A/N: Ayla's dress for the bonfire above.
BONFIRE
[4×09]
THERE WAS ONE NAME ON THE DEADPOOL THAT HAD BEEN CONFUSING ALL OF THEM. Jordan Parrish, a deputy they had all spoken to at some point. The man had seemed completely normal. At least till another deputy found the deadpool and decided to try to burn Parrish alive. Yet, he was currently standing in front of Scott, Derek and Lydia inside the loft.
The former alpha checked over Parrish's hands, but there was absolutely no sign that the man had been burned alive.
"He covered you in gasoline?" Derek asked him.
Parrish nodded and Derek dropped his hands. "It's the hair and nails, isn't it? The parts of the body that are essentially dead," Lydia said.
"Well, they should be gone," Derek told her.
"I was set on fire. All of me should be gone," Parrish told him.
"Not if you're like us," Scott informed him.
"Like you?" Parrish asked.
"I don't think he's like us," Derek told the alpha.
Ayla chose that moment to walk back in with Lucifer in her arms. She placed the cat at the deputy's feet. Lucy gave a rather loud hiss, and tried to run from him. He accidentally ran towards Scott and Derek, before turning and running to Lydia instead. The banshee smiled as the feline rubbed up against her legs. She picked him up, having gotten used to the usually grumpy cat over the past few months.
"He's something. Lucy is never wrong," Ayla told them.
"Then what is he?" Lydia wondered.
"Sorry, but I have no idea," Derek admitted.
"But you knew about Jackson and Kira," Scott reminded.
"This is a little out of my experience. There might be something in the bestiary," Derek told him. "Did you try Argent?"
"He kinda fell off the radar after being forced to once again contemplate murdering his sister for us," Ayla explained.
"Okay, hold on. What's a bestiary? And why is someone considering murder?" Parrish wondered.
Ayla sighed. "That last part was sarcastic, or we're going to say it was at least," she told him.
"Actually, I don't even care. Just tell me one thing, are all of you like Lydia?" he asked. The banshee raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you all psychic?"
"Psychic?" Derek inquired.
"Yeah," Parrish told him.
"Not exactly," Scott said.
"Uh, actually, I kind of am," Ayla put in, raising her hand. "But I prefer the term seer over psychic."
"Okay, then what are you?" Parrish asked the alpha.
Scott glanced at the Hales, who both shrugged. "Why hide it now?" Ayla wondered. Both her and Scott turned to the deputy with glowing eyes.
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At this point they really just needed to print out an explanation for people to read. It would waste less time than trying to explain everything to every newcomer to their complicated world.
"What's a kanima?" Parrish asked.
"It's not that important," Ayla assured him.
"Yeah, we'll come back to that. Just know that everyone like us, everyone with some kind of supernatural ability is on the deadpool," Scott told the man, walking over to where Parrish had sat down on the couch.
"But I don't even know what I am," Parrish reminded.
"I'm pretty sure they don't care," Derek told him.
"Actually, I think they figured it would make you an easier target. They were obviously wrong, however," Ayla added.
"How many professional assassins are we talking about?" Parrish wondered.
"We're starting to lose count," Lydia told him.
"But is it still just professionals?" Scott asked.
"I don't think Haigh has ever tried anything like this. I think he was taking a chance," Parrish told him.
"That means anyone with the deadpool could take a chance," Derek realized.
"But if Haigh had it, then who else does? How easy is it to get this thing now?" Parrish asked.
"I'd say too easy," Ayla muttered.
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The banshee began to catch all of them up on what she had learned about the deadpool. From what Lydia could tell, her grandmother had also been a banshee. Not only that, but she had known the only other banshee that the pack had discovered. Meredith, an Eichen House patient who had killed herself recently after Lydia and Stiles went to her for help.
"How did your grandmother know her?" Derek wondered.
"She didn't. She found her, because of another woman named Maddy. The woman she loved," Lydia told them. She sighed, looking down at the photo she had in her hands. She stood up and walked over to the two other teenagers, holding the photo out to the alpha. Ayla leaned closer to Scott to look at it. It was of who she assumed was Lydia's grandmother and a dark haired woman. "I never met her, but I saw her name everywhere. She used to be part of a yacht racing team. There were plaques and trophies in the lake house from all the regattas she'd won," she went on.
"How did she die?" Parrish wondered.
"How's not the story. It's what happened right before. My grandmother, Lorraine, used to work in San Francisco for IBM. She was there on a weekend, catching up on work. She started hearing this sound... like rain. But when she looked out the windows, all she saw was blue sky," Lydia told him.
"But she kept hearing the rain?" Scott asked.
"And it just kept getting louder. Rain and thunder cracking like gunshots in her head. So loud, she finally just screamed," Lydia explained.
"Like a banshee," Derek said.
"She called Maddy who was planning on taking one of the boats out on the lake. But Maddy said that the sun was shining there too. So Lorraine didn't say anything," Lydia told them.
"There was an accident?" Parrish guessed.
Lydia nodded. "It took them four days to find Maddy's body. And then it took decades to figure out how Lorraine knew. She started with parapsychologists, like the PhD in their name made it more scientific. They built the study in the lake house according to every pseudoscientific theory they could find. None of it worked. So then she started going to more extreme occult. Things like mediums and psychics. All of them were failures.
"Until she found Meredith. They found her in Eichen House. This fragile girl who didn't understand the things she heard. They brought her to the study. And they almost killed her. She was hospitalized for over a year. She... she never really recovered. My grandmother drove her insane. I drove her to suicide. And all she ever wanted to do was help," Lydia finished explaining.
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The five of them stood around the table now that Lydia had finished updating all of them. The banshee was holding the photo in her hand again.
"My grandmother created the code for the deadpool. They think she's the banshee who put the names out in the first place. She left me this code in the same message," Lydia told them, sliding a piece of paper across the table to her friends.
"But she didn't leave a cipher key, did she?" Scott asked. She shook her head.
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Both Parrish and Lydia left, leaving the two Hales and Scott at the loft together. Ayla put Lucifer back into her room before he could destroy any of her uncle's things. Derek already wasn't a fan of the feline, she didn't need to give him any other reasons to get rid of him.
Both her and Derek walked back into the room to find Scott picking up one of the many guns Braeden had left at the loft. This one in particular, though, she had left for Derek.
"Careful with that," the former alpha warned.
Scott turned to them, but didn't sit the weapon down. "I thought you didn't like guns," he reminded. Derek held out a hand, and Scott handed the gun over to him. "Does this have something to do with your eyes?"
"My eyes, my strength, the healing, all of it," Derek admitted, looking at the ground.
"Gone?" the alpha asked.
"Whatever Kate did to me, it's still happening," Derek told him, sitting the gun down on his bed.
"If the deadpool really was made by a banshee, then there's something else that you should know about. Your name broke the third list. It was a cipher key," Scott informed him.
"And the other two keys were Allison and Aiden," Derek remembered.
"And I... I don't want to make you nervous, but it kind of feels like there might be a pattern there," Scott said.
"It doesn't feel like it. There is a pattern there, Scott," Ayla snapped. She didn't mean for her tone to be as sharp as it was, but it still came out that way. As if the deadpool wasn't already enough, now it seemed like her uncle's death was being predicted.
"It... it could mean that you're just in danger," Scott stuttered.
Ayla scoffed. "Scott, banshees don't predict danger. They predict death," Derek reminded.
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Hearing the front door open, Melissa McCall turned towards it. She had just gotten home from a night shift and was sitting her things down. But into her house walked Ayla Hale. The she-wolf was ready for the day, with her dark hair straightened, makeup done, and a Lydia approved outfit.
Of course, tonight was the bonfire, so the strawberry blonde had told her best friend she needed to wear a dress. They had eventually compromised on a black spaghetti strapped dress with a monarch butterfly on the front. Ayla had a flannel over it, the colors of which matched the butterfly. But she was still Ayla, meaning she had called Piper to have her remind Lydia that it wouldn't be an Ayla Hale outfit without her black Doc Martins.
Melissa managed a smile as the teenager strolled into the house. "I guess you showing up first thing in the morning is better than you already being here," she said.
Ayla rolled her eyes. Melissa had found her at the house the morning before the PSAT. "I had just found Satomi's dead pack, I think I had an excuse for not wanting to be alone," she reminded.
The woman just continued to smile at her. "He's in his room," she told her.
Ayla smiled back and headed to Scott's room. The door was closed, so she lifted her hand to knock. She then dropped it and just opened the door. "Good morning!" she exclaimed with a smile. She then took in the scene before her.
Scott was standing by his bed, and turned to look at her in surprise. But her attention wasn't on him. It was on the lacrosse bag and multiple stacks of money on his bed. "What the actual hell?" she asked.
Scott glanced between her and the money. "I can explain this," he said.
Ayla walked over to the bed, scanning all the stacks of money. It looked like just about the right amount to be a hundred and seventeen million. "You have the money? How the hell did you get the money?" she questioned.
He frowned, knowing there was no point to lying. "I found it in the locker room at school," he told her.
"Sometime between now and last night when we talked?" Ayla wondered, raising an eyebrow.
"More like a few days before the PSAT," he admitted.
"Scott!" Ayla exclaimed.
"I know I need to return it, okay? I just... Stiles was talking about how him and his dad are struggling, and then there's my mom. And... I don't know, okay?" he tried to explain.
Ayla sighed as she remembered what both boys had said while in the vault. She scanned the money. It wasn't hard to understand why Scott had kept it. "It's a hundred seventeen million dollars. I'm not mad you didn't return it. I'm mad you lied to me about it," she told him.
He frowned at her, not understanding why she was so calm. "But... isn't part of it kind of yours?" he asked.
Ayla turned back towards him, sending him a look. "You lied to me because you thought part of this was mine?" she inquired. He shrugged, clearly worried about the correct answer to that question. Ayla smiled. "Scott, none of this is mine."
"Seriously?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Nope. This is all Peter's. I have a rather large savings account left by my grandmother and everything from my mom, all of which I get this summer when I turn eighteen. But all my money is in a bank, not an easily accessible vault," she explained.
Scott let out a breath of relief. "Oh, that's good to know," he admitted.
"I'm still mad you lied," she informed him.
He nodded. "Yeah, that's fair," he agreed.
Ayla sent him a look, but his eyes had already moved down the she-wolf. "When was the last time you wore a dress?" he wondered.
"You're changing the subject," Ayla told him.
"Maybe you're just distracting me," he told her, a smirk teasing at his lips.
Ayla glared at him. "Well, I didn't expect to find out my boyfriend was lying to me this morning. I was actually hoping he would be asking me to the bonfire tonight," she explained.
Scott raised an eyebrow at her. "You actually wanted to go to that?" he asked.
Ayla shrugged, suddenly feeling stupid for even bringing it up. "I thought you were, like, required to go as lacrosse captain," she said.
"Kind of, but I figured you'd have more important things with everything going on," he told her.
She shrugged. "Right. I should probably just see if Lydia and Stiles need help with the whole cipher thing," she agreed, turning to the door.
Realizing he had said the wrong thing, Scott grabbed her hand to stop her. "Hey," he said. She reluctantly turned back around, still frowning at him. "Ayla Hale, would you like to go to the bonfire with me?" he asked.
"Depends. Are you lying to me about anything else?" she wondered.
Scott thought for a moment. "I don't think so."
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The sun had set and everyone was already drinking and dancing by the time the two werewolves arrived at the bonfire. When Ayla had heard bonfire, she hadn't exactly pictured this. She hadn't expected there to be a whole DJ and lights set up outside, but here they were.
She walked through the crowds of people, holding Scott's hand. "Booze, teenagers, and fire. This totally isn't a recipe for disaster," she muttered.
Scott managed a smile, but she could still see the stress etched into his features. Both knew they had more important things to be doing. They had agreed to come, though, because they both knew that five minutes of not worrying about everyone would probably be good for them. And besides, they could keep an eye on Liam.
They both walked closer to the bonfire, finding several lacrosse players. All of them were dressed in jeans and their jerseys. Ayla leaned closer to her boyfriend so he could hear her over the music. "Were you supposed to wear your jersey?" she asked.
"Apparently," Scott muttered, glancing down at the black button up he was currently wearing. He sighed. "You sure you don't want to skip this?" he asked.
Ayla sent him a look. "We are allowed to try to enjoy ourselves for five minutes, okay? Besides, Liam is supposed to be here and he's still on the deadpool," she told him. Scott just sighed and began looking around for his beta. Ayla glanced around as well, and her eyes were slowly drawn to the werecoyote dancing close by. "Malia is here," she realized.
Scott followed her gaze, finding the girl in the crowd. Neither of them had seen her since she found out all of them had been lying to her. They made their way over to her. "Hey," Scott called, drawing her attention. "What are you doing here?"
"Getting drunk," Malia replied, holding up the flask in her hands. "What are you two doing?"
"We were trying to be teenagers for once. It's not going well," Ayla admitted.
Scott sent her a look, before turning back to Malia. The werecoyote was taking a drink from the flask. "I don't want to ruin your night or anything, but we kind of can't get drunk," he informed her.
"What?" Malia asked.
"I think it has something to do with our healing," he told her.
"But, trust us, you're really not gonna feel anything," Ayla told her.
"Maybe you should tell him that," Malia told them, nodding to where Liam was sitting with his best friend, Mason. The two were trading a bottle back and forth. Ayla released a sigh.
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The she-wolf left Scott to try to deal with Malia for a moment, while she walked towards where Mason and Liam were sitting. Spotting her moving towards them, Liam stood up and walked off. She watched him go towards the drinks, deciding she would just let him figure it out himself.
She walked over to Mason. "Is he okay?" she wondered. She hadn't talked to Liam much since everything at the hospital. Of course, that had only been a few days ago, but he still had just seemed off to her since then.
"Why don't you tell me?" Mason asked.
Ayla sent him a look. "What's that supposed to mean?" she inquired.
"Just that he hasn't seemed okay since you and your boyfriend started showing up," he told her.
Ayla frowned at him. "I'm trying to help him," she promised.
"Yeah, and how exactly are you doing that?" Mason wondered.
"May not seem like it, but I get the whole anger issues thing and getting kicked out of school and all that. I genuinely want to try to help him," she told him.
Mason looked at her for a moment, before nodding. Ayla managed a smile. "And I pissed my best friend off too when it was all happening to me. But she's still my best friend four years later," she added. Mason returned her smile, and she walked off. She saw that Scott had gone off towards Liam and headed back over to Malia.
"Don't give me a 'we need to stick together' speech," Malia told her as she approached.
Ayla nodded. "Fine. Can I still explain myself?" she wondered.
"You were protecting me. I've heard it a million times now. Don't need to hear it again," Malia told her.
"That wasn't what I was going to say," Ayla told her. Malia raised an eyebrow and the she-wolf sighed. "Maybe the last few weeks it was about you. But the four months before that? I was protecting me, not you," Ayla admitted.
Malia stopped dancing and fully turned towards the other girl. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"I know that it doesn't mean much to you when you hear about the fire, but that was basically the day my whole world seemed to crumble. My mom moved us across the country and we tried to start over. Then I lost her, and everything crumbled again. But I started over like she taught me, and I lost two of my friends in the same week and then it seemed like I was losing Derek too. It still seems like I'm losing him," Ayla explained. She took a breath as she felt tears trying to well in her eyes.
"The Hale family doesn't have a good history, Malia. So I honestly didn't want you to be my family. If you were, you were just another person I had to lose," Ayla told her.
Malia frowned at her, having not really expected that. A guy bumped into her from behind and she stumbled forward. Ayla rushed forward to help steady the other girl. "You okay?" she asked.
Malia wobbled on her feet. "I think I'm drunk," she admitted.
Ayla frowned, noticing the way the other girl couldn't regain her balance. "Yeah, I think you are," she agreed. She glanced towards the boys, seeing that Scott had just caught a falling Liam. He looked towards her, clearly noticing something was very wrong.
"Is this what drunk feels like? Because it doesn't feel as good as I hoped," Malia told her.
Ayla shook her head. "I don't think it's supposed to," she told her, keeping ahold of the other girl's arm.
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Ayla got the werecoyote over to where Scott and Liam were and had her sit down on the grass. Scott handed Malia a water bottle, before turning to Mason. "How much has he had to drink?" he wondered, glancing towards Liam. The beta was even more out of it than Malia.
"Not enough to get him like this," Mason told him.
Ayla glanced around them, noticing the security guards eyeing Malia and Liam. "Scott, they keep looking at us," she told him. The alpha glanced up, noticing what she meant. The two of them looked at each other, knowing this had to be deadpool related.
"Something's happening. We need to get them out of here," Scott said, glancing between her and Mason.
Ayla nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. She stepped forward to pull Malia up, only to stumble.
Scott grabbed her arm and helped her steady herself. "You okay?" he asked.
Ayla frowned as her head began to spin. "Sort of," she said. She turned to Scott and she could tell from his face that it was starting to hit him too.
"How much did you two have to drink?" Mason asked them.
"Nothing. Not even a sip," Scott told him.
"Same," Ayla said, sitting down at the picnic table they were standing by. Scott had to lean against it as both began to get more dizzy.
"It's the music," Scott suddenly realized.
Ayla turned to him, and blinked a few times when she saw more than one of him. "Then... then we have to turn it off," she said, standing up. She didn't get her balance fast enough as she did so.
Scott quickly moved to catch her, before having to catch himself on the table. He turned to Mason. "Don't let them out of your sight," he told him. Mason nodded, and the two werewolves stumbled off towards the DJ booth.
They managed to push their way through the crowd, but the closer they got, the more their vision blurred and the more of a headache both got. Seeing them making their way through the crowd towards him, the DJ smiled and turned the music up louder. Both werewolves hit the ground as their heads began to pound. Before either could try to get up, they felt men pulling them to their feet. The security guards Ayla had noticed before began to drag them off towards the high school.
Both of them were dragged inside and dropped onto the ground next to Liam and Malia. Ayla blinked a few times as she tried to clear her head. But even with the distance, she could still feel the affects of whatever these people had done to them.
"What is that? What are you doing?" she heard Scott ask.
She pushed herself up so her head wasn't against the floor, seeing that one of the security guards had a gas tank in his hand.
"It's gasoline. Haigh says we gotta burn you," the man explained, just before he began pouring it all over them.
Once they were all four covered in gasoline, the man tossed the gas can to the side. Scott started to try to get up, but was kicked back down onto the floor. The man knelt down next to him, pulling a lighter from his pocket. He flipped it open, holding it out in front of the alpha.
Before he could set the teenagers on fire, they all heard the music outside stop. The man glanced towards the doors in confusion, and didn't notice the way Scott's eyes had turned red. He grabbed the man's hand, snapping the lighter closed. He then twisted the man's wrist, making him groan in pain.
Ayla started to push herself up to help, but she didn't have to. Braeden and Derek entered the hallway. The woman smacked the security guard who had the gas tank in the head, knocking him to the floor. Then both her and the oldest Hale headed down the hall to the other three security guards.
At this point, both Liam and Malia were starting to snap out of it. They pushed themselves up off the floor to watch the fight, but none of the teenagers were about to join it with how they currently felt.
They didn't need to however. It was only a moment before all three of the supposed security guards were on the floor, and Derek and Braeden were walking towards them. The man who had had the lighter was sitting up, and so Braeden kneed him in the head. He hit the ground, and both her and Derek turned to the teenagers.
"What happened to the gun?" Scott wondered.
"You're covered in gasoline," Derek reminded, sending him a look. He helped the alpha to his feet, before lifting Ayla to hers.
"In his defense, we're still regaining our ability to think," Ayla told him, leaning aginst her uncle as her head cleared.
I told you I had a cute Malia and Ayla scene planned. Ayla has kind of avoided Malia since the beginning, so it was about time that she explained herself.
On another note, I realize I completely left Piper out in this chapter. I may have some plans for her in the next chapter, though, and if you're a fan of hers, then you might hate me for it just a little bit. Just be ready for an emotional rollercoaster in the next chapter, that's all I gotta say. To be honest, the rest of this season is an emotional rollercoaster.
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