THE SWINGING CHORD WHIPPED DOWN TOWARD THE PARKING LOT, and all of their eyes widened as they watched it fall. They all looked at each other before sprinting toward the door and down the stairs. Once they reached the parking lot, they froze when they saw everything that was happening. There was a huge puddle of water around an ambulance, and there was a man lying on the ground, limp. April then noticed another figure lying in the puddle.

"Isaac!" she shrieked, and her first instinct was to run over to him. So, that's what she did, but before she could, two hands grabbed each of her arms. They were different hands — she could tell — so she assumed that Derek and Scott were holding her back because they were also both extremely strong. "Let me go! Isaac!"

The McCall boy pulled her toward him and grabbed her face so that she was looking at him in the eyes. He yelled, "The cord's in the water, April. You'll die if you go in there right now."

"But he's dying! We need to help him!" she screamed in response, but they froze when they saw movement in the water. Kira was standing there with the cord in her hands, and all of a sudden, she started glowing and did something to make the sparks stop flying.

As soon as she saw that it was safe, the blonde was in the water and by the boy's side. Derek came with her as well and as she was shaking him, he listened for a heartbeat or a breath or anything. He muttered, "He's not breathing..." Her heart dropped as soon as she heard the words, and the rest of the world seemed muffled. "Scott, he's not breathing!"

The rest of the night all faded into a kind of haze. April remembered running down the hallway as they carted Isaac off to the operating room. She was stopped at a set of double doors because they needed to take him into surgery. She remembered sitting in the waiting room, staring at her feet until a doctor came out. She remembered him telling her that he could not release any information or let her see him because she was not family. She remembered telling him that he does not have any.

"Have you been here all night?" a voice asked from beside her, and she looked up from where her face was in her hands to see Scott staring down at her with concern in his eyes.

She nodded tiredly. She had been able to sleep, partly because she was worried out of her mind and partly because hospital waiting room chairs were one of the most uncomfortable things in the world. "Yeah. They won't let me see him because I'm not family. I told them he doesn't have any."

"He's got us...And I've got a key card," Melissa informed them, and the blonde girl jumped up immediately, all of the exhaustion momentarily gone from her body. The woman let them into the room. "Be quick."

They nodded at her as she closed the door before turning around to face the boy lying unconscious in the bed. His had burns all the way up the side of his head, and she assumed that it continued down the rest of his body. She walked over to his side and looked sadly down at him.

"I thought he'd be healing by now," she told Scott when she noticed the burns. She reached down and gently brushed the side of his face. He did not move a muscle, which just made her more upset when she remembered the way he would lean into her hand when she placed it on his cheek.

The McCall boy breathed out, "So did I."

"Is he in pain?" the Sharpe girl questioned because the last thing she wanted was for him to be in pain and her to not be able to do anything about it. She wondered if he could hear them or at least sense that they were there.

The werewolf reached over and grabbed his hand before closing his eyes. April furrowed her eyebrows until she saw the black veins running up his arms, signaling that he was taking Isaac's pain. He groaned a little bit, and that made her worry not only for him but for the amount of pain that the unconscious boy must be in to make the other boy react this way.

"It won't heal him, but it helps with the pain," he told her as he released Isaac's hand and turned to her. He was caught off guard when he was met by her throwing her arms around him, causing him to stumble back a little bit, but when he realized what was happening, he embraced her back.

Finally, she pulled away and looked up at him with a questioning expression. "Any word on Stiles?" After they went up to the roof the night before, the cut cord had caused a power surge, and the Stilinski boy had disappeared.

"I don't know," he exhaled, running a hand through his hair. He looked absolutely exhausted, even more than she did. He had a lot on his plate, and she felt bad for adding onto it. "I'm probably going to go talk to his dad later."

"How are we gonna get this thing out of him?" she quizzed, leaning back on one of the tables in the room.

He shook his head because he really had no clue. She had filled him in on what she had learned about the Oni from Katashi and the Nogitsune, but nothing that he said had given them any clue how to stop it other than letting the Oni kill it. There was no way that they were letting that happen. "I'm working on it."

"I'm really scared, Scott," she muttered to him because she was too weak and tired to hide her fear and to stay strong. She glanced between her friend and Isaac who was looking weak, and she struggled to keep the tears from falling.

He sighed and pulled her toward him before wrapping his arm around her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. "I know."

"I hate seeing him like this," she told him, and she was praying that Isaac could hear them and that somehow, he could will himself to wake up. She was too tired to even know what she was thinking. "I need him to be okay, Scott. I need him to wake up."

"Me too," he agreed.

She had never said what she was about to say out loud. She had never really even thought it, but as she thought about how she was feeling and how the aching feeling in her heart was almost unbearable. She thought about how she felt when she saw him smile at her. She thought about how she felt when his skin brushed against hers and made her body tingle. She thought about how she felt when her eyes met his from across the hallway. Once she thought about all this, she came to a realization. "I love him, Scott. I love him, and I really need him to wake up and just be here."

"Hey, hey, hey," he said, stopping her from freaking out anymore. He could not help but smile when he heard her say that she loved Isaac because he and pretty much everyone else had known it the whole time. "He's gonna be okay. He'll pull through. I know it."

"Thank you. I mean it, Scott. Thank you so much for everything."

《❀》

THE HOSPITAL HAD FINALLY OPENED ISAAC'S ROOM to visitors later that day, so April had been in there the entire time. She had not slept in over thirty-six hours or eaten in over twenty-four. That was why she figured she could take a short break from staying with Isaac to go and get a snack from the vending machine.

As soon as she stepped into the hallway, however, it was like she had been transported. She was still in the hospital, but the lights had turned off except for a couple at the ends of the halls still flickering. It was also completely deserted, and the walls seemed to be covered in dirt.

And suddenly, out of the darkness, comes the man with the cloth around his neck. He stepped over a cart that had been knocked over as he approached her. He hissed out, "You can save him, April."

"What?" she questioned, furrowing her eyebrows as she wondered what the hell the thing was talking about. It was so freaking cryptic.

He stopped abruptly, not getting any closer to her unlike when she was dreaming about being at school and he had gotten way too up close and personal. "You can save him."

"Save who?" she asked, but she knew who he was talking about. Isaac. Who else would it be? She just refused to believe that he was or ever would be in any sort of danger. He was going to fine. She had to believe that. She could not give up on him.

The creature already knew that she knew who he was talking about. He just continued, knowing that even though she did not want Isaac to be in danger, she would do anything to save him. "All you have to do is one simple thing."

"I'll do anything," she answered, and this time, it was her taking a step toward him. She was desperate to know what she had to do. Anything at all. She needed to save the person she loved. "What is it?"

"Kill the one who wronged you," he replied simply with a hauntingly glee voice, and she froze in her tracks.

What did he mean? "What?"

"Kill the one that caused you all of that pain and suffering," it repeated, and she saw it smile once again, causing shivers to run down her spine. She knew exactly who he was talking about. Elijah. Of course it was Elijah, the only person in the world that she would actually consider killing. "Kill him."

"I can't kill someone," she scoffed, praying it was some kind of joke. As much as she liked to fantasize about it, there was no way that she was going to be able to actually murder someone, no matter how completely evil and awful they were.

He continued to urge her, to try and convince her that she was capable of doing what he was insinuating. "Yes, you can, April. Think about what he said to us. What he did. Doesn't he deserve to die?"

"No, no. I'm not killing Elijah," she insisted. She refused to turn into someone just as bad as him. She refused to be that person that drives themself crazy because of revenge. She was so close to moving on. She could not turn back now.

The voice echoes throughout the halls as it continued to convince her that it was the only option, that that was all that she could do. "It's the only way you can save your friends, save the person you love."

"There has to be another way," she yelled. There was no way that killing someone was the only way to save someone, right? Everything wasn't a life for a life.

"There isn't, April," it breathed out. "You know what you have to do."

A hand grabbing her shoulder caused her to jump, and she spun around and was met by the kind face of a concerned nurse. She glanced around to see that the hospital was back to normal, and she was standing a couple of feet away from Isaac's door. She woman looked up at her in worry. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you," the blonde girl answered even though she was very very far from fine.