't remember any of it. There is just this gap in my memory whenever I try to look there. Apparently, Stiles had to explain to me that the nogitsune was gone every morning for almost a week, and every time I had called Lydia just to make sure it was true.

They also had to tell me about Allison's death every day, which was ultimately harder on them then it was on me.

The wounds on my back took two weeks to heal, during which I couldn't shift back to human form, because we wouldn't know if I would stop healing at all. At one point during the second week, Kira came by after school, carrying two very large objects covered with plastic. My wings.

"I'm sorry, but I didn't want to just throw them away," she said, "I wasn't sure what to do."

Stiles eyed me carefully. "Scott and I can get rid of them if you want, you don't have to-"

"No, no…" I said, "I might know what to do with them."

It had been a while since I had used my bow and arrow, but it was the only weapon I could see this working with. The feathers in my wings were strong, but still flexible enough. Perfectly good to use as arrow fletchings. Better than perfect, I soon found out.

Stiles and I managed to make quite some progress with Malia over the next few weeks, both with her being able to control her abilities and adapting to life as a human… and acting human. Malia and I bonded quite well over hunting together. It was when I hit a rabbit in the foot with one of my new arrows that we found out that any shot that went deep enough was deadly, regardless of where I hit the creature. Given how huge my wings were, this meant that I had a lifetime supply of death arrows. Those would come in quite handy over the next few years… but I'm hoping you remember by now. Stiles' memory started kicking in around this point. There were still some things I had to correct him on, Lydia had never been admitted to Eichen House, and Kira should be coming back from a semester abroad in Japan to study her powers soon. I think. Time is weird down here.

Anyway, to pick up where I left off: I failed school that year (no surprise), so I went to a very intense summer school so I could go to senior year and finish school at the same time as my friends. I was on my way back to Beacon Hills when I got taken by those damn riders. Stiles showed up about three weeks later. He didn't remember me at first, which is funny considering that me telling him everything started with me not remembering him.

I'm sorry if this was a mess, by the way. I'm not a writer, but I've had some time to kill down here. Still, I couldn't find the patience to make my storytelling… pretty? Stiles doesn't seem to mind, it can actually be quite fun digging up the memories from over the years (if you can look past the trauma), and often we got so caught up in them that we just wanted to rush on to the most memorable parts. I hope it was readable… and I hope you remember me. Would be kind of embarrassing if you didn't, honestly. I never really said it, but I do love you guys.

Stiles and I have also had some time to look at the future, and… I'm going to move with him to Virginia when he gets that FBI internship. I can finish high school over there, and there's an okay college there. I want to get some experience in helping people with the emotional aspects of the supernatural as well as getting their powers under control. A part-time job as a guidance counsellor doesn't sound like a bad idea.

And I suppose that is all you need to know! Though I hope you won't need to ever re-read this. Real memories are so much better.

With Love,

Lora

PS: I suppose you'd like to hear how me meeting Stiles down here happened. Fine.

The train station felt like what other people describe purgatory as. Endless waiting, no release. Only entertainment was when new victims were brought in, if you count an adrenaline rush and people screaming as entertainment. For me, however, it was even more fun, because I could actually keep my wits about me and remember everything, while everyone else could have the bliss of ignorance.

I had tried the doors. I didn't dare try the tunnel… the only other guy who was non-catatonic went mad enough to try the tunnel. Killed him, and it didn't look like a peaceful death.

So I sat, staring ahead, waiting like the others. I had even taken to stealing some of their stuff and taking it apart. Phones, watches, stuff like that. It wasn't like they were using it, so don't judge, okay?

I didn't even look up when all the others ran to look at the tunnel. New people coming in, big deal. I kept on tinkering in my corner, trying to combine two watches, with little success.

"I'm sorry, what are you doing?"

My head shot up. "Stiles?"

He frowned. "How-"

I put down the watch. "No, this is bad, why are you here? Are the riders in Beacon Hills already?" I got up, only then noticing the way he was looking at me. Confused, but curious.

"I'm sorry, should I know you?"

I couldn't help but laugh. "Of course. It's been a month, I wasn't in town…" I stuck out my hand. "I'm Lorraine, but my friends call me Lora."

"Okay," he gingerly took my hand and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Lorraine. You seem to already know my name… do you know how to get out of here?"

I tried to ignore the hurt passing through my chest as he used my full name. "If I did, I wouldn't be here. The doors all lead back to this room, there's no windows, the board says that the train goes to Beacon Hills, but there is no train station there. Maybe we have a shot now that you're here, though."

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh? I'm sorry, how well…"

"Very," I said, trying no to let the hurt show on my face. "I have some pictures, maybe those will help?" One of my few successful tinkerings had been using other people's batteries to charge my own phone. I found a nice group picture and handed my phone to him. He stared at it for at least ten seconds, zooming in and back out.

"But, how- I don't…" then his expression turned blank. I frowned and stepped closer, seeing that he had scrolled to the next picture. It was one Lydia had taken, without our consent, of Stiles and I at a party. Kissing. I snatched the phone from him.

"Sorry, you weren't supposed to- I didn't want to-"

He now looked incredibly confused. "Were we together or something?"

"Are," I corrected, "You didn't remember, so it didn't feel fair, I didn't want you to feel like you had to behave in a certain way just because… I'm sorry." I stuffed the phone back in my pocket.

"How long?" he asked.

"What?"

"How long have we…"

I grimaced. "Two years?"

He put his head in his hands. "God, I am so sorry. How long have you been here?"

"It really doesn't matter-"

"Lorraine, please."

'A month."

He leant against the wall and let himself slide down to the ground. "Some boyfriend I am."

"The wild hunt erases all traces of a person ever existing, it is not your fault." I sat back down on a pile of blankets (some people got taken in their sleep, and they had a pretty tight grip on the things). "What about this? I will just… tell you everything. Right from the start, maybe it'll spark your memory. And we'll have something to do between trying to get out of this place."

He nodded. "Okay, that sounds good."

"I do feel like I need to warn you, though." I grinned sheepishly when he frowned at me. "It all starts with me not remembering who the hell you are."

A/N: I feel like I should say something, but I have no clue what. Thanks for reading? I hope this entertained you as much as it did me (though at least half of my joy from this came from laughing at myself). I will now go and continue to question my life decisions, I hope you can continue to question yours.

All the best,

Lilly