"Levi..." She breathed. The familiar triskelion was mounted on the third piece of skin - and both wolves could tell that it was significantly fresher than the other two pieces. If they had just been quicker, maybe, just maybe they could have saved their alpha.
Crumbling to his knees, Scott had only ever felt true pain like this once in his life. History had certainly repeated itself again, and Scott couldn't comprehend the feeling of his entire soul and heart being crushed. Crushed, he presumed, was the wrong word. No, this was worse. His chest was frozen, his breaths unable to make it out and his entire world had fallen to the ground around him as he uttered the truth from his red lips.
"She's dead."
//.//
"Sir, with all due respect, I understand that the girl is strong but she's too doped up to need three guards constantly watching her."
Gerard paused in his steps as the rough voice from beside him broke his concentration. The man raised an eyebrow as he stopped in his steps, the speaker almost ramming straight into the back of him. A suddenly pool of anger and hatred stemmed from Gerard as the man turned with a sick scowl on his face at the speaker's words.
"Firstly, that creature - that THING - is not a girl. What it really is that you are failing to see is a vicious killing time bomb. I have seen monsters double the size and on higher dosages still slash heavily armoured mens throats, and you want to know how?" He snarled, moving closer towards the man with every step.
Gerard knew that they had gathered an audience of the crowd of people that were currently in the armoury base. All eyes were now on them, and he was gladly going to take advantage that all ears would certainly be hanging on to every word that he said.
"How, sir?" The man gulped, knowing that he had really made a fool of himself by doubting the man that was more experienced than everyone in Beacon Hills combined when it came to years of hunting experience (except from maybe his own son, that is).
"By stupid mistakes like underestimating their feral ways," Gerard replied, turning back around as he reached out for one of the larger guns that had been set up on display in the armoury. Grabbing the black automatic rifle, he shoved it towards the skittish man with a slight distaste. "I've underestimated the Hale's before, and I certainly won't be doing it again."
___
Levi gasped as she felt the surge of electricity crush through her body. She clenched her teeth together to try and keep the noise in her throat, knowing that Gerard loved to hear the young wolf in pain and distress. It had been bad enough that only hours prior she had heard Lydia and her banshee scream, her pack's voices and Chris leading them out of the base to safety. She had tried to scream, to call, anything for them to hear her but it was no use. They were all in such a frantic state that they hadn't been able to concentrate enough to hear it.
She had also gathered enough information from listening in to different conversations to learn that her pack thought she was dead just like Jiyang and Tierney. Having heard a comment from one of the younger new hunters, Levi had managed to string together some information to get the general idea that her tattoo was in some sort of display case as if it was a trophy.
Opening her eyes, Levi snarled as she watched Gerard laugh at her pain. As the man reached forward, Levi braced herself for another round of excruciating pain to hit her. Closing her eyes shut, Levi waited for it.
But it never came.
The girl cautiously re-opened them, watching as Gerard walked towards her with a phone clutched tightly in his hand. Levi breathed heavily as she tried to continue to regain her breath from the last shocking as the man pressed various buttons on the device. Smirking at her, he raised the device so she could see the screen as he pressed the speaker button as the dialling tone rang through the phone.
"Now, don't say I never gave you anything," he gloated, smirking as the phone continued to ring.
___
"Who told you where to find us? Hmm? 'Cause there is no way in hell that two random amateurs would take down that many wolves without getting torn apart," Jackson Whittmore said as he leaned forward, his eyes flickering between the two hunters that had just tried to kill him and his boyfriend. "Where did you get the wolfsbane? And who sent you?"
Jackson looked across briefly at Ethan before he turned his attention back to the British man and woman that they had now tied up in front of them. The glass crunched under his shoe as he readjusted his weight and he made a mental note to hit them extra hard for the damage they had done to Ethan's interior designing.
"We work alone. And we're better than you think," the woman tried to claim, her eyes flickering slightly as she stared Jackson down. Ethan smirked slightly, a movement so small that Jackson only caught it because he knew exactly what he was looking for.
A sudden thought crossed the part-kanima's mind as he thought about the one person who would know about himself and Ethan. The one person that had caused him and his friends and everyone from his home complete hell. The one person that he really wished nothing but death for.
"Does the name Gerard mean anything to you?"
The silence told Jackson everything he needed to know, even if they hadn't been able to tell from the sudden jump in both of their heartbeats. The man scowled at them, keeping his mouth clenched shut as the woman tried to act innocent once more.
"We don't have to tell you anything!"
"You already have," Ethan drawled out, knowing that they had caught the two hunters right in their lie. "He talks and I listen. So we know when you're lying."
Jackson nodded as he backed up his boyfriend. "Yeah. We're getting pretty good at it. So, Gerard armed you and sent you here. Where is he? Is he in London?"
"You know where he is."
There was a slight pause as both Ethan and Jackson sighed, turning their heads to look at each other. Of course they knew exactly where the man would be, because where else in the world seemed to always have so much supernatural drama other than Beacon Hills.
As Ethan and Jackson went to stand, the sudden ringing of a phone from beside Jackson alerted them to the device. Ethan scoffed, rolling his eyes as he looked back to his boyfriend.
"Oh, so now you're phone works?" He sassed, even though he knew that Jackson's abduction excuse was a real and life-threatening one. Jackson rolled his eyes before he turned to look at the phone.
"This isn't mine."
Ethan lifted the device, sliding the screen and allowing for the call to go through. Clicking the speaker button, he and Jackson held their breaths for just a second as they waited for the person on the other end of the line to speak. When no words came, Jackson realised instantly who was on the other side of the phone.
"Gerard," he spat, causing Ethan to hold the phone a little tighter as they thought about who was on the other end of the line.
"Ah Jackson Whittmore, it's been a while," the man laughed down the phone as he pictured the two boys aggressively standing with the device. "You too Ethan."
There was sound of a slight struggle on the other end of the phone as Gerard continued to speak to them. "I have someone who has been dying to hear from you."
"If it's any of your old hunting buddies, we really aren't interested."
At the sound of Ethan's voice over the line, a new voice entered the mix.
"Ethan," Levi's voice almost wheezed, her body burning as she tried to hold back the pain from the extreme torture that Gerard had been inflicting on her to try and tell them weaknesses within the pack structure.
Jackson's head shot up from looking at the phone to Ethan's face. The boy had gone from looking unamused to looking completely destroyed in less than ten seconds. The anger and hurt and worry all merged into one as he snarled down the line.
"Don't you dare hurt her," he snarled, the blue in his eyes glowing as he pictured the man torturing his non-biological sister. On the other end of the line, Levi felt her chest clench slightly as she heard the familiar protectiveness in her tone and reminded herself that this wasn't like being in the alpha pack.
"Oh, I intend on doing a lot more than hurting," Gerard sang, his eyes wide with joy as he listened to the snarls from both Ethan and Jackson. The later had never actually met Levi in person, but Ethan had told him all about the girl who had found herself a mate in Scott. "But for now, I'll leave you wondering if you'll ever see her again. Guess a trip to Beacon Hills is in order."
And then the line went dead.
___
"I thought the plan was to kill her. You said-"
"I know what I said," Gerard interrupted Monroe as she moaned about the plan he was currently carrying out. He was growing tired of the woman, but after having met with the monster that was called the Anuk-ite, he knew that his chances of finally killing Scott and his friends were growing slimmer. The tactics were just needing to get better, and this was certainly a good way to break them.
"You know that feeling of hope you get before something happens? You hype yourself up to believe that you can do this, and in return the mistakes made increase as the cockiness rises," Gerard told the woman as he let go of the arm that was using him for support. "False hope is a lot more dangerous than grief."
Letting the body fall to the ground outside the house, Gerard and Monroe got back into the car without another word.
___
Softly padding downstairs, Scott could sense that something was off. He had been woken by a noise outside that he had simply originally presumed was Malia, until he remembered that the werecoyote had borrowed his shower and was sleeping on the couch in his room.
Flashing his eyes red, he allowed for the slight heat sense of his eyes to try and detect what was suddenly out of place in his own house. Something smelled sickly, but also familiar in a way that made his stomach turn. There was only one smell he could compare it to, but he was sure that his mind was playing tricks on him.
Hearing soft pads behind him, Malia was suddenly standing at his shoulder. Her hand rested lightly on his shoulder as she sniffed the air, her eyes shining blue suddenly as she caught on to the scent that he had also smelt. Turning to face Scott, her eyes widened as she felt hope fill her.
"She's alive," the girl exclaimed, sprinting past Scott and on to the front porch. Scott bounded after her, confused but also having the building of the hope in his stomach too as he thought about what they both believed the smell to be.
Just as Malia opened the door, Scott's heart sunk.
Levi was there. He thought he was never going to see her again, but there she was. Her brown hair was slightly shining in the streetlights, her body almost shimmering. It wasn't until he took a step closer when he realised that her hair was shining from the wet blood that was running down her face.
Letting his instincts take over, the boy rushed past Malia as he carefully scooped the girl up into his arms. Running back inside, he placed her gently on the couch as Malia grabbed her phone and called for the rest of the pack to come quickly.
Scott pressed his hand against her cheek, watching and feeling the pain travel from her body and into his own. He clenched his teeth as he watched her face slightly become less tense from him receiving a small portion of her pain. Just as he went to let go of her cheek, a delicate touch on his hand kept it there.
"Hey," Levi whispered, her eyes only just open as she smiled softly at her mate. Scott's face broke out into a grin as he stared back at the girl who was bleeding on his couch. She was healing though, and he supposed that he could always just wash the stains out.
"You look like shit," she mumbled as the boy laughed, a single tear rolling down his cheek as the reality of the situation hit him. Levi laughed too, moving slightly so that she could place her lips against his own.
Hissing as Scott accidentally touched her healing skin from where Gerard had sliced her tattoo off, the boy pulled back to see the Hale pack symbol burned into her muscles like the bodies that they had found when they found the Anuk-ite shells.
Looking back to his girlfriend, Scott couldn't help but cry.
"We thought you were dead."
Levi shrugged, a small smirk falling on to her lips. "I thought I was too," she truthfully told him. "But then I remembered you, and our pack, and everyone, and I knew I was going to be okay."
There was a pause before Levi spoke again, her eyes hardening and her voice going darker.
"I know you're not a killer Scott. But oh my, I can't wait to kill that son of a bitch."