𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎
𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆
☽𓋼𓍊𓋼☾

"Jolene Matthews. Age 29?"

The principal looked up skeptically at Jo, and then at Lyla. Jo nodded, "When Lyla was 7, our mother and father died in a terrible car accident, and I filed for guardianship to prevent her from going into the system."

"Miss Matthews, despite several different schools in the past few years, Lyla has a wonderful GPA, creditable attendance, and no history of causing trouble. However, we might have an issue here because Lyla has no birth certificate. May I ask how you enrolled her in her past schools?"

Jo inhaled deeply, "Her birth certificate was lost in our move here, but you're more than welcome to call any of her schools and request confirmation of birth certificate." Jo smiled sweetly at the man, who turned to Lyla.

Lyla shrugged, standing from her seat, "I need to use the restroom, I'll meet you by the car." Jo smiled up at her sister, who grabbed her bag and exited the principals office.

She didn't need to pee, but she's been to so many of those damn principal meetings she thought her head would explode if she heard anymore.

Yanking her phone her her back pocket, she bit her thumbnail as she made her way down the hallways. The school was nice, and it had lockers, which she'd never had before. She always had to suck it up and carry her books with her everywhere.

As she turned a corner, she saw two men standing with their backs to her.

"It's not here."

"What do you mean it's not here?"

Lyla's head perked up, super hearing kicking in, and she turned back to hide behind the corner while she still listened to the conversation around the corner of the hallway. It was definitely not teachers, not with the way the two voices were whispering.

Creeping up on the corner, she rested her head against the brick and continued to listen.

"I mean it's not here. Cops must have taken her computer before we got here, or maybe Erica took it before they disappeared. Or maybe whoever has them took it? I don't know, okay!"

"Shit."

Lyla furrowed her brows. Why would someone steal a laptop from a school? And who the hell disappeared?

"Shh."

Lyla's brow raised as the two voices went silent. The girl sighed, looking down from the ceiling, eyes locking on those of a tall man with dark hair and a beard, arms crossed against his chest.

Lyla stumbled backwards, back colliding with someone's chest.

"Shit. Sorry. Sorry." Lyla muttered, moving away from the person she bumped into. A tall dirty blonde boy in a leather jacket stared down at her. "Sorry." She whispered out.

"It's rude to eavesdrop."

Lyla gulped, looking over at the dark haired man. "Sorry. I didn't mean to-"

Lyla paused, nose twitching at the smell of blood. She looked between the two, eyes searching their clothes for any trace of it. "Who are you?" The dark haired one asked, and Lyla shook her head, the smell of blood still prevailing her senses. Her heartrate began to pick up, mind racing with ideas. Should she run? To the car or to Jo? Not Jo, too risky. The car? She doesn't have the keys. A bathroom maybe?

As her anxiety began to pick up, her eyes glanced behind the blonde boys back to a set of sharpened claws. Shit. Is he the one she heard howling last night?

"I-I should go. Someone is waiting for me." She began to walk back towards the principals office, but as she passed the blonde one, he grabbed her wrist. She glared up at him, anger beginning to replace her anxiety. "Let me go." She growled, eye twitching as his grip became tighter.

"Isaac. Let her go." The blonde boy, Isaac, looked over at the dark haired man. "Yeah, Isaac, let me go."

Isaac scoffed, releasing her wrist. Lyla began quickly walking down the hallway, away from the two. She gave a quick glance back at them, the two still watching her every move. "Lyla!" Jo appeared out of the principals office, and Lyla smiled at her, relief flooding over her, "Jo! Perfect, let's go, I'm starved." She covered her nervousness, locking her arm with her sister and walking in the opposite direction of the men.

"Oh, but the car is on that sid-"

"Oh, darn, we're already walking this way. Guess we'll have to walk around." Lyla joked, looking back at the men as they turned a corner, eyes locking with Isaac.

"You smelt her, right?" Isaac asked Derek, who nodded, not looking at his Beta.

"Yeah, her scent. It was familiar." Isaac nodded, glancing between his Alpha and where the girl was at the end of the hall moments ago. "She's like us?"

Derek nodded, "Both of them."

☽𓋼𓍊𓋼☾

Lyla crouched over her computer, fingers hovering above the keyboard. "Isaac Beacon Hills." She whispered, typing his name into the search bar.

The search didn't show much, just some lawyer in Beacon County named Isaac Klatin, but he was a middle aged Hispanic man. She decided to keep scrolling, before her eyes landed on an article.

Local Beacon Hills High School Swim Coach Found Dead in Downtown Beacon Hills
posted: 7 months ago

Curiously, she clicked the link, where it took her to a news site titled The Beacon. She rolled her eyes at the name, "Clever."

Early Tuesday morning, locals found the remains of Beacon Hills High Schools swim coach Camden Lahey Sr, 47. He was found outside an alleyway in downtown.

Officials have announced they believe the vicious attack to be the marks of some kind of animal, presumably a coyote attack based on the high volume of coyote activity in Beacon County in the last few months.

Mr. Lahey is survived by his only remaining son, 16 year-old Isaac Lahey, who told investigators that he and his father had an argument, after which he rode off on his bike to a friends house at around 8 p.m, and when he returned home around an hour later, his father was gone. He went to bed before being awoken by authorities the next morning.

...

Lyla raised an eyebrow at the picture they used. An older man with glasses, presumably Mr. Lahey, and Isaac, weakly smiling next to him in the picture, a cemetery sign in the background.

"Damn. That sucks." She mumbled, leaning back against the old bedframe.

"Lyla!" Lyla looked past her screen as her bedroom door opened, "What do ya think? Oven lasagna, or oven pizza?" The woman held the two options up, and Lyla smiled, faking a look of mental debate. "Pizza, for sure."

Jo smiled widely, "You read my mind, peach." Jo winked at her sister before exiting her doorframe, and closing the door behind her.

Erica took it before they disappeared.

She remembered what they were talking about, and immediately went back to the search bar.

Erica Beacon Hills Disappearance

In a second, a dozen articles appeared, just one catching her eye, from the same blog as before.

Two Beacon Hills High Students Disappear. Are Authorities Actively Searching For Them, Or Are They More Focused On The Stream Of Strange Animal Attacks?
posted:1 month ago

Back in late May, Beacon Hills High School students Erica Reyes, 16, and Vernon Boyd, 17, disappeared overnight. Both teens parents claim that they were distant in the months approaching their disappearance, sneaking out, odd behavior, not telling their parents where they were going. The two teens were known by classmates to have become friends earlier this year, but their parents had no knowledge of the new friendship.

Beacon Hills Sheriff Department claims they are vigorously looking for the two teens, but Reyes' mother has said she hired a private investigator to find her daughter, seeing as the police aren't doing much in the search.

...

Lyla inhaled, looking at the two school pictures side by side. A pretty girl with a big smile and curly blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a chiseled dark skinned boy with a bored look and a leather jacket.

"Isaac Lahey." Lyla whispered, looking over at the door where her sister was moments ago.

Sighing, she stood from her bed and closed her laptop, slipping her sock covered feet into her blue tennis shoes and throwing her jacket over her shoulders. She wants to know what those two were doing, and what they knew about this girls disappearance. Where they the reason they're missing? Did they kill them?

She knows it's a bad idea. But she's always had this strong, incessant need to stick her nose in other peoples business, especially when it involved those of her own kind. She's not sure about the dark haired man, but she knew Isaac was a werewolf. His claws and his temper today was a tell all.

She ran down the stairs, grabbing her bag from the edge of the railing.

"Hey, Jo! Can I take the car?" She turned into the kitchen, her sister spinning around to look at her, oven mitts covering her hands, with the still frozen oven pizza on top of a pizza stone.

"But oven pizza." Jo frowned, making Lyla laugh, "I won't be gone that long. I'll be home by midnight. Promise."

Jo looked over at the wall clock she hung up in the kitchen that after noon, the clock hands pointing towards 8 o'clock.

"Ugh, fine. I'll enjoy this delicious supreme pizza all by myself." Jo smirked, making Lyla roll her eyes as she grabbed the keys from the table, "Save me a slice!"

"No promises."

𓋼

She'd snuck, or technically broken, into places before. Last year, she snuck into her school to look at the geometry test she had the next day. Took a picture of the test and studied it and the answers all night long. She aced that test.

Jo doesn't know, though. Jo would definitely kill her for that.

She ran over to the school entrance, the same one they entered earlier that day, pulling the lock pick from her pocket, dropping to her knees with a quick swivel of her head.

She was quick with the lock, small town schools don't usually have intensely locked doors or security systems.

Lyla was fast, very fast. She'd always had this ability to move on her feet in unimaginable speeds. Jo always told their old pack that Lyla was the fastest werewolf she'd ever met, especially for an 11 year old. It usually made their alpha mad, but that was Jo. She didn't care.

Lyla exhaled deeply, looking around the empty lot and dark school hallways, walking forward and swinging to the right and down the hallways where the men were.

They stood by a locker, maybe half of the way down, but Lyla wasn't sure which one it was, until she came across it.

A locker, blue in color, with a scratch mark in the metal near the lock, which was obviously broken.

Lyla looked around the hallway before scrambling to get the lock off. It felt like it took forever, but she managed to remove the lock and swing the locker open.

There wasn't much in it. A hoodie, an old blue notebook, and ERICA spelt out in miss matched stickers on the inside of the door.

"Hoodie. I can work with that."

She snatched the hoodie from the locker, holding it up to her nose and taking a good whiff. It smelt like leather, sweat, and what Lyla assumed to be Fantasy by Britney spears. She could also smell grass, plastic, and some dirt.

Which was odd, there were no dirt or grass stains on the sweatshirt.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it was illegal to break and enter? In fact, you did it twice. Broke into the school, and broke into a strangers locker."

Lyla jumped, head swiveling back to look at the boy, Isaac.

Slowly, she put the hoodie back and hooked the broken lock back in. "I googled you. And the girl you were talking about earlier. She went missing, right? What'd you do to her?"

The boy furrowed his eyebrows with a smirk, taking a step closer to her, "I didn't do anything to her." Lyla tilted her head, taking a step back. She gulped as her back hit the lockers, rolling her shoulders back as she looked up at the tall boy.

"And your father? Did you kill him?"

She watched as Isaac froze in his spot, no longer taking steps closer to her. His heart rate began picking up and he looked away from her. "Wasn't me either. You read the article, it was a coyote."

She shook her head, "I don't believe you."

Isaac shrugged, "You shouldn't be here. Go home." Lyla swallowed her nerves, "Why are you looking for them? Why not leave it to the police?" Isaac smirked, "The police can't do what I can do."

He was now hovering over her, arm placed against the metal above her, "And what is it that you can do that the police can't? They're the police."

"Isaac."

The boy stepped back as Lyla whipped her head in the direction of the voice.

"Why are you here? Who are you?" The man asked, and Lyla shook her head, "Just a girl interested in the disappearance of two kids. I watch a lot of Criminal Minds."

"Who are you? Why are you so interested in Erica?" The man growled, eyes glowing a bright red. Lyla gasped, stepping away from the lockers and towards the exit, but the man took large steps and was now in front of her. "Listen, I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone."

"I asked you a question!" He shouted, shoving her against the lockers and pinning her against them. Lyla gasped for breath as her back hit the wall, eyes flickering between him and Isaac. She felt the mixture of fear and rage bubble, and she glared at the man, eyes glowing blue back at his red ones without control.

"Lyla!" She choked, closing her eyes tightly, hoping he hadn't noticed her loss of control. She leaned away from him as much as she could, embarrassment filling her stomach, "I heard you talking about it and I was curious, I'm sorry. I just moved here, I don't even know her."

"Derek. Her eyes."

The man, Derek, looked back at Isaac, and the two had a silent exchange. Lyla's breathing began picking up, anger bubbling in her throat as Derek, held her against the wall.

Lyla opened her glowing eyes with a growl, and Derek spun back to her, just as she shoved him back as hard as she could.

Derek stumbled back, his eyes glowing red as she looked between the two. She breathed deeply, an awkward silence filling the hallways. Lyla glanced to the right where the exit of the school was, before looking back at the two.

"I just wanna talk-"

Lyla cut Derek off, running away from them as fast as she could and out the door, fumbling to get the car keys from her pocket.

"Shit, shit, shit." She hissed as the key chain clanged against the asphalt. Stupid old car with no key fob. She yanked them from the floor, finishing the last few steps to the car and shoving the key into the door. "Oh my god." She whispered, pulling the car door open and hopping in just as the two men emerged from the school.

Locking the doors, she breathed heavily, starting the vehicle and pulling from the parking spot.

With a smirk, she glanced over at the two, just to make eye contact with Isaac. Just Isaac. No Derek.

Furrowing her brows, she faced forward, a yelp coming from her throat at the sight of Derek standing in front of the car with his hand laying against the hood.

"Please don't ruin the car, it's not mine." She spoke, knowing he could hear her. "Why are you here? In Beacon Hills?" He asked, Lyla being able to hear him, she shrugged, swallowing thickly. "My sister said it called her here. I'm not sure why she'd pick some town in the middle of nowhere California but she did, okay? That's it."

Derek sighed, and Lyla shook her head, "My turn for questions. Why is this girl so important to you? Her and that boy probably just ran away together."

"They're my Beta's, and they didn't run away, they were taken by another pack of Alphas."

Lylas heart began racing at the mention of an Alpha pack. If it's the same Alpha pack as she's thinking, then those two are already dead and there's no saving them.

Derek furrowed his eyebrows, "What do you know?"

Lyla shook her head, popping the car into reverse, tires squealing as she put the car into drive and swung the SUV around, driving from the parking lot.

She changed her mind, this is something she didn't want to stick her nose in.