Anna's vision finally clears and she sits up weakly. She sees Lydia pinned to a metal chair with restraints. The banshee gasps awake and pants in fear and pain. All she hears are the screams of others as Anna watches helplessly from the ground. "Hold on a little longer, Lydia," Valack says as he dabs her head wound from when he drilled a hole into her head. "You can make it."
"Get away from her!" Anna hisses.
"I want you to focus on this, Lydia." Valack ignores the girl as he turns a dial on an old frequency emitter. "And whatever sounds you hear now, push them aside. Focus on this sound." Lydia's breathing evens out and Valack smiles. "That's it. Focus on this sound and my voice."
"Get back!" Anna yells again.
"As for you, my little ghost whisperer," Valack grabs something before kneeling next to Anna. "You are going to go ghost hunting for me."
"Why would I do anything for you?" Anna spits.
"You won't have a choice." Valack brings a pair of goggles into view. Anna instantly recognizes them as the ones the Dread Doctors use.
"No." She whimpers, looking for a way out. She starts to scoot backwards in fear. "No, please. Don't—"
"Time to find some ghosts, Anna." Valack grabs her face. She cries out for mercy as he positions the goggles over her eyes. She can feel tiny knives protruding from the goggles before Valack sinks them onto her face.
She lets out a scream and Lydia somehow looks over and is able to focus on the scene before her. "Anna." She breathes as the goggles tear into the girl's skin.
"Keep your eyes open, Anna." Valack instructs.
"I-I can't! Take them off!" She pleads.
"Don't close your eyes or you will become just like them. Just like the Dread Doctors." Valack lies to scare the girl into doing what he wants.
With that motivation, Anna forces her eyes open and, in the process, creates more pain for her. "Make it stop!"
"Not until you tell me what I want." Valack snaps. "Look around, Anna. Who do you see?"
Anna's eyes look through the goggles and they start to glow blue. Men, women, and children roam through the room but she can't focus on them. "I-I—"
"Focus on the old ones," Valack tells her.
"N-No. He said to stop. I have to stop." Anna's voice cracks.
"Who? Who said that?" Valack demands.
"The Beast." Anna breathes. "Sebastien Valet."
"Look for him, Anna. Or anyone he killed or knew." Anna's eyes flicker through the room as she tries to contain her cries of pain.
Her eyes land on a familiar face and her feature scrunch up. "A-Al?" She whispers.
The girl turns around and looks at Anna curiously. "Who is Al?" She asks with a heavy french accent.
"W-Who are you?" Anna manages to ask.
"Marie-Jeanne Argent." She answers proudly.
"Who are you talking to?" Valack asks.
"Help me," Anna begs the woman. "P-please."
"What can I do? I am dead." Marie-Jeanne says sadly.
"Ask about the Beast. Find out who he is!" Valack orders. Marie-Jeanne's expression turns stormy. Anna stays quiet and Valack adjusts the goggles to fit tighter. Anna shouts in pain and Lydia tugs at her restraints.
Marie-Jeanne is suddenly standing over Valack angrily. "La Bête is gone."
"But he's back!" Anna yells, unable to help it.
"I don't know how to help you." Marie-Jeanne answers sadly.
"S-She doesn't know." Anna whimpers, turning back to Valack.
"Someone must. Keep looking!" Valack tells her, walking back over to Lydia.
"No! Please, take them off! Please!!" Anna pleads.
"Not until I have my answer." Valack turns his attention back to Lydia. "Can you hear me, Lydia?"
"What do you want from me?" She asks weakly.
"I want your help against the Dread Doctors. They ruined me. Destroyed me. They drove me to obsession, consigned me to professional ridicule. People thought I was a monster when I was simply trying to open their eyes." Valack tells her angrily.
"Now you want me to be your eyes." Lydia guesses.
"I need both of you." Valack looks back at a shaking Anna. "She will be my eyes, you will be my ears. You'll hear things, Lydia. Things no one else can hear. You may not survive, but you might save the lives of your friends." Valack slowly grabs an old mask resembling one of the Dread Doctors'. "We have to slow your mind first. There's too much activity in your brain." He connects two wires to her temple. "We have to get from a gamma wave to a theta."
"It's too loud." Lydia pants. "I can't."
"If I try the mask now it will kill you. You have to calm your mind. You understand what they've created." Valack says, watching as Lydia flinches every few seconds.
"The Beast." She answers tensely.
"The Beast of Gevaudan. An engineered version of it. But it's not yet fully grown. It's still bound to its host, the teenage Chimera inside. And it still requires the Dread Doctors' protection."
"Damnatio Memoriae." Lydia states.
"That's right. The Beast was a man first. A human killer in the late 1700s. The Dread Doctors are trying to get it to remember itself. To remember the man. When that happens, the teenager is gone." Valack watches her closely. "This teenager, Lydia, is the last Genetic Chimera. A young man or a young woman, maybe even someone you know. A success where Theo and the others were failures."
"But we went through the list of Genetic Chimeras." Lydia shakes her head. "There's no one else."
"There must be one you missed, like Anna."
"Anna isn't a genetic chimera," Lydia tells him. "The Dread Doctors made her one."
"Then there are other ways they could have two sets of DNA." Valack realizes. "If you could hear the name of this teenager or Anna could get information from a ghost that knows, discover its identity, then your friends would have a fighting chance. The mask can help you see."
A thud sounds at the door and all three of them jump. "Lydia!" Stiles yells. "Anna!" The frequency machine Valack was using bursts into sparks and shrieks start to reach Lydia's ears. "LYDIA!!"
Lydia whimpers in her chair as Anna continues to shake violently in her corner, away from sight. "I'm sorry. But time's up." Valack grabs the mask and raises it.
"Oh, Lydia." Allison paces nervously in front of her best friend. "Scream, Lydia. SCREAM!" As if she had heard it, Lydia lets out a scream so loud that Valack's head bursts open. The mask drops to the ground and Lydia can see that half his face is missing. He drops to the ground, blood pooling on the floor.
Stiles bursts into the room, his eyes landing on Lydia. His flannel sweeps behind him as he races to her side, anxiously inspecting her. "You came back." Lydia breathes, forgetting about everything else.
"We're getting you out of here, okay?" Stiles tells her as he removes the wires.
"No. You can't. It's too dangerous." Lydia reminds him.
"Lydia, please shut up and let me save your life." Lydia nods weakly as he helps her up and out of the room.
Theo walks in and his eyes move from the dropped mask to Anna. He squats down next to her and her head slowly moves towards him. "I told you they would use you." He sighs pityingly.
"H-Help." Anna rasps.
"You should've known better than to disobey." Theo stands and grabs the mask. He starts to walk out and Anna lets out more whimpers.
"T-Theo! T-Theo, p-pl-please! H-Help m-me!" Anna cries. Soon her tears stop and her head falls limply against the cool wall, her eyes staring straight ahead.
As Stiles and Lydia rush through the tunnels, Lydia suddenly falls to the ground, holding her head in pain. "I can't hold it!" She cries. "I can't do it!"
"Lydia..." Stiles goes to grab her arm.
"Stiles, run!" She yells. A hand grabs Stiles' shoulder and pulls him back. Parrish runs towards Lydia as she screams. Scott and Liam catch Stiles as Parrish muffles Lydia's scream with his chest. The scream rattles the tunnel and pushes the three boys to the ground.
Parrish emerges from the smoke, holding a gasping Lydia. "Where to?" He asks.
"This way." Scott looks to his right.
"Where's Anna?!" Liam demands.
"I-I didn't see her." Stiles gulps.
"I-in the room." Lydia gasps out. "The room!"
Liam takes off running, leaving the others calling after him. One thought runs through his mind: I'm not losing her again.
He pushes through the doors and into the seemingly empty room. His ears zero in on quiet rasping. He turns to the left to see Anna curled up in a corner, staring to the side.
"Anna? Anna, can you hear me?" Liam fires questions at her as he slides to her side. She doesn't speak or move, except for her shallow breathing.
"H-help..." She chokes out. Liam grabs onto the goggles and rips them from her face. She lets out a scream at the new sensation and falls limp against the wall.
"Anna? Anna, look at me." Liam begs. Anna slowly looks over at him, her eyes still glowing royal blue.
"Y-You came." She whispers.
"Always." He tells her. A small smile spreads on her lips before her eyes finally close. Liam listens for her heartbeat to find it very weak.
He picks her up and gently lies her head against his chest before running out to the others. He finds them waiting for Kira and Malia to bring Stiles' jeep out to the front of Eichen House.
Scott's eyes instantly find his sister and her rushes over to her. Anger is evident in his expression when he sees the marks from the goggles. Worry seeps into his eyes when he hears her heartbeat.
Malia and Kira jump out of the barely stopped jeep. "Are they ok?" Malia asks.
"No, we need to get them to the clinic, give the keys." Scott orders. Anna's eyes flutter open and she sees Tracy sneaking behind them.
She gathers her energy and pushes herself out of Liam's grasp, making him gasp. She pushes Tracy into the gate with enough force to make Tracy groan. "Stay back!" Anna threatens.
"Theo's gonna kill you." Tracy laughs slightly. Anna lets go and stumbles back, her head spinning. Before anyone can grab her, Tracy spins her around so her claws are around the clairvoyant's neck.
"Tracy, let her go," Scott says. "We need to get them both out of here, you don't know what's about to happen—"
"What's about to happen is I'm taking her back to Theo." Tracy snarls. Liam growls, ready to pounce. "And none of you are going to stop—" She is cut off when something shocks her. She falls to the ground and Anna stumbles forward, landing in Liam's arms.
The group looks to see Nathalie Martin standing there, furious. "Could someone please get my daughter out of this hellhole?" She exclaims.
Scott looks back at Liam and Anna, knowing that there isn't enough room in the jeep for all of them. "Go." Liam nods. "I'll get Mason's car."
"Keep her alive," Scott says before Scott, Stiles, and Lydia get into the jeep and drive away.
"L-Liam..." Anna breathes out, seeing countless numbers of ghosts, roaming the streets.
"It's ok. You're safe. I got you." Liam soothes.
"There are so many." She rasps.
"So many what?" Kira asks.
"Ghosts." Anna snuggles into Liam's grasp, wincing from the pain.
"Let's go." He whispers, picking her up and running around the building towards the electrical area. He finds Hayden, Hannah and Mason celebrating. "Guys!" He yells.
Both teens turn to him. When they see a barely awake Anna, their expressions turn to horror. "Get her in the car," Mason commands. Liam does exactly that as Hayden stays outside of the car.
"I'll go back and curb Theo's rage." She tells them before running off.
"Drive, Mason, drive!" Liam yells.
Haha!! Did you like? Did I achieve my goal?!!??!?!?!?!?!? Hope you enjoyed!