She knew. She saw him changed. She knew.
And her father knew. How did he know? He'd been so careful. Had they seen him at the house when they'd captured Derek?
Shit. Shit!
He was running but he had no idea where to. It could have been seconds or it could have been hours since that moment when Allison saw him, her mouth wide – with shock? Or with fear? He didn't know. Scott didn't know anything right then. His thoughts were whirring through his head at an alarming speed. How did everything get so messed up?
Scott collapsed on the ground with a choked sob. He was in the woods but he didn't know where; he'd just kept on running until he couldn't run any further.
Allison knows.
It was incomprehensible to Scott that only a short while ago they'd been together in the Beacon Hills High School gymnasium, him confessing his feelings to Allison and her throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him in response.
His body shook as he sobbed. He didn't know what he felt; fear, anger, shame? He'd done nothing wrong! This whole thing had started just by him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now, he thought, now the Argents won't stop until they kill me. What if they came after his Mom or Stiles to get to him?
That was the thought that got Scott up off the ground. Forcing himself to breathe, he wiped him face on the sleeve of his shirt and focused.
He didn't have a clue where he was but with a moment of practised concentration his wolf hearing picked up the sounds of the highway off to his right. Scott ripped off his dress shirt, kicked off his black formal shoes and began to run once more.
Discovering your boyfriend is a werewolf just a day after discovering your family are werewolf hunters – and that werewolves even existed – was not how Allison had expected the night to go. She'd thought maybe after a heavy makeout session on the bus she'd suggest to Scott they go get her car and drive to somewhere more secluded. She'd thought maybe she'd call her parents and say she was staying the night at Lydia's. And just maybe they'd use that condom she'd stolen from Kate a few weeks back.
But she'd never expected this. One moment she had been teasing Scott, kissing the window between them, inviting him to join her on the bus, and the next she'd been staring into the face of a beast. A wolf. No, she thought, a werewolf.
It had all happened so fast. The vehicles appearing, lights on full beam, at either end of the alley created by the parallel school buses. The revving of the engines. Her own father seemingly trying to run down her boyfriend.
Allison screamed. Or maybe she didn't have air left in her lungs to scream; she was so shocked, she felt like she couldn't breath.
Scott, or the yellow eyed creature before her, had looked at her for a moment, crouched and exposed on the hoods of the two vehicles. Then he jumped to the roof of the opposite bus and out of sight.
Allison collapsed to her knees. What? How? Scott?!
How? How could her Dad have known?
She got up and staggered to the door of the bus. Her Dad was there waiting for her; he caught her in his arms and held her.
"It's Ok, baby, it's Ok," she heard.
"No," she didn't know where she found her voice but there it was, "no it's not." Tears were streaming down her face, dragging her makeup with them, as Allison pushed her way out of her Father's embrace. She leaned on the bus for strength.
"How did you know?"
"Your friend Jackson tipped us off. And just in time too."
"Jackson? How did he know?" Confusion didn't even begin to cover what she felt.
"He guessed."
"H-he guessed?! But wha-what if he'd been wrong? What if you'd been wrong?! You could have killed him!"
"We weren't wrong," The elder Argent justified.
"But Scott-"
"Scott is a werewolf, Allison. He's most likely been helping an Alpha to murder people for months. He's dangerous and he needs to be put down." Allison looked up at her father's face, full of conviction, his eyes hard as steel boring back into hers.
"Most likely," she repeated softly, shock and confusion still warring in her mind. "No, I don't believe that. It's Scott," she breathed.
She didn't know when she'd made the decision to run but suddenly she was running, sprinting away in her heels like only a teenage girl who wore them daily could manage.
She caught her father off guard.
"Allison!" She heard him yell as she tore away from the buses. "Allison!"
She didn't stop.
Scott didn't need to go inside the house to know his Mom wasn't home. He could hear no heartbeat from inside. What if they got to her first? What if Peter came back for her?
Without another thought he barged on into the house.
Melissa, it turned out, had taken an earlier shift at work. She'd left Scott a note on the counter telling him not to wait up, she wouldn't be home until midday tomorrow. She'd added an extra scrawl at the bottom saying she hoped he'd had fun at the formal.
He choked back a dry laugh then took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief.
She's safe. For now at least. The hospital, he thought, is probably the safest place for her to be. Too many witnesses, they wouldn't try anything there.
His house, on the other hand, wouldn't be safe for long.
Still missing his cell, Scott called his Mom from the land line and left her a message asking her to please please pick him up from Stiles' before she came home tomorrow. At least she won't be walking straight into a trap that way, he figured.
Not bothering to lock the door on his way out – it would barely slow these people down anyway – he took off running again.