"Did you lose what won't return?

Did you love but never learn?

The fire's out but still it burns

And no one cares, there's no one there

Did you find it hard to breathe?

Did you cry so much that you could barely see?

You're in the darkness all alone"

Flares by The Script

The school bus pulled into the parking lot of a motel called Glen Capri, creaking as it slid to a stop. I eyed the building warily as I exited with the others. They all shared the same thoughts. We're staying here? The motel gave off an eery vibe and looked old. It seemed like the type of place that Sam and Dean Winchester would either stay at as the cheapest option available or where their job would take them as supernatural hunters.

I leaned over to Allison and Lydia. "Is anyone else getting a The Shining vibe?" I asked quietly. They both nodded quickly.

"I've seen worse," Scott said, looking up at it.

"Where have you seen worse?" Stiles questioned.

Finstock blew his whistle and said, "Listen up. The meet's been pushed till tomorrow. This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and least amount of good judgment when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves." Excuse you, I am a straight-A student that has never gotten in trouble. Finstock held up room keys. "You'll be pairing up. Choose wisely."

I looked at Allison and Lydia. "Can I just stay with you two? I have a feeling I won't be getting much sleep. And sharing a room with a stranger doesn't sound too fun."

"Yeah, that's fine," Allison said.

As students began walking towards their rooms, Finstock called out, "And I'll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants. Got that? Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves!" Yeah, that's likely.

I snatched a key from Finstock and looked back to see Lydia frozen in place. I walked back to Allison's side. "Lydia?" Allison called.

"I don't like this place," Lydia said, staring at the building.

Allison looked at it. "I don't think the people who own this place like this place. It's just for a night."

"A lot can happen in one night."

I let out a low whistle. "Okay, that wasn't ominous at all. Why don't we go rest up?"

When we got to our room, I laid down on a bed, tossing my bag onto the floor beside me. My hands tingled, so I stretched them out and twisted my wrists, but I could feel my pulse beating through them. My body began to heat up and not because I was making it. I tried to simply lay there and rest, but something felt wrong.

Allison noticed my repeated movements with my hands and asked, "Are you okay?"

Sitting up, I pinched the fingers tips of my left hand. "Uh, yeah, I think so." My phone chimed, telling me I got a text, so I pulled it out.

Moon Moon: Come over?

"I'll, uh, I'll be back later," I told Allison. I didn't wait around to hear her reply.

The moment I walked into Isaac's room, he pinned me against the door, effectively closing it. "Whoa, Izzy, what are-what are you doing?" I asked, looking up at him.

He smirked and leaned on his arm that rest above my head. "What's it look like I'm doing?" He dipped his head down and pushed his lips onto mine, wrapping his other arm around my waist and pulling me closer.

For a few moments of bliss, I let him kiss me hard, his fingers digging into my waist, but something was seriously wrong. Something wasn't just wrong with me. Something was wrong with him. He'd never been even remotely aggressive with me. Putting my hands on his chest, I pushed him away a few inches. "Where's Boyd?"

"Not here," Isaac said quickly before trying to resume kissing me, but I stopped him, pushing him back again. There was a certain darkness in his eyes that hadn't been there yesterday. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong is you're acting strange."

Isaac chuckled and it sent a shudder down my spine. It sounded dark and attractive but so unlike him. "I want to kiss you, so I'm acting strange?"

"Isaac, seriously, something's wrong," I tried to reason.

"What could possibly be wrong?" he asked, a sexy smirk gracing his face again as he brought a hand up to stroke my cheek. "We're in a motel for a night. We don't have to worry about your parents or brother being around, Boyd is out for a half-hour per my request, and we are all alone. Stop worrying." Oh, how I wanted to listen.

Pulling his hand from my cheek, I said, "Isaac, listen to me. Something is-something's wrong." Moving away from the door, I stumbled with a step, my head spinning. I looked down at my hands and saw them smoking. I quickly put my hands in my jacket pockets and closed my eyes. Relax, relax.

"With what? Seems like everything is going perfectly right now."

Is he serious? Isaac would never, ever think that. What is going on? I opened my eyes again and turned to him. "Really? There's a pack of alphas, a ritualistic serial killer, Derek might've died, and Scott was literally dying a few hours ago. I had to burn him to heal him. I think that counts as the exact opposite of a perfect situation."

The tall teenaged werewolf scoffed, shoved his hands into his front pockets, and rolled his eyes. "Always Scott."

I arched an eyebrow. "What?"

"Scott this, Scott that, you're always with Scott, and you come running when he calls."

Rearing my head back and raising one of my hands, I said, "Hold up. Are you implying what I think you're implying?" All thoughts of my aforementioned worries halted in my mind, solely focusing on Isaac's ridiculous insinuation.

He gave me an exaggerated shrug. "It doesn't take a brain to figure it out."

"Well, it seems like you don't have one anyway. I can't deal with this right now." I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. He couldn't be serious. Something was off. My powers were trying to go haywire. His mind was focusing on insecurities. I needed to go back to Allison and Lydia.

"Then when?" Isaac wondered, continuing to push my buttons. "I've dropped everything to talk to you, so why can't you do the same?"

"Because if you'd pay attention and listen, you'd notice something is wrong, something that doesn't include your inferiority complex when it comes to my friendship with Scott. And it is just that: a friendship. I'm not fucking cheating on you. But you wouldn't really know that anyway since you're never around." I could feel my skin heating up again and the tips of my fingers started to tingle and twitch.

Isaac put a hand on his chest, looking absolutely offended. "I'm never around? You're always off on some adventure or another with Scott and Stiles ever since you became buddy-buddy with them, leaving me behind in the dust. Can you blame me for not telling you my plans?"

"Those 'adventures' were me helping them." I used air quotes for emphasis and narrowed my eyes. "I know it's a new concept for you, being helpful, but it's considered a good thing."

"I am plenty helpful."

"By doing what? Getting caught? Letting yourself get trapped in a closet? Making off-handed comments? Yes, very helpful, thank you for your hard work."

"No one likes sarcasm; it's unattractive."

"Then why'd you start dating me? That's the very fiber of my being."

"I guess I wasn't in my right mind. Or maybe you used your weird powers no one understands that you didn't tell me about until you were backed into a corner."

I was silently fuming, doing all I could not to let my hands burst into flames. "Maybe this isn't working out. I think we work better as friends if we even worked then."

His face contorted with anger, a common emotion from him lately. "Oh, you mean when I was everyone's personal punching bag? A puny, pathetic human afraid of his own shadow? You think we worked at all then? No, you provided some sense of safety. Why else would I have stuck around? Turns out I may have felt safe because you're some mystical being no one's ever heard of. Probably shouldn't have trusted you at all."

I glared and pointed at him. "You've never trusted me, ever, so don't pull that shit. You didn't tell me about the bullying or your father. You didn't tell me about you saying yes to the bite. You didn't tell me about threatening Jackson into recanting or about using kanima venom on him or even that we were up against a kanima. You didn't tell me about the Alpha Pack or that Erica and Boyd were actually missing or that you were looking for them. I've learned more from Peter fucking Hale than you, and he's one of the most unhelpful people ever."

I huffed and took a moment then looked back up at him. "I guess I should just do us both a favor and end this before things get worse."

"If that's how you really feel." He waved his hands around. "Might as well. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

I huffed and gritted my teeth. "Shinjimae." Shoving past him, I left the room, slamming the door on my way out. I stopped a good distance away from the room and slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. A few drops of sweat dripped down my forehead, so I wiped them away.

Sliding to the floor, I stared down my twitching hands. Smoke began rising from my fingertips again. No, no, this can't be happening. You have control. You have control.

"Are you okay?"

My head snapped up, tearing my eyes away from my hands to the sound of the voice. A few feet away stood Stiles holding a few snacks. Glancing back at my hands, I noticed the smoke was gone. I sighed and leaned my head back.

"Sara, you don't look so good," Stiles said, walking closer.

"Something's wrong," I muttered slowly. "I don't know what it is, but something's wrong."

"Okay, okay, why don't you come with me then." I looked up at him and he made a motion to follow him. "You can tell me about it, alright?" Nodding, I stood back up, swaying gently for a moment before Stiles grabbed my arm to help me balance. "Okay, yeah, let's go. Let's go." He kept a hand on my upper back and escorted me to the room he was sharing with Scott. After he opened the door, he showed me to the nearest bed. "Why don't you sit right here?"

I plopped down on the corner edge of the bed harder than I had meant to. My eyelids felt heavy as a sense of exhaustion coursed through me. Stiles set down the snacks he was carrying on the end table then noticed my slow blinking.

"Whoa, okay, stay awake, Ninetales," he said. Stiles grabbed a chair from nearby and pulled it up in front of me. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" I slowly repeated, looking down at my hands again. Small black spots danced across my vision. "What's wrong? Something. Something is."

"Sara, look at me. Look up at me." My eyes drifted upwards to look at the human's whiskey-colored eyes. Stiles studied me for a moment. "Did you take something? Eat or drink something? Inhale something?"

A light giggle escaped my lips. "You have pretty eyes, baka."

Stiles frowned. "It's like you're drunk or something."

I let out a loud, sharp laugh and brought my hands up to his shirt, leaning forward, making his eyes widen at the contact. The tension in my head worsened at the sudden movement. "Kitsune can't get drunk. You should know that. You're the smart one, remember?" I booped him on the nose. My eyes flicked down to my hands once again, and I tilted my head to the side. "Smoke."

"Smoke. Smoke?" Stiles looked down at my hands, too. "What smoke?"

"My hands, they're smoking." I slowly pulled them away from him, keeping my eyes trained on them and the smoke billowing up, getting thicker. "They're smoking. Why are they smoking?"

"Sara, I don't see anything."

"But it's right there. They're smoking." My eyes widened and my breathing began to pick up its pace. "They're smoking. I can't-I'm not-why are they-"

I felt the pressure of his hands on my shoulders. "Sara, Sara, look at me. Please, look at me. Look away and up at me. It's not real."

"I can't control it. I can't control it."

"What's going on?" It was a different voice. Not Stiles. Deeper, smoother, more calming.

"She's seeing something. Hallucinating. I don't know how or why, but-"

My hands burst into flames and I jumped up. Stumbling back towards the wall, I tripped and fell, hitting the carpeted floor hard. On my hands, I crawled backward until my back touched the wall. My heartbeat pumped wildly in my ears. I brought my hands up to see them still on fire and felt my eyes shift to orange. Clenching my fists, I threw my head back at the wall as hard as I could, shutting my eyes.

I felt hands gently rest on my folded knees. "Sara, Sara, open your eyes."

I shook my head in response. "No, no. I need, I need to control it. Control. I need control."

"Sara," the voice in front of me said softly. "Please, open your eyes." They reached one of their hands over to cover my closed fist. "Breathe, Sara, just breathe."

"Why can't I control it?" Throwing my head back, I hit the wall again.

"Scott, I dunno what's going on, but you need to do something before she hurts herself," I heard Stiles say from a few feet away.

"I'm trying, Stiles. Sara, Sara, breathe slowly. Try to slow your heartbeat."

"Wait, pain. Pain keeps you human, right? What if she needs to get hurt?"

"Here goes nothing."

I heard a clicking noise then felt a sharp pain in my thigh. My eyelids flew open as I hissed in pain. My eyes turned back to brown, and I slowly unclenched my fists. Looking around, I noticed Scott kneeling in front of me, his claws retracting on one hand while his other hand held mine, and Stiles standing nearby, looking down at us concerned.

Bringing my free hand to my head because it was pounding, I groaned, "What the hell?"

"Are you okay?" Scott asked.

I rubbed my temple. "My head hurts." Dropping my hand, I looked around again. This isn't my room. "Where am I? When did I. . ." I trailed off.

"You don't remember?" Stiles questioned, moving closer. I shook my head. "What's the last thing you do remember?"

"I, uh, I just left Isaac's room."

"Ew, gross. Details are not needed." I glared up at Stiles for that comment.

"Here, come on. Why don't you sit on something more comfortable?" Scott stood and held out his hand. I took it and let him help me up. Isaac's words flashed through my mind. You're always with Scott. Shaking my head again, I sat down on one of the beds. Scott sat next to me and Stiles sat on the other bed to face us. "Do you remember why you left Isaac's?"

Putting my left hand in my right, I rubbed my fingertips. "Something was wrong. I was starting to heat up, and my hands were twitching and smoking. I could feel my control slipping. I tried to tell Isaac, but he. . . something was wrong with him, too. He was acting weird, more aggressive, confrontational."

"That doesn't sound like him when he's with you," Scott said, looking worried. "Maybe with Stiles or someone else, but not you. What else do you remember?"

My heartbeat quickened as I recalled it. "I-I broke up with him."

"You what?"

I stared down at my hands. I couldn't look at Scott. "He implied I was cheating on him. I said our relationship wasn't working and stormed out."

"Good riddance."

Scott looked harshly at the human. "Stiles! Seriously?" he scolded.

Stiles shrugged. "What? I'm just saying."

I rolled my eyes and pinched my nose. The headache was slowly disappearing. Too slowly for my liking. For once, I didn't mind Stiles ragging on my relationship. I just wanted to stop feeling like shit.

"You okay?" Scott asked again.

"My head hurts."

"Here." Scott reached over and grabbed my hand. His veins turned black and the pain dissipated.

Sighing, my shoulders slumped. "Thanks, Scotty."

He smiled at me. "Anytime. If you want, you can lay down, maybe get some rest. You probably shouldn't be running around after what just happened."

I frowned and glanced between them. "What did happen?"

"I found you curled up against a wall by our room," Stiles explained. "You looked sick. You were sweating and staring at your hands. You were kinda out of it when I brought you here. I tried to get you to tell me what was wrong and you started acting strange, like you were drunk. Then you started freaking out, like you were having a panic attack, and saying your hands were smoking."

"After I walked in," Scott picked up, "you backed yourself into the wall and hit your head a few times. Talking to you wasn't working, so Stiles suggested pain. Sorry about your pants, by the way."

I looked down to see five small holes in my jeans on the left thigh. "It's, uh, it's alright. I don't remember what was going on exactly, but thank you. Both of you."

"Rest up alright?" Scott gestured to the bed we were currently sitting on. "We'll be here." Nodding, I pulled off my boots and jacket, setting them beside the bed, then laid on my side, resting my head on the pillow. Scott patted my knee and I closed my eyes. A few minutes later, I fell asleep, utterly exhausted.

Someone shook me awake, and I sat up quickly. "What's going on?" I asked, my eyes focusing on Allison.

"The same thing that happened to you is happening to the werewolves," she explained. "Or at least something similar." She picked up my discarded boots and jacket and handed them to me. "Ethan just tried to kill himself. I'm looking for Scott, and Stiles and Lydia were going to look for Isaac and Boyd."

I pulled on my boots and jacket then hurried out of the room, not saying goodbye to Allison. Not even knocking, I busted into Isaac and Boyd's room. The bathroom door was open and I saw legs dangling out of the tub. I ran inside and straight to the bathroom. Boyd laid in water, a safe set on top of his chest.

"No, no, no, Boyd," I muttered, rolling up my sleeves. I then tried to pick up the safe. The moment I began lifting it off, one of Boyd's hands shot out of the water, grabbing my wrist and squeezing it hard to pull it off the safe. What the fuck? I ripped it out of his grasp and let go of the safe.

Footsteps thundered into the room behind me. Stiles came up and reached his hand in the water. "He blocked it," Stiles said. "He blocked the drain with something. I can't get to it."

"What do we do?" Lydia asked.

"I couldn't get the safe off without him attacking me," I told them.

"Is he dead?" Lydia asked. "How long can a werewolf stay underwater?"

I shook my head. "Probably not very long, just like humans. We need to figure out how to get him to snap out of it. Maybe help me with the safe. He can't stop all of us."

"Wait a sec, pain," Stiles said. "Scott clawed you and Ethan burned himself on a heater."

"Oh, this is a bad idea," I muttered. "Back up." The two stepped away. Setting my hands on the safe, I set them ablaze, heating up the iron safe. Boyd sat up, throwing the safe off him with shifted eyes and fangs. He slowly pulled himself out of the tub. "Boyd, are you okay?"

"What-what's going on?" he asked. Boyd looked around, dripping in water.

"Oh, thank god," Stiles said, running his hand through his hair. "I'm going to have nightmares for a week after this."

In the silence, we heard sniffling coming from the main room. I turned along with the others. Lydia, the closest, inched forward towards the beds then knelt, lifting the blanket to look under the bed. She gasped and jumped back. Looking to me, she said, "Found Isaac."

Rushing over, I knelt next to the bed and looked under to see a quivering, wide-eyed Isaac. "Izzy," I said gently, holding out my hand. "It's okay. You're okay. Give me your hand."

He hesitantly inched his hand towards mine, but the moment his hand was within reach, I grabbed it and sent a rush of fire towards it. Isaac yelped and hit his head on the underside of the bed.

Groaning, he muttered, "Fuck," and rubbed his head.

"That leaves one more," Stiles said. "We need to find Scott."

"Let's hope Allison had some luck," Lydia replied.

I looked up at Boyd as I stood. "Will you be okay here?"

"We're gonna need an explanation soon, but yeah, go find Scott." Boyd crossed his arms over his chest, holding a towel around him.

Taking one last look at Isaac who was crawling out from underneath the bed, I followed Stiles and Lydia out of the room, immediately meeting up with Allison who was coming towards us. "I can't find Scott anywhere," she said.

"It's happening to him, too, isn't it?" Stiles asked as we hurried down the outside stairs to the parking lot.

"It has to be," Lydia replied.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and turned only to see a figure standing in the middle of the lot, holding a flare. It had to be Scott. I could smell the gasoline from where we stood.

"Scott," Allison called. We moved towards him, going around the large puddle to stand in front of him. "Scott." He was completely drenched in gasoline, not just standing in a puddle of it. The flare burned bright in his hand.

"There's no hope," he told us. Oh, no, no, Scotty. This can't be happening. I felt sick to my stomach.

"What do you mean, Scott?" Allison asked him. "There's always hope."

"Not for me."

"No, Scott, always for you," I said gently. I felt physical pain seeing him in such anguish. The sight of it was heartbreaking. Seeing such an optimistic, kind person relegated to hopelessness.

"Not for Derek," he continued.

"Derek wasn't your fault," Allison said. "You know Derek wasn't your fault."

"Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse. People keep getting hurt. People keep getting killed."

"Scott, listen to me, okay?" Stiles cut in, taking a few steps forward. "This isn't you, alright? This is someone inside your head telling you to do this. Okay? Now-"

"What if it isn't?" Scott interrupted. "What if it is just me? What if doing this is actually the best thing that I could do for everyone else?" He shivered, tearing up. "It all started that night, the night I got bitten. You remember the way it was before that? You and me, we were-" Stiles nodded. "We were-we were nothing. We weren't popular. We weren't good at lacrosse. We weren't important. We were no one. Maybe I should just be no one again." Scott finally looked up from the ground, staring straight as Stiles. "No one at all." He held the flare out to the side further and I inhaled sharply. Please, don't drop it.

"Scott, just listen to me, okay?" Stiles said. "You're not no one. Okay? You're someone, you're-" He paused taking a step forward. "Scott, you're my best friend. Okay? And I need you." He continued forward. "Scott, you're my brother. Alright, so. . ." Stiles stepped into the puddle of gasoline. I gasped and clenched my fists. No, Stiles, no. "So if you're gonna do this, then. . ." He wrapped his hand around the flare fight above Scott's hand. "I think you're just gonna have to take me with you. Alright?" Stiles pulled the flare from Scott's hand and tossed it far away.

Then it started to move.

Lydia screamed, "No!"

I rushed forward, tackling them out of the puddle of gasoline, Lydia and Allison following closely behind.

The flare set the gasoline ablaze.

My heart raced in my chest as I felt the heat of the fire behind me, but the gasoline quickly burned out. I set my head down with a loud sigh of relief, and Scott groaned from under me. I picked my head up from his chest, looking at him.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I feel like I got hit by a bus," he muttered.

I couldn't help but let out a laugh which made him smile. At least he was back to normal. "That's pretty much how I felt, too." I then realized I was still laying on him and blushed. "Oh, sorry." I quickly rolled off of him, setting down between him and Stiles, who was sitting up with Lydia untangling herself from his lanky limbs.

"It's alright. I've had worse than someone laying on me." Scott rolled his shoulders. "You should join lacrosse with a tackle like that."

"Do something like that again and I'll do worse than tackling you to save your life."

He didn't buy the threat, continuing to smile. "Noted. Although, I don't quite remember what I was doing."

"It's not obvious?" Stiles interrupted. He gestured to the discarded can of gasoline and the charred remains of the flare. "You tried to make yourself into a smore."

I tut-tutted him. "You could've gone with a dog joke, and you instead went with a smore? A hot dog, man. I'm disappointed in you, Stilinski."

"Maybe next time you call my eyes pretty, I won't realize something's wrong."

"I did what?"

Stiles gave me a cheeky grin. "Oh, yeah. And I'm going to hold it against you forever."

"Receipts or it didn't happen."

"Is no one going to mention the person in the fire?" Lydia asked loudly, getting everyone's attention.

"What person?" Allison questioned.

"There was a black-cloaked figure with a scarred face," the redhead explained. "I think it was the Darach."

After collecting all of our things and explaining what had happened to all of us supernatural creatures to Scott, Isaac, and Boyd, we decided to sleep in the bus for the rest of the night. I left the room I had originally planned on sharing with Lydia and Allison then bumped in Isaac at the stairs. He gestured towards the stairs awkwardly, letting me go first. I smiled at him and walked down the stairs, Isaac following after me.

Once we reached the bottom and began walking towards the bus, he cleared his throat and asked, "Did we really break up, or was that a dream?"

Ducking my head as we walked, I took in a deep breath. "I guess if we both remember it, it was real." I then shook my head. "We can talk about it tomorrow when we're far away from this place. Come here." I held out my hand and he let me wrap my arm around him, and he did the same to me, holding me tight and close as we climbed into the bus.

The others were already bunking down for the night, and Isaac and I went to the back of the bus, sliding into the back seat. We weren't going to be able to sleep without being by each other's sides. Not after the night we just had. Using his duffle as a backrest and one of his sweatshirts as a pillow he laid down on the seat and I nestled in his arms.

Hours later, with the sun up, I woke up to someone walking up the bus steps. "I don't want to know." I sat up to see Finstock standing at the front of the bus. The others began waking up to his loud voice. "I really don't want to know, but in case you missed the announcement, the meet's canceled, so we're heading home. Pack it in. Pack it in!" The other cross country runners began boarding the bus.

I yawned and stretched, adjusting so Isaac could sit up, too. "At least you don't have to run after what happened," I told him, trying to find the plus side.

"I don't know. Running might help with the frustrations."

I nudged him with my shoulder. "No matter what, you know I care about you, right?"

He looked up at me with a soft smile. "I do."

"Good, and I hope you also know that I don't plan on being awake for this whole bus ride."

Isaac laughed. "Wasn't counting on it. Come here." He leaned up against the window and waved at me with his hand, beckoning me closer. Curling into his arms with my legs draped over him, I drifted back asleep, ignoring whatever Finstock was yelling at Stiles about. I'd find out later.

Shinjimae - Go to hell

Baka - Idiot

Hope everyone liked the chapter!

Captain Boshtet: I plan to have her powers develop over time but not necessarily due to any particular relationship she has. Also, now I feel bad about you finding them adorable together after what I did with this chapter lol.