Summary: After feeling Lydia die, Jordan needs a break to find himself.
Jordan saw Lydia's death, but not in time to stop it.
He'd been feeling strange around her all week. He thought it was because the YukiOnna drained her. Lydia's complexion looked close to expiring and the itchy feeling an impending death gave Jordan followed him for a while. When he last saw her--she'd used her banshee scream to try and conjure the hellhound up from the depths of Jordan's soul. The hellhound heard her, he was sure of it, but afterward, the death feeling he got around Lydia only grew. There was still so much he didn't know about their connection.
..and now he would never know.
The moment Lydia died, Jordan was in his patrol car listening to the radio, trying to find the channel he found with Xavier--the same channel he thought he could hear the YukiOnna on. Right when he thought he heard the wail, he was suddenly no longer in his patrol car, but in Lydia's home and she was engaged in battle. For a split moment, he recognized some of the moves he taught her and a flash of pride overwhelmed him until he realized she was fighting for her life. There was blood everywhere and as she reached for her phone, he knew that was the end of it. He couldn't move. It seemed his premonition was happening in real time and there was no way he could pull himself out of it. He didn't know how. He watched as a man slit her throat and even though he screamed her name, he wondered if she heard it at all...
When he found himself again in his patrol car, he found his breath came in short spurts as he fought to keep control. The red-hot searing pain that accompanied a death surged through him. He promised that the next time he felt a death, he wouldn't run from it. He knew he should speed to Lydia's home, but he also knew there would be nothing he could do. She was gone.
Instead, he struggled with the door handle and finally fell from the cruiser, hitting the ground on all fours as his body bucked and twisted with the physical pain of her death. His skin began to heat and he felt the familiar tug of the hellhound as it enveloped him.
Warmth and heat surrounded him in a way he hadn't felt for weeks. He'd chased the feeling with his friends, finding it in fleeting moments, but never a full body experience like this. He didn't know how long it would last, but he allowed himself to retreat into his head so that the hellhound could take control. For a few blissful moments, he could disappear.
---
When Jordan came to, he was back at the Nemeton again, naked and covered in soot. This time, however, he had a stash of clothes in a den Talia showed him, so that when he came home to shower, he wasn't completely naked.
In the days that followed, the guilt overwhelmed him. He tried to give a description of Lydia’s murderer but only Sheriff Stilinski knew why Jordan would know this. He put in a week's vacation at the Sheriff's station and no one questioned him--not even the notorious Officer Smith. He received many calls and texts from concerned friends and he let all of them know where he was going and why. He needed to be alone. He needed to get out of Beacon Hills. He needed to find a way to bring forth the hellhound at will.
He bought a ticket to Las Vegas, with the intent of spending a few days in the desert surrounding the city, warming up and finding himself. The hound inside him howled as he left the city limits of Beacon Hills. He only hoped that he wouldn't fall asleep in Nevada and wake up in California as the hound tried to find its way back home. He rubbed a thumb over the charm Alistair gave him. He carried it with him everywhere. It hadn't burned up when he was in the patrol car, even though it was made of wood. He knew then that it was special.
If only he knew how to control the premonitions. If only he knew what to expect. Maybe he would have been able to save Lydia. One thing was for certain, though, their supernatural connection felt severed and Jordan felt completely alone.
