Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf, any part of its plot, or any of the affiliated characters. I only own my character (Charlie) and any parts of this story line not aired in the actual T.V. show.

I made my way tentatively down the pathway, inhaling the cool midnight air.

The more steps I took, the more distinct the smell became to me.
A few hundred feet were the only things standing in the way of me and what I hoped would be my salvation.
I wrapped my arms tighter around my torso, trying not to feel the bitter chill as it swept through my bones.
My knees shook with apprehension, the lamplight fluttering along with my heart, intensifying the feeling of foreboding the night had taken on.
The path was dark and very poorly lit with few stray streetlights and the glow from the waning moon, but at the end I could see the outcrop of a clearing.

Trees loomed tall over unkempt bushes, and behind it was a lake, edges laced with jagged rocks.
I knew I'd find them here, the night before the full moon. It's when we were at our strongest, prime training time.
And the alpha would most definitely be with his pack, guiding them, teaching them.
I though of what I'd say, how I'd handle rejection.
But I couldn't take being an omega any longer. It was too lonely, too uncertain.
I knew I'd do anything to join this pack, the pack notorious for teenage misfits and victims, kids like me.
I made my way carefully through the foliage, peeling back branches to look for any sight of them.
All was quiet initially, but after a few minutes, I saw someone whip by, flipping over the water like some aerobatic creature.
It was awe inspiring.
I watched him pivot and unfurl himself from the ground, back into his human form.
He was tall, with pale olive toned skin and dark hair with eyes more piercing than an arrowhead.
"The alpha," I whispered, watching as he beckoned someone from afar.
"Now," he spoke with a commanding voice. Stern, yet comforting. Nothing like my previous alpha. "You two try."
And not a second after, two more figures raced down the path from which he had just came, growling playfully at each other as they reached the edge of the water.
For a split second, I watched their bodies unwind, twisting over the lake like torpedoes through water.
Though they didn't land as gracefully as their pack master, they both completed the spin tactfully and with almost no noise.
It was the kind of thing that I'd looked for, the kind of freedom I'd prayed I'd find with a new pack.
"How was that?" asked the taller one, a boy with curly brown hair and crystal blue eyes. He was eager to please, but in a timid way that almost made my stomach turn.
Then the girl, a blonde with full lips and eyes like a pool of sienna, spoke up.
"Better have been satisfactory," she said. "We've been out here all night and my nails are nearly down to cuticles."
I nearly scoffed until I realized she was completely unserious, almost mocking.
The alpha spoke, "It was good enough," he said. "For now."
"Good enough to stand a chance against the Argents?" asked the boy.
Argents? My heart sank a little bit in my chest. Enemies, I though. Of course.
I hadn't exactly considered that my new potential pack would be unfriendly with any group of people.
But, like I had been taught as a child, any power comes with a price. And that price is an enemy, often times just as powerful.
"It's getting there," said the alpha. "Once Boyd is completely healed and joins us, we'll all be stronger. That should work in our benefit."
Just as they began discussing more about their training exercises, a breeze caught.
"Oh, no," I muttered to myself as it trailed up from behind me, pushing my scent out into the open.
Quickly, their conversation ceased.
I watched their eyes turn golden, glowing.
Their bodies stiffened.
"What is that?" asked the boy, clenching his fist at his side.
"That, my protégés," said the alpha, "is another wolf."
"Do you mean Scott?" asked the girl.
"No, not Scott. The scent is too faint to come from such a dominant Omega," he replied.
The alpha stepped onto a boulder near the lake, scanning the trees slowly.
As his eyes crossed over me, I panicked, letting the branches swing back into place, covering my body.
"Who's there?" the alpha growled, stepping in my direction. "Come out now, or we'll find you. And we'll rip you to pieces."
With that, I stood almost immediately. Unsteadily, I made my way through the branches which were concealing me, stepping out into the faint light of the moon.
My fingers trembled, achy and numb as I struggled to keep a grip on my arms.
I watched their eyes light up again, their body language tense, as if ready to pounce.
"That's not a wolf, Derek," said the boy.
"Damn right it's not," the girl laughed. "It's a little girl." Then she stepped closer to me, her flawless face pouting with faux concern.
"How old are you, sweet heart?" she asked. "Twelve?"
I tried to shake my head, but I couldn't move.
I had the sudden urge to turn and run, but the alpha's threat to rip me apart seemed so absolute, I couldn't bring myself to escape.
I could just see in my mind's eye, his body twisting through the trees, landing on top of me and dismembering me bit by tiny bit.
I shuddered.
"She looks scared to death," the boy said, stepping towards me. "You must be freezing. Here, take my jacket."
He barely had time to grab the zipper before the alpha's hand was wrapped tightly around his.
An expression of pain overcame his face and there was a sickening 'crack' before he released.
"Keep your clothes on, Isaac. You know just as well as I do this could be a trap." said the alpha.
Then he turned back to me, scanning me carefully.
"Who are you? Why are you here?" he asked me.
But I couldn't seem to find the words to answer him.
"Derek, really. Do you honestly think the Argents would send a mute little girl out here to try and scare us?"
Her facetious tone bit at my insides.
"I'm not mute, and I'm not a child," I said to her, catching her gaze just briefly before turning my attention back to the alpha.
He bent over a little, his face close to mine.
His eyes were dark and close together. His jaw was strong, his expression unsettling.
I couldn't read whether he was feeling inquisitive or angry.
"Then what are you?" he asked, glowering at me.
"Alone," I said. "Completely. And utterly alone."
"How'd you find us?" asked the girl.
"I'd heard about you," I said to the alpha. "They used to talk about you in my old pack. The alpha of misfits, they called you. They said you took in teenagers with sob stories and nowhere else to turn."
I stopped for a minute, trying to catch my breath.
"Of course, they were mocking you…" I said.
His face twisted as if he were about to hit me.
"But I didn't feel that way about it!" I told him. "I liked the idea. I wanted… I wanted to come find you, to be a part of your pack."
"Still doesn't answer how you found us," he said, his face even closer to me.
I backed up a bit, gulping. "I already had a general idea of where to find you. I've been walking around this town all day, hoping to catch a scent. I finally did, just about an hour ago. And I followed it to you. I only got here a few minutes ago."
"So you've been spying on us?" he demanded.
"No," I told him, straightening my stance. "Admiring is more like it."
He smiled a bit, his ivory white teeth glowing under the moonlight.
"Look, kid. I don't know where you thought this sweet talking would get you," the alpha said, "but I don't run a day care center, okay? So find your way back to your own pack. I've got enough on my hands right now without worrying about a stray."
He turned his back on me and made his way back to the sides of his two betas.
The boy looked at me with empathy, the girl with amusement.
The look on her face made me feel unsettled- angry, even.
And that's what made me start rolling my sleeves.
"You don't understand," I said, watching my arms go from sleeve colored, to white in the wrists and then purple and black the rest of the way up.
I held my arms out to him, let him get a good look before rolling my sleeves back down.
"I can't go back to my old pack," I said.
I lifted up the hem of my shirt cautiously to reveal the scars, wincing as my finger tips brushed my bruised ribs.
"You let me join your pack," I said, "or I die. Those are my two options."
Without missing a beat, he answered me callously, "Then I hope the last one is quick and painless."
The girl smirked. I felt like she was ripping me apart with her eyes, like a hunter does it's prey just moments before a kill.
"Derek," the boy, Isaac, protested, "we can't just leave her out here to freeze to death."
"I think we have a big enough pack already," cut in the girl. I was really beginning to resent her.
"You heard what he said earlier," Isaac said to her. "We're still not strong enough to fight the Argents, not even with all of our extra training. Another pair of claws will only help! Look," he said, turning to his alpha, "can you at least agree give her a chance? She might be an asset."
His eyes searched his alpha's face, his eyes pleading silently.
Derek looked to Isaac, the girl, then back to me and shook his head, groaning. "Fine," he said reluctantly. "Fine. But you've gotta pull your own weight, okay? I'm not going to do it for you."
I nodded, "Of course."
"Alright then," Derek said. "You can join us, but temporarily for now. Until I see how you work with a team."
"Thank you," I said, trying to keep my relief from expressing itself via my tear ducts.
"But before I take you back to where we live, I have to know what to call you." he told me.
Then, I didn't care what he called me, but I answered him nonetheless.
"Charlotte," I said. "My name is Charlotte. But I go by Charlie."
"Okay then," said Derek. "I'm Derek. You can address me as Derek, though I'd rather not be addressed at all. That there," he said, pointing to the girl, "is Erica. And this," he turned to Isaac, "is Isaac."
They both shot tentative grins at me.
"Let's go then." Derek said, making his way back down the path I'd come from.
He and Erica walked quickly, disappearing into the brush within moments.
"Here, take this," said Isaac from behind, draping his jacket over my shoulders.
"No, it's fine," I said, fumbling to shrug it off.
"Really," he said, stepping in front of me to zip it, fingers brushing against mine. He smiled. "Your hands feel like ice," he told me. "We'll be back at Derek's soon. Keep the jacket."
"Thank you," I said, snuggling my cheeks into the warm collar.
"No problem," he said, taking me by the arm. "Now let's go catch up with them."

We took a bunch of back roads and dark alleys, the kind of places no one important would see us.
I felt out of place, following behind the tall blonde and Derek, with her cat like strut and his enormous shoulder muscles.
Isaac stayed beside me, his hand every so often brushing against mine.
The first few times, I fought the urge to recoil. But after, it was comforting to know there was someone who wasn't completely opposed to my presence.
"Thank you for what you did for me back there," I whispered to him as we made our way behind some abandoned warehouses. "You saved my life."
He smiled. "I don't deserve that much credit," he said. "Derek has a hard shell, but I don't think he would've left you out there. Not so close to Argent territory."
"I heard you all talking about them, the Argents. What are they, another pack?" I asked, blowing warm air onto my hands.
"No," he said. "They're a family of hunters. They track down our kind, kill us."
"Oh," I said quietly. "There was a group like that back home. But they were more like supernatural law enforcement. They killed wolves for doing bad things, not just because they could. They have rules against that sort of thing."
Isaac nodded. "I came into the scene a little late, but I believe the Argents used to have a similar law code. But then one of theirs was killed, and it's been every entity for themself ever since."
"Hasn't it always been like that?" I commented under my breath, thinking about the bruises covering my arms and torso, and how I obtained them.
Memories stained red repeated themselves in my mind. I felt the air disappear suddenly from my chest as I saw my limp body slide down a concrete wall. My heart beat accelerated, my head spinning as I tried to block out the images of glowing red eyes, towering above me, threatening to break the very core of my being.
"Hey, you alright?" Isaac asked, grabbing me by the shoulder.
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I'm fine. Just cold."
"Well we're here now." He told me, stopping a few feet in front in front of an old, spray painted piece of sheet metal covering the opening to an old subway station.
Above, I could faintly see city names and departure times labeled on dirty blue signs.
Derek bent the metal vertically, hinging it like a door.
Erica stepped in first, then Isaac and myself.
Instantly, the scent of damp mold overcame me and I coughed, trying not to gag.
"Home sweet home," Isaac muttered. "Come on."
I walked down some dark steps, into a poorly lit underground subway entrance, caked with dirt and cobwebs.
In the center, a section of the transit sat, crooked and derailed. Wires splayed from every corner with no uniformity.
Lights above dangled uncertainly, flickering and making sporadic zapping sounds as the swung to and fro.
I looked around uncertainly, wondering what the metal bars on the ground were for.
I paced the width of the station slowly, running my fingers over the rucksacks and sliding my feet across the rubber mats.
"It's for training," Derek said. "But we'll get into that later. For now, find somewhere to sleep for the night."
I peaked into the bus, speckles with flashlights, the waterproof bar shaped kinds used during floods and while working under car hoods.
At the back of the train, sprawled out over a tattered black seat, was a huge and extremely dark guy with one hand hanging onto a pole and the other wrapped over his torso.
From afar, I could see his nose wriggle a little. He sat up, groaning, and looked in my direction.
"Who are you?" he asked.
I looked around, but the other three had disappeared. I wondered if they were planning something on me, but I was so cold and tired, I didn't care.
I stepped up into the bus through the busted front window, glass crunching underneath my feet, and made my way down the aisle.
When I got close enough for my comfort, I sat down and folded my hands between my thighs.
"I'm Charlie," I said.
"I've never seen you before," he mused. "Did Derek just turn you?"
"No," I said, my eyes trailing down to the holes in his exposed torso. "What happened there?"
He grimaced. "Bullet holes," he said. "Normally, they'd be healed by now, but the shells were laced with wolfs bane."
I shuddered, trying not to let my mind conjure up the horrible encounters I'd had with that plant.
"The Argents' work?" I asked.
He nodded. "Derek told you about them?"
"No," I said. "I mean, they were mentioned, but I don't know a whole lot more than they like killing our kind for revenge."
"Then you know about as much as I do," he reassured me, lying back down on his filthy little seat-bed-hybrid thing.
"So this is where you guys live?" I asked, trying to get accustomed to the smell of mildew and the thrum of the buzzing lights overhead.
"Sort of," he said. "Isaac and Derek take residence her, but me and Erica… we're just here a lot, staying away from overbearing parents mostly."
I lifted an eyebrow, "Sounds rebellious."
He laughed. "Well, my parents think I'm working late nights, so I guess if they don't know I'm not doing what I'm told…"
"It doesn't matter?"
"Exactly," he affirmed. "I'm Boyd, by the way."
"Nice to meet you," I told him.
And as soon as the words were out of my mouth, a figure appeared over me, a grumbling sound coming from her throat.
"You're in my seat." she growled.
I took a good, long look down the row of empty benches and then looked back up at her.
Without a word, I got up from the uncomfortable seat and made my way back out of the transit section, not letting go of her gaze until I was well out of the aisle.
I stood, scanning the room for any dark, warm place to sleep but couldn't see anywhere that wasn't caked over with dirt or underneath a leaky drain pipe.
I sighed.
I didn't want to sleep in the same vicinity as snarling Barbie, but I wasn't really looking to inhale dust for eight hours of darkness, either.
"Blanket?" I heard a voice from behind me and turned to see Isaac, hand outstretched.
"Sure," I said, unzipping the jacket he'd given me. I yanked it off quickly, wincing as my muscles protested the quick, careless movements.
"Here," I said through my teeth, grabbing the blanket from his hand and replacing it with his jacket. "Thank you for letting me borrow that, and for.. Everything."
"No problem," he said.
I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders, shuddering as every inch of my body ached.
"You okay?" he asked.
I could faintly see concern flit across his face underneath the incandescent bulbs overhead.
"Yeah," I lied. "I'm fine."
"Is it the bruises?" he asked, not buying my indifference.
I shook my head. "No, I'm fine. It's fine. Th- they don't even hurt."
"Really?" he asked, grabbing my forearm.
I sucked in air. Hard. To keep from screaming at him.
"Yeah, it looks fine. How'd this happen?" He asked, releasing my arm.
I resisted the urge to grab it and apply pressure, anything to stop the burning pain under my skin.
"A fight." I told him.
"With what? An eighteen wheeler?"
I sighed, frustrated with all of his questions. I wished he'd just keep his damn mouth shut and leave me alone. But I knew the only way to get him out of my face would be to give him what he wanted.
"You really want to know?" I asked, taking the blanket off my shoulders.
Suddenly, I felt like an intruder. I don't know exactly what came over me, but it was a strange feeling. Like I needed to run, to go to something different. Somewhere that wasn't home, but somewhere not here.
I felt like I didn't want anything from these people, like anything I'd already received was too much, things I'd never be able to pay back.
But I also didn't want to have to go, so I didn't resist his interrogation.
"My father is an alpha," I said. "He's powerful, but he's arrogant. And he likes to toss his weight around. Sometimes, he tries… creative ways of getting his point across." I took a deep breath, trying to fight back the wells of anger threatening to spill over my eye lids. "And that usually involves using me as an example."
Isaac looked at me, stunned.
"I- I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't know…"
"But now you do. Here," I said, shoving the blanket into his chest.
I walked over to a dark corner, away from view of anyone in the train.
Isaac stood for a moment, looking in my direction. Then he shook his head, hopping onto the bus with a tired expression on his face.
I sat down slowly, propping myself up against the brick wall. I pulled my knees up to my chest, burying my head between them, and fell into a shallow and uncomfortable sleep, waking every time I sensed a nightmare approaching.
The last thing I needed was for one of them to think I was weak, on top of broke and needy.