galvanize
"Where the hell are the two of you? Do you know what time it is?" Stiles scolded them through the phone like a mother to her two children out past their curfew, only he wasn't a mother but a best friend on the phone to one out of two of his best friends, at least that was they had led him to believe. He had no idea what the two of them had planned for him. Stiles walked through the dark locker room, alone, a sports bag thrown over his shoulder and a flashlight in hand, just two of the things he had planned out in preparation for tonight. "Get your asses down here now, we have a job to do." Stiles insisted, after the months of planning that he had put into tonight there was no way he was going to let it all crumble apart at the last minute because Scott and Kinsey were too last to drag themselves out of their warm beds on a cold October night. He knew that the two of them were both at Scott's house. One, because Scott lived there, but two, because the girl had told him that she would be sleeping there tonight. Neither of them had an excuse not to be here, he'd sent out their reminders just a few hours ago, multiple reminders.
"Dude, I'm already in bed. Aren't we getting a little old for this?" Scott asked. Unbeknownst to the boy on the other end of the phone, he and Kinsey were closer to the school than he thought, neither of them had planned on bailing on tonight, they were just as excited as him, but tonight had its name for a reason, to cause mischief. For them, that began with Stiles. The two sat out in the parking lot in Kinsey's car with the phone between them on loudspeaker, containing all of their laughter as Stiles scolded them, falling for their trick. "Besides, I think Kinsey and Isaac are asleep already." The wolf added.
"Then wake her up!" Stiles shouted down the phone, both of the teenagers on the other end of the phone covered their mouths, muffling their laughter. "We do this for Coach."
"I thought he we did this to Coach." Scott corrected him, at least that was the way he and Kinsey had always seen it, well, the brunette girl hadn't lived in Beacon Hills long enough to experience Mischief night before but from what she'd heard, they definitely did it to Coach, not for him.
Stiles shrugged as though the two could hear him. "Whatever, okay? You know he needs this. He lives for this stuff. He loves it." Stiles continued to try and persuade the wolf.
Scott turned to Kinsey, nodding at her, their signal to get out of the car quietly and begin walking to the school, prepared for the next step in their plan, sneaking up on Stiles and scaring him half to death. After weeks without hallucinations and side effects from the sacrifice, the two thought it was about time the two reminded him what fear felt like. "But it's the middle of the night." The wolf continued to talk as they made their way towards the entrance of the school.
"12:15 actually." Stiles corrected him as he began emptying his bag into his locker, whirring his dad's drill from the garage to check that it still worked, something he hadn't thought of doing while he was stealing it from the toolbox. "Which means, not only are you both late, but it means it's after midnight and officially Mischief night/day, and, by perfectly awesome coincidence, it also happens to be Coach's birthday. So if the two of you aren't down here in five seconds I will destroy you both." Stiles reassured the wolf.
Both of them were already in the school, almost at the locker room where they were supposed to meet him fifteen minutes ago, but as the boy started counting down the two of them began to run through the halls, knowing that by the time he reached zero they had to be standing behind him, he wouldn't expect them to actually be there after his countdown, not even with the speed of a werewolf, which made it perfect for them. Stiles hadn't made it past two before he turned around to see two glowing red eyes behind him, scaring him half to death, just like they'd hoped for. He dropped his phone, and himself to the ground with a large gasp as Scott stepped out of the darkness, a smirk across his face as he finished the countdown for him.
"I hate you." Stiles deadpanned. Scott held out a hand for his best friend as his eyes dimmed to their normal chocolate brown, though completely unimpressed, Stiles took the hand, pulling himself back onto his feet as he brushed himself off, trying to disguise the fact his heart was still pounding loudly ears. "Great. You're here. Finally. But this is a three-person plan. You couldn't have dragged her out of bed on your way here? Where the hell is Kinsey?"
At the mention of her name Kinsey jumped out of the darkness placing both of her hands on his shoulders with a small whispered "boo" in his ears, after Scott had already scared him she didn't expect it to have such great effect, but once again the boy was scared for his life as she dropped to the floor, this time with a girlish squeal that satisfied both her and Scott completely.
Stiles looked up at the girl who smiled down on him, giving him a cute little innocent wave as if she hadn't made his heart skip, multiple, beats. "I hate you too."
Kinsey and Isaac climbed out of the brunette girl's car alongside Stiles who climbed out of the Jeep he had parked beside them, upon entering the parking lot the three teenagers had all seen the same thing. Two familiar motorcycles that they had once dismantled and rode through the school halls, now, in a much better state than how they had left them, the two motorcycles sat outside of the school alongside their owners and Scott, who stood beside his own bike. Based on the helmet in his hand. he had only just gotten to the school himself before being ambushed by the pair of former Alphas who'd beaten him to a pulp a few weeks ago. Since then, the twins had gone back into hiding, which seemed to be for the better, because now that the side effects of the sacrifice had worn off Kinsey was back to her huntress self, and after finding out what the two of them did to Scott, she was seething with anger. Not even Mischief day and a slight lack of sleep could distract her from that anger, it had risen again after settling over the past few weeks.
The three teenagers charged over, the two boys either side of Kinsey as they shared an identical irritated expression across their faces, prepared to unleash hell on the two former Alphas, well, at least the couple was, Stiles was prepared to unleash a verbal hell on Ethan and Aiden, he knew that he couldn't quite handle the physical side, not even Melissa's bat could. As they stormed over to the three werewolves they managed to catch a few words of the conversation.
"No, just to talk." Ethan disagreed with whatever it was that Scott had said to them.
"Oh. That's kind of a change of pace for you guys." Stiles mocked as the three of them stood on either side of Scott, making it aware to the twins that if they tried their usual business, it would be a fair fight this time, not the two of them against Scott alone. "Seeing as how usually, you're just hurting, maiming, and killing." Stiles continued, emphasizing his point.
"You need a pack. We need an Alpha." Aiden deadpanned.
Both Kinsey and Stiles let out a stifled laugh. "He has a pack. That's hilarious though." The girl nodded with a smile across her face.
"You came to us for help. We helped." Ethan shrugged, to him, that was all the reason necessary for Scott to accept the two of them into his pack, the so-called pack that Kinsey believed they'd already established. He wasn't so sure he would call a group with only two werewolves in a pack whether there were huntresses, Angels, and Banshee's involved or not. It wasn't a pack.
Stiles laughed once again, shocked that the two of them could be so delusional. He corrected Ethan, telling him that they hadn't helped at all, rather they had beaten Scott to a bloody pulp and still hadn't managed to teach him the Alpha roar, that was something he had found on his own, in his opinion, one that Isaac surprisingly agreed with, that was counter-productive. Scott added to the point, asking them why he would ever say yes to their offer.
"We'd add strength. We'd make you more powerful. There's no reason to say no." Aiden argued, to every point he tried to make Kinsey and Stiles looked at one another, rolling their eyes.
"I can think of one," Isaac spoke up, no longer able to keep his mouth shut. He had tried, and well, he had failed. When approaching the twins he thought he would let Scott and the huntress handle it, the two people he trusted most to handle it, but if Stiles could have an input he sure as hell wasn't going to miss his chance either." Like the two of you holding Derek's claws while Kali impaled Boyd." He spat out with his arms crossed, the anger he felt from that night was just as present now, and as far as he was concerned it always would be. That was a point that Stiles had found himself agreeing with too as he nodded along with the wolf, when they weren't at each other's throats it seemed possible that the two could act even the slightest bit civilized, a miracle in the making. "In fact, I don't know why we're not impaling them right now."
Kinsey pulled up her flowy blue skirt, placing a hand around the Chinese ring dagger she had in the holder strapped to her leg as she volunteered herself to do the honors of impaling them like they had allowed Kali to do to Boyd. Now that her hallucinations had stopped, she trusted herself to have a dagger on her at all times again, and what better time was there to use it than when she had two of the people who had made their lives a menace, bringing Jennifer to them when things were just beginning to take a turn for the better.
Aiden looked up from the dagger strapped around the girl's leg, slightly pulled out of its holder as she prepared to follow through with the threat that Isaac had provided. He looked up at the girl with his eyes glowing their cold steel blue, reminding her what he was capable of, that he'd done it before and he wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Along with his cold blue eyes, Aiden flashed his sharp canines, a low growl coming from him as he asked her if she wanted to try. Kinsey smiled with a nod, she wasn't scared of him, not in the slightest, she had seen a lot worse in her day, her parents were a lot worse. Isaac stepped forward in front of his girlfriend as Aiden too took a step closer, he was prepared to take on either of them, both would bring him a sense of joy. But Scott had pulled Isaac back before a fight could break out along with giving a look of warning to the girl until she had released her dagger, covering it with her skirt once again.
Kinsey and Isaac both took a step back despite their best interests, folding their arms as their eyes pierced metaphorical daggers into the twins, it seemed to be the closest they would get to impaling the two of them, for now at least.
"Sorry, but they don't trust you." Scott turned back to the twins. "And neither do I."
Scott walked away, leaving their conversation there while the other three followed him. Rather than taking the high road and walking around Ethan and Aiden like Scott had, Stiles, Kinsey, and Isaac all walked directly through the small gap that stood between the twins, shoving them out of the way as they all smiled smugly in their faces. Maybe they hadn't gotten what they wanted entirely, but Scott refusing to allow them in their pack was a close second.
As the four walked towards the school Kinsey and Isaac agreed to meet the two boys back at Stiles's locker once they had dropped off their things at their own lockers, Stiles had given them both a set of supplies for mischief day, his plans hadn't ended with Coach's prank last night, he planned to make an entire day out of it, giving the brunette girl the best experience he could of her first mischief day/night. He'd given both of them dozens of eggs, toilet paper, everything the two of them could possibly imagine, some of which they couldn't even begin to imagine what Stiles had planned for it. Though Isaac hadn't participated in setting up for Coach last night with the other three, he was anticipating the outcome just as much as they were, it was the only class that most of the pack shared with one another, the four of them along with Lydia were all in business together, though Allison wouldn't be there to see whatever Kinsey, Stiles and Scott set up last night pan out, she was sure she would hear Coach's yelling from the down the hall while she sat in her own class, that seemed good enough.
It didn't take the couple long to shove all of Stiles's supplies in their locker before they had got to Stiles locker to regroup with the two boys, though both were quite confused as to what they had missed when they had only caught a snippet of Scott and Stiles's conversation.
"You're like the hot girl that everyone wants," Stiles reassured his best friend with a tap on the shoulder. Both Isaac and Kinsey had looked at one another with knitted brows as they stepped into the conversation, clearly, in the few minutes that the two had been at their own lockers, a whole other type of conversation had been happening between Scott and Stiles. The two had already moved on from the subject of Ethan and Aiden joining the pack.
"The hot girl?" Scott questioned.
"You are the hottest girl." Stiles reassured him once again, sticking two thumbs at Scott before he walked away from the three of them, no explanation to the couple he smiled at while they only returned a strong look of confusion, they really would have appreciated an explanation on what the hell they had missed that made Scott the hottest girl.
Scott turned to the couple. "I'm the hot girl."
Not knowing what else he could possibly say, still not knowing what was going on, Isaac agreed. "Yes, you are." He nodded along with the brunette girl beside him, both of them agreeing that he was in fact the hot girl, whatever that meant. A large childish smile grew across the proud Alphas face as he chuckled softly, following Stiles down the hall with a spring in his step. Neither of the couples had any idea what it meant, nor did they know how the topic of conversation had arisen, but Scott seemed happy enough with the answer they had given him. So the two decided it was better not to ask as they followed them to class, still shaking their heads with confusion.
The teenagers sat scatted around the classroom waiting for Coach's arrival. Waiting for the time when their prank on him all came together. A pretty little box wrapped in wrapping paper sat on his desk waiting for the man. If they had learned anything about Coach, it was the first thing he would go towards, he couldn't deny the temptation of finding out what was in there. And they were right. Coach had carefully stepped into his office after checking above his door for a bucket of paint, making sure that the oldest trick in the book hadn't been used this year. Once he had deemed it clear he walked towards the gift sitting on his desk, checking everything he walked by in the process to make sure his prank wasn't beneath one of them. Before approaching the gift he picked up a lacrosse stick, jabbing the pretty box. Satisfied that his office was free of any sort of obvious booby trap, Coach approached the gift, carefully removing the lid. Inside were screws and dozens of them. He found it amusing for a moment, astonished at just how bad of a prank a student had played on him, he lifted up the box, unaware of the hidden wire attached to it, every one of his pictures and shelves fell off the walls around him, crashing to the ground.
With the loud crash, every student in his class raised their heads, most wondering where it came from, apart from the three who had set it up. Scott, Kinsey, and Stiles looked across the class at one another knowing that the first half of their prank had gone to plan, all they had to was wait for the second half of it. Coach sat down in frustration, admitting defeat to himself, only for his chair to collapse beneath his wait. The screws to his chair? Inside of the box.
"Son of a bitch!" The man's cry echoed through the classroom where the teenagers laughed at his expense. It took a matter of seconds after his cry for the man to storm into the classroom in a fit of rage, all of the delinquents he taught quickly halting their laughter, afraid to be caused of the prank that had angered him so early of a morning, but even the innocent people in the room had struggled to keep it in. "Mischief Night, Devil's night. I don't care what you call it. You little punks are evil." Coach mumbled as he looked across a sea of laughing faces, he couldn't tell who was responsible for this one, not even when the three culprits looked him straight in the eye. Or the two in the room who knew exactly who was guilty of the prank in his office, Isaac, and Lydia. "You think it's funny that every Halloween my house gets egged? A man's house is supposed to be his castle. Mine's a frickin' omelet." The man lectured them all, only worsening the laughter in the room as he slammed his hands down on Scott and Stiles's desk, the two of them were his main culprits, but he didn't think the two of them were capable of doing that all alone, they had help. He just wasn't sure who from.
Coach turned around to see another gift had been put on his desk, this one wrapped in different paper. It wasn't the perfect wrapping of Kinsey's delicate hands that spent more time than what was necessary wrapping it so that it looked like a Christmas present fit for a king. Isaac looked at his girlfriend across the room, questioning if this was part of their prank too, but she shook her head, this present wasn't anything to do with them. As far as she was concerned it was a normal gift for a man on his birthday. This time the man wasn't leaving it to chance, he picked up the gift, throwing it straight to the floor before he'd stamped on it, the sound of glass shattering echoed through the quiet class. Coach bent down to investigate the box only to find a broken mug was inside, an actual gift reading #1 COACH with a picture of him on the front. With a sigh Coach had picked up the note left in the broken box, reading out the happy birthday message from his least favorite pupil- Greenberg.
Unlike before, Kinsey wasn't able to sit and take joy in watching Coach find out that he had just broken a present from a, somewhat, innocent student who was just trying to show the man a bit of appreciation. She was too busy swatting her hand around her after hearing buzzing in her ears for minutes on end, while laughing at Coach she had been able to ignore it, but now it was too prominent to ignore, she hated the things.
Danny Mahealani had looked to his left after seeing a hand waving around in the corner of his eye, only this hand belonged to Lydia Martin. She looked at her phone while swatting around her for the fly she could hear buzzing in her ears, taking no interest in what was happening at the front of the class with Coach and his pranks nor the fact that on the opposite side of the room, Kinsey was doing the exact same as she was. When Lydia had felt someone looking at her she had turned to look at Danny when he asked her what she was doing in a whisper, though she'd told him there was a fly, the boy failed to see one flying around her. Danny shook his head as he turned back to the front of the class where Coach had begun lecturing Greenberg, setting new boundaries for the two of them so Greenberg never thought it was appropriate to get him a gift ever again, he would have preferred the prank. As Danny sat looking forward he noticed a hand flying in the air again, only this time it was to his right. He turned to see Kinsey swatting the air around her just like Lydia had been, but he couldn't see a fly around her either. Danny's eyes had begun darting between the two girls sitting on complete opposite sides of the rooms, both of them continuing to wave their hands around, dodging a seemingly invisible fly.
It took a while before the two girls had stopped swatting, but not because the buzzing in their ears had come to a stop, that the pest buzzing in their ears had gone. But because now, it felt as though dozens, maybe even more flies were buzzing in their ears forming a uniformed buzz.
·❥·
Peter and Derek crouched down the floor as the younger werewolf sewed the severed finger back onto his uncle's hand, something he wasn't qualified to do at all, nor did he have the kind of equipment needed, all he'd had to hand was a fishhook. But Peter would have to survive the bodge job if he didn't want to go to the hospital and risk seeing Melissa McCall again. Nor had he been willing to wait for his daughter to finish school to help them, and to bring an actual needle with her, he couldn't live a moment longer without all of his fingers being attached. Peter winced as he asked the younger wolf whether he had any anesthetic, that he did have, but he preferred watching Peter in pain, you know, to make up for the past. Peter didn't know why he was even a little surprised to find out his nephew had anesthetic but had simply withheld it, it was a Derek thing to do, to watch him struggle in pain, now he wished he did have the patience to wait for his daughter to come, believing she would be kinder towards him.
Peter sighed, choosing not to reflect on the harshness of Derek. "Are you at least going to tell me what I risked my life and digit for?" Peter asked, groaning again when his nephew had pulled the string, completing the sewing of his finger back onto his hand. He held it up, examining the work of Derek, he wasn't impressed but chose not to mention that at the risk of having the fishhook in his eye rather than his finger if he did.
"I'm going to show you." Derek corrected. He pulled the carved cylinder towards him, twisting the cap off of it before pouring five werewolf claws onto the table in front of them. Peter picked one of them up, holding it to eye level as he examined it. "After the fire, that's all that was left of her," Derek explained, he didn't have to mention a name for Peter to know who he meant.
"Talia." He mumbled under his breath. His beloved sister was everywhere even in death, if not in his daughter's head, then in someone's mouth, she was a name that would follow him for the rest of his life and he wasn't quite sure whether that would be a good or bad thing, it seemed to be both for Kinsey. "I can't decide if that's torching or morbid. I guess the real question is, what are you planning on doing with them?" He asked, placing the claw back down.
"I have to ask her something." Derek deadpanned. If he was being honest, there were multiple things he wanted to ask his mother, some more important than others, some more dangerous than others, even if she wasn't alive he had an incline his mother still knew more than anyone, what he had heard from Kinsey about her meeting with the woman in the afterlife only proved that to him. She watched over them, watching everything that panned out in their life, and he hadn't forgotten what Peter had said to him when he come back from the dead, how he'd seen things while he was dead, allowing him to find out that Kinsey was his daughter. Despite all of the questions that he had for his mother, he wasn't willing to tell Peter everything, even if he'd come with him and risked his life, he still didn't trust him. "And from what I've heard, this is the only way possible without sacrificing yourself to the Nemeton." Derek deadpanned as he placed the cylinder in front of his uncle.
Peter looked at the cylinder, and then back to his hand that finally had five fingers again. Then he knew what his nephew was hinting at as he looked at the wolf, asking if he was kidding, but Derek certainly wasn't, to do this was the only reason he had sewed his fingers back on, and he had no problem in telling his uncle that. Well, if there was ever any doubt whether Derek was a Hale or not, there certainly wasn't anymore. His nephew was just as scheming as he was.
"You know, there's always an element of danger to rituals like this," Peter suggested as he tried to get himself out of what Derek was setting him up for. "I'm not particularly fond of them." But Derek seemed completely unbothered as he continued dropping his dead mother's claws into the cylinder craved with the triskele. "Unless they somehow benefit me," Peter added. Derek knew it was only so long before his uncle wanted to know how this whole scenario would get him something he wanted, every situation ended up this way, which was why he much preferred help from the likes of the man's daughter who helped no matter what, she didn't even think if it would possibly benefit her if she helped. Not to mention, she was much more useful.
Derek scoffed, entertaining the idea. "What do you want?"
"I want to keep them." Peter deadpanned. "Sentimental value." He quickly added. "She was your mother but she was also my sister. What? Am I not allowed a little bit of sentiment?"
Derek didn't bother to answer as he raised his brows, dropping the final fifth claw into the small cylinder before handing it over to his uncle. He didn't want to see into the twisted mind that was his uncle's, even he couldn't deal with places that dark. Derek stood up with folded arms while he watched Peter's hand linger over the cylinder, he seemed hesitant to follow through with the ritual, even if he did benefit from it. He stared at the five claws belonging to his sister that sat at the bottom of the cylinder, a feeling of nervousness growing inside of him. And that was when his nephew had decided it had taken him too long, he stormed over to the older wolf and before Peter could argue further, he shoved his hand into the cylinder for him, watching as his eyes had turned their cold steel blue. Peter quickly snatched his hand back out of the cylinder, this time he had his sisters claw's attached to the end of his fingers, he looked at his hand for a while with furrowed brows, analyzing them as though it was a fresh manicure. Eventually, the older wolf had come to the conclusion that it wasn't quite his color.
His nephew refrained from commenting as he sat waiting patiently to continue the rest of the ritual, finally allowing him to get some of the answers he wanted, or at least he hoped he would be able to. His questions were eating away at him, making him more irritable, even more than he usually was, he hated being left in the unknown.
"This is going to be excruciatingly painful." Peter deadpanned as he walked towards his nephew as if that wasn't obvious. He had seen Isaac have claws dug into the back of his neck, it didn't look like no walk in the park, the boy's scream hadn't acted as music in his ears. Despite what he had witnessed from others he told his uncle to do it anyway. "Oh, I'm going to. I just wanted you to know we all have our petty revenges."
Peter harshly shoved his new claws into the back of Derek's neck, a smile across his face as he did so, it brought him more pleasure than he could even describe.
Derek opened his eyes, taking heavy breaths as he looked straight in front of him, already he had noticed a change, not only in himself but in his home. He was still there, only now the loft had grown a large tree stump that could only be the Nemeton, he hadn't seen it for himself, not in a very long time, but Kinsey had given enough of a vivid description from him to know that that was what was in front of him. At the sound of a low growl Derek looked past the Nemeton in the middle of the room to the open door, a dark wolf appeared from the light, leaping onto the tree in front of him. His breath was taken away, it had actually worked, his mother was in front of him once again, even in the form of a wolf he could recognize her, even in this form, she had been able to give him the same look she always had. A look of admiration shared between a mother and her only son, her oldest living child.
Peter snatched his claws back out of his nephew's neck, unaware of what had happened in the mind of his nephew, whether it had worked, whether he had managed to see Talia, or if what they had heard was nothing more than make-believe. Derek was breathless as he sat in the chair trying to process what had just happened. The older wolf began asking questions frantically. Did you see her? What did you ask her? Did she say anything about me? He was desperate to know as much as Derek did. With that question Derek whipped his head around to look at his uncle, sweat dripped down his face, his eyes wide. Not Peter specifically.
·❥·
Aiden leaned against the locker, watching as the pretty little redhead placed her books in her locker who had immediately rolled her eyes when she saw that smile across his face. The two of them had been here before, more times than she would like to admit to herself, because with that admittance, she would realize just how much self-control she lacked, and then, she would be a hypocrite after all of the times she had referred to Kinsey and Isaac rabbits who couldn't keep their hands off one another. With that admittance, she would have to accept the fact that her brunette best friend might have just taken a leaf out of her book when it came to having a midday hookup in Coach's office. That she couldn't do.
"Oh, no. I don't think so." The redhead shook her head as she shut her locker, turning to face the boy whose smile hadn't faltered. Hours into him being back at school and already he had come crawling back to her. "There's no way you can come back here after two weeks of nothing, with your cute little smile, the dark eyes, the brooding forehead, the muscles..." Lydia's list continued knowing that with every single feature she was pointing out it became harder for her to resist the temptation that had crept up on her. "And suddenly we're ripping off each other's clothes in Coach's office. No way. It's not gonna happen." The redhead insisted, looking away from him.
And in that split second, she had looked back at him. She was a goner.
Before she knew it the two of them were stumbling to Coach's office, just like she said that she wouldn't do, just like she had mocked Kinsey and Isaac for doing, acting as though she hadn't done it before, probably more times than the two of them had. A point neither of the couple had pulled her up on before, but both of them knew that Lydia's habits were just as bad as their own. Aiden raised the redhead off of her feet, prepared to sit her on Coach's desk, the come up for air long enough to realize that the desk was broken. Aiden stared at it in confusion, wondering how somebody had managed to break it, even they hadn't managed to do that, but Lydia knew who she could blame for it.
"Dammit, Kins," Lydia mumbled under her breath, she turned back to Aiden. "Guidance office?"
Aiden and Lydia's hookup was cut short, actually, it was non-existent. The two of them hadn't even made it to the guidance counselors office before the redhead had heard her name being called down the hall, before she knew it Kinsey and Allison were dragging her with them while providing Aiden with another evil look. They hadn't even had time to lecture her on hookups with the wolf after he'd been prepared to fight Kinsey and Isaac this morning, not to mention all of the other things he and Ethan had done since coming to town. Surprisingly, there were bigger matters at hand that required their attention.
Agent McCall had already put the entire school on lockdown, nobody was to get in or out of the building until they had found William Barrow, better known by Beacon Hills as the shrapnel bomber. After escaping the hospital he'd headed straight to the school in search of kids with a distinctive trait, glowing eyes. They all knew a handful of people who fit that description, and they were all inside of the school. Surprisingly, the news of a serial killer on the loose bought a pair of frenemies together, Isaac and Stiles walked ahead of the two huntresses and Lydia while they discussed Barrow. Though the wolf hadn't told anyone, it was because he was concerned that after weeks of waiting to see if Kinsey's eyes would glow again, that it would be today of all days that they finally showed themselves again, he couldn't have that happen when someone who wanted to kill those kinds of people was running loose.
Nobody, not even Kinsey knew that he had seen her eyes glow yellow while they were in the root cellar trying to hold up the ceiling. There would never be a good time to tell her, she made it very clear almost every day that the last thing she ever wanted was to be a werewolf, stabbing her in the heart would go down better than telling her that there was a chance she was a late-blooming werewolf. He planned on having that news come from her father, the one who had given her the gene, but he hadn't quite got around telling Peter about it either. He and the brunette had been too busy celebrating the disappearance of her hallucinations for the past two weeks.
"Barrow went after kids with glowing eyes?" Isaac reiterated as he and Stiles walked far ahead of the two girls, both of them had been put into full-force action mode to protect all people who came under that list. "He said those exact words?"
"Yeah. And no one knows how he woke up from anesthesia." Stiles continued to explain, using everything that his dad had told him about the situation at hand. Allison had managed to catch up with the two of them, listening intently to all of the information while Lydia and Kinsey were still following behind, both of them were trying to push past the sound of buzzing flies inside of their heads making it hard to focus on walking at a faster pace. "Just that when they opened him up, they found a tumor full of live flies, which in any other kind of circumstance would be all kinds of awesome." Stiles's explanation continues as he swung his arms around.
Both Lydia and Kinsey had stopped in the halls at the mention of flies. Neither had discussed the sound of buzzing in their ears with one another, neither had thought anything of it until now. "Did you say flies?" Both of the girls asked in unison. Only then did they share a look with each other knowing that the sound they had been hearing in their ears since morning wasn't a sound only individual to themselves, it was deeper than that. Allison turned around looking at the two of them with wide eyes, she knew that look on their faces, she had seen it at Glen Capri when they had both heard the couple in the next room creating a death pact while she'd heard nothing but silence. This was like that night. That connection Deaton talked about between an Angel and a Banshee, it allowed them to do things like this, hear the same things.
"All day I have been hearing this sound. It sounds like..."
"Like the sound of flies." Kinsey finished her sentence for her, confirming Allison's suspicions as the older girl walked towards them, Isaac and Stiles taking her lead. The two boys were much more confused as to what was happening, they had never seen it in action before like Allison had at the motel. "Exactly like the sound of flies."
The three of them looked at the two harbingers of death as though they were on display at the museum, nobody, not even the girls themselves knew what to do with that information, what could they possibly do knowing that all day the two of them had been hearing the buzzing of flies in their ears. Even if flies did come out of Barrow's body, they still didn't know how either of the girls' minds would have known that enough to hear the sound of flies. The only thing that they truly knew about the connection between Kinsey and Lydia, was that it had led them all to dead bodies, multiple times. And that was what they feared would happen today.
It was decided that the group needed to split up. Someone needed to find Scott, and the rest needed to try and find Barrow before he found a teenager with glowing eyes, who knew if there were some hidden werewolf teenagers in this school beside them. The group had split up to look around the school, none of them had a particular person they were looking for, they would just be glad to find either Scott or Barrow, though it seemed to be a mutual hope for them that they would find Scott first at the risk one of them would be alone when they found the bomber.
Upon their frantic search of the school, Lydia and Stiles had been the first to find Scott lingering around the school halls, but while that seemed like a good thing, they had already hit another bump in the road. The cops were leaving. Stiles suggested that may have been an even better thing for them, that they had searched the entire school and Barrow wasn't here. For a moment he had felt like celebrating, but Lydia was quick to rain on that parade. She was sure that Barrow was in the school, she knew it. She was confident in her answer. The sound of flies had gotten so loud that she could hardly hear anything else, even the two boys when they talked to her. And she was sure that if they found Kinsey, she would say the same thing too.
Once Scott had been caught up on everything that he had somehow managed to miss, from the sound of flies, flies in tumors to serial killers, to the cops no longer searching for said serial killer, he knew that there was one person who would be able to help him and some other werewolves sniff out Barrow. While Lydia and Stiles tried to bring the cops back, he'd arranged for his mom to sneak into the hospital with something that could help them track Barrow's scent, while he waited for his mother, he had given two of the worst people ever the task of finding Ethan and Aiden and recruiting them to help. Kinsey and Isaac. He had to hope that the two of them would refrain from fighting the twins before getting their help, but the two of them were the only ones left at his disposal, Allison had gone home to find the bestiary and search for anything that may tell them what the sound of flies meant to an Angel or a Banshee. Frankly, she might have just had the hardest task between the entire group.
After Kinsey and Isaac had successfully recruited Ethan and Aiden, in ways that Scott still wasn't sure of, nor did he want to know, the five of them stood in a hidden corner of the school with the robe that had belonged to Barrow. None of the four werewolves had planned on sniffing a robe belonging to a serial killer today, but life always had something unexpected around the corner.
"Lydia and Kinsey still think he's here even though the cops searched the whole school."
"I know he's here." Kinsey butted in, correcting the wolf.
Scott nodded, accepting the correction. Even if he didn't know how it worked still, he trusted her instincts, as he trusted Lydia's too, and if the two of them felt the exact same, he had no reason not to believe that Barrow was still in the building. He turned back to the three werewolves, there was a difference between them and the cops who had been searching the grounds for the serial killer, they didn't have their sense of smell. He handed everyone but Kinsey something that had Barrow's smell on, his blood-covered robes, the clothes that had been taken from him when he was admitted, all of the things that Melissa had managed to get her hands on.
The group had decided to split up once again. Using the information that she had gained from watching horror movies almost every time she had the chance, Kinsey suggested that the first place that they checked for Barrow should be the basement. And with a school so large, there was a lot of ground to cover, meaning every werewolf on hand ended up in the basement, and so did she. Upstairs had been left as Stiles and Lydia's territory once they had successfully got Allison out of the school so she could sneak home. The basement was just how Kinsey would have imagined it, dark, with only a red light allowing them to see, painfully warm thanks to the boiler room, and just as creepy as all of those horror movies she had seen in her life. She kept in between the two werewolves, her hand never straying far from the dagger that was strapped to her leg, worried that she might need it against the serial killer. They didn't have much time to find Barrow before 3:00 p.m. hit and the whole school was free to go home, allowing Barrow to hide in the crowd, searching for the kind of people he wanted, attacking them.
"So this is how it's going to be now?" Isaac asked as the three of them walked slowly through the red lights, poking their heads around every corner before they dared to step out, they couldn't leave a single stone unturned, if Kinsey and Lydia were so sure he was here, a quick sweep of the building like the cops had done wouldn't be enough for them to find Barrow. "We trust them?"
Scott stayed quiet for a moment, considering what the other wolf had said. Part of him believed that in order to have asked them, even a little part of him had to trust them, even if he didn't like the idea of trusting Ethan and Aiden after what they had done. "Just because I'm letting them help, doesn't mean I trust them." Scott defended his decision, unsure whether he wanted to tell the two of them that part of him might just have a drop of trust towards Ethan and Aiden.
"Yeah, well I don't trust them either."
"Or like them." Kinsey deadpanned. "In fact, I just hate them and want them to die."
Scott looked back at the girl with wide eyes, taken back by her words, it was the kind of thing he expected to hear from Isaac. He knew that the girl felt the same was as her boyfriend did about Ethan and Aiden, particularly Aiden, but she usually had a better way with words. What she had just said was definitely an Isaac sentence, the two of them were rubbing off on each other.
"Well, if Barrow is here and he's got a plan, you might just get what you want," Scott admitted.
It was something that the two probably shouldn't have taken so much joy in, they knew that if Barrow had a plan to kill those with glowing eyes, the three of them were at just as much risk as Ethan and Aiden were by being alone, but still, the thought of Ethan and Aiden brought a slight sense of joy through them. Finally being rid of every part of the Alpha pack once and for all, able to put that part of their life behind them, even if in some twisted way, the Alpha pack was what had brought the two of them together. Things might not have been the same if Kinsey hadn't spent the entire summer helping her family and Isaac look for the Alpha pack. Things could've been completely different to the way they were now. But neither would ever admit aloud that they may just have something to thank Ethan and Aiden for in their lives.
For a few minutes, the three of them walked through the basement in silence, now that all of the hatred and trust issues for Ethan and Aiden had been aired, the three chose to focus on finding Barrow, they were in a time crunch after all. Isaac and Scott had begun walking faster through the basement, neither of them had even realized that they were slowly leaving Kinsey behind as she took an even more thorough look than the two of them did, her huntress instincts were kicking in. The more logical side of her brain as she liked to call it, and as that logical side of her brain began kicking in, she began thinking more about what they were doing, the plan that they had quickly sprung together without truly taking the time to think about it first. As she slowly walked through the basement she passed a pile of supplies that had been thrown down here in true, lazy Beacon Hills teacher fashion. Most of which, belonged to the history department and their display on World War 2. Which was when she saw it, and it all clicked for her.
A photo of an explosion. William Barrow, aka the Shrapnel Bomber. An engineer who would find everything he needed to make an explosion in a boiler room of a high school. The boiler room where they were planning to meet. In a basement they'd filled with teenagers with glowing eyes.
Kinsey's words were caught in her throat as she stood still, barely able to spit out her boyfriend's name, even in a mumble, but he had heard her, so had Scott. The two of them turned around to see the look of panic across her face, absolute fear. She was about to tell them that they needed to get out of the basement, and fast, but before she could, the fire alarm began ringing loudly in their ears.
They knew that couldn't have been a coincidence. Someone had set it off, maybe even two someones. Neither of the three hesitated to begin running back towards the stairs that led to the basement, getting ready to run outside and meet the rest of the school in the hopes that it was either Lydia or Stiles that had set the alarm off, warning them of the same thing that Kinsey was about to warn them of. The three of them had met Ethan and Aiden as they rushed out of the school doors, blending in with everyone else who had hastily evacuated after hearing the alarm.
As the seven of them regrouped outside, Aiden had been the first to speak, sharing what they had found, which other than Danny making out with his ex-boyfriend was nothing. Not even a scent, which Scott and Isaac could relate to, neither of them had caught one either. But it was 3 o'clock and school was over, if there was a bomb like Kinsey and Lydia had thought there might be, Barrow would have set it off by now. Ethan wondered if that meant everyone was safe. All heads turned to the two girls who seemed to know a lot more than anyone else, the two who might be able to give them the answer to that question, but both of the girls shook their heads. They didn't know, they simply just didn't know.
When it was asked what they were all supposed to do now, they had no other choice but to leave it in the hands of the professionals, the cops, it was out of their hands now. Barrow wasn't in the school, despite the feeling that the Banshee and the Angel had. Though that didn't stop Kinsey from agreeing that she was going to go home and help her cousin look through the bestiary, she still had hope that there was something deeper, than she wasn't just losing her mind again and that she had taken Lydia with her this time. The sound had to mean something. It had to.
The rest of the group had agreed, they would leave it to the professionals while the two Argent's searched through their family's bestiary. Scott had made plans to have dinner at the Yukimura's, a thank you from Mr. Yukimura for saving his daughters life from the coyote, the twins retreated back to wherever they had been hiding for the past two weeks, while Lydia chose to go home with Stiles for an impromptu study session. She didn't want to sit at home alone with that sound of buzzing still in her head, she needed a distraction, and what better than Stiles's rambling.
Lydia lay on the boy's bed, watching as he readjusted his crime board, adding a photo of William Barrow to it. It was a board he had created a few weeks ago to keep track of all the things that went on in this town, his father's board with Malia and the sacrifices had inspired him to have a board of his own, this one would have the supernatural side to it, unlike the one that hung in his dad's office down at the station. A way for him to feel as though he had control after losing it for weeks with the hallucinations and the lack of his ability to read. The redhead noticed as Stiles pinned a red piece of string into the photo, connecting it to an image of their school.
"What do the different colored strings mean?" She asked as she nodded to not only the one in his hand but the selection of colored string that he had placed beside her on the bed. Listening to his aimless rambling on strings was sure to be something to take her mind off of things.
"Oh, just different states of the investigation" Stiles shrugged, continuing to add pins to the board as he explained his logic. "So green is solved, yellow is to be determined, red is unsolved, and blue... blue's just pretty." He shrugged, thinking nothing more of his words.
Lydia raised a brow as she looked at the rolls of colored string sitting beside her red, green, blue, and yellow. To most, it would be nothing, just three primary colors with the addition of a yellow ball of string but her mind had wandered elsewhere. She knew she had heard someone else use those colors before, almost with the same logic behind them, just in a different context. As clear as day she could remember the first time she had ever studied with Kinsey, watching as she had pulled out four colored highlighters from her pencil case, insisting she couldn't study without using those particular four colors to distinguish her areas of knowledge. Red, green, yellow, and blue. Just like she had with Stiles, Lydia had asked Kinsey what they meant to her. It hadn't clicked until the two of them had used the same exact words to describe the purpose of blue, it was pretty. That was Kinsey's reasoning behind anything blue because it was pretty, her favorite color. The color on her necklace. The color of her dress to the formal. The color of her beloved blue flannel that the redhead still had hanging in her own closet.
"Where did you learn that?" Lydia asked with a raised brow, wondering if he knew himself that he had gotten it from the brunette. "Did you read it somewhere or something?"
"Uh..." Stiles thought for a moment. "I don't know. Maybe." He shrugged. He didn't remember where he had gotten it somewhere, it was just something that had come to him when he had been setting up the crime board. He never thought that he might of gotten it from somewhere, or even someone. "Why?" He asked, turning to the redhead with a furrowed brow.
"No reason." Lydia shook her head, a smile growing across her face as he turned back around.
Kinsey and Allison sat at Chris's desk with their feet up as they idly searched through the entire electronic copy of the bestiary, taking it in turns to click the mouse, turning to the next page. In the hours that they had been reading, whether it was before Kinsey had gotten home, or since she had been back, neither of them had found anything on flies coming out of human bodies. Not even about Angels or Banshee's, that was much further in than the two of them had gotten. Chris was away on business for a long weekend, the two of them weren't expecting him home until late tonight, he was working hard to start up Argent Arms again, securing a future for the two of them to inherit when the time had come.
Occasionally the two girls would give each other a break, taking over on the reading and the clicking while the other left for a bathroom break or to get them both something to eat, it was undeniably the most tedious task the two of them had ever volunteered themselves for, but a necessary one. Kinsey wasn't willing to give up until she had an answer to why she had been hearing the buzzing of flies all day, and still now, she could hear them in her ears, as loud as ever as they taunted her further. And Allison wasn't going to let her cousin give up until she had the answer either, as amazing as she thought Kinsey was for what she could do, she wished that she could take some of the pressure off of her at times. Take some of the pain she felt from hearing things that she shouldn't be able to hear, or when things like hallucinations kept her up at night.
A rattling sound from outside had caused both of the teenage girls to quickly stand up, looking at one another with concern, they knew Chris wasn't supposed to be back yet, and he had no reason to rattle outside. Someone who would, however, was an intruder. Someone like a serial killer who had recently escaped a hospital and was no after some kind of supernatural creature. The two brunettes froze, staring at the open door of Chris's office as they waited for another sound before they sprung into action, prepared to defend themselves against whoever was on the outside of the apartment trying to break their way in. Their hearts pounded loudly in their ears as they awaited the sound or anything, they couldn't even look at one another again.
The two brunettes flinched at another sound, a sound as if someone was walking with heavy footsteps on the ground. They grew more anxious, taking the slightest step back from the desk, further away from the open door that would allow an intruder immediate access to them. As they froze again, waiting, electricity crackled, followed by a high-pitched yelp that both of them had recognized. Allison sighed as she threw herself back in her father's desk chair, shaking her head. She didn't know why she hadn't expected it sooner. Kinsey ran her hand through her hair, waiting for what would come next. And just like that, a sizzling sound followed by another high-pitched cry of a werewolf who was trying to climb through his girlfriend's window. One that she had forgotten to tell him about, particularly because she hadn't expected him to dare to climb in through her window and risk her hunter of an uncle catching him and asking questions. She had declared that when the werewolf was here when he was supposed to be here, the two of them were nothing more than friends, that was how it had to be if she was going to keep it from Chris. Even if he didn't like the idea of his own girlfriend friend-zoning him, Isaac had agreed.
Yet, now, when he was climbing through his bedroom window, it seemed he had forgotten about the rules his girlfriend had set. Kinsey threw herself back in her seat, the two of them shaking their heads with soft laughter as they turned back to the bestiary on the computer. He knew the rules, and because he hadn't listened, he had gotten payback.
The tall wolf stood in the doorway, leaning his arms on either side as he exhaled deeply, neither of the two girls looked in his direction as they continued reading the screen, acting as casual as they possibly could, as if they hadn't been terrified for a moment that William Barrow was here.
"Electrified the windows?" Isaac asked with a raised brow.
"Yep." Allison deadpanned.
"Didn't wanna say anything about it?"
"Nope." Kinsey smiled, finally looking up at the wolf, her face alone told him that she thought that he slightly deserved the electric shock for disobeying the rules as if she was a big advocate for following rules usually. Isaac shook his head as he walked over to the two of them, peering over his girlfriend's shoulder as he looked at the computer screen in front of them. "What are you doing here?" Kinsey asked, turning her head towards him.
"Figured you could use an extra pair of eyes." He shrugged, a devilish smile across his face. It was part of the reason why he had come, just not the main reason, which was to make sure that she was okay after hearing flies that weren't there all day and failing to answer any of his texts since she had taken him home at three o'clock. But admitting he cared that much about her was just something he didn't do, not even as her boyfriend, he knew it would be followed by her mocking him at every single chance she got, and in turn, so would Allison. She had quickly become like an annoying big sister to him too now she had warmed up to the idea of the two of them together.
"Can you read Latin?" Allison questioned the wolf.
"No." He admitted. "But I can look at pictures."
Both of the girls sat back, allowing him free rein to look at all the pictures he wanted, that was the one part of the bestiary they struggled to understand, some of the images connected to the Latin were too confusing and old for them to make out, but they would have liked to see Isaac give it a shot, seeing what random things he came up with without knowing the context of all of the images in front of him. Some of them were bound to be creative.
After only a few minutes of the three of the teenagers being cramped around a single screen they had agreed that they might have an easier time printing off the pages of the bestiary, separating them between them, not only would it help them get through the thousands of pages easier but it meant that Allison didn't have to be so close to Kinsey and Isaac who were practically drooling over one another. As much as she loved the two of them, there was only so much she could take of them together. The three teenagers retreated to Kinsey's room, spreading themselves out, or at least Allison had, with their piles of pages to read through. In Isaac's case, to use as a picture book before he passed what he thought was relevant to his girlfriend.
For a while, the three had thought that an extra person in the room would have made the time pass quicker, that reading through boring Latin words wouldn't be so tedious and that maybe, in some kind of a miracle, it might have even ended up being fun. But the three of them had gotten so bored and exhausted they struggled to even crack a joke, Kinsey and Isaac had even become too tired to be their usual flirtatious selves, that was when Allison knew that the three of them were in desperate need of a pick-me-up before they all collapsed and nothing got done. Allison sprung off of the carpet, slightly startling the two who'd been engrossed in their pages as they looked up at her declaring that the only way to get through the rest of the night was with pizza.
While Allison was gone Isaac had resorted to walking around his girlfriend's bedroom while he flicked through the never-ending pages, his legs were growing restless, he was struggling to stop fidgeting as he sat on the carpet, a distance between him and Kinsey who sat on her bed, one of their ideas to fight against any temptation of having the apartment to themselves. Though the two hadn't stayed away from one another long enough for Allison to come back with the pizza, Isaac had grown bored, plopping himself down in the space behind Kinsey on the bed.
"You find anything?" He asked.
"There's a reference about flies being able to carry messages to the dead. That seems Angel-y, right?" The brunette shrugged, feeling through the dark to find any kind of connection she could just so she could stop reading. "How about you?" She asked, keeping her eyes on the page.
"Oh, just... Beelzebub." He struggled to read as he reached over the girl, pointing to the word he was trying to pronounce. "The lord of the flies."
Kinsey turned her head to look at him, only then noticing just how close he was to her, just inches away from her own face, a smile growing across it as temptation crept in, just like it always did. Suddenly she was forgetting her own rules, that as soon as he stepped through the threshold of the apartment, the two were nothing more than friends, he was just a friend who had come to help her and Allison to search for answers in the bestiary. There was no history between them, not even a present. Just friends, that was how it had to be if she wanted to keep it away from her uncle until she was ready. If she knew that, why was it so hard to fight it?
Isaac didn't care about those rules, the two of them were alone. Completely alone. For literally the first time since their relationship had started over a month ago, there was always someone around them, until now. He couldn't resist temptation like she could, and he didn't even try to. He could see that look in her eyes, how she was doing that little trick on him, looking from his lips and back to his eyes, knowing that she wanted it too. Isaac leaned in towards his girlfriend who quickly swerved him, refusing to allow temptation get the better of her.
"Are you serious?" She asked in a slight laugh.
"What?" Isaac questioned with a raspy voice, he still hadn't moved away from her.
"You were just trying to kiss me." Kinsey deadpanned.
"No, I wasn't." He shook his head with a smile.
"Then what were you trying to do? Head-butt me?" The brunette girl asked with a raised brow, struggling to wipe the smile off of her face. "Remember that little friend rule?"
"All right, maybe I was trying to kiss you." He admitted, that charming little smile of his growing even more as the girl looked at him, shaking her head. She was tempted, more than tempted, but she couldn't do it. If she knew anything about her luck, her uncle would be able to sense the two of them from wherever on the road home he was, she couldn't risk it, no matter how much she wanted to. Not even a little peck. It was killing her, but it was a necessary evil.
And there was only one way she could see possible to stop herself. Space. Kinsey jumped off of the bed, stumbling back across the room as Isaac watched her in confusion, wondering if one of those death flies had possessed her and turned her into someone a lot more worried about rules than she usually was. Normally, she was the one who suggested breaking them. Hence how the two of them had even begun, because she had started it, and now she was creating a divide in the room just so she didn't kiss him, as if he'd been infected by cooties.
"Are you completely, totally out of your mind?" She asked, shaking her head rapidly. "You think that I would kiss you under my uncle's roof after the way he acted when he found out about Scott and Allison? Because trust me, I would... I would never. Ever" She shook her head, poorly trying to convince herself with her own words. Though the stammering to get out those words hadn't helped her cause. She knew that she would, do it no matter the risk. She was impulsive, stupidly impulsive, especially around him.
"Never?" Isaac asked with a scoff, failing to believe her too. The girl nodded in agreement. Never. "All right. Fine." Isaac stood up, pulling his t-shirt off. "I won't kiss you either."
Kinsey struggled to speak as she looked him up and down, still trying to fight that painful and annoying temptation that wouldn't leave her alone, becoming even more annoying than that sound of buzzing that had been in her head since this morning. Yes, it was that annoying. She tried to tell herself that she wouldn't, reminding herself of the rules that she had set, the ones that she had been so insistent and adamant about, and yet now, she wished that she'd never spoken at all. Allison would be gone a little while longer. And if she knew anything about her uncle Chris it was that he enjoyed a nice long road trip, he would probably make a few stops on the way, he wouldn't be home until the early hours of the morning. They had all the time in the world to do what they wanted, make the most of the chance they'd been given to continue their celebrations of her no longing being a risk of killing everyone she loved in a hallucination.
So the brunette followed her impulsive instincts as she pulled her own shirt over her head, much to the wolf's pleasure as he took in the sight of her standing in as little as her black lace bra and shirt. Frankly, she was still a little proud of herself that she had managed to fight temptation for as long as she had, it was an achievement for her, even if she had eventually failed, at least she knew there was some small part of her capable of fighting it, even if it was just for a few minutes.
Just as the two were prepared to step closer, prepared to do everything but kiss, sticking to the girl's word, her bedroom door had swung open, both Chris and Allison stood in it as the older huntress held the box of pizza. She had texted both of them, warning them that Chris had called and that he was almost home, she knew what was probably going on while she was gone, but apparently, neither of them had seen it. Allison's face had dropped, cringing slightly as she looked between Isaac and her cousin, knowing that hell was about to break loose, she couldn't even bear to turn and look at the man who stood behind her knowing that he most likely had a face like thunder, one she recognized from her own relationship with a werewolf. After freezing in absolute fear for a moment, both Kinsey and Isaac rushed to put their shirts back on in shame as they quickly turned their backs to the two at the door. They were dead. Deader than dead.
"Kinsey." Chris cleared his throat. "Can I see you in my office?" The man asked, Kinsey peered over her shoulder for a split second, nodding her head. "Where I keep my guns."
With that slightly, poorly, disguised threat Kinsey had begun rushing to follow her uncle before she had even managed to get her shirt over her head. Allison had remained in the doorway with her hand over her mouth, struggling not to laugh as she watched Isaac's face resemble a deer in the headlights at the mention of guns. Scott had warned him of this. Everyone had.
"You're so dead," Allison mumbled in amusement as Kinsey slid past her.
"You too, Allison!" Chris's voice shouted through the apartment from his office, suddenly her face had dropped too. She was also dead. All three of them, dead. They were never going to see the light of day again. Chris would keep the two of them locked in their rooms forever, he would home school them if he had to. As for Isaac, he was simply just dead. Isaac watched as the two brunettes disappeared from the door, mumbling to himself a small prayer, he knew he was dead too as he muttered oh shit to himself. Literally everyone who had found out about him and Kinsey had warned him of the consequences he might face if Chris knew, even Peter had admitted he needed to fear his daughter's uncle more so than him. Even he knew of the reaction Chris had had to Scott and Allison, though he admired Isaac's bravery. The wolf stood in silence for a moment, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation, but he hadn't needed to.
"Another werewolf?" Chris's yell echoed through the apartment, shaking the walls.
Kinsey and Allison stood in front of Chris's desks with bowed heads, refusing to speak as they listened to his lecture that was bound to last a lifetime, he hadn't drawn breath since his loud yell had echoed through their home. He was more than angry, more than disappointed. There wasn't a word in existence to describe his feelings, but livid, seething, and enraged came close. He paced around the room as he spoke, running his hands through his new haircut, Kinsey was right to think he would make a stop on his drive home, just not as big of one as what she thought. There was a vein in his forehead popping out as he yelled, talking about not only Kinsey keeping it from him, how she had begun a relationship with a werewolf, one that he hadn't even had a hint of a clue about, but that his daughter had obviously known too. He didn't doubt for even a second that Allison was innocent in this, the two told each other everything, they were always with one another. She knew about them, and she had lied too.
Frankly, the man was slightly annoyed at himself too, how he could have been so naive to think that both of them would learn from the past and keep away from dating werewolves. Surely there were nice, human boys in that school of theirs for them to date, there had to be. And not a human who was just as intertwined with werewolves as they were. As he lectured them, making a point to express his disappointment, the pieces began clicking together like magnets. All of the times that Kinsey had been "sleeping at Lydia's" while Allison stayed home, she was with Isaac, forming a relationship with him. When he had left her in Beacon Hills for the summer, that was what she had been doing, he knew he shouldn't have risked leaving her with Peter and Derek, he knew there was a chance she would get even more caught up in it all, and she had.
As Kinsey stood listening to the man, his voice began to get drowned out by the sound of that buzzing, it had never left, but it had strengthened even more than before, now, it was all she could hear. She looked at her uncle, watching as his mouth moved, still continuing to yell at the two of them, but she couldn't hear a word he said. Only the uniformed buzz. She turned to her cousin who still bowed her head, nodding at whatever it was Chris was saying, unlike her, she was able to hear Chris clearly, even Isaac down the hall could hear him clearly and he didn't need his impeccable werewolf hearing to do it, Chris made sure to yell his words for the wolf.
Kinsey began looking around the room, watching as it spun around her, every shape becoming a distorted blur as she tried to focus her eyes. Chris had noticed how his niece had begun looking around, clearly not listening to him, at first, he thought it was just Kinsey being Kinsey. But he'd noticed how her skin had lost some color, how she looked in more of a panic than bored.
"Kinny?" Chris's voice softened as he stepped towards the girl, placing his hands on either of her shoulders. Even as he stood right in front of her, his voice sounded like it was thousands of miles away from her, not a matter of inches. Allison had begun saying the girl's name too. "Kinsey?"
"Kinsey, what's going on? Is it the flies?"
"The flies?" Chris asked, turning his head to his daughter.
With the buzzing louder than ever, Kinsey looked up at the ceiling, trying to focus on a single spot in the hopes it would drown out the noise, allowing her to focus. And it had, just not in the way that she had wanted. The light hanging from the ceiling shone brightly in her eyes as Chris kept his arms on her shoulders, stabilizing her as she narrowed her eyes at the light, the buzzing was coming straight from it.
Allison's eyes widened, she realized what was happening. It looked different to how it usually did, how the girl normally entered a panic state as she rushed around the room as she had before in this office, searching for a pen to mark another sacrifice, this time she was calm and mellow, standing in a single spot in silence. But she knew it was happening, and finally, she knew what to do. She warned her father to step back and cover his ears before she took over. She replaced her father's hands-on Kinsey's shoulders.
"Kinsey." Allison's voice muffled through her ears. "Kinsey. Scream!"
The Angel lowered her head, looking straight into the brown doe eyes of her older cousin, for a split second the sound of buzzing had left her ears, allowing her to hear the calm of the room. Allison placed her hands over her ears just in time for Kinsey to release that scream that Allison had known was building up inside of her cousin. Kinsey's high-pitched scream echoed through the apartment, more so than the yell of her uncle. The glass on the man's desk had shattered to pieces, the lightbulb above their head popping as Chris and Allison ducked, keeping their hands over their ears. Isaac had turned back toward the door at the sound of his girlfriend's familiar, blood-curdling squeal, his eyes widening as the lightbulb above his own head went out leaving all of them in the apartment in complete darkness.
As soon as her scream had fallen to silence Chris and Allison stood up again, checking over the girl that had been left breathless in front of them, a look of realization across her face. The sound was never the buzzing of flies, but electricity. She knew that Barrow was an electrical engineer, Stiles had told her, she was able to clue the pieces together before instructing her cousin to text Scott or Stiles quickly, telling them to get to the substation and quickly. Allison needed nothing more, her phone was already pulled out, illuminating the room as she quickly typed.
Isaac had prepared to step towards the door, prepared to ask what had happened in the small few minutes that the three Argents had left the room, but before he could a shadow moved past him, followed by two more. The shadows had him spinning around the room until they had him surrounded, unable to see past their masks, after pausing for a moment, allowing him to see the five dark hooded figures for even a second they had begun spinning around him again. Isaac began to freak out, trying to keep his eyes on at least one of them, but by the time he had all of them were standing in front of him, stepping closer to him.
The loud slam of Kinsey's bedroom door had grabbed the attention of the three Argent's as they all turned towards the open office door, Kinsey was the first to run out into the hallway, Isaac's scream in their ears as they all raced towards her shut bedroom door. Kinsey began jiggling her door handle trying to get it open while Chris and Allison banged against it, all three of them in a desperate attempt to pry it open as they shouted the werewolf's name.