Chapter 5:
The Rules
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The three girls burst into the sheriff's station after rushing to get there before Tracy. "Mom, she's coming." Lydia warmed her mother, "Tracy's coming for you."
"What?" Lydia's mother looked confused, "What do you mean for me?"
They all looked up when they heard the hissing. Imogen swallowed thickly, realizing that Scott was right. Tracy really was a Kanima. And they had also gotten here late. The other deputies were out cold or paralyzed on the ground.
Tracy didn't waste a second in attacking them, her target being Lydia's mother. The sheriff tried shooting at her but was scratched and paralyzed. Kira whipped out her sword allowing Imogen a chance to move the sheriff out of the way.
The hybrid turned her attention to Lydia's mom and started a protection spell on her but was cut off by Tracy who swiped in her direction. Only Imogen dodged and Tracy hit Lydia instead. Imogen angrily shoved Tracy towards Kira who cut off the girls tail.
Imogen rushed to Lydia's side, pulling her into the office hoping that Kira might be able to stop Tracy on her own.
"It's okay." Lydia said shakily, blood coming out of her side as she lay paralyzed in the ground. She was more worried about her mom.
Imogen kept pressure on the wound, "I can't leave you like this, you'll bleed out." She whispered a spell under her breath, causing the wound to stop bleeding. She couldn't create a tourniquet because she didn't have anything to tie around Lydia's waist.
Her eyes flickered up to Malia who was running by them, she focused on her hearing and could hear Kira and Tracy fighting downstairs. She realized that Lydia's mom had been taken downstairs by Tracy.
As much as she wanted to go downstairs to help, the spell used on Lydia was only working because she had her hand on the wound still.
She looked up when she caught her boyfriends scent. Her eyes flickered to Theo who was standing next to him and saw the belt he was wearing. "Give me your belt. If I let her go she'll keep bleeding again."
Theo rushed to her side as he pulled off his belt and helped her tie it around Lydia's waist while Stiles remained paralyzed at the doorway, his eyes on his girlfriend.
Isaac had rushed down to help Malia and as much as Allison wanted to check on Lydia she had to help stop Tracy so she went with the beta as well.
Imogen glanced at her boyfriend, "It's okay, we got this." She assured him.
Scott nodded and nudged his best friend who still remained unmoved. "Stiles, I'm fine. Help Tracy. Find Tracy. Go." She told him softly, her voice weak from the blood she had lost earlier. Stiles wordlessly nodded and followed behind his best friend.
"She lost a lot of blood." Theo commented, noting Lydia's pale complexion.
"Tracy cut her pretty deep." Imogen muttered, feeling guilty. If she hadn't moved out of the way, Lydia wouldn't have gotten hurt. She whispered a soothing spell in hopes that it would lessen Lydia's pain as she passed out. "We have to get her to the hospital." They couldn't wait for an ambulance.
Theo thought this might give him a chance to get on her good side considering that he was aware that she was a bit wary of him. "Alright, let's go." He said, picking Lydia up in his arms.
'We're taking Lydia to the hospital. She needs a doctor.' Imogen told Scott and got a worried okay in response. As her and Theo were getting in her car, Lydia's mom was quick to join them, fretting over her daughter.
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Scott had called his mom, warning her that Imogen was taking an injured Lydia to the hospital and to help her when she got there. Melissa had prepared a gurney to take Lydia inside to get her treated.
Imogen sat beside Theo, nervously glancing around. She didn't know if the tourniquet had been enough and worried that Lydia wasn't okay. The last time one of her friends had been to the hospital was when Allison got stabbed by the oni.
That was a time she didn't like thinking back since what happened after.
"She'll be okay." Theo said softly, his voice surprising her since she forgot he was there for a moment.
She glanced at him, "We can't know for sure." She muttered darkly.
"I know you don't trust me and that's okay. But I've heard about what happened to your uncle and—"
"How could you possibly know about my uncle?" She asked, eyeing him warily.
"People talk at school. They said he died and I remember when you and I went to school together that he was your only family left." He said, lying easily. He couldn't very well tell her that he had been watching their group for a while.
"Oh." She looked down, knowing that there were still some people in school who would talk behind her back about how her uncle was dead. They didn't know the real reason but the fact that she was without a family remained true. It wasn't like they knew that she was related to the Hale family either. "How did you even recognize me? I mean, it's been years."
He looked at her, a teasing smirk on his lips, "You don't really ever forget your first kiss, do you?"
She flushed at the reminder. "I wouldn't say that around Scott." She looked down at her ring, wondering when he'd get here.
"Don't worry. We were kids and besides it's obvious that you and him are in love. Not to mention the bite mark he gave you." He noticed her look at him in shock. "I saw the bruise and I saw the one you gave him. I read a lot of books on werewolves when I first turned. I guess you guys really love each other." He joked.
"Oh god." She sunk down in the chair, flustered that she hadn't hid the mark as well as she thought. It was bad enough that their friends knew but someone she didn't really trust saw it as well.
He knew she wasn't going to tell him anything more and leaned back in his seat. It was obvious that he needed to get the others to trust him before getting Imogen to his side. He was already aware that Stiles didn't like him but that didn't matter. He just needed them all to start to doubt their precious True Alpha.
"Where is she?!" Stiles yelled in the distance and caught sight of them. He ran up to them out of breath, "How bad is it? What did the doctor say?"
"Stiles, breathe." Imogen said gently, as the others approached them. "Melissa said she would come back with an update before Lydia gets taken into surgery."
He panted, he was worried about the girl he loved. He had been completely overwhelmed with shock when he had seen her bleeding out in his fathers office. He hadn't been able to say anything and he felt horrible for that.
"Stiles?" Melissa walked over to them, her eyes on the boy she thought of as a second son.
"How bad is it?"
"Could have been worse." She looked at the two, "Imogen, Theo, nice going on that tourniquet. You probably saved her life." She exhaled, "All right. She's about to go into surgery. So it's going to be a while. Any other supernatural details that I need to know about or do we just stitch her up and hope for the best?"
"It was the tail." Imogen said, not having had the time to tell her earlier since they had been rushing Lydia away.
Kira nodded, "Yeah, Tracy cut her with the tail, if that makes a difference."
Melissa gave a short nod, "Okay." She quickly rushed off.
"But it wasn't just Tracy." Malia stammered out, she looked at them all wide eyed hoping they believed her. "There were the others. The guys in the masks."
They all glanced at her wordlessly, Imogen and Kira both looked confused at her words since they hadn't been there when Malia was attacked or when she first mentioned them.
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"Do you believe Malia about those guys in masks?" Imogen asked her boyfriend as they stood in his kitchen. He had asked her to stay over with him since it was late and she had clothes here at his house.
Scott quietly pulled her into his arms, burying his nose in the crook of her neck and inhaled her scent, "I don't know." He muttered tiredly. He believes that it wasn't Malia that killed Tracy but he wasn't sure about the guys in masks.
She pulled back and stared at him. He had dark circles under his eyes and she rubbed her thumb over his cheek before kissing him gently on the lips. "We should go shower and go to bed." They both had sweat and blood on them.
He hummed, pressing his forehead against hers. "Let's just stay like this for a moment." He wanted to savor this moment of tranquil because he knew he'd be out like a light once his head hit his pillow.
They both closed their eyes for a moment, both caught up in each other that they didn't hear the click of the door. "Sorry to interrupt." They pulled away, looking at Deaton who looked anxious. He placed a jar with talons on the table. "A werewolf with the talons of an eagle. Possibly a shape-shifter, known in eastern mythology as a Garuda." He pulled out two more jars, "Tracy's claws. The unmistakable claws of a werewolf... But... A werewolf who also bears the venom and the scales of a Kanima."
Imogen frowned, "What do you even call that?" She thought of Jackson who had been a Kanima but then turned into a werewolf. As far as she knew, he hadn't been capable of using Kanima venom as a werewolf.
"Personally, I call it terrifying." He said, glancing at them both. "But at the moment, I'm more interested in how Tracy was able to get across the mountain ash."
"I thought nothing supernatural can do that." She muttered, it was part of the balance of nature.
"As did I. So if Tracy was able to cross the mountain ash and no one supernatural can do that..."
"Tracy's not a supernatural." Scott concluded, looking just as shocked as his girlfriend.
"Exactly." The vet said, he looked overwhelmed. "If she wasn't born and she wasn't bitten, she had to have been made."
Imogen looked horrified, who would do that to someone. "Made?" The witch side of her was rattled at the thought of someone experimenting on kids.
"Someone is trying to make supernatural creatures with non-supernatural means." He continued. "And whoever they are, they're somehow managing to blur the lines between science and the supernatural."
"But there's more." Scott said suddenly, recalling the conversation he had with his beta. "Liam said he found another hole out in the woods."
Deaton furrowed his brows in thought. "Burying them could be part of their process, a kind of incubation."
"What are we supposed to do?" Scott looked worried. He needed to know who was creating supernatural species.
"Same thing you've always done. Protect your friends. Protect each other."
Imogen knew that Tracy wasn't like her in the slightest bit. While they shared similarities, there was something off about Tracy. She had briefly seen the girl earlier when they brought her body to Deatons clinic. "So, what about someone like Tracy?"
"I wish I could tell you. Hopefully, I'll have more answers soon. I'll be gone a few days."
The true alpha felt dread. "You're leaving?" The person who seemed to know more than them was leaving at a time like this.
"Just a few days." He needed to find answers and he needed to find them quickly.
"How scared should we be?"
"I've lived in the world of the supernatural a long time. But I'm still a doctor. Still a man of science. Something like this happens, it rattles the foundation of everything you believe. Something like this shakes you to the core."
"Something like what?"
"The rules..." His tone ominous. "The rules have changed."