I shook my head at Stiles with worry, my claws not retracting no matter how hard I tried.
"Okay, look down. Keep your head down and your hands hidden." Stiles ducked Scott's head under his arm and grabbed my wrists, dragging us into the nearest empty classroom while the people in the watching probably thought we were freaks.
Stiles shut the door, letting us go and I leaned against a desk, my claws digging into the undersides as I tried desperately to control them.
Scott stumbled down the aisle, his teeth emerging as he shrugged off his jacket.
"Guys, get away from me. I don't want to hurt you."
"Scott, it's okay," Stiles tried.
"I don't know what's going to happen. Get back." Scott dug his claws into his palms, a large amount of blood pouring from them. He dropped to his knees.
I was slowly starting to shift, the skin of my eyebrows pulling taut as my ears elongated.
"Scott, I can't-. Control-." As my fangs slid out, it was hard to speak from the amount of self-control I was trying to find. Stiles took a step towards me, and I growled, "Get away!" He backed up as Scott ran to me. I panted as the desk cracked under my grip.
"Don't hate me for this," Scott muttered, taking a hold of my arm with both of his hands. He jerked upwards, and the bones in my left arm split. I screamed loudly at the pain, and Stiles quickly muffled it by shoving his jacket against my mouth, but I felt my body return to human.
"Pain makes you human," Scott said, breathing heavily.
I slid down to the floor, sitting back against the desk and panting, whimpering, and sweating as my arm healed itself, and Scott said down next to me. On my other side, Stiles knelt facing Scott and me.
"Scott, this isn't just in our heads. This is real," Stiles said, his voice telling us how scared he was for us. "And it's starting to get bad for me, too. I'm not just having nightmares. I'm having these dreams where I literally have to scream myself awake. And sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm ever actually waking up."
Scott looked at him seriously. "What do you mean?"
"Do you how you can tell if you're dreaming? You can't read in dreams. More and more, the past few days, I've been having trouble reading. It's like I can't see the words, I can't put letters in order."
"Even now?" I asked, my brows furrowed as I listened. Stiles looked at the board over Scott's head, standing with glistening eyes. His eyes darted from everything in the room that had words on them, then he looked at me.
"I can't read a thing," he croaked.
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I sighed as I threw on my night clothes. I couldn't wear anything but pants and long sleeves anymore when I wasn't with Stiles. I even had to put on two pairs of socks, and sometimes that still wouldn't be enough.
I heard my window open behind me and without turning, I said, "Yes, Isaac?"
"I have to tell you something," he mumbled. The fact that he sounded guilty made me turn to face him with concern. "I have to move on, Y/N. I can't keep waiting for you."
Realization struck me like a bus and I suddenly felt like the worst person in the world. Had I been unintentionally dangling him from a string this entire time? I frowned sadly and walked up to him, stopping a foot away.
"Oh, Isaac," I muttered. He looked at me with hopeful eyes, like he was waiting for me to fall into his arms. "That's what I want you to do." His face dropped and he looked down. I couldn't stand to see him upset, so I walked close enough to caress his cheek. "I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy."
"I was happy with you," he whispered.
"I can't be with you. I'm dating Stiles," I replied, dropping my hand to my side.
His head was still hung, and he reminded me of the shy guy he used to be. "So you're saying there's no chance."
"Yes, that's what I'm saying. We're friends, Isaac. That's it. I can't be anything more than friends with you."
Isaac nodded sadly. "Um, I should go." He turned to leave out the window, and I said one last thing.
"Isaac. Find someone who deserves you, okay? Go be happy." He nodded again then jumped down from my roof. I sighed and shut the window. Even after that, I still felt like the worst person in the world. How could I not have realized that he was waiting for me? And why did it hurt so much that I knew it hurt him to see Stiles and me together?
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Stiles fell asleep in Coach's class the next day, and Coach blew his whistle until Stiles jolted awake. Probably not the best way to wake up, but it was a better way than he has been. The strange part was he wasn't actually asleep.
"Stilinski!" Coach barked.
"Uh-huh?"
"I asked you a question."
"Uh, sorry, Coach. What was it?"
"It was 'Stilinski, are you paying attention back there?'," Coach chuckled frustratedly.
"Oh, uh, well I am now," Stiles replied awkwardly. I stared at the journal on his desk, gulping down my fear. Maybe he had been asleep. The words 'wake up' were scribbled over nearly every inch of the page, some combined with others to form patterns, others fitting together like scrabble.
Coach sighed, "Stilinski, stop reminding me why I drink...every night."
"Stiles," I whispered when Coach turned away. He looked at the worried look on my face.
"I'm okay. I just fell asleep for a sec," Stiles comforted, his knuckles going white as he strangled his pen.
"Dude, you weren't asleep," Scott whispered, as scared as I was. Stiles' eyes flicked to me with confusion, and I glanced down at his journal. He cocked his head and looked down at it. Pulling his lips into a tight line, he flipped over his notebook to hide the words.
------------------------
I sat between Scott and Stiles while Lydia, Isaac, and Allison were sitting on the other side of the table. We were sitting outside at the benches, seeking semi-privacy to talk about what was going on. My knee bounced uncontrollably while I shivered, hugging my arms around myself.
Stiles pulled a jacket out of his backpack. I was pretty sure he started carrying one with him everywhere since I always thought I'd be warm enough to go without one. He handed it to me and I thanked him, sliding my arms through. It was a little big, but it smelled like him, and my body started to heat.
"Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" Scott asked.
"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stiles added.
"And has a permanent change in body temperature?" I said.
"They're all locked up because they're insane," Isaac blurted. Sometimes that boy didn't think before he spoke. My mouth dropped into a 'you're not helping' frown.
"Ha," Stiles snarked. "Can you at least try to be helpful, please?"
"For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer, so being helpful is kind of a new thing for me."
"Okay, do we-. Are you still milking that?"
"Yeah, we are still milking that."
"Guys!" I shouted. "Can we just stop the arguing for once, holy crap." I muttered that through the table, since I had dropped my head onto my arms.
"Great, now look what you did," Stiles grumbled, his arm going around my shoulders.
"Me?! You're the one who-."
"Hi." My head snapped up at the sound of Kira's voice. She smiled shyly at me, holding her books in her hand. "Hi, sorry. I couldn't help overhearing what you guys are talking about."
We looked at each other silently, hoping she didn't know what she was talking about.
"And I think I actually might know what you're talking about," she said. None of us said anything, so she trekked forward. "Uh, there's a Tibetan word for it. It's called 'Bardo'." She looked at me as she spoke, probably hoping for a friendly face. "It literally means 'in-between state'. The state between life and death."
"And what do they call you?" Lydia asked, pursing her lips unhappily at her.
"Kira," Scott said with a smile. She smiled at him while the others stared at him.
"She's in our history class. Hey, what else do you know about this, uh, Bardo, thing?" I asked her, leaning forward onto my elbows with interest. If she was able to help us figure this thing out, I'd change in front of her right now.
She smiled and sat down on the other side of Stiles. "All the stuff you guys were just saying, all of that happens in Bardo." We waited for her to explain. "There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities."
Isaac rubbed the front of his neck as he said, "Wrathful deities? What are those?" Lydia looked at him like she couldn't believe we were actually letting her in on this. One thing about Lydia is she doesn't like change much, and that included new people.
Kira shook her head in a shrug. "Like demons."
"Demons. Why not," Stiles repeated, a fake lightness to his voice. I nudged my foot against his to let him know to be nice.
"So, hold on. If there are different progressive states, then what's the last one?" Allison asked curiously.
"Death. You die," Kira shrugged. She didn't understand just how real this was for us, so she sounded as though she were simply talking about a movie or a history lesson instead of our current lives.
"Death. Of course..." I whispered, my heart climbing up my throat as I stared at the table top.
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Stiles explained the 'dream' that he had during Coach's class to Deaton. It had been in sign language, of all things.
"Hm. Sounds like your subconscious is trying to communicate with you," Deaton said.
"Well, how do I tell my subconscious to use a language I actually know?" Stiles snarked.
"Do you remember what the sign language looked like? The placement and the movement of the hands?" Deaton asked. "I know a little sign language. Maybe I can help."
Stiles nodded. "Okay, first move was like this." Stiles extended his pointer fingers out, touching the tips together at an angle. With his right finger, he made a complete circle around his left before connecting the tips again.
"That's 'when'," Deaton said.
"Then there was this, twice." Stiles' fingers were pressed together on each hand, then he placed his hands side by side. With his right hand, he jerked upwards, then touched the sides together again.
"That's 'door'."
"And then there's this in between it." Stiles slid his thumb out from under his chin.
"That's it?" Deaton asked, and Stiles nodded. "When is a door not a door?" Stiles repeated Deaton incredulously.
"When it's ajar," Scott mumbled.
"When it's a-. You dreamt a riddle?" I sighed. Of all the things Stiles' subconscious could've said, it said when is a door not a door. What the actual hell?
"Not necessarily," Deaton said to make me calm down. "When the three of you went under the water, when you crossed from unconsciousness to a kind of superconsciousness... You essentially opened a door in your minds."
"So what does that mean? The door is still open?" Scott asked.
Deaton nodded. "Ajar."
"A door...into our minds?" Stiles pursed his lips angrily.
"I did tell you it was risky."
"What do we do about it?" I pleaded.
Deaton squinted his eyes at me with pity. "Well, that's difficult to answer."
"No, wait a second. I know that look," Stiles insisted. "That's the 'we know exactly what's wrong with you, but we have no idea how to fix it' look."
"No. No, there's gotta be-." I stopped as my eyes caught on my little brother standing behind Deaton. His throat was draining blood, but the look on his face was indifferent.
"Y/N?" Deaton said, and my eyes jerked to him. Logan was gone when I looked back.
"Uh, there has to be something," I finished, prepared to ignore what just happened.
"Well, one thing I do know is that having an opening like that into your mind, it's not good." Deaton shook his head, his expression saying he knew something bad was going to happen. "You each need to close that door. And you need to do it as soon as possible."
"How?" I asked.
"I don't know. That's individualized. I'm sorry, but you have to do this one on your own."
I sighed as we walked out of the animal clinic, going through the back where we parked. Surprisingly, Sheriff pulled up right in front of us. The second he got out, Stiles questioned him.
"I'm here because I could use some help," he said, stopping in front of us. I had a feeling the kind of help he meant wasn't Deaton's, and a lot to do with mine and Scott's were-bilities. "Actually, you two. Your help."
"Why us?" Scott asked.
"Because eight years ago, almost an entire family died in a car accident. One of the bodies, a young girl named Malia, was never found. There's enough evidence to have me thinking that..." He pursed his lips before continuing. "That a werewolf could have caused the accident, and then dragged her body away. If you could somehow get a lock on her scent, if you could somehow help me find her body, it might provide the missing clue." Stiles seemed to be slightly jealous that Sheriff opted for our help over his.
"But what if it was a werewolf?" Stiles asked.
"Well, there's somebody out there who murdered an entire family. Someone who still needs to be caught," Sheriff said confidently. I didn't know how he would get enough evidence for a conviction, but if he thought he could, I was down to help as best as I could.