The Huntress

by TheLiteraryEscapist

Beacon Hills is a city which literally draws the supernatural to it. Adrianna is the daughter no one knew Kate Argent had. Follow Adrianna Argent, a born hunter, lethal weapon, and struggling demigod as she tries to come to grips with her mother's murder. Will she follow the code or will she follow her heart?

14. Chapter 14

14-Endgame Part 2

" Oh my god," Stiles Stilinski cried from the back of the truck. "What the hell is she doing?" He wondered, neck craning awkwardly as his eyes followed the enraged Kanima and the two figures crawling up from the car in it's talons to the surface of its back. "Is she crazy?"

Chris smiled as he tore his gaze away from the rear-view mirror. He shook his head. "No," He muttered, more to himself than anyone else as he doubted the three teens huddled in the bed of the truck could hear him. "She's not crazy at all. She's well trained."

Because there was no other explanation for the death-defying stunt that Adrianna had pulled off in order to bring herself and Isaac Lahey back into the thick of the fight. Bravery—perhaps to the point of foolishness—and very good instincts were the only factors to blame for the success of what should have been a dismal failure.

"Dad, step on it!" His daughter's voice rang through the cab as she leaned into the open window to be heard. "The Kanima's picking up speed. If we don't match it's acceleration—" She warned unnecessarily.

"I know," He interrupted her before she could finish. He'd heard it a thousand times. In fact, he'd been the one to teach Allison many of the things she knew now. "I'll match our speed and stay in front."

"Yeah," Allison's tone was tight and Chris had to fight the urge to sigh as he realized that he may have broken the fragile trust that had been forged between them through careful measures and extreme tolerance on his part. "But make sure you don't get too far ahead."

"We don't want the Kanima to lose interest." He quoted Allison's words effortlessly, being as subtle as he could in order not to get caught. "Don't worry," He assured her. "I'll drive and you shoot. We're a good team, remember?" Allison nodded but didn't speak as her head disappeared from the window and only her legs were visible from where she was leaning against the cab with her bow nocked and ready.

Chris wiped at his sticky brow, suppressing the urge to spit out a volley of unsavory curses as he wished—despite his best efforts—that Allison's mother could be there to breach the suddenly expansive divide between father and daughter.

"Oh my god!" Stiles cried loudly from the back of the truck as a bright orange and red explosion scorched the air out of the corner of Chris' eye. "Derek is not going to be happy." He added as the charred remains of the black Camaro fell to the ground in shambles.

On the road up ahead, Chris made note of each damaged section in order to evade them when the time came. Averting his gaze for a moment, he slid his hand across his lower calf and pulled out the pistol and switchblade he always concealed, gently placing them on the unoccupied passenger seat.

"How long until we reach the Preserve?" A feminine voice of a much higher pitch than Allison's, with a raspy dryness to it that hadn't previously been present when Lydia had spoke, wondered.

"Not long," He recalled from all the times he and Gerard had driven to the very same forest searching for all the werewolf game they could find. "I'd say about another five miles of urban road before we reach the trails. Why, is something wrong?" Chris couldn't help adding as his brows furrowed in concern. Even though he hadn't known her for long, Chris was fairly certain that impatience wasn't a trait marring Lydia Martin's character.

"Because Peter and Derek haven't returned yet, and Scott just fell off the—the, the Kanima's back." She struggled, her tone panicked. "He doesn't look like he's getting up, either."

"Dammit." Chris swore beneath his breath, the tightness in his chest finally alleviating as he permitted himself to feel the overwhelming sense of dread that he had dutifully kept at bay until then. "Whose left, then? How many are still on the Kanima?" He barked militarily, his mindset slipping away from the concerned father and into the practiced hunter. He'd worry about Scott's health, later. The boy was a werewolf, after all; he could heal, unlike the rest of them.

"Um," Lydia stuttered uncertainly. "I don't know, I can't really see much."

"Two left." Allison interrupted sharply, her tone clear and even. "Isaac and Adrianna." Despite her rough manner, it was obvious by the way that Allison placed a comforting hand over Lydia's shoulder that his daughter wasn't entirely void of manners or emotions.

"That's good, right?" Stiles shouted to be heard as he leaned into the window. "I mean, two's better than nothing. Isn't it?"

"Yes," Chris nodded his head stiffly, refusing to turn his head around and meet the intelligent boy's calculating stare. "Definitely." But even as he assuaged the teenager's worries, Chris couldn't shake the sickening feeling that Adrianna's sudden involvement in the fight wasn't a good thing, at all. At least, not for Jackson.

The Kanima shrieked loudly, drawing Chris' attention to where Adrianna was darting around the club-like tip of the Kanima's tail while stabbing at the scaled skin beneath her. The Argent family broadsword, which gleamed dangerously in the cloudy morning sky, was then pulled from the hilt out of where it was deeply buried through a raw patch of scales as she resumed her attack.

He watched in confusion as the only remaining werewolf—the unlikely beta, Isaac Lahey—seemed to be avoiding his niece's blows at every opportunity, almost as though they were fighting each other and the damage done to the Kanima was merely coincidental. Chris didn't have time to puzzle over the situation, nor did he want to as they sped past a sign declaring the entrance to the forest preserve.

Trees began to spring up beside the road, thickening gradually as they drove on into the Animal Preserve. Through the tall, obscuring foliage, they descended into darkness. Just as Chris had allowed himself to relax ever so slightly, comfort easily found in the routine of their daring chase and the safety of the tree canopy from the overhead threat of the Kanima, a strange hissing sound invaded his senses as it rang loudly for a handful of seconds before fizzling out.

Not a moment later, the dry underbrush to their right erupted in flames.

"Duck!" He shouted as another hiss pierced the eerily quiet forest, followed by a sudden burst of painfully bright white and blistering red much closer to their left than the previous burst had been. "Get down!"

Without further encouragement, Stiles, Lydia, and Allison each kneeled in the bed of the truck, placing their arms over their heads as they craned their necks in confusion, searching for the source of the sudden bush fires. Chris didn't need to look or even think about it. He'd been hunting monsters his whole life and even though he'd never personally encountered a Kanima before, much less an Alpha-Kanima, he had a general outline of the capabilities of an organic body by which to base his assumptions on.

As far as he could tell, the Kanima has lost all of it's paralytic toxin following it's metamorphosis, but the fact that there had been no proof of this, had always niggled at his subconscious. Now, if he was right about the hissing sound which was always directly followed by a caustic reaction—in this case, fire—it seemed his suspicion was well-placed and the Kanima had never lost it's useful defense mechanism, after all.

It had only adapted it.

Painfully aware of the ever-shrinking distance between his car and the flaming sections of burnt pine needles and other foliage, Chris pressed further down on the gas pedal, focusing less on maneuvering around fallen debris and damaged or nonexistent sections of the gravel road, and more on the safety of his three passengers in the back, who were at even more risk of an attack than he was.

He heard the Kanima as it neared them before he saw it through the dense canopy. It's powerful wings beat like cannon-fire and forced the earth to inhale and exhale along with each stroke. Chris counted down in his head for a total of three seconds before her jerked the steering wheel to the side, evading the next shot of potent acid from the Kanima's immense jaws.

The toxic mixture missed their car by a long-shot and Chris used the creature's roar of outrage to spy for Adrianna and Isaac. He was so busy staring at them as they battled against each other, and not the Kanima, that he didn't have time to maneuver out of the way of the following stream of clear, burning liquid that unnervingly resembled the Kanima's viscous venom.

"Hold on!" He cried loudly as the car jostled, the acrid scent of burning rubber informing him that it was their tire that had been hit. The metal rim scratched against the gravel underneath, sparks showering the side of their truck and lighting into an impressive fire as friction lit the remainder of the acid.

Allison moved from her curled, protective position, towards the burning metal as though she had decided to stamp it out. "Don't touch it!" He shouted unnecessarily as panic spiked in his heart. "It's acid. None of you touch it. Just leave it where it is." He repeated with more control as Allison's smoke-teared gaze met his. Chris was glad to see that gratitude flashed in her eyes, as opposed to the anger and indignation he found himself expecting.

"Lydia, Stiles," She voiced with authority as the Kanima's altitude rose and it prepared for another dive-bombing. "Get inside the truck."

"But I thought I was the bait?" Lydia argued dubiously, quick to catch onto the main facts of the situation, even if she didn't entirely understand their actual situation. "Won't it leave if it can't see me?" She wondered.

Allison's lips pressed into a firm line as she stared up into the dampened sky where the Kanima's shiny hide could just be seen through the branches overhead. "I don't think that's a problem anymore." She admitted, her gaze sliding over to the burning wheel-well. "And if you stay out here, you may not be alive to find out."

"That's good enough for me." Stiles readily agreed as he gestured for Lydia to climb through the very small, open window leading into the cab of the truck. "Ladies first." He told her with one hand extended for her to take.

Chris repressed a smirk as Lydia ignored Stiles' offer of assistance, pushing herself head-first through the porthole window with only a second's hesitation. Hastily retrieving his pistol and switchblade from the leather seat, Chris dumped the weapons into his lap as he pulled Lydia the remaining distance into the front seat.

Stiles was next. His gangly, skinny frame allowed him to fit through the space more easily than Lydia had, although his awkward coordination resulted in a few too many bruised elbows by the time he had finally settled into his seat next to the window with Lydia pressed between him and Chris.

"There's no more room," Lydia realized, concern painting her voice and features as she turned her head to stare into the nearly empty bed of the truck. "Where's Allison going to go? She can't stay out there."

"We don't have any other choice." Chris understood as he felt his daughter's firm gaze fixed onto the back of his head. The truck rumbled beneath his hands and listed to the side as they dragged their rear wheel. "We just have to trust Allison to stay safe. She can take care of herself." He echoed the words that he'd heard Allison insisting time and again, sometimes with impatience and other times filled with rage, as understanding and acceptance finally found him.

Chris didn't see his daughter's reaction, but he could guess that it was a pleased one, as he didn't hear a word from her in argument. He'd trained her and watched her flourish into the huntress that she was today, but somehow, it had never truly occurred to him that he would have to treat her with the respect her skill-set deserved, as she joined into the family's age-old tradition.

Dipping into the tree line, chopping the top meter cleanly off of each towering pine in it's path, the Kanima came around for another attack, it's mouth wide open revealing rows of sharpened, jagged teeth which frothed with the clear liquid that it would soon shoot towards them.

"Alright," He said to himself, loud enough so that Allison could hear him if she wanted to. "Fifty meters between us. Target attacks at twenty or less. We have ten seconds." He calculated. "Allison," Chris raised his voice to instruct, but swallowed his words before they could breach the air. "Do your best." He settled on saying, instead, as he adhered to the agreement he'd reached within himself to allow his only daughter to spread her wings.

Allison grinned, her eyes shining with unshed tears despite the satisfaction in the way she effortlessly drew back the string of her bow and released a volley of arrows high into the air.

Counting down in his head once more, Chris veered to the left, unintentionally crushing his side mirror against a tree as the Kanima roared angrily before releasing it's hissing acid directly where they had once been, the gravel melting beneath the corrosive substance.

"Yes!" Stiles cheered, pumping his fists excitedly. "The force is strong with this one." He joyfully stated.

Chris frowned, his concentration momentarily breaking from the road and towards the unusual boy. "Now is hardly the time for a Star Wars reference." He pointed out sternly as Stiles floundered, his eyes widening in disbelief as he glanced at Chris in wonder.

"Finally," He breathed triumphantly. "Someone understands what I'm talking about."

The side of Chris' lip quirked upwards along with his eyebrow. "Focus, Stiles." He urged, despite the slight urge he had to ask the teen why no one would understand such an obvious quote. "I don't care about the deteriorating entertainment of teenagers. I need to know how far back the Kanima is." He reminded him.

"Oh, yeah." The boy nodded soberly. "Wow, it's—um, it's gone." He guiltily admitted, twisting and contorting to look around the car in all directions. "I can't see it."

"Are you sure?" Chris retorted, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel as fear tickled his thoughts. "He can't have gone far. Keep looking and tell me the moment you find him." He ordered.

"Sure," Stiles eagerly agreed as Chris dared to take a quick glance behind him to check on Allison. "What about right now? Does now work, because I see him and let me tell you, he does not look happy." The boy informed him.

Chris instantly saw what Stiles was talking about, slamming the breaks and turning the car in a skid as fast as he could, but it wasn't fast enough. Already, the Kanima's acid was on its way towards them. Already, it had hit its target.

But as the burning smell was carried away from Chris' nostrils, he realized that, not only was the Kanima strong and fast, but it was smart, too; incredibly so. It had learned from trial and error. Its target hadn't been their truck because it already knew that Chris could evade far too easily.

Its target was the forty meter tall redwood tree directly in front of their truck. And, as the snapping, crunching sound of the tree's trunk crumbling in on itself became known, Chris realized that the Kanima had hit it's mark, dead on.

He had only a second to decide on a course of action as they barreled towards the falling ton of wood.

Chris didn't think about Allison, who was vulnerable in the back of the truck and unaware of the threat ahead. He could only think about his speed and the distance between their car and the tree trunk.

He took a chance. A risky chance.

Chris pressed the gas pedal to the floor and prayed that he wasn't making a mistake as the truck careened on three wheels towards what could have been all of their deaths.

And then, he took a quick look in the rear-view mirror and saw where Allison was perched, at the very end of the truck's bed, and he realized that he hadn't accumulated enough speed to save her.

Before he even noted the action, his foot had moved off of the gas and onto the brake, slamming down with strength he didn't know he possessed.

A second later, as the immense tree settled to the forest floor with an earth-pounding collision, Chris was thankful to note that the hood of the truck was a few feet clear of danger, even as he saw a few new scrapes marring Allison's chin and hands.

The Kanima flew past overhead, only one of it's two enormous wings keeping it in the air. Chris squinted as he tried to understand what had happened so far above them, between Adrianna and the Kanima.

All at once, he understood as the Kanima streaked across the sky like a falling comet, what his niece was doing. His eyes filled with tears that he refused to let fall, and his chest constricted with guilt as he stepped out of the car to watch the monster and the demigod battle to the death.

"She's alone up there." Allison concluded from where she was standing beside him, having limped to his side to watch what had captured his attention. "We have to help her." She firmly stated, lifting her bow in her hand and slinging it across her shoulder.

"You'll do no such thing." Chris commanded coldly, leaving no room for dispute.

Allison frowned at him, shaking her head. "No," Her lips lifted in disapproval as she moved away from him to climb over the immense log in their path. "I may not be as experienced as any of you, but I know when someone's outnumbered. She can use all the help she can get without Scott and Isaac by her side."

"You are not to help your cousin, Allison." He carefully spelled out, taking his eyes away from the sight above him, to face his daughter. "This is her fight; not yours."

Allison's eyes blazed with angry fire. "Go to hell." She growled, marching past him stubbornly.

Chris repressed the hurt that stabbed at his heart and reached out to restrain Allison, knowing what it would do to their still-healing relationship. "Let me go!" She squirmed relentlessly against him. "Dammit, dad, get off! I can do this, I can help." Allison persisted, her voice cracking with emotion.

"I'm not saying that you can't." He cracked, turning Allison around in his arms and shaking her firmly. "I'm saying that I won't let you."

"This isn't your fight." Chris repeated quietly as tears streaked across Allison's cheeks. "Adrianna isn't fighting to save Jackson, sweetie, she's trying to kill him." He told her, pain tearing his voice up in ribbons as he too, found it difficult to stop from crying.

"She's being the killer so no else has to be." He explained, recalling how he'd said something so similar, only a few hours ago in the veterinary clinic. "She's taking the fall and bloodying her hands because she's the only one who can take it; who can withstand our hate.

Allison was rendered silent as he finished. The true meaning of his words hitting her just as harshly as they were hitting Chris.

He had thought that Adrianna's flexible nature would turn her from a heartless killer into a valiant hero. Foolishly, he'd allowed himself and everyone else to place their hopes onto her shoulders, believing that the most ideal solution could be reached. But this was the real world, and problems weren't always solved ideally.

Peace was paid for in blood and tears.

The only mistake Chris had made was not realizing whose blood would be spilled, and whose tears would be shed.

#-#-#-#-#

Each time he inhaled, his throat ached from the consistent burning that now flowed straight up from his chest and out of his mouth in a stream of acidic destruction.

He didn't mind the pain. In fact, Jackson even thought he liked the burn. It reminded him of his true goal; of the prize that awaited his murderous jaws and sharpened talons.

Lydia Martin had to die.

It wasn't anything personal to Jackson. It was just that she was distracting him, rattling the cage where he'd locked away his morality and his human conscientious, stirring up feelings that he'd rather never experience again. Sensations that pulled at his gut and weighed down his heart like heavy stones of guilt.

And Jackson, now a supreme creature of evolution by which chaos would be fully unleashed upon Beacon Hills, would not lower himself to feeling such puny and insignificant emotions.

He was so busy savoring the bloody details of the wailing woman's demise—how he would rip her apart, limb from limb, just as he'd destroyed everything else in his simplistic past—that Jackson hardly noticed the squabbling werewolves on his backside, who had chosen to attack themselves instead of furthering their assault on his badly damaged hide, until it was too late.

The pain was so intense, so entirely consuming, that his vision blacked out entirely as nothing but the frantic staccato of his loud heartbeat and the distinct absence of his left wing, could be accounted for.

A scream gurgled in his throat and tore out of his lips. No, he was getting confused again. He didn't have thin, pinkish lips or pasty skin, and his voice certainly wasn't a shrill whisper. He was scaled and vicious; a picture of ferocity and deadly force. And, with only one wing to lift himself and the remaining person on his back, he was also falling.

The wind tore at his scales, lifting the damaged sections dispassionately and tearing them away. A trail of green blood had, at one point, begun gushing out of the amputated stump which was all that remained of his wing. Nearing his neck, he felt the final human clinging onto his hide desperately, a sharp stabbing sensation alerting him to the weapon she still carried.

Yes, this one was much stronger than the others. He'd been a fool to dismiss her so easily but now that he was alone with her, Jackson could remedy his earlier short-comings and eliminate the threat swiftly.

He remembered her, distantly, almost as though from a dream, although the murky tint to the memories told him that she'd most likely been a part of his human and beta stages. Now, as an Alpha, Jackson had no doubt that he could dispatch her with greater ease than he ever could as a subservient beta or the greedy boy he'd once been.

Jackson twisted his immense body through the air as he attempted to shake the foolish mortal from his once pristine hide. His claws reached as far as they could, always just a few inches too far to close around the human's body. He shrieked in frustration as the girl managed to stab her surprisingly effective blade through his torn up shoulder and snapped his jaws near her head as she ducked out of the way.

He could smell it on her, now, the stench of her bloodline. She was no ordinary mortal, or any typical supernatural creature. Adrianna Argent was a most worthy opponent for him and he would have reveled in defeating her, had he not had other, more important things to be doing at that moment.

As it was, with his goals set aside in order to contend with the irritating demigod, she only succeeded in outraging him further.

Steam curled out of his nostrils as he uselessly spat his reserve supply of acid. The ground spun beneath him, or perhaps it was him that was spinning, as they continued to plummet in an uncontrolled descent. It seemed he wasn't the only one that was weakening as their velocity increased to the point where everything appeared to be blurry and distorted in his vision.

The half-blood faltered where she was, tucking herself into a small shape so that she could fit underneath his one remaining wing. The powerful gusts that surrounded them both caught hold of her, pulling her much lighter form away from her hiding place and into the open—despite the way she dug her sword through his flesh in a final attempt to remain hidden— where he could finally reach her.

With the speed of a snake, Jackson curled his clawed hands around her body, squeezing with all his might as he laughed, breathing out hisses through his forked tongue. As he stabbed the claw of his forefinger cleanly through the human's side, he pulled her towards his face, intending to cut her in half.

She squirmed, kicking and cursing loudly in a language that no longer meant anything to him. He cared nothing of her opinion of him. All that mattered was crushing her rebellion and surviving the imminent collision, which he could no longer avoid, so that he could continue on his quest.

A familiar, yet strangely alien voice whispered caustic words into his mind, reminding him of a duty. He was still a servant, somehow. To who, Jackson didn't know, but he didn't question it any further. Destruction, death, pain, strife, and suffering; those where the things which he was meant to unleash upon the world.

They became his own desires, as though they had sprung from his mind, and not the clever conscience of another. He vowed to see them done, even if they were the last things he ever did.

But as the demigod neared his open maw, only seconds away from being crushed between his wickedly sharp fangs, the first glimpse of the real Jackson shone through once more, as the young Argent shouted words in her mother tongue as a last attempt to plead with him; words that he understood perfectly.

"Quaeso, Jackson, prohibere!" She asked of him, her voice turning hoarse as she shouted to be heard over the gale-force winds. "Ne hoc facerem. Adhuc dies est, ut satisfaciam. Non possum tamen salvum te."

Her words burrowed beneath the surface of his tough, scaly hide. They wriggled in his mind like a thousand digging ants. Could she still save him? Would he even want her to, given the chance?

Jackson was disturbed to find that the answer was yes. He did want her to save him, or anyone, for that matter. The monster was furious with him; every ounce of killer, Kanima instinct rebelled against that single thought, but he held onto it as tightly as he could.

Save me, he wanted to tell the girl, whose name had recently returned to him along with a barrage of other, crippling memories. Please, Adrianna Argent, save me.

He didn't want to kill anymore. He didn't want to fight or destroy. Wreaking havoc only brought heat to his eyes and guilt to his heart. Killing Lydia was unspeakable. He loved her. Jackson could remember clearly now. He loved Lydia Martin with all his heart. He didn't want to die without telling her.

It was difficult—no, it was onerous—but Jackson forced his grip to loosen around Adrianna. She stared at him in wonder and it occured to Jackson that there had never been anyone he admired and cared for, as much as he did her. It was different than with Lydia. How, he couldn't explain, just...different.

The urge to crush her became less and less distinct, slowly being swallowed up by the desire to protect and atone for all the lives he'd cost with his foolish aspirations to become something wild and strong; something he'd never truly understood, until now.

He tucked the girl into his chest, wrapping her in his one remaining wing as the ground drew nearer. If he survived, perhaps there was still time for him to fix the things that he'd unthinkingly destroyed.

The more control he garnered over his thoughts, the fainter the voice became in his mind, screaming at him to kill, kill, kill. In that moment, he was in control of himself, as he always should have been. Only his thoughts ruled his actions.

Perhaps it was too little, too late, but it was all that he could give before the ground gave way to his immense body and darkness consumed him for long enough to allow the monster he'd locked away, an exit.

#-#-#-#-#

Derek started as the shockwave reached his ears. He leaned against a random tree in the forest and shut his eyes, drowning in his shame.

He didn't look over the tree-tops because he didn't need to. Even from his distance, he could hear bones snapping against the solid ground as the Kanima screamed murderously.

Adrianna had done what he could not. She'd taken away the Kanima's wings. She'd grounded the monster. Now, all that remained was the killing.

Beneath the roar still echoing in his eardrums, Derek could almost swear he heard a human whimper.

He started running and didn't look back.

#-#-#-#-#

She'd followed the streaking mass of scales and glittering metal as Adrianna and Jackson had fallen out of the sky. Lydia felt it in her bones when they hit the earth, even as they passed out of her line of sight.

A scream built up in her throat but she held it back. She was afraid. Her hands shook but Stiles didn't say anything from where he was sitting beside her.

Fear of Jackson's fate. Fear for Adrianna's life. Fear of the world she'd been pushed into all of a sudden. But mostly, fear of herself. She didn't know who she was, anymore.

Lydia didn't even know what she was, anymore.

Maybe they were all monsters. Maybe they would all die the same way; at the end of each other's guns and the edge of each other's knives. Maybe they deserved to kill each other.

It didn't matter.

Deep down in her soul, Lydia already knew that they'd failed.

#-#-#-#-#

The Kanima's body absorbed the brunt of the impact, but Adrianna still felt the aching collision as her spine was jostled abuptly and her racing thoughts were silenced with a pathetic whimper that was overpowered by the Kanima's mighty roar.

Smoke filled her lungs and the pressing shape of the Kanima's chest overtop of her felt as though she were trapped. Warm, wet liquid coated her back. She didn't need to check to know it was the Kanima's blood.

Adrianna pushed against Jackson's belly, the lighter-coloured scales, bent and cracked, sliced into her palms. The Kanima inhaled, stealing away space from her and beginning to choke her as her chest collided with the Kanima's. She knew her body was far frailer than the Kanima's. It was only a matter of time before her bones broke.

Her bleeding hands reached out, feeling along the expanse of leathery, capillary-covered wing until her fingers brushed along hot dirt. Gasping as she felt her ribs beginning to bend, Adrianna dug her nails into the earth and began to pull herself out, wriggling beneath the Kanima's oppressive form.

With only one hand finding purchase, the muscles in her arms screamed in protest as she dragged herself out of the death-trap the Kanima's once protective embrace had become. Her upper-body free, Adrianna rolled onto her back, allowing herself to pant in exhaustion as she stared up into the sky, making note of the barely visible constellations which still shone overhead.

An ear-grating groan drew her attention back to the Kanima as she scuttled all the way free and observed the wounded creature. Its head was large, about the size of an SUV, and the crown of spiky flesh across its brow was marred with green blood dripping down its scales and onto the ground.

Frowning, Adrianna considered whether it was asleep as she took in the damage done by their fall, or perhaps comatose, but not even a moment later, its large, luminous yellow eyes snapped open to regard her.

Her heart beat fast in her chest, pressing against her sore but otherwise undamaged ribs, rhythmically. Adrianna reached out blindly, fumbling for her weapon but finding nothing but more charred, rocky dirt.

The Kanima's eyes flashed dangerously, changing from a monstrous yellow to a distinctly human blue. Confusion swam through Adrianna's mind as she became entranced by the Kanima's internal conflict.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a shining object barely hidden by the crest of dirt over the deep crater the Kanima's heavy form had punched into the earth. She only had a moment to consider her options before the Kanima drew back its lips, revealing the rows of shiny, razor-sharp teeth inside its mouth threateningly.

Adrianna shut off her thoughts and leapt to the side as the Kanima's wing spread out, nearly slamming across her back had she not moved in time. She clawed up the steep incline, digging her fingernails through the compacted dirt and kicking with her legs until she could pull herself out of the crater.

Landing on her back once more, Adrianna swallowed thickly as she listened to the Kanima's pained shrieks and screams. Even if she'd wanted to, Adrianna couldn't force herself to help.

Now was not the time for heroics. No matter how badly she wanted to save Jackson, she knew she couldn't. After all, she'd never been the hero type; roles like that fell to people like Scott with hope in their hearts and trust in their bones.

Adrianna was a girl with ashes in her soul and death in her blood.

Killing would come naturally, she was sure, but it didn't make the task easier or silence the whispers of doubt poisoning her mind. She still wanted to do what was right. She still wanted to try and save the orphaned boy, even if her efforts would end up being fruitless.

She had to try...

#-#-#-#-#

All the poisonous thoughts and revolting schemes Jackson had worked so hard to keep at bay, sprung forth in his moment of weakness, wrestling to overcome his determined but vastly outnumbered will.

He vaguely noticed Adrianna rolling away from him, her feet on solid ground, as he began to convulse. Bones were broken, he was sure, and the wound still spewing blood was sapping what little strength he still had, away. He felt as though his skin was on fire, a thousand burning knives piercing through every pore as his body's final defence mechanism kicked in to save his life.

Gasping, Jackson writhed on the charred, earthy surface of the crater he'd created, his hands reaching out and grabbing hold of anything they could as the pain became unbearable. His muscles coiled taut and then kept pulling, crushing his bones and tangling his veins in an experience that was as terrifying as it was agonizing.

He shrieked loudly as the ground seemed to expand beneath him, or perhaps he was simply getting smaller. A fire started in his belly and promised to remain lit for an eternity as he clutched at his head, trying to pull the multiple personalities fighting for dominance of his conscience, out of his skull.

Blinking felt as though he was staring into a sandblaster, breathing was like inhaling molten lava, and moving felt like a death sentence. Still, he crawled out of the pit his own monstrous form had created, searching for something, anything to anchor himself onto.

No, Jackson thought to himself as he felt his mental grasp slipping beneath the roiling surface of hate and violence. Please; not again.

And even though he was certain that someone else was in his head now, pulling the strings and forcing him to his feet—his body stuck halfway between its Alpha and Beta forms as he focused on healing the internal damage and conserving energy—Jackson found that he hadn't actually expected to hear an answer. When he did, a chill settled over him unlike any he'd ever felt before.

"Sleep," A deep, rumbling voice coerced him. It was so tempting, the prospect of rest, so alluring, that Jackson nearly gave up then. "Relinquish your mind and your body. Serve me." It ordered, a threatening undercurrent taking hold in the voice.

Jackson had never been brave, he'd gotten to where he was on the social ladder through his own financial position and the careful manipulation of people dumber than him, but he'd always been stubborn and proud. Those two things were enough to light a flare of indignation within him that permitted the burning embers of courage to flourish.

He could have bowed down and done as the voice commanded him. He could have accepted the open arms of a cold, sweet darkness and never had to worry about pitiful things like school, friends, or the supernatural world he suddenly found himself a part of.

But he was proud and he was stubborn. And Jackson was very tired of doing what others told him to do. He was his own person, he had his own thoughts, he had his own motivations. Gerard Argent hadn't been able to stop him, and this—whatever it was—certainly wasn't going to be the thing that did him in.

"No," He defiantly uttered, and Jackson was uncertain if he'd actually spoken out loud, or inside his mind, because of the intensity of his emotions. "I will not."

Jackson could feel the creature's surprise as the picture of a shadowy figure reeling backwards began to paint itself in his head. "You dare to defy me?" It boomed dangerously.

His fists curled as he committed himself to resisting the real monster inside of him. "Yeah, I do." Jackson casually admitted, a sly smirk pulling at the corner of his lips as his brows rose arrogantly. "You got a problem with that, bitch?" He wondered.

The shadow shook inside him, stretching outwards as though it wanted to swallow him up. Jackson invited the challenge. He was done with being a coward. It was time to prove his worth.

It was finally time to unleash his own monster.

#-#-#-#-#

Adrianna rolled to the side once she'd caught her breath. Jackson didn't stop her. Her mind was still racing as she fell into a squat a few yards away, her hands wrapping around the familiar handle of her family's broadsword.

She lifted herself to her feet as she heard reptilian hisses combined with human screams of pain. Adrianna cautiously tread back to the edge of the crater, her feet brushing singed pine needles and stamping out the first sparks of a fire as she watched the strange scene before her.

Writhing on the ground, his scaly skin rippling with energy as it began to tighten and bend, the Kanima seemed to be regressing from its Alpha state as the stump Adrianna had left behind of its left wing disappeared into the human plane of a shoulder and its dragon-sized head lost the spikes and jagged scales that made it appear so reptilian in the first place.

"What the hell?" She couldn't help from wondering as she stood in a transfixed daze, watching as the Kanima's shape began to resemble that of its Beta form. "Jackson, is that you? Are you still in there?" Adrianna hesitantly called out.

At first, he didn't appear to notice her question. He seemed to be trapped in a world of pain and fear that Adrianna could only begin to imagine. But, as his towering body soon reached more normal proportions—from a daunting dragon-like beast with wings to a four-meter tall fusion of a very tall, reptilian human with a sculpted forehead, flattened nose, and spiked nerve cord—Jackson turned his head towards her and blinked his disconcerting yellow eyes in vertical slits.

For some reason, Adrianna felt a sudden tugging sensation in her gut as a foreboding wind swept through the trees, blowing her frayed and burnt hair in a halo around her head.

The Kanima's lips parted to reveal rows of sharpened teeth, each of uniform size and shape. Its claws curled into fists, clear venom dripping from the keratine and informing Adrianna that, during the unexpected mutation, the Kanima had regained its iconic paralytic toxin. She could only guess if it would work on her now, or if it would be as harmless as it had been during its Beta stage.

"Puny child," The Kanima spoke in a deep, very un-Jackson-like voice, each syllable pitching oddly, almost as though more than one person was speaking. "Your precious Jackson no longer exists." It pronounced the name like an insult, sending shivers rolling up Adrianna's spine.

Power corruscated off of the Kanima in threatening waves and set Adrianna's hands sweating as she carefully tightened her grasp on her sword. It was the kind of power Adrianna had only felt a handful of times before; god power, just like she'd sensed trapped within Luke Castellan's new sword, Backbiter.

"Kronos?" Adrianna narrowed her eyes, her head tilting to the side in trepidation as real fear stabbed her heart and forced it to punch into her rib-cage with each powerful beat.

The Kanima smirked exactly the way Adrianna remembered Jackson did, its amber colored eyes brightening with glee. "Guess again, daughter of death." It mocked her, rising out of the hole it had been standing in to tower over Adrianna.

"This isn't really fair," She tried to argue as she took a step back, craning her neck to see the Kanima's garrishly distorted features as it laughed. "You know who I am but I don't know who you are." Adrianna baited.

"On a minor god, that might have worked." The creature stated once its rasping laugh had died away. "But I am no minor god." He assured her, slitted eyes boring into her very soul as he raised his fist over her.

"You have proved yourself a strong warrior, but alas, I have no time for pets." The Kanima told her, its skin abruptly fluctuating between a dark, sickly green mottled with still-healing wounds, to a fleshy pink. "You must die."

Adrianna didn't wait to hear the rest of the unidentified villain's speech. She sprung into action, darting under the Kanima's immense fist and swinging her sword through the air as she charged Jackson. The beast laughed once more, seemingly enjoying the battle as the edge of Adrianna's blade missed the scaly covering of the Kanima's nearest leg by inches.

Grunting from the effort, Adrianna slowed her run and burned off her excess momentum, crouching low to duck under the Kanima's swinging, clubbed tail which was sure to hurt if it caught her in the chest, unaware. She was tired and injured, but Adrianna refused to allow her fatigue to slow her down.

Fighting the Kanima had been one thing. She knew how to deal with regular monsters. They had simplistic goals and predictable tactics. But whatever this thing was, which had clearly taken control of both Jackson and the Kanima at some point, wasn't anything that Adrianna was prepared for.

She took a deep breath as the Kanima's claws grazed across her back, digging through flesh but not paralyzing her with its toxin, as far as she could tell. Wincing slightly, Adrianna had to quickly raise her sword up to her neck she was nearly impaled once more in her distraction.

"Jackson, can you hear me?" Adrianna grit through her teeth as she struggled to keep the razor sharp claws away from her clammy, vulnerable skin. "I know you're in there. Maybe Lydia was right and you were always there; I just didn't want to believe it."

She twisted her sword by the handle, locking two of the Kanima's immense claws between her blade in a move she'd learned from Luke Castellan, the day he'd tried to recruit her. "You saved my life. That fall would have killed me." She hoped to remind him, to somehow bring him back from where he'd been lost. "Tentant durius. Fortius pugnare." Adrianna encouraged.

Her feet were lifted off the ground as she dangled from the Kanima's four-fingered grasp. Through the air she was pulled upwards until she was suspended a few feet from the Kanima's face.

"Foolish girl," The hollow, raspy voice chastised frustratedly even as its hand began to shake. "You cannot comprehend your own fate. You and all the others will die. I will reign over this reality as I once did and all your wretched gods will sit beneath my throne."

Adrianna swallowed her fear and allowed her anger to take control. "I don't think you should be so quick to underestimate me." She pointed out, tensing her core and swinging her legs backwards and forwards. "I'm stronger than I look."

Before the beast could express its obvious distaste at her remarks, Adrianna's thick combat boots collided with the Kanima's nose as she disentangled her blade and twisted so that the sword skimmed across the Kanima's chest, slowing her fall significantly, but not entirely.

She didn't waste any time to see what kind of damage she'd done, though by the deafening roar that rung in her ears, Adrianna guessed that she'd proved her point. Running on a sprained ankle and breathing around a broken rib or two, Adrianna dashed up the back of the Kanima's knee, using the hollow space between muscle and knee-cap to vault herself across the distance to the Kanima's only remaining wing—which hung limply, the leathery skin shriveled slightly as it was clearly no longer useable—and up, onto the Kanima's upper back, where she perched on its shoulders.

Without even thinking, Adrianna narrowly dodged one of the Kanima's flailing arms just inches from colliding with her already concussed head, avoiding the sporadically placed, razor sharp spikes along the way and coming up with her sword held high in both hands, plunging it just beneath the Kanima's head, where she knew it's spinal cord was.

The Kanima shrieked this time as it stumbled on its feet, falling onto its knees and giving Adrianna an opportunity to dismount and come around for another blow. She slid down the Kanima's back and was nearly to the ground when, somehow, a strong hand enclosed around her legs and pulled her away.

"You will die a slow death for your insolence." The Kanima rumbled angrily, dangling her upside down in the air like some kind of doll.

Indignation boiled in Adrianna's gut. She forced her aching shoulders to lift the heavy broadsword over her head as she reminded herself what was at stake. She couldn't let an entire city burn. Failing wasn't an option. Not anymore. And neither was saving Jackson, as a tiny sliver of her heart had always held out hope for.

"Let...me...down!" She growled each word, ending in a scream as she pulled her torn, bruised, and broken upper body so that she was nearly parallel to her legs, before slicing her heavy broadsword cleanly through the dull scales of the Kanima's wrist.

Her weapon tumbled out of her trembling hands as she, along with the amputated hand, fell to the ground. Adrianna braced herself, but it didn't make a difference. In her shape, four meters was just as good as four miles. Adrianna couldn't hold back a scream as her arm twisted beneath her, her own body weight popping the joint free and breaking several of the more fragile bones in her wrist and fingers.

Blood from the separated limb soaked the muddy ground beneath her, stinging more than a little as it seeped through her clothes and into her open wounds. Clenching her jaw tightly, Adrianna took a painful glance over her left shoulder as the Kanima swayed on its knees, staring in furious surprise at the stumpy, clean white bone protruding from the shredded, bloody mass of flesh.

The Kanima teetered, green blood dripping in copious quantities from the severed appendage as the combined injuries finally took their toll. It began to fall not a moment later and Adrianna was forced to kick with legs as heavy as lead, and pull with fingers and arms as strong as dried twigs, to crawl through the mud, out of the Kanima's shadow.

Despite her best efforts, the mud was slipperly and finding traction was nearly impossible. Her own, red blood mingled with the brown and green concoction weighing down her clothes and keeping her fingers from catching hold of anything that she could hope to pull herself along by.

Her nails were chipped and some were so damaged, they ripped free thanks to her useless clawing. She turned onto her stomach, her dislocated shoulder pressed closely to her side as she used her one good arm to keep moving.

"Come on, come on." Adrianna tremulously urged herself as she could feel the forest go still, an ominous gust of wind blowing across the newly made clearing as the Kanima began to fall like one giant, heavy pillar, directly over top of Adrianna's position.

Her blistered fingers found a round, uprooted tree trunk and she didn't hesitate to scrape her nails as deep as she could into the bark and haul herself over. The unforgiving wood and various scratching branches dug into her stomach and pushed on every sore spot and broken bone.

Adrianna shut her eyes tightly as the chilly, grey morning light was blotted out by a dark, frigid shadow. She didn't notice the horned features which didn't match the Kanima's own shape or the glowing red eyes emblazoned into the silhouette. Adrianna only knew one thing. If she didn't climb over the log—that one, stupidly simple obstacle left in her way—she was going to be crushed.

A twig stabbed through the hole in her side that she'd forgotten about, igniting the pain that had numbed over time, all over again. Her eyes snapped open, the fog clearing from her brain as she desperately kicked with her legs, renewed strength surging through her veins as her body weight balanced over the tree.

She shoved her body to the right, not caring that her damaged arm was bearing all of her weight, as Adrianna tipped herself unceremoniously over the log, falling into the slippery mass of mud beneath it.

Adrianna breathed a sigh of relief, her back lying flat across the ground as the hairs on her neck and arms stood on end and the Kanima toppled down over her. The log was just large enough to prevent the Kanima's large skull from killing Adrianna where she lay. The Kanima's chest balanced over the log, its two arms hanging limply on either side of Adrianna as the monster's head and neck slumped at her feet.

Her breathing became erratic the longer she stared at the lifeless corpse of the Kanima. It wasn't just a monster, Adrianna knew. Inside of it, locked away where she couldn't reach, had been Jackson. He had died along with the Kanima, which meant she had killed him, too.

Tears burned Adrianna's nearly hypothermic skin as she released a ragged, strangled sob. She didn't dare to take her eyes away from the reptilian body for fear of what she would see if she looked at herself. Adrianna could feel the green, sticky, barely caustic texture of the Kanima's blood coagulated beneath her fingernails. She knew in her heart that it would never wash away just as the four-clawed scar across her back would never truly heal.

Her chest shook and made it hard to breathe. She heard her own rasping, gargling inhales echo through the air. It wasn't until she saw the luminescent glow of the Kanima's bright yellow eyes staring into her, that Adrianna realized her task was far from completed.

"No," She choked, shaking her head as she tried to convince herself that she was dreaming. The Kanima stirred even further, its lips pulling back in a snarl and its hands reaching out to break what was left of her. "No, no, no, no! Let go, get off!" Adrianna screeched loudly as she felt the Kanima's hot breath fan across her face.

Her words bounced inside her head, echoing through the still morning as the Kanima stopped moving. She closed her eyes tightly, turning her head away as she felt its stare drilling into the side of her face. Adrianna tensed, waiting for the pain that was sure to follow.

"K—ki—kill," She heard instead, the hollow pitch all but gone from the voice of the Kanima, permitting it to sound much more human. "Kill me." It struggled to say in halting, difficult syllables.

Adrianna opened her eyes, a frown pinching her brow as she faced the Kanima. Air lodged in her throat and nearly caused her to splutter because, instead of the vengeful, malicious yellow gaze of the violent Kanima, Adrianna was met with troubled blue eyes.

"Jackson?" She hardly dared to speak, holding her breath as a wave of energy rolled across the Kanima's skin, shrinking its large body another meter or so and allowing some of the more distinct human features to come to light once more.

Adrianna reached out as the blue-eyed Kanima nodded weakly. The blood pouring steadily from the back of its neck and the stump of its wrist was slowly but surely becoming red, a strange mixture of the two colours producing purplish blood.

"You have to—I'm not strong enough." He haltingly told her, wincing and clenching his jaw as his pointed, grey coloured fangs began to widen into human teeth. "I can't hold on. It's the only way." Jackson insisted, suddenly reaching out and taking hold of her hand, his claws curling benignly over her skin.

"Kill me," Jackson more forcefully demanded, as though he could see the battle waging in Adrianna's heart, through her wet eyes. "Before it's too late; before he gets too strong to stop." He warned.

Adrianna wanted to ask who 'he' was, but wasn't sure if Jackson would answer, or if he even knew. She bit her lip as the burden she'd been carrying for hours finally settled onto her shoulders comfortably.

"Okay," She croaked miserably, returning Jackson's grip just as firmly. "I'll do it." Adrianna promised, her expression tightening as she began to search for her weapon.

"You think you can kill me?" He suddenly growled, but his voice was too deep and it had the same echo she'd noted before, when Jackson had been supressed by something else entirely. His fingers tightened painfully around hers until she was forced to halt her desperate fumbling and face the yellow-eyed creature.

"Me!?" It demanded irately, its features twisting with its rage. "Pathetic mortal, I have lived for thousands of years. I cannot be killed!" It bellowed.

Adrianna felt her heart beating in her fingertips as she began to loose circulation to the digits enclosed in the Kanima's half-human grasp. In the corner of her eye, the rising sun glinted off the deadly edge of her blade, only a few feet away from her and partly concealed in the charred remains of the forest underbrush. She pressed her lips into a firm line and stretched her swollen, badly bruised arm towards the hilt.

"For centuries, no one has prevailed in annihilating me from existence," He continued to boast. His hand squeezed impossibly tight around Adrianna's wrist until she could swear she heard muscle tearing. The fingers of her right hand brushed over the leather handle of her sword, only a few inches shy of wrapping firmly around the hilt.

"Not even the gods could do so in their age of glory," He informed her proudly, a sinister note coming to light in his voice. "Their power has come and gone as I've bided my centuries."

Adrianna closed off her throat and swallowed a scream as she pushed her barely functioning arm the distance it needed to reach her weapon. The familiar grip slowed her racing heart and allowed her to forget her pain.

"My prison guards grow weary as my forces spread chaos and unrest," He helpfully shared and Adrianna stored the information away for future reference as she pulled the sword closer to her and tensed her body, preparing to strike. "Heroes of all kinds, from every era have tried to stop me. Demigods, humans, and even my own children. They are not strong enough to defeat me."

Yellow clashed with green as Adrianna stared directly into the creature's harrowing eyes. She saw truth in his words but didn't have time to think any further on the mystery as the Kanima's vertical pupils dilated, flickering over to Adrianna's spare hand.

Understanding flashed in its eyes and Adrianna acted before her only chance at killing the Kanima and whatever had taken control of it, was foiled.

"They," Adrianna answered, her voice hoarse as she twisted her arm at the elbow and impaled the Kanima straight through the chest. "Weren't me."

She pushed the blade deeper as the astonishment faded away from the Kanima's expression along with the haunting, yellow eyes, and scuffed scales. Adrianna didn't allow herself to release the heart-aching scream that pushed on her lungs as Jackson Whittemore, bleeding profusely and entirely human, collapsed against her sword.

He was naked but she didn't notice. All she could see was the blood, those terrible yellow eyes, and the conflicting emotions swimming in Jackson's normal, blue eyes as he reached out for her.

"You have to tell—" Jackson began, only to cough up blood as his internal organs began to crash without the support of his heart, which had been split in two by Adrianna's own sword. "Tell Lydia." He continued a moment later as Adrianna struggled to her knees beside him.

"Tell her—I—I—I," He struggled to hold onto his train of thought, a far-off look glossing over his eyes. Adrianna released the hilt of her weapon, wrapping her arms around the frail boy and clutching him to her chest.

"I know." She consoled him, her aching fingers combing through Jackson's closely cropped hair. "I'll tell her you love her, too." Adrianna vowed.

Wet tears that didn't belong to her fell across the back of her neck as Jackson relaxed into her embrace. She felt as though a hot poker had been jammed through her chest as Jackson wheezed his next words.

"It hurts," He told her shakily, like a child seeking protection and reassurance from his mother. "It hurts so much." Jackson repeated, hiccupping.

"It's okay," Adrianna lied, tears racing across her cheeks as the sun's warmth finally basked across their frigid bodies. "It'll be gone in a second, sweetie." She promised hollowly. "Soon, you won't feel a thing."

She felt Jackson's chin dip as he nodded. His hands clutched fist-fulls of her ripped shirt. "Oh god," He breathed, terror clinging to his voice as Adrianna's head buzzed and death approached them. "I don't want to die." Jackson shared.

"Don't think about that," Adrianna replied harshly before softening her voice somewhat. "Think about all the things you've done in your life. Think about Lydia and your friends."

"I can't," Jackson gasped, his body shivering uncontrollably as he lost the ability to regulate his own temperature. "I can't think. It hurts too much." He told her.

"Shhhh." Adrianna rasped, as though she was soothing a baby to sleep. Black veins began to lift along her hands wherever she touched Jackson, spreading to his flesh soon after and draining what little remained of him into herself. "Just rest. Close your eyes." She implored him.

His breathing sounded gravelly, blood already beginning to pool in his lungs and choke him from the inside. Even in his weakened state, Jackson managed to shake his head ferverently as the fingers of his right hand left mottled, purple bruises on Adrianna's shoulder.

"No," He insisted. "It's too dark. I don't want to."

Adrianna forced herself to remain strong, when all she wanted to do was crumble and admit how lost she was. Death, although it had always been a part of her life, was just as confusing and frightening to her as it was to anyone else.

"The sun's rising, Jackson." Adrianna said instead of delving into a topic she didn't know how to handle, carefully twisting Jackson's body so that he could see the orange and red light peeking through the thick foliage. "You don't have to be afraid anymore. The darkness has no hold over the day."

She felt him loosen his grip on her shoulder, humming deep in his throat as he relaxed. Adrianna's lips wobbled as what was left of his memories—the good and bad ones she'd never seen before, along with some that she already knew—ripped across her mind like a freight train.

"Your parents would be proud of you, Jackson." She hardly managed to say as her voice rung high, nearly shredding. Her own tortured childhood and the ever-present ache in her chest whenever she remembered that she no longer had the chance to hear those words, directly from her mother's mouth, reflected Jackson's life and ambitions.

All along, he'd only been trying to live up to what he thought their expectations would have been for him. He'd only been attempting to make them proud, just like Adrianna knew she'd always keep trying to do, for herself.

"I'm—" Her voice cracked and Adrianna was forced to start again. "I'm proud of you." She hardly dared to whisper.

Jackson exhaled into her side, a dry laugh bubbling out of him. "Really?" He wondered a moment later, sincere longing in his words.

Adrianna nodded her head vehemently as fat tears continued to cascade down her cheeks, slipping past her lips and filling her mouth with the harsh taste of salt mixed with dried blood.

"Really." Adrianna affirmed in as strong a tone as she could manage.

"I'll let you know if yours are, too," Jackson supplied after a long minute of rasping and blood-loss. "If I make it." He added uncertainly, a quiver to his voice.

Adrianna licked her lips and ignored the impending call of death as she felt Jackson's soul begin to slip from her hold. "You'll make it." She said resolutely.

The strength abandoned Jackson as he leaned on Adrianna fully. His limbs felt like dead weight as his head slid to her lap. "How can you be so sure?" He asked her, sounding as though he was speaking from the other end of a long, distant tunnel.

Adrianna sniffled as she squinted into the sun's rays, her hands absently combing through Jackson's hair. "I'm not." She finally found the words to share.

When she looked away from the sun, Adrianna found Jackson's lifeless eyes staring up into the sky. It took her a full minute to gather the courage to check his pulse. When she did, she found none.

"Oh no," Adrianna placed a bloodied hand to her lips as she tried to mitigate her despair, failing miserably. "What have I done?" She asked herself, but she already knew the answer.

She'd killed Jackson Whittemore.

#-#-#-#-#

Her fingers felt raw and sore from how long she'd been twirling the borrowed pocket knife between her digits. Lydia hardly noticed. The sun's light had finally begun to dapple between the high-up tree boughs, but nothing could distract her from the hollow void in her chest.

Lydia rubbed the area with the heel of her palm, grimacing as the pain intensified. A bone-chilling scream rung out through the forest, shattering what felt more and more like the calm before a storm, in an ear-aching instant.

"What the hell was that?" Stiles demanded from where he was still sitting beside her, nibbling at the edges of his fingernails anxiously as he craned his neck to look around the truck in every direction.

Outside, Chris and Allison—who still had a palpable bubble of tension separating them—stopped their hushed conversation with Scott and Isaac, who had just recently caught up to their stationary selves, to listen as the cry echoed and lingered in the cold shadows cast by the immense overhead trees.

"Not what," Lydia realized as her fingers cramped around the small knife hilt and forced her to drop her only distraction into her lap. "Whom?"

She recognized the tone of the scream, and the awful tugging sensation in her stomach only served to confirm her guess. Adrianna had been the one to call out and it sounded very much like she was in pain.

No longer able to contain her curiosity, Lydia shuffled over the truck's bench-like seating until she was behind the steering wheel. "Hey," Stiles pronounced in distress, his fingertips ghosting over her shoulder as he reached out to her. "Where are you going?"

Her fingers closed around the lever built into the side-door and pulled at the same time as she pushed the actual door outwards. "I don't know," Lydia admitted as she dropped to the woody ground beneath, snatching up the pocketknife from where it had fallen onto the leather upholstery. "I just can't sit here and do nothing, anymore."

Before Stiles could answer with what would undoubtedly be a very intelligent and persuasive argument, Lydia slammed the door shut, cutting off the boy's words before they could change her conflicted mind.

Pine needles crunched beneath her, tickling her bare feet and chaffing against the burns and cuts she'd acquired from running over the singed remains of her city's streets. Lydia careful walked towards the large, fallen log that had halted their chase. It was easily as wide as she was tall and, from where she was standing, Lydia couldn't see over to the other side.

Her hand reached out to touch the bark, rough splinters and fibers brushing against the pads of her fingers before a crippling stream of ice soaked through Lydia's spine and into her organs, slowly swallowing her up from the inside.

"Jackson." She whispered beneath her breath as her hand drew back instinctually.

Lydia didn't understand how she knew or even why, just that the frigid clamp around her heart and the ice-water replacing her blood meant that someone was dying or already dead. A buzz in her ears told her it had to be Jackson.

She didn't question the feeling. She didn't consider it or stop to think about alerting any of the others, who Lydia could sense were beginning to stare in her direction, worriedly. She just acted.

Her feet flew beneath her, carrying her nearly effortlessly over the daunting log and into the forest beyond. Behind her, she heard voices calling her name, but they meant nothing to her. Tree branches whipped across her skin like sharpened barbs and her bare feet hardly felt as though they were touching the ground. The wind tore at her clothes and hair, blurring her vision.

For a moment, she felt as though she were moving at inhuman speeds, but, as she broke out into a clearing, stumbling over her tired feet and squinting into the suddenly blinding sun, creeping into the gray, bleak sky, Lydia's heart reminded her of her priorities.

"No," She shook her head, red tendrils of frizzy, unkempt hair swishing into her line of sight and sticking to her clammy skin. "No." Lydia repeated more forcefully, sweeping aside the sick, twisting roots of doubt from her mind and holding tight to the sliver of hope that remained.

She careened forwards, nearly falling head-first down the steep edge of the clearing. Lydia's feet tingled as she tread over the smoking, up-heaved earth that formed the massive crater. She wove between fallen trees and still-burning foliage, catching herself, more than once, from falling in the slippery mud as she approached the two figures huddled together on the opposite side of the man-made clearing.

"Your parents would be proud of you, Jackson." Lydia drew close enough to catch pieces of a conversation drawing to a close. She frowned, her movements slowing as she listened more attentively to Adrianna Argent's emotional words.

"I'm—" The girl tried to say, having to clear her throat as her voice broke. "I'm proud of you." The huntress breathed.

Their backs were to Lydia, so they didn't see her as she stood behind them, eavesdropping. Her heart was loud and frantic in her ears and she swallowed thickly, forcing the organ to calm.

"Really?" She heard Jackson's distinct voice croak. He sounded weak. No, he sounded like he was dying. Lydia stifled a sob as she watched Adrianna's back shake with barely contained tremors.

The huntress nodded her head. Lydia noticed four deep, bleeding gashes slicing across Adrianna's back. "Really." The other girl replied with more strength than Lydia had thought she could've managed.

Blood rushed through Lydia's ears, filling the deafening silence as she stood frozen. She wanted to move, to rush forward and wrap her arms around Jackson; to comfort him and tell him a thousand more times how much she loved him. But there was something holding her back. Something in the tightness of Adrianna's hold over the dying boy that told Lydia not to intrude.

"I'll let you know if yours are, too, if I make it." Jackson choked as Lydia forced herself to stare into the sun. Her heart, already aching from what she'd been through that night, crumbled within her chest as the boy she loved inhaled painfully, sounding as though his throat was gargling.

Lydia clamped a hand around her mouth as a tiny, pitiful squeak slipped out. Her eyes burned as tears began to fall rapidly. "You'll make it." Adrianna seemed to pluck the words straight from out of Lydia's mind.

Jackson's head turned slightly, allowing Lydia her first view of him from where he'd been obscured by Adrianna's protective embrace. "How can you be so sure?" He asked, vulnerability shining through the uneven tones of his voice as Lydia was rendered speechless by the paper-thin, waxy complexion of Jackson's face.

Even from where she was, a couple meters away, Lydia could count each individual capillary which wound beneath the surface of Jackson's skin. Her gaze was drawn downwards, transfixed by the enlarging puddle of purple-hued blood around Adrianna and Jackson's feet.

Tingling pin-pricks began in her fingers and toes, creeping up through her arms and legs, all the way to her chest, until her whole body felt as though it were burning without any heat.

"I'm not." Lydia barley didn't catch Adrianna's whisper as the girl's loud sniffle threatened to overshadow her words. Heat finally began to spread outwards from Lydia's chest as her figure was bathed in warm sunlight.

Adrianna's chin dipped so that she wasn't looking into the sun, as Lydia had found herself doing only a moment before. Adrianna's left hand migrated from where it was clenched around Jackson's bicep, to a familiar spot beneath the boy's chin. It was then that Lydia realized the shape that the Argent huntress was in.

Her right arm, which was hanging limply by her side, was mottled purple and had already swelled to twice it's normal thickness. Blood—both hers and Jackson's—was caked across Adrianna's back and side, mingling with the mud to make an auburn colour.

"Oh no," Adrianna's haunted voice shook Lydia from her analytical assessment. "What have I done?" The huntress asked herself.

Lydia inhaled sharply as she waited, dread thickening her blood, to hear Jackson's weak, sarcastic response. When there wasn't any, Lydia permitted herself to panic, breaking free from her stupor to sprint across the distance keeping her from the first boy she'd ever given her heart to.

"Jackson!" Lydia cried as she twisted her ankle between a tree root and collapsed to her knees only a few feet away from her lover. "No, no, no, no, no." She chanted to herself, not even noticing the way Adrianna stiffened as she crawled towards Jackson.

Her fingers hesitated an inch from touching his face as she kneeled beside him. Lydia could feel Adrianna's hot, incongruous stare, but paid it no mind. Overhead, the loud cawing of crows began to be heard as thousands of the dark, feathery creatures swooped through the air, circling the clearing like vultures.

A shiver crawled up Lydia's spine from her fingertips as she forced herself to stroke the side of Jackson's snow-white face. Death seemed to follow the ravens up above her as some of them perched on nearby trees, their black, beady eyes boring straight through Lydia's soul.

"Jackson," His name died on her lips. She had a thousand things to say, but no time to utter them and no one to hear them.

Her expression pinched in agony as Lydia curled in on herself, clutching at her heart in the hopes of pulling free the troublesome organ and ridding herself of the debilitating pain.

As her despair consumed her, Lydia watched as Adrianna adjusted her grip on Jackson, moving—in what direction, Lydia didn't wait to find out—with a guilty blackness in her gaze.

"Get away from him!" Lydia screamed rawly, rage bubbling over her sadness as she pulled out Adrianna's own knife, given to her not long ago, and held the blade threateningly towards the huntress.

Adrianna's brows pinched, her eyelids were slightly swollen from crying, and raised her hands in a placating gesture, sliding out from under Jackson as carefully as she could.

"Don't touch him!" Lydia shrieked irrationally as Adrianna's bruised fingers trailed from Jackson's shoulder to the back of his neck, supporting his suddenly limp, lifeless corpse.

The huntress' lips parted, as though to speak, but no sound came out. A muscle in her jaw twitched as she tensed, beginning to bend under Lydia's hateful stare. "What happened?" She demanded roughly, the knife still between them, as unspoken a threat as the redness and blame brimming in Lydia's eyes. "You were supposed to save him. You said you'd try your best." She reminded the trembling girl, her own lips wobbling as hot, salty tears streaked across her face.

"Is this it?" Lydia hollowly questioned, her posture sagging as she placed her spare hand against Jackson solid, un-moving chest. His eyes were still open, that light blue shade she'd always loved, dull and life-less. "Was this the best you could do?"

This time, Adrianna did break under the strain. She seemed to prepare to shout at Lydia before tears gushed out of her eyes and she bent down, using her one good hand to hide her features as quiet sobs shook her core.

Lydia didn't allow the reservoirs of pity filling up within her to be expressed. Her rage was slowly replacing the emptiness in her heart. She didn't care what damage she did, so long as that black hole inside her didn't have to exist, even for a moment.

"I loved him!" She grit through her teeth, spittle flying harmlessly into the air as Lydia forgot everything that made her who she was. "You were trained since birth to be the perfect weapon—the best hunter." Lydia remembered Scott explaining to her exactly who Adrianna was. She'd foolishly placed her whole world on the girl's shoulders, believing that the Argent could be Jackson's savior, when all she'd really been was his murderer.

"You're supposed to be able to handle things like this." Lydia shrilly exclaimed, pulling at her hair as the knife fell out of her hands and uselessly landed in the muddy ground. "You're the one that knows what you're doing, Adrianna. You're the one that kills the bad guys and saves the good guys." She pronounced dangerously, a silent question ringing out in the silence that stretched forth.

"I'm sorry," Adrianna breathed as she straightened her back, showing no signs of any physical pain as she unthinkingly used her obviously broken arm to reach upwards and comb aside her frizzy hair. "I tried. You have to believe me, Lydia. I tried my best." She assured desperately, shame in her words as Lydia refused to soften her stare. "I just wasn't strong enough to save them both."

Lydia could see how terrible Adrianna felt. She wasn't stupid. Her grief hadn't stolen that away, yet. Pain, guilt, self-loathing, and sorrow were evident in the huntress' manner. Maybe she had tried her best. Maybe she was sorry. But, her resolve crushing whatever sympathy Lydia might have had, none of those things could bring Jackson back.

He was dead.

Unlike the last time, Lydia knew with a certainty that shook her to her core that he wasn't coming back. This was it. His end had come and gone.

Lydia shuffled to the side, holding herself together with bitterness and misplaced anger as she lifted Jackson's head into her lap. Tears soaked her eyelashes, making her vision glitter strangely as she bowed her head, salty water dribbling down her nose.

"Then what is the point of you?" She growled without daring to look at the target of her insult. Lydia wanted to make someone else hurt as much as she did. She wanted to break something with her hands and tear someone apart with her words.

She heard the others as they approached the clearing, their combined foot-falls crunching noisily across the remaining underbrush and debris. From the corner of her eye, Lydia saw Adrianna lift herself up to her feet before their company could join them.

"I loved him too, you know," Adrianna spoke just loud enough for Lydia alone to hear, her words being pulled away by the wind before they could reach anyone else's ears. "In my own way." The huntress explained brokenly.

Lydia shook her head, her fists clenching tightly as she could no longer resist the urge to glare at the insolent girl she'd once called her friend. "You," She started to say, but faltered as she took in Adrianna's vastly different appearance. It wasn't that she'd changed, physically, but that her eyes had closed off like the locking doors of a bank vault and her face no longer ripped a hole through Lydia's heart. She was as cold as marble and just as impermeably.

It made Lydia feel better about taking one final strike at the stoic huntress. "You don't know anything about love." Lydia raspily stated, turning her head so that she wouldn't have to watch Adrianna walk away, or see her reaction.

Someday, perhaps, Lydia would be ready to forgive Adrianna for a murder the keen girl knew, deep down, had been out of the Argent's control.

But not today.

Not for a long time.

#-#-#-#-#

The body was lighter than Scott had expected it to be, or perhaps his exhausted muscles had been so overworked that they could no longer register the weight of a human corpse any more than they could feel the countless scrapes, stabs, burns, and bullet-holes riddling his own flesh.

He and Isaac tried their best to load what remained of Jackson into the back of the truck without causing more damage. Every jostle, bump, or movement of the corpse forced Scott's heart into his throat. He was glad when it was over.

During the morose silence of their ride back into the city, Scott kept to himself, sorting through the mess of his brain as the despair and heartbreak nearly choked him. He wondered where Derek and Peter where, but quickly dismissed the sentiment as he understood that—as a group and as a pack—they were likely to be better off without the two Hales.

Scott couldn't help thinking the same about the youngest Argent, even though he felt instantly guilty for it a second later. His gaze was drawn away from a non-responsive Lydia, who'd refused to ride inside the cabin, presumably to stay by Jackson's side, towards the silent huntress.

Adrianna was eerily calm, much like her uncle, Chris, and Scott would have attributed her lack of emotion to her experience and training as a hunter—like he constantly found himself using as an excuse for something he didn't know about her—if there hadn't been dried tear-tracks streaking through the blood and grime coating her face.

She'd felt something, that much was clear, and by the way her eyes were firmly set on the sun rising in the distant horizon, Scott could see that she was bothered by the new amount of distance placed between her and everyone else in the truck. Adrianna wasn't heartless, Scott concluded, not yet.

But he was still mad at her for shooting him, even though there were countless other factors that pointed towards her overall good intentions. For one thing, the bullets hadn't been laced with wolf'sbane, as he'd originally thought, allowing him to heal much faster; and the fall hadn't been high enough to kill him. But did that mean he had to be grateful?

Scott didn't feel grateful. He actually felt pretty used. He didn't care that her betrayal had been meant for the greater good of the situation. Scott had thought that he was her friend; she should have trusted him. He imagined Isaac, who had yet to even look in Adrianna's direction—staring resolutely at his interwoven hands and nothing else—felt much the same.

Looking out at the barren roads, Scott was surprised to see people beginning to emerge from hiding, already helping those that had been injured or trapped by one of the fallen buildings.

He frowned as they passed a police cruiser, the deputy standing nearby shouting instructions through a megaphone. "Please remain calm," The officer's voice boomed, piercing Scott's ears. "Reports have come in and I'm happy to announce that the catastrophic earthquake and consequent gas-main explosion have been neutralized." The man in his twenties smiled, repeating the message.

"If anyone experiences dizziness, nausea, hallucinations, or post traumatic stress of any kind, please inform a nearby deputy or other, emergency personnel and you will be escorted to the hospital immediately." A different man, this one an ambulance paramedic, spoke into another megaphone.

"What's going on?" Stiles asked, the first to recover from his shock. As their car drove past, his eyes followed the flashing emergency lights. "Doesn't anybody know what really happened?"

"They can't see what we can," Adrianna supplied, her voice detached and cold. "Even if they could, their minds are too weak to assimilate all that data. They can't cope so they fill in the blanks with the most convenient, plausible story."

"You mean they didn't see the Kanima destroying the city?" Scott found himself wondering. "How does somebody miss something that obvious?" He rhetorically questioned.

"It doesn't fit into what they've been raised to believe." Adrianna shrugged, the red and blue reflections from nearby illuminating her features strangely as she turned her head away, a glossy sheen appearing over her eyes. "People see what they want to see." She mysteriously stated.

The truck rolled over a broken lamppost as it turned into the hospital parking lot, the conversation effectively terminated. Time slipped by quicker than normal in the alarmingly quiet hours of the morning and before Scott had even noticed, Jackson's body was back in his arms and he and Isaac were being lead through one of the many back-entrances to the morgue.

Scott recalled each step they took. It had been the same path he and Isaac had walked what felt like decades ago, to sneak Jackson's body out of the morgue in the first place. Now, with none of the pressure of an oncoming battle and all of the weariness of a part-defeat, Scott swore he would never allow history to repeat itself.

"Never again." He spoke out loud as Jackson's unseeing eyes stared up at him from the cold stainless steel table, a body bag covering the bottom half of his body.

Gathered all around, Isaac, Stiles, Deaton—who'd been waiting for them at the hospital—and Scott's mom, all looked up at him. There were tears in some of their eyes, while others held their expressions firm. Beneath the surface, they were all just as broken and worn-down as he was.

"Scott," His mom gently spoke, stretching the arm she had wrapped around Lydia's shoulders so that her fingers brushed his bicep. "This wasn't your fault. You can't possibly blame yourself. Don't put that much responsibility—" She began to chastise in her typical, understanding mother voice.

"This never happens again." He stubbornly interrupted. He didn't move away from his mother but there must have been something in his voice that caused her to pull away and allow him to finish.

When he met her gaze it was proud, her trembling lips pressed together firmly as she tried to stay strong.

"We set out today to save Jackson," Scott reminded them all. Beside him, he heard Lydia inhale raggedly as she held back a cry. "There were obstacles in our way;" He recounted.

Scott looked across from himself at his best friend. Stiles' eyes were moist but he wasn't crying. The downward slant of his eyebrows and the somber clench of his jaw were enough for Scott to know how Stiles was feeling.

"Gerard Argent tried to kill us with an army," Scott uncoiled his shoulders, straightening his posture as he became the beacon of strength that his best friend was searching for.

He looked over at Isaac, next. "We fought him and some of us got hurt—some of us didn't know what we were doing—but it didn't matter," Scott copied the dip of Isaac's chin as they nodded at each other in respect.

"We won." He told each of them. For the first time since the death of her mother, Allison met his stare, head on. Her eyes were endless brown pits of emotion. For a moment, Scott thought he'd drown.

Clearing his throat, he continued. "We found allies in people we never considered to be our friends." Scott recounted, his gaze sliding over to Chris Argent, who raised his brows in agreement. "We fought impossible odds—a hunter with a life-time of experience and knowledge—and we managed to do it because we stood together." He concluded.

Scott leaned against the metal table, the cold sting imprinting itself into his palms as his eyes found those of his mentor, Alan Deaton. "None of us thought we would be alive right now." He breathed deeply as he thought about all the things he had yet to learn.

The Kanima, Scott knew, was just the beginning. Time and again, Deaton, Adrianna, Chris, and many others had reminded him that he was out of his depth. It wasn't until that moment, staring at the cadaver of his failure, that Scott understood what they'd all meant.

"But we're here," He shakily went on. "We're alive, in spite of everything that's happened." Scott searched for Adrianna in their group and only found her when he craned his neck to the far left.

Her eyes were glossy and dark in the fluorescent lighting of the morgue, a sharp contrast to her pale, nearly translucent skin. She blended into the shadows so well, Scott had to wonder whether he was imagining her presence, or not.

"Yes, we failed." Scott forcibly pronounced, taking note of the way Adrianna's posture tensed. "Yes, we couldn't save our friend." He callously pointed out, his grip over the table tightening to the point where he began to feel the metal bend beneath his grip.

"But we tried out best," He regressed, allowing a small amount of his shame to pitch in his voice. "We worked together and we used everything we had."

"So it wasn't enough? What else could we expect?" Scott questioned thickly. "We're kids. A few months ago my only worries were getting my grades up and getting off the bench in lacrosse." He nearly laughed but it fell flat before the noise could exit his throat.

Lacrosse... Scott thought back to all the times Jackson had fought him over the stupid sport. Now, he would do anything to have one last argument with the arrogant boy. What am I going to do? I'm just a co-captain?

He met his mother's gaze, firm and supporting. Then Deaton's, which was proud but also a bit scrutinizing. Scott was reminded of how little he knew about his boss, but couldn't dwell on it any further. He needed all the help he could get.

Finally, his eyes found Adrianna's once more. She was leaning against the opposite wall, her back pressed up against one of the sealed latches Scott distantly comprehended that more dead bodies were hidden behind. She didn't seem as bothered by the notion as he was.

She was the monster in this story. She was the killer, the murderer.

Which meant that he was the hero.

Scott forced his chin to dip in respect, no matter how much he wanted to yell and demand answers from the ambiguous girl, because, in a hidden place he rarely delved deep enough to find, Scott knew that none of tonight's victories—as shallow and insignificant as they seemed in the aftermath of it all—would have been possible if Adrianna hadn't done what everyone else was too afraid to even think about.

"We made mistakes," He openly stated for everyone to hear. "Stupid, amateur mistakes that cost lives."

"Gerard Argent," He began to list the casualties on his right hand. "Victoria Argent, Matthew Daehler..." Scott hesitated, his free hand reaching out to gently press Jackson's scarily pale eyelids shut.

"Peter and Derek are gone," Isaac spoke up, his eyes never leaving from a seemingly interesting spot on the tiled floor. "Erica and Boyd, too."

Allison's heeled boots shuffled as she added her own casualties. "People were living in those houses and buildings that were destroyed." Scott watched as Chris took his daughter's hand, giving it the reassuring squeeze that Scott wished he could have.

"Don't forget about the deputies," Stiles chimed in, each word heavy on his friend's tongue. "I'm pretty sure I saw my dad's entire force out there tonight and the station got hit pretty hard."

Stiles stopped before he could go on to describe just how totally demolished the Sheriff's station was. Scott was grateful for Lydia's sake as she hesitantly parted her lips to speak.

"And Jackson," Lydia bit her lip as her hoarse voice cracked. "We couldn't save Jackson."

Silence rung out as each of them absorbed the severity of their failure. Countless lives lost. Too many. Far too many. Scott had never wanted anyone to get hurt. He'd only been trying to do the right thing, but perhaps his optimism and stubborn inability to consider Jackson's doomed fate from the very start, had pushed up the death toll.

"My mother," Adrianna reminded them all from where she stood. She lifted her gaze to each and every one of them, shouldering the pitiful, hateful, uncertain, and condemning stares. "She's the one that started all of this. Maybe she deserves to be on that list of yours."

Her brows rose, challenging Scott and even though she was just as tired as anyone else—perhaps more so—and a deep, half-healed gash marred her cheek, he floundered, speechless. "Yeah," He finally managed to utter beneath her intense, green eyes which he now understood held more secrets than he cared to unravel. "Katherine Argent." He finished, nearly all ten fingers burdened by a name.

"We'll do better next time." Stiles assured him as the dead stacked up over Scott's conscience. No one dared to contradict him. Deep in their bones, they all knew this wouldn't be the last time they faces insurmountable odds. "We have to."

Scott swallowed thickly, nodding his head in agreement. "Never again." He echoed his first words, this time, with less certainty as he began to doubt whether his shoulders alone could carry the burden.

"Never again." His mother affirmed.

He looked into her eyes and saw how he looked like, from her perspective. He saw a man, strong and resilient, standing firmly against a storm he had no chance of fighting, but doing so anyway because of his own obstinate bravery; because, if he didn't do it, no one would.

In that moment, Scott vowed to shape himself into the reflection he saw in his mother's eyes. He had to become the leader his friends needed him to be. Without Derek or Peter there, Scott didn't have much choice in the matter.

He needed to become the alpha of his own pack.

#-#-#-#-#

Scott's words still rung in his head. They were just as clear as the memory of finding Jackson's pale corpse in the forest clearing, but even they couldn't compare to the shock he'd felt when he'd seen Adrianna's blood-stained self standing over Jackson. It was a shock that had yet to wear off.

"I can't believe you killed him." Isaac abruptly spoke as his ears picked up Adrianna's movement towards the double doors that lead out of the morgue. Almost everyone had already left save for him, Adrianna and Stiles, and at the harsh tone of his words, Stiles quickly scuttled outside.

He felt the huntress' angry stare on the back of his neck. It made his skin crawl to remember how intoxicating one look from her could be, and to know that absolutely nothing had changed, in that regard. He still felt like a fool and, perhaps most importantly, Isaac still wanted the kiss she owed him.

"You can't believe it?" Adrianna sharply retorted. "Or you don't want to?"

Isaac's hunched over the metal surgery table, every muscle tensing as he fought the urge to turn around and break her bones between his hands. He doubted he'd get far, even if he gave in.

"A bit of both, really." He conceded, his fingers brushing over an impressive array of scalpels, forceps, and other sharp, prong-ended tools he didn't know the names of.

"You must hate me, then." She concluded dispassionately. He could feel the gravity in the room increase as she circled his position. "Just like everyone else." Adrianna muttered under her breath, allowing her armor to slip off ever so slightly for the first time in many days.

Anger burned his throat, forcing his next words to come out sounding acidic. "I'm not playing this game with you." He growled, whirling around to face her.

She was right in front of him, so close, he could smell the rusty scent of blood emanating from her red-stained clothes. Adrianna was still wearing the same leather corset. Isaac couldn't keep himself from wondering how many weapons she had stashed away on herself, ready to be used at a moment's notice—maybe on him.

"Game?" Adrianna narrowed her eyes as everything about her became suspicious and poised to attack. "I wasn't aware we were playing a game. Won't you please enlighten me, Isaac?"

His stomach did a cartwheel as his name rolled off her tongue. Isaac blinked forcefully to clear the image of her amused expression from his mind. When that didn't work, he turned around again and leaned his elbows against the metal table's edge.

"That game where you pretend to open up," Isaac explained quietly into his shirt, refusing to even think about Adrianna's reaction as he finally named the twisted, poisonous thing that lay between them. "Where you act like you care about me, and then I find out that you've been using me the whole time."

He heard her heart stutter and hated the sliver of hope that cracked through his defenses because of it. She hesitated, mulling over his words before giving him an answer.

"We're not talking about Jackson anymore, are we?" Adrianna caught on, her voice lilting with caution and what might have been fear or anxiety. Which, Isaac couldn't tell.

"No," He bitterly spat, rubbing at the sore point between his eyebrows as he tried to clear his head of distracting thoughts. "We're not."

"Then what are we talking about?" Adrianna pressed.

Irritation ignited within him as the final tie holding back his emotions snapped cleanly in two. He shoved the table away from him, delighting in the loud, destructive screech it made as it skidded across the room and slammed into the adjacent wall. His hand prints were molded into the table's top.

"Are you really that blind?" He shouted as the top of his lungs, expelling the pent-up aggression and frustration he'd been holding back for weeks. "Can't you see that I like you? That I've always liked you?" Isaac wondered, harshly pulling his fingers through his hair.

"Derek saw it and I'm sure Scott knows." Isaac listed dangerously, his eyes burning gold as he began to lose control over himself. "Scratch that. Everyone's probably figured it out. It's not like I've been subtle." He berated himself, beginning to pace.

"But you," He felt his lips pull back in a snarl as he met Adrianna's confused green eyes. "You don't have a clue." Isaac realized, laughing derisively despite the chill suddenly spreading throughout the room, informing him of Adrianna's shift in mood.

"You tease me senselessly and you use me to get back at Derek in the war of wills the two of you have going on," Isaac understood, shaking himself as the truth settled into his heart. "But at the end of the day, it's just a game. You don't care about me. You never have."

"You don't know what you're asking for." Adrianna quietly responded to his heated rant. Her hands were clenched by her sides as she stood perfectly still before him.

"Don't I?" He shot back. "I'm a monster and you're a monster. How could it be so bad?" His fingernails curled inwards, sharpening into points as his ears tuned into the rushing sound of Adrianna's blood.

"Can't you just leave me alone?" She demanded, her own rage kindling as she took a heavy step forward. "Just listen to what I'm saying for one damn second."

Isaac smiled cruelly, his enlarged fangs slipping partly past his lips. "Not a chance in hell." He assured her.

Adrianna's pale cheeks colored angrily as she growled deep in her throat, but soon after, choked down her anger. Isaac couldn't stand it. He was itching to fight, to draw blood. He launched himself at her before he could think.

Her bones collided with his pleasantly and he snarled in satisfaction as she deflected the swipe of his clawed hand with her left wrist. "Isaac, stop this." She panted, sweat collecting along her brow.

He responded by digging his nails into her sides and shoving her into the wall. Tiles cracked as their combined weight slammed onto the porcelain surface. Adrianna inhaled sharply, pain that he didn't notice or care for, coating her features.

"Let me go." She ordered weakly as something wet and slightly viscous slathered against his palms. Isaac snarled as she produced a long hunting knife, part of a set, and held it tightly in her left hand. "Don't make me do this." Adrianna pleaded with him.

He howled as the blade sliced over his chest, drawing back before charging the huntress again. She braced herself against the wall, the cut on her cheek seeping new blood as it reopened from the trauma of their collision.

Isaac felt a thrill as her knee pulled up to make enough space between them for the knife to cut through the air in front of his nose. He wrapped his clawed fingers around her throat and easily slammed her right shoulder backwards against the wall.

He expected her to curse at him and fight with even more vigor. Instead, she cried out in agony and permitted her hunting knife to clatter from her weakened grasp. The huntress collapsed against him, her body weakened, and the reaction was so unexpected to Isaac that he unthinkingly took advantage of her disarmed state to wrap his hand around her neck.

Isaac leaned in close, her terror and indignation pungent in his nostrils as she opened her eyes with renewed strength and head-butted him. Their skulls collided painfully and Adrianna used his distraction to lock her hands around the wrist leading up to the hand clenching her neck tightly.

"Let me go," She commanded with more conviction. Black veins crawled across the top of her palms, leeching the strength from Isaac's muscles as they crept over his skin. "Now."

His eyelids grew heavy, new, foreign memories slipping through his mind as his hold over her loosened enough for Adrianna to break free from his grip and twist around, pinning him to the wall with her own hand around his neck.

Triumph glittered in her gaze as she stared at him, draining every ounce of him away. He breathed raspily and the sound seemed to shake her from whatever power-driven reverie she'd been held in.

Adrianna drew back, clenching and unclenching the fingers of her left hand as she avoided his curious stare. "Trust me, Isaac," She lightly began, her anger all but drained away. "You're not a monster."

He reached out and grabbed onto her, pulling her into him again. Her shoulders shuddered as though she were repressing the urge to cry. "I've met monsters. I've fought and killed them." She whispered, not at all scared of being so close to him, even after he'd tried to kill her. "Today, I became one." Adrianna shared warily, the layers of her disguise stripping away until all that looked up at him was a beaten, injured, frightened girl bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"How could you kill him?" Isaac dared to ask as his rage drifted to the back of his mind. "I knew you were strong. I knew you'd killed before, believing that each creature was nothing but a mindless murderer; a hazard to society. But I never thought that you'd be able to kill a human being."

Without even noticing, his nails began to shrink back to normal size, the heat siphoning away from his eyes until they were their normal, light blue.

She looked like she wanted to give in; to tell him every torturous second of her struggle as she reached her final decision. But then, Adrianna did what she did best; she closed off and avoided the question entirely.

"Why did you save me?" Adrianna beckoned an answer, her eyes boring holes through Isaac's soul even though she barely reached his chin. "That day when I was dying and Derek told you not to help me. Why did you go against your alpha for me?"

She stared downwards, then, at his chest. He felt her balance swaying slightly as she was forced to lean on him for support. "I'm no one special." Adrianna explained self-consciously. "I spared your life once and since then, I've tried to kill you twice more."

"Three times." Isaac corrected, a grin sliding across his features despite his intention to remain angry.

"You see," Adrianna latched onto his words, gesticulating her point. "My mistakes and transgressions have far out-numbered any favors or good deeds I've done to you. And yet, you saved me."

"Why?" She repeated.

He avoided her eyes. They would be his undoing, he was sure. The moment Isaac looked into her wide, forest green eyes, he knew he couldn't keep a secret worth anything from her. Instead, he focused on the angry red gash in her cheek, tracing it with his thumb.

"I—" He struggled to say, finally taking notice of how close they were. If he bent his head a few inches, he could kiss her.

Adrianna leaned into his touch and the sensation of falling—which he remembered vividly—took over his insides. She stared straight into him, seeing past the violent wolf that would have made anyone else run for the hills. He had to work hard to keep himself from turning to putty in her hands.

"I saved you because," Isaac frowned, wracking his brain for any other possible reason for saving her besides the three impossibly strong words he wanted to tell her as he remembered her betrayal.

"Because?" She prompted, her eyes sliding half-way shut as the distance between their lips shrunk. Isaac hadn't even realized that he'd been leaning in, too.

"I—" He stuttered, their breaths intermingling.

Only a moment before, he'd been trying to tear her apart and now, he was millimeters away from kissing her and sealing his fate. But that was how it was with Adrianna, how it had always been. She worked in extremes when it came to expressing her emotions; cold or hot, but never warm.

He wanted to burn. Isaac wanted, maybe more than he'd ever wanted anything else, to kiss her and tell her how he really felt. But he knew, somehow, that it would never work. Sooner or later, the lies would catch up to them and they'd be left with more damage than either one of them could heal.

While it lasted, Isaac was sure that it would be spectacular. But when it ended, because it would end, he would be ruined.

So, as much as it killed him to do so, Isaac pulled away from her soft, pliable lips without ever tasting them and uttered the words he knew would perfectly convey where he stood, without having to dapple in the messy world of love.

"I don't know." He confessed to her.

Isaac didn't think he'd ever lied as badly as he did then, but Adrianna's response—which started as aching hurt in her eyes and mutated immediately after into a glacial facade of indifference—assured him that he'd made the right call, even as his heart seemed to rip in two when she walked out the door without so much as a backwards glance in his direction.

"Oh my god," Isaac called upon divine strength as he rubbed his aching head. He remembered the last time he'd done so, a night before accepting the bite, and hoped that asking for a little guidance would work out as well as it had, last time, this time around. "Please don't let me regret this for the rest of my life."

#-#-#-#-#

Sheriff Stilinski was hiding from the press inside the hospital.

Sure, he had plenty of other reasons for being there. Only a minute before, he'd been taking statements from his deputies and begun the tiring task of creating a report for the FBI, who would no doubt be wanting an explanation for the damage and loss of life done in Beacon Hills that night.

But, if he was being honest, he was just there to hide from the reporters and their insensitive questions.

From one of the windows in the lobby, the Sheriff could see the flashes of their cameras and the greedy uproar of their collective interrogations as a couple walked out of the hospital with minor injuries. Shaking his head, the Sheriff turned around from the sight and pulled an exhausted hand through his prematurely thinning hair.

"Damn vultures." He cursed the news vans and desperate reporters under his breath as the stench of sanitization became entrenched in his nostrils. Mr. Stilinski hated hospitals for that exact reason. Even when you left the place, the pungent scent of bleach, chlorine, hand sanitizer, and iodine stayed with you.

"Sheriff," One of his senior deputies called out, the tired lines on her face matching his own as she waved a clipboard in the air. "Do you have a moment?" Tara Graeme asked, despite the fact that the Sheriff knew he didn't have much choice in the matter.

Duty called. "Go ahead, Tara." He waved her along, taking note of the bags weighing down the deputies eyes and the frizzy state of her hastily tied back hair.

Pressing her lips together, Tara approached him, hefting the clipboard in her hands like it weighed a hundred pounds. "The family of the deceased are here." She quietly began, caution in her every word. "They've identified the body. They want a cause of death."

"Body?" He pressed the bridge of his nose, siphoning one more burst of strength as he tried to decode the deputy's plain words. "I thought we were still getting patients in. Have we already gotten the body count?" The Sheriff wondered, searching blindly for an answer he couldn't find on his own. "Are people coming in here to ID victims?"

"No, sir. We're still taking in survivors. We don't have the staff on hand to start a body count for at least another hour." Tara assured him, the slope of her brows pitching downwards as she frowned, flipping through the pages on her clipboard. "This body was passed through the morgue about ten hours ago."

Dread suddenly did a canon-ball in the Sheriff's stomach as he leaned against the nearby nurse's desk, ignoring the narrowed look he received from the nurse behind the counter. "Do we have a name?" He warily questioned.

Tara nodded, her index finger skimming along the pristine report and sliding to a stop a moment later. "Whittemore," She read out loud. "Jackson Whittemore."

Shutting his eyes, the Sheriff clenched his hands into fists as the digits began to tremble. "Ah, crap." He swore. Over the past month, Beacon Hills had seen more dead bodies and murder cases than it usually did in a year, but this one, in particular, struck a chord.

"The victim's a seventeen year old male." Tara went on to say, confusing his reaction with one of obliviousness instead of the recognition it was. "According to this he went down on the lacrosse field early last night. Autopsy was scheduled for this afternoon but I'm not sure if the hospital will have to change that due to the sudden...influx of patients." She chose to describe the situation far more clinically than the Sheriff would have.

This wasn't just a busy day at the hospital. This was his worst nightmare served to him on a cold plate before breakfast and coffee. To make matters worse, Jackson Whittemore's family was waiting somewhere in that very hospital to hear the cause of their son's death. Only, he didn't have an answer for them.

"Yeah, I remember the case." He informed Tara as she stared at him expectantly. "I was there when it happened, actually." The Sheriff remembered, his voice stringing out as his mind was drawn back to the sudden darkness, deafening screaming, and heart-wrenching fear he'd felt when his son had gone missing.

"Well, uh," Tara faltered, tucking the clipboard beneath her arm as she licked her lips nervously. "They're in the lobby. Both of them have been stirring up a storm since they got there. They've been asking for you, threatening a law-suit if they don't get answers soon." She told him.

A heavy sigh slipped past the Sheriff's lips as he shook his head. "Of course they are." He muttered to himself. "Like I don't have enough problems to deal with."

"Should I tell them you'll speak with them?" Tara wondered, her brows rising as she waited for his response.

"No," He breathed tiredly. "Just bring them up to speed on the situation. Let them know we haven't done an autopsy yet and that getting answer is going to take a while." He managed to say, rubbing at his frowning brow with more force than necessary.

"Okay, Sheriff." Tara agreed, watching him carefully as she undoubtably picked up on his irate mood. "What should I do if they don't leave? The father, he says he's a lawyer. We won't get into any legal trouble for turning them away, will we?" She questioned.

The Sheriff's final nerve snapped as hot acid coated his throat. "I don't know, deputy. I don't have all the answers!" He all-but shouted, garnering frightened stares from the hospital staff and patients mulling through the hallway busily. "Just do whatever you can to get them out of here. I'll meet with them tomorrow and set everything right." He fought against his illogical anger and pushed down the overwhelming sense of helplessness that threatened to consume him, focusing on one thing at a time.

"Can you do that, Tara?" The Sheriff wondered, his voice holding less strength. "Please?" He desperately added, a thick lump lodging in his throat stubbornly.

Deputy Graeme nodded her head, her dark skin seeming to absorb the overhead flourescent lighting and appearing waxy as she walked away in the same direction she'd come from. The Sheriff knew he probably looked worse, much worse.

As he was left alone, the Sheriff moved away from the front desk. The hospital's incessant chatter was digging further under his skin than he realized. Nurses and doctors were barking orders in harsh tones, patients were moaning or screaming in pain, and he had absolutely no way to help.

He walked down the corridor, allowing his feet to take him wherever they wanted to go. The Sheriff shut off his clamoured thoughts and sleep-deprived mind, relishing in the quiet buzz that filled his ears as he distanced himself from the chaotic frenzy.

Now, there was nothing but his own breathing and the rhythmic sound of his footsteps to guide him. The Sheriff knew he should have been using every spare second he had to accomplish the mountain of tasks he had to do. He hadn't checked up on Stiles yet, and even though he'd seen the kid a few hours ago, a lot had happened since then. Then there was his role as unnoficial leader of the town. Everyone was looking to him for answer he didn't have.

Lying and being clever with his words to stall for time had never been one of his strong suits. The only reason he'd become a Sheriff in the first place was because he enjoyed the quiet work of a detective. This flashy, overwhelming crime-scene catastrophe stuff was way out of his league.

Without noticing it, he'd ventured down a deserted corridor that he vaguely recognized. Of course, he knew every knook and cranny in the building, thanks to the time he'd spent there when his wife had gotten sick. But this was different. This was almost...fresher.

A sign overhead informed him that he was in the pediatric wing. The long wall of glass windows looking into the hospital's nursery was only a few meters in front of him. As he caught sight of the tables within the room, sleeping babies held overnight for examination or fighting to stay alive after being born too early or too sick, stopped him in his tracks.

It had been a long time since he'd stood outside those windows, peering in to catch a glimpse of his own child. He still remembered what it felt like; the exitement, the fear. It was just as potent as the day it had happened, nearly seventeen years ago.

His fingers pressed up against the glass as he unthinkingly approached the windows. He knew it wasn't permitted, but a part of him yearned to reach out and pull on the doorknob to his left. The Sheriff needed to see what he was fighting for. He needed to touch the last semblence of true innocence in this world.

A shadow in the corner of his eye forced his spine to go rigid and his fingers to halt where they were, the warmth in his digits being replaced by the cold grit of the stainless steel knob.

The Sheriff swallowed, his free hand migrating to his side and hovering over his gun's holster by pure instinct. He didn't call out or announce his presence. The element of surprise was his only ally. He moved with stealth as the door swung open without a sound and he stepped into the room.

"He didn't want to do this to you," A quiet, tender voice spoke as the Sheriff carefully took his gun out of his holster and held it at the ready in both hands. "He tried to save your mother, but his master had other plans."

Confusion swirled through the Sheriff as a streak of sunlight slipped through the dusty blinds of a small, nearly forgotten window and illuminated the shadowed person. He placed each boot on the tiled floor slowly, making certain that he didn't wake any of the sleeping babies or alert the figure of his whereabouts.

He held his breath as the shadow, which seemed to be speaking to a baby in a cot near the edge of the room, lifted the child up out of the bed and into it's arms. The Sheriff swallowed thickly as he balanced on the balls of his feet, waiting to learn more before he jumped to any conclusions.

There was a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that told him the shadow—which he recognized as a woman by the tone of her voice—meant no harm to the baby.

"Look at you," The woman exclaimed in awe as she held the baby with both hands. "You don't know how the world works, yet. Little Cassie, so young and naive." She crowed sympathetically. "Eventually, the sorrow will catch up with you. You'll feel like there's this hole in your chest you have no chance of filling."

The Sheriff felt his lips pulling upwards as he overheard the strange conversation. He wondered if he was dealing with a nutjob who was trying to steal the baby, or a nutjob that was trying to traumatize the baby. Either way, it didn't end well for the baby.

"Trust me, little one, I know how the story goes." The shadow moved, one hand reaching out to stroke across the child's face. "I'm living it." She cryptically shared.

He removed the safety from his pistol, narrowing his eyes and internally cursing as a click echoed through the room. The woman didn't seem to notice as the baby started crying, finally shaken from her slumber.

"Hush now," The figure consoled, drawing the baby into her chest and rocking the small child, humming the way Mr. Stilinski remembered his wife had done when she had no clue how to stop the wailing and allowed pure, motherly instinct to take over. "The world's not as bad as you might think without a mother and father to guide you." She added.

The Sheriff mentally ran through his list of criminals, searching for a match on a young, orphaned woman with a possible M.O. for breaking and entering. Even though he didn't have an eidetic memory, he was fairly confident with his result when nothing came up. If he'd dealt with a wacko like this, he would have remembered.

"It's not all dreadful." She went on to describe. "You'll make friends and find role models that might be willing to take you under their wings. Sooner or later, you'll realize that the deep, dark ache in your heart you've been too scared to tell anyone about, is gone." The woman placed her hand over the baby's chest as the crying ceased all at once.

The figure moved and the Sheriff was forced to remain where he was, hardly breathing, in order to remain hidden by the shadows of the room. She stood in front of the small window, the outside light, slanted by the blinds, tore across her features. Mr. Stilinski couldn't hold back a gasp as he recognized the girl before him.

"One day, you'll finally be able to glue together all the broken pieces." Adrianna Argent gently affirmed to the child in her arms looking up at her with big, glossy, wonder-filled, blue eyes. "One day, you'll find yourself smiling and laughing without a care in the world and the name orphan won't mean a thing to you."

Adrianna's distinct, brownish-blonde hair fell forward in a curtain as she bent her neck to kiss the baby's forehead. She was dressed strangely, in a leather jacket of some sort and tight jeans, combat boots laced firmly over her feet. The sleeves of her shirt were torn in places, what seemed like blood and deep cuts marring her pale flesh.

The Sheriff didn't have time to wonder what had happened to her or why she was in the pediatric ward, of all places, talking to a baby that had no relation to her—as far as he knew—because her words carried him away.

"May you never know the cold sting of abandonment," Adrianna whispered against the baby's skin. "May your heart remain soft and open; don't let the world spoil your innocence." She pleaded.

Through the dim light, the Sheriff could see Adrianna's whitened teeth as her lips drew back in a sad smile. She rocked the baby back and forth like she knew how. "Live simply and don't ask too many questions, they'll only land you in trouble." She advised seriously, her brows pinching. "Don't believe anything the adults tell you about love. They're just as bad at it as the kids are."

A laugh slipped past the girl's lips, but it sounded more like a strangled whimper. "I hope you're loved all the days of your life. It's nothing to be afraid of. But most importantly," Adrianna lifted the baby off of her hip and into her arms, holding her far enough away so that Mr. Stilinski could clearly see her expression.

"Give out a shit-load of forgiveness." The teenager swore, her voice crackling with emotion as she sniffled. "If you don't, you may find that when you need it most, the people you've denied it to will do the same to you, as you've done to them."

"And believe me," Adrianna gravelly stated, sounding as though she was barely holding back tears. "It really sucks when that happens."

The lights flickered on abruptly as the door behind him opened with a swoosh. The gun felt heavy in his hands and he instantly felt guilty for eavesdropping and assuming the worst, when Adrianna turned around to face him.

"Oh," The nurse chimed between them apologetically. "I didn't realize anyone was in here at this time. I'm sorry, Sheriff. I didn't mean to...interrupt." The middle-aged woman settled on saying.

"No," He quickly eased the woman's worries, stowing away his pistol as non-chalantly as he could. "It's no problem. We were just—"

"Just saying our last goodbye's to Cassandra Bartlett." Adrianna interrupted as the Sheriff floundered for a way to legally excuse their presences. "She's being adopted today, right?" The young woman brightly asked the nurse.

Frowning for a moment, the woman nodded, easily accepting the not-so-convincing information as she laughed to herself. "Yes, of course." The nurse agreed, placing a hand to her chest. "Silly me, I completely forgot you had visitation booked."

"Visitation?" The Sheriff repeated, barely above a whisper. He shook his head as he wondered if he'd gone mad. He was a hundred percent certain that neither he, or Adrianna, were near enough of kin to any of the babies in the pediatric wing for visitation.

"Hold on a minute," The synapses in his brain finally connected, firing off as comprehension dawned. "Did you say Bartlett? As in, the daughter of Jessica Bartlett, a murder victim in the Matthew Daehler case?" He pieced together.

The nurse blanched, averting her eyes from his intense stare. "Well, I'm not entirely up to date on every child's backstory," She regressed slightly. "But I do believe you're correct."

"Thank you for allowing me a few minutes with her, ma'am." Adrianna brushed past Mr. Stilinski's shoulder, the baby still firmly held in her arms. "It means a lot."

She hesitated for a long minute before handing the baby into the nurse's open arms. "Make sure she's taken care of." Adrianna called after the nurse as she took the baby and made her way down the corridor.

The gray-haired woman turned around to look back at them, a smile on her face as she nodded. "Sure thing." She agreed.

Mr. Stilinski shuffled on his feet, rubbing at the back of his neck as he considered how he could get out of the mess he'd made. "Um," He started to say, awkwardness pitching every syllable. "Why did you need to say goodbye? I didn't think you knew Jessica."

Adrianna didn't acknowledge his question and he was partly glad for the opportunity to start again as the teenager busied herself adjusting a bandage the Sheriff hadn't noticed was wrapped around her right shoulder and wrist.

"I mean," Stilinski tried once more, gesticulating with his hands as he looked back into the now bright ward as the shrill cries of awakening babies echoed through the nearly deserted hallway. "What was so important that you had to tell her?"

This time, Adrianna turned to look at him, her often piercing stare levelling directly over his sheepish blue eyes and making him feel about two feet tall. "You and I both know that you were listening to every word I told that baby," She flatly exclaimed. "So cut the bull and ask me what's really on your mind."

He cleared his throat, unable to hide how flustered he was at having a girl his son's age, pushing him—the Sheriff of Beacon Hills—into a corner. "Well, not all of it." He tried to downplay, scratching behind his ear and finding it difficult to maintain eye contact with the keen young woman lifting her brow in disbelief at him.

"Okay, I got the gist of it." He admitted after another long moment under Adrianna's unnerving stare. "But what I don't understand, is how you know so much about the Daehler case."

He leaned in closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Did Stiles tell you? Maybe Scott?" The Sheriff probed. "Because if they did, I'm not mad. Disappointed and betrayed, yeah, but I won't punish them for it. They were probably only trying to help, anyway." He ended in a guilty breath.

"I could tell you." Adrianna replied, pulling away so that she could look into his eyes once more. "I could tell you about everything." She smiled, a hint of cruelty glittering in her eyes as he waited patiently for her to finish. He was desperate for answers. His town was going to hell and he had no way of stopping it.

"But," She stretched out the word, licking her lips as a note of superiority took hold of her voice. "I don't think you'd want me to."

"You don't think..." He echoed, shaking his head in confusion as he drew back, shocked. "I think it's up to me to decide what I want and don't want you to tell me, young woman." The Sheriff reminded her in his most threatening dad voice.

"It is," Adrianna affirmed, mocking humour present in the way she exhaled, the tip of her nose crinkling ever so slightly with the urge to laugh. "And you've already made it."

She walked away without another word, leaving the Sheriff to puzzle over her meaning. Maybe she's right, he found himself considering. He remembered all the strange, unexplainable things that had happened over the course of his career as the Sheriff of Beacon Hills. How many times had he been willing to believe those lousy, hole-filled stories just to maintain a sense of security, of control, over his reality?

Too many times. Too many cases left unanswered. Too many questions abandoned in fear of what the answer could mean.

But was he willing to risk everything he'd ever worked for, just to know the truth that he'd been denying himself his entire life? The Sheriff feared he'd already reached his conclusion a long time ago. His reaction to the most recent disaster was only further proof.

He'd felt it, just like everyone else. That tingling at the base of his spine and the feeling that he was missing the most vital piece of the puzzle. Like he was staring at an abstract painting and just had to decentralize himself to see the full picture he'd only gotten too good at ignoring.

Sheriff Stilinski was too comfortable with seeing what he wanted to see. Perhaps it was time to think outside the box. If the state of his town was anything to go by, he was running out of time.

Maybe he had to work on changing his mind.

#-#-#-#-#

After what felt like her whole life's worth of misery and suffering expelled through hot, inescapable tears, Adrianna's eyes finally dried. She found herself sitting down on the park bench placed just outside the hospital's front entrance.

Her body felt much heavier than it should have but Adrianna disregarded the sensation as an after-effect of her fatigue and injuries. She made sure to keep her right arm still by her side as it was still mending. Adrianna had refused the sling Deaton had offered to her on the grounds that it would make her stand out in a crowd and draw far too much attention to her.

What she really wanted was to be left alone and she couldn't do that if nurses were fussing over her and trying to drag her into bed.

It was mid-morning now and the traffic of cars and emergency vehicles pulling into the parking lot had dwindled away to a mere handful every hour. Adrianna basked in the warmth of the spring sun. Already, summer was in sight. She would have been glad for the change in season, if it hadn't meant that she was needed elsewhere.

"What you did today," Her uncle's distinct voice began as he sat down to her right. There was a comfortable distance between them. Not too far to be considered strangers, but not too close where Adrianna felt smothered. "It was brave. Really brave." He told her.

Adrianna felt her lips rise in a hollow, meaningless smile. "My mother would be proud." She imperiously stated. "Isn't that what you're going to tell me?"

Chris sighed heavily as his answer hesitated to breach the air. "You're right." He conceded, threading his fingers together as he leaned back against the bench. "I was going to say that."

To any passerby, they would simply look like two random people relaxing after a difficult night. No one could know that the events which had all-but razed Beacon Hills to the ground, had been partly their fault. "But?" Adrianna coaxed grudgingly, sensing that her uncle wasn't finished yet.

"But making anybody proud, shouldn't matter." He surprised her by amending, angling himself so that he faced her, one arm slung across the backrest of the wooden seat. "Killing Jackson took guts. I can see that, even though some of your other friends can't. It was a sacrifice, not a victory."

"They're not my friends." Adrianna stubbornly avoided the meat of the conversation, licking her lips and turning her head so that she wasn't looking into Chris' deep, wounded eyes.

"Maybe not," Chris agreed, shuffling away as he detected her frigid mood. "But they'd be stupid not to be. Even Scott couldn't deny that the few battles we won today, were in part because of your efforts."

Adrianna felt the resignation and shame stab through her bones. She let the feeling consume her as she slumped against the chair. "I'm no hero." Adrianna felt the need to voice once more. "The expectations all of you had for me—I can't reach them. I can't be good. I don't know how." She stressed.

Chris breathed out a laugh, although it was equal parts melancholy as it was amused. "Being good isn't the point," He seemed to be quoting, his stare becoming one of remembrance. "Trying your best to do the right thing, no matter how hard it is; that's the point."

"Killing Jackson wasn't the right thing." Adrianna argued, her heart not in the conversation as she absently carved her chipped fingernail into the rotting wood of the bench beneath her.

Her uncle shook his head as he watched her burn Greek letters into the wood with only her fingers. "Letting him live would have been worse." He gently reminded her.

A caged, skittish sensation overtook her as she sensed the conversation delving into serious, heart-felt territory. She'd felt enough for a lifetime in that one night. Anything more and Adrianna was sure she'd explode.

"Allison doesn't know, does she?" She hurriedly changed the topic, subtlety at the end of her long list of worries. "You didn't tell her how her mother really died."

Guilt was clear in the way Chris' brows furrowed and his lips pressed into a straight line. "No, I didn't." He plainly attested. "I wanted to, but after everything Gerard has put her through—" He broke off, at a loss for words.

"You thought she'd take it better if you waited?" Adrianna asked simply out of courtesy. She already knew that her suspicion was correct. "You're right about that. Just don't wait too long. Allison's inherited the Argent thirst for vengeance and she hasn't been a hunter for long enough to know the consequences of that rage." Adrianna reminded Chris.

Nodding along to her words, a strange light caught in Chris' eyes as he stared at Adrianna. "You two are cousins and nearly the same age." He pointed out. "—And you know what it's like to be manipulated by Gerard." He emphasized, the fingers of his right hand twitching nervously as he seemed to want the undoubtedly comforting grip of his gun in his hands. "Why don't you talk to her? Treat her the way you'd want to be treated, if you were in her exact position."

Irritation flared in Adrianna's gut as she momentarily forgot her weariness. "I've been in her position before," She unnecessarily growled. "And if there was anyone that Gerard delighted in abusing the most, I would easily steal the prize from all of you."

Her stupid voice cracked as annoying tears gathered in her eyes. Adrianna hadn't ever cried this much before. She was already tired of it, pressing her eyelids closed for a long minute and tightening the iron fist holding all the broken shards together as she leveled her breathing and regained a semblance of control.

"I know," Chris rasped, clearing his throat loudly as he too, seemed to have trouble restraining the despair bubbling within him. "But I don't know what else to do. I can barely talk to her anymore without stepping over some imaginary line and bruising her feelings." He shared sadly. "She's not the same anymore and I have absolutely no idea how to fix it."

"Victoria would have known." He gravely admitted. "But she's not here." Chris swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. Adrianna noticed that his eyes had red-rims encircling them. "I'm taking her to France for the summer. Maybe a change of scenery will help." Chris hoped, reaching out and taking her cold hand in his warm one. "We're going to live in the villa we still have there. You remember it, don't you?" He beckoned.

"How could I forget?" She smiled despite the ache in her chest as she recalled the chaos her presence had caused at the airport, even as a young girl, and how protective Kate had been of her. "That was the first and last time I ever set foot inside an airplane."

The corners of Chris' lips turned upwards as his expression perfectly mirrored Adrianna's. It was sad thinking about her mother in the past tense, but, like all things, Adrianna was slowly getting used to it.

The hot knife her loss had once felt like, had dulled to a numbing needle that spread the feeling all the way to her toes. She basked in it, knowing with unusual wisdom that the day she no longer felt any remorse or anger following the death of someone she loved, was a day she would have lost herself completely.

"Why are you telling me this?" Adrianna wondered. She could guess her uncle's motives easily, but she wanted to hear the words from his own lips, to memorize the specific lilt of his voice as he asked her.

"Because," Chris heaved a sigh, releasing her fingers as he stared out into the parking lot, towards the truck they'd all come here in. She could just make out Allison's shape in the passenger seat, from her vantage point. "Because I want you to come with us." He settled honestly.

Her mind went back to her youth. She'd barely been five years old when Gerard and Kate had decided to move to France. They'd made some kind of excuse about following a rogue pack of wolves, but Adrianna had been the real reason. That house, perched on a vineyard and overlooking a dusty cemetery, was where she'd been trained. It was where she'd grown up.

All her best memories came from those six and a half, blissful years before she'd turned twelve and started running from the monsters. Eventually, she'd learned how to fight them. Now, the monsters ran from her.

"I think it'll be good for her," Chris went on to explain, his gaze remaining fixed on Allison. "It'll be good for all of us. We'll have a chance to mend ourselves and prepare for whatever's next." He assured her.

She wanted to say yes. Her skin tingled as it yearned to feel the hot sun beating down on her back. Her eyes teared at the thought of seeing the sword arena and firing range. Her fingers ached to brush away the dust shrouding her past and touch a piece of her mother again, even if it was only in memory.

But then her mouth ran dry as she pictured Allison in her daydream. The rift between them which had been pulling them both in diverging directions for the past few weeks, was bound to widen much further when her cousin discovered that all the Argent history which was new to her, had always been a vital part of Adrianna's life.

"I can't."

The words tore into her throat, burning her tongue.

Chris bowed his head in disappointment, biting his lips earnestly. "I understand," He kindly responded, although the light in his eyes had dimmed significantly. "I had a feeling there would be too many memories there for you to face so soon after your mother's death."

Adrianna was glad he wasn't being delicate with her. She'd earned that much respect from him, it seemed, for him to know that avoiding the truth was one of the gravest insults he could ever deal out to her. Kate hadn't 'passed on', been lost somehow, or left to go get milk. She was dead. Period. End of story.

There was, of course, always a part of Adrianna that held out hope. It was the itch at the back of her neck she couldn't ever scratch and the shadow clinging to the edge of her vision. Adrianna doubted she'd ever appease the sensation of uncertainty.

"It's not just that," She felt the need to reveal more to Chris. Those two words, no matter how hard they'd been to say, weren't enough. "I—" She struggled to explain. "The battle might be over for you and Allison, but it hasn't even begun for me."

How could she put the tugging in her stomach and the lightning in her veins into sentences that Chris would understand? It was such a primal instinct, Adrianna couldn't even distinguish it from the process of breathing. People just inhaled and exhaled. It wasn't something they thought about or puzzled over. It just happened.

Chris didn't understand her fully, as she knew he wouldn't, but he waited patiently for her to find a way of conveying herself before jumping to conclusions. Her hands clenched into fists as she averted her gaze from the truck, staring at the sidewalk underfoot.

"There's this unsettling sense of dread in my soul," She began quietly, unaccustomed to speaking her mind after so many years of repressing and obeying. "I can feel it like thunder in the sky. You can't see it, but you know it's real."

Her hand drifted over her chest where her fingers curled inwards, making a claw of sorts that yearned to rip her own conflicted heart out of her chest. "The real fight's not over. I'm needed somewhere else." Her voice drifted along with her thoughts as she absently finished, the urgency boiling in her blood to make Chris understand, evaporating in an instant.

"You're talking about this...camp of yours, aren't you?" Chris caught on.

Adrianna was strangely grateful that her grandfather had informed her uncle about the remaining part of her life that hardly anyone knew about. New York and Camp Half-Blood were just as important to her as her own family. She nodded mutely, unable to coerce anymore words out of her mouth.

"Okay then," He accepted easily, pushing off of the bench and standing in front of her. "I won't try and stop you." Chris assured her. "Just remember that, whenever you're ready, you still have a place in this family."

Adrianna doubted Chris' words, but didn't say so out loud. Instead, she allowed a polite smile to curl her lips as she nodded her head. "Thank you." She told him before he left.

The angry, festering doubt gnawed at her thoughts, nearly managing to distract her from the more pressing call to arms which howled through the wind. Chris had meant well, but his words only served to open up a void of uncertainty within her that had been present since the moment she'd existed.

Am I an Argent?

She'd always thought of herself as a warrior, a hunter. She couldn't escape being a half-blood and an orphan. But was she really an Argent, or just a weapon brought to life by one Argent and crafted by another?

Adrianna didn't know.

She forced herself not to dwell on things she couldn't control and focus on something she had actual power over.

Adrianna stood up and began walking further into the hospital's parking lot. She had her eyes set on a shiny, black Triumph motorcycle whose owner was held up nearby, arguing loudly with police officers over a parking infringement.

Her leg hitched over the metallic beast's side, sliding snugly into the foot-well as her nimble fingers unlatched the plastic cap covering the key-slot and keeping the wires beneath it from being exposed.

Adrianna smiled as she hot-wired the motorcycle exactly as her mother had taught her on her sixteenth birthday, what felt like a decade ago. She hadn't known then that it would be the last full day she spent with Kate, but it made the lesson all the more valuable to her, now.

Folding the kick stand, Adrianna revved the engine, grinning mercilessly as the furious owner yelled after her, cursing and swearing as he pushed past the stunned police officers and raced after her.

Pressing down the accelerator, Adrianna roared down the street, leaving more than just the man shouting behind her and the city of Beacon Hills, in her rear-view mirror.

With nothing but dust, the motorcycle's snarling engine, and the afternoon sun beating down on her, Adrianna buried down her misery and enjoyed the ride as she began the long journey across the country, to Long Island, New York.

#-#-#-#-#

Gerard Argent was choking on the side of the road, drowning in the black, tar-like substance that his body had begun spewing since the moment Derek Hale had bitten him, activating the mountain ash he had been secretly poisoned with, and setting off a series of chain reactions that had left him here.

Failure was a new, intriguing sensation to him. He'd never felt it before. He never wanted to feel it again, if he could help it.

The bright headlights of a car swept over his hunched over form, burning his eyes and forcing him to squint as the light remained firmly pointed towards him. He frowned as he was forced to cough up another phlegm of poisonous bile, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him as a figure stepped out of the truck, their treaded boots crunching over the gravelly road.

"I thought I might find you here," A familiar, very smug voice chimed from above. "You always had a way of sliding past everyone's defenses, unnoticed. Like a snake." Alan Deaton appraised, bending down so that his face was at Gerard's eye-level.

Insults were plentiful in Gerard's mind, but he held back his tongue. Fire burned in his tear-stained eyes as he accepted Deaton's outstretched hand, pulling himself to his shaky feet. The dark-skinned veterinarian, for the most part, managed to keep his own amusement in check as Gerard settled into the passenger seat of the vehicle.

"Since you're here, helping me," He finally permitted himself to speak as the car rolled along. "And since it's rather obvious where the knowledge Scott McCall based his plan upon, came from," Gerard strung out, wiping away the slick, suffocating liquid from under his nose with his sleeve. "I think it's safe for me to assume that your retirement was short-lived, Alan." He couldn't help but prod.

The other man sighed. Gerard could see a hint of amusement and respect in Deaton's eyes when he turned away from the road to look his way. "Why is it that everyone keeps assuming I was retired in the first place?" He wondered exasperatedly.

Gerard chuckled, his throat constricting and strangling him as he coughed, hacking to try and rid himself of the viscous substance which seemed to be trying to coat his lungs. "By everyone," He gulped down a large breath of air, accepting the handkerchief from Alan's outstretched hand. "You mean your sister."

The druid's forced calm gave way to surprise as his fingers tightened around the steering wheel. "I can never understand how you find out these things." Alan shared grudgingly. "Yes, Marin came by to see me."

"Then you understand why I had to take certain steps?" Gerard questioned, his eyes narrowing as Deaton's aortic artery thickened, his pulse quickening. "You've unraveled the mystery behind the Kanima, haven't you? I suspect you have. It wasn't that cleverly shrouded in deception. Not my best work, but, as you know very well, I was under a tight deadline." He stated.

"Understand?" Alan repeated, his brows rising although he neglected to take his eyes off the road. "Yes, I understand. I just don't agree."

"I've been doing this for a very long time, Alan," He reminded the man harshly. "Your permission and approval mean nothing to me."

"But my opinion. Now that's something you can't deny needing." Deaton countered factually.

Gerard grunted but didn't dare admit his error. "The sacrifice I made by creating warriors out of both of my granddaughters is no longer of any consequence." He relinquished dominance over the conversation as fatigue swept through his bones. "I trained my dear Adrianna far too well. She defeated the Kanima and unwittingly ruined my only chance of ever truly defeating my most fierce adversary."

"Those kids are stronger than we all thought they were." Alan agreed, turning the car down a route that Gerard wasn't familiar with, driving into the outskirts of Beacon Hills. "While their inexperience could kill them, their bravery and team-work managed to hand them their first victory."

"No victory without sacrifice." Gerard breathed fondly as he quoted from one of his favorite Roman proverbs. "The child within the Kanima was lost, as well."

"They'll heal." Deaton stubbornly insisted. "It's Adrianna I'm most worried about. She was the one who took Jackson's life. That kind of strength; if she's not careful, it'll tear her apart."

Gerard waved a dismissive hand. "She's an Argent," He supplied as his only response. "What you should concern yourself with from now on, is preparing these strays you've adopted for the threat which has yet to surface." Gerard strategically advised.

Alan swallowed, avoiding Gerard's intense stare. The old man laughed, blackened tears ripping across his cheeks as the truth of the situation became known to him. "You have yet to inform them," He understood, still chuckling as he uselessly wiped away the tar with his soaked linen cloth. "And I considered myself a vindictive man. But you, Alan, are far worse. At the very least, I've never denied my true nature."

"They have a lot on their plates." Alan pathetically excused. "School finals are in a month and Scott's grades are still terribly low. I was going to tell them when I knew they could handle it."

Gerard sobered as the car pulled into what appeared to be a small, ratty line of motels. "Then you are an even bigger fool than I took you as." He snarled as his destination finally became apparent. "No hunter I have ever met has been prepared to face one Alpha werewolf, let alone an entire pack of them."

The car shuddered as Deaton parked. Glaringly bright and pathetically cheerful, the sign before Gerard's eyes felt as though it were a mile-marker leading straight to hell. Sunny Brooks, home for the disabled and elderly, was a vision straight out of Gerard's worst nightmares.

Alan smirked as though he could read every violent, deranged thought rushing through Gerard's mind. "These kids are better than your hunters. They're stronger as a pack." He affirmed with confidence and certainty. "Scott will be able lead them against the coming threat."

Lips turning into a murderous frown, Gerard felt his lower eyelid twitch as a muscle pulled beneath the strain of his ire. "You have deluded yourself, Deaton, if you think that a myriad collection of teenagers can stand against the unruly pack of mongrel Alphas. Even by my standards, their methods are cruel." He insulted relentlessly. "To kill your own pack—your own family; there is no greater sin."

"We still have time to prepare." Alan brushed aside, unbuckling his seat-belt as a baggy-clothed, unimpressive, male nurse walked out of the rotten establishment and waited patiently outside their car. "You, on the other hand, have run out of time."

Gerard felt his eyes widen and his heart-rate double as the nurse approached the car, opening his door with a mocking grin. "Welcome to the end of your life." The sadistic man mockingly began. "Come on, Gramps, let's say hello to the inmates. You'll find plenty of friends here."

He struggled against the younger man's strong grip, but couldn't find the power within himself to break free. He was defeated in every way possible. His body was broken, his spirit crushed, and his mind trapped within a prison.

As he was being rolled away in a wheelchair, straps holding his shaking limbs firmly in place, Gerard called out one last foreboding warning to Alan's retreating back.

"You will lead these children to their deaths, Alan!" He shouted hysterically as another nurse rushed out to assist the first, a syringe filled with clear liquid in her meaty hands. "Deucalion isn't coming, he's already here!"

Gerard cackled as the druid looked back over his shoulder at him, his expression one of utter terror and dread. A rush of satisfaction filled his veins before the world faded from sight.

He had been betrayed by those he had considered to be worthless pawns, but it no longer mattered. His family was torn apart, the seeds of resentment planted within both Argent heirs. One day, they would battle for the title, just as he had hoped.

Gerard could console himself and begin to lick his wounds because, despite the part-failure of his plan, he'd had the final word. He had laughed last, in death's very face.

In the end, sweet revenge would be his. Kate would not have died for nothing and the Kanima had not failed entirely. The game had not yet ended; it had only just begun...

Finis

V
olume 1-The Huntress