hold me closer

17

"Oh, my," said Lydia. I looked down at her phone. There were many missed calls from Stiles.

"Just wondering," I began. "Stiles has always said he liked you. I know Malia and him are dating now, but if they weren't... Do you feel anything towards him?"

"I'm done with boys," Lydia said as she texted Stiles. I gave her a look. "I'll move on when you move on."

Stiles called her. Lydia picked up. Stiles and Malia had gone to Lydia's family lake house. They found something behind the wall. It was a large machine of some sort.

"You see it?" he asked as he showed the machine. "There's got to be a way to turn it off, right?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I don't know anything about computers from the 1970s."

"Neither do we," Malia voiced.

"Okay, where's the monitor?" I asked.

"Lu, there is no monitor," he informed, walking away from it. "There are buttons, spindles. No monitor."

"Wait!" Lydia told him. "Turn the phone back. Point it at the carpet."

"The what?" he asked.

"The floor! Just show me the floor," she requested. He showed the carpet. "Where's the stain? There should be red blotches, a wine stain."

"There's nothing," Stiles told her.

"That doesn't make sense," Lydia said. She looked at me and I shrugged. "I gave the five hundred dollars I was supposed to use to hire cleaners to Brunski."

"Lydia, what the hell does wine have to do with anything?" Stiles asked, confused.

"Red wine doesn't just disappear," she said. "Unless it wasn't wine."

"What? What do you mean?"

"The ashes weren't ashes. The study isn't a study. The record player isn't a record player. So... So, maybe the wine wasn't wine. Stiles, you have to find the wine. Find the bottle. There could be something about it."

"What kind? What's it called?" Stiles asked.

"It's a 1982 Cotes du Rhone," she said.

"Hey," I began as Lydia put her phone away. "Why don't you go talk with Meredith? I have to check on Alex. They were hiding some of Satomi's pack."

"Yeah, I'll call you later," Lydia said and I took off with Olivia.

We arrived at Argent Arms International. We entered the building and found where everyone else had been. I found Alex amongst them. I ran towards him, embracing him in a hug.

"God, what happened?" I asked, looking around at everyone. "It looks like a world war."

"Well, the good thing is we're safe," said Scott as he walked towards us with Kira.

"The assassins surrendered," Alex explained. "Is it really over?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "It is. Finally. Where's Derek?"

"Right here," he said, walking up to us. "What is it?"

"I need to speak to you," I told him, walking away. "Privately."

"What is it?" Derek asked, crossing his arms.

"It's about Peter," I explained. "Your family is one of the very few I can't look into easily. But, at the sheriff's station, Peter used his claws to look into Meredith's memory and I went in with him when I touched him. When he pulled out of it, there was a split moment when he was vulnerable and I was in his memory."