While he thought she was asleep, Stiles kissed Kara on the forehead, despite her misguided anger towards him, and murmured a quick I love you as he tucked her blankets more tightly around her body. She stirred, sitting up in her bed and rubbing her eyes tiredly. Seeing she was actually awake, he sat on the edge of her bed and smiled awkwardly.

"So you know, huh?" He asked. She rolled her eyes but laughed nonetheless. "Yeah. I was mad about it at first, but it wasn't your place to tell me. And it took me thinking I was going to die to realize that." She explained. Her brother stood up and walked towards the door, grinning. "I gotta go take the PSAT, but have a good day, okay? You deserve a break from all the supernatural crap." He told her.

"And besides, it's only three hours. What could happen in three hours?"

—

Apparently, a lot could happen in three hours, because barely forty five minutes after Stiles left for the test, as Kara listened to her father's police scanner out of boredom, the CDC was called to the high school for an emergency. She ran down the stairs, nearly tripping and bashing her head open, and grabbed her bike from the garage. She sped to school with terror gripping her heart and a need to find out what was going on.

When she pulled into the parking lot, she threw the bike down and raced to her father. Before she could reach him, an officer intercepted her.

"Get off me! I need to- Dad! Dad, make him let me in!" She yelled to the sheriff, who rushed over upon seeing her. "Sir, this girl just tried to get in." The officer holding her arm stated. Her father rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know. She's mine. Let her through." He ordered and moved the crime scene tape so she could duck under it.

"Karina Irene, what the hell are you doing here?" He demanded once they were out of earshot. "Dad, something's happening. I can tell something bad is going to happen." She rushed. Then, a very frazzled Lydia Martin came up to the father-daughter pair. Her green eyes were wide and terrified. "She's right," the banshee agreed. "Someone's going to die in there. You need to let her inside so she can save them, Stiles included." She finished.

"Dad, please." Kara begged. "I can't let anyone get hurt." Her father huffed, looking to the sky like he wondered why this was happening, and muttered, "Go. But be right out. You get twenty minutes."

She breathed a sigh of relief and took off in a sprint around the side of the school, away from all the people to where she could get in without being seen, quietly pulling open a side door. The small brunette crept through the deserted hallways, looking for her brother, when she caught her brother's scent. She followed the familiarity of it, into an empty classroom, where Stiles and a man she didn't know stood about three feet apart.

"Still a bit clammy, Mr. Stilinski?" The man asked as she moved deeper into the room. "You should know something: the virus doesn't kill humans. You'll get better." He said, voice low and sour. She chose then to make her presence known.

"Stiles?" She called, eyes wide. Her brother's gaze snapped to her. "Kara, you shouldn't be here. Go!" He exclaimed, about to cross the room to her, but the man pulled out a gun. "Don't. Move." He ordered, waving the gun in her direction. Whether it be courageous or idiotic, she stepped in front of Stiles, despite the fact that she was a foot shorter than him.

The gunman had a sick sort of smile on his face. "Don't you think you should tell me where your friends are? Shouldn't at least the two of you get to live?" He taunted, with the handgun pointed at the center of the boy's face. Stiles, stupidly loyal Stiles, responded, "I think I saw them in the library. Or it might've been the cafeteria. It was definitely one of those two."

The smile fell from the assassin's face. "I'm going to count to three, and then I'm going to kill her, then you." He declared. She felt her brother tense up behind her, and she heard his heart rate quicken. "Think you can scare me?" The elder Stilinski snapped. The man chuckled humorlessly. "No, I think I can kill you. I just thought the countdown would be more exciting." He replied, and flicked the safety off the gun, aiming the muzzle at her forehead.

But Kara wasn't afraid. She was angry, and as he took a breath to start counting, she ground her teeth in preparation.

"One." Her muscles tightned, and before he could even say a syllable of two, she had lunged, grabbing his wrist in her hand with incredible speed, and snapped the bone in half. The gun slid easily into her hand. Without hesitation, she pointed it at his face and fired. His hot, thick blood splattered over her face, and she dropped the gun to the floor.

She had just killed someone.

As the man's body fell, Stiles spun her around to face him, and she could tell by the movement of his lips that he was talking, but she didn't hear a thing. She just stood there, staring at the stray drops of blood that had attached themselves to his skin.

The blood that was once in someone's body. Someone that she just shot and killed. She was a murderer.

"-Kara. Hey, Kara, listen. Look at me Kara. Kara!" Stiles's voice finally fought through her thoughts and reached her brain, and she looked at him like he was speaking gibberish. "We need to go to the Hale vault, Kara. The cure is in there, but we have to hurry." He told her, and she nodded dumbly. His hand clasped around her wrist and he dragged her through the hallways, down into the basement.

There was a large, swirling pattern on one of the walls that didn't seem to have been there by accident. Her brother banged against it. "Hey, Scott? Scotty, in the vault, in there with you, is the antidote. It's called reishi mushrooms. Scott? Scott, open the door!" He yelled, pounding on the symbol. Meanwhile, she leaned against the wall, eyes locked on her hands as her head throbbed.

Suddenly, they flashed red, covered in blood. She jumped, trying to wipe them off on her jeans, but the blood wouldn't come off. It wouldn't come off, no matter how hard she rubbed, even when she scratched at the skin with her fingernails. It was like the blood was tattooed there. It didn't matter that she had summoned her claws and was gouging at her palms- the blood would not come off.

A shrill, wailing scream came from her throat when the pressure in her head became too much. She howled and cried until her throat was too raw to make another sound. Then, everything faded to black and her body fell, limp, to the floor.

—

Her eyes fluttered open, irises permanently a bright silver, and she seemed groggy and slow, as if she'd taken a nap that lasted an entire afternoon. She felt a warm and soft pressure on her hand, and another all along one side of her, sort of like a body pillow. Turning her head slightly to the left, she saw that she was in Stiles's room, with him curled up next to her on the bed, seemingly asleep.

She was surprised to notice that the rest of the pack, including Scott, Lydia, Liam, and Kira, but not Malia, all sprawled in various positions around the room, far into the land of dreams. The blue-eyed beta was stretched across the foot of the bed, half his body on top of her legs. He clung to the sheets at her feet, tense despite his sleeping state.

Although, as his eyes opened, she realized that he was awake, too. His gaze landed on her, and when he jerked his head towards the door, he sent a silent message, asking, Do you want to get out of here for a few minutes? She nodded and began the task of untangling herself from her brother without waking him. It was slow and tense work, and with every tiny move he made, she had to stop to make sure he stayed asleep. Eventually, she was free, and the two freshmen tiptoed over the sleeping bodies on their way out of the room.

Kara led him to her bedroom next door, motioning for him to sit down on the bed. She climbed up towards the headboard and sat atop the pillows; he surprised the both of them when he grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. She send him what she hoped was a thankful smile, but she didn't have much practice with those, so it most likely looked more like a grimace. Tilting awkwardly to the side, she reached under the bed and grabbed her cardboard box of midnight snacks. It held a half-empty package of Thin Mints, a gallon sized bag of Swedish fish, several miscellaneous chocolatey candies, and a box of Cheezits that she had yet to open. She held the large cardboard box out to the boy, and he timidly selected a Snickers bar.

Opening the Cheezits and popping one in her mouth, she asked, "So, how long was I out?" Liam looked uncomfortable at the question, and he wouldn't meet her intense silver gaze, which was new to him; he was used to seeing the lovely honey brown irises that she always used to have. "About a day and a half," He answered shortly. She choked on her cracker, coughing and hacking, until she finally swallowed it down and looked at him like he was crazy.

"A day and a half?" She exclaimed, then remembered that her brother was in the next room, and the walls were very thin, and whispered, "A day and a half?" He nodded. "Yeah, Stiles said that you were thrashing and yelling and clawing at everyone after you went unconscious. He had to get Scott to break your arm, and then you just... stopped. Everyone's been on different shifts watching you since then. I was second, after Stiles. The only reason he even let me watch overyou was because he knew how much I- how tired he was, I mean." The beta explained.

"How'd everyone else end up in there, then?" She asked. "Everyone was really worried about you. When you didn't wake up..." He trailed off, shrugging. Kara smirked. "Even you?" She teased. He blushed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, but I think Stiles got an ulcer from worrying so much." He changed the subject quickly.

"When you were out, you opened your eyes once, and they were literally glowing. You said this one word. It sounded like a name, and it started with a G, I'm pretty sure. After that, you just passed out again. Scared the shit out of me." He added, still avoiding her eyes.

"Guenivere," she breathed, eyebrows furrowed. "That was it! Is it a name?" He questioned, making her nod grimly. "It's a name, alright." She muttered. He looked confused. "Whose is it? And why do you seem so upset about it?"

"My mother's." She spat, causing him to frown at her tone. "Do you not want to talk about her? You don't have to." Liam told her, and reached out to place his hand over hers; she quickly yanked her hand away. "Um, no thank you." He froze, muttering a quick sorry. "Are you okay, though?" He asked quietly. She shrugged. "I'll be okay, eventually. Like just sucks, you know?" She muttered.

"Are we going to talk about what happened in the well?" He asked, fishing for some clue as to how this girl, this enigma of a girl who confused him so much, felt about him. She sent him a look that said, are you kidding me? and rolled her eyes. "Nothing worth talking about happened, as far as I'm concerned. You took some of my pain away— which, remember, I didn't ask you to do — and then we got out. That's it." She brushed him off, stuffing a handful of Cheezits into her mouth.

Shaking his head and trying not to feel hurt, he said, "That's not it, and you know it, Kara. I kissed you, and you kissed me back! Come on, tell me you didn't feel anything." His words were pleading and made her feel like throwing up. She wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders and exclaimed, "I don't know how I feel! Actually, yes I do. You confuse me. That's how I feel. And right now, I feel like I need to be alone!"

Kara didn't realize how loud she was being, but the second Stiles, followed by Lydia, who had grabbed onto the back of his shirt, barreled into the room, she knew that her outburst had been too loud. Her brother looked at Liam with a hatred she had never seen before, and, dragging him off the bed with one hand holding the beta's collar, her brother yanked him away from her.

"What the hell," Stiles seethed, "did you do?" The younger boy seemed terrified as both Kara and Lydia attempted to calm the elder Stilinski. "Stiles, don't. Please, he didn't do anything. I got upset, but it was all me." The brunette said, tugging on his arm until he let go. "Liam, you need to go." He ordered, scarily calm. With a single glance toward her, Liam took off out the door.

"Are you okay?" Stiles demanded, holding the sides of his sister's face. She nodded. "I'm fine. Seriously. Don't hate him, or beat him up, or murder him. I already gave him enough shit." She begged. He rolled his eyes and looked into her own. "Oh, God, Kara. What's going on? Why are your eyes silver?" He asked. She shrugged and pulled away from him. "I don't know. Can we just- can I just sleep? We can talk in the morning." She pleaded.

"Fine, but we're going to Deaton first thing." He warned, before leaving her room. Lydia remained where she was, and looked down at the shorter girl sympathetically. "Do you want me to stay? The strawberry blonde asked. Kara nodded. "If you don't mind. Just until I fall asleep."

With Lydia's warm presence, the brunette was asleep in minutes.

this is such a yikes chapter ew

but im highkey sure my hair was used in a ritual sacrifice bc a hunk of it is chopped off I'm scared

-hales!