Warning: Mentions of child abuse, PTSD, and depression (This warning should have come a lot sooner, I'm sorry)

Physically, all that lay between them was an unconscious chimera. Emotionally, however? A bloody and messy wasteland. Rebecca opened her mouth, wishing the right words would come to mind and somehow mend the broken trust in Theo's eyes.

She sealed her lips and let her arms fall limply to her sides.

Theo looked beyond her, letting out a scoff of disbelief and disgust before turning around to check if something was behind him. What was he looking for? Cameras? A game show host? This was real, she had lied to him. She wished he'd hurry up and accept it. Insensitive as it was, the bile that rose in her throat forced equally sour thoughts to assault her.

"Rebecca …" Theo said, his voice loud in her ears. "What the hell … what did you …"

"I don't know." Rebecca answered the wrong question. Theo's face contorted in anger.

"What the hell do you mean you don't know?" Theo demanded. "Did you … was that not just you who did … whatever the hell that was?!"

Rebecca bit the inside of her cheek hard and flexed her hands, forcing the remaining adrenaline out of her system. She offered, lamely: "It was me …"

"And?" Rebecca stayed very still as he watched her. "Rebecca, I don't even know what that was."

She was entranced by a piece of floor beside Stacey. It was all she could do other than wish she would cease to exist. Anger overcoming him, Theo paced forward and yelled as loud as he could.

"Rebecca look at me!"

Instantly her gaze snapped up and saw flashing yellow eyes. Despite knowing there was no way he could hurt her she took a step back.

At her tiny shuffle backwards and the hesitance in her eyes, Theo straightened. His eyes returned to their normal colour and watched her carefully.

They stared at each other for a long time, the silence choking the life out of both of them. They couldn't talk, couldn't move.

Until Theo broke the spell. He shook his head, looking at the ground as he began to move closer.

Rebecca didn't realize she wanted him to go to her until he didn't. He stopped at the body of Stacey and bent down, picking her up bridal style in one swift motion. Rebecca watched him wordlessly, and continued to until he disappeared into the dark corridor once more.

Only after his footsteps had been drowned out by the hum of the fluorescent lights did Rebecca move. She pivoted slightly, rocking back and forth on her heels before ultimately sinking to the ground and covering her face. There were no tears; she didn't have the strength to conjure them.

Her journey back to the entrance of the factory was a long one; she got lost twice and moved agonizingly slowly. Facing any of the people on the surface was a burden she wasn't prepared to carry at that moment. Getting this far without losing her mind was feat in itself.

She passed by the fallen pillar and noted that no one was there. Ren and Theo must have gotten them all out already. Tucking the thought to the back of her mind, she continued upwards.

Reaching the entrance, once again there was no one in sight. The day was barely hanging on, a orange and pink line above the trees. The wind had picked up and stung her skin. She let it.

After her car door shut, Rebecca stared at the trees and their shadows, stretching longer and longer as the sun set, hiding who knows what in their midst. She shoved her keys into the ignition none to lightly and then pulled away.

No one took the road leading to the factory, but Rebecca looked to the left out of habit, then pressed the gas before fully looking straight again.

When she was looking at the road in front of her, she had a half second of calm. Then she realized something had flung itself in front of her car.

She hit the breaks too late, letting out a shrill scream of surprise. Then, she hit whatever it was head on, throwing it to the ground a few feet away. Heart pounding, Rebecca stayed exactly where she was. In the almost dead light she couldn't seeit clearly. It was vaguely humanoid, but that didn't mean she was any safer.

The thing staggered to its feet, hands above its head. It edged closer, squinting in the illumination of her headlights. Though smeared with dirt, Rebecca recognized his face. Her heart stopped.

"Rebecca?" he called out, taking another step closer. "Rebecca, it's me. It's Connor."

Her grip on the steering wheel tightened until her arms were shaking from the effort. Still Connor edged closer.

"I know the last time I saw you I put a gun to your head but Rebecca … I need your help. I'm sorry, I need your help …" Connor repeated his mantra of being sorry another few times, but Rebecca tuned him out. She didn't know how to react. After all this time … she didn't know what emotion she was feeling.

"I understand if you hate me," Connor nodded along with his words. "I would too. I just need a ride into town, please. I've been out here for too long …"

She heard him, but she couldn't bring herself to fully hear his pleads. Maybe it was his turn to be at the sharp edge of desperation and anger.

"I can't be out here, not when they're after me." Connor's voice broke. He dropped his hands and placed them on the hood of her car. "Please, I'll do anything."

Rebecca looked straight through him and set her jaw.

Sitting in her room, alone, Rebecca couldn't physically remove her head from her hands. Regret filled every fibre of her bones and poured out of her eyes in the tiniest, most humiliating amounts.

She allowed the tears to fall down her face and then fall to the ground. The sickening sound of Stacey's arms breaking, one after the other, replayed in her head like a disgusting remix.

The sound of the bathroom opening made her head snap up. She wiped her eyes hastily as someone hesitantly walked into her room.

Connor, looking better now that he had a chance to clean up, was frowning due to the distress on Rebecca's face. "Do you want me to leave you alone?"

"No," Rebecca said quickly, wiping away her snot with her shirt sleeve. "No, sit down."

Connor hesitated, then sat down beside her on the bed. Immediately, Rebecca scooted away and propped up her knee, turning so she could face him head on. All of a sudden, she was antsy. "We need to talk."

"Yeah," Connor replied softly, playing with the plain cotton shirt Rebecca loaned him. It was the largest thing she owned and it fit him like a glove.

He didn't try to begin a story or an explanation or anything, really. Rebecca stared him down but he wouldn't look at her.

"I don't trust you," Rebecca said, effectively breaking the silence but none of the tension.

"I know," Connor replied. There was another pause, but this time she let it happen, only squirming slightly. "I'm sorry."

"You said that already," Rebecca said curtly. She didn't know why she was being so short with him. Not even an hour ago she was doing the same thing to Theo.

"I can't say it enough," Connor said. He finally met her gaze, but could only hold it for a second before staring at her leg between them. "Thank you for this. I would have left me out there."

"I thought about it," Rebecca admitted. Connor smiled. "What?"

"No you didn't."

Rebecca's eyes held unabashed sincerity. "How much do you wanna bet?"

Connor smile faded when he looked at her face again. However, she met his slight concern and bewilderment at her coolness with a raise of her eyebrows; a prompt to rebuttal her..

He couldn't. Instead, he said: "Before, when I … did that. I blamed you for everything that happened to me. But I know now who it was. So, I'm sorry, Rebecca, I-"

"Who was it?" she interrupted. He looked down at her with doe eyes and she scowled. "Connor, come on, what are you doing? Tell me."

Before he could throw some half assed excuse, the front door whipped open. Myriam was calling Rebecca's name from the bottom of the stairs a second later.

Connor and Rebecca leapt to their feet, panicking before Rebecca put both of her hands on his forearm and shoved him in the direction of her closet. She barely moved him, but he got the message.

"Yes, mom?" Connor turned back before closing the closet door. Rebecca aggressively put her finger over her mouth and made a silent shushing motion with her lips. The door closed with a quiet snap and Rebecca pointed one straight arm at its oak surface. Instantly air rushed towards it, softly coiling around it like a second coat of paint, effectively hiding Connor's scent.

"Get down here!" Myriam called. She didn't sound too pleased.

Rebecca gave herself a one over in the bathroom mirror before descending down the stairs, checking for any dirt or signs of a scuffle. Fortunately she hadn't missed anything from her initial clean-up.

Rebecca entered her living room and stopped short. Her mother stood, arms crossed in the center of the room next to Mr. Otsuka, but that wasn't what caught her attention: the broken body of Stacry McLennon laid in the middle of her floor, still unconscious and filthier than she remembered. Beside her, sitting on the edge of her sofa was Ren, barely recognizable under a thick coat of grime. His two brown eyes met hers from across the room. Her mouth dropped open in surprise.

"Ren-?" Rebecca asked, her voice muted and strangled, but needing to make sure that what she was looking at wasn't some mud creature disguised as her friend.

Myriam's anger faded slightly at the sheer shock and horror on Rebecca's face, but she still had to ask: "Do you know anything about this?"

Rebecca tore her eyes away from Ren and looked at her mom incredulously. Something in her stomach spiked, a not so tiny speck of irritation. "What? Mom, no. What happened?"

"She woke up," Ren piped up, sounding exhausted. "Me, Gus, Kamilla, and Theo were getting the chim- Stacey, and they managed to knock her out. But on the ride here she woke up and tried to escape. Kam and Gus were hurt, Theo was driving, so I-"

"Jumped out of a moving vehicle to chase after a bloodthirsty chimera," Kyou finished, looking furious. Rebecca couldn't remember the last time he looked so angry. Ren shrunk under his father's glare.

Rebecca waited for a second, then looked to Stacey, who looked like she was struggling to breathe. Her arms looked as if they had healed from when she had … Anyway, she didn't look like she was sleeping either. Eyelids flickering, she twitched every so often like she was on the brink of death. "What's wrong with her?"

Kyou was still too busy glaring at Ren to answer, so Ren took it upon himself to answer, a bit shakily. "I got close enough to touch it when it attacked me and … I don't know. There was this surge of energy and the next second she was on the ground. Like that."

He finished his story pointing at Stacey's lifeless form. Rebecca looked at Ren curiously.

"And why are you so disgusting?"

Ren raised his eyebrows then furrowed them, embarrassed. "I slipped trying to climb back into Theo's truck."

Rebecca would have laughed had the situation been slightly less sinister. As if reading her mind, Myriam stepped forward, raising one hand in a halting motion.

"Long story short: Ren lost control of his powers and seriously hurt Stacey. She needs to get better so we can find out more about what we're dealing with, and hopefully return her back to her family without the giant spikes on her arms."

Rebecca nodded slowly, not knowing why Myriam looked in Mr. Otsuka's direction before continuing.

"And we're going to do that by getting the help of Mrs. Lovelace-"

"Lori?! Kamilla's stepmom?" Rebecca interrupted, reeling back in confusion. "You're going to tell her about everything-"

"No, obviously not, Rebecca," Myriam shook her head. Her tone, for some reason, struck Rebecca the wrong way. "Me and Mr. Otsuka talked about it on the ride here; We're going to have her come over every so often and Kyou will convince her that something else is happening while she helps Stacey-"

"Oh," Rebecca said loudly, not knowing where this sudden brashness came from. "So we're going to brainwash her to do our bidding?"

"What do you suppose we do, Rebecca?" Myriam demanded, sounding exhausted. "Drop her off at a hospital with giant scorpion spikes in her arms?"

Rebecca said nothing, but stared at the ground while silently fuming.

Myriam continued, glancing at Kyou and Ren, who were having their own quiet discussion. "Stacey will be staying with us, and Mrs. Lovelace will be coming over every two or so days to check on her. It'll be strange at first." Rebecca's fists clenched. Maybe it was her exhaustion, maybe it was the day's events, maybe it was left over irritation from her talk with Connor, or maybe it was the way Myriam talked down at her like she was five years old, but her vision was going red. "But it'll only be for a few weeks or so. Okay, Rebecca? Okay?"

Rebecca tried to clam herself down enough to properly respond. Ren and Kyou became silent, watching Rebecca carefully. They could properly sense her rage.

"Rebecca, look at me," Myriam said calmly. A direct contrast to how it was said before, but Rebecca instantly made the connection. Her head rose, mouth curled into what could only be described as a snarl.

"What?" Rebecca shouted, making everyone in the room recoil away from her. "What do you want now?"

Rebecca gave her words only a second to sink in before she angrily turned on her heel and all but sprinted to the door. Myriam called her name, but she needed to leave. As she made her escape, she flew past the broken framed picture of her and her mom on the wall. When she slammed the door shut, it became crooked.

After climbing into her car, Rebecca swore she would drive and drive until she reached the end of the earth. Everytime a thought of returning crossed her mind she wanted to scream. Her mom, Gus, and almost all of the adults she knew who were scared of her but simultaneously treated her like she was stupid. Connor, who treated her like shit, left for weeks with no contact, then came waltzing back into her life like nothing happened. Or Kamilla who got to do anything she wanted, or Theo. Thinking of Theo made her physically cringe.

Even Ren. Thinking of his grimy and disgusting appearance, how maybe he wouldn't have had to put himself in danger if she had been there with them.

She was a terrible person, a terrible friend, yada yada.

She had to grit her teeth and bend forward to contain the shriek rising in her throat.

Anger was all she felt until she couldn't physically take it anymore. Yet instead of screaming at the top of her lungs, she slammed on the breaks and sat back in her seat.

Panting heavily, Rebecca wiped the sweat from her forehead. She looked out of her passenger side window and couldn't bring herself to be angry anymore. Police tape and boarded up windows muted every emotion she could possibly feeling at that moment.

583 Montgomery Place never was a summer villa, but at that moment it was just plain haunted. In a twisted way, it looked like the house that a Wendigo should live in.

Rebecca stared up at it for a second before ducking under the police tape and going inside.

The smell, putrid and nauseating and horrible as it was, barely bothered Rebecca as she numbly walked past everything on the main floor, not allowing the memories of finding Connor's family to hinder her.

She climbed the stairs and took a right, entering a bedroom she had been in a hundred times. It felt awkward, being in there, so she turned on the light and patted her jeans for a few seconds. Finally, she mustered enough courage and sat down on the bed.

Connor was like her in the way he wasn't huge on interior decorating. One lone jersey hung on the cracked wall. Rebecca remembered when Connor told her the story of how his father had threw him into that wall after getting drunk one day. She had been mortified, even though he was already in prison. Connor told her not to worry, that he couldn't be hurt like that anymore.

Yet Connor was always hurt. He woke up with that hurt, smiled with it, carried it wherever he went. There was a reason he hated alcohol and when his teammates jokingly slapped his helmet. Connor would never stop hurting, not ever.

Rebecca brought her knees up to her chest. She always liked Connor. He hid the hurt as well as she did. Or, as well as she used to.

In that moment, she hated him a little bit. He had been through hell, then a whole other plane of torture, and he only exploded once. His explosion did include pointing a gun to her head, but at least he didn't have to deal with the aftermath of it all.

Rebecca, however, carried the hurt and everyone's intrusive stare, wondering if she was alright.

She wasn't alright. She would never be alright, not really. She would always have that hurt. Always have that anger, that fear.

"He's dead," Rebecca chanted, squeezing herself tightly in a house that was filled with the most lost and desolate ghosts. "He's not here. He's dead."

He's you the ghosts seemed to chant right back. He's you. That's how it works. He's you …

Rebecca covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, voice getting louder with every word. "He's not me. He's dead, he can't hurt me anymore."

Suddenly Rebecca began to shake, the floorboards groaning as tears streamed down her face. "He's not my problem anymore. He can't hurt me."

Yet just like Connor, she knew that every day, until the day she dies, he will. Her father will hurt her in everything she does. Every time she yells, because he used to all the time. Every time she attacks, because he knew how to hurt people so very well.

And the ghosts were right, he was her, in a way. That was why everyone was so scared of her. They remember the pain and look at her, and remember. They look at Rebecca, unable to differentiate her emotions anymore, and see a tempest of danger that could blow up in their faces any second, just like her father did, not so long ago.

Suddenly, her hair stood straight up, all around her head. Her eyes began to glow once more. The whistle of wind and the buzz of power pulsed through the house. Rebecca screamed at the top of her lungs. The sound amplified her power and made it shoot out like invisible lasers, cutting through everything it came in contact with.

The wall in front of her was the first to go. It collapsed, practically disintegrating immediately. Then an ugly crack ripped through the roof. After that, it was hard to distinguish exactly what was happening as the house collapsed in on itself. Cement, wood, and drywall crumbled like burnt paper.

She kept on screaming until she physically could not. Her hair fell flat, and she was delicately placed on top of the remains of the house of Connor MonHeim. She stood, panting, for a few seconds, knowing the neighbourhood had its eyes on her.

Rebecca stepped off of the rubble and brushed off her shirt, raising her chin and looking straight up at the moon; a silent challenge. After waiting a heartbeat, Rebecca walked to her car and got in, though her footsteps felt lighter than they had in weeks.

She drove off, the pain in her mind subdued for the moment.