ACT TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Hunters and the Hunted

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

     WHEN ANDI GOT TO THE EDGE OF THE PRESERVE, ISAAC WAS ALREADY WAITING. It was nice to see that he was doing better but now they had to find the others.

     "What exactly is going on?" Isaac asked as they walked into the preserve.

     "The other girl who was in the vault with Boyd, she's Derek's sister. They haven't felt the full moon in months so they've completely given in and now they're running wild," Andi explained.

     "How are we supposed to find them?" Isaac asked.

     The both of them stopped walking when they heard a vicious growl from the distance. "I think we just did," Andi said as she started running towards the sound.

     They followed the sound of a werewolf's growl until they found a girl standing over another girl who was on the ground, a terrified look on her face. Their presence grabbed her attention and Andi could see the claws, fangs and the pointed ears. She tried to scratch Isaac but he blocked it and knocked her onto the ground while Andi ran over to the terrified girl.

     "Get out of here. Run far away from here and don't look back," she instructed as she helped the girl onto her feet.

     "What the hell is going on?" the girl asked while looking at the two werewolves over Andi's shoulder.

     "Go!" she said sternly as she pushed the girl away from the fight.

     The girl ran and Andi turned back and saw Isaac getting thrown into the tree right behind him. The girl turned to look at Andi and growled at her and ran towards her. Andi's eyes turned green as she lifted her hands and the werewolf's arms stopped moving as if someone had a grip on her wrists. She held both wrists with one hand and used the other to knock her off her feet with the same invisible force brought on by her magic. Andi let go of her hold on her and she quickly got up and Scott and Derek appeared. The girl, who Andi assumed was Derek's sister, started running and the four of them followed after her but she got away.

     "Damn it!" Andi muttered under her breath as they stopped running.

     "How are you even able to keep up?" Scott asked.

     "I ran track and cross country in my freshman year," Andi answered as she heard Scott's phone ring. "You might wanna answer that."

     Scott nodded as he answered the phone while Isaac and Derek stood off to the side. Stiles was calling to report a dead body at the public pool and Scott had an idea that it might've been Boyd or Derek's sister.

     "This doesn't make any sense. The public pool is on the other side of the woods and we haven't tracked them anywhere near there," Derek said with his arms crossed.

     "Derek, they killed someone," Scott said.

     "There's no way. We just lost Derek's sister ten minutes ago. They would have to be moving pretty damn fast to get from here to the other side of these woods within ten minutes and we're talking about on foot," Andi said.

     "But how are they moving that fast?" Isaac asked.

     "They can't be that fast on foot!" Derek said.

     "They killed someone! Some totally innocent kid is dead and it's our fault!" Scott said and Derek shook his head.

     "It's my fault," Derek said as he looked down.

     "We need help," Scott stated.

     "We have Isaac and Andi now," Derek replied.

     "I mean real help," Scott said and Isaac looked at him and Andi stood there with her eyes narrowed and head slightly tilted. "They're too fast for all of us and they're too strong and too rabid."

     "We'll catch them," Derek said.

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

     Derek sighed. "Maybe it would be easier to just kill them," he said.

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

     "What if it's the only thing to do?" Isaac asked.

     "No. There's always another way," Andi replied while shaking her head.

     "If we can't even catch them, what else are we supposed to do?" Isaac asked.

     "We find someone who knows what they're doing," Scott answered.

     "Who?" Derek asked.

     "Someone who knows how to hunt werewolves," Scott replied with a lopsided smile.

     "Chris Argent?" Andi asked. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

     "Would you rather call Allison?"

     "I'd rather eat my own hand."

     "Chris it is."

     Andi sighed as they headed to Derek's car that was parked right on the edge of the preserve and got inside. Scott and Andi sat in the back while Isaac sat in the front with Derek. Scott gave Derek the directions to where Chris was and when they got there, he got out to talk to them while the others stayed in the car.

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

     "No," Derek replied.

     "Not a chance in Hell," Andi said as she watched Scott and Chris through the windshield.

     "So, your sister, Cora?" Isaac asked and Derek turned his head to look at him while Andi sat awkwardly with her hands over her face. "Sorry. Bad timing. I'll ask later."

     "Or never," Andi said when Derek looked at Isaac again like he was ready to strangle him.

     "Yeah, I'm good with never," Isaac said while nodding.

     Andi watched as Scott got into Chris' car and Derek followed them to the public pool where the body was found. She sighed as she watched everything and threw her head against the headrest. "We're screwed," she said.

━━━━

     Chris agreed to help them find Boyd and Cora so now they were back in the woods.

     "You've been tracking them by print?" he asked as he dropped a bag of supplies on the ground.

     "Trying to," Scott answered.

     "Then you've been wasting your time. There's only one type of creature on earth that can visually track footprints and that's man," Chris said as he pointed to the footprints. "And if you're not trained like me, you wouldn't be able to tell that these prints are Boyd's and these─"

     "Are Cora's," Isaac said.

     "Nope. They're yours. You trampled Cora's as soon as you walked over here and those ones are Andi's," Chris said and Andi raised her eyebrows. "I know three of you are focusing half of your energy on resisting your urges but that puts you at a severe disadvantage to Boyd and Cora who have fully given in. They have the pedal to the floor and you three are barely reaching the speed limit."

     "So, what do we do?" Derek asked.

     "Focus on your sense of smell. Actual wolves can track their prey by up to a hundred miles per 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," Chris explained as he tossed a net over to Scott. "The full moon does give us an advantage. They have a higher heat signature which means they will be easier to spot with infrared."

     He tossed a pair of infrared goggles to each of them but Derek insisted on using his werewolf eyes. Chris reminded them that even though they had completely given into the full moon, they were still intelligent human beings and that side of them was reminding them how to mask their scent, cover their tracks and survive. Three werewolves and a werewolf hunter on the job? Andi was gonna have to step up her game if she was going to help them catch Boyd and Cora and keep them from killing anybody else. Derek hadn't seen his sister in nine years since he thought she died in the Hale house fire and Scott didn't wanna think about all the things he could smell most of the time.

     "The problem is when they breach the woods and hit the residential area, once they pass the high school, they're right in the middle of Beacon Hills," Chris said.

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

     "No, but there is an important difference we should recognize. Wolves hunt for food and at a certain point, they get full. Boyd and Cora are hunting for the pleasure of the kill, some primal apex predatory satisfaction that comes from ripping up warm bodies to bloody shreds and who knows when that need will be satiated?" Chris asked while Andi looked at Isaac.

     "Sometimes I wish I could go back to Atlanta," she mumbled.

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

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

     "You wanna trap them inside?" Andi asked with her arms crossed.

     "Anywhere with a strong enough door to hold them. No windows or access to the outside," Chris replied.

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

     "And you're sure the school is empty?" Chris asked.

     "It has to be. There can't be anyone in there at this hour," Scott said while looking at Isaac and Andi.

     "No. There are no clubs, meetings or anything like that going on tonight," Andi replied. "It has to be empty."

     The five of them headed back into the woods and Chris started planting these devices that he said released a high pitched frequency that only werewolves could hear. They were used to push werewolves into any direction they wanted them to run. He pressed the button that made the device release a bright light and a high pitched sound that lasted for a second. Andi looked up and noticed Scott, Derek and Isaac covering their ears while Chris handed them each an ultrasonic emitter.

     "And this is gonna drive them to the school?" Derek asked.

     "And it's up to you to get them into the boiler room," Chris said while Andi looked at the device in her hand.

     "Does anyone wanna rethink the plan where we just kill them?" Isaac asked.

     "I will use this," Andi said as she held up the ultrasonic emitter.

     "You wouldn't dare," Isaac replied.

     "Scott, Derek, cover your ears," Andi said with her finger hovering over the button but Isaac grabbed her wrist.

     "Please don't," he said and Scott looked at them.

     "This will work," he said before they all started planting the ultrasonic emitters throughout the preserve leading to the school.

     Chris insisted on giving Andi a ride through the woods and when they got to the school, Scott and Isaac opened the doors and they waited for Boyd and Cora to show up.

     "Can you hear anything?" Andi asked while looking at Isaac.

     "Honestly, I'm trying not to hear anything," he replied. "What about you?"

     Andi closed her eyes as she focused on listening for Boyd and Cora's mental voices. The others were muffled and she heard two separate voices that sounded like they were scattered and not focused. When she opened her eyes, they were green for a brief moment and she could still hear them getting closer. "I can hear them," she said as she looked at Isaac. "They're here."

     Everyone scattered around the school and they were ready to lure the two werewolves to the boiler room. Unfortunately, they were going over the school instead of through it like they planned and now they needed to act fast.

     "Someone has to get the rear doors open," Chris said and Derek started running to the back doors.

     "And someone needs to get them inside," Scott added.

     "I'll go," Chris said as he held up an electrifying rod.

     "No, I'm faster," Isaac said before running off.

     "I'll give them a little push into the right direction," Andi said as she ran to the other side of the school. When she got there, she saw Boyd and Cora but she also saw Allison standing on top of a school bus and shooting arrows at them. This time, they were the type of arrows that were very similar to the ultrasonic emitters they used to push them into the direction of the school. The werewolves tried to run one way but Andi caught them before they could. "Incendia!"

     A wall of flames ignited in front of them and they turned around and looked at her. Her heart started beating faster when they bared their fangs at her and she knew they could hear it. Allison shot another arrow that pushed them to run right into the school and Isaac locked them in while Andi took out the flames she created. She looked at Allison who only ran away from the scene and Andi sighed.

     "They're inside," Isaac said and Andi nodded.

     "Let's make sure it actually worked," she said and the both of them headed to the front entrance.

     As they were walking down the hallway, they heard a loud growling and started moving faster. They noticed the sunlight through the window and Andi sighed in relief.

     "The sun's coming up," Isaac said.

     "Thank God," Andi replied as they headed straight to the boiler room.

     "Scott, the sun is coming up!" Isaac said and when they got to where Scott was, they didn't see Derek.

     Scott ran right into the boiler room and Isaac and Andi followed him inside and saw Derek on his knees covered in blood and his shirt was torn. Boyd and Cora were passed out on the floor after coming down from the effects of the full moon.

     "There's a teacher," he said and Andi's stomach dropped. "I'll take care of her. Get them out of here."

     Scott and Isaac picked up Boyd and Cora and Andi led them out of the boiling room. It was one hell of a night but they managed to keep the disturbance to a minimum, minus the teacher and the dead body found at the public pool.