Monstrous ➙ Theo Raeken

|11|

Clarissa felt numb.

She hadn't spoken a word since leaving the police station, almost fearful that she would break down from the hurricane of emotions that was brewing under her skin. She was worried for her friend who was wheeled into surgery the moment that she and Theo pushed through the doors of Beacon Hills Memorial, following close behind the gurney that occupied her strawberry blonde friend.

She needed to be strong for Lydia, the one who would always keep her sane when something went wrong but she was afraid. The ebony blood still coated her body and hair, she looked like she was dipped into a bottle of ink at that exact moment but she attempted not to focus there. She was finally succumbing to the urges of her untapped abilities.

She finally acknowledged that she could hear the mechanical beeping of the machines and smell the antiseptic as if someone was shoving it down her nostrils with brute force. She didn't want to be in the hospital at that moment, they had terrified her since she was little; the thought of her young body being wheeled under the bright lights scared her.

She couldn't remember much about her surgery, except the gleeful faces of her family when she woke up from her deep slumber. She remembered the countdown though, the kind that all doctors did before putting the patients under anesthesia.

Her hands unconsciously moved towards the lungs that were her saving grace. She was thankful that she had the surgery years ago, but she was a medical anomaly. She wasn't expected to live past the age of fifteen as the transplantation survival rate was low after a year, but she was in the expectancy rate of the five year survival rate; she was a fighter and wouldn't give up until she absolutely had to.

She could feel the organs burning occasionally, feel them slowly shriveling up to nothing as she uses them to survive. Her eyes slowly moved around the group of people who were standing in front of her and then to the werewolf next to her. She couldn't leave him alone, not after she just got him back. Theo Raeken was the shooting star that she had been wishing upon, she knew he had always been there even if she could not see him.

"Lissa, are you okay?" The teenage boy had placed a hand against her own, the ones still resting softly against her ribs. Her eyes met his softly, feeling him touching the palm hesitantly. "They're still there."

"I know." Clarissa muttered quietly, grasping his warm skin with shaking fingers. Her smile was shrinking at the approaching figure entered her peripheral vision, Scott's mother was approaching them quickly. She stood up quickly, shooting the boy one last placating look. "Hospitals just scare me."

"Stiles." Clarissa watched as the woman donned in pink stopped in front of the twitching boy knowingly. She was staring at the pair that had their hands locked together with a hidden smile across her face.

"How bad is it?" Stiles questioned quickly, his back turned towards the group tensely. Clarissa watched the nurse push past the boy, watching the newest werewolf in pride.

"Could have been worse. Theo, nice going on that tourniquet. You probably saved her life." The nurse stated seriously, stopping in the middle of the group as her son and his beta pushed past the crowd to stand next to them. Clarissa let out a sigh of relief at her words, head digging into the rough material of Theo's jacket with clenched eyes. "All right. She's about to go into surgery. So it's going to be a while. Any other supernatural details that I need to know about or do we just stitch her up and hope for the best?"

"It was the tail." Kira declared towards the nurse. Clary tilted her head to the side so she could see the group clearly, head still leaned against her friend's shoulder warily.