SOMETHING HAD MADE SCOTT FREAKISHLY GOOD AT LACROSSE. Maybe all of his hard work was starting to pay off, but there was no way that he got that good overnight. Instead of trying to debate that topic, Scott wanted to go back out to the Preserve where he had been bitten and look for the inhaler that he had dropped when he was running. The chances that they were going to find something so small in such a huge forest were very slim, but there was also the chance that they would find the body that he had stumbled across as well.

Wren's mood had changed a lot since that morning. She was now extremely excited to go adventuring, and she was practically dragging the boys along as she bounded through the forest. Scott and Stiles were kind of scared about going back into the woods where the McCall boy had been bitten the night before, but she was optimistic. What was the worst that could happen?

"I don't know what it was. It was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball," Scott explained to them. He sighed, and he did not seem too excited about the fact that he was now amazing at lacrosse. "And that's not the only weird thing. I can hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things."

"Smell things? Like what?" Wren questioned with an ecstatic expression, careful not to get mud or water on her new shoes. That was really cool that he had hyper senses. They were really cute, and she could not ruin them on some trek through the woods when she had only worn them once.

Scott scrunched his face up, and it looked like his senses were almost overwhelming him. Whatever was happening was giving him a headache. He answered, "Like your pomegranate perfume and the mint mojito gum in Stiles' pocket."

"Woah..." the Carter girl breathed out. She had just gotten that perfume. There was no way that Scott would have even seen the bottle in her room or anything. She had put it on that morning, and it had definitely worn off for the most part by that point. That was crazy. 

"I don't even have any mint mojito—" Stiles started, checking the inner breast pocket of his blazer, but he froze when he found, much to his surprise, that there was a single piece of folded-up mint mojito gum, just as Scott sensed. Scott raised both of his arms to the side as if to say, 'I told you so.' Stiles sighed, raising his eyebrows at the boy, "So all this started with the bite?"

"What if it's like an infection? Like, your body's flooding with adrenaline before you go into shock or something?" Wren asked, saying five words per second. She could not stop smiling, and all she wanted was to know and learn more. She did not get an answer, and she looked up to see the McCall boy glaring at her, mad that she put that thought in his head.

"You know what? I actually think I've heard of this," Stiles started, and Wren shot him a look, wondering what he was up to because he was acting kind of weird. "It's a specific kind of infection. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's called lycanthropy."

Wren rolled her eyes and smiled slightly, but Scott did not seem to get that he was joking. His eyes widened, and he began panicking. "What's that? Is that bad?"

"Oh, my God. You really are an idiot," the Carter girl responded, and he looked over to see her just shaking her head at him rapidly in disappointment. She was honestly kind of intrigued to see how far Stiles could take the joke before he realized.

"Oh, yeah, it's the worst. But only once a month. On the night of the full moon," the Stilinski boy explained, and then he looked up at the sky and howled. When he looked back down, Wren was laughing, and Scott was shooting him a look, telling them that he had had enough of his antics. Stiles defended, "Hey, you're the one who heard a wolf howling!"

"Hey, there could be something seriously wrong with me!" Scott insisted, and Wren patted him on the back. She was sure that he was going to be fine. The boy all of a sudden stopped walking and looked around, frowning when he did not see anything around where they were standing. "No, I could have sworn this was it. I saw the body, the deer came running. I dropped my inhaler."

Wren shrugged and suggested. "Maybe the killer moved the body?"

"If he did, I hope he left my inhaler. Those things are, like, eighty bucks," the McCall boy groaned. They all began looking around the area. Wren was crouching and filtering through the leaves on the ground. She furrowed her eyebrows when she noticed a boot on the ground in front of her, but then it registered in her brain.

She looked up and saw that the boot was attached to a man who was glaring down at her. She stood up quickly and kind of stumbled back to where Stiles and Scott were already standing there and staring at the guy. He was in his early twenties, and he had pale skin, jet-black hair, a leather jacket, and a scowl.

"What are you doing here?" he questioned, looking between the three teenagers that were visibly panicking. When none of them answered, he continued. "Huh? This is private property." All of them just continued standing there like complete and utter idiots.

Wren responded, "Last time I checked, the woods belonged to everyone." Stiles reached over and smacked her on the shoulder while Scott just winced. He had an idea about what was causing her excitement.

"We were just looking for something, but forget it," Scott responded, shaking his head. Suddenly, the man tossed something to Scott, who caught it. He opened his hand and realized that it was his inhaler. Then, the creepy man turned on his heel and walked back into the woods without a word. They all glanced at each other, and Scott muttered, "Um... All right, come on, I gotta get to work."

Stiles grabbed his arm before he could move, though, and his eyes widened in shock and excitement. "Dude, that was Derek Hale! You remember, right? He's only like a few years older than us." Wren thought that he had looked familiar. Scott did not seem to know who he was, though.

"His family all burned to death in a fire, like, ten years ago," Wren explained to her friend, and they all stared at the spot where Derek had disappeared. "I wonder what he's doing back."

《❀》

STILES HAD CALLED BOTH OF HIS BEST FRIENDS TO COME OVER A COUPLE DAYS LATER. He seemed really excited about whatever he had found out, so Scott picked Wren up and drove them both over to the Stilinski house so that they could figure out what was happening. They knocked on his bedroom door and heard a crash and the sound of papers.

It took a moment for him to get to the door, but when he did, he looked down the hallway for his father before grabbing them both by their shirts and pulling them inside, slamming the door shut behind them, "You guys gotta see this thing. I've been up all night reading — websites, books, all this information."

"How much Adderall have you had today?" Wren asked as she spun in a slow circle, her eyes scanning over the dozens of papers that were coating his floor and desk. They all had something to do with werewolves, and she was starting to think that he might be going a bit crazy, and it must be bad if she was thinking that.

The McCall boy had had to drag her there because she did not see the point in going all the way to Stiles' house for whatever he needed to tell them. She had been content lying on her floor and trying to see if her feet were the same size by holding them above her head. 

"A lot," Stiles answered, and they nodded at him before taking a seat side-by-side on his bed to hear what he had to say. He tended to go on tangents a lot, so they might have to get comfortable. "Doesn't matter, okay? Just listen."

"Oh, is this about the body? Did they find out who did it?" Scott asked, and Wren got excited when he said that. She was really curious about the body, even though it did not seem to be very big deal in the town. Sure, people mentioned it here and there, but she figured that a dead body torn in half might have a bigger impact than it was actually having.

Stiles was momentarily distracted, and he seemed to be trying to remember the reason that he summoned them to his house. It came to him after a moment, and he waved them off. "No, they're still questioning people. Even Derek Hale. But that's not it, okay? Remember the joke from the other day?" The Stilinski boy looked nervous about what he was going to say next, and he looked even more panicked when his friends had no clue what he was talking about. "Not a joke anymore. The wolf, the bite in the woods... I started doing all this reading. Do you even know why a wolf howls? It's a signal, okay? When a wolf's alone, it howls to signal its location to the rest of the pack. So if you heard a wolf howling, that means others could have been nearby. Maybe even a whole pack of 'em."

"A whole pack of wolves?" Wren asked with raised eyebrows, letting them know that she was so done with them. He literally said that wolves did not live in California and looked at them like they were dumb for thinking so. Now, he was trying to convince them that there was a whole pack in the Preserve.

"No," he answered, and he looked scared, which made Wren more nervous. "Werewolves."

Scott glared at him, and the Carter girl was kind of shocked about how mad he got. Sure, he had a party to go to, but she thought that hanging out with them trumped any stupid party. At least, it used to. He grabbed his backpack and stood up from the bed. "Are you seriously wasting my time with this? You know I'm picking up Allison in an hour."

"I saw you on the field today, Scott, okay? What you did wasn't just amazing, all right? It was impossible," Stiles insisted, and despite how completely ridiculous it sounded, it kind of made everything made sense. Wren stood up as Scott was about to head out the door, and she grabbed his arm. He turned around to look at her, and she had this look on her face that was wondering who the hell he thought he was, walking out on them like that. "You made an incredible shot! I mean, the way you moved, your speed, your reflexes? Y'know, people can't just suddenly do that overnight. And there's the vision, and the senses, and don't even think I don't notice that you don't need your inhaler anymore."

"Okay! Dude, I can't think about this now. We'll talk tomorrow. I'm sorry. I gotta go get ready for that party." Scott was about to step out of the door, but he looked back at the girl that was still holding on to him and pleading with him with her eyes. He just sighed, "I'm sorry." Then, he left. And she let him.