word count: ~2600
cw: injury, minor paranoia/unreality

Chapter II

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I found you.

Shades howled in her ears. There were teeth in her throat.

Lydia.

The grass clotted with blood.

Lydia, honey, it's okay. Lydia?

She came with Stiles, but she'd promised for Allison.

"Please, Lydia, look at me. Open your eyes."

The tile was cold on her cheek, and damp. She tightened her grip on the grass and gasped silently when it cut. Not grass. Glass. It was glass. Her fingers stung, her face and neck stung, her throat tender and raw. The howls were only hushed murmurs, humming unintelligibly at the edge of her awareness, and only one voice of dozens breached her cloudy thoughts. Her breath was wispy as her eyes fluttered open. She hadn't even realised they were closed, or that she was trembling.

She was curled on the floor of the school bathroom in a pool of broken glass, and it took Lydia a moment to recall how she'd landed there. She blinked rapidly—lashes wet—at her mother's hovering, anxious face. "Lydia, sweetheart, are you alright?"

"Mom." Her voice scratched. Her eyes roamed past her mother's face to the crowd of students beyond, jostling in the narrow doorway to see past each other's shoulders (so much for no witnesses). A few of the faces leapt at her: Stiles and Scott, with twin expressions of concern (it was so clear, sometimes, that they'd half raised each other). Malia beside them, with that intense look which passed for worry on her features. Possibly Mason, hidden by taller bodies. And near him—

Lydia stared. Transfixed. Paling. Allison gazed wordlessly back from the crowd like a wraith—a fucking Shakespearian ghost of irony.

"Lydia?" Her mother's voice could have come from miles away, but it startled Lydia anyway, snapping her away from the cruel vision. She parted her lips and spoke in a breathless, tenuous voice:

"I'm fine. I just...I was...dizzy. I'm fine."

The whispers intensified. Her mother pressed her mouth into a thin line, that knowing spark in her eye. An explanation was painfully obvious to anyone in the know. But the moment passed, and Natalie Martin quickly returned to what she did best. "You must have had another dizzy spell," she declared, as if it were obvious. "You fell into the mirror. It shocked you, that's why you yelled. There's nothing to see," she added for the benefit of the crowd, voice picking up. "All of you, back to class. Now."

Fell into every mirror? someone muttered, but the students reluctantly scattered. Lydia had bigger concerns at the moment, and only a fraction of her old pride, but still couldn't quite help the stab of shame knowing how gossip and rumours would flare again after her first public banshee display in well over a year (roll up, roll up, come see the disgraced Queen Lydia! mad girl of Beacon Hills! oh, how the mighty fall!). Worst still were the faces of her friends, lingering after the rest of the crowd until her mother served stern enough glares (and Lydia motioned emphatically to go, it's fine, I'm okay). Scott and Malia shared meaningful glances as they slunk away, and Stiles mouthed at Lydia to call him. Only one was left.

"Let's get you cleaned up, honey." Her mother lifted her to her feet when they'd disappeared, bearing her weight into the hall, and Lydia was still too blindsided to protest. "Oh, your poor face! This way, to the nurse's office. All those mirrors…"

"It wasn't me," Lydia murmured, and Natalie made soothing noises.

"Of course not, sweetheart."

But Lydia couldn't stop staring at Allison's eyes disappearing down the hall, heavy with something strange and inexplicable. "It wasn't me."

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The nurse deemed her cuts superficial (a miracle considering the property damage), easily cleaned and treated, but furrowed his brow over Lydia's so-called dizzy spell. Still, with a little persuasion from Natalie he wrote Lydia permission to take the rest of the day off, and Natalie drove her home with strict, maternal orders to get some rest. She didn't ask about the scream. She didn't ask what Lydia had seen in the mirror.

Lydia knew that her mother, at least, would never ask.

She either loved or hated her for it.

Natalie had to return for final period, so Lydia had the house to herself. Only not even that was a certainty anymore. Pacing her bedroom, she bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder before checking her phone: three texts and one missed call, from Scott and Stiles. Her manicured thumb hovered over the call back button, but what the hell would she say? Sorry to scare you, I just freaked out at Allison's ghost? After careful deliberation, she texted Scott: i'm ok. talk later. No need to reply to Stiles. He'd see it too.

When she turned around, Allison was sitting on her bed.

They both froze, rabbit-like. Allison stared back as if Lydia were the ghost, wearing the same dark clothes as the day she'd died, and breathing suddenly became an arduous task. Lydia exhaled shakily, eyes wide. Allison was an old photograph, cut out and superimposed onto reality—desaturated and grainy and strangely flat, perched on the mattress in an odd way, as if she were only mimicking the action. Only her eyes seemed to have any depth. The air around her, too, crackled as if rebelling against the unnatural presence.

They both opened their mouths at the same time. Lydia said, "I don't understand," at the same time that Allison said, "I'm sorry."

More than anything else, Allison's familiar tone was a punch to the gut. It rang clear as if from her own head. Allison spoke quickly while Lydia was winded. "Lydia, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't...I didn't want to scare you. I didn't mean to break those mirrors. It just happened."

After a moment, Lydia discovered her words again. "You died."

A flash of guilt. "I guess I did."

"You died, Allison. A year ago. I screamed for you."

"I heard it. I'm...I'm sorry."

Allison reached out, and Lydia couldn't help but step back. Allison flinched. "Are you real?" Lydia whispered. "Are you actually Allison?"

Allison hesitated to answer, and that was too much for Lydia. Way, way too much. She covered her face with her hands. "No. No, I can't do this. I'm not doing this again."

"Lydia—"

"No! I screamed for you!" It still hurt to speak and her voice cracked with the volume but she couldn't help it, panic making her shrill. "You were dead and I moved on! People don't just come back!"

Peter did, a treacherous voice said. And how did that start? Hallucinations. Visions of a dead man. Peter in the mirror, Peter in the classroom, Peter in the charred and ruined house. All leading up to Lydia doing something terrible. She gripped her head, thoughts spinning—Meredith, her grandma, both driven insane by their gift, institutionalised for life. And Lydia, little Lydia, poor Lydia, always waiting her turn.

She remembered the way reality broke and distorted around her at Eichen House—the closest she'd ever come to losing her mind. She thought she'd escaped with it intact.

Maybe Lydia was the only one here, and this was Valack's final act of cruelty.

"Lydia, look at me." Something icy bit into her wrists—Allison, attempting to take her hands away from her head—and Lydia shuddered. The girl passed right through her. "I'm here. I'm here. It's really me. You're not crazy. I know you're thinking it, but you're not."

Lydia pulled away. "Then why are you here? Why now?"

Allison stared helplessly. Her shape flickered. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Stop saying—"

Someone hammered on the front door. Lydia flinched, and Allison's entire body blinked away in alarm. Warm air seemed to rush into the vacuum she left, and Lydia's stomach flipped at the abrupt feeling of alone. Lydia hurried to the window and found Malia, shifting back and forth on the porch; she caught Lydia's eye before Lydia could duck out of view and waved impatiently. Lydia's heart kicked. Why is she here?

"C'mon, Lydia, let me in."

She couldn't turn her away, not now. It'd look so much worse. Lydia tried to slow her breathing as she checked her makeup in the mirror—taking a moment to fix her tear-smudged mascara—and, steeling herself, went downstairs to open the door.

Malia screwed her nose the second she did. "You stink."

Translation: she could read Lydia's anxiety a mile away. "Wow, thanks. Aren't you supposed to be in History right now?"

"Yeah?" Malia said, as if it had no bearing on anything. Lydia, sighing, stepped aside. Shoulders back, chin forward, arms laced—every defense raised. Teacher Lydia, Stiles called it. Only when he thought she couldn't hear, though.

"So why are you skipping? I thought you were trying to bring your grade up."

Curiously, it was Malia's turn to hesitate—she buried her hands in her pockets as she sauntered into Lydia's home, a valiant attempt at nonchalance. Unfortunately for her, she was one of the most abysmal liars Lydia had ever met, though not for lack of trying. "You kinda freaked the others out back there," she said. "I thought they'd want someone to check on you. And we all want to know what the hell that scream was. Who were you talking to just now?"

Lydia blinked, frowned. "You were eavesdropping?"

"Hey, you were yelling."

"I was on the phone."

"I would've heard it." Malia tipped her head in that strange animal way, eyes intense. Before Lydia could scramble for an excuse, she said, "Is this about that Allison thing you talked about?"

Lydia's pulse stuttered, and Malia's eyes widened. "It is. Isn't it?"

And screw Scott for ever teaching her that trick. Lydia bit her lip, then—resigned—motioned for Malia to follow her upstairs. Prada snarled defensively at Malia when she passed, but the werecoyote was too used to it to care. "Well?" she said, the moment Lydia closed her bedroom door.

Lydia's hands twitched at her stomach. She paced a few more times, Malia's eyes following her unerringly, before bringing herself to say: "I saw Allison."

"Yeah. You already told me that."

"No. I saw her in the bathroom. In the mirror. And in the hallway. And in my room. She talked to me."

Malia stared for a long, long moment. Lydia was half-braced for Malia to roll her eyes and dismiss the idea entirely,. Of course, their lives were too fucking weird for that. "So I was right? Ghosts exist?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Well, what else could it be?"

Lydia hesitated, but her phone saved her from answering—her ringtone cut the tension in the air, and when she looked it was Scott's name. Fantastic. She drew an unsteady breath and answered.

"Lydia."

"Hi, Scott." And just like that, the chill was back. That strange weight around her neck became more pronounced. Allison was listening. "I'm fine, before you say anything. Just a sore throat."

"But you screamed."

"I noticed," she said curtly.

"Look, if something's wrong, if you saw something, you can tell us. We're a team, remember?"

Oh, great, the friendship card. Because she needed to feel even guiltier. She had to wonder, sometimes, if Scott realised how shaming his absolute, enviable goodness could be, and for a brief second Lydia considered telling the truth. Then reason / kindness / cowardice took the wheel. "Well, you can stop worrying. There's nothing to tell."

"But you don't scream unless there's something wrong. Usually something supernatural."

"Not this time."

"But—"

"It was Valack, okay? I saw Valack."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd lied to Scott—certainly about anything this huge—and if nothing else, at least he wasn't there to catch her in it, or look at her the way Malia was looking at her now from her seat on the bed (exactly where Allison had been ten minutes ago). As if Lydia had just told Scott she'd slept with his girlfriend, or that he was adopted, or something. On the other end of the line, Scott seemed taken aback, processing the surprising answer. "Lydia, Valack's dead."

A word which meant less and less lately.

"Yeah, I noticed that too. That's why I didn't want to say anything."

"I don't understand."

She closed her eyes and wrestled her pride to the floor. "I've...been seeing him since...what he did to me. At Eichen. I thought I saw him in the mirror and I panicked. I didn't mean to scream."

"Lydia, I...I didn't know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault." Was there a special circle in hell for abusing Scott McCall's trusting nature? Probably. She'd just earned a VIP ticket, right next to Theo Raeken. "It's just something I have to deal with alone."

"Okay. If you're sure. Look, I'm here if you need anything. We all are."

Her stomach rolled, Allison's disappointment nauseatingly palpable. She tried to put it out of her mind, to ignore the lingering sensation of being watched. "I know. We'll talk tomorrow, okay?"

Malia was still staring at her as she signed off the call. Lydia sighed. "Please don't."

"I won't. If you tell me why you lied to him."

"It's complicated."

"Too complicated for me?"

"No, that's not what I—" Lydia massaged her temples. "I don't know what's going on, Malia. I don't know if this is permanent or real, I don't know if it's dangerous, all I know is that this would completely screw with Scott if he knew, alright? He never totally got over losing her. He's still heartbroken about Kira. This would crush him. I won't let it unless I have to."

The sharp edge in Malia's eyes faded a little. She looked down at her hands, resting in her lap.

"If something tries to kill us, I'll tell Scott," Lydia promised. "Until then, I need you to swear to keep this secret. From everyone."

Malia scrunched her face. "I'm not really good at that."

"You've kept secrets before."

"Yeah, but I'm not good at it," she insisted.

Drastic measures. Lydia swallowed and leaned down, grasping Malia's cold hands (ignoring the hitch in her chest—nerves, probably, frayed after everything that had happened today) and hitting Malia with the sincerest face she could muster. "Please. For Scott. For me." For Stiles, she almost added, but thought better of it. Raw subject.

And Malia visibly wavered. "Fine," she huffed, with a childish pout which could have been charming. "I won't say anything. But what are you gonna do? Just wait for it to go away?"

It wasn't a relief, exactly. More like a slight easing of the dread that had been building since her uneasy, abrupt wakeup that morning, but it was something—one less tiny thing to worry about. She rocked back, released a caught breath, rubbing her wrist as she wandered to the window. It was still daylight, the sun holding the neighbourhood in a lazy warmth and spilling onto Lydia's carpet, but she felt none of it; a wintry chill still curled around her and she sensed two pairs of eyes on the nape of her neck. If she turned around, she suspected she'd see dark eyes in the far corner. She didn't turn around.

Little Lydia. Smart Lydia.

Something was there. It had to be. The second she believed otherwise was the second she truly went insane.

Which meant investigating.

"No." She set her jaw, eyes steely. "I'm gonna find someone who'll give me answers."

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