Unbroken ▹ Teen Wolf [02]

45; the L word

The cold November air never felt so good.

Getting out of and away from Eichen House wasn't easy, especially not in her physical state, but Rachel didn't slow down until the asylum was out of sight. She didn't stop entirely until she collapsed on the ground next to her car, when she attempted to kneel down and retrieve her keys that she'd hidden beneath the back tire. Even then, she didn't stay down for long and practically threw herself from the ground into the drivers' seat of the Porsche after reaching with her last bit of strength to open the door.

Rachel sped out onto the main road and floored it towards Beacon Hills, only allowing herself to exhale a sigh of relief when the turn off to Eichen became a small speck in her rearview mirror. Her heart was pounding so fast she couldn't count the beats, but she knew it was a dangerous number, and it wasn't slowing down any time soon.

Even after half an hour, when she finally came to a stop in front of the loft, she was still far from calm. She escaped the psych ward. She escaped the fucking psych ward. She broke a mountain ash barrier, kicked some ass, and she got herself out all on her own. As horrifying as the situation may have seemed to an outsider, Rachel was oddly proud of herself. That calmed her down a little.

Seeing the familiar front door, and breathing in the scent of the loft as she stepped inside brought her a sense of comfort, despite the fact that she still reeked of mental hospital. A shower was second on her to-do list. First, Rachel wanted her necklace back. Then she'd deal with the asylum stench, and after that, she'd go to the hospital and hope that something she'd done had paid off.

Rachel highly doubted it, seeing as the entire thing had very obviously been nothing more than a trick, but she couldn't help it. Stupid hope. All it did was make her miserable, because she knew exactly what the outcome was going to be, but she still hoped it'd be something else. When it turned out to be exactly what she knew it would be, hopeless, she'd go back to Scott's house alone and see if there was any new info on Stiles.

When she finally checked her phone, which she'd left in the cupholder in the Porsche, it was dead, so Rachel still had no idea what day it was. Her best guess was that it was late because the sky outside was dark, illuminated only by the moon. But strangely, there were no Oni in sight. She didn't know if that was good or bad, but she settled on good as she made her way towards her bedroom.

Maybe if she was lucky, the nogitsune problem would be miraculously solved and the Oni would no longer be a problem. The possibility of that was next to nothing, but a bitch called hope insisted she consider it, and Rachel wasn't good at being ignorant of anything other than her own problems. She could reflexively ignore just about everything wrong with her, but when it came to her friends.. it wasn't happening.

Her desire to know if everything was okay greatly outweighed her desire to rid herself of the mental asylum smell that followed her everywhere, and before she could even tear off the bloodstained Eichen issued shirt she was wearing, she was scrambling to retrieve her phone charger. The loft didn't have a landline, and the building was void of heartbeats, so asking Derek was out of the question.

It would only take a minute or two to revive her phone, she could make calls while it charged as long as it had at least one percent— but right now, it had zero, and she was pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth, waiting patiently for the little chime noise to indicate her phone was coming back to life. Back and forth. She stopped.

On top of her dresser, shining in the moonlight, was her necklace. The little gold half moon charm reflected the moonlight just as her eyes reflected the supernatural. It looked so small up on her dresser, the only other thing up there with it was her laptop, which was dead like her phone. Death surrounded her in more ways than one.