Series Rewrite (A Teen Wolf Fanfiction)

Monstrous Part 1

Stiles sat me down on the edge of my bed, my clothing still in his car. He said something about getting rid of the evidence, but I was too numb to listen to him. He walked to the bathroom while I gazed at one solitary spot on the carpet, nothing but the replay of Brunski's death going through my mind.

Stiles knelt in front of me with a wet washcloth, taking my left hand in his. The cloth was warm against my cold fingers, and it caused a bit of life to crawl up my arm, reanimating me. Once the last of the blood was clean from my hand, he moved on to the next one.

"Stiles," I said softly. He glanced up at me, not stopping his gentle assault on my hand. The question must've been evident in my eyes because he shook his head at me, stopping only for a second to place his hand on my cheek.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "And the answer is no. You're not." I didn't reply, worried that my voice wouldn't be as strong as I hoped, and Stiles dropped his hand to continue removing the blood. My hands still shook in his, but it wasn't nearly as roughly as before.

Finally, Stiles stood and tilted my chin up to the sky, then he dragged the wet cloth through the blood on my face. With my head tilted up, there was nothing I could do to stop the tears that fell from the corners of my eyes. Stiles caught them with his thumb.

"Don't cry," he whispered, his eyes almost as sad as mine as he cleaned the sticky red substance from my neck. Once my face was as clean as he could get with the dirty washcloth, I let my head lower, my eyes falling back to the same place they had been before.

"You don't have to be here," I whispered. "I didn't ask you to be."

"Yeah, well, you need someone right now. And I'm sure as hell not gunna leave you in this state." Stiles checked his phone and cursed lightly before he bent at the knees to make sure he was in my line of sight. "I actually have to go for a bit." I blinked at him, my face not giving him any sign of emotion. He sighed, reaching out to touch my hand, but he stopped himself. "I'll come back and check on you, okay?" Again, I blinked, and again he sighed. "Alright." He took the washcloth with him when he left.

Boo immediately took his place, weaving her way around my ankles as though she was trying to tell me everything would be alright. I hoped she was right, but I doubted it.

Downstairs, Scott walked in the door, and he wasn't alone. Liam was with him. Half of me wanted to see Liam, the other half wanted him to stay as far away from me as possible. I was a killer. Could I even be trusted? I faintly recalled Stiles whispering to Scott what happened and what he was going to do, but the words just floated around my head like it was empty.

Scott knocked on the open door quietly a few moments later, and I didn't react. He walked in gently, sitting down next to me. More guilt overcame me as I thought about what he must think of me. Scott would never have killed Brunski. Why couldn't I be as good as Scott?

"You saved their lives, Y/N. Lydia and Stiles would've been dead if you hadn't been there. Brunski was a serial killer," Scott comforted, his hand falling in my lap to hold mine. I looked down at his fingers linked with mine, feeling nothing but love for this boy who was like a brother to me.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me," I whispered, not daring to meet his eyes. "But I still feel... I didn't just kill him, Scott. I murdered him. I ripped his throat out with my teeth, a-and... I-I liked it. I enjoyed it, but now I have this...pit inside of me. It's evil." I paused for a second, finally acknowledging what I was trying so hard not to. "Void told me once that I was like him. That I was an animal of chaos. What if he's right? What if I'm evil?"

"You're not," Scott replied confidently and instantly.

I lifted my eyes to look at him, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he could see the desperation in them. "How do you know?"

"Because I grew up with you. I know who you are, Y/N, inside and out. There's nothing evil or dark about you." His words relieved some of the weight on my chest, but not nearly enough.

"You think so?" I wasn't sure if I believed him, though I desperately wanted to.

"Yeah. You just have to learn to control your shift and your anger." His confidence in me made me both nervous and happy. He thought I could do it, but could I really? What if I wasn't strong enough?

"How?" I asked. "Nothing I knew before seems to work."

"Then we'll just have to find a new way. I'll help you," he promised. Tears clung to my eyelashes as I nodded and rested my head on his shoulder. I wasn't sure how long he stayed like that, letting me cry into the comfort of his platonic presence. Maybe it was no more than 10 minutes, but it felt like hours before I drifted off against him.

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I jerked up from my bed, a small squeak escaping my mouth as my hair flew into my face. I was tucked neatly into my bed, the sun was streaming through the window, and I thought, maybe...perhaps it had been a dream. I looked down at my clothes, and I was still wearing Stiles' flannel and my underwear, and I knew it was real.

My heart sunk down into the bed as I gulped. It was real. It was completely and totally real. I murdered Brunski.

I remembered it all vividly. I remembered Scott giving me nothing but his love. I remembered Parrish and Lydia willing to help me evade Brunski's death charges. But most of all, I remembered Stiles dressing me, cleaning me up, protecting me. I didn't deserve anything that they did for me, but they did it anyway without question.  I had to thank Stiles, but I had no idea where he was.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and saw a note sitting on my bedside table. It was written in Scott's messy writing.

Stiles is at the hospital, Lydia is at the station with Meredith, and I'm going to see Kira. Call if you need anything.

Well, that solved the location problem. I stood on shaky legs, walking to my closet. Boo was purring quietly on my pillow, curled up in a ball. All I did was slip on pants and shoes and throw my hair up into a bun. I was eager to get to Stiles. I was going to tell him everything, not just thank him. I was going to tell him I still loved him, and it seemed like nothing I did got me there fast enough.

I swiftly walked down the hospital hall, following the directions to his room I had gotten from the front desk. I stopped outside his door when I heard Malia speak from within his room.

"I hate math," she said. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. Since when were they talking again?

"Do you hate me?" Stiles asked. I peeked in the window to see him step closer to her, his eyes boring into hers.

Malia frowned in a frustrated way, stepping even closer to him. "I like you, Stiles." Stiles smiled lightly. "I like you a lot." She bit her lip at Stiles, and I could've sworn I felt my entire body tense up. My heart physically hurt and there didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the room for me to breathe correctly.

Stiles smiled at her lovingly. "Hey, I can work with that." I was about to walk away, but Malia lurched forward, pulling his lips to hers by his cheek, and he wrapped his hand around the back of her head tenderly, reciprocating the kiss fervently. He dropped his arms, so he could wrap them around her, coddling her between them.

I couldn't watch it anymore because, if I did, I'd surely collapse to my knees in the middle of the hallway. Instead, I ran. I wasn't sure where I was running to, but like always, my feet knew exactly where they wanted to go.

As if by habit, I snaked through the trees of the preserve like I'd lived here all my life and knew every rock and stump in the area. It felt like something was inside of my chest twisting my insides into the smallest ball possible.

My foot twisted on a dip in the ground and I fell hard, landing to rest on my hands and knees and panting loudly. This ache in my chest was so far from anything I'd ever felt before as one thing kept piling on top of the other. There was no way to release all this feeling inside me. Nowhere far enough I could run, nowhere dark enough I could hide, nowhere deep enough I could drift. So I did the only thing my body wanted to do. I lifted up my head and let out a blood-curdling roar of pure despair.