tattoo
Two bodies crashed through the bedroom door, slamming it shut behind them. With the loud music booming through the entire house nobody could hear the loud slam, nor had they noticed how the walls around them had shaken. And if they had, they were too intoxicated to care. They all were, that was how they had got in this predicament. Nobody had been there and sober to stop what had begun in the kitchen and what had now worked itself to upstairs, to the room that she had been staying in for the past few weeks since summer had begun. There was nobody to ask whether the two would wake up and regret their decision or if they had gone one tequila shot too far. A gasp escaped the brunette girl's mouth as her back was pressed against the cold wall, her legs wrapping around his waist as he lifted her up. While her hands brushed through his hair his traveled up her exposed legs, slowly working their way beneath the hem of her black silk dress that she had opted to wear for tonight's party. One of many summer parties hosted by the girl and her redhead best friend. Every inch of her body fired up beneath his touch, it was magnetic, what she had been craving, she couldn't pull herself away, and maybe it was those shots of tequila talking but she didn't want to either. All of the angst that the two had felt for the past few weeks all built up into this moment where the two were unable to tell right from wrong or make sensible decisions. It was summer, they didn't care about sensible decisions. The whole point of being a teenager in summer was to make mistakes and when school came back into session, to ignore them, act like they never happened.
The thin spaghetti straps of her dress draped over her shoulder as his hands moved up to her back, craving to get closer to her as if it were possible to get any closer than they already were. Kinsey pulled her lips away from his for a split second, even that was too long, she pulled the black dress over her head as he continued to hold her up, refusing to gain too much space between them. As soon as they had heard the piece of fabric land on the bed across the room the two had resumed the passionate kiss between them.
His fingers caught in her long brown curls as he reached for the nape of her neck, her teeth caught on the bottom of his lips. The two split again as Kinsey tugged at the bottom of his shirt, prepared to pull it over his head and throw it across the room as they had with her dress, but he wasn't willing to waste the time fiddling with the article of clothing again. He pressed his body against her harder, hard enough that he didn't need hands to hold her up, with his now empty hands he ripped his shirt to pieces, allowing it to fall at their feet before he quickly placed his hands on her again. She let out a low moan, over the past few weeks their tongues had become familiar with the other's taste, after multiple hook-ups whenever they had gotten the chance. Whenever Peter and Derek had dared to leave the two of them alone, or whenever Lydia hadn't roped the girl into another shopping trip. Every chance the two of them had gotten they had ended up in this predicament, but something was different about this one. It was their first drunken hook-up, but that wasn't it. This wasn't as meaningless as the rest of the hook-ups had been. Their touch was more craving, kisses more passionate, the minds foggier than they usually were. She'd wanted him before, she had had him before, but this was different somehow.
They could remember the night that all of this began. Along with Peter and Derek, the two of them had spent all day trying to find out more about the Alpha pack that had left its mark on the door of the Hale house just before the beginning of summer, they had been trying to find a lead on where Erica and Boyd were after being released from the Argent's captivity. The two Hale's had left them alone in Derek's loft to pick up some pizza, leaving them to enjoy each other's company, and they had, just not in the way either Derek or Peter had intended them to. For a while, the two had been sitting on Derek's couch, talking, about anything that had come to their minds, about the plans that the two had for summer and the rest of their lives. Before she knew it Isaac's lips were pressed against hers, and she wasn't fighting it. The rest was history. Since then, it had happened multiple times. Every free moment of their first few weeks of summer had been spent having casual, secret hook-ups in every place possible. The abandoned Hale house, Kinsey's car, the couch in Derek's loft, Derek's bed. Anywhere that allowed them enough space.
"We should..." she breathed out in a moan as Isaac left a trail of open-mouthed kisses down her neck, sliding the strap of her black laced bra over her shoulder. "...probably stop."
The wolf mumbled in agreement, but couldn't stop. He relished in her touch, it was addictive. If it wasn't so addictive maybe it would have stopped after that first time on Derek's couch when they had both agreed it was a moment of weakness, that it would never happen again. Kinsey repeated herself in another breathless moan making her words all that less convincing, she knew that she didn't want to stop, but after all of the times that nights like these had happened how long was it until things began getting messy? Until someone knew what they had been doing every time that they had blown off plans just to spend entire days like this?
Isaac pulled his lips away from the girl's tanned skin, looking into her eyes deeply, he tried to pull a puppy-dog look, but it failed to come across like that. All that his eyes showed was that sultry look, the look that craved to continue what they were doing, whether they had said it a million times or not that it couldn't happen anymore.
"We agreed we couldn't do this anymore." Kinsey panted heavily, her hands still resting on the nape of his neck as she returned that same look he was giving her.
"So you want to stop?" He asked with a raised brow.
"...No."
"Then shut up."
Once again, the two began exploring each other's mouth as Kinsey undid the buckle of his jeans, they were both goners now. There was no going back now. They both knew that. Once again they had chosen to ignore their own words, their mind's own pleas to stop before someone got hurt before someone found out and it made their situation too messy and they couldn't take it back. For the past few weeks of summer, it had been their best keep secret. Somehow, they had always had time planned out perfectly, before Peter and Derek would return they would be back dressed and sitting as if nothing had ever happened with enough time to get rid of the smell that they knew lingered. Mostly, it would consist of Kinsey going in the shower while Isaac aired out the apartment. When that had grown tiring was when their hook-ups had grown into those other places like Kinsey's car, or in desperate measures, an abandoned home that the girl's mother had burnt to a crisp. But as said, they were desperate.
Out of all those times, and all of those places tonight was the first night they had managed to work their way into Kinsey's temporary bedroom in Lydia's house. The redhead having another summer party, like they had every weekend since summer had begun, was the perfect excuse. Unlike the other parties this time Kinsey had managed to convince her best friend to invite the wolf, Lydia knew they had been spending more time together while Kinsey made an attempt to spend time with her newly-found father, she just hadn't known what the two got up to in that time. And even now, as they hooked up in the same house as her, she had no idea. She was too busy with her hosting duties to wonder where her best friend was. If she knew anything about Kinsey, she was probably doing shots in the kitchen with a bunch of strangers.
The redhead girl herself burst through the door of her bedroom, flicking on the light switch allowing the two dark silhouettes to turn into a clear image of her best friend pressed against a wall in nothing but her underwear and Isaac in more detail than she had ever intended to see.
"Oh, my God!" Lydia blurted out in embarrassment, quickly covering her eyes.
"Oh, my God!" Kinsey repeated, quickly losing her legs from around Isaac's waist until both of her feet were on the ground and she was standing in front of the wolf, blocking her best friend from seeing more than she already had, which wasn't quite possible. Lydia wasn't sure she would ever be able to get the image out of her head. "Lyds! You could have knocked!"
"This is my bedroom!"
Kinsey turned around to the wolf standing behind her who looked as guilty as ever. As the two had stumbled drunkenly through the halls, at least Kinsey had, she had mumbled to him through their kisses that it was the third door on the right. The second door on the right, Lydia's bedroom. Only then, as they shared a look did they realize their mistake. Kinsey looked around the room, confirming it was in fact Lydia's purple bedroom that the two had barged into, her dress was in fact laying on Lydia's bed and Isaac's clothes were in fact on her bedroom floor.
"You were in France and didn't do any dating for four months?" Lydia asked with a prying eye as she looked at Allison who sat in the passenger seat. The girl simply shrugged at the question as if that wasn't obvious, dating wasn't why she had spent four months in Paris, it was just one of the reasons she had left Beacon Hills. She had left for a chance to heal, and to continue her training with her father as a distraction from how much she missed Scott. As well as Kinsey. Because hell if the two had spoken every day like they both promised they would in the airport before she got on the plane, and every time before that. The two were lucky to speak once a week. "Wow... Even Kinsey dated in that time. Right, Kins?" Lydia said with a smirk as she looked at the girl in the back of the car who had been daydreaming the entire time.
"Huh?" Kinsey mumbled, shaking off all of those thoughts.
"I was just about to tell Allison about the time I walked in on you and-"
"Don't you dare, Lydia. You promised..." Kinsey warned the girl. After that incident she had sworn the redhead to secrecy, if anyone else found out about her and Isaac, both of them would be screwed. They had managed to convince Lydia that it was the first and last time anything had ever happened between them, that it was just all of the tequila that Kinsey had drunk, and well, Isaac had just gone ahead with the idea. Neither chose to mention all of the times before.
The two girls stared at each other through the rearview mirror while Allison waited in anticipation, even if she had only spoken to Kinsey once a week over the past few months sleeping with someone sounded like one of those important updates to mention.
"When I walked in on her and Isaac."
A loud groan came from Kinsey as she buried her head in her hands, though Lydia apologized for blurting it out, that she couldn't handle keeping good gossip to herself it was clear by the large smile across her face that not an ounce of her regretted spilling the beans. She had been dying to tell someone for the past two and a half months since it had happened, there were a million times where she had almost spat it out in front of Scott and Stiles on the one occasion that the four of them had met up, the first and last time the four had met up during summer.
"Isaac?" Allison asked in shock, barely able to form a sentence. "Isaac? Isaac Lahey? Isaac Isaac? Seriously! Oh, my God! Wow..." The girl continued to babble while Kinsey continued to groan from the back seat, this was exactly the kind of reaction she was trying to avoid. "How did that happen? How many times did that happen? How was it?"
"Allison, gross. I'm not talking about this. With either of you."
As the three pulled up to a redlight Allison and Lydia both turned fully around in their seats to look at the brunette girl hiding in embarrassment in the backseat, now that all of them were here Lydia saw no problem in getting all of the details she had been trying to pry out of the girl since that night but Kinsey had remained in complete secrecy. She still stood by the answer of her and Isaac only being together that one night, that it was just the effects of being intoxicated and lonely. That since that night, even though the two had still seen each other just as much, that nothing had happened between them again, that everything was back to normal. It was a complete lie of course, just because Lydia had caught them once the two of them hadn't put a stop to their secret hook-ups, they just knew that they had to be even sneakier now. And they had been. The two of them had to be Beacon Hills's best-kept secret.
Though Kinsey refused to answer, the girls continued to stare at her, their eyes burning into her until she was willing to answer every single question they had. And since how long Lydia had been waiting to get all of these answers, she had built up a variety of questions, and in the few seconds of her knowing, so had Allison. Both girls were prepared to sit here all night until she answered, even now the traffic light was on the green, nobody was behind them, they could do this all night. It seemed like a much better plan than going on another group date.
"Fine. Fine. Fine." Kinsey complained, sitting up in her seat. "It happened because I was drunk, and well, he was there and he had been all summer so, you know, we got carried away. After Lydia walked in on us it never happened again. That's all you need to know, and it's all I'm going to tell you so don't get asking any more weird questions that I know Lydia's probably thinking."
Neither was thrilled with the answers they had received, they hoped that the details would be a little more juicy, like that the two had been secretly hooking up for an entire summer, and even after Lydia had caught them the two continued to keep it a secret. But they believed the girl who claimed that it was just a one-night thing, never to be looked back on. They were fools. As the three continued to drive to their group date Allison couldn't help but wonder if she had missed anything else that had happened to the two girls while she was gone, clearly, while she was in Paris they hadn't been giving her all of the details in their lives like they claimed they would and had been. If they could keep something as big as Kinsey and Isaac a secret what else could they keep a secret from her? For all she knew everything had changed since she left.
"So did you?..." Allison asked the redhead driving. "Date anyone, I mean. You know, after..."
"Do not say his name." Lydia interrupted.
The redhead had in fact been dating during the summer, but unlike Kinsey and her hookups with a single person, Lydia had broadened her horizons. Not by much considering that the brunette had once caught her hooking up with someone who looked like Devenford Prep's version of Jackson Whittemore, that was a strange sight to see. She had actually had to look twice to make sure that it wasn't Jackson himself, but she knew he was in London, she'd been there when he had walked through the gates at the airport, Lydia had been too. The Jackson lookalike wasn't the only person Kinsey had caught Lydia with during the summer, he was just more memorable.
"Is he okay? I mean, did everything work out?"
"Well, the doctors looked like total idiots when he turned up alive, but everyone got over it."
Kinsey nodded in agreement, it felt like just yesterday when all of that had happened, it was hard to believe four months of their lives had passed since then. So much yet so little had changed in their lives during that time. "Derek taught him the werewolf 101 while he was still here, like how not to randomly kill people during a full moon."
Allison laughed at the girls' comment, oh how she had missed having to worry about things like a full moon in Beacon Hills, wondering whether they would wake up to the news of another animal attack. Though Paris was beautiful and a place she had loved since she was a child it lacked all of Beacon Hills's, well, uniqueness. "So you've both talked to him?"
Both girls shook their heads. Since seeing Jackson off as he boarded the plane to London neither had heard a word from him, they couldn't quite blame him, he needed to settle into an entirely new continent, meet new people and truly come to terms with what he was. It couldn't be easy trying to explain to his parents how he had been declared dead only to turn up alive and without a scratch just a few hours later, for that, the two girls had chosen it was best not to bother him with texts and calls for at least a few weeks. When the time felt right, the two had begun sending him the odd text to check up on him, but neither had received anything back, it had been around two months since their last text and still, neither had heard from the wolf. Kinsey knew that not speaking or hearing from Jackson had hurt Lydia, after what both of them had said before he died in her arms she thought that was the turning point for them, that may be all of the things that had happened between them was just the Kanima talking, not Jackson. It seemed as though the girl had convinced herself she would be getting her happy ending, but if she would ever get it, it wasn't with Jackson. It took her a while to come to terms with that. Lydia tried to brush off Allison's questions with a whatever, pretending that she no longer cared for the wolf, instead, making a small comment about an American wolf being in England would just be a disaster. She didn't want to focus on the details of him leaving them.
"So you're totally over him?" Allison questioned again, she doubted that the redhead was, she could see through her like glass, and Kinsey's looks from the back of the car had helped her to decipher that all wasn't as perfect as it seemed.
"Would I be going on a group date if I wasn't?" Lydia snapped. Both Allison and Kinsey erupted into laughter, Kinsey had known since Lydia had arranged tonight that it wasn't just an outing with a group of guys that she had met at the mall, unlike Allison, she had told her that it was a group date. They both knew that Allison may not be so open to the idea, even Kinsey wasn't, she just saw it as an opportunity to convince her redhead best friend that there was nothing going on between her and Isaac, who had threatened to decapitate anyone who laid a hand on her tonight. "Yes, it is a group date," Lydia admitted. "It's not an orgy. You'll live."
The three girls continued laughing and joking about tonight's date, reminiscing on the last group date that the three of them had gone on, praying that unlike that one tonight's would go much better. As long as Kinsey remembered the name of her date it couldn't be hard, as far as Lydia was aware none of the boys she had arranged the date with were supernatural which seemed like an immediate positive, and this time, she opted out of going bowling which as they had learned that night seemed to be an excuse for all the boys to compete with each other. As they sat at another red light the two chose to update Allison on a few more things that they had missed out of their phone calls and emails, smaller things, like how every weekend for the past four months of summer had been spent with the two of them hosting parties, building back that reputation Lydia had gained before being claimed the town wacko, after Jackson rising from the dead it didn't seem appropriate for her to have that nickname any longer. In the midst of their laughing Allison's face had dropped quicker than ever, her entire mood changing.
"Oh, my God." She muttered, staring through Lydia's car window.
While the redhead turned to see what Allison had been looking at Kinsey leaned forward between the two seats, also curious but as soon as she'd seen Scott and Stiles in the Jeep beside them she had sat back in her seat quick enough to give herself whiplash. While Allison had seen the ex who she had been avoiding since she left Beacon Hills Kinsey had seen the person that she had been avoiding since she had spoken to him in his room the night Jackson "died." Of course, there had been that one time that she and Lydia had met up with him and Scott for old time's sake, but even then she hadn't spoken a word to the boy, making every effort to avoid holding any conversation with him. She couldn't find it in herself to act like everything was like the old times when she had told the boy that because of her grandfather she couldn't risk him getting hurt. Maybe Gerard was out of the picture now, but she wasn't quite sure how to approach him after that. Everything the two had once shared, their weird relationship that was never a real relationship was a thing of the past. Stiles hadn't even known if the girl was still in town or if she had flown to Paris to be with Allison and her uncle like she was supposed to do if the two decided not to come back to Beacon Hills. After months away from each other the two had pushed their feelings for one another to the very back of their minds.
Yet after seeing each other for a split second at a set of traffic lights, it came flooding back.
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I can't see him, not now." Allison panicked, desperate to hide her face as if the wolf wouldn't be able to see her like it never happened.
"That makes two of us," Kinsey complained from the back of the car, ducking behind the two seats, maybe Stiles wouldn't have seen her, maybe he only saw Allison. "Lydia, go. Just go!"
Lydia tried to argue with the girls, telling them that the light was still red, but neither quite cared what color the light the traffic light in front of them was, they were much more concerned about getting away from Scott and Stiles before they had a chance to try and talk to them. Both of the brunettes screamed at her to just drive, and without further hesitation she did, slamming her foot on the gas as the poor tires of her blue Prius screeched against the tarmac. If she got a ticket for tonight, it was just another part to add to their memories of the night that Allison came back. It was just the beginning of what was sure to be an eventful night. Only when the two girls felt like Lydia had driven enough for them to be away from Scott and Stiles did the two raise their heads and return to sitting the way that they should, taking a big sigh of relief. When she decided to come back Allison hadn't anticipated seeing Scott so soon, she thought she at least had until the morning when they were in the controlled environment of a school. And Kinsey thought that she would be able to avoid Stiles for the remainder of her high school years, if she had made it through the summer what were the next two years of school?
The redhead had never seen the two in such a state. She knew both of them had a flair for the dramatics, she just thought it was part of being weapon-welding huntresses, but this wasn't that. Clearly, the two of them were just petrified of confronting their emotions after acting as though they didn't have any for the past four months. Living with Kinsey, Lydia had seen her best attempts at avoiding Stiles like the plague, unlike tonight, they had been a little more discreet. There had been that time at the mall where she had jumped in a rail of clothing to avoid being seen leaving her to stand alone and wave at him and Scott like a freak, but even that seemed more discreet than screaming when the boys were just a few feet from her. She didn't see why the girl couldn't just admit to herself what she had already seen for months, Stiles liked her, she liked Stiles. Yeah, maybe Gerard almost killed Stiles because of that, but he was gone now, the two could live happily ever after, someone in this town had to get a happily ever after.
Kinsey turned to look through the back window, seeing that the Jeep was behind them just a few feet back, with a large sigh she knew she could do it anymore. "We need to go back and talk to them." The girl suggested, Allison seemed to agree.
Lydia came to a sharp stop in the middle of the road, all three of the girls looking out of the back window seeing that the boys had stopped too. The three girls tried to figure out why they would stop too, but as Lydia pointed out, it was Scott and Stiles, logic didn't apply to the two of them. With a smile across her facing, laughing at Lydia's comment Kinsey turned back around to look at the girl in the two front seats, but that wasn't what her eyes landed on.
An involuntary shriek escaped from Kinsey's mouth as she looked straight ahead into the eyes of a deer running straight towards them, its eyes wide with insanity. Allison and Lydia had whipped their heads around just in time to see the deer as it crashed through the windscreen, glass flew over them as they tried to shield themselves with their arms while Kinsey ducked down between the two front seats, her arms over her head. Scott and Stiles jumped quickly out of the car, if the sound of Kinsey's familiar scream wasn't enough to alert them, seeing the dear crash straight through the windscreen of Lydia's car certainly had been.
The three girls scrambled out of the car barely able to catch their breaths as they slowly stepped back from it in shock, their eyes remaining on the dead dear trapped in Lydia's windscreen. Scott rushed towards Allison quickly checking the horrified girl over to make sure that she was all right, Stiles headed for the other two girls who backed away beside one another. He didn't think twice when he wrapped the short brunette in his arms as she breathed heavily, on the verge of hyperventilating as she tried to catch her bearings.
"It came out of nowhere." The girl mumbled into his chest, still staring at the dead deer.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" He asked, pulling her away from his chest for a moment to look over her. She didn't seem hurt, in fact, it seemed like all three of them had somehow gotten out of the car without a scratch. Even as all the glass had flung at them, they were unharmed.
"I'm okay." Kinsey nodded breathlessly.
"Well, I'm not okay," Lydia announced as she stood in the middle of the group, still trying to catch her breath. "I am totally freaking out. How the hell does it just run into us?" She asked, turning to Kinsey and Stiles as if they would know how to answer that, they both seemed pretty experienced with weird occurrences, another thing she had noticed since living with Kinsey.
"I saw its eyes right before it hit us. It was like it... it was like it was crazy." The girl stammered, for some reason a feeling that she hadn't had in a long time had returned tonight, and that was what scared her more than almost being killed by a deer accident. The last time she had had the feeling was the night Jackson died, Gerard had almost killed them all and she had found out that Peter was her father. She never did quite work out which one of all those things that had happened that night had been the cause of that feeling inside of her stomach, but what she did know was the moment that scream had escaped her mouth it had returned.
"No, it was scared." Scott shook his head as he stood beside the deer. He reached his hand out, touching the deer, and a feeling rushed through him. "Actually, terrified."
An alarm clock ringing through the brunette girl's ears had woken her up as she groaned loudly, throwing her pillow over her head. It couldn't be that time already, that couldn't be the official sound of summer ending and school beginning again, it was too soon for it to be over. There was no way that she was now in the junior year of high school, it wasn't right. A groan came from Allison as she sat up beside her cousin, reaching over her to slam her hand down on the ringing alarm clock, even she wasn't prepared for the first day back, and she was always prepared, last time the two had experienced their first day it had been Kinsey who stayed in bed half an hour longer than she was meant to, causing her to be late because she hadn't listened to Allison. Now, it seemed as though the older brunette wouldn't argue against the idea of sleeping in, all day.
Last night when the two had returned home to the new apartment they had opted for it to be like old times, sharing a bed together like they were still innocent little kids, holding onto that idea that nothing would ever change. Both knew better, but both of them needed something to feel normal. Between moving into a newly built apartment that lacked any touch of Victoria to not being given a night-before-school lecture, the two needed to feel like part of their childhood still remained. There had to be something that could make this place feel like home with its unpainted walls and boxes of belongings scattered in every room, even the foyer. None of the three Argents had quite had time to unpack and decorate, the three had only officially moved in yesterday, the apartment had only been brought two weeks ago when Chris and Allison made the decision to return to Beacon Hills, with conditions of course. The man would never return to the town knowing that his daughter intended on getting involved in werewolf business, he wasn't even aware of what Kinsey had been getting involved in while he was gone. She hadn't told either of them about the Alpha pack in fear that he would make her come to Paris before the end of summer and keep her there. The only person she had told was Lydia, the redhead had understandably become her closest confidant while the two were living together.
There were a few more shared groans before the girls both decided that they had to get up and go to school, it was part of their promise to themselves and each other that they would try to be as close to normal teenagers as possible. Of course, they would always be trained hunters. Kinsey would always be the daughter of a werewolf and a cousin to Beacon Hills's Alpha. But she could still at least pretend for a few moments that she was normal despite all of that.
Once the two girls were dressed and somewhat ready for school they both sat on the edge of Allison's birthday, taking in the last few minutes of the silent apartment before they left for school where people would ask about their summers. Asking how the two were coping after the tragic suicide of Victoria Argent. Both of the girls had slapped on enough concealer to cover the lack of sleep that they had received last night, every time they closed their eyes all they could see was the image of the deer running towards them with that crazed look in its eyes. That was enough to keep both of them up until early hours this morning when they had finally caved in and took some of the sleeping tablets that Kinsey had been prescribed after the ordeal at the video store all of those months ago. There was a slight chance they were out of date, but what mattered was that it had finally allowed the two girls to get a few hours of sleep before school.
Chris walked into the room seeing the two girls sitting on the edge of the bed, both in silence as they stared blankly at the unpainted walls of Allison's rooms. Even though their blank stares, he could see the pain in their eyes, he too had missed the sound of Victoria giving them the school lecture that she had never failed to give them. It was clear neither was ready for the return back to school, but both had convinced themselves they had to be. Allison didn't quite seem ready to come back from Paris, though she pushed at the idea of coming back this early. And Kinsey, well, she was no better than when he had left, just like he had feared she wouldn't be.
"You both ready?" He asked, standing in the doorway.
"Yeah." Both girls mumbled in agreement, failing to convince him.
"You know, you could still wait till tomorrow if you want. I know the first day can be tough." Chris suggested as he walked towards the bed, squeezing in the small space between his daughter and his niece. Both of the girls disagreed with his suggestion, reassuring him that they were fine and ready to do this today, frankly, they wanted it over and done with. "Or you could both wait a week if that would make things easier." He smiled weakly, trying to lighten their moods, though that was never his area of expertise, Victoria always dealt with it better than he did.
Kinsey shook her head in disagreement again, she appreciated the man's efforts but it didn't matter how long the two of them delayed going back to school, they were still who they were and no amount of time would change that. People would still whisper about them as they walked through the halls, no matter what it was about, there was plenty to choose from after all. No matter how long they delayed school Victoria would still be dead, and there was nothing that they could do about that, not anymore. Honestly, the two had already done enough damage.
"We promised Lydia that we would drive her since her car's wrecked." Kinsey insisted.
"So we should go," Allison added in agreement.
The two girls looked at one another, and both had noticed that the other had tears forming in their brown eyes. Just the thought of not having Victoria here to lecture them on the drive to school this morning was enough for the tears to begin forming, acting like everything was fine and ignoring the truth didn't stop those tears from making their way out of them. Chris held a hand out for both of the girls sitting on either side of them, the two girls took his hands before he pulled them into a tight hug allowing them all to sit like that in silence, in the comfort of each other's arms. This was how it had to be now, and it would take all of them time to get used to it.
At school, the young brunette stood with Lydia and Allison at the older Argent's locker, waiting for her to put her books into the small space before they all headed to their first class of Junior year, English, which luckily, all of them shared. It was about time that the three of them had classes with one another. Now they wouldn't have to spend their entire lunch catching each other up on what had happened during their separate classes, or for Lydia's sake, what gossip they had heard while sitting alone surrounded by people that they didn't speak to, nor did they want to speak to them. Over the few months leading up to summer, the three girls had quickly discovered that people in this school typically only wanted to speak to them to ask a series of inappropriate questions. Like what had happened to Lydia when she disappeared for two days from the hospital, or why Allison's mother had killed herself based on the suicide note that they all seemed to know about, or if Kinsey had played a part in the arson her mother committed on the Hale house, even if she was just ten years old and in a different state when it happened.
Kinsey and Lydia leaned on the lockers that stood beside Allison's, scanning all of the fresh faces that walked past them. Hopefully, all of the Freshmen that were beginning today didn't know a thing about the three of them meaning it was a whole class of people who wouldn't try to come up to them in the halls and ask one of those inappropriate questions.
"Freshmen." Lydia sighed joyfully. "Tons and tons of fresh men."
Kinsey nodded in agreement, she had to at least act like she was interested in any of the fresh male faces walking around them if she wanted to keep her and Isaac's secret, well, a secret. Sure, some of these fresh faces were attractive, but she didn't care for any of them. She was satisfied enough with her secret hook-ups, there were no strings attached, no feelings that she had to worry about. It was perfect.
"You mean fresh boys." Allison corrected them in disgust. "Lydia, they're 14."
"Well, Kinsey's still 16 for a few more months so I'll just live vicariously through her. Besides, some of them are more mature than others." Lydia shrugged, somehow a 16-year-old with a 14-year-old sounded better to her than a 17-year-old being with a 14-year-old.
"You know, it's okay to be single," Allison suggested as she looked at the two. Clearly, in the four months that she had begun the two had become severely boy focused, from all of the hook-ups the two had been having to all of the double dates they had told her that they had been on, it seemed appropriate for the two to focus on themselves now that school was back. With all of their studies, there wouldn't be much time for dating. "Focus on yourself for a little while, work on becoming a better person."
Lydia and Kinsey turned to look at one another with straight faces and wide eyes, wondering whether Allison was being serious before the two couldn't help but burst into laughter. They'd been through this before. It was what Allison liked to do when she wanted to talk about her own problems, but to disguise it she would find a way to relate it to one of them. She'd done it while in Paris when the three had shared one of their occasional video calls. Allison had pestered her cousin about talking to Stiles, even making a pros and cons list, yet somehow, they all seemed to have more to do with her and Scott rather than Kinsey and Stiles. She just wanted one of them to agree that it would be fine for her to call and check up on the wolf even though she made them promise not to let her, she had promised herself too. This was no different, the girl just wanted them to give her some advice on her own issues, but to do it, made it seem as though the two of them were the ones with the problems that needed resolving.
"Oh, Allison." Lydia shook her head. "I love you."
"We really do," Kinsey added with a nod. "But we can't keep doing this."
"So if you need to do that thing where we talk about us and pretend like we're not actually talking about you, it's totally fine." The redhead emphasized, Allison couldn't help but smile, the two really did know her better than anyone else. She thought she had disguised it well, clearly, not as well as she thought. Lydia slammed her hand against the locker, looking around the hallway around them again, the hallway filled with fresh boys. "I don't know about Kins, but I don't want a boyfriend. I want a distraction."
Kinsey didn't have time to try and disagree with her wanting a boyfriend, she didn't have time to keep up that little facade she had begun a few months ago, she couldn't when her attention had already been snatched away from the conversation with her best friend a cousin, too focused on who was walking down the hall. The brunette stood with her mouth gaped as she pulled herself slightly off of the metal locker to get a better view, she nudged her redhead best friend in the side until she too was looking at the sight walking down the hall. Or better yet, both of the sights walking down the hall. Allison closed her locker, leaning against it with an exasperated sigh, only then noticing her best friend and cousin as they stood catching flies, their eyes still on whatever was down the corridor. She couldn't help but turn to see what the two were gawping at, and even she couldn't complain about the sight in front of her. Two brunette boys walked down the halls in their matching leather jackets, both holding a motorcycle helmet in their hands. With their resemblance Allison couldn't help but ask the question that was always asked with her and Kinsey, were the two related, more so, were they brothers? It was clear that the two looked too alike to be just brothers, there was hardly a difference between them. One was slightly taller than the other, which was as vast as their differences got. There was no doubt. Twins.
One by one the three girls walked into class with Lydia and Kinsey leading ahead, still talking about the set of twins they had seen in the hallway while Allison followed behind slowly, still thinking about what she had said to them. She could focus on herself, or she could do what she really wanted to do and talk to Scott. As Kinsey scanned the class for an empty seat Lydia explained how it was her life mission to find out more about the two twins and when she felt as though she had learned enough, she would make her move. When Kinsey had found two empty seats of course they had had to both surround Stiles, one of the seats in front of him, the other right beside him. Lydia and Kinsey shared a look with one another, the redhead silently asking if she was willing to sit there after the only conversation the two of them had shared since the start of summer was last night when a deer had hit them.
When Kinsey nodded the two took the free seats, the brunette taking the seat beside Stiles as she gave him a faint smile and Lydia taking the one in front of him. Allison had been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn't thought about where she would sit until she was left with only one choice, right in front of Scott. She looked at Kinsey and Lydia who smiled at her wearily, if there was one thing worse than Kinsey having to sit beside Stiles, it was Allison in front of Scott.
Nervously, she asked the wolf whether the seat was free for her, even though there were no other options for her to sit, she felt it was necessary to ask whether she could sit by him before asking Lydia to swap with her. A just as nervous Scott agreed that the seat was free, empty, all hers, vacant, all for her, just for her. Allison quickly sat down, hiding her face in embarrassment while Scott looked across to the two who sat in his row, Stiles provided him with a sarcastic thumbs up while Kinsey couldn't do anything but give him an awkward smile.
A series of phones began ringing and chiming across the room, confusing all of the students, the only time this happened was when explicit photos of Greenberg had accidentally been sent to everyone. By Greenberg. Kinsey pulled out her phone, looking at Lydia and Stiles before daring to look at what was on it, by the lack of gasps across the room she thought it was safe to assume it wasn't Greenberg or anyone else's junk on her screen.
"The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." A woman walked into the room, her heels clicking against the tiled floor as she read out the text that everyone seemed to receive, catching everyone's attention easily. It was one way to make an impression. "This is the first line to the last book we are going to read. It is also the last text you will receive in this class. Phones off, everyone."
Kinsey sat idly doodling in her book rather than focusing on the task that everyone had been set while Miss. Blake left the room, she couldn't concentrate on work right now, she still couldn't shift that bad feeling that appeared last night. With that feeling and the images of the deer from last night, it was hard for her to focus on her studies, all that seemed to help subside it was a new hobby she had picked up over the summer. Drawing. It came to her quite naturally which was a surprise, she'd never been too artistic, of course, there were her random doodles all over each one of her textbooks but they had never been serious. Today, it seemed as though birds were on her mind, her entire page was filled with birds of all different sizes. Stiles looked up from his work, checking up on the girl beside him when he had seen that she was doodling, he wasn't surprised, he knew she didn't have the best attention span when it came to school. He noticed that on the page her arm leaned on was what seemed to be a drawing of a deer, he wondered if it was a coincidence, she seemed to be into the whole nature things, but after last night he had to wonder if it was because the deer thing was playing on her mind like it was his.
But it didn't seem like he could ask her, after all, it had been a while since the two had a proper conversation, last night when she had calmed down she had quickly moved away from him, resuming her promise to stay away from him so that he would be kept safe.
He shook off any idea of talking to the girl, he didn't want to bother her. Instead, he turned to look at the girl who sat in front of him, that was someone he could talk to. Lydia had been the one he called or texted every time he wanted to know how Kinsey was doing without having to bother the girl herself, over that period of time the two could even now call each other friends. He looked down noticing the redhead had a bandaid around her ankle, he was sure it wasn't there last night, he had made sure to check over both the brunette and Lydia for any damage and he'd noticed how both of them hadn't had a scratch, so where had it come from?
"Hey, Lydia." He whispered, not only getting her attention, but Kinsey's too. "What is that? Is that from the accident?" He asked, pointing down at the bandaid.
"No." The redhead mumbled. "Prada bit me."
"Your dog?"
Kinsey scoffed as he looked at her with a furrowed brow. "No, her designer handbag."
"Yes, my dog." Lydia shook her head. Was this what the two of them had come to? Making comments at one another during class because they were both physically incapable of having a civilized conversation without thinking the other would get hurt? As if the universe were out to have one of them killed? She tried to turn back to her work, leaving the two to bicker if that was what they would rather do than just admitting that the two of them needed each other. But of course, this was Stiles she was talking about, he couldn't just ask a question and leave it there.
Once he had confirmed that Prada had never bit the girl before he began going off on a tangent, as he always did. The boy began theorizing that somehow Prada and the deer from last night were connected. He had already found the accident suspicious enough for him to begin looking on the internet about how many collisions involving deer there had been in the past few months but now he was more suspicious than ever. He suggested that maybe this was one of those cases where animals began going crazy before an earthquake, it was safe to say he had caught enough of Kinsey's attention for her to put her pencil down and listen to him. Somehow, it made sense, and maybe, just maybe whatever was going to happen, that the animals were all going crazy for was the entire reason she had that pit in her stomach.
"Meaning what, there's going to be an earthquake?" Lydia asked, not even slightly convinced.
"Or something. Maybe it means something's coming. Something bad."
"It was just a deer and a dog." Lydia brushed it off.
"Actually," Kinsey spoke up, the two turned to look at her. "I think he might be right."
"You-you do?" Stiles asked in shock. The last thing he ever expected from her was for her to agree with him, well, he didn't expect her to even speak to him, let alone agree with one of his bizarre theories involving a dog, deer, and a potential earthquake. "Why?"
"Because since it happened last night I've had that feeling again. You know, that feeling that I had at the lacrosse game when literally everything that could have gone wrong went wrong?"
"The two of you are just being dramatic. What's new?" Lydia continued to disagree with any chance of something weird happening, this town had had enough weird for a while, surely they had a good few years behind them before things started going bad again. Even a town like this didn't have that bad luck, not even Kinsey had that much bad luck and she was the daughter of two complete and utter psychopaths. "Besides, what's that thing you say about threes? Once, twice..."
Before Lydia could continue the Stilinski saying a crow flew into the window beside Kinsey, its blood splattering against the glass before it dropped to the floor. Its collision with the window had caught everyone's attention as they all looked out of the window but they all saw much more than just a splatter of a bird's blood on the window. In the near distance, an entire flock of black crows flew towards the school, their combined squawking loud enough to be heard even through the walls. Miss. Blake put down her chalk as she began walking towards the window, her jaw dropped as she looked at the flock of birds heading straight for the school, all of them willing to kill themselves against the glass like the first bird had. Kinsey took her eyes off of the window for a split second to look at the drawing in her book, all of the black crows she had drawn. All of them were covered by splatters of red. The most concerning part, she didn't have a red pen to draw in. She wasn't sure how the red had gotten there. But it had.
Her head sharply looked at the window as all of the birds began to collide with it one by one, each one splattering its own blood against the glass like the first had. Eventually, the glass had begun to crack more and more until the birds were flying straight through the glass and flying across the classroom attacking all of the students who sat inside. Miss Blake screamed for everyone to get down, almost everyone did as they used their desks to shield themselves, but some were just too scared to move. Too scared that they may have just predicted it happening.
Blood from the brunette girls head began dripping on her drawing of crows as she stared at them in horror, only making the image come to life more than it already had. Her wound continued to bleed from the glass that had hit her when the birds had crashed through the glass. Lydia had covered herself underneath her desk, covering her head with her arms as she, like most of the class screamed in horror. Stiles looked up from the shield he had created with his own arms to see that Kinsey was still sitting still at her desk, her hands shaking as they reached to touch the bleeding wound on her head. He pushed through all of the desks and clamoring of panicked students to get to her as the crows began pecking at his exposed head until he too had a bleeding wound, he refused to stop trying to get to her no matter how many times he was hurt, he continued to yell her name over the screaming over students. When he finally reached her he pulled her from off of her chair and onto the floor, quickly covering her with his arms as both of them got as close to the ground as possible. Stiles could feel as the girl shook in his arms as she tightly held a fistful of his shirt. As he held onto her, ducking from all of the birds that hit the students who hadn't dropped to the floor and covered themselves, he noticed her notebook that had been pushed onto the ground with her table. He noticed the drawing of the black crows and all of the blood that covered them, some he could tell was her own blood, but others had clearly been etched into the paper with force. He too knew that she hadn't done it, she had had a pencil in her hand the entire time, and she definitely wasn't the type to be equipped with an entire pencil case filled with different colored pens. Her drawing of a deer wasn't a coincidence, neither was the drawing of the crows, none of it was. Somehow she had known this was coming.
Once the squawking of the birds had come to a stop, all of them seemingly dead as they lay on the floor and all of the tables that managed to still stand even after all of the commotion the students had begun raising their heads from the cover they had put themselves in. Looking at those who surrounded them as they continued to shake with fear. Stiles finally removed his arms from his and Kinsey's head as they pulled themselves off of the ground, looking at the damage that had been done around them. The two looked at one another, their bleeding wound on their heads before looking at everyone else. Lydia and Allison also pulled themselves off of the floor, all four sharing a concerned look with one another, each one of them covered in blood whether it was their own or the blood of the dead crows scattered around the room.
There it was. Three.
The brunette and Allison sat on one of the desks as Chris checked both of them over, he doubted that the EMTs had done a good enough job of checking over the two girls, even after Kinsey had been given stitches for the cut on his head he doubted their skills. He couldn't be sure until he'd done checks of his own, not until he was sure there were no broken bones, sprains, or any other cuts that required further medical attention. Allison and Kinsey were all that he had left which meant he couldn't risk them getting hurt, that was just one of the reasons he'd made them both agree to stay out of werewolf business if they wanted to stay in Beacon Hills. Chris told the two that the next time they had doubts about coming to school that the two of them would stay at home like he had suggested this morning, and once again, the two were left to reassure the man that they were fine. It was even more unconvincing now that Kinsey had stitches in her head.
"We're okay," Allison repeated again. "But, Dad, the deer, and now this?"
"I know. I know." The man sighed. Kinsey chose not to mention her concerns that she could've predicted this happening with her drawings, she believed that it would come under the kind of business that Chris had warned them both to stay out of. She didn't want to leave Beacon Hills because of some stupid coincidental drawings that may have predicted what happened here.
"It can't be a coincidence." Allison reiterated, only causing more guilt to burn inside of Kinsey.
After overhearing the snippet of the conversation between the three Argent's Sheriff Stilinski approached the three of them, as soon as Stiles had seen his father walk past him and towards the three of them he had been filled with dread, only worsening when his father had asked if Chris had any insight into what had happened here. Of course, Chris was concerned by the man's question as he looked at his daughter and niece, both of the girls were just as surprised as him. Sheriff Stilinski had assumed that Chris might have seen something like all of this strange animal behavior before, an accusation that Argent was confused by until the man explained he had once heard Stiles and Kinsey talking about him being an experienced hunter. An eavesdropping Stiles placed his head in his hands while Kinsey froze, that was the last time she would talk to his son about supernatural business while under his roof. The two had never known that the man was listening to their conversation, who knew what else had been said in front of him?
Chris shook off the question informing the man he was no longer a hunter as he looked at the two girls, they knew what he had meant by that. It was just another one of his conditions. Sheriff Stilinski nodded before turning to ask the two girls if they were okay, both nodding weakly.
While Chris insisted upon talking more to the EMTs about Kinsey's head wound he dismissed the two girls, telling them to grab their things from their lockers before he came to find them. All of the students who had been involved in the whole crow incident had been given the rest of the school day off, as an apology for them being involved in such a traumatic incident. Before Kinsey had walked out of the class Stiles had pulled her aside for just a second of her time, of course, the boy had called Scott to tell him about the crows as soon as possible, it seemed like a topic that required immediate discussion, but as he told the girl, he needed her there too. He needed her to tell Scott about that feeling she had felt in her stomach and what she had drawn in that notebook of hers, no matter how much she would try and convince herself it was a coincidence, he refused to accept that, and he made his feelings clear. Despite her concerns, Kinsey agreed to go to the old Hale house with him to meet up with Derek and Scott, she couldn't ignore this.
The three girls stood at Lydia's locker as the redhead fixed her appearance in the small mirror she had attached to its door. "Is it me or is Beacon Hills turning into more like beacon for the totally bizarre and supernatural." She asked, shutting her locker as the two girls laughed.
Kinsey and Allison had turned around, prepared to go and find Chris but a woman stood before them, taking them by surprise as they looked at her with wide eyes.
"Where's Scott McCall?" The young woman asked, looking between them but neither of the girls could find an answer, still too confused as to who she was. "You're Kinsey, right?" She asked again looking at the brunette herself, now she was even more confused as she agreed wearily, about to ask how she knew both Scott and herself. "Where's Scott?"
"He had to leave," Allison answered for her cousin. "He was supposed to be back in class..."
The woman grabbed a hold of Allison's wrist as she asked if the wolf was coming back, her grip tight around the girl's petite wrist, but she was too confused to fight it off. For a woman they'd just met the woman seemed to lack boundaries, like, entirely.
"Hey," Lydia warned her. "Easy with the physicality, sweetheart."
Whoever the strange woman was she ignored the redhead's warning as she grabbed onto Kinsey's wrist too, tightly squeezing the girls in her grip as all three girls stared at her with wide eyes, unsure how they were supposed to react. But the woman didn't care about their stares, her own was looking straight behind them as she took deep, heavy breaths. When she finally let go of the two brunettes the three girls turned to look behind them as they dropped their wrists, all they had seen was the two twins from before class stood there, quickly rushing off down the halls when the three girls had looked in their direction. More confused than ever the girls turned back around, about to ask the woman what she wanted with Scott, but she was gone. Nowhere to be seen. Allison walked a little further down the hall to try and get a glimpse of the stranger while Lydia looked at Kinsey's wrist, noticing the mark that had been left on her. A bruise had already begun to form from the woman's strong grip on her and Allison. When Lydia had alerted Allison of the bruise that had been left on her cousin the older brunette looked down at her own wrist noticing she too had formed a bruise where the woman's hand had been.
"Come on, let's get you three girls out of here." Chris sighed as he approached the three of them. "School can wait another day." Lydia didn't argue with the man as she began walking towards the exit, but Allison and Kinsey held back, they weren't prepared to just go home and act as though nothing had happened. In fact, Kinsey wasn't ready to go home at all yet, she had business to attend to with Stiles, Scott, and Derek before she even considered returning back to the apartment. The two brunette girls lingered in the hallway, not sure whether now was the time to just leave. "Girls? Hey. You don't have to worry about this anymore. Remember our agreement? We stay in Beacon Hills, but only if we stay out of this. It's not our problem now."
-☽○☾-
The powder blue Jeep pulled up to the old, derelict Hale house. It had been a while since Stiles had last stood outside of it, he tried to avoid the place with every fiber of his being while Kinsey, well, other than the people who had once lived here she had been here more than anyone. The last time she had been here was just a few days ago to meet up with Isaac before he went on the small mission that Derek had sent him on, with some potential intel on the whereabouts of the Alpha pack he had no other choice but to explore the possibility. The two knew it was the last chance they would be able to see each other before returning to school where their secret would be even harder to keep than it had been during summer.
Stiles stepped out of the Jeep, a chill running through his spine as he looked up at the charcoal black building, it had always given him the creeps. He didn't know how anyone could spend as much time here as Derek had.
After hearing the Jeep pull up outside Scott walked out of the Hale house, surprised to see that Kinsey had accompanied Stiles here, last he knew the two didn't speak, let alone were they in a position to be having car rides alone. He couldn't imagine how awkward that had been. As the three walked into the house Stiles began explaining what had happened at the school, at first he hadn't mentioned anything about Kinsey's drawings, he stuck to the basics. Just as he was about to get to the most concerning part of the explanation, the part that involved the brunette the three had walked into the Hale house living room where Isaac lay on the table unconscious covered with nothing but a hospital robe. That had been enough to put a pin in his explanation for a little while, apparently manic birds weren't the most shocking part of the evening.
"He'll be up soon." Derek deadpanned, in his eyes, any concern for Isaac's condition wasn't at all necessary. He'd made sure that the boy's wounds would be healing both inside and out, and now he could get back to what he and Scott had been talking about before the other two arrived. He sat the wolf down on one of the wooden chairs, placing himself in front of him while Stiles and the girl stood beside them, not quite sure what Derek was going to do to get back the betas fully healed tattoo that he apparently got last night. There was no sign of it, at least not to the human eye. Derek's eyes illuminated their blood-red as he stared at Scott's bicep. "Two bands, right?" He asked, returning back to his human hazel eyes. "What does it mean?"
Kinsey was also curious to learn what Scott's tattoo meant, considering she couldn't see it nor had she known he was getting one, she wanted to know more.
"I don't know." Scott shrugged. "It's just something I traced with my fingers." He explained as he traced an image in the dust that had collected in the abandoned house giving Kinsey an idea of what his tattoo was supposed to look like, but seeing it for herself hadn't given her any insight as to its purpose, frankly, it just appeared to be two random circles.
"Why is this so important to you?" Derek asked, he didn't care if he was being intrusive.
"Do you know what the word "tattoo" means?"
"To mark something," Kinsey answered for the Alpha, she had the suspicion that he didn't know, he didn't seem like the type who would've paid attention in school. Nor did he seem like the type to randomly google the meaning of words when he was bored like she had done to know what the word tattoo actually meant. During summer she had considered getting one of her own and had even brought it up to Peter, that was the first time she had seen the man go full-father mode on her as he insisted it would be on her forever, and that it was a rash decision. Somehow, he had actually convinced her to listen to him, not because he was her father. But because it was going to be a tattoo of a piece of pizza, a decision she made while hungry. While Stiles seemed surprised that the girl knew the meaning her cousin had looked at her with a straight face, when he found out she was here he expected her to stand quietly aside or be flustered over Isaac in his unconscious state, not giving him dictionary definitions of random words.
"Well, that's in Tahitian," Scott informed the girl, it wasn't the information that she necessarily needed to know, but she gathered it would be the begging of a point he was going to make. "In Samoan, it means "open wound." I knew I wanted to get a tattoo when I turned 18. I always wanted one. I just decided to get it now, to make it kind of a reward."
"For what?" Derek asked.
Scott looked at the brunette girl in the room before looking back down at the floor, when he admitted what he was about to say he didn't expect it to be in front of her, he intended for Allison to never find out that he had gotten a tattoo as a reward for him not calling or texting the other brunette all summer. Even when he really wanted to, even when it was so hard not to. He explained that he was just trying to give her the space that she wanted and asked for, the space that she didn't crave so much when she had actually gotten it and was considering texting him too. He admitted that even four months after their break-up it still hurt as though it was still raw. It still felt like an open wound.
Derek was satisfied with the answer he received, prepared to move on to the big finale. He picked up the blow torch that had been resting beside him since the three had walked in, he felt it was only right to inform the beta that it would be the worst pain he had ever felt, though that information seemed to affect a queasy Stiles more than it did Scott, even after Derek's warning Scott still wanted to go through with getting back his tattoo. The Alpha ignited the blowtorch, a bright blue flame in front of their faces, just a few inches from singeing off someone's eyebrows. Stiles announced that seeing the flame was a little too much for him, that he would be taking it as his cue to stand outside rather than witnessing the torture his best friend was about to go through just for a tattoo but Derek insisted that Kinsey would need his assistance in holding the wolf down, she hadn't been given a choice in the matter. Her cousin had already volunteered her for the job of holding Scott down while he burnt the tattoo out of him.
Once two sets of hands had been placed on his shoulder Scott gave Derek the signal to begin. As Derek placed the burning flame on Scott's bicep the wolf began to scream, struggling under the grip of his two best friends who found it hard to hold him down, now they understood why both of them had been volunteered from the job. Scott screamed at the top of his lungs until he had eventually passed out from the pain, finally allowing Kinsey and Stiles to let go of him. Stiles took a few minutes to breathe as he stood outside of the Hale house, far from the burning flame while Kinsey sat down beside Derek, watching as he continued burning the tattoo out of Scott. After spending nearly every day for four months surrounded by three male werewolves it had become hard to find things like this unsettling, she had become used to it now. She wasn't sure whether that was a good thing, but she added it to her set of skills.
An hour after Derek had finished the tattoo Scott had woken up with a sharp gasp, dripping in sweat. It all felt like a bad dream, but as he looked at his arm the two bands that were now back were definitely real, and to him worth all the pain in the world. The three teenagers prepared themselves to leave, Scott pulling his shirt back on, he couldn't help but continue to admire his tattoo as he rolled up his sleeve making sure that everyone could see the first of what was sure to be many additions to his skin.
"Well, it looks pretty damn permanent now." Stiles praised the wolf as he looked at the tattoo, he hoped that his best friend wouldn't remember how he had admitted he hated it when it had healed up last night.
"I kind of needed something permanent." The wolf admitted, pulling down his sleeve back down as the three of them headed towards the front door. In the midst of seeing Isaac unconscious and burning Scott's tattoo out of him anything that had happened at school had completely left their minds. "Everything that's happened to us, everything just so changes so fast."
Kinsey couldn't disagree with that. Their lives moved quicker than any of them could control, when she thought back to before summer there was hardly anything in her life that was the same as back then. She and Allison's relationship was no longer on the rocks, her friendship with Scott and Stiles had been neglected for the past four months, she was closer with Lydia than ever, she knew who her dad was now and was even making efforts to have a relationship with him, though she still kept him at arm's length, and the thing that seemed to change the fastest; her and Isaac. The only thing that seemed to be developing at a normal rate was what she and Deaton had talked about, he had, in little words, confirmed that she was more than just a human or a huntress, he told her to wait for it to show and she couldn't help but believe that today had been the beginning of it beginning to reveal itself to her. It was definitely time for another conversation with the man when she could find the time in her hectic life.
"Everything's so..." The wolf stopped in what was the foyer. "Ephemeral."
"Someone's been studying for the PSATs" Kinsey smiled at the wolf. Scott was just another thing that had changed fast over the summer, he seemed to want to take school a lot more serious this year, who could blame him when his attendance had been the lowest in the entire school for sophomore year. The rest of the pack weren't much higher on the list, but he had hit the bottom.
When Scott opened the front door he noticed something he hadn't noticed when he had first gotten to the Hale house, he had been too busy helping carry an unconscious Isaac inside, but he had noticed it now. Stiles and Kinsey still stood in the house, while the boy remained slightly confused as to what Scott was looking at, the girl knew straight away that he noticed the fresh red paint on the door that she had helped Derek to paint over the summer. The Alpha had made her vow to keep what lay beneath the paint to themselves, only for them, Peter and Isaac to know, nobody else needed to get involved in what was coming. It was Hale business, and since Isaac was Derek's beta, he came under that title.
"You painted the door," Scott shouted through to the Alpha, he didn't think to ask Kinsey about the door, he had no idea just how involved in the Hale business she was. As far as he knew, she had spent most of her summer partying with Lydia and occasionally visiting Peter to try and build a relationship with him. Not that she spent almost every day at the Hale house if not the loft that Derek had moved into four months ago. Until today he still thought that Derek had been living here still, as Derek had intended he was kept out of the loop.
Kinsey looked through into the living room where Derek stood over Isaac, an uneasy look across their faces, they hadn't expected Scott to be so observant, it had taken the unconscious wolf at least three weeks to notice, they hoped that with Scott it would be even longer. But it was clear now that it couldn't be hidden much longer, the wolf would find out soon that there was a lot more trouble than deers, birds, and miniature dogs.
"Why'd you paint the door?" He asked.
"Go home, Scott."
Scott ignored Derek's suggestion as he placed a hand on the door, feeling over the fresh coat of paint as he asked why only one side of the door had been painted. Stiles looked at Kinsey as she stood with a guilty look across her face, he could tell she knew more than she had been letting on, but just how much? The beta extended his claws, slowly scratching one of them against the door as it pulled off the red paint. Derek warned the beta once again with a single shout of his name as he marched towards the door where the three teenagers stood but it was too late, Scott had already begun scratching all of the paint off of the door with his claws and refused to stop until he uncovered what Derek had been so desperate to cover up.
"The birds at the school and the deer last night, just like the night I got trampled by the deer when I got bit by the Alpha." Scott began piecing together the puzzle until he finally got it. "How many are there?" He asked, looking at the Alpha who stood beside Kinsey.
Kinsey and Derek looked at one another, contemplating trying to lie about it all until the girl sighed, looking back at the beta. "A pack of them." She mumbled lowly. "An Alpha pack."
"You knew about this?" Scott asked, he seemed slightly offended that she hadn't told him about a new pack in Beacon Hills, though the two of them had lacked communication over the past four months he still saw her as a best friend just as much as he had before she had made the decision to distance herself from Stiles. And he thought that with that the two would still tell each other things, especially things that may just affect all of their lives.
Stiles was less focused on how the brunette girl had hidden the details from them, he suspected that she had been hiding a lot more than Derek's secret about this new pack, instead, he focused on getting more information about the pack that would undoubtedly be infiltrating their lives.
"All of them? How does that even work?" Stiles asked.
"We hear there's a leader. He's called Deucalion." Derek began to explain. "We know they have Erica and Boyd. Peter, Isaac, and the two of us have been looking for them for the past four months." He continued nodding at the brunette cousin of his who stood beside him. Only now did they realize just how busy Kinsey had been this summer, and just how well she had been able to keep it from everyone, they wondered if Allison or Lydia knew about what the four of them had been doing all of this time. Or whether it was just the two of them that she had been lying to for four months.
Scott had a question of his own to ask, he questioned that if they somehow managed to find the Alpha pack that had left a warning on the front door of the home how exactly an Alpha pack was to be dealt with, frankly, that was a question the four had been asking themselves since that mark had appeared on the door. Even for werewolves as experienced as Derek and Peter, Alpha packs were very much a new experience to them. The only way that Derek could answer Scott's question was by telling them that to beat the Alpha pack was to do it with all the help that he could get, that was his way of asking Scott and Stiles for their help with having to physically ask the question. He couldn't bring himself to say the words. The beta and Stiles shared a look as Scott silently questioned whether his best friend was willing to be a part of this if it weren't for Kinsey being involved he would have spat out a harsh no, but when she was, he couldn't bring himself to do that to her. Not if she was willing to get herself hurt.
All of their heads had turned at the sound of Isaac's voice as he asked where the girl was, it had been the first thing on his mind as he woke up, he didn't even think to ask how he had gotten here or what had happened at the hospital. All he wanted to know was where the girl was, the only problem? Nobody knew who he was talking about.