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.*･｡. AN ODE TO CLARK KENT .*･｡.
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013.
ARROWS AND AMBER.
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——

    "You're tracking them by print?"

   Scott nodded and then thought about it, "Well, trying to."

   Having convinced Chris to help them when he had seen the kid from the pools carted away in a bodybag, he had driven Lois and Scott back to the woods to get started on finding Boyd and Cora.

   Derek and Isaac hadn't been far behind. Surprisingly, the type of tension between Derek and Chris hadn't been as overwhelming as Lois had expected to to be — they weren't pals, by any means, but the hunter wasn't trying to shoot and the alpha wasn't so much as baring his teeth. Actually, they were acting rather civil. She had thought they'd be killing each other, by now, but they had proved her wrong. Lois was impressed. 

   The hunter had brought with him a bag of supplies, ones that he had conveniently in the trunk of his car amongst the bags of their groceries. He had thrown the duffle bag onto the ground as he'd crouched down, looking at the foot prints with scrutiny.

     "Well, then you've been wasting your time."

    Derek looked mildly offended by the comment but had chosen to keep his mouth firmly shut, while Scott looked closely at all of the prints they had been tracking. He looked interested, wanting to know how and why they had gone wrong, and waited for Argent to explain it to them. Isaac, however... well— Isaac looked bored.

   Rolling her eyes at the blank expression adorning his face, Lois refocused her attention on Chris Argent.

    The man shrugged as he pulled himself to a stand and Scott mirrored it, "There's only one creature on earth that can visually track footprints, and that's man."

   Now that Scott had stood and was back in his original place in their semi-circle, Lois was in between him and Isaac, the latter of the wolves leaning on a tree quite leisurely. He was fiddling with a quarter, again. It had vaguely reminded Lois of the time they had gone to the morgue to get Jackson after his corpse had started to build itself a cocoon. When he had started moving, Lois had been in between Isaac and Scott — once again, she was planted firmly in the middle as they tried to figure out what they were going to do to try and stop their issues from getting worse. It seemed that she was often in the middle; Lois wondered why, but she wasn't quite sure. She knew that Scott wanted to protect her at all times, seeing as she hadn't listened to him when he'd advised her to leave and go to Stiles and Lydia, but she didn't know about Isaac.

   They had saved each other a few times...

   But they had tried to kill one another, equally as many.

     "And if you're not trained like me—" Argent continued his prior statement as he pointed at the two sets of prints, "Then you have no idea that this print is Boyd's, and these—"

   Isaac interrupted him, "—are Cora's."

     "Nope— they're yours." The man told him. Isaac furrowed his brow and stood up straight, squinting down at the prints and then comparing them to the sole of his shoes. "You trampled Cora's as soon as you walked over here."

    "Natural born hunter," Lois snickered at him. "Good job."

   The beta sent her a sarcastic smile, and rolled his eyes when she returned it. They both returned their attention back to Argent.

    "Listen, I know the three of you are focusing half your energy on resisting your own urges under the full moon..." Chris said, his words aimed at the three werewolves. It was true, they had all been resisting. "...but that puts you at a severe disadvantage to Boyd and Cora, who have fully given in. They've put the pedal to the floor, whereas you three are barely hitting the speed limit."

    "I'm totally fine," Lois was smug. "Perks of not being half dog? We don't get any urges, on a full moon."

   Scott tried to hide a smile while Derek and Isaac shot her mildly irritated looks. But it didn't seem to dampen her attitude and she straightened her back, tossing her crossbow from hand to hand.

    "You're not half dog," Chris agreed, "But you still need to work on your aim, Lois. It was a bit sloppy, last time I saw you shoot."

   She narrowed her eyes at him, slightly.

   Chris hadn't seen Lois shoot since the night they had fought off Gerard and the kanima, and even then she had been a pretty good shot — he had told her, so. From that night, Lois had been sparing a couple of days a week to work with the crossbow he had given her. She hadn't expected anything supernatural to come; Lois had just wanted to be prepared, to be able to protect herself and her father if she needed to. And she had gotten good. Really good, in fact. She was no hunter, and she was certainly no Argent, but Lois was slick with a crossbow. It had shown when she shot at Cora and met her mark twice, and when she had shot the kanima right in the temple many months ago. If that was sloppy, then Lois Lane didn't know what wasn't sloppy.

   Noticing the way Isaac smirked at her, she lifted her crossbow and shot an arrow — he barely dodged it, the arrow whizzing past his ear, and he breathed heavily as it lodged itself dead and centre in the bark of the tree. She smiled at him, tightly, then at Chris.

    "Better?"

   He nodded, "Better."

    "Hey—! You could have killed me!"

   Lois scoffed at Isaac, "You're fine. I didn't even aim for you,"

    "I nearly lost an ear," he scowled, "You're crazy."

   At the insult, Lois swiftly placed another arrow into position and cocked her crossbow, holding it up. She set the trigger and aimed it at Isaac's face this time. It was dangerously close to his forehead.

    "Call me crazy, again." She dared him. Her voice was almost a growl, but she didn't move away from her weapon, "Go on!"

   Scott was quick to snatch the crossbow away from her and send her a pointed look, one that told her to cut it out. Sighing, Lois crossed her arms over her chest and leant against the tree behind her, not caring if she resembled Isaac Lahey. She could feel him watching her still and swiftly kicked him in the shin, her eyes still set ahead and at Argent. Isaac groaned.

    "If they're up to a hundred—" Derek spoke now that their little altercation was over, "—what do we do?"

    "Focus on your sense of smell. Actual wolves are known to track their prey by up to a hundred miles a way by scent, and a trained hunter can use scent to track them." Was Argent's knowledgable response as he began to route through his bag of tricks and many hunting goodies. It had peaked Lois' interests, "If the wind is with them, wolves can track a scent by a distance of two miles, which means we can draw them right to us. Or, into a trap."

   He continued, "Full moon does give us one advantage: they'll have a higher heat signature, which makes them easier to spot with infrared."

   Chris tossed each of the wolves a infrared mask, and gave Lois a pair of heat-sensitive binoculars. She thanked him and peered into the lenses. What he had said made sense — Chris looked a normal temperature through the binoculars, while the three werewolves came up as striking shades of red. Lois' hand was strangely blue.

    "Thanks," Derek flashed his eyes red, "But I've got my own."

    "Just remember— we're not hunting wild animals." Argent said firmly. The group nodded, "Underneath all those impulses are two intelligent human beings. Don't think that they can't rely on that human side; it's suppressed, but it's there."

   Together, their group started to walk up the bank and to the cliff side that overlooked all of Beacon Hills. The lights in the town shone back up at them. Lois wondered whether he father would be concerned that she hadn't made it back by her curfew, or if he hadn't even expected her to have made it back. Her father knew what they were up against and he knew that she was determined to fix what had been broken. His daughter was intelligent, and she was strong, but most of all, Lois was compassionate. Even when she could be bitter and sarcastic, Lois had a heart. A big one. And she wasn't going to let anyone else die — not if she could help it.

    "That human side will be reminding them how to mask their scent, how to cover their tracks, how to survive." Chris reiterated.

   They all looked down at their town.

    "When's the last time you saw your sister?" He asked.

     "Nine years." Derek sighed, "I thought she died in the fire."

   Lois felt her heart ache and it seemed that Chris' had done the same thing. He shut his eyes for a moment, and then he reopened them with a nod, "Do you feel like you have a lock on her scent?"

   Derek shook his head.

    "Scott, how confident are you in your skills?"

    "Honestly?" The omega let out a breath, "Most of the time, I'm trying not to think about all the things I can smell."

   It was true. Half the time, Scott was walking around with his jacket sleeve over his nose. Especially in the full moon. He was able to smell almost everything, and there had been times the boy had gotten so overwhelmed by it that he had passed out. Now, she and Stiles tried to keep pungent scents down to a minimum. The aim certainly wasn't to knock out Scott with her new perfumes.

    "Alright... the problem is when they breach the woods and hit the residential area." The hunter informed, extending a hand into the distance like it were a map, "Once they're past the high school, they're right in the middle of Beacon Hills."

    "They're not gonna kill everything they see..." Isaac was a bit hesitant to speak, "...are they?"

   Lois cringed, she certainly hoped not.

    "No," Argent scrunched up his face then softened it, "But there is an important difference to recognise: wolves hunt for food. At a certain point, they get full." He noted, "But Boyd and Cora are hunting for the pleasure of the kill; humans — for some primal, apex, predatory satisfaction that comes from the ripping of warm bodies to bloody shreds." The man noticed Lois pale slightly, "And who knows when that need gets satiated?"

    "They're not gonna go for Lois— right?" Isaac asked.

   Chris sighed, "We can't be sure."

    "That's just great..." the girl nodded to herself, "Really great."

    "We're not gonna let them go for Lois, okay?" Scott shook his head confidently. She was reassured by his tone, "But we can't kill them, either."

    "What if we can't catch them?" Derek turned to them.

    "Then, maybe we just need to contain them." For a second, Chris seemed to dwell on something as he looked out onto the many buildings. "There's no one in the school at night, is there?"

    "You want to trap them inside?"

    "If there's somewhere with a strong enough door— no windows or access to the outside."

   The teenagers put their heads together and thought about the layout of their school. There was nowhere that really jumped out as beta-proof to Lois. Most of the rooms had glass windows and were easy to get in and out of. They had learnt that when they had been running from Peter Hale when he was the alpha. That day seemed so long ago.

   Isaac tilted his head, "What about the boiler room?"

    "Boiler room?"

    "Yeah—" Lois agreed with him, "—it's just one steel door."

   He thought about it for a moment, "You're sure the school's empty?"

"It has to be," Scott nodded. He peered at the others and none of them disagreed with him, "There can't be anyone there this late, right?"

• • •

"These are ultrasonic emitters."

Lois took the one he passed her with interest dancing in her eyes, her thumb brushing across the glass surface above the cool metal.

"It's one of the tools we use to corral werewolves, pushing them into a direction we want them to run." Chris explained. The man gestured for her to stick it in the ground and press it, "Gives off a high-pitched frequency that only they can hear."

Doing as told, Lois pushed the spike into the mud until it was sturdy and then pressed the top. A light flashed, but nothing else seemed to happen. Brows cinched, she turned back to the group.

"God, yeah—!" Isaac yelled, "No kidding!"

She smothered a laugh when she noticed that he, Scott and even Derek had their hands over their ears and their eyes tightly shut. It was fairly amusing to see them hunched over in pain from a noise that only affected them. Perhaps it was wrong to enjoy it, but Lois couldn't help herself from letting out a few more stray laughs as crossed her arms over her chest — it was very amusing.

    "It's not funny, Lane."

   Lois quirked a brow, "Maybe not to you, Lahey."

"These are gonna drive them to the school?" Derek clarified, once they had adjusted to the sound.

Chris nodded his head and they headed towards his car. Lois was close to his side, the other three trailing behind, and she fell into a stop when the man did.

"And then it's up to you to get them into the basement."

He passed each of them a handful of ultrasonic emitters and they took them, stacking their arms with piles of the things. It was said that they would run towards the school and place them down every so many metres, and that way it would direct Boyd and Cora exactly where they wanted them to go. Lois hoped that it would work out that way and that the wild wolves would, in fact, follow the makeshift path that they were creating. It was the only chance left for them to capture Boyd and Cora without killing them, and that was something that they really didn't want to do.

Well, except for Isaac.

"Does anyone want to rethink the plan where we just, uh—" he pretended to think about his words, "—I don't know, kill them?"

Glaring, Lois pressed one of the ultrasonic emitters and held it close to his ear. The beta winced and smacked it away, and met her glare halfway. She smiled tightly while he shook his head and pressed at his ear to try and stop the ringing.

"It's going to work." Scott said.

When Derek and Isaac didn't look convinced, the omega simply repeated himself, "It'll work."

They readied to disband and go their separate directions, and Lois rolled out her neck and shoulders while preparing herself for a good run. But, before she could even go anywhere, Scott placed a hand on her shoulder and span her to face him. He didn't look happy that she had planned to go on her own, that was for sure.

"What are you doing?" He frowned, "Are you crazy?"

"I'm doing my part, Scott."

Another voice pitched in, "No, you're not. At least, not on foot."

The pair turned to look at Chris Argent.

"Come on," he nodded his head at his car and opened up the passenger door. She rose a brow and he explained, "You're with me. We'll drive to the school and meet you guys, there."

She was satisfied with the decision and happily hopped into the car. Lois waved at Scott and assured him that they would see him soon enough, then tucked back into the window and buckled her seatbelt. The journey to the school was spent with Lois throwing ultrasonic emitters out of the car and sticking them in the mud, an occasional one thrown by Argent as well. It turned out that she had pretty good aim with throwing — she had proven that during coach's game of risk and reward, and now it was coming in handy for more than just winning the chance of missing pop quizzes and getting no extra homework. And honestly, Lois had felt pretty cool helping Argent out, again. It had been months since she had been fighting the kanima with him, and it felt good.

Upon reaching the school, Lois and Argent had finished their batch of ultrasonic emitters. She went to get out of the car but he was quick to stop her. Raising a brow, Lois waited for him to say why she hadn't been allowed to get out, watching him reach into the backseat and grab a briefcase.

"What is that?" She asked, eager to know what was inside.

"How many arrows you got left, kid?"

Lois checked her boot, "Five."

"Not bad," Argent hummed and opened the briefcase. Her eyes lit up when she saw ten of two types of arrow in a line, "I keep these for sticky situations. Left emit sound, right explode like a flare. Take your pick, while I find Scott."

But Lois was hardly listening. She muttered something about agreeing with him and took the briefcase in her hands. With her fingertips lightly dancing along the arrow heads, the girl tried to make her decision. They were oddly beautiful; for a weapon that had the power to harm, Lois found herself admiring them. Maybe she had become accustomed enough to her crossbow that she no longer saw them as dangerous. Rather, Lois saw them as useful.

She picked a couple of each — after all, Chris never said she couldn't take both.

As she stuck the arrows into the sides of her boots and the gap between her belt and her waist, Lois hadn't noticed the growls of wolves that came from the lacrosse field behind her. She had only noticed when Chris leapt back into the car and started the engine, stepping on the gas.

"Woah—!" She gripped the dashboard, "What's happening?"

"Come on!" Chris yelled, honking his horn. In the headlights Lois could make out Isaac's glowing eyes, and the silhouettes of two other teenagers. "Come on!"

Without another thought, Lois leapt out of the car.

She ignored his yells for her to come back and swiftly armed herself with the new arrows she had been given by him, aiming her crossbow at the two werwolves that cornered Isaac. They turned to her and growled, threatening to come closer. But Lois didn't falter. Instead of faltering, Lois Lane only advanced on them and shot an arrow in Boyd's direction.

"Move!" She hollered, reloading and shooting again. It nearly hit Cora's head and she hissed, cowering away from Lois' weapon.

The two wolves caught on and made a dash for the open doors of the school. Chris jumped out of the car and followed after Lois and Isaac as they rushed after them, the former still shooting the occasional arrow and the latter with glowing eyes.

   But it seemed that Boyd and Cora knew what they were doing. Instead of going through the school, they jumped onto the roof and started their way to the other side. Lois gaped at the sight.

    "They're not going through the school—" Scott noted as they joined him, "—they're going over it!"

    "The red doors— someone has to get them open!"

   Derek nodded his head and sprinted into action, while the remaining four figured out what to do next. Scott seemed to be piecing together bits of ideas in his head, and he eventually came to one that might work.

    "Someone has to drive them inside," he said.

   Chris held out his weapon, "I'll go."

    "No," shaking his head, Isaac already moved, "I'm faster!"

   Then he was also off into the night, while Scott, Lois and Chris made their way into the school and found places to wait. It wasn't long before Derek had joined them and Isaac had managed to lure them into the school with Allison Argent's help (that the others were unaware of) and Boyd and Cora were locked in. They had no choice but to find another way out. However, they were unlucky and Derek was already waiting for them — he launched himself down the stairs and threw Cora to the side, and Scott was quick to follow. When Boyd tried to escape, Argent and Lois came out of the shadows and held up their weapons, fending him off.

   He growled but Lois held her ground, aiming her crossbow at his head. As much as she hated Boyd, she wouldn't shoot him in the head — not unless he deserved it.

   Derek growled, "Come and get us."

   One day, he would regret daring them.

   But for now, he and Scott headed for the boiler room with the two werewolves on their heels.

   Lois took off in the same direction with her crossbow aimed high and proud. A few arrows were set off to make sure that they kept after Scott and Derek, nothing too extreme, and by the time she had caught up to them, Boyd and Cora were locked in the boiler room with Scott and Derek scrambling to get out. They swiftly bolted the door and leant up against it. Soon, it was silent.

    "Wait..." the girl panted, "Did— did that seriously just work?"

    "It worked."

   They let out sighs of relief and rested against the walls around them. Lois was sweating in places that she didn't know she could sweat, and she wondered how long it would take for the sun to come up and for the werewolves to come down from the high.

    "What are you hearing?" Derek asked, exhausted, while Scott shut his eyes.

    "Heartbeats."

    "Both of them?"

    "Actually—" Scott frowned, "—three of them."

   Lois' eyes widened and she felt herself panic, "Three? What do you mean three, Scott? No— no, there should be two of them!"

    There was someone else, down there.

   Derek pulled himself from the ground and turned to the door, his teeth grit. There was a newfound strength in his stance and he rested his hand on the latch, waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

    "What are you doing?" The omega went to stop him.

   He shrugged him off, "Close the door behind me, and keep it shut."

    "You go in there alone, and you're either gonna kill them, or they kill you." Scott's attempt to reason with him went empty.

    "That's why I'm going in alone."

   Feeling helpless, Lois could only watch as Derek threw his body into the boiler room and Scott slammed the door shut. Time was slow, or perhaps it was fast — Lois wasn't really sure how long he had been down there, when the howls and growls started up and didn't seem to ever stop.

   She let out a strangled gasp and reached for the door.

   Scott gently pushed her away.

    "We can't leave him, down there!" Lois near cried, "They're going to kill him!"

    "We have to wait. He can—"

    "Scott! We have to help him!"

    "We can't—!"

    "It's Derek!" She shrieked, her heart in her throat. Derek Hale was nothing but a pain in the ass, but he was still Derek. They couldn't let him die. Lois couldn't.

    "Scott—? The sun's coming up!"

   Both of the teens twirled to look at the top of the steps, to find Isaac Lahey bounding down them. "The sun's coming up!"

   Scott didn't miss a beat.

   He flew into the boiler room with a speed that Lois didn't know he possessed. The girl stumbled after him, and Isaac after her, and the trio made it into the boiler room gasping for breath and in a wild search for Derek Hale. Preferably alive.

   And there he was: down on his knees, battered and bloody.

   Lois covered her mouth when she took in the state of him; she felt the urge to cry when he struggled to breathe, swaying on the spot and blinking slowly. They went to run to him, but he signalled to the two werewolves that had collapsed on his left and his right. Derek shook his head and sucked in harshly. His ribs ached.

   "There's a teacher. I'll take care of her," he spoke in a low tone and peered up at them, "Get them out of here."

   Ever the obedient, Scott and Isaac moved to pick up Boyd and Cora. Though, Lois had different ideas. She instead headed for the wounded alpha, and gently tilted his head up to look at her.

    "Derek—"

    "I'm fine," he breathed, "Go."

Lois gnawed at her bottom lip but nodded.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and as soon as they had left the school, Lois finally pulled it out and checked it. It was early in the morning, now, and she wondered if her father would make her go to school when she told him what had happened.

FROM: STILES SENT: 5:40
THREEFOLD DEATH.
THEY'RE HUMAN SACRIFICES.

It looked like their bad situation, just got worse.

——

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