"Are you sure you're okay?" Kira asked Malia for what was probably the fifth time, which only resulted in a subdued growl from Malia as she rubbed her head, as if a temple massage would banish the pounding in her skull. "Sorry, it's just shouldn't you be healing?" Kira turned to Scott, she had ruined her nails, they were now a bloody mess of picked at skin with flakes of black nail polish dotting the ground at her feet. "Shouldn't she be healing?"

"Kira, shut up!" Malia groaned.

"Right," Kira sighed. "Shutting up."

Scott smirked and pried Kira's hands apart before she did any more damage. He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed tightly as a sign that he was just as nervous as she was.

"You both reek of anxiety," grumbled Malia. "It's freaking me out."

"That's never happened before, Lydia has always been able to somewhat control herself. She's never been aggressive, ever," Scott said. "I just don't get it."

"Eichen House is screwed up," Malia pushed herself up and off the table she was perched on and moved over to the waiting chairs at the front of the clinic. Lydia was in the back with Deaton and Stiles was waiting at the door like a dog begging to be let inside. "Now she's screwed up by association."

"Malia."

"I don't think it works like that," Kira said, tugging at her hangnail with her free hand until it started to bleed. Malia watched as the blood rolled its way into the crevices of Kira's fingernail and over the top of her pinky.

"It works anyway they want it to work. Seriously, you didn't see her eyes. It wasn't Lydia, it was as if she really did want to kill me and she could have. Stiles told me that she spilt Valack's head in half with just a scream."

"The trepanation amplified her abilities, which for now makes her a ticking time bomb to anyone around her," Scott's face crumpled, when Stiles walked over to them looking strained.

"She's getting defensive in there," he said. "I don't trust that guy."

"Deaton trusts him," Kira pointed out.

"Did he ever actually say that though? He said he knew him, but if he really trusted him why is he still in there and not out here with us? Deaton's watching him and making sure he doesn't do anything to her."

"Exactly, Deaton is with her," Scott said. "Right now Stiles, she is fine."

Lydia sat in a chair in the back room of the clinic, Deaton stood in front of her with a man beside him. The man looked fairly young, maybe twenty-nine or thirty. A black beard clung to his face in mossy clumps, struggling to climb up to his ears and clumping mostly underneath his chin and under his nose. His eyes were small and his ears were large and stuck out from his oddly manicured hair. Deaton had introduced him as Preston Gorecki a friend who was more familiar with Lydia's area of the supernatural. He had come prepared with a folder tucked under his arm and a snooty look that seemed to heighten his nose up into the air.

"I wish I could help you, Lydia," Deaton had said to her when she looked apprehensively at Preston. "But, I just don't know what is happening to you." His expression was empathetic as he watched the interaction after moving to the side.

"It's simple," Preston began, he looked at Lydia as he talked in a way that made her want to look anywhere else but back at him. He shuffled over to stand directly in front of her, his height looming and his feet like canoe paddles flopping against the floor. "It's fair to tell you that I have been doing some research on both you and your history. This folder contains your profile, meaning your genealogy, your affinity as it could be called, your temperament and your previous infractions."

"Infractions?" Lydia asked.

"Yes, times when you acted out against rules set in place, broke the law, or caused serious damage." He didn't smile or frown, his face remained chiseled as if his head was a rock and only one expression could be carved. "Before you interject claiming that you didn't, you are a supernatural being and given you are one of the more tamed in terms of behaviour compared to the rest of your pack you are also as a contradiction one of the most dangerous ones. Right now I want to find out what makes you tick and how the trepanation and Valack's procedures affected you.

"First, you must show us what you fear but fear is not words that come out of your mouth, that is simply the emotions you believe you experience and what you consider to be the cause. It may be true and it may not. This can be an intrusive exercise but you must know that anything you don't want to leave this room won't, simple as that. I am sworn to privacy of the people I see. Now close your eyes." There was something hypnotic about his voice that lifted the hesitation from Lydia's head and left her in a strange obedient frame of mind. He talked with his hands, loose and wobbly with twitching fingers and hairy knuckles. It was as if he was sketching out his words and making a diorama that she would never be able to follow. His hands began to blur and his movements slowed and sped up at the same time and she closed her eyes.

Before she opened them again her skin began to tingle and she could almost feel the hairs on her arms stand straight. Her socks seeped rain water onto her feet that squished and sloshed in her shoes. Lydia's hair stuck to her cheeks and neck but the rain didn't pound against her head like downpour normally would. Instead the rain slowed, Lydia could see every massive teardrop shape dripping in slow motion like pollen from a field of wildflowers floating in the air. With every drop that passed her face her reflection stared back at her distorted and frustrated. Her eyes took to her surroundings, the rain was like people on a busy road moving side to side, rising up just to fall back down. She was outside of Eichen House, she knew the smell of the air and the voices that began to filter into her ears. She felt the heaviness of dread and the frantic beating of her heart. The familiarity crawled across her skin with spidery legs, pricking goosebumps onto her arms. Lydia's head began to pound with the clanging smashes of footprints against the pavement and her head snapped around to see Stiles, Scott, Malia, Liam, Kira and Hayden all running away from her with fear seared into their eyes. She went to run after them but found her feet chained to the exterior wall of the building with metal cuffs. They had left her, they were running away from her. They left because in her mind she had caused everything bad and they had had enough.

As her eyes moved back to where she was trapped she realized she was no longer alone. A woman, tall with short red hair slicked right down her body by the rain stood beside her. Her gown, the one some Eichen patients wore was almost see through and plastered to her body. She knew who it was before the woman had turned around to face her. The woman was shivering and goosebumps covered her arms, as she took in the sight of Lydia the woman didn't seem in the least surprised to see her, instead her expression didn't change and she looked up towards the sky. The water had made her eyelashes clump together and her lips to turn blue.

"You finally hear it all," the woman whispered. "I always knew you would, I knew you were like me. You're mother, well she knows nothing but you…"

Normally Lydia would have asked her what she meant. What she was hearing, but she knew they were hearing the same thing, seeing the same destruction and for once standing there alone with the world seemingly slowed down for the two of them, Lydia understood her grandmother. A woman who was always a mystery, who her mother too had locked in Eichen, a woman who drilled a hole into her own head. She understood her and that…that Lydia realized was her biggest fear.

Lydia's eyes snapped open. Preston passed by the stainless steel table in the centre of the room that was no longer vacant. The woman sat there curled up childlike, her hair longer than Lydia ever remembered it. She wore the same gown, although dry with bare feet caked in dirt.

"How do you feel?" Preston asked placidly.

"Could you see that too?" Lydia winced and looked down to find she had ripped a piece of skin on her nail completely off, leaving a long exposed strip of flesh that didn't quite bleed but stung in the open air.

"That was the point, although the meaning of it is something only you know," he stopped to make sure his eyes met Lydia's, probably as an act to make her feel more comfortable but really it did that exact opposite. "Can you explain it to me?" The chair around Lydia seemed to fall away and it felt as if she was floating on air with her skin being vacuum sealed to keep her afloat.

Lorraine Martin was watching her, but not in the way a grandmother watches her grand-daughter, it was as if she didn't know her. "Who is that on the table?" Preston asked, following Lydia's stare. "Is that you? Are you afraid of not being able to control your powers enough that you will end up back in Eichen or worse?"

Lydia knew that Lorraine wasn't actually sitting there, that if she got up to leave there would be no loose hairs left behind or fingerprints on the metal but that oddly didn't make her any less real.

"You can see her too?" Lydia asked, in almost a whisper.

"You are showing her to me," Preston said, setting down the file on the floor. "I can see what you can see, even if what you see isn't real."

"What are you?"

"I don't need to know her name but can you tell me about her?"

She wasn't looking at Lydia anymore, but around the room at the cabinets, the door, Deaton and the way Preston moved. She wasn't real but she was analyzing him just as Lydia was. Hesitantly Lydia wondered if Preston knew about her family, about if she had any cousins, her allergies (although she didn't have any) or if he knew that the woman on the table was actually dead. He said he had her information in the folder, but did he really?

"How old is she?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Is she educated?"

"I don't know."

"How do you think this woman has impacted or will impact your life?"

Silence. Lydia didn't know what to say. She could have said she didn't know and continued to be petulant but the other two questions she actually didn't know. That one, she could only pretend that she didn't know. "She is fear," Lydia said quietly. Preston's eyebrows went up as he crossed his arms and waited. "Personified." That's all she said.

"In your mind, the scene that you showed me there were people who ran away and yet she stayed. Which part was worse?"

"I don't know."

"I'm not sure whether you are entirely stubborn or legitimately confused," Lydia didn't say anything to that. She didn't think that the stare he gave her was intentionally cold, but it lacked the mobility that most people would have. It was about as comfortable as Lydia would imagine a corset would be bound around her waist and constricting her flow of breathing would be.

"Why can I see her?"

"Because you want to," he said calmly. "There must be a part of you that misses her even though it is clear there is some animosity between the two of you. Did you not get along?"

"We did."

"She took her own life, yes?" Lydia nodded, he exhaled loudly and shook his head. "Often times when a person has someone close to them pass away they blame themselves for their death."

"I don't blame myself for her death, she killed herself."

"Is there someone you blame?"

Lydia tensed. Sweat was soaking her back and bled through her shirt. She sat up so she didn't have to feel the back of the chair press against it. "She was a Banshee, no one listened to her. They thought she was crazy." Lydia paused to try and control her breathing, but it was becoming too much. "May I leave now?"

Preston sighed, his knees cracked as he crouched down against the wall. Deaton went to speak but Preston put up his hand to silence him. "No, you want help. I can help."

Lydia sat back and pressed herself into the chair to really look at the man. There was nothing about him that seemed untrustworthy, she realized that there were things that didn't need hiding but she only hid them because the best way to keep them from herself was to bury them in the back of her mind and not let them slip through her lips. "What is your authority over me may I ask?" Lydia said blatantly. "Why is it that I have to be here sitting in this chair while you get to stand and demand I tell you about myself?"

"Because you are special and people who are deemed special are frightening for exactly that reason. Werewolves are a dime a dozen around here, but banshees those are once in a lifetime."

"Speciality is not an excuse or a disease. I do not need to be quarantined because I am different just as I don't need to speak because I have secrets worth sharing." Lydia said, making a point to look straight at him just as he did to her. Deaton nodded and set his hand on Lydia's shoulder comfortingly.

"Of course you can go Lydia."

Lydia pushed herself up and with a smile to Deaton she walked out into the front of the clinic with her eyes fixed on her shoes, until Stiles grabbed her hand to stop her.

"Are you okay? What did he do?" he asked running his thumb quickly across her palm.

"Can we just leave?" Stile nodded knowingly and released her hand. He looked over and exchanged looks with Scott that Lydia couldn't see.

"I'll meet you guys in the car, I'm just going to speak to Deaton for a minute," and with that Scott left into the back. The rest of the group made their way out of the clinic and piled into Stiles' jeep.

Everyone had been dropped off and it was just Stiles and Lydia. She sat quietly in the passenger's seat while Stiles drummed nervously on the steering wheel. "Lydia, will you please talk to me?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Well we can start off with why you thought going to school would be a good idea?" There was an assertive tone to Stiles' voice as if he was reeling up for an argument, which is why Lydia remained quiet and instead took to looking out the window into the darkened street. There wasn't much to see, she could faintly make out the porch decorations sitting weathered and colourful under the dim lights flanking front doors. She imagined she could hear the buzz of the insects hovering around the lights, drawn in by the warmth and beauty but one wrong move and they died trapped by the sconce's glass casing. Lydia thought about the anticipation of her own house, the porch light matched with the everlasting light above the kitchen sink. From the outside it would look so comforting, but it wasn't. Not with her mother's constant hesitation and apprehension around her. She hated the one word answers, the nagging, the brutal coldness she had never experienced from Natalie before.

"Can we go around the block a few more times before you drop me off," she blurted as they neared her street.

Stiles looked startled at her sudden panic and quickly steered the jeep to press up against the curb. He parked abruptly, turned off the ignition and swung around to face Lydia. His face seemed as if it was cut sharper than it usually was, his cheekbones angled out viciously but his eyes gleamed down at her as if it was the only think he could manipulate to not make him look scared. "Lydia, why don't you think you can talk to me?"

Lydia tried to form words but for the next few minutes it was like catching bits of alphabet cereal falling from the sky and trying to find all the right letters. "I-" she began and took a deep breath to organize her thoughts. "I went to school because I couldn't stand another day at my house. I went knowing it wasn't a good idea, knowing I hadn't sleep more than four hours since you got me out of Eichen, knowing that I hadn't eaten anything or that every time I blinked it felt as if I saw someone die. I knew it all but I risked it because I need a sense of normalcy. I needed to see Scott stressing about AP Biology instead of about a life threatening supernatural creature, I needed to hear Malia rant about all the injustices of math, I needed to see Kira cringe as her dad accidently brings her family up in class, Liam gawking over Hayden, Mason chasing after the soccer team and I needed to see your usual happy and spastic self. That is normal, and usually all those normal things don't seem important, but right now they really are. It feels like I haven't seen any of that in so long. I just wanted everything to feel normal but I just couldn't, I couldn't even go a few hours." Lydia stopped when she could feel the tears well up in her eyes, she didn't want to cry. She didn't want Stiles to think that she wasn't emotionally strong so she choked them back and continued. "I just wanted to feel like myself again, school was where I thrived but it feels like everything is falling apart and too many pieces are missing now for us to even attempt to put it back together."

Right then it was Stiles' turn to let tears slip down his face, his dark eyes stared so vividly at Lydia, her reflection glared back.

"You're not fine," he said sternly. "I wish you would just stop being so stubborn and let us help you. Its okay Lydia, none of us are fine. I don't think I've ever been fine in my entire life, but that is why we are a pack. We need to lean on each other. 'When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives'"

"Did you just quote Game of Thrones?" Lydia asked, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"It seemed like the right moment," Stiles said shrugging his shoulders.

"Stiles, I'm scared."

Stiles reached out and curved his hand gently around Lydia's cheek. "I'm scared too," he said calmly. "And you're right in front of me, not locked up somewhere or beaten but it kills me that every time I look at you I know you're hurting."

Lydia sighed and leaned into Stiles' touch. "I miss the way we used to look at each other, the way you used to look at me. My mother looks at me as if she is scared of me but you look at me as if you are scared for me, you all do. I want to be someone who isn't a liability. I want to go to school." Stiles went to speak but Lydia pushed his hand off of her cheek. "Can we just go, I'm tired and I don't have my key so I should get home before my mother locks the door."

Stiles knew that anything else he said would not compute, Lydia was done listening and she looked too worn out for his to even attempt to argue. So, he did as she said and drove her home. Lydia was fighting between feeling relieved and anxious when they pulled into her driveway. She jumped when Stiles' hand squeezed her knee. "You don't have to go in," he told her gently.

"Yes I do," Lydia laid her hand on top of Stiles' for just a moment before she slid out of the jeep and closed the door softly behind her. Stiles waited until she was safely in the door before he finally back out and drove off down the street, his headlights only a fading glow.

"Where the hell have you been?" Natalie's taught voice smacked Lydia as soon as she closed the door. Recently her mother had lived in anger, like a cartoon character, still lost in a far off moment and plagued by her own self-inflicted torment.

"I'm home now, so it doesn't matter," Lydia snapped, feeding into her mother's anger. She knew she was putting up defences she didn't need.

"I told you if you were to go to school today, which I knew would not be a good idea that you were to be home as soon as the bell rung at 3pm. I should have known you wouldn't have listened, I should have picked you up."

"I was with Stiles and Scott."

"I don't care, after school you are in this house!"

"Why?" Lydia asked. "It isn't as if you really acknowledge my presence when I am here."

"Because I am your mother and you are the child," It didn't take Natalie long to start yelling but it also didn't take Lydia long either. Natalie didn't have a build-up, a rise in emotion where her voice thickened like the wind before a tornado. It was more like a sudden clap of thunder when Lydia didn't even know storm clouds were above her.

"With everything that happens, I am not just a child anymore!" Lydia blurted.

"I can't deal with you right now Lydia, not when you're like this." Natalie stood there, a sort of toddler expanded to adult size with irritation in her anger, a sort of impetuousness. "Just go to bed," She pointed to the stairs like a hunting dog's tail when they spotted game and Lydia like the fox they were about to chase dashed up the stairs without another word.

She stumbled into her room, pulled on some loose pants and a tank top and threw her clothes on the floor, not caring enough to throw them in the hamper that was just a few feet to the left. She shut the door, listening to the clicking sound the handle made when it locked in place. She used to love that sound. Lydia was never afraid of the dark, she liked my door to be closed- to be separated from other people when she needed to be. But now she was confused, her brain buzzed static as her thoughts could never quite be turned off but only just barely quieted for the time being.

Lydia was exhausted for a number of reasons. The pillow enveloped her head in a way it only had a few times before, either when she was drunk and could have confused it with a cloud sent right from the sky or the times when the world was too much and sleep was the only way to escape it. Her eyelids were heavy as if her eyelashes were strung by a cord and gently pulled down her face. She fell asleep.

A pain singed through Lydia's brain as if a nerve had been fried, she wasn't awake but she was conscious and like a photograph being developed a scene played out in front of her.

It was a dark room, there were barely any colours and if there were, they were all bunched together to form a haze over the scene like early morning fog. The walls were a white painted concrete, as far as Lydia could tell, with little slits every foot or so to allow natural light to flow through, although it was night so only small amounts of moonlight staggered in. The floor was lament tile, not the real kind but the kind that peeled at the corners if it was worn down too much. The room was furnished, with a metal table off in the corner and four chairs surrounding it, all placed perfectly uniformed to the other. Beside the door there was a mirror that covered almost the entire wall and like a window it was set into the concrete and framed in cheap black. There was a person in the middle of the room; a girl. She was crumpled to the ground and Lydia would have thought her dead had her body not jerked with every breath.

"Don't you think what they can do is amazing?" said a man's voice; course and croaky like the lining of his throat had been scraped raw with a rusty knife.

"No, it's horrifying," said a woman's voice, twice as scratchy as the man's. As they moved their bodies seemed to collect light, fading into view like apparitions. The woman was carrying something small in her hand, but Lydia couldn't make out what it was. There was a slight shift in the light as she moved to crouch down in front of the girl's face. She examined her and made sure that the metal bars that bound her hands under her chest were secure before she stood back up. The woman was slim and statuesque, but her face bore lines of wrinkles and her hooded eyes were wide with cautiousness. She was afraid of the girl.

"Why are you doing this?" The man asked. "We can't kill her."

"We have to."

"She's a werewolf, it's like going hunting and throwing away the deer you shot."

"She's dangerous, they all are. I told them this was a bad idea; they don't know what they are doing. Making them afraid doesn't tear supernatural creatures down. Eichen House is useless, we are the only thing keeping Beacon Hills and every other place safe." The woman bent down and snatched the girl's wrist out from under her. "This," she said, her eyes glaring at the deep set of claws protruding from the girls fingertips, "isn't right."

"This is inhumane."

"Good thing she technically isn't human then," the woman sneered. "She's a werewolf, they are monsters."

"She's a werecoyote," the man corrected, his voice however hoarse was still loud and commanding, but the woman didn't back down. "And she's only seventeen."

The girl wasn't crying and even though Lydia couldn't see her face there was something eerily similar about her. "Do you know what would happen if Mccall found out what we are doing? Going after his pack is a death wish."

"So remind me exactly why we are doing it?" the man asked.

"Fear us the only way to take them down."

"Okay," was all the man said, his voice came out in a puff and drifted off into the air as if he had never spoken.

"What was her name again?" The woman asked.

"Malia, she's next."