Gut Instinct (Teen Wolf)

1:26 Your Name Means Money?

Warning: blood, storms, attempted murders, injuries, forced revelations, angst, Jennifer Blake being a bitch. Oh, and swearing

Across town, deep in the preserve was a tree stump. It sounded like a normal tree stump, sure. But it was no normal tree stump. No, this used to be the center to a grove of trees that druids would come to. It used to be sacred. It was called the Nemeton.

Now, the grove had almost dissipated. The tree had been cut down by a person whose identity was still unknown. It was now a tree stump. But it was more then forty feet in diameter. And it held unlimited power if that power was awakened.

Under the Nemeton was a root cellar. The beams were cracked and rotted from age and weather. It wouldn't hold up very long. Tied to three of the four beams were three parents. Two fathers, one a mother. All three worried for their children. All three wondering when the rescue party would arrive.

Or if it would arrive.

The doors to the root cellar opened. Something fell down the stairs. No, someone fell down the stairs. All three parents watched as the person hit all the steps on their way down before their back hit the dirt wall on the landing. They watched as the person's hands made their way under their form. They watched at the person puched themselves up to sit against the dirt wall.

Noah Stilinski began to tug at his ropes. Because even with the cuts and bruises on her face, even in the dim light, he would recognize his daughter anywhere.

Vic looked up the stairs to her captor. The woman she saw in the window. The beautiful one she resolved to not trust. All she said in response to being thrown down the stairs was a simple, "Ow."

The woman walked down the stairs, her posture akin to a cat stalking its prey. She grabbed Vic by her bicep, practically dragging her to the beam that was only feet away from the ex-hunter. The one that most people only referred to as his last name: Argent.

The woman tied Vic up in chains she had stowed away in the cellar, different from the adults' ropes. Noah pulled and tugged on his ropes, desperate to get to his daughter. She looked terrible. A long cut on her cheek, a bruise on her forehead, her top lip was split, her jacket was torn on the right cuff, and god knows how moany more injuries she had under her clothes.

The Darach ignored his attemps at escape and locked the chains together. She smirked at how Vic winced. The woman stood up and smirked at all of the parents: the nurse with the brave heart, the sheriff who was trying to keep his kids safe, and the ex-hunter who hated her for bringing one more innocent life into this.

"I hope you weren't having too much fun without me," she said, her words almost a lullaby. "The fun's just beginning."

"Why the hell would you bring her into this?" Noah asked. "She doesn't know anything."

The Darach hesitated before she rounded the beam to look at Vic. The girl glared at her, her eyes telling a thousand hates and curses. "They have no idea, do they?" the Darach asked her. Vic didn't respond, didn't look away.

But her silence was enough.

The woman's smirk deepened. "Well, I think it's time they find out the truth, don't you?"

Before anyone could move, before anyone could blink, the Darach plunged a knife into Vic's shoulder. It didn't hit anything. No bones or muscels. The stab was meant to hurt. Meant to make her bleed. The girl groaned in pain. Her dad pulled harder on his ropes. The knife was pulled out a second later.

"I'll let you explain the rest," the Darach said. She walked up the stairs, each stepped sounded like a heartbeat, fragile and dangerous. She left.

Vic closed her eyes and hit her head against the beam. She tried to fight it, she really did, but it came through anyway.