"You think this is digestible?" I joke to the True Alpha next to me as I take a shot glass from the tray of a girl who passed us. 

It had a foggy brown liquid inside that smelled sour and made my eyes water. That mixed with the dozens of bodies dancing around us, gyrating and grinding on each other, wasn't pleasant. But the fact that no one took a second look at a teenager with alcohol in their hands was definitely a plus.

Scott reached for the glass and held it up, staring at the minuscule unrecognizable fibers that floated within the shot. 

"First of all, Jac, you're sixteen. Second, honestly no, I don't." He responded, smirking at my disappointment as my hand hung in the air where my shot had previously been.

"You're no fun, McCall." I pouted jokingly, only making his smile widen. 

Movement over his shoulder stole my attention. A guard for the club was making his rounds around the building, and he'd be inches away from us soon enough. I gave Scott a subtle tilt of my head in a warning. He nodded before placing the shot glass down, our focus needed elsewhere now. Both of us move as one, slowly making our way to a different area of the packed club. I usually hated being so close to other people, able to feel the warmth of their skin on mine, but we used the foreign bodies to our advantage now, sticking to the shadows to remain out of sight. 

The Calaveras were a family that was arguably even more dedicated to the hunting code than the Argents had been in their prime, and if they discovered us here, uninvited, we'd be in for a world of trouble. 

Last week Derek hadn't picked up any of our calls or texts, which honestly wasn't that unusual, but it didn't feel the same. Not after everything we've been through these past couple of months. 

Scott went to check up on the Hale yesterday, wanting to get answers for his silence, but was only left with more questions when Derek was nowhere to be found. All that was left for us to potentially find him were dozens of bullet casings scattered around his loft from an obvious shoot-out. This set everyone into full-blown panic mode, but luckily we weren't entirely lost. When Scott showed us the casings, I immediately recognized the skull engraved into each one, familiar with the telltale sigils of my fellow hunters. 

Within an hour, we were packed and heading to Mexico, the homeland of the Calaveras. Scott, Lydia, Malia, and Kira all stuffed into Stiles' rusted Jeep, while I trailed behind them on my motorcycle. Biking leather wasn't exactly desirable for Mexico's heat, but Derek needed us, so a little sweat was manageable. 

It was bold of the Calaveras to nab Derek like this. It made no sense, especially when Derek hadn't done anything to warrant being taken. The Calaveras took the code seriously, they only hunted those who hunted them, and Derek had become the farthest thing from a predator as of late. 

"Stiles and Lydia are coming in." Scott informs me, though I'm already aware of their approach. 

The communication device in my ear emits an annoying ring that makes me twitch. It alerts me to the fact that its counterpart, currently hidden in Stiles' ear, was drawing near. With proper proximity between us now, I would be able to hear everything around him perfectly. 

My stare drifts across the open room toward the entrance hall. Lydia and Stiles stand at the end of it, taking in the scene before them with stunned eyes. Parties here are far more impressive than in Beacon Hills. Lydia's curious green eyes scan the area and they meet mine for a brief second. She keeps her gaze moving and tugs at the sleeve of Stiles' jacket, silently telling him to move. 

I give her and Stiles a prideful look as they follow my instructions perfectly. They weren't exactly world-class spies, so I had to drill it into them to stay focused when they were here and be aware that we were walking into a hunter's den. One wrong move and Derek would be left with his captors. 

Lydia and Stiles make their way toward the bar, cutting through the crowd on the dance floor. People part to let them pass and it draws attention, and I almost smile. That particular attention is exactly what we needed.

They stand at the bar patiently, not needing to do anything for the time being. Their noted presence has already set our plan into motion, and now all we had to do was wait for the bait to be taken. 

A burly man begins to work his way through the crowd, taking the same path Lydia and Stiles had only a minute ago. I recognize his face instantly, having met him on a previous hunt during my stead under the Argents. 

Severo Calavera. 

Most thought he ran his family, but any hunter worth their salt knew his mother was the real threat. 

"Okay, Stiles, Severo's coming," I warn him. "Try not to scream." 

From my position, I see Stiles roll his eyes. He pretends the action was directed at Lydia, but it was definitely meant for me and my poorly-timed teasing. He quickly wipes his face clean of irritation when the bartender appears and places a filled shot glass down on the counter, directly in front of them. 

"Oh, um..." Stiles scrambles for his wallet to pay for the sudden drink, but freezes when Severo's hand comes to rest on his shoulder. Scott stiffens too, his Alpha instincts alerting him to the potential danger that one of his own currently faced. 

"No, no, it's on the house." Severo chuckles falsely. "Most American teenagers don't cross the border to refuse a drink."

Lydia's posture remains rigid as she tries to keep calm. "We didn't come here to drink."

She lifts her hand and drops one of the bullet casings from Derek's loft into the glass of clear liquor. Severo stares at it with controlled surprise, doing his best to contain his reaction. He doesn't say anything, only tugs at Stiles' collar, a cue for him to follow. Lydia and Stiles share a momentary look of doubt before doing as instructed, their arms pressed tightly together as they trail behind the Calavera. 

Severo guides them to a door at the back of the room. It's opened for him by someone on the other side after two knocks, and then he leads Lydia and Stiles inside, our vision of them lost. 

Scott's face is out of focus for a moment as he uses his senses, listening to them be led further and further away from us. I keep an ear out too, focusing on the link that connects me to Stiles. He remains silent and all I'm able to catch is his heavy breathing, which only makes me regret not giving the earpiece to Lydia. 

Finally, there's a voice on the other line, but it's not Stiles. 

"Severo hates this music, but I've always loved the music of youth." The feminine voice is thick with an accent, and tempered mystery. 

Araya Calavera was one of the most ferocious hunters to ever live. I heard dozens of stories of her over the years, some from my family, some from the Argents. My family would claim she took on Alphas with her bare hands and could kill a wendigo with her smile. The Argents would claim she was past her prime and bordered on being a fanatic in her growing age. I was never quite sure who to believe, but with each story I heard, the recurring theme was that she was not a woman to be trifled with. 

"This kind, especially. It has a savage energy." Araya continues. 

"We're here for Derek Hale." Lydia says straightforwardly. 

"Is that so?" Araya replies with a hint of amusement, the smirk clear in her voice.  

"We know you have him." Lydia claims. 

I check our surroundings, making sure no one had made any of us yet. Scott and I stuck together while Malia and Kira were on the dance floor. They weren't recognizable to Araya like we were, so blending in with the crowd was their best bet.

Malia was dancing up a storm, her animal nature urging her to unleash the pent-up energy she had stored on our drive here. Kira was much more reserved and off to the side with a drink in her hand, but swayed to the music well enough that she wasn't just standing there and looking out of place.

"We've heard," Lydia's voice was annoyed but controlled. "You can be bought."

"It's fifty thousand for Derek." Stiles finally spoke, his voice having the most clarity.

I told Stiles to make a show with the money when he went in, slap it on the table and everything. Araya would not respect a teenage boy trying to be something he wasn't, so Stiles would need to sell it, and he would need to act like fifty thousand was nothing to him.

"Now, where does a teenage boy get money like this?" Araya challenged.

"Japanese mafia?" She said it like a question, but the fact that she would even suggest it meant she knew it wasn't our cash to give away. 

Scott and I exchange nervous glances, uneased by Araya's knowledge. She shouldn't have known about our gun deal with Katashi all those months ago, or the fact that we still had the cash. According to police records, it was supposed to be in an evidence locker back in Beacon Hills, not in a random club across the border. 

It was unnerving, and it only made me feel wearier of Lydia and Stiles being alone with her. 

"Stay calm, Stiles. You can still sell this." I urge calmly. My own anxiety didn't matter now, only his. Everything hinged on Stiles being able to play his role confidently. 

"Not smart to come alone." Arya chuckles.

Stiles shot back at her without any hesitation, his voice is cocky and just as playful as hers.

"What makes you think we came alone?"

I couldn't help the prideful grin that grew on my face. 

"That's my boy."

Scott mirrored my expression, and I looked to the dancefloor, my eyes finding Malia first. She flashed her eyes at me, her iris glowing blue before spinning around and continuing to dance. A few feet away was Kira against a pillar with her drink in hand. She lifted the glass to her lips and discreetly winked at me from behind, her way of saying she was ready for anything.

"You brought a wolf into my home?" Araya sounds deeply offended and aggravated, but Stiles didn't let that sway him.

"We brought an Alpha."

Scott stood tall as his best friend speaks of him. I couldn't hold back the admiration on my face as he did so. The distant image of the Omega he used to be when we first met flashed through my mind, and it feels like almost a lifetime ago. My nostalgia can't last though, movement from all around us catching my attention. Guards were starting to rifle through the club on high alert now, all made aware of our presence.

I found Kira's eyes and tilted my head towards Malia. She doesn't hesitate and places her glass down, making a direct line for the dancing coyote.

Scott fell into step with me, both of us starting to circle the dance floor beneath its surrounding arches, still not exposing ourselves to the crowd and more eyes. Keeping ourselves as constant moving targets was easier than staying in one place. It was better to blend in with the half-drunk people around us, rather than make a scene before exhausting all our options to get to Derek without violence.

"My friends, I don't think you're aware of your poor timing. Do you know what the dark moon is?" Araya started speaking again, and I had to adjust my earpiece to hear her better, her voice coming through as a whisper.

"It's a part of the lunar phase when the moon is least visible in the sky." Lydia responds easily, her extensive knowledge helping to carry along the conversation.

"But do you know its meaning?" Araya presses.

"Some people say it's a time of reflection," Lydia paused to clear her throat. "And grief."

"Grief and loss, mija. I wonder why when you and your friends have suffered so much loss, you would risk it again for someone like Derek Hale."

The mention of our losses made my steps falter, causing me to stop walking. Images of the people we had to watch die in the past year flashed through my mind and made bile rise in my throat. I had seen countless bodies before but knowing that person, fighting beside them and bleeding together, it did nothing to prepare me for having to bury them. 

One of the guards that had been checking out the North section of the building walked past me but stopped when he noticed my odd change of pace. I moved to continue walking, internally cursing myself for the mistake. Scott was a few feet ahead of me, watching the scene, contemplating what to do.

"Hey," The guard calls out to me over the music. I don't stop to face him, hoping he might brush it off. He doesn't. 

His hand comes to clamp itself down on my shoulder, harshly grasping at me. Out of reflex, I whip around while reaching for his wrist, ripping it off of my body. I spin him around with the leverage I've gained, slamming him into the pillar of a nearby arch. I pin his hand that grabbed me between us while placing my weight against him, preventing him from reaching for his radio or any concealed weapons. 

"Argent." He spat out, the word in his mouth like poison. 

I cringe at the title, remembering a time when I would have considered it an honor instead of resenting it. It didn't matter that it was Allison's name, because it was still Gerard and Kate's too.

My own family of hunters was slaughtered by the Alpha pack in the wake of Deucalion's rise to power. Kate had found me, the sole survivor of a massacre, and took me in. She and Gerard trained me, sculpting me into their vision of perfection. At the time, I was too young to understand how blind they truly were. 

By association, people considered me one of them despite never changing my name from Knight, and even after Gerard had fallen and I separated myself from him, the reputation unfortunately stuck. 

"Not anymore." I tell the man gruffly. 

I yank him back from the pillar, gaining enough momentum before driving his head into the corner of the cement arch. His body falls limp in my arms as a result. 

Adjusting my hold on him, I drag him to one of the velvet couches that lined the far walls of the club. I tossed his body onto the seat, allowing him to drool onto the maroon material rather than my jacket. Before turning away from him, I grab a nearby throw pillow and place it over his face, preventing any passing guards from recognizing their companion.

Scott comes to my side, grabbing the radio the man had hanging from his belt. He shoots me a concerned look, an unspoken way of asking if I was okay. I simply nod in return. 

Severo's voice interrupted our silent conversation, spewing out from the radio's speaker as he attempted to contact the guard that was now snoring a foot away from us. 

Scott lifts the radio to his lips that were set in a tight line. "Stiles, take ten off the table."

I hear an echo of Scott's order replayed in my ear, Severo's radio within hearing distance from Stiles' comm. There's some shuffling on the other end too, and I can tell Stiles just did as his best friend instructed. 

Araya wanted to play dirty? Well, so could we.

"We need to move, come on." I usher Scott away from the guard's body.

"Maybe you should just take the deal." Lydia quips sassily, her fire rising too at the mention of our lost friends. Araya had touched a nerve, and she knew it. I only hoped we weren't too exposed by it this early on.

"Though I am keen to take the warning of a banshee, I'm going to have to decline."

Scott and I turn to each other with knowing urgency. Lydia's powers were not something we openly broadcasted. After finding out what she was, we knew it was safer to keep it a secret because of how much of a rarity she was. Very few people knew the truth about her, and the same could be said for Kira and Malia. The three of them didn't have proper control over their abilities, so we did our best to protect them from outside forces. 

Clearly, our efforts were meaningless against Araya's experience. 

"If she knows Lydia's a banshee-"

"She knows about Kira and Malia." Scott interupts me, already on the same train of thought. We both take off in the direction of where had last seen the aforementioned girls, finding them already in the middle of a heated fight with two hunters at the center of the dance floor. 

Malia faces a tall man but uses her enhanced strength against him to slam him into the ground flawlessly. Kira, who had hidden a pair of nunchucks in her knee-high boots, swiftly reveals her weapon of choice to the well-built woman across from her. With expert skill, Kira whips her attacker across the face, using the sensitive spot of her temple to force her into unconsciousness.

Another man forcefully pushes through the crowd around us. His gun is drawn, aimed toward Kira and Malia. He was too distracted with them that he didn't even notice me approaching until my elbow was driven into the center of his face. As he stumbles back, I rip the gun from his hands and push at his chest, sending him toward Scott. 

The Alpha picks up the random man and launches him across the room, leaving him to collide with a stone wall. The people around us aren't even phased by the fight, and some of them even cheer us on, too drunk to comprehend anything but entertainment. 

"God, I love it here." I mutter under my breath, an amused smile. 

My humor is quickly stolen though, as I hear sounds of struggle come from my earpiece. 

"Stiles?" I call for him, tapping at the device in my ear. We've passed the time for discretion. 

I get no response, only more sounds of shuffling. It ends when there's a solid thud from the other end, followed by a high-pitched beep. I groan painfully from the sound, pulling the device from my ear. 

"I lost them." I inform the others.

Scott glares at the door Severo had led Lydia and Stiles into earlier as if it were the man himself. 

"Let's go." He commands. 

The three of us follow Scott as he rushes toward the door. He doesn't hesitate before kicking it down, the wood splitting open easily beneath his thickly-soled shoe. He prepares himself for an attack, but no one is on the other side. I can only assume all the guards at the compound have gone to Araya to protect her now that they knew we were here. 

A winding hallway with deep red walls waits for us as we enter. Our pace is swift, yet careful as we venture through it because we have no idea what waits for us behind each new corner. 

I still held the man's gun from the dance floor, but swap it out for my own Glock that I had hidden in my waist holster. I preferred my own gun, especially when it felt as though we were surrounded by millions of unseen threats. 

"I can smell Lydia's perfume." Scott whispers as he guides us, his nose in the air. He's clinging to the scent trial that our banshee had left behind for us to find her. 

Scott slows when we turn another corner, his head tilting as he focuses on something I can't sense with human abilities.

"What is it?" Kira asks, panic laced in her tone. 

The answer to her questions comes in the form of thick white smoke pouring into the hallway at a rapid pace. It seeps out of the vents around us, flooding the slim hallway in seconds. Scott pushes Kira toward me before he falls to his knees, joining Malia on the floor as she already succumbed to the overpowering fog. 

"It's wolfsbane, get her out of here!" Scott yells to me, his voice raspy and fearful.  

I hold onto Kira and move to do as he's ordered, but as I turn, a blunt object collides with my skull. The force of the impact causes me to fall to the ground and my vision to split into threes. Kira falls a second later, gasping painfully beside me as she's been struck too. 

A blurry figure stands above us, eerily still. I aim my gun in their direction, still thinking about getting Kira out safe, but my senses betray me. The figure easily yanks my weapon from my hands, preventing me from getting any shots off in my dazed state. 

"Traitor." They sneer above me before slamming my head again, leaving me in the black. 

~

||| A/N |||

vote and/or comment if you like my story so far, all support is appreciated sm!

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