The streets are empty. There're two really good reasons for that, no matter how different they might be.

The first one is danger. If the city is dangerous during the daytime, it's deathly on the night; in the center, there're soldiers walking around, ready to shoot anyone who doesn't wear uniforms with government's patch on them.
And, on the edges of the city, are the Slums and the forests.

Slums seem often empty for a bare eye, but if you know what to search for, you can find traces of living there.
People don't go to the Slums, no matter what.

And in the forests... In the forests live the Omegas.
Most of them are completely harmless, just werewolves that have decided to wash their hands out of the government's dirty laundry - but some of them are just hollowed shells, rapid beasts with kill-drive.

Going out after the sunset is a Russian roulette - claws or gun.

The second reason is the curfew. The curfew closed few hours ago and disobedience just draws special kind of attention towards you and your family.

Understandingly, no one's out after the sun sets. No one's stupid or suicidal enough to be.

Except for the 'ghosts' - the human equals to Omegas.

They're the ones that have gone missing, those whose whole existence is a big question mark. Ghosts have nothing to lose. Their families have either died or disappeared, their identity and basics rights have been taken away. They have nothing left to protect and therefore they have no reason to feign loyalty to the Alpha or stay enslaved in their racist society. They're just shadows of the human-beings they once were.

Stiles Stilinski is one of the ghosts. He became one when he was just few months away from filling thirteen, year after Peter Hale took over. Peter Hale is one of the weres, the head of the 'Full Moon' - and not the kind of person you want to meet on the dark alleyway. Especially if you're human, because, simply put, Peter hates humans. When his government replaced the old one, human-authorities were hunted. No matter if you were a politician or a police-officer, teacher or a cashier. You were put to a test, and if you failed, you were put to prison. If you passed and you were lucky, you could keep your job - under surveillance, of course.

Stiles's father fled. He was the member of the Old World and if he was put to the tests, there was no way he would pass. Not with his record and not with werewolves sensing it when you lie.
He put Stiles, his only child, to live with the McCalls, old family-friends, and left with heavy heart. Most parents didn't have any other option than leave their children behind and hope that they would be safer that way.

Stiles was, understandably, grilled for the whereabouts or any hints to help them track his father but he was bright kid. He wasn't sheriff's son for nothing. He played dumb and after few hours when he gave them nothing but confused glances and stupid questions irrelevant to the situation, they let him get back to his new family.

They continued living normal lives with his best friend Scott, Scott's mother taking care of him like he was one of her own. He held great respect and affection towards Melissa McCall, for taking him under her wing like she did - not every person would take a hungry mouth under their roof on the time of civil war. He showed his gratitude by doing house-chores and making dinner almost every day.
It hadn't been easy for the woman to keep her job, and the income wasn't exactly enormous compared her working-hours.

He tried to live under the radar, behave nicely at school - even though Mr. Harris seemed to have problems with his face and he spent almost every afternoon on the stupid class with the stupid teacher when all the stupid children got to their stupid homes where their stupid parents waited for them while he was sitting some stupid detention - and just... Being as invisible as possible.
Scott was with him on this plan; neither of them wanted to cause any trouble to Melissa.

But Stiles was an energetic kid and it was inevitable that he got anxious and restless at school after a few first weeks, his patience wearing thinner and thinner with Mr. Harris and the sheer normalcy.
He had no one to complain to, nowhere to escape.

One day Melissa knocked on his door, stepping inside. She looked tired but happy, calling him quietly.
She had received a letter from his father.

That was the first time Stiles cried after being left on McCall's, relieve for his father being alive washing over him in the form of tearing sobs.

And he kept on fighting, kept himself under check and didn't draw any attention to himself.
For his dad.

But even with his father's memory burning inside him, it took only three months.

Three months he grit his teeth and went on with the dull everyday-life until one day Stiles heard about the Grimms.
It was, and is, an underground-project moving children and adults from the war-zone to safety, to the neutral land.

After few weeks of investigating the group, he got to know his father was part of that movement. That's when Stiles decided he had had enough of this crap: if his father was still endangering his life in daily basis to help others, he wasn't going to just fiddle his thumbs.

He started to dig around, discreetly getting to know about the cell that was working in Beacon Hills, collecting information and knowledge. He started to run small errands to prove his trustworthiness, slowly getting to know better and better the ones working with the Grimms. He got to know the 'big factors', slipping out at night and around the town.
And after a while changing messages with Coach, he finally got the permission to join.

When everything was ready, he thanked Ms. McCall for everything, said goodbyes to Scott and next day skipped school and went underground. It was just as easy as it sounded. Disappearing in a wreck of a city like this is hardly a challenge.

And so his life as a ghost started.

He's still, after almost four years, a person of interest. He finds it hilarious. Shouldn't they think he's dead by now?

His family is practically non-existent; when his father fled and disappeared, he was announced dead to the public. Honestly, he's on the other side of the country, helping people cross border to the no-man's land away from the danger. But it's not like authorities know any better.

And Stiles's mother is dead - murdered, actually.

His mother was a politician. When population got to know that werewolves are existing creatures, the world as they knew it rumbled down in just few years. The existence of new race was raised to be a political issue: do humans have the right to lock down bunch of creatures just because of their race? Some thought that yes, we have. Hunters came from all around the world to discuss the matter, new laws were born and to put it mildly, werewolves weren't pleased with them. Fear against the unknown made the predators preys and so werewolves were taken their rights away.

After a disastrous shooting in one of the biggest meetings and the burn of the Hale House, the situation escalated quickly: Wolf's Bane and Full Moon stood their ground furiously and the hopes of peace shattered.
Old World lost its footing and in a blink of an eye, the whole country had divided to three areas.

Those areas were, and still are, controlled by three different political parties: there is the 'Wolf's Bane', who believes that werewolves are nothing but parasites, animals that have to be captured or put down for they pose only danger to society. The old clan of hunters, the Argents, are head of this party, Gerard Argent as the leader.

Then there is 'Full Moon', who deems that humans are weak and easily intimidated and so werewolves should take over. Most of the werewolves were angry and afraid enough to join this party when the issue was pressuring the whole country, the leaders of it changing rapidly; when you put bunch of insecure and scared Alphas in a small town, there is fights between the packs in daily basis. The pack-dynamics are still unstable with the rush of changes.
When the putsch happened, Peter Hale was on the lead and he still has irony grip over his position.

And then there was 'Old World', the smallest of the parties. Somehow it always seems like the people with a message of peace are the ones to be shut down the quickest. Old World thought that things had been good enough before, that there was no reason to start a race-war between werewolves and humans. Hales and Stilinskis were maybe the biggest names in these circles but there wasn't really a leader here. Their group was calm and collected enough to work with democracy, something that the two other parties missed. When the country split up, the Old World followed its lead.

He doesn't like to talk about his mother or what happened. When someone asks, he just shrugs and tells that his mother is the reason why he and his father are still fighting, why they're giving a hand to those who need it. That's all he says on the matter before he starts babbling, effectively distracting his chat-buddy from the subject.

He's good at that.

His mother is also the reason why he's standing in the middle of the silent city. His lower face is covered with muzzle-like mask, hood of his hoodie pulled over his head to hide his identity. He has been one of the Grimms for three years now and they have all adopted aliases.

The Grimms changed from the simple 'get-people-out-of-here' to a more complicated type; they help the other ghosts that live in the Slums, give food and other supplies to the families that have lost their jobs and can't afford living.
And every now and then - more 'now' than 'then', really -, they sabotage werewolves' operations.

Most say they're insane, that their whole little group is completely nuts. That they're fighting a long-lost battle and few civil-movements are doing no difference.
Stiles just snorts when he hears that. Mostly because it's bullshit and partly because he has always thought he was a little bit insane anyway. He has all the right reasons to keep fighting, and if that makes him nutcase…

So be it.

#

Orange-ish brown eyes scan the shadows between the buildings, the boy - he's only sixteen - swinging the slightly blood-stained bat lazily on his side.
Like a clockwork to give him the feeling that time is actually moving on.

On a life-style like his, time tends to disappear. Is only fear, stress, relieve, days after days after days full of hiding and running. When you lose the illusion of time, you start to appreciate it.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock says the clock… Not that he owns a clock anymore. Or okay, he does own a clock, it just isn't a working one. It broke when an asshole tried to chomp his hand off - not a pleasurable experience.
Actually it was very, very nasty experience because Danny had to stitch him up while he was still fighting off the aftershock. And tears. And puke.
Not that he managed to actually fight any of them off, but whatever.

And fuck everyone, he was barely thirteen at the time, he had just found the Grimms and usually when big blood-thirsty were-creature tries to gnaw your hand off and almost handicaps you on an evening-walk, it tends to upset you and your stomach.

… He's not proud about that day.

And now, he's waiting for someone - or maybe more like something, but he has always been more comfortable with viewing werewolves on the he-she-factor - with broken watch on his wrist and he's deeply regretting his decision not to get a new one.
He sighs, his foot tapping on the ground impatiently, his gaze sliding around. He's constantly failing on his attempts to stop moving or focus on his surroundings, but his thoughts are like quicksilver.

Adderall must be wearing off.

Suddenly the shadows on the corner of his eye move. He turns around quicker than than a person normally could, his whole body taut and ready to fight or flee. At the very second his and his opponent's eyes meet, he relaxes, letting his other hand slip off the bat where it had moved to grip it.
That deep-red glare would be more than enough to scare the shit out of him if he didn't know their owner.

"Yo. You really took your time today. Problems in the weredise?" he asks, flopping down to sit on the cold concrete. The wolf, the werewolf, rolls her eyes and walks with elegant steps the few meters still parting them. She headbutts the teen's chest affectionately and Stiles threads his fingers through the thick fur on the wolf's neck.

"Hey. Missed you too." he says softly, the heat radiating off from the wolf to his slightly numb fingers. She lets out content hum, already busy with scent-marking him, rubbing her head against the boy's hoodie and practically sitting on his lap. It doesn't sound problematic and it really isn't; for a wolf, she's suprisingly sleek and small.

"Yeah, yeah, I know you love me, but... Ugh, man, you weight a ton, you know that?" he earns a growl, and he chuckles "Okay, whatever. Not gonna poke on the sensitive area of weight anymore. You're such a-" another warning growl, a playful edge on it and Stiles cuts himself off, grinning widely.

"Alright, alright. Do you have the blueprints? It's not safe in here"

The wolf huffs, forcing her snout in from the neckline of Stiles's hoodie and breathing the boy's scent in, her breath warm on his skin. He giggles a – very manly, thank you very much - giggle, before swatting her playfully.

"Don't 'huff' at me! I'm the great, amazing Stiles 'Slinky' Stilinski! They've got nothin' on me!" he exclaims and the wolf pulls her head back, giving the teen unimpressed look.
Huh, who knew wolves could be so good at giving negative expressions? Or maybe that's something only Stiles can make them master.

He should feel special.

He pats her head, grinning behind the mask.

"Don't give me that look, I'm serious. Too bad you can't see how serious I'm being, but I am. Being. Very, very serious. Look at these serious eyebrows" he frowns with a deep concentration and the wolf just huffs again, her look getting, if possible, even more unimpressed.

That, people, is a very impressing look on a wolf.

"Nah, but I've got a point here, even thought my eyebrows aren't made for it. A point even your expressiveness and amazing alpha-eyes can't deny. I'm just a little boy on a run; if they get me, and that's a big-ass if, the worst that can happen is that they imprison me. Or throw me back to school. I can't even decide which one is worse, I mean dude, do you know the shit they teach us? It's unbelievable. You should have been there few years ago it was-"
She pokes him with her muzzle "Oh yeah, sorry. And you, in the other hand, they'll tear you to shreds. And I'm not a professional shredder or anything, but usually getting torn to shreds equals death. Believe me, your insides work way better when they're insides and not outsides, you get what I'm meaning? So the final result is that this is way more dangerous to your furry self than to me", he says, scratching the behind of her ear.

" I've got enough stuff to fight for, Laur, that's a party I don't want you to take a part to" Laura pushes against his hand, and Stiles sighs.
"It's a party you don't want to attend. It's like, the lamest party ever. You girl, you are such a party-queen, queen of parties, that you deserve much better parties that aren't so wholly beneath you. There's not even Cheetos anymore, thanks to one asshole and if that doesn't ruin a party, I don't know what does. So let's not take part on stupid parties, okay?" he mutters, knowing he probably doesn't even make any sense and the wolf sighs.

"Yeah, I don't even know myself", he chuckles, then pushing the wolf so that she has to move, although she does it very reluctantly. "Now, those blueprints. Lead the way, Gollum", he says with a wide grin, getting up and Laura gives him slightly condemning look.

"Well?"

She sighs, shaking her head a little before turning around and heading to the way she came from. She's not going to wait for him and Stiles picks up his bat quickly, jogging after her.

Alphas.