Agent McCall wasn't going to get away with having a teenage girl live in his house without sending her to some kind of school event without Melissa getting on his case about it. The only reasonable solution was to send her to school under the protection of Scott and Stiles. Melissa was a little uncomfortable with the thought, but she was always assured by Scott whenever the subject came up. No one could really blame poor Melissa for not feeling comfortable with the situation, especially since she still didn't even know the girl's name. Agent McCall refused to tell Melissa her name and always referred to Arielle as "her".
During the hours of school at Beacon Hill High School, Arielle never went anywhere that wasn't beside either Scott or Stiles. She feared different colored eyes staring at her as she walked down the hallway. She didn't want people to assume things about her just because she didn't say anything to anyone else except the two boys who stood protectively on either side of her.
The lunch rush scared Arielle even more than she could have ever imagined. There were so many students piled one on top of the other trying to push past each other like it was a desert storm. Once she entered the large social space, she felt slightly overwhelmed. Scott pointed to a table full of other girls with perfectly curled hair and smooth skin with beautiful eyes and expensive looking clothes. Arielle stepped back and hid behind Stiles for comfort.
"Hey," Stiles said, placing his hand on her back, "It's okay."
"These are just our friends," Scott said.
"But I don't know them," Arielle protested quietly.
"You didn't know us as of Saturday," Stiles suggested.
Arielle looked between him and Scott, then nodded and stared at the floor as they walked towards the table.
"Hey guys," Allison waved.
"Hey," Scott said, taking a seat next to Kira and kissing her cheek, "How did that history assignment go for you this weekend?"
Kira shrugged, "More or less a breeze," she bragged.
"That's what happens when your dad teaches the class," Stiles teased.
The asian girl chuckled and moved her torso forward only to catch a glimpse of the girl hiding her face behind thick locks of straight black hair with an innocent and light air about her.
"Who is this?" Kira asked.
Lydia and Allison looked away from each other at the shy girl, causing Arielle to sink back further into her seat.
"Lydia, Allison, Kira," Scott said, "This is Arielle."
Arielle picked her hand up slightly, then twitched her fingers while looking above at them.
"Like the mermaid princess story," Lydia nodded.
"You see!" Stiles pointed aggressively at Lydia, "I told you!"
Scott laughed, "She's staying at my house for a few days until her guardian can pick her up from Arizona."
"Wow," Kira said, widening her eyes, "So you're from Arizona. What brings you here?"
Arielle brushed a lock of her hair away from her face, "Agent McCall is my probation officer."
Kira nodded awkwardly, "Oh..."
"Don't be frightened," Arielle said comfortingly, "I never mean to be scary. It's just a few things from my past that are a little scratchy, that's all."
There was uncomfortable silence which followed that comment. She seemed so calm and okay with the last phrase she said, which slightly scared the other girls. They sat back in their chairs and began to eat their sandwiches with precision and delicacy. Arielle watched how un-seemingly perfect they were. It was like they weren't even real people, almost.
"So..." Scott said, patting his fingers on the table, "Arielle... how would you like to hang out with the girls sometime? It might be fun to hang out with your own kind for a while."
Arielle tensed up and scooted closer towards Scott and looking over at Stiles who was watching her as if she was a glass doll that could break if it wasn't placed in the right position.
"That's okay," she insisted, "I feel much better with the two of you by my side..."
Stiles shrugged as if he wasn't going to argue with her, and Scott couldn't argue with his best friend, no matter how hard he tried. The girls all glared at each other, as if there had to be something wrong with one of them to make another girl prefer the boys over the three of them. Stiles looked at them and mouthed the word "shy" under his head when Arielle wasn't looking. They nodded after him and continued to eat.
Towards the end of the day, Scott had given Arielle the unfortunate news that he and Stiles had lacrosse practice and she had to be on her own for a little bit until they came back. Instead of wandering around the school or sitting in the library and doing new school work, she waited outside of the boys locker room and stared at the wall in front of her, imaging whatever she wanted. As she began to get lost in her own findings inside her mind, a group of boys approached her with their lacrosse sticks over their shoulders.
"Hey," one of them said, "Look who it is."
"I know you," the other one grinned, "The new girl. What are you doing outside the boys locker room?"
"Waiting for someone," Arielle replied under her breath, but the boys couldn't hear her, so they chuckled in response.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," the first one said smoothly, "I couldn't quite hear you."
Arielle lifted her head so she was looking at each boy rather than at the floor, "I am waiting for someone."
"Ooh," the second boy said happily, "Am I that lucky someone? I'd sure like to be."
"Sorry," she shrugged, "No."
"That's too bad," the second boy said, patting the back of the first boy, "Maybe my buddy here is the one."
"I highly doubt that," she protested.
"Are you sure?" the same boy asked, "Why don't you take a better look?"
The first boy slowly approached Arielle with a look of lust in his eyes as they grew wider and wider.
"No, it's okay," she said, pressing her hand against his chest as he gradually got closer to her.
"Maybe you need a little stimulation to help you remember," the first boy said, placing his hand on her waist.
"I mean it," she said sternly, "Please, get off me."
He whispered into her ear, "No."
Arielle didn't know how to defend herself this way. This was more different than anything she had ever experienced in her entire life. She had never felt so unsafe in her entire life, and now all she wanted to do was sink down onto the floor and disappear forever. There was nothing in the world quite like this fear, now she wished she hadn't left the lake, or Arizona, at all. All she wanted was for someone to see reason.
"Arielle?" a soft voice called from a distance, then she heard several footsteps and the voice grew louder, "Arielle!?"
"Stiles?" she breathed.
The first boy turned around and saw Stiles standing there like a scared fish out of water.
"Stilinski, this is yours?" he asked, his eyes squinting in disbelief.
"That's a girl," Stiles said proudly, "and I suggest you listen to her when she says no, you little perv."
She could feel the anger and fright boiling up in my stomach, like a ticking time bomb that was growing more and more powerful as each second ticked on by. Any moment now that bomb would burst and disaster would be splattered all over the walls and on the floor. That's when the pipe burst and water came falling from the ceiling and onto the ground, causing the dusty brown walls to turn dark brown as the water hit the surface.
"What the hell?" the second boy asked.
The boys looked at each other, then pushed past Arielle into the door to the locker room. Stiles was still standing there, and he didn't move.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She didn't move. The pipe bursting didn't phase her. She just watched as the water fell from the metal tube onto the floor. Her heart rate was getting quicker and faster. There was something dangerous happening to her, she could feel it in her gut, as if it was being stabbed and forced to burst open just like the pipes. It was almost unbearable. Arielle threw her hands into her hair as if to keep her brain from exploding. Her breathing was accelerating.
"I-I can't," she whispered, "I thought I could do it..."
Just then, she bolted down the hallway in a full on sprint with Stiles just on her tail, calling after her and begging to talk with her. Eventually he chased her to an empty hallway in the school where she sat there on the floor against some lockers with her eyes closed and her head facing the ceiling.
"What's wrong?" he asked, taking a seat next to her, "I know those guys are jerks... and they shouldn't have touched you. I'm sorry."
"That's not what I ran from," she shook her head, then looked at Stiles.
"Then what?" he said, tilting his head slightly to look dead into her eyes.
"I have a secret," she whispered, "but you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?"
Stiles nodded, "but let me ask you something first... when Scott found you... you said that he was one of 'them'... what does that mean?"
Arielle took a deep breath, "It means I know he's a werewolf. I saw it in the color of his eyes. They called to me and demanded me to reach the surface... I just hadn't seen a real True Alpha before."
"Wow..." Stiles said, shaking his head and blinking several times, "You knew all that just with red eyes?"
"I also know that his girlfriend is a kitsune," she said, looking straight out in front of her, "I know that you had a Nogitsune trapped inside your body... I know that the strawberry blonde is a banshee, and I know the pale one is a hunter."
Stiles opened his mouth to respond, but he didn't know what to respond with. He would ask how she knew all of that stuff, but then she would have said the answer to his next question, so he went with the ladder, then took a deep breath.
"Arielle...?" he asked, "Are you... more special than others?"
Arielle closed her eyes and let her head hit the back of the lockers again, "By special, you mean being able to tell the species of a person just by looking at them... then yes... you could say that..."
He took a moment and stared at the tiles beneath him, then he looked at her distressed figures, then placed his hand gently on her shoulder.
"What else?" he asked, "There has to be something you're hiding from me..."
Arielle looked from the ceiling to him and nodded. She then picked up her right hand and reached it across the hall to the water fountains directly in front of her.
"Promise me you won't runaway and tell people," she begged.
Stiles sat up on his knees so he was facing her directly, "I promise."
She nodded, then directed all of her energy towards the water fountain, feeling each pipe and every last drop of water inside the drain. Only moments later, an string of liquid water came floating out of the spout and it floated in the air just above the fountain. With a twist of her hand, it turned into a ball and she brought it towards them. Stiles watched in awe at her focus and her talent as she guided the ball of water with grace and dignity as if this was all she had worked for all her life.
"You thirsty?" she grinned.
Arielle directed the ball of water towards Stiles and he opened his mouth. She pushed her hand closer to him and let the ball of water fit perfectly into his mouth as he swallowed all of it. His eyes widened at what he had just seen.
"Okay... so that happened," he said into the air in front of him.
"Are you going to turn me in now?" she asked shyly.
"What?" he asked, trying to look at her hidden face, "Why would I do that?"
"Because I'm different," she answered, "because I can do things other kids can't. Most people don't like things that are different from them, so they make public of their difference so they can be condemned and judged."
He sighed, "What makes you think I'm like everybody else?"
Arielle looked up at Stiles and, for the first time, she smiled at him.