Spellbound

Each time Isaac breathes it feels like it’s going to be the last. His chest aches and breathing labored and nothing makes sense, no matter how hard he tries to gain clarity. Surely Deaton was wrong. Soul mates are a myth, conjured up by Plato god knows how many years ago. Things have changed since then, Isaac reasons. Then again, nothing is out of place in Beacon Hills.

But the quote won’t leave his mind: “Humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” There’s minimal solace in knowing humans came into the world a freak, just like him, but there’s nothing else.

He doesn’t know what to do. Scott is too blinded by sympathy to be of much help and Isaac would rather die than ask Stiles for anything. He still isn’t convinced Allison’s father isn’t plotting to wipe him from the planet and Derek will be all too willing to make a mockery of him, so he debates it for exactly fourteen seconds before he heads toward Lydia’s.

Isaac doesn’t do well when he’s alone with his thoughts. They’re all-consuming and suffocating, constantly reminding him of what he lost and what he never had. He never quite knows how to feel. He knows it’s wrong to find relief in death, in his father being gone, so he doesn’t let himself feel relieved. But the fact remains that his father was the last bit of family he had and now he has no one — no one to share a last name with, no one to make sure his homework gets done, no one who shares his blood. And that’s terrifying. He feels it from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, and it hurts.

He stops in front of the Martin’s home and wastes a few seconds staring. He wonders how the plush grass felt beneath Lydia’s bare feet as a child, if she spent her summers running around until dusk, until the crickets started chirping and the temperature dropped enough that she’d need a sweater. Isaac closes his eyes and sees Lydia’s strawberry-blonde locks whipping around wildly behind her as she runs, a buoyant smile on her face, her feet stained with dirt and sod.

Although his chest is still tight, he manages a deep breath and navigates the walkway to the front door. His perfect teeth worry at his bottom lip as he waits, having rung the bell twice, and his hands start sweating before he’s able to consider going back to Scott’s.

The door swings open to reveal who he knows to be Lydia’s mother. “Hello. Can I help you, honey?”

Isaac considers asking her what a heart attack feels like but swallows his words. “Hi,” he says. “Is—is Lydia home?”

“I believe so.” The door opens wider, an invitation, and Isaac steps inside. He dwarfs Ms. Martin and his cheeks warm in embarrassment. “Lydia!” she calls up the stairs. A vexed what? comes from the second story and Ms. Martin rolls her eyes. “You have a visitor!”

Heavy footsteps pad the hardwood floors until they reach the landing of the stairs. Lydia stares at Isaac with crinkled eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I—I need help with the, uh, English homework, and…”

Not even the most gullible person alive would believe Isaac. “And?” Lydia scoffs, hands on her hips.

“And you’re the smartest person in school?” he offers.

Lydia’s trademark frown instantly turns upward. “Of course I am. Come on, let’s see how big of a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Isaac offers Ms. Martin a thankful smile and ascends the stairs. The hallway is lined with photographs — most of Lydia in various stages of life, but a few of her and her mother every now and then. Lydia hooks a left at the end of the hall and occupies the doorway, waiting for Isaac to catch up.

The walls are a medium purple and twelve white butterflies take up the wall behind her bed. Isaac is taken by surprise; it seems almost too childish for someone like her. He was expecting walls of bookshelves, maps, and framed posters of Einstein or Stephen Hawking.

“What?” she bites, hands back on her hips. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Isaac says quickly. “I just wasn’t expecting…butterflies.”

“Then what were you expecting, exactly?”

Isaac’s right hand immediately starts working the back of his neck. “I…I don’t know. I saw a picture of the Library of Congress in a book once. Maybe something like that.”

Lydia’s eyebrows furrow. “You know I don’t have to read, right? That I’m just naturally really, really smart?”

“Yeah, of course,” Isaac lies, shrugging his shoulders to feign nonchalance. In truth, all he knows about Lydia Martin is what Jackson used to boast about in the locker room. He makes a conscience decision not to sit on her bed.

“So, are you going to tell me why you’re really here? Because I know you’re not failing English and you should feel really bad for lying to my mom.”

“I—I do. It’s just…I need your help with something. Not English, obviously, but something only you could help me with.”

Lydia’s features soften. It isn’t often someone goes out of their way to ask for her help. “Is it some weird werewolf thing?” Isaac nods. “And Scott or Derek can’t help you with it? I’m not, like, a werewolf expert or anything.”

“I, uh, don’t really want to talk to Derek about this,” he admits. He can hear Derek’s chastisement in his head and that alone is enough to buckle his knees. He’s desperate for Derek to like him, and he already thinks Isaac’s a creep as it is.

“O-kay—”

Before Lydia’s able to finish, Isaac is launching into a retelling of what happened at Deaton’s. His words are quick and jumbled together, and Lydia is able to catch every second or third word to piece it all together. She rolls her eyes at Isaac’s crush on Sheridan Nell — it isn’t that Lydia dislikes her, per se, she’s just boring — but she pales once he finishes. He’s panicking and on the verge of tears and it’s the first time in Lydia has ever had to deal with a boy who’s comfortable showing emotion.

“Does it…is it burning now?” she asks, words barely above a whisper.

“Yeah.”

She swallows hard enough for Isaac to hear and busies herself with a pile of books sitting atop her desk. As she sorts through them, she pushes the ones she doesn’t need to the floor and tosses the ones that could possibly be useful onto her bed.

“Do you think you can help?”

“As insane as you’d sound to anyone else, I remember reading something about green eyes when I was translating something for Allison.” She reaches the bottom of the stack and grins. “Here it is.”

“I thought you don’t read,” Isaac says.

Just like Stiles has done a million times before, Lydia looks at him like he’s the stupidest person alive. “I said I don’t have to. I get bored sometimes.”

Isaac scoffs. “There many people in Beacon Hills who speak Archaic Latin?”

“Nope,” Lydia smirks, “just me.”

His only thought is that she and Stiles are perfect for each other. Lydia’s pointer finger is tracing words on a page in the middle of a fraying book and, somewhere toward the bottom, she drags her eyes to Isaac’s. “Well, Deaton was wrong about one thing.”

Isaac doesn’t know what the opposite feeling of his stomach sinking is, but he’s fairly confident it feels like this. “Which one?”

“There wasn’t only one.” Isaac’s silent, waiting for her to continue.

Lydia looks something between confused and frustrated. “Keep in mind my Archaic Latin is rusty—” Isaac rolls his eyes again, “—but it looks like it used to be fairly common. He got the death from broken heart part right, so I’m guessing there was only one that survived. That’s the one he read about.”

Even though he knows the answer, Isaac asks anyway. “And the rest?”

“They…they died, Isaac. Like Deaton said.”

Immediately, Isaac’s mind is a million places at once. “What else does it say, Lydia? I can’t die, okay? I can’t. I’m finally…I’m finally safe, a-and maybe even a little bit okay, and I can’t die. Not now. Tell me there’s something else in that book — something that says there’s a way to fix this and that I’m gonna be fine and all this is gonna go away.” Lydia’s silence eggs him on. “Tell me, Lydia!”

“I-I can’t.”

It feels like months ago as Isaac crumples to the floor. Sobs rack his body and all he can think of is death. The permanence. The pain. The despair and hopelessness and darkness. He thinks of all the graves he dug during his shifts and how he should’ve been more empathetic to who they belonged to. He thinks of Sheridan and how she’ll maybe be shocked upon hearing that Isaac Lahey is dead but her life will quickly go back to normal, and to the rest of Beacon Hills, it’ll be another name to add to the body count. Maybe Sheridan will remember him as the stranger who asked if she was okay at her party and she’ll remember him fondly, or maybe someone will have to remind her that it was him who’d done that.

He can barely breathe.

Lydia’s on her knees on the floor next to him, her hands busying themselves with his skin. It’s flushed and warm to the touch. She touches his cheeks, his shoulders, his biceps. Everything all at once. “Isaac, you have to breathe. Breathe, Isaac. Scott isn’t gonna let anything happen to you. You’re part of his pack now, Isaac, and Scott’s not going to let you die. Do you understand what I’m saying? Scott isn’t gonna let this happen.”

Part of his pack now. Part of his pack. Part.