Carmen walked into her house with a groan, tossing her bookbag somewhere off to the left. She mumbles curses under her breath as she walks into the kitchen and quickly pours herself a glass of chocolate milk, then proceeds to make her way up the stairs when something catches her eye. She slowly backs away from the stairs and glances over into the main room where her entire new pack sat, staring at her.
She lets out an even louder groan and stomps over, plopping herself next to Piers on the couch.
"What's up with you today, brat?" Luke teases, throwing a pillow at her. She doesn't hesitate to launch it back at him full-speed, causing him to flinch and duck away.
"Scott and Stiles wouldn't stop following me around," Carmen explains, "No matter how many times I told them I didn't want to talk about it and that it's over."
"You make it sound like you broke up with them," Rhiannon laughs with a shake of her head. "Speaking of, did you see Isaac today?"
"No," Carmen bit the inside of her cheek nervously, "I don't think he was at school today. But it doesn't matter. I don't want to talk to him anyways."
Casey raises a suspicious eyebrow at her but dismisses her words.
"What are you all doing here anyways?" Carmen mutters.
"We're here to help you get ready, because you," Nina walks over to Carmen and boops her nose, "Have a party to go to tonight."
Carmen raises a questioning eyebrow and looks around the room at all of them. "What? I thought we were going to find a way to . . You know, ruin Scott's pack's lives?"
"That's part of it, my dear." Nina teases with a sinister smirk. "Listen. We don't know everything about these guys, but we know enough, or at least, more than Scott's pack for the time being. We're still missing pieces of the puzzle."
"About who?" Carmen's face scrunches in confusion as she crosses her arms and leans back in her seat.
"The Oni." Nina explains, pacing back and forth. "For whatever reason, they're after Scott's pack. I've seen them before- They aren't regular people . . Their eyes are glowing yellow and they wear masks and cloaks that covered mostly all of their bodies but from what I could see, they were wispy and dark, like . . A spirit, I don't know."
Carmen perked up as a thought crossed her mind. "How do you know all of this? Wouldn't you have to be pretty close to notice all these details?"
"I was," Nina nods and bites her lip, "They cornered me maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago, staring at me with those eyes. I thought I was going to die; I've never seen anything like them before. Then, they just walked away. And I don't know how they did it, but the next day, Casey noticed this behind my ear."
Nina leans in closer to me and gathers her hair into a side ponytail, exposing a mark left behind her ear. A black ink-like symbol showed in a backwards 5.
"What do you think it means?" Carmen shifts uneasily in her seat, worry evident in her expression and body language.
"I don't know," Nina sighs, "But I don't think they want to hurt us . ."
"Why's that?" Piers finally speaks up, cocking his head at her.
"Those things looked dead at me," Nina elaborates passionately, "They could have killed me then and there. But they didn't, they just kept moving, like they were looking for something. Someone."
The room goes silent before Carmen clears her throat, sitting up. "So . . What does all of this have to do with a party?"
"Your friends are throwing it at Derek's place tonight; A blacklight party." Luke intervenes, "And if we think the Oni are going after Scott's pack, they might show up at the party tonight."
"Derek's been gone for like a week and they've already turned his loft into a lounge, huh," Carmen rolls her eyes, "But I doubt the Oni would show up in front of everyone there and start killing people."
"You never know," Piers shrugs, "Better safe than sorry."
Carmen shrugs and stands up, clapping her hands together. "Alright, what are we waiting for?"
▲▼
As Nina, Carmen, and Rhiannon walked into the loft, Carmen's nerves began to run wild. It was only the three of them, as none of the boys saw no point in going with. A hefty amount of familiar students were littered around the room, all painted and glowing in the darkness. Music played loudly over everyone's head, surges of light illuminating the room every few seconds. The few eyes that turned to glare at the trio was enough to make Carmen pull her cardigan further over her tiny black crop top that Rhi and Nina insisted on her wearing.
Carmen looked further around the room, meeting eyes with Scott deep in the crowd. It was quite hard to make out his features with the limited light, but once they finally realized that one was the other, they quickly turned away from each other awkwardly.
"Guys," Carmen bites her lip sadly, "I don't know about this."
When she receives no response from them, she turns her head to look at them only to realize that their attention was directed to something else. Carmen follows their gaze to the other side of the room where Isaac had Allison against a wall, engaged in a long, slow kiss. Carmen groans loudly and turns away like a toddler, a frown etched into her face.
"Oh, come on, Car." Nina sighs, placing a hand on her cousin's shoulder, "You're single now, forget about him! We're at a party, have fun!"
Carmen opens her mouth to speak but is cut off when a girl her height with dark hair, two bottles of paint and a brush in her hands, steps in front of her.
"Want me to paint you?" The girl smirks at her, waving the items around in her hands. She had glowing swirl patterns all around her own body and her lips were painted in a bright neon blue. Nina smirks at her seductively as Carmen is dragged away by the girl to be sat in a chair in the corner of the room.
Carmen sits awkwardly as the girl gets her supplies ready to paint her. She kneels and begins tracing different patterns along Carmen's stomach, arms, and legs. Carmen sighs and leans her head back, closing her eyes patiently.
"Are you okay?" The girl randomly questions, causing her eyes to fly back open.
She clears her throat before shaking her head and speaking, "Yeah! I'm just . . Frustrated."
The girl sets her paintbrush down and raises an eyebrow, a soft smile playing on her lips. She stands up and admires her job on Carmen's body, and then some.
"Sexually?" The girl speaks, catching Carmen off guard. She reaches up and pushes Carmen's cardigan off of her shoulders, exposing her smooth skin to her. Carmen chuckles nervously as the girl slowly leads her to the dance floor, bobbing her head along to the music.
The rest of the night was full of dancing and drinking. Carmen was sure she had downed at least 2 whole alcohol bottles on her own, as she couldn't get drunk anyways. The girl (Who's named she since learned was Giselle) was very capable of getting drunk, however, and she was. Extremely. This was made clear to Carmen when Giselle grabbed her by the neck and planted a firm kiss on her lips. She was shocked at first, but after the first few seconds, she placed her hands on Giselle's hips and deepened the kiss herself.
Everything seemed to drown out as they stood together, and for the first time in a while, she felt like a reckless teenager again. For those first few minutes, she felt free of any worries. So free, in fact, that she didn't notice the group of her old friends running around frantically, carrying out passed out werewolves. She didn't notice them dropping in the first place. The only thing that was able to free her from her trance was Nina pulling her away from Giselle, leaving a frown on her face.
"We have to hide!" Nina shouts, tugging on her arm violently. "NOW!"
"Why? What's going on?!" Carmen screams over the music, sending Giselle a sad smile as she was forced away from her. Before Nina can speak, the music cuts off and the room is enveloped by the two chilling screams that make everyone in the room freeze.
"GET. OUT!"
Carmen's eyes go wide as she immediately identifies the shout as Derek's, her bones chilling. Her head slowly crooks as she looks over to him by the DJ booth, which had been destroyed by him. His nose flared angrily and his chest rose heavily as he watched as people began to pour out of the room. But Carmen was frozen.
"What is he doing here," She whispered, her eyebrows furrowing. "I thought-"
"WE HAVE TO HIDE, CARMEN." Nina shakes her out of her trance, running off with her. They charge towards the corner of the room and Nina begins to expertly climb a pillar leading up to the ceiling, where pipes thick enough to crawl were. Nina grabbed hold of Carmen's hand and helped her up, shimmying across the beams so that they had a full view of the room from up high.
"Put this on," Nina whispered, shaking off her jacket and giving it to Carmen. "The paint might attract their attention."
"Where's Rhi? Who's attention?" Carmen sputtered in confusion. Nina raises a dismisses finger and points at the scene, both their eyes going wide.
Aiden carried a loopy Lydia away, following behind all of the others evacuating from the room. Derek, Allison, Scott, Isaac, Ethan, and Kira all stood their ground on one side of the room, and on the other side stood 4 black figures.
The Oni.
"Guys?" Ethan called timidly, "They're all looking at me. Why are they looking at me?"
One of the figures shifted it's head slowly in the direction of Carmen and Nina, its yellow eyes boring into theirs. As the others began to walk in the direction of Ethan, the one stays still, staring at them. Carmen clings to Nina in fear.
"Why is it looking at us?"
"I don't know, but it better stop before it gives us away," Nina growls. As if the thing heard her, it turns around and begins walking with the other Oni.
Scott growls and charges for one, but it immediately slams him to the ground. The entire pack begins to battle as a chain reaction. Every swipe of claws from the pack was useless against the Oni. Carmen felt the corners of her lips turn up slightly as she watches their efforts. Derek slapped one extremely hard, sending its head to turn a complete 90. For a second, everyone thought that he had snapped its neck and defeated it. Until, that is, it whipped its head back forward and whipped Derek into the pillar to the side, letting him fall to the ground.
Black cloud-like wisps trailed after the Oni with every move they made, supporting Nina's description. After a minute or so of fighting, the group was all on the ground, coughing and wheezing. The Oni began walking towards Ethan again, but Isaac walked into the spotlight, extracting his nails.
"Oh, I wanna see this," Carmen whispered under her breath with a smirk.
Upon noticing his presence, all of the Oni turn his direction. The one closest to Isaac reaches its hands up to its chest and begins to retract a long, sharp sword. The cousins go short of breath as with each passing second, a new ability of the Oni is revealed.
The Oni begins swinging its sword in various directions and doing tricks with it, only intimidating Isaac. He slowly begins to back up, causing Carmen to roll her eyes. The other 3 Oni grab hold of Ethan, examining him. Everyone in the room is completely silent as they watch the scene before them unfold.
A single Oni swipes a finger behind Ethan's ear, causing him to collapse onto the ground. And before anyone can do anything about it, the Oni begin to crumble to dust under the newfound sunlight shining through the window.
When they're completely gone, deteriorated from the beams, Isaac turns to Allison with a clenched jaw.
"Your dad's 24 hours are up."
「This chapter was actual shit and I'm very sorry」
「Thank you guys so so much for 5k!」