Chapter 4

K had made it home before she realized she didn't have her cell phone. She decided to change quickly before returning to the clinic. If Deaton wasn't there when she arrived, she'd break in. She doubted he'd mind. K didn't plan on stealing anything of his and thievery was pretty easy when you weren't human. Hell, it was how she managed to keep her and many generations of Bennetts fed and housed through the centuries.

K threw on a dress for the night out she planned on having. She was going to have a meal, a real meal, and the best way she knew how was to give some idiot the false idea that he was going to get lucky. After feeding, she'd heal and wipe his memory like every other meal she'd had. But the dress always helped. It was hunting in the 21st century.

When she arrived at the vet clinic, K parked in the alleyway on instinct. If she had to break in, she didn't want some nosy busy-body to ID her car.

No sooner than she reached the back door to knock, it flew open. A young man oozing yellow gunk from his mouth raced out into the world. He looked rabid, a statement given more credence by his werewolf stench. On reflex, she reared back and hit him square in the jaw. He collapsed.

K rose a brow to the curious sight. When she glanced up, she noticed Deaton, Derek and another young man she didn't recognize standing in the doorway. They seemed as surprised as her though she doubted it was for the same reason.

Seeing none of them move immediately, K knelt down. She took the blond young man's left arm in her hand and strung it around the back of her neck. With no effort, she stood and took him with her. The shock in the onlookers' face became more prominent. It was difficult for it not to when they were confronted with a young woman who looked like she should have started her senior year in high school in a cocktail dress, four inch heels and a full grown human being strung over her shoulders as though he was a purse.

"I assume this belongs to you?" she asked Deaton.

"Yes," he nodded. He recovered from the odd sight faster than the others. "Please," he stepped aside and gave her the room to walk into the clinic. "If you would."

K approached the door and had to maneuver passed the statues that didn't seem to want to move.

"On the table." Deaton said when she made it passed the two.

She did as he suggested and laid the now quivering young man on the table.

"Kalli," a new voice chimed. K turned and noticed Peter stepping forward with a smirk. "Isn't it?"

"It is." She nodded. "Peter."

His smirk turned into a wide smile. One formed briefly on her lips too.

"You guys, he isn't breathing."

The sentence forced everyone else back into the current situation and jostled Peter and K's mild flirtation.

Deaton leaned over the young man on the table while K held his shoulders. If his earlier reaction was anything to go by, he'd need to be held down.

With a firm hand, Deaton ran his scalpel along a swollen and oozing wound in the center of the kid's chest. Yellow smoke billowed briefly from the injury and almost immediately he began to breathe.

"Is that…" K leaned forward a bit and sniffed the air. She grimaced. "Wolf's Bane?"

"A rare strand." Deaton answered.

"I'll say. It's supposed to be extinct." She said.

"How do you know that?" Derek asked from behind her.

K turned. Derek was again eying her sternly. It was the same look he'd given her when they first met briefly in the hall of her apartment building. She found herself wondering if he ever smiled. Derek noticed her examining him silently and his glower deepened. He even went so far as to cross his arms over his chest.

"Are you always this angry?" she asked. While there was sarcasm in her voice, it was a serious question.

Derek didn't reply and she didn't think he would.

"Hey guys," the young man she didn't know muttered. "I think… I think he's saying something."

Attention again shifted to the kid with the yellow ooze. Sure enough, he was muttering something under his breath. Deaton and the conscious teenager leaned closer. K had no need to.

"The sun. The moon. The truth." She repeated easily.

Deaton sighed. He glanced briefly to K and she knew in that moment he recognized the saying like she had.

"Three things cannot long remain hidden." He said somberly. "The sun, the moon, and the truth."

"What's that mean?" the pale teen asked.

"It's a Buddhist mantra." K added.

Something unsaid moved between a few of the men gathered. K didn't know the significance of it, nor was she entirely concerned either.

"Satomi." Peter sighed.

"Judging by the ominous tone her name was uttered, I'm assuming this is where I'll take my leave." K said.

Deaton turned to her with an odd stare, "Why are you here?"

While the phrase could have easily been considered rude, Deaton didn't hold a tone other than curious so K didn't snap at him when he asked.

"My phone." She replied simply as she walked into the back room she'd used to change in earlier. She held it up when she approached again. "I left it here when I was topless."

"You what?"

The phrase was asked in chorus which caused her to giggle a bit. She shook her head as she mused to herself and checked her phone for any missed messages or calls. She didn't know who she'd expect to have called her considering most of the people she spoke to refused to speak back, but it was habit regardless.

"Well," she sighed when she looked back to the room of men staring at her. "Not that this wasn't fun, but I have an engagement to be getting to. Gentlemen,"

K bowed sarcastically to the gathered crowd with a flourished movement. It caused the few not too deeply involved to smile a bit.

"Kalli," Deaton said before she had the chance to stand upright completely. She tilted her head a bit to the side and awaited his obvious question. "Does your offer from earlier still stand?"

Her eyes shifted to the blond teenager sleeping on the steel table she'd occupied earlier in the day before shifting once again to the vet. A smile tugged at the corner of her blood red lips.

"Definitely." She grinned. Before leaving, K walked towards Deaton's desk. She took a piece of paper and pen and wrote down her phone number. She didn't know why she hadn't given it to him earlier, but it seemed necessary now. "My number. Give me a call if you need anything."

"I will." He told her.

With a wave, K turned and headed towards the door. She was gone just as suddenly as she'd arrived.

~~!~~

K was in her apartment. She was cleaning –perhaps the only other thing that hadn't changed in her life alongside her appearance- and trying to keep from being bored in doing so. Her hunting trip wasn't as fruitful as she would have hoped and ended up becoming little more than a snack. She knew she'd have to start visiting the vampire's version of a grocery store soon or risk getting hungry enough she truly hurt someone.

Being such a fan of music, K had Elvis Presley blaring on her iPhone while it rested in a speaker dock. She'd gone through his original work and was listening to the 'party mixes'. Honestly, a couple of them weren't bad.

The remixed version of Bossa Nova Baby was blaring. She was dancing to it as she swept her apartment, ignorant to really anything happening around her, when someone knocked on her door. K spun on her heel to face it. She strained her ears to hear passed the music before taking a single step.

Three. There were three heartbeats standing on the other side of the steel door. That was a good sign. It meant they were alive.

She calmed marginally and made her way to answer it just as another trio of bangs echoed. She set her broom aside and unlatched the door. With a heave that amounted to little more than a wrist flick, K slid her door open. She was surprised.

"Scott… Derek… and…" she hesitated when she saw the young man from the night before. "I'm sorry, but I don't know your name."

"Stiles." He said nervously. He was moving as awkwardly as he was the first time she'd seen him. Like Derek with his annoyance, K wondered briefly if it was his normal state. "My name's Stiles."

K nodded and smiled slightly to try and calm him before looking to the teenager who seemed to have something to say.

"What can I do for you?" she asked kindly. She didn't have to bother asking how they knew where to find her. The reason was standing beside them, still brooding like always.

"We need to talk to you." He said as though she couldn't have figured it out. "But…" Scott glanced down the open halls. "It might be better if we do this inside."

"Fair enough." She nodded and stepped aside. K waved them in and the trio entered and moved hesitantly into the open floor plan while K closed her door. "So! What can I do for you boys?"

K stepped passed them easily and moved towards the shelf to turn her music down.

"Are you listening to Elvis?" Stiles asked with a face. It wasn't disgust or shock, but a mild confusion to her selection.

"Yeah." She nodded. "I love him. Such a great performer. Seriously, you should've seen him live."

The three turned slowly to look at her. K knew what she looked like to them. She looked like a teenage Rosie the Riveter with her hair tied up into a bandana, a black wife beater, very short shorts and bare feet. She was sure she looked odd to them.

"You saw him perform live?" Scott asked in a deadpan voice.

"I'm older than I look." She smiled. "So what can I do for you?"

K jumped up and sat on the bar between her living room and kitchen area and reached for the drink. She waited for them to speak as she took a sip of her scotch.

"A little early, isn't it?" Derek asked sarcastically.

She raised a brow to him.

"Seriously, you are too young to look so pissed off all the time."

Derek squared himself on her again, like he had at the clinic.

"I'm older than I look."

K couldn't fight the smile when he regurgitated her previous statement back at her.

"No," she finally said after musing for a moment. She still bore the smile. "To answer you question. It helps with the cravings."

"Cravings?" Stiles muttered. He repeated the word like he was afraid of what she might mean.

Scott leaned closer to his friend and whispered, "She's supernatural too."

Stiles' face fell as he stared at K. She only continued to smile.

"Sure," he replied after a moment. "Of course you are. That explains it then."

"Explains what, exactly?" K asked. She shifted her gaze to Scott. "You still haven't told me why you're here."

"This."

He reached into his back pocket and retrieved a piece of folded paper. Scott offered it to her so K slid from her perch and took it. When she opened it up, there was a list of names staring back at her. None of them were familiar until she spotted the last one. Kalliope Tantum 20. Her eyes slowly glided upward.

"What is this?" she asked with an edge to her words. No one should have known her whole name, especially when it included a surname she'd only adopted a month ago. It made no sense.

"A dead-pool." Scott said. "It's a hit list."

"I know what a dead-pool is." She said quickly under her breath. "But why am I on it?"

"Because whoever wrote it knows you're supernatural and in Beacon Hills." Derek told her.

"And you just guessed that this was my real name?"

Derek cocked a brow. That was her answer. Yeah, they did guess.

When Scott saw the weird name, he asked Derek if it sounded familiar. The young man told him no, but he knew a Kalli who was obviously supernatural. Scott seemed to come to the same conclusion seconds later and felt foolish for not recognizing the nickname sooner. It didn't take a whole lot to put together and her confirmation simply meant he'd been right.

K chewed on the inside of her cheek. She stepped forward and through the trio who'd come to her door. She walked to her living room and found herself pacing for a moment to gather her thoughts. Someone knew she was there, someone who wanted her dead. Her list of enemies wasn't long, but the list she'd acquired since acquainting herself with the Mikaelsons… that list was substantially longer.

"Twenty thousand?" she asked as she turned to face them again, her back towards the large windows that covered the wall and led to her balcony. "Or million?"

Scott's brows came together slightly. Of all the questions he thought she'd ask, that hadn't been among them.

"Million."

K thought about it for a moment and did the math while she returned to pacing. 996 years of life summed up in 20 millions dollars. If she worked it out, that came to little more than 20 thousand dollars a year, 386 dollars a week, and 55 dollars a day which came to little more than 2 dollars an hour. She was suddenly offended when she spun on her heel to face them once again. If this was a job, then from the day she was born until that point -eight hours a day- her life was worth two dollars an hour. Worse yet, dividing that into actual hours came out to little more than eight cents. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

"Two dollars?" she snapped. "My life is worth two dollars an hour?!"

The three stared at her in confusion. They hadn't broken the cash down like she had.

"What the hell are you talking about? That's twenty million." Derek said.

"This," she held up the paper now crunched in her fist. "Is an insult. This basically whittles down to my life being worth two dollars an hour since the time I was born until now. That's… are you kidding me?"

K was suddenly irate. She was babbling about something none of the strangers really understood, but it was true. Suddenly the bounty was more important than the bounty hunter.

"You're kind of crazy," Stiles mumbled as he took a step back. "Aren't you?"

She rolled her eyes at him comment and tried not to let her irritation dominate the situation. Chewing on her bottom lip, K offered Scott back the list.

"So what now?" she asked the teenager.

He hesitated to speak. Scott glanced briefly to Derek and Stiles before back to K. He wasn't sure how to proceed with the rest of the conversation, but Derek was more than willing to be blunt about it.

"What are you?"

K cocked a brow and turned her eye to the young man with his arms still crossed over his chest.

"Not one to mince words, are you Mr. Hale?"

"No." he said simply. "So what are you? What makes you worth twenty million dollars?"

"Maybe they just have good taste." She offered sarcastically. Derek openly rolled his eyes and K smiled lightly to herself. She found herself scratching her ear when she looked to Scott and said as innocently as she could, "I'm complicated."