VIRUS
[4×07]
AFTER GETTING BRAEDEN INTO THE CAR, DEREK TOOK HER TO THE HOSPITAL. Malia and Ayla headed to Scott's house to let the alpha know what had happened, and see if he had had better luck today.
Both girls were soaked from the rain outside as they walked through the house. Malia gave a knock on the door, before throwing it open. Ayla followed her into the room. "We found Satomi's pack," the werecoyote informed her boyfriend and Scott. "Us and Derek. But they're dead."
"All of them?" Scott asked.
"All of the ones we found," Malia said.
"But we didn't exactly stay to take a head count," Ayla added.
"Then where's Derek?" Stiles asked.
"At the hospital," Ayla told him. "We found Braeden with the pack, but she's not looking good."
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Given that all four teenagers had the PSAT the next morning, both Stiles and Malia headed home pretty quickly after all of them talked. But since Derek was at the hospital with Braeden still and she didn't feel like going home to the empty loft, Ayla stayed at the McCall house for a little longer.
She had changed out of her rain soaked clothes and into some of Scott's dry clothes. The two were currently sitting on Scott's bed talking about their crappy days. The she-wolf had been resting her head on the alpha's shoulder but now sat up to look at him.
"Why didn't you call me?" Ayla wondered.
Scott frowned, knowing he had no response that she would like. "I got in a rush?" he said.
He had gotten a call that morning from Garrett, informing him that he either had to help get Violet- the girl who had attacked Ayla- out of jail or let Liam die. He had of course then gone to do whatever the assassin wanted to protect the new beta. Only in the end, they had all been attacked by Kate and the berserkers. Scott was still alive because he had gotten help from Chris Argent, but both the teenage assassins had been killed.
To begin with, he had been in too much of a rush to call the she-wolf. When he actually realized that he might need backup, he honestly hadn't wanted to call her. He knew Ayla would rush to help him the minute he asked, but he also knew that Liam was actually his responsibility, not hers.
"Scott," Ayla scolded.
"I'm sorry, okay?" he asked.
"I know you're the alpha, but this pack is still my responsibility too. Including Liam," she reminded.
Scott looked at the she-wolf, nodding. "If someone is dying, I'll tell you next time, okay?" he asked, smiling at her.
Ayla sent him a look, but nodded. "Good," she said, laying her head on his shoulder again. She felt him place a kiss against her head as she did so.
"You okay?" he wondered.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Ayla mumbled. She frowned as she remembered the bodies they had found. "Scott, whatever took out that pack... it was bad."
"We'll save the rest," Scott assured her.
"We don't even know who we're saving them from," Ayla reminded.
"We haven't known who we were fighting before," Scott said.
"Yeah, and people died then too," she mumbled.
Scott sighed. He knew she had a point. The chances that they would save everyone were slim. But he still had to try. "We can worry about it tomorrow. We still have the test in the morning," he told her.
"Yeah," Ayla agreed. She frowned. Taking a test didn't seem very important with what they currently had going on, but she knew they needed to try to actually do decent at school. It wasn't like they could explain their lives to their teachers.
She also knew that she needed to get back to the loft. But Derek probably wouldn't be back for a while, and being there alone after today wasn't at all appealing. "Can I just stay here?" she wondered.
Scott managed a smile. It had been almost five months since the night he had stayed over at the loft, and neither of them had stayed the night with the other since then. "Yeah," he told her.
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Why were the PSATs on Saturday? How could anyone expect the pack to attend school six days of the week with everything going on?
Scott was fully aware that he still needed to get up to get ready for the test. He also needed to wake Ayla up, given that the she-wolf was still asleep next to him. But having her next to him was doing nothing to motivate the alpha to get out of bed.
Her steady breathing suddenly changed and he wondered if she was waking up. He pushed himself up on his elbow to look down at her, given that she had her back to him. She was mumbling something in her sleep, most likely in a dream. He got the feeling it wasn't a good one, though. "Ayla," he said, gently nudging her to try to wake her up. "Hey, Ayla."
The she-wolf suddenly shot up as she woke up, looking around in fear. Sensing someone next to her, Ayla pushed herself away from whoever it was. Scott ended up grabbing her just to keep her from pushing herself off the bed. "Ayla! Hey, you're okay. It's me," he told her.
Ayla looked at him in surprise, breathing heavily as the images played in her head. Weird lesions, Stiles covered in blood, Scott with black veins and blood on his face. She placed her hand to his cheek as she checked to make sure the veins weren't there. She sighed in relief when she realized they weren't. "You're okay," she muttered, as she tried to calm down. She pulled her hand away, running it through her hair.
Scott just watched her in concern. "Does that happen often?" he asked.
Ayla scoffed, turning back towards him. "Only every other night," she told him.
"What did you see?" he wondered.
She frowned, looking down at her hands. "I- I'm not sure. But Scott, I think whatever killed that pack, is about to try to kill ours," she told him.
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The six teenagers stood in line for the PSAT later that morning. Seeing the way Ayla was anxiously biting her nails, Scott pulled her hand away from her mouth and held it in his. The she-wolf frowned at him. He had had a hard time convincing her to come after her vision that morning. She knew he was right about them needing to work harder at school, but the images from her vision just kept replaying in her mind.
"What's wrong with her?" Malia wondered, smelling the she-wolf's anxiety.
"She didn't sleep well," Scott replied. Both had agreed that stressing everyone out before the test wasn't a good idea.
"And you would know?" Piper asked the alpha, narrowing her eyes at her friends.
"Pipes," Ayla warned, not in the mood for her best friend's teasing this morning.
The girl rolled her eyes. "Fine," she muttered.
"Hey, where's Lydia?" Kira wondered.
"She took it her freshman year," Stiles told her.
"Does that mean I could have taken it some other time?" Malia asked.
"Malia, you studied harder for this than any of us," Scott reminded.
"Doesn't mean I'm gonna do good," Malia told him.
"'Well,'" Stiles corrected.
"'Well' what?" his girlfriend asked.
"It's 'do well,' not 'good,'" he explained.
"God!" Malia exclaimed.
"Okay, okay," Stiles muttered.
"You're doing this, because while we're trying not to die, we still need to live. If I survive high school, I'd like to go to college. A good college," Scott told her.
"It's only three hours. We can survive three hours," Kira put in.
Ayla gave a light scoff. "Let's hope," she muttered.
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Each of the teenagers grabbed a pencil and booklet as they walked through the room. They had to put their thumb print on the booklet and give up their phones before they could take their seats.
Ayla sat down next to Piper, a few seats back from Scott. "Ayla, I can hear you biting your nails from over here. Stop," Scott whispered so that only she would hear him.
The she-wolf sighed. "This is a bad idea," she told him.
"College, remember?" he asked.
"Yeah, and I want to be alive to go," she hissed.
"Who are you talking to?" Piper wondered, turning to her ex.
Ayla frowned at the other girl. "No one. Sorry," she said, beginning to bite the inside of her lip.
"This test is two hours and ten minutes. There will be two twenty-five minute critical reading sections, two twenty-five minute math sections, and an essay writing portion that will last thirty minutes," the man at the front of the room informed the students. The she-wolf didn't recognize him. He was one of those people that they only ever saw when testing. He turned Mrs. Martin, who was also helping with the test. "There are supposed to be two teachers monitoring this exam," he reminded.
"I know. It's Coach. He's not exactly punctual. Um, let me just try him again," she said, grabbing her phone and stepping into the hall.
Ayla sighed. Today will be fine. Today will be fine, she thought to herself. But her feeling of dread just kept growing. It was like she could feel her vision approaching.
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The test began a few minutes later. Ayla was doing her best, despite her mind not really being all in the present. Her mind kept wandering back to her vision, or it would move onto new ones. None of what it was giving her made much sense and none of it really gave her the feeling that today was going to end well. All it did was add to her dread and destroy her focus.
Focus. You have got to focus, she told herself. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to snap herself out of it. She instead landed in a memory of her grandmother and her drinking tea. The tea she hated as a kid. She forced her eyes open, pushing the vision from her mind.
There's no way I'm gonna do well, she realized.
She turned to see everyone around her working. Well, Stiles and Malia appeared to be struggling a bit, but they were still more focused than she was. She heard something behind her, and everyone turned to see that a girl had collapsed onto the floor.
"Sydney!" Mrs. Martin exclaimed, walking over to her. She helped her up off of the floor. "Are you alright?"
"I'm okay. I just got kind of dizzy," Sydney explained.
Mrs. Martin took the girl's arm, looking at it in concern. "Sydney, how long have you had this?" she wondered.
Ayla couldn't see what it was from her seat, but she was willing to bet it was one of the strange lesions from her nightmare. She turned towards Scott. "It'll all be fine. We need to get into college," she hissed. He gave her an apologetic look.
"Mrs. Martin, do I need to stop the test?" the man at the front of the room asked.
"No, um, it's fine," she told him, before walking to the front of the room. "Everybody stay in your seats. I'll, um, be back in a minute." She turned to the man. "No body leaves this room," she told him.
Ayla turned to her boyfriend with wide eyes, and he knew she was beginning to panic.
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Mrs. Martin ended up calling the CDC, which then showed up in yellow hazmat suits and closed the school off. Given that Sydney was clearly sick, she was taken to one of the tents they had set up. Both Scott and Ayla went to see her, wanting to find out what was going on.
"We isolate the sick and then we wait for instructions. If I'm wrong, they'll be out of here pretty quickly, and then I'm the crazy biology teacher who panicked for nothing," Mrs. Martin told the teenagers, before leaving the tent.
Both werewolves turned to Sydney, who looked terrified. The lesions were all over her arms. "Hey, you're gonna be okay," Scott assured her.
"It's not that. The PSAT's the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship. My parents can't afford to send me to college without it," she admitted.
"I'm pretty sure they'll let you take it again after this," Ayla told her. She gave her a forced smile, before her and Scott walked off.
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The two werewolves had started to walk back towards the testing room when Scott started acting strange. Ayla dragged him into the locker room, not wanting anyone else to see.
"What's happening?" she wondered.
"I don't know," he admitted. His teeth had grown into fangs and his eyes kept glowing red.
Ayla placed a hand against his sweaty forehead. "You feel like you're running a fever. Whatever Sydney has must affect us differently," she told him.
"What about you?" he wondered.
Ayla gave a shrug. "I feel fine. But we can't let anyone see you," she said.
The sound of someone banging on the locker room doors filled their ears. Ayla swore under her breath, moving Scott over to the lockers with his back to the door. Both sat there, waiting on whoever it was to move on. After a moment, Mr. Yukimura walked in. Ayla gave a sigh of relief that it was someone who knew what they were already. "Get Stiles," she told the man.
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Scott sat down on one of the benches and Mr. Yukimura brought the others into the locker room. All of them watched as the alpha tried once again to get his eyes to remain their usual color, but they just kept flashing red.
"It's still happening," Mr. Yukimura told him.
Scott turned to Ayla. "You still feel fine?" he asked.
She shrugged, holding up her hands. "No claws, no fangs, no fever, or glowing eyes. I feel totally fine," she told her friends.
Malia held up her hands, showing that her claws were out. "Well, I can't make them go back," she told them.
"Obviously the virus is affecting the two of you in a way it won't hit any human being," Mr. Yukimura told the two sick shape-shifters.
"You guys have to stay out of sight. We have to quarantine you from the quarantine," Stiles told his friends.
"Yeah, but where? I mean, what if they get violent? Like on a full moon?" Kira wondered.
"Yeah, and try to rip our faces off," Piper muttered.
"We shouldn't stay in here. Not in the locker room," Scott told them.
"A classroom is not going to hold us," Malia reminded him.
"What about the basement?" Kira wondered.
"Done that before. Not a good idea," Ayla told her, remembering trapping Cora and Boyd.
"We need something secure. Somewhere nobody can find us," Scott told them.
"The vault. The Hale vault," Stiles said.
"The Hales always have an escape route, like their house," Scott realized.
"Yeah, because that worked out so well," Ayla muttered.
Her boyfriend sent her a look. "There has to be another way in," he told her.
She sighed, standing up. She held out a hand to help Scott up. "Come on," she said.
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They found the blueprints to the school and rolled them out across a desk. "This is where the school sign is, so the vault's got to be right about here," Stiles told them, pointing to spots on the map.
"I suppose if there's a second entrance, it would probably be accessible from the basement," Mr. Yukimura told them.
"It's probably somewhere in this hallway- or this corridor," Stiles said, starting to point to the spot. He suddenly fell forward and Mr. Yukimura caught his arm to hold him up. "Whoa," he muttered as he steadied himself against the desk.
Noticing the lesions on his hand, Mr. Yukimura pulled Stiles jacket sleeve up to reveal that lesions covered his arm. "It's happening to you too. You're getting sick. You all are," the man told them.
Ayla frowned. She was practically holding Scott up, while Kira seemed to be holding Piper up. But the she-wolf and kitsune where the only two showing no visible signs that something was wrong.
"I don't feel sick," Kira said.
"I think it's affecting you differently, neurologically," her father told her. "I found your test answers here in a pile with the others." He sat the test sheet on the desk, and all of them looked down at it. Kira had tried to answer the questions, but she hadn't marked a single bubble. Instead she had marked to the side of them.
A feeling of guilt hit Ayla as she realized everyone was getting sick. "I knew we should've told them," she mumbled.
Scott frowned at her as everyone turned towards the two of them. "Told us what?" Piper wondered. "Whatever has been stressing you out all day?"
Stiles frowned as he noticed the way the she-wolf was avoiding looking at him or his best friend. "You saw something," he realized.
Ayla sighed. "I had this nightmare last night. I saw the lesions everyone has. I saw Scott sick. I thought he was poisoned like the pack me and Malia saw last night, but I'm guessing it wasn't poison now," she admitted. "And..."
"And what?" Stiles asked.
Ayla finally turned towards him. "You were alone, and covered in blood," she told him. All her friends frowned at her as she took a breath. "I'm not Lydia. I don't always know exactly what these visions are telling me. But all day I've had this bad feeling," she told them.
"Which is telling you what exactly?" Piper wondered.
Ayla looked up at her, the guilt weighing on her chest. "That someone's going to die today."
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The teenagers headed down to the basement, not knowing what other options they had. All of them began searching for an entrance to the Hale vault.
"Hey, guys! Over here," Stiles called. All of them walked over to him as he and Scott pushed a shelf out of the way. "Look at the cracks in the wall."
"The triskele," Ayla said as she noticed the symbol.
"Looks like the entrance outside. It only opens with claws. Anyone's claws, right?" Stiles asked, glancing back towards his girlfriend.
Ayla stepped forward. "Hale, remember?" she asked. She knew he was still worried about Malia finding out about the shape-shifter side of her family. Ayla didn't blame him. There was no doubt that Peter would try to use it to manipulate her.
"Wait," Malia said. All of them turned to look at her in surprise. "First can you tell me what you're hiding from me?" she asked the boys. Both of them frowned at each other, not knowing what to tell her. "I know you think you're trying to protect me, but I can handle it," she told them.
The two boys just continued to glance at each other, before turning to Ayla. The she-wolf shrugged. "What? This is your mess," she told Stiles.
"I know I'm on the list," Malia told them.
They all hoped the werecoyote didn't see the relief on their faces. "Yes," Stiles muttered.
"So how much?" Malia wondered.
"How much what?" Stiles asked.
"How much am I worth?" she inquired.
"Four million," Scott told her.
The werecoyote frowned. "Are you okay?" Stiles wondered.
"Yeah. Scott's worth twenty-five, Ayla twenty, Kira six. They'll take you guys out way before me," Malia told him.
The she-wolf scoffed at the other girl, before turning towards the vault to open it. "Progress," Stiles reminded.
"Still a lotta work," she replied as she slid her claws into the circle in the middle of the triskele. She turned it a few times, before it slid back into the wall. The whole wall slowly shifted out of the way, making an opening into the vault. All of them stepped inside and watched as the wall shifted back into place, sealing them in.
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The six teenagers got as comfortable as they could as they waited for something to happen. Malia was laying across her boyfriend's lap, while Ayla had Scott leaning against her. Piper was sat on the floor near the she-wolf, while Kira paced the room.
Stiles and Piper seemed to be doing a little better, but the other three looked worse. At this point, Ayla wasn't sure what they were waiting on. The quarantine to end, or for the three of them to drop dead.
"You know, this is where it all started," Stiles spoke up, drawing everyone's attention. Scott sat up, allowing Ayla to do so as well. Stiles pointed to the vault just behind the two werewolves. "That's where the money was. A hundred and seventeen million in bearer bonds."
"How do you even change bearer bonds into cash?" Kira wondered, turning to one of the nearby shelves. There were several jars with different contents. Of course, all of them were at least a decade old.
"Bank, I guess. They just let it sit here the whole time collecting dust," Stiles told her.
"I didn't even know it was down here. My mom must have known if Derek did, but I guess we just never needed it," Ayla told him.
Kira walked back over to everyone, sliding down onto the floor with her girlfriend. Scott leaned back against Ayla again, and felt her playing with his hair.
"You know bearer bonds are basically extinct?" Stiles asked.
"Why does it matter?" Kira wondered.
"You know how many problems that money could solve?" Stiles asked her.
"For you?" she inquired.
"Me and my dad. The Eichen House and MRI bills are crushing him," Stiles admitted.
"Mom does this thing, she writes down all the items in our budget, and how much they cost, then she adds them all up and figures out how long we have until... until we'd lose the house," Scott told them. All of them frowned as they thought about all of that.
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The humans and Ayla were still the only ones who seemed to be doing okay. The two werewolves and Stiles moved to the vault door to try to find out what was going on outside.
"Anything?" Stiles asked them.
"They're looking for us," Scott noticed.
Ayla turned to her friend. "One of us is going to have to go out there," she told him.
Stiles frowned at her, before turning to look at the others. Malia, Kira and Piper were sitting on the floor together. The werecoyote was noticeably worse, breathing rather hard.
"We need to tell her the truth about Peter," Scott reminded. "She's going to see the rest of the deadpool eventually."
Stiles stepped closer to the two werewolves. "Try to remember that Peter is the one name missing on that list. Which either makes him incredibly lucky or the benefactor. She finds out about him, she's going to go to him, you know she is. And then he's going to twist his way into her head like he does with everyone. Including us. We let him walk around like nothing ever happened, like he's one of the good guys. Scott, he's not one of the good guys," Stiles told them.
"You think I don't know that? Stiles, he killed my mom. I hate him more than anyone here. But either we tell her, or she figures it out herself at this point," Ayla snapped.
"If she finds out about him, she's gone. That's probably what he's waiting for and if he wins, we lose," Stiles told her.
"We're already losing," Scott told him. He held up his hand, showing the two of them that black blood was running from his finger nails.
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Given that they still didn't know why Ayla wasn't getting sick, they decided not to risk her going out of the vault. Stiles went instead. He told Malia bye, leaving her with his jacket, before going out of the vault. The others stayed inside, waiting for him to come back.
"You know, I just took you back. You're not allowed to die on me before we even make it a month," Ayla told Scott, keeping her voice low. The alpha was currently laying on the floor, using Ayla's leg as a pillow.
"I'll remember that," he said.
Ayla frowned down at him, running her fingers through his hair. "And you better remember that next time I tell you that we should just stay home, we should," she told him.
"I think I've learned my lesson on that one," he agreed.
"We could currently be at your house in your warm bed, instead of sitting on this hard, freezing floor," Ayla reminded. She had a teasing smile on her face, but it was honestly just her way of hiding how scared she currently was. At this point she had started listening to all the heartbeats around her just to make sure all her friends were still alive.
Sensing her nerves, Scott reached up and took her hand. She managed a smile as she felt him kiss her hand, before he let it go.
Hearing something to her left, Ayla turned to see Malia sitting up. Scott sat up as well as he noticed what was in the werecoyote's hand. She had pulled the deadpool out of Stiles' jacket pocket. "Malia," he warned, but she just stared at the paper in confusion.
"Malia?" Ayla asked in concern.
"I can't see. I can't see anything," Malia told them.
Scott reached forward, only to look at his hand in confusion. "Scott?" Ayla asked in concern.
"Everything's blurry," he admitted.
The she-wolf turned to Piper, who looked just as worried as she was. "Come on, Stiles," Ayla muttered under her breath.
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Neither the werecoyote, kitsune or alpha could see at this point. Scott now had the black veins on his face like Ayla had seen in her vision. She could hear everyone getting better upstairs, but her three friends were just getting worse.
"Ayla! Piper! One of you let me in!" Stiles yelled from outside the door. Both girls rushed to their feet and Ayla pulled open the vault door.
"Did you find something?" the she-wolf asked.
"Reishi mushrooms! Deaton said you'd have it here," Stiles said in a rush.
"The tea! The damn tea!" Ayla exclaimed, running over to the shelves.
"What are you two talking about?" Piper wondered.
"Satomi. She would bring my grandmother this tea. Talia would make me drink it when I was a kid," Ayla explained as she searched the jars. "Ha!" She grabbed the correct jar, throwing it onto the floor. The jar exploded into yellow dust which floated up into the air. Scott, Malia and Kira all gasped as it reached them.
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Of course one of the first things Stiles did was check on Malia. The other two couples were sat together, all just relieved that everyone was okay.
"Hey, you all right? Malia?" Stiles asked, sitting down next to her. She didn't respond, just staring down at the floor. "Malia?" he repeated, placing a hand on her shoulder.
She grabbed his arm, pushing it away. All of them watched her as she stood up and walked out of the vault without another word. Where she had been sitting laid the deadpool, with her name on it. Only it had listed her as Malia Hale.
I know we really haven't gotten any Malia and Ayla bonding, but I swear I have a scene planned in one of the future chapters.
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