Stiles loaded things into the jeep while Scott packed a few clothes. They were almost ready to leave town, save for a few last minute assurances. Stiles had everything checked and double-checked when he went to Steve Taylor's garage, and they were right: the jeep was essentially brand new. Stiles was just overly anxious about taking it down to New Mexico.

Scott hustled down the stairs, ready to dart out of the house when he was stopped in his tracks. Before him stood Liam, hands wringing and reeking of anxiety. Scott wasn't sure how to approach him.

"They're alive," Liam bravely started. "I mean the chimeras. Some of them, not all of them."

All Scott really could do in response was nod. "I know."

"Oh, you do?"

"Yeah." Suddenly the duffel grew heavier. "I-I'm sorry, I can't talk right now, Liam."

"I-it was Theo," Liam continued, and Scott wasn't entirely sure why. "He's the one who brought them back, and now they're with him. Like they're his pack."

"I know." Scott skirted around his beta and headed for the back door when Liam stopped him once again.

"Hayden's one of them."

Scott froze, and turned around, eyes wide. "She's okay?"

"She's alive," Liam admitted. "I'm not sure she's totally okay, but she's definitely alive."

"That's good."

"Where are you guys going?"

"To get Kira," Scott answered, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. He was itching to hit the road, and talking to Liam wasn't making the situation any better. "Her dad told us that her mom took her out to New Mexico to this place called Shiprock. They're trying to figure out a way to help her, but it's dangerous. So we're gonna go find her and bring her back."

"I'll come with you," Liam volunteered.

"Nah, you can't." And there it was. The denial Liam had feared was finally in the open.

"Let me help," He tried again, slightly more desperate. "Let me do something. Just - just tell me what I can do."

Out of hurt and fear, Scott replied back, "Don't do anything." He left Liam in his own house and headed out to the jeep, where Lydia was reading a book and Stiles was going over a mental checklist of his engine despite everything being completely fine.

"So what'd he want?" Stiles asked when he heard the screen door shut.

"To help."

"Are you going to let him?" Lydia asked, tucking away her book in her bag and leaning out the window.

"Eventually, I guess."

"Okay, but shouldn't he be a little higher on your priority list, right now? I mean, since he's the only other actual werewolf, your only actual beta?"

"You didn't see the way he came at me," Scott argued. "You didn't see the look in his eyes."

"Well, I've been with you on a full moon," Stiles reasoned. "So, I've seen that look. If you wanna get the band back together, Scott, you don't leave out the drummer." He slammed the hood of the jeep back down and ran over to start the car. With ease, the hum of the engine was brought to life, and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

Scott and Stiles both walked around to their respective doors and began to climb inside while Lydia shifted to the backseat and began to push the things out of the way to make herself more comfortable. She buckled her seatbelt and when she stared forward, she watched as Stiles wrapped a necklace around the rearview mirror. Scott watched along with her, and the cabin grew quiet.

"Isn't that June's?" Lydia asked quietly.

Stiles sighed, staring at the piece of jewelry. "Yeah... yeah I got it for her for her birthday and she left it at my house, so... It feels only fair that she should come with us. She fixed the jeep after all." A solemn silence followed his statement, and Stiles pulled out of the driveway.

A good hour had passed, and Lydia had finally succumbed to exhaustion first. It was easy: driving south and passing all the city lights made Lydia's eyes droop.

When she awoke, she was in a familiar hallway. However, the last time she had been down this hallway was when she was being pursued by the Dread Doctors, and Dr. Gabriel Valack asked her to record her scream. Last time she was down here, June was with her, body and mind. Instead, she was walking towards what she knew was just a shell of her friend.

Turning into a cell, her eyes welled up with tears as she gazed down at her friend. Her condition hadn't changed a bit, and June was still stuck with her eyes wide open and unseeing. She didn't move from her position, it was honestly a miracle that she was even breathing.

"Creepy, huh?" Lydia let out an exclamation of surprise as June spoke from beside her. Turning to face her, Lydia noticed June was donned in the same outfit that the real June was wearing, which was basically just a standard set of clothes from Eichen. She wore a bathrobe over them, and nothing on her feet.

"Jesus, June."

"Sorry, still kind of new to this whole thing, I guess."

"Is this really you?"

June pursed her lips, "You mean am I really lying in a bed like this down in the closed unit of Eichen House? Yeah, pretty much."

"If your body's here, why aren't we in New York? Why aren't we in that safe space your magic created for you?"

"About that, I don't mean to be one of those people who rolls out the whole 'Previously on' segments, but this situation completely calls for it. Do you remember when we were at the penthouse and I was basically holding back all the vomit in the world because it smelled so bad?" Lydia nodded. "Well it turns out that that smell was Meredith."

"Meredith?"

"Meredith. She was in my guest bathtub covered in this black goo and basically crawled out asking for you."

Lydia raised her eyebrows, "For me?"

June stepped to the side and was shown a looming figure behind the both of them. Meredith Walker was in fact standing there, fully cognizant of the two girls standing in the cell.

"What are you-?"

"You need my help, Lydia."

"W-what do you mean?"

"I mean if we're going to save all of your friends, you're going to need my help."

"How are we going to do that? Actually, back up, how are you here?" Meredith and June both started walking out of the cell that housed the real June and down the hallway of the closed unit. The jaunt didn't last very long, two cells down sat Meredith, staring at nothing in a chair.

"She basically forced herself into my little meditation bubble by scaring the bejesus out of me first, thank you so much for that," June explained and turned to Meredith in afterthought. "I can't ignore the reality anymore, we've been waiting for you to fall asleep or something, just trying to reach you. Meredith wants to help you."

"How?"

"I'm going to teach you how to use your voice." A giant crash sounded, and all three of them were back out in the hallway. Lydia approached the end of the hall, the place where Dr. Valack had been staying to see the glass wall was shattered. She stepped into the glass, hearing it crunch under her shoes, and Lydia stared keenly, waiting for some answer to magically appear.

"Do you know how he did it?" Suddenly both Meredith and June were inside the cell, the glass wall repaired and separating them from Lydia. "Do you know how he escaped?"

"He put the recorder in the cup to amplify my voice," She answered.

"It didn't just amplify your voice, it gave it direction. Focus." Out of nowhere, Meredith pulled out the recorder and cup. She placed it in the cup and onto the glass wall as she continued. "Valack used your scream as a tool by focusing it. If you're going to use it as a weapon, you need to learn to do the same thing." Lydia and June both watched in awe as the scream fractured the glass and splintered into shards that fell to the ground once more.

"Shattered like my relationship," June quietly mumbled, and everyone looked to her with eyebrows raised. She shrugged, suddenly sheepish, "Just trying to make light of a shitty - Lydia you're suddenly sweating like a pig."

Indeed she was. Lydia wiped at her brow and looked at her now damp hand. Fanning herself off, she brushed her hair back off her shoulders and stood there. Meredith and June just looked at her in confusion.

"We must be getting closer to the desert."

"The desert? Why would you need to go there?"

"Kira's there. Her dad told us that her mother took her to Shiprock, some place in New Mexico. Something about skinwalkers?"

June nodded, pacing the floor and ignoring the pieces of glass that she stepped on in the process. "That's a huge gamble her mother would take. I wish I could help you guys in some way."

Lydia simply shook her head in attempt to alleviate some of her friend's anguish, "It's not your fault you're stuck here." She felt drops of sweat start to fall from her face. June looked on in concern.

"Okay, if you're driving to the desert, why don't you just crank the AC or something?"

"It's Stiles' jeep, the thing doesn't have AC..." Lydia trailed off at the look on June's face.

"It's fixed, then?"

"Yeah. Stiles mentioned you got it fixed for him."

"Yep, right before he broke up with me." Meredith, who had watched the two intently, took that as her cue to quietly leave the girls be for a moment. "I mean I get that that's not the reason he did, it just kind of sucks that I couldn't be there to get it with him."

"He has your necklace, you know," June's eyes narrowed in confusion. Lydia elaborated, "He said he got it for your birthday, and you left it at his house. He wrapped it around his rearview, saying it was his way of bringing you with us-"

"Stop." June hated how much it still hurt. She hated that she still felt those words like they were freshly told to her: Well, I don't need you. She hated how she still felt touched that he missed her, that maybe it was a mistake. But people don't say those things and then say nothing to take it back if they weren't true. She hated how she still loved him endlessly, despite the words he said. "Just stop, please. I'm done, I don't-"

"You find anything yet?"

"What the hell was that?" Lydia asked as the voice's echo died out around them. The sound reverberated through the hallways of Eichen, it seemed.

"I think you're waking up," June sniffled, cringing as she recognized Stiles' voice.

"Mostly the same stuff we already knew," This time it was Scott's voice. June mouthed his name as she tried to listen. "Damnatio memoriae was an ancient Roman practice..."

"Damnatio memoriae..." June trailed off, before her eyes snapped over in realization to Lydia, whose vision grew blurry.

"I'm coming back here, do you understand, June?"

"Lydia, wait, I can help!"

Lydia inhaled deeply, waking up with a start. Indeed the windows of the jeep were open, not helping air out the heat much. Both Scott and Stiles stared at her from the front seats, in slight confusion as to why she woke up so dramatically.

Scott turned back to the book he had in his hand. "So like I was saying, damnatio memoriae was a Roman practice, 'a government decree to destroy the images of the damned. And they would scratch off their names from inscriptions, chisel their face off of statues. The Romans believed it was a punishment worse than death'."

"Being forgotten," Stiles added, taking frequent glances back at Lydia, who looked as though she was suffering some kind of inner turmoil. Either that or the heat was getting to her.

"Listen to this: 'Damnatio memoriae was later used on a serial killer in 1598, known as the Demon Tailor. He lured children into his shop in Paris, where he would kill them, and boil the flesh off their bones to eat. The courts believed the crime so horrible, that they ordered all the documents destroyed. To this day, no one knows his real name'."

"So the Dread Doctors resurrected a killer who was so bad that he literally had to be erased from history," Stiles flatly summarized.

"A killer that became a werewolf."

"Which probably made him a better killer. That's great."

Behind them, Lydia was downing a water bottle, trying to comprehend what June had told her. She'd been trying to reach June somehow, and was coming up unsuccessful until now. Lydia was beginning to believe that it had simply been a dream, despite June telling her otherwise. Now, Lydia knew they were real. June's still there, trying to help.

"Lydia, are you okay?" She stared back at Scott, who had turned to look at her. Stiles was pulling off to the side of the road so that he could rest for a bit while Scott took the wheel. Lydia simply nodded.

"Just dehydrated, is all." She wondered if she should be keeping secrets from him. He tilted his head, hearing the skip in her heartbeat, but was cut off by Stiles literally cutting the engine. The two of them walked around the jeep and climbed back in, and were quickly back on the interstate.

"Have either of you talked to Malia?" Scott asked. Both Stiles and Lydia shook their heads.

"She's not talking to me," Stiles answered first. "Or anyone, I guess."

"I think I know why," Scott ventured, and the other two in the car listened in. "I think she found her mother."

"Her mother, as in the desert wolf?"

"Yeah."

Stiles grimaced, "I knew it. I knew she was still looking. She erased her name off my board, but I just - I knew she hadn't stopped."

"When I was at her house, I'm pretty sure Braeden was there, too."

"Braeden?" Lydia asked. "What, did you catch her scent?"

"Actually, it was her motorcycle. I could smell her exhaust."

"What the hell do you think they're gonna do?" Stiles thought aloud.

"Something Malia doesn't want to tell us about, so probably something bad."

He turned over to see Scott with a familiar expression. He rolled his eyes, "Oh my god, you already know, don't you? It's like - it's the chemosignals, right?"

Scott nodded, gripping onto the steering wheel tighter, "Aggression."

"How much?"

"I think she's gonna kill her. She's gonna kill her mother."

There was a tense silence when Scott dropped that bombshell. To make matters worse, sitting in that tension made Lydia drop another.

"I've been talking to June," She whispered, but it was loud enough for the boys to hear it. It was a good thing Scott was driving, for if it had been Stiles, he would've slammed on the brakes.

"Come again?" Stiles asked, fully turning around to face Lydia.

"I've been talking to June."

"She's awake? She - she's okay?"

"No, no it's not like that," She noticed his crestfallen appearance, "Not yet, anyway. Somehow, I wound up in her head. And then in Eichen with her, still inside her head."

"I'm sorry, in her head?"

"How did you get in her head?" Scott kept his eyes on the road, but was listening intently.

"It's not an impossibility," Stiles mentioned. "She's been in your head before. Remember when we tried to lure the benefactor with your almost dead body? She was in your dream somehow." He turned back to Lydia, "What did she say?"

Lydia paused, trying to remember, "She wishes she could help us in some way. I talked to her in Eichen because I guess Meredith was there. We were going over how Valack escaped, how I could use my scream to my advantage. The last time we talked, though, she was trying to talk to Ginny. I think I just happened to cross paths with her somehow."

"How?"

"I was the last person she talked to before she went to do whatever it was that ended up with Theo attacking her. Maybe I was still fresh in her mind."

"Is she okay? I mean - has she said anything?" Stiles' concern was endearing, but Lydia wasn't sure if she should mention how June basically refused to talk about him whenever they spoke.

"She didn't know she was catatonic. She hardly remembers anything past Theo digging his claws into her neck. I had to fill her in on some of the blanks."

"Is anything wrong, or out of the ordinary?" Lydia gave Scott a pointed look at his question. "I mean besides the fact that she's only talking to you in your head."

"It's not my head, it's hers," Lydia reminded Scott. "Actually, it's this place her magic created in her head."

"Her magic?"

"It's hard to explain, but June said her magic created a safe place for her to retreat to so that she wouldn't self-destruct due to her phenomenal cosmic power."

"And now her head's the itty bitty living space." Stiles sighed, wishing he could help, but at a loss as to how to reach someone who was trapped in their own mind. "What kind of safe space? Did you see?"

Lydia nodded, "It was New York. Only, not quite New York."

"How so?" Scott asked.

"It was completely empty."

Stiles felt himself tense into an upright sitting position. Flashes of memory in the hospital with his dad, how in his sleep he would dream of an abandoned city. How June would always be there to push him out.

"I've seen a city like that in my dreams," Stiles confessed, and Lydia's eyes widened. June hadn't mentioned Stiles being there at all. "Every time I would go, June would always be right there. She'd say something like, 'You shouldn't be here,' or 'You need to leave.'" Stiles gazed at Lydia's sad expression. "Did she ever say anything about me?"

"She remembers the fight you two had," She admitted.

"And?"

"She wouldn't let me talk about you." Quite suddenly, the jeep lurched forward, and everyone's eyes landed on Scott. He ignored the stares burning holes in his head as he glanced at the dashboard.

"Yeah, yeah we're out of gas."

"How? Why didn't we stop?" Stiles was watching as Scott pulled the jeep to the side of the road.

"I might not have been paying attention."

Stiles sighed exasperatedly, and turned back to Lydia, "Lyds, can you grab the fuel can in the back, please?" She handed it off to him and he climbed out of the car. Both Scott and Lydia followed suit.

"There's a gas station back a ways. Probably twenty minutes on foot."

"We'll come with you," Scott insisted, but Stiles shook his head.

"No, to be honest, I'd rather have someone stay with the jeep. It just got fixed, someone's gotta keep an eye on it."

"Then I'll stay," Lydia volunteered. "I'm not particularly keen on leaving the water behind, so I'll watch the jeep." Stiles seemed hesitant, but nodded regardless. Motioning with his head, he led Scott down the road back to the last gas station he had seen. He mentally cursed himself for not bringing any sunscreen or anything of the sort as he began to feel the sun beat down mercilessly on his back, even from it's position low in the sky.

The entire trek there was silent, as the boys were conserving their energy for the hike back to the jeep. It didn't stop them from thinking.

Stiles was consumed by June. She was still a player in the game, and she was talking to Lydia. She had talked to Stiles, regardless of pushing him out, she had spoken to him. Having Lydia explain her encounter made things easier to understand in regards to her situation. June was present, but only in her mind. Otherwise, she was stuck, in the worst way and in the worst place. He was going to visit her regardless of what Ginny said as soon as he got back to Beacon Hills.

He also thought about Scott, and how things seemed to be going between the two of them. It was as though they'd magically healed their friendship. There were still things that needed to be discussed. Stiles knew that the reason they were ultimately driven apart was Theo's doing, but Scott still didn't know the truth behind Donovan. As they approached the gas station, Stiles realized it was now or never. They had to clear the air.

Scott headed straight for a pump while Stiles headed for the convenience store connected to it. Wiggling the doors, he stared down at the large red "Closed" sign and sighed in disbelief. Peering in, he hoped to see someone lurking in the back, perhaps on a break. After a moment of nothing, he called back to Scott, "It's locked."

Scott rattled the chains on one of the pumps and quickly shook it off. He yelled out, "Hey, you got a twenty?" Stiles quickly understood what he was doing and placed a twenty dollar bill that he dug out of his pocket in between the two doors. Making his way back to Scott, he rest his arm on top of the old-fashioned fuel pump and caught his breath while Scott filled it.

"There was a pin." Stiles couldn't take the silence as Scott placed the top back on the gas container once they finished. Scott looked up at him, and immediately realized where this was going. Eagerly, he listened. "Just one, little metal pin attached to the scaffolding. He was trying to pull me down."

Scott stared at him, immediately understanding, "He was trying to kill you."

"Yeah, so then I pulled the pin. And - and all these metal braces came down. One of them just - just went right through him."

"Why didn't you think you could tell me?" Scott was bewildered, it was such a simple story.

Stiles couldn't meet Scott's gaze. "It was just the way you were looking at me that night. You know, you're standing there, with a wrench in your hand, you were looking at me like I'd just bashed you in the head with it. You know, like I'd broken your sacred rule and that's it, there's no going back."

"I know the difference," Scott said softly.

"What?"

"I know what self-defense is." And that was it. The more Stiles thought about it, the more he realized that the knot in his stomach had lessened considerably. Looking back, it was one of the easiest conversations he'd ever had with Scott. There wasn't any debate, there wasn't any hostility, it was simply the two of them reaching the same ground once again in their friendship. They both were to blame, and they both came to terms with it and they both came together to fix it.

*****

Night had fallen, and Stiles had taken his rightful place at the helm of his jeep once more. He knew they were getting close, it was simply difficult to stay focused on the road when he felt like they were the only car driving through this desert to begin with. Scott had nodded off about sixty miles back, and Lydia was reading a book on meditation.

"What exactly is that book for?" Stiles peered at the title through his rearview. Not even glancing up, Lydia flipped a page in the book and kept reading.

"It's for June."

"June?"

"I can't just talk to her in my sleep," she elaborated. "I have to keep trying. I think June's in some form of a meditative state coupled with her catatonia. I figure if I can't reach her the banshee way, maybe I can try it her way. I'm reading about flow states."

"Why not just try hypnosis or something, wouldn't that be easier?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not saying you're not capable, but June's been meditating for years, it's not something you learn overnight."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm just saying, maybe she needs to reach out to you. She's the one with the abilities of an empath, maybe this is all on her."

"How can we help her if it's all on her, then?"

Stiles sighed, running a hand through his hair, "I don't know." He turned his attention back to the road when he saw storm clouds ahead, followed by unusual patterns of lightning. Knowing unusual was usually what they were looking for, Stiles nudged Scott from his sleep. "Scott, take a look at this."

Violently, and quickly, the storm gathered and centered on a group of rocks. It swirled around, and the thunder crashing could be felt all the way from the jeep. Stiles shook his head, "What do you think's happening to her out there?" When Scott couldn't come up with an answer, he shifted gears and pressed down harder on the gas pedal.

Stiles eventually neared the wall of stone, and pulled the jeep over to eye the storm better. Neither Scott nor Lydia were sure enough if they should wait it out or delve in, so Stiles chose the safer of the two options. Lydia went to go stretch her legs and walk around while Scott and Stiles stayed by the jeep.

"I don't know why I believed him," Scott admitted quietly. "I don't know why we didn't just keep talking that night." He shook his head, professing his own guilt that had been simmering over the past week. "Five more minutes, and we would've figured out that there were two different stories. We would've filled a lot of blanks. We should've just kept talking."

"He knew we wouldn't," Stiles hated how much Scott put on his conscience. How much blame he took willingly.

"I didn't want it to happen like this," Scott confessed, and Stiles scrunched his eyebrows.

"Like what?"

"I knew, sooner or later, one of us was gonna get a little to much blood on our hands. I half thought it was gonna be Malia."

"Well she definitely seems like she's working on it."

Scott laughed in appreciation. "I just always thought that if it were to happen, then it should be me. I'm the one who's constantly putting you guys in danger, risking your lives for people you don't even know. It should've been me."

Stiles placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, "Come on, we've only got a few more hours 'til sunrise. Come on, let's go." He turned back towards the jeep, and Scott began to as well, before he was stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, a bright flash of light caught his attention, brighter than the lightning surrounding it.

"Hey, Stiles, do you see that?" Stiles turned back to look at the storm, and saw the flashing light that Scott was staring at. His eyes widened. "It's Kira."

"Lydia!" Stiles began backing away as he shouted at nothing, fumbling for his keys. "Lydia! Lydia, we - ah!" Stiles spun around quickly, realizing that Lydia made it back to the jeep and he had just screamed like a girl. "Lydia, we-"

"You found Kira?" She asked, and Stiles nodded eagerly. Her eyes widened, going back to the jeep door. "What are we waiting for, let's move."

Stiles drove as quickly as he could, ignoring the beautiful sunrise and a few of the traffic laws. He drove as fast as he thought possible towards the storm, which had dispersed a while ago. With the clouds gone, he could gather the appropriate distance that they were, and it was farther than it had looked that night. Not needing to smell chemosignals, Stiles could gather everyone was antsy to get to Kira.

Driving through the canyon was another feeling entirely. Dread encircled them every which way, and after a while, everyone could feel the ground begin to shake underneath.

"Oh my god," Lydia exclaimed as Stiles turned a corner. On one side, Kira and her mother were faced off against three practically naked women. The most alarming thing about them wasn't the spears in their hands, but perhaps that their skin basically appeared as though it was becoming one with the earth itself.

"Skinwalkers," Lydia whispered in awe.

Scott had already unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door by the time Stiles pulled up behind them. He rolled out and by the time he faced the three skinwalkers, his fangs were bared and he flashed his eyes. They seemed slightly tentative, and backed off slightly, but still firmly gripped their spears in their hands, eyes searching for their next target.

"Get in!" Stiles ordered the three of them, waving them inside the jeep. Kira dropped her spear once she recognized Scott, and turned to race back to Stiles. Lydia slid over to the window as she pulled Kira in to sit next to her. Stiles helped Scott into the backseat, and let everyone get settled before slamming the passenger seat back to its normal upright position. Lastly, Noshiko launched herself into the jeep, nearly impaling Stiles with Kira's sword. Stiles hardly noticed, he was too busy driving back along the road they entered through, away from the spear-wielding women.

"Everyone okay?" Stiles panted, looking at Kira's mother. She nodded, relieved that they escaped the creatures who wanted to keep her daughter. It wasn't until they both heard Lydia mutter an uncomfortable "um" did they turn around to face the others. Lydia was smushed up against the window as Scott and Kira were attached at the mouth, desperate to never let each other go.

"You came back for me," Kira was blissful, and in a state of awe at the boy who held her by the face and simply nodded. "I love you. I love you so much."

*****

Stiles knew he'd done a lot of driving, but he didn't think he drove all the way to New York City. Actually, he was sure that he'd made it back to Beacon Hills. The last text he'd gotten was from Scott, something about Theo looking for Deucalion. Now he was on a rooftop, overseeing the great city that held wonder for millions.

"Do you know where you are?" He heard her voice, and he spun around, trying to find her. He suddenly recalled Lydia talking about an abandoned New York, and how it was June's mind.

"I'm in your head," He answered, still scouring the rooftop for her. She was here, it was like she was breathing on the back of his neck.

"Look closer," She instructed. He stared around at the rooftop. Ignoring the view, he noticed the details he'd overlooked. He stood under a small pergola, flowers and vines covering nearly the entire thing. Actually, nearly every edge of the roof was covered in flowers.

"A garden," He muttered. Spinning around one last time, he was soon face-to-face with June underneath the pergola.

"You took me to your spot, it's only fair I take you to mine." She was wearing the exact thing she had been wearing when they had broken up. The only difference was the bandage on her hand and the dried blood that had been dripping from the back of her neck.

"June-" Everything he wanted to say seemed to start with her name. Everything she didn't want to hear seemed to begin with that as well. She flinched, for such affection to still come from him felt wrong. She was trapped in her own head, after all, all she could do was overthink what had happened between them.

"Don't. The only reason you are still here is because we have to talk."

"I thought you were in Eichen the last time Lydia was in your head?"

"I was. This New York is like a home base for me. If things get to be too much, I can come back here to calm down. At least I think that's how it works. There's no actual guidebook to this, so..."

"So then..." Stiles wasn't sure what to say. He had everything to say to her, and nothing all at once. For starters, there was the shouldn't. He regretted saying nothing to her when he should have said it all. "June, I shouldn't-"

"I'm not here to hash anything out with you." Her tone was meticulous, like she was trying not to explode on him in a fit of anger or sadness or anything of the sort. He wanted her to, Stiles hated this distance she was putting in between them. "You're here because of what you're looking into."

"What we're looking into?"

"Damnatio memoriae." She ignored the look of surprise on his face. "Don't ask how I know, I just do. If the Dread Doctors are leaving clues starting with the Latin, then I think I know where you can start looking."

"How?"

"I wrote about something that was punished by means of damnatio memoriae, and if I'm right about it, if it's real, Stiles, we're screwed."

"You wrote about it?"

"In an essay. Look, the details are a little fuzzy, but start with the beast."

"The beast?"

"La bête as it's known in French. I still have the essay, it's in my library somewhere."

"At your house?" June nodded and Stiles sighed. "No one except Ginny's been in your house, June. And Ginny hasn't been talking to anybody."

"I already know that. You have to try."

"How? I don't even know where to start."

She crossed her arms in frustration, "Stiles, I don't care if you break into my house. Get the fucking essay and fucking read it." Stiles was surprised by her outburst, but figured it was the anger coming from elsewhere.

"June-"

"Look, I get that you don't need me anymore, but find the paper. Find the beast." And without anything else said, Stiles was thrown into the darkness of sleep once more.

"I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now... Why?... Oh... CAUSE SHE'S DEAD."

I'M DEAD.

Anyways. Love you all. Unedited. Xx.