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Darcy fell back against Theo's pickup as the present time rushed back to her. Her chest heaved with panicked breaths and claws threatened to burst from her fingers. She tried to get a hold of her breathing but Alexa's simultaneously relieved and petrified face was painted on her eyelids, making it hard to concentrate.
What the hell was that?
"Darcy? Hey, you okay?"
Theo stood in front of her, his face twisted with worry. She leaned heavily against the truck frame, explaining, "Yeah, I'm fine. I just... had my repressed memory."
"What was it about?"
Her eyes bounced around the parking lot, over all the cars, comparing the image now to the image she'd just seen. "I was running from something, and I ended up in this parking lot. My aunt was there, and she... The way she talked, it was like I had been missing... But it had to have been made up."
"What? Why?"
She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking back to the flashback she'd just had. "It's hard to explain but I think I was running from the Dread Doctors? But I... I'd never heard of them before until now. It doesn't make any sense."
Theo looked at her, his eyebrows lowered in thought. He opened his mouth to say something, but then Malia and Scott rounded the car next to them, their gazes expectant, and his mouth fell shut. He looked at her, one eyebrow raised in wondering, but she shook her head slightly. He turned away after a second and she was relieved to know he understood she didn't want him to say anything.
After the two of them fell in line next to Malia and Scott, together they made their way up to the hospital doors. She could feel Theo casting glances her way like he expected her to say something about her memory but... Look, she trusted Scott, but she was scared of what the memory meant, what it could mean, so she left it alone and didn't say anything.
As he nudged open the hospital doors, Scott turned back to the three of them and said, "You guys try to find Stiles and Lydia. I'm gonna find my mom." He didn't give them a chance to respond before darting away.
"Wait!" Darcy called and took off after him. The alpha glanced back at her but didn't comment. She was planning to find her aunt, and chances are they'd probably be near each other.
Melissa and Alexa were known to be good friends, given they had a lot in common: they were both nurses, both appreciated a good TV show and some wine, and they both had werewolf teenagers to look after. Their many similarities made bonding easy and they had been friends since before Darcy had shown up anyway. Having the teenager around just made them closer.
Darcy and Scott hurried to the elevator, leaving Theo and Malia behind. The ride up was quiet, the only sound the quick racing of their hearts.
When the doors finally dinged and slid open, they burst out into the hallway, eyes scanning for familiar faces. The last thing they were expecting to see was a Dread Doctor standing in the hallway to their right.
It happened too fast for Darcy to react. It grabbed her arms and threw her down the hallway. After being airborne for a few seconds, she landed on her back, all the air leaving her lungs in one heavy exhale. She writhed on the floor, hands grasping at her chest as she tried to breathe. With a particularly strong gasp, the air rushed back into her lungs and she could breathe again. She struggled to sit up, ribs crying out in pain from the impact.
Through the black dots in her vision, she could see electricity dancing across Scott's body from where he was held up against the wall by the Dread Doctor. As his body jerked in pain, he scrambled for the inhaler in his pocket, but it slipped out of his hands onto the floor.
The Dread Doctor held Scott up against the wall for another moment, and in that time Darcy pushed herself to her feet. She darted at the Dread Doctor, claws outstretched and prepared to make impact.
In one swift move, it dropped Scott to the floor and caught her mid-swing. It slammed her into the wall and stepped on the inhaler which had been just outside of Scott's reach. With its tight grip covering her entire neck, she could barely get any air in. She gasped and clawed at its arm, while it just stared, studying her.
"Status: Incomplete."
Her entire body seized up with those two words, the same ones from Eichen. Before she could ask what the hell that meant, the elevator doors dinged and opened, revealing Melissa, Alexa, and Malia. At the sight of them, the Dread Doctor threw Darcy to the floor again. She flew a few feet away, landing heavily on her side with her arm bent weirdly beneath her.
From the ground, she could see Malia run at the Dread Doctor, her fangs out and eyes carrying a glint of blue. Behind her, Alexa and Melissa ran out of the elevator. Darcy struggled to prop herself up on the floor while her aunt crossed the distance between them.
When she arrived, she wasted no time in sliding an arm around her niece's waist, eliciting a cry when the movement made her arm scream with pain. Struggling together, they hauled themselves to the elevator and were both panting by the time they fell to the floor. Melissa and Scott had beat them there. The latter wheezed with every breath he took, his asthma seemingly making a return like earlier.
Darcy held her shoulder in a tight grip, the spot sore from when she landed on it wrong. She watched Melissa pull something out of her pocket, uncapping it quickly before holding it in the air.
"Wait, what is that?" Scott wheezed out.
"A bronchodilator. It'll work." Scott didn't have a chance to object before his mom plunged the needle deep into his thigh. Darcy winced in sympathy but wasn't surprised when it took effect immediately and Scott's wheezes turned to grunts then smoother breathing.
"Is it dislocated?"
Darcy turned to see Alexa's pale face and the rapid, panicked rise and fall of her chest. She shook her head in reply, saying, "No. No, I don't think so." The woman nodded, the terror on her face only easing slightly.
"Malia, come on!" Melissa suddenly yelled. "Run!"
After swiping at the Dread Doctor one last time, the werecoyote turned and sprinted toward them. It followed her with its menacingly fast walk, creeping closer and closer. Melissa was spamming the door close button but they took their sweet time in closing. They finally started to move when Malia was about two feet away. Her momentum sent her colliding with the opposing wall of the elevator, and she braced herself against it.
The doors closed just in time, and the mask of the Dread Doctor disappeared behind the metal. It threw a heavy hand against the other side, but the door held firm and the whole elevator just rattled. When the noise faded away, the five of them sat there for a moment, catching their breath.
Darcy rolled her head over to look at Scott, his wide eyes and heaving chest. He glanced between all of them, then finally said, "We never should have read that book."
She couldn't help it; she huffed an exasperated laugh. "I could've told you that."
-
Author's Note:
Thank you guys for reading!! Stay safe out there:)
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