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Maybe an angel really did speak to Cora, or maybe it was some kind of oxygen-deprivation shit that her brain did while she was “dead,” but in any case, the voice told her she had two choices.
And it said, You are only here for a short while. But you know that, right?
Which was scary, because Cora thought she was dying, really dying, and that this whole thing had been for nothing. So she’d yelled at Derek a few times, but she hadn’t gained any ground. So Peter had gripped her hand in a panicky moment. So she’d met a lot of people and been crabby as hell around them. It didn’t count for shit. It just didn’t count for shit, okay?
She needed more time. And she was sorry.
And the voice said, You’ll have a little time. But you’ll have to choose.
And maybe it was her head making the images, but it showed her such lovely things. Things she remembered. The way Lydia’s hair fell away from her face, for instance, and she hadn’t really noticed it before, or she had, but she had only blinked. Winced, really. Like something that pretty coming around was a hindrance, an annoyance, an how dare you tempt me with this kind of straight girl shit kind of problem.
And God, it just wasn’t a priority, was it? Romance. Sex. Whatever. It wasn’t a priority, and so Cora had felt something when she’d gripped Lydia’s arm, something that had only slithered up as soon as that Stiles prick had told her to stop. And it made her feel stupid, and soft, and she’d been nice to Lydia after that, super nice, at least for Cora.
But it just didn’t matter. And Boyd had died. Boyd. And okay, maybe she didn’t talk to him that much after those three months in the vault, but you don’t just forget those kinds of connections. You don’t. Not when you’re wolves, especially, and though Cora hadn’t expected the pain to slice her clean in two, it had.
It had.
The night it happened, it was like someone much bigger and stronger than her was pressing his big, fat shoe into her chest, over and over again. And thinking of Lydia’s pretty hair wasn’t going to make it go away.
That was why she was here.
The voice said, Go now or have some time with her first. Your choice.
But it wasn’t her choice, not really. Because in her head, she had said, I want to go now then. I want to go now, because I can’t have her anyway. And she had still woken up. She had still come to. She hadn’t gone to see Boyd, or to see nothing, or whatever happened after you died, like she had tried to. She hadn’t gone to see Laura, or her father.
She tried to say Lydia’s name around the tube they had in her throat, but no one was there to hear, no one but Derek.
***
“Hey, Cora?”
“Uh…yeah?”
Somehow, in this loft full of wolves and humans bickering about Alphas—like always—Lydia had managed to get Cora alone. Where she was pretending to look for a book even though books weren’t really her thing, and if she was going to be helpful at all, it was going to be when the actual fighting happened. Maybe she’d get there before someone died this time.
“Derek said—and believe me, I don’t really like talking to Derek, but he sort of made me listen—he said that you were asking for me after you woke up. What did you have to say?”
Cora’s fingers froze over a book spine, and she looked back at Lydia with a tight smile. Lydia with her hair all messy, and it was so goddamn pretty that way. Lydia with her unbelievable lack of tact. “Did he say that?”
“Come on.” Lydia put her pretty-nailed hand over her hip and gave Cora one of those sassy looks she gave Stiles sometimes. “He wouldn’t have told me if it wasn’t important. He doesn’t like me that much.”
Cora shrugged. She was really banking on her ability to look like she could never ever give a shit right about now. “I was on a lot of drugs. Kept seeing your face.”
“My face?”
“Your…hair. Specifically. It’s really pretty. It makes me want to beat you up a little bit.”
“Do you think Stiles would be there to stop you this time?” Lydia’s eyes shifted pointedly to watch Cora’s hand, and Cora tightened her fingers involuntarily.
Somehow she knew that even if those words didn't quite make sense, Lydia meant a lot by them. So she asked the obvious question.
“What about that Alpha asshole you’re not supposed to be seeing?”
Lydia smiled knowingly. “Well he doesn’t ask me for on his death bed. Although he does compliment my hair.”
And Cora couldn’t help it anymore. Couldn’t stop her feet from moving if she’d tried. So she came closer, curled her fingers over Lydia’s wrist about ten times more gently than she had the first time (though firmly, still).
“We’ve got work to do,” she said. “We’ve got lives to save.”
Lydia tilted her head in this transparent way that didn’t seem to fit her, so that her eyes—instead of glassy, how they usually were—filled with something real, and heavy. “I’m trying to give you what you want, Cora. What you asked for.”
***
Upstairs, Cora laced her fingers in Lydia’s hair, and yanked.