Chapter 1: The Kindness of a Stranger

Song: Seven Devils by Florence + The Machine

Avalon Jones knew that there was a legitimate reason that her and her family was moving to some no-name town in the middle of nowhere Northern California. But that didn't mean that she didn't have the right to be upset about it.

She knew there was something wrong with her, that she was definitely not normal.

Maybe he can fix her. Avalon heard her mother say in her head. Maybe my baby girl can be normal.

That was the part about Avalon's abilities that she hated the most—people thought of her as a freak, as an abomination. It's not like she could help it. It's not like she chose to be the way she is. It just happened. One day she was a completely normal teenager, and the next she could hear people's thoughts. And after three years of this ability of hers, she could barely control it.

She was capable of tuning out the pounding words coming from others' minds by concentrating. She had to find something to hold on to, a single thought, an image in her mind. Most of the times it was her older brother. Michael had left for college four years prior, so he didn't know that his younger sister could read minds, but Avalon looked up to him.

Mrs. Jones pulled into the parking lot of Beacon Hills High School, dropping her daughter off for her first day at her new school. Avalon was incapable of driving herself; the thoughts of nearby drivers were far too distracting.

Neither one of the Jones women said a word as Avalon exited the vehicle.

Ever since her parents discovered that she could hear people's thoughts, they avoided contact with Avalon. They began treating her differently, like she was some sort of monster.

So Avalon hid herself from the world, not speaking to anyone unless they spark the conversation, unknowingly spiraling into a state of acute depression.

As she strode down the halls, she could hear the pounding voices echoing throughout her head. Avalon tried as hard as she could to focus, to concentrate on something—anything. But she could feel the glares of unknown students burning into her skin, hearing their cruel, judgmental thoughts. And she completely lost it. Her chest tightened. She rammed her side against a wall of lockers, leaning on them with all her weight. Avalon lifted her head up, looking up at the ceiling, trying to get ahold of her thoughts, desperately wanting the voices in her head to shut up, to just stop for two minutes so she could get her shit together. Her back slid down the lockers towards the floor, until she was eventually sitting on the ground, pulling her feet tight into her chest.

Breathing became more and more difficult. She was constantly gasping for air, and the thoughts that she was hearing were only making it worse.

Is she dying?

Who the fuck is that?

I wonder if I should go help her.

Woah, that girl needs to chill.

Suddenly, two arms pulled her into her feet, leading her into a vacant classroom. The boy shut the door behind him.

"Just try to calm down," he told her, "What's your name?" Avalon struggled to speak, until she forced the words out of her mouth.

"A-Avalon," she gasped.

"Avalon, well, you're having a panic attack, okay?" he grasped her shoulders, pulling her closer and gazing intensely into her eyes. "I need you to relax, Avalon. Just focus really hard on taking a big, deep breath." And Avalon did. She focused real hard, but it was not on breathing. She continued staring into his large brown eyes, watching as his pupils widened then contracted again, focusing on the silence. Wait—the silence. The sudden realization dumbfounded her. Usually when she tried to drown out the voices, she could still hear them very faintly in the background. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hear a single one of his thoughts.

"I-I can't hear you," she mumbled, her breathing steadying. The boy looked confused.

"What?"

"I cant hear you," she said louder, "Why can't I hear you?!" Her face reddened with frustration. That's all it took to turn it off? A panic attack? "What the fuck?! Why can't I hear you?!" she screamed.

"Avalon!" he shouted over her. "What do mean you can't hear me?" The boy raised his eyebrows, suspicious of supernatural abilities. "What do you like read minds or something?" the boy said jokingly, but as Avalon's eyes widened, he realized that he must've beet onto something. "Wait you can read minds?"

"Apparently everyone's, but yours," she rolled her eyes. The boy's facial expression suddenly drastically changed. He looked as though he knew something, like he knew too much, like he knew some horrifying, dark secret. "What? What is it?"

"Nothing, it's just…" he started, fiddling his thumbs, "I kind of temporarily died and then came back to life, losing a part of my soul. And now apparently there's some sort of door open in my mind. That might have something to do with it," he shrugged. Stiles couldn't believe he just told her all that. Barely anyone knew about that, and he'd just told a complete stranger.

Avalon observed as he had spoken rapidly, as if he was hesitant to tell her all this. She couldn't blame him if he was, though. That was kind of difficult to entirely believe. But then again, Avalon's abilities were unbelievable as well.

"That's… that's interesting," Avalon crossed her arms at her chest as she looked the boy suspiciously up and down. "What did you say your name was again?"

"Stiles," he introduced himself, realizing he had never told her his name. Avalon strolled toward the door, leaning her head against it, listening to the various thoughts of the passing teens. She then walked back over to Stiles, getting real close to him, concentrating on his thoughts. But it was no use. All she heard was silence.

"Huh…" she pondered aloud, "Not a damn thing." She looked over him again, examining him. "You sure are interesting, Stiles."

Avalon inched closer to him, her eyes scanning his face, observing every little feature. She was curious about him. And she wondered how similar they really were. She felt dead inside, and a part of his soul was lost. But before she had a chance to find out any more about Stiles, the bell sounded, signaling for students to get to class.

"What class do you have right now?" Stiles asked her. Avalon checked her arm, viewing the schedule she had written with black ink in order to remember it.

"Uh… World history. With Mr. Yukimura," she answered. Stiles began headed towards the door.

"Oh, good. I have that too." The two teens scurried down the hall to their first period class. "You're new, right?" Stiles asked, looking over at her as they walked.

"Yeah. I just moved here from Los Angeles," she informed. Like a gentleman, he held the door open for Avalon. She timidly entered the classroom.

"You must be Avalon. Welcome," a smiling Asian man, who Avalon assumed was Mr. Yukimura, greeted. "Please take a seat," he gestured to the vacant seat in the front row, and she did as he said. She rolled her eyes as she realized it was so conveniently directly to the right of Stiles' seat.

"Alright, everyone. Let's get started," Mr. Yukimura announced, silencing the class. "We were just talking about interment camps and prisoners of war. There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail. Who would like to come up and read aloud for us?" Avalon had a feeling that was a rhetorical question. She hated how teachers would always end up hand-picking students when they "ask" for "volunteers". She felt sorry for the poor sucker that would get dragged into reading that boring passage aloud. "Mr. Stilinksi, how about you."

Stiles looked nervously at Mr. Yukimura, a shocked expression on his face. "oh, um… Maybe-maybe someone else could.."

"Everyone participates in my class, Mr. Stilinski," the teacher responded sassily.

"Okay…" Stiles shuffled in his seat, before getting up and approaching the podium. He glared nervously down at the book, looking almost as if he couldn't see the words on the page, like he was trying to get a camera to focus. He squinted, intensely gripping the edge of the podium. His face began to shake, his eyes rolling slightly to the back of his head. He then looked back up at the class, seeming to be sort of dizzy. Stiles's entire body shook as he began taking deep huffs of air, like it was getting harder for him to breath.

No, Stiles. No, not here. Not now! Avalon heard the tan boy's thoughts as he stood up, slowly beginning to walk towards Stiles.

"Stiles, you okay?" he asked. Stiles took a deep breath, grabbing the podium again as he lost his balance. The tan boy then rushed to aid Stiles.

"I should take him to the nurses office," he told Mr. Yukimura, and Mr. Y nodded. The tan boy then grabbed Stiles' arm, escorting him out of the classroom.

Avalon shot out of her seat. "I think I'll go make sure they're alright. You know how teenage boys can get," she fake joked as she rushed past the teacher before he could protest, exiting the classroom and following the two boys down the hall. They were headed to the boys bathroom. Avalon briefly debated whether or not she should follow them inside. But as she heard the tan boy's frantic thoughts, she decided to go for it. She stood quietly hidden in the doorway, watching as Scott attempted to calm Stiles down.

"Stiles! Stiles, look at me, man." Stiles stumbled about the room, grabbing ahold of the sink. "Is this a panic attack?" the tan boy asked. Stiles stared intensely at himself in the mirror, breathing heavily.

"It's a dream," he gasped, "It's a dream. This is just a dream!" Stiles told himself.

"No it's not," the tan boy said, desperately trying to calm his friend down, "This is real. You're here. You're here with me." Stiles continued to stare in the mirror, his breathing getting more and more ragged. "Okay, um. What do you do? I-I mean like, how do you tell if-if you're awake or dreaming?"

"Fingers. You-you count your fingers—you have extra fingers in dreams." His breathing continued to get worse and worse. Avalon didn't know whether to step in or not. She froze up, afraid she would make the wrong decision.

Scott held up one finger. "How many do I have?" But Stiles ignored his simple question at first. "Hey! Look at me. C'mon, Stiles. Look at my hands and count with me." Stiles dizzily turned around, glancing at the tan boy's hands. "One," the tan boy began counting.

"Two," Stiles said as the tan boy held up another finger. He then held up one more finger as Stiles glanced down at the floor.

"Keep going," the tan boy demanded. Stiles looked back up at his hand, "three… four…"

"Five," the tan boy said, encouraging Stiles.

"Six… seven…"

"Eight," he helped.

Stiles looked a tiny bit calmer each time he counted another finger. "Nine…" The tan boy put up the last finger, and Stiles looked as if a huge weight was lifted off his chest. "Ten," he said, breathing a bit easier.

"Ten," the tan boy reassured. Stiles then relaxed completely, his breathing becoming normal again. He leaned against the bathroom wall, sliding down it until he was sitting on the ground. "What the hell is happening to me?" he asked in disbelief, shaking his head. The tan boy crouched down to meet Stiles' eye level.

"We'll figure it out," he said positively, "You're going to be okay."

"Am I? Are you?". The tan boy didn't respond. "Scott, you can't transform. Allison's being haunted by her dead aunt. And I'm straight up losing my mind," he said bluntly. Avalon couldn't believe her ears. Transform? Seeing dead people? She couldn't help but to wonder if there was more messed up shit going on here than her bizarre mind powers.

"We can't do this," Stiles said softly, shaking his head, "We can't. We can't help Malia… We can't help anyone."

You're right, Avalon heard Scott think, but his words said otherwise.

"We can try," he said, staying optimistic in order to help his friend. "We can always try."

Avalon then cautiously slid open the door, walking slowly into the boys bathroom.

"Avalon," Stiles breathed. Scott looked confused. "Did-did you just see all that?"

She nodded, walking over to the boys.

"You guys sure are something else, you know that?" she smiled

Who the hell are you? Scott thought, Shit, I hope she didn't hear the part about us going crazy.

"My name's Avalon," she said to Scott, "And yes, I did. I heard everything. And right now I want the same thing from you that you want from me—answers."

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Please be sure to review- good or bad, your opinions mean the world to me! Just informing you, I work on my writing everyday, so I'll try to get new chapters posted ASAP! But I'm currently working on three Teen Wolf stories (this is the only one I've posted so far). But please let me know what you think of it so far!

xx Izzy