/Team by Lorde

"Find anything?" he asked as soon as Stiles walked in.

Scott was sitting in the chair by Lydia's bed, gently clasping her hand. She looked much the same; skin pale enough to look paper thin, face smoothed out like porcelain by sleep, though someone had put her under a thin sheet now. Probably to hide the blood.

Stiles shook his head, looking frustrated. Scott stood up, careful not to jostle Lydia, and gave him the seat. Stiles looked guilty as he laced his fingers through Lydia's.

"Thanks for looking after her," he sighed. "What did your mom give her?"

"Benzos," Scott said. "But they've worn off by now. She's just sleeping."

"And her heart?"

"It's been fine. Definitely not slowing down," Scott reassured him. "We don't know what that was earlier, but it's looking okay. I was thinking maybe she was feeling how Morinna felt? Slow heart and all?"

Stiles looked extremely remorseful. "Yeah, Morinna seemed pretty certain that she hadn't done anything."

"You flipped out, didn't you?" Scott said candidly, crossing his arms.

Stiles winced. "I could have been calmer…" he admitted judiciously.

"Is that what happened to your shoulder? She kicked your ass?" Scott asked, clearly amused.

Stiles glared at him. "You noticed the shoulder, then."

Scott shrugged. "You're sitting weirdly. One shoulder is higher than the other. And your chemo-signals are pain and embarrassment."

"It's just a bruise," Stiles muttered begrudgingly.

Scott walked back over to rest a hand on him, pulling the pain from his body.

"Have you damaged relations irreparably?" he joked, jaw twitching minutely as he absorbed the pain.

"She said you could still talk to her before I…" Stiles seemed to rethink mid-sentence. "Uh, yeah, possibly…"

"Really Stiles? What did you do?"

"Please remember that I thought she was slowly killing the love of my life," Stiles appealed, looking at Lydia. "I may have… threatened her, slightly."

"Threatened her? That's not like you," Scott said, frowning at his friend.

"Like, I said, I thought Lydia was dying. I'm not proud of it."

"Well, was it worth it?" Scott asked, looking unimpressed. "Did you find anything? Anything at all?"

"I found out she's afraid of fire. Deathly afraid," Stiles said, looking sheepish. "That could be a clue. She's definitely not a hellhound."

"Afraid of fire?" Scott echoed, dumbfounded. "Tell me you didn't, Stiles."

"Look, Scott, for all I knew she was a monster. We still don't know if she's safe to be around! She might well be the next kanima. What was I supposed to do? Playing nice wasn't working."

"I'm glad she kicked your ass. It sounds like you deserved it," Scott said, deadpan. "So… we know she can control minds, doesn't have much of a heartbeat, is slightly stronger than normal people – "

"Slightly?" Stiles snorted. "She launched me across the room."

Scott suppressed a laugh. "… She is very strong. Afraid of fire, too. That could just be a rational fear, right? I'm not a huge fan of the prospect of burning to death, either. Really, Stiles, she just sounds like a human to me. An enhanced human. Kind of like me when I'm not full wolf, you know?"

"You're right. I don't think we've seen her real form. I never asked – what's up with all the blood? What was Lydia doing when you found her?"

"She was in the blood bank. She dropped a bag, which is why she's covered in it."

"Okay, and what was she doing before that?" Stiles asked, suddenly standing up and going to the paper towel dispenser.

"What are you doing?" Scott asked incredulously, watching as Stiles pulled a stream of white paper out of the dispenser.

"I don't have my murder board," he said simply, laying paper out on the floor. "What was Lydia doing while she was in her fugue?"

"I don't know," Scott said. "I didn't get there until after she fainted. Do you have a theory or something?"

"Not yet… find me a pen?"

Scott began to rummage through the draws, chucking out biros as he found them. Stiles seized up a green one triumphantly and began to scrawl.

"We're missing something obvious," he said determinedly.

"I agree," Melissa said, appearing in the doorway. "And I think I know what it is."

/Street Clothes by Marz Ferrer and Voli

She had run out of blood.

Morinna cursed her poor planning. She had taken too much blood from the bank already this month, unprepared for the lack of sources in Beacon Hills. When she first left England she had stopped over in Chicago for a couple of months, where there was a donation bank every twenty blocks. Beacon Hills only had two – a donation centre and the central storage at the hospital.

Maybe moving here had been a bad idea. She had wanted the heat and small-town comfort she found here but she was still getting used to thinking about such vampiric trivialities as blood banks. All of the disruption lately – all the werewolves in her apartment – really proved her point.

But she had paid for a year of rent upfront and wasn't prepared to lose that much money. She couldn't move now. Which meant that, for the foreseeable future, she was going to have to start travelling further to steal blood.

That didn't solve her problem tonight.

Begrudgingly, Morinna opened her wardrobe and carefully selected an outfit. She didn't often go to clubs. She picked out a black crop top with an almost cage-like construction that fastened in a bow around her neck, layering it with a dark faux-military jacket, and softening the look with a duck-egg blue tulle skirt and some embroidered ankle boots. She fluffed up her hair and painted her lips a dark, velvety red, finishing with some studded leather jewellery, and carefully locked up her apartment.

She had seen the club before; walked past it on her way back from a blood run. It was around the corner from the donation centre, in a huge industrial building, the only clue as to what was inside being the rumbling noise of the bass audible from the street around it. A few men stood in the street outside, smoking pot.

Morinna strode up to the bouncer, ready to compel him to let her inside without carding, but he opened the door without looking at her for long. From the look of the shot girls standing just inside the door, she supposed that the proprietors were not all that interested in underage drinking laws.

The Jungle¸ said a neon sign above the bar. Morinna was happy to see that the clientele were mostly gay men; the evening would be so much more enjoyable without dozens of greedy hands pawing at her skin. She shuddered at the ghost of a memory.

Morinna welcomed the sweaty abyss of the crowd, allowing herself to be pulled right into the middle of it. She could feel the music thumping through the floor, vibrating her very bones. She began to dance, one with the sea of writhing bodies, time seeming to lose meaning. Her hands swirled through the air, twisting, her head swinging, hips turning. Then she began to feed.

It was euphoric. She felt like she was floating, like her brain had been cut free from her body. Opening her eyes for a moment, all she could see were blurred lights and the muted colours of skin around her. Her heart stuttered, beating the way it rarely did, keeping time to the music. Desire rolled through her torso in waves, dizzying, almost hurting in her chest and deep in her stomach. The men around her began to slow, lethargic, movements less sure.

Hands snaked around her from behind, trailing over her hip and across her ribs. Two palms resting against her cleavage and lower stomach, pulling her flush against a body. Morinna, heart beating in her ears, was barely aware. She had forgotten the potency of this, how easy it was to lose control. She continued to twist and bend, feeling muscles against her back, warm skin, lips on her throat.

On her throat.

This snapped her out of her revelry. She put a hand over the one on her chest, still giddy. He took this for encouragement, sliding slowly down to cup her breast. Morinna gasped softly, trying to pick her own feelings from the lust she had taken from the men around her. There was a dull ache in the back of her head, the come-down from the drug. The hand on her stomach slid lower.

Morinna dropped her head back against his shoulder, looking up through long lashes, expecting to see someone familiar. The face grinning down at her was not him.

She pulled away, turning to look at him in shock. The music seemed to be ever louder, her heart slowing to its usual apathetic rhythm. He stepped forward, catching her waist with one of his big hands. He was blonde, with a strong jaw, heavy brows and a cocky smile.

Suddenly feeling very, very cold, Morinna lifted her leg up and kicked him. Hard.

He shot back into the crowd, knocking a few people over. Ten or twenty people looked in her direction in shock.

Morinna stared for a moment, suddenly aware of tears on her cheeks. A guy about her age, tanned with dark hair and kind eyes, approached her slowly. He said something to her, but she couldn't hear over the music.

She had blown her cover.

Morinna turned and ran out of the building, brushing past the perturbed bouncer. She stopped by her car, leaning on it, breathing deeply, feeling dizzy and nauseous. A voice called to her from across the parking lot. He had followed her outside – the boy with the kind eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked, jogging over. He was wearing a purple striped form-fitting t-shirt and pale jeans. He seemed harmless enough, but Morinna wasn't sure.

"Don't touch me," she said in a voice that she hoped was assertive and threatening but almost certainly came out as terrified.

The boy put his hands up in the air, eyes wide. "No touching, got it. I just, uh – that guy back there? The one you pushed over? Was he touching you? Because I know the bouncer –"

"It's fine. I overreacted," Morinna said stiffly, fumbling through her bag for car keys.

"Are you sure? It's no trouble. I'd hate for you to have to leave because of him –"

"Thanks, but I'm not interested," Morinna snapped, pulling the keys out of her bag.

"No, no," the boy said, frowning. "I'm not hitting on you. Look – I'm Danny. I'm gay. Not interested in you. Now, please don't leave just because of one asshole."

She froze, conflicted. Her brain told her to run; to get in her car, to never come to Jungle again. Her heart told her you're lonely. Make a friend, make one uncomplicated friend.

"Why do you care?" she whispered, crossing her arms.

Danny looked a little embarrassed. "I got groped too, my first time here," he admitted. "And I almost didn't come back, all because of one guy. But without this place I wouldn't have learnt a lot of things about myself – plus, the DJ is a genius. Consider this paying it forward."

Morinna stared at him for a long few moments, and then she snapped the clasp of her clutch shut.

"Morinna," she said curtly, offering him her hand.