𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐕𝐄

𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳

━━━ SINCE THE REMAINDER OF THE PACK COULDN'T CALL STILES TO COME TO THEIR AID THIS TIME AROUND, MEILANI SUGGESTED THEY GO BACK INTO THE WOODS SO THEY COULD TRY TO CATCH THE KILLER OF THE HELLHOUND IN THE WOODS. It was the most Meilani could think of to do at the moment, besides trying to find where Chris Argent was and get the bullet back to him. Get some answers of the man if she possibly could because Meilani was just so tired and drained that she wanted to sort all of this out right off the bat. She really could never catch a break in Beacon Hills.

However, that didn't seem to be Meilani's only problem at the moment as an odd sensation washed over her as she ran through the woods with Isaac, Malia and Lydia. She felt like she was both inside of her body and also having an out of body experience at the same time. The trees around her swayed in drastic motions and she could practically hear the echoes of when Chris and Gerard had hunted down the omega wolf back when she was a sophomore. Heard the distorted and echoey voices of Gerard explaining that lone wolves never make it on their own and they needed to hunt down any wolves they could find. Needed to get rid of them before the "monsters" could hurt anyone else. When it hadn't even been Meilani, Derek Hale or any of the other wolves hurting people when Gerard arrived — it was Matt Daehler and the Kanima.

Meilani felt like she was running through water, her legs weighing down as she stumbled over leaves and twigs. Her usually swift running and precise cuts around trees were slowed down and Meilani swore she could see the shadowy figures of hunters ahead of her, guns gripped in their hands and ready to shoot bullets through her, Isaac and Malia.

"We can still catch him," Malia's distorted voice called over Meilani's weird feelings. It seemed to stop the odd sensation for a moment and bring the McCall female back down to the ground as she turned to look at her three friends behind her. All of them looked more worried than the next, especially Isaac who could probably feel the weird sensation that had been pushing through Meilani like a rough wave on the shore. "You know, the killer? What are you thinking about?"

Meilani shook her head, not truly sure what she was thinking about at the moment. All of her thoughts blurring together in front of her and hovering just out of reach so she was left with a spinning head and disoriented thoughts. She produced the Argent bullet from her leather jacket pocket and held it up for her three friends to see. "Getting the bullet to Argent."

Malia furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head to the side, clearly not understanding why Meilani would want to do that. "Even if he's the one who fired it?"

"Especially if he's the one that fired it," Meilani stressed, shoving the bullet casing back into her pocket and turned to carry on through the dark woods. However, her feet halted when her ears caught on the sound of multiple heartbeats in the distance — not too far from where she currently stood with Malia, Isaac and Lydia. She shot her hands out, stopping Malia and Isaac from moving further ahead and Lydia stopped on Malia's other side. "You guys hear that?"

Isaac strained his ears to listen out for whatever Meilani heard and his shoulders tensed at the heartbeats. "Heartbeats. A lot of them."

"They're here," Meilani breathed, heart suddenly racing in her chest and she could feel Isaac grab onto her hand in the hopes that his touch would help in bringing her down. However, even with the touch from her mate, Meilani felt the spike of fear and anxiety as she thought about the hunters now coming for them. Coming to take out her, Malia and Isaac and leave Lydia alone and defenseless. "The hunters — they're here. Run!"

"Wha — Lans!" Isaac shouted after Meilani who took off ahead without a glance back, quickly rushing after Meilani to make sure she didn't hurt herself in the process. Stiles would never forgive him if he found out he let Meilani get hurt and, honestly, Isaac would never forgive himself either.

Meilani panted as her legs pumped, carrying her through the woods and her feet barely hit the ground before they were pushing off the grass and mud again. She glanced over her shoulder and fear shot through her again when she saw the red lines of the sniper rifles all around her, pointing directly at her back and arms. She cursed to herself and whipped her head back around to search for a way around them when even more came from in front of her, causing her to slide to a stop in the circle of hunters, all red lines pointing directly at her.

In a blink, Meilani shifted into her true alpha side, roaring warningly at the hunters to back down so she wouldn't have to hurt them. Noticing one coming around the circle and towards her, she let out a cry and rushed at the hunter, tackling him to the ground and yelping with the barrel of his gun pressed into her side.

"Lani, Lani! Sweetheart, it's me!" a familiar voice shouted, stilling Meilani for a moment as she blinked through the haziness over her eyes. "Sweetheart, it's Noah!"

Meilani blinked her eyes again rapidly at the sound of Noah's name, glancing down to see the red light she had seen wasn't even red — but the white of a bright flashlight. Her hand gripped into the front of Noah's sheriff jacket and she sweeped her eyes around the circle to see that it wasn't hunters surrounding her, but the Beacon Hills police department and she could see their own flashlights and guns held up at her and Noah. No doubt only pulled out now in defense of their boss.

Noah's hand came down on Meilani's shoulder comfortingly and squeezed, getting her to look at him again with guilt written all over her face. "Okay, it's okay. It's okay, Lani. I'm right here. You're okay."

"I'm sorry," Meilani whimpered quietly to him, slowly releasing her hold on his jacket and sitting back on her knees. She made sure to keep her head down to hide her glowing red eyes and canines from the innocents around her that hopefully hadn't seen more than they should have. Meilani really wasn't in the mood to reveal herself to people who were better off not knowing about what she was.

Noah slowly got to his feet, standing in front of Meilani protectively as he held his hands up to his deputies to lower their flashlights and rifles. "Everybody, stay back. It's just my future daughter-in-law. She's okay."

"What's wrong with her eyes?" a deputy called out, stepping closer to Noah and Meilani as if to get a better look.

"I think the sheriff said to stay back," Jordan Parrish slid in front of her and, even though Meilani couldn't see his face, she could picture the protective and dark look that crossed his features. "Now everyone go back and the sheriff and I will handle this. Go."

Meilani took Isaac's hand that he held out the second he reached her, Malia and Lydia panting behind him as they caught up to where Noah, Parrish, and Meilani were. She shakily got to her feet and gripped onto Isaac's arm who helped keep her steady while the true alpha tried to reorient herself once again now that the fog over her mind was beginning to drift away. She could hear Malia explaining to Noah about why they had been in the woods, motioning for him to follow her a bit away to where the dead Hellhound was.

Parrish had balked when he saw the dead Hellhound, eyes widening in shock as even he knew how hard it was to kill a Hellhound. He stuffed his flashlight into the holster around his waist and began to search around while Noah stood near the dead body with the four teens.

"Noah . . . you don't think they saw anything, do you?" Meilani questioned Noah, chewing the inside of her lip out of fear that someone had saw something they shouldn't have. She could practically hear Derek Hale sighing in her head over it all.

"No more than they're used to," Parrish assured Meilani, circling back around to where everyone stood now. "Can you tell us what happened here? 'Cause I don't get it. I didn't think you could kill a Hellhound."

Malia shrugged lamely, stuffing her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and rocking back on her heels. "Looks a lot easier than we thought."

Meilani nodded and checked her pocket to make sure the Argent bullet casing was still in her pocket — thankfully, it was. "I don't think it was just any bullet that killed him, either."

"We better hope not."

Noah had eventually shipped off the four teens to go home and get some rest, telling them they can deal with the dead Hellhound when everyone was rested. Meilani wanted to argue and keep looking for where the killer or Chris Argent was, but Isaac had all but hauled her small 5'5 frame out of the woods and back into Malia's car where the Tate girl brought the duo back home.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Lydia wondered aloud before Meilani could shift and get out of the car to go into her house with Isaac.

Meilani paused with her hand on the seatbelt she'd just unclasped, eyes bouncing between Lydia and Malia in the front seat. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Why didn't any of you say something?" Malia accused next, turning in her seat so she could properly look at Meilani, Isaac and Lydia. Her nose scrunched up and her eyebrows furrowed in adorable confusion. "Wait, was I supposed to say something?"

Isaac exhaled heavily and leant his cheek on the back of Lydia's seat, shrugging his shoulders in tired trepidation. "None of us said anything because of Argent, and none of us should say anything until Meilani can find him and talk to him. Everyone think that's a good plan?"

Lydia exchanged a look with Meilani and Malia, all of them pleasantly content with Isaac's plan. At least one of them were trying to think clearly because Meilani was pretty sure her train of thought was screwed up until she got some proper sleep. "As long as we talk to Argent soon. Immediately would be preferable. Remember my premonition about people screaming and killing each other? Would rather that not come true."

"Well, we kind of need to find Chris first, Lyds," Meilani reminded Lydia, yawning and rubbing at her right eye that burned from the exhaustion that was beginning to weigh on her now. "We'll get to work in the morning."

"If we even make it to the morning at this point."

"Isaac Lahey!"

The next morning while Lydia went to the sheriff's station to talk to Parrish and see if they could figure out where her premonition took place, Meilani headed off to Chris Argent's hide out in the tunnels in the hopes he'd be there. Though, as Meilani's luck would always have it, Chris hadn't been there when she showed up with Malia and Isaac. He hadn't even answered their texts or calls when they tried to reach out to him, which was odd as he'd always answered Meilani right away. He claimed Meilani was now like his second daughter and that she could always go to him . . . but now he was ghosting her the way her own father had done to her for years.

While Isaac and Malia took a look around the small space, Meilani grabbed the small pouch of bullets and dumped them out onto the metal table in the middle of the room and tried to compare them to the bullet casing she had taken with them.

"He's not answering our calls or texts, he's not home and he's not here. I mean, maybe Argent just doesn't wanna be found, Meilani," Malia voiced her thoughts out loud, always the one to keep things blunt and real with everyone and anyone.

Meilani stopped shifting through all the casings from the pouch to glance over to Malia and Isaac who stood on the other side of the room, both looking equally warily about the whole thing. "Well . . . he'd have his calendar on his laptop, right? If we crack the password . . ."

Isaac snorted and crossed his arms, shaking his head in amusement at his mate. "You know, I heard the thought before you said it out loud and I honestly didn't think you'd have it in you to be this devious."

"I've never been more proud," Malia agreed, pretending to wipe a stray tear away and walking over to where Chris' laptop had been left behind and dropping into the chair behind it. She flicked it up and a small pop up screen came up, asking for his password to get into the laptop. "Gun?"

Meilani laughed softly to herself when she heard Isaac and Malia begin to bounce password ideas off each other and began her own search of the room now that she couldn't find a casing that matched the one she had. She placed the casing back into her pocket and waltzed over to a wooden box with a massive lock on the side of it, barely even hearing Malia make a backhanded comment about Meilani's little hallucination the night before. She wrapped her hand around the lock and broke it off, flipping the lid up to reveal a massive hunting rifle and some bullets resting beneath it that no doubt belonged to it.

"Uh . . . guys, I don't think that Chris took off from Beacon Hills. I think he's back in business," Meilani warily informed the duo, moving on from the box and over to the black box on the desk next to the wooden box. Flipping it open she saw it was the same automatic bow and arrow that Allison favored and used a bunch. She slowly lifted the automatic bow out of the box and examined it closely as if it would tell her where Chris had gone or why he still had any of this stuff for werewolves. A thought crossed her mind, reminding her of what the password could be and she dropped the bow back into the box and rushed over to Malia and Isaac. "I think I know what his password is. I think it's Allison."

According to the calendar on Chris' laptop, he had set up a meeting with some army guys about cases of weapons that had come in and the army men were looking for. Something that explained the reasoning behind the wooden box with the rifle in it. It wasn't all for Chris, but for some sort of trade Chris had decided to make in some remote area. Only two cars stood underneath the abandoned overpass, not a single car driving over the top as multiple men stood around a few stacks of boxes which no doubt held the weaponry they desired inside.

Meilani could feel the animosity in the air as she jumped out of Roscoe, shutting the door quietly behind her as to not alert the men that they were coming. She shared a knowing look with both Malia and Isaac before the trio ran forward and Malia had taken the liberty of knocking one of the men to the ground, pressing her boot covered foot into his chest as she kept him down even though he was already unconscious.

"What are you guys doing here?" Chris demanded of the three, his eyes narrowing in on them and Meilani felt like a young child scolded by their father.

"We're your back up," Meilani defended herself, Malia and Isaac and motioned down to the ground where the supposed enemy lay unmoving beneath Malia's boot.

Chris exhaled exasperatedly and slapped his hands to his sides. "I had a guy on the inside and you're standing on him."

The remaining army men that stood all raised their rifles at Chris, readying to fire off on him should he do anything drastic. Though, before any of them could step up and actually do anything to Chris, Meilani, Malia or Isaac . . . Chris took a small remote out of the sleeve of his leather jacket and pressed a button which thrusted them all into darkness and started chaos.

Rounds of bullets went off from the army men while Chris and the three teens dove behind the boxes that held the weapons that Chris was meant to trade off. Chris' friend was still laid out on the ground and Chris tried to motion to him for Malia to get, but the werecoyote frantically shook her head as she didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. With a roll of her eyes, Meilani pushed herself up and ducked beneath the bullets, mentally cursing Malia the entire way as she grabbed the inside man by the back of his army uniform and tugged him back behind the boxes with the others.

Seeing as how the bullets wouldn't be stopping any time soon, Chris signaled for Meilani and Malia to take out the other two men still standing while him and Isaac would come around the other way. The first guy had gone done without a problem with Meilani creeping up behind him and knocking the back of an unattended rifle into the back of his head. However, the second the guy wouldn't go down so easily as he held his own weapon up at Malia, but Chris was there in an instant with his gun pressed into the back of the guy's head.

"Who are the guns for?" Chris demanded harshly, tired of the games that these men were clearly playing with him.

The army man didn't release a word, merely dropping his own rifle and digging into his pocket. Everything next happened in slow motion as the click of a pin being removed from a hand grenade was hard and the army man darted off in the opposite direction. Chris and the three teens only had a mere few seconds before the grenade detonated and shook the ground around them. Isaac had taken Meilani down to the ground and covered her while Chris and Malia took refuge behind neighboring pillars to get away from the blast. Once everything stopped shaking around them, the four slowly picked up their heads and got back to their feet.

"For the record, I had everything under control," Chris said to the trio, meeting up with them in the middle as he dusted his clothes off from the dust that had clung to his body after the explosion. "How did you even find me?"

"Meilani did it," Malia instantly accused, pointing at the true alpha next to her.

Meilani scrunched her nose up when Chris shot her a deadpan expression and she rocked back on her heels awkwardly. "You — you left your laptop in the bunker. Figured your password was Allison and . . . got in. I'm so sorry. You just . . . you've been avoiding me lately."

Chris sighed and ran a hand over his face, shaking his head. "Meilani, I haven't been avoiding you. I've been busy. Business is booming and I'd like to know why."

"Have you made any unusual sales lately then?" Meilani questioned, the bullet in her leather jacket pocket practically burning a hole through her pocket as she indirectly mentioned it.

"Like a bullet with a fleur-de-lis?" Isaac tacked on for good measure.

Chris' hand dropped back to his side limply and his face fell, memories visibly flashing across his eyes of Allison. She'd always stamped every bullet she'd fired off and it only made sense for Chris to have done the same since it was the same symbol. If he had done it, that is. "I haven't stamped a bullet since Allison died."

Meilani ignored the twisting pang of guilt that erupted in her stomach at the mention of Allison's death. It would be two years soon and Meilani still blamed herself in some way for her death since Allison had jumped in the way of her and took the brunt force of the sword instead of Meilani. Sometimes Meilani even saw Allison die in her arms over and over in her nightmares if she let herself think about it too much. "Someone just killed a Hellhound with one."

"Can I see the casing?"

Meilani nodded and dug her hand into her pocket to drag out the bullet, but came up empty. Her eyes widened as she frantically checked both of her jacket pockets, followed by her jean pockets only to find all of them empty and no casing in sight. She slowly glanced over her shoulder the floor that was flooded with multiple casings, the casing they needed probably mixed up in the mass amounts of casings that had been fired off at them. "It must have fallen out in the fight."

"Okay, you don't need the casing, it's fine. You need at least the slug. If you find that, then you can find your killer."

"Guess it's back to the woods."

Meilani, Malia and Isaac found their way back through the woods and to the spot where the Hellhound had been. This time without Meilani having hallucinations of hunters coming for them and attacking them, thankfully. Which did not go unnoticed by either Malia or Isaac because as soon as they slid to a stop where they remembered the Hellhound to be, Malia opened her mouth and outright asked Meilani what had happened to her the night before.

Meilani let out an exhausted breath and ran a hand through her hair, laughing softly and slapping a hand to her side. "Yeah, I get it. I was totally freaked last night, which freaked you both out."

"Well, obviously!" Isaac huffed, crossing his arms across his sweater covered chest. "Lans, I could see what you were seeing. I don't — I can't even explain why you were seeing things that weren't there. It was like you were on some freak LSD trip or something. We were just worried about you. If this is about Stiles and Scott being away and you being so far from your anchors —"

"It's not," Meilani instantly denied, eyes snapping up to Malia and Isaac and she hoped they could see she was serious. She had never been more happy for her boys being able to go off and do something big, go do what they both loved the most besides her. She was happy they were happy and last night was just some sort of freak thing . . . she hoped. "I promise. I'm in control and I just . . . I don't know. But I'm seriously okay. Isaac, you'd know if I was lying."

Isaac stared at Meilani for a long moment, silently assessing her through their bond but he hadn't found anything because he relaxed again and dropped his hands back to his side. Though, that relaxation didn't last long as he tensed up again, blue eyes trained on something over Meilani's shoulder. "Uh . . . would it be crazy to say that I actually see a red dot over your shoulder now?"

"I'd say you were definitely — " Meilani cut herself off, looking over her shoulder to see that Isaac was right and a red line poked out from between the trees and bobbed along as the person moved closer. " — not paranoid."

"Relax, children, it's just me!" Chris called, clearly having heard the conversation as he approached them closer. He lowered the rifle once he was close and offered the trio an apologetic look, though he made no move to verbally apologize to them. "I had to use this to determine the trajectory of the bullet. Show me where you guys found the body."

"You're standing right on the area," Meilani informed, motioning to the area beneath their feet where the Hellhound had been. Noah and his deputies must have hauled him off the night prior to keep up appearances as they couldn't leave a dead body in the woods.

Chris stepped down from the slight raised level of land they had been stood on to drop in the tiny, dry ravine. He surveyed the space around him for anything out of the ordinary and then raised his rifle again, the red line directly pointing at Meilani's chest which caused her to yelp and bump into Isaac to get away from the line of fire. The Argent man assured Meilani the safety was off, trailing the red line along the tree trunk next to the trio and paused right in the middle of it. "Got it. Meilani, do me a favor. Glow your eyes and tell me if you can see it, too."

Meilani stepped away from Isaac's embrace where he had caught her in attempts to get away from the line of fire and glowed her eyes red, wolf eyes instantly kicking in and making the world around her that much clearer. Right where Chris' red line pointed, a small glow burst out from it that closely resembled that of sunlight. "I — I see it. Why?"

Chris lowered his rifle and slung it around his shoulder, signaling to Meilani that she could put away the wolf eyes. "That's because it's made from an element with a higher heat signature than regular metal. It shines infrared, like your eyes, because it's silver."

Meilani balked as Chris strode up to the tree and pulled out the silver casing, subconsciously stepping back and away with Isaac at her side while Malia merely furrowed her eyebrows. She had never personally experienced a silver bullet before, but she remembered when Derek had been shot in the arm with a silver bullet and had almost died if it hadn't been for her, Scott and Stiles' help. Silver never meant any good for any werewolf and Meilani wasn't about to get up close and personal with the thing that could kill her faster than wolfsbane ever could.

Malia, who still appeared confused, followed after the group as they began to make their way back through the woods. "Why is everyone acting so weird about this whole thing? Lead, copper, silver — who cares what a bullet's made out of?"

"Well, there's a myth that a silver bullet could kill a werewolf."

"But a real hunter would know it's just a myth," Chris chimed in before Meilani could add anymore to her statement. "Silver is too soft for bullets, they don't fly straight."

"Okay . . . then, if you didn't fire the bullet, then who did?"

Meilani puffed out her cheeks and stuffed her hands into her leather jacket pockets, kicking along the rocks that were in her path back to the cars. "Someone who clearly doesn't know what they're doing."

"Someone dangerous," Chris warned the three, turning to face them once they made it between Chris' car and Roscoe. "A new hunter. You need to be careful."

Meilani threw her head back and groaned, mentally wondering if anything could get any worse than this.

Things can, in fact, get much worse.

When Meilani, Malia and Isaac returned back to the McCall residence Lydia had been there waiting for them. She had just come from Eichen House where Parrish had been trapped inside and nearly killed by one of the doctors inside the mental institution. A doctor who had killed dozens and dozens before Parrish, wanting to get rid of every supernatural creature that crossed through the institution's doors to weed them all out. Create a better world where no supernatural creature existed.

"He killed every supernatural creature inside the Closed Unit?" Meilani asked, trying to make sure she understood everything that Lydia had explained to her, Isaac and Malia just moments ago. It was still hard to wrap her around why supernatural creatures were getting hurt if they weren't directly violent or caused any harm.

Lydia frowned and leant her forearms on the top of the chair that she stood behind in the McCall dining room. "He said he couldn't see it any other way."

Malia scoffed offensively and crossed her arms. "Well, I've got another way. You don't kill everyone."

"Maybe he was afraid," Isaac suggested, though he sounded just as annoyed and put off the situation as Malia did. None of that excused him killing innocent supernatural creatures who hadn't done anything to anyone.

Meilani blinked for a moment, Isaac's words slowly beginning to make sense in her head. Plenty of weird things had begun to spring up once Stiles and Scott got out of town. Once the Hellhound had been killed in the woods — something that no one even knew was possible as it shouldn't have been in the first place. Whatever was happening around them had to do with the deaths of the supernaturals. New hunters were springing out everywhere again and it was almost like when Meilani had first been turned back in sophomore year. Hunters were back because people were afraid of the supernatural. Of what they could do.

"The wolves, the rats. It keeps coming back to the same thing, fear."

Malia still looked unconvinced as she couldn't grasp onto why hunters were now back in Beacon Hills. On why suddenly everyone was lashing out against the supernatural side and trying to get rid of them. Trying to protect not only themselves, but the rest of the occupants of Beacon Hills as well, their families and friends. They wanted a more peaceful place for their kids to grow up. "What is everyone so afraid of then?"

Meilani placed the silver casing onto the table, knowing now that it couldn't do anything to her or Isaac or Malia. Her brown eyes flickered up to her friends across from her, releasing a breath that she hadn't even even realized she was holding. "They're afraid of us. We don't know what fear would do to somebody. I mean, it can totally change them. They'll look at us differently. They'll do things that they have never done before. Scared people will do things that you wouldn't even believe."

And that fear now only went into Meilani as she thought of all the ways her and her friends could get hurt if people continued to be scared of them. She needed to think of a way to take away the fear that rested inside of people . . . and fast.

word count: ( 5.1k )

CHAPTERS LEFT: 8

— so . . . we're finally up to the Gerard era of season six b. he wasn't mentioned or shown in this chapter, but he did come at the end of this episode so . . . this is going to get interesting so quick. meilani and the pack are gonna need to buckle up because the angst is about to be so real in the club.

— also don't forget meilani's got an instagram ( meiwoof ), so go check it out if you're interested!

THE LUNAR CHRONICLES FACT OF THE CHAPTER:

four years ago on this date ( AUGUST 28TH, 2017 ), i posted the cast/summary chapter to EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED and officially kicked off this series, which also happens to be my birthday. i cannot believe how far this story has come since then and i am so so so glad that you guys have all stuck around for meilani's journey and gave her all the love she deserves. i never expected to be so attached to meilani the way that i am and yet here i am six books later, two cross over fics with ellis ( nowhere to turn/running && chaos theory ) and even a knives out fic where meilani's with ransom ( blades of chaos ).

thank you guys for all the support over the past four years. the fact EVERYTHING IS CHANGED is getting so close to 100k reads at this point is just insanity. meilani and i feel your love and we appreciate it more than you guys could ever know. we love you guys!