Foresight

Chapter 71: 5-4

Parrish lies on his couch flipping a playing card. It features the queen of diamonds and the queen looks like Lydia.

"I wonder" Lydia thought to herself.

On the counter in his living room, there are coils of wire and what appears to be a jar full of electrical switches. He remembers when he and Lydia were exploring his supernatural nature. He asks if Lydia is going to do a magic trick. She says he is but he says he only knows one and it is done with a playing card. Lydia plans to burn his hand with disposable butane lighter. She reminds him that he walked away from being set on fire in a car but he says he had to pay for the uniform.

"Sorry they don't cover fire damage where you walk away healthy but soot covered for damage control" Stiles smiled. The others shook their head, sometimes the boy made no sense.

Parrish remembers the lighter trick from the movie, Lawrence of Arabia. Lydia says the trick in that film was "not minding." The first time the fire hurts and he pulls away. Lydia tells him not think about the fire or pain and tries it again. The flame is on so long the lighter heats up to the point that it burns Lydia's thumb. Parrish's skin is blackened but he rubs away the soot and his hand is unharmed.

"Very interesting" Talia mumbled.

Lydia asks what Parrish was thinking about while he was looking at her. He relates a recurring dream he's been having for 6 months in which he is walking in the woods carrying a badly burned body toward a giant stump. Lydia recognizes that it's the Nemeton and explains that the druid power center is probably what drew Parrish to town in the first place. She calls it a "Beacon for supernatural creatures" and says "It might even make them more powerful." Lydia presses for more details of the dream but Parrish says he doesn't remember anything after laying the body down on the rings of the tree. Back on his sofa, he does the one trick he knows. He flips the queen of diamonds and a black burned smudge appears on her face. He flips the card again and the smudge disappears. He slides the card to the side revealing two cards, one with the smudge and one without. He remembers the rest of the dream. He and the Nemeton are on fire and there are burning bodies piled up all around the stump.

"Maybe tell her that next time?" Allison muttered, freaked out from all the burnt bodies.

Donovan is still in his cell at the Beacon Hills Sheriff Station. He can hear the growls from the fight in the basement and screams for someone to let him out. The Dread Doctors enter. One of them waves a hand in front of the electronic key card reader and the cell door unlocks and rolls back. Donovan backs away into the cell. Scott, Stiles, Theo and Dr. Deaton arrive at the Sheriff's Office. Scott rushes to help Sheriff Stilinski. Stiles spots Lydia with Kira applying pressure to her wound. He stands in the doorway and hesitates. Theo whips off his belt, shoves Stiles out of the way and applies a tourniquet to Lydia's wound.

"Thanks" Stiles grumbled to Theo who shrugged. Lydia looked at the boy beside her for a moment before looking back at the screen.

Deaton finds Tracy's tail, shows it to Scott and covers it with his coat. Natalie Martin comes up from the basement, sees Lydia and freaks out. Scott follows the blood trail out of the main office and calls for Stiles to come with him. Theo says Lydia is alright. Lydia says Stiles should go help Tracy. He obviously doesn't want to leave her but, at her insistence and his father's urging, he goes to help Scott anyway. Deaton follows them down. They find Malia standing over Tracy's lifeless body. Her first instinct is to deny responsibility for the other girl's death. She explains that "There were these people. They had masks." She explains that they were strong and had a weapon and repeats that she is not responsible.