Panic bubbled up in his throat as his sternum caved under her spindly fingers, wrapping around his heart, squeezing, and yanking it up and out of his chest with a sickening, wet rip. Pain ebbed through his gaping chest as crimson stains bloomed around the wound.
The girl sat back on her heels, smiling to herself as she looked over the organ in her small hands.
"I've got what is mine" she croaked, her voice low and grating. Black splotches marred his vision, blurring around the edges, all consuming until his world was dark and numb.
—
Theo bolted up, clutching his chest, smacking his head on the top of the metal drawer.
No.
His hand scrabbled for the lock before he was spilling out onto the floor of the morgue, landing only inches away from a puddle of brackish water. He trailed after it, a familiar sense of panic washing over him again as droplets fell from the operating table. He followed it up until he reached a pair of dirty feet, connecting to trousered legs, soaked shirt, and finally, the pale face of Tara.
"I've come to take" a voice rasped out. A grin formed on the girl's face, unnaturally so. Black veins spread from her mouth down her neck and to her arms.
"I've come to take what is mine" she moved her mouth this time, as if she were a marionette.
Small hands lengthened to long, bony fingers, impossibly sharp, and reached towards him.
Theo stumbled back, bolting out of the room. Maybe he could outrun her, maybe-
Scwack
A sharp pain shot through his back and he looked down to see her hand sticking out from his bloody chest. She yanked it back, a loud crack sounding as his spine went with her, blood spilling from his mouth as he collapsed.
Drowning. He was drowning.
"I have whar is mine." Tara opened her jacket, revealing a gaping hole in her chest.
"Now we can match, Theo. "
Dark.
—
Tara crawled through the halls, bloodied, dirty water trailing after her, the breeze moving through her wounds easily.
I will get what is mine echoed over and Over in her head, around the empty hallways, and finally satiating when she approached the morgue.
A steady heartbeat flickered in one of the drawers, drawing her near. A steady, familiar pounding that she once knew.
—
He woke up in the drawer of the morgue again, gasping, hands scrabbling at his shirt, only to find the broken ribs and his-no, Tara's-heart back in his chest.
Maybe if he hid, he'd be able to escape her, at least until he found a way to get out of this loop.
His thought process was interrupted, however, when the door was ripped off its hinges and the tray was yanked out.
Theo crashed into the cadaver table with a thud, head splitting with searing pain as something wet dribbled down the side of his face.
Tara crawled into his vision, fingers lengthening as her face stretched into an impossible grin, black liquid spilling from between her lips.
"I will get it back" she gargled on the goo, her fingers sharpening as they lowered onto his shirt.
Bright pain etched into his bones as his ribs collapsed, the squelch of Tara's heart being reclaimed barely audible over the loud snaps.
She lifted it to her chest before slamming it into the gaping wound.
—
No matter how much he blacked out, he was always there in the morgue, always running. Always dying. Over and over and over again.
Until he wasn't.
Hed woken up one day to find the top of the drawer gone, only replaced by the tell tale signs of the tunnels running under beacon hills.
Hands grappled for purchase at the edges as he pulled himself up and out, into the stale, putrid air of the underground.
He looked up, Scott's beta and his former pack member staring back at him.
His eyes burned and his teeth ached, but it was better than the faint emptiness his chest carried for what felt like a millennia.
"Theo"