The Huntress

by TheLiteraryEscapist

The first installment in the Argent Chronicles. Follow Adrianna Argent, the demigod daughter of Kate Argent, as her mother's murder forces her to choose a side between the hunters she's always known and the wolves of Beacon Hills. Is she a friend, or a foe? Or, perhaps, neither? (Takes place during MTV's 'Teen Wolf' Season 2 and between the Lightning Thief and the Sea of Monsters.)

6. Chapter 6

6 -Frenemy

The car glided to a stop at the base of Lydia's driveway. Adrianna had yet to look up from her hands, so meek and supposedly gentle, but capable of killing with such ease. Her insides hurt like she'd swallowed fire and her head was pounding fiercely.

"I need you to promise that you won't say anything about what just happened." Allison told Lydia seriously.

Lydia tossed some of her hair over her shoulder, smiling sweetly, as Adrianna had learned she did when she was annoyed. "I'll promise not to say anything about what just happened if you can tell me what the hell just happened." She stressed, allowing some of her confusion to shine through.

"It's—" Allison grasped for the right words. "It's kind of complicated.

"Well," Lydia promptly suggested. "How about you start with why Derek was there? Or where Jackson went, or what is wrong with Erica?" She finished shrilly, glancing back at Adrianna for a moment before refocusing on Allison.

"Oh, do you need a minute to come up with a plausible lie?" Lydia bitterly asked as Allison's lips formed words she knew she couldn't say.

"Part of the reason why I'm asking is because Scott and I aren't supposed to be seeing each other, okay?" Allison found her voice. "So, it's better if you just keep what you know to yourself."

"Fine." Lydia agreed, pushing open the door of the car and unbuckling her seatbelt. "I'll keep what I know about you and your boyfriend—which is nothing—to myself."

"Hey," Allison reached out, stopping the red head from stomping off angrily. "He's not just my boyfriend. You get that, right?"

Adrianna finally looked up, her eyes bloodshot and her skin deathly pale, to make sure that Allison wouldn't hurt Lydia. "Let me go." The brilliant strawberry blonde quietly asked.

"Just for once second," Allison pleaded, following Lydia's gaze back to Adrianna before continuing. "Please, try and remember."

Pressing her lips together, Lydia closed the door and reluctantly sat back down into the chair. "Remember what?" She resignedly questioned.

"Remember what it feels like." Allison explained, her eyes lighting up with an undefinable expression stuck somewhere between joy and excitement. "All those times in school when you see him standing down the hall and you cannot breathe until you're with him." She shared whimsically. "Or those times in class when you—you can't stop looking at the clock because you know that he's standing right out there, waiting for you."

Shaking her head as Lydia's eyes became glossy, Allison removed her hand from the other girl's bicep. "Don't you remember what that's like?" She wondered. Turning to Adrianna, Allison's eyes beckoned an answer that neither girl could give.

"No." Lydia tightly responded, refusing to meet Allison's disbelieving stare.

"What do you mean, 'no'?" She asked aloud, looking between the other occupants of the car as though she'd find humour sparkling in their faces before they admitted it was all a joke and that yes, they'd been loved like that before. "You've had boyfriends before." Allison grasped as she realized that Lydia's answer wasn't going to change.

A beat of silence stretched in the car as Adrianna felt sympathy for Lydia, who, for all her glamour and popularity, had never found someone to love her, completely unconditionally and without prompt, either.

"None like that." Lydia whispered before hurrying away, into her giant, well-lit house.

Allison's hand clutched the steering wheel tightly as her face betrayed her confusion. Adrianna sat back in her chair, touching an ice cold hand to her burning forehead. She'd felt sick ever since waking up with Isaac's life-force tingling at the tips of her fingers, which made no sense whatsoever. She should have been stronger, as she'd been immediately after her powers had acted up, not weaker.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Allison's voice broke her train of thought. She sounded meek and tired, but also a little bit annoyed. It lit a spark within Adrianna which she easily blew into a small fire that returned warmth to her frigid limbs.

"What would I have said?" She retorted hotly, angrily shoving her hair out of her face as the air conditioning blew it this way and that. "Could I have shared heart-felt stories about the times my mother would tuck me in and read me bedtime stories. How she would fight off the monsters under my bed with my grandfather not far behind?" Adrianna bitterly dreamed, like she had when she was young.

"Maybe I should have told her how happy I was when I learned that my father didn't want anything to do with me; that I was just a debt he had to pay off with my mother!" She nearly shouted, her face turning red and her eyes watering pathetically. Adrianna didn't notice the way Allison's eyes widened in horror and she physically shrunk away from her cousin, shame pumping through her veins.

"But, you know what," Adrianna continued, on a roll, not caring that she was seriously scaring Allison at this point, as something cold began to drip out of her nose. She thought it might be blood. "The cherry on top would have been when I clued both of you in to why you, Allison, didn't even know that I existed before I got here."

Adrianna laughed but then felt something lodge in her throat. She coughed into her hand but her anger forced her to keep speaking as soon as she'd recovered. "Do you know what Kate did to me on my twelfth birthday?" She spoke resentfully, filled with a hatred that could never be vanquished, no matter how many times she tried.

Allison reached out, trying to hold onto Adrianna's trembling fists. "Be careful, Adrianna." She told her, appearing to be genuinely concerned. "Calm down." She warned.

"Calm down!" Adrianna did yell this time, causing Allison to flinch suddenly. "You want me to calm down, when my mother shipped me off to the other side of the country—all the way to New York—to live at a summer camp, by myself, surrounded by people I didn't know?" She spat venomously.

"No," She shook her head. "I won't calm down. First, she makes me go through six years of hell, trying to train my how to be a hunter," Adrianna's lips were running so fast, faster than her mind could keep up, that at that point she hardly knew what she was divulging anymore. "And then, she up and dumps me on Long Island Sound, with a bunch of barbarians!"

Tears fell and ripped into her cheeks, but Adrianna didn't pay them any mind. She'd never shared her story with anyone. For once, she wanted to be the one relying on someone else; not the other way around.

"Oh my god," She heard Allison gasp as tremors and sobs wracked Adrianna's suddenly child-like form. "Adrianna," Allison tried to inform, reaching out and shaking her shoulder rather harshly. "Your nose—" She broke off, sounding terrified. "Your eyes and your ears." She breathed quietly, and the panic in her cousin's voice was what finally scared her into looking up into the car's rear view mirror.

Black, sludge-like goo was draining out of Adrianna's ever orifice. Her ears felt plugged with the stuff and the tears she'd thought she'd shed, were made of the same tar substance, just as the supposed blood dripping from her nose.

"What's happening to me?" She muttered under her breath, almost too frightened to ask any louder. Her hands blindly fumbled for a napkin, a tissue—anything to wipe away the monstrous substance leaking out of her, but she found none.

"Um, uh, oh my god." Allison mumbled uselessly, turning fully in her seat and losing control over the use of her rational mind. "Are you dying?" She nearly screeched.

"No," Adrianna snapped back, but she wasn't sure. Finally deciding to use the only thing available to her, which happened to be the sleeve of her mother's jacket, Adrianna was relieved when the goo stopped running the more she wiped and eventually, the only sign it had even been there, were the black streaks marring her pale face and the leather on her arms.

"Okay," She told herself. "Okay, I'm good." She reassured Allison, who was staring at her like she'd grown a third head. "Take me home." She asked her cousin, allowing part of her terror to shine through as her voice cracked.

Allison shook her head, disagreeing. "No, look at you." She pointed out the girl's state. "You need to go to the hospital."

"No, Allison." Adrianna corrected, beginning to become frustrated. "Think about it, Gerard will be able to help me more than anyone at the hospital can." She reasoned. "They won't even know what to do with me." She explained, awkwardly patting her cousin's idle hand.

"You're right," Allison finally agreed, sounding unsure. "I guess."

She started the car and backed out of Lydia's driveway, then, speeding off in the direction of the home they were both living in. The whole ride, Adrianna's mind was unsettled.

What's happening to me? She asked herself, staring at the ruined sleeves of her mother's jacket, demoralized. Adrianna promised herself she'd ask Gerard as soon as they arrived but a small, nagging part of her warned her that she couldn't trust him.

As the perfume the very same man had bought her some days ago, just after she'd arrived in Beacon Hills, wafted up into her nose, she forgot all about her reservations.

Gerard was family. If she couldn't trust her own blood, then she couldn't trust anyone.

#-#-#-#-#

He watched her as she climbed out of the car and raced past them, vaulting herself over the chain-link fence and slashing the lock clean off with the blade of her broadsword.

Chris felt sorry for the girl—his niece. Pressing his foot onto the gas pedal and following behind the surprisingly fast huntress, he wondered where the dark stains on the sleeves of her jacket came from; the jacket he's seen Gerard giving to her, which had once belonged to Kate; but decided that it wasn't any of his business.

If Gerard was meddling with her, as he almost certain he was, then he was doing it for a reason. Chris had learned that it was best to stay out of his father's way, when he was planning something as big as Chris knew he ought to be.

Beside him, in the passenger seat, Gerard was looking out in the same direction. "Graceful, isn't she?" He asked Chris, admiring as the girl twirled and ducked down low once she'd intercepted the Kanima. "She's even greater than Kate was." He shared reverently, popping a mixture of pills into his mouth and swallowing them dry.

Chris felt his hackles rising, slightly. Whenever Gerard brought up Kate with such casualty, it irked him. His father had been the reason Kate had lost her mind and burned the Hale family in their sleep. Now, he was going to do the same to her daughter. It wasn't something Chris wanted to watch, but he also knew that he didn't have much choice in the matter.

"What are your plans for her?" He found himself asking Gerard, who looked at him, surprised at the boldness of his query.

"I'm sure you already have some theories." The older man begun, his voice trembling with excitement, as it did when everything was in place, just the way he wanted it to be. "And you know that, while Adrianna has been extremely useful—collecting information and fighting the battles we're too human to win—I can't keep her with us forever." He admitted, as though she were a lost puppy he'd decided to adopt for the winter.

Chris pressed his lips together to stop himself from speaking out and disagreeing with his father. "I'm guessing you already have something in mind?" He said instead, rewarded with Gerard's praising hand on his.

"My son, you know me too well." He fondly stated. Outside, Derek Hale was in sight, intervening in the fight Adrianna was waging with the Kanima—a creature Chris found he still hardly knew anything about. He was certain the same couldn't be said for his father, whose eyes gleamed with strategies and traps only he would benefit from.

"Everything has already been set into motion," Gerard shared as Adrianna narrowly managed to slide on the cement floor to avoid the severed car-door Derek had picked up as a weapon. "Before we know it, Adrianna will have played her part and, without the half-breed staining our family name, the Argents will be great again." He passionately expressed, hand clenching into a fist.

Chris gulped thickly, understanding that Gerard meant to kill Adrianna, once she'd finished being of use to him. Gerard abruptly motioned towards the violent battle outside and Chris set the car into drive as Derek was slammed into a nearby pillar and Adrianna's hand wrapped around the creature's throat, blackish veins protruding from her hand onto the snake-like animal's skin.

"She'll kill it." Gerard warned, sounding concerned. "Get her away from it!" He commanded his son. "Before she makes an irreparable mistake."

Jumping out of the still-moving car, aware that his father would have taken the wheel and safely parked nearby, Chris lifted his shiny, marble inset pistol which had been a token from Gerard when he'd graduated as a hunter, and shot three bullets into the Kanima's shoulder, torso, and leg, making certain to avoid hitting Adrianna.

As the creature snarled in pain, breaking free from Adrianna's grasp with some difficulty, Chris noticed that the reptilian animal crawled across the cement pavement, close to the ground, towards him.

Pressing the trigger, Chris grimaced as he understood that he had run out of bullets. Dropping the clip swiftly, he didn't have time to slot in another before the Kanima's tail sailed straight into his chest and catapulted him across the abandoned yard.

He landed with a grunt and was certain that he'd cracked, if not broken, a few ribs. Wheezing slightly, Chris watched as Adrianna charged the beast head on, tackling it's waist and sprawling the both of them across the floor. Chris noticed that her sword was missing from her hands and jumped to the conclusion that she must have lost it while he'd been speaking with Gerard.

"Adrianna," He called, quickly reloading his pistol and tossing it across the gap between them.

She turned just in time to avoid the creature's clawed hand, purposefully slamming her upper body into the ground to grab hold of the gun. With the Kanima still over top of her, Adrianna rolled onto her back and aimed at the creature's head with both hands wrapped securely around the gun.

Her eyes were glacial and her fingers seemed steady as they lightly squeezed the trigger. The creature, seemingly sensing it's impending doom, skittered away from her at top speed but not before she could re-aim and bury a slug into the Kanima's bleeding shoulder.

It snarled, turning back to look at her as, just behind it, Chris noticed Gerard stepping out of the car. He wanted to yell out a warning, but knew that his father would be safest if the creature didn't notice him.

Unfortunately, as Gerard spoke to Adrianna in a threatening command, Chris doubted anyone within a mile had failed to see him.

"No!" He shouted caustically, as though she were a child. "Don't kill it!"

Adrianna's lips tightened into a straight line, just like Chris remembered his sister doing when she'd set her mind to doing something, no matter the consequences, before she stood on her feet and aimed at the Kanima.

Before she could shoot, Scott McCall barreled through her and Chris' gun dropped to the floor with a clatter. For a moment, Adrianna lay glaring up at the boy over top of her before she turned to look at Gerard; Chris found his eyes doing the same.

Twirling it's tail predatorily and baring it's teeth, the Kanima regarded Gerard uneasily, but did not attack. It struck Chris like a physical blow, to realize that his father really did know more about the creature than he'd told him. He hadn't ever been good at preparing himself for the inevitable, no matter how long he'd worked with Gerard.

And then, just as fast as it had appeared, the Kanima shot out of the yard, crawling up the ceiling, disappearing from sight in the gloom of the early morning. It left behind more questions than had been answered, at least, for Chris.

Apparently, not for Adrianna or Gerard, who stared at each other icily, both understanding that neither had a firm hold on the other.

#-#-#-#-#

The lights were blinding and the music was deafening as Stiles and Scott made their way towards the bar. His own words rang in his head and even though he'd been kind of joking with Scott, the truth was that he really was only a hundred and forty-seven pounds of pale skin and fragile bone.

The fact that sarcasm legitimately was his only defense against creatures with claws, paralytic poison, and who knew what else, disturbed him greatly, but not greatly enough for him for him to pass on an opportune moment to have some fun.

"Dude," Scott called over to him, stuck in the throng of partying men and seemingly only now beginning to realize it. "Everyone in here's a dude. I think we're in a gay club."

Stiles refused the urge to laugh, as men dressed in furly boas and high heels crowded around him, stroking his neck with feathers and whispering things in his ears he really didn't want to know.

"Man, nothing gets past those keen werewolf senses, huh, Scott?" He sarcastically joked, lips twitching in amusement.

Scott narrowed his eyes and moved past him, slapping his shoulder in annoyance. Grumbling in complaint, Stiles didn't let his friend's touchy mood drag him down, enthusiastically ordering at the bar.

"Two beers." He told the dark haired barkeeper wearing a sphagetting strap top in neon colours.

"ID's." He demanded, staring at them disbelievingly as Stiles and Scott pulled out their driver's licenses. "How about two cokes?" The man suggested instead and Stiles nodded along to the rhythm of the music.

"Rum and coke?" Stiles raised his eyebrows as the older man shook his head. "Sure. Coke's fine, actually." He amended with a casual wave of his hand, seeing that he couldn't persuade the barkeeper differently. "I'm driving anyway."

A moment later, a waiter placed a beer on the counter next to Scott. "That one's paid for." He told them as a man further down the bar tipped his head back, winking suggestively.

Smiling, Scott took the beer as Stiles angrily wrapped his hand around his coke. "Oh, shut up." He snapped at Scott, who couldn't wipe the satisfied smirk off his annoyingly crooked jaw.

"I didn't say anything." Scott complained.

"Yeah, well, you're face did." Stiles felt his expression twist grumpily as he sipped from his bitter coke. As he looked out into the crowd, he spotted a familiar face dancing between the mass of bodies. "Hey, I found Danny." He told Scott, who was looking far up into the ceiling rafters of the club.

"I found Jackson." He replied as the Kanima, all scaly skin and slithering tail crawled across the surface of the roof above. "Get Danny." Scott told him, keeping his eyes trained on the creature.

"What're you gonna do?" Stiles asked Scott as he hastily set his coke down on the counter. He glanced down at Scott's hands as long, sharp claws extended and determination set into his friend's face. "Works for me." He agreed, already pushing his way through the throng of dancing, sweaty people.

"Danny!" He yelled, trying to be heard over the blaring music. "Danny!" Stiles repeated, with hardly any more luck. "Danny." He muttered angrily, resolving to push through the crowd and shake some sense into the lackadaisical teen. He didn't get far.

About a meter away from Danny, Stiles bumped into someone solid—more solid than all the other bodies he'd been pushing aside—and looking up with a hasty apology clinging to his lips, he only had a second to realize that he'd just plowed into Adrianna Argent and she did not look happy about it.

"Um," He stuttered, glancing around the dance floor for Scott. "I thought you went home—with Allison." He managed to blurt out, feeling his palms begin to sweat as the huntress rolled her eyes frustratedly.

Before she could utter a witty comeback or insult, the Kanima dropped down from the ceiling and began to paralyze random party-goers, who fell to the floor, immobile. Adrianna's glare clearly conveyed an 'I'll deal with you later' sentiment, as she turned away from Stiles and lifted the broadsword at her side, ready for attack.

The creature hissed at her, reptilian eyes dilating excitedly as it sliced the back of Danny's neck and crawled over the boy's prone form, focusing on the huntress who Stiles had only just noticed was standing directly between him and the Kanima.

With an almighty battle cry Stiles thought belonged more in a medieval movie like King Arthur, than in some back-alley club, Adrianna charged at the beast that looked nothing like Jackson Whittemore with clearly murderous intent.

Her sword delved into the fleshy scales of the Kanima's shoulder and it screeched inhumanly as greenish blood dribbled out of the immense chunk of flesh that was missing. Stiles felt a pressure at the base of his throat as he noticed speckles of the Kanima's blood were dotted all over Adrianna's face and his.

"Oh god," He mumbled half-heartedly, feeling immensely lightheaded. "Why do I always have to get myself into situations like these?" He asked himself.

Out of the misty darkness of the back doorways of the club, emerged Derek Hale, fully transformed with claws and fangs and glowing red eyes. Stiles saw that the alpha hesitated as he took note of the huntress already battling the Kanima, before throwing himself into the thick of the fray, slashing and growling at the creature he'd promised to kill not long ago.

Scott, who Stiles had temporarily lost track of, joined the attack with just as much tenacity and the spastic teenager felt the persistent urge to remind his friend that the Kanima was not just the scaly, snake-like beast that they were reducing to blood and gore; it was also a boy their age—a really nasty, self absorbed, arrogant boy, but a boy nonetheless. His name was Jackson and no matter how much Stiles would like to see him dead so that he could have less competition with Lydia and an easier high-school career, Stiles knew that killing him wasn't the right thing to do.

"Scott!" He yelled, trying to be heard over the commotion, but even if Scott had heard him, the way his eyes glowed amber told the scatter-brain that a part of his friend was lost to the thrill of a good fight; Derek was no better.

However, much to Stiles' surprise, the same could not be said of Adrianna, who—despite her blood-thirsty reputation—turned her head slightly to address Stiles' shout.

"What?" She retorted irritably, effortlessly deflecting the Kanima's clever tail with the flat side of her blade.

Taken aback, Stiles could not do much more than stutter and flounder for his suddenly lost train of thought. Adrianna's piercing, verdant stare reminded him of the urgency of the environment and assisted him in connecting the appropriate synapses and thoughts so that he could he deliver his intended message.

"He's still human," Stiles reminded her quietly, momentarily forgetting to avoid staring directly at Adrianna as he tried to get his meaning across. "Jackson's under there—somewhere." He finished, wringing his hands together and gasping, his heart jumping into his throat as the Kanima pounced on the distracted huntress, latching it's claws around her throat.

Stiles couldn't be sure, but in the dim, pulsating light of the club, he thought he saw Adrianna's eyes tear up. Perhaps it was because she'd been thrown into a concrete pillar, or perhaps she'd understood what he'd meant. Perhaps, she was more human than he'd given her credit for, because as she rose and fought off the creature once more, Stiles was convinced that her sword was not as rigid as it had once been.

It was during one of these swings, where her blade barely scraped across the Kanima's scales, where Adrianna's inferiority in the supernatural world Stiles knew of, shone through. The Kanima's tail whipped out behind her, fast as a bullet and Adrianna's reflexes, though incredibly fast, were not fast enough to deflect the blow.

She reached behind her, feeling the back of her neck with tentative fingers where the kanima had sliced open her skin. A frown marred her features and her spare hand, still grasping her sword, fell to her side, limp.

In the distant background, Derek and Scott continued to attempt to disable the Kanima, who now had the upper hand, but Stiles was too interested in what was happening before him to pay much heed to his friend's struggles. He waited for something to happen—for her to fall to the floor paralyzed, to scream, to cry; anything.

Instead, the huntress merely shook her head and continued to attack the scaly beast. The cogs turned and whirled inside Stiles' brain, trying to dismantle the problem he'd just discovered. No one except for Lydia was immune to the Kanima's venom. It had rendered him about as useless as a rubber basketball. Was it possible, despite all the times he'd tried to convince himself that he was just making things up—seeing things—that Allison Argent's cousin was not human?

An angry growl from Derek as the Kanima launched him and Scott across the dance floor brought Stiles back to the present. Adrianna fought off the creature by herself, barely breaking a sweat, and outside, Stiles heard the tell-tale sound of sirens blaring that announced the impending arrival of the police.

The light cut out and the music halted abruptly but Stiles' ears weren't given a rest. People screaming and running for cover all around him came into sharp focus without any other noises to distract him and he felt an intense pounding begin at his temples.

For the most part, Adrianna seemed to be able to tune out the chaos around her, ducking, slicing, kicking and punching at whatever exposed part of the Kanima that she could. In the red and blue reflections from the tall windows behind him, Stiles noticed a viscous, black, plasma-like substance dripping out of Adrianna's nose and onto her lip.

As the huntress clenched her jaw stubbornly against the Kanima's might, grimacing a sneer from the effort and backing into a wall as the creature slowly overpowered her, Stiles saw the fluid staining her teeth. He wondered what it could be and if it was a clue as to why she hadn't been paralyzed by the Kanima's venom.

Deputies piled into the club a moment later and the Kanima quickly retreated further into the bleak, steamy building with Derek hot on it's heels. Scott, who was only just recovering from his up close and personal introduction to a concrete wall, swayed on his feet as he grasped a fistful of Stiles jacket and pulled him towards the back entrance they'd broken in from.

"Come on," He beckoned him, pulling him behind him a few paces when Stiles kept looking at Adrianna, who had dropped her sword and lifted her hands in surrender according to the Deputies' commands. The black tar shone ominously on her upper lip and her skin seemed to pale a few shades the longer she stayed upright.

It was only when Stiles realized that Scott had already left, that he shook off his ruminations and followed after his friend. He was certain now—Adrianna Argent was not human. Now all he had to do was figure out what she was and, seeing as he had no clue what happened to Lydia, that seemed like an impossible task.

For now, he reminded himself. When I get more pieces of the puzzle—then I'll be able to figure it out.

He could only hope that those pieces fell into place soon because, above all else, it was clear that Adrianna was dangerous and by the looks of things, not on their side of the war Gerard was starting.

#-#-#-#-#

"I'm fine." She repeated for the hundredth time to the fussy EMT that was trying to draw blood from her throbbing arm. "Leave me alone, alright?" Adrianna hissed as the needle finally found it's way into her vein with an almighty prick of pain.

"Sorry Ma'am." The severe looking woman dressed in a blue uniform with a cadaceus emblem stitched onto her left breast apologized insincerely. "I just need to verify that you're not septic." She added as the small, plastic vial filled with dark coloured blood. It was nearly black.

"Why would I be?" Adrianna responded uncertainly, rubbing the crook of her arm when the woman roughly extracted the needle, capping the blood sample and stowing it in her pocket. "Septic, I mean." She continued when the woman stared at her quizzically.

Pointing to her own nose, the stern woman extended her chin out towards Adrianna as if she were directing her. "I haven't seen a nose bleed that bad since the fight we had at Beacon High a little over ten years ago." She commented, stepping up into the ambulance behind them and extracting various tools Adrianna thought resembled torture devices, more than they did medical implements.

Nodding her head triumphantly, the woman passed a mirror over Adrianna's shoulder before exiting the ambulance and walking past to help some of the other medical technicians. People were being loaded onto gurneys and fed oxygen from masks with pumps attached to them. It seemed the Kanima's venom affected every part of the body; even a person's lungs.

She could still feel the slit at the base of her neck throbbing. Stiles had seen it, or rather, not seen her tip over, fully paralyzed and helpless. Adrianna guessed it had something to do with her father's DNA. Tilting the handheld mirror so that she could see her face clearly in the glossy surface, her shoulders sagged as Adrianna took note of the black goo draining from her nose and into her mouth.

It tasted acrid and sweet all at the same time, like charred molasses. She had no idea what it was and there hadn't yet been an opportunity to bring it up to Gerard. She had a feeling that if she did and he knew what it was, he wouldn't tell her. She hadn't exactly been a good little soldier as of late.

Reaching into the pockets of her jacket, she extracted a small plastic bag filled with caramel coloured cubes. Popping one of the brownie-like chunks of ambrosia into her mouth, she sighed contentedly as the taste of burned hotdogs with stale buns infiltrated her taste buds. Kate had been a really bad cook, but when she had bothered to make anything, it had always been special to Adrianna.

Her eyes stung at the thought of her mother, so she closed them. Kate wasn't worth her tears, she knew, but that couldn't stop them from welling beneath her lids. Licking her lips, she breathed in raggedly and then out.

"How are you doing?" Chris' voice asked her, startling her out of her vulnerable state and back into the armor she'd taken off for a moment. She stood up hastily, grabbing hold of her broadsword, which lay on the ambulance deck, and positioning herself so that she was on even ground with her uncle.

"I'm fine." She defensively stated, easily reaching over her shoulder and slotting the sharp weapon into the scabbard hanging over her shoulder. "The Ka—creature," Adrianna quickly corrected herself. "Got away, but other than that, I'd say we've made some progress."

Nodding his head, Chris' lips pulled together in thought. He'd clearly caught her slip but in the next moment, as he turned around and gestured for her to follow, it was clear that he didn't intend to pursue it any further.

"Gerard wants to talk." He told her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stiles speaking with his father, the Sheriff, and his jeep was parked nearby with Scott in the front. Her instincts told her Jackson was near but she couldn't tell where he was exactly.

"How exactly did you get to keep the sword?" Chris piped up once they'd gotten closer to the car and away from the mass of injured people and those who were helping them. "And how come they didn't arrest you the moment they saw you?"

Smirking lopsidedly, Adrianna felt her steps lighten as she remembered the real reason why she was a hunter. It wasn't because her mother and grandfather wanted her to be one. It wasn't because she thought werewolves were unnatural abominations to be excised from the world. It wasn't even because she was good at it—which she admittedly was.

It was because of the innocent people—humans—that got hurt or killed by something much more powerful than them; because of all the helpless, inexperienced, completely normal people that didn't know a thing about her world.

She had always wanted to protect them. Unfortunately, she was finding that Gerard's viewpoint was very different than hers. He'd made it clear on their first night in Beacon Hills. He wanted revenge for Kate's death and would stop at nothing to get it. Even Adrianna knew that was wrong, no matter how many times she'd been tempted to do the same.

"People believe what they want to." She informed Chris, sliding into the backseat of the black sedan. "I just told them what they wanted to hear."

"And what did they want to hear this time?" Gerard asked, staring at her in the rear-view mirror of the car as Chris settled into the front seat.

"The rumor is drugs," Adrianna dutifully reported, plucking a tissue from a box in the back and wiping at the black around her nose. "Probably hallucinogens, since witnesses say they saw a demonic monster on the dance floor." She found herself ending in a laugh, crumpling up the used tissue and stowing it in her pocket.

"Seven paralyzed." Chris added, clearing his throat and looking anywhere but her.

Gerard's reflection copied his movements, raised eyebrows and a glimmer of mirth in eyes too experienced and conniving to belong to anyone that hadn't learned the truth about the world.

"Now, who would believe something like that?" He jested, smiling at Adrianna the way a master did to it's well-trained dog. "I suppose you'd be responsible for convincing the Sheriff of this turn of events?" He questioned, clearly already certain of the answer.

"Like I said," Adrianna repeated, clenching her hands to stop her fingers from trembling. "People believe what they want to."

"You know what I'm having trouble believing?" Chris abruptly voiced, breaking Gerard's meaningful stare away from Adrianna and onto his son with intrigue. "How you just stood there while that thing circled you, and did nothing." He admitted, meeting eyes with Gerard in an attempt to coax the information from the older man.

"You want to explain that to me?" He finished, sounding tired and indignant all at the same time.

"Intuition." Gerard excused calmly, leaning back in his seat casually. Chris didn't miss the meaning behind his father's words, nor did Adrianna. She wondered what Gerard was planning if he was only now going to clue Chris into the game they'd been playing for weeks.

"Then you know what it is." Chris stated, his tone darkening as he seemed to realize what had happened.

"I have a suspicion." Gerard verified, folding his hands together on his lap. "And if I'm right, it plays by certain rules. Rules that don't bend easily." He shared.

Matching his father's stance, Chris furrowed his brow in concentration. "Do we need to put a hold on Derek to figure this thing out?" He wondered aloud.

"Not necessarily." Gerard supplied, careful to give away as little information as possible. It irritated Adrianna to no end that her grandfather was able to get away with such things.

What kind of a general doesn't tell his soldiers how he wants them to attack? She thought irately, clamping her lips shut to stop herself from voicing her ruminations out loud.

"Tonight's the first time you had a glimpse of him since Kate died," He asked Chris, his eyes flittering over to Adrianna for a split second. "Am I right?"

"Unfortunately." Chris grumbled under his breath, his defenses obviously scraped bare at the mentioning of his sister.

Narrowing her gaze, Adrianna felt herself wanting to contest, to tell Gerard that she had seen Derek—multiple times—since her mother's murder, but she held her tongue. Gerard was mad enough with her as it was, she didn't need to add another offense to her list of wrongdoings and failures.

"And the only other tie we have to him is Isaac Lahey?" Gerard continued, pronouncing the name with an underlying emphasis that did not go unnoticed by Adrianna.

"What are you thinking?" She couldn't help but ask. Her heart felt icy and a thousand tons heavier just thinking about what Gerard might want her to do. "If you want me to go after the beta, I have to tell you that there's a high chance I won't be able to get anywhere near him."

Isaac's name was on the tip of her tongue and his memories were still fresh in her mind. She hadn't killed him before, the first time she'd been ordered to; she doubted she could do so if she was asked again.

"Why not?" Chris queried, leaning forward in his seat to face her. "Did something happen that I'm not aware of?" His tone was prickly and fierce, like the way an animal sounds when it realizes it's been backed into a corner.

"I nearly killed him." Adrianna confessed and a space in her lungs unclogged, allowing her to breathe more easily. "If he's even conscious tomorrow, I can guarantee that he won't be at school."

Chris' eyes narrowed and then widened as he blinked extensively, trying to wrap his head around what Adrianna had just told him. She didn't have time to explain any more as Gerard placed a firm hand on the steering wheel and the sound of his flesh meeting with the leather jarred her back to reality.

"What I was thinking," He brought the conversation back to where it had started, eyes puncturing her submissive frame through the mirror. "Was that if this thing bothers Derek enough to bring him out of his little hole, then we might have an opportunity." He stated triumphantly, choosing to ignore the way Adrianna's posture curled inwards.

"What did I teach you is the best way to eliminate a threat?" He addressed her, sounding surprisingly gentle. It set Adrianna's teeth on edge. He only ever sounded like that when he wanted something.

Her throat constricted and her tongue felt too heavy and clumsy to form the words she needed to. Chris said them for her.

"Get someone else to do it for you."

Adrianna comprehended then that she had always been that someone to Gerard. His weapon and his means to an end. She knew what he did to the people he used in such a way. Their ends were never pretty.

A voice in her head whispered that she was safe with her family; that she could trust Gerard. A part of her disagreed in an even quieter breath; I wonder if my end will be the same?

#-#-#-#-#

He woke up with a scream lodged at the back of his throat and Erica's concerned brown eyes staring at him. Scuttling backwards from where he was lying on a pile of dirty rugs someone had thrown away decades ago, Isaac tried to collect his thoughts. He felt sweat dampening his hairline and dripping down his face. There was an ice in his veins that he'd never felt before and most certainly didn't want to feel again.

"What happened?" He asked the blonde beta still standing over him, along with Boyd, who'd joined her side upon seeing that Isaac was awake. "How long was I out?" He wondered, glancing around the tall warehouse and abandoned subway car and noticing that daylight was streaming in through the cloudy windows.

"About eight hours." Boyd's gravelly voice responded. He was dressed for school in a t-shirt, jeans, and leather jacket—so was Erica.

"I've got to get up," Isaac mumbled to himself, pushing off the floor to stand but finding that his vision swam before him and his strength waned enough to send him back down to the ground in a disgruntled heap of limbs. "When does school start?" He asked the two werewolves looking at him sympathetically.

Hesitating for a moment too long, Erica brushed some hair away from her face and had trouble meeting Isaac's gaze as she replied with an air of forced causality; "School's in twenty minutes. Boyd and I were going to walk, since Derek hasn't come back yet."

"Twenty minutes," He pondered, dusting his hands off from the soot they'd collected off the cement ground. "I can come with you guys." Testing his feet carefully with part of his weight, he was relieved when his legs held. Using the pillar behind him to support himself, Isaac stood, ignoring the sinking pit in his gut and the sudden chill in his bones.

"Where is Derek, if he's not here?" He questioned, blinking away the spots from his eyes so that he could see Boyd and Erica more clearly. Neither of them looked very comfortable; like they were trying to figure out how to tell him something they knew he wouldn't like.

"He's hunting the Kanima." Erica supplied, her body leaning ever so slightly closer to Boyd's. "Derek told us he'd explain more in the morning but he hasn't showed up yet."

There was a note of disappointment in Erica's tone that Isaac knew he and Boyd both felt. It was beginning to be a pattern for their Alpha to forget about his promises. He hadn't even begun to properly train them how to control their shifting or protect themselves from a hunter.

"We should go." Boyd voiced after a long moment of strung-out silence. The tension was palpable as Erica nodded her head and slung her book bag higher onto her shoulder, avoiding Isaac's curious stare.

"What about me?" He said, slightly indignant that his pack-mates would so easily leave him behind when he was practically defenseless. "I'm not gonna stay here the whole day." He informed them seriously, parting from the pillar to advance on the betas.

His joints felt loose somehow and his balance fled in a heartbeat as he felt his body leaning towards the floor. Boyd and Erica's fast reflexes saved his face from smashing into the floor and as the two lowered him back onto the pile of dusty blankets, looking apologetic, Isaac finally understood what had happened to him.

"She tried to kill me." He nearly growled, so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the exchanged glances between Boyd and Erica that were infused with concern and distrust. "All that time I spent insisting that she was good—that she was on our side—and what do I get for it? I get the life sucked out of me." He moped, ruffling his damp hair irritably.

"That's what she did, isn't it?" He asked his friends. Isaac cringed; even to his own ears he sounded like a heartbroken fool. He hated to admit that Derek had been right all along, but he distantly remembered that he already had. There was no point denying it.

"We can send a message for her," Erica told him, like she was asking permission to filet the huntress alive. "She'll never hurt any of us again once I'm through with her." She promised.

Isaac's heart seemed to tap dance in his chest and the coldness infecting his body vanished in an instant, replaced by a fiery heat that could only belong to anger. "Leave her alone." He warned, focusing solely on the brown of Erica's irises and the way her pupils dilated as she understood what he meant.

"You're not seriously still protecting her?" Erica's disbelief made her voice turn a shade darker and more ominous. Boyd's hand on her shoulder was enough to stop her from leaning any further towards Isaac. It was as thought she'd wanted to dig her claws into his shoulders and shake some sense into him.

"I'm not." Isaac replied succinctly, scooting higher up on the scrap material beneath him so that he wasn't at such a height disadvantage to the others. "But I don't want you hurting her either. She's human—more vulnerable than any of us. You might end up killing her." He excused, trying to explain himself through facts but finding that he wasn't very convincing.

"Yeah right." Erica spat hotly, turning on her heel and walking a few paces away to cool her head. Boyd watched her as she paced in front of the subway car for a moment before addressing Isaac.

Sitting down beside him on the musty blankets, Boyd's large frame was several times wider than Isaac's but only about the same height, if not slightly shorter. Isaac had gotten his tall stature from his mother's side of the family; it was one of the reasons he hadn't grown to hate it.

"She's not a good person, Isaac." Boyd informed him kindly, trying to be as gentle as he could, although Isaac still felt personally insulted by the accusation. "She's killed who knows how many werewolves; I can guarantee that some of them were innocent."

"I've seen a different side to her," Isaac refuted, shaking his head as Boyd's words bounced around inside him. "She's not always ruthless. Sometimes, she's merciful. Sometimes, she's vulnerable." He shared, his voice lightening to a whisper as he noticed Erica staring at him as though she was eavesdropping on their conversation.

"Because she spared you and Derek at the Sheriff's station?" Boyd asked patiently. Isaac was glad that the other boy wasn't as close-minded as Erica was about the huntress.

"Not just that." He sighed heavily, wondering when he'd become so involved with the Argent. "She's done other things after that too. The girl that cuts down anything supernatural in her path; that's not her." He explained, staring at his hands remembering the way her hair smelt and how her breath caught the closer he got.

"How do you know for sure?" The other boy said, sounding like he was trying but failing to believe him. "Maybe it's the other way around." Boyd broached cautiously, placing a supportive hand on Isaac's sagging shoulders.

"I just know." He told the boy that had become like a brother to him. "The way she smiles and insults everyone—I know that's not the real Adrianna. Last night, at McCall's house, she didn't want to hurt me." Isaac recalled hopefully. "She was protecting Lydia. I don't think she even knew what she was doing until it was too late."

"Man," Boyd quietly spoke, a note of caution in his voice. "Even if you're right, that doesn't change what she's done. Willingly or not, she's an Argent and the Argent's are our enemies. Derek's going to want you to fight her again; you've got to be ready." He prompted Isaac.

"I know." Isaac agreed, clenching his shaking fists and idly wondering why he felt as though all his worst secrets had been stolen away.

"Her family is going to ask the same thing of her." Boyd wisely reminded him, standing up to join an impatient Erica. "Maybe you should ask yourself how certain you are of your theory about her." He said before walking out of the warehouse, leaving Isaac alone.

"I know it's not her," He told himself, studying his fingernails to keep himself busy. "Because I had to do the same thing."

And somehow, admitting that to the empty subway car and the shallow walls around him felt like a pressing weight off his shoulders. He'd had to lie all the time when he was living with his father.

Isaac was reminded of the old saying he always heard his dad using; 'It takes one to know one.'

It certainly does, he concurred as he flexed his fingers and extended his claws. When Adrianna came for him next, he'd be ready to fight back, no matter what he knew to be true. After all, two could play at the game she'd chosen.

#-#-#-#-#

"So, who did you say you were studying with tonight?" Gerard asked his granddaughter, Allison, as she sat across from him in the Principal's office—his office.

"Just Lydia." The teenager replied with forced ease. "We're prepping for our world history midterm." She explained helpfully. The young were always so eager to prove themselves; Allison was no different in that aspect than she was to her cousin, Adrianna.

"History was one of my favourites, especially military history." Gerard shared, smiling as Allison's expression lightened and her shoulders pulled back at attention. "Have you ever heard of the phrase, 'know they enemy'?" He queried.

"It's from the art of war by Sun Tzu." Allison readily supplied in a clipped, professional tone that clearly said she was trying to impress him.

"Very good." Gerard praised, hardly managing to contain his grin. "Do you know what it means?" He lent himself to her rapidly growing trust in him.

"In order to win a battle," Allison started, rolling the phrase about in her mind as Gerard steepled his fingers, hoping that she wouldn't be a complete waste of his time. "One must know everything they can about their enemy."

"Right again." He encouraged, leaning back in his chair to give off an air of ease. "Your father and I happen to be having that very problem. We've got an enemy about which we know next to nothing." Gerard confided. "It's killed one of our own, among others."

"I've heard." She replied shakily. Her folded hands fidgeted in her lap.

"Did you hear that Jackson Whittemore didn't show to school today?" Gerard chose to broach, raising his eyebrows when Allison's face scrunched in confusion a second too late to be genuine surprise.

Shaking her head, Allison avoided eye contact, swallowing thickly before asking in a strained voice, "He didn't?"

"His parents called and so did the police." He assured her, preparing to use another method of persuasion that he'd found rather useful over the years if Allison continued to attempt to fool him. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" He asked after a moment of tense silence.

"Well," Gerard continued, standing up from his chair and stalking around the seated girl. "Let me tell you what I know. I know that a teenager's first instinct is to protect their friends." He told her.

She kept her eyes on him until he stood behind her and Gerard knew that he had chosen correctly. Though she was weak, easily manipulated, hormonally driven and no where near capable of the level of tactical and physical defense Adrianna was, Allison was smart and determined; she'd make a very good huntress once he was done with her.

"And I believe my granddaughter would always want to protect her friends, even if it meant lying." Gerard parted a section of Allison's long, curled hair and placed his middle and index finger against the girl's stuttering pulse. "So, I want to ask one more question, and this time, with a small advantage."

"I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to get a sense of your pulse. Think of it as a game." He informed her, closing his eyes to count the rhythmic beating of her heart. "All you have to do is tell the truth."

The threat hung in the air like a cloud of dense fog. By the way Allison's posture stiffened, Gerard knew that his granddaughter was beginning to grasp the depth of what he was doing—if only just slightly. He'd have to work fast.

"Do you know anything about Jackson being missing?" He questioned, adjusting his fingers over her neck so that he could restrain her if she became testy.

"No." Allison answered quickly with a slight tremor in her voice.

Humming thoughtfully, Gerard asked his next question. "Is he in trouble?" He demanded.

"I—" Allison begun, her heartrate increasing with her panic. "I—I—I don't know." She stuttered, licking her lips before trying again. "I don't know." She was finally able to respond.

Still, her pulse remained even and normal. Gerard endeavoured to push his luck. "Does this have anything to do with Scott?" He carefully phrased with great neutrality, rewarded with a sudden spike in Allison's heartrate.

"No." She immediately said before biting back her words. "I mean, I don't—I don't know." Allison corrected, her breathing speeding up with her fear.

"Your pulse jumped." He almost taunted, feeling far too pleased with himself to bother with his kindly, well-mannered disguise. He was finally getting somewhere.

"It's because you're scaring me." Allison told him, roughly pulling his hand away from her neck before standing some feet away from him, idly rubbing at her traitorous pulse.

"Oh, I'm sorry sweetheart." He apologized, layering on the saccharine lies as thickly as he dared was believable. "That was definitely going way too far."

For a moment, she remained distant and frightened but then, she ducked her head in submission and pressed her lips together. "No kidding." She agreed, but deep down, Gerard knew she'd already forgiven him—passed off his brutality as a mistake when it had been anything but.

"It wasn't right for me to use tactics like that." He added, refraining from grimacing as the words burned his throat. "I'm sorry. You can go back to class." He instructed, waving her off towards the open doorway.

"Go ahead." He prompted again when Allison looked back uncertainly, almost asking for permission. Without any further encouragement, the girl disappeared into the halls of the school. Moments later, another very similar girl took her place in the office.

"What are you doing with her?" Adrianna asked him, leaning against the door frame and carefully tucking away a plastic bag filled with cake-like cubes— after swallowing the remnants of one—into her pocket. Gerard knew what they were but pretended not to have noticed them.

Cocking his head to the side, Gerard sat back down at his desk and began sorting through an overdue stack of papers. "What am I doing with whom?" He half-heartedly toyed with her.

Sighing heavily, Adrianna walked further into the office, taking the seat Allison had just vacated with swift movements that came from a lifetime of training. "What are you doing with Allison?" She spelled out for him with less impatience than he'd come to expect.

"She's a useful source of information." He settled on telling her after coming to the conclusion that a half-truth was just as good as a lie.

Narrowing her eyes on him, Adrianna leaned forwards in her seat and raised an incredulous brow. "A useful source of information?" She harshly retorted, lifting her lips in an angry sneer. "Old man, Allison doesn't know half the things I do."

"Be careful how you treat your elders, Adrianna." Gerard snapped, never one to tolerate disrespect, even from his own family. "If I were you, I'd start considering my place in the ranks." He advised her, also pushing himself further off the chair so that he was more imposing.

"Yeah, yeah." Adrianna mocked, pressing a hand to her temple as though in pain. "I know what I am to you—always have. Nothing more than a foot-soldier, a weapon. I haven't forgotten." She bitterly explained.

"Good." Gerard replied, the ire within him fading away as Adrianna's constant rebelling spirit quelled for at least a moment. "So then you know that, as your grandfather and your superior in every way, I must ask you to tell me what Allison and you have gotten up to these past few days."

Snorting derisively, Gerard's lips curled into an expression of satisfaction thinly guised by confusion as black blood seeped from Adrianna's left nostril. "You're bleeding." He stated coldly.

Furrowing her brows, Adrianna reached into her pocket and retrieved a thoroughly stained handkerchief, more of the tar-like substance marring the otherwise pristine white cloth, and removed the blood from under her nose.

"Do you know who the Kanima is?" Gerard continued his line of questions as though nothing had happened. "Because if you do, I can assure you, I'll get the answer out of you—one way or another."

Staring at the bloodied handkerchief crumpled in her open palm, Adrianna smiled self-deprecatingly. "Yes." She answered after a long while. "I do know who the Kanima is."

"Well," Gerard prodded, patience running thin with the the girl's impertinent delays. "Who is it?" He demanded. Adrianna laughed, coughing painfully into the cloth and Gerard unwillingly waited for her to recover from her fit in order to reply.

"And why should I tell you?" Her gravelly voice queried in a tone Kate had often used when she had an unfair advantage.

Steepling his fingers together and breathing in deeply to keep himself from punishing Adrianna, Gerard smugly sat back in his chair and regarded his clever granddaughter. She wasn't clever enough to outwit him; at least, not yet. He'd make sure she never could.

"Because, my dear Adrianna," He begun, withdrawing his pill box from his coat and carefully placing it on the desk. "I'm dying." He admitted. "And the Kanima is the key to my survival."

"No." Adrianna denied, shaking her head. "You're lying." She accused, tears blurring her eyes as she pointed his way. "You're not dying, I would have felt it."

"Not in your condition." Gerard reminded her, staring at her handkerchief for added emphasis of his point. "You might be dying yourself and you wouldn't even know." He theorized grimly.

Standing from her seat, Adrianna turned her back to Gerard as she approached the doorway to his office. She stopped at the frame, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Alright," She agreed, hands fisted at her sides. "But I need one day—twenty four hours—to try to deal with it myself." Adrianna stipulated.

A smirk slid across Gerard' features as he nodded his head. "Very well, you have one day." He told her, extracting his daily cocktail of pills and swallowing the tablets dry.

The girl moved to leave but Gerard had one last thing to say; a promise to make her. "And Adrianna," He called to her rigid back. "If you're thinking of betraying or double-crossing me in any way, I will not hesitate to kill you—even if it means my own death."

Adrianna said nothing to affirm that she'd heard him but Gerard was satisfied by the way her shoulders straightened and her head lifted that she understood his threat. She had been acquainted with him for long enough to know that he was always ten steps ahead.

"Check." He muttered under his breath, laughing mirthlessly at how horribly simple it had all been.

#-#-#-#-#

Narrowing his gaze disbelievingly, Jackson shook his head as though to physically rid himself of the mental image Stiles had just painted for him. "Scales?" He found himself asking, despite wanting to put the whole thing behind him. "Like a fish?"

"No," The other boy replied promptly, leaning back against the side of the stainless steel wall. "More like a reptile. Um, and, uh," He fumbled for words as Jackson's eyebrows rose incrementally with each failed attempt. "Your claws have this liquid that paralyzes people, and you have a tail."

"I have a tail?" He wondered, finding his stare unwillingly drifting to his side as though to verify that there was nothing out of the ordinary he hadn't noticed before.

"Yeah," Stiles affirmed sarcastically, or perhaps he was just getting frustrated. It was hard to tell. "You have a tail."

"Mm." Jackson hummed thoughtfully. "Does it do anything?" He played along to the other teen's ludicrous story. A very small part of him was genuinely curious where Stiles was getting all this crap from. He couldn't have made all of it up; the kid wasn't that ingenuitive.

"No, not that I know of." He replied factually, rubbing the back of his buzz-cut brain unthinkingly. The fact that Stiles was being so casual and nonchalant about Jackson's kidnapping and imprisonment in a large, steel van ticked him off to no end.

Reaching out his cuffed hands, Jackson outstretched his fingers, curling the tips as far as the chains holding him to the bench would allow, and imagined dealing out bodily harm to Stiles Stilinski. "Can I use it to strangle you?" He roared angrily, jerking the chains once more for good measure and causing the boy to jump, frightened.

Taking a moment to recover, Stiles scooted back in his seat as far as he could before speaking. "Yeah, you still don't believe me." He lamented. "Alright. The night of the semi-final game, what did you do right after?" Stiles questioned, raising his eyebrows as Jackson searched his memory.

"I went home." Jackson answered a moment later, nodding his head as he remembered setting up the camera he'd loaned from Matt and going to bed.

"Are you sure about that?" The spastic dolt insisted. Jackson tried to cross his arms but found that the length of chain was too short, so he settled for allowing them to dangle from their perch on his legs.

"Yes, you idiot." He spat caustically, feeling a strange burning sensation in his chest and scratching at the skin. "What the hell else would I do?" Jackson cursed, ignoring the other boy's irritated glare in favour of continuing to try to alleviate his itch.

"You attacked me and Derek at the school and you trapped us in the pool." Stiles began to rant. "You also killed a mechanic—right in front of me, by the way. That was lovely." He sarcastically complained. "And one of the Argent's hunters. Oh, and last night," He added, voice rising in pitch as his anger simmered. "You tried to kill Danny."

"Why would I want to kill my best friend?" Jackson retorted, shaking his head as even the notion sounded foreign to him and just plain wrong.

"Well," Stiles breathed, regaining control over his temper enough to be able to focus on Jackson and not whatever was running through his mind. "That's what Scott's out trying to figure out right now." He explained.

Face pinching suddenly, Stiles interrupted Jackson's condescending hum with a finger pointed straight in his direction. "What're those?" He tactlessly demanded.

"Well, maybe, what he should be trying to figure out is how he's going to pay for a lawyer, when I prosecute your asses all the way to jail!" Jackson yelled, ignoring the other boy's question.

"No, seriously." Stiles argued. "What are those?"

"What is what?" Jackson sighed, reaching the end of his tolerance for the boy's short attention span. "What, these?" He gestured to his chest where his fingernails had drawn angry red lines in his pale flesh. "I had an itch." He excused, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly.

Shaking his head, Stiles pushed himself forward, nearly falling off the bench in the process, and swatted away Jackson's hands. "No," He pointedly disagreed, shoving his finger inches away from Jackson's lower shoulder. "These."

Looking down at what the teen was staring at intently, Jackson's brow furrowed as he noticed long, thin lines marring his skin; almost like scars—five on each side of his chest, like human sized claw marks.

"What the hell?" He wondered, suddenly afraid. "I didn't even notice those." Jackson recalled, tracing his hands over the broken and repaired skin that bubbled and stretched unnaturally.

"When do you think they got there?" Stiles quietly asked, sitting back as his eyes flitted back and forth around the inside of the van.

"How am I supposed to know?" Jackson retorted, nearly snarling. "I just told you that I didn't even know I had them."

"Alright," Stiles placated, raising his hands to show he meant no harm. "Well, tell me this. On the night of the first full moon, what happened?"

"Nothing." He found himself sharing, despairingly hanging his head. "Nothing happened."

Despite the fact that Stiles ceased pressing his point, Jackson continued to think about the two nights he'd mentioned. The following morning after the semi-finals, he'd remembered the very same burning itch taking hold.

Is it possible that Stiles is telling the truth? He bid himself to answer, but found that he couldn't—or rather, didn't want to.

#-#-#-#-#

Allison's locker door slammed shut with a bang and physically jolted Scott's turned back. He still hadn't gotten used to hearing everything in such clarity; it often gave him a headache if he focused on it too much.

"Adrianna, I don't have time to explain what happened," He heard Allison remark to her cousin, who was impatiently tapping her heeled boot, waiting for Allison to finish collecting her books. "I have to go." She muttered lowly, brushing past the other girl and beginning to march down the school halls, towards Scott's position.

Hastily stuffing his head inside his own locker, Scott listened as the two girls past him. "Have to go where?" Adrianna demanded, her pace easily matching Allison's brisk one. "I thought you were going to study with me and Lydia tonight." She wondered.

Sighing deeply, Scott heard Allison's heartrate speed up and a sharp, anxiety inducing smell wafted into his nostrils and made his eyes water. "I will, but first, I have to take care of something." Allison lied. "You and Lydia can start without me, I won't be long."

Jackets and books shuffled as Scott peaked his head out to see Adrianna leading Allison to the side of the hallway, out of everyone elses' way. "Does this have anything to do with Jackson not showing up to school?" The huntress asked Allison, her own rhythmic heart unaffected by her cousin's obvious distress.

"What?" Allison shrilly denied. "No, I just have to meet up with Stiles for a moment. He and I were assigned a project for Chemistry." She floundered for a moment and Scott closed his eyes, clenching his hands around the edges of his locker to refrain from walking over and protecting his girlfriend.

"Uh-huh," Adrianna dubiously agreed, adjusting her grip on a particularly heavy-looking textbook. "And I suppose that would be the same class I just sat in for an hour, without any mentioning of such a project."

Scott licked his lips as he experienced Allison's discomfort at having been called out on a lie. He could barely see her from where he was standing so, collecting his backpack with miscellaneous books stuffed inside, he crept to the other side of the hall and stood behind the curve of the wall, a feet away from where the two Argents were talking.

"I'm sorry, okay." Allison apologized, running a hand through her hair nervously. "But I can't tell you where I'm going. It's better if you stay out of this." She added, lips pulled back in an uncomfortable frown.

"Honey, I'm already six feet deep in this." Adrianna reminded, a touch of offense clinging to her voice. "In case you've forgotten, I've been privy to the supernatural all my life—you've known about it for how long? Less than a year?" She seemed to mock.

"I can take care of myself." Allison argued in a small, uncertain voice. Scott had never heard her sound so young and inexperienced. She was always the strong one with a good plan—now it seemed that all along, she'd been just as lost and overwhelmed as all of them.

"Allison," The huntress changed her tone to one of sympathy and comfort. Scott had heard it used around injured our scared animals. He supposed that was what Allison was at that moment. "You might fool Scott, Stiles, and even uncle Chris with those words, but you won't fool me."

Adrianna wrapped an arm around her cousin and the duo continued to walk in the direction of the school's exit. Scott slammed his back into the lockers to try to make himself inconspicuous as they passed. He didn't need either of them knowing he'd overheard their conversation.

"I've been in your shoes." Adrianna confided to Allison. "It may have been a while ago, but I can still remember the fear and the crushing weight of everyone's expectations threatening to shatter my will."

Scott saw Allison nod her head and heard her hold back a sniffle. He wondered whether she was going to cry. He didn't think he'd ever seen Allison crying; it wasn't something he'd thought was impossible.

"Yeah," Allison laughed airily, suddenly more composed. "I didn't think anyone could understand."

"Believe me, I know." The other girl replied, squeezing Allison's shoulder before separating from her to sling her book bag over her shoulder. Scott saw a glint of metal that looked like a dagger tucked under her belt as her leather jacket rode up. "Now tell me what's going on so I can help." She pressed.

Allison's shoulders visibly stiffened at the question. Scott silently urged her not to tell her cousin anything. His stomach still ached from the knife she'd shoved through him. Scott knew Adrianna wasn't trustworthy but he could only hope that Allison realized that too.

"Um," She debated, pushing open the doors leading out of the school. "I'm sorry but I can't." Allison apologized, shrugging impishly as the other girl's expression turned sour and confused.

"Why not?" Adrianna wondered, stepping out of the school along with Allison. Their voices became muffled as their distance from Scott increased and the young werewolf immediately broke into a sprint to try to catch the end of their conversation.

"Scott and Stiles don't trust you," He could barely discern Allison saying as he pushed past random students and barreled into the wall directly beside the door, silencing his breathing to make out her next words.

"I don't trust you. I'm sorry but I have to figure this out on my own." She informed her cousin, who Scott could feel becoming desperate and panicky. "You understand that, don't you?" Allison asked her.

Looking through the small window inset into one of the large, metal doors, Scott felt anger fester inside him as Adrianna shook her head and grabbed hold of Allison's wrist tightly.

"I need to know where you're keeping Jackson." She urged Allison to tell her. "You're going to need my help if you want him to live past tomorrow."

"Let go." Allison tried to shake out of her cousin's stronger grip, to no avail. People began to stare at them but Scott knew they wouldn't be able to help. "Adrianna, you're hurting me!" Allison finally shrieked as strange, purplish veins crawled across Adrianna's fingers onto Allison's hand.

Slamming the door open effortlessly and barely noticing the damaged and cracked bricks behind the open door, Scott stood at the top of the stairs with his feet spread wide and his claws extended by his sides. His narrowed gaze was directed at Adrianna, who, along with Allison, turned to see what the commotion had been.

"She said, let go." He reminded her in a deep voice full of unspoken threats. Even though they were an entire flight of stairs apart, he was certain that Adrianna heard him as she frowned, darting her stare over to Allison's frightened expression and the bruised hand within her grasp before standing back and releasing Allison, seemingly startled by what she'd done.

"I—I didn't mean," She struggled to speak, pressing her lips together firmly at the look of distrust sparkling in Allison's misty eyes. "I never meant to hurt you." Adrianna amended, sparing one last glance to the top of the stairs before rushing off.

Scott stood still for a moment as the girl navigated the crowded parking lot before climbing into Lydia's car. Then, with hardly another second wasted, he barreled down the stairs two at a time until he came to Allison's side.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, placing a tentative hand over her shoulder. "She didn't cut you, did she?" He pressed as he noticed her cradling her hand to her chest.

"No," Allison hesitantly replied, shaking out her digits as though they'd gone numb from loss of circulation. "I'm fine."

Watching as the blue Toyota pulled out of the school, Scott felt a flash of confusion as he wondered how Lydia could get along so well with the bipolar huntress.

"You're cousin's messed up." He told Allison, who had her knuckles pressed to her lips in thought.

"Yeah," She replied breathlessly, supporting his statement as her eyes followed the camera's swiveling this way and that on the outside of the school building. "And so is everyone else in my family."

Scott couldn't have agreed more.

#-#-#-#-#

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lydia asked from where she was seated delicately on the edge of Adrianna's unmade bed. "Because I think, if it had been me Allison was lying to, I'd want to talk about it." The strawberry blonde intelligently suggested, raising her brows as Adrianna turned to face her.

"Not that Allison's ever lied to me," She ironically stated, flipping her hair over her shoulder haughtily. "But you know what I mean."

Sitting down beside her friend on a crumpled mass of sheets, Adrianna breathed in the smell of her room and tried to dispel her cousin's memories from the forefront of her mind. Her powers shouldn't have acted up; she didn't want to kill her cousin, she wanted to save her.

"What do you want to know, Lydia?" Adrianna asked, sliding a hand down her face to try to wipe away the film of guilt that had settled over her pores. "I can only tell you so much—even I don't know the whole story."

"I thought we were talking about you?" Lydia chirped, one brow raised curiously.

Slumping backwards onto her bed, Adrianna stared up at the plastered ceiling. "No, Lydia," She reminded the girl. "We were definitely talking about you but you were pretending to talk about me so that I might actually tell you something." She shared, feeling a stubborn smile breaking out across her face as Lydia batted her eyelashes before tilting her head to the side in agreement.

"You're smarter than everyone gives you credit for." Lydia observed, lifting herself off of the mattress to wander around Adrianna's sparsely decorated room. Her fingers wandered over picture frames she'd forgotten were even there, taking note of the dust that coated each one.

Biting her lip uncertainly, Adrianna threaded her fingers together and laid them over her stomach. "So are you." She replied quietly. "Don't think I haven't noticed all the times you have to pretend not to know something."

Laughing in a high pitch, Lydia whirled around to face Adrianna, a particular silver picture frame clutched in her hands. "So we're both good at hiding things." She pointed out, a glint of something young and excited in her eyes. "For example, who this fine young man is." Lydia turned the frame so that Adrianna could see the picture.

Sighing, Adrianna leaned on her elbows as Luke Castellan's mischievous expression grinned at her. It was a very old picture, taken at least four years ago with an antique camera Chiron had stored inside the big house for special occasions. She'd been twelve at the time, Luke couldn't have been older than fourteen, and the son of Hermes had snapped the photo when she'd been distracted. It had been her first week at camp and she'd been miserable. Her eyes were set on him, still crinkled at the edges after a ridiculous joke he'd cracked to try to make her smile; the left side of his face was clear—no trace of the ugly scar he now wore.

Lydia's joy waned the longer Adrianna stared at the picture and she sat down beside her, holding out the frame for Adrianna's outstretched hands to take. "What happened to him?" Lydia wisely perceived as Adrianna's fingers drew patterns over her face and Luke's.

For a split second, Adrianna wanted to tell Lydia everything. She wanted to confide in her friend about the dark path Luke had chosen to travel down; about the nightmares she kept having of the many deaths that were to come. And then, she heard Gerard's voice through the walls of the house, downstairs, and all thoughts of unloading burdens from her shoulders vanished.

"Nothing," She settled for, smiling when Lydia's expression betrayed her disbelief. "He's a friend of mine from a summer camp I go to in New York." She explained, standing up and setting the frame back where it had been, on top of her dresser.

"His name is Luke," Adrianna muttered, glancing at the other pictures that perched on the wooden top; one in particular of Kate and her at a young age caught her interest, but for the sake of her emotional integrity, Adrianna turned her back on the display. "Luke Castellan." She added, tucking her trembling hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

She prayed that Lydia didn't delve deeper into the subject. Adrianna didn't know how many questions she could take before her resolve cracked and the truth came tumbling out of her lips.

"Will you tell me more about it?" Lydia asked and Adrianna's heart plummeted to the floor as she considered lying to avoid talking about her past. "One day?" The girl amended, smiling delicately as tears blurred Adrianna's vision.

She thanked Lydia with a gracious smile and knelt down beside her bed to take out her Mathematics textbook from her book bag. "Yes, one day, I'll tell you everything." She promised, spreading out her homework sheets on the unmade bed between her and Lydia.

"Can you tell me what happened yesterday, when we went to Scott's house?" Lydia broached after a few minutes of comfortable silence spent calculating immense formulas Adrianna struggled to keep from floating off the pages as she read them.

Dropping her pencil and flexing her aching fingers, Adrianna sat back, mindful not to allow her toes to brush under the edge of her bed, and nodded in response. "Yes, I think I can." She told Lydia, shutting her textbook after collecting a few stray pages and slipping them inside. "Fire away." Adrianna prompted as Lydia tried to overcome her shock.

"You mean, you're actually going to explain why all my friends have suddenly gone crazy?" Lydia wondered, her tone shrill and her jaw still slightly slack. "You're not going to ask me, or threaten me, not to tell anyone else what I've learned?"

Snorting, Adrianna shook her head. "No, I don't think that's necessary." Bunching up her sleeves to expose her scarred arms, Adrianna fisted her hands as Lydia stared, awestruck. "You'll either be too scared or too far in denial to bother informing other people what I'm about to tell you."

"Where did you get those?" Lydia asked instead of commenting on Adrianna's theory. "Some of those are from burns and others are from severe lacerations." She noticed, craning her neck to get a better angle at the iridescent, white and reddish marks, according to their age.

"How much do you know about legends, myths and ancient stories passed around campfires and told as though they were jokes?" Adrianna questioned, licking her lips as Lydia's keen eyes narrowed on her.

"Every culture in history has a different version to tell," Lydia replied, leaning back so that there was more distance between them. "Most of them have similarities between them, though. Valhalla for the Vikings is Elysium for the Greeks and Romans."

Nodding her head, Adrianna rolled down her sleeves and shook out her fingers. "What if I were to tell you that all of those myths and legends are real?" She proposed. "And that they are all around you, everyday, affecting your life?"

Lydia tilted her head to the side, as though trying to gauge whether Adrianna was lying, before exhaling an incredulous breath of air. "I'd say you were delusional and have you committed to the nearest insane asylum." She stated seriously, smiling falsely as Adrianna's hopes fell.

"Yeah," She muttered under her breath. "You're right. I had you reeling for a moment though." She pointed out, forcing a laugh and wagging her finger teasingly.

Lydia pressed her lips together but hummed her agreement all the same. "You know, those flowers on your desk are quite beautiful." The strawberry-blonde changed the subject and Adrianna let her. "The purple ones in the middle remind me of the ones my mother planted on our back porch."

"Really?" Adrianna pretended to be enraptured by the conversation when really, she was wondering whether there was a place within Lydia giant brain that believed her. Now that the idea had been planted, it would be impossible for the girl not to begin noticing the supernatural around her. Eventually, she'd have to accept the truth.

But today is not that day, Adrianna realized and accepted as she unfurled her notes and returned to her algebra homework. She hoped it didn't come too soon, for Lydia's sake.

#-#-#-#-#

Leaves crunched beneath Stiles' shoes as he paced back and forth in front of the secure transport van he'd borrowed from the sheriff's station parking lot. Technically, he'd stolen it, but since he planned on returning it in the near future, Stiles figured that he could say it was borrowed. It definitely sounded better.

Crashing through the woods and into the clearing at Lookout Point that he and Allison had chosen to move to after finding out that Jackson's parents had reported him missing—despite Stiles' ingenious plan to commandeer Jackson's phone and communicate with his parents through the device so as not to arouse suspicion—Scott stumbled to a halt beside Allison, panting as he caught his breath.

"I talked to Danny," He gasped, straightening his posture and breathing in deeply several times before recovering. The perks of being a werewolf, Stiles supposed. "He gave me the keys to his car but when I checked the trunk, it was busted open with nothing inside." He summarized.

"So someone stole the tablet?" Allison concluded. "Who could have done that?"

"Let me think," Stiles tapped his chin. "Someone with enough strength to break open a secured latch, motive to want the information held within the tablet, a tendency to disappear at random intervals, and who was conveniently at the scene of the crime. Boy, does that sound familiar." He sarcastically listed.

"You mean Jackson?" Scott's expression betrayed his dislike for the suggestion.

"Yes, I mean Jackson." Stiles exasperatedly retorted, gesticulating with his arms as he tried to prove his point to Scott and Allison. "The guy turns into a lizard by night that paralyzes people from the neck down. I'd say that's more than enough for us to consider him."

Glancing between each other, Allison shrugged, unconvinced but clearly not ready to discard the idea. "We could ask him?" She seemed to question, unsure of her suggestion even as she said it.

"If Jackson doesn't remember being the Kanima," Scott realized. "He's definitely not gonna remember stealing Danny's tablet."

Twisting his lip to the side, Stiles found his original idea wilting before his eyes. "Why would he steal the thing if he doesn't even know what's on it?" He asked the others, shaking his head as he started gathering a new list of possible suspects.

"What if someone else took it?" Allison spoke what they were all thinking.

Stiles cracked his knuckles. "Then somebody else knows what he is." He understood.

"Uh," Scott piped up intelligently. "Which could mean someone's protecting him." Stiles cringed at the suggestion. It didn't make sense to him. Why would someone go to all that trouble if they were just going to use Jackson as a weapon? The boy wouldn't remember anything anyway.

"Like the bestiary says," Allison pointed out hopefully. "'The Kanima seeks a friend,' right?"

"Okay, hold on." Stiles waved his arms about for silence. "So, somebody watched Jackson make a video of himself turning into the Kanima, and then just erased part of it so he wouldn't know?" He wondered disbelievingly. "I mean, who would do that?"

"Somebody who wanted to protect him?" Allison rephrased Scott's earlier proposition, grasping for anything that could solve the mystery.

"There's something else." Scott reminded them, directing his attention to Allison. "You said the only thing you found online about the Kanima is that it goes after murderers. What if that's actually true?"

"No, it can't be." Stiles immediately refuted. "It tried to kill all of us, remember?" He prompted them. "I don't know about you two, but I haven't murdered anybody lately."

Stepping back, Scott ran a hand through his messy hair. "But I—" He struggled to coherently put into words. "I don't think that it was actually trying to kill us. Remember at Isaac's the first time, it just went right by us, didn't it?" He asked Allison, who nodded sullenly, agreeing.

"You're right," She chimed in. "It just ran off."

"And it didn't kill you in the mechanic's garage." Scott continued, this time focusing on Stiles who shuffled his feet awkwardly under two of his friends scrutinous gazes.

"Well, yeah," He inadvertently supported Scott's theory. "But it tried to kill me, Derek, and Adrianna at the pool." Stiles added unhelpfully.

"Did it?" Scott speculated as the insides of Stiles head buzzed with energy, searching for a way to prove that Scott was wrong. For some reason, the prospect that the Kanima hadn't wanted to kill him was even more disturbing than what he'd believed since he first saw the creature.

"It would've." He argued. "It was waiting for us to come out."

"What if it was trying to keep you in?" Scott asked him, excitement from the prospect of being right showing clearly on his face.

"It wasn't." Stiles nearly shouted as his brain made the connection that would disprove Scott's theory in less than a moment. "It came after your cousin and even fell into the pool trying to dismember her." He told Allison, who merely blinked in response to the information.

"That doesn't mean that Scott's wrong." Allison reluctantly admitted, avoiding eye contact with Stiles when his mouth gaped open in surprise. "It could've gone after her while still trying to keep you and Derek inside the pool."

"Nuh-uh." Stiles refuted, shaking his head rigorously. "Not unless Adrianna was a—" He broke off as realization struck him like a bolt of lightening. "You don't think that she's—killed people?" He whispered dramatically.

"You're kidding, right?" Scott asked, clearly not expecting Stiles to not have considered the possibility that Adrianna Argent was a murderer. "You were the one always saying you didn't trust her. She's freaked you out since the moment you met her." Scott pressed, searching for an explanation.

"Only because she scares me." He replied, remembering all the times he'd seen her do incredible, absolutely unnatural things. "You're right, she's probably killed people." Stiles agreed, not wanting to dwell on the subject any longer than necessary.

"Not probably," Scott corrected ominously, his hand migrating to his side thoughtfully. "She has. I know it. I've seen it."

Stiles' blood ran cold as a shiver coruscated up his spine. "Why do I feel so violated all of a sudden?" He asked no one in particular.

"Because there's something else going on." Scott supplied. "We don't know what it is. We don't know anything about what's going on with Jackson, or why someone's protecting him." He added morosely.

"Know thy enemy." Allison quoted suddenly, after remaining silent for an extended period of time. Stiles guessed the revelation with her cousin had been more than enough for her to handle without thinking about the mess they were in with everything else.

"Just something my grandfather said." She told them after noticing that both Stiles and Scott were looking at her. All three of them knew that her words applied to more than just the Kanima.

"Alright, I got it." Stiles interrupted everyone's miserable thoughts. "Kill Jackson. Problem solved." He triumphantly declared.

"He risked his life for us." Scott argued. "Against Peter, you remember that?"

Nodding his head exaggeratedly, Stiles' brows rose up and down with his words. "Yes, but what did we just find out?" Stiles reminded them bitterly. "He got the bite from Derek. It's funny how he just got exactly what he wanted by supposedly risking his life for us, it's funny."

"Yeah," Scott half agreed. "But it doesn't mean he's not still worth saving." Over the rocky cliffs of the Beacon Hills Preserve, the sun began it's descent out of the sky and the stars blinked into existence.

"It's always something with him, though." Stiles pointed out, not quite as in favour of saving the boy as he'd been when Jackson's life literally hung in the balance against two werewolves and a murderous huntress.

"He doesn't know what he's doing." Scott tried to excuse weakly.

Shrugging his shoulders, Stiles disregarded his friend's goal. "So what?" He pressed.

"So, I didn't either." Scott explained, his voice thickening with emotion and commitment. "You remember when I almost killed you and Jackson?" He asked Allison, who hesitantly licked her lips before nodding in confirmation. "I had someone to stop me. He has nobody." Scott informed them.

"That's his own fault." Stiles stubbornly fought.

"Doesn't matter." Scott just as resolutely declared. "If we can save him, we should try."

#-#-#-#-#

Allison's feet dragged against the carpeted floor of her room as she heaved a defeated sigh. Jackson had gotten loose from the transport van he'd been chained to, most likely after transforming into the Kanima, and she hadn't heard from Scott or Stiles since leaving them at the preserve. They'd been planning on telling Stiles' father everything and were probably at the Sheriff's station now.

She dreaded to find out in the morning what had caused the lack of contact. Whatever it was—whether the Sheriff hadn't believed them or both of them had been arrested for Jackson's kidnapping—it was guaranteed to be bad.

Flipping on her light switch and dumping her purse unceremoniously on her desk, beside her computer, Allison's gaze slid over her mirror and her heart skipped a beat as she noticed Lydia sitting on the edge of her bed.

"You scared the hell out of me." She complained, grasping her chest in an attempt to slow the beating of the organ within. "Where's Adrianna? I thought you two were gonna study without me?"

"I've been sitting here for an hour, waiting for you." Lydia retorted, casually dodging Allison's questions.

Pressing her lips together but choosing not to make a big deal out of it, seeing as Allison was more guilty than Lydia could ever be of lying, Allison began to unload her homework from within her purse.

"I can't hang out right now, Lydia." She informed her, pulling her scarf over her head as the air became stuffy in her room the longer she kept it on. "Why don't you spend some time with Adrianna?" Allison suggested.

Lydia's voice became aggravated as she huffed. "I don't need anyone to hang out with." Lydia corrected rather icily. "I need someone to talk to—that's sane." She added.

Turning to face her friend, Allison leaned against the side of her desk as she tried to phrase her next words delicately. "I—I understand that it's important, but if it can just wait—" Allison tried to bargain, only to be interrupted.

"Why is everyone always telling me to wait?" Lydia unhappily asked, spreading her fingers wide and then allowing them to fall back into her lap. "Why can't anyone have 'right now' available?"

Sighing heavily, Allison felt her irritation rising the longer Lydia refused to be cooperative. "Because you can't have everything right now." Allison finally snapped, licking her lips as Lydia's expression became one of hurt and contemplation. "You know what I need?" She questioned her friend tiredly. "I need someone to translate five pages of archaic Latin. Obviously, that's not gonna happen anytime soon." She mourned.

Further in the house, from what sounded like the bathroom across the hall, Allison heard a resounding crack echo through the house. She wondered if her cousin had accidentally broken the taps. It wouldn't have been the first time Adrianna had used excessive force.

"I know archaic Latin." Lydia trilled from where she now stood beside Allison.

Narrowing her gaze, Allison shook her head. Her first thought was that it was too good to be true, but then she remembered all the times Lydia had surprised her before and she allowed the seed of hope to blossom within her. "You know archaic Latin?" She asked, just to be certain.

Quirking her shoulders insouicantly, Lydia copied Allison's smile. "I got bored with classical Latin." The strawberry blonde informed.

Laughing under her breath, Allison slipped off her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. "Just how smart are you?" She wondered, slightly awe-struck.

A faint blush tinted Lydia's peachy cheeks and she extended her hand dutifully towards Allison. "Just show me the pages." Lydia told her, obviously uncomfortable with the attention—which was very unusual for the outgoing girl.

Opening her laptop and inserting the USB drive, Allison sat back as Lydia took the chair in front of the desk and began deciphering the bestiary with nothing but a scrap piece of paper, watery pen, and her own fantastic brain.

"Which part do you need translated?" She beckoned Allison to answer as her pen hovered over a blank page.

"Um," Allison fumbled, scratching her head as she considered how to explain what she needed in English without appearing totally insane. "The entire page should be good. You can start after that picture." She said, pointing towards an illustration of the Kanima.

"Okay," Lydia agreed, already beginning to write down words from the utter nonsense on the computer. "This might take a minute though." She warned.

"Don't worry," Allison assured, relief in her voice. "A few minutes is way better than a few weeks."

Scribbling fervently, Allison couldn't help but notice that there was a slight tremor in the other girl's writing, stemming from her hand. "Lydia?" She coaxed as her friend's hand stopped moving altogether. "Are you alright?" Allison wondered.

"Yeah," Lydia answered in a clipped voice, taking a moment to wipe her palms on her skirt. "Is this a legend?" She asked shakily, staring at the picture on the screen warily.

"Uh, I guess." Allison replied, grasping for a good excuse to cover why she had such a document. "I'm doing this project—" She stuttered to expel from her lips.

"For the next level in our game," Adrianna interrupted from where she stood, leaning against Allison's door-frame. "Scott, Stiles, Allison and I are part of this online club that fights mythical monsters." She added as Lydia's full attention drifted to her.

"Oh," Lydia muttered. "That's cool."

"It is, isn't it?" Adrianna responded, grinning widely, something foreign alight in her fiery green eyes. "People never realize how much historical legends and myths play a part in their lives." She told them, pushing away from the door-frame and jutting her chin out in Lydia's direction.

"I've gotta go," She shared with them and Allison noticed a speckle of black tar staining the edge of her eye, as though she'd begun crying the substance. "Remember what I said." Adrianna said to Lydia, whose face was paler than usual.

As her cousin wandered off, her heels clapping down the stairs, Lydia returned to translating the bestiary. Allison worried why Adrianna had taken such an interest in her friend but before she could mention it to Lydia, the red-head was waving her page triumphantly in the air.

"Here it is," She declared rather seriously. "All done."

Getting up and snatching the page, too excited to worry about her rushed manner, Allison read the page and felt her insides plummet. "Are you sure?" She asked Lydia, pointing to a particular page on the sheet. "Ms. Morrell said that word means 'friend.'"

Studying the same segment in Latin, Lydia nodded, underlining the word with her polished fingernail. "She was wrong." Lydia proudly pointed out. "It means 'master.'"

"'The Kanima seeks a master.'" Allison read aloud. Rolling her chair back and standing up to collect her purse from Allison's bed, Lydia had her back turned as Allison took her seat to stare at the computer screen.

"Why?" The girl asked from across the room. "Is that important?"

"Yeah." Allison replied half-heartedly, still transfixed by the inked words Lydia had scrawled only a moment ago. "Someone's not protecting him." Allison realized. "Someone's controlling him."