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.)

7. Chapter 7

7-Restraint

H er boots squelched into the mud of the riverbed as she frantically ran for her life. It was nighttime and the full moon was at it's peak. Overhead, the stars twinkled brightly and an owl hooted it's warning as Adrianna sloshed through knee-deep, icy cold water.

Crossing the river would be her only chance to lose them. Her tracks would be washed away and she'd be able to disappear into the forest and seek shelter from the hunters hot on her trail. She'd been raised as one of them; Adrianna thought that she had a pretty good chance of outsmarting them despite the wound in her thigh.

Shivers racked her soaked frame and her fingers were so numb, they'd begun to physically pain her. Still, she kept trodding through the river, a dip in the floor beneath her causing her to sink all the way to her armpits. She grunted in discomfort but did not scream. Surely, the people hunting her—the men she'd called family for as long as she could remember—would hear her if she spoke louder than a whisper.

Lights and shouts from behind her signaled the approaching threat. Adrianna turned to see how far they were from her position, only to loose her footing and slip beneath the surface of the dark, murky water.

As soon as she was submerged, Adrianna felt herself panic. Even though she'd overcome her fear long enough to fight off the Kanima at the school's pool with Derek and Stiles, Adrianna knew her phobia was as debilitating as ever.

The current pulled her this way and that, so much so that, with darkness closing in all around her, she forgot which way was up, to the surface. Her hands reached out blindly, clawing at whatever she could; her fingers snagged on reeds and sharp rocks but nothing that could help her to regain her bearings.

Dizziness overtook her and the urge to inhale became so overwhelming that she found herself having to clamp her teeth into her lips to keep them sealed. Her leg ached terribly and Adrianna was certain that she'd lost too much blood by now to properly defend herself, should she even survive long enough to reach the shore.

With her head pounding and her vision becoming cloudy, Adrianna used the last of her strength in a maneover that would either kill her right there, or be her salvation. Wrapping her arms around herself, Adrianna permitted her body to sink like a stone to the bottom of the river. As her back collided with the silt riverbed, Adrianna managed to get her feet underneath her and kick off from the bottom, towards the surface.

Her lungs burned like she'd inhaled hot coals and her entire body felt as though it was being repeatedly assaulted by a thousand icy needles, but it was all worth it when her head popped out of the water and she inhaled the chilly night air greedily.

Sure enough, the hunters were waiting for her on the opposite side of the river, in the same direction from whence she'd came. Exhausted and too afraid of the inky liquid surrounding her to think straight, Adrianna made the choice to paddle towards the closest shore, exactly where her grandfather, Gerard, awaited her with his army of loyal hunters.

Crawling across the muddy bank, Adrianna's fingers dug into the slippery earth beneath her as she struggled to stand upright. Already, there were hunters on the move, preparing to engage in close combat with her. Some of the men had known her since infancy so it was no surprise that they were hesitant to shoot her. It was an unspoken code between hunters that, when ordered to kill one of their own, guns were never used.

A bald-headed man in his late forties reached her first, just as she'd managed to climb to her knees. Adrianna remembered learning how to clean and assemble a gun from the very same man—his name was Sean and when his boot made contact with Adrianna's stomach, all thoughts of sparing him from her wrath faded instantly.

Grabbing hold of the man's foot mid-swing, Adrianna twisted with all her might, jerking him off his feet and into the ground beneath. One swift right hook to his chin and the burly man lost consciousness. Flexing her fingers, Adrianna stood up on groaning joints to face the assembled hunters before her.

"How are we gonna do this?" She asked them and it reminded her of all the times during her training when she'd spoken the very same words to the very same men. "Dead or unconscious?"

The man closest to her in the circle of hunters, a long haired, wiry Frenchman by the name of Antoine, with a thin mustache cloaking his upper lip, took a step forward, brandishing a wickedly sharp blade. His comrades followed his lead, each defending themselves with their choice weapons; knives, clubs, crossbows and even brass knuckles.

Grinning toothily, Adrianna lifted her fists and spread her feet wide. Blood soaked her pant leg, all to way to her calf. It was bright red and warm against her skin. "Unconscious then." She decided after assessing the lack of fatal weapons in her opponent's midst.

A second later, the hunters converged on her all at once with varying levels of brutality. Mark, the youngest of the group with the least respect and familiarity to Adrianna, attacked from the side, aiming to lodge his four foot bowi knife between her second and third rib. With a hasty step forward, Adrianna was able to twist the weapon out of his grasp and slam her fist into his chest, knocking him to the ground where she kicked his chin with her combat boot, ensuring he stayed down.

Sean fought the way a classic American would, with his fists bare and his temper on the boil. Despite his daunting size, Adrianna had learned how to defeat him years ago and so, she was able to lift her knee into his stomach and slap the edge of her hand into the base of his neck with hardly any thought.

With two incapacitated and three remaining, Adrianna took a moment to catch her breath. Sneaky as ever, Antoine chose that moment to pounce from behind, wrapping his long and weedy arms around Adrianna's upper body and squeezing her larynx. She coughed, surprised, and struggled to extricate herself from his grasp. Antoine was the most proficient out of all of them in close quarter's combat. He'd been her teacher before she'd been sent to camp.

Shaking her head to regain her senses, Adrianna launched her elbow into the man's ribs and shuddered as the other hunters began landing punches on her exposed torso and chest. Digging her long, mud-caked fingernails into Antoine's hairy arm, Adrianna was relieved when the man cried out and dropped her. Following the moment of her fall, Adrianna landed on the ground in a crouch and swept out her good leg to disable Antoine's stance. He toppled like a heavy sack of flour and fell into the river nearby.

Sean and a brutal Englishman named Eddie were the only two still standing, but more were on their way. Just over the crest of the hill that disguised the forest clearing from view, Adrianna could see the reflective light of the hunter's flashlight beams closing in and their shouts began to sound louder.

Wasting no time, Adrianna vaulted her good leg high into the air and slammed it into Sean's midsection. He grunted in pain but held steady, grabbing onto her appendage and pulling her off her feet. Fortunately for Adrianna, she'd been trained for an event such as this, so she knew to roll with the momentum—taking Sean with her and twisting his arm behind his back in the process—and spring to her feet.

Slamming her knuckles into his throat, he gagged uncontrollably, dropping his now useless crossbow and clawing frantically at his broken trachea. Turning away from him, Adrianna was taken off guard when Eddie's immense, bronze laced fists slammed into her temple, knocking her to the muddy floor.

Her vision swam and pulsed with strange colours and her energy was nearly entirely depleted. A kick in her stomach and the audible snapping of her lower ribs was nearly enough to send her mind to oblivion. Fingers slick with her own blood mixed with other's, Adrianna placed her palm flat against the ground and concentrated on the tingling in her fingers.

The sensation spread up her arm, all the way past her chest until it settled in her gut like an elastic band pulling her muscles taut. Grey ashes emerged from out of her fingertips, creeping through the muddy tracks and blood-stains all the way to Eddie's boot-clad foot. The man himself was transfixed by the display and so, as Adrianna's power spread up his ankles to his legs and chest, eventually encircling his neck and head, he hardly had enough time to scream out in horror as his body numbed to the point of paralysis and he collapsed in a useless heap.

Breathing a sigh of relief and satisfaction of a job well done, Adrianna only had a moment to painfully demand her body to it's feet, before Gerard and his reinforcements arrived. At least a hundred guns—pistols, semi-automatics and a few AK47's—were pointed directly at her, along with several spot lights that made her wince and blink back spots.

"Hold your fire." Gerard ordered, stepping forth out of the crowd to face his granddaughter. "Hello, Adrianna." He greeted with false civility, sneering at her as he took in the sight of his best men, lying at her feet. "I see you've already reacquainted yourself with some of your old teachers."

Inclining her head to the side, Adrianna felt slimy, viscous hatred coating her throat as she replied with just as much ire as Gerard, "They weren't exactly a challenge but what else can I expect from a man that stands behind the sidelines and lets everyone else dirty their hands so he doesn't have to."

Face colouring with his rage, Gerard lifted his hand to keep his troops at bay as they grew restless to kill the girl that dared insult their leader. "You're just as impertinent and ungrateful as ever." He pointed out calmly, stepping forward still so that only a yard or two separated them.

"And you're still just as manipulative and self-centered as you've always been." Adrianna retorted, glancing around her at the hunters gathered under Gerard's battle call. "Tell me, where's Allison?" She asked, cocking her head to the side as Gerard's hands tightened into fists. "Did she leave you, too?" Adrianna pressed.

"No," A voice replied from within the crowd. "I remain loyal to the blood that runs through my veins. Argent blood. Hunter's blood." Men parted and made room as Allison stalked towards Gerard and Adrianna, a quiver of arrows slung over her leather clad shoulder and a bloody bow tightly grasped in her gloved hand. Her pale face shone in the moonlight, as did the necklace dangling near her chest—Kate's necklace, passed down from Gerard.

That should have been mine, Adrianna couldn't help but think as her cousin stopped once she'd reached Gerard's shoulder. "Do you know what you're doing?" She found herself questioning Allison, who met her incredulous gaze with steely determination. "You're following a monster. Don't you remember anything I taught you? The code specifically prohibits us from killing innocent werewolves." Adrianna reminded, looking around her at all the other hunters. "Where has your bravery gone?" She asked them all.

"Enough." Gerard snarled as he took note of the nervous shifting within his ranks. "Allison is our leader and as such, she has made all the tactical decisions. She's your replacement, Adrianna." He taunted. "And I must admit that, although she's not as powerful as you, she is much more obedient."

"You're insane." Adrianna retorted, spittle flying out of her mouth as her vexation continued to mount. "Can't you see it? He's a hypocrite." She beckoned Allison to understand, but her mind had already been set long before.

"He is what he hunts." Adrianna desperately tried to reason, but her words fell on deaf ears. "Not all werewolves are bloodthirsty monsters. Some of them have even spared your lives. Some of them have given them your hearts." She pointed out to the hunters around her. Allison shifted her footing at the mentioning of hearts but didn't lessen her support any.

"They don't care, Adrianna." Gerard harshly informed her, his eyes narrowing hatefully on her. "So long as they get their revenge—so long as we kill every supernatural in Beacon Hills—they'll follow anyone."

"And anything?" She demanded, keeping her shoulders squared and her chin held high. She took pride in the fact that her grandfather had never been able to tame her, despite his enormous efforts.

"Well," Gerard muttered, smiling wickedly. "Why don't we find out?" He asked, advancing on her with strength he'd never had as a dying man. Extending his arms at his sides, claws grew in the place of fingernails and his teeth sharpened into animalistic points.

As he came upon her, slashing his claws at her face, Adrianna ducked out of the way successfully, but her reflexes were slow and her strength had left along with her blood. She fell trying to evade his next blow and the slippery mud beneath her coated every inch of her back and legs, so much so that the red of her blood stood out among all the brown.

Gerard's eyes glittered like molten lava and brought forth terror from Adrianna's heart. Eyes she'd only ever seen in nightmares as a child afraid of the creatures in the dark, trained on her then and promised a painful end. She hardly felt his razor sharp claws as they dug into the bullet wound on her thigh, the fear was so intense, but she did feel it when his nails scraped up her leg, ripping the material of her pants and drawing angry red lines in her flesh.

She refused to cry out, even as agonized tears blurred her vision. Snarling his distaste, Gerard stood over her and wrapped his hands around her neck, imprinting gory crescents just below her jaw.

"You could never replace your mother," He whispered to her as tremors racked her beaten and defeated body. "I should have known better than to let a half-breed abomination into my house." Gerard told her, stroking his claws near her aorta mockingly.

With what was left of her strength, Adrianna spat in her grandfather's face. "I am not Kate," She growled at him. "And I am not your puppet."

Slapping her across the face with the palm of his hand, Gerard forced her gaze to meet his by digging his claws into the top of her scalp. "You're harder to kill than I'd imagined," He shared. "But it's of no consequence now. If you want the job done, you really have to do it yourself." He quoted what Kate had often said on difficult hunts, drawing back his arm high into the air and holding it there for a moment.

"Don't let him use you!" Adrianna hastily cried to her cousin, who had stood by and watched as death loomed over the girl that had once been in her place. "Whatever you do, remember who you are. You can't let him take that away from you." She muttered sadly. "It's the only thing that matters, in the end."

And before she could remind Allison of all the good, innocent, loving werewolves she'd met and grown fond of—some more than others—Gerard growled angrily and slashed down his claws with death on his mind, sinking them deep into Adrianna's throat.

She inhaled raggedly as what remained of her blood seeped out of her body and her last thought before her eyes closed and darkness enclosed her mind, was that she did not regret choosing her heart over her mind.

Adrianna didn't regret standing shoulder to shoulder with Isaac, Derek, Scott, and Stiles—despite the memory of their dead bodies strewn across the floor of a cavernous warehouse, still fresh in her thoughts.

#-#-#-#-#

As Sheriff Stilinski adjusted the clipboard in his hand, staring at Scott and Stiles with disappointment and anger clear in his gaze, Melissa couldn't help but wondering what she'd done wrong. Her son had been acting strangely for the past six months, coming home late, experiencing mood swings she couldn't explain, and even falling in love and breaking up with a girl she'd never actually been properly introduced to. But none of that could compare to the restraining order the Sheriff read off somberly to his son and hers.

"You will not go within fifty feet of Jackson Whittemore." He told them. "You will not speak to him. You will not approach him. You will not assault or harass him, physically or psychologically." The Sheriff dictated.

Raising his hand, Stiles licked his lips as his father stared at him in warning. Melissa knew how off-topic Stiles could get and for his sake, along with his father's, she hoped he wasn't going to take a flying leap off tangent.

"What about school?" He asked with surprising logic. Beside him, Scott was silent, refusing to meet Melissa's eyes. He knew he'd crossed a line; this time, she couldn't ignore his behavior with the promise that everything would be fine—that it was just a phase.

"You can attend classes while attempting to maintain a fifty-foot distance." The Sheriff replied to his son, setting the clipboard down onto the stainless steel table top as he'd finished reading off the stipulations Jackson's father, also a rather prolific and rich lawyer, had insisted upon.

"But—" Stiles began to contest, stopping for a moment when he saw his father crossing his arms in warning. "Okay, what if we both have to use the bathroom at the same time and there's only two stalls available and they're only right next to each other?" He impishly continued, lowering his head between his shoulders as though feeling the physical effects of his father's intense stare.

"I'll just hold it." Stiles muttered to himself and Melissa had to tighten her lips to prevent herself from smiling. One look at David Whittemore was enough to do the job for her.

"Do I need to remind you how lucky we are that they're not pressing charges?" The Sheriff nearly growled as he opened the door for his son to step out of the room they'd been in. Melissa was certain that the only thing stopping him from full-out yelling was the fact that they were in a public place. Once the Stilinski's got home, Stiles was certain to be in for an earful—as was Scott, now that she thought about it.

"Oh, come on," She heard the spastic boy complain. "It was just a joke."

"It was a joke?" The Sheriff raised his eyebrows, incredulous.

"Yes," Stiles cried, flapping his arms out in wide gestures. "I didn't think it would be taken this seriously. Dad, humor's very subjective, okay?" He tried to excuse. "I mean, we're talking, like, multiple levels of interpretation here."

"Uh, huh." His father inclined his head, clearly not believing a word his son was saying.

"Uh, huh." Stiles affirmed, slightly taken aback.

"Okay," The Sheriff pointed between him and his son. "Well how exactly am I supposed to interpret the stolen prison transport van, huh?" He questioned.

"We filled the tank!" His voice rose in pitch, as did Melissa's temper. Those two boys thought they could get away with anything. Nudging Scott's shoulder as they passed behind a very angry Sheriff and a very desperate Stiles, Melissa breathed deeply, trying to maintain in control over her riotous emotions.

"Move." She lowly instructed Scott as he hesitated by his friend's side. Once they'd gotten into one of the hallways leading to the Sheriff's station exit, Melissa placed a hand on her son's shoulder and turned him to face her. "It's not just this." She reminded him. "Although, a restraining order is a new low that I didn't think that you would reach quite this soon. It's everything on top of it." She shared, lifting her hand to begin the litany of Scott's misbehaviors.

"The completely bizarre behavior," She started on her thumb. "The late nights coming home, having to beg Mister Harris for you to make up that Chemistry test that you missed." Melissa added, already three fingers in.

"I missed a Chemistry test?" Scott asked, his face betraying his genuine surprise.

"Really, Scott? Really?" She wondered, nearly to the point of hysteria. "I have to ground you. I am grounding you." She decided. "You are grounded." Melissa pointed a stern finger his way, just to make certain he knew she was serious.

"What about work?" Scott countered as she crossed her arms under her chest.

"Fine—other than work." She relented, searching for some other suitable punishment to inflict on her son, with the hope that he would regain some of his senses. "And no TV." She added.

"My TV's broken." He sheepishly told her, eyes flitting about the hallway nervously.

"Then no computer." Melissa amended threateningly.

"I need the computer for school." Scott reminded her, biting his lip.

Sighing and looking around herself for more ideas, Melissa felt her brain beginning to scramble. "Then no, uh—" She stuttered, still undecided on what else would be harsh enough to prove her point. "No Stiles." She finally uttered as the boy appeared behind her, in the open doorway.

"What—no Stiles?" The boy in question asked, approaching her with the intent of fighting the verdict, clearly demoralized at the concept of not having access to his best, and she was fairly certain, only friend.

"No Stiles!" Melissa shouted, scaring him back to where he'd been. "And no more car privileges." She directed to Scott, extending her hand. "Give me your keys." She calmly asked.

Scott sighed, his shoulder slumping in defeat, but didn't move to retrieve his keys. Her patience waning, Melissa stomped her foot on the floor, not caring how petulant she might seem, and her voice rose as she angrily asked for them again. "Give 'em to me!"

Frowning, Scott dug into his pocket and placed the jangling keys into her awaiting palm. He looked away from her as her fingers closed around his only form of fast, easy transportation and didn't see her struggling to unslot the key for her car from the link holding various other keys.

"Oh, for the love of god." Melissa mumbled, her hands shaking the longer the stubborn key refused to unlatch itself.

"Mom," Scott hesitantly spoke up. "You want me to—"

"No." She interrupted him hotly, still fiddling with the keys to no avail.

"Mom, come on," He pleaded guiltily. "Let me just—mom." He called out as Melissa moved her hands away from him. She didn't want his help; she wanted him to behave like a normal, ordinary teenager that wasn't failing half their classes. Was that really too much to ask?

"Mom!" Scott shouted, only then did she realize that her hands had been trembling so badly, the keys had nearly fallen to the ground. Her son's hands enclosed hers, steadying them.

Exhaling unevenly, Melissa pressed her lips together and looked into Scott's warm, almond coloured eyes. He had his father's eyes. Hers had always been a murky hazel. "What is going on with you?" Her voice cracked and betrayed her sadness. "Is this about Allison?" She pressed, wanting to know the answer so that she could try to fix it; to help her son.

Licking his lips with his eyes darting behind her, towards Stiles, for a moment, Scott's hands tightened around hers. "Do you really wanna know?" He asked her, sounding more like the kid she'd raised and less like the closed-off, troubled teen he'd become.

"Yeah." Melissa assured him, nodding her head. "Is this about your father?" She wondered, suddenly feeling terrible. "It is, isn't it?" Melissa realized as Scott avoided her eyes and remained silent.

"Okay, you know what," She proposed, slipping one of her hands out of Scott's to comfortingly tap his wrists. "Um, we'll talk about this at home." She suggested, treading more gently now that she had an idea as to what was going on. "I'm gonna go get the car."

Walking past her son, Melissa forced herself to smile back at him before exiting the Sheriff's station. Once she was out on the street, searching for the place where she'd parked her car with barely any luck, Melissa allowed the tears to fall.

"I knew it," She sobbed, covering her cheeks with her icy hands. "I knew it—this is all my fault." Melissa realized, regretting the day Scott's father walked out of their lives and never returned.

It was all her fault and she didn't know how to fix it. Not anymore, at least. Things were so different than they'd been a few years ago. Scott was slipping further away from her everyday.

"What am I gonna do now?" She asked herself quietly, staring out into the bleak night, looking for hope but finding none. A streetlight flickered overhead and then shut off, casting shadows around her dark enough to match the gloom sitting heavily in her heart.

#-#-#-#-#

Her body lurched forwards out of bed as her limbs stung painfully and her throat held the memory of being sliced open like a candle wick held a flame. She looked around her, temporarily blinded by the open curtains and the bright light streaming into her room, and eventually took note that Gerard was sitting beside her, appearing just as startled as she.

"Are you alright?" He asked her kindly, slipping his hand out of hers and moving closer to her. "Did you have a nightmare?" He wondered, clearly remembering all the times she'd screamed herself awake as a child.

Nodding silently because her vocal chords felt rusty and unused, Adrianna watched as Gerard smiled sympathetically, patting her head like a child, before standing up and rolling down the sleeves of his button-up shirt.

He looked nothing like the monster she'd just been slaughtered by—the alpha werewolf responsible for killing the people she was still hesitant to call her friends. They often seemed more like enemies than anything else.

"What are you doing in my room?" Adrianna finally managed to say after a moment of struggling to expel the words from her throat. One of her hands tightly clutched the dagger beneath her pillow while the other was spread out and open over her bed.

Raising one brow, Gerard's hand traced the edge of her bed as he walked around it, towards the door. "I came to tell you that you're late for school," He informed her casually, clearly having allowed her to sleep in on purpose. "And that you have until the end of the school day to tell me who the Kanima is, before I take matters into my own hands." He finished with a threat, turning his back on her and strolling out of her room, into the hall.

"I need more time." Adrianna replied, sitting up and pushing the covers away from herself. "The surveillance op you had me pull last night took a solid six hours out of my deadline." She reminded him, her eyes still sore from watching her English teacher, who had supposedly been feeling too ill to go to work, through her night-vision binoculars.

Shaking his head, Gerard leaned against the frame of her door, tutting his tongue against the roof of his mouth in disapproval. "I've already given you more time," He told her. "Our deal was until noon and I've extended that until three o'clock. You should be more grateful." He chastised offhandedly before walking away.

"Yeah," Adrianna breathed, her chest feeling suddenly tight. "Grateful, my ass. Do you want me to kiss your feet, too?" She wondered to herself.

"And Adrianna," Gerard called from the top of the staircase. "Keep an eye on Allison for me. I'd like you to handle her training from now on."

Nodding her head and grimacing once her grandfather was out of sight, Adrianna pressed her fingers against her pounding temples. She'd had nightmares that hadn't come true before; nonsensical compilations of all the things she feared and despised most in her life; but Gerard's disfigured face leaning over hers and his claws sinking into her flesh seemed too real to simply be the result of paranoia and lack of rest.

Death had always called to her, whispering when it would come and who it would take. It had just never shown her the time when it came for her. Things were changing and fast—battle lines were being carved out of blood and bones—Adrianna would have to adapt or die. That much was very clear.

#-#-#-#-#

It was official. Isaac Lahey spent entirely too much time thinking about Adrianna Argent passively, than he did in a violent, killing way. He just couldn't bring himself to picture his claws slashing into her flesh, spilling her blood and drawing out her screams. It made him physically shudder to imagine.

On the other hand, thinking about the way her eyes glinted dangerously whenever she was near, or the way her brown hair seemed more blonde in the sunlight, or even the way her lips puckered when she was angry, was much easier. Almost too easy. He had to constantly remind himself that she was his enemy; that she wouldn't hesitate to fight and kill him, if given the order, so neither should he.

Following Derek through the subway car he'd been sleeping in for the past few weeks since his father's death, Isaac felt the tension between him and Erica as tense as it had been yesterday, when she and Boyd had left him to recover from whatever Adrianna had done to him. Her heeled steps echoed behind him, reminding him of her presence even when he couldn't see her.

"So why do we need their help?" He wondered out loud, in response to Derek's previous statement regarding Scott and his little pack of misfits humans.

Easily jumping the distance between the subway car and the ground, Derek crouched in front of a large, wooden chest and inserted an old looking key into the lock. "Because it's harder to kill than I thought," He gruffly admitted, not facing either of them. "And I still don't know who it is."

"And they do?" He shot back curiously. As far as he'd been aware, the trio, along with Adrianna, didn't seem to be aware of who the human behind the Kanima was, or else, they'd have certainly taken measures to protect, or in Adrianna's case—destroy, the person.

Pushing open the lid and rummaging within the chest, Derek stood back beside Isaac and Erica, addressing them both in his own short, bitter way. "They might." He reminded Isaac, proving to the young werewolf that his Alpha wasn't sure of his own plan. "Which is why I need one of you to get on their good side." He added, pointedly raising his eyebrows at them both.

"Mm," Erica hummed thoughtfully. "Scott or Stiles?" She asked, grinning suggestively before turning her suddenly hardened stare on Isaac. "I guess we know who you'll try to persuade." She narrowed her eyes distrustfully and Isaac rolled his shoulders to try to ease the tension he felt there.

"Either." Derek barked in reply, drawing away Erica's attention, but only for a moment. "And you," He addressed the curly-haired beta. "Should take my warnings seriously. You don't know what the Argent family is capable of—all of it's members are the same. Trust me."

Rolling his eyes and then nodding his head when he saw Derek's expression of annoyance, Isaac looked over the older man's shoulder, towards the open chest that sat on the concrete floor. Leaning back on the balls of his feet, Isaac sighed heavily as he remembered the flashes of unprovoked rage he'd been experiencing lately.

"You know," He casually dismissed the previous topic, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with his Alpha's advice. "The full moon's coming, Derek."

"I'm aware of that." Derek snapped as Erica bent over and extracted a handful of rusted, iron chains from within the chest.

"Oh my," She sarcastically commented, dropping what looked like a leather harness along with the chains, back inside the box. "These look comfortable."

"You said you were gonna teach us to change whenever we wanted." Isaac reminded Derek, feeling more than a little mislead. The only reason he'd agreed to the bite in the first place, was because he'd been promised control. He didn't want to be a monster, he wanted to be powerful. The two were very different but, unfortunately, went hand in hand.

"There hasn't been time." The ornery werewolf supplied unhelpfully, pacing away from his betas and further into the warehouse as if he needed space to think.

"But if you have to lock us up during the full moon, that means—" Isaac realized, his heart suddenly doubling it's pace and his hands beginning to sweat. "That means you're alone against the Argents."

What he didn't say, that everyone knew he really meant, was that Derek would be alone against Adrianna. Isaac knew without a doubt, by the way everyone had been telling him that she'd fought off the Kanima and earned her status as off-limits to him, along with 'extremely dangerous hunter—kill on sight', that Derek didn't stand a chance against her, without backup.

Derek narrowed his gaze and for a moment, Isaac was afraid that the older man could read his thoughts. "They haven't found us." He supplied. The darkening of Derek's voice told Isaac that he'd hit a sore spot but, despite the danger of pushing his Alpha too far, Isaac continued to try to make his point.

"Yet!" He retorted hotly. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before one of them slipped up and managed to get followed to the warehouse after school. "So how about we forget the Kanima?" Isaac beckoned Derek to heed his counsel but the other man remained fixed where he stood. Isaac thought that he almost seemed afraid for a moment, but then Derek's anger bubbled to the surface and vanquished any doubts the beta had regarding his Alpha's motives.

"We can't!" Derek yelled, rounding on Isaac like a cornered wolf, his hackles raising. "There was something about the way Gerard and Adrianna looked at it." He continued, his temper under more control now that he'd expelled most of his irritation. "They weren't afraid—at all."

Isaac remembered all the times Adrianna had faced him. He'd thought she was stubborn and naive—following a tradition passed down from generation to generation in her family—but perhaps she was simply unafraid of him. Maybe she knew that he wasn't a real threat to her.

"I don't know what Gerard knows or what he's planning," Derek's features contorted in determination as his fists clenched at his sides. "But I'm sure about one thing. We have to find it first." He told them.

Which, Isaac soon understood, would mean that he really would have to try his best to get on Adrianna's good side. A surely impossible task, if his track record of bodily harm—both to her and from her—was anything to go by.

#-#-#-#-#

The library was relatively empty as Stiles rummaged through the shelves, pretending to be exceedingly busy as Scott simply stood beside him, waiting for Allison to arrive and tell them what she'd found out from the translation of the bestiary, thanks to Lydia's many hidden talents.

"Would you just-" He failed to explain himself, gesturing around at all the other people reading, stacking books and taking them off the shelves. "Look less conspicuous." He decided on, just as Allison's shadow appeared on the opposite side of their shelf.

"It's everything Lydia can translate and trust me," She told them, slipping a tablet between miscellaneous books for Scott to snatch before Stiles had the chance. "She was very confused."

Turning on the screen and scrolling through the bestiary, along with the notes clipped onto the side in actual, legible English—thank god—Scott tilted the black device once he'd finished skimming so that Stiles could read. "Yeah, what'd you tell her?" He asked as Stiles concentrated on the many words jumbling inside his brain in coherent, probably easy to remember files.

Leaning closer to the shelf, Allison parted some of the books at eye level so she could see both Scott and Stiles, who'd stashed the tablet in his backpack already. "That we were a part of an online gaming community that battles mythical creatures." She sheepishly explained, extracting a book and idly flipping through the pages for the sake of the cameras installed in every room of the school.

Raising his brows as Scott appeared too embarrassed or shocked to respond, Stiles neared the shelf and whispered as quietly as he could. "I am a part of an online gaming community that battles mythical creatures." As factually as he could without geeking out on his friends.

"O-oh." Allison stuttered, taken off guard by what he'd just shared. "Great." She added, looking over her shoulder for a moment as though she felt like someone was watching her. "It was actually Adrianna's idea." She shared.

"Adrianna helped you to translate the bestiary?" Stiles raised his voice, cringing as Scott slapped his arm with more force than necessary to get him to shut up. "Why didn't anyone believe me when I told you she admitted to knowing Latin?" He asked, mainly to himself. "You were there." He reminded Scott.

"That doesn't matter." Scott informed him, something in his posture betraying his anger towards the huntress, even when she appeared in their conversations.

"You're right," Allison agreed from her side of the shelf. "And she didn't stay long enough to translate anything. She just made an excuse for me so that Lydia would do it, before leaving." Allison directed at Stiles, whose shoulders had sunk in slight defeat.

"Okay," He changed the subject before he felt the need to roll his eyes and make more sarcastic comments. "Does the bestiary say how to find out who's controlling him?" He asked, remembering what he'd read and the lack of such information within.

Shaking her head, Allison sadly replied, "Not really." Then her tone changed into one of grudging admission. "But Stiles was right about the murderers." She said, meeting eyes with him for a moment through the books that separated them.

"Yes!" He cheered, pumping his fists and grinning like a fool. 'I told you so' was sitting on the base of his tongue but remained unspoken as he saw Scott's frantic expression demanding he be quieter.

"It calls the Kanima a weapon of vengeance." Allison continued in reference to the bestiary. "There's a story in there about this South American priest who uses the Kanima to execute murderers in his village—"

"Alright, see?" Stiles interrupted, trying his best to be optimistic when everything inside him was terrified stiff of the creature Jackson had become. "So maybe it's not all that bad."

"Until the bond grew strong enough that it killed whoever he wanted it to." Allison finished heavily. Even she seemed to want to believe Jackson wasn't a cold-blooded murderer.

"All bad, all very, very bad." Stiles muttered to himself, wondering how he'd gotten into such a mess in the first place.

"Here's the thing, though." Allison pointed out, switching her book to appear busy. "The Kanima's actually supposed to be a werewolf. But it can't be—" She explained, only to be cut off once more, this time by Scott.

Scott quoted the bestiary word for word, which was rather impressive to Stiles as he knew his best friend had trouble with memorization. "'Until it resolves that in its past which manifested it.'" He said.

"Okay," Stiles expounded, aware that the mental energy it took Scott to remember the words would mean he didn't have enough left to understand them. "If that means that Jackson could use a few thousand hours of therapy, I could've told you that myself."

"What if—" Allison hesitantly theorized, getting closer to the shelf so they could hear her as her voice dropped. "It has something to do with his parents? His real parents." She explained.

"Yeah," Scott nodded in acceptance of her idea. "Does anybody actually know what happened to them?" He wondered.

"Lydia might." Stiles pointed out, although it still pained him to think about her closeness to the foul, arrogant, murdering, lizard-like Jackson.

Furrowing his brow, Scott twisted his lip awkwardly, in the way he usually did when thinking up the worst case scenario possible. "What if she doesn't know anything?" He delivered exactly as Stiles had thought. There's not an optimistic bone in that boy's body, Stiles concluded.

"Well, he doesn't have a restraining order against me," Allison reminded them both. "So—I'll talk to him myself." She reasoned.

"Okay, what do I do?" Scott asked, seemingly only then realizing that he hadn't actually been given anything to do.

Ducking her head, Allison's hand slipped between the books and grabbed hold of Scott's tightly. "You have a make-up exam, remember?" She told him, understanding that he wasn't likely to show up with all the other, very important things going on without him. "Promise me." She nearly demanded and it was then that Stiles could see the love she had for his friend.

Dipping his chin somberly, Scott reluctantly nodded. "If he does anything," He explained to her. "You run the other way."

Sighing in slight exasperation, Allison's hand squeezed Scott's before letting go. "I can take care of myself." She repeated what she'd been insisting for a while now.

"Allison, if you get hurt while I'm busy with some stupid test," Scott urged desperately. "Someone's going to need to take care of me. If he does anything—" He repeated.

"Like?" Allison didn't let him finish. She was trying to hide her frustration but Stiles saw it clear as day. The way her brows furrowed and her lips pressed together; she was a lot like her cousin that way, although Adrianna had somehow learned how to hide her emotions better.

"Anything—weird or bizarre." Scott supplied unhelpfully. "Anything." He cemented, grasping for a better way to express his concern.

"Anything evil!" Stiles finally settled on butting in, his head slotting between the books in the shelf and popping out on Allison's side. "Ah, ow!" He indignantly cried as Scott pulled him back by the collar of his shirt.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Stiles glared at Scott as Allison reluctantly agreed before walking back the way she'd came out of the library. "What'd you do that for?" He asked the shaggy-haired boy.

Raising one brow, Scott rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. "What?" Stiles cried, drawing the attention of nearly everyone near their aisle with his tone of voice. "You know I have a point." He whispered, ducking his head to try to seem inconspicuous. "Jackson is kinda—"

"Evil?" Scott finished for him, finally snatching a book nearby and flipping through the pages to fit in. "Yeah, I know." He admitted gruffly. "I just hope Allison knows it too."

#-#-#-#-#

He saw her at the end of the hall, leaning her body against the double doors that led to the library. Her ear was pressed to the wood, as though she was listening to someone inside, before she hastily ducked away, slipping into the crowd of students as though she'd been there the whole time.

It was only when the very same doors opened to reveal Allison Argent, Adrianna's cousin, that Isaac realized what she'd been doing—or rather—who she'd been spying on. He quickened his pace to keep up with her, but made sure to stay a few paces back so that she wouldn't notice him until he wanted her to.

Adrianna walked briskly in the opposite direction her cousin had, keeping her head low and adjusting her bag on her shoulder every few minutes. As Isaac followed her down a corridor he knew led to the gym, he hesitated at a bend in her path. He couldn't see her anymore, nor could he hear her, so he assumed she'd made a run for it inside the gym.

Making his mind up as fast as he could, Isaac took off in a sprint after her, rounding the corner at reckless speeds and tripping straight over an outstretched combat boot. His jaw made contact with the floor and pain blossomed where he knew from experience that he'd fractured the bone.

Groaning as Adrianna landed a kick to his ribs before lowering herself over him with a knife to his throat, Isaac considered the fact that his luck was terrible and that Adrianna Argent quite possibly lived for the sole intention of punishing and taunting him.

"Hello again, handsome." She purred seductively, her hair hanging between them like a curtain of molten gold in all kinds of honey shades. "You wanna tell me what you're doing following me?" She asked more seriously.

The blade under his chin stopped him from swallowing too thickly so he settled for clearing his throat instead. "Um," He tried to search for an excuse in the darkness of the unlit, tile corridor. "I just wanted to—see your pretty face again?" He ended up asking instead of telling. When it came to Adrianna, all his skills of lying and deceit seemed to evaporate into thin air.

"Flattery won't make me leave you alone," She shared grudgingly, getting off of him and extending him a hand. "But it will get you off the floor."

Isaac stared at her outstretched hand distrustfully, glancing between it and her repeatedly, trying to gauge whether she was trapping him—again. Rolling her eyes at his delay, Adrianna breached the space between them, weaving her fingers through his, and pulled him to his feet.

"You see, I wasn't going to hurt you." She pointed out, dusting off her hands on her jeans. "At least, not anymore than I have to." Adrianna added, winking slyly.

Baffled by her playful mood, Isaac took a step back to distance himself from her. He'd seen this side of her many times before—when they'd tested Lydia and after, when they'd fought in McCall's house—but it never made it any easier for him to wrap his head around.

"Ah," Adrianna fondly exclaimed, twirling the blade she'd taken off him during the very same fight he'd just thought of, and slipping it into the waist of her jeans. "Cat got your tongue?" She teased, giggling like a school-girl.

Isaac felt his cheeks heat up and he ducked his head to try to hide the blush. His overbearing height made it hard for him to make himself less noticeable, but it had never stopped him from trying.

Adrianna's eyebrows rose as she took note of the change in his skin tone, but, unlike what he thought she'd do, Adrianna didn't bother to tease him verbally; settling for a tight-lipped smile that tucked away all her thoughts from him.

"So," She continued, mercifully changing the subject away from where they'd been headed. "Why were you following me?"

Rolling his shoulders back and reminding himself that he didn't have to be afraid of anyone anymore—not now that he was a werewolf—Isaac licked his lips before taking a stronger stance across from Adrianna.

"Actually," His tone matched hers in both confidence and lightness. "I think I'll be the one asking the questions, sweetheart." He added for good measure, already feeling more in control of the situation.

Brows rising high with her surprise, the right side of Adrianna's blood-red lips rose in a half-smirk as she waved her hand at him in encouragement. "By all means, take the lead." She told him as the bell rung for their next class before lunch. Neither of them paid it any mind.

"Who is the Kanima?" He asked her, running a hand through his curly, disheveled hair to try to return it to some semblance of order.

Narrowing her eyes, Adrianna cocked her head to the side, intrigued. "Really?" She wondered. "Is that it? That's what you want to know?" She asked, groaning suddenly. "Come on Isaac, be a little more original. Everyone wants to know that and there isn't a chance in Tartarus that I'll tell you, before I tell someone else."

The use of his actual name made a nervous pit form in his stomach. He was curious what the other word she'd used meant. A distant memory told him he'd heard of it before, perhaps in history class or in a modern arts textbook, but he couldn't quite place it's meaning, besides that it was incredibly old and barely used.

"So do you know who it is, or not?" He found himself saying, shaking off his confusion with a sharp, metallic pang of anger. He felt his nails sharpening into claws at his sides.

"I do." Adrianna admitted, pushing most of her hair over her shoulder and out of her way. "But before I even think about telling you, I want to know what you'll do with the information." She told him, leaning against the wall behind her as he took a step towards her.

"Do you plan on using it to kill whoever the Kanima is in human form?" She demanded of him, her voice taking on a protective note. "Or do you plan on saving them?" She finished, narrowing her gaze on him until Isaac felt physically drained.

"You've met Derek, right?" He smartly quipped. "Isn't it obvious which one he'll want to do?" Isaac asked her, copying the tilt of his head to what she'd done previous. The space between their chests was rapidly shrinking without Isaac even noticing that he was the one advancing.

"Well then, I guess you've got your answer." Adrianna breathed, staring up at him with determination in her verdant irises as she regulated her breathing so as not to accidentally touch him, he was so close. "I won't let you kill the human behind the Kanima. They don't even know what they're doing."

His expression scrunched in frustration as he placed his hand over each of Adrianna's shoulders. For a girl, she was actually pretty tall; the top of her head coming to about his chin. "It's killed people." He reminded her, his face lowering so that their eyes were level and crystal blue stared into emerald green. "It's going to keep killing them until someone stops it."

If he hadn't been touching her, Isaac wouldn't have felt the shudder that ran through Adrianna's body, but he did. Her head turned away from his abruptly, looking out into the deserted hallway they'd branched off from as though she heard something or someone coming near. The blood seemed to drain from her face the longer she stared in that direction and Isaac felt a strange concern for her making itself known in his heart.

"Adrianna?" He quietly tried to regain her attention, lifting his now clawless fingers to her cheek and stroking the soft skin there. From this distance, he could see that she had black circles around her eyes and red rimming the lids. He wanted to ask her if she okay, really okay, but before he could, her face turned back to his and she hurriedly blinked away the tears that'd collected in her eyes.

"I know that." She replied, her forehead wrinkling along with her emotional restraint. "Better than anyone, I know." Adrianna seemed to mournfully declare, pushing his hands away from her with her own, clammy ones.

Straightening her jacket, Isaac placed a hand against the wall to steady his suddenly weakened knees. "I'm sorry." She told him as she made her way back out into the main hallway.

"For what?" He called over to her, genuine confusion lilting in his voice. He wasn't sure if she was apologizing for not telling him who the Kanima was, for attacking him every time they met, or for nearly killing him two days ago.

Walking backwards, Adrianna's brows furrowed as she tried to puzzle out his question. "For taking away your strength, without asking." She explained as though he should have already known it. "Don't you remember?"

Nodding his head, Isaac watched her as she pressed her lips together, unsatisfied by his answer, before leaving him alone in the passageway. There weren't any cameras around him, in the dark, and he kicked himself for not thinking of it himself.

At the back of his mind, Adrianna's apology niggled his thoughts. He didn't remember what she'd done to him that night. Despite what he'd told her, he only recalled that he'd nearly died and woken up the next day feeling weaker than he ever had as a human.

The idea that Adrianna Argent was hiding something more than just the identity of the Kanima seemed more plausible than ever.

Maybe she's not as vulnerable as I think she is, He pondered as he walked to his next class. Another question hid beneath the first, but he was too afraid of what it might mean to phrase it, even to himself, because if Adrianna wasn't human, then what could she be?

#-#-#-#-#

Nearly jogging to keep up with Lydia, who was surprisingly fast in her five inch heels, Stiles hiked his backpack higher over his shoulder and, ignoring the curious stares of all the other students as they migrated through the school to their next classes, asked the question he'd been trying to phrase since getting out of English.

"Hey Lydia," He started, despite the fact that he was sure she was sure that he was behind her. "You wouldn't happen to know what happened to Jackson's birth parents?"

Other than a brief stutter in her steps, Lydia showed no indication that the question meant anything to her. Lifting her chin high as Stiles put on a burst of speed to reach her side, Lydia smiled in her own, condescending way, before replying.

"I'm not supposed to tell anyone." She informed Stiles, who raised his hands dramatically in response.

"Come on," He pleaded. "Anyone who ever says 'I'm not supposed to tell anyone' is always dying to tell someone," He pointed out. "So tell me!"

Heels clacking against the tiled floor with more force than before, Lydia looked at him with a brow raised. "Why do you want to know?" She wondered.

Sighing, Stiles grimaced as the answer to her question presented itself to him immediately. "I can't tell you that." He admitted guiltily.

Narrowing her eyes contemptively, Lydia haughtily threw her hair over her shoulder and Stiles was distracted for a moment by the strawberry vanilla scent. "Then I'm not telling you." She chirped back at him, bringing him out of his daydream.

"But you are telling me that you could tell me something if you wanted to tell me?" He blurted the first thing on his mind, frowning as he tried to make sense out of it.

"Was that a question?" Lydia asked him, clearly just as confused as he was.

"It felt like a question." Stiles shared uncertainly, twisting his lips as he hoped that Lydia would just tell him what he wanted to know without making an even bigger fuss.

"Well—" The strawberry blonde settled on saying, recovering from Stiles' mind-boggling declaration in record time. "Tell me if this feels like an answer." She retorted, raising her eyes to the ceiling tiles above her.

"No." Her glossed lips formed the word as she took the stairs in front of her two steps at a time, leaving Stiles behind, fighting his way through the crowds of rushed, stampeding high school students to get to her.

"Lydia!" He called, desperately elbowing and pushing anyone in his way. "Lydia, come on! Lydia—wait!" Stiles shouted, abruptly getting plowed into by someone his height and Arnold Schwarzenneger's strength, into the wall behind him.

"Ow!" He complained as Erica clamped her hand around his neck and pressed it to the wall. "Ah, ah, hey Erica." He whimpered, scrunching his face as her long fingernails dug into his skin. He was glad she hadn't chosen to skewer him with her claws—at least—not yet.

"Why are you asking Lydia about Jackson's real parents?" She interrogated, laying her spare hand on his chest and extending her very sharp claws at an angle that would permit her to dig his heart out, if she wanted to.

"Why are you bringing out the claws on camera?" He retorted, pointedly glancing at the overhead surveillance which happened to be looking straight at them. "That's right." He taunted as Erica's expression became pinched and her claws retracted. "You wanna play Catwoman? I'll be your Batman."

Narrowing her gaze on him, Erica pushed him once more into the wall for good measure before backing off. "If you're wondering about Jackson's real parents," She told him, already beginning to get lost in the crowd. "They're about half a mile from here, in Beacon Hill's cemetery."

Following after Erica, Stiles nearly tripped over his feet as he caught up to her, feeling a profound sense of deja-vu as he trailed behind a pretty girl that wanted nothing to do with him, asking questions she wasn't likely to answer.

"Do you know how they died." He asked even though he was nearly certain that Erica wouldn't tell him, even if she did know.

"Maybe." She settled for answering, which was better than a no but not as good as a yes. "If you tell me why you're so interested." She countered.

So she wanted to exchange information. Eyes widening as she stared directly at him, waiting for an answer, Stiles felt panic infiltrate into his brain and make his thoughts fuzzy and unclear. "Um," He tried to buy time as he frantically searched for a way to lie to Erica.

Tilting her head to the side and lifting her lips into a knowing smirk, Erica turned away from him to keep walking. "It's him, isn't it?" She pieced together out loud as Stiles flew after her.

"What?" His voice rose in pitch. "Who? Him who?" He unconvincingly played for innocence.

"The test didn't work, but it's still him." Erica said with conviction, quickening her strides. "It's Jackson."

#-#-#-#-#

"I don't think you understand what I'm trying to tell you," Adrianna repeated as Jackson Whittemore once more tried to get past her to grab a towel. "When I say, 'you're in danger', I don't mean that a couple of inexperienced teenagers are going to kidnap you in a stolen prison van." She ominously told him.

"Well," Jackson mockingly smiled, turning the tap behind him to it's hottest setting so that the showers filled with steam. "What exactly do you mean?"

"I mean that once Derek finds out what you are, my grandfather is sure to follow, and when that happens you are utterly dead." She snapped. "Gerard will skin you alive and electrocute your insides until there's nothing left of you but a mass of grisly looking hamburger meat."

"Yeah, yeah." Jackson rolled his eyes, no longer bothering with hiding his body as it was clear that Adrianna wasn't interested. "I heard you, I get it." He raised his hands in surrender. "Can I finish my shower now?"

Puffing air out of her nostrils in the way Adrianna knew drakons did, she lost control over her temper as the boy mocked her with his eyes, reaching out and digging her fingernails around his throat before catapulting him into the wall. He slid to the floor, staring at her in both surprise and outrage.

"What the hell?" He screeched, standing to his wobbly feet. "You could have killed me!"

"You're not listening to me." She roared, roughly shoving her hands through her damp hair and pressing her fingers to her pounding temples. "I'm trying to save you." Adrianna nearly moaned, shrugging off her leather jacket and stripping out of her thin tank top.

Jackson's eyes widened as he took in the sight of her nearly naked torso, save for a thin, lacy bra. Scars decorated the skin on her ribs, chest and shoulders. Digging her fingernails into the mass of damaged tissue, Adrianna's expression became vulnerable the longer Jackson stared at her.

"These aren't all from hunting." She shared with him, her voice cracking. Tracing the outline of a jagged white line she'd gotten on her fifteenth birthday, Adrianna bit back her anger in order to explain herself to Jackson. "Some of these—" Clearing her throat and pressing her eyes closed to stop the flow of tears, Adrianna tried to speak again, this time with more success.

"Some of these were punishments carved by the hands of men." She licked her lips, coming to stand closer to Jackson so he could see the damage more clearly. "If Gerard is willing to do this to me, his own kin, what do you think he's gonna do to you?"

Jackson's throat bobbed as realization finally sunk in, after nearly twenty minutes of screaming and bartering at a brick wall, of the situation he was in. "But—I don't understand." The boy stuttered, his fingers gliding over a set of scars shaped like prongs beneath her left rib-cage. "On the full moon, nothing happened. I didn't turn or transform. I'm not what all of you think I am." He desperately tried to convince her.

Shaking her head, Adrianna's hand wrapped around Jackson's as delicately as she dared. A static shock tingled in her fingers and blackish purple veins spread over the top of her hand to Jackson's arm. Faded memories of his parent's graves, the heartbreaking realization that the adults he lived with weren't his blood at all, and distorted terrors witnessed from inside his mother's womb all became her own.

Gasping, Adrianna detached herself from Jackson, taking a step away from him as her mind raced. Jackson too seemed to have felt the exchange of memories, as his eyes betrayed his anger and fear.

"What did you do to me?" He asked her, wringing out his arm as though he was in pain. "I didn't even remember some of that stuff." He shared with her, albeit, grudgingly.

"I'm not what I seem to be either, Jackson." Adrianna entailed his earlier statement into her confession but Jackson shook his head vehemently, refusing to believe that he was the Kanima.

"No," He narrowed his eyes on her. "I don't care what you know about your grandfather's torture techniques, I am not the one he wants." Jackson pronounced with commitment.

"Then you're an even bigger moron than I first thought." Adrianna spat back, her desperation to save him clouding her ability to filter her thoughts. In the distance, the ringing, keening wail of a newborn split her concentration and added to the pounding of her temples. All day, the same cry had wormed its way into her skull and rattled her nerves.

Placing both hands over her ears, Adrianna felt tears welling in her eyes as she became overwhelmed by the noise. "Shut it up!" She cried as hands wrapped around her biceps and held her steady. "It's too loud, I can't think anymore." She groaned, collapsing against a solid chest she barely understood to be Jackson's.

"Okay, just calm down." He instructed her in a soothing voice. This was the part of him she wanted to save, the part she had always known existed even before he'd shown it to her because he was nearly an exact replica of her, when it came down to it. Both of them knew what it was like to be abandoned, even if they dealt with it in different ways.

The longer she focused on Jackson's voice and the life thrumming through his veins, the less intense the child's screams became until finally, they faded into the background and out of her hearing range.

"Jackson?" A familiar voice echoed through the locker rooms that led into the showers. It belonged to Allison and Adrianna hardly had a moment to remember that she'd overheard her cousin planning to speak with Jackson, before the boy still clutching her tightly replied.

"In here." He called out, something changing in his voice as his body stiffened beside hers. His arms wound tighter still, like a vice, restraining her where she was even as she tried to break free.

Allison rounded the corner, then, and quickly averted her gaze when she saw the state Jackson was in. "Is something wrong?" He wondered, his tone becoming almost slippery in nature.

"Y-you could've warned me." Allison complained, steeling herself to look at Jackson's eyes and nothing else. Adrianna shoved against Jackson's chest as hard as she dared without breaking one of his ribs, but he didn't let her go.

"Um," Her cousin swallowed, obviously surprised that Adrianna was there. "What's going on?" She hesitantly asked, glancing between Jackson and her, then over to Adrianna's abandoned jacket and shirt.

Jaw hanging open like a blowfish, Adrianna struggled to find a way to explain why she and Jackson were hugging, him naked and her shirtless, in the boy's showers. "This isn't what you think it is." She pleaded with her cousin to understand, frantically trying to detach herself from the stubborn Jackson.

"You're the one that walked into the boy's locker room." Jackson chose that moment to respond to Allison's first objection, sliding his hand further down Adrianna's back as he grinned arrogantly. "And yes, this is exactly what you think it is." He overrode Adrianna's attempts to tell the truth.

"I thought I heard yelling—I thought—" Allison faltered, cheeks growing pink. "Forget it." She declared, turning her back on them just as Adrianna's heel slammed down over Jackson's foot and his hand returned to its original position.

"Did you wanna talk about something?" He casually reflected, cracking his neck and glaring at Adrianna as she continued to try to free herself. There was something wrong with him. Similar to the way a werewolf lost control on a full moon, Jackson didn't seem to be present in the face or actions of the boy pressed closely to her.

"We can talk later." Allison haltingly excused, already beginning to walk out of the shower's and into the locker room.

"No," Jackson disputed, sinking claws into Adrianna's arm and dragging her behind him as he chased after Allison. "Let's talk now."

#-#-#-#-#

Scott was fairly certain that he'd failed his make-up Chemistry test because of Allison's stampeding heart beat, but the moment he barged into the boy's locker room and saw Allison on her knees and Jackson hurriedly pulling on shorts, all thoughts of his final grade seemed irrelevant.

"I—I'm fine. I'm fine." Allison frantically tried to sway him as she placed her hands under her and scrambled to her feet. "Scott, I'm fine." She insisted.

Across the locker room, Scott's attention diverged from where it was trained on Jackson, over to one of the far walls. Blackish blood dripped from the girl's nose as she sat against the wall, her head resting on an immense crater in the tiles behind her—supposedly where her skull had made contact with the wall. Adrianna groaned as her eyes met his and for the first time since she'd stabbed him, Scott didn't feel hatred towards her.

Of course, that might have just been because he was directing all of his anger towards Jackson, who was standing back with his arms spread wide in front of him, in nothing but a pair of borrowed basketball shorts.

Fuming, Scott charged at Jackson, not caring that he could possibly hurt the teenager if his Kanima strength didn't translate to his human form. Ramming shoulders first into Jackson's chest, Scott felt a sick sort of pleasure as Jackson collided with the lockers and lay there, splayed over the toppled metal cubes, glaring angrily.

"I have a restraining order!" Jackson yelled and Scott didn't even think about the lack of physical damage he'd managed to inflict on him.

Breathing heavily and making certain to stand in front of Allison protectively, Scott felt himself smirking as the sudden urge to maim and kill Jackson nearly overtook him. "Trust me," He mocked the boy. "I restrained myself."

Grunting deep in his throat, Jackson threw himself at Scott, rising to the werewolf's bait easily and struggling for dominance in a fight that was surprisingly equal for both sides.

Crashing into the locker's, Scott barely had time to recover as Jackson grabbed hold of his sweater and pulled him into the showers, knocking his head against the tiles repeatedly. Scott was still shocked by the strength Jackson possessed, but he was able to push back with all his might and gain some leverage against the human Kanima.

Slamming his knee into Jackson's stomach and throwing the boy down onto the ground, Scott grinned proudly, only to be flown straight into a set of stainless steel taps behind him as Jackson rose to his feet. His back ached from the impact and when he tried to pick himself up off the slippery floor, his hands were slashed open by the chunks of broken tile beneath him.

Turning his back on Scott, Jackson stalked out of the showers, into the locker room, straight for Allison. Though his blood was carried by the water spraying all around the room, and circled the drain, shortly before dropping into it, Scott felt anger reigniting in his gut and it gave him the strength to stand.

Vaulting himself over the top of one of the shower's walls, Scott landed a kick mid-air to Jackson's head. He fell at the same rate as Scott did, crawling across the locker's floors as Scott towered over him threateningly.

Taking hold a weight from nearby, Jackson threw the metal plate at Scott like a Frisbee and the werewolf only had a split second to duck and catch the weight that was overhead, in order to avoid being knocked out.

Now with the weapon in his hands, Scott struggled to shifted his grip over the five pounds of steel and Jackson used Scott's distraction to his advantage, kicking him in the stomach and unbalancing him. Scott crashed into the wall behind him and Jackson's hands wrapped around his neck, throwing him into the nearby sinks and shattering porcelain everywhere.

His head ached terribly each time it collided with a sink and the water jettisoned across the room, onto his clothes and into his eyes, didn't help him whatsoever as he tried to regain the upper hand. Thankfully, it seemed he wasn't entirely alone in this fight.

A sharp looking silver blade protruded from Jackson's side, just missing his internal organs but obviously still very painful as he screeched in agony, whirling on Adrianna and using his momentum to slap her with a closed fist across the face.

The huntress stumbled on her feet but stayed upright and Scott took that as a cue for him to rejoin the fight from where he'd been sitting in a puddle of water, shaking his head to rid himself of the dizziness that had overtaken him.

Standing, Scott barreled straight into the other boy's back, wrapping his arms around Jackson and holding tight as Adrianna smirked and began slashing at Jackson's exposed flesh. Blood sprayed across her face and stained her hands. Scott began to wonder if she'd killed Jackson, by how still he'd gone.

"Stop!" He cried, now holding up Jackson as opposed to restraining him. "You're killing him." He tried to reason with her.

The same black blood he'd noticed earlier pooled just beneath her skin in a nasty bruise that swelled the side of her skull. Her lip was split in one place, seeping the ominous substance, and her pale complexion almost made her look like a ghost, reborn from the dead.

Scott knew Stiles would tease him about watching one too many horror flicks, but his observations were only solidified when Adrianna smiled manically, seemingly in a trance-like state, before telling him seriously. "No, not yet."

The door to the locker's was suddenly pushed open to reveal Erica and Stiles, who regarded the sight of an unconscious Jackson with wary eyes. The water still gushing from the snapped pipes around the room had already done it's job of cleaning all the blood from Jackson and Adrianna, but that wouldn't save either of them from the truth.

Knife still gripped in her right hand, Adrianna twirled the blade and sheathed it in the back of her pants as the slashes she'd carved into Jackson's chest began to heal. If Derek hadn't known that Jackson was the Kanima, now he certainly did, Scott surmised as Erica's eyebrows rose and her lips settled into a frown.

"You're late for the party." Adrianna quipped, wobbling unsteadily and using the nearby lockers to prevent herself from falling. Allison joined her side, slinging an arm around her cousin's shoulder and helping her to follow the others as they exited the soaked locker room, only to run into a very angry Mr. Harris.

From out of nowhere, Jackson careened straight for them, sliding into Scott and tackling him. He appeared unharmed, despite the near-fatal damage Scott had seen Adrianna deal on him, and his fists slammed into the werewolf's chest with a fury he hadn't expected. Erica, the only one out of them with the strength and reflexes needed to react, grabbed onto Jackson and pulled him aside, restraining him in a similar fashion to how Scott had, only moments before.

"What the hell's going on?" The flabbergasted teacher demanded as Jackson attempted to claw his way back to Scott. "Hey! Enough! Enough." He yelled, halting the other boy's aggression as he came to his senses.

"What do you idiots think you're doing?"Mr. Harris questioned them, playing no favourites as he chastised Jackson for worming out of Erica's grip and heading for Scott. "Jackson! Calm down!" He shouted, his face turning red.

"Mr. McCall, you wanna explain yourself?" He wondered as Scott only then noticed that the door had been left open to the wrecked locker room. "Stilinski!" Harris opted for instead, as Scott found his tongue caught.

"You dropped this." A boy Scott vaguely remembered was called Matt, told Stiles as he handed him the tablet they'd used to translate the bestiary.

"You and you—" The science teacher pointed to Jackson and Scott, pausing as he stared at the disobedient teens thoughtfully. "Actually, all of you," He corrected smugly. "Detention; three o'clock."

"Sorry," Adrianna piped up as Scott was just coming to terms with the total loss of his afternoon. "I won't be able to make it." She excused, smilingly predatorily at their teacher. "Family matters to attend to." Adrianna grinned, raising one brow at Mr. Harris as he gaped at her.

"That won't be a problem," She sarcastically voiced as Allison stared at her from where she'd migrated to Scott's side. "Will it?"

A moment of tense, disbelieving silence preluded Mr. Harris' succinct nod and it was clear by the expression on nearly everyone's faces, that no one had thought Adrianna would be able to get out of detention.

Raising his hand timidly, Stiles decided to test his luck and Scott cringed in sympathy for him as Mr. Harris glared at him, before shaking his head. "No one else will be permitted to avoid detention." He told them sternly. "Is that clear?"

"Crystal." Stiles mumbled as he met Scott's confused gaze with grim certainty.

Stiles had a theory about Adrianna, Scott knew, but until he heard it, he wasn't willing to jump to any conclusion. For now, he'd attribute the strange occurrences surrounding her as of late, to luck.

But even he didn't believe that a person could be as lucky as she'd been. Not when he's seen her bleed black.

#-#-#-#-#

The only reason Erica hadn't ditched her detention and run to tell Derek what she'd found out was because of what had happened between Jackson, Scott and Adrianna. Although the huntress had been kind to her since the beginning, even helping to save her when she'd fallen off the rock wall trying to prove her admittedly absent strength, Adrianna had been protecting her.

Which was why, despite how much she claimed to hate her—which was really just a ploy to try to get Isaac not to think about her too much, or get involved in an even bigger mess than he was already in, having been suspected of murdering his father for some time—she couldn't understand why she'd ripped Jackson to shreds and why he didn't seem to remember it.

As she tilted her head, covertly listening in to Scott and Stiles' conversation theorizing who could be controlling the Kanima, with the main suggestion being Matt Daehler, Erica remembered how she'd foolishly confessed her long-time crush on Stiles, to Stiles, only moments before they'd been dealt a detention by Harris.

If she'd been any less confident in herself, she might have blushed and refused to ever be seen in a twenty meter radius of the boy, but she wasn't, so, reminding herself that she was beautiful, desired, and stronger than she'd ever been, Erica promised herself that she wouldn't avoid either of them if they approached her, which they were sure to do if the way Stiles was glancing at her meant anything.

"You okay?" Matt asked Jackson, who she'd only just noticed was clutching his head as though he had a nasty headache. Her curiosity peaked and, from her empty table, Erica watched as Jackson picked up his backpack and uttered a half-hearted excuse.

"I have to go to the bathroom." He told Matt and Allison, who both appeared concerned for his well-being. Erica just wanted to know if it had something to do with what the huntress, Adrianna, had done to him. She was still trying to figure out what she'd done to Isaac and the shared symptoms, loss of memory, extreme fatigue and an overworking heart, matched up enough for her to want to look into it further.

"Are you alright?" Harris stood from his desk as Jackson tried to escape the library stealthily. "Hey, you don't look so good." He pointed out, also worried. Erica rolled her eyes, turning in her chair so that she could keep her eyes on Jackson.

"I just need to get some water." Jackson replied stuffily, wincing as he grasped his head again.

Nodding his affirmation, Harris trailed behind Jackson to the exit. "No one leaves their seats." He warned them before disappearing through the door, following Jackson to assure that the boy didn't do something like feint.

As soon as Harris was out of her earshot, Stiles and Scott jumped out of their seats and slipped into the vacant chairs beside and across from her. Smirking at her correct assumption, Erica crossed her arms and leaned back as Scott pushed himself near the edge of his seat with his hands on the desk.

"Stiles says you know how Jackson's parents died." He stated questioningly, raising his brows for her to answer.

"Maybe." She replied ambiguously, picking at her cuticles as Stiles widened his eyes exponentially in his frustration. That had been something she'd always liked about him—he didn't hide what he was feeling—she wasn't certain that he could even if he wanted to.

"Talk." Scott demanded more forcefully and she decided that she'd played with them enough. If they wanted information from her, maybe she could get some from them in return.

"It was a car accident." She shared grimly. "My dad was the insurance investigator and every time he sees Jackson drive by in his Porsche, he makes some comments about the huge settlement he'll be getting when he's eighteen."

Pulling a hand down his face, Stiles balked as he tried to wrap his mind around the injustice she'd just told him. "So not only is Jackson rich now," He phrased bitterly. "But he's getting even richer at eighteen?"

"Yep." Erica agreed, smacking her lips together in just as much distaste as the others. Bad people always tended to have the best luck, she'd come to realize.

"There's something so deeply wrong with that." Stiles complained as Scott shook his head, already having moved onto more important matters.

"You know what?" Erica helpfully suggested, pulling her cherry red laptop out from under her seat. "I could try to find the insurance report on my dad's inbox. He keeps everything."

Overhead, the school speaker's screeched to life, demanding in a punctual, business-like voice, "Scott McCall, please report to the Principal's office." Without more than a confused look directed at Stiles, Scott got up and left the library while Erica continued to search through piles of mail. She hoped it was worth it.

"Wait, look at the dates." Stiles pointed out after a few minutes of expanding documents that she didn't need and slowly losing all of her aspirations for learning more about Jackson and consequently, the Kanima.

Scrolling down and highlighting where Stiles had directed her, Erica moved closer to the screen as she read the insurance report that happened to be exactly what she'd been looking for. "'Passengers arrived at the hospital DOA.'" She dictated. "The estimated time of death; nine twenty-six pm., June fourteenth, nineteen ninety-five."

"Jackson's birthday is June fifteenth." Stiles cautiously told her, the cogs in his mind obviously whirring as he silently read the remainder of the document, trying to figure out why Jackson's parents dying a day before he was born via caesarean section, mattered to the Kanima.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry." Mr. Harris told them once he and Jackson had been sitting back at their seats for a while. "Uh, yes, I'm leaving." He explained, gesturing towards his packed leather satchel. "But none of you are. You may go when you're done with the re-shelving." He taunted, smiling as Erica and a few others grudgingly set down their things once more.

"Enjoy the rest of your evening." Harris cheered, slamming the door on his way out.

Sighing heavily, Erica wheeled a random cart filled to the brim with books of all shapes, sizes, and genres, into a nearby aisle and began sorting the books back onto the shelves. Across from her, she heard Stiles, Scott, and Allison whispering to each other in hushed tones about what she and Stiles had learned.

They were wondering if his parents had been murdered and whether that was the reason Jackson had become the Kanima, which was apparently a creature that sought out and killed murderers. Erica looked around as the lights flickered above, but shook off the pit in her stomach as nothing more than nerves attributed to her earlier confession to Stiles.

Later, she would realize that she should have listened to her gut instinct.

A hissing noise split the air a few shelves down from her and a moment later, it was right behind her. She hurriedly turned to defend herself but the Kanima was too strong, blocking her feeble attack easily and slicing the back of her neck with it's tail.

Erica dropped to the floor as one by one, the shelves toppled over. She heard crashing and saw the fluorescent bulbs overhead shattering, sparks flying every which way. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the mayhem ended. It felt like the eye of a storm, as though the danger wasn't over yet.

Tilting her neck as much as it would allow, Erica bit her lip as her body began to tingle and only had enough time to wonder why Jackson, half-transformed into the Kanima, was scrawling a warning on the chalkboard, before the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth and her body jostled violently in a seizure she'd thought she'd never have to experience again.

"Erica!" She distantly heard someone calling as Scott knelt down next to her and Stiles held her body as steady as he could.

"Whoa, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Stiles panicked, trying and failing to halt the spastic shaking. "I think she's having a seizure." He realized frantically as pain blossomed behind her neck and begun to burn her veins.

"Hey, we need to get her to a hospital." Stiles told the fuzzy shape on her right which she could only guess to be Scott.

Reaching her hand out blindly, Erica tightened her jaw into a vice and tried her best to speak without biting through her tongue. "To Derek." She informed them desperately. "Only to Derek."

As Scott argued with Allison a few feet away, Erica concentrated on trying to trigger her werewolf abilities, but every time she so much as twitched her stiff fingers, pain ricocheted across her rigid spine.

"Hang on." She remembered Stiles telling her as Scott loaded her into the back of his jeep and they took off at daring speeds, prayers on the base of their tongues that they'd make it to Derek in time.

Even when the pain of Derek breaking her arm threatened to consume her, and she screamed when claws dug into her flesh and drew her blood in immense quantities in order to drain the Kanima's venom from her system, Erica couldn't stop thinking about how Stiles' had rushed to save her, despite all the wrong she'd done to him lately.

"Stiles," She whispered as loud as the pounding in her head would allow. "You make a good Batman." His arms cushioned her as her vision turned black and the pain blissfully faded away.

#-#-#-#-#

Her bare feet hardly made a sound as she trekked through the woods behind her house, following something she couldn't explain. It wasn't a sound or an image that drew her to the mansion like estate with it's Roman columns and Grecian marble entry, but rather a feeling.

"Hello?" Her voice echoed in the vast expanse around her. Lydia wrapped her arms around herself as a gust of frosty wind nipped at her bones and rustled the dried leaves scattered around the seemingly abandoned home.

Veering off to the right wing of the house, Lydia carefully traversed a set of steps that led into what appeared to be a dining hall of sorts with a mahogany dresser standing resolute in the middle of the room. "Over here." The boy that had been following her as of late told her.

He looked just as he always did. Short brownish blonde hair, sharp blue eyes and a crooked grin to die for. Lydia hadn't liked him at first—he'd been obstinant and rude to her at the guidance counselor's office and around school—but when he'd brought Prada back to her house and been kind of romantic to her, she found that he'd grown on her quite a bit.

"Is this your house?" She wondered, glancing around at the tall ceilings and dusty wooden floors. It might have been expensive, decadent even, if it didn't appear to be so forgotten.

"It was." He admitted, confirming her suspicions that no one had lived in the home for some time. "I'll tell you all about it, but first; did you bring the flower?"

Rolling her lips guiltily, Lydia found that she couldn't meet his eyes for fear of the disappointment she'd find. He'd warned her about losing it and she'd teased him about lying to him, but now that she was in front of him, caught red-handed, Lydia didn't really want to make any more excuses.

"I couldn't find it." She replied and the pressure on her chest dissolved. No more lies, Lydia promised herself. I've been lied to enough times by others to realize that it hurts more than anyone knows.

Smiling at her in that mischievous, slightly devious way of his, the boy shrugged his shoulders indifferently, smugness radiating from every pore. "That's okay." He soothed her worries, closing the space between them in a few strides. He was taller than she remembered—he towered over her by at least a foot, but she didn't feel intimidated.

"But since you don't have it," He continued, leaning in close to her face so that his breath fanned over her cheeks. "I'm gonna need that kiss."

Lydia didn't know why she did it; plenty of hot guys had made advances on her over the years and she'd never been tempted by them before—perhaps it was because Jackson had dumped her or because this boy had been more truthful to her than just about any of her friends. Whatever the reason, Lydia found her lips colliding with his in a passionate embrace.

Her fingernails raked across the boy's scalp and one of hands slipped down from her waist while the other tangled in her long, curly red hair. Oxygen deprivation had never tasted so sweet to Lydia and she wondered whether she was in love because even when she'd been with Jackson—who she was grudgingly certain she was in love with—she'd never felt this way before.

Her eyes, which had slipped shut without her knowledge, peeked open as she drew back a little from the tall teenager, a cold breeze ruffling her sweater and igniting a fierce insistence at the base of her skull. Glancing over to the side, she looked in the mahogany armoire's plated doors only to catch the boy's reflection.

What she saw was enough to make her stumble apart from the man she'd been kissing, covering her lips with her hands as she beheld his true image with aghast revulsion and terror.

"Is something wrong?" He curiously asked. Even his voice sounded different; deeper.

A scream bubbled in her throat and escaped through her lips as she realized what had happened to her. All those times she'd been talking to him and she couldn't even remember his name. Not a single thing about him came to mind.

Looking around herself, Lydia noticed that the grandeur of the mansion around her had faded, replaced by crumbling timber and ashy bricks. It was a ruin from Beacon Hill's most infamous fire; the Hale house fire.

Her back collided with the sooty remains of a fireplace and she allowed her body to collapse onto the ground as the boy turned man approached her. His skin was burned in some places and covered in scorch marks in others. Easing himself beside her, the man she recognized from newspaper clippings and TV broadcasts as Peter Hale began to speak.

"I'm so sorry, Lydia." He apologized sympathetically as she stared off into space. Somewhere in her mind, a circuit had fried and she'd lost all touch with reality. Lydia knew she wasn't dreaming, she was too smart to even consider it, but all the same, she yearned to wake up in her bed and deny everything running through her mind with certainty she now could never possess.

"All of this must be terribly confusing, but at least you know that you're not actually crazy." Peter tried to sooth her completely shattered nerves. "Well—not completely." He amended, ultimately failing miserably. But perhaps that had been the point; to mock her with his efforts.

"There's bound to be some residual effects, but you're a strong girl." He listed casually, not at all deterred by her lack of response. "Personally, I think you're gonna pull through with a minimal amount of post traumatic stress— and maybe a few years of profoundly disturbing nightmares." He added thoughtfully.

"I had a plan, you know." Peter gloated, leaning his head on her shoulder and cementing the fact that he was real, that this was happening. "It was a good plan, but if there's one thing that I've learned in life, it's to always have a backup. That would be you." He pointed out proudly.

"Your immunity makes you a perfect plan B." Peter prattled on, more interested in sharing his own genius than whether Lydia was listening or not. "You wouldn't turn from the bite. You wouldn't die. But you would be able to do one very important thing."

"Do you know what that is, Lydia?" He addressed her for the first time since he'd first begun explaining himself. "Lydia!" Peter yelled as she struggled to assimilate the question.

Lying beside her, pristine and pure against the stark contamination of the burned out hearth, was a periwinkle tinted flower. The same flower Peter had given her before she'd known who he was and what he wanted.

She picked it up in her blackened palm, recalling that she'd seen a similar species in Adrianna's bouquet of flowers, and blew across the tiny petals. Purple glitter seemed to fall away from the specimen, tickling her fingers and turning them light purple in colour.

Her eyes narrowed on the flower as Peter Hale's idea planted in her mind. She would show them all how innocent and naive she could be. Lydia Martin would remind them why it was a very foolish thing indeed, to keep things from her.

A tiny part of her remembered that Adrianna had tried to tell her, only the night before, all the things she hadn't been ready to hear and still wasn't. Peter's voice snuffed out those thoughts quickly. Kate Argent was evil and so was her daughter.

Lydia would punish them all, including her little Argent friends.

She didn't even stop to think about how the voice whispering ideas in her head didn't sound or resemble her own—at all. She was too far gone, too far controlled by the wolf that bit her but never turned her.

#-#-#-#-#

Not again, Adrianna only had a second to think before the burning prongs of a military grade tazer came into contact with her tingling shoulder blade. She grunted, clenching her teeth together and fisting her hands, pulling against the cuffs that held her to the chainlink fence in Chris Argent's basement.

When she'd come home from school, she knew that there would be a punishment for refusing to share who the Kanima was with her family, but she had never expected something like this. It had been nearly ten years since electricity had been used as a discipline against her. Ever since she'd nearly died at the age of seven and a half. Ever since Gerard had found out her weakness to Zeus' primary weapon.

After nearly a whole minute of pulsing, burning energy soaring through her tender muscles and heavy bones, Chris finally stepped back and allowed her a short moment of reprieve. Gerard moved forward and took his son's place, jamming a hand beneath her lolling chin and lifting until her eyes met his.

"Who is the Kanima?" He interrogated as he'd been consistently doing for the past hour. "You know we can do this all night, Adrianna." Gerard reminded her, raising a brow as her features contorted in agony the deeper his fingers dug into her clavicle. "Now, be a good girl and tell us who it is." He prompted cruelly.

Inhaling an immense lungful of air, Adrianna turned her head away from her grandfather, answering just as she had every other time he'd asked. This time, however, Gerard's temper had taken all it could endure.

"You stupid girl." He cried indignantly, stretching out his open palm towards Chris in a silent demand for the tazer. "You'll soon learn—once and for all—that you cannot resist against my efforts for long."

Chris hesitated, looking between Adrianna's limp form and the bloodthirsty gleam in Gerard's eyes. The weapon in his hands seemed to weigh him down as his shoulders sagged and his steps were more forceful than before.

"Are you sure—" He struggled to ask, leaning into Gerard's side in order to whisper into his father's ear. "She doesn't look like she can handle much more." Chris amended. If it hadn't been for the bright lights glaring at her, Adrianna wouldn't have been able to see the way Gerard's pupils dilated with his fury.

Snatching the tazer out of Chris' grasp roughly, Gerard snarled akin to the wild beasts he hunted and killed. "Step aside if you can't handle the gore." He informed his son patronizingly. "There will be no relief for Adrianna until she tells me that name."

Without further ado, Gerard dialed the voltage up to it's maximum setting and slammed the pronged end into the fleshy part of Adrianna's stomach. The only way to even try to describe it, in Adrianna opinion, was like being struck by the legendary master bolt itself.

Adrianna couldn't stop herself from screaming and lashing out as her body convulsed. It was a lucky thing that Allison hadn't gotten out of detention yet, as Adrianna was certain that her cries could be heard throughout the neighbourhood.

Her throat was grated raw by the sheer power of her voice and her fingers flexed and stiffened in unnatural positions as she tried to compartmentalize the pain. Feet kicking out and jangling the metal fence behind her, Adrianna felt a sticky, hot substance leak out of her nose and ears. The sight of the blackened blood obviously wasn't alarming to Gerard, as he continued to electrocute her with as much vigour as he'd begun. The same could not be said for Chris, who physically took a step back and placed a hand over his gaping jaw.

The corners of Adrianna's vision seemed to narrow, colouring black, and she felt a deep pulling within her chest the likes of which she'd only ever felt once before. Tears gathered and fell from her eyes and they crawled across her cheeks like sticky molasses.

In front of her, replacing the psychotic face of her grandfather, was the pale ghost of her father. Thanatos was as beautiful as she remembered and just as aloof. Other than her pale complexion and supernatural abilities, Adrianna hardly resembled the god; there was more of her mother in her than anything else.

"What have you allowed yourself to become, my child?" He asked her, his voice as loud as the thundering of her heart and as soft as the wheezing of her lungs, all at once. "These mortals bend you to their will and yet, you do not unleash your full wrath upon them. Why?" He wondered, shaking his head.

Idly, Adrianna wondered if she was unconscious or dead, as there'd never been another way to visit or speak with her father before. Checking her surroundings, Adrianna still found that she was in the unfinished portion of the basement allocated for torture, however, the overwhelming agony she'd endured for what might have been a lifetime was not present.

"Father," She seemed to question instead of state. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not strong enough." She choked, suddenly remembering her pitiful defeat earlier in the day, against the human Kanima. "Something's happening to me; am I dying?"

"No, little one." Thanatos assured her, his fingers brushing her cheeks like the kiss of a fluttering wind. "You have not passed on from your mortal form, contrary to what your grandfather wishes."

"Gerard wants me dead? Nothing new there." Snorting bemusedly, Adrianna's head tilted back as she winced, her body beginning to feel the pain once more, and her father's face becoming distorted like that of a reflection in a pond.

"I cannot stay long my daughter." Thanatos warned her, his voice already fading. "Beware of the ones you trust, Adrianna." He told her seriously. "Trace back the seed of your journey here and you will find the reason for your debilitation."

"I don't know how." Adrianna's voice pitched with emotion as her body became more solid. "Tell me how." She begged her father moments before he disappeared.

"Trust your heart," Her father's echoing voice informed her, sounding miles away. "It will not lead you astray."

Gasping awake, Adrianna dared not move as icy hot needles of pain shot through her body's soft tissues and muscular ligaments. Her head felt stuffy, as though she'd been underwater and her lungs squeezed tightly each time she inhaled. Chris stood over her, his hands still pressing down on her chest in compressions meant to revive her.

His eyes met hers, honest and rawly remorseful, and Adrianna instantly knew what had happened. Her heart had stopped, as it always did when she was exposed to electrical currents for prolonged periods of time, and she'd died.

There was a surreal type of acceptance running through Adrianna's veins. She'd known this day was coming for as long as she could remember. Now that it was upon her, she felt a profound sense of disappointment mixed with relief. He'd finally done it. Gerard had finally gone too far.

If the lack of her restraints and the disappearance of the tazer were anything to go by, he knew it too.

Chris helped her to her feet, which pulsed and ached under her weight but did not collapse, and as she was leaning on him, Adrianna took note of the exchange of facial expressions between Gerard and him. "We shouldn't continue." Chris finally said, his grip on her tightening, perhaps out of his guilt.

Smiling grimly, Gerard shook his head. "No," He disagreed. "We'll simply have to change tactics." It only took a moment for her to become aware of the shiny, black pistol her grandfather pulled out from behind his waistline but by that time, he'd already chambered a round, pointed the gun in her direction, and fired.

The bang was deafening, as it always was, but somehow it felt that much louder this time, when she knew it would be the last gunshot she'd ever hear. Adrianna reflexively shut her eyes, clasping her hands together tightly in front of her, as though she could block the bullet with them.

A moment of serene, absolutely nerve-wracking silence rung in the basement, broken only by Adrianna's laboured breathing. She waited for the blood to wetten her clothes, for the bullet that ripped apart her flesh, to lodge itself deep within her and poison her slowly. Aside from the residual throbbing she felt from the electrocution, Adrianna didn't feel anything; not even pain.

The sudden, gutteral groaning sound nearby which was distinctly masculine, brought her eyes away from where they were staring in disbelief at her unharmed body. Chris beside her was healthy as well, turning along with her to watch the hunter behind them—a lowly hired thug Adrianna could hardly remember her grandfather hiring—collapsing to the ground with a bloody wound staining his lower torso.

Her injuries forgotten, Adrianna broke free from Chris' support and stumbled over to the man. His face pinched in anguish as her hands quickly moved over the bullet hole, applying enough pressure to prevent the man's inners and entire blood supply from leaking out.

"Since you've never responded to your own, physical punishment," Gerard lightly remarked, his shoes tapping against the cement floors as he knelt down next to her. "I thought I should try inclining my efforts towards your compassion."

Chris hadn't moved from where he'd been. His hands were empty and so were his eyes as they stared between his father and Adrianna. She met his gaze, pleading how she'd never lowered herself to do before, for the man's life before her. He looked away first, taking his jacket from the staircase' railing and walking up the steps, out of the basement.

Tears welling in her eyes, Adrianna felt her body beginning to tremble in anticipation of the hunter's death. Glaring at Gerard, who was happily gloating at her with hardly any need for words, Adrianna ripped off a segment of her shirt and hurriedly created a make-shift tourniquet.

"Why?" She questioned her grandfather, biting back the insults she wanted to spew at him for the sake of the man's life. He couldn't have been older than twenty—he would have had his whole life ahead of him if Gerard hadn't shot him in such a way.

Getting up off the ground with relative ease, which surprised Adrianna as Gerard had always complained about his arthritis preventing him from being the dexterous and mobile hunter he'd once been in his younger years, Gerard placed a degrading hand over her shoulder.

"Because you are more like your mother than you realize." He told her, stepping aside when she reached out her spare hand to try to claw at him in desperate rage. "And because it seems to have worked. You're responding quite well." Gerard fondly exclaimed, laughing at her attempts.

"He'll die!" Adrianna yelled through her already ruined throat. "You can't possibly be that callous. This is a man's life we're talking about. Do anything to me—electrocute me, waterboard me, cut me, cage me, kill me if you dare—but do not do anything to the others. They don't know what they've gotten into. None of them do." She growled, thinking of Allison and Scott, Stiles and Isaac, even Derek and Jackson.

Her mind stayed on Jackson, the boy she'd been protecting with her life and now, it seemed, with the life of another as well. Lifting the hunter's neck higher beneath her as he begun to gargle and drown in his own blood, a few tears cascaded across her cheeks without her permission as she tried her best to sooth the young man who was so near to death, Adrianna could taste it.

"It's alright." She reassured him, stroking his sweaty hair away from his forehead. "The pain will soon pass. Everything's going to be okay." She nearly sobbed, viscera poking out between her fingers.

"He's going to die, Adrianna." Gerard reminded her harshly, watching calmly like a sports spectator. "He can't be consoled now. Think of all the things he could have done. The only thing he was able to accomplish was to work beneath others as a lowly servant." He snarled.

The man beneath her lifted his head slightly, coughing up blood from the effort. His eyes pleaded with her for mercy, for help that she couldn't give. "Is it true?" He stuttered out weakly. "Am I dying?"

Adrianna didn't have the strength to speak so she simply nodded. The man didn't cry, he appeared braver than that, but his breathing did falter as reality sunk in. Staring daggers at her grandfather, Adrianna shuffled closer to the man as she tried to compress his wound further to buy him as much time as she could.

"Tell him, Adrianna." Gerard mocked her. "Tell him that you can't save him. Take away his hope." He goaded.

"Stop it." She weakly demanded, curling in on herself as the room chilled around her.

"Unless," Her grandfather suddenly said, his voice rising with false surprise. "There is something you can do."

"I'm not telling you who the Kanima is." Adrianna roughly replied, her eyes stinging terribly. She replayed the memories she'd taken from Jackson; how his parents had died without him ever meeting them—his infantile form being pulled from his already deceased mother. He was just like her really; a misunderstood orphan being crushed by other's expectations of them.

She found that there wasn't a single part of her that would be willing to divulge Jackson's secret, despite the price she now saw would be taken from her and the man beneath her. Sniffling, Adrianna thread both her hands together over top of the young man's stomach, blood already soaking into her knees as it pooled around him.

The bullet must have gone clean through, she understood sadly. He had even less time than she'd thought.

"That's not entirely what I meant." Gerard spoke up after a long while of being strangely silent. Adrianna looked over at him, confused. What else could he possibly want from her, to save the man's life. At this point, she knew that he could not be saved—he wasn't a bargaining chip anymore.

Noticing her puzzled expression, Gerard pushed off from where he'd been leaning against the wall and lifted his eyebrows pointedly at her. "You can't save him from death, but you can take away his pain." He told her slyly, as though she would be playing right into an unknown trap of his own making, if she complied.

"I don't understand." Adrianna admitted, the man under her beginning to gasp for breath. "How can I do that? I don't have that power."

"Oh, but you do." Gerard corrected her, positively giddy. "End his life now and he can forgo the experience of total exsanguination and organ failure." He cheerfully shared with her, as though conversing about what flavour of ice cream he liked best.

"You want me to kill him so that he doesn't have to die slowly?" Adrianna wondered, sensing an ulterior motive hidden beneath the surface. "What's in it for you?" She pressed.

"Why, nothing at all." Gerard assured her. "You're powers are of great use to me in the battle against the supernaturals of Beacon Hills. I simply want them to be at peak efficiency." He explained.

Narrowing her eyes, Adrianna didn't believe Gerard for a second but the man lying on the floor, dying, was in pain. He was grimacing now, hardly able to tolerate the torment wracking his fragile body. For his sake, she decided to adhere to her grandfather's suggestion.

She looked over at Gerard once more before concentrating on the man's fluttering pulse. Her eyes blackened as she saw, not the ordinary things she always did, but heat and light and the currents of the mist all around her.

Pressing down on the man's chest, Adrianna drained his life force from the shattered shell of his body, devouring his memories and knowledge as though they were a feast laid out for a starving man. His name was Robert, she learned. He was twenty-two.

As black veins rose over her hands, onto ever portion of Robert's flesh, exposed or not, Adrianna felt her sapped strength returning, as it always did when she stole away a life from another. She didn't see Gerard's pleased smile as black blood dripped out of her nose. She didn't even think to wonder why he'd bothered to kill Robert, if it hadn't gotten him the name of the Kanima.

All she could think of was the twenty-two years of experiences that she absorbed and the relief in Robert's soul as his pain faded away along with the connection to his body.

When her eyes opened again, she was alone with a dead body. She remembered the words her father had said. Searching her heart, Adrianna found that Gerard was no longer present in the hardened organ, replaced by a myriad pack of werewolves, two best friends that got into heaps of trouble, a cousin she didn't quite trust, and a red-headed harbinger of death that Adrianna found she got along with famously.

Adrianna resolved to help them save Jackson, even if it meant turning her back on her own family. After all, what had they ever done for her aside from manipulating her into the form of a mindless weapon.

Not anymore, Adrianna vowed, shrugging on her mother's leather jacket and sliding her favourite knife out of the drawer Chris had stashed it in, running her finger over the edge delicately and drawing blood despite her efforts.

If anyone stood in her way; she'd kill them. All of them.