2. More Bad Than Good

Dexter opened his eyes fearing what he would find. He didn't want to tell his friends and that was the worst way possible for them to find out. Now Stiles had seen the worst part of his new… condition and he would probably never stop hearing about it. Definitely not what he wanted to happen.

He was surprise at not finding anybody with him. The darkness made it difficult to register other people presences, but he was sure they were not there. Did they find the animal or whatever it was chasing them before he started to scream like a crazy person in the middle of the woods?

"Thanks a lot, guys." He muttered, leaning against a three so he could stand up. It usually took a while for him to feel one hundred percent again. "I faint and you guys leave me by myself. Very good friends…"

Dexter walked around the place, still trying to find his friends, following the path back to the abandoned car they were examining before he lost conscious. It didn't take long for him to notice it was not the same path he took early that evening. He wasn't approaching the abandoned car.

Instead, he got to the well-known root of a big tree, which meant more to him than he would like. The Nemeton was there, looking more alive than ever, even without its trunk. Around it, forming a semi-circle staring at Dexter, the boy could see form of peoples. Little by little, he managed to recognize them. Heather. Mr. Harris. All the people that were killed for the ritual sacrifices of the Darach.

Dexter couldn't react at first, deciding if he did in fact gone insane this time. That looked like the only possible answer to such an absurd situation. Those people were dead and simply couldn't be in front of him. He wasn't even near the Nemeton when he fainted, that didn't make any sense.

Things got worse when the first person fell to the ground. One by one, he saw all of the bodies collapsing, the blood flowing from their sliced necks, the metallic smell making the deaths taking over his whole mind. It was happening again. Sacrifices, deaths, magic. All around him.

All because of him.

He felt a hand pulling him behind. He turned to see the insane smile he know too well. The same Jennifer had when she killed him for the first time. He felt the blade going through his neck, cutting his skin. The blood pouring while he tried to stop the bleeding with his hand, trying to keep it from happening.

He heard a whisperer before he fell too. "It's your fault."

When Dexter woke up, he had his hands on his neck trying to stop a bleeding that didn't exist. That never existed. It startled Scott and Stiles.

"Dude, what…" Stiles stopped talking when he saw the panic in Dexter's eyes. The boy still had his hand on his neck, even though his friends had no idea why. He was breathing heavily and Scott could hear his hearting beating so fast it was about to explode. All he could do were look around, trying to make sure everything were okay. That it was all a dream. That it was not his fault.

Scott and Stiles sat next to Dexter and waited for their friend to calm down. When that happened, the questions began.

"What happened?"

"It was just… a nightmare." He said slowly, still leaning on the tree he probably fell on. "I just needed a minute to get back to reality. I'm okay now."

"I'm not talking about now, you idiot." Stiles was impatient, pushing Dexter. "Before, when you said you lied!"

"Stiles said you were not… fine." Scott tried to help, with a calmer voice than Stiles.

"Well, it wasn't a lie, it was more like an omission." Dexter was so uncomfortable with that whole conversation. "I didn't want to worry anyone, you have enough problems and…"

"Speak up, Dex!" Stiles hurried him. "I don't know if you realized it, but we are in the middle of a forest with a blue eyed monster on the loose."

"We have a red eyed monster on our side." Dexter shrugged.

"He is kind of broken, so…"

"I'm not broken." Scott defended himself, facing Stiles. "I'm just having some performance problems."

"You should had stay broken, dude." Dexter laughed with Stiles, while Scott just shook his head.

"Don't change the subject."

"You guys keep letting me." He admitted, taking a deep breath before continuing. "So, remember Deaton saying that after the sacrifices I would had a lot of energy going through my body? Apparently, that energy intensifies some other strengths related to my druid powers. One of them is my empathy. This connection with the nature and all, thanks to the sacrifice, connected me to people too."

"And what does that mean?" Scott was confused, which wasn't so unusual for him.

"It means that I can, somehow, capture the feelings of people around me. Like, if you are cold or anxious or…" He turned to Stiles. "Scared."

"So every time I have a nightmare…"

"I know exactly how you feel because I feel too."

They stayed seated for a while, processing the new information. Dexter used this time to gather some energy. He didn't know if he would need to run again.

Scott turned to his friend, opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. He looked at the ground, but suddenly asked. "So, if I'm hungry and I'm close to you…"

"I don't know, Scott. It comes and goes. Sometimes I don't feel anything and it's okay. Others I feel so much from so many people at the same time…"

"You lose control." Stiles completed. "Was that what happened now?"

"Yes."

Scott widened his eyes and pointed at Dexter. "The headphones! That is why you use them at school, right? To keep people away from your mind."

Dexter lowered his sight and nodded. "It's too many people at once, too many things to feel. It's hard enough being close to a teenager, a school full of it? The music helps sometimes, but… not always."

Stiles put his hand on Dexter's shoulder. "Well, if we are going insane, at least we do it together."

They laughed, forgetting for a few minutes where they were. Once they realized that, they almost jumped to their feet. The middle of the woods wasn't the best place for fun times between friends. At least not in Beacon Hills.

"There is something that I found and need to show you guys." Scott said and then guided them to a little cave.

"It's a coyote den."

"Werecoyote." Scott corrected him while the three of them entered the cave.

"Of course, it couldn't be something like a rat or a… bird." Dexter complained not too happy about those walls of stone that looked like were crash on top of them. "I don't like coyotes."

"Don't be annoying, Dex." Stiles said taking a coat that was on the ground. "You see this? This is Malia's. Remember, it's the same one she was wearing in the photo."

Scott got a stuffed bear that was there too and he thought about how scared and lost the girl most have felt all that time. Then he remembered something else that may scare her.

"We shouldn't be in here." He said to his friends. "She's not going to come back now. We just invaded her home. Our scent's going to be everywhere."

"If she's not going to come back here, where's she going to go?" Dexter asked, already walking towards the exit. The other two didn't move. He shook his head, frustrated.

"I don't know." Scott sighed.

"Can you track her now? You think you got her scent?" Stiles asked.

"Maybe." Scott didn't seem that sure, looking at his feet and wrinkling his forehead. "But I'm better at this when I'm a full wolf. And I'm still worried that if I do it, I won't be able to turn back."

"The door's still open." Dexter added.

Scott looked behind him, the druid still trying to make his friends leave the place. "If I can't get to Derek, we're gonna have to find someone else to help."

They stayed put for a while, searching for a solution.

"We can call your dad." Dexter suggested, staring at Stiles. "Say it's, like, a crime scene." He shrugged. It was the only idea they had.

In less than an hour, the Sherriff was on site with some of his deputies. They searched the cave, but when the men left the place, they didn't seem to carry good news.

"You're sure it was her?" He said with Malia's coat on his hand.

"I looked her right in the eyes and they glowed just like mine." Scott explained.

"But it wasn't a girl." The Sherriff scratched his head, unsure of what they were trying to say. "It was a four-legged coyote, right?"

"Well, okay. But yeah, see, that's the point that we don't exactly have figured out yet." Stiles continued.

"And if it was indeed a full moon when the accident happened, it could be caused by her transformation." Dexter said. "It could provoked everybody dying and her eating her own family."

Scott and Stiles turned to Dexter, a mix of surprise and disgust in their faces.

"Why would you say that?" Scott asked mortified.

"That was what…" Dexter looked at the Sherriff and then Stiles. "Don't blame me for speaking the truth. It can be the reason for the accident, you all know it."

Stiles shrugged. "It does make sense. They're driving, Malia starts to change, she goes out of control, the mom crashes and everybody dies..."

"Except for Malia." Scott added.

"Exactly! And then she blames herself, which is understandable, goes off running into the woods and eventually becomes trapped inside the body of a coyote." Dexter concluded with a proud smile. "See? We already know everything, just go and find her."

"That makes sense." The Sherriff said with a blank face. He had his arms crossed and shook his head. "In a Chinese folktale." He yelled.

The three of them couldn't even react to his disbelieve. He hadn't dealt with the supernatural enough to be in the same level of craziness they were at.

"Boys, this is... this is insane." He said after a few breaths. The boys looked at each other, not sure what to say for him to believe them. "I need this kept quiet. The three of you, not a word. I don't want anyone hearing about this. I especially don't want Mr. Tate hearing about this."

The man stopped talking when he realized Scott was not hearing him anymore. He was checking something behind his back and the other three followed his eyes, searching for what he was seeing. They didn't find anything.

"Scott?" The Sherriff called, trying to bring him back to the conversation.

"Sorry."

Before they could say anything else, they heard a car arriving. Mr. Tate and Agent McCall got out of the vehicle. The two persons they really didn't want to see at that point. They could still hear the man recognizing his daughter clothes and Scott's dad complaints before being able to leave.

In the next morning, they talked to the only person they knew could track a girl who became a coyote. A hunter.

"Here's where we found the den. It's right in the middle of the hiking trails." Stiles pointed to the screen of a tablet while Allison examined the device.

"Well, that could narrow it down. Coyotes travel in fixed trails." Allison explained and then turned to Scott. "But I think you're right about her not going back to the den. Coyotes don't like wolves. And they're really smart. If they don't want to be heard, they actually walk on their toes."

"Coyotes tip-toe?" Stiles asked.

Allison rolled her eyes. "They tip-toe." They heard the bell and she was already leaving while she said. "I got to go, but send me the pinned location and Dex, don't forget training this afternoon!"

"Okay." Dexter nodded and only then noticed the weird looks his friends were giving him.

"What are you training for?" Scott mouthed, since the teacher was already in class.

"Fight." Dexter replied the same way. "I will…"

He stopped when started to fell a strange itch in his nose, followed by a weird melancholia, as if he was missing someone, but didn't know who that was. There was also a big euphoria, like something incredibly good would happen as soon as class was over. He felt anxious, with butterfly on his stomach. Then embarrassed, focused, distracted, all at the same time.

It was starting again and he still didn't know how to control. He saw the teacher right in front of him, the new History teacher that already warned him about the headphones. That was not a good solution.

He tried to process all those weird thoughts, all those feelings that didn't let him know what he was feeling. What was he supposed to feel? What were they talking before all of that began? Fight? The Argents? Coyotes? He couldn't remember now.

He began to shake, trying to push all that out somehow. He didn't even noticed when Scott and Stiles left the classroom. Soon his chair started to shake with him, to his front and back, dragging it through the floor, making a huge noise. The all class turned to him and a wave of confusion took his body. He saw the teacher say something he couldn't understand. It didn't even matter at that point.

He stood up and ran out of the classroom, looking for a place away from all those people. Away from all those feelings that didn't allow him to feel anything. He was took by surprise when he felt hands pulling him. He raised his head and recognized Isaac. He was pushing him inside a room he barely saw. A closet? A classroom? He wasn't sure.

Once inside, Dexter throw his body against a wall, pressing his hands on his mouth to keep him from screaming like he did in the woods. He heard voices around him and could make Lydia and Allison in the middle of the noise. They tried to talk to him, but the boy couldn't comprehend the words. He couldn't think.

He felt when Allison and Lydia turned his body. He was looking at them, but couldn't explain what was happening. He saw when Isaac approached him and slapped him in the face. He stared the werewolf, who was flung out to the other side of the room. Dexter didn't use his arms to do that, he used his mind. His magic. How?

Allison positioned her body in front of him, trying to make him look at her. He couldn't hear her at first, couldn't register anything other than the worry she felt. Was that what she was feeling? Or was Lydia? Isaac? Another person around him? Was it him?

The voice of the girl became clearer and her image too. Dexter felt his muscles relaxing and his mind clearing. Suddenly, he didn't feel anything. Then he blacked out.

When Dexter managed to wake up again, the only other person in the room was Isaac. He looked around, trying to recognize the place. It was the music room. He didn't noticed the piano before. He didn't notice anything.

"Are you feeling better?" Isaac asked without moving.

"Yes." Dexter replied trying to stand up. He was still too dizzy to do it, so he just sat in the floor again. "How long did I…"

"Half an hour, give it or take. That is what was happening to you and you didn't tell anyone?"

"I…" Dexter scratched his head. He wasn't conscious enough to hear a sermon.

"That is too heavy for you to handle by yourself, man." Isaac shook his head. Dexter could literally fell the worry from the other. He felt guilty. "You throw me to the other side of the class, Dex, and didn't even moved. You just looked at me and I flied away. If it was one of the girls…"

"You tried to take me out of a trance with a slap in the face." Dexter gave a smirk, trying to make the situation a little better. It didn't work. "I'm sorry, really sorry. But it's not something that I can control and…"

"That is not the problem, Dexter. You lived by yourself for months at your house and told me by accident. The others only found out because the Sherriff tried to talk to you father when you were in the hospital and couldn't find anyone. Now this. You make it really hard to be your friend and I don't understand why."

He stood up and walked to Dexter. He helped the druid to his feet.

"Where are the girls?"

"Outside. A coyote was at school, attacked the new girl. The Sherriff and the police are here, Stiles is trying to talk to him right now.

"Damn it." Dexter said before running through the hallways looking for his friend. When he found him, Stiles didn't look that happy.

"Where were you?"

"Feeling all the drama of a high school comedy at once."

"Didn't you see me having a panic attack in the middle of class?" Stiles asked with disbelieve in his face.

"Then it was your fault I was having an attack in the middle of the class." Dexter said pointing with his head at Isaac, who was leaning in a wall close to where they were.

"Oh…" Stiles finally understood, nodding. "My bad, then. I will try not to have more attacks near you."

"Thank you. Did you talk to your dad?"

"Actually…" Stiles pointed behind Dexter and when the druid turned, he saw the man walking towards them. "So, do you have anything?"

"A couple of students said they saw it running across the field and back into the woods." He said walking. The boys followed him. "Thank God, nobody got hurt."

"What happens if she does hurt someone?" Stiles asked.

The Sherriff sighed, already imagining the reaction of the other two. "Most likely they'll have to put it down."

"What?!" Dexter stopped him. "That is terrible. There is a girl in there, she is just… stuck!"

"And you will kill her." Stiles reinforced the idea and was disappointed when he didn't see the reaction he wanted from his father. "Come on, you aren't back to not believing, are you?"

"I believe there are a lot of things I don't understand yet. But that doesn't mean that everything and anything imaginable is suddenly possible. Now, are you 100% sure that this is a girl and not an animal?"

"Yes!" Stiles confirm with conviction. The man still didn't buy it.

Dexter crossed his arms. "Scott is sure."

When they turned around, they saw Scott standing in the end of the hallway.

"Scott, you been listening?" Stiles asked with a lower tone and the werewolf just nodded.

The Sherriff turned from one kid to another. He didn't want to believe in all that craziness, but they seemed so sure and desperate he couldn't just ignore. He pulled his son by his arm. "All right, let's get this figured out. Come on."

They got inside the locker room, Dexter still unsure what he could do to help there. Even though he was a little more used to the supernatural, he still didn't have the experience or the nerve Stiles, who was already messing with everything, had. The boy ended up taking his own bag and showing something to the other two.

"I figured out what she was looking for." Stiles took a doll from inside of the bag.

"Are you stealing dolls now? This is very serial killerish…" Dexter laughed and, when he noticed all the cops around them, added: "But you are not a serial killer, it's just a joke…"

"Thank you for that. I just thought Scott could use it, you know, for like her scent."

Scott didn't have time to reply when they hear someone talking behind them.

"Where did you get that?" Mr. Tate said going to them and taking the doll from Stiles. "Where did you find this?" He stared at the toy at his hand and Dexter could feel the sadness coming from him. "It belonged to my daughter."

The Sherriff arrived when he learned the man was there. "Mr. Tate, I don't know how you heard about this. If you got your own police scanner or what... but you can't be here." He tried to accompany the man out, but he took a step back, startled. The Sherriff opened the man's coat and saw a gun there.

"I have a permit." He said.

"California schools are gun free zones, permit or no permit." He warned. "You need to leave, Mr. Tate." The man still tried to resist, but the Sherriff insisted, a little more strength in this voice. "Now."

He tried to accompany him again, but the man still was forcing his stay. Only when another deputy approached them the man accepted he should go. "You find that animal. You find that thing."

Dexter shuddered at the angry he felt that moment. His feelings came back to normal as Mr. Tate left the place.

"We are gonna talk to Deaton." Scott said and put a hand on Dexter's shoulders. "And this time you are going too."

x.x.x

"Xylazine." The vet said after the all situation was explained. Scott, Stiles, Dexter and Isaac were there. The man still glanced at Dexter here and there, but the boy decided to ignore it. "It's a tranquilizer for horses. For a werecoyote, expect it to work within seconds. I only have three. So whoever's shooting, needs to be a damn good shot."

"Allison's a perfect shot." Scott said.

"She used to be." Isaac reminded him. "Dexter is training, maybe he can…"

"Mr. Argent don't let me take guns, he says I'm too… anxious." Dexter gave a smirk and shrugged.

"Then we are screwed…"

"Okay, what is the point of him?" Stiles asked pointing at Isaac. "Seriously, I mean, what is his purpose? Aside from the persistent negativity and the scarf?"

Isaac was about to respond when Dexter interrupted him. "You do use a lot of scarfs and it's not even that cold…"

"Can we stop talking about my clothes?" Isaac stopped him. "Maybe I'm asking a question no one here wants to ask. How do we turn a coyote back into a girl, when she hasn't been a girl for eight years?"

Deaton turned to Scott, who was facing his feet. He rose his head before confessing. "I can do it."

"You can?" Stiles asked.

"You remember the night that Peter trapped us in the school? In the gym, he was able to make me turn using just his voice. Deucalion did the same thing in the distillery."

Deaton intervened. "This is a werecoyote, Scott. Who knows if it'll even work if you can find someone who can teach you."

"That's why you called Derek, first." Stiles said.

"Yeah, I could try it on my own. But right now, I'm too scared to even change into just a werewolf." Scott confessed, again staring at his feet.

"We need a real Alpha." Stiles said and got a bad look from all the presents. Dexter even tried to hide the laugh was forming in his face. "You know what I mean. An Alpha who can do Alpha things. You know, an Alpha who can get it going. You know, get it..."

"Please, stop." Dexter said before Stiles made things worse. He didn't want to do that, but they didn't seem to have another option. "I need to show you guys something."

He walked towards Isaac, surprised at how much the other people were actually looking at him. He closed his eyes and, when he opened, they were shinning. He said a few words the others didn't recognized and hit Isaac's head.

As soon as his hand touched the werewolf, he lost his balance, leaning on the wall behind him. He felt his instincts rising from nowhere. His claws emerged in his hands and he stared at them, scared. Soon there were hair in his face and the rest of his body. He was fully transformed and had no idea how. When Dexter hit him again, he was back to normal.

"How did you…" Scott began, getting closer to Isaac.

"There were this book at the Argents and I read how to do it. I haven't tried it yet, but it worked, so…"

"You tested on me?" Isaac said, still leaning at the wall. Dexter didn't need empathy to know how angry he was. "Are you insane?"

"I needed to know if I could do it, especially if I'm doing it to a coyote that can eat my entire arm!" Dexter explained himself, even though he could understand why Isaac would be mad. "You were the only person I could test on."

"Tell me the next time!" Isaac was finally able to stand up. "It's settled them. Allison shoot, Dexter turns…"

"Scott helps me to get close enough to touch her." Dexter completed, irony evolved in every word. "With a plan like that, what could go wrong?"

They decided that hunting a coyote should be an activity for the entire pack, so when they gather in the woods, Scott, Stiles, Dexter, Allison, Lydia and Isaac were there, despite the fact half of them had nothing to do in the matter.

Dexter wasn't at all confident or happy about chasing a coyote and touch its head. Much less using magic. But he had to do it, he wasn't capable of just abandoning the girl.

They all knew what they were supposed to do, but neither was particularly excited about it. Lydia were the one to finally state the obvious. "Anyone else think we might be doing more harm than good?"

"We're trying to keep a father from killing his own daughter." Scott said.

"Actually, we're trying to keep a guy from killing a coyote who is actually his daughter, for an unexperienced druid who is scared of magic try to transform her back to a girl by touching her forehead." Isaac cleared it up, receiving a thank you smile from Dexter.

"And again with the not helping." Stiles said, throwing his arm around Dexter shoulder. "You will do it; you are the best teenager druid I know."

"Shut up, Stiles." Dexter rolled his eyes. He really didn't want to be there.

"But he is right." Scott said, trying to appear surer of it. He turned to Allison. "Did you bring it?"

She opened the trunk and took the gigantic weapon. She seemed as excited as Dexter with all of that, which was really saying something. When they heard shots, they knew they didn't have much time.

They ran, trying to get to the coyote before it got killed. Allison and Isaac were on foot while Scott and Dexter were in the werewolf's bike. They continued until Scott heard a scream and Dexter felt such a pain he could barely breathe.

The bike fell and the two of them with it. When they were able to stand and look, the coyote was there, staring at them, waiting for them to react. The two started to run but, before they could reach the animal, they heard a click. Both knew what it was and stopped. Scott was stuck in one of the traps scattered through the place, just like the one that made Isaac scream.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it" Dexter yelled walking around Scott, trying to find a way to take him out of there.

"You need to go!" Scott said. "Save Malia, turn her and…"

"Shut up, Scott, I'm not leaving you here."

"Dexter, Malia…"

"I don't care about Malia, Scott!" He yelled. "I can't do it, I can't be the greatest hero of the universe like you do. I'm selfish and scared and…"

"Turn me." Scott said and that made Dexter stop.

"Say that again."

"If you turn me, I can get out of here." Scott explained. "You say you are selfish and scared, but I don't think that is truth. But if you think I need to show you a little bravery, I can do it."

Dexter shook his head, still walking around his friend. "It must be something…"

"We don't have time."

"Even if I could, I'm anxious, you guys are affecting me and…"

"Dexter!" Scott yelled now. "Focus and do it. Slap my head and find Malia."

Dexter stopped walking again and took a deep breath. He wanted to find what he was really feeling in the middle of all the thoughts and feelings in his head. He decided maybe the best way wasn't to search for his own, but choose what he needed. Bravery. Courage. Heroism. That's what he was feeling.

He hit Scott forehead, his eyes shining, but he didn't stay enough to see the results of it. He turned around and ran, faster than he knew he could, his powers rising at every step he took. He saw the coyote and faced it. When the coyote decided to attack him, he stroked back.

They ran towards each other and the second Dexter touched it, it transformed. Malia landed on the ground, naked, scared, confused. She looked at Dexter and a turned Scott that was getting close. Then she looked around. They saved her. She was human again.