Glassy eyes stare back at me. Bright ice blue, surrounded by thin red lines, follow me. My shaky breath fogs up the mirror in front of me. My heart thumps against my ribs. My hands shake as I grasp the basin below me.
Breathe. Everything will be fine. I take deep breathes in hope of regulating my breathing and calming my heartbeat.
Every year since fifth grade, this has been my routine. Panic, tears and the inability to sleep. Nights spent, staring into icy blue eyes and willing them to not glass over. Hands switching between gripping a basin so hard I fear it would cave under the pressure and tracing the thin scars down the length of my leg. And finally, restless tossing and turning until eventually I fall asleep, covered in tears.
Although tonight, my thoughts are interrupted when I hear a shout from outside. Oh god. A shout that bears a striking resemblance to the voice of my dear cousin, Scott McCall. Naturally, I grow curious.
I walk to the window and crack it open, just enough for me to peer out without drawing too much attention. When I look down, I see my cousin, Scott, with a baseball bat limp in his hand, talking to somebody on the other side of the balcony fence. By the sound of the voice, I could only assume that it was his best friend, Stiles Stilinski.
I had known Stilinski almost as long as Scott had. Although due to my awkwardness, and inability to make friends, I stuck to the sidelines while their friendship grew into what it was today. I had always admired Stiles. His sarcastic personality, his awkward yet somewhat confident demeanor. His deep, whiskey coloured eyes, that light up when he tells an awful joke. His adorable lopsided grin he does when he says something sarcastic.
Okay. Maybe, I think Stiles is attractive. Irrelevant. Stiles Stilinski is the complete opposite of me, and quite often, a sarcastic jerk.
While Stiles says what is on his mind, I hide in the shadow. Half of the time, I am too scared to even raise my hand in class. I don't make an effort to go out of my way and talk to people. It's not who I am. Stiles also, knows nothing about me, neither of us interested or confident, in my case, enough to talk to the other.
Scott always says that is the reason I have no friends.
I get lost in my thoughts and forget that I was still looking out the window. A benefit? From where I am, I can hear parts of their conversation.
"-Even state police."
"For what?" I can hear the exasperation in Scott's voice. It's the night before our first day back and his best friend is currently hanging, upside down, from the roof of our porch.
"Two joggers found a body in the woods." Followed by a crunch of leaves. Stiles must have gotten off of the roof.
"A dead body?"
"No. A body of water." Stiles comments, sarcasm dripping from his tongue, "Yes, dumb-ass, a dead body."
I stifle a giggle at that, but fail unceremoniously catching their attention, their heads snapping my way. I struggle desperately to close the window, but it gets stuck, unmoving and prolonging my embarrassment.
"Oh, hey Artemis! A fine night this is, huh?" Stiles grins up at me, and I can feel my cheeks heat up. I'm not sure if he is being sarcastic and doesn't want me to answer, or if he is actually being polite.
I squeak out a half-assed response, my voice quiet, "Hi, hi guys. I'm sorry, sorry. Goodnight!" I yell the last part and slam the window shut, sealing me in with my humiliation.
The boys continue talking about the body, although I can no longer make our their words. Soon after, I hear a car start up and I assume they've left to go play detective.
I haul myself back into bed, trying my hardest to fall asleep, eventually dozing. The last thing I hear before I drift off, is the sound of a wolf howling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning
I sit in the kitchen, my bag already packed and, slowly biting at an apple, when I see Scott come downstairs fiddling with something under his shirt. He lets out a hiss of discomfort and quickly pushes his shirt down before his mother, who was in the kitchen as well, could see.
Once upon a time, I found it easy to talk to Scott. Now though, even though we aren't as close as we once were, he is still one of the only people I can talk to without clamming up or feeling awkward. At least, he is when other people aren't around, or when there is something to talk about.
Aunt Mel was the other person I could talk to. She was my mother and father figure, the, now, most important woman in my life. She is the person I respect the most. She took me in without complaint when my parents died, and she has shown me nothing but love ever since. Even when Scott and I bicker.
Scott grabs his bag and Mel rushes us out the door, mumbling about us being late. We both kiss her on the cheek before leaving, heading over to our bicycles.
The ride to school is usually quiet, sometimes the odd comment about the weather or somebody that is driving a bit recklessly. Today I decided to break that unspoken rule.
"Are you okay?"
Scott looked confused, his facial expression resembling a puppy. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, i saw you fiddling with your side before we left, and you were quick to cover it when you saw Aunt Mel..." I trailed off.
We rode into the drive way of the school parking lot, heading straight for the bike racks, our conversation immediately halted. I was putting my bike in the far right spot, when a shiny Porsche pulled into the spot next to me. The door opened and because of my short height, hit straight into my lower back.
The lacrosse captain, Jackson Whittemore, emerged from the car, a frown on his face, "Dude, watch the paint job."
My heart jumped into my throat. Avoiding all eye contact with him I blurted, "I'm so sorry Jackson. I didn't, I didn't mean-" he ignored me, and walked over to his friends, who were beckoning him, giving Scott filthy looks on the way over.
Once again, I embarrass myself. I bury my face in my hands and mumble to Scott, "So, your side?"
"Oh, yeah, that. I'll tell you when I tell Stiles. Come on."
"Okay." I mumble meekly.
I follow him over to where Stiles is and watch as he lifts his shirt to reveal a large bandage over his side, flinching when Stiles moves to touch it. I listen to his explanation about how, when they got separate in the woods the previous night; he fell over looking for his inhaler, he needs to keep two of them on him at all times, he looses them that much and ended up getting bit by what he thought was a wolf. To which Stiles protests and states that there haven't been wolves in California for over 60 years.
I decide to just listen to their conversation and not add in that the previous night, I heard a wolf howling. In fact, they were probably still wondering why I was there anyways.
I move to leave when they start discussing the body they were looking, seeing no need for me to be there. I had heard what I needed to. As I turn, I see a burst of strawberry blonde hair and feel somebody harshly bumping into my shoulder.
Lydia Martin. The schools queen bee, and the girlfriend of Jackson Whittemore. She's highly intelligent and aces all of her subjects, but refuses to have it known to maintain her 'image'. I personally think she should own her intelligence. It's kinda awesome.
"-the best thing that's happened to this town...since the birth of Lydia Martin. Hey, Lydia, you look...like you're gonna ignore me." Stiles finished defeatedly. Poor Stiles has been trying to get Lydia's attention since the third grade. A simple case of unrequited love. Something most teenagers know all too well.
I don't hear the end of their conversation as I leave to go to my English class as the bell rings, which I share with Scott and Stiles. I take my seat, behind and to the right of where Scott sits, leaving an empty seat in between Stiles and I.
We all sit, listening to the teacher drone on about how a body was found in the woods and about the syllabus on our desks, when out of the corner of my eye, I see Scott jump and start looking around the room. I brush it off and turned my attention back to the whiteboard.
Everybody is sat, reading the syllabus, when the classroom door opens and the principal enter followed by a tall brunette girl. He introduces her as Allison Argent and asks us to make her feel welcome. The standard speech with new students. With that, he leaves and Allison makes her way over to the empty seat next to me. Great.
Almost as soon as she sits, Scott turns and offers her a pen, to which she accepts. Their eyes linger on each other, both wearing grins that can only mean one thing. I groan internally, realising that my cousin already has a crush on the new girl.
Minutes go by and Allison turns to me. I look down, hoping to deter her from starting a conversation, but it doesn't work.
"Hi, I'm Allison. What's your name?" She asks politely. Most likely purely out of obligation.
"Artemis," I mumble.
"Like the goddess?" Her brown eyes soft and welcoming.
A small smile forms on my face as I turn towards her slightly. "You're actually the first person, my age, to get that." It's a small exchange, probably worthless to others, but it means more to me.
Allison beams at me and asks me to help her find her locker between classes, which is conveniently, a few spaces ahead of mine. A warm feeling sits in my stomach. I'm not sure if it's nervousness or excitement that I may actually have an inkling of a friendship.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The schools day comes and goes as I stand at my locker, making small conversation with Allison as I put my books away and grab my homework out. Our conversation us cut short when Lydia and Jackson approach, Lydia offering me a sickly sweet smile and Jackson ignoring me completely.
I busy myself in my locker as they talk about Allison's jacket and her now being Lydia's 'new best friend'. Well, there goes my chances. They talk about a party and the scrimmage before Allison is pulled away by Lydia. She waves goodbye to me and smiles before turning away.
Figures. I say a quick goodbye to Scott and head to my bike, not feeling up to watching the practice today, and head home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was finishing the tail end of my homework, struggling, once again, with algebra. Numbers and letters should only mix for passwords.
I am pulled from my thoughts by two set of loud, obnoxious raps, on my bedroom door. Scott. I pull my earphones out and move to open the door, revealing two faces, one proud, the other, his usual happy self, with something else that I can't pick.
Scott and stiles push past me, invading my room. Scott moves to sit in my desk chair, while Stiles-not so-gracefully falls on to my bed, making himself comfortable.
"Hi..." Suspicion breaking through my voice, followed closely by confusion.
"Hey Em, wanna come to the woods with us?" Scott asks.
"W-why? What did you do?"
"Nothing. Why do people always assume that," Stiles interjects, "Scott just lost his inhaler, so we're going to find it!"
"Fine. Let me just grab my shoes." Weird. The woods?
To say the car ride was awkward, would be an understatement. I felt as though I didn't belong. I was awkward and kept fidgeting, and there was one question that remained on my mind.
"Scott, how did you lose your inhaler, in the woods?"
"Well, you know how when you were eavesdropping on us last night-"
"Stiles!" Scott whisper-shouts, glaring at him.
"What? Oh, sorry! Not eavesdropping, listening. Happy Scott? Well, last night, you know how I was telling Scott about that dead body that's the joggers found? Well we went looking for that and we got separated, and yeah. It all went down from there. The bite, the apparent wolf, the curious case of the dropped inhaler..." he trailed off, stopping the car outside of Beacon Hills Preserve, putting the Jeep into park.
As we walked through the preserve, I trailed slightly behind the guys, listening to Scott talk about practice.
"I don't know what it was." He says as he splashes into a puddle, making me frown as my pants get covered, "It was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball. And that's not the only weird thing. I can hear stuff that I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things."
"Smell things? Like what?" Stiles says with a smirk.
"Like that mint mojito gum in your pocket, and the watermelon gum Artemis is chewing." What? How?
Stiles mumbles to himself about not having gum in his pocket before pulling a stick out, looking surprised. He rushes forward slightly, catching up to Scott, I remain behind, hoping to not get too involved in their conversation.
"So, all of this started with the bite?" Stiles questions.
"What if it's like an infection," Scott starts, his voice laced with worry, "Like my body's flooding with adrenaline, before I go into shock or something?"
"You know what? Actually, I think I've heard of this. It's a specific kind of infection."
Scott turns around looking worried. "You serious?"
"Yeah, Artemis should know what it is too." I raise my eyes up, from their previous position of looking at the leaves, trying to not listen into their conversation. My stomach starts to flutter. "Yeah, I think it's called lycanthropy."
"What is that? Is that bad?" Really Scott. Can you say gullible?
"Yeah it's the worst, huh Artemis?"
I feel confident at the prospect of messing with Scott. "Yeah, but only once a month." I agree.
"Once a month?"
Stiles makes a noise of agreement as I continue. "On the night of the full moon."
Stiles howls mockingly, hands on his hips, and I snort back laughter as Scott pushes stiles and continues walking.
"Hey, you're the one that heard a wolf howling."
"Um," I interject, "I kinda heard a wolf as well."
"What is it with you McCalls?" He mumbles at the same time as Scott speaks.
"There could be something seriously wrong with me." He says sternly.
"I know, you're a werewolf!" Stiles shouts, followed by a fake growl. "Okay, obviously I'm kidding. But, if you see me in shop class, trying to melt all of the silver I can find, it's 'cause Friday's a full moon." I laugh quietly at this.
"I'll join you," I say without thinking.
"It's a date," Stiles winks.
Scott ignores us, and I feel my face heat up. "No, I could have sworn this was it. I saw the body, the deer came running. I dropped my inhaler."
"Maybe the killer moved the body?" Stiles offers.
"If he did, I hope he left my inhaler. Those things are like 80 bucks."
I jump as I look past Scott's crouched figure and see a man, not much older than us standing there. He has dark hair, and pale skin, striking green eyes, and is wearing all black. Stiles follows my line of sight and jumps too, slapping Scott who stands as the man starts to walk over. I move to stand behind Scott more as my palms start to sweat.
"What are you doing here?" He grumbles, in a gruff voice. "This is private property."
We found grumpy smurf. Stiles stammers our an apology as stiles stares at the unknown man.
"Yeah, we were just looking for something, but...forget it." Scott says, his voice holding a bit of an edge.
The man tosses an inhaler to Scott, before stuffing his hand back into his leather jacket and walking away.
We all watch his retreating back, before Scott says he needs to get to work. Stiles blurts about that man being Derek Hale, a name I'm not familiar with. He continues, talking about how his family burned to death around ten years ago. My heart swells for the man, knowing what it's like to lose family.
"Wonder what he's doing back."
Stiles scoffs and then looks too where Derek once was, "Come on." He walks in the direction of his Jeep.