Chapter 1- Purple and Terrified
Her fear bubbled up from the pit of her empty stomach. It seeped out like poisonous smoke from a chimney, spreading towards whoever was closest; reaching out to suffocate them. The tight jawed alpha leaned over her. His looming figure casting an ominous shadow over her frightened, heart-shaped face. He held out his clawed hand to help her, but she mistook it for a threatening gesture.
"No,' she whimpered and the miniscule sound floated off into the inky, night sky. The long, button-down, bed shirt stuck to her cold, sweaty body and her jet, black hair hid her eyes. She puffed out her cheeks and shook the strands from her vision. The overwhelming fear from the girl altered the alpha. He suddenly felt on edge as he stared into the girl's deep, glowing, purple eyes. He staggered backwards.
"Who are you?!" he snarled, retracting his outstretched hand to his side in a defensive fist. The girl shuffled backwards on her bottom, until her back was up against the alleyway's hard, brick wall. He repeated himself, with his head lowered as if he was about to charge, 'who are you?!" Her intoxicating fear seemed to solidify around him, strangling him slowly but surely, entering him whatever way it could. It wriggled its way down his closing throat, filled his pointy ears and eventually wrapped around his erratic, beating heart.
Before the fear had engulfed him completely he snatched out towards the girl and caught her unprotected arm, trying desperately to grab onto her for support. Scott fell forward like a sack of bricks, smacking hard against the damp, concrete ground. The girl scampered off into the night, her tiny, bare feet splashing in puddles of dirty, rain water, towards wherever she came from.
"Answer the phone, answer the phoneeeee," Stiles whined like a prepubescent girl; a long, nasally sound. He'd tried ringing Scott at least five times now and each time there was no answer. He grew more and more paranoid. Beacon Hills had become strangely quiet since everything that went down just a few months previous, but there were always supernatural concerns in the back of the boy's muddled, busy mind, and Scott ignoring his phone calls was just making him worse. He rang again and finally a croaky voice replied on the other end.
"Dude, where've you been? Your mom rang me last night and asked if you'd stayed at mine. I had to lie to her!" Stiles bellowed into his phone, which was laying on his desk, from the other side of his room. He couldn't help but pace up and down, trying to use up some of the anxious energy that had built up over the night.
Scott pulled himself up off the dirty ground, trying to wipe down his jeans with his rough hands. It was now morning and the sun was blinding his sore eyes. He'd been unconscious for about five hours and his head was far from clear. The mysterious girl was nowhere to be seen, only a couple of sporadic, burgundy drops could prove she had actually been there at all.
"I was… out. I heard something," Scott rubbed his temples, trying to remember what the hell had lead him to go off searching for someone in the middle of the night. The terrified sobs of a young girl had entered his room with such clarity that he just had to find out their source. He followed the sound into the alleyway he had just spent the night in and found a girl, barely wearing anything, laying up against a rusting dumpster, her body shaking uncontrollably.
"What d'ya hear? Malia? Tell me you heard Malia…" The boy had long given up the possibility that his werecoyote was coming back any time soon, but sometimes his desperation escaped him. He missed her more than he ever thought was possible; her defiance yet vulnerability was what drew him to her and he craved it. She had left him to find her mother; the Desert Wolf. She'd been gone for over a month now, but her musky scent of earth and wild freedom still lingered in his lonely bedroom.
"No…sorry man. I heard someone else… a girl. I could hear her crying," the sobs still rang powerfully in the alpha's head, making him flinch from time to time. It was like she was still there, laying in the foetal position right in front of him, but she had been gone for hours.
The boy's heart sank. When would he learn that Malia had left for good? He shook himself from his disappointment and proceeded to get ready for school.
"That's like a banshee thing right… hearing voices?" Stiles called towards his phone as he clumsily pulled a 'clean' t-shirt over his head he'd picked up off the floor.
Scott had thought that when he first heard the cries, but it was more like he could feel her sadness, rather than hear it. It was like she was crying right there in his bedroom.
"It wasn't like I heard her… it was weird, I could feel it," Scott scratched at the back of his aching head and squinted into the white, morning sky, still disgruntled by his rock hard bed of the night. He started to slug his way back home, realising he had travelled further than he first thought. Stiles was still rambling on, but Scott wasn't really listening to his friend's fast-paced suggestions of what might've happened to him. He was distracted by an unsettling feeling. The alpha felt uneasy… anxious even.
"Scott… Scott, buddy, you still there?" Stiles raised his voice slightly, concerned for the leader of his pack.
"Yeah, I just feel a bit out of it. I'll be… fine," Scott was grateful, like he had been many times before, for Stiles' inability to hear his heart. At that moment, Scott's heart pounded like it was about to burst. He could feel people watching his every move as he made his way back home, hurriedly. Stiles tried to reassure his friend, tried to remind him of how calm Beacon Hills had been recently but each attempt fell flat and he was silenced by the line going dead.
Scott stalked his way back home and crept round to his bedroom window. He climbed the side of his own home like an intruder; the front door seemed like an entrance the 'watchers' would expect. Nobody was in his bedroom he decided after searching the place. He sat on his bed, embarrassed he had checked under it. Fresh clothes had been put away in his wardrobe, so he threw on a clean, black tee and jeans and rushed down the stairs, realising school started in less than an hour.
Stiles stood in the middle of his room, frowning at his silent phone, but shook his worries away comically. Sheriff Stalinski called for him to come downstairs. He plodded into the kitchen and threw his rucksack over his shoulder. It fell heavily, full of all sorts of research and scraps of unreadable notes.
"Please try to keep out of trouble today, Stiles," his dad said light-heartedly but meant it entirely. He hated how much danger Stiles seemed to attract and sometimes, he thought, even enjoyed. The Sheriff constantly worried about losing his boy, but he knew he had to give him some freedom, so was often easy on him.
Stiles said an inaudible goodbye through a sloppy mouthful of toast and orange juice and grabbed the keys to his busted, old jeep, making his way to school.
Scott pulled up next to the ancient jeep ten minutes later on his bike, looking out of breath and slightly dishevelled. He searched the halls for his unconventional pack. The moment he spotted his laughing group of friends he felt a little more relaxed. He let out a long sigh and strolled towards them, acting as if he didn't have a care in the world. Lydia stared into her hand-help mirror prodding a manicured finger at her perfectly arched eyebrow, Kira jumped up and down giddily at something that was said and Stiles moved his hands around in his usual, erratic, quirky way when telling a farfetched story.
"Scott… dude, come here," Stiles yelled and Scott picked up his falsely casual pace. "You all good now?" Stiles placed a reassuring hand on the alpha's broad shoulder and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Yeah, I'm good," Scott reached out for Kira's warm, welcoming hand and only then did he truly believe he did actually feel good. The four of them walked to class; the company of friends slowly easing the fear he had felt all morning.
Coach Finstock stood at the front of the classroom; his wide-legged stance radiating impatience as the four known troublemakers swanned through the door, late as usual. A girl stood next to him, looking miniscule at the front of the class. The four teens took their usual places; Stiles frowned at the now empty seat next to him.
"This is…" Finstock looked at the scattered paperwork on his desk for the new girl's name. He grunted and searched for about a minute.
"Felicity," the girl sang. Each syllable enunciated by an unmistakable British accent. The class started to pay attention to her then. Several eyes looked up at the same time.
They all saw the same thing. Black hair tied up into two buns on the top of her head, one to the left and one to the right. The right one decorated with a white, feathery scrunchy and the other adorning a string of white beads tightly wrapped around it. They all saw her huge, vibrant green eyes that skittered nervously from face to face and her sun kissed olive skin. She was unquestionably 'different'. All of them noticed that instantly. Her outfit also told them this; her shapeless, collared black and white knee-length dress, thick black tights, brown brogues and brown, leather backpack. All of them saw the same thing… except Scott. He only saw her eyes, purple and terrified, from his hazy memory.
