"Scott, I think you have to bite him."

Isaac's statement whirled around in Scott's head as he looked at the severely burned teenage boy in the parking lot of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. Scott still was having a hard time grasping that his friend might have done this or was possessed this whole time. Scott knew he didn't take Stiles seriously when he told him about the key and how he might have been the one to give Barrow the code to kill Kira.

Scott knew he was blinded by the fact all of them seemed to be doing okay and he thought Stiles just exhausted himself out worrying about Barrow and Gabriella.

Scott should have taken it more seriously considering the darkness that surrounded their hearts, but he didn't. There was a whole entity inside his best friend and he didn't even know. He couldn't even tell the difference. He should have known when he found Stiles in that empty surgery room standing there in a daze. He should have known since Stiles was the only one that they knew of who hadn't had an encounter with the Oni.

Scott turned his attention back to the boy on the ground as his heart beat was low compared to the ones of Isaac and Allison's.

Isaac and Allison were the ones to find the boy unconscious after Kira absorbed the electricity of the live wire that was cut by the dark fox possessing his best friend.

"Scott, the bite could heal him."

Scott turned to Derek. Scott had a gut feeling if Derek's eyes were still red he would turn this boy whose name they didn't even know. Plus all three of the werewolves could smell the scent of the singed flesh more than Allison could and they could hear his slow beating heart better than she could barely feel from her head on his chest and from trying to feel for his breath.

Scott wanted to refuse to bite this innocent boy. Despite him trying to accept his role as a True Alpha and being a leader he still had doubts how this bite he unwillingly received from Peter was a gift despite what the special abilities may be.

Did he want to extend what was essentially a curse onto another unwilling victim?

A part of him knew though he had to bite this teenage boy. They – him, Allison, and Stiles - brought this dark spirit into Beacon Hills by performing that sacrifice. The Nogitsune may not be possessing him personally, but it feels like he could be by taking the shape of his best friend.

"Scott, if you are going to do it you may have to do it now before his pulse becomes weaker and we call for the paramedics." Allison's rushed and panic voice said breaking his internal turmoil.

Scott knelt down onto the soiled ground as he took in the appearance of the boy. The boy had to be only a freshman he didn't seem a day older and Scott couldn't recall seeing him in any of their classes or even around campus.

Scott wondered what happened after he bit this boy. Was he really ready for this responsibility of having his own beta personally bitten by him? What if this boy couldn't handle the full moons and the primal instincts of an animal? What if he simply ruins this boy's life by biting him?

What happens if his body rejects the bite? He would have to live with the image of black blood oozing out of this boy's injured body ruining it more. The bite might kill him before his wounds could even get the chance too.

Scott grabbed the boy's arm and pulled back the sleeve of his hoodie. The scent of burning flesh filled his nostrils as he thought about the scent Stiles emitted on the hospital rooftop when he was fighting whatever was in him to not cause this. He was trying to protect them somehow. Then that fear – that worry – for his best friend turned into anger as his eyes flashed red and he bit the flesh of the boy who only released a grunt in response.

Scott watched as the nurses including his mom took the young boy away.

The bite might save him.

Derek said his body didn't immediately reject it so he may have a chance. He told him it may not feel like it, but Scott really did save the boy's life. He saved him from an immature death, future heart problems, skin grafts, and mental and physical pain.

Scott couldn't think of the positives at the moment as he looked down at the boys fallen school student identification card proudly displaying the boy was a freshman and his name: Liam Dunbar.

Marin was not even trying to hide her loud trek through the woods as she reached the embankment that held a mangled car with a bright green plant growing from it freely, its appearance similar to moss. That was where she found her older brother on the ground cutting it from the roots and filling a glass jar with them.

"Poisoning him isn't going to stop him – only offend him," she said aloud to her brother as she stepped behind him as he continued cutting the Lichen freely. She knew her brother would try to do anything to save Scott McCall's pack even when the odds were not in their favor.

She knew the Nogitsune had found a host in Stiles the underestimated human in the pack. She wasn't for killing teenagers, but they were dealing with an extremely dark spirit and she wasn't that confident in Scott's ability to save his friend since she believed the only way to save Stiles was to kill the host to let the Oni do its job. Although if her brother would have told the unsuspecting pack sooner about the fox hiding inside a teenage boy they could have been more prepared.

"How is Gabriella doing?" Deaton asked as he felt his sister's judgmental eyes on him. He had to give it to his sister she was skilled in making sure she stayed alive. She didn't make any permanent allegiances with packs. She evolved to survive; at least he didn't have to worry about her too much.

"My patient has been calm for the past 48 hours."

"Since Stiles went missing from the hospital." Deaton said pointing out the obvious fact.

"Ever since the sacrifice Gabriella's sleep pattern and behavior have been erratic. Now she is quiet and compliant."

"All her behaviors have been a warning," Deaton commented as he closed his glass jar full of wolf lichen and turned to face his sister. "Do you think he will be coming for her?"

"Eventually," Marin said as she looked at her brother, "We won't be able to stop him if he comes after her."

"We can try. Scott can try."

"I'm not leaving my patient's life in the hands of a seventeen year old boy."

"You know you should have more faith in them considering what they all have persevered against, plus I am the one that suggested the sacrifice. I didn't know Gabriella would have been affected by this. You never fully explained how though."

Marin gave her brother a small smile as he tried to fish information out of her. She wasn't purposely withholding information from her brother, but she wasn't the Druid to Scott's pack. She had no fidelity to him or his friends. Right, now her only duty was to make sure her patient didn't wind up in the hands or mind of a thousand year old fox. This was her just maintaining the balance and she knew the fox did not want Gabriella for supernatural advantage, but personal ones.

"Did any of you fully read the accident report?" Marin asked rhetorically and she was surprised Deaton didn't find the connection earlier. It was always the little details that connected the dots together. "With the blood loss and the cold temperature on that night, Gabriella should have perished in that crash." Morrell walked closer to the mangled car she paid attention to the marks of the Oni that attacked the car. "Gabriella wasn't found at the crash site." She informed as she pictured an eight-year-old Gabriella crawling out the car only to be met with yellow eyes.

"The Nemeton."

Marin nodded her head, "She crawled to the tree stump not knowing the power behind it just like those teenagers you are so eager to help."

"Her powers are connected to water – liquid – that's why she and Stiles are essentially bonded."

"Her blood stained that jar Stiles opened."

Lydia understood Allison's concerns fully about her seeking out Peter's help in aiding her with her abilities, but he was the only one they had who seemed to know how to help her. After her colossal failure with Stiles, she couldn't handle throwing the pack in the wrong direction when this time it could seriously lead to death. So also thought he would know why after she heard a piercing scream in her ears the night of the Oni attack for them to bleed although she knew that scream she heard was her cousin's. So, she had to make a deal with the devil so to speak and she knew he would want something in return so that was why she brought her best friend as reinforcement as her protector.

"I still don't think this is a good idea," Allison quipped as she opened to the door to find Peter standing by Derek's floor to ceiling windows with his signature smirk on his face.

"The hunter and the banshee."

...

Lydia can still hear Talia's voice in her ears. To Lydia everything seemed to come at a full circle now with what Talia told her. Lydia never was one to believe in fate, but it was kind of hard not too when there were such things as werewolves, banshees, kitsunes, and Darachs roaming around the earth.

Lydia could feel Allison's curious eyes on her as they drove further away from Derek's loft away from Peter.

Lydia knew she had to tell her friend what she meant when she told Peter about him not just being an uncle. Lydia at first needed to catch up on the revelation that was still being whispered in her ears herself. She knew it could be possible now that she had cleared the fog from her eyes about her family and how she found herself to be thinking about her cousin, grandmother, and family in general more. Her family had a vault of secrets because of what they believed to be the eccentric and erratic behavior of her grandmother that split the family apart although it couldn't be blamed on her grandmother anymore, and technically her Uncle's accident wasn't the catalyst for the divide it went back to her missing aunt she never seen or heard only mentioned in passing in the heat of an argument her parents thought she didn't hear.

Lydia watched as night falls in Beacon Hills. The darkness enclosing around all of them in ways they never could have possibly imagined.

"My Uncle Ashton, Gabriella's dad, showed up out of the blue one day with a baby…that's how my mom describe the arrival of Gabriella. My dad would always make a comment how Gabriella looked so much like his sister. Even though I was young I could still feel and see that awkward tension…the unspoken words that were passing through the adults." Lydia started to explain to Allison who was listening to her intently. "I had an aunt who disappeared when she was a teenager…right before she graduated senior year of high school, Gemma Martin. No one heard of her since she went missing until she showed up almost nine months later on my uncle's doorsteps asking him to take her baby on as her own. Ashton wasn't Gabriella's father, Peter is."

Gabriella was in her room with her knees drawn up and had her chin resting on her knees as she watched rain splash the window. She felt weird and it didn't have anything to do with her session with Morrell where she finally talked about that night.

The night she now understood was from predicting the fox that was hiding inside her father death. She still doesn't understand exactly how her father became possessed she speculated it had something to do with her birth mother who was simply a figment of imagination.

Gabriella never had that craving – or ache – for a mother's love or affection. She was fine with having her dad being the only parental figure in her life.

With her gift, you would assume that she didn't like the rain, but using the rain was soothing. It didn't really cry or scream out of agony it was more of loved ones wanting to pass messages of hope along. Tonight though there was no voice leaking through the cracks. It was quiet as if everyone was asleep.

She wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing, but she knew one person was fully awake besides her.

"A slow, solemn square-dance of warriors feinting…One by one they fall, Warriors fainting, Thirty-two on sixty-four…what is it?" Meredith asked in sync with the rain droplets hitting the class window that separated them from freedom.

Gabriella didn't even hesitate to answer the riddle, "A game of chess."

Merry Christmas!

However, I hope you will be happy to hear that next chapter that Stiles and Gabriella will officially meet!