𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝘈𝘓𝘓 𝘐𝘚 𝘍𝘈𝘐𝘙 𝘐𝘕 𝘗𝘌𝘈𝘊𝘌 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘞𝘈𝘙

━━━ IT HAD BEEN AN INCREDIBLY LONG NIGHT FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF BRETT AND LORI TALBOT. Liam had taken the whole thing to heart and took it as it all being his fault. His fault because he couldn't get to Brett and Lori quick enough to save them. Quick enough to stop a car from slamming into the both of them and ultimately killing them both in the end from Brett already half way dead from the poison in his body and Lori from the fighting with Gerard and whoever his new hunting partner had been. They both lost their lives way too soon and Meilani hated the fact even she hadn't been able to help them because she'd been taken down herself. Rendered utterly useless and no doubt a trap set up by none other then Gerard himself to keep her back.

The next morning had come way too quickly for Meilani's liking, especially since she hadn't slept that much that night. She'd been startled awake by a phone call from Liam's stepfather that he couldn't get in contact with Liam and he was pretty sure the Dunbar boy was going to be late for school because he wasn't up yet. So . . . being the good alpha she was, Meilani had promised Liam's stepfather she'd go check on him and forced herself from the warmth and comfort of her bed. If she couldn't go to school yet, Meilani was sure as hell going to make sure her beta at least went and didn't ruin his senior year by skipping out on class.

Letting herself into the house with the spare key Liam's stepfather mentioned, she kicked the door behind her and waltzed her way up the stairs. Liam's room was a lot cleaner than she'd thought it'd be, only a pair of clothing sitting on the chair in the corner of his room which Meilani safely assumed was for that day for school. There was a lump beneath the sheets on Liam's bed and the Dunbar boy had fully immersed himself into the blankets and hid himself from view. No doubt having done so when he heard his alpha enter the house.

"Liam, for fucks sake," Meilani huffed to herself, walking over to his bed and tugging at the blankets to try and pry them from the boy's body.

Liam let out a series of fake groans and coughs, gripping the blanket tightly so Meilani couldn't pull them off them. If Meilani wasn't concerned about ripping the poor boy's comforter, she'd probably have whipped out her alpha strength but merely resorted to pursing her lips and crossing her arms. "No, I'm . . . I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm like . . . deathly ill. Yeah, I think it's the flu or something. Maybe pneumonia."

Meilani rolled her eyes at Liam's antics and released a heavy breath. "Liam, you're a werewolf. You can't get sick. However, you know what you can get is in trouble for being late to school. So come on, up and at 'em. The day ain't getting any younger and neither am I, let's go!"

"No, I don't think I should go to school," Liam argued, flinging the blanket back so it revealed his face and propped himself up on his elbows. "Or outside. Or anywhere. Ever again."

Meilani frowned softly, the scent of guilt staining the air around them like a black cloud. Her beta hadn't wanted to leave the bed because he really, truly blamed himself for Brett and Lori's deaths. "Liam, I'm the self-deprecating one here. I blame myself for things that are out of my control and you are the one that gets through things. Don't be like me and get up so you can go to school, okay? You just gotta pretend like nothing happened."

"Pretend?!" Liam balked, blue eyes blowing wide as he stared up at his alpha. "Lan, you expect me to just pretend like last night didn't happen?!"

"Okay, um . . . think of it like when Superman gets caught with his glasses off. You know he doesn't give up. He puts those bad boys back on and says "I'm still Clark Kent"."

Liam furrowed his eyebrows at Meilani's words, tilting his head and almost looking exactly like a puppy. "You — you want me to wear glasses? Werewolves don't need those."

Meilani smacked her hand to her face and channeled all her patience into her, feeling like a mother with her very confused child. "No, Li! I want you to go to school, okay?" She reached forward and grabbed him by the ankles over the blanket and tugged him off the bed, causing the Dunbar boy to fall to the carpeted ground on his ass with the blanket circling his waist. "Be Liam Dunbar. Be the boy I'm proud to call my beta. Just like Superman has to be Clark Kent or — or even Captain America has to be Steve Rogers."

"You really have to work Steve Rogers into every analogy you can," Liam mumbled quietly, while Meilani innocently shrugged over her love for the Rogers man. "Oh and, by the way, Captain America is just Steve Rogers to begin with. Everyone knows he's Captain America. Everyone already loves him. Unlike us, who everyone hates. They hate us for trying to save their lives."

Meilani sighed sadly and squatted before her beta, hand falling onto his blanket covered knee and squeezing gently. She offered him the best warming smile she could and wished she could take his emotional pain away. "You're right, bud. We are trying to save lives. Which is why you're gonna get up and go to school and pretend like nothing happened because if you don't, more people could die."

Liam seemed to deflate more at that and he slouched against the end of his bed. "Because of me."

"I didn't know Brett or Lori that well. Not like you did, but I know you," Meilani said softly, reaching over to pluck up Liam's backpack and placed it in his lap. "And if you're afraid of seeing more of your friends die, you'll go."

Liam silently nodded his head, blue eyes shifting from the backpack in his lap to his alpha. "Okay . . . okay. I'll go."

Meilani smiled and cupped the side of his face gently, giving his cheek a teasing pinch. "That's my boy."

Once Meilani made sure her beta actually went to school, she swung back around to her place to pick up Isaac and called up Malia and Lydia on the way to tell them to meet her at Chris' bunker. They needed to work out a plan to get on Gerard's good side and not have him ruin the name of all supernatural any longer. It would get increasingly hard to keep Beacon Hills in check if people started to think that Meilani and her pack and the other wolves were all a danger to them. Noah and Parrish could only help them so far with this sort of thing.

"They were murdered," Meilani reiterated, standing in said bunker with Chris, Malia, Lydia and Isaac. "Killed by the new hunter in Beacon Hills. You know, when he took out the Hellhound, we thought it was just luck. That we were dealing with an amateur, but now we know that whoever this new hunter is . . . has a teacher."

"Gerard," Chris answered, not even needing Meilani to piece the two together for him to even catch on. The Argent man knew his father way too well to not begin to pick up the pieces himself and realize he was behind this new slaughter. "Which means this is my fault. I'm the one that let him go in the first place."

Lydia shook her head, hands leaning on the table in front of her. "No, you couldn't have done anything."

Malia scrunched her nose up at Lydia's words and gave her a look as if to say she was crazy. "He could have killed Gerard. Just saying."

"We are not executioners," Isaac reminded Malia who held her hands up in defense. "Besides, you didn't meet Gerard. You cannot even begin to imagine the complications that came with him. We can't get rid of everyone."

"Well, you should when it comes to war," Malia defended her opinion.

Meilani held her hand up before Isaac could argue back with Malia, telling everyone to calm down so she could speak. "Look, this is why we need to make peace with Gerard. You guys know what's coming. We all keep using the same word here."

"War," Chris said, nodding his head along like he agreed with Meilani. "A peace summit usually stops wars."

"Exactly. We meet face-to-face with Gerard. Find out what he wants and then we stop all this before it can get any worse. I had to literally fight my beta this morning  just to go to school because he's scared. We need to end this and end it now."

Lydia barked out a laugh and crossed her arms across her chest, her turn to look at Meilani as if she'd sprouted thirty heads. "Last time Gerard was at a peace meet was with Deucalion. He blinded him and then killed everyone else, including his own men."

Chris puffed out his cheeks and circled the table so he could pass by Meilani. "I'll go. Know he's not going to kill me. I mean . . . maybe."

Meilani placed a hand on Chris' arm to stop him before he could fully pass her and she looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Chris, we need to find out what he wants. Then we can bargain with him."

"Mei, you've met Gerard, okay? Even if he does agree, his terms might be difficult to meet," Chris warned her, clearly not liking the odds of if Meilani decided to go toe to toe with the man.

"Well, that's why it's a negotiation. I don't expect to get anything without giving something up."

"Then you're gonna have to figure out how much you're willing to give and how far you're willing to go to stop a war from breaking out. It's not going to be a cheap price."

As if the gods were playing a cruel joke, not only did Gerard refuse to meet and practically told Gerard he was going to slaughter Meilani, Isaac, Malia and Liam without even a blink . . . but it turned out that the school guidance counselor — Tamora Monroe — was the new hunter that had showed up to town. The same hunter that sidled up with Gerard and decided to take hunting advice from the man that wanted nothing but genocide. 

However, Meilani always liked to try to make bad situations not so bad and had all but begged Lydia to go to the school and try to talk Tamora down. See if the woman would agree to meeting with all of them and settling a peace between them. Lydia would have no issues getting into her mother's office and she'd have no problems getting the guidance counselor to the office either under the guise of Natalie Martin.

It had taken a while of convincing and talking on Lydia's part, but Tamora eventually agreed to meet with the pack. Granted, it was to be in the middle of the maze of tunnels that the pack seemed to be frequenting more and more lately, but it was better than nothing. Meilani would meet anywhere at this point if it meant being able to save her pack and everyone else from Gerard and his wicked ways of thinking.

"It's a trap, Lans!" Isaac snapped at his mate, storming down the steps of the McCall after her with Malia in tow who only shouted her same protests at her. "You of all people should not be this stupid to fall for it."

"She said that she would meet to talk, Isaac," Meilani responded, strolling into the McCall kitchen and turning to face her friends with an exasperated expression. "Seriously, what would either of you like me to do right now?"

"Uh, not going would be a good option," Malia quipped, staring at Meilani as if she'd gone crazy. "You realize how crazy this is, right?"

Meilani slapped her hands to her sides with a scoff. "Gerard is recruiting new hunters and he's murdering our friends. Liam had to be pulled out of bed this morning to even get him to go to school. He's not going to stop unless I convince him that we're not his enemy. "

"What happens if you can't, Lans? You're gonna get yourself killed and then we're gonna get killed by Stiles and Scott for letting you get killed while on our watch. Besides, we need you! You're the alpha and — and our best friend. We can't lose you next."

Meilani's face softened at Isaac's words, heart tugging harshly at the sight of Malia and Isaac's desperate expressions. Desperate for Meilani to listen to them and not meet with Tamora. Though, Meilani knew this was the only way that they could get through this whole thing. She'd already called both Stiles and Scott and said she loved them both. Acted like she was calling just cause she missed them, pretending she'd made it to school and was doing fine. What they didn't know for the moment wouldn't kill them.

But it would most likely kill her.

"If — if I didn't think you guys could beat him without me . . . " Meilani trailed off, shaking her head and running a hand through her curls. "Look, I just — I have to try this. All I want to do is to get Monroe to trust us. She agreed to this peace summit. I have to go and I'm going alone."

Without letting Isaac or Malia argue back with her about her decision, Meilani turned on her heels and walked out of the house and towards Roscoe. She mentally crossed her fingers that this peace summit went the way she hoped . . . but she was also preparing for the worst.

Following the sound of heart beats through the looping tunnels, Meilani eventually found Monroe and two other hunters flanked on either side of her at the end of the tunnels. She was a tiny thing and Meilani allowed herself a relaxing breath before she slowly made her way closer to where the three hunters stood. The guns in the two hunters hands behind Monroe glinted in the dim lighting the tunnels provided and she stopped halfway, not being stupid enough to get too close.

"And here I thought we were going to talk peace," Meilani remarked, placing her hands on her hips and tilting her head at Monroe and the two hunters. "Didn't know peace required guns."

"I agreed to come here . . .but I didn't agree on peace."

A zapping sound behind Meilani caused her to jump and whirl around to see another hunter behind her now, a taser baton in his hand. A gun was strapped around his middle and he eyed Meilani with so much disdain that she didn't even need the chemosignals to know he hated her without even meeting her.

Meilani poked her tongue into her cheek and turned her attention back to Monroe who now stalked closer to where the alpha stood. "If you brought them, I guess Gerard is here too, isn't he?"

As if Gerard was just waiting for Meilani to mention his name, Gerard casually strolled out and looked just like he had the last time Meilani had seen him. Just minus the black goo that he'd been spitting into a handkerchief. The sight of him alone made her blood boil but Meilani latched down on her triggering rage and kept her red eyes at bay. "Right here, Meilani."

Meilani narrowed a death glare at Gerard before she diverted her gaze back to Monroe. "Whatever he's told you, there's another side of the story. The true side of the story."

"Isn't there always?" Monroe challenged, not looking the least bit inclined to work with Meilani in any sort of way.

"What were you hoping for here, Meilani?" Gerard chimed in, stopping just behind Monroe with the other hunters at his side.

Meilani scoffed softly and shook her head, hating the fact that Isaac and Malia were right. Not that Meilani really doubted their words . . . but a small part of her was really hoping that they'd luck out. "I was hoping to talk to someone reasonable. Trust me, Monroe, he is not the kind of person that you want to follow. He is gonna lead you right off a cliff."

"Following me?" Gerard parroted, tilting his head at the alpha and Meilani had half a mind to rip the same head from his shoulders. "No one here is following me, Meilani. I am merely an adviser."

Meilani blinked in minute surprise, eyes slowly drifting from Gerard and back over to the guidance counselor before her. Now that they were so close, Meilani could see the three claw marks in her neck left behind by Brett. An injury the woman probably deserved for trying to attack Brett when he'd been doing nothing wrong. She didn't feel an ounce of sympathy for the woman, especially if she was now the reason for all of this. "This is because of you?"

A twisted smile made its way onto Monroe's lips and Meilani had to reign in her increasing anger so she wouldn't snap. "That's right. You're negotiating with me, Meilani."

Meilani held her breath in for ten seconds and slowly let it out, trying to find her sane mind in the middle of all her anger and annoyance. She had to go through this just the same as if she'd gone through it with Gerard — calm and collected. An angered boggled mind was no help in situations like this. Not one she could meet her end in. "Okay . . . tell me how to settle this. What do you want?"

"I want to see a werewolf beg for peace."

Meilani couldn't stop the disbelieving laugh that escaped her lips and she didn't even try to hide it after the fact. "Fine. Okay. I'll beg. I'll — I'll do whatever you want. Just tell me that we don't have to kill each other. That we can find a way to make peace. My pack and I haven't even touched you or given you a single ounce of a reason to kill us. Neither did Brett or Lori."

"That wasn't quite what I was hoping for," Monroe stated, not moving as her eyes remained trained on Meilani.

"People are dying," Meilani cooly said, holding a terrifying level of calm that would have had anyone else running for the hills. However . . . it looked like Monroe got deep into all these hunters' heads if they were holding their ground — thinking they got the upper hand on Meilani.

"They've been dying! You only care now because it's your people."

"You have to want something other than seeing us all dead. I mean . . . what if we leave Beacon Hills? All of us," Meilani suggested, hoping it would be a good enough loophole. Her, Isaac, Lydia and Malia were on the outs already because they were all off to their colleges once this mess cleared up. If Liam could stay under the radar . . . he'd be able to get through his senior year then leave himself when the school year was through.

Monroe took a step that she must have thought was threatening toward Meilani and flashed her a sickly sweet smile. "If you leave, we'll follow you. We will hunt you down until every single one of you is gone."

Meilani took a step forward herself, holding up the same threatening posture that the woman before her held. It was becoming increasingly harder not to give into her rage, but that would not only go against Meilani's morals . . . but only prove to Monroe that she was right about Meilani and her pack. "Unless you haven't noticed, sweetheart, some of us have actually been protecting you. We haven't touched you."

"Don't listen to her," Gerard cut in before Meilani could say more and crossed his arms. "She wants you to be afraid."

"That's the thing — you shouldn't be afraid of us. We protect people. People like you."

"People like me? You don't know anything about people like me," Monroe growled at Meilani, her face twisting into one of pure rage.

Meilani huffed out a breath and shook out her shoulders to relax herself before opening her mouth. "So help me understand. Tell me what made you hate us so much."

Gerard made a noise behind Monroe and snapped the alpha's gaze to him as he shook his head. "I don't think you want to push that button, Meilani."

Meilani chose to ignore Gerard and focused back on Monroe, face softening as she slowly pieced together why Monroe was so hellbent on getting rid of Meilani and her pack. The wolves. "Something happened to you, didn't it? Something bad. Before Brett slashed you."

"Bad doesn't even come close. There was a faculty meeting that ran late one night. We were complaining about the new course rubric. I thought that was the worst thing I'd have to deal with that year. I was wrong. We all heard it — this sound coming from out of the shadows. Everyone thought it was some sort of animal, but not like anything I'd ever heard. When it moved, it moved faster than anything I'd ever seen. I saw teeth and claws . . . fangs. Then there was blood everywhere. I couldn't believe I was still alive."

Meilani frowned, now seeing why Monroe had wanted them dead. She'd been attacked by someone like them . . . someone who purely was out for death and chaos. Nothing like how the current supernatural beings in Beacon Hills acted. "If one of us had been there . . . "

"You were there, Meilani," Monroe said, catching Meilani off guard and sending her into immense amounts of confusion. "You and the deputy. Don't you remember? Did you even think to check if anyone was still alive?"

Meilani felt her mouth dry and her heart drop to her feet, memories flashing of Parrish pushing past her at the school, getting to where The Beast had been. He'd broken onto the school grounds and somehow gotten himself into one of the buses, one of the teachers laying dead and dangling outside the broken open back door of the bus. Over all the roaring, Meilani hadn't heard another heart beat . . . she had no idea Monroe had been there. "I — I didn't know. I swear."

Monroe didn't appear the last bit happy with Meilani's response, dark eyes only blazing more with her anger. "No, you didn't care! How many people have to die so you could keep your secret? So you and your friends could carry on as if nothing ever happened. I was there. Lying under those bodies. Hiding and waiting for someone to finally find me. You should not have come here alone, Meilani."

Meilani stepped back a step and held her hand up in a form of peace when she saw Monroe start to grab for her gun. However, before the hunter could fully remove her weapon — Isaac's voice was heard, followed by one of the hunters going flying from the opposite tunnels and slamming into the wall. Following behind the flying hunter was none other than Malia, Isaac and Lydia who had somehow showed up without Meilani even hearing them. 

"Told you that you weren't doing this alone," Isaac remarked to Meilani, yellow eyes flashing at the hunters around them as if he was just asking them to try anything else with his alpha. 

"Isaac!" Meilani scolded, motioning for him to put the eyes away and turned back to the hunters behind her at the sound of Monroe cocking her gun. "Hey, hey, hey. We did not come here to fight you."

Gerard cocked his own gun, pointing it directly at Meilani's chest. He'd never gotten the chance to take her down and Meilani knew she'd be the first one Gerard would go after when things went to blows. "Well, then you came here to die. We'll tell your little fiancé and brother that you'll miss them."

A growl behind Meilani alerted her and she shot Malia the same scolding look she'd given to Isaac, silently telling her to put the wolf eyes away. "We're trying to protect you."

"Control your betas, Meilani," Gerard warned, a breezy smirk gracing his features. "They could get you all killed."

"We are not the enemy!" Lydia reminded in exasperation, stepping up so she was stood beside Meilani. "There is something else going on. We don't know what it is, but we promise you that there's bigger problems."

"Something worse than supernatural cannibals?" Monroe mocked, deadpan expression on her face when the pack stared at her in surprise. "Yeah, that's right, I know everything now. Wendigos, oni, werecoyotes. People being sacrificed as human sacrifices? How many people had to die while you were protecting them? Oh wait — it was twelve!" 

The lights above flickered and went out for a moment, but swiftly came right back on. Though, that didn't stop Monroe from continuing on and motioning to the bald hunter behind her. "His son was one of them. His throat was cut and his head bashed in. His brother was a deputy, gutted and torn apart. The official report read "animal attack"."

Once again the lights above them fizzled and blinked out before coming back on. Almost like something was controlling it whenever Monroe's fear rose another octave. "It's amplifying their fear," Lydia noted, watching the hunters before them with curiosity. "Meilani, whatever this thing is — it's making their fear spike up to unnatural levels."

"You've all lost somebody and you wanna get revenge, I get that," Meilani said to the group of hunters before her. "I've lost people to this life, too, one of them being my best friend. I'm angry over it, too, but just listen to me. Something escaped the Wild Hunt!"

"Meilani, Meilani, it's here. It's here right now," Lydia cried, tugging on Meilani's denim jacket sleeve and jerked her head behind her as if sensing the thing.

As if on cue, the lights above officially winked out followed by a disturbing sound that erupted the hunters into unrelenting fear. Just before the two hunters that had originally flanked Monroe set off their guns, Meilani grabbed her friends and dragged them around the corner of the next tunnels before any stray bullets could hit them. Round after round of fire from the rifles went off, the fire from the gun powder being the only bit of light in the tunnel. 

The pack stay huddled against the wall together, trying to keep their faces away from the tunnel the hunters stood in so they wouldn't get in the crossfire. Meilani attempted once to see if the monster had showed its face, but was only met with gunfire and quickly pulled herself back around and hid properly with her pack.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Isaac asked quietly, back pressed against the wall next to Meilani. 

Before Meilani could even try to figure out what they could do, the cage door above their heads opened and down dropped a flare. Heavy silence followed before a figure dropped down behind the flare and Meilani nearly collapsed with relief when she saw Parrish stood before them. He shifted instantly once his feet touched the ground and let out a tunnel shaking roar. 

Parrish scooped up the burning flare from the ground and stalked out into the tunnels, the pack cautiously peeking around the corner. The hunters continued their fire of gunshots, none of them stopping Parrish as he continued on down the path. At the other end of the tunnel, a grotesque looking thing with blood and no face or skin stood. Parrish grabbed it up by the neck and stabbed it with the flare, sending out a roaring swirl of fire. The lights blowing out before coming back on again dimly to reveal Parrish in his torched deputy uniform and the charred figure at his feet. 

No longer seeing the hunters, who had more than likely escaped once Parrish struck the monster with the flare, Meilani and the pack ran over to Parrish to help him back to his feet. Checking him over, Meilani was glad to see that he wasn't harmed in any way and looked the way he usually did after he lit on fire — charred and burnt, but no lasting injuries.

"They didn't come to negotiate," Isaac said to Meilani softly, stopping at her side and placing his hand on her shoulder. He squeezed it assuringly and offered her an encouraging smile. "You did the best you could with what you had. You couldn't have known that Monroe felt so strongly about the supernatural or that she was even alive back at the school that night. It's not all your fault, Lans."

"No . . . I didn't do everything. Not yet."

Once the pack was sure that the hunters weren't coming back, they made their way back to the McCall residence. They could all relax for a bit and then try to work out some new plans to work out what to do now that Gerard and Monroe clearly weren't going to talk to them. The pack needed a new plan and quickly if they wanted to stop anyone else from dying next. Though . . . it seemed the plan would need to wait as, when the pack entered the kitchen door, a brunette with blood dripping down the side of her face stood in the middle of the room. Her wolf scent was heavy and Meilani froze a few feet from the girl.

"Meilani. Meilani McCall," the girl breathed, taking a stumbling step forward to reach out for the alpha.

Meilani quickly caught the girl before she could fall flat on her face and gently helped her into a chair. "Hey, hey, you're okay. It's okay. Guys, she's a werewolf."

Malia gasped and shoved forward, getting closer to the girl so she can bend down to her height. "Who did this to you? A hunter?"

The girl frowned and shook her head, pressing a hand to the side of it as it thumped painfully from the action. "Um, no. A — a deputy."

"They've got a deputy?" Isaac blanched, blue eyes going wide with both horror and shock. If they had a deputy . . . their situation would only get worse. The more hunters that stacked up against them, the harder it would be for the pack to work this thing out.

Meilani licked her lips and collapsed into the chair next to the female werewolf, propping a foot up on the end of the chair and resting her head against her knee as she groaned. "They've got everyone."

word count: ( 5k )

CHAPTERS REMAINING: SIX

— welp, unfortunately . . . gerard argent is back. we're all incredibly pissed over it and i cannot wait to fuck this man over. he can rot in hell eventually. we're getting into the real angst and wildness of 6B and i cannot wait to get into the rest of this season.

— dedicated to elliss because of one thing . . . MCROGERS! ( read chaos theory to understand the reference besties )

THE LUNAR CHRONICLES FACT OF THE CHAPTER:

everyone always asks me how to pronounce meilani's name so i'll put it here for, ya'll! bit late i guess since we're nearing the end but here it is: ( may — lan — ee ). it's three syllables and the "lan" is kinda like a long "a" in a way??? idk i've just been obsessed with the name for so long and i had to hop on the opportunity to use it when i started this fic back in 2017.

but tell me how you guys pronounce it in your heads because i'm so curious! especially since some people still sometimes call her "melanie" and it's just so funny to me. so i'd love to see!