CHAPTER TWO :: la douleur exquise

15 months ago

Amelia hums as she makes her way up the stairs towards Hope's room. Her hair's pulled up in a ponytail with a green smoothie in one of her hands and ready to go for a run. But not for a while though because she has duties to take care of. One of those duties includes Hope.

Approaching Hope's room, she knocks twice on her door. No answer. She knocks again. Twice but harder—Still no replies. Hanging head down, she sighs and opens the doors to her room. As expected, the teenager is in a deep sleep, her duvet cover on the floor along with two of the pillows. Then you have Hope with her body spread out across the bed upside down. Amelia has absolutely no idea how the girl could sleep so peacefully with absolutely nothing covering her.

Amelia places the smoothie on Hope's study table and smiles, clapping her hands together loudly, "It's time to wake up!"

Silence.

A wicked smirk makes its way to her lips as she makes her way closer to sleeping girl and starts shaking Hope, "Wake. Up."

Hope groans in frustration, not moving once. She mumbles tiredly, "Five more minutes, please."

Amelia laughs lightly and turns around to the doors, "No way! Up, now."

"Can I just drop out already?" Hope asks rather hopefully.

"Some dreams are meant to be crashed," Amelia notes, resulting in a dramatic whine from Hope. Just as Amelia was about to leave her room, she spins around, her point finger up in the air, "Oh! Almost forgot, Allison and Lydia, are here."

That got Hope moving. Her eyes wide as she sits up straight, "Wait, hold u– " She stops her sentence midway when she notices Amelia was nowhere to be seen. "Allison and Lydia? What?" She whispers to herself as gets out of the bed, not even bothered by the mess around her.

She grabs her phone by the night table and instinctively dials her best friend's number as she makes her way to the closest. The phone kept ringing and ringing which almost made her she almost gives up when on the last call he picks up. "Finally!" She groans.

"Sorry, my dad forced me out of my room," Stiles responds back, while Hope grabs a plain white shirt with a black and red flannel, throwing it on the bed.

She stops her pacing and creases brows together, "You didn't actually stay up all night researching deer and car accidents after we finished skyping, right?" When there was no response from her best friend, Hope facepalms, "Stiles!"

"Wha– don't blame it on me, it was your idea!" He semi yells through the phone as she puts him on the speaker.

"You idiot, I didn't expect you to spend all night researching! I'm doing parts of it in chemistry class cause I don't like chemistry in first place." She explains as she changes her oversized Batgirl pajama top to the white shirt with the flannel and slips into worn out jeans.

"If you called me to judge my actions, I'm ending the call right n– "

"Wait, wait, wait!" She chirps up, and drink a sip of the green smoothie Amelia left for her, "I didn't call to judge you. I called you for a more serious situation." She starts, making Stiles jittery.

"Is it about – " he draws out, and Hope shakes her head, even though he couldn't see her.

"No! Allison and Lydia are here!" She exhales, biting her nails. Right before Stiles made any remarks, she continues, "I don't know what to do! I don't really hang out with them! I don't really do girly stuff!"

"Er, Ellie, you're a girl." Stiles states and even if Hope couldn't see him, she could just picture him scrunching up his nose.

Hope rolls her eyes at the obvious statement, "Oh really? It's not like I haven't seen myself naked before —You know what I meant."

"Okay, okay, just don't stress." He starts and Hope stays quiet, letting Stiles continue, "Just. . . act cool, and be yourself."

"Aww thanks, google really does give you amazing motivational speeches," She sarcastically notes, making Stiles groan out of frustration.

"I can't deal with you right now, I'm on my way to school, so talk later." And with that Stiles ends the call, and Hope sighs dramatically. She was confused and frustrated. She doesn't hang out with the girls in the first place. So why the hell were they at her place?

She quickly takes her backpack before she makes her way downstairs and in the living room, she was met with both of them. Allison looking over the picture frames hanging on the walls and Lydia sitting down on the phone.

"Uh, Hi?" She greats them quite awkwardly. Though Hope didn't mean for it to come out as a question, she still was slightly confused with this entire situation.

At the sound of her voice, both girls turn around to face her while Hope just stands right next to the stairs, swaying on her feet. This certainly wasn't the way she was hoping to start her day.

Lydia sighs and stands up. Allison tried to give her a look, but the strawberry blonde girl didn't notice and Hope bites her lower lip nervously. Allison makes her way to the girl and gives her a hug which Hope reluctantly returned. Lydia, on the other hand, just walks up to them without greeting Hope with a hug but just a small smile. She wasn't one to judge but this whole thing was making her feel super weird and not in a good way. "Don't get me wrong, I'm all about girl power or whatever but why are you guys here?"

They both look at each other and Lydia is the one to gesture towards the confused brunette in from of them and Allison clenched the strap of her bag, "I know we have never been close, but I thought maybe we could change that this year?"

Hope's eyes grew wide as she stares back at Allison, "I-I mean yeah sure. Cool, cool, cool." She nods her head repeatedly as she scans her room, like that, would hold an answer as to why all of this was happening, "So..." Hope exaggerated the "o" awkwardly, "shall we head to school now?"

The teenager has never been more uncomfortable in her life. And trust her, she has gone through many awkward experiences in her life but this takes the cake.

For starters, she was sitting backseat being aware of the whole situation: Allison used to go out with the guy she is currently crushing on, not only that but tried to kill him not long after. On top of that, last time Hope saw Allison was when she threatened to hurt her if she lays a finger on her friends ever again. And then there's Lydia, the girl that her best friend is also currently crushing on. Speaking of which, Hope may or may not has hidden love letters in Lydia's locker that consider long paragraphs from 'Romeo and Juliet'. (Stiles had no idea about any of them, nor was it him writing those letters). Lastly, the deer accident happened last night that they haven't talked about ever since Stiles dropped the girls home.

But hey, at least she got a free ride to school.

"Freshmen." Lydia starts as Allison opens her locker and Hope stands next to her, having a tight grip on the strap of her backpack while swaying back and forth on her feet. "Tons and tons of fresh men."

She looks up, at the same time when Greenberg walks past her and nods in her direction. Her small smile downwards and she pulls a disgusting face at him. While Allison comments on Lydia's sudden new taste in guys, "You mean fresh boys. Lydia, they're fourteen."

"Eh, some are more mature than others." Lydia waves her hand at the comment and both brunettes make an eye contact and laugh.

"You know, it's okay to be single." Allison takes out her notebooks. Hope on the other hand was starting to worry about her friend Isaac, whom was ignoring all her messages ever since last night, "Focus on yourself for a little while, work on becoming a better person."

"Allison, I love you." Lydia sighs and Hope looks up at both of the girls, " So if you need to do that thing where we talk about me and pretend we're not actually talking about you, it's totally fine. – But I don't need a boyfriend. I want a distraction."

However, Hope's attention went elsewhere, she bits her fingertips as she tilts her head to the side to get a better look at the three teenagers passing by the hallway. She wasn't the one to pay attention to people around school but they – they stood out the most. Both girls standing next to her sensed that and turn their focus on them as well, "Brothers?"

"Twins." Lydia hums.

As of no one brought up the other person, her brows crease together at the mysterious girl, walking in between twin brothers. All of them wearing black leather jackets, worn out jeans and carrying motorbike hats. "What about her?" She nods her head towards the girl.

Lydia tilts her head, observing the girl herself, "Huh, maybe one of their flings?"

When Hope was about to give her suggestion, the girl looks her up and down with a small smirk playing on her lips as the twins make an eye contact. Hope rubs the back of her neck, the uneasy feeling of all three of them communicating in their own way about her didn't make her feel all that comfortable. Allison closes her locker and was about to start making her way to the class when Hope's eyes grew wide and realization settled in, "Oh, my Gosh!" she whispers.

"What's wrong?" Allison asks as she turns around, worry crossing her features.

"That girl!" She points at no one particular, wide-eyed. "She was at the tattoo shop last night. Before the deer accident, she was at the tattoo shop! She gave me the same look."

Lydia raises her brows at the girl's freak out, and chuckles softly, "And? That girl could just totally be into you."

"Yeah, it could be just a coincidence." Allison shrugs her shoulders, and moves around, going behind Hope to drag her to class as she starts to realize she won't move.

"Is anything in Beacon Hills just a coincidence these days? No." Hope complains, pointing a finger up for more dramatic effect, "This is weird. I didn't like the way she looked at me. Those twins as well!" Allison keeps on dragging Hope to the class as she laughs at the brunette while Lydia follows the lead.

Lydia abruptly stops and spins around as she claps her hands. While Allison still has her hands on Hope's shoulders as she nods. "Hope, I'm saying this as a friend, you're overreacting."

Hope looks back and forth between both girls, and tangles herself away from them, waving her hands melodramatically, "I'm not overreacting, you guys are!"

With that, Hope turns around and walks inside the class, both girls following her away while shaking heads at her. She didn't wait for them as she wants faster get away with them. Approaching her seat, in front of Stiles, she sits down as she drops her bag. She feels a tap on her shoulder and she looks back to only find Stiles leaning over his table, "So?"

She quirks an eyebrow, "So what?"

"So how was your morning with them?" He elaborates further, rolling his eyes.

Hope groans and turns out in her chair to full face her best friend, "Miserable!" She shakes her head, "Actually felt like living hell."

Stiles blinks at her, eyes scanning her face for answers, "I'm not sure, whether you're being serious or just sarcastic."

"Meh, it's up to you to decide that." She dismisses him, only find her face drop seeing the same girl from the tattoo shop, sitting in front of her. That seat usually was vacated by Greenburg. Actually, it was his seat. She turns to Lydia, a seat next to Stiles' and whispers, "Still think it's a coincidence?"

The strawberry blonde gives her a pointed look, making the brunette slug her shoulders down and lower in her seat, playing with the piece of fabric from her flannel. She glances up at the girl again, and then back to her hands. It could be just a coincidence after all. She's just not used to seeing the same person everywhere all of the sudden – two days in the row to be more specific. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and she takes it out.

FROM: (555) 555 - 3476

The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds and the tranquil waterway, leading to the uttermost ends of the earth, flowed somber under an overcast sky, seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

Another voice enters the room, reading out the text she just received, the teenage girl looks up at the unknown woman in front of them, "This is the last line to the first book we are going to read. It is also the last text you will receive in this class." The teacher warns the class, Scott and Hope look at each other with questionable looks, "Phones off, everyone."

She slowly puts down the phone and leaves it in her bag, bringing her attention back to class. Considering no one knew who their new teacher was or who they were, everyone had to introduce themselves. Mrs. Blake, the English teacher, seemed very kind with the way she was handling everyone's behaviors. Some weren't all that welcoming and some were just over the top welcoming. There was no in between.

She had her fingers crossed and she could say with confidence that the new teacher liked her. Which meant more possibility of her getting good grades for once, and not disappointing Aunt Amelia. So things are working out great for once. Plus Hearts of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the book they're reading this semester, didn't look all that hard either.

"Hey, Lydia!" Stiles whispers, not so quietly as that gained Hope's attention and she glances at both of them, "What is that? Is that from the accident?" He asks, looking down at Lydia's ankles.

She follows his gaze and sees a bandage wrapped around Lydia's ankle. Hope bites her lower lip and thinks back to the accident last night. She couldn't remember much from the ride home but she didn't see anything on her ankles, so this must be before or after the incident. Lydia, on the other hand, didn't seem to react to Stiles' comment as she simply states, "No. Prada bit me."

She spins around in her chair, and her eyebrows crease together, "Your own dog?"

"No, my designer handbag." Sarcasm drips from her tone and Hope squints her eyes while Stiles gives Lydia a pointed look. Seeing as both teenagers didn't get the hint, she rolls her eyes and confirms, "Yes, my dog."

Hope opens her mouth to give a sarcastic comment back but she didn't have a chance to as Stiles wonders, "Has it ever bitten you before?"

Lydia looks down at her pen and then back up at them, only to shake her head. "Okay. What if it's like the same thing as the deer?" Stiles questions, waving his hands around, only to leave both girls confused. "Ya know, like, how animals start acting weird right before an earthquake or something?"

"Meaning what? That there's gonna be an earthquake?"

"Or something. I just –," He sighs out of frustration, not being able to figure out the reasoning behind all of this, plus the girls didn't help with them not listening to him. " Maybe it means something's coming. Something bad."

Hope rolls her head back and gives a look to her best friend. She was all about badass adventures but this just seemed sad and ridiculous, "Dude, it was just a deer and a dog. So what?"

Lydia dazes off in her thoughts as she tilts her head, "What's that thing you say about threes; once, twice..."

A big thud on the window interrupts the class. Everyone's attention snapping to where the sound came from, only to find a splotch of blood from a black feathered bird. Hope glances at her best friend in a weary way, to only bring her attention back to the window. Her eyes grow wide as she sees a flock of birds flying towards their class. She throws her hands over her mouth in shock, as a small gasp escapes her lips.

Another bird smacks against the window leaving a crack. She jumps a bit in her seat as the window cracks open with the next bird flying. The crack made the rest fly through, leaving class in fear. Students, hid under the tables, some waving hands around to protect them and others shielding each other. Mrs. Blake shouts for everyone to get down repeatedly while Hope tries to fight off the black feathered birds in her seat, whimpering as their sharp claws scratch her skin. She feels a hand wrap around the wrist pulling her down beside her table. Someone shields her from the madness around them.

Minutes later, that really felt like hours the person covering her lets her go. As she stands up straight, her body still shaking only to find out the birds lying dead on the floor. She turns to see who it was to protect her only to find it is the girl from the tattoo shop. In other situations, she would've bombed her with questions but as of now she just gave a small smile in thank you, where the other girl nods in response. Stiles approaches his best friend, still holding onto Lydia, whom was shaken up as Hope was. Noticing Stiles, she wraps him in a hug, asking the same question over and over again, "What just happened? What just happened?"

Stiles wasn't sure himself as of what just happened, so in return, all he did was rub her back in comfort. She breaks the hug, and concern washes over her as she remembers Lydia was next to her, and she turns to her, only to see Lydia and Allison embracing each other in a hug as well. She walks up to both girls and questions whether they are okay and gives them a comforting hug in return.

After a while, police and paramedics showed up along with student parents. Hope didn't call Amelia, due to the fact she would be worried sick and she didn't want that so she made up a lie that the school got canceled because of an unknown accident that students weren't allowed to know. Hope calmed down after few minutes and now was sitting on the table, swaying her legs and humming to 21 guns by Green Day. While Stiles sat on his phone, playing a game.

Sheriff Stilinski moves past them towards the Argents whispering among themselves. She bumps her elbow to Stiles' side, he gives her a glare only to see her nodding towards his dad and the Argents. "Mr. Argent, you wouldn't have any insight into this, would you?"

"Me?" Mr. Argent looks taken back by his question.

"Yeah." Sheriff Stilinski confirms, "All this bizarre animal behavior, it's...You must seen something like this before, right?"

Him and Allison man an eye contact, he stands up more straight and takes an unnoticed small step back, "Not sure why I would or why you would think I would."

"I'm sorry. I could have sworn I overheard my son talking with his best friend about how you were an experienced hunter." Sheriff nods at both teenagers sitting at the table eavesdropping.

Both of them suddenly try to act cool, with Hope grabbing Stiles phone and pointing at it with her index finger. He tries to act along and starts nodding dramatically at the calculator.

Hope nudges Stiles and points at the door, both knowing exactly what to do next. Within the next second both teenagers bold for the doors, to get out of the trouble as soon as possible, (Trying their best to go unnoticed, but failed miserably as Stiles trips over his own feet and the brunette falls on the floor with him).

After recovering, Stiles grabs his phone and dials Scott's number as they make their way to Stiles' jeep. "We got a serious problem at school." He starts off straight away and puts it on the speaker so Hope can hear as well, "Ms. Blake's class –"

"Hey, can you tell me about it later?" Scott interrupts as both of them jump in the jeep.

"Uh, well, no." Stiles shakes his head even though Scott couldn't see him, "Pretty sure this qualifies for immediate discussion."

Scott sighs on the other end, "Alright, then. Meet me at Derek's."

Her eyes grow wide at mentioning of a guy she didn't think she would hear ever again. She grabs Stiles' phone and asks, "Woah, what?! Derek's house? What the hell are you–"

"Just meet us at Derek's, okay?" With that he hangs up, leaving both of them stunned. It wasn't the fact he hangs up but it was because he was at Derek's old place. With him.

They didn't ask any other questions and just made their way to Derek's. They had enough questions to ask from today.

"Yeah, I see it." Derek flashes his crimson red eyes around Scott's bicep, "It's two bands, right?"

Besides Scott stands Stiles and Hope with crossed arms as he hums in response. Derek looks up to Scott and wonders, "What does it mean?"

"I don't know," Scott shrugs his shoulders weakly, knowing Scott for that long he knew what it meant. He was too insecure to say it out loud in front of everyone, "It's just something I traced with my fingers."

Scott traces it on the dusted table, two bands, as all eyes went down to the small dusted bands, "Why is this so important to you?" Derek asks, wondering the same thing that Hope and Stiles did.

"Do you know what the word 'tattoo' means?" Scott questions him.

Stiles leans down a little towards Derek and says with a proud smile, "To mark something."

Hope facepalms and shakes her head at his obvious answer, "Well, that's in Tahitian." Scott corrects Stiles, "In Samoan, it means 'open wound'. I knew I wanted to get a tattoo when I turned eighteen – I always wanted one. I just decided to get it now, to make it kind of a reward."

"For what?" Derek raises his brow in curiosity while Hope was dreading the answer. Her gut feeling knows what he's going to say and she didn't want to hear it.

"For not calling or texting Allison all summer." Scott finally admits while Hope looks down as she nods her head to herself, her chest heaving more than before, "Even when I really wanted to, even when it was so hard not to sometimes. I was trying to give her the space she wants. –Going four months later, it still hurts. It still feels like a ..." Scott trails off.

"Like uh o-open," Her voice cracks and she coughs, trying to play it off with rubbing the back of her neck and looking away, "Like an open wound." She finishes for him.

He nods and looks down, not being aware of Hope's reaction, "Yeah."

Even if Scott didn't notice, the others did. Stiles and Derek glance at Hope until she brushes it off and rolls her shoulders back. Noticing the gesture, Derek sighs and grabs a blow torch and warns, "The pain's gonna be worse than anything you've ever felt."

"Oh, that's great." Stiles sarcastically notices as Hope fake laughs.

"Do it." Scott says with a slight confidence when all you could see is fear in his eyes from the coming pain.

Derek lights the blow torch and both standing teenagers, back up a step, "Oh wow. That's a lot for us. So We're gonna take that as our cue– "

Hope keeps on nodding her head rapidly while trying to push Stiles to leave, "Oh would you look at that, we might just leave and wait outside. Yup, sounds like a solid plan."

They both start to make their way out, until Derek's hand reaches out in front of Stiles, making Hope run into her best friend, "Nope. You both can help hold him down."

"But we don't want to!" Hope whines, as Derek pushes them back, making them trip again.

Both walk around, grabbing each shoulder and glancing at Derek, signaling that they're ready. As Derek moves the blow torch closer to Scott's bicep, she looks away as both say in unison, "Oh, my God!"

Derek applies the torch to Scott's arm and it begins to sear and burn his arm. He starts to grunt in pain, as Derek glances at Stiles and Hope, "Hold him!"

"Thanks for heads up, Captain Obvious!" Hope comments with sarcasm as she tries to hold down a supernatural creature without supernatural strength, "We're trying!"

Scott's eyes turn yellow and his fangs come out as he screams in pain. Not long after he loses his consciousness and both teenagers back away. She walks away from Stiles and Derek and makes her way to the burned down living room. She walks up to sleeping Isaac on the table and grabs his hand.

She sits down in one of the chairs and looks up at him. When she arrived at Derek's, she wasn't expecting Isaac passed out laying on the table. She felt a bit relieved knowing he was somewhere that she knew he would be safe. However, she still was concerned as to why he was there and what happened to him. They were just watching movies together before Scott and Stiles picked her up to get Scott's tattoo. That was the last time she saw him and now he got himself in trouble from God knows what. Plus, Derek and Scott not answering her questions didn't help either.

"You better wake up!" She tells him as she squeezes his hand. Hope was aware he couldn't hear her but she just needs to say it out loud, "For the record when I said you'll get yourself in trouble with that attitude of yours, I didn't mean it quite literally. You know I was just messing, right?"

She smiles weakly and squeezes his hand again. She looks down at her feet and whispers, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. .It's my fault."

"It's not your fault." Derek disagrees, Hope, jumps at the sudden voice and looks up to see him with crossed arms over his chest. "How is it your fault?"

She releases Isaac's hand from her hold and stands up, looking at his sleeping body, "I-I don't know. I just – I jinxed it."

"You didn't know it would happen. So don't blame yourself. Isaac would tell you the same thing." He assures her, she tries to nod but couldn't, "Hope, It's not your fault. This is on me. What happened wasn't because of you. This is my responsibility and my mistake to fix."

She looks up to Derek and makes her way towards him, "Right, let's just make this easier on both of us then. Let's not blame it on each other but blame it on whatever happened." She squeezes her eyes at Derek, trying to pursue him into telling more what happened but he didn't break. Her shoulders fall at that in disappointment, "Come on buddy, let's wait for Scott to wake up then."

As soon as they walked in, Scott wakes up with a gasp sweating. He looks down at his tattoo and then back to his friends, "It worked."

"Finally!" Hope comments with joy, she throws his shirt towards Scott with a smile, "Now let's go! I'm hungry."

He puts his shirt on and stands up, Stiles clapping his hands on his back, "Well, it looks pretty damn permanent now."

"Yeah," Scott agrees and rolls down his sleeve, "I kind of needed something permanent – "

"Yeah cause that's going to be the only thing permanent in your life." Hope jokes, interrupting Scott, only to receive not amused looks in return, "Too soon? Sorry – Yeah carry on."

"Ellie. . ." Scott warns and she shrugs her shoulders, "Everything that's happened to us, everything just changes so fast. Everything's so . . . Ephemeral."

"Ephemeral? What?" She whispers to herself, boys not paying attention to her as she follows them behind.

"Studying for the PSATs?" Stiles wonders surprisingly as Hope catches up with them.

"Yep."

"Nice."

Scott opens the doors and studies the door in wonder, "You painted the door. Why'd you paint the door?"

"Go home, Scott," Derek warns and she tilts her head in question.

"And why only one side?" He asks more to himself than anyone else and she crosses her arms over her chest. Derek calls out his name again and walks up to him, only to Scott clawing out the new coat of paint off from the doors, only to, later on, reveal the spiral symbol. "The birds at school and the deer last night, just like the night I got trampled by the deer when I got bit by an Alpha." Scott pieces everything as Hope nods along starting to think the same, "How many are there?"

Derek looks down and heavily sighs, " A whole pack of them. An Alpha pack."

Hope steps forwards and blinks repeatedly. She knows what she heard, but she wanted to hear again cause clearly, she wanted to be wrong. "I'm sorry what now?"

"All of them? How does that even work?" Stiles questions the same thing they all were thinking.

"I hear there's some kind of a leader," Derek says, making an eye contact with everyone. "He's called Deucalion. We know they have Boyd and Erica. Peter, Isaac and I have been looking for months for them for the last four months."

She closes her eyes at the mention of Isaac's name and steps back. All this summer that she spent with him, he didn't say a word to her even when she asked about it. She's seriously going to have a word with him when he wakes up, "Let's say you find them. How do you deal with an Alpha pack?" Scott asks as he steps forwards.

"With all the help I can get," Derek admits and Hope starts to roll up her sleeves ready to fight everyone and anything.

"Where is she?" Her eyes and head snaps to the voice she hasn't heard in hours, "Where's the girl?"

They all make an eye contact with each other and her brows crease together.

"What girl?"

[ author's note ]

word count: 5240

not edited.

woooah, another update for still into you? that's wild. im wilding wooo. i'm sorry this is too long, there was no way of me shortening this. i just wanted to finish the rest of the episode in one chapter.

poor hope, she really doesn't deserve this. #hopedeservesbetter ... oh shit wait a minute im writing this and planning all of this pain. whoops my bad. didn't mean to.

anyways, let me know what you think of this so far, as of im trying to get back to writing.