Chapter 5

Oxygen Mask by Eisley is the song that comes up.

I smile up at Isaac, "Who spends money on a basic tee?"

He smirk turns into a smile, "Who spends money on basic boots?"

I chuckle once and playfully retort, "I'll have you know that those boots are anything but basic."

His smile turns into a much more serious face. He nods, "Yes, they're also scuffed and scratched."

I groan in disapproval, "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not surprised. I didn't pack them right to move."

Isaac laughs, but is disrupted by Doctor Deaton saying, "I'm going to have to rub this cream onto your neck. Be as still as possible."

Once again, I swallow my excess spit and breathe in and out a few times to prepare myself. Isaac squeezes my shoulders, which relaxes me deeper into the water. Doctor Deaton pulls up a low stool and says to Isaac, "Before we start, you'll need to eat the carnations I left on the table."

Isaac lets go of me and walks over to the table. He brings the jar with him, eating the flowers on the way back to his seat. He scarfs them down and then squeezes my shoulders again. An eternity passes with me enjoying the warm bath; the popping flowers and miscellaneous herbs aside, the bath felt good. The warmth seeps into my bones – a tingle I haven't felt since the LA summer sun – and Isaac's large hands gently squeezing and releasing and squeezing soothed my core.

A skin peeling burn suddenly bursts in my neck and upper chest. I groan and shiver, doing my best to suppress my discomfort. Doctor Deaton must have noticed as he says, "You're doing great, Selamawit. Just be as still as possible."

I press my lips together and exhale.

Isaac presses his hands against my shoulder blades, pushing me off the tub a bit. I can feel Doctor Deaton's cool hands rub a hot, liquid-like mixture into the center of my back, my shoulder blades, the tops of my shoulders and up into my neck. I start to pant from the pain; the liquid feels like it has thickened into lava, eating away at my skin, but from the inside. I start to fidget in the tub, creating small waves in the tub. Isaac squeezes the tops of my shoulders, beginning an awkward massage – whether this is for my comfort or to push the liquid deeper into my body, I don't know. I try to focus on the relaxing pleasure of a gentle, yet firm touch, but my eyes snap open from the pain and I can see my deep, golden-brown skin shine. I bit my bottom lip to keep from screaming at the odd sight, but the burn deepens, and the water that was previously warming my bones begins to melt them. The combined pains prove to be too much; I thrash around in the water despite Isaac's efforts to keep me pressed against the tub. I press my palms against the tub and spring myself to the other side to escape Isaac's grip, and, effectively, the tub, but he jumps into the tub and wraps his arms around my arms and torso in an attempt to subdue me. I thrash against his body, desperately trying to get out of the tub, but his grip refuses to loosen. I see Peter strumming the harp, so I start to sing, but, with a quick look around, I see that everyone has wax stuffed into his or her ears. Most people aren't even looking over at us. In fact, it's just Scott, who looks nervous and freaked, and Doctor Deaton, who is disturbingly calm.

I try to stare into Isaac's eyes, to tune into him. I try to sing to him, but I'm in too much pain to focus on him, so I put all my strength into inhaling deeply and rolling us over in the water. He starts to thrash now, fighting drowning. His grip loosens, so I shoot up, but I know he'll just grab me again, so I turn to face him. As expected, he pops up from the water and wraps his arms around my torso. My clawing and thrashing has tossed away my aprons and ripped his briefs all over. In a regular situation – or as much of a regular situation a family and friends outing to watch me soak can be – I would ask if his briefs are designer, too. I would be flirty and invite him to be just as naked as me, but my bones are the same consistency as my marrow, and somewhere between the water and blood of my body, underneath my skin, a fire is trapped, desperately trying to burn its way out into the open. So I slide my hands and arms up his muscular torso and grab onto his ears. I don't know when he managed to stuff his ears with wax, but I'll get it out.

Isaac leans away from me, thrashing himself around, shouting at me to just let the process finish, that we're almost finished.

Scott leans to slap my hands away, but he's not fast enough and I grip the wax and start to pull them out of Isaac's ears.

He braces himself for a wail – it looks like I'm screaming rather than desperately trying to get someone to hear my singing. Deaton reaches for my hands, trying to swat me away from Isaac's defense mechanisms, but it's too late. I pull them out and instantly rest my exhausted torso against his stiff one. His eyes are tightly shut and his whole face wrinkles with restraint, but he slowly opens his eyes and stares down at my calm, quiet body.

I press my left cheek against the front of his left shoulder and sigh, "I just want to be acknowledged."

He shakes his head from side to side and exhales. He grins and rolls his eye at me. Isaac rests against the back of the tub and hangs his huge arms off the sides of the tub. I slide my arms underneath his pits and rest my fingers into the tops of his shoulders to keep myself stable. I groan at the pain within my body, of the melting of my innards meeting the flames dancing just beneath my skin, so I burry my face in the right side of Isaac's neck.

He sighs, revealing his complete exhaustion, but manages to run his right hand from the small of my back, up to my neck, and into my poorly formed, soaked Mohawk—like afro. Isaac tilts his head back and looks at me from beneath his sagging lashes.

I smile up at him and exhale through my nose.

Never breaking eye contact with me he gently plays with my hair and tickles my neck.

I let go of his shoulders and grab onto the back of the tub so that I may push myself up so that we're eye level. I brush the tip of my nose against his and sing so quietly that if he weren't a wolf he wouldn't be able to hear me. "Oh, you remember me, doubled over on the floor we start to read, and all the poetry convinces me that you were stolen from the waves at sea…"

Isaac loosely wraps his right arm around my waist, squeezing me to his bare chest.

I get lost in his blue eyes for a moment, only ripping myself away to kiss his forehead just below his hairline. "You're a vision of truth, and that's what I love…" I kiss the bridge of his nose. "Give me one more chance…" I kiss the tip of his nose, "You've got me breathing through an oxygen mask…" I go to kiss his lips, but someone pulls me away from him and sticks me to the bottom of the tub. Isaac sits up straight and dives after me, but Derek locks Isaac's arms through his and pulls him out and pinning him against the nearest wall, but Isaac doesn't fight him. Isaac stares at me while I lie peacefully at the bottom of the tub, but I'm quickly pulled back up to the surface. I spit out some water, all the while watching Isaac dry off and wrestle himself back into his clothes. I sigh and then lean against the back of the tub, my eyes never leaving Isaac despite Peter stepping to my side. I watch Isaac walk back over to his pack while I say to Peter, "I'm feeling particularly peaceful right now, but I will kill you if you ever pull that drowning shit again."

Once I absorbed all that I needed to from the bath, Allison handed me a towel and some pajamas she got from my room during my weird bath. We drove back in silence; Allison gently dried my hair once we were back in my room, promising me that she'd spend all day helping me find the best place in the bay area to get my hair repaired in the morning. We fall asleep in an awkward spooning with me on the edge of the bed, squeezing a large pillow to me; Allison sleeping diagonally, holding a beach towel around my hair.

Chris wakes us up by gently shaking me by the shoulders. I yawn and flutter my eyes open. "I'm too exhausted to deal with the super natural today."

He chuckles, but then quiets himself and says, "Well, eventually, we're going to have to train you on the obstacle course. And then you'll have to meet up with Deaton—"

"Doctor Deaton," I interject.

Allison stirs from behind me, smacking her dry lips and asks what's going on, so I tell her, "White people always stripping us of our titles."

She chuckles with confusion.

Chris ignores us. "At some point you have to meet up with Doctor Deaton and cultivate your… your powers," he sighs, "now that you have control."

"Control?," I say through a yawn while slowly getting up, all my hair springing up with me. I can feel the strained, stretched, kinky curls hang all over the place. I walk past my vanity and see the top of my hair all frizzed, fucked and flat. I groan at the sight and pull my hair up. Chris walks out of the room saying,

"We gotta get going within the hour."

"Alright," I shake my head and sigh.

Allison yawns and says, "I'm staying and sleeping."

"I don't blame you." I walk over to my bathroom and jump into the shower.