'grieving, grieving, constantly grieving. i mourn what could have been, what will not be, what i can't save.' unknown.

season 2, episode 2
shape shifted

For hours, Stiles had paced his carpeted floor in the late night hours. A school night. His socks dragged against the bulbs of fabric. Static electricity buzzed in his fingertips, which his teeth made into a victim. He couldn't rest with her alive in his mind.

How often could one say they saw a dead loved one? Often. Vivid recollections of Noah, drunk from whatever his hands found first, stumbling down the hallway into his room. His voice traveled down to Stiles' room, speaking to his wife, telling her about his dad, pausing for her responses. He laughed at her jokes. Mumbled words Stiles couldn't hear, even with his ear pressed against the door. Noah hovered over the empty space in his bed, pressing a kiss into thin air before fading into his closet.

Often. Stiles swore some night, deprived of rest and mind grasping at straws for reasons to stay awake, a hand placed on his shoulder. Incoherent words were spoken to him, a language he couldn't understand yet somehow could. He followed their words, taking himself to bed. Staring above him, his mother, beaming down at him.

"Goodnight, my love."

Often. Swerving from the road to avoid a bloodied girl stood like a deer in his headlight. Dark skin absorbing red, absorbing light. Stunned and scared. He believed her eyes met his. Locking eyes. Alive and brown, just as he left her. He left her.

If he didn't let her go, if he didn't let his anxiety tear away at him, she would have never answered the call. He would have asked her to dance instead of cowering. Being assertive as she told him to be. A laugh or a yes would have slipped from her nude-coated lips. She would have ignored the call. He dreamed that she would do it for him.

Peter would have never led her away beneath everyone's noses. Her body's location would have been known, in bed that night, sleeping without a second to try to fight it. Untouched, unharmed, alive.

Neviah had become Stiles' sole thought for the last week. Ever since Peter used her name as a threat. If he had been more honest with himself, she had been a frequent visitor of his mind since they were kids. Once recently he let the idea of her fester. A simple decision to agree to her deal. He didn't think she would consume his mind like this. A board of papers filled with unsolved murders near the Quarry, her sophomore yearbook photo plastered in the center. Faces young and old, at least fifty of them spanning twenty years, all dead before he had even hit puberty. Some had a family to plead for a resolution to their deaths, some had no one. Their deaths lacked a connection besides location—even the location became a loose string. Accounts stated they were miles away, hours prior to what remained of their flesh and bones were found at.

A six-year hiatus.

Then the night he and his friends went on an impromptu search for a strawberry blonde, after spotting a ghost, the shredded flesh and a skeleton were all that was left of the security guard. His badge and phone were the only things that identified him.

And tonight, his dad and Damian Degrace were in the city after being called in for a 10-54, possible body. Listening to his stolen and modified radio, Stiles gnawed at his nubs of nails. The male carcass was found discarded in a dark alleyway. His jugular was slashed, left to bleed out.

He fought his own mind. The evidence plastered in front of him, a pattern beginning again. He didn't want to see it, to believe it. The image of Neviah flashed in his mind—her smile, her laugh, her murderous glare. The blood cascaded down her chin. Scott thought Lydia at the stolen liver, it turned out to be an omega. A simple explanation would disconnect Neviah from the murders.

The connection to the previous case was what didn't make sense. Neviah wasn't born when the first murder happened, only eleven when the last did. From Malikai's threats to keep her out, she was human.

As of a week ago, Peter might have changed everything.

The thought of her becoming something else contorted his insides. Peter had bitten Lydia, yet she stood unchanged—at least from how she acted. Harley claimed to think otherwise; Malikai backed her up with his confusing explanation of sounds emitting from bodies. Not that Stiles seemed to care—not about Lydia. If turned into a werewolf, Neviah would only become an intensified version of herself.

Stiles didn't know what that would mean. Who was she truly? Deep down, beneath her games and acting. She hid more and more beneath the layers of the Earth. Similar living beings, complex and overlooked. He believed he understood her; she hid herself from others, appearing cold-hearted to protect herself. There were moments when the act slipped. Her gaze would soften, and her shoulders dropped. Sometimes it occurred when she laughed, unable to put up a front while drenched in euphoria. The rest and most of the time he saw it was when she was hurt. She'd look up to the sky and fight herself in her mind. They were moments before she encased herself in her fortress and sent fiery words to drive everyone and anyone away.

She often made threats over big and insignificant things but never went through. If she had, they were always justifiable in some way. Still, they were empty threats when others didn't work. An exaggeration on her part that even if she was reprimanded, they would know her meaning of death meant to be forgotten. An ending worse than death.

As long as Stiles lived, no one would forget her. She clawed her way into every inch of his brain. His cerebrum programmed his movements, urging every muscle shift to lead to her; every word that left his mouth could be followed back to her; he thought only of her; he could hear her, see her, feel her, smell her, and if he tried hard enough, he could remember her taste.

Citrusy. His fingers grazed the photo of her. A jolt of electricity nipped at him. It stung him yet he found himself crawling back.

"It's 4 in the morning, Stilinski. What do you need?" Malikai asked groggily, shifting in his sheets over the phone.

"What do you know about Neviah's family?" A half-assed family tree lay before him; everyone he found with a connection to Damian Degrace—Banks before he changed his name when Neviah was born. Formed in Washington after migrating from the south in the mid-1900s.

Malikai groaned over the phone, rustling in his bed. He huffed, blowing static in Stiles' ears. "Damian and his family are all werewolves. Some don't have the gene, some do."

"And her mom?" That side of the tree stood empty. Only a name, Calliope Degrace. The woman was untraceable. No family, no diploma or degree, no birth certificate. Not a single thing appeared when he searched for her name. It was like she never existed. It made no sense—Damian always wore a wedding ring.

"Left, dead, went missing, fuck if I know—I don't ask intruding questions."

"Another body was found."

"Bones? Or like Lahey?"

"Lahey-adjacent. Slashes to the throat, the guy bled to death." Malikai sighed on the other end. "But I found an unsolved trail of bodies just like the security guard."

"You think it was her?"

"No, it started before she was born but ended six years ago. Just before the fire."

The other side went silent. Stiles pulled the phone from his ear to check if Mal hadn't hung up. The call was still going. He was reluctant to trust Malikai after everything. Scott eased Stiles into the idea after telling him that Malikai took a bullet for Scott. Stiles didn't believe it. No wound, no proof. Scott claimed he healed with his mystical nature healing powers. Malikai remained vague on what he was and what he could do. All he gave was, "I'm like a representative of Nature." Stiles didn't trust him with anything but his commitment to Neviah. She was their common ground.

"So...?"

"I'm going back to sleep. Don't call me for the next 48 hours."

The call ended.

༻❁༺

Malikai could not go back to sleep. Not since Neviah disappeared. Unable to shut his eyes without that last time he saw her plaguing his mind. Her words haunted him, speaking as if she knew her own fate. She never believed in fantasy, even when she knew of the supernatural. Prophecies, fate, and divine intervention, were all myths to make humans feel better about their wrongdoings. Easy, simple fibs to let rest turn easy.

He didn't believe she died. Not for a second. Not when the Sherriff called for a team to search the deepest depths of the Quarry; not when nights were spent scouring the woods for any sign of her; not when he and the group of annoying people he found himself with came across her. The sight of her veiled in blood, not even then did he think she could have died.

Yet the last few days, everything inside him ached as if the tides had turned. The full moon would be in effect tonight, he tried to rationalize it all. He found himself unable to explain it.

Peter Hale was never a man to believe he could have too much—it would never be enough. But he wasn't overzealous in his actions. Attacking Neviah and Lydia and going after Kate. He planned it all in one night, believing no one could stop him. His comatose mind awoke too soon to let logic return to the frontal lobe.

Maybe that was it all along.

Mal clutched the edge of his bed. Shutting his eyes, he focused on his breathing. Inhale. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five. Again.

His senses traversed Beacon Hills County. A plane of darkness except the auras of the supernatural. His mother. Damian. Scott. Derek. He searched for her. Awaiting her being to radiate supernatural energy. Concealed from the world as if she had never existed. The more he focused on her, the more the image of her in his mind, the more she faded. Slipping from his grasp, grazing his fingertips like his sister had.

Failed, failure, failing. All over again. Night after night. Everything he did seemed to be the wrong choice. A pillar of balance is what he was meant to be. Around the world, nymphs stood as fragments of nature to balance it with the unnatural. It was as if his father's demise flipped Malikai's scale, unable to precisely do as he was born to do because a ritual never occurred. A birthright passed on. His role was not his to fit but nature would mold him to do so. One way or another he needed to submit.

His breath hitched.

Someone stronger overpowered his search. Ripples extended off of Derek, growing larger. The last time Malikai faced him, his body radiated red as did all other Alphas. Simple ripples like skipping rocks across the lake. It grew. Less space was occupied between each ring.

A Beta.

His mind clouded. Nature cut him off before he fell too deep into a trance—protecting him, or hiding the truth, he didn't know.

Sweat coated his bare chest. The green glow of his eyes bounced within the darkness of his bare room. How was he supposed to be a protector if he failed every time he tried? Cora, his own sister, Neviah. Every time he let them slip between his fingers.

He had a chance to fix it all.

Grabbing a shirt and putting it on, Malikai slipped out of his room as the sun rose before school. He drove across town to the Sheriff's house. Instead of knocking on the door, he climbed the nearest tree to Stiles' window. He forced it open, knowing Stiles never locked it in case Harley came by.

"Holy fuck!"

"We find her tonight."

༻❁༺

The dive was the greatest part. Standing at the edge of the board, the water swayed beneath as the waves from the previous swimmers subsided. Her reflection gazed back at her. A whistle blew. Hand over hand, splitting the water with her body. Adrenaline injected.

The battle remained in the water, and the goal to outpace her opponents never faded from her mind. Front and center. Lungs stung as oxygen deployed. It would agonizingly burn in her organ, but it pushed her. Spurts of air returned to her. Water hazing her vision. Tapping the wall, she flipped beneath the surface.

An end did not come until her head broke the surface, cheers erupting as the water trickled from her eardrum.

Neviah was made to be a swimmer.

"Again."

A hand dangled in her unclear sight. The light blinded from the grimy window. Dirty and dust stuck to her sweaty skin. Copper coated her tongue thick.

"Go screw yourself," Neviah spat, rising at her own pace. Derek's phantom punches repeated. Bruises never blistered but the feeling remained, burning her senses. Her vision blurred as Isaac stepped from the train cart, patiently awaiting his turn for brutality. "I'm tired."

She wasn't made to be a fighter.

His hand gripped her arm, human nails digging into her skin. His callouses made her cringe. How they rubbed against her flesh. "Again."

After getting her cleaned up, he urged her to get proper sleep. She didn't think he was going to wake her up before dawn to kick her ass continuously. It felt more like a punishment than guidance. She had to learn, he claimed. If she didn't, she would become a victim to anyone who knew how to overpower her.

She tried to tug out of his hold, yank, to pry his fingers off. It was what he wanted. For her to get irritated, for that to turn into anger, for that to fuel her to continue to fight him.

She took the bait.

Slamming her heel into his shin as he did to her prior, Neviah grabbed hold of his forearm and pulled him towards her. She shifted her torso out of the way. Worry lacked in his expression—too focused maybe. No. Neviah had been. Her mind became cluttered while his was clear. He had twenty years on his belt.

Unbothered by the ache in his leg, Derek planted the pained foot onto the concrete. Taking the other off. Neviah focused on his vacant hand rather than his foot. Too late as it slipped behind her heels.

The back of her head crashed into the flooring. An audible crack from either her bone or the concrete sounded.

He had to have been punishing her for leaving last night with this. She needed to learn. How else does one learn to fear being the weakest than forcing them to be? She had to fight her way out of whatever situation she was placed in. A lesson to make the punishment justified.

Derek stood above her, gaining regulation over his breathing. He watched as she reached behind her head and revealed blood. "You'll heal."

"It still hurts," she spat once more. Her layers of skin did heal, swifter than her tests the night prior. Alone in the dark, in a controlled environment. Her talon against veins and arteries, a race between herself to see how much could spill before the wound stitched itself.

She rose from the ground much to her body's complaints. In the morning light, an uncontrolled environment with a nuance as a variable.

"I still feel things! I'm not a punching bag for your amusement."

"Go rest." Turning on his heel, he reached for his water bottle.

His back faced her. Shoulders relaxed. Heartbeat constant. Steady. Unbothered.

"Don't turn your back on me." The building quaked under her voice, by her command, by her emotions. Dust sprinkled from the ceiling. All minuscule to Neviah. Simply things that occurred. And if Derek kept treating her like a thing, she would hesitate to let the ceiling collapse onto them. He wanted her to find a way to become a hunter after all. He would understand in death or in ultimate pain—

Neviah stepped backward. Her hand hovering over her mouth. Her inner self became venomous, spewing ideas with its serpent tongue. Her lips clamped tightly. Not a word. Not a sound. She wouldn't hurt anyone else. Not her family. Not Isaac.

Derek faced her. He saw more than she believed he did. "Controlling during the full moon affects us all. You'll learn to be better at it."

"How?" she spoke meekly for once in her life. She questioned her volume, and how she managed to amplify it without a second thought. Shifting the tones. Her inhumane vocal cords shaped sounds as if it were clay.

"For werewolves, it's having an anchor. Something that centers you."

That made no fucking sense to Neviah. Things were nothing but things. Replaceable objects to be misplaced. People were unpredictable and easily disposable. Their minds changed by the second. One day you are a priority, then the next you are forgotten. She was just supposed to place faith in someone or something to keep herself stable. She always found herself returning to isolation. But now more than ever, she couldn't trust herself.

"My turn?" Isaac asked, stepping up to the makeshift sparring area.

Derek shook his head, turning to his watch. "You've got school."

Fear seeped from Isaac's pores. Finding Neviah in the dark with a shard of glass, slicing her palm, and watching as the white blood cells surfaced with haste, binding the fibers that made up her skin, they spoke of today. The full moon, the world, their fathers, and school. All interconnected, fading seamlessly into the other as anxiety laced their tongues. He found his voice with her.

He saw that she wasn't better than him, they were equals.

"Is that really a good idea?"

"It's more suspicious if you don't go. Be normal and keep your head low. Now go."

As told, his blonde hair lowered. Never once did she look back to Neviah as she stared. Words didn't exist on her tongue. What could she have said to ease his mind? None of it would matter. Anything she had or did wouldn't actually help. It would cover the emotion until something tore it off, exposing everything he tried to hide away.

For once, Neviah kept her head down and bit her tongue. She carefully neared Derek to grab her water.

"How quickly do you heal?" she asked, changing her thoughts by force.

"Depends. Sometimes it takes seconds if it's a cut or bruise. Minutes to hours for gunshot wounds and broken bones," he explained it simply as he had when they were younger. Time and experience gave him more knowledge than before when he regurgitated what he was taught by his mother.

Neviah reached to the back of her hair. Pushing passed frizzy curls to touch her pain. Her scalp was untouched. Only a phantom pain of something that no longer existed.

"Strength, speed, enhanced senses—we're humans but better." He still kept that line of secrecy. As if she were a child, fascinated by the subject rather than the complexity of it.

"...what do you think I am?"

"I don't know," he spoke plainly. "If I had a bestiary, maybe."

She crossed her arms, knitting her brows together as she scoured her brain for that word. "My dad has one."

Derek gave her a look.

"It's just a suggestion," she spoke as if she were a child. It angered her. She enraged herself by her own actions. All to turn meek once again.

How long could she stay with Derek? Hiding in the shadows like a runaway as the world passed by, forgetting about her. One day people will forget. Her friends managed to when they knew she was alive. She would become a figment of imagination. A scary rumor to be told to freshmen as a joke.

A joke.

He reached for his jacket, pulling something out of the pocket. He handed Neviah a small black rectangle. "For emergencies only."

"A flip phone? iPhone is what's in, you know that? Not this archaic shit."

Derek picked up his shirt, tugging it over his sweaty body. "I'm not buying you a 500-dollar phone. Emergencies only."

He started towards the entrance. Neviah's heart jumped. He could leave. Isaac could leave. Their lives were not contained within the four walls of an abandoned train station.

"Where are you going?" A child. Begging, pleading. The fear of being left alone. The days spent sitting in her room, in an empty house, filling her time with hobbies that would one day make someone look at her.

"Places." He spared her one final glance. He could sense it all. He could see the version of her he left behind. "Keep training. Find that anger and make it yours."

The stairs creaked as he ascended. His figure faded away. A door closed. The air grew stiff, freezing inside the building. Neviah could hear life expanding without her, continuing as it always would. Her life didn't change the course of anyone's. Whether or not she returned, they would move on.

Worms decompose organic matter. No one thought of them any more than they needed; fishermen more than farmers, farmers more than anyone else. Worms maneuvered through the soil as they knew nothing more than particles of dirt. Consume and be consumed. Their entire cycle was encompassed by dirt. To consume and be consumed. They knew nothing of fear for the birds. Knew nothing of their ability to fly, the expansion of their wings, the infancy of birds that devoured them. They knew nothing. They were nothing.

Underground, unheard, forgotten.

Her heart pounded inside of her ribcage. Pressure circled her throat like a hawk in the sky. Swooping down, nipping, and gnawing. Tears trickled when imaginary blood did not. Following the structure of her face to the blade of her jaw. She stood and gasped. Her hands could not relieve the intangible weight. Death wrapping around her life.

"You don't know of death."

Blood pumped through her system, a reminder of how she lived. Air brimmed her lungs, and carbon dioxide was released. Peter's hands lingered around her neck. Hands that killed her, but she stood alive, and he didn't. His body was improperly buried to cover the evidence he ever woke up. Snuggled into the dirt for the worms to decompose. Energy returned. The world could forget Peter Hale, nothing more than a comatose victim who failed to come back. Nothing more than a ghost story.

The world could live without Peter Hale.

"Peter Hale was a coward. And you...you are nothing like him."

The world couldn't survive without Neviah Degrace.

She would make sure of that.

"But that doesn't make you better than him."

Neviah returned to her training, finding new ways to ache her muscles as fatigue never seemed to hit her. A figure watched. Hours spent hitting a punching bag, push-ups, running up and down the stairs. She let it rest in the corner to observe. There was a reason Derek was preparing her. A reason Peter needed her. A reason behind everything.

"Do you hear me?"

Like why it was nearing five and Isaac hadn't returned. She texted him multiple times, called, and sent voicemails. No answer.

No answer.

Delivered.

Sent.

Received.

Neviah gritted her teeth. She slammed her fingers into the number pad, calling for Derek. It rang and rang and rang in her ear. Dial tone. Again. Again. Again.

"What?"

"Where's Isaac?"

"Is that Neviah?" Scott asked in the background. The wind whipped around as if they were in a car.

"Yes, Scott, now where's Isaac?"

"Something happened. The police think he killed his dad and brought him into custody for the night."

Derek spoke as if it was a regular day. "What the fuck are we doing then?"

"Nothing. You're doing nothing. You're a liability."

She bit back the urge to argue with him. "What's your plan, Derek? You can't just leave him there. He-"

"I'm dealing with it. You stay there. It'll be safer for everything if you—"

Neviah hung up. Her blood thumping from her reignited energy. Maybe it was anger from Derek undermining her. Maybe it was because he went to Scott and trusted him before her. Maybe it was the fear for Isaac during his first full moon. Maybe it was guilt—she could hear her voice still. Maybe it was all just a reason to give Neviah a purpose again.

She did this to Isaac. Offered him as an experiment. She listened to his fears of becoming a monster like his father, becoming something he wasn't. Is that what guilt felt like? Something eating away at you as you realize how you've failed someone for not trying.

"I need you—"

"You're not real."

Her voice was raw, tearing a hole into the silent world of the basement.

Raw like the flesh of the child before her. Stuck at eleven. Scorched by flames, a final embrace. Chinese and European features faded by wet wounds. Kissed by an angel, that was what they would say about her. Gentle feature, paint splatter freckles. She disguised herself as an angel, it made it easier for people to overlook her actions. It had rarely been her.

"You still don't remember." Her voice was as kind as ever. Pink ribbons leveraging half pigtails. "For once it's not about you and you won't remember. All you had to do was remember. It was never about you."

A broken record she was, always had been when she wasn't heard. She'd beat it into her subjects to ensure they understood it the way she wanted them to.

Neviah squeezed her eyes shut. This was guilt. Guilt infected her mind, weakening what she knew as real. It was like the girl from the night before. She sought out Neviah to do what no one else could do for her. Was this the same? Neviah never knew she could have tried to save her. Lilith. An angel forsaken. She never had the chance to try.

"Why can't you remember? Just this once. Do something for someone who isn't you. It was never about you."

"I'll save him if you go away. Just go away. Leave me alone, and don't come back." Clutching onto her ears, squeezing her eyes hard to hear her eardrums rumble. She used to be whole. Not even her rapid healing could fix that.

Peeling one eye open at a time, the space was empty, and Neviah left before the sun could kiss the horizon. An intangible, imaginary obligation didn't weigh on her this time. Guilt guided her. It brought her to the Police Precinct as the full moon made its appearance.

She tilted her head towards it, wondering how it would sway her mind. Perhaps it already had. An influx of emotions bombarded her in waves. Clouding her judgment. Before death, she wouldn't have done this. Then again, she never had a reason. Not like this.

Her father could be in there now. Waiting at his desk, studying a case to fill his mind. Staring tirelessly at what seemed to be endless words. His glasses perched on the tip of his nose. A cup of black coffee cold and untouched.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Derek slammed the door of a blue Jeep. His eyes turned into slits, a sharp tongue whipping in his mouth. Anger could not define him. Neviah didn't know what the word could be. Her mind stood elsewhere. A few feet behind Derek. Gently closing the door to the vehicle, pale skin brightened with blood-flushed cheeks.

Stiles.

Neviah glanced over; a split-second sight of him. His heartbeat filled her brain. A symphony formed from his natural tempo of life. Derek filled her line of sight. It didn't suppress the music. His forehead contorted with wrinkles that could have mapped Beacon Hills for all she knew. "Wrinkles won't look good on you, D."

"Neviah!"

She flinched, taking a step back. The sound returned, overtaking the heartbeat. A dissonate ring. A full moon glimmering just below the tips of the trees. He had control, she needed to find hers. "I had to."

"There's nothing you can do." He looked back to Stiles, the frozen boy. "Take her home."

He wouldn't understand if she told him she promised Lilith's ghost in exchange for silence. No one would. Not now. Not before. No one would fathom being haunted by a forever birthday girl and her endless teasing. Siblings came with snide comments as Derek would say. But he wouldn't.

"I'm not going home." She paused; Lilith was fresh in her mind as her twin stood before her. She hadn't realized how much he looked like her. "I can't leave him there."

"You can die, Neviah, you get that? There will be a time when you won't heal in time. And you aren't ready to face that."

"But he is?" Neviah pointed towards Stiles. "But Isaac is?"

"They agreed to this, you didn't."

"And I have to accept that. That's what you've been trying to teach me. I already died, Derek! I'm not waiting in that goddamn train station, waiting all night wondering to find out if he's gonna die."

"Go home."

"Accept it."

His eyes flashed white before fading. He gritted his teeth, unable to do anything but what she told him to do. It made her feel slimy. Watching his choice be stripped from him, he sought to do the same to her. All she could do was try to justify it. Not what she wanted. Like controlling a newly generated organ inside her throat activating, it wasn't a simple thought. She still went with it. If it meant the guilt would subside, she would do it.

She could not do the right thing. It was like she was immune to it. She would hurt regardless. Her intentions meant nothing. If that meant she couldn't be taken advantage of, she had to—he told her to.

Malikai and Stiles stood in front of Stiles' Jeep; their eyes glued onto Neviah. They were unreadable and Neviah didn't want to know what they thought of her now. A monster. An abnormality. A disease—

Yet she was engulfed by Malikai's embrace. He smelled of pine needles and jasmine. His days were most likely spent scouring the woods for her only to return home empty-handed, drinking teas to ease his nerves. He held her with fear that she would disintegrate at any moment. And she let him, in fear she would.

She nearly collapsed beneath the floodgates of her emotions. Maybe she was wrong. Malikai didn't hate her, nor would he fear her for what she had become. Perhaps he wouldn't be the only one.

She pulled away, finding herself searching for Stiles where she left him. She couldn't read him. She would only misinterpret his meanings on purpose. She did it to herself every time she thought of him. An intrusive thought, she would claim and write off. She could only stare at him. Anything that bubbled in her throat was brimming with selfish desire. She didn't dare let it corrupt her tongue. She knew she would only hurt him. If he couldn't hate or fear her monstrous ways, she could do the very least and keep Stiles at arm's length for his own good.

"Can we go now?"

Derek went in first. His plan, according to Stiles as he attempted to correct the awkward tension. She wouldn't know how to act in front of someone who was supposed to be dead either.

They followed shortly, creeping in one by one. Derek leaned over the desk, smiling at the woman deputy working. Neviah couldn't even remember the last time she saw a smile on his face. It was like he was immune to happiness—then again, she would have never smiled again if she had lived his life. She kept her head down to keep the woman from noticing her.

The three teenagers snuck around the disgusting interaction. Neviah stalked behind both boys as Stiles stepped into his father's office. She closed the door quietly with her back and hand around the handle. He placed the code in, opening the case of keys. His eyes scanned the display.

"It's not here."

Neviah scrunched her face, placing her hands over her eyes. She focused on the scent. A whiff of iron came to her in waves, becoming stronger each time. Her mouth watered. Lowering her hands, she looked towards the door with a tilted head.

"What? What is it?" Stiles didn't like the look on her face.

"Someone's bleeding."

"It's a precinct. Anyone could be bleeding," Malikai offered as an answer. He hesitantly grabbed Neviah's hand to squeeze it. She accepted it, remembering his calluses against her palm. "Let's go back to Derek."

His head slipped from her as he stepped out of the door. Stiles lingered on Neviah, flickered down to her hand but rested on her face. She looked back at him, reading his attempt to read her.

"Are you sure?"

He wanted to trust her, to believe in her. Neviah didn't know if she could even do that. How could he? "I think so."

Stepping into the halls, the smell of blood only grew stronger. As if it was profusely seeping from a wound. She widened her stride to take the lead. She wanted so badly to be wrong as her mouth thickened with saliva. She turned a corner to find a deputy in a green jacket wobbling. The boys bumped into her back. The man's hand hovered his thigh. Bleeding thigh.

When the man realized the teenagers noticed his wound, his face shifted.

"Oh, shi—"

The man grabbed Neviah by the front of her shirt. She let the hunter take hold of her shoulder, pulling her in and spinning her around. His elbow tightened beneath her chin; his bicep and forearm squeezed.

The two boys stood in fear. Malikai's eyes shifted from nearly black to a glowing forest green. Something inside of Neviah caught fire. A gasoline line threaded through her and Mal lit the match.

Her elbow dug down into the ribcage of the man. He stumbled backward while Neviah tugged the fire alarm. Innocents might as well be spared. She faced him. Pain shot through his leg and side, but that didn't stop him. He threw a punch into Neviah's nose.

The girl cried out, clutching her face. "What the fuck? You just go about punching teenage girls?!"

He stood unbothered. Well trained by a bunch of sadistic fucks.

Letting go of her nose, the pain subsided as her blood boiled. She lifted her leg, launching the heel of her shoe into his abdomen. His face turned green. Stumbling backward into the wall, the man reached for the open doorway. He pulled himself towards it.

Neviah followed him as the light flashed and the alarm sounded. Footsteps followed her.

"When'd you learn to do that?" Stiles asked before their attention shifted to the room.

Gripping a syringe with a black serum, the man lifted his head from the room. A cellblock. Three cells lined across the back wall, each with its own bed, toilet, and sink. Only one stood used. Empty and used. They all gazed forward at it.

A growl echoed in the shadows. A half-shifted Isaac lunged at the hunter, picking him up before slamming him back down onto the desk. He picked him up once more, throwing him into the wall across the room. His rage filled the air as he took out the amplitude of it on the hunter.

Unsure of how to react, Neviah froze. The what-ifs spoken the night prior stood before her.

"What if I lose myself?"

Soft features, gentle blonde curls, and eyes of a moonlight ocean. It had all been replaced with a surplus of power. The uncontrollable desire to seek control; fighting physical obstacles forgetting it all resided inside the mind. Blinded by moonlight. The fullness of it all.

Power was a beautiful thing.

Isaac swiftly stood in front of the hunter. Unafraid that the hunter could induce harm onto him. It probably hadn't crossed his hazed mind. He took hold of his forearm when he attempted to stick the needle into the boy. Something that would kill Isaac, Neviah guessed.

A roar fell from Isaac's mouth, as his elongated teeth widened. Unlike the boy the night before, unsure and afraid of what would become of him. He snapped the hunter's arm. Then slammed his head into the wall.

Malikai stepped toward the huffing beta. Teeth sticking out from his mouth. Mal reached for him like he would a dog, offering it as a sign of good faith. Trust. "Isaac."

Yellow eyes glimmered towards Mal. His eyes turned into slits. Bullets of sweat followed the curves of his face. The quiet, fearful boy was unheard of. A lost memory.

"Get down!" Neviah told Stiles, taking hold of his hand and pulling him towards the metal desk. She crouched next to him as some form of protection. Their hands intertwined.

They watched as Isaac charged at Mal, ducking his head low and wrapping his arms around Mal's waist. His new-found strength fought against years of molding. Malikai's legs turned into stone, pressing against the flooring without moving an inch. He muttered incoherent words. His hands grasped Isaac's shoulder. He tore him off in a single shove, tossing him into the wall.

It only angered Isaac more.

Neviah would have feared him if it was any other night. But that night, she had a sudden thirst for blood.

Glass shattered beside her. Derek stepped onto the syringe. The black liquid seeped beneath his shoe. Isaac's attention shifted. His yellow eyes spotted Malikai's green ones. His muttering ceased.

Before either could do anything, Derek roared.

Isaac flinched, cowering into the wall. His arms covered his head. He fell back into his human ways, becoming a victim. His face shifted back as he peaked upward.

"How'd you do that?" Stiles asked, forcing a slow breathing pattern to ease his heart. He lifted himself up with the desk with Neviah by his side.

Derek looked back at him. "I'm the Alpha."

"We should go," Malikai stated, unable to take his eyes off Isaac. Guilt riddled him for harming Isaac. They all knew the harm he had grown up in. He crouched near him, slowly inching towards him as he coward and flinched. His hand hovered Isaac's shoulder, barely grazing him as a soft light emitted from Mal's palms. Isaac's eyes fluttered; his shoulder eased, falling under Malikai's touch.

Conflict ensued in his eyes as he looked up towards Derek. "I can help him find control for the night."

"Good." Neviah stepped from behind the desk only for Derek to glare at her. "You're not coming."

"What?"

He reached for Isaac, taking his arm and placing it over Derek's shoulders. His body and face hardened. Unrecognizable concoction of emotions. "I told you to stay."

Punishment. "No. Derek, I can't go bac-"

"You should've stayed back." Venom seeped from his tongue. Eyes of dagger. Punishment. A hand dealt—no, Derek didn't play games. No calculation, no planning. He simply ripped the bandage when he pleased and placed it back when he wished for a reunion.

"Screw you," she whispered, staring at the black puddle with wide eyes.

His back tensed, a split-second pause in his step before he disappeared with Isaac.

Malikai rose with his hands curling and uncurling at his sides. His eyes burned into hers. "i—"

"Go."

He didn't need another word. He would see her again, that's what mattered to the both of them.

Though, Neviah wouldn't know until the night had passed. She could confirm that the moon swayed her emotions. It poured into them. Filling the entirety of her being in the sea of despair. Fear. This is how Isaac felt. The uncontrollable aspect that stood beyond her, was unable to be prevented by her. It loomed over her. She froze beneath it.

Stiles filled her line of sight. Taking her other hand into his, slowly, he took her mind elsewhere. Gazing down at his hand encasing hers. Soft along the palms. Split skin along the cuticles. His heart pounded in his chest, the beat of a drum. A strong rhythm that eased her. "It's gonna be okay."

"Are you sure?"

He intertwined their pinky fingers like they were children all over again. "Yes."

His words were ill-timed. Sherriff Stilinski and Damian entered the open doorway and paused. Their eyes fell on the unconscious man, then the open cell, then to their children.

Neviah held Stiles' hand tighter, sinking behind him. Her dad and his stared at her. Mouths gaped.

Stiles inhaled sharply. Using his free hand to point at the hunter. "Uh, he did it."

killshot baby holds the evolution of my writing. i hope you enjoyed <3

Edited: 12/2/2024

6.8k words