The next morning, Paige woke up at six like she usually does, kind of despising the fact that she actually went out with Stiles and Scott the previous night. But she needed to get up early to do her morning routine, which involved her watering her garden. Inside her room on her window sill was a row of little plants. Plus, she didn't have a car or bike so she walked to school in the mornings.
"I have your coffee." Maggie says from in the kitchen after hearing Paige open her bedroom door, "And I didn't add any creamer to it yet, I can never tell just how much sugar you want in it."
"Thank you, Maggie." Paige chirps as she took the hot thermis from her aunt, she pulled creamer from the fridge after reading the ten different flavors they currently had. Her sweet tooth was insane, she loved sugar and anything sweet. Which was why her Aunt made it very clear that she needed to brush and floss her teeth every day.
"Jeez, are you planning to have a sugar crash today or something?" Maggie questions while watching her niece scoop sugar into her coffee. "At this point you're drinking liquid sugar."
"I just like my coffee sweet." Paige defends herself while she stir her once black coffee to a pale eggshell like color, "It agrees with my tummy."
"You're lucky you weren't born lactose intolerant." Maggie states while walking around Paige to get to the stove where she was currently making herself breakfast.
Paige pulled a box of cereal down, "I know." It was Lucky Charms, and despite already being sweet she always added a teaspoon of sugar anyway. "You ready to go back?"
"Mm, I love dealing with freshman-" Maggie flipped her egg onto her plate, "You better be happy that I work at another high school."
"Yeah, I wouldn't want my classmates telling me how hot my Aunt is." Paige stuck her tongue out, revealing a single marshmallow. She laughs at her aunt's face, "I'm pretty excited."
"I still do not understand how you love school so much."
"Shouldn't I be saying that to you?" Paige asks after drinking down her sugary milk from the bowl, "After all, you decided to go to college to be a teacher."
Maggie stopped eating for a moment and just nodded her head, "I guess I did." She cleared her throat and checked the time, "You should start walking now if you want to make it."
"Right!" Paige quickly rinsed her bowl and placed it inside of the dishwasher, "Bye, see you later."
"Okay, have fun today!"
Paige ran into her room quickly and grabbed her backpack which was left by her bed. She quickly went running out of the house, she stretched her arms up in the air with a sigh before she started her walk to school. Whipping out her ipod, she put her headphones on and walked along the sidewalk with a smile on her face.
She stopped walking for a moment, Paige tugged the headphones so they were now around her neck. Taking a moment, she turned her head to look behind her. In the distance a black Camaro was driving down the road. It was pretty far away but for some reason Paige turned around. She watched as it drove right past her, she hummed and just kept going.
"Paige!" Stiles yells as she starts to get closer to the school, he slows his jeep beside her, "Want a ride?"
Paige looked at the school which was maybe ten minutes away by foot, before getting in the jeep with him, "Thanks. Did Scott tell you anything?"
"Just that he was bit by something." Stiles offers as he parks his jeep. Both hop out, and rush over to where Scott was, "Okay, let's see this thing."
Paige steps back to get a look at the large bandage, "Dang, that must be a big bite."
"Yeah." Scott pulls his shirt back down, "It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf."
"A wolf bit you?"
"Uh-huh."
Stiles blinked, looked to Paige, then back to Scott, "No, not a chance."
"I heard a wolf howling."
"No, you didn't."
"Okay-" Paige interrupts, "Scott, before you two start an argument. California hasn't had wolves in like forever, we messed with so much crap here that they kind of don't exist in California."
"Really?" Scott says not entirely convinced.
"Yes, really. There are no wolves in California."
"All right, well, if you don't believe me about the wolf, then you're definitely not gonna believe me when I tell you I found the body."
"You-" Paige gaped over at him.
Stiles gasps, "Are you kidding me?"
"No, man, I wish." Scott shuddered as he recalled what he say in the back of his head, "I'm going to have nightmares for a month."
"Oh, god, that is freakin' awesome."
"Awesome?" Paige crosses her arms over her chest with a disgusted face, "How is this even close to awesome? He did it by himself."
"I mean-" Stiles began to stumble over his words as he thought of what he wanted to say, "This is seriously gonna be the best thing that's happened to this town since-Since the birth of Lydia Martin." Cue Lydia walking by them, "Hey Lydia, you look... like you're gonna ignore me..." His eyes flicker over to his friends, "You're the cause of this, you know."
"We are?" Paige points to herself innocently, not entirely seeing what he meant by this.
"Draggin' me down to your nerd depths. I'm nerd by association. I've been scarlet-nerded by you."
Paige just smiled over at him, "Did you hear the reference you made? We're the ones dragging you down? You just referenced Nathaniel Hawthorne. You're bringing yourself down with how nerdy you are. Our nerdiness isn't affecting you at all."
"How are you able to just tell me the author to A Scarlet Letter?"
"Because I'm a nerd." Paige says simply which made Stiles go to push her, but she dodged and he just ended up falling over by the force of his momentum. "Come on, we're going to be late for class."
Paige took her normal seat behind Stiles, she looked out the window as the teacher spoke. "As you all know, there indeed was a body found in the woods last night. And I am sure your eager little minds are coming up with various macabre scenarios as to what happened. But I am here to tell you that the police have a suspect in custody, which means you can give your undivided attention to the syllabus which is on your desk outlining this semester."
She lifted her head up, noticing Scott looking pretty confused. Paige tilted her head to the side, "Scott..." It was a whisper but he jumped and faced her with wide-eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Uh... Yeah..."
"Class-" The Vice Principal walked into the room with a girl, "This is our new student, Allison Argent. Please do your best to make her feel welcome."
Paige covered her mouth to stop herself from giggling at Scott, she could already feel that he had a crush on her. It was like that time when Stiles first said something about Lydia, he was trying to be nonchalant but she could tell that he had a huge crush on her.
Allison gave everyone a smile, "Thanks."
"We'll begin with Kafka's Metamorphosis, on page 133."
Once class was done, Paige shoved at Stiles, "I think our Scott has a little crush on the new girl."
"How would you even know something like that?" Stiles questions while he looked at Scott who was looking at Allison, "Okay, maybe..."
"I am a love psychic. I just know-" Paige pointed her finger at him with a laugh, she stared over at Allison to notice Lydia, "Wow..."
"Can someone tell me how new girl is here all of five minutes, and she's already hanging out with Lydia's clique?"
"Because she's hot." Stiles says bluntly, "Beautiful people herd together."
"For some reason that statement leaves me offended." Paige says slowly, which made the other girl nod her head in agreement. Both turn to look at Stiles, "Cause that implies that I am neither hot or beautiful."
"Well, you're just not my type."
"Good." Paige says as she looks Stiles over, "I'm not into spastic weirdos."
"I-" Stiles' mouth dropped open, "I am not spastic."
"Really?" Paige shook her head slowly, "Then maybe you should go see someone professional to fix all of... that."
"You are the worst!"
"Love you too!"
By the end of the day, Paige dressed in her lacrosse clothes. No one really noticed that she was part of the team, and they also didn't really notice that she was a girl. They were too busy in their own worlds to realize that a female had been on their team.
"But if you play, I'll be left with just Paige to talk to on the bench. Are you really going to do that to me?"
"Wow..." Paige gaped over at Stiles, "And I used to bathe with you..."
Scott chose to ignore what ever argument the two of them were having, "I can't sit out again. My whole life is sitting on the sidelines. This season, I make first line."
"McCall!"
Paige stuck her helmet on, "You're not being nice today."
"Neither are you." Stiles shoots over to her.
"I think Scott will make first line." Paige tells him absentmindedly, "I mean, he's been working hard. So, I think he will do it."
"Yeah, and I'll start dating Lydia."
"That will eventually happen." Paige says as she sits down with the Stiles at the benches, "She'll fall head over heels for your weird dorky face."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
"I wasn't trying to make you feel better." Paige's simple response made Stiles roll his eyes, just as the two of them were beginning their conversation. Their eyes were back on practice. Paige stood up and cheered as Scott did an amazing job. "Oh! Yes! Go Scott!"
Stiles got up as well, "Holy crap..."
"That was so freakin' awesome!" Paige yells out, she lifted her lacrosse stick in the air and waved it around. She was far too happy for him, but something was just weird and off about it all. He wasn't just awesome, what he did was practically impossible for just a summer of practice.
"Damn..."
Paige brought it up again later as they trudged back through the woods to find Scott's inhaler, "So, are we not going to talk about what you did today?"
"I don't- I don't know what it was." Scott admits to them both, he stumbled a little bit with his words. He was definitely excited about what he did, "It was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball. And that's not the only weird thing. I-I can... hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things."
"Smell things?" Stiles questions, not entirely believing him, "Like what?"
"Like... Like the mint mojito gum in your pocket-" Scott points out, then faces Paige briefly, "And the sponge cake in your backpack."
"I don't-"
"How did you-"
Paige and Stiles move at the same time to reveal that Scott knew exactly what they had. The two confused teenagers just stared off at Scott in bewilderment.
Stiles slowly eyed Paige before asking Scott, "So all this started with the bite?"
Scotts nodded his head quickly, his paranoia slowly seeping through, "What if it's like an infection, like, my body's flooding with adrenaline before I go into shock or something?"
"You know what?" Stiles says rather matter-of-factly, "I actually think I've heard of this. It's a specific kind of infection."
"Are you serious?"
Paige sent a confused look over to Stiles, "What are you talking about?"
"Yeah." Stiles nods his head, "Yeah, I think it's called -lycanthropy."
"Oh-" Paige just rolled her eyes, "You're such an ass."
"What? Is it bad?"
"Oh, yeah, it's the worst. But only once a month."
"Once a month?" Scott couldn't help but look over at Paige, which made her glare at him.
Paige scoffed, "Are you implying I have it cause I have a menstrual cycle?"
"That's a whole different problem." Stiles waved his hand in front of Paige's face as if to push her away, "This only happens on the night of the full moon." He howled in a teasing way, which earned a shove from both Paige and Scott, "Hey, you're the one who heard a wolf howling."
"Hey, there could be seriously something wrong with me!"
"That's true." Paige says, completely agreeing with Scott, "We don't exactly know what happened or what is happening."
"But I know what's happening! He's a werewolf." Stiles laughs, not caring that his two friends were taking the joke that well, "Okay, obviously I'm kidding. But if you see me in shop class trying to melt all the silver I can find, it's 'cause Friday's a full moon."
"No, I- I could have sworn this was it." Scott looked around on the ground, "I saw the body, the deer came running. I dropped my inhaler."
"I mean..." Paige whispers as she crossed her arms, "The killer could have moved the body."
"That's morbid... And probably true."
Scott groans softly, "If he did, I hope he left my inhaler. Those things are like eighty bucks."
Paige turned her entire body around while the two looked around, she stared at the person standing a few feet away from them all. She blinked her eyes a few times before clearing her throat. "Uh..."
"What are you doing here?" He demanded harshly, which caused Scott and Stiles to jump in shock and just stare over at him. "Huh? This is private property."
"The woods?" Paige questions under her breath, but winces when she saw the man's glare move over to her.
Stiles fumbled out, "Uh, sorry, man, we didn't know."
"Yeah, who would know?" Paige says to Stiles, not really to the guy since he was a little intimidating to her. And broody.
Scott shot Paige a look, probably telling her to silently shut up, "Yeah, we were just looking for something, but... Uh, forget it." He caught whatever the guy threw to them, seeing that it was his inhaler. Scott grew a little more uncomfortable and looked at his friends, "Uhm... All right, come on, I gotta get to work..."
Paige slowly backed up with the two of them but didn't turn around just yet. She kind of just kept staring over at the guy. She coughed a little bit before turning back to her friends.
Stiles waited until he was sure they were far enough, "Dude, that was Derek Hale. You remember, right? He's only like a few years older than us."
"Remember what?"
"His family. They all burned to death in a fire, like, ten years ago."
"Oh, shit... I remember." Paige looked back over her shoulder, not really seeing Derek anymore. "Poor dude..."
"Yeah, I wonder what he's doing back."