|| Abominable Snowman
You will no longer exist.
A wave of nausea rolled over Jacy, her vision blurring as she steadied herself against the back of her car. The racing of her heart burned out her hearing as the world swirled, the concerned voices of her brother and grandmother falling on deaf ears.
"Jacy..." Jordan took a hesitant step forward, reaching his hand out as his sister's eyes rolled into the back of her head.
"Don't touch her!" Honey barked, pulling back to cover her eyes as Jordan's hand connected with Jacy's shoulder.
Red sparks crackled between them, flashing off like fireworks before he could recoil.
Jacy's eyes ripped open, searing an electric blue. She pulled into herself, her fangs forcing themselves forward as she tried to hide them not from her family, but from the rest of the world.
Honey reached for Jordan's hand, drawing him two steps back from Jacy as her shoulders shook.
Although they were expecting the rage that often came with an unprompted shift, they were met with tears.
Soft sobs were muffled by Jacy's sleeve, hot tears soaking the sweater. "Please leave," she cried.
"Jace, please let us help you," Jordan begged, his own hand rising to his face as his eyes welled. "Let us do something."
"There's nothing you can do." She waited for her fangs to withdraw, disappearing along with the vibrant hue of her eyes. She sank down to the ledge of her trunk, legs unsteady as she looked up. "There's nothing you can do but run. Run far away from me."
"You know I'm not going to do that." Jordan's jaw clenched, fighting back tears. "You know I would never do that. I'm your brother. I pulled you out of your drift."
Jacy's eyes held a hateful film, her anguish misdirected. "And what was it worth?"
Honey and Jordan's expression's slacked, blood running cold.
"Don't talk like that," Jordan begged.
"You're telling me that this town wouldn't be better off without me here?" Jacy snapped. "I've killed thirty people just this week and it clearly sounds like it's not going to get any better."
"How many times do we have to tell you that it's not your fault?" asked Jordan. "Not a single one of us blames you, but it's not going to mean anything unless you believe it too."
"You're right, it doesn't mean anything." She rose from the ledge of her car. "Because I don't believe. Something else I don't believe is how Nana knew that we can't touch." Eyes that were once soft and loving for her grandmother had been coated by something else that even she wasn't sure of. "Maybe you know about the legends of the Doctors, but J's a different piece of the puzzle." She narrowed her eyes at Honey. "So how could you possibly know about it?"
Jordan, the ever-faithful grandchild, wasn't quite sure how to defend Honey. "Nana, how did you know that? I don't even understand what it means."
Honey's eyes flickered between Jacy and Jordan, guilt growing. "The, uh...the spirits have been talking. They see so much more than the living, so they have more information than the rest of us. Just like your friend Lydia is trapped in her own body at that Eichen House, but a spirit of one of her friends is trying to help her break out."
Jordan lit up. "I knew she would fight."
"Nana, don't deflect just because Jordan has a crush."
The deputy scowled at his sister. "Jacy."
"No, no she's right," Honey countered. "Since I got the email from your mother, I've been asking around. Beacon Hills has a lot of ghosts."
"Thanks to me."
"Jacy, stop it."
Honey held up her hands, silencing her grandchildren. "As both of you know, there have been many people who have preyed on your town in the past, even before you two arrived. It's a cursed place whether you're involved or not."
Jacy leaned back against her car, folding her arms across her chest after wiping the residual tears from her cheeks. "And these ghosts you've been talking to. What do they think?"
Honey grimaced slightly. "I'm afraid to say that they don't know how to stop it. And...well, they don't think it can be stopped."
"How lovely." Retrieving her keys, Jacy started her car. "I have to find somewhere to lock myself up before nightfall."
"Nothing will hold you," Honey dismally said.
"Then you should go home where it's safe, Nana. Get as far away from me as you can. Everyone should."
Jordan hastily followed his sister around to the driver's door, catching it before she could seal herself into her car. "Jace, where are you going?" His eyes fell on the passport sitting in her passenger's seat. "What is that? Why do you need your passport?"
"I'm getting as far away from here as I can."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, wedging himself between her and the door. "You're going to go to Mexico?"
"I was thinking Canada," Jacy countered. "I can reach the border before the sun goes down. I was going to see if Nana had anything helpful, and if she had, I would just go home, but clearly I can't. If the spirits don't think there's a way to stop me, then there probably isn't. This way, I can just bury myself somewhere in the artic. I'll either die of frostbite and take the Beast with me, or there can be an abominable snowman somewhere that people can't inhabit. I'll only take out an unlucky hunter or two every year."
Jordan scoffed, fumbling over his words. "You can't go!"
"And I can't stay here! If I don't do something, I'm going to end up wiping out the entire town. You know the dreams you've been having. The entire town, dead. Every single person. And if I don't go, that will happen, and it will be because of me. You have to let me go."
Jordan shook his head. "I can't do that. You can't ask that of me as your brother."
"Then I'm not asking you as a brother," Jacy replied. "I'm asking you as a deputy – as someone who took an oath to serve and protect the city of Beacon Hills, to let me go. Let me try to stop all of this insanity."
"Stiles is going to kill me."
"If I stay, I might kill you both." Jacy held off the impulse to reach for her brother's hand – to comfort him in some kind of way, but she kept them in her lap instead. "Tell everyone I'm sorry, and that I love them. And that's why I'm doing this. Because I love everyone too much to stay and put them in harm's way."
Jordan sighed. "You know that we'll stay and fight for you, until the very end."
"But you shouldn't have to."
"Jacy."
"Jordan, you've always said that you'd do anything for me, right? Ever since I was little, you've always told me that."
A soft frown formed on his lips. "Jace-"
"Didn't you?"
"Of course I did."
Jacy bit the inside of her lip. "You meant it, right?"
"Yes, I meant it."
"Then do this for me." She sighed. "Let me go to Canada and bury myself in the snow where I can't hurt anyone."
Jordan closed his eyes. "What about you?"
"Don't make me quote Spock to you, because I will." Although Jacy tried to offer a smile, it barely came through. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If I go, nobody else gets hurt."
"Leaving will hurt us," he countered. "What about Stiles? Or Mom? Scott and Allison?"
"A little heart ache is better than being dead. Everyone can move on with their lives. Graduate, go to college, live their lives longer than just eighteen years." Jacy clipped her seatbelt. "Please, let me go."
"I won't be able to sleep at night."
"But you'll be alive."
Jordan slowly stepped back from the ajar driver's door, letting Jacy pull it to. He folded his arms as she rolled down the window, hating himself for not being able to hug her. "I love you."
Jacy smiled genuinely for the first time in a while. "I love you, too." She warranted a glance in her grandmother's direction as she backed out of her parking spot, raising a soft hand in parting. She slid on her sunglasses, the sunny day drawing an excuse to hide the tears forming in her eyes.
As Jordan and Honey conjoined in her rearview mirror as the Honda raced away from the tiny diner smack between Beacon Hills and San Francisco, the tears began to fall, and Jacy didn't even have the strength to wipe them away.
It wasn't an hour into her drive that the voice trickled into the back of her head.
Oh, Jacy, we're going to have so much fun together.
||
Deep below Beacon Hills where the sun couldn't reach, an orphaned beta was entirely lost.
Liam Dunbar had spent over an hour in tunnels, but with no luck.
Did he even know what he was really looking for?
As he trailed a hallway that he could've sworn he'd been through several times already, the sophomore's phone buzzed in his pocket with a text from Hayden.
Come over tonight?
Passing by a useful symbol that he had yet to notice, he stared at his phone as he continued walking, typing a hasty text back. And although he finally put it away, he was somehow back where he had started. He turned in a slow circling, groaning inwardly as he pinched between his eyebrows.
It was only a few steps more before he found himself stopped in the middle of the dimly lit corridor, turning his head towards a dark passageway.
Scott's backlit figure appeared, one of his brows raised. "You lost?"
Liam paused, glancing to the side before giving a defeated nod. "Completely." He took in a low breath as Scott stepped forward, coming into the light. "How did you know I was down here?"
"I followed you," he replied without a beat.
Liam's brows shot up. "Why are you following me?"
"Why are you down here?"
After the events of the week before, Scott felt little reason to explain himself, even if he couldn't help but have the desire to help Liam.
"I'm just trying to figure out if this is where they took us," Liam replied, looking away. "Me and Hayden. And Allison said she was down here when she talked to the Doctors. The scent seems to be the same, but I can't figure it out."
Scott sighed, referencing a hand to his side. "Uh, there's a turn you keep passing. It's easy to miss."
Liam's brows furrowed slightly. "How many times did you watch me pass it?"
"Five." He bit back a smile. "Come on. Let's see if we can find it together."
And while Stiles was working on getting Lydia out of Eichen House – none the wiser to the fact that his girlfriend was attempting to flee the country, Scott and Liam scoured the network of tunnels nestled below their cursed town, in search of anything that could help.
After several attempts to find their way, a chill ran over Scott as they found a new branch of the tunnels.
He turned over his shoulder to Liam, examining his hands. "Do you feel that?"
"Like something's vibrating."
"I can't tell where it's coming from."
Liam crouched down, placing a hesitant hand over the dirty ground. The sensation continued, coursing through his bones. "It's coming from everywhere."
The wolves exchanged short and concerned glances, sighing to themselves.
Liam shook his head. "I was just trying to do something right."
"You do a lot right," Scott replied, anxious and upset chemo signals pulsating off of the beta.
"Yeah, but I did one thing really wrong," he countered.
"Hayden's alive. Everything before that doesn't matter."
"It should," Liam said. "I feel like I had to do more than just say sorry."
Scott's brows lifted slightly. "Actually, you still haven't done that."
Liam glanced down to hit feet, still crouched. "Back at my old school...At Devenford, I got into a fight with this kid. I knocked two of his teeth out. They made me write a letter of apology. We both knew it meant nothing. We both knew that sooner or later, we're gonna get into another fight." He shook his head. "I can't just say I'm sorry. I feel like I have to do something. Like maybe, somehow I have to save your life."
Scott sighed, crouching down next to him. "Don't worry. I'm pretty sure you'll get a chance."
Liam scoffed softly. "Well, not down here. We've been walking around for hours and all we've been able to find is some stupid snake sculpture on the wall."
Scott's brows furrowed, looking back to the symbol of the circular snake eating its own tail. He drew up to his full height, trailing over the image.
"You think it's important?" Liam asked.
Scott hoped that his love for Indiana Jones movies would do him some type of good. He stepped forward, Liam flanking his side. He raised a hesitant hand to the image, running his hand along the top to remove the cobwebs that had formed over time.
It was when he used both hands that the image turned like a dial, clicking to the side.
Scott hastily looked back to Liam, his brows high.
The snake clicked again and again with Scott's help, a low rumbling echoing in the tunnels as a stone panel jolted out of its sleep.
Both of the wolves' eyes landed on a door handle that had gone unnoticed, drawing their attention.
If Scott's life wasn't interesting enough, he got his full Indiana Jones moment.
Scott hesitantly approached the door, one yank on the handle pulling the panel free to reveal a room that had yet to be explored.
But instead of being met with a fun, new tunnel full of mysteries, Scott and Liam were instead met with the cocking of a gun, and Chris Argent holding it.
Scott's senses overloaded with harsh memories of years before, holding gazes with his girlfriend's father as the gun was put away. "You didn't."
Chris sighed. "I had to."
Gerard Argent, former enemy number one, appeared from behind a stone panel, taking in the sight of Scott for the first time since his downfall. "Hello, Scott."
Scott's eyes flared red, haunted by the things he had been put through by the sadistic man in front of him.
"I haven't seen that color on you," Gerard mused, hate bubbling in his stomach. "It suits you."
Liam leaned in close behind his alpha as the true red was blinked away. "Who's the old guy?"
Gerard chuckled low. "Well, at the moment they would call me a necessary evil. But you can call me Gerard."
"He's Allison's grandfather," Scott quietly told his beta, plenty of stories jogged. He met eyes with Chris. "What were you thinking?"
"That we need him," Argent unfortunately replied.
"He's right," added Gerard. "If you want to catch a werewolf like the Beast of Gevaudan, you're going to need more than one Argent."
"We already have two," Scott snapped.
"Trust me, three is better," he rebuffed. "Especially given than both my son and granddaughter are distracted by the identity of the Beast."
Chris left his father behind, approaching Scott. "He knows all the stories. All the folklore. Everything written and everything passed down."
Although Scott's heart was steady, his mind was racing. "You sure about this?" he asked.
The simple answer was no, but Chris nodded his head forward. "Take a look." Guiding the wolves deeper into the antechambers of the tunnel system, he stopped them in front of a mural that had been exposed underneath the tile wall, two massive creatures ready to brawl. "The one on the right is the Beast of Gevaudan. Do you know what the other one is?"
And when both Scott and Liam shook their heads, Gerard piped up. "The Hellhound. The guardian of supernatural places. They're both creatures of the night. But you may know them as ordinary people during the day."
"And neither of them know what they are. At least, one didn't until recently."
Scott's jaw tightened, glancing to Liam.
"What is it?" Chris asked.
"We found a message in Latin..." Scott hesitantly began. "Damnatio Memoriae."
Gerard's brows lifted, looking to his son. "They want it to remember itself."
"That might give us time," Chris said.
Not much.
Liam's eyes flickered down the line of people that knew plenty more than him. "Time for what?"
"To prevent this," Argent replied, stepping up to the large mural that had been hiding for god knows how long. He pressed his hands against the revealed area before slamming a foot into what remained hidden below the fighting beasts.
The blood came into view first, and then the bodies.
Liam's eyes scanned over the dozens of painted bodies crumpled underneath the beasts as they fought, his heart rate rising. "Who are they?"
"Us. It's all of us."
And the creatures?
Siblings, destined to destroy one another.