My second day as a Beacon High student began much like the first. I again, awoke with a start at my alarm and had to borderline blackmail myself into getting out of bed. American school started brutally early, and I was just trying to figure out if snorting a line of extra fine coffee granules would have a speedier response when I heard a car horn beep outside.
Gran, ever the devout early bird had left already, and I paused, waiting to hear if they would honk again. When it did, I walked slowly to the living room window and peered out to see what the commotion was.
To my absolute chagrin, Stiles Stilinski and his bloody Jeep were parked outside my house. When he saw me through the net curtain, he waved cheerfully and then held up a travel mug and pointed to it.
I didn't move and gripped the curtain uneasily, wondering what his angle was here.
After last night, I assumed we would revert to a safe and suspicious distance until I approached Derek with information on the Alpha. Scott and Stiles seemed like such a locked in twosome, there had to be some ulterior motive as to why he was acting like we were friends.
Us agreeing not to kill each other, didn't exactly form the basis for a healthy friendship.
Stiles made an exaggerated show of pointing to his watch and I sighed, leaving the window behind. It was just a ride to school; I didn't have to owe him anything.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked roughly as I swung open the car door and climbed into the passenger seat.
"Good morning to you too," he quipped cheerfully. I looked at him quizzically and I swear to god- his grin didn't even falter.
Stiles picked up two travel cups and held them both out to me.
"I made coffee and then thought, oh wait she's British- what if she prefers tea? So, I also made tea, except I don't think I've ever made tea before and all we had was chamomile. But I figured you're pretty high-strung so the chamomile might actually be onto something…" he rambled.
I blinked at him wearily, trying my best to take in whatever that last sentence was.
"I'll take the coffee, thanks," I said eventually, and he passed me a cup which read 'property of the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department'.
"Oh cool," I commented taking a sip of coffee. "You've been arrested before- what are the holding cells like here?"
"What?" he asked, sending me a weird look as he backed out of the spot and headed in the direction of school.
"The cup?" I answered.
"Oh," he laughed. "No, my dad is the Sheriff."
I immediately choked on my coffee and Stiles one-handed the wheel to pat me on the back with the other. Once I had my coughing under control, I became acutely aware of the blush creeping up my neck.
"Your Dad is the Sheriff?" I managed to get out at the same time as he said, "wait- have you been arrested?"
"No of course not!" I replied quickly. "I have definitely not been arrested before- so are you close with your dad?"
"I guess," Stiles answered, looking like he didn't quite believe me. "It's harder now, you know, that Scott is…"
"A werewolf," I supplied helpfully.
"Yeah." He paused for a minute. "I lie to him a lot. I mean, we weren't exactly best friends before any of this, but I feel like I have to lie to protect him now. And the lies are so much bigger than they used to be."
"I get what you mean," I replied, tracing the outline of the Sheriff's badge on the cup. "I lie to my Gran a lot. Not really to protect her… in fact, Scott would probably be doing me a favour if he ate her on a full moon."
Stiles chuckled. "She can't be that bad."
I scoffed and mainlined some more coffee. "Oh please, you have no idea. Everything I do is to spite that woman. A day in the life of Winona Fraser is not complete without at least four lectures on how I'm a disappointment to the family and oh, also my skirt is too short."
"Does she know about you?" he asked lightly.
"Does my God fearing, old fashioned, English grandmother know that I'm a witch?" I repeated dully. "Haha, no. The day she finds out, is the day I turn up to school with a cross burned into my forehead. The woman would have me exorcised."
I had no doubt in my mind, that if Gran ever discovered that I even called myself a witch, let alone actually practised magic, that I would be Hollywood's next big thing for my breakout role in 'The Exorcism of Winona Fraser'. I had absolutely no intention of ever letting her find out what I had been burdened with. Maybe if she was ever dying of a long, drawn-out disease I would whisper it to her on her deathbed to make the process go a little faster.
"It's weird," Stiles said. "You spend your whole life thinking grownups have all the answers and then when you actually need their help, you just know that they'd never be able to handle the truth."
"You'd be surprised," I said, thinking immediately of Arthur. The one adult who had never made me feel like I was a certifiable headcase. "Some of them get it."
We settled into what I would have to reluctantly call a comfortable silence for the rest of the ride to school, only speaking again when we pulled in next to an antsy looking Scott.
Now this was a little more on brand- an awkward and poorly executed ambush.
"Did you find anything out?" Scott asked, practically leaning into my window. I resisted the urge to close him in it and settled for rolling my eyes instead.
"No Scott," I sighed, as I climbed out of the car. He followed me round until we met up with Stiles. "I went straight to sleep when I got home, given that it was past midnight when the intense line of questioning eventually stopped."
"Okay, but you're going to ask your council, right?" he asked, completely ignoring my tone.
"Yes, I'm going to ask my magic council if they've seen any homicidal alpha werewolves lately," I responded, already feeling a headache brewing. It was far too early for any of this.
"How come you didn't immediately start in with the third degree as soon as I got in the car?" I asked Stiles. The two boys flanked me either side as we walked through the school doors.
I thought back to yesterday morning, walking in alone and trying to stay under the radar. So much for that plan.
"Scott doesn't understand that there's a nuance to being a nuisance. I figured I'd at least bring you a coffee first," he replied with a grin. "Hey, did you know she's been arrested before?" Stiles directed the last comment to Scott who almost tripped over himself.
"Wait what? You've been arrested?"
I waved him off. "Stiles is making things up; I have absolutely never been arrested."
I stopped in front of my locker and the two boys loitered next to me as I punched in my combination. I got the distinct impression that they were having a silent conversation over my head, and I was so not in the mood for their weird bond today.
"God, what?" I asked, my annoyance beginning to get the better of me. The low vibrations of Scott's magic coupled with the late night was really doing wonders for my patience levels. I craved some peace and quiet.
"You are going to ask right?" Scott asked, his voice small.
"Jesus Christ! I said loudly, slamming my locker shut and startling half the hall. "Yes, I'm going to bloody ask. Go away now, both of you."
"See you in English!" Stiles called cheerily as the two of them left to find their own lockers and I contemplated slamming my head into the wall.
I was not having a good day.
I had so far, spent most of it throwing myself into empty classrooms whenever I saw Scott and Stiles approaching and the last one had not in fact, been empty at all. I think I may have just joined the chess club. In a very sorry attempt to diffuse the embarrassment of launching myself into the middle of their practise, I now had another group of people to avoid.
I eventually, found solace in the library, relishing in the solitude. I had scattered a few school appropriate books around the table to set the scene and was currently reading about the magical properties of certain fungi, hidden behind a particularly large Chemistry textbook.
"Winona?"
"Stiles, I swear to God…" I slammed my book down onto the table and to my surprise, saw Allison standing awkwardly in front of me instead.
"Shit sorry," I said. "I thought you were-"
"Stiles?" she answered curiously, a small smile on her face.
"He has uh, a very feminine pitch," I replied clumsily.
Allison grinned at this. "Do you mind if I sit?" she asked. "I'm kind of hiding out."
Join the club sister. As little as I wanted the company, my curiosity got the better of me.
"Sure," I murmured, swiping some of my discarded textbooks over to my side of the table. Allison sat down and pulled out a book of her own, something old and heavy. The edges of the pages were gilded in a shimmering gold. I couldn't explain it, but the old tome sent a chill down my spine.
"So, who are you hiding from?" I asked, trying to play it cool.
"Lydia," she sighed. "She just… never mind." She looked uncomfortable, like she wanted to have a moan but didn't want to bad mouth her friend.
"She just what?" I asked gently. Navigating girl drama was a delicate business and I couldn't seem too interested. For whatever reason, Lydia was definitely Allison's friend and God forbid I sounded too eager to shit talk her and it came back to bite me when they made up. I had to be the friendly shoulder if I wanted to learn anything.
I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to learn, come to think of it. Maybe I just wanted to hear someone else talk about mundane things for a while. Pretend I was still a normal sixteen-year-old for a bit.
"So, I found out some really weird stuff about my family and she just doesn't care," Allison said quietly.
"Like Jeremy Kyle weird?" I asked and then immediately tried to translate. "Uh, Jerry Springer? Dr Phil?"
Allison shook her head. "No, like, I don't even know. Fairy tale weird. Like something the Grimm brothers would think up."
Oh, for the love of-
Of course, this entire town was a fucking hell mouth. I would truly never know peace.
"Well, that sounds interesting to me?" I said, despite the fact that it didn't sound interesting at all, it sounded like another half ton of paperwork that I was going to have to fill out about this God forsaken town.
Allison immediately brightened and I felt pleased that I had managed to cheer her up. Even if it was for my own selfish interests an against my better judgement.
"Well, my aunt is visiting right now, and she gave me this book." Allison rifled through the old book she had pulled out earlier and then settled on a page. She placed it on the table between us and scooted closer to read it with me.
The page that the book was open to, was titled 'La bête du Gévaudan' and my breath caught in my throat.
"The beast of Gévaudan," I whispered weakly.
"Hey! Your French is pretty good!" Allison complimented but I barely heard her. I already knew where this was going; listening to her read out extracts was like watching a slow-motion car crash.
"A quadruped, wolf-like monster, prowling the Auvergne and South Dordogne areas of France, during the years 1764 to 1767," she recited, and I forced myself to keep my eyes open and stare at the engraved picture of the beast.
It was a picture I had seen many times during my year in France and it was one I would never forget. It was burned into my memory, into our history. The beast's red eyes were carved into our very blood line, and I felt them watch me now, as they must have watched hundreds of my ancestors before me.
"La bête killed over 100 people, becoming so infamous that King Louis XV sent one of his best hunters to try to kill it. Even the church eventually declared the monster a messenger of Satan."
I grimaced, feeling a thin sheen of sweat begin to form on my skin.
"Cryptozoologists believe it may have been a subspecies of hooved predator, possibly a mesonychid. While others believe it was a powerful sorcerer who could shape-shift into a man-eating monster."
Allison seemed completely oblivious to the fact that I was a woman on the edge, staring down into the ugly abyss. She was blissfully unaware of the war raging in my head.
Maybe Gran would move? Maybe I could convince her that closing her eyes and pointing to a map of California had been a colossal mistake and that we needed to head back to England this minute? Could I somehow work the devil into it, in a way which wouldn't result in my hospitalisation?
"It is believed that la bête was finally trapped and killed by a renowned hunter who claimed that his wife and four children were the first to fall prey to the creature."
"His name was Argent," I finished, feeling utterly sick to my stomach.
Allison looked up at me and I'm sure the scene would have looked downright comical to anyone else. Allison, excited to share a piece of family history and me, looking as if I was about to vomit all over it.
"I'm an Argent too! Isn't that cool?" she said excitedly. I clenched my fists under the desk as I fought down my panic, hoping that the sting of my nails pressing little crescent moons into my palms would be enough to centre me.
I could feel the low hum begin in my bones and for once it had nothing to do with anyone else's magic. I knew that this was a warning to cool it or lose it. I couldn't afford a third school move on my transcript, especially under mysterious circumstances.
"Did you know that Argent means silver in French?" I asked Allison, fighting to keep my voice calm and level.
She shook her head. "No, I didn't. Hey- are you okay?" she asked, concern on her soft features.
I figured that was a good a sign as any that I was losing this particular battle. I stood up shakily and winced as my calves hit my chair clumsily. People began to look up from their books.
"I'm fine," I managed, as I scooped my books up with trembling hands. "I just realised I'm uh, late for something." I grabbed my bag. "I'll see you around Allison."
I all but ran from the library, forcing the doors open without even touching them. I barely registered the noise they made as they bounced off the walls, or the angry hiss from the librarian.
The corridor was mercifully empty, and I sprinted down it, with no real direction in mind. My inner voice was telling me to go outside and take a deep breath in the fresh air, maybe touch some grass. But more than anything, I wanted to find Scott.
As I ran down the hall, my bag slamming into my side with every step, the lights started to flicker ominously. I sped up but I couldn't outrun them, the lights began to shatter overhead, and glass rained down on me. I felt it pelt my hair and I raised my arms to protect my face. I finally made it to one of the doors and threw them open.
As soon as I stepped out into the California sunshine, the storm inside me quelled instantly. It was like someone had flipped a switch and in the blink of an eye, I was back in control. I all but fell down the steps and staggered round the corner to lean against the wall, exhausted but no longer in danger. Or, a danger, I should say.
My mind wandered back to my very first taste of the magic that I held, as I composed myself. The sheer power that I possessed. It was still so electric, just like that first hit, almost two years later.
I might have hated my new life and pretty much everything that came with it, but the magic... that was straight up addictive.
It was dizzying. Even with my breathing under control and feeling returning to my fingertips, I still had the lightheaded high which accompanied every magical outburst. It was enough to get drunk on. Maybe even lose your mind to.
I twisted my body to lean on the wall with my back flat to the brick and surveyed the grounds, my chest heaving. My hands were down by my sides, and I rubbed my fingers together absentmindedly, looking for a spark of inspiration.
Now that I was alone, I could be truly honest with myself.
Last night hadn't just been a show of force against the hunters, a way to scare off an unknown threat. It was so much more than that. For the last year, I had been like a bird in a cage, aching to spread my wings. The techniques that the coven had taught me were more like restraints than coping mechanisms. I had been itching to just let go.
And it had been beautiful.
I didn't just control fire, I was fire. If I had been allowed to continue, I would have forgotten my own name, I was sure. It was so easy to get lost in the magic, to let the power carry you away. For a time before the coven, it had been my only way to cope in a world which I no longer belonged in.
A drop of sweat rolled down my back and I realised that I was burning to feel that release again.
The sheer ferocity of my need crashed over me in a wave of nausea. With shaking hands, I fished my phone out of my pocket and quickly found the speed dial. Before I could talk myself out of it, I rang the number which sat firmly at the top of my list. The echo-y quality of the dial tone was like a cruel reminder of the size of the Atlantic Ocean and all it separated me from. My eyes burned.
"I thought we agreed on no phone calls," Arthur said in lieu of a hello. "Your Gran will go mad when she sees the phone bill."
The tears which had been threatening to spill over, began their grand descent down my cheeks at the sound of his blessedly familiar voice. In that moment, I was desperately hungry for home.
"Hi Art," I whispered, pouring all the grief at myself into those two words.
"What's wrong love?" he asked, his tone immediately softening. I was horrified to hear that he still sounded like home.
"I feel like I'm fucking this up..." I managed, sliding down the wall and resting my head against the warm brick.
"Win, you've been there five minutes. You can't possibly be fucking anything up," he remarked, serving me some of that old fashioned English tough love.
"You have no idea what I've walked into the middle of."
"So, tell me," Arthur said. "What's happening?"
"I don't really know where to begin."
"I find at the beginning is normally a good place to start," he quipped gently and oddly, it gave me the strength to wipe my tears and tell him everything.
Arthur somehow found it in himself to stay silent as I broke down everything that he'd missed this week on the soap opera of the century- the Beacon Hills nightmare. I was grateful that he allowed me to just ramble on without comment.
"So, that's uh, that's pretty much where I am right now," I finished eventually. Despite the gravity of my wolf, hunter and magic situation being just south of completely tragic, my mood was now bordering on almost hysterical about the whole thing. For some reason, recounting my last 24hrs to an outsider was making me realise just how fucked I was.
I mean- the entire thing was ridiculous. I was two damn days into the California dream teen experience that I had been sold against my will and I was already drowning in the thing which everyone had planned so hard to keep me from. The supernatural apparently, would not be told no. Destiny was destiny.
Arthur was quiet for a few seconds, mulling over how best to talk his way out of this particular mess I imagined, when it all got too much. We both burst into raucous and uncontrollable laughter.
"You're telling me," he wheezed. "That not only did you stumble into the one town in California with more werewolves than sense, BUT- they're in the middle of some kind of homicidal pack dispute, AND they're also up against a family of legendary hunters?"
"You missed out that my only non-flight risk wolf contact is actually dating the daughter of said family of legendary hunters," I panted, still in the middle of a laughing fit.
Arthur lost it again and for a few wonderful minutes, we just sat in each other's company, laughing down the phone. If I closed my eyes, I could have been in my old room, telling him all about my day at my criminals in the making, comprehensive school. The thought made my eyes sting a little and my mirth subsided quickly after that.
Once we had finally composed ourselves, a sombre silence fell between us. I could practically taste what Arthur was trying to work out how to tell me. Thankfully, he kept it short and sweet.
"You know what you have to do, don't you?"
I heaved a rather petulant sigh and was glad that he couldn't see my incredible teenage pout in the flesh. "Yeah, I know," I answered stubbornly. "Contact the bloody Council."
"Exactly," he said, sounding like the unfortunate mimic of a parent, despite never having any kids himself. "Contact the Council. You have to play their game, Win."
"I know, I know," I replied sullenly, suddenly hating that I had even called him in the first place. Sure, he had cheered me up in the moment, but I knew that this would be his response. He always thought that the right answer lay with the Council's strict rules. He was glaringly different from my parents in that way, they were notorious rule breakers. According to my Gran, it's where I picked up my rebellious attitude and wanton disrespect of rules.
Arthur wasn't a witch. Or a wizard- warlock? Whatever the male version of a witch was. He wasn't magical at all. He was one of those perpetual students with a particular interest in the occult. It was the only reason that he was able to put me in touch with my coven. He thought that they hung the moon, and he was so busy being fascinated that he couldn't see that they were just like everyone else. So irreparably flawed.
When it came to the Council, I wasn't sure who was naiver, Arthur or myself.
"What's holding you back?" Arthur asked and, in that moment, I suddenly wasn't so grateful that he could read me like a book, even with just my tone to go off.
"They're going to make me step back," I said hesitantly. "If I play this how they want me to, it's going to mean cutting communication with Scott. You know their policy, it's 'don't get involved'."
"But that's what's going to keep you safe Winnie."
I rolled my eyes. Of course, he could afford to be so black and white. Thousands of miles away and without Scott's terrified eyes boring holes into his soul.
"I get that. But, what about Scott? And Derek?" And Stiles, I finished silently. "Who's going to keep them safe?"
"That isn't the coven's job," Arthur explained gently, as if he were indulging a child. "It's not your job either."
"But what's the point in protecting them from the hunters if they're just going to kill each other anyway?" I argued.
"You remember the origins of the gift, don't you?" Was all Arthur said, still infuriatingly calm.
"Reel it in Arthur," I warned heatedly. "You're not lecturing your PHD class here and I'm pretty confident that I can still hex you over the Atlantic."
He chuckled and it did nothing to soothe my rising temper. "Nyx gifted remarkable humans. For all their supernatural strength and power, at the end of the day, they're still and always will be, human. And humans are fallible Winona, it's the blessing and the curse of having free will."
"Art, what the hell are you talking about?" I hated when he got on a roll and began to wax poetic at me.
"I'm telling you what you already know. You let them fight it out between themselves and be there to pick up the pieces before the hunters get there first."
I thought of Scott's face. How young he looked, with desperate hope carved into his soft features.
"I can't pick up the pieces of a sixteen-year-old boy, Arthur. I won't do it."
The line grew quiet for so long, I wondered if our connection had dropped.
"I know this is sensitive for you Winnie," he said finally. "You've seen so much loss..."
I was fully ready with a heated retort at having my own grief used against me like that, when the bell rang. It cut into my building rage and felt like the light at the end of the tunnel.
"I've got to go," I said brusquely. "You're about as helpful as a brick wall, you know that?"
Arthur laughed, and the tension between us eased a little. "Good luck Win."
I hung up, feeling freed of one burden and somehow saddled with another. Just hearing Arthur's voice had been like a tonic to my frazzled nerves but he hadn't exactly been helpful. It had been like having a discussion with my conscience and I was left with more questions that when I had started.
I stropped off to Chemistry in a foul mood.
I groaned as I entered the lab and immediately spied Allison in my previously assigned seat next to Scott. I had completely forgotten our trade off and reluctantly trudged over to my new spot next to Jackson Whittemore.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he drawled, watching me drop onto the stool beside him.
He had a hungry look in his eyes, and it made the skin prickle on the back of my neck. It struck me that yesterday I had confused this particular look as sleaziness. It took me until now to realise that there was absolutely nothing sexual about it in the slightest.
The haunted expression in Jackson's face- the one hollowing his cheekbones and bruising the delicate skin under his eyes, was of someone who had previously assumed they were much higher up in the food chain and were now experiencing what it was like to be considered prey for the first time.
It was a desperate feeling and I didn't need a wolf nose to recognise that Jackson reeked of it. Call it witches' intuition but in that moment, I knew that he wasn't a hunter. He had the distinct demeanour reserved for those being hunted.
"I agreed to switch with Allison," I said icily. "Don't get too excited. I can assure you that we'd all rather be sitting next to Scott."
Jackson sneered at me but was silenced by the arrival of the indominable Mr Harris.
"Alright class," he said, whipping his Neo from the Matrix sunglasses off and replacing them with the usual specs. "Today we're doing group work. Now, I could let you choose your groups, but I don't want to, so you'll be working with your lab partner and the pair directly behind you."
Jackson groaned audibly but honestly; I could have kissed Mr Harris. If I wasn't concerned that he would have sucked the life out of me like a ghoul. By the grace of God, my new relocation had placed me directly in front of Stiles. This would be the perfect opportunity to present my terrible discovery.
Harris scribbled the instructions for the experiment on the chalkboard and the class began to suit up in safety gear.
"Could we look anymore Breakfast Club right now?" Stiles remarked cheerily as he looked across at the four of us clustered around their desk.
"You'd make a wonderful Claire," I said to Jackson. "Quite the princess."
Stiles snorted and Jackson fixed me with a look of disgust.
"Congratulations," he said humourlessly. "You could have been royalty here but instead you picked the biggest nobody in Beacon Hills to buddy up with."
Before I had time to work out whether there was a compliment in there, Stiles cut in.
"Woah, woah, woah," he interrupted. "I think that's Scott, actually."
"Enjoy being the third to their weird little couple," Jackson said harshly, inputting as much venom as he could into the word 'weird'.
It never failed to surprise me just how much power, people like Jackson believed their words held. He was just a boy in an expensive jumper and a sharp jawline, yet he fully believed that he held the keys to the world. Even in my poorest days, I had never once found myself envying those with money- people like Jackson would soon find that the world which lay at their feet, was one entirely devoid of substance.
"I have to warn you," I said to Jackson. "Your obsession with Scott is starting to look a lot like fan behaviour."
Stiles laughed outright this time and even Greenberg, his silent lab partner, made a small noise in his throat. It was hard to contain my own grin in the face of Jackson's ire. He treated us to one last glare and then turned to Greenberg and struck up a hushed conversation with him.
Stiles and I began to work on the experiment.
"Where have you been today?" he asked, lowering his voice so that it felt like just the two of us. I kept my eyes on the desk as I worked. "We looked for you at lunch."
I shrugged. "I didn't feel like spending the rest of my day on trial again."
"Oh, come one, it's not like that," Stiles said, sounding a little wounded. "We're friends."
"Yeah, well, you should start vetting your friends better." I paused and then quietened myself further, whispering the next part. "How much do you know about Allison Argent?"
I felt Stiles falter beside me, immediately. "Oh," he said softly. "You mean do we know that her Dad is a gun welding psychopath, determined to put a bullet in a certain mutual friend of ours? Yeah, we know. Quite the fun surprise."
I almost knocked the beaker over in shock.
"Are you being serious?" I whispered furiously. "You knew?"
"Yeah, we knew," Stiles replied, far too casually to befit the situation at hand. "Only for a little while," he added hastily when he turned and saw the mutinous look on my face.
I contemplated launching the beaker at him and from the way his eyes began to nervously flit to my hands, I think he could tell.
"Look," he conceded with a shrug. "We know it's not smart but Scott's sixteen and in love. He thinks Allison is the sun."
"The sun is just a really big star you know," I replied quietly. "And stars implode all the time."
Stiles didn't seem to have an answer for that and so I was left to simmer furiously in silence. I refused to be the first one to break- here I was, expected to break the rules and cross all of my own boundaries in the pursuit of saving this fucking town and Scott couldn't even bring himself to sack off his ticking time bomb of a high school romance for the sake of staying alive.
In a town riddled with werewolves, it would be an absolute miracle if Allison could keep her head above the family business. If she hadn't already been introduced to it of course. And when it came time to pick sides?
Blood was thicker than water.
"I can tell by the murderous look on your face, that you don't agree," Stiles said eventually, just as I thought that I might drown in the angry silence. "Being totally honest, I'm not sure I do either. But Scott trusts Allison and I trust Scott. That's enough for me."
"Will it be enough when she joins them?" I countered coldly.
"She wouldn't," Stiles answered confidently. Like he had never felt the burn of betrayal in his life. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe I was just particularly unlucky.
"She's not like that," he continued. "I'm sure once you get to know her, you'll see. She doesn't even know anything."
"Shows how much you know," I retorted childishly. "I have it on good authority that she's being inducted. Soon."
I heard Stiles' breath hitch in his throat.
"What?" he said, any humour draining from his voice. "Who did you hear it from?"
"Allison's own mouth," I whispered. "We sat together at lunch and I got quite the insight."
"How'd that happen?"
"Must be my sparkling personality."
"Right, because you're just so approachable," he retorted sarcastically. The tenseness of the situation made the comment sound harsher than I hoped he meant.
"That woman last night- the blonde," I said so quietly that Stiles had to move closer to hear me. "-is her aunt. She left Allison a book yesterday, 'La bête du Gévaudan'." My voice became hard. "It's the Argent villain origin story."
Stiles swore softly under his breath. "You're sure?"
"I'd state my fucking life on it. Her education started yesterday.
"What are you two freaks muttering about?" Jackson interrupted snidely from across the desk. He had evidently grown bored with Greenberg's company and was fishing for some excitement.
"Which one of us is going to take Scott to prom," I replied brightly, no trace of our grim conversation in my voice. "Why, want to throw your hat in the ring?"
"How would that work?" Stiles added. "Would we take my Jeep?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, I'm pretty sure harem situations like these are what stretch limos were invented for."
"Dude, she's like a male Stilinski," Greenberg remarked, stunning all of us at his first comment of the lesson.
Stiles grinned in delight just as I said, "I don't know if that's a compliment?"
My phone buzzed in my pocket, bringing me out of the petty high school drama for a second. Ignoring the others, I slipped it out and checked the screen under the desk. It was a text from Arthur.
Spoke to Maggs about your situation. She wants a call, midnight your time. Good luck x
"Fuck," I muttered under my breath. Stiles caught on to my irritation and leant over like the nosy bastard he was, to see what had captured my attention.
"Who's Maggs?" he asked blithely. Jesus, this boy was too comfortable for his own good. At least English people had some bloody boundaries.
"Getting much work done over here? Or are we just catching up on our social calendars?" Mr Harris remarked snidely as he passed our workstation.
Our heads shot up at the sound of his dulcet tones and I scrambled to hide my phone, in absolutely vain of course. I knew he had already seen it when in slow motion, his pale eyebrows almost disappear into his equally pale hairline.
"Hand over your cell," he ordered calmly. Stiles stopped next to me like the smooth criminal he was, and I forced myself to appear relaxed.
"I can confidently say that I have no idea what you're talking about," I answered back, feeling like the eyes of the entire class were on us.
"I won't ask again," he said coldly. "Give me your phone."
Before I could react, I felt Stiles' warm hand find mine suddenly, under the table. I froze, stock still, as his fingers brushed the hand clutching my phone. I felt him slide them up, eventually finding the power button. He grasped my phone on each side, his fingers swallowing my own and pressed it down firmly, powering it down. Quick as a flash, his hand was gone, and I found myself feeling oddly bereft without it. The entire thing was over in a matter of seconds but with his hand on mine, it had felt like a small lifetime.
I passed the phone over robotically, barely registering what was happening. Mr Harris all but snatched it from me.
"You can have it back at the end of the day," he said airily, before moving off to harass someone else.
I returned to myself just in time to stare at his retreating back furiously. He was such a colossal busybody and in my two days at Beacon Hills, had already managed to cause me endless humiliation. I hated him.
I could feel the familiar burn of embers beginning to crackle in my chest and fingertips. I wanted to set him alight- watch his diamond skin blacken and burn.
That jarring last thought was the equivalent of a cold shower and I immediately felt doused in regret and shame. I swallowed weakly, feeling in control of myself again and utterly ill at the thought of hurting Mr Harris.
"You good?" Stiles asked softly. His concern settled over me like a soothing balm and dashed any lingering anger from my head.
I nodded and took a deep breath in. "I'm okay." I paused and felt the back of my neck get hot. "What was, you know, all that about?" I finally turned to look Stiles in the eye after an entire lesson spent staring fixedly at my own hands.
Stiles actually blushed a little, his cheeks colouring a soft cherubic pink. Whether it was at my question or under the scrutiny of my gaze, I couldn't be sure.
"Harris is a text reader when he can get away with it," he explained, looking uncomfortable. "I figured that some things should stay private."
"Not from you though, aye?" I said wryly.
The flush on Stiles' face darkened considerably and I was suddenly struck by how beautiful he was. He glittered in the soft light of the lab.
"Well, you know," he stuttered nervously. "Friends tell each other stuff."
"At emotional gun point maybe," I muttered under my breath. Stiles' soft laughter let me know that he had heard me.
A/N: Whew, sorry it's been a while gang. If anyone is still reading this, I hope you enjoyed this beast of a chapter!