"Watch your back
when you can't watch mine."
"Scott, do you even know where abouts you dropped your inhaler?" Max asked, picking up his feet as they trudged through the woods for the second time in the span of a day. He was praying this wouldn't become a regular occurrence; he wasn't the most athletic person and would rather die than have to exercise if the choice presented itself.
He was already plotting how to get out of gym. From what he had been told, the Coach was a nice enough man, despite having a screw or two loose. Exploring the town and looking for the skatepark that Melissa had mentioned was by far the better alternative.
"If I knew where I had dropped my inhaler, we would have been home twenty minutes ago."
"Scott, since when have you gotten so good at lacrosse? Because unless I've hit my head and developed memory loss, you weren't anywhere close to that good last year," Jade changed the subject, rubbing her eyes tiredly.
It had been annoying her since she had seen him playing lacrosse earlier that day, nagging on her mind until she was given an opportunity to ask him. She'd been biding her time, waiting it out for the perfect moment to bring it up. What better time than when they were in a secluded area where he had no escape route or time to conjure up a lame excuse?
"I don't know. It's like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball. There's other weird things happening too; I can hear things I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things," Scott ranted, walking with a new found rush of adrenaline that pumped through his veins. It was a giddiness that made him feel like he was walking on air, like he was invincible and could take down any mass murderer without fail.
"Smell things? Like what?" Stiles raised a brow in amusement, chancing a paranoid glance over his shoulder.
"Like the mint gum in Max's jacket pocket."
"I don't have mint gum in my—" Max stopped mid sentence, pulling out exactly what his cousin had described, covered in a plastic silver wrapper.
"All this started with the bite, huh?" Stiles enquired, stepping over a branch and still searching the ground for the blue medication. He had taken the pace a lot slower today, not wanting to risk Scott having an asthma attack and then not having his inhaler to help. An ambulance probably wouldn't be able to get there in time, either, so it left him with no other option but to walk like a grandmother.
Jade stopped in her tracks, pale lips parting as she tried to comprehend what Stiles had just said. "What bite?" She was overreacting, right? She knew what Stiles was like; saying the most bizarre things that wouldn't make sense to anyone who didn't understand his humour. There was a ninety-nine percent chance that it was an innocent conversation between the two best friends and she was simply reading into it too much— like she did with everything.
"I forgot to tell you. Last night, when we all got separated, I found half of the dead body. Then I got bit by something and there was wolves howling," Scott shrugged, as if it was the most normal thing to happen during someone's sophomore year. He tugged at the side of his jumper, grimacing at the bandage that took up the majority of his ribcage and was laced in scarlet blood.
A word in particular caught the twins attention, their shoulders tensing up in fear as they stared at each other with saucers for pupils.
Wolves.
There was many supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills if you searched hard enough, if you looked for the right clues. A teen that appeared to loose all sense of control when they were shown blood? Lights flickering in a classroom when someone lost their temper? Perhaps another became coincidentally unavailable on the night of a full moon.
Their parents had even been acquaintances with a particular well-known family of wolves in this very town. But Scott? Their cousin? No, it had to be a coincidence. Scott was— he was normal! He was a human; he didn't howl at the sky, or grow claws from his fingertips, or need an anchor to hold him down. He was a human. Okay, now they were just trying to convince themselves.
But on the other hand, it made sense. The bite was an obvious giveaway. Max had all of a sudden felt Scott's pain go away, leaving no trace behind that it had been there in the first place. He was able to hear things, smell things like the gum in Max's pocket. His reflexes were enhanced— which would explain why he was all of a sudden so fantastic at lacrosse.
It seemed like the siblings were thinking along the same lines as each other, not having to speak to know they were fearing the same fate for their cousin. Their twin telepathy, as Stiles insisted on calling it.
The group continued their hunt for the missing inhaler, the anxiety and confusion lingering in the air like a heavy rain cloud that was in danger of spilling out on top of them. Startling his sister in the process, Max grabbed the gum back out of his pocket again, firing it directly at the back of Scott's head.
"If he did I hope he left my inhaler. Those thing are eighty bucks—" Scott ignored Stiles' jokes about lycanthropy, single-handedly catching the gum that had been launched at
lightning speed. "What was that for?" he raised a brow, surprised by the sudden outburst. Now, he would have expected it from Jade, but not from Max.
"Just checking your reflexes," Max threw some jazz hands in for effect, skipping ahead of the others before falling behind again. Scott rolled his eyes playfully, brushing it off as Max's clumsiness that caused him to fall over at least nine times a day.
The dots were finally connecting for the twins, only a few stones being left unturned. If Scott really was a werewolf, it was only a matter of time until it was revealed. No one could hide forever.
Jade cleared her throat loudly, kicking Max in the shin to catch his attention. She pointed at her phone and then at his, hoping he would get the hint at what she was trying to say. It was the best she could come up with under pressure, given the fact she didn't carry a portable whiteboard in her jeans pocket.
Sabrina: distract them, i'll use my powers to check but you can't let them see me or we're done for
Max glanced at the message that lit up his screen, nodding and hopping over to the other two boys, who were talking gibberish as per usual. He caught a few words that had to do with Star wars, but that wasn't a bit surprise. It was practically all Stiles talked about, the movies being his hyper fixation since he learned to talk. In fact, he wouldn't be shocked if Noah revealed that 'Yoda' had been his son's first word.
Jade glanced over her shoulder, making sure there was no one lurking in the shadows. God, her paranoia was starting to creep back in. Her eyes turned a dark shade of purple, the brightness and saturation of her surroundings becoming amplified by a million. She looked at Scott, a shiver running down her spine, breath catching in her throat. There was a faint blue line that surrounded his body, fitting almost as well as a second skin. It reminded her of the ocean; calm, yet dangerous at the same time, just like his species. Their suspicion had been right. He was a beta werewolf.
An intenser blue aura caught her eye from right behind Scott, another werewolf standing right beside a tree.
The unknown man had coal black hair that was almost as dark as the leather jacket that was wrapped around his torso. He was looking directly at Jade, staring her down. There was something creepy but also familiar about him, as if they had met before— possibly known each other.
She blinked rapidly, her eyes turning back to their original green as she tried to come up with an excuse. How in god's name was she meant to explain that to a stranger? 'It was just a trick of the light?'
Neither of them broke eye contact, waiting to see who would be the first to tap out. Her heart was beating so fast against her chest that she was sure it could be heard from miles away. She might have just spilled their secret on their first day out in California. Logically speaking though, what were the chances of him knowing about witches? Let alone empaths and seers.
Although, he was a wolf, meaning there was always a chance that he knew about other supernatural creatures. Considering he had just saw her eyes chance quickly from purple to green, he probably knew she wasn't human, anyways. God, could the bargaining in her head not just shut up for five seconds? All she needed was some time to think, to rationalise the situation and soothe her panic.
She finally dragged her line of sight away from him, not caring that she had been the first to break. The man matched her steps as she rushed to her friend's side, her strides being unusually quick for someone that small.
"What are you doing here? This is private property," his voice was gruff, hands resting in his pockets. He glared at the teenagers in front of him, trying to recognise where the hell he knew two of them from. He had no clue who the one with the buzzcut was, or the werewolf with the crooked jawline.
But the two blonde's looked familiar, like he knew them from somewhere, he just couldn't put his finger on it. Their piercing green eyes, their heart-shaped faces, even the way they held their posture.
"We were just looking for something, we didn't know it was private property. Sorry," Stiles looked at his feet, being the only one who had found his voice first.
The man reached into his pocket, tossing Scott his inhaler. Casting the group one final look that would slice through anybody's self-confidence, he walked deeper into the woods, leaving the twins heads to reel in confusion.
"I've got to head to work, so," Scott trailed off, already making his way back to Stiles' jeep. If he was being one thousand percent honest, he was beyond thankful that he had an excuse to get out of here. From dead bodies, to getting bit, to meeting strange people who seemed to stalk teenagers for a living, he had had enough of this woods to last a lifetime.
"Dude! Do you guys seriously not know who that was?" Stiles asked frantically. When he was met with silence, he groaned, assuming no would be an appropriate answer. "That was Derek Hale! His entire family burnt to death, like, ten years ago!"
A Hale.
That was where they knew him from! God, they didn't know how they hadn't realised it was Derek. He looked almost identical to when he was a teenager; the way he constantly looked like he was going to flip a table over, the same eyes as his mother with cheekbones that would cut through glass.
The entire Hale family were werewolves, going back years. The twins knew all about them from their parents. It was unusual for witches to form alliances with werewolves, one of their sole mottos being that they stuck by their own kind, but Elizabeth was known for breaking rules, her husband following close behind her.
Elizabeth used to visit Talia Hale, Derek's mother, when they would visit Beacon Hills for their yearly travels. Derek's younger sister, Cora, used to play with the Pierce children when they were all younger, trying to see who would win; magic, batons or claws. Derek had sometimes been dragged into the activities, even if it was against his will. Being the oldest meant he was given the responsibility of making sure no one died, or playing lacrosse with Jade, or doing terrible karaoke with Max while their parents talked privately in the other room.
The fact that there was a fire was news to them though, which meant it must have only happened in the last ten years, just like Stiles had said. Although, that wasn't necessarily the case, considering when the twins had reached nine years old, the two families suddenly cut all ties, for seemingly no reason at all.
All they could do was hope that Cora, Laura and Talia were all okay and that Derek hadn't been the only person to survive the tragic fire.