I lay out on the beach with the warm sand enveloping me. It was our last day. My new blonde hair was sprawled on my beach towel and I was drying off for the drive ahead. The sounds of the pier and the waves crashing against the beach seemed to mix to make the perfect sounds. Derek and I had promised each other an hour on the beach and then we would head back home. We only had five minutes left. I was looking up at the beautiful sky when the first most beautiful sight I has seen all day eclipsed the sky. Derek was over me, holding himself up in push up position. I put my hands on his face and pulled him in for a kiss. One last kiss on the beach. We didn't plan on it but we ended up spending the entire summer there. It was nice to have no cares for four months and we were fully rested for whatever hard ships were to come my junior year.

Reluctantly we both got up, took one last look at the view and went back to the hotel room to check out. It was almost eleven in the morning by the time we left and we got there in the middle of the afternoon. Derek dropped me off at my house as he went to go buy the new loft he had his eye on. I opened the door and heard some arguing from the kitchen. I walked in to find Dad and Stiles both struggling to open a jar of pickles. I smiled. "She's back." Stiles said when he noticed me.

"And she's blonde." Dad said.

"Open this." Stiles said pushing the pickle jar into my hands.

"Thanks guys, one hell of a welcome home party." I twisted the cap off like it was nothing and showed it to them. "Look at that."

Dad pulled the jar out of my hands and I turned to Stiles who hugged me. "I missed you."

"I missed you more." I pulled away and touched his hair. "You grew it out." He shrugged. "I like it."

Dad walked up to me and hugged me. When he pulled away he studied my hair. "I actually like it."

"I like it too." I said playing with it.

"How's Derek?"

"Yeah," Stiles said from behind Dad. "He's more important than us and all."

I rolled my eyes at him and then turned to Dad. "Derek is fine. He went home."

"You should have told him to stay."

"His uncle was coming over."

I stared at Stiles like I was dying to talk to him. "I can take a hint." Dad said walking away. "Go upstairs and talk."

We both raced up the stairs and ran into my room. I threw myself down on my bed as Stiles closed the door. I had missed my bed. Stiles sat down in my computer chair. "Where'd you go?"

"Santa Monica." I said as I turned to Stiles. "It was gorgeous. What did you do all summer?"

"I hung out with Scott."

I had talked to Scott after the night Jackson became a werewolf, but it just wasn't how it used to be. "How is he?"

"Surprisingly good, he hasn't had any communication with Allison all summer." He paused. "Or you."

"Did he seriously tell you about that?"

"We're best friends. He kind of tells me everything. I'm picking him up in a few hours do you want to come with?"

"Where?"

Stiles gulped. "A tattoo parlor."

"A tattoo parlor?"

"Yeah." He looked slightly scared.

"You hate needles."

"I know."

"Who's getting the tattoo?"

"Who do you think?" Scott always wanted a tattoo.

I spent the rest of the time talking about Santa Monica and listening to Stiles tell me about his bro summer with Scott. When we left to pick up Scott I hid in the back of his Jeep. I was about to jump up to scare him when he looked to the back. "Hey B."

I sat up looking upset. "How did you know?" He pointed at his ears and I rolled my eyes. He could hear my heartbeat.

We talked the entire ride to the tattoo parlor and Scott showed me the sketch he drew out. It was a thick band and then a smaller band though he wouldn't tell me what it meant. The tattoo parlor wasn't far from Derek's new loft. When we went it in I stood by Scott. I loved tattoos. I was always so interested in them. "Boy," the tattoo artist said. "I'm glad you drew me a picture."

We both smiled and Scott touched my hair. "I am not going to get over this."

"Hey Scott," Stiles called. "How about you get something like this?" He showed us a picture of a lizard man who looked a lot like Jackson when he was the Kanima. It made me kind of miss Jackson, but his dad moved him to London after everything that happened last year. "Too soon?"

"So," Scott began turning to me. "What exactly did you do on this trip?"

"You don't want to know."

"They had sex on the beach." Stiles said. I gave him a dirty look. "And not the drink, they literally had sex on the beach."

"Young love." The tattoo artist commented. I smiled at him.

"Are you sure about this?" Stiles asked. "These things are pretty permanent."

"I'm not changing my mind."

"Then why two bands?"

"I just like it."

"Don't you think you're first tattoo should have some sort of meaning?" I asked.

"Getting a tattoo means something."

"He's right." The tattoo artist said. "Tattooing goes back thousands of years. It means to leave a mark, like a right of passage."

"You see? He gets it."

"He's covered in tattoos!" Stiles exclaimed.

"You ready?" Scott looked nervous. "You don't have a problem with needles do you?" Scott shook his head and he started on the tattoo.

"I tend to get a little squeamish around needles." Stiles commented. I leaned in to watch him work, like I said, I love tattoos. There was a thud and I looked over to see Stiles on the ground.

He finished up the tattoo and when we got back into the Jeep Stiles had an ice pack to his head. Scott was making a weird face. "You okay?" Stiles asked.

"It kind of burns."

"Yes, you just had your skin stabbed about a hundred thousand times with a needle."

"I don't think it's supposed to feel like this." Scott began to pull his bandage down. Scott began to scream. "It's definitely not supposed to feel like this!"

When he took the bandage off the tattoo completely healed. "Good," Stiles began. "I hated it." Scott and I both turned to Stiles. "Sorry."

We began to drive off going to the town grill. Derek text me: I can't come over tonight. I have to handle some stuff with Peter.

I looked at my phone and then Stiles called my name. "Are you listening?"

"Sorry."

"Yeah and no one listens to you." Stiles said sarcastically while we were on a red light. "What are you doing back there anyway?"

"Derek just text me."

Scott turned back to me. "Are you guys okay?"

"We just spent four months together in Santa Monica, we couldn't be any more perfect, it's just a lot of stuff happened while we were gone."

"Werewolf stuff?" Stiles asked.

"Top secret stuff," Stiles began trying to talk over me. "That I am not sharing with you Stiles."

"Oh god." Scott said.

"What?" I asked.

"Allison and Lydia." I rolled my eyes. After four months I still hated Allison.

"Go!" Scott said.

"I can't." Stiles began. "It's a red light. I think we should say something."

"Uh, how about no?"

Stiles rolled down the window. "No!" Scott screamed. Right when Stiles said hi Lydia sped off.

"They probably didn't see us."

I rolled my eyes at Stiles. "What are you doing?" Scott asked.

"Driving." Stiles said obviously.

"We're right behind them."

"Do you see any turns?" I asked.

"I don't want it to look like we're following them."

"Then what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know, anything."

Stiles slammed on the brakes. "Are you serious right now?" I said from the back. Lydia and Allison stopped not far from us. We all looked at each other confused. Lydia and Allison didn't move. "Now we're just stuck here."

There was something running towards their car and right when I saw it was a deer it had already crashed into Lydia's car. The three of us ran out to go see if they were alright. Scott went to Allison and Stiles and I went to Lydia. "Are you okay?" Stiles asked.

"No I'm not okay!" She yelled turning to look at the car. "I am totally freaking out! How the hell did that just run into us?!" Scott went over to the car to get a better look and Lydia grabbed my hand. "I saw its eyes before it ran into us. It was like it was crazy."

"No," Scott said. "It was scared." I moved toward it cautiously and Scott put a hand on the deer's neck. "Actually, terrified."

When I finally got home I began to text Derek, but he wasn't texting me back. Where was he?

The Next Day:

I woke up to Stiles jumping on my bed. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"First day of junior year."

"Can you please stop jumping?"

"Nope."

"Dad!" I looked up at him. "Why are you so excited anyway?"

"There has been no werewolf drama for four months." Oh how wrong he was. "So get up."

"I hate you."

"I love you too." He laid flat on my bed and kissed me on the cheek. He got up and ran out of my room.

The first thing I did was check my phone. No messages from Derek. Where was he and why was he ignoring me?

I looked at Monkey who was sitting down on the floor. "Good morning Monkey." I went to go pet him when Monkey clawed at me. He had never clawed at me before. He was the sweetest cat ever and didn't claw at anyone. Not even Derek. I ignored him, got up and curled my hair, put on a white tank top with silver rhinestones making a cross on it and pink skinny jeans. Derek and I went school shopping on our trip to LA and I got tons of new clothes. I walked into Stiles' room and he was on his computer. "Come look at this." I walked over to the computer.

He was searching about car accidents and then Dad stood in his doorway. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Do you know how many vehicle collisions involved deer?" Stiles asked. "247,000."

"God, please go to school."

I leaned down next to the computer. "But that's crossing the road, the one last night came straight at the car."

"Bree, don't encourage him."

"You can't just put research in my face and expect me to just go to school."

He moved toward us. "I'm not gonna beg you."

"Good, we're impervious to your influence anyway." I said.

"Would you two consider a bribe?"

"Couldn't meet our price." Stiles said.

"Extortion?"

"You've got nothing on us." I said.

He began to pull Stiles' computer chair so I moved closer to the computer. Stiles still tried to type and when he fell out of the chair I moved to the laptop, but Dad pulled me by the back of my shirt and dragged us down the stairs.

He turned to us. "You two are going to have amazing jobs that involves with investigating and putting people in jail."

"Private investigator." Stiles said raising his hand.

"DA." I said raising mine.

"And that's very good, but you can't go into any of those careers without high school completed so go." We both began arguing. "Go!"

We both got into Stiles' Jeep and he began driving to school. "You know," Stiles began. "Scott told me a lot about you over the summer." I clenched my teeth. "It sounded like you guys had something going."

"I love Derek."

"And I get that, but you just can't ignore your feelings for him. I mean you've been feeling them since the third grade."

"Stiles! I told you that sometimes feelings go away and I would never leave Derek for Scott."

"But these feelings didn't go away."

I turned to him. "You don't get it. When I look at Derek I fall in love with him all over again. It's like everyday I fall more in love with him and when I get a text for him I jump with happiness. Then when I see his car waiting for me I have so much joy that it makes it hard to breathe. So I'm sorry if I don't want to leave Derek for Scott."

Stiles was quiet when we pulled into the school. "It just sucks." I looked at him confused. "For Scott. Two girls he can't have."

Stiles got out of the car and I leaned my head back. I felt guilty even though I shouldn't have. I never asked Scott to kiss me, he lead himself on. I got out of the car. "You know," I began. "You're not getting to a good start with me." I said sarcastically.

Stiles smiled and rolled his eyes. We walked into school and immediately found Scott. "Can you talk to Derek for me?"

"What?"

"You know, he has the triskele on his back. There has to be a way to do it without healing."

I looked at the pictures of Erica and Boyd on the bulletin board. They were still nowhere to be found. "Derek has enough on his plate."

We all continued down the hallway when we heard a familiar Australian accent. We looked through the principal's open door and saw our old principal, the one before Gerard got there. I was actually happy to see him. "Whatever happened in the library while I was gone needs to be cleared up." He put his hands down picking up a long sword that was obviously Gerard's. "And what the hell is this?"

We all looked at each other and I began to chuckle. "Go." Stiles said pushing me forward.

I walked over to my new locker and I saw that it was only two away from Allison's. When she saw me she smiled and I turned away to open my locker. I couldn't talk to Allison. I wanted to, but I couldn't. She had changed so much after her mother died that I found her unrecognizable. She didn't care about anything. It was like she shut all emotion off and I didn't know how to talk to her without seeing that unemotional girl stabbing Isaac.

I walked off and got into English sitting in front of Stiles. Allison walked in and the only open seat was in front of Scott's desk and across from mine. I turned around to look at Stiles and he shrugged. I sat back into my desk. English was supposed to be my best subject and now I had to spend it with Allison to my right. My phone began to go off and I saw that everyone else's phone went off. It was from an unknown number and it was long and creepy. A woman began to walk into the class room reading exactly what was on the text. Someone cared too much about making an entrance. "This is the last line to the first book we are going to read." Why would she ruin the book for us like that? "It is also the last text you will ever receive in this class." Ugh, she was one of those teachers. "Phones off everyone."

She gave us a boring grammar assignment that I could do in my sleep. She already wasn't getting off to a good start with me. Scott got called out of class and then I heard Lydia and Stiles start talking about how her dog bit her. "Has it ever bitten you before?" Stiles asked. Lydia shook her head.

"Monkey scratched me this morning." I said.

They both looked at me. "Monkey's like the sweetest cat ever." Lydia said.

"I know."

"What if it's like the same thing with the deer like how animals start acting weird before an earthquake?"

"Meaning what?" Lydia asked. "There's going to be an earthquake?"

"Or something. Maybe it means that something is coming, something bad."

"One's an incident," I began.

"Two's a coincidence," Stiles continued.

"Three's a-" A bird slammed into the window and everyone jumped. Its blood was all over the window. There were more crows flying straight for the window, another one smashed it's brains in the window and then another. Then one flew straight through the glass. They all began attacking us and going insane. Stiles pushed Lydia and me down and when they were finally gone or dead we all stood up. There were dead birds, books and feathers scattered all over the floor.

The police got to the school and I called Derek. "Hey,"

"Oh my god, you answered." Stiles looked at me funny. "I've been trying you all day. Why haven't you picked up?"

"I've kind of been busy trying to find Isaac?"

"Isaac's missing?"

"Really B?"

"You haven't talked to me since we got back from Santa Monica so I have no info."

"I'm sorry. Just get to my house. Quick."

I was confused, but I had to listen. "Yeah, I'm on my way." I looked at Stiles. "We have to go."

We both got into Stiles' Jeep and sped to the Hale house. When we got to his house Derek answered. "Where's Isaac; is he okay?"

"He's fine." I studied him. Even if I couldn't read Derek's mind I knew what he was thinking ninety percent of the time and I just knew this was the work of the alphas. Scott wanted to get his tattoo and I found out what it meant. It was a reward for not calling or texting Allison all summer, because in Samoan tattoo means open wound and his relationship with Allison was like an open wound. "The pain is going to be worse than anything you've ever felt." He pulled out a flame and turned to me. "B, I need you to hold him down." I moved in front of Derek and put my hand out on Scott holding him down with the pink light.

"That's my signal to leave." Stiles said.

"No." Derek said pulling him back. "I need you to be extra support on his shoulders." Stiles rolled his eyes and went to hold down Scott.

When the fire touched him he began screaming and eventually passed out because of the pain. When he woke up (he was only out for a few minutes) he looked at his arm with a smile on his face. "It worked." I stayed back with Derek as Scott and Stiles began to leave. "You painted the door." Scott said. We both looked over at him panicked.

The door had the alpha's sign. "Go home Scott." I answered.

Scott's claws came out and he began to scratch the door. "Scott!" Derek said as he walked over toward him and I followed. Derek and I looked at him and then at each other.

"The birds at school," Scott began. "And the deer last night, just like the night I got trampled by the deer when I got bit by the alpha." It all clicked to Scott. "How many are there?"

"A pack." I answered softly.

"An alpha pack." Derek continued.

"All of them?" Stiles asked. "How does that even work?"

"I hear there's some kind of a leader." Derek said. "He's called Deucalion." Derek took a deep breath and I put my hand on his back. "We know they have Boyd and Erica while Peter and Isaac have been looking for them for the past four months."

Scott moved closer to us. "So you found them. How do you deal with an alpha pack?"

"With all the help I can get."

"Where is she?" I heard Isaac ask. We all turned to him. The blanket was wrapped around his shoulders and he looked tired. "Where's the girl?"

"What girl?" Derek asked confused. Something told me this was going to be a long rest of the day.