Chapter Nine:
Stiles and I were huffing and puffing as we carried the dismembered body of the werewolf wrapped up in a sheet. There was one of us at each end as we struggled through the back door of the animal clinic. The sheet, oblivious to us was getting looser and looser with every step we took as we carried it. Deaton rushed to help move away any obstacles in our path as we trudged towards a large metal table, most likely the same one I was handcuffed to just the night before. A loud thump echoed through the cold back room of the clinic as we set the heavy body on top of the table.
Stiles grunted out of breath as he shook out the muscles in his arms. At the same time, something heavy thudded against the linoleum floor. It sounded like it was rolling before it stopped with a small thump as it hit something. Stiles looked down as something hit his sneaker, his eyes widened in horror at the werewolf's head which had fell off the table and stopped at his foot.
"Oh-god!", he choked, a shaky hand covering his mouth and nostrils flared as he inhaled the metallic scent of blood. "That is way too much for me in one night...", he then gagged, lanky fingers still hovering over his lips as he tried to contain himself. But he couldn't, he rushed towards the large metal sink at the other end of the room and regurgitated into the sink just in time. It sounded painful, I actually felt bad for him.
"Nice one, Winchester!", a mocking voice bellowed loudly from right behind me.
The abrupt closeness of the voice made me jump and I twisted around, a hand instinctively landing on the top of the gun tucked away at the back of my waistband. And yes, I brought my gun with me this time. I wasn't going to take anymore chances especially since I just killed a beta that belonged to a pack, which I'm sure resulted in a very pissed off Alpha.
"Holy...", I shrieked, then glared at the wolf, "Make some noise will you!"
Derek Hale stood not even a metre behind me, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest sporting a very judging look on his face. "You're really jumpy for a hunter", he scoffed.
I frowned at his statement, knowing that the reason I was so jumpy as of late was due to the absence of my brothers. I was so used to having them by my side acting like a security blanket, always with me. I also think that the loss of Sam has really brought me back down to earth, reminding me that at any second I could be ripped off the face of this earth too. It wasn't the same as when Sam and I lost Dean for four months. Yes, it was just as hard, maybe even harder for me since I was actually closer to Dean than Sam. That was because it was just me and him for while when Sam went to college and Dad began doing his own thing. But when I lost Dean, I still had Sam by my side even though our relationship was a little rocky because of that Ruby skank, but his presence was still there. We grew stronger together as hunters. But this time, I don't have Sam or Dean. No family with me, no security blanket. It made me feel a little lost, and a little insecure, putting me on edge and making me quite jumpy.
Derek realised the slight grimace that spread across my face because of his condescending words and the fact that I didn't bite back at him like I usually did. But fortunately, he didn't comment on it.
Breaking eye contact with the wolf, I walked over to Stiles who was still violently vomiting into the sink. He was retching out everything he ate when we were at the diner, and it was painful to watch because I could see the muscles on his back retracting in pain as he struggled to get it all out.
I grimaced internally as I put a hand on his back, the same way he helped me when I was dry heaving the night before. "Stiles...", I tried, not knowing how to make him feel better. I was feeling a little guilty. Because of me, that werewolf almost choked him to death, he nearly collapsed from a panic attack because of what I did, and now he was achingly throwing up everything in his system.
"I think I'm dying...", Stiles moaned before heaving again into the basin but this time nothing came out. I think it's safe to say that his stomach is officially empty.
Trying not to mock him for being over dramatic about his condition, I put on a serious voice, "I think you'll make it", I tapped my hand on his back slowly in mock comfort.
He breathed deeply for a couple of seconds, making sure that he wasn't going to heave again before he turned on the faucet. He began rinsing out his mouth and face, then brushed his wet fingers through his hair before he turned the water off. He grabbed some paper roll that sat on the bench and dried himself off, looking more refreshed and thankfully not on the edge of puking again.
"Stiles...", an out of breath figure stammered from the opened back-doorway of the clinic, revealing the shadow of Scott McCall still enveloped in the darkness of the night. He pushed over the threshold, the room lightening up the worry and panic on his face as he rushed towards his best friend. I stepped back giving the two their space. "Are you okay, man?", Scott asked urgently as his eyes quickly gave him a once over, checking for any injuries. His eyes lingered on the blood splattered across Stiles light green buttoned up flannel.
Before Scott could comment on it, Stiles shook his head telling his friend not to worry, that he was fine. "It's not my blood", he assured him even though he knew Scott could smell that it didn't belong to him. Stiles then quickly unbuttoned his blood stained flannel and pulled it off, unable to deal with having somebody elses blood on him any longer. Especially since the blood belonged to someone who was probably now dead from being stabbed full of wolfsbane, somebody probably taking their last breathes as we speak. He quickly dropped that thought process, not wanting to have another vomit session with Deaton's sink.
"I know...", replied Scott still concerned for Stiles who had tossed his shirt aside, leaving him in a plain light grey tee which surprisingly didn't get soaked through with blood. Scott then sniffed slightly, "But I can still smell your blood...", he muttered in thought as his eyes landed on Stiles badly bruised and lightly cut neck where the werewolf's sharp claws had penetrated the skin. The young alpha's eyes flashed red at the sight before he hastily spun on his heels to face me, his eyebrows creased in fury. "What happened?", he practically growled at me.
My anger instantly rose just because of the way he was looking at me, like he was accusing me of purposely harming his friend, like it was intentional. But I chose to be patient with him, knowing he was just worried about him. Taking a breath to calm myself so I wouldn't bite at him like he did at me, I answered him the best I could. "The new wolves in Beacon Hills found out that there's a Winchester in town...", I began to explain but he cut me off abruptly.
"So you decided to machete one of their heads off?", he snapped, clearly wanting to let his anger out on me. He wasn't really interested in my side of the story.
My eyes went swiftly to Stiles. He really got into detail when he called Scott in his car on his way to Deaton's, didn't he?
Turning back to Scott, I tried to keep my cool, "What did you expect me to do? It was a werewolf."
The young wolfs face grew even angrier, "What is that supposed to mean?!", he hissed through clenched teeth, his fists already balled up at his side.
I groaned, realising what my words would have sounded like to a wolf, "I didn't...", I began but Stiles quickly cut me off as he staggered in between Scott and I, pushing us gently apart with a hand on each others chest. I didn't even realise we were that close.
"She obviously didn't mean it like that, Scott. Calm down", he ordered his friend firmly, giving him a look to relax but it wasn't helping.
"Then what did she mean?!", Scott almost yelled, waving his hand over at me as he pushed slightly forward at the hand Stiles still had against his chest.
"It means, that I'm a hunter. No matter how much you hate it, that's who I am. Over the years I've seen all the colourful ways a supernatural being can tear an innocent person apart. So I'm sorry if sometimes its hard for me to just switch off my automatic vigilance to anything that isn't human", I replied, my voice firm and strong.
"So you just killed him?", he huffed, my words not changing anything.
I groaned in frustration, "He was literally choking Stiles to death", I defended myself, waving my hand over at Stiles who still stood between us, trying to prove my point.
"There's always another way. You didn't have to decapitate the guy!", Scott huffed, glaring holes through my head.
"Scott...", Stiles spoke up trying to help, but he was ignored.
"Are you being serious right now?", I snapped.
"That is not how we deal with things here!", Scott pointed a finger at the ground to emphasis his point.
"Enough!", Derek's voice echoed through the large room and it instantly shut us up. He stomped towards us wearing an annoyed expression, and Stiles chose to step back from in between Scott and I, knowing that it was going to get ugly. Derek stopped in front of us and turned to me first, "Winchester... even though your ways are drastic...", he motioned over at the corpse on the metal table, "... you did save Stiles life. You did the right thing", he said genuinely, and before Scott could open his mouth and argue, Derek turned to him and cut him off. "And Scott, I know that you don't agree with the way she handled things... but maybe drastic measures need to be taken if we want to stop this pack. They've killed three people already, and they were even willing to kill Stiles just to get to her...", he pointed his thumb towards me, still looking at Scott, "... and they don't seem like the pack that would just listen to a few wise words from a true alpha", he lectured, and this time Scott didn't try to argue. "We need a plan...", Derek breathed out, folding his arms against his chest again.
And we all paused in thought, knowing that it wasn't going to be easy to defeat these guys.
"Indeed you do", Deaton announced gaining everyone's attention as he stood over the metal table, looking down at the corpse. He was wearing a maroon button up shirt and had white medical gloves on as he examined the cleanly sliced off head and the torso it was attached to.
We all walked towards him, readying ourselves for what he had to say as we stood around him and the corpse. Stiles did the same but turned himself slightly so he wasn't looking directly at the body, trying to avoid being sick again.
"Did you find anything?", Derek grilled, looking over the decapitated wolf emotionless.
"Yeah... like what was the cause of death?", Stiles joked even though he wasn't even facing any of us.
Deaton didn't even respond to the joke as he turned to both Stiles and I, his lips in a smooth line. "Why don't you walk me through what happened first?", he asked.
I turned to Stiles who had a sour expression on his face, and was giving me a pointed look. He didn't want to be the one to retell the gruesome events that played out not even an hour ago. Sighing to myself, I knew I was going to be the one to do all the talking.
"Uhh...", I mumbled, thinking about where to start as I scratched at the healing cut on my forehead, the one Peter caused. "Stiles and I were walking to our cars...", I started from the beginning and went through everything that happened with the two wolves. No one interrupted and Stiles grimaced when I retold how I used a machete to slice the werewolf's head off, and Scott was just tense still not happy about it all.
"And the other wolf just got away after being stabbed full of wolfsbane?", Derek asked skeptically.
I looked over at Stiles seeing him visibly tense and then his shoulders sag slightly in defeat, defeated that they were going to know about his little freak out. That the other wolf got away because I was helping him through a panic attack. He was clearly a little ashamed about it. So if he'd rather keep it to himself then I was going to let him. I knew how it felt to want to keep some things to yourself from the people close to you, people who you'd know would worry.
"Yeah, he disappeared into the trees after l killed his friend", I replied.
"He couldn't have gotten too far injured like that. Why didn't you go after him before he warned his pack?", Derek questioned, almost like he was interrogating me. He clearly doesn't fully trust me yet.
"I was too busy fighting off the other wolf and bedsides, I couldn't just leave Stiles alone in the middle of town with a decapitated body. Especially when...", I eyed him pointedly, "... his father is the sheriff", I said, still not over that little detail.
Derek nodded and decided to drop it. "Well, now they definitely know there's a Winchesters in town... and they might know we're working together if they smelt Scott's pack on Stiles."
I lifted my brow surprised, "he's pack?", I pointed a thumb at Stiles.
"Yes", Scott replied with a nod.
"But he's human", I tried, not remembering any information that humans can be part of a pack of werewolves. It didn't mention it in any of my folklore books and Deaton never mentioned it years ago when he was teaching me about them.
"And he's my best friend. He's just as part of this pack as everyone else, werewolf or not", Scott replied strongly, giving Stiles a small grin that showed how much he really valued his friend.
"Yeah, Scotty literally wouldn't have survived through his wolvlihood without me. The amount of times I had to use me bat...", Stiles left the sentence unfinished like it was meant to paint a picture of how bad-ass he was. It didn't really work though.
Scott rolled his eyes and Derek just shook his head in annoyance.
"So how does it work? Do you have to pee on him, to mark him as pack or something?", I smirked, crossing my arms over my chest.
"What, no!", Stiles spluttered in shock as Derek and Scott just glared at me.
Deaton cleared his throat, gaining our attention back towards him again. He gestured over the body, "Well, he's definitely from the pack that's been causing the murders..."
"How can you be so sure?", Scott asked.
Deaton responded by lifting up the sleeve of the wolfs arm, revealing a tattoo on the inside of his forearm. It was a large thick black print of the letter 'M' with a circle around it. The same symbol that was found next the victims bodies, written in their blood.
"That's the same symbol found at every crime scene", Stiles announced out loud what everyone was thinking, unable to control himself from looking away anymore. It's like he automatically switched into detective mode, the gruesome sight of the dead body came second.
"Yes, the exact symbol...", Deaton affirmed.
"He uhh, he mentioned a name...", I scratched at my head, trying to recall it., "... Monroe", I said, and the sound of the name leaving my tongue reminded me that it sounded so familiar. It was killing me that I couldn't remember where I know it from.
"Monroe...", Deaton pressed, deep in thought not giving away if he heard the name before or not, "Are you sure?"
Stiles nodded in confirmation, "Yeah, they wanted to take Stormy to him. It sounded like it was their Alpha."
"Does the name ring any bells?", Derek asked the veterinarian.
"It does...", Deaton answered as he paused, still looking down at the tattoo. You could literally see the wires clicking and dots connecting in his head. After a short pause, he looked up at us. "The Monroe pack is a very old family of wolves. Their lineage goes back centuries. I didn't noticed the connection before because the pack symbol was just an 'M' in a more detailed, intricate font. This one was is much different...", he said still holding onto the wolfs forearm so we could all see the tattoo.
"What were they like?", Scott asked.
"Centuries ago, they were very powerful. Their territory covered over forty-percent of the country. But even though they were powerful, they used it for good. They had peace treaties with hunters all over, and they protected humans and wolves alike. They lived in harmony with humans"
"What happened to them?" questioned Derek.
"They had a rival pack that weren't too fond of their good ways... and they were just as powerful", Deaton explained. "They caused a war, which came with a lot of blood shed, a lot of death. And at the end, barely anyone was left standing. I always assumed that the Monroe family died out. That there was no one left... but its quite possible that there could be someone out there who still holds the name."
Monroe... Monroe... The name kept repeating in my head, trying to get myself to remember. And then the lines finally snapped into place.
"Jeomi Monroe...", I uttered softly to myself as it hit me.
Scott and Derek's heads shot up, their wolf ears picking up my soft voice.
Derek was the first to question it, "What did you say?"
They all turned to me as I stood there, eyebrows creased in thought as I looked down in concentration.
"Stormy...", Deaton called, trying to get me to answer the question.
"Jeomi Monroe...", I said more loudly, finally looking up at all the curious faces directed at me. "I knew I heard that name before...", I paused, trying to recall everything I remembered. "A few years back, my brother Dean and I were on a werewolf hunt in Oregon...", I began, noticing the way Derek tensed a little at the mention of my brothers name. Dean Winchester has the most threatening reputation out of all of his siblings, so I understood his reaction. "There was a wolf pack residing there and they had a female Alpha named Jeomi Monroe, but they weren't hurting anyone. It was a rogue wolf who was tearing people apart. Dean and I were dealing with it, it was the first time we ever worked alongside wolves. It was going fairly well working with them... but then more hunters showed up... Argent's", I paused, knowing they would react to this.
"Argent's!", Scott blurted.
Nodding, I continued, "Gerard Argent and his men tore the place apart. They killed them all. We couldn't stop it, my brother nearly lost an arm because of them. Turns out, the rogue wolf that was the cause of the murders was actually obsessed with the female Alpha, Jeomi. He was in love with her, he used to be in her pack. He was so in love with her that he began killing people that wronged her. When she found out that he was the one who killed them, she kicked him out of the pack. He was furious and unstable, and he started killing innocent people to force her to take him back, to love him."
"How romantic...", Stiles scoffed.
"Gerard killed the entire pack, including Jeomi. But the rogue wolf managed to get away...", I said, looking down at the tattoo again as I took a hold of the wolfs forearm. "His name was Osiris...", I said softly, tracing my fingers around the 'O' that went around the 'M'.
Stiles stood up straighter, "You think that's who we're dealing with? A love-struck murdering psychopath?", he questioned, his voice rising a little nervously.
"I think that Osiris took Jeomi's name, Monroe and formed his own pack. I think there's a reason he's in Beacon Hills. He knows there's a family of hunters protecting this town... the Argent's", I said, knowing they'll connect the dots.
"You think he's here for revenge?", Scott asked in panic, his thoughts going straight to Allison.
"Seems likely...", I replied.
"I bet if we dig real deep, we would find a connection between the three people he murdered and the Argent's...", Stiles spoke out loud in thought.
"I think it's time we have a word with Christopher Argent", Deaton told us.