"Maybe...you can turn into a huge wolf."
I throw a pea at my brother and he easily catches it between his teeth. I laugh as he drops it in his hand. One thing Scott hates, is vegetables. I slip off my jacket and turn to get a glass. "Ouch," I hear Scott say.
I look up and he's staring at my new tattoo on my back. It's a feather that is the size of my back. The feather is breaking off and the pieces are becoming birds flying away. I got to represent freedom and independence. I sigh. "I had to."
"Why?"
"After the whole Deucalion thing, I needed something to remind me I don't need a pack because I'm my own person. Besides, I'm out."
"Out?"
"Yeah, Scott. I'm done. I might be a werewolf but I'm not getting myself involved in all this extra supernatural mess."
He walks across the room and wraps his arms around me. I hated it when he did this because he knows I need to cry. But, this time, I don't. I just hold him back. We stand in silence, holding one another. After dinner, I wash the dishes and go to my room. Scott and I finally got two separate beds. I sit on the edge of my bed and take off my shoes and pants. I reach into my drawer and feel something cold graze my finger. I gasp and everything flashes in front of my eyes:
I see a middle-aged woman running with a baby in her arms. Based off the way she's dressed, this is not the current time. She runs through a dark forest, clutching the shrieking baby in her arms. She stops and looks about. She kneels down and places the child on the ground. She takes something from around her neck. It's the same necklace I have. She places it on the child. The dark clouds, above, part and reveal a full moon. The lady looks up and her eyes glow a bright red. The eyes of an Alpha. The last True Alpha.
I snap back and I'm in my room again. I start gasping and sweating. Scott comes running in. "Are you okay?"
I just nod. "I, um, thought I saw a rat or something. I'm just tired."
I can see he doesn't believe me but he doesn't question me any farther. I get in bed and try to move on from the flashback...
I'm in an empty room. It's white and dimly lit by a ceiling light. The room becomes a glass box all of a sudden. It's just the right size to fit me in it. I start to wheeze. I hate tight spaces. I'm claustrophobic. I push on the glass but nothing happens. 'Derek.' I say it in my mind but he appears in front of the glass. He has tears at the bridge of his eyes. Two bandaged hands appear from behind him. The hand grips Derek's neck and snaps it.
I start to scream and bang against the glass.
I snap awake screaming at the top of my lungs. A warm hand covers my mouth and another wraps around my waist. I'm still screaming but it's muffled by the hand.
My mom and Scott are holding me down. "Scarlett, calm down. It was just a dream," Scott whispers. "Sssssshhhhh."
I stop screaming and let my mom cradle me in her arms on the floor. I can't lose Derek. He hasn't called me or text me after he left. I only dread the worse happened. The next morning, I'm in the bathroom preparing for school. I glance over at my shadow and I see my claws. I look at my hands but they're normal. I look back at my shadow. I ball up my fist and release. My shadow goes back to normal. I go back to my room to grab my book bag and motorcycle keys. Scott looks at me with a worried expression. "Are you okay, Scar?" he asks.
I nod. "Last night was just a nightmare. Everyone has them."
"Not like that."
I then think of Lydia. She's learned she's a banshee and she's been trying her hardest to learn how to control what she can do. So far, zero success. "How does this look?"
I look up. He is wearing a white shirt and the same flannel shirt he wore yesterday. "Familiar."
I laugh and he tosses his flannel at me as he changes. As Scott opens our room door, we're shocked to find Isaac standing there. "Are you two going to school?" he asks.
"Yup."
"Cool, me too."
"Can I ask you a question?"
Scott looks confused. "Okay."
"Are you angry at me?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"No...?"
Isaac is now the one to give my brother a confused look. "What does that... What does that mean?"
"I guess I'm not really sure how I'm feeling." Scott shrugs and does his awkward laugh.
"Okay... Do you hate me?"
"No! Of-of course, not."
"Do you wanna hit me?"
Now I'm really confused. "No."
"I think you should hit me."
"I don't wanna hit you!"
"Are you sure?"
Scott laughs awkwardly again. "Why would I wanna hit you? You didn't do anything, did you?"
"No! No! I mean...what do you mean?"
I step next to Scott. "He means, like...you didn't kiss her, or anything, right?"
"No! Absolutely not, no."
I squint my eyes. "But you wanted to."
"Oh yeah, totally!"
Scott throws him into the hall. striking the wall and rattling a picture frame. The noise draws my mom to the hall. "Hey, three supernatural teenagers, do not test my entirely 'un-supernatural' level of patience."
We go to our garage and pull out our motorcycles. Derek bought me a new black helmet to match my bike. Scott and I put on our helmets. I look at my brother. "You ready to ride as the 'McCall twins'?"
That was our new nickname so we just run with it now. This makes him laugh. "Let's do it."
"Let's see if you can keep up."
I rev my engine and speed off. Scott appears beside me. We keep by each other's side until we pull up in front of our school. I catch a glance at my reflection on my phone and my eyes are glowing red. I shake my head and follow behind Scott. While we're walking, Scott looks back at his shadow. He starts running out of nowhere. I run after him and we run right into Stiles, who must have just arrived at school himself. "Are you two okay?" he asks. Scott gulps a bit and we nod our heads yes. "You two look the opposite of okay."
"Stiles, we're fine," I insist.
"No, you're not. It's happening to you, too. You're seeing things, aren't you?"
"How did you know?" I ask.
Stiles sighs and rolls his eyes as he shrugs, and I can tell right away that Stiles is talking from his own experience. Lydia and Allison appear behind him, and Lydia cuts him off before he has the chance to say anything. "Because it's happening to all four of you." Lydia is strutting into the school as she leads us down the hallway. "Great, I'm no longer the crazy one."
"We're not crazy," Allison insists.
Lydia just side-eyes her. "Hallucinating? Sleep paralysis? Screaming in the middle of the night? Yeah, you guys are fiiiiine."
"We died and then magically returned to life probably doesn't come without some side effects," Scott points out.
We're are prevented from discussing the topic by the late bell. Stiles makes the executive decision that we all need to look out for each other until we figure this out. As he passes Lydia on his way to his class, he snits, "And Lydia, stop enjoying this so much!"
Mr. Yukimura is the new history teacher, who is replacing Mr. Westover, who was killed as a philosopher sacrifice in Jennifer's crazy druid ritual. I wrote a note to Scott. 'Apparently, no one warned him about the fact that being a teacher at BHHS is about the same as being the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.'
He smiles at me and writes something back. 'Basically, it's a death sentence.'
I smile back. Mr. Yukimura introduces himself to the class. Apparently, he and his daughter, Kira, moved to Beacon Hills three weeks ago. I remember that that was around the time when me, Scott, Allison and Stiles sacrificed ourselves to the Nemeton.
Scott glances back to Kira then turns back to the front of the class. Mr. Yukimura turns their lecture to WWII. I continue to add detail to my sketch of Derek. I look up at the chalkboard and I see something that makes me start to freak out. Mr. Yukimura was writing, 'Derek will be dead, sooner or later. You won't be able to save him, Scarlett.' I pull out my phone.
I check my voicemails, my text messages, and my emails. Nothing from Derek. Scott and I go with Stiles to his locker, and suggests that maybe their post-death symptoms will go away after a little more time. Stiles doesn't think so, though. "Yeah, try not to forget that we hit the reset button on a supernatural beacon for supernatural creatures. I think there's a pretty good chance that things are NEVER going back to normal."
Scott is too distracted by accidentally eavesdropping on Kira's conversation with her father down the hall. "Scarlett! Scott! Your eyes are GLOWING," Stiles alerts us.
I try as much as possible but I can't make them shift back. We put a hand over our eyes so as to not draw attention to ourselves. "We can't control it."
Stiles immediately shifts into problem-solving mode and instructs us to put our head down and leads us over to an empty classroom in the MOST conspicuous way that he could have possibly chosen. Once safely in the room, Stiles quickly closes the door while Scott rips off his flannel over-shirt. I rip off my sweater and I'm left in my tank top. Stiles follows after us, but we warn him to stay away, as we're trying to keep control of our wolves because we don't know what's going to happen. "It's okay," Stiles assures us.
We continue to back away from him. After a moment, Scott desperately looks down at his extended claws, and squeezes his hands into fists, cutting the palms of his hands with his claws and bleeding all over EVERYTHING. I'm still struggling with controlling my wolf so Scott grabs my hands and forces my claws into my palms. I grit my teeth and I start to turn back to normal. I open my hands and my claws are gone. "The pain helps," Scott says.
Stiles kneels down next to us gently informs us that this isn't just something in our heads, this is something real and scary that is happening to us, and he thinks he's getting worse. "I had to literally scream myself awake to get out of the dreams I was trapped in," he confesses.
Scott looks at me. Stiles also says he keeps getting these bouts of acquired dyslexia, where the letters he reads are all jumbled up to the point that he can't make out the words. "Is it a problem right now?" Scott asks.
Stiles stands up and looks around the room. "I can't read anything."
While in our room, Scott asks, "What do you think we should do about us, Stiles and Allison?"
I throw my shirt on my bed and dig for another. "I don't have a plan because I meant what I said about being out. We're going to go down this path and it'll end badly all over again."
Later on, Isaac walks into me and Scott's room with as he fills us in on what happened with Allison and Lydia in the woods. Scott can't believe Allison would try to kill Lydia, even unintentionally. "Allison said the same thing that I've heard from your issues, only she's been having hallucinations about her aunt," Isaac informs us. "Whatever is happening to you guys is getting worse. And if I hadn't been there, Lydia would be DEAD."
"What were you doing there?" I ask.
Isaac's face looks super guilty, but he says nothing, probably because saying 'I was following Allison because I like her but also so that way I could make sure she's not losing her mind' probably won't help his case. So, once again, Isaac gets shoved into wall of the hallway. Downstairs, my mom shouts, "Aw, you guys, come on! This house doesn't have a supernatural ability to heal! So...stop it."
Isaac just smiles awkwardly as he tries to pull himself up. The next day, in Economics class, I notices Stiles writing wake up over and over again in his notebook. Coach snaps him awake. "Stilinski! Stop reminding me why I drink! Every night..."
Stiles catches Scott and I looking at him worriedly, but Stiles lies and says he's all good, and claims he just fell asleep for a moment. That does nothing to calm our anxiety, and Scott whispers, "Dude! You weren't asleep!"
Stiles doesn't get it at first, so Scott pointedly glances at Stiles' desktop. Stiles looks both horrified and embarrassed, which turns to straight up confusion when he notices the notes that he scribbled in his notebook in his very own fugue state. 'WAKE UP' is written in basically every possible direction and order and combination of capitals and lowercase.
During lunch, the 'McCall pack' sit at at table and brainstorms what is happening to us. Me, Scott and Stiles are on one side, while Isaac, Allison and Lydia are on the other. "What happens when you have a near-death experience and come out seeing things?" Scott begins.
"And dream about the worst scenario for someone, screaming yourself awake?" I add.
Stiles also adds, "And is unable to tell what is real or not."
"And who is being haunted by demonic versions of dead relatives," Allison also says.
Isaac unhelpfully points out that they're all locked up as a result of being insane, which doesn't really amuse Stiles. "For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer, so being helpful is kind of a new thing for me."
"Are we still milking that?" Stiles asks.
"Yes, we're still milking that."
"Hey, you two, stop it," I say.
Kira approaches our table and nervously babbles, "I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about. And I think I actually might know what you're talking about. There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called 'Bardo'."
"Bardo?" Isaac asks.
"It means 'in-between state'. The state between life and death," I reply.
Lydia, clearly unhappy to be outsmarted by the new girl, asks her what her name is, and Scott cutely informs the table that her name is Kira. Everyone at the table gives him the stink eye. "She's in our history class," I say.
She's cute, even if she seems way too excited to be talking about death. I think she's just excited to have a chance to meet new friends. "So are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Lydia asks.
"Either, I guess," Kira replies. "But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can by visited by peaceful and wrathful deities."
"Wrathful deities?" Isaac asks. "And what are those?"
I sigh. "Demons, Isaac."
Stiles refers to our past experiences with crap by saying, "Demons. Why not?"
Allison joins in by asking, "Hold on, if there are different progressive states, then what's the last one?"
Just as cheerfully, Kira replies, "Death, as in, the person dies."
We go to Deaton to verify the information that we just learned from Kira. Deaton guesses that our subconscious, particularly me and Stiles', since we're the ones with the nightmares, is trying to send them a warning. "Well, that's stupid, considering I don't speak sign language," Stiles says.
I raise my hand. "I speak a little. I had a deaf friend back in San Francisco."
Stiles is able to duplicate a rough approximation of the signs. I look at Deaton. "I only got 'door' and 'not'."
"When is a door not a door?"
"When it's ajar," me and Scott say at the same time.
Stiles can't believe that his subconscious is trying to tell him a riddle, but Deaton disagree. "Not necessarily. When the four of you went under the water, when you crossed from unconsciousness to a kind-of 'super-consciousness,' you essentially opened a door in your minds."
Scott asks if that means they accidentally left the doors open, and Deaton just kind of laughs as he points out that it's actually 'ajar'. Stiles doesn't like the sound of any of this, but Deaton reminds him that they knew there were risks when they did the ritual. Scott asks what they need to do about it. "Wait, you know exactly what's wrong with us, and you have no idea what to do to fix it," Stiles says.
When we walk outside of the animal clinic, we're blinded by Sheriff Stilinski's headlights as he pulls into the parking lot. Stiles is nervous that something is up with him, but he's fine. He's actually there to get me and Scott's help on a case. We don't get why he needs his help, specifically, so he starts to give him the basics on a case he's investigating.
"Eight years ago, almost an entire family died in a car accident. One of the bodies, a young girl named Malia, was never found. There's enough evidence to have me thinking that...a werewolf could have caused the accident, and then dragged her body away. If you could somehow get a lock on her scent, if you could somehow help me find her body, it might provide the missing clue."
All three of us are shocked at this newest development in the case, particularly the part about a werewolf we may or may not know. "What happens if it WAS a werewolf?" Stiles asks.
Sheriff reminds us that whoever it was got away with it, and still needs to be caught and punished. Sheriff, the next day, distracts Malia's dad so we could sneak into Malia's bedroom and try to catch a scent. Stiles keeps tossing stuffed animals and other possessions at me and Scott, in hopes of having any of her scent still on them, but it's been eight years, so it's all mostly faded by now.
"Stiles, to be honest, we can only smell some animals," I confess.
"What kind of animal can you two smell?"
I notice a huge Rottweiler standing in the doorway. "Uhhh, dog," Scott replies.
The dog growls at him, and Stiles gets super jumpy. "Hiiii puppy! Get rid of it!"
"Us?" I ask.
"Yes! Glow your eyes at it! Be the Alpha!"
"We don't have control over our wolves anymore," Scott reminds him.
Stiles insists that he try something, so Scott says, "Niiiice doggie?"
I roll my eyes and kneel down. "Good dog."
I make my eyes glow and it heels. Stiles hands Scott a journal to smell, but he still can't smell anything except for the dog. Stiles continues to look around, and finds a picture of Malia sitting on a picnic blanket with who I guess was her sister, who is holding onto a baby doll. Stiles grabs his phone and snaps a photo.
Later, we all meet down the street to debrief. Me and Scott apologize for not being able to help. "But we think it's just been too long to get a good scent," I say.
"It was a long shot anyway," Sheriff assures us. "I just made things worse instead of better. Thanks for your help. I'll catch you later."
He drives off in the cruiser. Once he's gone, I can tell that Stiles feels guilty, too, and points out that a lot of police cases go unsolved. Stiles admits that he thinks his dad thought that this was one case he might be able to figure out, now that he knows. "Why is your dad so worried about it now, eight years after the fact?" Scott asks.
"Well...he wants to be able to solve one more... while he's still sheriff."
Scott and I are confused about the whole 'still sheriff' part, and Stiles sighs. Stiles explains that our father has a lot to do with his father about to lose his job. When we get home, our dad is there. Scott starts bellowing how much Agent Douchenozzle sucks at the top of his voice. My mom walks into the house to find us arguing in the living room. I have had enough of my dad's BS so I jump up. "Just get the hell out, right now!"
"I can't believe that you're doing this to our best friend," Scott adds.
"I'm only doing my job."
"Your job SUCKS!" Scott shouts.
"What the hell is going on?" my mom asks.
Scott informs her that our dad is trying to get sheriff fired. "That's not true," he defends.
"Then what are you doing?" my mom asks.
"Conducting a case for impeachment?"
"That sounds suspiciously like trying to get Sheriff Stilinski fired."
My dad maintains that it's actually the fact that Sheriff Stilinski isn't able to resolve/close cases, which is why he's getting fired, which is why he is doing his job by gathering evidence.
"Your job SUCKS," my mom spits. I hadn't notice but my claws were starting to dig into my pants. Scott starts to get that constipated-looking rage face that seems to be par for the course when he wolfs-out at inopportune times. My mom notices that our anger is making our claws come out. She walks straight over to us and takes our hands as she looks him in the eye.
"Calm down, and come with me, RIGHT NOW," she orders gently, but firmly, and she pulls us out into the hall by the stairs.
Scott and I are barely holding ourselves back. Our red eyes and fangs are out. It's painful for us to try to hold our wolf in, and it's very nerve-wracking. My mom keeps telling us to breathe, and brings up the fact that Stiles told her that they had come up with a way to control these sorts of situations. "You find an anchor, right? Find your anchor!"
"Derek was my anchor," I manage to choke out.
"Allison was mine," Scott manages.
My mom realizes control over our wolf-sides have gone out the window. "Then be your own anchor," she replies urgently.
I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, and my mouth opens in a silent scream as my fangs go away. When I open my eyes, Scott and I are back to normal. We start taking deep breaths as a way to try to calm ourselves down. My mom sighs in relief, and then gets started on a helpful lecture.
"Sweethearts, let me tell you something that no teenager ever believes, but I swear to you that it is the absolute truth—you fall in love more than once! It'll happen again, and it'll be just as amazing, and extraordinary as the first time. And maybe, just as painful. But it'll happen again, I promise. And, until then, BE YOUR OWN ANCHOR."
I look over at my brother and I knew my eyes spoke louder than words. That night, I don't sleep. I sit awake, turning my locket in my hand. Scott stirs and turns toward me. He doesn't open his eyes but he does know I'm awake. "Can't sleep?"
"Too scared to."
"Get some sleep, Scarlett. We're gonna be okay. All of us, including you."
He turns back over and drifts back to sleep. "What if we're not?" I whisper to myself.