[3x04; Unleashed]

"I looked everywhere. It's like he just walked away," Scott told Stiles. "He left his car and his dog."

As soon as Stiles and Scott walked into the boys' locker room to get ready for cross country practice—which was mandatory for lacrosse players, who needed to stay in shape during the fall—Scott had started to tell Stiles about the previous night at work. Apparently, a senior that was on the football team, Kyle, had come in with his little dog. After they left, Scott was taking out the trash when he heard the dog barking. Kyle was nowhere to be found.

Stiles nodded shakily as he slipped on his gray hoodie over his practice uniform. "Okay. Was he, like...could he have been a virgin maybe? Did he look like a virgin? Was he, you know virginal?"

"No, definitely not," Scott pulled on his own sweatshirt, a giddy smile on his face. "Deaton makes me have sex with all of his clients. It's a new policy."

Normally, Stiles would have laughed at Scott's joke because they were few and far between. This wasn't a normal situation, though. He might not be a virgin but the love of his life, his girlfriend, was. There were already three virgins dead, so if Kyle was a virgin, too, the rest of them in Beacon High were screwed—and not in a good way.

Scott sighed when he saw the blank look Stiles was giving him. "No, I don't know if he was a virgin," he told his best friend. "And why are you talking like he's already dead? He's just missing."

"Missing and presumed dead because he's probably a virgin, Scott," Stiles didn't know how much simpler his explanation could get. "You know who else is a virgin? My girlfriend, all right? Her lack of sexual experience is now literally a threat to her life. And you know who keeps putting sex off? Me because I'm an idiot who wants her first time to be special."

The locker a few down from them was slammed shut by Danny. He turned to face them, stating, "I know a guy who would—"

"Don't be a dick, Danny," Stiles stopped him before he could finish his statement.

No one was going to have sex with Olivia but him, thank you very much.

As Danny shrugged and walked off to talk to one of his friends on the team, Scott raised an eyebrow at Stiles. "Have you told Liv that, you know...you're not a—"

"No, I haven't," Stiles huffed, frustrated with himself. "And I'm a total hypocrite because I told her that we shouldn't lie to each other but I—I don't know how to bring it up."

"You don't have to tell her."

"Yeah," Stiles shook his head at Scott's suggestion. "I do."

"Mr. Lahey!" Coach called as Isaac scurried into the locker room fifteen minutes late. "Happy to have you back. Not happy that you're late."

"Sorry, Coach," Isaac mumbled as he went to his locker, only a few away from Stiles and Scott; they both nodded at him in greeting.

Coach shook his head and addressed the boys' team. "I'll remind you all, cross-country is not optional for lacrosse players. I don't need you turning into a bunch of fat-asses in the off-season," he paused as Isaac and Danny took off their shirts, both of them fit. "So work on that."

Five minutes later, Stiles, Scott, Isaac, and the other members of the team were lining up outside of the mini cross-country trail behind the school. Stiles and Scott settled at the back of the group and waited for Coach to blow his whistle, allowing them to start running.

Coach blew his whistle and everyone took off. "Pace yourselves! Come on!"

Stiles started jogging beside Scott but both of them stopped by Isaac, who hadn't started running and was still on one knee where he had been tying his shoe. Just as he was about to start sprinting, Scott grabbed his shoulder. "Isaac!"

Isaac turned to face them, an angry look on his face. "It's them."

Before Stiles could even ask who 'they' were, Isaac ripped himself away from Scott and took off.

"Isaac, wait!"

Stiles shrugged and started jogging, watching as Scott started running after Isaac. He settled into pace, grateful that he had always been a natural runner, and soon overtook some of his teammates. Soon, he fell in pace with one of his classmates.

Riley was trying cross-country out for some type of extra-curricular besides student government but she wasn't used to running a mile or more at a time. She was asthmatic, her inhaler clutched tightly in her hand, and she usually took an aerobics class every Saturday. Yes, she told him all of that while he ran beside her, voice breathless because of her light wheezing.

Eventually, she started slowing down.

"I need to take a break," she wheezed as she veered off the path, pressing her inhaler to her mouth.

Stiles didn't feel right just leaving her to work through her asthma attack—or rather, the start of one—so he stopped with her. It looked like her asthma was stronger than Scott's had been; her face was stark white as she stumbled toward a tree to sit against until she felt better.

Stiles followed her and stood still when he saw the body tied against the tree in front of them. Like the others, it looked as though the guy had been strangled, had his throat slit, and his head bashed in. Another three-fold death, another sacrifice.

Riley saw the body and only took a second to let out a high-pitched scream. Within minutes, the rest of the team was gathered around the body and the police were called. Stiles barely looked away from the body as Scott and Isaac ran up to his side.

Stiles looked away from the body to glance at Scott. "It's him, isn't it?"

Scott, who was looking at the body in horror, nodded slightly.

The body was Kyle, the guy who went missing from the animal clinic the night before.

-

"Hey, get out of the way. Get back," Noah burst through the teenagers forming a circle around Kyle's body, Deputy Tara right on his heels. He got to the tree where Stiles was hovering, trying to get a better look at Kyle's injuries, and turned back to Tara. "Get this area cordoned off before they trample every piece of evidence."

Deputy Tara immediately got to work. "Back up!" she raised her voice to get everyone's attention. "Everyone back!"

Noah gently pushed Stiles away from the body. "Get these kids out of here!"

Stiles slapped away his father's hand and stepped back toward the body. "Dad, look. It's the same as the others, you see?"

Noah looked at him firmly yet calmly. "Yeah, I see that. Do me a favor and go back to school, yeah?" he turned way to address Coach. "Coach, can you give us a hand here?"

"You heard the man," Coach called out to his students. "Nothing to see here. It's probably just some homeless kid."

Stiles stared at him in disbelief while Scott sighed, "Coach."

Coach turned to him. "Yeah?"

"He was a senior."

"Oh," Coach sighed sadly, holding his fish against his mouth. "He wasn't on the team, was he?"

Stiles rolled his eyes just as Kyle's girlfriend, Ashley, came sprinting up to the tree, already crying. She took one look at the body and screamed in grief, a heartbreaking look on her face as sobs broke through her chest. Deputy Tara grabbed her before she could get to Kyle's body and held her tightly as she broke down into hysterics.

Noah pushed against his chest, quietly urging him, Scott, and Isaac to get back to the school. The three of them walked away solemnly, all of them feeling bad for Kyle and Ashley.

"You see the way the twins looked at him?" Isaac asked as they left the group surrounding Kyle's body.

Stiles remembered the look that the alpha twins had given the body and it seemed more like shock than anything else. "Yeah, you mean like they had no idea what happened?"

"No," Isaac said determinedly. "No, they knew."

"The kid was strangled with a garrote, all right?" Stiles spoke with exasperation. "Am I the only one recognizing the lack of 'werewolfitude' in these murders?"

As they came to stop only twenty or so feet away from the crime scene, Isaac faced Stiles with a look of disbelief. "Oh, you think it's a coincidence they turn up and then people start dying?"

"Well, no, but I still don't think it's them."

Both of them turned to Scott, who had been way too quiet for their tastes. "Scott?" Isaac grabbed his attention. "How about you?"

Stiles crossed his arms over his chest expectantly, waiting for Scott to be on his side, only for him to be disappointed.

"I don't know yet."

Stiles raised his eyebrows. "You don't know yet?"

Scott shrugged and nodded toward Isaac. "Well, he's got a point. Seriously, dude, human sacrifices?"

Now Stiles knew what betrayal really felt like. How could Scott—his very best friend, his brother—agree with Isaac over him? His theory was so sound yet he choice to agree with Isaac, when he had only known him for what, six months? He and Stiles had been friends for a decade.

"Scott, your eyes turned into yellow glow sticks, okay?" he was more than a little huffy. "Hair literally grows from your cheeks and then will immediately disappear, and if I were stab you right now, it would just magically heal but you're telling me that you're having trouble grasping human sacrifices?!"

"That's a good point, too," Scott sighed, looking at Isaac; Stiles nodded in satisfaction.

"I don't care," Isaac stated firmly. "They killed that kid, they killed the girl that saved me. I'm gonna kill them, too."

-

-

Ollie: How's Cora doing?

Derek: She's still healing

Olivia raised her eyebrows in surprise, only glancing away from her phone for a second to see if Mr. Harris had turned away from the board; he hadn't.

Ollie: She's actually staying still?

Cora had always been an active child. When they were little, she couldn't count the amount of times Cora asked her to play tag, hide the flag, or go on runs. She had always exhausted Olivia, who wasn't the type to just run around for fun.

Derek: I didn't say that

Olivia huffed silently in amusement and slid her phone back into her leather satchel to turn her attention back to Harris' lecture—of which she had already knew.

"All right," Mr. Harris finished writing on the board and turned to face the class. "since inertia is a subject of which you all know plenty, why don't we start with momentum?"

"Isaac," Scott whispered from behind her and Isaac, who was sitting next to her. For some reason, Stiles was mysteriously missing from his seat beside him. "they're here for a reason. Give me a chance to figure it out before you do anything, okay?"

Apparently the boys had quite the cross-country practice that morning. Stiles and some girl on his team had found a senior's dead body and from the quick explanation that Stiles gave her before he went running off, he had been killed by a three-fold death. Another sacrifice; she wasn't going to lie, it scared the shit out of her.

Olivia glanced at Isaac to see if he was going to agree with Scott but jumped when Mr. Harris got her attention.

"Olivia," she looked over at him to see that he was starting at her expectantly. "what do we know about momentum?"

"It's a product of mass and velocity," Olivia answered easily; this was her thing, after all. "The more massive something is, the faster it's going—"

"Mr. Harris," Isaac interrupted her in order to get the teacher's attention. "can I use the bathroom, please?"

Olivia gave him a half-irritated and half-curious look. Why did he need to go to the bathroom so urgently? She quickly figured it out; he wanted to go after the alpha twins.

Mr. Harris sighed and gestured toward the door. Isaac quickly got to his feet and walked out of the classroom.

Scott rose from his own seat. "I have to go to the bathroom too."

"One at a time," Mr. Harris reminded him of the school-wide rule. The rule was supposed to cut down on hook-ups and smoking or whatever it was that students did while skipping class but she didn't know if it actually worked. The only time she had skipped class was when Stiles was trying to teach Scott control.

"But I really have to go," Scott said urgently as Olivia grimaced, nervous about what Isaac was going to do. "Like, medical emergency have-to-go."

Mr. Harris stiffened and Olivia just knew that he was going to rant. She was right.

"Mr. McCall, if your bladder suddenly exploded and urine began to pour from every orifice, I would still respond with one at a time," despite Mr. Harris' irritation, he kept his voice calm. "Is that enough hyperbole for you or would you like me to come up with something more vivid?"

"No," Scott quickly sat in his seat. "That's pretty good."

All of a sudden, everyone in the classroom heard a huge bang come from the lockers on the other side of the wall. Mr. Harris made his way over to the door and the rest of the class followed him. Olivia and Scott stuck together as they pushed past their classmates in order to see what was going on.

Isaac stood in the middle of the hallway with one of the alpha twins at his feet, beaten up and bloody. Olivia's attention was immediately captured by the other twin, who was casually turning into another hallway; she quickly nudged Scott and nodded at him and his face lit up in realization. It was clear—to them, at least—that Isaac hadn't done anything to the twin at his feet. No, the alphas were trying to get Isaac into trouble.

And it worked.

"Isaac, what the hell did you do?" Mr. Harris asked him angrily. Before Isaac even had a chance to explain, he added, "You'll be seeing me at lunch detention."

They all went back to class and before long, they were at break. Olivia and Scott escorted Isaac out of the room, Olivia holding onto his arm tightly so that he wouldn't lose control.

"Don't let it bother you. It's just lunchtime detention," Scott said as they came to a stop by Isaac's locker. "If all they want right now is to piss you off, then don't give in. They're just trying to get to you."

Isaac paused, his eyes down the hallway. "It's not just me."

Olivia and Scott followed his gaze and saw that one of the twins—the one who hadn't got beaten up—was chatting up Lydia. They watched as he smiled flirtatiously at her until she closed her locker and leaned against it before playfully patting his chest.

Olivia pressed her lips together, displeased. Lydia was her own person and everything but Olivia didn't want her cousin fooling around with someone as dangerous as an alpha who could conjoin bodies with his brother and had a hand in killing Erica.

"Now they're getting to you," Isaac commented to Scott.

Olivia stormed away from Scott and Isaac and made her way down the hall to where Lydia and the alpha were still talking.

"Lydia," she took her cousin's attention away from the twin. "we need to talk."

"We were kind of in the middle of something," the alpha douche objected as Lydia nodded at her.

"Were you?" she asked sarcastically.

"Aiden, here, was offering to help me study," Lydia raised an eyebrow at Olivia, as if to say 'get a load of this guy'.

"Really?" Olivia looked back to Aiden. "You have an IQ higher than 170?" when Aiden faltered, she continued, "No? Didn't think so. Scram."

Aiden narrowed his eyes at her and even though he could rip her apart and it did kind of freak her out, she raised her chin, meeting his gaze head-on. She wasn't going to back down.

"I'll see you later, Aiden," Lydia dismissed him.

Aiden huffed and sent Olivia one last glare before walking away.

Lydia turned to Olivia once he had walked out of the hallway. "What was that about?"

"Lydia, he's one of the alphas," she told her cousin, watching as realization dawned on her face. "Yeah."

"The one that can conjoin...?"

"Yep."

"Shit," Lydia sighed in disappointment. "but he's so hot."

Olivia didn't agree but she and Lydia had always had different taste in guys.

"Sorry—"

Olivia instantly cut herself off as a tingling sensation started in her belly and a flash of Derek's loft came and went quickly as her head and ears started to ache from the intent voices spinning through her mind.

Derek, Derek, Derek. He's in trouble. He's going to die. Derek, Derek, Derek.

She gasped sharply as she came back to reality, noticing that Lydia was giving her a worried look.

"Liv, are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah," Olivia answered distractedly. "I have to go to Derek's."

Lydia furrowed her eyebrows. "What? It's not even lunch yet."

"Yeah, I know," her vision was flashing between normal and purple; she had to get out of there. "I'll, uh, I'll see you later."

She turned away from Lydia and marched out of the school, ignoring the surprised looks that Scott and Isaac were giving her. She quickly got into her car and set to Derek's loft. He was in trouble and if she had to guess, it was the alpha pack who was responsible.

-

-

Stiles peered over the windowsill that allowed him to look into the main office. He could clearly see his dad and Deputy Tara asking Kyle's girlfriend, Ashley, if she knew anything that could help them investigate his death. He waited, trying to listen and gain as much information about Kyle's death as he could—the walls weren't good at keeping out voices, which was a concern for the school—and there were some things he found helpful.

But he still needed to know if Kyle was a virgin.

He waited until Tara had Ashley wait outside of the office while she conferred with Noah to go up to Ashley and speak to her.

"Um, hi, Ashley," he greeted her hesitantly, reminding himself to have tact; she looked at him unsurely. "Can I talk to you for just one sec?"

After she nodded silently, he gently moved her so his dad nor Tara could hear what he was going to ask her. He was going to Hell for it, he didn't need to get into trouble with his dad, too.

"I just need to ask you something really quick and it's gonna sound really unbelievably insensitive, so I apologize in advance," he cringed and took a deep breath. "Um, was Kyle a virgin?"

Ashley jerked her head a little, surprised. "What?"

"Your boyfriend," Stiles said patiently. "was he a virgin or did you guys, you know, have sex—"

Stiles was cut off by a harsh slap in the face. His head turned to the side, he blinked in shock while his left cheek stung from the force of Ashley's slap.

Yeah, I deserved that, he thought to himself.

He looked back at Ashley, about to serve her an apology, but she was being whisked away by Deputy Tara, who was giving him a look of disapproval. They were only a few feet away from him when Ashely turned back to him.

"No, he wasn't a virgin."

Her answer had his mind racing. There were only three virgin sacrifices then, which made everything all the more confusing. Then again, the number three did have a bunch of meanings, especially for ancient civilizations. Maybe that could be something to go on...

"Have you completely lost your mind?" his dad's voice brought him out of his head. Stiles took one look at his father's angry expression and bowed his head, scratching his nose unsurely. "I've got four murders, Stiles. You see those men in there? That's the FBI. They're pulling together a task force to help because it looks like we've got a full-blown serial killer on our hands. You get that?"

Stiles pressed his lips together, trying not to get angry in response. "Yes, Dad, I get that."

"Then what are you doing?"

He hesitated for a moment. "I'm trying to find a pattern."

And right now, all he had were three virgins and Kyle to go on.

His dad wasn't pleased with his answer but he didn't yell at him again, either, so that was a plus. With another disappointed look—which Stiles was more than used to by now—Noah was on his way and Stiles had to get back to school. Thankfully, the juniors were on lunch break so he had time to visit Kyle's locker, where a memorial of sorts was set up for him.

Kyle's locker was covered in brown paper so that his friends and classmates could write messages to him and put up any pictures they might have had with him. He read through the messages, each one of them a memory of the person of Kyle. Though Stiles knew Kyle because he was an athlete and they went to the same school fundraisers and stuff but he hadn't known him very well. He seemed like a cool guy and the memories on his locker supported that.

Stiles stepped back from the locker as Boyd came over and clipped a blue card with the ROTC emblem on it to the brown paper.

"Hey, Boyd," Stiles nodded at him in surprise. "I didn't know you were back at school."

Olivia didn't tell him anything about it. She had said that Cora, her cousin who came back from the dead—which was really confusing, by the way—was still healing but nothing about Boyd.

"Yeah, I would have told you but we're not actually friends," Boyd stated.

Ouch.

"Oh, yeah," Stiles blinked awkwardly and hurried to move on. "Hey, so did you, uh—so did you know Kyle?"

"Yeah," Boyd nodded, looking back at Kyle's locker with a solemn look on his face. "we were in Junior ROTC together."

"So, you two were friends, then?"

"I only had one friend. She's dead too."

Boyd quickly walked off after that, leaving Stiles to look back at Kyle's locker unsurely. He took another minute to study it for any hints that might have led Kyle to his murder before turning to walk away.

While he walked through the hallways to his locker, he pulled out his phone to call Olivia. She didn't answer, even after three calls. It concerned him, because she should be at lunch just like he was and she usually looked through her phone while eating. She wouldn't just ignore his calls since they had made up and apologized to each other about the fight they had the week before.

He was about to call her a fourth time when he spotted Lydia at her locker, down the hall from his. He quickly made his way over to her, ignoring the annoyed look she shot him when he popped up next to her.

"Hey, have you heard from Olivia?" he asked her while shooting a few texts to his girlfriend.

Sweetcheeks: Hey, where are you?

Sweetcheeks: Why are you ignoring my calls?

Sweetcheeks: Are you okay?

"She went to Derek's," Lydia told him as she grabbed her textbook for her next class. "She had an episode."

"She did?" he asked worriedly. "Did she say what was wrong?"

"Nope."

"And you didn't go after her?"

"Nope."

Stiles scoffed in disbelief. "Why not? You know she's all out of whack when she has her episodes. Aren't you a little worried about what was so wrong with Derek that she had an episode in the first place?"

Lydia shrugged, frowning slightly. "Scott didn't seem worried."

Stiles rolled his eyes and messaged Olivia again.

Sweetcheeks: Do you need me to come to Derek's?

He was in the middle of an investigation but he would drop it for her, especially if she was in any danger.

His phone dinged:

Livvy: Everything's fine. Don't come here.

All right, then, Stiles furrowed his eyebrows and stuffed his phone back in his pocket.

"Okay, I can't talk to Livvy about this but I can talk to you, right?" he addressed Lydia as she closed her locker.

Lydia sighed, like listening to him was the most boring thing she had ever had to do in her life. "I guess."

Stiles didn't pay attention to her attitude. He didn't have Olivia to bounce ideas off at the moment so the next best person who had the same amount of knowledge of him and Olivia was Lydia. She would have to deal with him.

"Okay, so did you know that there's a temple in Calcutta where they used to sacrifice a child every day? That's every day a dead baby, Lydia, every day!" he exclaimed as they walked out of the school and through campus to the building that held the cafeteria. "Hey, you want to know what today is? It's dead baby day. Oh no, wait, that's every day because every day is dead baby day, yay!"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because Livvy's not here and Scott, Isaac, and Allison are dealing with the alpha twins," he answered diligently. "You know about them, right?"

"Yep, Ethan and Aiden," Lydia confirmed almost bitterly. "Liv shared the news this morning."

"Good, good," Stiles nodded and continued with his theory. "So look, here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that the murders maybe come in threes. Ancient people love things in threes, right?"

Lydia shrugged lightly.

"So, maybe first it's three virgins and then, I don't know, maybe it's three people who own little dogs."

Lydia stopped in her tracks—Stiles following her lead—and stared at him blankly. "We have a little dog." Stiles grimaced. "We're not getting rid of Sirius."

"Look, I love Siri as much as you and Livvy but if—"

"No," Lydia interrupted him sharply as they started walking again. "And by the way, you can't discern a pattern by a single data point, so stop trying."

Somehow, he knew that Olivia would have said the same thing.

"Okay, so what, I'm just supposed to wait around for someone else to die then?" Stiles asked, growing a little irritated. "I'm just supposed to sit there and watch them die? Just wait for them to wither up and die right in front of me?"

Lydia paused again, giving him a strange look. "Wither?"

Wither might have been the wrong word, he admitted to himself.

"You know what I mean," he snapped and gestured wildly as he continued, "Die in just a hideously awful, strangulating, head-bashing, throat-cutting kind of way."

Lydia grimaced and looked away, making him feel bad because he knew that she had seen Heath's body the same way as he did.

"Maybe it's not your job," Lydia said after a few seconds. "They were strangled with a garrote and we both agreed that it was something a human would do, so...Maybe you should just leave the figuring out part to someone human."

"You mean someone like my dad?"

"No, I mean your dad," Lydia emphasized, rolling her eyes as she began to walk away from him. "The sheriff!"

-

When Olivia received the warning that Derek was in trouble, she expected that something was wrong and that it had to do with the alpha pack. What she didn't expect, however, was that the alpha pack—other than Ethan and Aiden—would be gathered in the loft and that the female alpha would have Derek pinned to his hands and knees on the floor, a metal pipe impaled through his stomach.

She had been taken aback by just how serious the situation was. Maybe she should have asked Scott and Isaac to come with her. Maybe she shouldn't have told Stiles that everything was okay.

All eyes went to her as she frantically pushed the metal door open and stepped into the loft. Other than the twins and the brief glimpses from Isaac's memories, she hadn't seen the other alphas that made up the alpha pack. There were three of them in Derek's loft; the female who was hovering over Derek, who looked like she could be feral and in need of a desperate pedicure to take care of her clawed toenails; a massive guy who was standing behind Cora to make sure she wouldn't move, his head bald and his muscles massive; and a guy who sat in front of Derek that she figured was Deucalion due to his seeking cane and dark glasses.

Her skin crawled from their attention; the female smirked viciously and the huge guy eyed her with cruel eyes.

"Ah, Olivia, right on time," Deucalion greeted her casually, causing her eyes to widen in fear.

"Ollie—" Derek grunted, unable to speak because the female alpha twisted the metal pipe in his stomach.

"Ollie, get out of here," Cora urged, glancing from her to Deucalion.

"Oh, no, she should stay, I insist," Deucalion stated. "Ennis..."

The big one, which was now known as Ennis, made his way toward her. Olivia didn't dare move, listening to the voices in her head that warned her that fleeing would be a bad choice. Ennis roughly took one of her arms and shoved the door closed with the other, before dragging her over to stand next to Cora, where he could watch over the both of them to make sure they wouldn't make any moves against him or his packmates.

Finally, Olivia found her voice, her eyes stinging as her eyes locked on her cousin's form. "You're killing him."

The female turned to her with a smirk and shook one of her clawed fingers at her. "Not yet, little Anchor, but I could," Olivia paled when she turned back to Derek and nudged and twisted the pipe. "Who knows if it's five minutes or five hours before it's too late to take this thing out. But, just to be on the safe side, Duke, you might want to get to the point."

"Now that Olivia's here, I can," Deucalion rubbed his hands together and addressed Derek, continuing their earlier conversation that Olivia wasn't privy to. "You see the problem with being in an alpha pack. Everybody wants to make the decisions. Me? I'm more about discovering new talents. Like your cousin over there," Olivia winced in fear and when Cora took her hand, she squeezed it tightly. "And you."

Derek coughed and blood splattered on the floor beneath him. "Not interested."

"But you haven't even heard my pitch."

"You want me to..." Derek was panting, in too much pain to speak quickly or all at once. "kill my own pack."

Olivia's eyes widened. We're screwed.

She had known that the alpha pack were after Derek as she had been privy to that knowledge since the beginning of summer but this situation was much, much worse than she thought. They wanted Derek to kill his pack—which sucked for her, Isaac, Boyd, and now Cora—and for some reason, they wanted her, too.

And all she could come up with for a reason for that was that she was an anchor.

"No, I want you to kill one of them," Deucalion told Derek. "Do that and I won't have to ask you to kill the others. You'll do it on your own. I did it. Ennis did. Kali did," Olivia guessed that was the female and she was proved correct when Deucalion nodded at her. "Tell him what it's like, Kali, to kill one of your own."

Olivia and Cora shared a horrified look as Kali answered him, "Mm," she hummed. "liberating."

"Listen to me, Derek," Deucalion drawled in his British accent. "Do you really want to stay beholden to a couple of maladjusted teenagers bound to become a liability? And believe me, they will become a liability. In fact, I have a feeling one of them is getting himself into trouble right now. Just ask dear Olivia."

For a moment, Olivia had no idea what he was talking about. Then, her gaze went purple and her mind flitted away from reality. The part of her brain—or soul, or whatever, that kept track of her pack—told her that Isaac was losing control. She didn't know why and she didn't know where, but she knew that he was having trouble.

"Isaac."

She didn't know that she had spoken her friend's name but Deucalion, Kali, and Ennis stared at her intently as she went through another episode, like the one that had led her to Derek's loft. Cora squeezed her hand, trying to get her attention—she hadn't seen Olivia like this yet—but it was no use.

Olivia's mind was split as she heard herself mentally call for Allison. She was in danger and Isaac...Isaac was with her—No, Isaac was the one who hurt her. He didn't mean it, but he was out of control for some reason.

Isaac, Allison, Isaac, Allison...

Come on, Isaac, she mentally pleaded to him. You're in control. I'm here with you and you're in control. Just hang on. Come on, come on...

Olivia came to when she felt a familiar voice rock its way through her head and Isaac took control of himself. Her wrist tingled from Allison's injury but she knew that her friend would be okay. So would Isaac.

"Fascinating," Deucalion said while she noticed that he, Kali, Ennis, and Cora were staring at her; she blinked and the purple in her vision went away. "See, the reason I'm always interested in new talent is simple," he stood up and folded his cane, his head still facing Olivia, though she knew he was addressing Derek again. "The stronger the individual parts, the greater the whole."

He unfolded his cane again, letting it snap back into place. "When I lost my sight, one of my betas assumed I wasn't fit for my role anymore. He tried to take it from me," he folded the cane again; Olivia guessed he was fiddling with it for symbolism, though she was pretty sure that her, Derek, and Cora could understand perfectly fine. "Killing him taught me something about alphas I didn't know they could do. His power was added to mine. I became stronger, faster, more powerful than I'd ever been."

Olivia shivered but tried to stomp her fear down. Although she knew that the alphas could probably smell it on her, she didn't want to give them the satisfaction of letting it show on her face of with her body language.

"I tested this new ability to subsume the power of your own by killing another one," he continued as he folded another part of his cane. "In fact, Derek, I killed them all," he folded the cane again. "I took the individual parts and became a greater individual whole."

Deucalion shook out his cane, making it snap together once again. He kneeled in front of Derek, who was getting weaker and weaker—Olivia was hearing more of his name than what Deucalion was saying at that point—and grabbed his head, pulling it up so he could feel Derek's facial features.

"You're right, Kali. He looks like his mother," he commented as he stood up again, slowly walking over to the table in front of the wall of windows. "You'll get to know me, Derek, like she did."

More blood dripped out of Derek's mouth as he spoke, "I know you. I know what you are," he grunted breathlessly. "You're a fanatic."

And psycho, Olivia added in her head.

Deucalion set his cane on the table and turned so he was facing Derek and the others again. "Know me?" he repeated slowly, his voice hard. "You've never seen anything like me."

Thunder started to rumble as he raised his voice. "I am the alphas of alphas," lightning flashed somewhere outside the building. "I am the apex of apex predators! I am death, destroyer of worlds! I AM THE DEMON WOLF!"

Olivia winced in pain and stepped backward with Cora, both of them hiding behind a pillar from the fear that Deucalion's words and alpha voice had stirred in them. Even though she wasn't a werewolf, her entire being told her that she needed to obey and cower from the alpha in front of them. His display of power and ambiance struck such a fear in her that she had never felt before.

She hid her face in Cora's shoulder and only looked up when the lightning and thunder stopped. Deucalion's glasses had cracked and when he took them off, his eyes were crimson red. His voice and demeanor had softened into a casual tone that only psychopaths could manage after such strong words he had given only a second before, "I hate when that happens."

Kali ripped the metal pipe from Derek's body and smirked when he started to fall to the floor, the puddle of his own blood soaking his skin and clothing. Ennis stepped away from behind Olivia and Cora and followed behind Kali as she grabbed Deucalion's arm and led him out of the loft.

When the metal door slid shut behind them, both Olivia and Cora rushed to Derek where he was laying on the floor. Tears stung Olivia's eyes as they coaxed him into a sitting a position, both of them sighing in relief when they saw that his wound was already healing.

Olivia glanced at the door once more; they were in deep trouble.

-

-

Having no idea what was going on across town in Derek's loft, Stiles had skipped class in order to speak to someone who he thought would know what was going on with all of the murders.

He parked in place outside of the animal clinic, glad that no one seemed to be there but Deaton, and entered the building. Deaton, dressed casually in a t-shirt and no coat—Stiles guessed he was at lunch—walked out behind the front to see how it was that had the dogs in the back barking like crazy.

Deaton gave him a surprised look. "You're out of school early."

"Yeah, free period, actually," Stiles lied. "Um, I was just headed home to see my dad. He's, uh—you know, I guess you probably heard people are kind of getting murdered again. It's his job to figure it out."

"I gathered as much from the sheriff title," Deaton stated sarcastically, though the tone kind of fell flat. It was a good thing that Stiles was fluent in sarcasm.

"Yeah," he nodded. "You know, but it gets kind of hard for him to do his job when he doesn't have all the information. And we all know he's missing pretty much half of the story here, right?

Yeah, um... You know, but it gets kind of hard for him to do his job when he doesn't have all the information. And we all know he's missing pretty much half the story here, right? So—so, then I started thinking and I remembered someone who does have a lot of information."

He saw Deaton shift uncomfortably and figured he was in the right place.

"Someone who always seems to know more than anyone else around here," he finished, giving the veterinarian a pointed look. "You."

Deaton pressed his lips together and nodded toward the back of the building where his exam room was. "Let's talk back here."

When Deaton opened the wooden gate to let him back, Stiles quickly walked through and shut it behind him, knowing that it was important to the man that the mountain ash barrier was always complete in order to protect him from wandering werewolves and the like.

"All these symbols and things, the triskeles, the bank logo, the mountain ash," he started speaking rapidly, hoping to get answers right away. "all of it is from the Celtic druids and anyone who has ever looked up human sacrifice before knows that the druids had a pretty big hard-on when it came to giving one up to the gods. You ever hear of the Lindow Man?"

Deaton just stared at him and Stiles knew that the veterinarian was intelligent and probably knew of the story but he told the gist of it anyway.

"He was a two-thousand-year-old body found in England. He was found strangled, head bashed in, throat cut—a threefold death," Stiles stated firmly. "They also found pollen grains in his stomach. Guess what favorite druid plant that was?"

Deaton picked a jar out of the box on the steel table they were standing around and pulled a sprig from it to show to Stiles. "Mistletoe."

Stiles stared at the plant for a few seconds before he looked back up to Deaton's face. "I'm just telling you everything you already know, aren't I?" Deaton didn't say anything, which was an answer in of itself. "Then why aren't you telling us?"

Deaton put the jar of mistletoe back in the box and looked at him, ashamed. "Maybe because when you've spent every moment of the last ten years trying to push something away—denying it, lying about it—it becomes a pretty powerful habit."

Stiles softened only a little. "All right, so this guy—is he a druid?"

"No," Deaton shook his head. "It's someone copying a centuries-old practice of a people who should have known better. Do you know what the word druid means in Gaelic?"

"No."

"It means wise oak," Deaton informed him. "The Celtic druids were close to nature. They believed they kept it in balance. They were philosophers and scholars. They weren't serial killers."

"Yeah, well this one is," Stiles scoffed lightly, only to pause when his phone vibrated in his jeans pocket. He answered it, seeing that it was Lydia who was calling. "Hey, I can't talk right now."

"Well, Olivia isn't answering my calls, so you're my best bet," Lydia rushed, her voice panicked. "Look, I'm in the band room and the teacher is missing."

"Wait, what?" Stiles blinked in shock. "He's missing."

"That's what I said!"

"Are you sure?"

"Actually, I'm not sure he's missing," Lydia corrected herself, exhaling deeply. "I think he was taken. Like Heath and the Kyle guy were."

Stiles pressed his lips together and looked over at Deaton, who was patiently waiting to hear about what was going on. "I'll be right there and I'm bringing Deaton with."

Twenty minutes later, after several calls to Olivia—who still wasn't answering, which was a whole other panic-inducing situation—and sneaking Deaton into the school without a visitor's pass, the two of them, plus Lydia, were searching through the band room to find anything that could tell them where the band teacher had gone. It wasn't a question of if he simply didn't make it to class, the bloody handprint on the piano gave them enough evidence to the contrary.

While Deaton listened to a recording on the teacher's phone, Stiles searched through his desk. The creepy voices coming from the speakers creeped Stiles the fuck out but he kept himself busy by going through the teacher's stuff.

"Can we get a copy of this?" Deaton asked Lydia, who stood by his side.

Lydia took the phone ands started to transfer the recording to herself so she could pass it onto Deaton.

Stiles opened the top drawer in the desk, finding nothing so far. "Hey, Doc, any held would be, you know, helpful."

"Each grouping of three would have its own purpose, its own type of power," Deaton spoke thoughtfully. "Virgins, healers, philosophers, warriors—"

A lightbulb went off in Stiles' head as he laid his eyes on the photograph on the teacher's desk. It was from his wedding, where he stood next to his gown-clad wife in his military uniform.

"Wait, wait, wait," he cut Deaton off as he picked up the picture, his mind still racing. "Warrior, could that also be like a soldier?"

Deaton nodded. "Absolutely."

Stiles showed him and Lydia the photo and added, "Kyle was in the ROTC with Boyd."

"That's got to be it. That's the pattern," Deaton declared. "Where's Boyd?"

Stiles grabbed his phone from his pocket and glanced at the time as he started to call Boyd. "He's probably home by now. I'm gonna try to get him on the phone."

He pressed the phone to his ear as Deaton looked over at Lydia, who was stiff and looking ahead of her thoughtfully. "Lydia, is something wrong?"

Lydia shook her head. "No, it was, uh," she grimaced. "I mean, I just thought of someone else with a military connection."

Stiles dropped his phone from his ear, ending the call before Boyd even answered. "Who?"

"Mr. Harris."

Stiles sighed in realization; why was their dick of a science teacher involved in every supernatural drama that ever came up in Beacon Hills? "He went to West Point. He has the honor code on his desk and everything."

Lydia bit her lip. "We should go see if he's in his classroom."

He wasn't. The classroom was empty by the time Stiles, Lydia, and Deaton entered, and Mr. Harris wasn't to be found. On his desk were many ungraded tests, though some of them had letters written in red at the top, and his briefcase was on the floor next to the desk.

Deaton looked around the room cautiously. "This is just one of many possibilities," he muttered as he came to the desk where he and Lydia were looking around. "He could have simply left for the day."

"Yeah, well, not without this," Stiles grabbed Harris' briefcase and held it up for Deaton to see.

As he set the briefcase back down, something caught his eye. One of the graded tests he had looked at before didn't hold an A, B, C, D, or F. At the top of the packet was a letter that he had never seen on graded homework before; it was a 'R'.

"What?"

"This test is graded 'R,'" he showed Deaton and Lydia the packet.

Lydia pursed her lips and looked down at the tests, grabbing another one that was graded unusually. "This one's an 'H.'"

A bewildered expression passed over Deaton's face as he grabbed both of the tests from them. He set them on Harris' desk and rearranged some of the tests until the letter grades spelt out, 'DARACH'.

"Stiles," his voice conveyed the worry on his face. "you remembered how I told you druid is the Gaelic word for wise oak?"

"Yeah," what did that have to do with anything?

Deaton had his answer. "If a druid went down the wrong path, the wise oak was sometimes said to have become a dark oak," he looked over at him. "There's a Gaelic word for that as well. Darach."

Stiles grimaced; they were in deep trouble.

-

-

Olivia would probably be scrubbing Derek's blood from her nail beds for a week. It seemed like it was everywhere but in reality, it was isolated in the puddle in front of her where it had started to dry on the floorboards as she mopped and scrubbed it away. She wasn't one to get sick over blood but she still wasn't a big fan of it—especially when she had the job of cleaning it up.

Cora was upstairs with Derek, helping him clean and disinfect his wound before it healed up all the way so that left Olivia to do the work. Isaac, the little fucker, had refused to help her clean it up when he got home from school, and she would never forgive him. She had been on her knees the past hour or so after she finished mopping, trying to get the stain out of the floorboards. She was almost there.

"I think you missed a spot," Isaac called idly from his place on Derek's couch, his English textbook opened on his lap.

"Isaac, I swear, if you say another word..." her voice took on a warning tone that had Isaac smirking to himself.

Satisfied that he wouldn't say anything else, Olivia went back to the large, soapy sponge in her hands, wishing that the stain would just be gone already. She didn't want Derek to have to see it; her cousin was more than capable of protecting himself physically but she wanted to support him, even if she had to clean up his blood so he wouldn't have to do it himself.

She heard the metal door slide open and she only stiffened for a second before looking up and sighing in relief when she saw who it was. Stiles walked into the loft and rolled the door closed behind him before turning around to look at Isaac and then Olivia.

"What are you doing?" he asked curiously.

"She's cleaning up Derek's blood," Isaac answered casually, turning the page of his book. "He had a little accident."

Olivia rolled her eyes at him and then looked back at Stiles. "The alpha pack made a surprise visit."

Stiles winced worriedly. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No, but Derek was," for the moment, Olivia gave up on the blood stain, throwing the sponge in the bucket of pink water and getting to her feet. "Kali decided that he needed a pipe through the stomach."

"Fuck, that had to hurt," Stiles made his way over to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pressing a quick kiss to her temple. "Why'd they come?"

"They want Derek for their pack," Olivia kept it simple for now; she could tell him all the details later.

Stiles, who usually had a hard time picking up silent signals that a person didn't want to talk, just nodded in understanding. Olivia was one of the people he could read the easiest—other than his dad and Scott—so he knew she didn't want to talk about it. Usually, he would have pushed her to tell him anything but for some reason, he knew that tonight wasn't the night.

Olivia looked away from Stiles' face when she noticed that Cora was descending from the spiral staircase. Her cousin was dressed in a black t-shirt now, rather than her workout clothes, and her hands were cleaned of her brother's blood.

"How is he?" she asked her.

"He's getting dressed," Cora answered, her eyes flitting toward Stiles before pointing at him. "I know you."

Olivia furrowed her eyebrows as she looked between her cousin and her boyfriend. "How do you know Stiles?"

Stiles' eyes were lit up in recognition, as well as horror and embarrassment. "We met last summer," he told Olivia before looking at Cora accusingly. "You said your name was Cara."

Cora folded her arms over her chest, looking uncomfortable. "Yeah, well, I lied."

Shit, I'm fucked, Stiles cursed himself. I'm so fucking fucked.

Olivia was still confused. "Wait, what?"

Stiles nor Cora got a chance to answer as Derek came downstairs, cleaned up and dressed warmly to combat the slightly chill air from the storm going on outside. Olivia, Stiles, Isaac, and Cora turned to him and waited for him to say something.

Derek's expression was somber as he addressed Isaac. "Isaac, I need you to leave."

Olivia shut her eyes tightly; somehow, she knew this was coming. She knew Derek better than she knew most people; it was unfortunate that he was doing this but he was trying to protect Isaac. She just hoped he wouldn't screw it up.

"When should I come back?" Isaac misunderstood his alpha's words, closing his textbook and standing to his feet.

"No, I need you to move out," Derek elaborated, a grimace on his face. "It's for your own safety."

Isaac gave him a curious look. "Did something happen?"

"It—the alpha pack—" Derek shook his head. "Look, it's not important. You didn't do anything wrong but I need you to go."

Isaac's blue eyes were wide as he looked between Derek, Cora, and Olivia. "Where am I supposed to go?"

Olivia's heart ached for him; the loft was Isaac's home. He had been with Derek since his father was killed by the kanima last spring and he had no other family to go to. She was going to offer him a room at her and Lydia's house but surprisingly, Stiles was the one to speak up.

"I don't have a guest room at my place but Scott does," he said, uncharacteristically kind—when it came to Isaac, anyway. "I'm sure Melissa won't mind."

Derek looked at Isaac and Olivia could see the sadness in his eyes; he truly cared for his betas and he hated the fact that he had to send one away from his home. "Is that okay for now?"

Isaac nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, it's fine."