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EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SPACES BETWEEN US

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The group of teens held their breath as they hid in one of the science labs above the cafeteria. They all stood on either side of the lab door – that was held shut with a stool – and all waited with bated breath as they watched the shadow of the alpha slowly make his way past the classroom.

After a moment, Meilani went to move forward and check if the alpha was really gone, but Stiles grabbed her shoulder. He shook his head when she turned to him with a confused look. She sighed after a long moment and ran a hand through her hair, focusing her attention on Jackson. "Jackson, how many people can fit in your car?"

"Five if someone squeezes on someone's lap," Jackson replied with a shrug.

Scott scoffed as his eyes widened. "Five? Allison and I barely fit back there. Are you crazy?"

"It doesn't matter," Stiles cut in before the two boys could start going for each other's necks. "There's no getting out without causing attention."

Meilani looked around the room and she visibly perked up when she saw a black steel door in the corner of the room. "What about this?" She pointed over to the door and all the teens turned to look where her finger pointed. "This leads to the roof. We can escape to the parking lot in, like, seconds."

"It's not that simple, Lani," Stiles shot down with a sad smile. "It's locked."

Meilani chewed on her lip as her brain worked at warp speed to try and figure out how to get through the door. "Um... doesn't the janitor have a key?"

"His body has it," Stiles reminded Meilani of the now dead janitor.

Meilani stepped closer to Stiles so she could lower her voice enough for the others not to hear. "I can get to it. I'll just sniff out his blood."

"That sounds like a terrible idea. What else you got?" Stiles whispered, pursing his lips. There was no way he would let Meilani go out there by herself with the rabid alpha running about trying to kill everyone. She may be a werewolf, but she was still his girlfriend damnit.

Meilani shook her head and started making her way over to the door of the lab. "I'm getting the key."

"Meilani, are you nuts? You're going out there alone? With that thing walking around?" Allison asked incredulously.

Meilani shrugged as if it were no big deal, even though inside her heart pounded so hard she was shocked no one else in the room heard it. "Someone has to do it. Why not me?"

"You are not going out there alone, Meilani. No way... especially unarmed," Scott argued, crossing his arms in defiance. "There has to be another plan we could use."

Meilani glanced around and grabbed the first thing she saw, which just so happened to be the white gloved pointer their teachers used to point to things on the board without having to use their hands. Stiles merely rolled his eyes at Meilani, not even knowing where to begin with that one. "Got one."

Everyone in the room seemed to stare at Meilani with the same dumbfounded look.

"It's better than nothing!"

Stiles shook his head and took the pointer out of Meilani's hand. "There has to be something better than this whimsy thing."

"There is," Lydia spoke up and gestured to the cabinet with all the chemicals in it.

"What is she going to do? Throw acid at it?" Stiles retorted.

"No," Lydia snapped, glaring at Stiles. "Like a fire bomb. Everything you need to make a self-igniting Molotov cocktail is in that cabinet."

The group exchanged shocked looks as Lydia said something intelligent.

"What? I read it somewhere."

Stiles sighed and slapped a hand to his side. "We don't have a key to that either, Lydia."

Jackson simply walked over to the cabinet and broke his arm through the glass. "Who needs a key?"

Lydia grabbed whatever materials she needed to make the molotov cocktail and quickly go to work. She mixed all the chemicals and other ingredients together in a glass beaker and mixed it around until she was satisfied. Lydia corked it and then handed it to Meilani with a smile and a small "good luck".

Scott sat on one of the lab tables behind the one that the others were crowded around. He just sat there shaking his head as he watched Meilani get herself prepared to go out and face the alpha. "No, I cannot let you go out there. This is literally insane."

"I can't just sit here and wait for Stiles' dad to check his messages. I'm going, Scott. The end," Meilani countered and rounded the lab table to make her way over to the door that would lead out to the hall.

Scott grabbed Meilani's arm before she could make it far past the table he was sat on. He squeezed her arm gently so she would turn and look up at him. "You could die, Mei. Don't you get that? He's killed three people," He softly chided, dropping his hand from her arm.

"We're next," Meilani glanced around at the others, her eyes lingering on Stiles a little longer as if she were committing his face to memory... in case. "Somebody has to do something, okay?"

Scott stared at her for a moment as if he was assessing her demeanor. "You know how they say that twins always know what the other is feeling or thinking? How that when one of them is lying, the other could sense it immediately?"

Meilani froze for a second because she knew Scott had caught onto the lie. He had to know something was up, and not just tonight either, but for the past few weeks. Ever since the night in the woods she knew she had been acting strange, but one person too many were already in danger because they knew of her new life. There was no way Meilani could let her twin get hurt because he was involved. She wouldn't be able to live with herself.

"Well, I know you've been lying, Meilani. All night," Scott stated and Meilani had never seen him so torn and upset with her before. There were actual tears glistening in his brown eyes, the same eyes as her. That's the moment when Meilani knew he was scared, not only for himself, but also for her. "Please don't go. We'll figure something else out, okay?"

Meilani felt her heart shatter as she watched Scott break in front of her. He always was the stronger one between the two of them. He had been trying to be the man of the house ever since their dad walked out on them and he had this hard shell around him that would hide all his emotions. Meilani had seen him become emotional only a handful times – most of them dealing with her – but she hadn't seen him be this emotional in a long time and it was the hardest thing she ever had to witness. It also made what she was about to do all that much harder.

"Sti, lock the door behind me," Meilani ordered before turning and making her way over to the door.

Scott grabbed onto her hand and hugged her close to him. "Be careful out there or I'll kill you."

Meilani let out a shaky laugh and hugged her twin back tightly. "I will try." She stepped back from the embrace and gave all the teens a forced confident smile before she made her way out of the lab, the door clicking shut softly behind her.

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Meilani found herself in the school's gym underneath the bleachers. She was slowly and quietly moving along when she heard a rattling sound somewhere above her. The sound caused her to freeze in her steps and she scanned the area around her, seeing nothing but darkness behind and in front of her. She was glad she had werewolf sight now or she probably would not be able to navigate herself underneath the bleachers.

A drop of blood dropped down onto her cheek and she flinched. She brought her finger to it and looked at it with caution. Meilani slowly raised her head and gasped when she saw the dead body of the janitor hanging above her, his hand mere feet above her head. However, she quickly recovered when she saw the keys dangling from the janitor's belt.

Meilani hoisted herself up onto one of the poles and stretched her arm out to try and grab the keys. Her arms were just too short and she leaned as far as she could, her hands hitting the keys and rattling them.

At that moment, the bleachers began to close in on itself. She only had about thirty seconds to grab the keys and get out before she would be crushed... and dead. Meilani pushed herself all the way forward and grabbed the keys, landing on her feet lightly. She picked up the molotov cocktail off the floor where she had placed it when she began to climb the poles. Once it was in her hand, Meilani ran through the rest of the bleachers and jumped out at the last second as the bleachers fully closed themselves so they were in the wall.

The alpha stood on the other side of the gym, slowly stalking towards Meilani. She slowly rose to stand to her full height as she whispered for the thing to get closer to her. She really hoped this damn molotov worked or she was definitely screwed.

Once the alpha was close enough, Meilani chucked the bottle at the alpha. However, the bottle merely just shattered against the alpha's head and didn't ignite like molotovs usually do. She silently cursed and it seemed she stood still a second too long because the alpha grabbed her leg, knocking Meilani off her feet. She was then pushed across the room and it leapt on top of her, its thumb going into the side of her mouth.

Meilani panted as she tried to fight the alpha off her. Her eyes quickly changed to yellow as the pain in her back from being flung onto her back began to throb. She turned her head away from the alpha as he brought his face close to hers. It let out an Earth-shaking roar before it disappeared.

Meilani lifted herself up onto her elbows to see where it went but an intense pain erupted throughout her body causing her to cry out and arch her back. She rolled around and thrashed as she tried to get the pain to leave her body. Her nails were quickly forming into claws and her eyes flashed yellow yet again. When Meilani lifted her head, she had fully transformed into her werewolf counterpart.

She pushed herself up, the pain finally subsided. Meilani slowly made her way through the school back towards the lab where the others were. The whole time she tried to force her werewolf counterpart to go away. She couldn't face Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Allison and Jackson in this form, especially when she couldn't control herself and could hurt any one of them. Her werewolf ears picked up on the conversation that was coming from the lab upstairs and she stopped in the stairwell to listen to what the others were talking about.

"I said I'm fine," Jackson's voice echoed through Meilani's ears.

"That's been there for days and you won't tell me what happened," Lydia accused sounding quite annoyed that Jackson had been hiding things from her.

"Like you actually care," Jackson growled.

Meilani's werewolf counterpart seemed to be overtaking her, however, as all she could see was red while she walked. All she wanted to do was hunt the others down and hurt them. It was hard for her to fight off the monster inside of her from hurting any of them. She was basically stuck in her own body as she watched the world from inside, something else controlling her completely. Now she knew what people meant when they talked about how freaky out of body experiences were because she was experiencing that right now.

After a long, grueling walk, Meilani finally returned back to the room. She slowly raised her hand and turned the janitor's key in the lock.

"Guys, my sister should be back by now. I'm really worried," came Scott's frantic voice from inside.

"Scott, Meilani is a tough girl. We both know she can handle anything. She's okay," Stiles reminded, though it sounded like he was trying to assure himself more than Scott. She could hear his frantically beating heart that told her he was quite nervous and scared.

Meilani leaned against the wall next to the door as her head burst into pain. Flashes of her, Scott and Stiles being around each other and laughing flashed across her mind. Then, a flash of her and Scott chasing each other, Meilani squealing as Scott shot her with water from a water rod, by the lake their parents used to take them to during the summer flashed across her mind. Finally, a flash of Stiles smiling at her like she had put the stars in the sky and leaning down to kiss her softly flashed across her mind.

"Lani?" Stiles whispered softly as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Meilani was now on the floor, her chest heaved as her body calmed itself down and she was back to normal again. She slowly looked up to him and noticed the others standing above him with equally worried expressions as they looked down at her.

"The cops are here," Allison said and Meilani could suddenly hear the sound of the sirens outside in the parking lot.

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"Now you sure it was Derek Hale?" Noah asked Meilani as he walked her and Stiles out of the school.

"Yeah, I saw him, too," Stiles said. "What about the janitor?"

"We're still working on it," Noah sighed as he led the two down the stairs.

Meilani chewed on her cheek as her nerves skyrocketed. There was no way that the body could have just disappeared from where it was. It was dead. It couldn't just walk away. "You checked under the bleachers? All of them? You pulled it out of the wall?"

"Yes," Noah stressed as he turned to face Meilani and his son. "We pulled them out just like you asked. There was nothing there."

"I'm not making this up," Meilani assured desperately. "I wouldn't lie about this."

Noah nodded his head and motioned for Meilani to take a deep breath, which she did. "I believe you, sweetie, I do. Promise."

"You don't," Meilani shook her head as she took in his slightly skeptical expression. "You have this look like you think I'm losing my mind. Like you feel bad for me. You want to believe me, but you don't."

Noah glanced behind him at the school as he seemed to think over his next words carefully. "Look, we are going to search this whole entire school. We're going to find him. Okay? Sheriff's honor." The sound of his name being called diverted his attention from the couple. "Stay. Both of you."

The couple watched as Noah walked away to talk to his deputy about the scene.

Meilani let out a heavy breath and placed her forehead on Stiles' chest. "I hate my life."

"At least we survived! You outlasted the alpha. I'm proud of you, baby."

Meilani gave Stiles a look from behind her eyelashes as she was too drained to even move and look at him properly.

"I mean, that counts for something right?" Stiles asked, his hand rubbing soothing circles on her back.

"You seriously don't think he heard us in the lab, Stiles? He's not deaf. He could hear us breathing."

Stiles shrugged. "So then why are we still alive?"

"He wants me in his pack!" Meilani exclaimed as stepped back from Stiles' embrace. "I-I think first I have to get rid of my old pack."

Stiles squinted as he tried to make logic of what Meilani had said. "Old pack? What do you mean?"

"Scott, Allison. Jackson and Lydia," Meilani froze as she gave Stiles a solemn look. "You."

Stiles seemed to deflate as he registered what Meilani was trying to say. "The alpha doesn't want to kill us."

Meilani rubbed her hands over her face roughly as she groaned. "Yeah, he wants me to do it. That's not even the worst part."

"How in holy hell is that not the worst part, Meilani?" Stiles cried, slapping his hands to his sides.

"When he made me shift, I wanted to do it," Meilani confessed, tears spilling down her face at the mere thought of ever wanting to kill her brother and her boyfriend. The look on Stiles' face at her confession didn't necessarily help her feel any better. "I wanted to kill all of you. It was the worst feeling I have ever experienced in my life."

Meilani hung her head so she wouldn't have to look at the broken expression on Stiles' face any longer. She couldn't believe that she let the alpha get to her the way he did. When she glanced back up, she furrowed her brows as she saw Deaton on the back of an ambulance. She quickly made her way over with Stiles in tow as she took in her perfectly fine looking boss. "Deaton?"

"Hey, Meilani," Deaton greeted.

"How - How did you – ?"

"Get out?" Deaton finished for Meilani. "Not easily. And from what they tell me, I'm alive because of you. I think I owe you a raise, kiddo."

Noah came around the back of the ambulance at that moment and placed a hand on their shoulders. "Come on, guys, let the EMTs do their job. You can talk to him later."

Meilani waved politely at her boss before she followed her boyfriend and Noah away from Deaton. She spotted her brother and ran over to her twin, yelling over her shoulder for Stiles to wait for her.

"Scott! Are you okay?"

"Allison's dad just picked her up. Mom should be here any second," Scott simply replied, not even bothering to look at his twin.

Meilani scanned the dark parking lot and saw no sign of their mom's van yet. "Um, do you need me to do anything? You want me to come home with you?"

"No," was Scott's immediate response.

Meilani's heart dropped to her stomach and she immediately felt sick. She knew Scott was pissed at her because not only was she keeping things from him, she almost died trying to get the keys from the janitor. He probably didn't know what to think of everything and she couldn't even blame him. Still didn't mean having her twin blow her off didn't hurt worse than how the alpha made her feel.

"Oh... okay."

"I don't know what happened to you in there... or what's been happening to you the past few weeks actually," Scott confessed as he finally looked at her. "I don't know what you were thinking. Maybe you weren't, but... I don't even know who you are right now, Meilani. This isn't my twin. Something is going on and you're lying to me. When have you ever lied to me?"

"Scott..."

"I don't want to hear whatever made up excuse you have for me, Meilani," Scott cut Meilani off harshly. "Just don't talk to me. Okay? It's a lot better than you lying to me."

Meilani opened her mouth to try and get her brother to listen to something – anything really – so they could work this out. However, Melissa pulled up and she eyed her children suspiciously as she could practically feel the tension radiating off the two of them. "Hi, kids."

"Hi, Mom," Scott greeted as he walked over to the car and got in.

"Sweetie are you coming home?" Melissa asked as she leaned forward in her seat to see Meilani over Scott.

Meilani glanced at Scott who kept his gaze out the windshield. "Um, I'm going to Stiles' tonight if that's okay, Mom. Huge project... and other homework. I'll call you tomorrow when I wake up. Promise."

Melissa flashed her daughter a small smile. "Okay, honey. Love you."

Meilani weakly waved as her mom pulled away. She spun on her heels to trek back over to Stiles who stared at her apologetically. Honestly, Meilani wanted to just get to Stiles' and curl up in his bed, never leaving it. She thought about when she wondered if this whole wolf thing could ever get worse? Meilani finally got her answer.

Well, it could and it has.

authors note

welp... welcome to the downhill of this rollercoaster people. strap in because it's going to be wild these last chapters of episodes 8 through 12. which means there are only NINE chapters left of this book before we move onto book 2 and season 2. LET'S DO IT!

EDITED ON: SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2019