"Jac? Are you still there?"

Melissa's voice is urgent and filled with worry, but I can't find it in myself to ease her mind. Not now. Not as my own is currently under attack from an onslaught of memories I spent a long time pushing away.

The kanima, it was like a trigger.

I began to think of the first time we encountered it, a time that coincided with the end of my affiliation with Gerard. All those moments he took advantage of me, making me believe I was a part of his family when really he thought of me as nothing more than another expendable creature, they all came rushing back at once. No amount of time could change what he did to me. No amount of time could change what I did for him. 

I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't think of anything except those memories, and feel as though he was breaking me all over again.

Forgetting was the one kindness I'd always allowed myself, but Gerard always had a special talent for clawing his way out of whatever grave I pretended he was in. He wasn't dead to me. He was a part of me. Gerard would forever be my shadow, and there was no light that could ever make him fade because he and I were bonded; tethered.

My mouth moves, an attempt to speak, but nothing comes out.

A hand on my shoulder snaps me out of it, Liam coming up beside me. He looks at me with concern but doesn't ask me what's wrong. Instead, he takes the phone from me to speak to an increasingly panicked Melissa, saving me from having to force out an explanation.

I need to find something else to focus on to pull me out of this, but all my effort is going toward fighting the voice in my head that's telling me to drive my fist into the surface of a nearby tree. The desire for pain-associated relief isn't something I wanted to rely on.

My thoughts settle on Tracy, surprisingly.

She could have hurt Scott and Stiles, maybe even Malia and Deaton. If she hadn't, that didn't mean she wasn't out somewhere right now hurting someone else. I needed to find her, and I needed to stop her.

Unable to say much, I say nothing. 

I turn away from the boys and march in the direction of the entrance to the preserve knowing it wasn't that far. Liam truly was leading us in a circle.

"Jac?" Mason calls out after me.

When I don't respond I hear him and Brett both sputter out a few curses of confusion before they trample over the dry leaves on the ground, following after me. Liam trails behind them, wrapping up the call with Melissa.

We reached the entrance to the preserve soon enough, my motorcycle and Brett's truck still parked on the other side of the barrier chain. I straddle the seat, shoving my gloves back on after slipping my keys in the ignition to warm the engine up for a short moment.

"You mind telling us what's going on? What the hell does kanima mean?" Brett quotes me with Mason beside him, equally curious. 

"It's not good, is it?" he adds.

"Definitely not," Liam says as he comes over, shoving my phone into his own pocket. He knew about the creature from the stories I told him, fully aware of the carnage it was capable of creating with its master. 

He passes the boys and movies to join me on my bike, but I slide back on the seat, blocking him from doing so. He stares at me with a bit of shock mixed with hurt at my refusal.

"I'm faster on my own," I admit. 

I didn't speed with Liam anymore, not even for emergencies. I had yet to get him a helmet, something incredibly ridiculous now that I think about it considering how much I packed him, and the last thing we needed tonight was to worry about getting into a bike accident.

He clearly isn't thrilled by my words but he doesn't hold it against me, because that's not what we do to each other. He simply grabs my helmet off my gas tank and slips it over my head for me, but he doesn't remove his hands. He holds my head in place to make sure I'm looking at him from behind the visor.

"Be careful," he orders me like I had done to him earlier, his tone telling me that wasn't up for debate. I nod, and only then does he remove his hands.

I bring up my kickstand and make a sharp turn, peeling out of the preserve, dirt billowing in the air because of it. I make a direct line for the highway, heading downtown. I narrowly pass cars, earning aggravated honks in return, though, it doesn't make me slow down. The only thing that does is a cluster of stalled cars up ahead.

I pull off past the shoulder lane, watching a slender figure strut across the road without glancing either way, interrupting the flow of oncoming traffic.

"Malia?" I mutter, recognizing her silhouette through the rays of headlights on the road. She completely ignores the cars and people yelling around her as she crosses the expanse of the highway.

"Malia!" I shout as I roll up to her when she finally crosses. 

A mass grouping of cars is behind her from people that hit their brakes suddenly or broke off to the side in order not to run her over as she created her own crosswalk. Malia hardly notices, or if she does, she doesn't care. 

"Tracy's a kanima," she says when she comes up to me, not bothering with any lead-up. I take note of the slash mark on her arm and make the conclusion that the others found out that piece of information the hard way.

"Where are you going? Where are the guys?" I press adamantly, not feeling the need to tell her I already knew. That would be a waste of time.

"They're at the clinic, they're okay," she replies simply, easing my mind. 

Any sense of relief is quickly ripped from me as she continues. 

"She ran past us through the mountain ash."

I'm stunned, as that should've been impossible.

Scott had been able to cross the ash once before, but it's not like that was such a simple feat for him. The sheer force of his will going through that experience evolved his ordinary spark into that of an Alpha. I didn't know much about Tracy, but I doubted she was on the same moral level as Scott McCall. 

Deaton's clinic was also far more complex than one would imagine. His doorways and baseboards were all made from the wood of mountain ash trees. That meant, when each entryway was lined with ash, his entire clinic could become an impenetrable fortress that no Demon Wolf or True Alpha would be able to escape from.

Things were becoming more confusing and each new piece of information was starting to betray our previous revelations. I was lost, but it's not as though we had the time to dwell on that.

"And I have her scent, I think she's going to the station."

I slide forward on my seat, tilting my head for Malia to join me. Coyotes were fast, but my bike was faster.

"Hop on," I command. 

Without any question she slides behind me, gripping at my sides. We leave behind the minor traffic jam she'd caused and head for the station, breaking a couple of traffic laws on the way. I'm sure the sheriff would forgive me for it on the off chance his place of work was currently under the attack of a kanima, something that already happened to him once before.

When we pull into the lot of the station, it's abundantly clear something was wrong.

There are no lights in the lobby despite it being night, no deputies walking in and out of the building, and it's so quiet I can hear Malia's every breath clearly. It's not an inviting environment by any means, but Malia and I don't hesitate to run inside. 

We move as one, pushing through the front glass doors of the building, finding the floor littered with discarded papers and the air pungent with a coppery scent that stings my nostrils. In the doorway that divides the lobby from the main part of the building, we spot a lengthy scaled tail laying on the floor by a deputy's desk. Blood and the same silvery substance Tracy spewed earlier surrounded it, leaking from where it had been severed.

"Please tell me you brought your gun," Malia whispers.

"I'm retired," I reply in a low voice. I hate that I sound guilty about it.

I search our immediate vicinity, stopping when I see a deputy's abandoned baton on the counter of the wide lobby desk. I reach for it, gripping the short side handle as Malia and I step through the doorway.

The sheriff lies on the ground around the corner and I rush to his side, my eyes tracing the outline of his body to make sure he's not seriously wounded.

"Careful," he grits out in warning.

The way his neck is positioned doesn't allow him much comfort so I cradle the back of his head, maneuvering it to a better position, earning a sigh of relief that makes me smile softly. A soft whimper comes from behind me that steals any humor I was capable of. My gut twists in on itself as I see Kira and Lydia on the floor of Stilinski's office. The kitsune cradles Lydia's side, holding it together where a deep gash lays.

I scramble away from the sheriff, practically crawling over to the doorway on my knees just to be closer to Lydia. Kira's trying to contain the terror on her face, but her abnormally pale skin doesn't do her much favors.

"Lydia?" Malia breathes out in disbelief.

"It's okay, it's okay. It's - it's not as bad as it looks," she gasps. The fact that she's trying to comfort us while bleeding out makes me want to throw up. 

"Tracy, she thinks, she thinks she's asleep. She thinks she's dreaming. It's a night terror," Lydia forces herself to explain, but that doesn't leave me satisfied, it only adds to the list of questions I had but can't vocalize.

"I - I don't know what that-"

"She... she's not dreaming. She's not asleep. Get her to understand," Lydia interrupts Malia.

"I got her," Kira says to us, urging Malia and I to go.

Her eyes have tears in them but they're still fierce as if she was in the middle of a fight. She doesn't need to say anything else, her gaze doing enough to show us her devotion to keeping Lydia safe. Seeing her blood-covered katana also adds to that, as I now know who gave Tracy's tail its sudden amputation.

I pick myself up from the ground and turn to Malia, both of us wearing similar expressions that try to hide our panic.

We were used to being the bombs, not the diffusers. Hurting Tracy was easier than helping her, but Lydia had made sure to tell us that only one of those ways could truly make a difference tonight. I could tell Malia was thinking the same thing as me: what if we weren't capable of succeeding?

"Girls." Stilinski gets our attention. "Basement. They're in the basement."

"They?" Malia echoes.

"Tracy and my mother," Lydia whimpers.

I turn away from the sheriff, facing the banshee once again.

"We won't let anything happen to her," I promise, earning a tear-filled smile in response. She's forcing it for our sake, and I selfishly feel comforted by it.

Turning to Malia, I wait for any type of refusal from her over what we have to do. She nods, her eyes apprehensive but determined. We weren't sure if we could do it, but we'd try. We could always try.

"I'm with you," I whisper to her. 

She gives me an appreciative look before clenching her jaw, setting her sights on the trail of blood and silver Tracy left behind. Side by side, we follow it out of the main room and down a dark hall. It stops at the entrance door to the basement. I move first, holding it open while taking a step inside and allowing Malia to pass me before following. There's a shuffling noise coming from inside the lower room, telling us that Tracy hadn't gotten too far.

As we descended the steps, Malia flicks her hands, drawing out her claws as Tracy's trail eventually leads us right to her. She doesn't realize we're across from her at first, too busy dragging an unconscious Miss Martin away, but soon senses our presence. Her head snaps up and she lets out a threatening hiss as she tosses the woman's body aside.

Half of Tracy's face is covered in scales and she has a set of fangs that throw me off because they appeared like that of a werewolf. They weren't skinny and sharp like a kanimas were supposed to be, they were blunt and thick, perfect for tearing into the throat of caught prey.

I can't analyze her any further, not as Malia and I fall into defensive positions when she makes crude clicking noises and flashes her true eyes at us, her iris slimming down into the telltale reptilian slit of a kanima. Malia shifts, her eyes shining blue and claws being bared before she lunges at Tracy. 

She swipes at her head but Tracy ducks out of the way, crouching on all fours to face Malia in a defensive position. That leaves her completely open to an attack from behind, and I use that to my advantage as I stomp on the healing nub of her tail that was slowly shrinking back into her spine. Tracy yelps in agony and spins to viciously hiss at me.

I cut her off by striking the baton in my hands across her face. She rapidly shakes her head at the impact, forcing composure as she tries to clear herself from the direct hit. Malia uses that to grab the scruff of her neck and toss her away from us for some breathing room. 

"How are we supposed to wake her up?" Malia questions me, her fangs only making her sound more frustrated.

Tracy leaps back to her feet and charges at us before I can answer. She goes for Malia first, but her blow doesn't land when the coyote catches her wrist, yanking her into one of the shelves of evidence boxes nearby. Malia holds her there by one of her arms and I rush over to grab the other, both of us keeping Tracy in place as she glares with volcanic eyes.

"Tracy!" I attempt to bring some sort of recognition forth, but nothing happens. She continues to struggle and uses her legs to kick at us.

I'm pushed back, grunting as I deal with her foot firmly planted in my gut. Malia is able to keep her composure and moves to toss Tracy into a wall. However, Tracy's agility helps her to sprint across it and use it as a leaping point rather than smash into its surface. She uses her newfound leverage to swing Malia away and into one of the shelves, the entire thing tipping over with her on top. Malia cries out as she lands, the metal rows digging into her side.

Tracy moves to attack her again in her fallen state so I sneak behind her. I raise the baton in the air and bring it down brutally onto the side of her knee. Tracy shrieks as her stance buckles and she drops to the vinyl floor. I wrap my arms around her, placing the baton over her neck and snapping it back to keep her in a tight chokehold with it. Her hisses fade as she loses her breath, and her body shakes hurriedly to escape. 

Malia rises from the shelves, and with one swift movement, stomps at Tracy's chest to bring her down. She and I both topple to the floor and I tighten my grip on the baton, while also wrapping my legs with hers. It prevents her from attacking Malia further as she climbs onto her, holding down her arms while her knee is pressed into her throat.

She's back into her half-shifted state, her furious blue eyes shining as they leer down at Tracy. I can feel her weight digging into the kanima above me as she forces the baton in my hands into her neck deeper.

It would be easy for us to end this here. Malia could tear into Tracy, or I could snap her neck with one move. That very thought fills me with a lethal amount of self-hatred because my instinct should be to help her, but it wasn't, and it wasn't Malia's either. Both of us wanted to make her pay for what she did to Lydia, and keep her from hurting any more of our friends, and death would be a permanent solution, but it wasn't our right to make that choice.

Thinking of Gerard earlier made me lock up, but yet my mind brought thoughts of him forward again. It was to remind me of what we were fighting for. It was to protect people like Tracy from people like him, people who craved power and considered innocent lives nothing more than collateral damage. Malia and I didn't get a choice in the lives we took, and neither did Tracy.

She wasn't our enemy. She was just lost, too. 

I can feel the moment when the both of us ease up on Tracy. It's the moment when her hisses and growls turn into moans and whimpers, reminding us that she was only human.

The blue of Malia's eyes disappears, and tears begin to well up in their place. She doesn't want to hurt Tracy, and neither do I. We share a look, confirming our choice, and that's all it takes before we both pull away from Tracy completely. Malia stands and I slide out from under her. Tracy curls in on herself, reaching up to hold her neck as she coughs and gasps, desperate for air I had stolen from her.

"Tracy? Tracy?" Malia gets her attention. 

Tracy's gaze snaps up at the sound of her voice, as if she was only now aware we were with her, and begins to crawl backward, staring at us with wide eyes.

"No, no," Malia urges her, holding her hands up innocently. "Look at me. You're not dreaming. This is real. All of this is real. You get it? You get that?" 

"You're not dreaming, Tracy," Malia cries softly. She sounds as terrified as Tracy looks, yet also grateful. It took a lot for her to be able to let go of a kill, and when our eyes meet for a brief second, I give her a proud look for it.

"What... What's happening to me?" Tracy whispers fearfully.

"We don't know," I tell her honestly. "But we'll help you figure it out, because it's what we do."

I hold my hand out to her, an offer to help her up. She hesitates, but accepts after a moment of thought and allows me to lift her from the floor. The two of us exchange a gentle smile as we stand together. That gentleness is ripped away as a masked figure appears out of nowhere, driving a lengthy needle of a metal syringe gun into Tracy's neck.

It happens so quickly, I barely register any of it, not until someone grabs me by the throat and slams me into a wall to pin me. They keep me in place there, and even though I attempt to shove their hands away and kick at their chest, they don't move a muscle.

A third masked figure comes out of the shadows, the tips of their gloved hand glowing with a metallic sizzle as they grip Malia's head, driving her skull into the wall. She growls and grunts, struggling as I am to free herself, but not even she can succeed. That fills me with an amount of terror I didn't even know was possible, because sometimes Malia was even stronger than Scott.

Their thick metal masks have an array of lines and lenses differentiating them from each other while their dressed head to toe in leather garb, sets of tubes and bolts running across their bodies as if they were more machine than man.

"Jac!" Malia roars, but her voice becomes distant as black spots start to fill my vision from the severe lack of oxygen I was taking in.

The hand on my neck eases up, allowing me to breathe. It was a relief for only a second as I felt it twisting around my throat to move my head in Tracy's direction. The figure holding Malia does the same, both of them forcing us to watch the scene.

Tracy falls to her knees, the silvery substance she spilled earlier now pouring out of her mouth at a high rate as she seemingly drowns in it.

"Her condition is terminal." The figure that holds her speaks, the attached lenses of his mask twitching as he looks between Malia and I. He draws out the needle from her neck, allowing Tracy to fully collapse to the floor.

Her brown eyes stare up at me, lifeless.

The man that injected her turns, walking down a hall that leads to a dead end. I hear a faint buzzing come from him, and I wasn't sure if it was the oxygen deprivation or what, but his body seemingly glitches out of reality as he disappears before my very eyes.

The hand on my neck twists again, making me look into the multiple glass lenses of their helmet, three in total. The largest one is on the side of their helmet but the tinted color doesn't allow me to peer into it. I find myself hoping it's merely a fashion statement, and they don't have a third eye under there, twitching at me from out of view. 

"Memento Mori," says the faceless woman behind the mask. 

Spots dip into my vision again, and her hand around my throat shakes me. She's making sure I'm awake to hear this.

"Memento Mori," she repeats, her voice robotic. 

She releases me after that, allowing me to slip to the floor next to Tracy.

My hand comes up to my neck, cradling the bruising flesh as I gasp for air as Tracy had done less than a minute ago. That's all it took for them to kill her. Less than a minute.

The man holding Malia lets her go, too, allowing her to slide to the floor. He walks with the woman, both of them marching down the hall where the first man had evaporated. They disappear in a similar glitching manner, confirming what I saw the first time wasn't a hallucination.

Malia stares at Tracy, tears streaming down her cheeks as she gazes at her corpse.

"We saved her... we saved her," Malia whispers in disbelief. 

"Malia-" I have to stop myself from speaking, ferocious coughs interrupting me. My mouth tastes faintly of blood when the fit ends.

I don't know what makes me do it, but I crawl over Tracy's body and place her head on my lap. It's a desperate attempt to offer her a moment of comfort even if she wasn't alive to cherish it, because no one deserved a death like hers. Dying on her knees, surrounded by strangers, it was something I'd only wish on my worst enemy, and that wasn't Tracy.

"We saved her," Malia repeats once more, utterly defeated.

Memento Mori, the woman's words echo in my head over and over again, and a deep sense of dread fills me because of it.

Remember you will die.

~

||| A/N |||

Jac & Liam's peaceful honeymoon phase is officially coming to an end, hope yall enjoyed it while it lasts. The doctors are in.

vote or comment if ya want! 

<3