𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴

━━━  MEILANI PUFFED OUT HER CHEEKS, RESTING HER ELBOWS ON HER LEGS THAT WERE CROSSED BENEATH HER AND HER CHIN RESTED IN HER HANDS. It had been six days since Peter had been recruited ( much to the pack's disdain ) and another pack of bodies had been scrounged up and a boy named Aaron had gone missing that Liam and Mason had both mentioned not seeing him in school for a few days now. A phone had been left behind with the voicemail of woman demanding Aaron tell her what was going round Beacon Hills and that she'd be storming up there soon enough to check to see what was going on herself. Malia had found it amongst the dead bodies and had tossed it over to Meilani to handle.

Mason and Theo had both been assigned to go out find out more information on who the woman was or if they could find anything at all on Aaron. Lydia and Malia were at the morgue to figure out how and why Lydia had been lead into the woods by a man that wasn't even technically dead. Which left Liam, Meilani and Isaac to sit around the animal clinic with the left behind phone to figure out how to call that woman back from the voicemail and tell her that they needed her in Beacon Hills without sounding insane.

"Mei, you there?" Scott's voice rang through Meilani's ears and she jerked up, forgetting her phone had been perched between her shoulder and ear. It had gone off just a few minutes ago with Scott checking in to see how his sister was doing. Scott and Stiles were both still completely oblivious to the things going on in Beacon Hills and Meilani would like to keep it that way. She wouldn't be ruining the boys' college experience like hers already had been. If anyone deserved the time to enjoy college . . . it was her boys. 

"Uh . . . um, yeah, Scotty, sorry," Meilani sighed, shifting the phone from her shoulder and held it properly against her ear with her left hand while her right ran through her curls. "What did you say?"

"I asked how Mom was doing. I tried to text her a few times, but she hasn't answered," Scott said, voice sounding worried for their mother. Another thing that Scott still had no idea about — their parents being rushed to the hospital. Because of her. "Is she working a lot of doubles again? I thought she promised she would stop doing that so she could get proper rest. I swear, I don't know how either of you function sometimes."

Meilani swallowed thickly and cleared her throat, ignoring Liam and Isaac's eyes on her. Neither one of them looking too pleased that Meilani still continued to keep it from Scott. She wasn't exactly too thrilled with herself either so the two could join the club. "Yeah, you know how Mom is, Scotty. She likes to work and make sure we have enough money to keep afloat, especially with you and I being at school. I'm sure she'll get back to you at some point today. She'll be home."

Scott was silent for a long moment and, if Meilani focused hard enough, she could visibly see Scott's eyebrows furrowing the way they usually did when he was either confused or didn't necessarily believe a word his sister said. Sometimes Meilani wondered if Scott secretly could hear her thoughts like Isaac and just never said anything. "Right . . . well, I'm still going to yell at her when she finally answers."

Meilani smiled inwardly to herself at Scott's overprotective nature over her and Melissa shining through, even from five hundred miles away. "You do that, Scotty. Make sure she knows how disappointed you are at her, not mad. Really blow it to her heart."

Scott's laughter on the other end sent a twinge through Meilani's chest that she recognized as longing and missing over her brother. "I'll make sure to do that, Mei. Hey, I gotta go because Stiles is trying to Skype me and if I don't answer . . . pretty sure your fiancé will come to UC Davis and castrate me with his new FBI knowledge."

"Okay . . . love you, Scotty and tell Stiles I love him, too," Meilani stated, gripping her phone a bit tighter as she tried not to let herself get consumed in her longing to be hiding things from the two boys she loved more than anything. 

"I will and then when he talks about you for an hour again, I'll make sure throttle him through the internet," Scott teased, followed by a blown kiss from his end and then the dial tone sounded to let Meilani know her brother had hung up.

At the sound of another phone dialing, Meilani's head shot up and she saw Liam pressing the left behind phone to his hear. Thankfully, Isaac was quick and grabbed the flip phone from the beta, snapping it closed with wide eyes. "Liam, what are you doing?"

Liam slapped his hands to his sides and snatched the phone back from Isaac with a huff. "I was just going to tell the woman to meet us somewhere! What else can we tell her?"

Meilani shook her head and placed her phone on the table between her crossed legs. "That might not be the best idea, Li. They'll know who we are."

As if on cue, the phone in Liam's hand began to ring and all wolf eyes fell on the device. The beta held out the phone to Meilani with a challenging look. "Go ahead. Answer it."

"You're the one who wanted to make the call," Meilani shot back, resting back on her hands and narrowed her eyes at her beta. "I think you can answer it."

Before Liam could answer it, the phone had stopped its ringing and the call had gone to voicemail. Blowing out a breath, Liam flipped open the phone in his hand and scrolled up in the recent calls until he got to the same number that just called the phone. He pressed the speaker button and placed it in the middle of the table, all three wolves circling around it to get close to the device as if they wouldn't hear it even if it was across the animal clinic's parking lot. 

"Beacon Hills High — "

The voice was instantly cut off when Liam snapped the phone shut again, wide blue eyes bouncing between Meilani and Isaac on either side of him. "It's someone at the school."

"So . . . we might know who they are then," Isaac suggested, chewing the inside of his lip as he tried to pinpoint the voice to someone at the high school.

Liam was silent as he picked up the phone again and went back to the  voicemail, pressing the phone to his ear and slowly walking around the room as he listened to the voice intently. He only made it halfway through the voicemail before he froze mid-step, eyes flickering with recognition as the phone was shut and put away again. "I think I know who it is."

Meilani followed Liam's instructions to the drive Roscoe to the high school and she pulled up into Stiles' usual parking spot almost like it was second nature for her to do so. A peak out the driver's window, Meilani, Liam and Isaac focused their attention on Mrs. Finch that just stepped out of her car to enter the high school. A crease furrowed between Meilani's eyebrows in confusion when Liam frantically pointed at her, telling Meilani and Isaac that he was more than certain it was her.

"Mrs. Finch?" Meilani gaped at Liam, eyes bouncing between her beta and her old science teacher. "You're positive? The only person that woman was ever mean to was Scott and that was just to make sure he didn't fail the class. No way that woman could be connected to — "

"Meilani!" Liam huffed, cutting across his alpha who shot him a stern look for interrupting. "It was her on the phone."

Meilani exhaled heavily and sat back in the driver's seat, hands dropping to rest on the bottom of the wheel. "Okay . . . well, that still doesn't prove that she's the Anuk-ite or even that she's one of us. I don't catch any scent off her."

"It was still her!"

"Okay, then we need to get closer, see if we can somehow get Mrs. Finch to expose her supernatural side. Which means . . . you're up, Liam."

Liam balked at Meilani's words, head snapping from watching Mrs. Finch enter the school and over to Meilani who merely stared at him with raised eyebrows. "What?! What about the hunters and the Nazi student brigade?"

"Don't worry. Isaac and I will be right there with you, but you need to get close. Find out and get out. I'm not busting your ass out of detention," Meilani warned him.

Liam whined and threw his head back. "But I hate biology, Lan."

"Great and I don't care. Glad we're well acquainted now. Get your little beta ass out of this Jeep and go," Meilani sternly told Liam, tone leaving not a single ounce of room for Liam to argue.

"I hate it here," Liam grumbled, shoving out of the Jeep and reluctantly making his way to the front of the school with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.

Isaac rested his arms along the back of the front seats and rested his chin on his hands, smirking slightly as he watched Liam retreat. "You think he'll do it?"

"I sure hope so or I'll be down a beta, but to be safe we should probably sneak in. How do you feel about a bit of a spy mission?"

"And watching Liam crash and burn? Sure, I could use some entertainment," Isaac agreed, chuckling and ducking away from Meilani's fist when she turned to swing at his shoulder playfully.

The two wolves slipped through the side doors of the school that Liam had gone through just as the bell rang. Thankfully, it was the same hallway that Mrs. Finch's classroom resided in and Meilani and Isaac were able to peep their heads around the hallway and into the classroom diagonal from the hall they hid behind. Liam had noticed them through the back door of the room and he rolled his eyes when Meilani sent him a thumbs up for encouragement.

Mrs. Finch had just barely begun her lesson before an ear piercing sound shot through the air, only visible to werewolves and anyone with enhanced hearing. Meilani and Isaac's hands flew up to their ears and not a moment later did a girl named Rebecca run out of the room, covering her own ears from the sounds. Though, when no one else came out of the room and the sound finally subsided, Meilani and Isaac slowly lowered their hands.

"Li, did you get anything?" Meilani whispered, so no one else could hear them in the hall but she knew Liam would have heard her loud and clear.

"No. No reaction at all."

Meilani sighed and rubbed a hand over her forehead, but froze when a shadow loomed over the window across from her and Isaac. It was the silhouette of a built male as he strode with determination past the window, causing Meilani and Isaac to take one step back from the window as if they would be hidden at all. "Liam? Did Gabe get a text out?"

"I don't know."

Meilani gripped onto Isaac's wrist and flung the two of them to the other side of the hallway and ducked behind the side of the stairs, peeking over the top to keep an eye on what the hunter was doing. The rattling of the side door was loud as the hunter fiddled with it until it finally swung open, which is when Meilani and Isaac both sprung up and ready to attack. However . . . they both stumbled back when they saw it was just the woodshop teacher arriving to school late.

Isaac quickly retracted his claws that had begun to grow out and swiped a hand through his light curls. "Okay, Dunbar, you better hurry your ass up. We don't have time to waste here and I don't think we have many chances left."

A response wasn't heard from Liam, but Meilani and Isaac both press themselves against the wall again and strain their ears out for something. Mrs. Finch's heart rate could be heard increasing and it was almost like they were getting somewhere . . . until the woman just sneezed and blamed it on the chalk, stating she should have been used to it by now after so many years of teaching.

Though, a brief pause was made and then she dismissed the class early, telling them that they could all leave . . . except Liam. Mrs. Finch thought that Liam wanted to get back at her for not protecting him when he got beat up by Nolan and Gabe. That she was his teacher and she should have done something to help him instead of just standing by and being an onlooker like many of peers were. Which only threw Liam into the deep end and he went off about her being a werewolf and only confusing the woman. Or so it seemed.

Meilani could hear the woman's heartbeat stutter in her chest as she tried to act like she knew nothing of the supernatural, even tried to blame drugs on Liam for acting the way he was. So Meilani pushed away from the wall and walked into the room, flip phone pulled out and played the voicemail on speaker which cut off the discussion between Liam and Mrs. Finch. Meilani and Isaac both slowly made their way down the aisles of the classroom until they were just a few feet away from the teacher who snapped out her hand to grab the phone from Meilani.

Mrs. Finch's brown eyes were wide in surprise at the sight of her old students, phone clutched tightly to her chest and a slight fear stained the air around them. "Where — where did you find this?"

"Mrs. Finch . . . that's your voice," Meilani said, now knowing for a fact that Liam was right about her old teacher being apart of this somehow. "You can't hide from the proof. So . . . you know what a primal or an Anuk-ite is?"

Mrs. Finch's eyebrows furrowed and Meilani was surprised the woman still tried to play dumb with the trio. "I don't know what a primal is. I don't know what an Anuk-a-whatever is. I — I was just trying to call my daughter. Where did you get this?"

Isaac crossed his arms from next to Meilani and rested his side against the lab desk next to him. "You said you were in a pack. That was you on the phone, wasn't it?"

"And I don't know what business you have snooping into my personal life," Mrs. Finch chastised the Lahey boy, eyes flaring in annoyance that the teens had snooped around in the phone. "I am the teacher and you are the students. I don't go digging into your personal life outside of these walls so you shouldn't be digging into mine!"

Meilani hummed and placed her hands on her hips, tilting her head to the side to show Mrs. Finch her little show wouldn't be throwing off the pack. "Did you happen to reach any of them before they died, Mrs. Finch?"

"What . . . what are you talking about?" Mrs. Finch inquired, eyes drifting over to Meilani.

Meilani's face softened as Mrs. Finch didn't budge, genuinely looking confused now as her eyes swept around the teens around her. She took a moment to listen to her heart and balked slightly when she realized that now Mrs. Finch wasn't lying. She genuinely did not know what Meilani spoke about and it caused the alpha to deflate. "Oh . . . Mrs. Finch, I — I am so sorry, but your family were attacked and they're . . . they're dead."

Mrs. Finch's breath shook as her hand raised to cover her mouth, suppressing the sob that rattled through her chest. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears as the scent of despair shot through the air and slicing through the previous scent of annoyance. "Dead? They . . . no, they can't be dead because . . . they were just, they were . . . they were in the woods, they were just . . . they are hiding out. They're scared."

Meilani's heart tugged harshly in her chest, hating that she had to be the one to deliver this news to Mrs. Finch. She knew what it was like to lose people so dearly loved and close to you, knew the pain that wracked through her body over the thought of being unable to help them in their last moments. Meilani had lost enough people to know that feeling almost as well as she knew how to tie a shoe. "Mrs. Finch, we found this phone on a body. Three men, two boys."

"What about my daughter?" Mrs. Finch whispered brokenly, eyes desperately searching Meilani's face for a hint of anything that could help.

"Well, there was another body, but, uh . . . we couldn't identify it. The skin was stripped down to the muscle. There was no DNA. Pack tattoo was still there," Meilani informed the woman softly, scared that if her voice were any louder she'd simply shatter her old AP teacher.

Mrs. Finch sniffled and shook her head, wiping her hand beneath her leaking eyes. "Okay, sorry, but this . . . um, no, this doesn't make sense. I mean, this isn't how biology works."

Liam frowned and crossed his arms, appearing a lot more sympathetic to the woman now than he had before when he was pressuring her to talk. "That's what the Anuk-ite does. It finds a body and it takes its face. It takes the whole identity of that person. There's a way to find out if it was your daughter. You just have to call her and tell her not to go anywhere near the school. Tell her that there's someone or something hunting for someone like her."

Mrs. Finch waved her hand to stop's Liam plan, stumbling over to her desk and shakily dropping onto the front of it and pressing a hand to her forehead. "You — you have to stop talking about this."

"If she shows up, at least you'll know what happened to your family," Meilani reminded the woman gently, stepping closer with Isaac at her side. "It's always better when you know even if it doesn't feel that way."

Liam reached out his hand when Mrs. Finch still refused to do anything in regards to contacting her daughter and he tried to offer his best comforting smile. "I'll do it for you, if you want."

Mrs. Finch's hands shook, but she pulled up her daughter's contact and handed it over to Liam as Meilani and Isaac sat on either side of her to pat her shoulders in a comforting manner. Her sniffles quieted a bit and she continued to wipe at her leaking eyes, quietly thanking Isaac when he held up a tissue for her to take.

"Wait — that's your daughter's name?" Liam gasped, eyes boring down at the name displayed across the tiny screen in his hands. Almost like he couldn't tear his eyes from it. "This — this is her name?"

Mrs. Finch lifted her red rimmed eyes to Liam and she appeared confused on why he was asking her that. "Quinn. My daughter's name is Quinn."

Just great.

After Liam made the phone call to Quinn, the group were left to just wait around and see if anything happened. Time ticked by slowly as they four all sat around in random stools of the classroom, the ticking of the clock above the blackboard not helping matters in the sense of time slowly going by. Though, that could be both a good and bad thing . . . but Meilani really did not know which way she viewed it at the moment. The only thing she could really focus on at the moment was working through the fact that Mrs. Finch was Quinn's mom. Of all people . . . it had to be Quinn.

Finally, after what felt like hours, a breeze blew through the high school and a darkness seemed to take over the area around them. Fog and mist clung to the windows that ran across the side wall of the classroom and an eerie aura lingered in the air above the four's heads.

"Is that her?" Mrs. Finch asked quietly, stepping closer to Meilani whose eyes were trained on the back door of the classroom. "What — what do we plan to do? You're not going to try to hurt her, are you? That's my daughter."

"We're gonna do what we have to do, Mrs. Finch," Isaac informed the teacher, motioning for her to sit back down and stay back so she didn't get hurt if anything went sideways. 

Mrs. Finch listened to Isaac, lowering herself down into the stool that Meilani had been in previously and watched the three wolves step into the middle of the aisle all in fight ready stances. "What does that even mean?"

Meilani ignored Mrs. Finch, glancing between her beta and best friend to make sure they were both ready to tackle the thing in the hallway. When she earned a receiving nod from both ends, Meilani let out a breath and nodded before focusing her attention back on the door should it burst open. Not that they were given much time to wait for the door to burst open because within the next second, a cloud of wolfsbane smacked the three wolves in the face which sent them collapsing to the ground in a fit of coughs, eyes glowing yellow and red.

Mrs. Finch chucked the eraser with the cloud of wolfsbane on it and hurried out the door in search of her daughter.

Meilani and the boys struggled as they tried to release the wolfsbane dust from their bodies. It took a good minute or two before the three wolves were able to get to their feet properly. The sound of Mrs. Finch's erratic heartbeat could be heard from somewhere nearby and they didn't waste any time in rushing out of the classroom to look for her. Following the sound of her heart beat and the faint scent of blood, they found her huddled against a wall in a darkened hallway. Blood smeared along the wall across from Mrs. Finch and she trembled slightly in fear.

"Shit," Meilani cursed, running over to Mrs. Finch and dropping to her knees before her. "Boys, I'll stay with her. Go find Quinn."

"Whoa, whoa, we need to face her together," Liam argued, hating the idea of splitting up from his alpha.

Meilani narrowed her eyes at Liam who took a step back at the intensity of her gaze. "I can't leave her and you have Isaac with you. Go find her. Now."

Liam licked his lips and he suppressed the shaky breath that wanted to leave his body. "What — what if she finds Aaron first? How do we take them?"

"Liam, it's okay to be afraid, okay? Just don't let it stop you," Meilani assured her beta, offering him an encouraging smile. "Isaac won't let anything happen to you. I promise. You and him can do this. I know you can. So go find Quinn before she does find Aaron."

Meilani's words seemed to help Liam because he reluctantly nodded and turned to run off in the direction that Quinn had gone in. Isaac saluted Meilani in a teasing way to let her know he'd have Liam's back and darted off after the beta to make sure he didn't get hurt on his own.

Meilani grabbed Mrs. Finch's bunched up sweater and pressed it to the wound at her neck that slowly seeped out blood. She knew the pressure would only do so much to help Mrs. Finch who was already pale and human, but it was the best she could do until her and the boys could get help. "Mrs. Finch, I'm gonna need you stay with me here, okay? You just, you need to hold on a little bit longer for me." She brushed her hand along Mrs. Finch's shoulder and paused when she noticed the circle and half moon tattoo on her upper bicep — a pack symbol. She was part of a pack. "Hey, hey, hey, Mrs. Finch. I need you to look at me. You have to trigger your healing. You need to shift."

The sound of multiple heartbeats entered the area and Meilani mentally cringed at the knowledge of it being Gabe and two hunters. Cursing to herself, Meilani wrapped Mrs. Finch's arm around her neck and hauled Mrs. Finch to the other side of the school and away from the hunters, hiding the two of them in a darkened classroom and sat Mrs. Finch at the back of the room to hide them both behind the desks. Hopefully long enough to get her to shift and heal so they could get out of there in one piece.

"It's my fault," Mrs. Finch whispered as Meilani gently released the teacher to let her lean against the wall. "I pushed her away."

Meilani crouched before Mrs. Finch, the bloodied sweater now in her hand as she stared at the paling woman. "Mrs. Finch, please, you have to trigger your healing."

Mrs. Finch acted like she never heard Meialni, too lost in her own sorrowing emotions over whatever fallen out she had with her daughter before everything went to shit. "It was all my fault. I pushed her to hide who she was."

Meilani tilted Mrs. Finch's face to look at her, brown eyes pleading desperately for the woman to snap out of it. "Mrs. Finch, please. You need to shift or you're going to die. Do you get it? You'll die? Shift, okay? You need to do it right now. Shift!"

"Quinn . . ."

Meilani panicked slightly as Mrs. Finch's head lolled to the side again and she righted the woman up, the woman's heart only growing fainter by the second. If she didn't shift soon, there would be no turning back. "She's gone. Your daughter's gone. Quinn is dead."

A low growl was heard and Mrs. Finch's head snapped up to reveal glowing red alpha eyes. She tensed up in Meilani's arms, the wound in her neck slowly stitching itself up again as if nothing had been there before in the first place. 

Once Meilani had made sure Mrs. Finch was healed and okay, she had stood up just as Malia burst into the classroom after having followed Meilani's scent there. She'd rambled to Meilani about how the Anuk-ite could not be looked at once it was merged. It'd turn anyone that looked at it to stone like a modern day Medusa and that the merge had more than likely already happened. Meilani had taken one glance at Mrs. Finch — who assured Meilani she was fine and would get herself out — before she ran out of the classroom with Malia to find Isaac and Liam.

The duo hadn't been too far, crouched down in a nearby hallway with Lydia over two hunters thad been turned to statues. Not a single heartbeat had been in sight and the Anuk-ite's scent was faint, which meant that it wasn't nearby . . . for the moment. Though, Meilani was just glad that Liam and Isaac hadn't looked at the Anuk-ite and became like the two hunters at our feet.

"How do we fight something we can't even look at?" Liam inquired, lightly toeing the tip of the hunter's stoney shoe curiously.

"We have to fight without our eyes," Meilani responded, scratching the side of her head as she tried to wrap her own head around the concept. "Which means . . . Deucalion."

word count: ( 4.6k )

CHAPTERS REMAINING: 2 CHAPTERS

— whew, i am incredibly struggling with the fact that there are only two chapters left of this series. i have been working on meilani for four years now and i just cannot wrap my head around the fact that she'll be done soon. however . . . this also means that we are now one chapter closer to stiles coming back into this bad boy! i've really missed having my favorite couple around each other. must get my boy and his prettiest girl in the world back in the same town, thank you.

— also, bit of a self promo here . . . but if you haven't seen, i have posted a new teen wolf series that i will be working once meilani is done! it will be a connected sort of series where each book is a different love interest and all of the ocs are descendants of the greek gods. the first one will be dealing with zeus and hera's son, Lander, and he'll naturally be with stiles. i already started on his board ( along with another one of the ocs cause i'm obsessed ) on my pinterest and i have so many ideas for it! so if you're interested and are as big of a greek mythology whore as i am . . . go check out [ thunder struck ] on my profile! it'll be starting once [ the lunar chronicles ] has reached it's final chapter. go give my boy some love because he sure as hell ain't getting it from me or zeus or his siblings.

THE LUNAR CHRONICLES FACT OF THE CHAPTER:

when first deciding to keep isaac in, i actually debated making isaac/malia a thing since i wasn't going to make scalia a thing . . .but then i thought better of it. malia and isaac are doing amazing as single little beans and i love that for them honestly. i didn't want to just throw them together to have them be in a relationship. malia is a strong independant woman who don't need no man ( or woman ) and . . . isaac's just out here trying to get over his feelings for meilani so . . . yeah. that's why they're both single and that's okay!!! love that for them.