BLOOD MONEY

chapter twenty-five; tattoo
[ season three - episode one ]

Her thumb hovered over his name on her phone, like it had all summer.
Still, four months later, she didn't know where the two of them stood in their relationship. If it could be called that. Perhaps friendship was more appropriate. Fairer to him. There were some undeniable feelings there, there always had been, ones that neither of them had ever acted on before, she had been too busy convincing herself they weren't real, that was just one of a select few unfair things she had done to Stiles Stilinski.

She didn't deserve to think of whatever it was that she had with him to have a formal title, that would be just as unfair as everything else she had done. Telling him that she had to keep away from him because she was scared of him getting hurt, equally scared of getting hurt herself too. Or when she had jumped on the first flight to France without as much as a goodbye. She tried to do things in his best interest, but they never seemed to go to plan, if anything, they hurt him, it seemed to be a trait of hers now. Though she wasn't sure whether it had come from her mother or her father, the two seemed to be as bad as each other. That was part of being born to both an Argent and a Hale.

Her entire summer had been spent coming to terms with that.

Peter was one of the few people in Beacon Hills that the girl had stayed in contact with while in France, she still tried to fulfill the dreams of her younger self in having a relationship with a dad, but when the man she was supposed to call dad was Peter Hale, it seemed best to be done from a distance. A far enough distance that she couldn't be hurt by the man. Building a relationship with him was just another thing that proved difficult during her time away, it wasn't easy trying to get to know each other from two different continents, but she didn't have much choice in the matter. By the time she had come to terms with the idea of Peter being her father, she had been in France for two months already, it had taken that long for it to finally hit her.

For the remainder of the summer, the two of them had kept daily contact with each other as the man tried to act fatherly, asking about her day, how she was, and as she had asked him to do, he kept her updated on any werewolf business that happened in her absence. The kind that of wolf business that she promised her uncle she would stay out of, but when her father was one, it was easier said than done.

The things that her father told her were the closest thing she had to a distraction, knowing about a pack of Alphas that had left their mark on the door of the Hale house was what occupied every hour she spent staring at the ceiling trying to fall asleep. It was better than the other option- the boy who she left behind. From Paris, she had tried to do all of the digging she could on the Alpha pack who planned on coming for her family, everything she found she sent to either her father or another werewolf she found herself in frequent contact with- Isaac. They'd developed quite the strong friendship over past months, something the two of them never thought would happen, it seemed there was once a split second when there was the possibility of being something more, but the distance had made Kinsey realize that her heart had grown fonder for others. They were content with the friendship they'd forged, consisting of teasing and occasional flirting, it was the way it worked for them, and it was what had gotten them both through the summer.

Kinsey had lost track of all the messages she had written to Stiles when she lay awake at night under a Parisian sky, none of which she'd had the guts to send. At the beginning of summer, she had promised herself that she wouldn't, as Allison had promised not to call Scott. It had been a challenge for them both, they had both had their fair share of temptation as they looked down at their phones contemplating whether to break their promise to themselves. It was harder than either of them thought it had been. They were both led to believe that Paris would be a good distraction from them, a new culture and way of living, recreating childhoods that they'd spent in that very Parisian apartment and the hours of training per day but even all of those things put together couldn't distract someone from a broken heart.

Fixing their broken hearts was a task that Lydia had claimed as her own, while the two Argents were unable to find a distraction, they were hers. She could have sat back and tried to fix her own broken heart while she was alone in Beacon Hills, but why would she do that when she could fix theirs instead?

"You were in France and didn't do anything for four months?" Lydia asked with a prying eye as she looked at the older brunette who sat in her passenger seat. The girl simply shrugged at the question as though the answer wasn't obvious, the three had kept in touch with weekly phone calls, surely Lydia knew that there was nobody else in her life. But Lydia had just hoped that the two of them had simply refrained from mentioning that someone had caught their interest in Paris, she could never be sure that the two weren't keeping something from her. They were a pair of brilliant secret-keepers, and well, Kinsey never shared much detail about anything in her life, no matter what it was. It had taken Allison to spill the beans about Kinsey admitting she had feelings for Stiles, and even that took much longer than she would have liked.

While in Paris, Allison hadn't thought about dating, she wasn't sure if Kinsey felt the same way, but dating wasn't why she'd spent the past four months in Paris, it was just one of the reasons she had left Beacon Hills. It was a chance for her to heal and to continue the training that Chris had promised to give them, she wanted to be stronger if she returned to Beacon Hills, so that she never had to worry about being weak enough to be manipulated once again.

"What about you, Kins?" Lydia asked as she looked through the rearview mirror at the girl who sat in the back seat. Ever since she had picked the two of them up from their new apartment she had been sitting quietly in thought, staring down at her phone. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was on her mind, or who. Now that she was back in Beacon Hills it was inevitable that she would have to see Stiles at one point, Kinsey just had to decide whether she wanted him to find out that she was back from her, whether it was a text or phone call, or him seeing her as she walked through the halls at school tomorrow. He deserved to hear it from her but doing it was much harder than just considering it.

"Huh?" Kinsey mumbled, looking up from her phone, watching as his name faded into darkness as it had every night in France when she had given up on the idea of reaching out. She had what remainder of tonight to make a decision on whether she would text him before they ran into one another in the school halls tomorrow, as it stood, he didn't even know whether she was coming back. She hadn't told him. Allison hadn't told Scott. And Lydia had been sworn to secrecy. They were all focusing this first night back in Beacon Hills on each other, making up for the past four months of only talking over phone calls.

"Dating. Did you do any while you were away?"

"Oh," Kinsey mumbled again. "No, no I barely left the apartment."

She hadn't lied. There had only been a single time that she and Allison had left the apartment, and even then it was because the two had been forced out by the broken AC on the hottest day of the year. If it wasn't for the broken AC the two would have continued their summer of laying in bed, wallowing over their emotions. If it wasn't for the training and phone calls with Lydia the two would have happily spent four months hiding under their sheets. Allison had a break-up to get over, a mother to grieve for. And Kinsey needed to make a decision about what she would do if they ever did return back to Beacon Hills. Not only for Stiles, either. She had a father to think about now, and frankly, she wasn't sure if she could last any longer than four months without Lydia. She quite missed being dragged out on shopping trips at ungodly hours such as noon.

"So did you?..." Allison asked the redhead driving. "Date anyone, I mean. You know, after..."

"Do not say his name." Lydia interrupted.

The redhead had in fact been dating during the summer, when she wasn't distracting herself with Allison's breakup and Kinsey's, well, she didn't know what to call it either Lydia had broadened her dating horizons. Not by much considering that she had once found herself hooking up with someone who looked like Devenford Prep's version of Jackson Whittemore. Even if the boy had looked almost identical to the ex that she was trying to get over, it had helped in processing her own heartbreak. Though she had tried to keep the details away from her two best friends, she knew they wouldn't agree with it, or at least Allison wouldn't, she could already imagine a speech about focusing on themselves while the three of them were all trying to cope with their break-ups, or whatever it was Kinsey and Stiles were going through.

"Is he okay? I mean, did everything work out?"

"Well, the doctors looked like total idiots when he turned up alive, but everyone got over it." Lydia shrugged, she still found it amusing now, four months later. Back then she had found it traumatizing, but back then it was all still new to her. That was before she had spent a summer processing the supernatural, talking about it with Kinsey and Allison. Or occasionally Scott and Stiles who she had kept in touch with, despite what was happening with them and her two best friends. If she didn't have Scott and Stiles around to annoy her she wasn't sure she would have been able to cope with not having the two huntresses at her side. "Derek taught him the werewolf 101 while he was still here, like how not to randomly kill people during a full moon."

Kinsey and Allison laughed at the girl's comment, oh how they had missed having to worry about things like a full moon in Beacon Hills, wondering whether they would wake up to the news of another animal attack. Though Paris was beautiful and a place she had loved since she was a child it lacked all of Beacon Hills's, well, uniqueness.

The younger brunette could only assume that since Lydia knew all of this she had spoken to the blonde werewolf, even she had spoken to Jackson since he had left for London. Though Derek had taught him Werewolf 101 he still needed some things clearing up, and she was the one he had come to. As the daughter/cousin of a wolf, best friend to a wolf, and well, not Scott or Stiles themselves, she seemed like his best option for advice.

Since seeing Jackson off as he boarded the plane to London Lydia hadn't heard a word from him, she couldn't quite blame him, he needed to settle into an entirely new continent, meet new people and truly come to terms with what he was. It couldn't be easy trying to explain to his parents how he had been declared dead only to turn up alive and without a scratch just a few hours later, for that, Lydia had chosen it was best not to bother him with texts and calls for at least a few weeks. When the time felt right, she had begun sending him the odd text to check up on him but had never received anything back, it had been around two months since their last text and still, she hadn't heard from him. Kinsey and Allison knew that not speaking or hearing from Jackson had to hurt Lydia, after what both of them had said before he died in her arms she thought that was the turning point for them, that may be all of the things that had happened between them was just the Kanima talking, not Jackson.

It seemed as though the girl had convinced herself she would be getting her happy ending, but if she would ever get it, it wasn't with Jackson. It took her a while to come to terms with that. Lydia tried to brush off Allison's questions with a whatever, pretending that she no longer cared for the wolf, instead, making a small comment about an American wolf being in England would just be a disaster. She didn't want to focus on the details of him leaving them.

"So you're totally over him?" Allison questioned again, she doubted that the redhead was, she could see through her like glass, and Kinsey's looks from the back of the car had helped her to decipher that all wasn't as perfect as it seemed. It was no secret that Lydia told much more to Kinsey than she did Allison, but the older brunette didn't mind, the two always kept her in the loop somehow. Even if it were just vague details, it was enough.

"Would I be going on a group date if I wasn't?" Lydia snapped. Both Allison and Kinsey erupted into laughter, from the moment that Lydia had suggested going out tonight Kinsey had known that it was more than just the three of them hanging out. Especially when she had been so against the idea of sitting at home in bed with a chick flick and some wine that they would steal from Natalie's liquor cabinet. Lydia sighed loudly. "Yes, it is a group date. It's not an orgy, the two of you will live."

The three girls continued laughing and joking about tonight's date, reminiscing on the last time Lydia had arranged a group date, how terribly things had gone, perhaps tonight would go better than that. As long as Kinsey remembered the name of her date it couldn't be hard, and as far as Lydia was aware, none of their dates were supernatural, which was an immediate step up from a date involving a werewolf, someone who wanted to be one, and an easily forgettable wanna-be.

Allison's laughter had quickly faded out as she looked past Lydia, seeing something that startled her, her heart dropping into her stomach. "Oh, my God." She muttered, scrambling to hide as the other girls' furrowed their brows, unsure what was happening.

The redhead turned to see what Allison had seen, Kinsey leaning forward between the two front seats to see it too, too curious for her own good. Her eyes widened as she saw the blue Jeep that waited beside them at the red light, Scott, and Stiles staring into Lydia's Toyota, just as surprised to see Allison as she was them. Their surprise only worsened when they had seen she wasn't on her own, that both of the Argents were back in town, and they hadn't known a thing about it. All of the times they had asked their redhead friend for an update on them, she told them that they hadn't spoken all summer, that she wasn't sure they were ever coming back. Yet here they were.

While Allison had seen the ex that she had spent the past four months avoiding, pining over, the brunette in the backseat had seen the person she was just thinking about, wondering what she'd feel when she saw him again, perhaps relief, or sadness, maybe even being overwhelmed with a sense of joy, glad that he was back in arms reach. But none of those feelings came to mind when she threw herself back into the backseat of the car, hiding herself, only filled with fear and regret or even a hint of shame. It was too soon to confront those feelings that she thought she had the remainder of the night to come to terms with.

She couldn't just act as though everything was fine, as though it had gone back to the old times before her grandfather put his life at risk. Maybe Gerard was out of the picture now, but none of the things she said were, if anything, his life was more at risk around her now, she was fathered by the Alpha who used to torment them, who almost killed them, multiple times. It seemed he would never be safe around her.

For the past four months, Stiles Stilinski had tried to push his feelings for Kinsey Argent out of his mind, along with the heartbreak her words caused him, he had been somewhat successful for a time, he found distractions in practicing lacrosse with Scott, helping him heal from the break up with Allison. It was only when Scott seemed to be getting better that he began getting worse, the thought of the girl who'd failed to contact him playing on his mind, along with the temptation to reach out himself. He resisted temptation until last week, when it finally seemed to be gone, the boy then decided it was time to move on, to find someone new, that was supposed to begin with the party he was going to tomorrow, he had been sure that as sure as he saw Heather, the girl he had been texting lately, all feelings for Kinsey would be a thing of the past.

Until he saw her again, and it all came flooding back, leaving him questioning how he thought it was possible to get over her. He had somehow forgotten how much he adored her, how perfect she had always seemed to him.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God." Allison continued to panic, unable to find a place inside of the small car that could sufficiently hide her from her ex. "I can't see him, not now."

"Lydia, please go," Kinsey begged the girl, hoping that by some miracle they hadn't seen her yet, that they had only noticed Allison in the car. "Go, Lydia, just go!"

Lydia tried to argue with the girls, telling them that the light was still red, but neither quite cared what color the traffic light in front of them was, they were much more concerned about gaining a good distance between them and the Jeep before either of the boys had a chance to roll down the window to talk to them. In unison, the two Argents screamed at her to go, the redhead finally slamming her foot down on the gas, her Toyota's poor tires screeching against the road as Stiles managed to get Scott's window down, hoping to confront the three girls.

Only when they felt they had driven far enough away from the two boys were the two girls able to breathe a sigh of relief, sinking down in their seats, burning their heads in embarrassment, the two of them certainly could have handled themselves better, but they'd panicked, they had both played it out in their heads many times about how they would see Scott and Stiles again, pulling up beside each other at a set of red lights was something they never considered.

Lydia had never seen the two of them in such a state, she knew they could be dramatic at times, she thought that was just part of the whole supernatural life, but this wasn't that. And it wasn't the "we're completely fine" that she had been given by both of them many times over the past four months. Nothing about what they had just done was completely fine. They were both in an absolute state, nowhere near over what happened before their sudden departure.

Allison wasn't handling the break up well at all, no matter how many times she tried to convince herself of it. And Kinsey was most definitely caught up over what she said to Stiles before leaving for France, even if she had told both Allison and Lydia daily that she had come to terms with it, it was in the past, that she couldn't change it. If that were true, she wouldn't have just screamed at the top of her lungs and freaked out like a little girl. It seemed a little over the top even for her, a girl who's entire life defined dramatic.

Kinsey turned to look through the back window, seeing that the Jeep had only just passed over the green light, a few feet back from them, far enough for them to speed up a little more and let them fade into the darkness. She knew now that she couldn't keep doing that, it had gone past that. "We need to go back and talk to them." She stated plainly as Allison looked at her, she had the same thought, they couldn't avoid it forever, they had the chance to do that when Chris had suggested they stay away from Beacon Hills, something both had argued with.

Listening to their request, Lydia stopped in the middle of the road, all three of them looking out of the back window, seeing that the Jeep had stopped too, just a few feet behind them. None of the girls could understand why they had stopped, but as the redhead pointed out when it came to Scott and Stiles, logic didn't apply. A smile had grown over her face at the girl's comment, she had turned back to the girls in the front seat, her face immediately dropping when she saw what was coming toward them.

An involuntary shriek escaped from Kinsey's mouth as she looked straight ahead into the eyes of a deer running straight towards them, its eyes riddled with insanity. Allison and Lydia turned just in time to see the deer as it crashed through the windscreen, millions of tiny glass shards flew at them as they tried to shield themselves. Scott and Stiles had already jumped out of the car when they'd heard the familiar scream of Kinsey, if that hadn't been enough to alert them, seeing that moment when the deer crashed through the windscreen certainly had been.

The three girls stumbled out of the car, unable to catch their breaths as they backed up from the crash in shock, their eyes remaining on the dead deer trapped in Lydia's windscreen, a sight that would haunt them for a long while. The look in its eyes. The fear they felt inside of them. How all time seemed to slow almost to a halt, even when Kinsey was wrapped into a set of arms, it failed to seem real. Her chest was heaving as she tried to form a sentence.

"Kinsey. Kinsey, baby, are you all right?" Stiles asked as he cupped her face in his hands, but her teary eyes remained on the animal stuck in the car, the heavy beating of her own heart inside of her ears allowing her to miss what he had called her, that impulsive thing that slipped out of his mouth, when all he saw was red.

"It came out of nowhere." The girl mumbled as he pulled her into his chest. Unable to fathom all of it. In a split second, the dear had appeared, in the skip of a heartbeat, the glass was flying over her, when a scream had almost collapsed her lungs it had clawed so desperately to escape. "The deer... It just... It came out of nowhere." She shook her head.

"Are you okay? Your not hurt are you?" Stiles asked as he pulled her away from his chest to check her over. She didn't seem hurt, in fact, it seemed like all three of them had gotten out unscathed, not even a single scratch on any of them. Not a single glass shard anywhere on their clothes or in their hair, they were all physically fine, but mentally, however, they were scarred.

"I'm okay." She nodded breathlessly, unsure whether she was telling the truth as she said it, she was overwhelmed, unsure how to feel, about anything. The brunette looked up at him, into the boy's concerned eyes, and it felt as though she had begun to melt. He had looked at her that way a million times before, but something felt different about it, there were more butterflies, more of a warmth in her heart, and more nerves than she had ever felt before. It was unexplainable.

Her eyes scanned over him, taking a good look at him after going months without seeing him, seeing how much he had changed while she had been gone. The first thing she noticed was that what once was a shaven buzzcut that he had when the two of them had met was now grown out. That had to be a suggestion of Lydia's, she refused to believe that he had willingly given up the buzzcut he had adored without someone telling him to. Her jaw couldn't help but visibly drop as she took it all in, his new appearance, even the way he stood was more confident than the Stiles who she had left here a few months ago.

How was she not supposed to feel all the feelings she felt now? If anything they were stronger than when she had gotten on that plane to France.

"Well, I'm not okay," Lydia announced as she stood in the middle of the group, still catching her breath, drawing the girl's attention as well as everyone else's, pushing aside the rush of feelings they were all feeling from the sudden, unconventional reunion. "I am totally freaking out. How the hell does it just run into us?" She asked, turning to Kinsey and Stiles as if they would know how to answer that, they both seemed pretty experienced with weird occurrences.

"I saw its eyes right before it hit us. It was like it... it was like it was crazy." Kinsey explained to the two boys. A feeling had returned to her that she hadn't felt in a long time, since the night she last saw everyone, the night that Jackson died, that Gerard had almost killed them, the night she felt her entire life had changed. She never did quite work out which one of all those things that had happened that night had been the cause of that feeling inside of her stomach, but what she did know was the moment that scream had escaped her mouth it had returned.

"No, it was scared." Scott shook his head as he stood beside the deer. He reached his hand out, touching the deer, and a feeling rushed through him. "Actually, terrified."

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The ringing of her alarm clock sounded through the brunette's ears, waking her up with a groan as she threw a pillow over her head. It couldn't be that time already, the official end of summer. The beginning of another hellish school year. It was too soon. A groan came from beside her, the other Argent just as unthrilled by the idea of going back to school, Allison reached over to slam a hand down on the snooze button. If even she wasn't prepared for the first day, Kinsey knew that it was bad. Allison was always prepared, the one who usually dragged her out of bed when she'd wanted at least another half an hour beneath the covers. But that was the old Allison, this Allison with the shorter hair, new wardrobe and fragile heart and wasn't opposed to the idea of sleeping in, forever.

Last night when Stiles had returned them home to their new apartment they had opted for it to be like old times, sharing a bed together, capturing the innocence they once had as little kids, or even at the beginning of that last school year when they had one of their many sleepovers, when the supernatural wasn't part of their lives. When the most heartbreaking thing to happen was for the local coffee shop to be out of donuts, not break-ups and death.

They wanted to hold onto that idea of innocence. Both knew better, but they needed something to feel normal. Between moving into a newly built apartment that lacked any touch of Victoria to not being given a night-before-school lecture, the two needed to feel like part of their childhood still remained. There had to be something that could make this place feel like home without her, something beyond the unpainted walls and the boxes of belongings scattered in every room, the foyer included.

None of the Argents had quite had the time to unpack or begin decorating yet, the three of them had only officially moved in yesterday, the apartment had only been brought two weeks ago, the very day that Chris had allowed them the choice of what they wanted to do, both girls adamant on coming back to this town, no matter what had happened to them when they were last here, a decision they only slightly regretted upon waking up there.

Of course, Kinsey and Allison hadn't been given free-rein on the decision. There were conditions. Chris had set the condition that neither of them would get involved in werewolf business, if they were to move back here, they would move back as a normal family, not a family of hunters or the two girls they once were, friends with werewolves, dating werewolves even. They were a normal family just looking to make it through life here. Kinsey had refrained from telling either of them a pack of Alphas were on the horizon, the fear that would incite would have kept them in France, it wasn't an option, the two of them would find out on their own, as would everyone else.

There were a few more shared groans before the two girls decided that they had to get up, they had to go to school, to live this life they'd begged their father/uncle to let them return to, being a good student was only part of that promise, a promise they'd made to themselves too. This time would be different. They promised themselves that.

Once ready, Kinsey stood staring at her reflection in her bedroom mirror, compared to the girl in the mirror this time last year, she was unrecognisable. Perhaps it was the change in her face, the natural change of anyone growing up, she was maturing, the new tint of red in her brunette hair helping to distinguish it. Sharpening it unlike the blonde highlights she left with that softened it. Her eyes stood out more now, eyes that had never looked more like her mothers. Everything that looked back at her seemed different. She was different, as Stiles told her last night.

Unable to think about it anymore, Kinsey returned to Allison's room where she found the girl sat on the edge of her bed with a bowed head, looking the exact way she felt, perhaps she too had a run-in with the girl in the mirror that she hardly recognized. The two of them sat together in that silence, embracing it before they were hounded with questions about their Parisian summer, or how they were doing after the tragic "suicide" of Victoria. The cover up story. Every death in their family seemed to have to have one of those.

Chris walked into the bedroom, ready to ask the two of them if they were ready to leave, but the simple look of their faces had told him his answer. Their blank stares that were still riddled with pain that was unnatural for girls their age to have felt. He too missed the sound of a usual school morning, the sound of Victoria lecturing them, everyone screaming at Kinsey to hurry up before she was late, the laughter of the two teenager girls that was infatuating. This morning there was nothing but silence.

It was clear neither were ready for this, but both of them had convinced themselves they had to be. Allison had never seemed quite ready to come back from France in the way Kinsey did, she'd pushed at the idea to come back too, but her heart wasn't in it the way that her younger cousin's was. Unlike Kinsey, she didn't have much to come back to. She had Lydia. Kinsey had Lydia, her father, Derek, Isaac, and maybe even Stiles. Of course her heart was going to be more into this, it would be unnatural for her to discard the feelings and the love she had for the people who were still in this town, hoping that she would come back.

"You both ready?" He asked anyway, standing in the doorway, hoping that the two of them were going to give him an honest answer, asking for just one more day to comprehend their new lives. But they didn't. Both girls hummed in agreement, failing to convince him. "You know, you could still wait till tomorrow if you want. I know the first day can be tough." He suggested as he joined them on the edge of the bed, squeezing in the space between them. The girls disagreed, telling him again they were fine, honestly, they wanted today over and done with. "Or you could wait a week if that would make things easier."

Usually, Kinsey would have been inclined to take up the offer of skipping school, to the old her, it sounded like a dream, that was just it, she wasn't the old her. Not completely anyway. They both knew that it didn't matter how long they delayed going back to school they would still face all of the things they had if they'd gotten it over and done with sooner. There would be questions still, rumours still. No amount of time would change that. No matter how long they delayed school, it wouldn't change the fact that Victoria and Kate were dead, that Allison had broken up with Scott or that Kinsey had told Stiles that she couldn't be around him.

"We promised Lydia that we would drive her since her car's wrecked." Allison told her father. "So we should go," She nodded, trying to convince herself that it was the right thing to do as well as convincing her dad too.

Chris held out a hand for the two girls sitting on either side of him, both taking it as he pulled the two of them into a tight hug, for one last time, embracing in the silence, the comfort of their hug, this was how it would be now. Just the three of them. And it would take time to get used to.

Kinsey and Lydia stood with Allison at her locker, waiting for her to put her books away before all of them headed to their first class of the Junior year, one they were lucky enough to share for the first time. It was about time the three of them shared a class with one another. No longer having to catch each other up on what had happened during their separate classes, or for Lydia's sake, a good piece of gossip that they might have heard while in their separate classes. The redhead had found herself less concerned about gossip, and more concerned about the fresh faces walking in on their first day. Some, even their first day of high school.

"Freshmen." Lydia sighed joyfully. "Tons and tons of fresh men."

Allison was replused, correcting her best friend. Boys. Fresh boys. They were 14. Lydia shrugged, some were more mature than others, and for some, that was only two years younger. Like Kinsey who was yet to hit seventeen. Besides the brunette didn't care for any of the fresh faces that had passed by, she wasn't interested in dating, that wasn't what she had came back to do, and even if it did interest her, it wasn't anyone new who would catch her eye. They weren't him. Until she figured out for good what she felt for Stiles, dating was off of the table.

"You know, it's okay to be single," Allison suggested as she looked at the two. It was obvious that Lydia's summer had been spent focusing on boys, and Kinsey, well it was obvious that when she found herself in Stiles' arms last night, she also found herself back to square one, overwhelmed with emotions that she was incapable of understanding, hence why she chose to ignore them, to push away whoever made her feel that way in the first place. "Focus on yourself for a little while, work on becoming a better person."

Lydia and Kinsey turned to one another with a raised brow, wondering whether she was talking to them, or herself. And if it was to them, she couldn't be serious. Unable to contain themselves the girls burst out into laughter, confusing Allison who hadn't realized just how many times she had done this before. Talking about her own problems, disguising them as others. She did it to them while in Paris when the three of them would sit on a phone call with one another, or even before then, though she used to be much more discreet about it. Allison wanted nothing more than some advice on how she felt, typically using Kinsey and Stiles to cover that, she wanted to be told that it would be fine for her to call and check up on the wolf she'd left behind, breaking a promise she had made to herself. This was no different, she just wanted them to give her advice on her own issues, but to do it, made it seem as though the two of them were the ones with the problems that needed resolving.

"Oh, Allison." Lydia shook her head. "I love you."

"We really do," Kinsey added with a nod, slowly tuning this into an impromptu intervention for the brunette. There didn't seem a better time to do it than before she would face Scott again, or before they had officially begun a new school year, maybe then, they could see this all as a fresh start, embracing the changes. "But we can't keep doing this."

"So if you need to do that thing where we talk about us and pretend like we're not talking about you, it's totally fine." The redhead emphasized, Allison couldn't help but smile, the two really did know her better than anyone else. She thought she had disguised it well, clearly, just not as well as she thought. Lydia slammed her hand against the locker, looking around the hallway around them again, the hallway filled with fresh boys. "Anyway, I don't know about the two of you, but I don't want a boyfriend. I want a distraction."

Kinsey didn't have time to try and act like she didn't have time to keep up with the facade she'd started a long time ago, acting as though she had no interest for anyone or a relationship, and it wasn't because the two of them would see right through her like they did Allison, she simply had been too distracted by what was coming down the hall. Her jaw was dropped, instinctively she'd pulled herself off of the locker to get a view, alerting Lydia who cricked her neck to see what had caught Kinsey's attention so easily. Soon enough their expression matched.

Allison closed her locker, leaning against it with an exasperated sigh, only then noticing her best friend and cousin as they stood catching flies, their eyes still on whatever was down the corridor. She couldn't help but turn to see what the two were gawping at, and even she couldn't complain about the sight in front of her. Two brunette boys walked the halls in matching leather jackets, a motorcycle helmet in their hands. With their resemblance Allison couldn't help but ask whether the two might be related, a question that was always asked with her and Kinsey, or perhaps they were brothers, the two shared much more of a resemblance than the two girls did.

The two new boys looked too alike to be just brothers, there was hardly any differences between them, that was why Lydia was sure in her answer. There was no doubt about it. Twins. Just what Beacon Hills needed. And just what Lydia wanted.

One by one the three girls walked into class with Lydia and Kinsey leading ahead, still talking about the set of twins they had seen in the hallway while Allison followed behind slowly, still thinking about what she had said to them. She could focus on herself, or she could do what she really wanted to do and talk to Scott. As Kinsey scanned the class for an empty seat Lydia explained how it was her life mission to find out more about the two twins and when she felt as though she had learned enough, she would make her move. When Kinsey had found two empty seats of course they had had to both surround Stiles, one of the seats in front of him, the other right beside him. Lydia and Kinsey shared a look with one another, the redhead silently asking if she was willing to sit there after the only conversation the two of them had shared since the start of summer was last night when a deer had hit them. She couldn't have blamed the brunette if she wasn't quite ready to jump back into the life she had left behind, she still needed to decide if she would talk to Stiles, talk about the things she had been thinking about during summer.

When Kinsey nodded the two took the free seats, the brunette taking the seat beside Stiles as she gave him a faint smile and Lydia taking the one in front of him. Allison had been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn't thought about where she would sit until she was left with only one choice, right in front of Scott. She looked at Kinsey and Lydia who smiled at her wearily, if there was one thing worse than Kinsey having to sit beside Stiles, it was Allison in front of Scott.

Nervously, she asked the wolf whether the seat was free for her, even though there were no other options for her to sit, she felt it was necessary to ask whether she could sit by him before asking Lydia to swap with her. A just as nervous Scott agreed that the seat was free, empty, all hers, vacant, all for her, just for her. Allison quickly sat down, hiding her face in embarrassment while Scott looked across to the two who sat in his row, Stiles provided him with a sarcastic thumbs up while Kinsey couldn't do anything but give him an awkward smile.

A series of phones began ringing and chiming across the room, confusing all of the students, the only time this happened was when explicit photos of Greenberg had accidentally been sent to everyone. By Greenberg. Kinsey pulled out her phone, looking at Lydia and Stiles before daring to look at what was on it, by the lack of gasps across the room she thought it was safe to assume it wasn't Greenberg or anyone else's junk on her screen.

"The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." A woman walked into the room, her heels clicking against the tiled floor as she read out the text that everyone seemed to receive, catching everyone's attention easily. It was one way to make an impression. "This is the first line to the last book we are going to read. It is also the last text you will receive in this class. Phones off, everyone."

Kinsey sat idly doodling in her book rather than focusing on the task that everyone had been set while Miss. Blake left the room, she couldn't concentrate on work right now, she still couldn't shift that bad feeling that appeared last night. With that feeling and the images of the deer from last night, it was hard for her to focus on her studies, all that seemed to help subside it was a new hobby she had picked up over the summer. Drawing. It came to her quite naturally which was a surprise, she'd never been too artistic, of course, there were her random doodles all over each one of her textbooks but they had never been serious. Today, it seemed as though birds were on her mind, her entire page was filled with birds of all different sizes. Stiles looked up from his work, checking up on the girl beside him when he had seen that she was doodling, he wasn't surprised, he knew she didn't have the best attention span when it came to school. He noticed that on the page her arm leaned on was what seemed to be a drawing of a deer, he wondered if it was a coincidence, she seemed to be into the whole nature things, but after last night he had to wonder if it was because the deer thing was playing on her mind like it was his.

But it didn't seem like he could ask her, after all, it had been a while since the two had a proper conversation. Even after she had looked at him the way that she had, like there was a chance to rekindle whatever it was they had, he couldn't be sure by just a look. And he had to remember what she had said that night, if he knew anything about the girl it was that she was very strong-minded, who was he to believe that she would go back on her word for him?

He shook off any idea of talking to the girl, he didn't want to bother her. Instead, he turned to look at the girl who sat in front of him, that was someone he could talk to. Lydia had been the one he called or texted every time he wanted to know how Kinsey was doing without having to bother the girl herself, over that period of time the two could even now call each other friends. He looked down noticing the redhead had a bandaid around her ankle, he was sure it wasn't there last night, he had made sure to check over both the brunette and Lydia for any damage and he'd noticed how both of them hadn't had a scratch, so where had it come from?

"Hey, Lydia." He whispered, not only getting her attention, but Kinsey's too. "What is that? Is that from the accident?" He asked, pointing down at the bandaid.

"No." The redhead mumbled. "Prada bit me."

"Your dog?"

Kinsey scoffed as he looked at her with a furrowed brow. "No, her designer handbag."

"Yes, my dog." Lydia shook her head. Was this what the two of them had come to? Making snarky comments at one another because they were physically incapable of having a real conversation? Too scared that even one casual chat in class would get the other hurt somehow? As if the world wanted the two of them dead so badly. Lydia tried to turn back to her work, to leave them to the awkward dynamic their lack of talking had created, if that was what they'd rather do than admit they needed each other.

Once he had confirmed that Prada had never bit the girl before he began going off on a tangent, as he always did. The boy began theorizing that somehow Prada and the deer from last night were connected. He had already found the accident suspicious enough for him to begin looking on the internet about how many collisions involving deer there had been in the past few months but now he was more suspicious than ever. He suggested that maybe this was one of those cases where animals began going crazy before an earthquake, it was safe to say he had caught enough of Kinsey's attention for her to put her pencil down and listen to him. Somehow, it made sense, and maybe, just maybe whatever was going to happen, that the animals were all going crazy for was the entire reason she had that pit in her stomach.

"Meaning what, there's going to be an earthquake?" Lydia asked, not even slightly convinced as she found herself involved in their conversation again. She was part of all this insanity now, they might have been able to keep her out of it before, but not anymore. Pehaps part of her wanted a part in all the craziness, to be wrapped up in Stiles' insane theories.

"Or something. Maybe it means something's coming. Something bad."

Lydia brushed it off, reassuring him it was just a deer and a dog, there was no reason for him to go off on the tangent. At least she hadn't thought so, but Kinsey stopped them, suggesting that he may be right, taking him by surprise, making sure he'd heard her right. The last thing he had expected was for her to agree with him, well, he didn't even expect her to speak to him after an awkward, less than pleasant exchange last night when he'd taken her home. And yet today, she was agreeing with him on bizarre theories involving a dog, deer and potential earthquake. That was why he couldn't help but ask why she thought he was right.

The brunette stammered as she tried to explain. "Since it happened last night that feeling came back. You know, that feeling that I had at the lacrosse game?" She asked as the boy nodded, the night seemed like only yesterday, he remembered every little detail about it, including how she sat on the bench, telling him and Scott that she felt like people were going to die.

"The two of you are being dramatic." Lydia told them with a roll of her eyes. "What's new?" The redhead disagreed with any chance of something weird happening, this town had had enough of being weird for a while, surely they had a good few years before bad things happened again. Even a town like this couldn't have that much bad luck, not even Kinsey had that bad of luck, a girl born to two complete and utter psychopaths. "What's that thing you say about threes? Once, twice..."

Before she could continue the infamous Stilinski saying, a crow flew into the window beside the Argent girl, its blood splattering against the glass before it dropped to the floor. Its collision with the window had caught everyone's attention as they all looked out of the window, seeing much more than the remains of a dead bird. In the near distance, an entire flock of black crows flew in the direction of the school, their combined squeaking loud enough to be hard even through the walls. Miss. Blake put down her chalk as she began walking towards the window, her jaw slowly dropping as she looked at the flock of birds heading straight for the school, all of them willing to kill themselves against the glass like the first bird had.

With a quivering lip and heavy breaths, Kinsey turned to drawing in her notebook, a black crow looking back at her, the thing she had been drawing all of last night when she couldn't sleep, or this morning, when she couldn't deal with listening to Miss Blake. The last time she looked, the two of them were simply black crows, now, they were covered in splatters of red. The concerning part? She didn't even know how the red had gotten there.

Kinsey's head sharply turned back to the window,one by one the birds began colliding with it, all following the lead of the first bird, splattering its own blood against the glass. Eventually, the big flock of birds colliding with the glass weakened it, cracking the glass until the birds flew straight through it, attacking the students who sat inside. Miss Blake screamed for everyone to get down, and almost everyone did as they used their desks to shield themselves, others were too shaken up to move. Too scared that they may have just predicted it happening.

Blood from her head began dripping on the drawing of crows as she stared at them in horror, the image coming to life more than it already had. Her wound continued to bleed from the glass that hit her head when the birds came crashing through, the girl hadn't flinched. Lydia hid beneath a desk, shielding her head with her arms like most of the screaming class, Stiles had ducked down to follow their lead until he saw that Kinsey was still sitting at her desk with shaking hands, only just noticing that her own head was bleeding as she reached for the bleeding wound.

He pushed any desks out of his way, shoving past any clamoring students who blocked his path as rabid crows began pecking at his exposed head until he too had a bleeding wound, but Stiles refused to stop until he reached the brunette, yelling her name, but it was as though she was in another universe. When he finally reached her Stiles pulled her off of the chair, wrapping her up in his arms as he tried to shield them both, he could feel as she trembled, holding a fistful of his shirt as she kept close to him.

As the two cowered on the floor, he noticed her open notebook that had dropped to the floor as she had, the drawing of black crows inside of it, the red that covered them, some of it was blood, he could see that, but other parts of the red had clearly been etched into the paper with force. It was clear that she hadn't done it, he knew she hadn't, he had been watching her in the corner of his eye, the pencil that was in her hand as she scribbled away.

A crow flew down, brushing past the notebook, the swoosh of air blowing the pages of the book until he was met with another horrifying image. A deer. None of this was a coincidence, she had somehow known it was coming. That feeling inside of her. It was more than just a feeling.

The squeaking of the birds finally came to a halt, all of them seemingly mauling themselves to death as they lay scattered around the classroom surrounded by traumatized teenagers, every desk and chair out of place, pushed aside, thrown in order to create a shield. When it all finally fell silent, the teenagers slowly started standing up to see the massacre, Kinsey, and Stiles had looked at one another, the bleeding wounds on each other's heads before looking around them at the mess that had been made. Lydia and Allison also pulled themselves off of the floor, each of them sharing a concerned look with one another, each one of them covered in blood whether it was their own or the blood of the dead crows scattered around the room.

There it was. Number three. "Kinsey," Stiles said softly, the girls looked at him as he picked up something from the floor, holding it up to the three girls as he asked. "How long has this been happening?"

The brunette and Allison sat on one of the desks as Chris checked both of them over, he doubted that the EMTs had done a good enough job of checking over the two girls, even after Kinsey had been given stitches for the cut on his head he doubted their skills. He couldn't be sure until he'd done checks of his own, not until he was sure there were no broken bones, sprains, or any other cuts that required further medical attention. Allison and Kinsey were all that he had left which meant he couldn't risk them getting hurt, that was just one of the reasons he'd made them both agree to stay out of werewolf business if they wanted to stay in Beacon Hills. Chris told the two that the next time they had doubts about coming to school that the two of them would stay at home like he had suggested this morning, and once again, the two were left to reassure the man that they were fine. It was even more unconvincing now that Kinsey had stitches in her head.

"We're okay," Allison repeated again. "But, Dad, the deer, and now this?"

"I know. I know." The man sighed. Kinsey chose not to mention her concerns that she could've predicted this happening with her drawings, she believed that it would come under the kind of business that Chris had warned them both to stay out of. She didn't want to leave Beacon Hills because of some stupid coincidental drawings that may have predicted what happened here.

"It can't be a coincidence." Allison reiterated, only causing more guilt to burn inside of Kinsey.

After overhearing the snippet of the conversation between the three Argent Sheriff Stilinski approached the three of them, as soon as Stiles had seen his father walk past him and towards the three of them he had been filled with dread, only worsening when his father had asked if Chris had any insight into what had happened here. Of course, Chris was concerned by the man's question as he looked at his daughter and niece, both of the girls were just as surprised as him. Sheriff Stilinski had assumed that Chris might have seen something like all of this strange animal behavior before, an accusation that Argent was confused by until the man explained he had once heard Stiles and Kinsey talking about him being an experienced hunter. An eavesdropping Stiles placed his head in his hands while Kinsey froze, that was the last time she would talk to his son about supernatural business while under his roof. The two had never known that the man was listening to their conversation, who knew what else had been said in front of him?

Chris shook off the question informing the man he was no longer a hunter as he looked at the two girls, they knew what he had meant by that. It was just another one of his conditions. Sheriff Stilinski nodded before turning to ask the two girls if they were okay, both nodding weakly.

While Chris insisted upon talking more to the EMTs about Kinsey's head wound he dismissed the two girls, telling them to grab their things from their lockers before he came to find them. All of the students who had been involved in the whole crow incident had been given the rest of the school day off, as an apology for them being involved in such a traumatic incident. Before Kinsey had walked out of the class Stiles had pulled her aside for just a second of her time, of course, the boy had called Scott to tell him about the crows as soon as possible, it seemed like a topic that required immediate discussion, but as he told the girl, he needed her there too. He needed her to tell Scott about that feeling she had felt in her stomach and what she had drawn in that notebook of hers, no matter how much she would try and convince herself it was a coincidence, he refused to accept that, and he made his feelings clear. Despite her concerns, Kinsey agreed to go to the old Hale house with him to meet up with Derek and Scott, she couldn't ignore this.

The three girls stood at Lydia's locker as the redhead fixed her appearance in the small mirror she had attached to its door. "Is it me or is Beacon Hills turning into more like a beacon for the totally bizarre and supernatural." She asked, shutting her locker as the two girls laughed.

Kinsey and Allison had turned around, prepared to go and find Chris but a woman stood before them, taking them by surprise as they looked at her with wide eyes.

"Where's Scott McCall?" The young woman asked, looking between them but neither of the girls could find an answer, still too confused as to who she was. "You're Kinsey, right?" She asked with a finger pointing at the girl, Kinsey agreed wearily, looking at her cousin for some help, about to ask how she knew about her and the werewolf. "Where's Scott?" The woman repeated.

"He had to leave," Allison answered for her cousin. "He was supposed to be back in class..."

The woman grabbed a hold of Allison's wrist as she asked if the wolf was coming back, her grip tight around the girl's petite wrist, but she was too confused to fight it off. For a woman they had never met she seemed to lack boundaries, like, entirely.

"Hey," Lydia warned her. "Easy with the physicality, sweetheart."

Whoever the strange woman was she ignored the teenager's warning as she grabbed her wrist as hard as she had Kinsey's, gripping them tightly as the girls looked at her with wide eyes, wincing in pain. The woman didn't care about their stares, her own was looking straight behind them as she took deep, heavy breaths. When she finally released the two girls, they all turned to see what she had been looking at, the two twins from this morning looking back at them for a split second before disappearing down the hall.

More confused than ever the girls turned back around, wanting to ask the woman what she had wanted with Scott, but she was gone. Nowhere to be seen. As if she had vanished into thin air, it somehow wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened to them today. Allison walked down the hall, hoping that she could catch a glimpse of the stranger while Kinsey looked at Lydia's wrist, a bruise left in the place where she had been grabbed. Lydia was appalled, shouting about being marked by a freak, alerting Allison as she came over to check it out, noticing that she wasn't the only one with the bruise, she'd left one on Kinsey too.

"Come on, let's get you three girls out of here." Chris sighed as he approached the three of them. "School can wait another day." Lydia hadn't argued with the man, in fact, she was already ahead of him as she walked toward the exit, Allison and Kinsey held back, they weren't prepared to just go home and act as though nothing had happened. The younger brunette wasn't ready to return home at all yet, she still had business to attend to, she had told Stiles she would go with him, the older brunette on the other hand, she had no excuse. As the two lingered in the hallway the man came back to them. "Hey. You don't have to worry about this anymore." He reassured them, they both knew that wasn't true. "Remember our agreement? We stay in Beacon Hills, but only if we stay out of this. It's not our problem now."

-☽○☾-

The powder blue Jeep pulled up to the old, derelict Hale house. It had been a while since Stiles had last stood outside of it, he tried to avoid the place with every fiber of his being. Stiles stepped out of the Jeep, a chill running through his spine as he looked up at the charcoal black building, it had always given him the creeps. He didn't know how anyone could spend as much time here as Derek had.

As Kinsey followed him out of the Jeep she too looked up at the large Hale house, but rather than thinking about all of the things that had happened to her here, she thought about before that. What her mother had done here. Killed an entire family, the family that she was now part of, she still couldn't quite understand why Kate would try and kill the family that she had made her daughter a part of, but then she had never quite understood the woman anyway.

After hearing the Jeep pull up outside Scott walked out of the Hale house, surprised to see that Kinsey had accompanied Stiles here, last he knew the two didn't speak, let alone were they in a position to be having car rides alone. He couldn't imagine how awkward that had been. As the three walked into the house Stiles began explaining what had happened at the school, at first he hadn't mentioned anything about Kinsey's drawings, he stuck to the basics. Just as he was about to get to the most concerning part of the explanation, the part that involved the brunette the three had walked into the Hale house living room where Isaac lay on the table unconscious covered with nothing but a hospital robe. That had been enough to put a pin in his explanation for a little while, apparently manic birds weren't the most shocking part of the evening.

"He'll be up soon." Derek deadpanned, in his eyes, any concern for Isaac's condition wasn't at all necessary. He'd made sure that the boy's wounds would be healing both inside and out, and now he could get back to what he and Scott had been talking about before the other two arrived. He sat the wolf down on one of the wooden chairs, placing himself in front of him while Stiles and the girl stood beside them, not quite sure what Derek was going to do to get back the betas fully healed tattoo that he apparently got last night. There was no sign of it, at least not to the human eye. Derek's eyes illuminated their blood-red as he stared at Scott's bicep. "Two bands, right?" He asked, returning back to his human hazel eyes. "What does it mean?"

Kinsey was also curious to learn what Scott's tattoo meant, considering she couldn't see it nor had she known he was getting one, she wanted to know more.

"I don't know." Scott shrugged. "It's just something I traced with my fingers." He explained as he traced an image in the dust that had collected in the abandoned house giving Kinsey an idea of what his tattoo was supposed to look like, but seeing it for herself hadn't given her any insight as to its purpose, frankly, it just appeared to be two random circles.

"Why is this so important to you?" Derek asked, he didn't care if he was being intrusive.

"Do you know what the word "tattoo" means?"

"To mark something," Kinsey answered for the Alpha, she had the suspicion that he didn't know, he didn't seem like the type who would've paid attention in school. Nor did he seem like the type to randomly google the meaning of words when he was bored like she had done to know what the word tattoo actually meant. While Stiles seemed surprised that the girl knew the meaning her cousin had looked at her with a straight face, when he found out she was here he expected her to stand quietly aside or be flustered over Isaac in his unconscious state, not giving him dictionary definitions of random words.

"Well, that's in Tahitian," Scott informed the girl, it wasn't the information that she necessarily needed to know, but she gathered it would be the begging of a point he was going to make. "In Samoan, it means "open wound." I knew I wanted to get a tattoo when I turned 18. I always wanted one. I just decided to get it now, to make it kind of a reward."

"For what?" Derek asked.

Scott looked at the brunette girl in the room before looking back down at the floor, when he admitted what he was about to say he didn't expect it to be in front of her, he intended for Allison to never find out that he had gotten a tattoo as a reward for him not calling or texting the other brunette all summer. Even when he really wanted to, even when it was so hard not to. He explained that he was just trying to give her the space that she wanted and asked for, the space that she didn't crave so much when she had actually gotten it and was considering texting him too. He admitted that even four months after their break-up it still hurt as though it was still raw. It still felt like an open wound.

That was something she could relate to, she felt the exact same for the boy standing beside her.

Derek was satisfied with the answer he received, prepared to move on to the big finale. He picked up the blow torch that had been resting beside him since the three had walked in, he felt it was only right to inform the beta that it would be the worst pain he had ever felt, though that information seemed to affect a queasy Stiles more than it did Scott, even after Derek's warning Scott still wanted to go through with getting back his tattoo. The Alpha ignited the blowtorch, a bright blue flame in front of their faces, just a few inches from singeing off someone's eyebrows. Stiles announced that seeing the flame was a little too much for him, that he would be taking it as his cue to stand outside rather than witnessing the torture his best friend was about to go through just for a tattoo but Derek insisted that Kinsey would need his assistance in holding the wolf down, she hadn't been given a choice in the matter. Her cousin had already volunteered her for the job of holding Scott down while he burnt the tattoo out of him.

Once two sets of hands had been placed on his shoulder Scott gave Derek the signal to begin. As Derek placed the burning flame on Scott's bicep the wolf began to scream, struggling under the grip of his two best friends who found it hard to hold him down, now they understood why both of them had been volunteered from the job. Scott screamed at the top of his lungs until he had eventually passed out from the pain, finally allowing Kinsey and Stiles to let go of him. Stiles took a few minutes to breathe as he stood outside of the Hale house, far from the burning flame while Kinsey sat down beside Derek, watching as he continued burning the tattoo out of Scott.

An hour after Derek had finished the tattoo Scott had woken up with a sharp gasp, dripping in sweat. It all felt like a bad dream, but as he looked at his arm the two bands that were now back were definitely real, and to him worth all the pain in the world. The three teenagers prepared themselves to leave, Scott pulling his shirt back on, he couldn't help but continue to admire his tattoo as he rolled up his sleeve making sure that everyone could see the first of what was sure to be many additions to his skin.

"Well, it looks pretty damn permanent now." Stiles praised the wolf as he looked at the tattoo, he hoped that his best friend wouldn't remember how he had admitted he hated it when it had healed up last night.

"I kind of needed something permanent." The wolf admitted, pulling down his sleeve back down as the three of them headed towards the front door. In the midst of seeing Isaac unconscious and burning Scott's tattoo out of him anything that had happened at school had completely left their minds. "Everything that's happened to us, everything just so changes so fast."

Kinsey couldn't disagree with that. Their lives moved quicker than any of them could control, when she thought back to before summer there was hardly anything in her life that was the same as back then. She and Allison's relationship was no longer on the rocks, her friendship with Scott and Stiles had been neglected for the past four months, she was closer with Lydia than ever, she knew who her dad was now and was even making efforts to have a relationship with him, though she still kept him at arm's length. The only thing that seemed to be developing at a normal rate was what she and Deaton had talked about, he had, in little words, confirmed that she was more than just a human or a huntress, he told her to wait for it to show and she couldn't help but believe that today had been the beginning of it beginning to reveal itself to her. It was definitely time for another conversation with the man when she could find the time in her hectic life.

"Everything so..." The wolf stopped in what was the foyer. "Ephemeral."

"Someone been studying for the PSATs" Kinsey smiled at the wolf. Scott was just another thing that had changed fast over the summer, he seemed to want to take school a lot more seriously this year, who could blame him when his attendance had been the lowest in the entire school for sophomore year? The rest of the pack wasn't much higher on the list, but he had hit the bottom.

When Scott opened the front door he noticed something he hadn't noticed when he had first gotten to the Hale house, he had been too busy helping carry an unconscious Isaac inside, but he had noticed it now. Stiles and Kinsey still stood in the house, while the boy remained slightly confused as to what Scott was looking at, the girl knew straight away that he noticed the fresh red paint on the door. Isaac had told her about how Derek had made him paint over the mark that had been left by the Alpha pack, only because of how much he hated painting. The Alpha had made her vow to keep what lay beneath the paint to themselves, only for them, Peter and Isaac to know, nobody else needed to get involved in what was coming. It was Hale business, and since Isaac was Derek's beta, he came under that title.

"You painted the door," Scott shouted through to the Alpha, he didn't think to ask Kinsey about the door, he had no idea just how involved in the Hale business she was. As far as he knew, she had spent the summer disconnected from Beacon Hills entirely. Not that she spent almost every day calling or texting with at least one of the Hale's or Isaac. Until today he still thought that the Alpha had been living here, as Derek had intended he was kept out of the loop.

Kinsey looked through into the living room where Derek stood over Isaac, an uneasy look across their faces, they hadn't expected Scott to be so observant of a door. But it was clear now that it couldn't be hidden much longer, the wolf would find out soon that there was a lot more trouble than deer, birds, and miniature dogs.

"Why'd you paint the door?" He asked.

"Go home, Scott."

Scott ignored Derek's suggestion as he placed a hand on the door, feeling over the fresh coat of paint as he asked why only one side of the door had been painted. Stiles looked at Kinsey as she stood with a guilty look across her face, he could tell she knew more than she had been letting on, but just how much? The beta extended his claws, slowly scratching one of them against the door as it pulled off the red paint. Derek warned the beta once again with a single shout of his name as he marched towards the door where the three teenagers stood but it was too late, Scott had already begun scratching all of the paint off of the door with his claws and refused to stop until he uncovered what Derek had been so desperate to cover up.

"The birds at the school and the deer last night, just like the night I got trampled by the deer, the night I got bit by Peter." Scott began piecing together the puzzle until he could finally see the big picture. "How many are there?" He asked, looking at the Alpha who stood beside Kinsey.

The two Hales look at one another, still uncertain they should tell him, contemplating telling him another lie, hoping he would buy it. Kinsey sighed, turning back to the boy, sick of lying, it didn't get her anywhere, hiding the drawings in her book told her that. "A pack of them." She told them both. "An Alpha pack."

"You knew about this?" Scott asked, unable to hide how offended he was, first, she hadn't spoke to him in months, even if it might have been for the sake of Allison and Stiles, and now, he found out that even when she knew something bad could happen, that a pack of Alphas might come to Beacon Hills, she still hadn't told him. He'd thought their friendship was stronger than that, that they would still tell each other things, even if they had been put in an awkward situation.

Stiles couldn't help but feel offended too, he wondered just how much she had been able to hide if she'd hidden this, and the fact she'd been drawing things before they happened, something he still didn't have much detail on, whether she had the ability to provide him with answers or not. For now, he chose to focus on the Alpha pack that would undoubtedly be infilrtrating their lives from on, pushing the feeling of betrayal aside.

"All of them? How does that even work?" Stiles asked.

"We hear there's a leader. He's called Deucalion." Derek began to explain. "We know they have Erica and Boyd. Peter, Isaac, and I have been looking for them for the past four months." Derek continued as the brunette beside him nodded, waiting to jump in if any details were left out of the explanation. Only now did they realize just how in touch she had been with Beacon Hills the past four months, it seemed that the two of them were the only people who didn't get a call or text from her. Or perhaps Lydia had been left out of the loop too, perhaps Kinsey had become a hypocrite, lying to everyone she loved.

Scott had a question of his own to ask, he questioned that if they somehow managed to find the Alpha pack that had left a warning on the front door of the home how exactly an Alpha pack was to be dealt with, frankly, that was a question the four had been asking themselves since that mark had appeared on the door. Even for werewolves as experienced as Derek and Peter, Alpha packs were very much a new experience to them. The only way that Derek could answer Scott's question was by telling them that to beat the Alpha pack was to do it with all the help that he could get, that was his way of asking Scott and Stiles for their help with having to physically ask the question. He couldn't bring himself to say the words. The beta and Stiles shared a look as Scott silently questioned whether his best friend was willing to be a part of this, if it weren't for Kinsey being involved he would have spat out a harsh no, but when she was, he couldn't bring himself to do that to her. Not if she was willing to get herself hurt.

All of their heads had turned at the sound of Isaac's voice as he asked where the girl was, it had been the first thing on his mind as he woke up, he didn't even think to ask how he had gotten here or what had happened at the hospital. All he wanted to know was where the girl was, the only problem. Nobody knew who he was talking about.