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Chapter 55

Lydia coughed. The air was dry, making her throat itch and sting. Her head throbbed like an ugly bug was buzzing in her ear and refused to dissipate. The entire room was fuzzy and reeked of damp sewage. Her nose scrunched, grossed out.

"Are you okay?"

Across from her, the faint form of Stiles sat with his knees propped up and his arms lounging on his knee caps. His hands hung limply, lifeless. The corner of his forehead was red and it looked like he'd been nailed with a red paintball. Blood had dried in a trickle down his forehead.

"I don't know," she replied. "Be more specific about the question so I don't get it wrong."

Stiles snorted. Even in the face of danger she still had that snappy comeback.

"Alive. Are you alive?" he asked.

"At the moment."

She tucked her legs underneath her. Her shins were a cloudy mixture of red and purple bruising. Blood crusted on her knee caps.

"What about you?" she asked.

"I'm here, but I haven't figured out where here is," he said, glancing around the dim room. He'd stared at every inch, trying to figure it out. There was one way in and out, but no doorknob, just a keyhole. He'd lost track of time here immediately.

Lydia looked at her elbow and tucked her hair behind her ear, bearing a look of annoyance. Stiles felt the same. Moe so, he was glad that he wasn't alone. He didn't say that out loud.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," she said as she pulled at the hem of her sundress, "but I miss her. I can imagine how pissed off she'd be right now about all of this. She'd be pissed at Scott and Derek because they're so damn childish and-"

"Follow it up with calling you ginger," Stiles cut in. He let out a single chuckle.

Melanie would be pissed off and she wouldn't be afraid to show it. She was proud of that; she never needed to justify anything she said or felt. Blunt but honest was who she was.

"Strangely." Lydia broke into a small smile. "It got me so mad."

"She made sure that you didn't get soft," Stiles said. His voice drifted off to a quiet place in his head.

Lydia rubbed her arms. A cold draft swept through the dark, cramped space. The corners were enveloped in darkness. The only light source, which was super dim came from a flittering bulb in a rusted metal lamp head. Stiles could only just make out Lydia. Stiles didn't move from his spot. He pick at bits of dirt crested under his nails.

The pit of Lydia's stomach twisted, making her throat go numb all the way to her cheeks in that way it did when she was about to it wasn't the kind of scream that was out of terror, but worse. A banshee scream. A scream that petrified everyone and everything in sight, sealing the fate of some poor soul. No book that she'd read about banshees told her about how to control it. They only described the effects behind the scream and the various reasons why a banshee screams.

She clenched her jaw shut painfully. Her teeth grinded together, pinching similar to how her face did. Stiles's aimless gaze narrowed on her. Her cheeks burned like a searing, open flame burning through the walls, trying to get out.

"Lydia?"

Her eyes christened with tears as she kept the scream, sharper than a kitchen knife fresh out of the package, lodged in her throat. I'm stronger than you, she thought to herself.

Stiles placed his hand over her tightly clasped ones. She hadn't realized that he'd crawled to sit beside her. A look of grave concern blended with fright for her, casted a shadow over his features. It was such a common look anymore and if he wasn't careful, his face would get stuck like that.

"We have to get out of here," she said, pained.

Her head swam dizzily from holding her breath. She didn't have to hold her breath while swallowing down the death call, but thought it would help for some reason.

"Problem. Where is here?" he said blandly and exhausted.

From a rusted, rectangular vent up in the dark corner of the dank and damp room, a curdled scream, a male scream reached them. She tensed at the horrifying sound. The sound of no escape.

Stiles held her as she shuddered. More screaming ensued in a choir full of voices.

Sheriff Stilinski stared at his son's room, his hand placed restlessly over his mouth. Stiles's laptop battery died so there was only a black screen. Every thought flitting across his weary mind came back to seeing Melanie's limp body on the floor, pale from the blood loss and made him wonder the worst thought: would his son be next?

The phone rang shrilly. He went downstairs and picked it up. It was Parrish. There was another murder-Westover.

"I'll be in as soon as I can," Sheriff Stilinski told him then hung up. He didn't change into his uniform. He just grabbed the navy, military jacket that sat on the back of the comfy chair near the front door and his keys and walked out of the way too quiet house.

Cora was leaning against Stiles's Jeep when he came out. Her arms were crossed over her chest. A pensive look replaced her normal cold shoulder glare. She chewed at the corner of her mouth.

"I've been standing here for the last twenty minutes wondering if I should go inside," she said, staring up at the house. "I don't know what to do. Derek's acting like nothing is going on. Scott's going crazy. Isaac is nearly catatonic and borderline suicidal. Did you know that I went by his house a few days ago and caught him swallowing all of these sleeping pills? I kept punching him and he kept taking it. He didn't even fight back, and I keep thinking about how Stiles would be on all of their cases in that annoying way because he cares and he's usually right and…it's my fault. He's gone because of me. I shouldn't have let him out of my sight."

She turned her eyes on him. There were no tears. There was only shame. An endless abundance of shame that was making her shake now.

"I'm sorry," she breathed.

Sheriff Stilinski looked down at his shoes and balanced back on his heels. Several people had told him that they were sorry. Over the last three days it had done nothing but annoy the piss out of him. What the hell was 'sorry' going to do? Was it going to magically make those kids appear? Was it going to bring back all of those who had died over the last year? No, it wasn't. It made all of this worse. It was making everyone who was a part of those people's lives more miserable. As if it wasn't hard enough trying to go on without the ones who made parts of their lives worth living.

"It wasn't your fault," he said. He moved to the driver's side of his car and unlocked it. "Get in."

"What?"

"I have to go to a crime scene. That teacher that Allison and Isaac saved was found dead."

Cora still looked hesitant.

"C'mon kid. You've been dating my son for the last what-six months? I feel like I should be the worried one," he said.

Her eyebrows shot up.

"Uh, worried?"

"You're a Hale."

She let out a heavy breath of relief. A Hale. Could be worse, right? The more she thought about it during the ride the more she wasn't so sure. She stared out the window wondering if he was going to interrogate her, but he never did. She could tell that he was plagued by other things.

The scene was at the school in the gym. Cora stayed outside but she saw the body come out on a gurney. Her breath caught. The taste of bile was present at the back of her throat.

"He was hung and his head was bashed in," Sheriff Stilinski told her.

"Last of the philosophers," Cora mumbled. "We shouldn't have thought that he'd be safe."

"This isn't your fault," he said as they got back in the car and headed toward the hospital, where the body was going.

"Why not? Scott seems to think so," she said

"Scott is going through a lot. You all are."

Cora just nodded, turning her attention to the passing scenery of dark trees and street lamps and scattered houses. She was looking for a distraction.

"As if that's-" Cora was cut off as the sheriff veered right too hard, avoiding a dark figure in the middle of the road.

The vehicle flipped and rolled twice. Glass shattered, cutting up their arms and faces. The square SUV crunched and caved around them. The dashboard bent and pressed against Cora's legs, crushing them.

The sheriff groaned. His shoulder felt like it was on fire. His hands were palm up on the ceiling of the car as he and Cora were hanging, held up by their seat belts.

"Cora?" he said, gravelly. The fem-wolf was out cold. She looked like she had just fallen asleep with how relaxed her body was.

The sheriff struggled a little at undoing his seatbelt, but gravity yanked him down onto the ceiling with bits of broken glass when he got it.

"Just hold on, kid," he said as he crawled out through the busted window.

The road was bare with no sign of whatever had been there moments before. He looked up and down the road. Whatever they nearly hit was long gone. He rubbed his shoulder.

"Oh sheriff," came a sultry yet conniving voice. "I hear you've found my latest present and that you've been looking for me."

Coming from the other side of the road, Miss Blake stepped carefully across the asphalt toward him. Her tall boots clicked behind her. All dressed in black, he knew it was her he nearly hit.

"I know what you are," he growled. "Is Jennifer Blake even your real name?"

He glanced back into the car. Cora was still out and not even stirring. Jennifer laughed softly, almost flirtatiously as she stopped beside him. He scooted away, reaching for his gun.

"No, it's not." She replied. "And since you know 'what I am I don't need to keep up appearances."

A grey cloud swirled around Jennifer, covering her entirely and revealing her monstrous appearance that was as completely mutilated as Stiles had told him. She was seriously a nightmare that would scare nightmares.

"Do I frighten you?"

The sheriff stared up at her, now shaking at the sight. Jennifer gripped him tightly by the front of his shirt, causing his badge to come off and fall to the ground. He couldn't manage a sentence, but the look on his face was enough. The sheer terror was followed by a harsh scream and was quickly cut off, leaving the fem-wolf upside-down in the car, bleeding out of her head.

Stiles looked through the keyhole. It wasn't like in movies he'd watched where the victims, though they weren't victims, would look through and see something on the other side. There was nothing but blackness and possibly a bug in there, he wasn't sure, but he thought he saw something small crawling in there.

"Would you quit?" Lydia said in a whiney but pleading tone.

"No." he said simply.

"And why, dare I ask?" The sarcasm in her voice wasn't lost on him. It used to be cute and got him through his days, but more and more it was just annoying. Scott had tried to tell him for years but he didn't get it until recently. God, he missed Cora. He missed how she allowed him to hold her even though she had the power and strength physically. He missed the slanted glares because it was like a guessing game for him in which he had to decide if it was playful or not. What he missed the most was how she didn't treat him like he was stupid, but that he was somebody who actually made sense and was purposeful, even intelligent.

"If I quit I think I'll lose my mind. I just can't. It's giving up."

"And you're never one to give up," she said. "I miss Aiden."

Stiles paused. A wide set of pictures similar to a slide show or maybe one of those memoriams played across his head. There was no music that went along with his memories which made it all the more depressing. He thought back to freshman year of high school. Somehow Jackson walked in the cliché popular crowd with Lydia on his arm while he and Scott fell into the background so easily. A time of normalcy.

He glanced through the keyhole again. There was definitely a bug in there. He wasn't sure if he really wanted that normalcy back. There were some pretty shitty things that happened, but there were some things weren't so bad.

The screaming from earlier subsided and came back like receding waves. They were coming back. He still couldn't decide where they were. He closed his eyes, pinching them shut tightly. His eyes shot open suddenly.

"What?" Lydia said quickly. "You have that look. I know that look. You've figured something out."

"Your grandmother," he said.

"My grandmother?"

"I remember something. We were kids." His squinted as he struggled with his thoughts. "I can remember you were so sad that she had left. Your mom said you couldn't tell anybody. You called me an annoying twerp for asking but you told one of your friends-"

"She went to live somewhere else. I remember my mom and dad arguing about it so much. Mom didn't want to send her away but dad didn't want her to stay because it wasn't safe for me to be around her," she said, cutting him off. "They sent her to Eichen House. That asylum."

She looked over at Stiles. He gave nod, trying not to smirk.

"Stiles, if we're stuck here…if we're in that place…I've heard things." Panic rose in her voice. She shook her head desperately as if it couldn't be possible. "We have to get out of here."

The unnerving screams filtered through the vent once more. Her attention snapped to it, her eyes widening.

"She's coming," she breathed.