A/N: Well, here it is! The beginning of a brand new series! While some of you may not be fans of the show, I hope you're enough of a fan of me to read, or to recommend it to friends who do like the show.

There will be a new chapter out every Wednesday - with the exception of the first two chapters - so mark your calendars!

Please let me know what you think, and remember I love you all!

Neris Sangster was a bit different.

Not in the way most teenagers see themselves, so misunderstood and alternative that no one could possibly understand them.

No, she was different in the sense that she wasn't entirely human.

Her condition, one she inherited from her mother, was the reason she and her mother moved around a lot. It was better to keep moving, not put down any roots. That way people were less likely to get hurt.

Like most of her kind, Neris was named after a body of water. The Neris River in Belarus was her namesake, her mother's being the Gulf of Riga.

It was because of her mother that they were moving back to Beacon Hills. She was friends with the veterinarian of the small town. He, knowing what we were, wanted us there to keep an eye on what he called 'the brink of something'. He employed Neris part time in his office to keep her close to the information.

She was only a freshman when she returned to Beacon Hills. She wasn't sure how many people would remember her. She was only five when she and her mom left. But she managed to get two really great guy friends: Stiles Stilinski and Scott McCall. She remembered Stiles from elementary school. He was pretty bouncy back in those days, and not much had changed since then.

She kept her distance romantically from all the guys at school, even though she had a giant crush on Isaac Lahey. It wouldn't have mattered though, since he and every other guy in school was fawning over Lydia Martin.

Neris, with her weird name, abnormally silvery-gold hair that reached the base of her shoulder blades and gray eyes with a purple ring around her iris, wasn't exactly attracting many boys.

But that was okay. That's how she preferred it. It was safer that way.

She just hoped she'd never have to tell her friends what she was.

/

Neris was sprawled on her bed, writing in her journal, the night before sophomore year started when she heard a soft knock on the French doors that led to her personal balcony. Huffing, she got out of her bed and walked over to them, flinging them open to find the face of one of her best friends.

"Stiles, you know you can use the front door. My mom doesn't care if you come over late."

"Yeah, I know, but I have sensitive information not fit for the ears of parents." He said gleefully.

"You've been eavesdropping on police calls again, haven't you?" She smirked.

"Yup." He popped the 'p'. "They're bringing in every officer from the Beacon department, and even state police."

"For…?" Neris asked, drawing out the word.

"Two joggers found a body in the woods."

"Oh no," Neris held out a wagging finger, shaking her head to emphasize her disapproval. "I am not going out this late to look at a body."

"Half of a body." Stiles corrected.

"What?"

"They only found half of a body."

"All the more reason to not go."

"Oh, come on Neris." Stiles flung up his hands. "It'll be cool."

"It'll be cold. And I, for one, don't want to turn up at school tomorrow looking like I stayed up all night. You might be able to talk Scott into doing this, but not me." She chuckled.

"You'll be sorry when we have cool stories tomorrow," Stiles warned jokingly.

Neris rolled her eyes, closing the door on her friend as he climbed down the rose trellis next to the balcony.

/

The next morning, Neris drove to school and parked as close to the school as she could, not wanting to fight for the 'prize' spots in the very front of the parking lot. Tossing her backpack over her shoulder, she made her way up to her friends.

"So, did I actually miss anything last night?" She asked, flicking her braid behind her.

"Scott got bit by something," Stiles said, Scott responding by lifting up his shirt to show the bandaged area.

"Gross," Neris wrinkled her nose.

"I think it was a wolf," Scott commented.

"There haven't been wolves in California for years," Neris responded.

"That's what I said!" Stiles exclaimed.

"Well if you guys don't believe me about the wolf, then you're definitely not going to believe me about when I tell you I found the body." Scott informed his friends.

"Are you kidding me?" Stiles questioned excitedly.

"No, I wish. I'm going to have nightmares for a month."

"That is frickin' awesome," Stiles said, turning towards Neris. "I told you you'd be sorry."

Neris wrinkled her face in incredulity, "You didn't see it either, dumbass."

"Whatever," he snorted. "This is seriously going to be the best thing that's happened to this town since – since the birth of Lydia Martin." Stiles watched eagerly as Lydia walked by, surrounded by her friends. "Hey Lydia, you look – like you're gonna ignore me." Stiles shook his head, turning back to Scott. "You're the cause of this, you know."

"Uh huh."

"Dragging me down to your nerd depths."

"Uh huh."

We walked into the building as the first bell rang. Stiles wasn't giving up, however.

"I'm a nerd by association," he continued. "I've been Scarlet Nerd-ed by you."

"Okay Stiles, give it up." Neris said, patting her friend soothingly on his shoulder.

/

"As you all know," their English teacher said as he scrawled on the chalkboard. "There indeed was a body found in the woods last night."

Scott glanced over to his two friends, Stiles sitting behind Neris. The three smirked knowingly at each other.

"And I am sure your eager little minds are coming up with various macabre scenarios to what happened." The teacher went on. "But I am here to tell you that the police have a suspect in custody."

Neris leaned her head back, resting it on Stiles' desk to catch his expression. His mouth was hanging open unattractively. He noticed Scott and Neris looking at him and he raised his hands in an 'I don't know' gesture.

"Which means," the teacher wouldn't stop talking, "you can give you undivided attention to the syllabus which is on your desk outlining this semester."

The students groaned collectively as they picked up the stapled sheets of paper. Stiles gently thwapped Neris' forehead to get her to raise her head; she had been resting it on his syllabus. As she lifted her head she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Scott flinch as if someone had crashed cymbals right beside his ears. His head darted around before his gaze settled on something outside the windows. Neris followed his gaze and saw a girl with dark curly hair sitting on a bench outside. She was talking on a cellphone and rummaging round in her backpack. Neris looked back at Scott, who appeared as if he was listening to her conversation.

The girl and the vice principal walked in the room. "Class, this is our new student, Allison Argent," he introduced her. "Please do your best to make her feel welcome."

Allison walked over and sat in the desk behind Scott. He grabbed his pen off his desk and handed it to her. She looked at it oddly before smiling and taking it, saying "thanks" moments before the teacher started talking again.

Scott turned around and Neris caught his eye. She made a face as if to say 'what was that about?' Scott merely gave a small smirk and a shrug in reply.

Okay, she thought. That was weird.

/

"Can someone tell me how new girl is here all of five minutes and she's already hanging out with Lydia's clique?" Sarah, a pretty African-American girl, asked as she, Stiles, Neris and Scott crowded around Scott's locker.

Allison's locker was across the hall, and she was currently talking and laughing with Lydia and Jackson, Lydia's superstar boyfriend. Even though he was a royal douchebag, not even Neris could deny that he was attractive.

"Because she's hot," Stiles answered. Neris and Sarah gave him a look of disbelief. "Beautiful people herd together."

"No, that's not true. Different kinds of people can hang out together." Sarah protested.

"In high school?" Stiles rebutted. "Name one, name one instance where that's true."

"Uh, hello. I hang out with you and Scott." Neris replied, smirking.

"Yeah, and Neris is hot." Sarah added.

"Weird hot," Neris corrected.

"You're not weird," Stiles started.

"Don't finish it by telling me I'm unique. That's what parents tell their kids as a euphemism for weird."

"True," Stiles conceded. "But you are hot, like that chick from Game of Thrones."

"Danearys Targaryan?"

"Yeah, like her."

"Yeah, except I don't have dragons."

"That would be cool."

"That would be cool."

Stiles looked over at Scott, whose eyes hadn't left Allison. "Yo, Romeo. Come on, we have Lacrosse."

Scott shook his head as if to clear it, "What? Oh, yeah. Let's go."

The three left Sarah to her own devices and headed to the Lacrosse field. While the boys changed in the locker room, Neris perched on the bleachers. She saw Lydia and Allison sitting in one of the sections, and on a whim Neris got up and walked over to them.

"You're Allison, right?" Neris asked as she sat by the raven haired girl. "I'm in your English class."

"Oh yeah, I remember you. Yeah, I'm Allison," she stuck out her hand.

"Neris," she replied, taking the other girl's hand and shaking it. She leaned forward to see the third girl. "Hi Lydia."

"Hi Neris," she responded, giving a small smile.

It wasn't that Lydia disliked Neris, it was that she didn't particularly like her. Since freshman year, Neris had grown into herself. Her pale hair and eyes were a bit off-putting for some, but a majority of the guys at the school found her to be the 'freaky hot girl'. Not someone they would date, but she often caught them staring. And while she sometimes found the side glances flattering, she mostly found it disappointing. Even though she didn't particularly want to date, she would've at least liked someone treating her as something other than a side-show attraction.

"Who is that?" Allison asked just as Scott took the goal position.

"Him?" Lydia asked. "I'm not sure who he is. Why?"

"He's in my English class. Wait," she turned to Neris, "you're in my English class."

Neris laughed. "I am. He's Scott."

"Does he…" she trailed off.

"He's completely unattached." Neris grinned at the girl, who was unable to hide her smile.

One of the referees blew his whistle, and Scott clutched his head and doubled over in pain.

"The hell?" Neris questioned softly, wondering why her friend was acting so erratically.

The first shot hit Scott directly in the head, knocking him on his back. Neris grimaced at the contact. Scott got up and brushed himself off, miraculously catching the next shot. And the next. And the next. And the next.

"He seems like he's really good." Allison commented.

"Very good." Lydia agreed.

"Weirdly good," Neris finished.

Jackson pushed his way to the front of the line, causing Neris to internally say 'oh shit'. However, Scott was even able to catch Jackson's shot, causing Lydia at stand up and cheer and Jackson to pout. Neris bounded out of the bleachers and up to Stiles, who was telling everyone loudly that Scott was his friend.

"How is he doing this?" Neris said, smiling as everyone cheered for Scott.

"I don't know, but it's cool!" Stiles replied.

/

The two boys managed to convince Neris to go to the woods with them to rediscover the half of the body that Scott found. She wasn't too keen on getting her new boots dirty, but she felt like she owed them after bailing the previous night.

"So how in the world were you able to block all those shots?" Neris asked as she narrowly avoided getting smacked in the face by a low laying tree branch.

"I don't know what it was." Scott said as the trio crossed the stream. "It was like... I had all the time in the world to catch the ball. And that's not the only weird thing." He said, ducking under the same tree branch and turning to face the two of them. "I can hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things."

"Smell things? Like what?" Stiles asked dubiously.

"Like the Mint Mojito gum in your pocket."

"I don't even have any Mint Mojito…" Stiles trailed off as he pulled out a squished, green piece of gum from his pocket.

Scott lifted his arms, in an 'I told you so manner', and looked at Neris. "And that lip gloss you put on is pineapple flavored."

"Okay, how did you do that?" Neris asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know! I just... did," Scott explained.

"So all of this started with a bite?" Stiles asked, as he stuffed the piece of gum back into his pocket.

"What if it's like an infection and my body is flooding with adrenaline before I go into shock or something?" Scott questioned worriedly.

"I'm not an expert, but I don't think that's how infections work." Neris replied, stepping over a tree branch as she tried to keep up with the two.

"You know what? I actually think I've heard of this. It's a specific kind of infection." Scott stopped walking and looked at Stiles with a pained expression.

"Are you serious?" Scott asked, obviously worried.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think it's called..."Stiles sighed dramatically, "Lycanthropy."

Neris snorted, turning away slightly to stop more laughs from coming out.

"What's that? Is it bad?" Scott asked with panic in his voice.

"Oh yea, it's the worst. But only once a month." Neris explained, trying to keep her voice as causal as possible. Scott was many things, but knowing random facts was not his strong suit.

"Once a month…?" Scott asked in confusion. "What, like a girl?"

"Mm-hmm. On the night of the full moon." Stiles made a soft, fake howl. Scott shook his head and pushed Stiles, who let out a laugh.

"Hey, you were the one you said you heard a wolf howling." Stiles said, raising his arms in defense.

"There could be something seriously wrong with me, guys!" Scott was exasperated.

"I know! You're a werewolf!" Stiles said, making claws with his hands and mock growling. Scott simply glared at him in anger. "Okay! Obviously I'm kidding," Stiles apologized. "But if you see me in shop class trying to melt all the silver I can find, it's cause Friday's a full moon."

"Naw, it's okay. We can just chain Scott up in my backyard." Neris laughed as the trio slowed to a stop. "We can even get him one of those studded dog collars."

"No, I could have sworn this was it." Scott said, pointing to the ground where they had stopped. "I saw the body, the deer came running...I dropped my inhaler." He said, bending down and pushing a few leaves away.

"The killer probably moved the body." Stiles postulated.

"If he did, I hope he left my inhaler; those things are like eighty bucks." Scott complained, sifting through more leaves.

Neris played with the edge of her braid as Scott kept looking. Stiles' eye was caught by something and he knocked the back on his hand lightly against Neris' stomach before tapping Scott on the back, directing their attention to something behind them. Standing a few feet away from them was a tall, muscular man with a pale complexion dressed in all black.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, walking toward the trio. "Huh? This is private property." He spat out.

"Uh, sorry dude. We didn't know." Neris apologized.

"Yeah. We were just looking for something, but…" Scott trailed off. The stranger raised his eyebrows impatiently. "Forget it."

The stranger reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and it to Scott, who caught it. He looked at his hand and realized it was his inhaler. Neris stared at the man with a slight unease, and she could only assume her friends were doing the same. The man turned around and stalked off.

"Alright, come on, guys, I gotta get to work." Scott said lowly, wanting to get out of the woods.

Stiles raised a hand to stop Scott. "Dude, that was Derek Hale. You guys remember him right? He's only like a few years older than us."

"Remember what?" Scott was confused.

"What happened to his family." Neris answered. "Come on, Scott. You've been here longer than I have, and even I know that."

"They all burnt to death in a fire, like, ten years ago." Stiles nodded.

"I wonder what he's doing back…" Scott pondered out loud.

Neris made a small noise of disapproval, and Stiles just scoffed.

"Come on," Stiles said, walking back the way they had come.