...

"Derek, come with me. Now." Y/n didn't give the wolf much choice as she dragged him away from Scott and Allison by the vault. When they were out of earshot she looked at him upset. "What the hell, man?"

"She needed to know and he needed to tell her." Was all he said.

"Yeah, but not like that. Can you imagine what that would feel like, finding out that your mother tried to kill someone you loved? I get that you have a bit of a grudge with her, but she's still just a teenager who lost her mother." Derek looked at the ground. He didn't say anything, but she didn't really expect him to. "Come on." She spoke softer. "She's this way." Y/n already knew what they're going to find, she saw it in Isaac's memories, but seeing it with her own eyes made it that much more real. Erica's body was left in an old supply closet, left there because they didn't care about her. Y/n didn't bother to hold back the tear that blurred her vision momentarily. Erica is... was a sweet girl who deserved better than she got. When Derek picked her up in his arms Y/n could feel his grief. She was his pack. She can imagine how awful losing a pack member would be, especially for the Alpha. Y/n stood in front of Derek, and with the lightest touch closed the girl's eyes and fixed her hair around her face. "Illa volat cum sua alas suas ad sidera."

"What does it mean?" He asked. He vaguely recognized the language as Latin, but didn't know it's meaning.

"'She flies with her wings to the stars'." It was a witch's send off to one of her own when the grimoire is burned, or to a close friend who she lost to fate. Y/n wasn't as close with Erica as she is with Lydia, but saying this for the girl felt right. She let Derek lead the way back to Scott and Allison where the pair had just finished talking and just noticed the man with the girl.

Later the three supernaturals split up to find the two rouge wolves. Y/n stuck close to Scott as they trailed Boyd. He had cornered two kids in an old storage shed and had lifted the structure off of the ground, throwing it aside with ease. Y/n found the jar of fireflies the boy and girl had been collecting. She took the lid off and tossed to Boyd's feet. The insects escaped their glass confinement and flew around the teen, distracting him enough for Y/n and Scott to swoop in and take the kids away. But in making sure the kids were safe they lost Boyd.

"You lost them?" Derek asked when Scott called him.

"Yeah, we kind of had to."

"Wasn't exactly the plan."

"I know, which is why I think we should stick together. Trust me, he's too strong, too fast, and way too angry for one person to handle. We've gotta do this together."

"Look, I'm at the trails by the entrance to the preserve. Can you meet me here?"

"Yeah. Just gotta drop something off first." He looked at Y/n who had her arms over the kids as they clung to her sides. Once the kids were safe they met up with Derek and then they ran through the woods, Y/n using her magic to be able to keep up with them on foot. They stopped when they spotted tracks. "Is it them?"

"We're not the only ones who decided to stick together." Derek answered.

"Is that gonna make it easier or harder to catch them?" Y/n wondered aloud.

"I don't know."

"Derek... Me and Y/n saw Boyd try to rip two little kids apart. Are they gonna do that to everyone they find?"

"Everyone and anyone." Derek walked past them and Scott looked after him worried.

Y/n put a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Don't worry, Scott. We'll get them before they do anything bad." He just gave her a small nod and then they followed after the Alpha. Although, after a bit, Y/n trailed behind when her phone started to ring. She frowned when she saw it was Lydia. "Lydia?"

"Y/n! Y/n, I'm freaking out. I- I don't know what to do I-" Lydia sounded frantic.

"Lydia, calm down. What's wrong?"

"I was trying to go to the store because I needed more ibuprofen and when I got out of my car I was at the pools. I don't know why I came here. But that's not the worst part. I- I found a body. I don't what to do. You're the first person I thought of calling. I-"

"It's okay. It's okay, Lydia. Just breathe. There's something very important that I'm doing right now and I can't come but I'm gonna call Stiles and he's gonna come for you, okay?" Lydia whimpered a yes. "Just wait by your car. He'll be there soon." When Y/n hung up with Lydia she immediatly dialed Stiles and told him what happened. While Stiles went for Lydia Y/n caught up with Scott and Derek just after they and Isaac chased Cora away from a girl camping in the woods. Scott told the girl to get out of the woods as fast as she could and then he was off again. Y/n hesitated just a moment. She felt that increasingly familiar brush of cold down her spine. Something happened around there. She couldn't dwell on it though because she had more to worry about and she followed Scott. They caught up with the other two and Stiles called Y/n telling her what he was seeing. "Are you sure?"

"Yep. Throat ripped out, blood everywhere. It's like the frickin' Shining over here. Two little twin girls come out of the woods, start asking me to play with them forever and ever, I'm not gonna be surprised."

"Can you get a little closer to make sure it was them?"

"Make sure it was them? Y/n, who else is going around ripping throats out?"

"Please? Just to be sure. It's just something I gotta know." With a huff Stiles did as she asked, looking closer at the bloody body and noting the silver 'Purity' ring on the guy's finger. He told her what he saw, that it looked like them and she thanked him, hanging up right after.

"This doesn't make any sense." Derek said. "The public pool is all the way on the other side of the woods. We haven't tracked them anywhere near there."

"Derek, they killed someone." Scott said.

"How are they moving so fast?"

"Derek."

"But they can't be that fast on foot." He insisted.

"They killed someone."

"There's still a chance it wasn't them." Y/n tried to be the opptomist but Scott just looked at her and back at Derek.

"Some totally innocent kid is dead... And it's our fault."

Derek is quiet for a moment. "It's my fault."

"We need help."

"We have Isaac now."

"I mean real help."

"You don't mean..." Scott nodded at her.

"They're too fast for us, for all of us. They're too strong, too rabid."

"We'll catch 'em." Derek assured.

"What happens if we do? We just gonna hold them down until the sun comes up?" Isaac asked.

"If we have to." Y/n said.

"Maybe it would be easier to just kill 'em." Derek said.

"Killing them isn't the right thing to do." Scott denied.

"What if it's the only thing to do?" Isaac wondered. "If we can't even catch them, what else do we do?"

"We get some professional help." Y/n said.

"Who?" Derek asked which Scott answered.

"Someone who knows how to hunt werewolves."

Chris Argent holds two paper bags of groceries as he fishes his keys from his pocket to open his car. Suddenly one of the bags tips too far and falls out of his grasp. He sighs when he hears a wet crunch. "It has to be the one with the eggs." He opens the back of his car and sets the one bag down, picking up the other and putting it away. As he closes the door he grabs the gun he always keeps on him and points it at Scott who was coming up to him from behind. He sighs in relief when he saw it was just the teen, but still holds up the gun.

"Uhhh, hi." Scott greeted. Derek and Y/n watched from the front seat of the Hale's car, Isaac leaning between the seats from the back.

"Do you think this is gonna work?" Isaac asked.

"Nope." Derek said.

"Me neither."

"Guys, have some faith." Y/n smiled at them.

"... So your, uh, your sister." Derek slowly looked back at Isaac and the boy noticed. "Sorry, yeah, it's-" He clears his throat. "It's bad timing, I'm sorry." Derek looks away. "I'll ask later. It's fine." Derek looks back at him again with raised brows this time. "Or never. Yeah, yeah, I'm good with never."

"Good choice." Y/n whisperd with a snicker.

"First of all, why would I care about anyone related to Derek?" Chris asked Scott. "And second, I don't even know this kid Boyd. I don't even know his last name."

"Boyd is his last name."

"What's his first name?"

"Vernon."

"Eh."

"And just curious, is there a reason the gun is still pointed at me?"

"Well, there's probably still some part of me that wants to shoot you."

"I get that."

Chris sighs and puts the gun away, stepping closer to the teen. "Scott, I watched my father brainwash my daughter... Almost turn her into a killer. That world- your world decimated mine. My wife, sister, father, my entire family. Why would I ever step foot in it again?"

"Because people are going to die. And because you know how to catch Boyd and Cora without killing them."

"I'm sorry. I can't help you." Chris walks away back to his car.

Scott looks around and thinks of something that might convince the ex-Hunter. "Um..." Chris turned to look at him. "Do you think you could do me, like, one little, tiny favor?" The three in Derek's car watch Chris motion for Scott to get in the car. When they started to drive off Derek followed. Scott leads Chris to the public pools where the police are with the family of the boy who was killed and laid in a body bag on a gurney. Y/n furrowed her brows. There was something in the air. She's been thinking that a lot lately but there's no denying her gut feeling. Something else was at play here and it wasn't just Boyd and Cora, or the new Alpha pack threat. With bringing him here Scott managed to convince Chris to help them. They took him to the last place the two were spotted and he let his duffle bag of Hunting goodies thump to the ground.

"You're tracking them by print?" Chris asked.

"Trying to."

"Well, then, you've been wasting your time. There's only one creature on Earth that can visually track footprints, and that's Man. And if you're not trained like me, you have no idea that this print is Boyd's and these-" He points to the tracks when Isaac speaks up.

"Are Cora's."

"Nope. They're yours. You trampled Cora's as soon as you walked over here. Listen, I know the three of you are focusing half of your energy on resisting your own urges under the full moon, but that puts you at a severe disadvantage to Boyd and Cora who have fully given in. They put the pedal to the floor where you three are barely hitting the speed limit. And you." He looks at Y/n. "I know it takes time for a witch to make a spell or charm to track someone, time which we don't have."

"I have a hightened sense of smell which I can use." She responded.

"Then use that. All of you. Focus on your sense of smell. Actual wolves are known to track their prey by up to a hundred miles a day by scent. A trained Hunter can use scent to track them. If the wind is with them, wolves can track a scent by a distance of two miles, which means we can draw them to us... Or into a trap." He tosses a net to Scott. "The full moon does give us one advantage. They'll have a higher heat signature, which makes them easier to spot with infrared." He tosses night vision goggles to Isaac and Derek.

"Thanks, but I've got my own." Derek flashes his red eyes to prove his point and tossed the goggles back.

"That's one thing I don't need a spell or charm for." Y/n smirked as she also flashed her own violet irises.

"Just remember, we're not hunting wild animals. Underneath those impulses are two intelligent human beings. Don't think they can't rely on that human side. It's suppressed, but it's there, reminding them how to mask their scent, how to cover their tracks, how to survive." They go up to the cliff to over look the town. "When's the last time you saw your sister?" He asked Derek.

"Nine years. I thought she died in the fire."

"Do you feel like you have a lock on her scent?" Derek shook his head. "Scott, how confident are you in your skills?"

"Honestly, most of the time, I'm trying not to think about all the things I can smell."

"All right. The problem is when they breach the woods and hit the residential area. Once they're past the high school, they're right in the middle of Beacon Hills."

"They're not gonna kill everything they see, are they?" Isaac asked.

"No. But there is an important difference to recognize. Wolves hunt for food. At a certain point, they get full. But Boyd and Cora are hunting for the pleasure of the kill, for some primal apex predatory satisfaction that comes from the ripping of warm bodies to bloody shreds. And who knows when that need gets satiated?"

"We can't kill them." Scott insisted.

"What if we can't catch 'em?" Derek asked the teen.

"Then maybe we just need to contain them." Chris thought. "There's no one in the school at night, is there?"

"I doubt anyone in their right mind would be there at night with how this town is." Y/n says.

"You want to trap them inside?" Derek asked Chris.

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

"What about the boiler room?" Isaac offered. "It's just one big steel door."

"You're sure the school's empty?" He asked Y/n.

She shrugged a bit. "Should be."

"It has to be." Scott said. "There can't be anyone there this late, right?" And so they make their plan.

Chris takes one of his emitters and stakes it in the ground. "These are ultrasonic emitters. It's one of the tools we use to corral werewolves, pushing them into a direction we want them to run." He pushes the button and the light turns on showing it's emitting it's sound. "Gives off a high-pitched frequency that only they can hear."

"God, no kidding!" Isaac complained as all four of them held their ears.

"How come you can hear it?" Chris asked Y/n.

"I don't know! Blame paternal genes!" He turns off the emitter and then starts handing them some.

"These are gonna drive them to the school?" Derek asked.

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

"Does anyone else want to rethink the plan where we just, uh, kill 'em?" Isaac asked.

"We're not killing them." Y/n denied.

"It's going to work." Scott assured. "It'll work." The four go on foot to plant the emitters while Chris uses his SUV, dropping the emitters out of the window. They each go different ways and meet at the school. Y/n and Scott stop by Chris for a minute as he looks up at glowing insects.

"Do you see that?" He asks the teens.

"Yeah, it's a firefly."

"No, no, I know, it-"

"What?" Y/n asks.

"It's, uh, it's very unusual. The, uh, California firefies aren't bioluminescent." At Scott's confused glance Y/n gives him the definition.

"They don't glow." They look back up at the firefly.

"Does that mean something?" Scott asks. Before Chris could answer a howl rips through the air. The wolves are close. Boyd and Cora run through the lacrosse field and over the fence towards the school. Derek waits by one entrance, ready for the Betas.

Isaac waits by it outside. There's growling behind him. "Oh, great." He turns to face the two. They growl at him and Isaac braces to fight. Chris drives up behind the two honking his horn. They face him and growl more before booking it towards the open doors where Derek waits with claws out. The two pause at the sight of him and then jump onto the roof.

"They're not going through the school. They're going over it." Scott points out.

They gather and quickly come up with a plan. "The rear doors, someone has to get them open." Chris said.

"Someone has to drive them inside." Scott said next.

"I'll go." He sparks his taser.

"No, I'm faster." Isaac said.

"I can get them off the roof." Y/n offered. Isaac nodded and while he ran around Y/n gave herself a boost up to the roof and chased the wolves. When she caught up she used the energy whips again to grab them and throw them to the ground where Isaac has opened the doors. She was about to jump down and force them in when flash bangs went off, blinding the wolves and making them go into the school. Y/n looked over to see Allison walking on top of a school bus and using her arrows to help. Y/n smiled at her friend and made a gesture that she'll keep her lips sealed, knowing the agreement she had with her father. Allison smiled back before the witch ran off again back the way she came. Isaac ran up and shut the doors, locking them so that the rogue Betas couldn't come back out that way. When he was done he looked up and saw the Huntress making her run away.

Y/n ran into the school, closing the door behind her with a twitch of her finger, and ran down to the boiler room, catching Scott and Derek just as they made it out and Derek slid the lock in place. A few bangs follow until they give up and try looking for something else. "Did that actually just work?" Scott asked.

Derek looked at him. "It worked."

"Thank God." Y/n huffed and leaned against the wall. Derek sat in the corner for a bit of rest as Scott went up to the door, tilting his head towards the metal and closing his eyes. "What are you hearing?"

"Heartbeats."

"Both of 'em?" Derek asked.

"Actually... Three of them." The Alpha and the witch looked at him in shock then and she focused her hearing, cursing when she indeed heard a third heart down there.

"Who the hell would be here this late?" She hissed.

After a moment of thinking Derek went up to the door. "What are you doing?"

"Close the door behind me and keep it shut." He instructed.

"You go in there alone, and you're either gonna kill them, or they kill you."

"That's why I'm going in alone." He gave them a glance before he opened the door and went in. The teens closed and bolted it behind him. Y/n didn't like this plan, but really, at the moment, it was all they had. She just hoped everyone came out of this alive.

It seemed like hours they waited, hearing the growls and roars behind the door, until Isaac yelled. "Scott! The sun's coming up!" Isaac got to the door as soon as Scott and Y/n opened the door and bolted in, Isaac right on their heals. They rush down and found Derek on his knees, bloodied and clawed up, Boyd and Cora passed out on the ground in front of him.

He looks up at them as he pants for breath. "There's a teacher. I'll take care of her. Get them out of here." Isaac and Scott picked up Cora and Boyd, carrying them out, while Y/n kneeled in front of Derek.

"Let me heal you some. You'll probably scare the woman half to death if you show up looking like death." She lightly joked and he managed a tired smile with a nod. Her eyes glowing as she held her hands over him, healing what she could and cleaning off the blood. When she was done she put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. "You did good, Derek." He gave her a nod in thanks before he got up to help the teacher and she went to check on the passed out wolves.

...

Y/n, Stiles, and Scott now stand in the morgue of the hospital, two bodies on two tables. One of them is Heather. Stiles covers her back up after showing them the wounds. Y/n has her arms folded and brows furrowed, a frown painting her features. She can hear Heather's screams mixed with the sound of shattering glass. "So Boyd and Cora might not have killed anyone?" Scott asks.

"You're gonna wish they did." Y/n says and the two look at her.

"Why?"

"You know what I'm thinking?" Stiles asks her and she nods.

"I recognize the wounds and I know what it could mean."

Stiles nods and explains further for Scott. "The other girl who was out in the woods, Emily. Eventually they're gonna find her. She's one of them. Her, Heather, the guy Lydia found at the pools. All three were virgins. And they're all gonna have the same three injuries. Strangled, throat slashed, head bashed in."

"It's called threefold death."

"So if these aren't random killings, then what are they?" Scott asks looking at Y/n.

"They're sacrifices." Her voice is quiet, but her statement is as loud as a pin dropping in church. "Human sacrifices." This is what she's been feeling. The cold chill in the air, the shiver down her spine, the twist in her gut. They've all been telling her that someone was making sacrifices for something. What, she didn't know yet, but if they don't find out soon, something very bad is going to happen.

~~~
Published: 4/14/21
Edited: 4/12/22