Tethered // Teen Wolf // Isaac Lahey

THIRTY

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KOREY

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"Okay, so, what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" Scott waved his hands out at us for answers.

"I believe that's called hallucinating." I mumbled, turning the page of my physics book while trying to convince myself I actually needed to know all of Newton's laws.

"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stiles added on.

"That's called psychosis." I dragged a long pen line across a paragraph in the textbook, deciding it was unnecessary.

"And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?" Allison finished meekly.

"That one..." I looked up from my book at last, "I'm gonna settle on clairvoyance."

"Ha ha, so helpful," Stiles quipped, throwing me a sarcastic smile before turning back to the others, "No, but seriously."

"Seriously?" Isaac met his eyes from his own homework, "Okay, well, seriously. They're all locked up because they're insane."

"Ha," Stiles repeated himself, annoyance beginning to course off him, "Can you at least try to be helpful, please?"

"For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer..." Isaac smiled sweetly, irritation sparking through him as well, "So, being helpful is kind of a new thing for me."

Stiles scoffed lowly, "Okay, do we—  are you still milking that?!"

"Yeah, maybe I am still milking that!" Isaac snapped back, his annoyance growing. 

"I feel like he's allowed to milk that," I mumbled, returning to my book until a sweet smell tickled my nose, like jasmines and fresh laundry.

"Hi," a gentle voice greeted up.

I snapped my eyes to the girl standing next to me, immediately realising the delightful scent was coming off of her. 

She wasn't particularly tall, and she was shy enough to hunch forward and make herself look even less visible to everyone around her. Her eyes were a soft brown that seemed to switch to amber in the sunlight; somehow, they reminded me of a fox's eyes as they twinkled playfully. She hugged her school books to her chest, smiling shyly. "Hi, sorry... I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about."

"That's alright," I spoke before realising what I was saying, "we weren't exactly being quiet." I moved to the side sharply, forcing Stiles to nearly land in Scott's lap. "Do you wanna join us?"

"Thanks," her smile widened slightly, and she carefully sat down beside me.

I rushed to move my books out of the way, shoving them at Stiles as well, and the human gasped in pain as one of the thick textbooks jabbed his ribs.

The mystery girl set her books down before turning to look at us all in turn again, "I think I actually might know what you're talking about." She cleared her throat slightly, "There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called "Bardo." She waited for a reaction from us, and when we gave none, she continued. "It literally means 'in-between state.' The state between life and death."

"And what do they call you?" Lydia quipped, her smile condescending and fake.

"It can't be worse than what they call you, Wicked Witch of the West," I snapped back, a strike of annoyance rushing through me.

"Kira," Scott interrupted any further exchanging of insults, "She's in our history class."

"Kira," I repeated quietly, turning to the girl, "it's nice to meet you."