Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Clary gawks at the commission that has appeared in her inbox and groans loudly.

“More furry porn? Really?” Clary flops onto the couch with an exasperated sigh. “I have a real, official art degree and I’ve spent the last four months making intricate furry porn.” She laughs, slightly hysterically. “That’s my life now?”

“That’s rough, buddy,” Simon says, no sympathy in his voice.

“Yeah. Thanks, Simon. That really helped.” She buries her face in a pillow and screams.

“What exactly is the problem? Those furry guys pay extremely well.”

Clary turns her head, her face still half smushed into the pillow. “Because I have no idea what I’m doing with my life! I mean, God, last year I was exhibiting my art. Real art with meaning and absolutely no fox penis in it.”

Simon looks over at her phone. “Pretty sure that’s a wolf penis.”

Clary screams into the pillow again.

Simon lightly pats Clary’s hair. “There, there. I’m sure your art skills will be utilized in non-furry porn ways soon.” 

Clary grumbles incomprehensibly at him.

“But,” Simon says, “on the bright side, you can still afford a New York apartment?”

Clary’s body slumps into the couch, boneless from her exhaustion. “Maybe I should just smother myself with this pillow.”

Simon rolls her over and she dramatically hisses at the sunlight hitting her eyes. “Maybe you shouldn’t because you have furry porn to draw.”

Clary glares at him. “I hate you.”

“I love you too,” Simon replies with a cheeky grin.

Things have been… very strange for Clary Fray.

For one blissful, normal, uneventful year, she was living her dream as an aspiring artist in New York. She was doing murals and store signs and exhibits. She was making new friends and getting her foot in the door of the competitive industry. And best of all, she was completely and utterly normal.

Sure, she had some strange pockets in her memory. The last few years didn’t quite feel whole or real. But, well, stranger things have happened than blocking out a few years.

Right?

And then, they started.

The memories.

Clary began to get flashes of… something. It started in her dreams, lingering in her mornings and disappearing once she got her first cup of coffee. Then they were flashes in her everyday life, seemingly for no reason. A club she’d never been to, an apartment building that she could never afford to live in, a guy with a bold neck tattoo.

And then, one day, it all just flooded in.

And Clary Fray remembered everything.

How she did, she’s not really sure. Apparently, the angels couldn’t lock Clary’s mind out from the world of Shadowhunters forever. She was grasping at the cracks in her memories and ripping them wide open until she discovered the truth of her mystery years she’s forgotten.

And she wishes she didn’t remember.

Okay, yes, remembering some of the most crucial moments of her life, both because of their pure batshittery and impact on molding her into the person she is today and also because a lot of those memories, though many very sucky, are good memories that she didn’t want to forget.

But she moved on! She has a life. And it’s not like she can go back to the life she lived those years because, despite having her memories back, she is no longer a Shadowhunter. 

So she’s torn. She’s torn between living her normal life, oblivious but happy, and being an outsider in an action packed, adrenaline filled life with the people she considers family but never truly being able to be a part of it anymore.

She’s glad that she can have them back in her life. But it’s just… not the same. And it hasn’t been the same.

“You have any plans for Halloween?” Clary asks Simon.

Simon grimaces. “Sorry. Izzy has decided that tomorrow is the perfect time to have a romantic dinner.”

“Right,” Clary says. “Because she doesn’t celebrate mundane holidays.”

“Did you want to do something?” Simon asks.

Clary wants to say yes. Say that she doesn’t want to be alone on Halloween. That she needs to be with someone to distract her mind from all the baggage that comes with Halloween. 

Instead, she waves her hand dismissively. “Just wanted to watch crappy horror movies and hear your girly screams.”

Simon scoffs, holding a hand to his heart with mock offense. “I’ll have you know that my tolerance for horror has improved vastly since that last time we had a horror movie binge.”

“Sure, sure,” Clary says with a look of disbelief.

“I made it through E.T. the whole way through!” Simon says.

Clary laughs. “That isn’t a horror movie.”

“That movie is traumatizing,” Simon says.

Clary rolls her eyes. “Sure it is.”

“It is!”

Clary laughs again. 

“Okay,” Simon says. “As much as I’d love to stick around, I unfortunately have a deadline to meet and I’d rather knock them out when I have a brain rather than wait until half ‘til midnight when I’m running on pure caffeine and spite.”

“I don’t know,” Clary says. “Sometimes that’s when the best stuff is made.”

“Yeah, well, my publisher would probably prefer something made with a bit more technique than spite.” Simon snaps into finger guns. “Catch you later.”

“See you, Simon,” Clary replies.

Clary, now home alone, rolls over on the couch and pulls out her phone, reading through the commission request.

Her face scrunches in disgust as she reads the details of what she will be drawing for the next week.

“Three hundred dollars, Clary,” she says to herself. “You need the money.”

She’s scrolling through maid dresses to save for reference photos (internally cursing this commissioner for messing up her ad algorithm for the next month) when she gets a message from someone she had never expected to hear from again.

With trembling fingers, she clicks the message.

Skylar Lewis: hey, myra. i know it’s been a while, but it’s urgent. can i call you?

Not bothering to reply, Clary calls her.

“Hey,” Skylar says, and God, when’s the last time she’s heard her voice? 

“Hey,” Clary says back, her voice slightly wavering.

Skylar sighs, the kind of sigh that means she’s skipping the pleasantries and getting right to the point. “The containment unit went down. Deimata is out.”

And suddenly, like a bucket of ice water being dropped onto her.

No.

“And Myra,” Skylar starts, and oh God, what more can there be? “Deimata isn’t my monster anymore.”

Clary freezes. “What?”

“Deimata isn’t my monster anymore. She’s yours.”

If Clary couldn’t feel her heart pounding in her chest, nearly tachycardic, she would’ve thought it had stopped. 

“I need you to come back to town,” Skylar says. “It’s safer that way.”

“How is that safer?” Clary questions.

“Because if you don’t come to Deimata, Deimata is gonna come to you.”

And there, Clary thinks she does feel her heart stop.

She thinks about the Shadowhunters and all of the creatures they’ve defeated. But yet, none of them resembled Deimata. Clary hadn’t even heard a whisper of a creature like her. And as much as she had trusted the Shadowhunters, back before she lost her memories, she never trusted them with this little piece of her past.

She knows what she has to do. And she knows what she has to not do.

“I can get there by dawn,” Clary says.

“Okay,” Skylar says. “Okay. I,” she stops. “Myra. I’m sorry this is how we’re seeing each other again.”

Her heart hammers in her chest, breath hitching.

“Be careful. Alright?”

“I will,” Clary says.

The phone clicks and Clary is left with the silence of her apartment.

“Shit.”

.-~*~-.

Clary drives through the forest lined, patchy asphalt streets leading to her town with dread slowly pooling deep in her gut.

She never thought she’d come back to this town.

College had felt like a new start for Myra Santelli, the girl she had once been but could no longer stand to be.

Bright eyed and optimistic, she tried to find her big break.

And she did. For a little while, she had just been a normal art student with dreams to make a change. She believed that she could really change the world with her art.

And suddenly, she was making a change… by fighting demons and making sure the world didn’t end.

No one expects their life to take a sharp left turn into batshit crazy. Myra Santelli didn’t when she was sitting in her bedroom eating popcorn in a stiff neck brace. Clary Fray didn’t when she went to that club one night for a good time and ended up having her life flipped upside down. And whoever she is now didn’t expect it when she got all the batshit crazy forced back into her head after living normally for a year.

She’s glad she has it. Of course she does. But sometimes she wonders if it would have been better to have stayed oblivious. To have lived her happy little life, ignorant of Shadowhunters and world ending crisis. 

She would never not know though. Not when the monsters made of fear still linger in her memories after nearly a decade after it all went down.

And now she’s going back.

Back to the town filled memories she had tried to forget and the life of a girl she stopped being a long time ago.

But as she drives through the dimly lit suburbs, she feels it.

She feels Clary Fray slip away and she feels herself settle into Myra Santelli, like taking off a heavy, dirty coat weighing down on her shoulders that she didn’t even know she was wearing. 

But that coat was protection. It represented someone stronger than the scared little girl hidden inside of it. It disguised the weakness she had pushed down and repressed for years. It was comfort, hiding her from the past that has loomed over her for years.

But even though it was protection, it was also a heavy coat. And it’s summer in her life, moved past the tumultuous winter filled with freezing winds and dark skies, and heavy coats aren’t made for this weather.

Yeah, the coat metaphor has gone on a little too long.

Myra is driving slowly through the streets of her childhood neighborhood when suddenly a giant goo monster jumps onto the hood of her car.

She doesn’t flinch, too desensitized and trained to do so. Instead, she honks at it, not caring that it’s not even dawn and people are probably sleeping.

The giant goo monster rumbles and shakes her car.

She leans forward and smacks her hand on the car window. “Get off!”

After shouting and hitting the window, the giant goo monster grows irritated enough to jump off. Myra lets out a breath, leaning back into her seat and staring as it hops away.

There’s a phantom pain in her neck.

She doesn’t think about it.

She’s about to start driving again when another giant goo monster jumps onto the hood of her car.

“Come on!” she shouts with exasperation.

“Over here!” a familiar voice calls from behind her.

A blinding light erupts in the near pitch black, sucking the giant goo monster away.

“Hey! Are you okay?” that familiar voice asks, jogging up to her car. 

Myra looks up, not quite ready to face the person attached to the familiar voice.

“Myra?” Skylar says, pulling up her mask to reveal her face. She looks at her with scrunched brows. 

God. She almost forgot about those scrunched brows. It makes her nose wrinkle and her lips pout as she tilts her head with curiosity.

Get over yourself, Myra. 

You haven’t seen her in a decade and your first thought is about her cute scrunchy brows?

But they are cute…

Get. A. Grip.

Myra rolls her window down. “Hey,” she says, voice much more uncertain and awkward than she was trying for.

“Hey,” Skylar says with a tentative grin. She bounces slightly the balls of her feet when she says that and Myra can’t help the affection bloom in her chest.

Skylar Lewis, one of her first loves. An unlikely pairing considering their years of animosity. But after The Halloween, they had realized that life was too short to be caught up in rivalries. They also realized that they had been so caught up in being at each other’s throats that they didn’t get to know each other. 

Myra admitted (begrudgingly) that she had been envious of Skylar. She was bold and confident and unafraid of what people thought of her and Myra, she had worried too much about what everyone thought of her. She cared so much that it consumed her and changed her for the worst.

But Skylar saw her. She saw what was beneath the defenses of snarky remarks and self centered arrogance was someone afraid to truly be herself. Afraid that if she were herself, the rejection would be too much. 

And that’s why she created the act of the girl clawing to the top. Because even though she didn’t like herself, and she knew others didn’t like her either, she knew it was on her own terms. It was because she made it that way.

Skylar showed her that that was bullshit. Her words exactly. And she made her realize that Myra Santelli was a person worthy of goodness and kindness and… just being herself. 

Skylar showed her a lot of things. And she showed Skylar things too.

She showed her how to take a break, especially when her rigorous monster hunting training began. She showed her how to forgive herself and move on from her rough past. She showed her how to let herself make mistakes and that it was okay to be imperfect.

And they both showed each other how to love.

Of course it wasn’t just them. There was also…

“Are you okay?”

Myra pulls herself out of her thoughts. “Yeah. Uh, yes, yeah, I am.”

Skylar releases a breath of relief. “That’s good.”

“Are you okay?” Myra blurts out.

“Uh, yeah, I am,” Skylar says. 

Myra and Skylar just look at each other, soaking in every detail that has grown and matured since the last time they’d seen each other.

Skylar’s hair is now cut short, the sides shaved and shaggy blonde bangs falling over her eyes. The baby fat that had clung to her round cheeks even in their senior year has disappeared, leaving sharp cheekbones and defined yet still delicate jaw.

“You sure, Sky?” A voice asks, from behind Skylar, startling the two women out of their staring. “Because that lizard bear ganked you pretty hard.”

A deep voice sighs. “Sadie, c’mon. We’re supposed to be serious monster hunters! We can’t make Supernatural references on the job.”

Sadie places her hands on her hips. “Ganked is a perfectly reasonable word that accurately describes an action that is often done on this job.”

“Yes, done to us.”

Sadie rolls her eyes. “You’re one to talk. You accused that lava deer of performing, and I quote, ‘Jedi mind tricks’ on you last week.”

“Well, she was!”

Myra looks over and sees Henry standing next to Sadie, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Hey guys,” Myra says. “Long time no see.”

“Uh yeah, long time,” Sadie says. “You completely disappeared off the face of the Earth for like three years! I followed you on Instagram and I always looked forward to your aesthetic art posts and then you just stopped posting. I thought you might have made a new finsta but you didn’t! Or, maybe you did and I just wasn’t invited. But still! Your aesthetic art posts inspired me to get a fancy coffee maker.”

“How are those related?” Henry asks.

“You don’t get it,” Sadie says. She turns to Myra. “He doesn’t get it.”

“I don’t get it because it’s not a thing,” Henry says.

“Oh, it’s definitely a thing,” Skylar says. 

“Is it?” Henry asks, arms flailing.

Myra stifles a laugh.

“Oh, please, Aesthetic Coffee Master, your aesthetic coffee highness, please explain to me what I don’t get,” Henry says.

Myra turns to Skylar and Sadie and puts a hand to her mouth. “He doesn’t get it.”

Henry scoffs. “Unbelievable! Un. Be. Lievable.”

Skylar grins. “If you can’t tell, we’ve been up for a while taking care of the containment unit breakout.”

“Oh, a while?” Sadie says. “We’ve been up for an ungodly amount of time. I could’ve watched from the Teen Wolf pilot to the Nogitsune defeat from how long we’ve been awake.”

“How do you just… know that?” Henry asks.

“There were twelve episodes in season one and season two and twenty four in season three. Each episode is about forty minutes, so forty times forty eight divided by sixty and voila. How many hours we have been awake.”

Henry pauses. “I fear you.”

“Good.”

Skylar shakes her head fondly. “Don’t mind them,” she says, her voice hushed.

“No, they’re great,” Myra says. “I’ve missed this.”

“We’ve missed you,” Skylar says. Realizing what she said, she clears her throat. “Do you have a place to stay?”

“I was probably going to get a room at the nearest hotel…”

“Don’t do that,” Skylar says quickly. “Uh, I mean, with Deimata after you, it’s better if you stay close to me. Uh, us. For your safety.”

“Right,” Myra says. “So I get a designated monster hunting babysitter, then?”

Skylar snorts. “I guess you could say that.” She nudges her shoulder. “But, hey. I’ll probably sneak you a cookie after dinner." She smirks. "If you're good."

Myra feels her cheeks flush with warmth.

And for a moment, they’re lost in the almost forgotten ease that is the other’s presence. For a moment, it’s just them, back together again after too long. For a moment, everything is fine.

That is, until they hear it.

The blood curdling scream down at the end of the block.

Chapter Text

Skylar looks at odds, eyes darting between Myra and Sadie, her hand hovering out to Myra as if she wants to reach out to her but is stopping herself.

“We gotta go,” Skylar says. “I… Myra, are you gonna be alr—”

“I’m coming with you,” Myra says, her eyes steely with determination.

“No you’re not,” Skylar says immediately.

“Yes. I am.” Myra sighs. “Believe it or not, I’m more qualified at this than I may seem.”

“There’s a story that goes with that,” Skylar says, still skeptical.

“There is. But not a story to tell now.” She unlocks her car. “Now get in.”

Knowing that there’s no time to waste, the three get into the car and Myra speeds down the street, only barely parking before ramming into the garage of the house.

“Oh God,” Skylar whispers.

“What?” Myra asks.

“We have to get in there,” Skylar says. She slams the door open and sprints into the house.

The screams are growing louder as they make their way through the house and Myra can’t help but feel unnerved.

Even after everything she’s gone through, hearing people in terror has never gotten easier.

“Ryan!” Skylar shouts.

“Ryan?” Myra repeats, eyes going wide.

“Ryan! Where are you?” Skylar says.

The screaming dissolves into sobs.

“Come on, come on.” They run up the stairs, nearly tripping from the speed, and make it to the bedroom where the loud sobs are coming from.

Skylar bursts into the room, weapon drawn, only to find Ryan Dean alone in his room, fingers pulling at his hair as he rocks on the floor next to his bed.

Skylar rushes to his side, kneeling next to him, her hands hovering near him, unsure if she should touch him. “Ryan?”

“She’s not supposed to be here, she’s supposed to be gone,” Ryan mumbles to himself frantically.

“Ryan. Hey. It’s me. Skylar.”

“She’s not supposed to be here, she’s gone, I saw her, I saw her go.”

“Ryan,” Skylar repeats. She places a hand on his shoulder and flinches with his whole body, back hitting his nightstand, knocking his lamp onto the ground with a crash. 

“You’re safe,” Skylar says. “She’s not here.”

Who? Myra thinks.

“She’s not supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to be here.”

Skylar telegraphs her slow movement and carefully slips her hands into Ryan’s. She squeezes his hands firmly and rubs circles into the back of his hands with her thumbs.

“Come back,” Skylar whispers. “You’re gonna be okay. Just come back to us.”

Skylar breathes exaggeratedly and slowly, Ryan starts to follow her pace.

His wide eyes soften and his manic mutterings die off into silence; the only sound left in the room is their breathing.

His brows furrow, head shaking in confusion. “Skylar?”

“Hey,” Skylar says. 

“Skylar?” he repeats. “What are you doing here?” He stops, snatching his hands away, backing up into the corner frantically. “No. I won’t fall for it. You can’t trick me.”

“Ryan, it’s really me,” Skylar says.

“No, because… because…” He looks at Myra. “You made her too? No. Now I really won’t fall for it.” He laughs bitterly. “They wouldn’t be here. Not for me.”

Myra’s face crumples. “I’m back in town,” she says, voice wavering. “Deimata is out and she’s my monster.”

Ryan laughs again, that harsh terrible thing that’s wrong coming from him. “Deimata, you’re my monster. So you can stop with the lies. I… I won’t fall for them.” He looks back and forth between Skylar and Myra. “This is cruel. I… I preferred it when you were torturing me for my screams. Seeing them here, caring…” He shakes his head. “You really know how to get to me, huh?”

Myra flinches at his words.

“You don’t like green beans,” Skylar suddenly blurts out.

“What?” Ryan asks.

“You don’t like green beans,” she repeats. “You ate them out of the can cold for three months straight as your breakfast and then got sick of them and you never ate them again. When I made you and Myra dinner for the first time, I made a side of green beans, and the whole time you were doing a really bad job at holding back gags. I thought it was my cooking.”

Ryan looks at her with pure confusion.

“One time,” Myra says, “you kissed your dog on the head, but you pressed too hard and it made her electric fence collar dig into her neck against the couch and you felt guilty about it for years.”

Ryan blinks. “I—”

“Your bucket list is short but when you crossed that first thing off of your list, you were ecstatic.” Skylar smiles fondly. “It wasn’t even anything cool. You wanted to eat an ice cream cone cone first. It was a mess and you had a fistful of chocolate ice cream and you were complaining about how cold it made your hand so much that I had to hold your hand for half an hour before you stopped.”

“And you never totally got that chocolate ice cream stain out of your white sneakers, no matter how many times you washed them,” Myra says.

“I don’t even know why you were wearing your shoes,” Skylar says. “We were sitting inside.”

Ryan looks between them. “Is it…” He swallows past the lump in his throat. “It’s really you?”

“It’s really us,” Skylar says, squeezing his hand. 

Ryan looks at Myra. “Deimata’s your monster too?”

“So I’ve been told,” Myra says. “I… I haven’t seen her.”

“Probably because she’s been too busy with me,” Ryan says, laughing sardonically. 

“Are you—”

“No, I’m not okay,” Ryan says. “I… I don’t know how I feel.”

“You don’t have to feel any way,” Myra says. “There’s no right way to be feeling right now.”

“I feel so stupid,” Ryan says, his hand pulling away from Skylar’s as he buries it into his hair and tugs. “I’m not a kid anymore. I shouldn’t— she shouldn’t—”

“She is a millennia old being that has been feeding on fear since her creation,” Skylar interrupts, her voice holding no room for argument. “She knows how to get to you and she will do anything to make you feel fear. There is no fair, there is no supposed to bes. There’s only fear and no fear.”

“Was that supposed to be comforting?” Ryan asks.

“No,” Skylar says. She smiles sadly. “You don’t deserve this, Ry. Neither of you do.”

Ryan lets her words sink in, his eyes glued to the wall as he stares with an empty gaze. “So, how are we getting rid of her?”

“We?” Skylar says.

“Yes,” Myra says. “We. You aren’t doing this alone.”

“I’ve been capturing monsters for years,” Skylar says with a flat look. “And yeah, maybe I can believe you,” she motions at Myra, “have had a part in the otherly but Ryan is just a civvie.”

“I don’t know what that means but that feels like an insult,” Ryan says.

Skylar gestures exasperatedly, wordlessly saying “see?”

“Civvie or not,” Myra says, “Ryan deserves to be involved. Deimata is his monster as much as she is mine, and the safest place he can be is with you, right?”

“The safest place you can be is far the fuck away from here,” Skylar says. “But that’s not an option because I’m sure Deimata will find a way to follow you.”

“So,” Myra says, “we’re staying. You’re stuck with us, sunshine. Sorry to say it.” 

She doesn’t mean for the old nickname to slip out, but even sarcastically said it feels too personal, too intimate, too much crossing the invisible line that they’re so cautiously treading. 

“You guys are going to stay here,” Skylar says. “Just while I deliberate with the team about next steps. In the meantime, you have my number, and Myra I… I don’t know why or how, but I know you can handle yourself. So just… keep Ry safe, okay?”

Before Myra can argue, Skylar beelines out of the room, leaving Ryan and Myra stammering and frozen as they process her words.

“So,” Myra says, “I guess we’re quarantined.” She looks around. “At least you’ve got a nice place.”

“Thanks,” Ryan says dryly. 

“What do you do to afford a place like this?” Myra asks.

“I’m a studio guitarist,” Ryan says. “I tried the soloist thing and played in a couple bands, but it wasn’t for me. So, I mostly do tracks for other artists. Lots of demo work.”

“And you like it?” Myra hates how much she cares, even after all these years, but she can't help but want best for Ryan. He spent too long stuck in his little bubble, struggling to get heard, playing in garages and empty gigs.

“It’s a living,” Ryan says with a shrug. “I didn’t follow my ‘dreams,’” he says the word with a bitter twist of the lips, “but I don’t think I really knew what came with those dreams. I don’t need the spotlight and the stadium of fans to feel fulfilled. Music it… it became an obligation when I was on tour. But doing studio stuff, I do it at my own pace.”

“It’s good that you’ve found something that works,” Myra says. “I’m still trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life. A lot of furry porn, currently.” She stills, her eyes going wide as she realizes what she’s said.

“So you’re still an artist,” Ryan says with a small grin. “I remember that mural you did the end of senior year in the gym. It was amazing.”

“Thanks,” Myra says, looking down bashfully.

“Someone’s gonna see how awesome you are, I’m sure of it,” Ryan says. “It’s hard not to.”

Her throat feels dry at his words, and she clears his throat. “It seems like someone’s noticed how awesome you are, huh?” She looks at the wall of the albums and plaques, all crediting Ryan. 

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “I considered moving to the big city, but I like it here. I have my own booth down in the basement and I rent out my recording studio to make some extra cash. I work on jingles when I’m not working on songs. It’s… it’s nice.”

“Nice sounds nice,” Myra says. “I haven’t had nice in a long time.”

Ryan looks at her, his eyes searching like he’s trying to dissect her with just a look.

“So,” Myra says, tearing her eyes away from his. “Do you have a partner that we have to explain the whole Diemata thing?” Myra asks, trying to hide the curious hope in her voice.

“Uh, no,” Ryan says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I haven’t really had time for a relationship since I’ve been so busy building up connections and building up my portfolio.”

“Oh,” Myra says.

“What about you?” Ryan asks. “You got someone in the big city you left behind?”

Myra snorts. “Yeah, no. Not anymore. Not after… yeah, no.”

Ryan raises a brow, urging her to continue.

“It’s complicated,” Myra says. “And you do not want to hear about it and I definitely do not want to talk about it.”

“Then we won’t,” Ryan says. “Easy as that.”

“It’s always easy with you,” Myra says. 

Ryan smiles. “It’s really great to see you again, Myra.”

“I didn’t realize how much I missed it here,” Myra says.

“You missed being back home?” Ryan says.

“I missed being with you.”

The words are too honest, lying heavy and open with them and the admittance makes her heart pound.

Her racing heart gets faster and faster, her palms sweaty by her sides and a choking feeling in her throat.

She manages to get the courage to meet Ryan’s eyes and she feels ice shock through her body as she sees his panicked gaze. His mouth is agape, words stuck in his throat as he points at Myra.

She feels a pair of hands wrap around her throat from behind.

A scream rips through her throat, a scream heard miles away in New York.