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xxi. REST IN PEACE
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PARRISH GROANED OUT in pain.
He peered down and saw that a strange smoke-like substance was seeping out of his wounds. From what he deduced, the man with the bright glowing talons have given him a wound that quite literally burned through his body. He couldn't remember much about the incident—only being conscious long enough to feel the searing pain radiate through him before he blacked out. And now, even though he was awake, he felt extremely weak. As if the man was slowly sucking the life right out of him.
Jordan, with his hands, was able to push himself against one of the metal cabinets. The deputy jacket and shirt was torn open; the pieces of sheered fabric fell around him tinged with blood. He clenched his teeth, breathing heavily as he ran his fingers across the slick blood pouring out of the wound onto his stomach. He forced himself to keep his eyes open—each breath sending a new wave of agony surging through his chest.
Fiery spasms were sent out along his arms and down his spine. He could feel his lungs painfully inflating; fire coaxing his insides. The heat was so real it was hard to believe that he was actually feeling it. The heat grew—rose and peaked and rose again. There was hot and dry air in his lungs, scraping in rough bubbles up and down his throat. He wanted to raise his arms and claw his chest open and release the horribly dry air in his lungs—anything to get rid of the pain in his chest.
Jordan shook his head, pushing the pain away. He had to stay awake. He needed to stay awake. He needed to find and warn Scott before the man with the talons found him first. He wasn't entirely sure why the man was in such a desperate search for Scott, but whatever it was, it certainly couldn't have been good.
Wincing, Jordan finally mustered up enough strength to reach for his radio. "Dispatch. Office—" he cut himself short; crying out in pain as the heat in his chest spread, "—Officer down."
In any normal situation, he would have heard the response of another deputy's voice—saying that the paramedics were on their way. But instead, all he heard was this strange whirring static. As if the radio had gone down or if someone was blocking out the signal. And if Jordan hadn't been aware of the abnormalities in this world—it might have shocked him.
Jordan found himself suddenly going over everything in his head as the simple task of breathing become increasingly harder. Mistake by mistake. Frame by frame. He should've been more cautious. It's late now. He'd sat there for almost an hour, probably, but who knows?
Scott.
Scott McCall.
Jordan, you need to focus on Scott.
He nodded to himself, gathering his thoughts. He needed to keep himself in check—keep himself from straying off course. But as his mind become clearer, his body was growing weaker. The burning in his chest seemed to move throughout his entire body, but it no longer caused any pain, it almost felt as though he were growing immune to the pain. And before he even had tome to dwell on the thought, a new wave of agony engulfed his entire body once again, his head throbbed with the pounding of his heart as black spots began to obscure his vision. The warm wetness continued to pour down his abdomen. He could feel it soaking the waistband of his pants, hear it dripping on the concrete below.
The smell of it suddenly twisting his stomach.
His vision was blurred, but he was acutely aware of what was going on around him. With his body sitting in the rubble, he managed to look up. His eyes were clouded over and his body felt like fire again; the heat gravitating toward the spot on his body that held the most pain. But as he sheepishly glanced around, his eyes locked on one thing in particular.
Well, one person in particular.
Just the sight of the girl walking toward him was enough for a sob to escape his lips. Logically, he knew that she wasn't real and that if he was envisioning her, it meant that he was close to death as well. It felt so strange to see her, though, because Carter Hale was never coming back. And in the midst of all the feelings of death and grief, he couldn't help but feel extremely happy. If there was one person in the entire world he would like to see before he died—it was Carter.
Carter stood there, but not the Carter in the morgue, when Jordan had last seen her. Now her feet were bare beneath the hem of a long white dress. The thin folds of white fabric clung to her every curve. Her skin was pale, had a strange wintry luster to it, and her brown hair seemed overlaid with a silvery sheen. But the real difference was in her face. Those deep brown eyes were heavy-lidded and yet unnaturally awake.
She was more beautiful than she had been in life.
"Jordan," she said, lingering over the first consonant of the name. He heard his own indrawn breath, and the near sob he gave. "I'm here," her eyes wide as she came to Jordan's side.
She moved with an unnatural grace, as if she were a soft-flowing river. As if he wasn't bleeding out in the basement of an abandoned house. As if Carter was actually alive—walking toward him. And as if everything, for just this one single moment, was perfect. That there were no threats, no glowing talons, and that both of them were breathing. That was all he wanted.
He could hear his own ragged breathing, watching as Carter moved closer. She kneeled down in front of him; not even sparring a glance at the gaping wound on his chest. Her eyes were simply just locked with his.
"I'm right here."
Slowly, her hands reached to touch his cheeks, her palms cupping his face delicately. Jordan found himself instinctively leaning into her touch, he was instantly relaxing into Carter, who was radiating warm thoughts. His eyes fluttered for a moment, realizing that this would be the ultimate way to die. As long as he was envisioning the girl before him—everything would be all right. It would be serene, Carter would make sure it was. That was what Pheanixs did when someone they were connected to were dying; they give comfort and make sure they were not alone.
"Stay with me," Carter urged, leaning toward him. Jordan forced himself to open his eyes once more, immediately noticing that she was leaning in even closer.
She moved her head forward slightly until their noses brushed. He physically shuddered at the contact, a fire awakening in him. He felt this compelling urgency to be near her. Had she wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her? The thought sent warm ripples of shock through his body, thinning the air in his lungs.
Before Jordan could even withdraw his mind from its far places, Carter's lips were on his. It sent wild tremors along his nerves, evoking from him sensations he'd never known he was capable of feeling. Her lips were softer than a rose petal and her kiss inflicted upon him more pain than a steel blade to the heart. The Kiss of Death, he thought. His pulse was racing, heart throbbed in his chest as if he were about to suffocate.
"Parrish!"
Sheriff Stilinski.
And then she was gone.
It wasn't real. Carter's dead and she's not coming back. The thought was enough to drive him to tears as the Sheriff rushed over to him. Black spots were obscuring his vision once more, he was slowly slipping into the darkness, but with only one thing on his mind.
It had felt so real.
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Scott and Kira were sprinting through the rain toward the wide concrete underpass in the high school's courtyard. Kira'd had about enough of the pouring rain; her clothes were soaked and she was shivering.
Kira found herself glancing toward Scott, her eyes meeting his, and she noticed the strange expression on his face. She wasn't going to lie, the entire situation had been awkward and uncomfortable. Neither of them knew what to say, or what to do in that moment. Kira knew that everyone had been walking on eggshells around Scott—Stiles told her that he had become easily irritable lately—every time someone mentioned Carter, he would just shut down.
And she didn't want to say or do anything that would mess it up and make his grieving over her even worse. She could tell that Scott was just trying to preserve the friendships that he had—holding onto that sliver of hope that it would all become easier as time went on.
But Kira still had this idea at the back of her mind that one day, when Scott was ready, they would be able to take proper steps into turning their friendship into an actually relationship. She knew that it wasn't going to be something that she could just blurt out to him, it was going to have to be something that came naturally for the both of them. It had to be mutual. She wasn't going to force a relationship onto him like Malia was trying to do with Stiles.
"We're not late, are we?"
"No, they're on their way."
A sigh of relief fell from Kira's lips, and Scott found himself grinning at her reaction. He didn't care if they missed the Senior Scribe—he still held onto his earlier thoughts about how it didn't feel right going to something like that when it felt like Carter had just died yesterday. But, in hindsight, he knew that it was important for the rest of them to make their mark because in the end—even without Carter—they were still a pack.
Kira fumbled with her belt nervously. "How have you been holding up, Scott?"
There was that question again. Everywhere he went, someone was always asking him that same question. He always felt as though people were asking just to ask—to make it seem like they actually give a shit about how he's doing. Even if the person sounded sincere, Scott never allowed himself to believe that they truly wanted to hear how he was doing.
He always brushed it off by saying that he was doing fine and that it was getting easier, he said those things in an attempt not to offend people. If Scott really wanted everyone to know how he was feeling, he would say: "You really want to know? Well, I'm doing fucking horrible. I cannot go a single place in this entire town without something reminding me of her. I can't even look at my best friend without wanting to burst into tears. And people say that it gets easier with time, but I know for a fact that that's complete bullshit. And if you really care about me, you'll stop asking me how I'm doing."
Scott opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, a low grumbling roar sounded. He took a step back, head whipping into the direction of the sound. He squinted, barely being able to make out the shape of the large man through the pouring rain. When the man finally stepping out of the rain, the first thing Scott noticed were the extensive length of his...claws. Longer than a werewolf's. They weren't claws at all—they were curved and sharpened like the talons of an Eagle.
Scott furrowed his brows in confusion. He had never seen this man in his life; he was confused as to why the man was challenging him at all. But he pushed his confusion to the back of his mind as the unknown man came barreling straight at him. Kira stumbled away; sneakers skidding across the puddle-littered concrete beneath her. She watched, for a moment, in complete shock as the man released a low growl before swiping his talons at Scott.
The True Alpha instantly shifted at the threat—expertly dodging the man's attack. The man towered over the boy, his large fist colliding against Scott's chest with enough force to send him down onto the concrete. He rolled head over foot from the after-blow of the punch. The man slowly turned to face Kira. He snarled, and Kira found herself smirking as she unhooked her "belt" from around her waist. Once the belt was completely out of the loops on her shorts, with a sudden gesture, Kira flicked her wrist sharply. The small metal pieces locked together to form a solid katana.
Kira and the man battled each other—blocking one another's counterattacks. With growing irritation, the man, instead of blocking Kira's attack like he had before, he reached around her grabbed her arm mid-air. He snarled, firing his elbow into her spin. Kira cried out and tumbled to the ground.
"True Alpha?" the man mocked as he approached Scott, who was still lying on the ground. "Where's your power, Scott?"
In a sudden burst of energy, Scott sprung up from the ground. "Who are you?"
"A devoted fan," the man admitted. "Show me the man who took down Deucalion; broke the Argents and was the first Alpha to make a true connections with a Pheanix in over five-hundred years. I came for that Alpha. Come on!"
Scott's eyes seemed to glow brighter as he growled, shooting forward and swiping his claws across the man's chest. He crouched down and sent a round-house kick to the man's jaw; the sound of bones being crushed was heard. The man cried out, but remained on his feet. Scott's leg shot out, in hopes of connecting with the man's ribs. But the creature saw this and captured Scott's leg, using his other hand to grip Scott's throat.
He began to shove Scott, keeping his grip on both his throat and his leg. The True Alpha hobbled backwards on one foot before being slammed against the concrete wall of the pavilion. With determination, Kira charged forward. A battlecry leaving her lips as she swung her katana at the man, but his hand shot out and captured her wrist. Kira glanced down at his hand in defeat and cried out in pain when he backhanded her, sending her to the ground once again.
He turned to look down at Scott, lips pulled back over his fangs. "And I didn't come just to claim your status."
And that was when the man's Eagle-like talons sparked to life—glowing an iridescent shade of blue. Scott's eyes widened in horror. He had never seen nor heard of anything like that before. Since when do werewolves have talons? And why were they glowing? It didn't make any sense. He was definitely talking to Deaton about this later.
The strange creature began to move toward Scott, but before he could bring down his glowing talons, an arrow whizzed through the air. Scott watched with wide eyes an arrow flew right into the man's outstretched hand. There was a sickening thunk as it impaled his hand; blood began to steadily drip from the wound. He cried out, whipping around to face the new attacker, but before he could even make out the face of the figure another person was added to the mix. He came, quite literally, falling from the sky. Scott glanced up, watching as a teenage boy stood from his crouched position.
His eyes were glowing a brilliant gold, just like Liam's. The sandy haired boy growled and shot forward which caused the man to grin wickedly, grunting as he yanked the arrow out of his hand. The boy jumped to his right, using his heightened abilities to slightly scale the wall and gain momentum before lunging at the man. His regular werewolf claws sliced across his face. The man reared his arm back to swipe his own claws but the boy was too fast. With his left forearm blocking the impending blow, his used his right hand to inflict a wound across the man's abdomen.
He roared out in pain, doubling over.
The boy turned, firing his knee up into the man's gut. But when he turned to punch the man, his blow was blocked and caught a knee to his own stomach. This air was forcefully lurched out of the boy's lungs, rolling across the ground after the man had thrown him away like he was nothing.
He turned his focus on Scott once again, who was pushing himself onto his feet.
And within the few seconds it took Scott to fully stand up, the unknown man had shot four arrows into the man's back with precise accuracy. Scott sparred a glance, but the man's face was concealed by the looming shadows. Just like the boy—this man appeared literally out of nowhere. It was strange.
The man squared himself up to Scott and it was clear that he had the advantage. He sent blow after blow after blow and Scott was narrowly missing them. He was scarcely saving himself, but he was ultimately slowing down. And before he knew, the man had grabbed a hold of his throat, applying just enough pressure to keep Scott from being able to fight back.
The creature raised his talons—their glow reminding Scott of Derek's cold steel blue eyes—and sunk them deep into Scott's chest. He gasped, his entire body flailing. Everything within Scott seemed to collapse, feeling his own life slowly leaving his body. He crumpled down to his knees in anguish; grunts of pain scraping up his throat.
In the distance, Malia, Stiles, Logan, and Liam were running over. The three wolves bared their fangs, as did the boy that was on the ground beside Kira. She and the boy pushed themselves onto their feet, but none of them made any advances. It was as if all they could do was watch. The unknown man ran the tips of his fingers along the cool steel tips of the arrow in his hand before turning away from the pack and disappearing into the rain. He knew that he needed to get out of there, and back to her, before the others had the chance to question him.
She watched.
The teenagers were standing in the rain, watching as Scott battled the large man. Their breaths looked like steam as it spilled from their mouths.
"Oh, God," Stiles cried.
There is no God here, she thought. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
And it was in that instance that crimson flooded back into Scott's irises. He raised his head, gritting his teeth as he back onto his feet. He hand lashed out, grabbing onto the man's forearm. There was a loud and sickening snap, the man stumbled backwards. Scott reached toward his chest, ripping the talons from his flesh. The creature fell down onto his knees; his face contorted in pain as he cradled is arm to his chest.
"I don't know who you are or what you thought you were going to do, but I'll give you a choice. You can stay and I'll break something else—or you can run."
"I'd run," Stiles suggested.
And then, the man was gone.
The pack of six walked toward one another before turning to face the unknown teenage boy with Scott glancing around in search of the man with the arrows. But he was nowhere in sight.
When the boy took notice in all of their eyes being on him, he moved toward them with a grin. "You don't remember me, do you? I guess I look a little different since the fourth grade."
"Theo?" Scott said.
Theo nodded.
Malia leaned forward, butting in. "You know him?"
"They used to," Theo answered before Scott could. "Trust me, I never thought I'd see you guys again. A couple months ago, I heard of an Alpha in Beacon Hills. When I found out his name was Scott McCall, just couldn't believe it. Not just an Alpha, but a True Alpha."
Scott licked his lips, putting together that Theo had come back to Beacon Hills solely because he was an Alpha. "What do you want?"
"I came back to Beacon Hills," Theo began, a small smile on his lips. "Back home with my family. Because I want to be a part of your pack."
It was a decision that would change their lives forever.
She watched as they made their way into the library. Her hands clenched at her sides, and a slow ache woke in her chest. This was the first time she'd seen any of them since her Memorial. And she hadn't thought about them since, it was the only she had gotten through the last six months was by keeping them at the edge of her mind, not letting their images get any closer. But then of course the effort of holding them away at a safe distance took up most of her time and energy.
She made herself breathe slowly, calmly. They're well; that was the important thing. Nothing else really mattered. But even as she told herself this, anger bit into her like the thongs of a whip. Because whenever she thought about her friends, she had to think about them.
About The Dread Doctors, who had taken her away from her friends. Who were the reason she was hiding with Malakai, spying on her friends.
Anger burned in her mind, bright and cold, mingling with the hot ache in her chest.
They followed the rest of the seniors into the library, waiting in line for their turn. At the front of the line, seniors were taking Sharpies and marking their initials onto the beige metal bookshelves. There were hundreds of thousand different initials and signatures—it was like digging through a time capsule.
And suddenly, Stiles was up next. The girl in front of him finished and handed the Sharpie off to the boy. He gazed down at the shelf below. There was one specific set of initials that caught his eye. DH. Just the sight of Derek's initials brought all of his feelings for Carter to the surface. It was a reminder that people like Carter and Allison and Boyd and Erica were never going to be able to make their mark themselves.
A single tear splashed against the metal, Stiles jotting down the MS. He went to hand it off the Lydia, but stopped himself when a thought probed at his mind. Ducking back toward the bookshelf, he—in the best handwriting he could manage—wrote something none of them had expected.
RIP
Caterina Danielle Hale
With Love
— MS
He quickly stepped away, handing Lydia the Sharpie without even looking at her. Lydia smiled sadly at his message—feeling the looming guilt blossoming in the pit of her stomach. She hated the fact that she had to keep such a big secret from her friends...her friends who were still hurting. And she knew that Logan felt the same, he hadn't even been able to talk about it to Lydia without breaking down.
The strawberry-blonde scrawled out her LM before running an affectionate finger of Carter's name. At the back of her mind, somehow, she knew that Carter was a lot closer than one would think. She shook her head, she needed to stop thinking about it. Those thoughts only ever made her feel worse.
"This isn't vandalism, is it?" Kira asked, hesitatingly taking the Sharpie from Lydia.
Lydia pursed her lips, "Not technically."
Kira pondered for a moment before shrugging and wrote a large KY beside Lydia's initials. They were finally leaving their mark—their legacy will live on for many years to come. High school had substantially changed their lives forever just as much as they changed the building.
Malia was next, the Werecoyote took the marker before gazing at Stiles' Caterina Hale. Her eyes lingered on the girl's last name. It was a difficult decision for her, having to decide whether she was Hale or a Tate. Was she a Hale? They were her blood—but if there was anything that she learned, it was that family didn't always mean blood.
The girl had decided, leaving MT as her legacy.
Malia and Logan shared a look, the two of them smiling softly at one another. They may not have always seen eye-to-eye, but Logan supported her because they were friends no matter what. He knew that the rest of them supported her decision as well. A grin tugged at the corner of his lips when he thought about what Carter would've said if she'd been there to witness what Malia wrote. Probably something snarky or bitchy, he thought.
He had the urge to laugh but it quickly dwindled down into the urge to cry. He missed his Alpha—he missed Carter. He never thought he would miss someone, who he'd hardly known of few months, so bad. It was like there was this gaping hole in his chest and it hadn't gotten any better when he found out she was in fact alive. But, he still couldn't imagine what the rest of them were feeling. Only him and Lydia knew that Carter was alive—the rest of them had no idea. And it's the not knowing that's the worst.
Logan quickly scribbled out LD before capping it and turned so that he was facing Scott and handing it to him. The Alpha smiled faintly, taking the Sharpie from Logan and moving to write his own initials down.
They all watched as Scott wrote down SM, and then paused for a moment. And just like Stiles had before, he brought the marker back toward the metal and completed the pack with AA.
AA; Allison Argent.
CH; Carter Hale.
Their fallen friends.
Scott finally handed the marker off to the next student and made his way toward his friends. They all glanced at one another, Allison and Carter on their minds. They all missed them terrible—possibly more than words would ever be able to describe.
"They would have been with us," Stiles said, breaking the silence with tears evident in his eyes.
"Yeah."
"They still are," Lydia corrected, catching Logan's eye from a brief moment. The Dunbar boy being to only one to catch the double-meaning in Lydia's words.
But, to the others, her words had bloomed a bit of closure in the depths of all of their hearts.
The library was utterly silent. Outside the rain drifted down just as soundlessly, blanketing the world in muffling stillness. She stared at the initials with unseeing eyes, scarcely noticing the tear mark on the capital C of her first name, smearing it. There was this dull ache in her chest, it was a feeling that gave a sensation that something was missing. She thought she would feel something like...sadness or grief, but she just felt angry.
She hadn't been able to feel anything other than rage since her Memorial.
It was a crippling thing, this sensation that a huge hole had been punched through her chest, excising her most vital organs and leaving ragged, unhealed gashes around the edges that continued to throb and bleed despite the passage of time. Rationally, she knew her lungs must still be intact, yet she found herself gasping for air and her head spun like her efforts yielded her nothing. Her undead heart must have been beating, too, but she couldn't hear the sound of her pulse in her ears. She wanted to curl inward, to hug her ribs and hold herself together.
And yet, she found that she could survive. She was alert, she felt the pain—the aching that radiated out from her chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through her limbs and head—but it was manageable. She could live through it. It didn't feel like the pain had weakened over time; rather, in death, she'd grown strong enough to bear it.
She felt the person beside her stir. She glanced at Malakai sideways and took a deep breath. "I have this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I should be scared of what's coming, but I'm not scared. It's strange not to be able to feel anything other than anger. And I'm hoping what I'm about to do will awaken something within me."
"You don't have to do this," Malakai said softly.
"I know. But I want to—this once." She admitted, twirling the cylinder-shaped object between her fingers. "I hate this. It's like somebody else has gotten into my mind and changed...I don't know, everything."
"Anyway, here goes."
In the silence of the dim room, she watched moonlight shine through the large window. It flickered over Malakai's midnight-black hair and his chiseled face. She looked down at the marker in her hands. She stepped closer, ducking her head down to get a clear view of the bookshelf.
THEY ARE GONE,
BUT THEY ARE NOT FORGOTTEN
VB; Vernon Boyd.
ER; Erica Reyes.
AIDEN
ONCE A CYCLONE,
ALWAYS A CYCLONE
IL; Isaac Lahey
JW; Jackson Whittemore
ETHAN
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not edited
wow, this took me five-ever to write. and i don't really know why...smh. but, after over a month without updating, HERE IT IS! and i hope everyone caught on to who the "unknown man" with the arrows was. but, in case you didn't, here's a hint: his name starts with an M. also, i know that there isn't a whole lot of carter-ness in this chapter(and im sorry) but i wanted to ease her back into it and not just throw her back into their lives like: "SURPRISE!"
anyway, i hope you all enjoyed this and the trailer! im still trying to figure out how exactly to bring carter back into the main part of the story, it's so frustrating! but, i'll figure it out. and don't forget to let me know what you thought and if you have any ideas for me! i love hearing from you guys! xx