...

Noah stands in front of his corkboard in his office which holds Tracy's and Lucas' pictures. He uses a red marker to cross them both out. "Chimeras." He says aloud.

"Two dead chimeras." Stiles ammends.

"And eight new ones." Malia adds.

"10 in total." Y/n finishes.

"I'm thinking maybe 11." Noah pins Donovan's picture next to Lucas. Y/n glances at Stiles as he looks down at his feet. "Our station tech guys confirmed something for me. They said, both the holding cell lock and cameras could have malfunctioned because of something electromagnetic." He reaches over and picks up the green colored book. "You said that, uh, these guys-"

"Dread Doctors." Malia says.

"Are we really calling them that?"

"Well, that is their name." Y/n shrugged lightly.

"So they broke Donovan out?" Malia guessed.

"It's how they got into Eichen, isn't it?" Noah asked.

"Donovan's a chimera."

"Yep." Noah nodded as Malia walked over, the older Stilinski turning as she stood beside them and they both looked at Donovan's photo together. "But... Is he a failure like Lucas and Tracy?" Y/n watched in concern as Stiles turned around and took a few steps away.

"If he is, he's probably dead." Malia picked up the marker to cross his picture out as well, but Noah lightly grabbed her wrist to stop her.

"Not until I've seen a body."

"You won't see a body either way." Y/n spoke up, trying to fill in Stiles' silence. "If he's alive, then he's hiding. If he's dead, then his body has already been taken."

Noah turned around, slightly nodding in agreement, yet he was still reluctant to believe Donovan was dead. His eyes then went to his son, noticing his silence despite Y/n's attempts. "You're uncharacteristically quiet." He pointed out.

Stiles turned around to see him and Malia looking towards him. "Sorry, I'm, uh... I'm just trying to think about it." He lied. "These are all teenagers, right? So, now shouldn't we be trying to figure out why these teenagers? If the Dread Doctors, if they went through all that, burying them, killing them, breaking one of them out of jail-"

"They couldn't have been chosen at random."

"They had to have something in common." Malia said.

"Something that made them right for this experiment."

"Something that made them special." Stiles added.

"All we need to do is figure out what the common denominator is." Y/n said.

...

The pack and Theo all stood in Scott's house, looking down at the six copies of The Dread Doctors, five of them courtesy of Kira and the library printer. "My mom's book club usually has more wine." Lydia said.

"Well, they also probably didn't read books that cause violent hallucinations." Stiles quipped.

"That's why Malia's here." Scott said.

"So none of us go running into traffic?" Kira asked.

"Or worse."

"Like what happened to Judy." Everyone looked to Malia in question, so she elaborated. "Chapter 14."

Lydia picked up the original copy of the book. "Maybe I should have my mother read it. She might remember a girl with a tail leaping off the ceiling and attacking everyone."

"Yeah, if it works." Stiles said in mild skepticism.

"It has to."

"Why does it have to?" Y/n wondered.

"I think I saw them during my surgery. When I look at the cover of the book... It's almost like..."

"A memory trying to surface." Theo finished for her.

"Yeah."

"Isn't that what Valack wanted when he wrote it?" Kira asked to which Malia nodded.

"If they did something to me, I want to know what it is." Y/n glanced down at the book's cover, rubbing the back of her neck as the others each grabbed one of the printed copies before she reached down and grabbed one for herself. They all settled down around the McCall living room and flipped to Chapter 1.

After a few hours they are all still reading, some having more difficulty than others. Theo glances around the group, eyes stopping on Y/n as she rubs at her temple with a furrowed brow. She's making much slower progress than the others, having to stop almost every few sentences as a migraine started to creep up on her. "Anyone feeling anything yet?" Scott asked.

"Tired." Kira said.

"Hungry." Lydia added.

"I think he meant the book." Theo pointed out with an amused tone.

Y/n sighed as she closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the chair, giving her eyes a little break and her head a chance to stop stabbing itself. She idly listened to the sounds going on around her until Malia pouring coffee caught her attention. Malia looked at Stiles as he rubbed his shoulder. "What did you do to your shoulder?" She asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"I can smell the blood. What happened?"

"Jeep died on me again. I went to check the engine, the hood fell on it." Stiles lied easily, using the excuse Y/n had made for him again. Malia listened for an uptick to signal that he was lying, but his heart remained steady, so she believed him. "So, how much, uh, how much do you remember anyway? With the accident, did it play like a movie in your head or was it like being completely in it again?"

Malia thought for a moment. "In it."

"Was it just the crash? Nothing else?"

"Nothing." Malia also lied. She actually remembered someone shooting at the car, making her turn out of fear and causing the accident. Only two people knew besides Malia. Theo and Y/n. Theo had been there when the memory hit her, but she herself had gone to Y/n to talk about what she had seen. Her reasons for finding the Desert Wolf were now changed. She now wanted to kill the woman who killed her family. She couldn't tell the others, especially not Scott, because they would just try to talk her out of it, but Y/n was different. Y/n didn't think killing her was a good idea either, but at least she didn't try to convince her otherwise. Malia knew Y/n could understand what she was feeling, if only a little bit, that's why Malia felt comfortable telling her sister about everything.

Y/n cracked open an eye as Kira sighed, watching as she dog-eared the page she was on and leaned over to close her eyes. "You're not giving up, are you?" Scott asked.

"Just resting my eyes." Kira claimed before turning off that lamp above her.

Soon after that she had fallen asleep so Scott took her up to his room and laid her on his bed. He joined the others and they continued reading, but that didn't last long as, one-by-one, they all fell asleep, leaving only Theo and Y/n awake. Although the witch was verging on sleep like the others. Theo saw her wince in pain again, leaning her head back on Stiles' chest from her spot between his legs on the floor, as she tried yet again to rub the pain away. Theo crouched in front of her with a look of concern. "You okay?" He asked in a whisper, not wanting to wake the others.

"Yeah. I've just got a very persistant migraine. It seems to get worse every time I try to read." She answered in a soft tone.

"Maybe you should stop? I mean, if it's that bad, maybe it's a good idea if you just put it down."

She lightly frowned at him, the idea seeming to make a bit of sense to her. Something in her pain riddled mind telling her to listen, to stop reading the book. "Yeah. That's probably a good idea." She agreed, not noticing the smirk that crept onto Theo's face as she set the book aside and snuggled closer in Stiles' hold.

...

The next morning none of them had gotten a memory yet, although Kira and Y/n both have yet to finish. The kitsune having trouble actually reading it, and the witch having a strange aversion to finishing it, although neither of them told anyone about it. "What if we need some kind of trigger?" Scott theorized as he, Stiles, Y/n, and Kira entered the school. "Wasn't Malia driving when she rememberd the crash?"

"Yeah, but how are we supposed to trigger a memory that we don't remember?" Stiles asked.

"Maybe it's a delayed thing. Maybe you have to wait a couple hours to see what happens."

The lights flickered overhead causing them to stop and look up. Kira watched as the boys slowly turned to her, a silent question in their eyes. Y/n just gave them an amused look. "That wasn't me. I swear." Kira defended herself.

"We keep an eye on each other today, okay?"

"Yes, and keep an eye out for eight other potentially homicidal chimeras." Stiles said.

"And keep an eye out for the Dread Doctors." Kira added. Scott put a hand on her back as they split off from the other couple.

"Starting to see the appeal of a third eye." Stiles called after them, making Y/n cringe in distaste.

The first one to get a memory was Lydia. She had followed Sydney out of AP Biology, suspecting the girl could be a chimera when she saw some of Sydney's hair fall out into her hand. But the hair loss was due to stress, the pressure in being in the hardest classes in school taking it's toll on her over the past few years. When Lydia asked to see the spot, suggesting she might be able to help, she was hit with the memory of following her mother into Eichen House. Natalie was knelt beside a tub, blood mixed with water running into the drain. Natalie was looking in horror as she tried to call Lorraine's name, the older woman having drilled a hole into her own head, before she noticed Lydia at the door and yelled at her that she told the girl to stay in the car. Lydia came to with Scott and Y/n's concerned gazes in view, her mother soon following to check on her.

The second person to get a memory was Scott. He was bringing his Student Course Drop Form to his AP Biology class, deciding that the situation with the Dread Doctors was more pressing than the class. When Mrs. Finch was asking him about why he was deciding to drop out he said that it was too much time and too much work. As she continued to tell him she didn't think he should drop out his lungs started to tighten up on him. His asthma attack kept him from breathing properly as his memory came to him. He was being rushed to the hospital for a severe asthma attack that was triggered when a german shepard attacked him and his dog, Roxy. He still held the bloody leash as the nurses pushed him in a bed through the hopital, his mother by his side. Mrs. Finch tried to ask Scott where his inhaler was, but when he was unresponsive she called to the students hovering by the door to find one. One of them had run out to the field where Liam was practicing, yelling for anyone with an inhaler. Liam rushed to the class with one in his hand, having to shift his eyes and lightly growl to get Scott to come to again and use the puffer.

...

Lydia, still trying to figure out what she had seen during her surgery, brought Y/n and Stiles with her to the hospital. "Okay, then what are we doing here if you've already had your suppressed memory?" Stiles asked as the three climbed out of Lydia's car.

"It wasn't the right memory. I remembered my grandmother in Eichen House. There was nothing to do with the surgery, nothing to do with the Dread Doctors. So, if I've read the book, why don't I have the full memory of my experience with them?"

"I'm not supposed to know that, am I?"

"It might be because it wasn't your experience." Y/n suggested making Lydia pause in her walking to think.

"So, maybe it has more to do with me being a banshee." Y/n nodded as the things clicked in Lydia's mind. "It's not my memory. It's someone else's." With renewed vigor Lydia led the charge into the hospital where they found an empty operating theater, only lit up by a few backup bulbs. "Can you turn the lights on?" Lydia asked Stiles.

He looked around as she wandered further into the room and quickly found the light switch, yet nothing happened when he flicked it. "Uh, not going on."

Lydia sighed. "Ask someone."

"Hey, I thought this was more of an auditory thing."

"I still want to see what I'm hearing."

"Makes sense." He said sarcastically before he left to room. He found Melissa and asked about the lighting situation. She told them they had been having issues with it for the last hour so that floor was currently left with backup lighting. He was left to go back to the girls in defeat.

Lydia continued to look around the room, Y/n watching her from her perch against the wall by the doors, when she heard a steady beeping from the heart monitor. She slowly walked over to it, the line on the screen remaining steady. She leaned closer to it, the quiet whispers parting to reveal a deep, almost metalic sounding voice.

Hayden. Hayden. Hayden. Hayden. Hayden.

A vision soon came to her, the complete memory that she had picked up. Another teenager, a junior named Josh, was strapped down, the Dread Doctors hovering over him with various tools. He was shaking in fear, begging them not to hurt him. The Surgeon used a tool to peel back a section of skin on the right side of Josh's ribs, revealing a deep blue mass underneath, pulsing with lighter blue electricity. "Your condition worsens." The Surgeon claims.

...

Stiles' memory came to him when he was on the elevator, the doors closing after he boarded it. A woman stood in the corner, donned in a hospital gown and her brown hair shielding her face from view. She got off of the elevator when the doors opened again and Stiles followed her with wide eyes, recognizing his mother. He followed her up to the roof where he found her standing near the edge. She didn't react when he called out to her, and then Noah was there, going up to his wife and gently asking what she was doing up there. She said she couldn't be in the room anymore, especially without 'him' looking at her a certain way. She claimed that 'he' was trying to hurt her, was trying to kill her, and she didn't care if Noah believed her or not. Noah, in a soothing voice, assured her that that wasn't true, that she had to remind herself that it was the dementia giving her delusions and made her believe that people were out to get her. She again insisted that Noah didn't see the way 'he' looked at her and was trying to kill her, despite Noah reminding her that 'he' was only 10 years old. Stiles wiped away the tears that started to spill down his cheeks, pausing when he saw his shadow was much smaller than it should of been. Claudia turned to him, demanding he stop looking at her before she charged and started to hit him.

The memory faded into reality and Stiles realized it wasn't his mother attacking him now, it was Josh, another chimera. Stiles was cornered as Josh kept hitting him, only for the chimera to be pulled back. Theo, shifted and growling, held Josh's arm back before he punched him away. After trading a few blows Theo was thrown to the ground and Josh stepped on his hand. Theo soon got back up and hit him away again. The chimera came back, going for a swing only for Theo to catch his arm, punching him in his stomach a few times and grabbing his throat. In one swift movement Theo clawed out Josh's throat, and he fell to the ground choking on his own blood.

"Stiles." Theo called, the boy having witnessed the whole ordeal and looking at the now dead teen in horror. "You can't say anything. Please, don't say anything." Theo seemed to beg.

"Why not?" Stiles countered.

"Because I never said anything about Donovan."

~~~
Published: 5/18/22