xi. BOUND BY BLOOD
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"WE CAN'T CONTROL it. When they were trying to take a sample of my blood, I accidentally electrocuted the woman. And I didn't even mean to. It was like the second the needle hit my skin, sparks just shot up the needle."
"Great," Logan grumbled out in exasperation. "Now freakin' Pikachu reincarnated is infected."
Scott turned to look at Carter again, noticing that the girl looked slightly better than before, but not much. He was silently asking her if his eyes were still flashing. Carter frowned at him, feeling Stiles' arms tighten around her waist. Shaking her head, Carter answered him: "It's still happening."
Malia outstretched her hands in front of her to show everyone her extended claws with sweat beginning to line her face. "I can't make them go back."
At that point, Carter knew that it was definitely the work of an assassin. The only problem was that they had no idea who it was or what was even happening. It was obvious that the sickness was diseased to eradicate all of the supernatural creatures in the school. But what about the effects it caused the human students? What about their casualties? If anyone else died because of a virus that was created for the supernatural, it would be on them.
It was clear that the sickness was taking its toll on the four of them, all of them completely aware that this so called virus wouldn't just make them sick, it was designed to kill them. They would be dead by the end of the day—they would be idiotically naive if they thought otherwise. But the only supernatural in the room that wasn't showing any symptoms was Logan. Out of all of them, including Ken and Stiles, Logan looked the healthiest. He wasn't even sweating.
"Obviously the virus is affecting the three of you in a way it won't hit any human being." Yukimura explained, Carter nodded in agreement as her fingers laced tightly with Stiles'. They were now woven together—unable to be torn apart as he clutched onto her hand just as tight.
Stiles found himself pulling Carter even closer to him when she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a low groan. "You guys have to stay out of sight. We have to quarantine you...from the quarantine."
Carter cringed at how horrible that sounded. Scott glanced over at her and she frowned at him, the two sharing similar concerns about their inability to control themselves. Neither knew what that meant, or what would happen to Scott and Malia as the virus progressed through their bodies. They knew what it was doing to Carter, it was forcing the Pheanix inside her to do everything in its power to keep her alive—including almost setting the locker room on fire.
"Yeah, but where?" Kira asked, looking over to Stiles. "I mean, what if they get violent? Like on a full moon."
Scott shook his head. "We shouldn't stay in here. Not in the locker room."
"A classroom is not going to hold us," Carter added, making sure that they eliminated almost every possible suggestion; nothing inside of that school was going to be strong enough to hold three out of control werewolves. It just wasn't possible.
"What about the basement?" Kira suggested.
"Too many ways out," Scott denied. "We need something secure. Somewhere nobody can find us."
They were out of options, not sure where exactly Scott expected them to go. There was no place they knew of that capable of holding three ravage animals that wouldn't be able to stop themselves from hurting someone if and when they got loose. However, Carter did know of a place. "The vault. My family's vault. We always have an escape route, like our house. I know that there's another entrance, I just—I don't know exactly where it is."
The teenagers and the teacher all got up, Stiles commenting that there was a map of the school in Coach Finstock's office that they could use to figure out where the other vault entrance would be. She noticed that Scott and Logan had neared closer to her body, hands outstretched as though they were waiting to catch her if she faltered or fainted again. But thankfully, she and all the others had made it successfully into the room, crowding around Coach's desk as Mister Yukimura pulled out the map. He stood in front of it, evaluating the large piece of blue paper.
"Okay," Stiles began, pointing toward a certain point on the map. "This is where the school sign is, so the vault's got to be right about here."
Mister Yukimura glanced down at the spot on the map that was being circled by Stiles' finger and nodded. "I suppose if Carter's right and there is a second entrance, it would probably be accessible from the basement."
"It's probably somewhere in this hallway. West corridor—" Stiles' sentence had been cut abruptly as the teenage boy staggered, falling onto the desk. Carter's heart lurched up into her throat as she snatched his arm and pulled him back up. He blinked rapidly, glancing around the room. "Whoa."
Stiles pulled back his jacket sleeve, noticing that he was now sporting the same rash as Carter, just a much smaller version. Like the one Sydney had. The couple gave each other weary glances. Mister Yukimura grabbed Stiles' wrist. "It's happening to you too. You're getting sick. You all are."
Everyone then simultaneously turned to Logan, who frowned at his friends. "I feel fine; no sweating, uncontrollable shifting—nothing."
"Well, we still don't know what you are," Scott announced, taking a step toward the older Dunbar, grabbing his shoulder. "For all we know you could be completely immune to whatever this is. We don't know yet."
"I don't feel sick, either," Kira said.
"I think it's affecting you differently, neurologically." He began to explain. "I found your test answers here in a pile with the others."
Scott and Logan, who had been closest to Kira, glanced down to see that the raven-haired girl had been filling in all of her answers outside in the margins between the columns of bubbles. That was when they realized that they needed to find the second entrance to the vault and they needed to find it fasts
The teenagers quickly found themselves sprinting down the stairs that led into the basement, all of them splitting off and searching at different parts of the hallway to try and see if anything peculiar stuck out to them. Malia suddenly began trying to see if any of the doors would open; Kira beginning to look through the racks while the others all searched a bit further down the hall. They were examining every nook and cranny of the basement.
Carter ended up moving past a rack of things that teachers could find things that weren't normally found in their classrooms; like overhead projectors and a few other things, she hadn't thought much about it until she turned and bumped chests with Stiles, who had been intently focused on the same thing as her. They locked eyes for a moment before the both of them leaned further to the rack.
"Hey, guys," Stiles called out the moment that his hand moved a box, revealing a triskelion. "Over here."
Everyone stopped their own individual searches to go and see what Stiles found, Carter taking a few steps back to allow the boys to push the rack away from the symbol engraved into the wall. Once the metal rack was moved, she was able to see that a large triskelion was marked across the entire length of the wall; from the floor to the ceiling. The brunette began to wonder how her family's vault could have been hidden for so long; she would've assumed that a janitor or a faculty member would have noticed it by now—the vault was older than the school, it had been here when they built the school over it.
There was a metallic and antique looking lock sitting firmly in the middle of the triskelion. Carter's dark eyes examined it thoroughly, it was the same lock that was on the school sign outside. Only the werewolf claws of a Hale would be able to open it. In fact, they would need either Malia or Carter to open it—the Were-Pheanix automatically knew it would have to be her. How would they tell Malia that she needed to open it without revealing to her that she was Peter's daughter?
"Look at the cracks in the wall," Stiles commented. "It's like the entrance outside, it only opens with claws. Anyone's claws, right?"
Carter understood what he was hinting at and shook her head. She didn't want Malia to find out just yet, at least, not like this. They may not like each other, but technically, they were family—and the brunette knew the Werecoyote deserved better. "No, Stiles, I have to do it. It's my family's vault, so someone from the Hale family has to open it."
None of them wanted Malia to know about Peter. They were terrified that Peter would do to Malia what he did best—even to them. He would craftily weasel his way into the untainted mind and then go in for the kill shot. He had done it several times before, what's to say that he won't do it to Malia when she finds out?
At that point, Carter had mustered up enough energy to produce her claws and just as she was lining them up with the opening on the lock Malia spoke. "Okay, hold on. First, tell me what you've been hiding from me. I know you think you're trying to protect me, but I can handle it." Malia agreed, only for Scott, Stiles, and Carter to stare at each other in worry that she had figured out their secret on her own. "I know I'm on the list."
Immediately, the three of them loosened their tight postures, giving each other a single glance in relief. They would be able to use this as their "secret" until they figured out how they were going to tell her she was indeed a Hale—Carter's cousin.
"Yes," Carter breathed out, agreeing with her.
Malia nodded, pursing her lips. "So how much?"
"How much what?"
Malia rolled her eyes. "How much am I worth?"
Scott's eyes glanced toward Carter and Stiles before he found himself answering Malia. "Four million."
The Werecoyote's face seemed to drop completely. Carter honestly wondered if Malia was actually sad about the fact that she was on the deadpool, or if she was just confused as to why her price was so low compared to Carter's and Scott's. Stiles seemed to notice this as well, taking a step toward the girl.
"Are you okay?" Stiles asked, his eyes searching for any reaction.
Malia finally looked up. "Yeah. Carter's worth fifty—for whatever reason."
Carter snorted before rolling her eyes. "You sound jealous."
It was Malia's turn to roll her eyes, continuing: "Logan's worth thirty, Scott's twenty-five, and Kira's six. They'll take out the four of you way before me."
Logan scoffed, nodding his head as he thought. "I can see why Carter doesn't like you."
Everyone's mouth, aside from Carter's and Logan's, seemed to fall wide open; surprised by the blunt reaction that came from Malia Tate. Although, she had a point. Both boys stepped away to allow Carter to open the vault; the two of them standing right behind her watching in amazement as the girl pushed in the triskelion before twisting it to the left and then the right. The lock seemingly sunk into the wall right before the concrete door slid back, revealing a room that had been under the school the entire time.
They all walked in, glancing around only to turn back in surprise when the vault door slid shut behind them.
Locking them in while keeping everyone else out.
Carter felt like her head was about to explode. Her upper body lying in Stiles' arms as he pushed back her hair that was beginning to stick to the sweat on her forehead, her legs had been lifted and placed in Logan's lap—the concern for his Alpha showing through his actions. Kira couldn't help but feel sick to her stomach watching them as she paced, Scott sitting on a few crates next to her. She wasn't completely sure if it was out of disgust for their love or the envy of it. She'd never had a boy look at her the way Scott and Stiles looked at Carter, never had a guy care about her as much as they did. It felt foreign even to watch them.
When Kira first moved to Beacon Hills, it hadn't taken her very long to see the way Scott and Stiles looked at the brunette; realizing that there was a flare in Carter's eyes, something Kira would never have. And even after Scott and Carter broke up, she still caught Scott staring at her in the exact same way.
Stiles frowned, glancing at the others in the room before speaking up, pointing toward the vault stationed behind Scott and Kira. "You know, this is where it all started. That's where the money was. A hundred and ninety-seven million in bearer bonds."
"How do you even change bearer bonds into cash?" Carter asked, shifting her body so she could face the others.
"The bank, I guess," Stiles replied, not sure as he continued to run his fingers through Carter's dark locks. "They just let it sit here the whole time collecting dust. You know bearer bonds are basically extinct?"
Kira lowered herself onto the crate next to Scott, frowning at the boy across the room. "Why does it matter?"
"You know how many problems that money could solve?"
"For you?" Kira asked, her tone coming off as very judgmental.
Stiles sighed and nodded once. "Me and my dad...the Eichen House and MRI bills are crushing him."
Carter turned when she heard Scott speak. "Mom does this thing, she writes down all the items in our budget, and how much they cost, then she adds them all up and figures out how long we have until...we—we lose the house."
Carter sent the boy a sad smile, trying to ignore the fact that they were all slowly getting worse by the hour. There were red bags under Scott's eyes, making him look even more weak than he probably felt at this point. Sweat was beginning to form around the sides of his face, Carter felt her stomach drop as she realized that while Stiles was getting better, her and the others were steadily getting worse.
She snuggled even further into Stiles, already feeling tired enough to fall asleep. She knew that the day wasn't even close to drawling to an end—their end. They were just left with more gruesome and grueling hours to sit and wait for the virus to slowly kill them.
"My brother's probably going out of his mind, right now," Logan announced, his statement not being directed toward anyone in particular.
"Mine too," Carter replied, reaching out to grab Logan's hand—it was a comforting gesture. "On a scale of one-to-ten, Liam's probably at a twelve right now."
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"Anything?"
"They're looking for us."
Stiles, Scott, and Carter turned around to look back at the others sitting together on the floor. Malia was the worst out of all of them because, while Stiles seemed to be getting better, the Werecoyote only seemed to be growing worse. Scott and Carter were riding on the same boat, now sweating more profusely as they steadily grew weaker and weaker the longer they were stuck inside the vault.
Carter's hands were trembling feverishly, the brunette holding them out in front of her as she eyed them. Her face was hollow, sunken in as she grew paler as time progressed. Speaking of time, she had no idea how much time had actually passed since they entered the vault. An hour or two? Maybe five? And there was no possible way of telling because their phones were still confiscated, being held in manila folders.
Scott turned to look at Stiles, "Someone's going to have to go out there."
Their attention simultaneously was set on Malia, who was staring intently at the floor while Kira allowed the Werecoyote to lean on her shoulder. Logan was on her other side, frowning as he watched the two girls. None of them spoke; the only interaction was when Logan suddenly rose to his feet and made his way to Scott, Stiles and Carter.
"We need to tell her the truth about Peter," Scott whispered as Logan position himself between the two Alphas. "She's going to see the rest of the deadpool eventually."
"Try to remember that Peter is the one name missing on that list," Stiles whispered back, stepping closer to the supernatural creatures in front of him so that Malia wasn't able to listen in on their conversation. "Which either makes him incredibly lucky or the Benefactor. She finds out about him she's going to go to him, you know she is. And then he's gonna twist his way into her head like he does with everyone. Including us. We let him walk around like nothing ever happened, like he's one of the good guys. Scott, he's not one of the good guys. If she finds out about him, she's gone. And that's probably what he's waiting for. And then he wins. We lose."
"We're already losing," Scott interjected, glancing down at his fingers and noticed that a black substance was leaking out from the beds of his fingernails. Carter looked down and saw the same thing was happening to hers.
After a few minutes of arguing, they had finally decided that Logan and Stiles were going to leave the vault to see what was going on above them. Stiles explained everything to Malia, placing his jacket over her shivering body, her eyes were closed and her jaw was clenched. It was obvious that she was in pain, but at the same time, everyone inside the vault was in pain.
Stiles bit down on his lip as he stared down at Carter. "Are you sure you're okay with me going? Logan can take care of himself. You and Scott, on the other hand...I'm not so sure."
"We'll be fine," Carter assured, her voice not only deceiving her but the state of her health. The brunette looked like she was about to bite the dust in any second, and Stiles felt terrible leaving her behind to die in her family vault. "I don't know what's going to happen when we get worse and I don't want you to be here when we do get worse. Because we will."
"You know, I was never good at saying goodbye."
He knew that it wasn't true—he just wasn't good at saying goodbye to Carter. He will admit, there was a tight ache deep in his chest when he thought of coming back down there to see that Scott, Carter, and Malia were dead. Never in his life had he wanted things to end, and he didn't want to think that this could very well be the last conversation he had with Carter.
"Then don't," Carter opted, blinking a few times to try and focus her vision that was slowly being taken away from her. "Just kiss me and walk out the door." Stiles smiled at that, cheeks beginning to heat up as he gave the girl a single nod. "You're coming back, right?"
"Yeah," Stiles nodded, tucking some of Carter's hair behind her ear. "Yeah, I'd never leave you behind." He leaned forward, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead before standing up, turning away from Carter, who Scott noticed was crying. It honestly broke his heart, mostly because Carter was worried that she would never see Stiles again.
"Logan," Carter called out, causing the older Dunbar boy to jog over to her. He sent the brunette a weak smile, taking her hand in his as he waited for her to say the thing he knew she would eventually say before they left. "Take care of him for me, will you? If something happens to either of you while I'm locked in the vault, I'm kicking both of your asses."
Logan nodded once toward his Alpha before moving back until he was walking out with Stiles. Her heart was pounding as she watched the two of them, both of them looking back and watching as their friends slowly slipped from their vision when a thick barrier of cement blocked the connection.
Soon, Scott found his back being pressed up against a metal beam with a weary brunette in his lap. He moved to sit next to her after Stiles and Logan left, not being able to watch as she silently cried by herself. His arms were snaked around her back, holding her weak body against his own. Her face was pressed against his shoulder, listening to the sound of his heartbeat when she felt a steady trail of blood come from her nose. Scott's face fell even further, reaching out to wipe away the substance with the hem of his shirt.
She managed a small smile, feeling the hope she held for them making it through this slipping through her fingers. They sat in silence, trying their best to give each other comfort. If they were going to go through this ordeal, at least they would have one another. Carter coughed, feeling her chest becoming tighter as her coughing fit suddenly took a turn for the violent.
Scott's eyes widened, helping her sit up as her body began to shake. Carter wrenched herself out of his grip, hacking violently before bending over. She could feel bile rising up the back of her throat as she began to dry heave. Nothing was coming up as her ribs contracted tightly around her lungs and heart. She started to cough once again and then there it was. The bile rising up her throat again. Scott had grabbed her hair a second later, keeping it out of her face while more and more gasps escaped her mouth. She couldn't see anything, only darkness as she continued to wrench up whatever was in her stomach. When she finally opened her eyes, did she realize that it hadn't been food she was hacking up, it was blood.
The area of the floor beside Scott and Carter was covered in her blood.
Nervously, the shaking brunette glanced toward the boy beside her, concern prominent on his features. Her bottom lip trembled, the aftershock of throwing up, wiping away the blood on her lips with the back of her hand.
That was not good.
Not good at all.
Malia was slowly growing restless and worried the longer Stiles was gone. She tossed and turned in her spot on the ground, wrapped up in Stiles' jacket. Carter watched sadly, her body still trembling in Scott's arms—she may not have liked how close Malia was to Stiles, but she knew what the girl was feeling. It was when, though, that she noticed Malia's fingers were pulling a folded piece of paper out of Stiles' jacket pocket. The deadpool. The third of the list with her name on it. Her real name.
The brunette was quick in gaining the attention of Scott and Kira, the Kitsune seeming a bit disoriented. While the Were-Pheanix struggled to blink away the fog forming over her irises, quickly growing frustrated when her vision refused to focus. "Malia, don't!"
Scott, with his condition worsening, reluctantly let go of Carter and mustered up the strength to push himself up and onto his feet. "Malia," he warned, staggering as Carter began to blink rapidly, her vision growing spotter by the second.
And then suddenly, everything was gone. A ragged breath fell from the brunette's lips, fear quickly consuming her body. She couldn't see anything. Not one single thing. One second it was blurry and the next...gone. She was completely and utterly blind. She placed her hand in front of her face, trying to see if the blindness had only been temporary but to no avail.
Carter cried out, "Scott, I—I can't see...I can't see anything."
"Me neither," Malia breathed out, holding the deadpool in her hands but she couldn't see the names. Just darkness.
Scott immediately looked down to see that Carter was blindly reaching out to touch the things around her, eyes wide with fear as she pushed herself onto her knees. Warm tears were welling up in the corner of her eyes, holding back a chocked sob—she was tired of crying—growing more and more terrified with each passing second. She suddenly felt Kira's hand latch onto her forearm, the Kitsune letting the Pheanix know that she was going to be by her side through the whole thing.
The True Alpha standing over them was struggling with his sight as well. He was trying to keep his eyes focused on Carter, growing frustrated when her suddenly became more and more distorted.
"What's happening to us?" Malia exclaimed, her voice raspy.
"Carter," Kira gasped out, her grip on the brunette tightening. "I can't...I can't see."
Carter opened her mouth to reassure the Kitsune that Stiles was going to figure it out, but stopped herself when sickening shiver shook her entire body. Stiles. Logan. Stiles was in danger. Logan was in danger. "Scott! Scott, something's happening to Stiles and Logan! They're in danger—Scott?"
Scott could barely make out her words, everything sounded muffled as he struggled to stand, his body progressively growing weaker and weaker. The petrified tone in Carter's voice had Kira clutching onto her tighter, keeping the girl grounded as she grew more and more eager to blindly crawl her way to save them.
And that was when she heard it.
"Scott!"
It was Stiles.
"Carter!"
Stiles' and Logan's voices rang out from behind the vault door, all four of them were able to hear their shrill cries. Scott's fists pounded against the door, struggling to find the strength he needed to open the door. Carter then released a shrill cry of her own, a bullet wound appearing on her right side. Derek. Fire spread through her abdomen as blood covered the side of her shirt.
"Carter?" Stiles shouted after hearing the brunette scream. "Baby, it's going to be okay. It's in the vault, in there with you! It's called reishi mushrooms! Scott! Scott, open the door!" Stiles pleaded, his palms colliding with the wall roughly as he tried to get in and save his friends. "It's in there with you! It's in a jar, it's on one of the shelves! Scott! Carter, can you hear me?"
Stiles' cried eventually ceased when he received no response from any of the supernatural beings locked in the vault. He collapsed to the ground, heart pounding in his chest as the fear of all of his friends dying hit him full force. Carter slowly pulled herself out of Kira's grasp, patting the girl's shoulder comfortingly before staggering up onto her feet.
She wobbled, taking hesitant steps forward and allowing the tips of her fingers run along the edge of the metal shelves. When she took her next step, her foot finding itself in a puddle of water. Being blind and completely discombobulated, she found herself toppling. She was falling backward toward the ground, and for the second time that day, her head smacked against the ground. Another pained cry left her mouth, the blow to the head putting her down permanently—she wasn't getting back up. She wasn't strong enough.
Suddenly, she could hear the staggered steps of Scott McCall approaching her and the shelf. Crawling, scrambling his mind together, he grunted in exertion as he reached up—the tips of his fingers brushing against the jar he was in search of. In an attempt to grab it, he accidentally shoved it off the shelf, the glass object hurtling toward floor. It shattered upon impact.
The decade old reishi mushrooms scattered across the floor, the mist and the fragrance wafting throughout the entire vault. Carter's entire body arched as the smell infiltrated her senses. It was something she had smelt before. It was the same scent that came from the reishi tea Satomi used to give to her mother. It almost felt as though her entire body was being cleansed—killing the virus as soon as it hit her lungs.
And soon enough, the vault door was being opened, gaining Stiles and Logan the entrance to their friends. Scott practically collapsed out of the door and into Stiles while Carter cradled her aching head in her hands with Kira right by her side. In a matter of moments, Carter had regained enough strength to bolt out of the vault and into Stiles' arms. She had been consumed with worry the second he had stepped out of the room. It was only magnified when she actually felt that he was in danger.
Stiles let out a weak laugh into her ear and she couldn't have been more grateful that Stiles had been able to figure it out. Her arms were wrapped around his neck when she felt something sticky pull at the cheek that was pressed against Stiles'. Carter pulled away from him and that was when she noticed that he had blood splattered all over his face. "Oh, my—what the hell happened?"
But before Stiles had the chance to answer, Malia was making her way out of the vault. The three of them looked up to see that she was holding a piece of paper in her hands. The deadpool. The Werecoyote had already read, had already put the pieces together, and had already felt her heart shatter into a million tiny pieces at the revelation. She should have known that they were keeping a bigger secret from her, she should have known that it was something more than just her being on the deadpool.
Malia just couldn't believe they had all lied to her about it, that everyone had kept the secret from her and never even thought to tell her that her last name wasn't "Tate" but "Hale". She had put so much trust in them, especially Stiles, and just like that, it had been completely destroyed.
The crumpled up paper hit the ground, staring down at them with a look of utter betrayal.
And there it was, they had lost her.
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uhhhh, only five episodes left in season 4 and i definitely don't want to write the next episode. i kinda just wanna skip it, but....i want to write Carter's reaction at the beginning.