21

I can barley keep my eyes open as I stand in the shower with my head resting against the wall letting the steamy heat of the water envelope me. I spent the night in the pool house not wanting to wake my mother now I finally get to wash the long dried grim of the road side ditch off of my stiff body. Along with a sleepless night of pondering my new clues I have to be at school 45 minutes early today, it's the first day of track practice and coach insists on having early morning runs this year. I think I had enough running through the forest when I was getting chased by homicidal lunatics.

When I finally have all the dried blood shampooed out of my hair I grab my robe and stumble down stairs to make a pot of coffee. I usually don't drink coffee, it makes you shorter and gives you bad breath, but today I'll make an exception. When I enter the kitchen my mother is waiting with an ugly look on her face. As I begin to pour the coffee grounds into the filter something rare occurs and my mother speaks to me. Not so rare, she is bitching at me about something.

"I hope all that partying is worth ruining your mother's job over." Her snare voice drips out.

"What…" I say bored already.

"I heard you come in at four in the morning. Your cloths are drenched in mud and probably vomit in the laundry room. If you're making a fool of your self out there that's fine, but don't have it reflecting back on me." she says with a venomous look. I am too stunned to respond right away. I almost got killed last night and now I am getting bitched at about my mother's worthless career.

"Maybe you should let it reflect back on you; people might think you are more fun instead of a nasty old witch with a stick up her ass." I say barley even acknowledging her and laughing to myself at her complete stupidity. I expect yelling defensiveness, but instead I get a small huff as she slowly rises out of her stool at the counter and walks towards me. She stops a foot in front of me with her wrinkly arms crossed over her stomach, trying to be intimidating. She is about a head shorter than me and I have to angle my head down to meet her crows feet eyes, her shit brown hair is raised in a frizzy disarray, she is hardly more intimidating than a fly that you just can't seem to swat.

"Just leave… what's stopping you." She says her voice in a taunting whisper. She wouldn't be saying this if she didn't know that I wouldn't leave, it's bad for her reputation, MAYORAL CANIDATE'S DAUGHTER MOVES OUT AT 16. I would leave in a second if I had a place to go. Her parenthesized mouth moves into a small smirk, thinking that she had won the argument.

"What and leave you and daddy alone?" I say this with a humorous edge fighting to keep a straight face at the word "daddy". "No I couldn't do that, they would eat you alive… two washed up old farts with high blood sugar and cataracts, no that wouldn't do, I have to keep you guys young, personable. With out your sweet, beautiful daughter to share the limelight you two might as well be at the retirement home. That is after all the whole point, am I wrong?" I say as her face morphs into steely embarrassment. I brush past her with my newly brewed mug of coffee and bound up the stairs to my room trying not to drudge too much to the surface of my consciousness.

22

"… and then Meckey talked her into do a keg stand after she was already like hammered and she threw up everywhere, it was so disgusting, I would die of embarrassment if I were her." Kelsey was yammering about Danny's back to school party that I had missed and I couldn't help but zone out, it all seemed so repetitive and meaningless after what I had experienced last night. "… It was dripping down Diana's face and it was all in her hair then when Lena tried to help her she threw up on her and Lena was just like screw it." Kelsey finished as she shoves her jeans into her locker and kneels to tie her sneakers. "I really wish you were there, it wasn't the same without you."

"I don't" I say without effort.

"What?" Kelsey says with a surprised expression.

"It's just I got like no sleep last night and… I don't know, I'm just like really out of it." I say trying to recover so this conversation can end. "No big deal." I say as I push my lock into place and head for the door in the back of the locker room that leads to the track. As I'm pushing the door open Kelsey flashes a concerned expression before continuing her droning play by play of the party, but my attention is averted to the back of a pale blonde head sitting on a stone bench at one of the lunch tables outside. Half of me hopes that he will turn and meet my eyes, but the other half knows that even if he does it will be the same as always, brief eye contact and a guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach. So I keep walking over to coach with my eyes to the ground.

"Up for this season Lenox?" coach says looking up from his clip board of attendance.

"Of coarse Coach!" I chirp back with my usual confident smirk despite my not so usual feeling.

"You been training at all or did you let yourself go like some of these other yahoos?"

"Would I disappoint you Coach?" I say as I turn to survey the damage that lazy summers had on my teammates. My gaze lands on my new "friends" Ethan and Adien sundering out of the door to the boys locker room with hoodies zipped tight over there muscular shoulders. The sight of them makes my stomach turn remembering the sick smile stretched across there big friends sharp teeth. They make there way up a small hill and begin there stretches there eyes zeroed in on the reopening door to boy's locker room. Scott McCall emerges from the doorway closely followed by Stiles. Stiles is intently explaining something to Scott and he doesn't seem to be to interested. They approach the bench that I was trying to keep my attention from and continue talking behind him. He reaches down to tie the laces of his sneakers, after he finishes tying one he adverts his eyes up and I quickly look away so he won't see me looking before realizing his eyes aren't directed towards me, but instead the twins who have stopped stretching and are returning his gaze menacingly. A fire burns in Isaac's pale eyes and the twins give him a superior smirk before turning and heading for the front of the line of students ready to begin their jog. Isaac barley finishes tying his other shoe before jumping up angrily.

"Whoa, Isaac what's wrong?" I heard Scott say just before Isaac starts towards the cocky twins.

"It's them," Isaac snarls, "from the bank." Scott senses Isaac's rigidness and a worried expression crosses his face.

"Isaac, don't do anything, not yet," He urges, but Isaac heard coaches whistle and darts off after the twins who have already disappeared from view. Scott exchanges an urgent glance with Stiles before barreling off after Isaac. I am left behind as the rest of my teammates slowly begin jogging. Just me and Stiles, who gives me a quick nod after noticing my presence, are standing in the clearing awkwardly. He begins slowly jogging after the others.

My legs begin to push forward down the path that the others have followed. What the hell is Isaac doing? Does he know what those twins could do to him? Their friend nearly broke my arm off and I'm the same as them. I begin to jog faster and faster passing group after group of people with out even processing their faces. I'm not thinking of anything, but the fact that those twins could easily kill him. I have passed the slow joggers and now I am running alone dodging trees and rocks. Then I hear a grunt of pain and a body hitting the leafy ground with two sets of feet circling it. I round the corner and slow down as I see Scott running in front of me.

"Ethan, I don't remember," I hear Adian's snarlly voice start, "how many bones are in the human body?"

"I don't know, let's count." I see Ethan holding Isaacs arm back and pulling it to its limits. My breath gets caught in my throat, I can hear the ligaments in his shoulder beginning to tear and I almost scream before Scott closes in with Adian in his sights. I duck behind a near by rock the size of my living room coach and peer over the side. I hear the bone crunch as Scott's fist collides with Adian's jaw.

"One" Scott says as Adian's body hits the ground and Isaac sprawls his arms out throwing the other twin to the ground. Scott and Isaac back off as the twins angrily climb to there feet. Their faces contort into feverishly angry growls and theirs eye's glow piercing red. I feel my teeth extending and my body becomes ridged as I realize that if I don't do something the twins will surly kill Isaac. I prepare to jump out from behind my rock when I hear two more ear piercing growls, not the same as the twin's. One is protective and the other is insecure. I peer over the rock once again, but instead of two or even three growling beasts there are four; Adian, Ethan, Scott, and the pale blued eyed boy. Expect his signature eyes glow yellow instead of gleam blue. My heart sinks, I thought Scott could be a glowing eyed beast, but I never let myself think this could happen to Isaac. They don't give me time to contemplate, if I don't do something the twins will.

"You guys better be more careful," I say as I throw myself out from behind my rock trying to muster up as much confidence as possible, "someone might see what you are." I have a calm and knowing expression to hide my fear. "What is that by the way?" I switch eye contact between the boys excluding Isaac's, partly because I don't want to see the hate in his eyes when he looks at me and partly because if I see the yellow glow in his eyes my confident façade will crumble and I won't be able to stop the tears. Scotts confused yellow eyes switch from mine to the direction that a crowd parting scream comes from. All four boys begin running to the distant scream and avoid my question. I can't stop a smile from spreading across my face, I don't know why.

I slowly follow towards the scream, it was probably just some whiny bitch that couldn't handle the jog and sprained her ankle or something. The boys' urgent expressions and the haste with which they were running to the scream makes me curious and I begin running too, not nearly as fast as the four boys who have now disappeared from my normal view. The pictures of the boys' expressions are caught in my head and an even bigger smile spreads across my face at the image of Scott's guilty expression, like a child getting caught up past bedtime. I close the distance behind the boys and the rest of my teammates who are gathered around a tree. A boy is leaning up against it on the other side; I can't make out who it is or why my teammates look so surprised. My new senses know what's going on before I do and my amused expression wilts as I realize that this boy has no heart beat. I finally take in the details of the situation; the pale, cool appearance of his skin, the mud stains streaking his Kaki pants, the dark dried blood dripping down over a leather strap that is fastened around his neck. A huge knot balls up in my stomach and it gnaws at the lining of it. I flex the muscles in my throat to keep it from coming up, but my steely expression remains unfazed, nobody can see Olivia Lenox weak.

"Kyle!" I hear a desperate voice shriek, "no Kyle!" Millie Davis is being held back from who I now know is her boyfriend Kyle Stevens hanging limp from the near by tree by the newly arrived policeman. Her tear streaked face is contorted in a desperate cry. Kyle is Aaron's cousin, me Millie and them used to hang out, Kyle was one of the nicest guys in Beacon hills, one of those guys that always talked about getting out of school and joining the military, severing his country and all that, now he's dead.

I don't know how I'm able to hold up my detached expression as Coach hales a grief stricken Millie back over to the back entrance of the school. The cops are ushering everyone out of the new crime scene with police tape ready to be hung, I unintentionally comply and follow the rest of the shaken up kids back to the lunch benches outside the school doors. Some of the girls are crying, I doubt they have ever even talked to Kyle, they are all losers, but they feel obligated to show sadness, they don't realize they are only showing frailty and self doubt. As I look at all of the fearful faces my gaze lands on Isaac. His face is infuriated and urgent. He is huddled near by Scott and Stiles discussing something.

"…I don't care, they did this." Isaac's voice matches what I gather from his face, he is enraged with his fiery eyes locked on the twins standing 100 feet away. "What do you think it's a coincidence that they show up in town just in time for people to start dying again?" his question directed at Stiles.

"I just think that there is something else out there killing people and I just don't what to be distracted casing after the twins when other people could be dying." Stiles looks to Scott questioningly to see whose side he will take, but Scott is focused on something else. His worried eyes are directed towards me, Stiles follows his gaze and meets his eyes with mine just before his usual confused expression returns. I half expect Isaac to do the same but he is staring down at his dirt stained running shoes, of course he wouldn't look up. A small smirk whispers across my lips before I turn, headed for the door to the girls locker room. Just before they cut out of my peripheral vision I think I see Isaac's head lift up in my direction, but instead of hate in his eyes its sadness, then I know for sure that it's just my mind playing tricks.