chapter eight, dead man walking.

MAY DID HER BEST TO IGNORE THE DISCOMFORT SHE FELT IN STILES' JEEP. She tried not to think of what her father would do if she showed up in this Jeep and just focused on trying to find out where this special stop was.

Stiles was a fast driver, so the drive wasn't taking very long, but May was impatient. She wasn't a fan of unexpected or unknown things.

"I can try to heal you," Scott offered from the back seat, but May shook her head and looked out the window.

"I don't want your guys' help." She didn't mean it in a rude manner, "Is it so bad to not want to be apart of all this supernatural stuff?"

"No, but you obviously don't have a choice." Stiles replied casually, and he was right.

May turned her head, looking at him. "What does that mean?"

"You're obviously something supernatural," Isaac answered instead, reaching forward and grabbing her hand to place in Scott's, "so stop being so stubborn."

Her head was forced to turn slightly with her body so she glared at him, narrowing her eyes as Scott began to make her physically feel better.

"You suck."

"I obviously don't suck that bad if you still wear that necklace." Isaac countered, sitting back in his seat.

May scoffed in disbelief, turning around the second Scott let go of her hand as she tugged her sweater over her hands. "Thank you, Scott. And fuck off, Isaac."

Stiles gasped, "Isaac got you the necklace?! This is a new revelation! Why weren't we told about this?"

Scott lowered his voice to a near whisper, "You got her a necklace?"

Isaac defended himself, "It was clever! I couldn't help it, okay? It's not a big deal."

Stiles pulled over in the middle of the woods, raising his hands in surrender. "Feels like a big deal to meee..."

"Shut up, Stiles." Both May and Isaac replied in unison, ignoring the fact that they'd done it immediately.

"Tough crowd," he responded and shut off his Jeep, "we're here."

May looked out her window again, taking view of a nearly burnt down house in the middle of the woods. Her nose scrunched in confusion — why were they here? What even was this place?

Were they about to murder her in the middle of the woods?

"Don't worry." Scott laughed, "He doesn't live here. Anymore."

"He?" May questioned, but Scott was already out of the car with the rest of them. "Wait, anymore?!"

"Oh, that's fine, just don't tell me anything!" May grumbled and tugged her sweater tighter as she exited the Jeep, leaves crunching beneath her boots.

She let out a deep breath of air, following behind the Three Stooges as they walked towards the disastrous home. Her nose scrunched still in confusion of why they were even there, but she was trusting them.

For now.

Stiles opened the front door, yet none of them walked in and looked expectantly at her. This only made her eyebrows furrow now too, in confusion. She was the only one who didn't know this place, they couldn't really expect her to go in first... hopefully.

"What?"

Stiles blinked a couple times, "Ladies first, flower. Come on. It's the basic gentleman rules."

May rolled her eyes and sighed, creeping slowly through the doorway — afraid that it would just slam shut behind her and they'd all leave her behind in this burnt crisp of a house.

Luckily, that wasn't the case as they crept through behind her, all trying to go through at the same time before realizing that wasn't possible.

"Real gentleman-y." May snickered as she looked around the home, pushing her black hair behind her ear.

The place looked lived-in, or at least previously lived-in, despite its condition. The sight confused May to the fullest extent — who had used to live here? And why did their living conditions survive the fire?

And why the fuck was she here?

May turned around in front the staircase, staring at the three of them unimpressed. "So. Why the hell am I here?"

"Harley." A voice breathed out in disbelief behind her, a woman's voice that made her spin around quickly.

May stepped back with her breath caught in her throat, the face recognizable to her but she couldn't remember how. The other one was even more familiar, but only because she'd been told who Derek Hale was.

Wait, isn't Derek Hale dead?!

"Who are you?" She asked, referring to the girl next to him. May would deal with the dead man walking later.

As she took a look at them from where they stood side-by-side, they sort of looked alike. Siblings? But, how did she recognize the girl?

"You look just like her," the girl hurried down the steps. "Laura would've loved to meet you. She really did try to save you from that evil man — you and your mom."

May took a step back from her, shaking her head at the familiarity of the girl and the words that left her mouth.

"Stay away from me. I don't know you."

The girl approached cautiously, "But you recognize me, don't you? I came to visit you once. In the motel. I got you out that night. Remember?"

May barely reacted to her mother's evil words anymore. No tears could even form inside her eyes anymore, she'd been run dry of them. She was just waiting for the daylight to poke through underneath the motel door.

She always wondered what her father's friend put in front of it make May unable to leave, but the weight always changed. Some days she came so close to opening it, others she couldn't even make it budge.

Her mother's words were finally going through one ear and out the other because they had been repeated so many times.

This punishment was received because May failed her science course for the year. It had never been her best subject, and the teacher was out to get her.

Stefan didn't care for any of her excuses though, and into the motel room she went.

"Just give up already!" May yelled angrily at her mother who attempted to claw at the chains holding her back from murdering her daughter. "Neither of us are getting out of here anytime soon!"

Almost like the world wanted to prove May wrong, she began to hear something against the door. It was loud shuffling that moved whatever was pushed against the door, stopping it from being pulled open from the outside.

At first, she didn't move and leaned against the door still because she didn't believe the sound to be real.

But, the moonlight broke in from the door and not just the sometimes open window that pointed only at her mother, making May fall onto the hallway floor.

She gasped in shock, scrambling up as a small girl stood in front of her. She was definitely older than May, but not by much.

The two stared at each other before the girl muttered, "Jenna? You look—"

Her mother growled in the room, "Let me out!" making both of them shoot their eyes towards her.

Realization flooded through the savior's eyes, "You're Margaret, aren't you?"

May nodded frantically, wanting to cry out in relief that she wasn't trapped in that room any longer.

"Okay, okay." The savior grabbed onto May's shoulders, "Run. Get far away from here. I'll help your mom, okay?"

May didn't need to be told twice, and she took off quickly to the front desk so he would call her father to get her and take her home.

That was the last time May ever saw her mom.

"I completely..." May felt her body fill with shock, "That was the last time my dad punished me like that. I went to bed thanking you every night for two months after that."

Her face now went back to confusion, "You knew my mom? You said you'd save her that day... and you just said 'Laura' tried to save us..."

May needed to sit down from the tsunami of information that was hitting her, so she walked a little bit off to the side, sitting down in a chair that was left there. Her head was in her hands, reliving that night.

"Holy shit." She commented under her breath.

"What do you mean that was the last time your dad punished you like that? How does your dad punish you?" Isaac was the one to ask, but the other two boys were wondering too.

Yeah, they'd seen her father be obviously rude, but what kind of punishment could Derek Hale's sister have saved her from?

Derek took it upon himself to answer, "Remember how moon-deprived werewolves can get? Margaret's dad was able to make her mother like that anytime he wanted. So whenever his daughter acted out, she was sent in front of her chained-up moon-thirsty mother so she'd be traumatized back into shape."

"Oh, what manners you have." May grumbled with a shake of her head, "Aren't you supposed to be dead? And not sharing my personal life?"

"Glad to see everyones happy I'm alive." Derek rolls his eyes in response.

May looked up at the three boys for a split second before regretting ever having done it, looking right back down at her lap.

"And there go the looks of pity," May sighed, "please don't look at me like that. It's really not a big deal — I'm fine."

Immediately, the three boys did their best to shut off the looks of pity and looked at the ground. May could tell they didn't mean any harm by it, but she couldn't help how much she hated the look.

Derek's sister switched the conversation quickly, "How is your mom?"

"Oh." May didn't know how to word this, so she awkwardly said, "She's pretty good for a dead person, I guess."

"Jesus, May." Isaac shook his head and nearly let a laugh out, but stopped himself.

"Sorry," May cringed at her previous words, "I didn't really know what to say, and I don't really know what to do with this all. I mean, how do you even know me? I've never been to Beacon Hills before."

"Your mom grew up here — she was really close with our uncle, Peter, and Laura thought of her like an older sister. Your dad even moved here when Derek and I were teenagers, but it didn't last long. The Hale fire made him and Jenna leave."

"Who's Jenna?" May didn't recognize the name, "And who are you? I never got your name..."

Her head was spinning insanely at all of this new information and the Three Stooges were just as confused with it all. Derek had just said he wanted to meet her, not drop a bomb of news on her.

"I'm Cora," Cora looked at Derek for a moment with confusion, "and you don't know who Jenna is? Shes... she's your mother."

May scratched the back of her neck awkwardly, feeling a lump inside her throat. "I, um, I never knew my moms name. I honestly didn't know that... thing... was my mother for a long time."

"I'm gonna kill him," Derek shook his head in protectiveness over a woman May didn't even remember, "he always hated that she was a werewolf. I knew him taking her away, pregnant and all, wasn't a good idea."

"So my mother was a werewolf?" May confirmed her previous guess of what her mother could be, feeling like a lot of holes in her story were being filled tonight.

Scott now took his turn to add something to the conversation. "So that explains it then, you're a werewolf. Thats why everything at the Motel happened to you."

"No, she can't be a werewolf." Derek insisted, sitting down on the nearly broken steps. "Or at least not a full-werewolf. If she was, then she'd turn with the full moon or at least be able to."

May added, "And I most definitely can't do that weird growl-yellow-eye-thing you guys do. I know that for a fact."

"Growl-yellow-eye-thing?" Cora questioned with a confused look.

"Ya know," May tried to explain, "when you start growling and your eyes go yellow."

"When we transition." Isaac explained with an eye roll at her way of explaining it — May replied with a small 'Yeah, that'.

"Well what's stopping her from being a full-werewolf then?" Stiles questioned, "She runs like one, and the wolfsbane affected her like one, but she doesn't heal or turn like one."

"Somethings stopping her. Like she's supposed to..." Derek trailed off like he didn't want to say it, or didn't know how to really say it.

Cora turned around, shaking her head at him. "There's no way. That's not possible."

"What?" May wanted to know more than anyone else, obviously. "Whats not possible?"

Cora didn't turn around to face her, "He thinks you're a hybrid of something. Two supernatural creatures at once."

May laughed out loud at the idea, "Yeah, no. That's just not possible."

"Some people are meant to become a certain creature, May. It could've just been fate that a werewolf ended up creating that creature, and then adding some of its own onto it." Derek tried.

May wasn't taking it though, she couldn't believe it! First, they drop all this new information on her — actually! First, she was attacked by an Alpha!

Then, they actually dropped all this information on her and expected it to be normal. As if any of it was even slightly normal! This was crazy!

There was no way in hell that Margaret Harley was a supernatural creature, and she knew that!

She stood up from her chair with a small laugh and shook her head. "No. Just no."

"What?" Derek stood up too, "What do you mean 'no'?"

"It's exactly what 'no' always means." May moved forward towards the door, "I swore off this supernatural bullshit two days ago, and I refuse to get involved with it now. I have to focus on a recital and the next meet. That's all."

"And if we need you?" Stiles questioned quietly.

May sighed as she looked at him, deciding it wasn't bright enough to walk home. She'd have to get a ride from him, so she had to watch her words because she knew she was one to say things she didn't mean. Sometimes.

"You won't need me for anything supernatural. Trust me." She nodded to the Jeep outside, "But I do need you to drive me home."