"Ha! I win, again!" Isaac threw down his game controller and pumped his fist in the air, "I rule!"

Scott rolled his eyes. For all that they butted heads, Isaac and Stiles had a near-identical winning style: excessive gloating.

"Four in a row. Nice," Scott said.

"Dude, you're not even trying! At least give me a little competition."

But Scott was trying. No matter how much he attempted to focus on the game, he just kept circling back to Deaton's advice. He had no clue how he was supposed to learn to accept the Other. It was part of him, yes. But a part he despised. If he could, he'd excise it with one of the scalpels Deaton used to operate on animals.

Normally, he'd turn to Stiles to help him interpret the cryptic things people in his life had taken to saying. Seeing as that wasn't an option, Scott was at a loss at what to do next.

"Ok, one more game," he said, feigning enthusiasm. "This time, I'll win."

Scott still hadn't determined why last night had been different. He'd never killed anything before. Not even bugs. Why start now? What had triggered the Other?

After work he pieced together the entire night, including some memories he wished had remained lost.

Yesterday afternoon he and Isaac had met in the preserve to discuss the alpha pack.

"Can Derek even prove there is an alpha pack?" Scott had asked Isaac. "How many of them are there? What does he intend to do about them? "

"He doesn't tell me anything." Isaac slashed at a tree, leaving deep gashes in the trunk. "Honestly, I don't think he has a clue what to do."

"How are we supposed to protect ourselves?"

"He says to leave it to him. I think we're screwed, basically. I think he's gonna ignore it until it's too late," Isaac slashed again. "I'm thinking I'd be better off if I was more like you."

"An Omega? Trust me, it's way more trouble than it's worth. If you stay with Derek, at least he'll protect you. And he probably knows more than we realize," Scott pointed out. "But maybe there is something we could do, since Derek won't tell you anything."

"What?"

"We could find out more about the alphas ourselves."

And so they'd started the evening combing the forest for any and all signs of the alpha pack, working as a team to break the woods up into a manageable search grid. Scott reasoned that if there was, in fact, a pack like that in town, they would leave proof of their existence. A footprint. A strand of hair. Claw marks. Something they could use to gain a starting point for their investigation.

Both he and Isaac had progressed in their tracking skills over the summer and this would be their first real practical application. Despite their new aptitude, their efforts yielded nothing concrete. As the night went on, they grew more and more frustrated.

Scott remembered feeling cagey, like he did during the full moon—the fruitless quest had left him feeling unfulfilled. He could smell Isaac's frustration and it spurred him to push on through the dark brush. They would not be denied a successful completion to the hunt. It was he who smelled the deer first. But it didn't take long for Isaac to catch the scent. After that, it was only a matter of time before they overtook their quarry.

"Alright, you can be player 1."

Scott snapped back to the present as Isaac handed him a controller.

"Sure," he said and tried once again to focus on the game.