TW: blood & violence (tbh it's not that bad, but better safe than sorry <3)

As I stand from my crouched position, the stitches in my side sting from the movement. I take deep breaths as I prepare myself for what's to come, and with each one, I numb myself to the sensation.

Liam and Brett eye me curiously, unsure of what I was doing. I avoid looking their way as I speak in a hushed voice, knowing the wolves around me could hear it.

"Everyone stay down," I mutter. "It'll be okay."

Liam instantly understands my words. He lunges to grab me and hold me back, but Brett reaches for him before he can reach for me. It's only then do I freely step out into the open. 

The bearded man notices me first, his pistol poised in the air toward me.

"Shoot her!"

With rapid and light steps I charge toward the assassins. I duck as they begin to shoot, already close enough to them where the range on their guns is becoming useless. Pistols like theirs aren't meant for close-range combat, and they could easily shoot each other by accident as I get between them.

I slip under the bearded man's outstretched arms toward the bald man, my ears ringing from the proximity of gunfire. I grip the wrist of his arm that wields his gun, aiming it toward the sky. He's desperate and pulls the trigger anyway, bullets flying overhead. His fear is making him rely too heavily on his gun, and he leaves himself completely open for attack. 

I strike quickly, driving the base of my forearm into his throat. He chokes and gasps for air, unable to fight back as I disarm him and take his weapon for my own. I pin one of his arms behind his back for leverage as I swap our bodies. His slender frame becomes a makeshift shield as his fellow assassins aim their guns our way.

"Let him go," the woman tries to command fiercely.

It's obvious she's never done anything like this before, yet she thinks she's untouchable. I almost want to taunt her and goad her into shooting. She didn't have the skills necessary to make this complex of a shot, and she'd only end up killing the man in front of me. I save her from that embarrassment and send one singular shot into her thigh. It's not a fatal injury but it's enough to subdue her until I can get closer.

The quake of the pistol and the feeling of pulling a trigger spikes my adrenaline. I barely register her painful howling.

She staggers back and her pistol drops to the ground. She whimpers pathetically as she clutches at her thigh in an attempt to control the bleeding. Her unearned confidence is long gone.

The bald man lets out gurgled pleas for me to stop and tries to worm his way out of my hold. I kick at the back of his legs so he falls. One powerful hit to his temple with the butt of his own pistol is all it takes before he's napping in the dirt.

The bearded man was distracted by the woman, so his attention is half on me, half on her. When he senses me advancing he turns to swing at my head.

I drop to dodge his hit, seeing it coming from a mile away. At my new height, I unsheathe the push-dagger from my sleeve and sink it into the side of his knee. I twist the steel in his body, creating a wound to immobilize him. He cries out and tries to whack me over the head with his pistol, but he lacks the speed necessary for the hit to land. I rise and take hold of his arm to aim the pistol away, a few shots being fired into the dirt.

He struggles and I can feel my grip loosening so I know I need to act fast.

I stomp on his injured knee with the sole of my boot, my dagger that's still embedded in him forcefully plunging itself deeper. He buckles under the pressure, involuntarily kneeling at my feet.

"You're human," the man sneers through clenched teeth, disgust coating every word.

He was disgusted that I was defending werewolves because he deemed them less than us. He didn't see them as real living human beings, he only saw them as monsters. Sadly, for him, the only actual monster here besides him and his companions, was me.

I swiftly lift my knee and press it against his upper chest. I push him backward with it while also pulling his arm toward me. The look in his eyes is almost comical as he realizes what's about to happen.

We both groan as I yank at his arm strenuously, making it stiff as a board in the armbar I had him locked in. When I know I have the proper hold on him, I twist myself and his arm, dropping the full weight of my body against his pinned limb.

As his bone snaps in two, his pistol drops from his hand and his excruciating yells fill the woods.

Before I withdraw my knee from his chest, I kick at his body. He falls onto his back and lets out panicked curses under his breath as he tries to tend to his broken arm. I can see hateful words forming on his thin lips as he glares up at me, making me send a sideward kick into his temple with the blunt end of my boot.

Now, there's only one.

When she notices she's the last, the woman scrambles for her discarded pistol. She aims it at me but a forceful kick to her wrist is all it takes for her weapon to go flying off to the side.

She openly sobs as she begins to crawl away from me. A trail of dark blood coats the fallen leaves she drags herself on. She isn't aware she's backing up into the base of a tree until she hits it, gasping at the contact.

I stand over her, the man's pistol still gripped in my hand.

The sound of feet shuffling against leaves echo through the clearing. Dozens of yellow eyes come out from the shadows, shining brighter than the stars above.

"How can you defend them?" she whimpers between cries.

Deaton pushes past members of Satomi's pack, his eyes going from mine to the gun in my hand. He knows the things I've done, and I can see on his face that he's wondering if old habits die hard.

"They're demons!" the woman shrieks, staring at the wolves as if they were surrounding her like sharks in open water, her blood luring them in.

I shake my head at her. "I've seen demons."

Deucalion. Kate. Allison.

A demon didn't have to be vile and grotesque, it could also be regret, longing, and even salvation. Demons created a special breed of hell in my soul, and I allowed them to because there was a time when that hell was all I had, but not anymore.

The creatures she called demons were the creatures that gave me something to fight for; live for. They had saved me, and they were my friends. She didn't know what a demon was, because if she did, she would know they were nothing to fear.

"You have no idea what they look like." I twist the pistol in my hand, slamming the base into the side of her skull. She slumps against the tree behind her, and silence fills the air.

The burn of a fight courses through me. My stitched skin aches after the rough treatment my body went through, and I can feel the dampness of blood splatter on my hands from when I stabbed the man in the knee. I can only assume I reek of gunpowder after firing.

I don't let it phase me, though, because we're not done yet.

"Take the truck, get them out of here," I direct the order to Deaton. He clears his throat after a moment, tearing his eyes away from me to turn to Satomi's pack.

"Everyone move quickly, we need to get you all out of the open."

They rush toward the assassin's vehicle, stepping over their fallen bodies. Most of them ignore making eye contact with me, except Brett. Lori is at his side, already appearing better than she had a few minutes ago. Her apple cheeks are filling with color, and she has a barely-there smile as she clings to her brother's arm.

Neither of them says anything, but Brett and I share a look of appreciation for one another. I tilt my head towards the truck to silently tell him to join his pack. He lifts Lori into the bed with the others, then follows himself. They're all crammed in the back and cab, but I know Deaton will get them to the clinic safely.

They pull out of the clearing soon enough, heading to where the truck had entered from. Liam comes to my side as they go, but I don't look at him. I can't look at him. Not yet, at least.

Instead, I reach into my pocket and shove my phone into his hands.

"Get the sheriff for me," I request stiffly.

I part from him, going to kneel in front of the woman. I take off the thin jacket she wore and tie it around her thigh to help stop the bleeding from her wound. None of them deserved to die out here. They deserved to rot in a cell for the rest of their lives, and spend every day knowing that they'll never be free again.

I start to pat her down, too, making sure she didn't have any other weapons on her. If she woke up before the sheriff got here, I didn't want to have any surprises.

"Um, hey, Mister Sheriff," I hear Liam say awkwardly from behind me. "Jac wants to talk to you."

The sheriff's voice crackles through the speaker of my phone. He sounds both panicked and annoyed, his usual mixture of emotions as of late.

"Jac? What's going on?" he asks. 

"I've got three assassins for you at Lookout Point," I speak loudly so he can hear me, going from the woman to the other men. 

I use my boot and kick the bearded man's head, just to be sure he was still out. When he doesn't react, I start to pat him down for weapons, too. I found a small knife in his pocket, but nothing else. I also take my push-dagger out from his knee and wipe it off on his shirt before slipping it into my sleeve.

I go to the bald man's limp body next, coming up empty on my search for a secondary weapon.

"These bastards are coming out of the woodworks," Stilinski fumes, and I hum lowly in agreement. 

"Please tell me you gave them a proper welcome," he adds.

"Laid out the welcome mat and everything," I respond with a hint of sarcasm as I pick up the discarded pistol from the woman and bearded man.

"That's my girl." The Sheriff chuckles and I find a smile growing on my face at his words.

There's some rifling on the other end, a sign of his movement. 

"You guys stay put, I'm coming to you now," Stilinski declares before hanging up. I take my phone back from Liam after and continue to avoid his eyes as I walk away. 

There's a boulder near the edge of the cliff that I move to sit on, putting the pile of weapons I collected at my feet. My back is to the view of the town, that way I can keep an eye on the passed-out assassins. With Liam here, I wasn't risking them sneaking up on me. 

I rest my hands on my knees and take a moment to glare down at the blood that painted them. It didn't only belong to the man from when I stabbed him, some of it was mine from when I had punched the ground above the vault.

I only stop when Liam comes to sit directly in front of me on the ground. I finally find it within myself to look at him, discovering a neutral expression that I can't read. 

He holds his hands out to mine, hovering an inch above.

"Can I?" he asks, referring to whether or not he could touch me.

I pause for a second, unsure of what he was doing, but nod anyway.

Liam gingerly takes my hands into his. He pulls down the sleeve of his hoodie, and with the fabric, he wipes away the damp blood that hadn't dried onto my skin yet. His focus remains on cleaning my hands, while my eyes never leave his face.

After this morning, when we stopped at his house for him to change, I was plenty surprised to see that he didn't gel his hair like he normally did. The heavy amount of product always caught light more easily, and had a way of making his hair appear a few shades lighter. Liam had fairly darker hair, in all actuality. The deep brunet color only helped to amplify the structure of his features under the moonlight; the slope of his nose, the determination of his jaw, the care in his eyes.

"You shouldn't have gone off on your own," he mutters, breaking my concentration on him. 

His words hold slight disappointment. Though, it wasn't disappointment for what I had done to the assassins, but disappointment because I didn't ask for his help.

"I need to keep you safe," I admit softly. 

I bow my head as I speak, feeling as if I was confessing a secret. I was admitting to him that there was a part of me that called out to protect him. It wasn't the same as it was with the others in Scott's pack, this was stronger and more desperate, and I couldn't allow anyone to exploit that vulnerability. If they did, I would lose him, as I had already lost so many others.

"I don't want to lose anyone else," I add truthfully.

Liam's movements still until he's just holding my hands. He doesn't press me to say anything else, only caresses my skin with the pad of his thumb to comfort me.

I couldn't help but appear confused, unable to remember a time when I felt someone touch me as intimately as he does.

My eyes go from our joined hands to his lovely eyes, holding his stare. The stars and moon are reflected in his gaze as he looks upward at me, and I wonder if the galaxy above has ever seen a beauty like his before, but can't imagine it has. 

Liam smiles as he puts his sole focus on the sky. He removes one of his hands from mine to point toward it.

"I think that's the Little Dipper," he grins. 

I peer up to see the cluster he was talking about, and watch as one of the "stars" flickers consistently with a millisecond gap in between and continues on a path west. Liam winces and promptly retracts his hand that was aimed at a passing plane. 

I laugh at his expense and start to search for a constellation to show him, hating his lingering frown of disappointment. I spot three consecutive stars easily, and point at them for him.

"That's Orion. You can see his belt, the three stars," I say, smiling to myself as Liam squints in their direction. 

I take my eyes off him to glance at the assassins, being sure they were still unconscious. I didn't want stargazing to be the reason Liam got hurt. 

Liam squeezes my hand, subtly telling me to focus on him, and only him. 

"You know constellations?" he asks. 

I'm silent for a brief moment, his question holding more layers to it than he intended.

My family had been the ones to teach me about the stars and the stories they held. Most nights we would shut off all the lights in the cabins, and lay outside to stare up at the sky in complete darkness. My uncles would hang large hammocks across the trees for my cousins and I to lay on, and they would rock us back and forth as we listened to them talk for hours.

I would fall asleep outside but wake up in my bed the next morning, tucked away under thick sheets. I felt safe then and that feeling had been lost on me for so long, but here with Liam, I felt it once more.

"My family, they taught me. We used to sit outside at night for hours and just talk about the stars," I tell him. 

At the mention of my family, a meaningful smile grows on Liam's lips.

"Show me another one?" His attention is aimed upward, and I comply without hesitation.

"Lupus, the wolf." I trace the outline of the constellation for him, and his eyes track my every move. "Some hunters say that's actually Lycaon."

My family wasn't the only one to tell me that story. Gerard had also referenced the legend during my training under the Argents. I ignored the memory of him, though, and use Liam's voice to ground me in the present.

"Lycaon?" he echoes the name with confusion.

"He was a man who once tried to trick Zeus into eating human flesh," I say, making Liam cringe. Despite his mild disgust, he also seems interested to understand, so I make the effort to explain it to him. 

"Zeus was so angry at the trick that he turned Lycaon and his sons into wolves," I begin.

"Lycaon searched for druids to help turn him back, but they could only teach him how to shift between forms, so he and his sons became the first werewolves."

I repeated the story I had been told, and Liam seemed so engrossed in my words. He leaned closer to me as I spoke, as if my voice was luring him in. I take my eyes off him for a second, only to settle my gaze on the moon beside the constellation. 

The half-illuminated sphere stared down at us with elegance. Its power was a secret to most, but people like Liam and I understood its true purpose.

"After Lycaon died, Zeus threw him into the sky as a constant reminder to the other wolves of the price they had to pay for his greed. They'll always be drawn to the moon and the impulses it brings, and if they can't control it..." I trail off, both of us already aware of the damage werewolves were capable of.

Liam glances over his shoulder at the assassins for a second. When he turns back to me, he traces his thumb against a few old scars that were laid across my knuckles.

"It's almost cruel how something so beautiful can bring so much destruction." He looks between me and the moon, and I begin to wonder which of us he's talking about.

Unable to meet his eyes, my focus is only on our combined hands.

There isn't any mark or blemish; a single scar or callus on his skin. It's a stark contrast to my own. Despite that, he holds my hand as if it's just as unscathed as his. He holds it as if it isn't a weapon of violence and death.

I reach for him with my other hand, my movements steady as I touch his fist enclosed in mine.

I feel my heartbeat pick up, the small interaction enough to overload my senses. I have the urge to pull away completely, limit the contact of my skin against his, and crawl back into my shell, but I resist. I ignore the part of me that considers isolation an illusion of safety.

Liam's skin is soft and warm; inviting. It's oddly thrilling and I find myself wanting to never pull away. I begin to drag my finger down his arm against his wrist, tracing the veins under his skin. Liam's breath hitches lowly at the slow graze, and our eyes meet at the sound. 

Neither of us speaks yet, the wind filling our silence. It carries the existence of nature around us. The scent of sap leaking from the trees, the rolling of fallen leaves, the call of distant birds returning now that the gunfire has settled.

It reminds me of home.

"Tell me more about the stars, Jac," Liam whispers, and an inexplicable sense of belonging washes over me at the sound of his voice.

He reminds me of home.

~

||| A/N |||

vote and/or comment if you'd like!

I might be editing it later so sorry if you see minor changes to fix errors. I'm just having a bad week and it's only Tuesday lmao. I have a good portion of the next part written so that'll be up soon (and this time I genuinely mean it haha)

<3