Despite the fact her sire –father, people look at her funny when she uses sire– put her in Eichen House because he couldn't deal with her, she likes it there; there's plenty of food, fairly secure shelter, and quite a few males for her to choose from –though the pool of males who are actually healthy is much smaller– come mating season in a few moons.

Chief among them is her roommate Kat, who had confused her at their first meeting because her eyes had seen female and he nose had told her male. So she'd asked –another thing her sire couldn't deal with, all the 'uncomfortable' questions she apparently kept asking– and gotten a mind-aching explanation about how gender didn't equal sex and how Kat sometimes was a female, sometimes male, and sometimes something else completely. She still didn't really understand it, but found she also didn't care: Kat is funny and cute and didn't laugh when she has a hard time speaking or when she wants to cuddle for warmth. She just wishes Kat didn't think sex was disgusting.

None of the other patients or doctors really understand her, even when she does manage to speak what she thinks –words are too confusing and the fact that their meanings can change is just wrong–. Hikock, who helps her with speaking and reading, never really asks her about anything personal and Morrell, who does, always seems to misunderstand her no matter what she says. It's yet another reason she wants to be a coyote again, no one mistakes one howl or yip for another; males left you alone when you weren't interested –and if they didn't you could always bite them– and pups always knew when they had pushed you too far.

Her latest bout of miscommunication comes during group therapy when Morrell talks about guilt and how it makes them feel. When they reach her she fumbles her words and Morrell seems to think she feels guilty.

She complains to Kat about it that night. "I don't understand guilt."

"What don't you understand?" They ask.

"What it is, what it. . .function is?"

They pull her closer. "I think you mean: 'what it's purpose is', and I don't think anyone can really answer that. But guilt is when you feel bad after doing something you shouldn't be doing."

"Then why do?" She hates not understanding, that is what makes her stomach burn. Humans are so complicated, she hates that too.

Kat shrugs and plays with her hair –it reminds her of males scenting her–, "mostly because people like getting away with doing things they aren't supposed to, as long as they don't get caught."

"Humans too confusing."

Kat laughs. "Too true wild Malia."

She likes that they call her that, that they understand that what she wants isn't necessarily what those who supposedly know her, the old human her, best wants.

They kiss her temple. "You want to read tonight?"

Before she can answer a snap echos down the halls, followed by chatter and a shout. "Another suicide," she doesn't comprehend why someone would want to kill themselves.

"Awesome, just what I needed the night before my 'rents come to visit." They sigh and pull her even closer, she's on top of them now. "I've suddenly lost the desire to read, sorry wild girl."

That, at least, she gets, yet people keep forcing her to do things she doesn't want to do. "That alright." She gives them a peck. "Sleep then."

They sigh again. "Yeah, alright." Closing their eyes they give a little settling wiggle. "Night Malia."

"Night Kat."

She spends much of the night listening to the house echo and talk, resisting the urge to leave –they lock the door, but she figured out her first night how to jiggle the knob just right to unlock it– and go hunting in the woods –she misses the taste of blood in her mouth–.

In the morning she watches Kat, amused, as they complain about not having any good clothes.

"I would seriously kill and skin a cow myself for a leather jacket, hell I'd settle for leather pants." They rub their hands on their sweatpants. "I can't believe they expect me to meet my 'rents dressed like this." They take a deep breath. "Only a week and a half more wild girl, then I can ditch this place."

She's already eighteen –though that doesn't mean much to her– and her current plan is to leave when Kat does. Someone in the world has to know how she can shift back to her true self and if no one does she'll just go live in the woods somewhere, become Kat's wild girl in truth. She knows how to hunt, she knows how to tell a good den from a bad one, she knows how to raise pups –though how she'll feed them in those first two months with only two breasts she's not sure–, and she can spot traps better than any coyote.

In the end Kat just tousles their hair, gives her a brief kiss, then walks out of their room like they're the top bitch. She doesn't leave until a few minutes later, after she's mentally prepared herself for whatever the humans decide to throw at her.

Apparently they decide to throw Stiles, the boy who found her when she didn't want to be found, and who smells. . .sick, at her. So she punches him –which she's found is a good substitute for biting, something humans apparently rarely do–. It brings the wrath of Brunski down on her, but she couldn't care less about that puffed up human.

Making things worse Stiles is in her therapy group and again they're talking about guilt. Morrell puts her on the spot and she nearly leaps over and claws the smug smelling female. She takes a deep breath, just say what she thinks you said yesterday. "I said. . .it makes me sick in my belly." Everyone in her group's learned what happens to them of they laugh at her so there's nary a giggle at what she realizes are mistakes and Morrell just keeps talking.

She runs into Stiles again as he tries to break open a basement door. Grabbing his wrist she yanks him away from the door and slam him into a wall, she bares her teeth and snarls. "Kill you and leave you to rats and foxes."

He flinches, but talks anyways. "What was I supposed to do? Tell my dad 'no'? Let him wonder if things could have gone differently?"

She thinks he's trying to make her feel guilt, but it's useless. "Yes." She raps his head against the wall, enough that he winces, letting him go she saunters off, but not before tossing off a final remark: "Need Brunski's keys."

The bells chime twelve times telling her she's late for her therapy with Hikock.

Listening to Kat gripe and moan during dinner is comforting. And cuddling with them while they watch TV is the warmest she's been since she woke up.

Showering beats tongue baths hands down. Though what what seems to be happening a lot is another Stiles encounter. He comes in apparently freaking out, if his scent is anything to go by.

He starts babbling when he sees her, and for a moment it's almost endearing –like when pups first learn to converse and they start telling you everything–. "Not female's room." Humans are so preoccupied with that.

"Okay, then why are you in the guy's bathroom?"

"Water hotter." Kat told her that one night after she complained about the chilly female water. "Females not warm."

"Does water temp really bother you that much?" His chatter isn't endearing anymore.

"Fur Stiles. Always cold now."

"Oh."

Turning off the water she heads to her towel, while Stiles tries not to stare –not that she cares, it's just a body–.

When her towel's on he seems to collect himself. "I need your help."

"What?"

"You said this afternoon I'd need Brunski's keys to get into the basement, well I want you to help me get them."

"Why should I?" She might not like him, but she's willing to work for mutual benefit –what's good for the crow is good for the coyote–.

Her question seems to stymie him, at least until a mischievous gleam comes into his eye. "I may know someone who can help you shift back to coyote."

It smells like he's telling the truth and a warm, unfamiliar warmth rises in her chest. "Alright."

"Okay, here's what we do. . ."

000

It feels wonderful to play-fight again, even if the one she's tussling with doesn't understand how it actually works.

Brunski yanks her off, he's the only one who can manhandle her when she doesn't want to be, and she fights him as always. Snagging his keys is a bit of a challenge, but one she's up for. She quickly shoves up against him when he starts pulling her back. Her fingers slip through the keys and she closes her fist before pulling away. It's laughably easy to hand them off to Stiles before Brunski readjusts his grip. But before he can do anything more than glower at her Hikock intervenes.

Brunski back off immediately; he might be head of security and Hikock might be smaller, but she's seen Hikock take down violent patients without even breaking a sweat. If his scent didn't scream 'hands off' she would be trying to have his pups.

As it is she likes to think they're good packmates, and she actually tries in his sessions. "Come on Malia, you're late."

She lowers her gaze in respect and trails after him, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at Brunski.

At dinner she finds herself starting to worry a little about Stiles, he's her ticket to the life she wants, if he goes so does it.

So that night when Kat asks if she wants to read she shakes her head. "I'm real tired, should just sleep." Her belly twists.

They arch an eyebrow but doesn't question her. Kat kisses her temple. "Night, my wild girl."

For a moment she almost wants to try and tell them everything: about what she is, what's going on with Stiles, all of it. But some part of her pulls back, resists.

Kat's light snoring soon fills the room and as smoothly as possible she extracts herself from their grip.

Opening the door she looks, listens, and smells. With no one worth worrying about nearby she starts scenting for Stiles.

Two floors, and a hall later she finally picks him up and tracks him down to one of the solitary cells. With no time for finesse she forces the lock and twists into the cell; only to find Stiles dead asleep in a corner, curled up on himself.

When shaking doesn't work she decides to do the same with him as the lock and digs her nails into his arm.

A heartbeat later he awakes, a scream already dying on his lips. It takes him longer than it should to orient himself and when he finally does the first thing out of his mouth is: "how long was I out?"

She's gotten better with human time, but she still has a little difficulty judging length. She gives a little shrug. "A few hours maybe."

Panic floods his face and scent, though she doesn't get why. "Brunski's keys didn't work," he sounds annoyed.

She stands and holds out her hand. "I know another way."

At least he doesn't resist right away when he realizes it's through the lock up ward. Though he does balk at the small tunnel they have to climb through. "How did you find this?" He gasps out half way though.

He can't see it but she shrugs. "Restless, wander." She pretty much knows the whole layout of Eichen, if need be she could get out whenever she wanted.

Finally they reach the basement. It's dim and dusty and she sneezes. Stiles twitches as his eyes dart around.

"What looking?" She bites back a snarl and tries again. "What are we, looking for?"

Stiles shrugs. "Papers, photos, a smoking gun. . .I don't know."

She starts looking around and blinks when she sees something carved into a wall. She walks up and traces it, frowning. "What this?"

He joins her. "It's the Japanese symbol for 'self'" His bitter tone takes her aback.

"How do you know?" She wished she could just howl, everything was easier to convey in a howl.

"It's a long story."

Not accepting that answer she does a repeat of yesterday and lightly taps his head against the wall. "Speak it."

In stops and starts he tells her about the nogitsune, an evil fox spirit, and how it's trying to possess him in order to cause chaos and strife, and how he and everyone else in his pack are trying to stop it. Some of it just goes right over her head, but she likes foxes about as much as she likes Stiles and Scott, so she can understand why he's trying to get rid of it.

Before she can try and even think of questions to ask Stiles gets distracted by boxes. He opens one and she finds herself baring her teeth at all the paper inside, her brain hurts just thinking of all the reading she's going to have to try and do.

He hands her an unopened box and she carries it over to the couch, wrinkling her nose at it's rotten smell. Sitting down gingerly she takes a few of the files from the box and listlessly starts flipping through them, only making a show of reading them.

Halfway through the box her eyes stumble upon a strange word, she mouths the syllables a few times before actually trying to speak it. "Tre. . . pan. . .ation?"

Stiles looks over at her files for a moment. "It's when they cut a hole in your skull. It's a really old technique, a lot of cultures do it for religious reasons, but it's been done as an actual medical procedure before. It's one of those 'it maybe kinda works, but we're not sure why', science things."

Shivers wrack through her body at the thought of someone doing that to her.

"You alright?"

"Cold," she finds lying is surprisingly easy.

"Here," he strips off his shirt and she blinks in surprise when he hands it to her.

Tentatively she takes it. "Thanks," then blinks in surprise again when he turns and shows her his back.

"How are the marks on my back?"

Slowly she raises a hand and touches the faint lines, enjoying the feel of his skin twitching and jumping under her fingers. "Almost gone."

The slump of his shoulders does something to her and she almost violently turns him around and kisses him. She doesn't protest when he starts to take it farther than that; wonderfully warm hands slipping under her jacket to stoke the skin of her back. Her estrus won't be for another few moons, so it's highly unlikely that he'll breed pups on her if they go all the way.

His hands sweep across her breasts and she pulls back in surprise when a warmth blooms inside her. "What is that?"

For a moment he just stares at her. "I. . .uh, touched your breasts?" Pink starts to creep up his skin.

She mimics his action herself and frowns when the warmth grows, this has definitely never happened before. "Weird."

Stiles just continues to stare at her for a few more heartbeats. "Wait, you haven't had sex before?"

She gives him a flat look. "Of course, just no human."

A second later he's pulling away. "Thanks, that was totally a mental image I needed." His tone confuses her. "Oh God, that's disturbing."

Her frown deepens. "You think I. . .went. . .nine years without mating?" Anger begins to bubble up at his repulsed scent.

"You were just a kid when it happened, so duh."

Since she can't hurt him anymore she storms over to that stupid symbol on the wall and begins punching it. How dare he, how dare, how. . . She recoils in surprise when her fist breaks through.

Faster than she's sure is humanly possible Stiles is at her side. "Woah." He grabs a bit of pipe and begins to widen the hole she made.

Again she recoils, though this time it's from the truly horrid smell coming from the hole, skies above did something die in there?

The hole finally gets big enough to let some light into the other side, revealing that, yes, something did die in there, or at least was buried there.

Stiles looks even more stunned than she does. "Oh God, it's him."

She doesn't need to ask who the 'him' is and leans in to get a better look at the evil fox spirit apparently in Stiles, as the male in question reaches in and pulls a crumpled paper out of the tomb.

He opens it and for a few seconds does nothing more than gape. "I know who that is, that's. . ."

The world goes black.

She comes to and has no idea how much time has passed, someone had laid her out on the couch and covered her in a musty blanket.

From what she can tell Stiles is gone, and going back to the tomb she sees signs of a struggle. She frowns at everything and biting back another snarl she reaches into the tomb, rooting around for anything useful: there are some papers, which get stuffed into her pockets, and the sword. On her way out she leans down and scoops up the discarded photo and dashes up the stairs. Once outside she gives a soft sigh of relief to find out it's still night.

Having already mapped out the whole house she doesn't need to guess the best way out; easily slipping from shadow to shadow and avoiding the useless guards. There's a little wooded area in the far back where the fence isn't as well maintained.

For a moment she almost turns back around to bring Kat with her, but they wouldn't understand, not without more talking than she feels comfortable with. Maybe when this is all over she'll return and try to talk to Kat.

Resolved she stretches a little, then easily jumps the fence –you think they'd've made it higher so no one could do that–. She stand for a moment and just lets her body relax; then begins trying to remember what McCall smelt like. When if finally comes back to her she lopes off towards the city, she's got a lot to do in a short time.