Lately, I had been having a recurring dream.

I traveled through the frozen forest from before with no other intent but to capture the faceless woman as she ran for her life. Our chase felt endless as it replayed in my head night after night. Tonight had been an exception.

I was still in the snow, but instead of being surrounded by frosted trees, I was in the middle of a thin clearing. There wasn't much I could make out, the sun directly overhead blinded me, making the snow that stuck to the ground shimmer like diamonds. Then I felt it.

Death.

A steel pike was driven through my heart and then after that, all I could see was red before I woke up screaming.

---

I slid out of bed, shoving the sheets off of me as I landed on the floor and crawled backward until I hit a wall. My eyes darted rapidly across the space of the loft as if the threat I faced had awoken with me.

"Jac? What's wrong?" Liam's urgent as he jumps up from his side of the bed, my screams having ruined his sleep too.

He rounds the mattress and comes to crouch at my level, reaching for me. He stops when my hand shoots out and I shake my head. I was unable to find my voice but desperate to alert him to the fact that his touch would only overwhelm me at a time like this.

Our invisible boundary has been set, and Liam doesn't argue or press. He keeps his distance, already used to the fact that sometimes my nightmares took more control of me than I preferred.

My breath is heavy as my eyes focus on the shadows of the wide-open room, wondering if the masked men lurked in an unseen corner.

Liam blocks my view so all I see is him, holding his hands up near his chest.

"Breathe with me, Jac. Like we did before, remember?"

His hands raised in sync with his deep inhale, then they lowered on the exhale. I force my body to follow his lead, trying to be reminded of the plan we created for times like this. My nightmares were still frequent, unfortunately, and last night surely hadn't helped my mind with keeping up its defenses against any internal turmoil.

Deaton and I's conversation had left us both shaken since our theory hardly felt like an actual theory. What it did feel like, was something unavoidable. Inevitable.

I kept staring at Tracy's lifeless body, imagining my own abandoned corpse on a slab of metal. Deaton urged me to go home because of it. I wasn't any help to him at that point. I became another object in his way.

I had wanted to go to the hospital and check on Lydia first, but after receiving a text from Scott that she was in the ICU and unable to have visitors, I decided to simply do as Deaton originally recommended. When I arrived at the loft, Liam was already here.

Neither of us said a word when we saw each other, he simply opened his arms and I was more than willing to accept his offer.

It wasn't unusual for him to spend the night. He would often lie to his parents and say he was at Mason's, and then he would tell Mason he was at Scott's. Last night had been no different, and I was grateful for him to risk that for me.

I didn't want to be alone, and I didn't even have to say that for him to know. He just did.

"Breathe with me," Liam repeats.

I continue to do as he does until our chests rise and fall in unison. Liam looks satisfied at that, and I can see him zone out for a moment, probably listening in on my heartbeat to make sure the organ wasn't about to implode.

He sits across from me when I've settled. A couple of minutes pass in silence, but Liam doesn't move an inch. He doesn't even show any signs of being exhausted, though I bet he is considering the fact that the sky outside was still pitch black and we didn't fall asleep until well past midnight.

"What was it this time? Kate or Gerard?" he asks after a bit, and the question is sadly familiar to me by now.

I'd like to say that this wasn't a frequent routine for us, but it was.

My nightmares never went away, even after confronting Kate, she still lingered in my memories. As did her father. It was easier to move on from them when I was awake, but when I slept they always found a way to creep back into my head, their darkness seeping in through the cracks of the walls I had built to protect me.

I would relive various things they did to me or things I did for them. No matter what it was, it always ended with me waking up in a panicked state, and by default, Liam too.

He'd feel me stirring or hear my fearful cries and wake up to comfort me. Over time we came up with a breathing exercise that calmed me down, and then Liam would ask me to confess what my dream had been about.

However long it took, he would listen and never make me feel guilty for it, and I always felt as though that healed a crack in the walls of my mind.

"Neither," I answer, my voice coming out choked. My screams have hardly done anything to aid my sore throat.

"Lydia?" Liam wonders.

He wants to help, wants to know what earned such a strong reaction out of me, but I can't comprehend how to possibly explain to him what I saw and felt, so I nod. It's not a complete lie. Thinking of Lydia's perfect ivory skin being torn apart surely wasn't something that aided me in dreaming peacefully.

"She'll be okay, she's tough. Like you." Liam gazes at me with an intense amount of affection. Sometimes it was hard for me to feel deserving of that.

"I'll go make you some tea." He doesn't move until I nod, as if waiting for my permission to leave me. He goes upstairs and I can hear the distant click of the stove's dial turning, as well as the rush of water as he fills a pot.

Deaton had given me some spare reishi he had at the clinic before I left so I could make tea with it. It helped to soothe my throat internally, though sadly it did nothing for the actual splotchy bruises.

The only good thing about them was that the woman's gloved hand didn't leave any distinct handprints, and rather the marks appeared like smudges. I could easily write them off as products of a bike crash or fight gone wrong, and everyone who asked me what happened would be none the wiser.

Waiting for Liam made my eyes wander around the expanse of the loft, trying to occupy my time with something. Counting window panes, tracing the outline of the rafters overhead, searching for weird dents and scuff marks on the floor. All of it kept me busy for a while, but it wasn't until I caught sight of the wooden chest beneath my mattress did something really capture my attention.

I finally moved for the first time after attaching myself to the wall, reaching to pull the chest out. The wood scratches against the floor as the wide box is revealed to me. I open the lid, emitting a soft creaking noise from it.

I bring out my old guarded hunting and motocross jacket that I'd laid on top a couple of months ago, the garment blocking the rest of the contents inside. There are different stacks of papers, most of them old letters and mail, and a few physical photographs. There are also books that I couldn't fit on the shelves we had hung up, a few souvenirs from my travels around the world, and then a chunk of rolled gray fabric.

I reach for it, bringing it out to lay it on the ground in front of me, rolling it out flat.

There are different pockets sewn into the fabric, each one housing a knife or dagger. They aren't the full size of my collection, there's still plenty inside the locker unit I have downstairs for the loft, but they're my more favored ones. Or, at least, they used to be.

I didn't want to rely on weapons but I'm sure the masked men we now faced didn't share my same moral dilemma.

Liam's feet make solid thuds against the metal of the staircase as he comes back down. He pauses on the last step when he sees what I'm doing before making his way over. He sits beside me, holding out the steaming ceramic mug for me to take. I stare down at the honey-colored liquid, avoiding his eyes.

"There's nothing wrong with being prepared," he says.

I nod, knowing on some level he was right. There wasn't anything wrong with it, but there was something wrong with needing to seek comfort from a weapon. That's not something in me that I wanted to revert back to.

Things were supposed to be different now, I was supposed to be different, but everything was starting to feel more of the same.

"I knew I'd need them again, I'm not stupid, I just didn't think it would be this soon," I admit, and can't help but wonder if that bittersweet sense of hope I once had would ever return, or if I had to finally accept something like that just wasn't in the cards for me after all.

"Tell me a happy memory," Liam commands, interrupting my brooding. My lips twitch up the slightest bit and I can see how pleased he is with himself at that.

"I saw Stiles faceplant once."

It's only partially a joke. Seeing Stiles embarrass himself brought me a selfish sense of joy. A guilty pleasure, really. It also helps to take my mind off of things, and I know I wouldn't have been able to pull myself out of this moment if it wasn't for Liam. He didn't make the nightmares stop completely, I was positive they would never truly end, but he had a way of making the darkness tolerable.

Liam watches me curiously as I place my mug on the floor, unsure of what I'm doing. He understands a moment later as I begin to move closer to him.

He doesn't touch me at first, giving me the option to keep my space, but when I don't, he wraps his arm around my waist to pull me into him until my back is firmly pressed to his chest. With his other hand, he brushes my hair to one side of my neck before pressing a lingering kiss to my exposed bruised skin.

I let out a content sigh that I hear him chuckle at, but he doesn't pull away. As we sit, I lazily trace over the veins in his arms, feeling him shiver slightly each time my fingertips dragged slowly against him.

"Do you wanna try and go back to sleep?" he murmurs with his lips still against my skin, causing a chill to run down my spine. His arm tightens around me to hold me closer, probably thinking it's because of the cold.

"Can we just stay like this, please?" I ask.

He presses a brief kiss to my temple before answering.

"Anything for you."

The two of us stare outside through the main window of the loft. Because of the city's light pollution, it was impossible to see all of the stars in the sky, but the brighter ones always shined through. The North Star was one of them.

It takes me back to when I was younger, remembering a time when I used to explore the woods around my family's compound for hours. My mother was always distressed because I would stay out until dark, and though she trusted the wilderness around us, she feared my wandering mind would take me too far from home. My father eased her worries, making sure I was always prepared to find my way back to them.

Follow the North Star, my love. Polaris will guide you home, always.

He would say that each time I asked to go off on my own, and each time I would listen. I would search the sky, using the stars to guide me back to them, back home. I would never be lost as long as I had my star.

I find myself looking at Liam at that memory. When things start falling apart and changing, he never does. I can always look to him to find the answer when I'm lost.

"You okay?" he asks, catching me staring at him.

I nod, reaching up to cradle the side of his face, turning him to look at me fully.

"I'm always okay when I'm with you, mon étoile," I whisper.

His brows draw together into pleasant confusion. He's not sure what I've said, but he can tell by the way I've said it that it's something filled with affection.

He intends to ask me to explain it to him, I can see the question forming, but I steal the words from his mouth as I lean upward to kiss him. He hardly needs any time to return it, tilting my head back to deepen our connection as he pleases.

There isn't anything I can think of at this moment except him. He consumes my mind completely and stands guard against every fear and doubt that tries to drag me away.

Liam was my Polaris, my North Star. He brought me back, always.

---

At the sound of the last bell of the school day, I made my way to the campus library.

Scott asked for us to meet him there, hoping we could figure out something more about Tracy. Just because she was gone didn't mean our problems were too. After Liam discovered those holes in the woods, it was a fair assumption to make that we might face another abnormal creature like the Stewart girl.

It was best for us to try and get ahead of that.

Everyone would be there except for Lydia and Liam. The banshee was healing from her surgery, and thanks to hourly updates from Parrish, we knew she was doing fine. Liam on the other hand had plans with Mason tonight that his best friend claimed couldn't be canceled as it was 'unfathomably important to his livelihood and overall existence.

I wasn't upset over his absence since Liam promised once he was done hanging out with Mason, he'd be on his way over to the loft to stay the night again.

My arms were stacked high with books Scott wanted me to bring from home. The pages were filled with stories from hunters of different eras about creatures they encountered, some of them possibly having overlap with Tracy. Our school's mythology and supernatural collection were decent, but it wasn't as thorough as real history.

My pace slows when I near the double doors of the library, finding Stiles and Malia coming toward it from the opposite direction.

Stiles perks up when he sees me, and I'm sure he's eager for us to talk and make sure I don't want to smack him across the face. Since I didn't go to the hospital last night, neither of us had spoken since the station, and it was clear his guilt and my hurt were still looming between us.

"Hey," he says when we near each other.

I ignore him, looking to Malia and the large book in her hands. It was the second edition of our bestiary. The first was a smaller handheld version, but that didn't do the illustrations Lydia did any justice. Her talent for art expanded far beyond sacrificial trees.

That's partially the reason why she held on to both books, keeping them under lock and key in her room. Whenever we encountered a new species, she would get right to it and give us a visual of the creature for future reference.

"You get that from Lydia's?" I ask, and Malia nods.

"We couldn't actually talk to her so I just broke into her house."

I chuckle, though it's forced the tiniest bit. Stiles deflated at the sound as he comes to terms with the fact that I was going to happily pretend like he wasn't here with us, and make him sit in his guilt. Part of me felt bad, though it was only a minuscule sliver of my conscience.

I move to enter the library and Stiles tries to step in front of me. "I'll get the-"

Before he can finish, my spite makes me shove the books I hold into the crook of one arm, balancing part of the stack against my collarbones. Using my free hand, I open the door for myself without his aid.

He lets out a frustrated breath before he joins Malia in following me inside, the three of us searching for Scott and Kira through the scaffolding still set up around the building. We find them in the back corner of the balcony, a smart decision on their part since we didn't want anyone overhearing what we were talking about.

"Did you guys get in to see Lydia?" Scott asks Malia and Stiles when he hears us approaching, ignoring the papers he had been previously staring at before we neared.

"No," Stiles sighs. "I tried using my free period but she's still in the ICU and no one outside family is allowed in."

Malia takes a step forward, placing the bestiary on the table. "We got one thing."

"These, too." I follow her lead, dumping the various novels and journals in my grasp before taking the seat across from Scott. It was a relief not to have to lug those around anymore.

Stiles tries to take the chair next to me, but I swiftly intercept him by placing my backpack there first. He clenches his jaw as he claims the next seat over, not bothering to argue about it.

"Anything here about half-werewolves, half-kanimas?" Kira gestures to the pile of literature in front of us, her words having a hint of sarcasm. She reaches for the bestiary, flipping to a random page inside, searching for nothing in particular.

"The Chimera," Scott states, making us all look at him.

"Uh, what?" Stiles asks.

"Chimera. It's a creature made of incongruous parts, and if Liam said he found two burial sites, it means Tracy's not the only one."

"Who's the second chimera?" Kira vocalizes what Scott was hinting at, making him nod.

"And why would they bury them?" Stiles adds.

"Deaton thinks it's part of their process," Scott replies, and the mention of his boss makes me stiffen.

I hadn't been the one to tell Deaton about the holes in the woods, which meant he and Scott definitely talked last night. I'm sure Deaton didn't break his word and tell Scott about what we theorized, because Scott would definitely be having a different reaction to me right now, but it still made me tense.

I did my best to calm down, not wanting to supernaturals around me to pick up on anything, especially Malia. If she sensed the slightest unease from me, she'd blurt it out and force me to lie to everyone, and I didn't want to do that.

In fact, I'd spend a good portion of today trying to figure out a way to tell Scott and the others that his Alpha spark had created a sort of currency over my soul. Not the easiest thing to explain though, in my defense, but I knew I had to come up with a plan before Deaton got back.

The moment he returned to Beacon Hills, I was sure he would confess everything to Scott and continue raving about keeping me protected. In some way, I was flattered because I knew it meant he cared for me, but the less rational part of my brain hoped Deaton would come back with selective amnesia.

"The people in masks," Malia murmurs, though we all hear it in the confined space.

Scott and Stiles share a doubtful glance because they still don't believe her story. Understandable on some level, I guess.

"But a chimera? I mean... that's a bit much, right?" Kira asks. Her hesitancy is fair, all things considered. Though there was a time when I would've had the same resistance over believing in a kitsune.

"Have you heard of one?" Scott asks me.

"I know about the myth of Bellerophon. The Chimera he faced had the head of a lion, with the body and head of goat, and the tail of a serpent, but I've heard some people say it was a dragon."

The four seniors around me hold blank stares, staring at me with almost dumbfounded expressions. Apparently, they could buy into werejaguars, but a dragon was too far-fetched?

I let out a brief sigh before tracing my finger over the spines of the books in front of me, stopping when I reached one bound in red leather. I pick it out from the stack and quickly flip through the pages until I spot the familiar myth of The Chimera, hand-drawn depictions of the story resting on the withered ink-smudged page.

I lay it out on the table, allowing all of them to lean forward in their seats as they stare at the image of a muscular man with golden brown skin riding on the back of a white-winged horse.

"According to the story I know, The King of Lycia commanded the champion Bellerophon to kill The Chimera, but since he didn't know exactly how to do that, he went to a seer. They told Bellerophon that in order to triumph, he'd need to ride on the back of Pegasus."

"The horse with wings?" Stiles cuts in, and for the first time today, I make eye contact with him, my expression stiff with annoyance.

"Yeah. The horse with wings," I repeat in a monotone voice.

He purses his lips and nods sheepishly, and then it's his turn then to avoid my eyes.

I face the others again, continuing the story. "The goddess Athena gifted Bellerophon a golden bridle, and with it, he tamed Pegasus and rode it to fight The Chimera."

My hand turns the page, showing the others the depiction of the battle. Bellerophon straddled the back of his steed, riding it through the valley of a steep cavern that The Chimera stood at the bottom of. The page was scratched with red and yellow pencils to create the flames that were being expelled from the lion's mouth.

"It tried to burn Bellerophon down but Pegasus flew away from the flames. When he saw his opening, Bellerophon thrust a lead-tipped spear into the mouth of the lion. The heat melted the lead, so The Chimera consumed it and died,"

"Some Greek hunters consider Bellerophon the first hunter because of it," I add as an afterthought.

"I thought the Argents were the first hunters?" Kira questions, and the others mirror her confusion.

"They established the code and created the first kingdom, but they weren't the first hunters," I clarify. "Depending on what region a hunter is raised in, there's a different story, but they always followed a similar structure of Bellerophon and The Chimera. It's about one person triumphing over evil."

The various books in front of us held multiple examples of that.

There was Saint George and the Dragon, The Maid and The Beast of Gevaudan, or Oedipus and the Sphinx. Each of them was different in their own right, but at their core, they were about one ordinary person becoming more than they once were. Becoming a hero.

Some days I would recount those tales to Liam when he came over to the loft, the two of us doing nothing but laying in my bed from sun up to sun down. He loved history, so he could listen to me for hours on end as I told him the same stories I'd grown up with even though they weren't always complete.

Those days were always my favorites. The days when it was just the two of us.

"Tracy wasn't evil," Kira whispers sadly.

That was the one difference between us and myth. The lines between morals weren't so easily drawn.

"What about the people that made her?" Stiles mutters, tension growing between us. Even if he didn't believe in the masked men, Stiles was smart enough to know Tracy wasn't a natural creature.

"We should look through all of this and mark anything that even resembles what's happening to Tracy. And anything that can help us stop another person like her," Scott instructs.

I nod along, agreeing to his plan. It would help to note anything that had even the slightest overlap with Tracy's condition, as well as anything related to ghostlike masked men. They would appear again, it wasn't a matter of if, but when.

We definitely had our work cut out for us.

"Why can't we just study The Chimera?" Malia frowns. I doubted she enjoyed adding more work to the already existing pile of senior assignments they had.

"A chimera isn't specific to the original culmination of breeds anymore, the name fits any composite creature. Like a griffin or a manticore," I explain.

From the corner of my eye, I see Stiles twitch at the mention of those bizarre creatures. He wants to ask me if they're real or if I've actually seen them, but he catches the very obvious hint that I don't want to speak with him right now, and directs his attention to his hands.

"We're gonna be here all night, aren't we?" Kira asks rhetorically, her expression already exhausted.

"Not like I got any plans." I shrug as I reach for one of the vintage journals in front of me. The others follow my lead, all of us settling in for the long night ahead.