Ah hello! Another relatively long chapter! I've been looking super forward to uploading this chapter so I really really hope you enjoy it.
Any feedback will be very much appreciated.
Have a great week! :)

xxxx

"Okay, so what do we know so far?" Malia quizzed.

"Whatever this is, it goes after people with passed family, harvests something really small and," Lydia forced herself not to look at Stiles, "uses some form kind of mind control."

"And does its killing quickly somewhere around the pond," Stiles added, not seeming to mind Lydia's comment.

"They might also be able to hide their and their victim's scent," Scott suggested.

Stiles bounced his leg, "You know what I just realized?"

The pack looked at him with curiosity.

"All of us except Kira have absent parents."

"Lydia and I don't either, both of our parents are divorced not dead," Scott argued

"Yeah but they're pretty much out of your lives right? It's almost like they're dead. This thing might just need the emotional longing for someone."

"We could be potential targets," Malia said.

"Yeah but come on over half the people in this town don't have both of their parents. Lawyers and marriage counselors thrive in Beacon Hills," Stiles said.

"Doesn't mean we're safe. We haven't even seen it, much less know how to fight them."

XXX

That night unknown to Stiles, Malia had silently crawled into his bed with the goal of keeping him safe. She knew about how he'd nearly frozen to death in the forest so as soon as they'd discovered what type of people this thing targets she'd felt an undeniable urge to protect him.

She let out a breath of relief when he didn't wake when she came in. The last thing she wanted was to freak him out. She quickly fell asleep under the warm covers.

Sleep hadn't come as easy for Stiles. Every time he closed his eyes at night he still feared he'd open them somewhere else. He had a bottle of sleeping pills by his bedside which was half empty by now.

He was trying to walk through a blizzard, barely able to see where he was going. With every step he took, he felt something behind him but he wouldn't turn around. As he kept walking the snow got deep and deeper. He stopped only after the snow had reached his upper thighs.

He felt something grabbing at his legs and shoulders. Without a moment's hesitation, he pulled out an oh so familiar katana. As he swung it around, seemingly in random directions, invisible bodies fell to the ground, covering the white snow with a dark red.

At this point, the blizzard had gotten so powerful that he couldn't move without being swept away.

Something pushed him. He could smell something terrible in the darkness. His eyes watered. After he adjusted to the darkness he was faced with hundreds of people whose corpses were rotting away. They all had slash marks around their bodies.

The real Stiles awoke with a start and promptly turned on the light. A feminine voice came from his left.

"You okay? Stiles?"

"Yeah, I was just dreaming."

It took him a few seconds to realize what had just happened. Again. When he did, he flew out of bed screaming, keeping his hands in the air threateningly.

"Woah Stiles it's just me!"

It didn't seem to matter to him.

"No, no, no! Stay away from me!"

In his panic, when Malia reached out to touch him, he ran out of his room and locked himself in the bathroom.

She obviously ran after him. She could clearly hear Stiles' sobs and noes from the other side. She didn't know what to do. Why did he react like this? Was there something she didn't know?

Suddenly she was pushed away by the Sheriff, "Son? Stiles let me in," he banged on the door and turned to Malia, "What're you doing here?"

Stiles' cries suddenly grew louder at his father's words

He spoke again before she could respond, "get me the keys from the drawer over there," he pointed to a sideboard.

Noah put his ear against the door, he could hear his son's muffled yet broken sounds behind the wood separating them.

Malia came back with five keys a few moments later, "I didn't know which one."

The Sheriff grabbed one and put it in the keyhole, "Stiles I'm coming in."

He heard Stiles yell, "No! No! Get out!" he had to stop between his quick breaths, "Don't! Please!" he sobbed again, "Get out! Don't come in!"

Though it broke his heart the Sheriff opened the door, preparing himself whatever sight might be in there. Without hesitation, he ran to his son and embraced him tightly.

"Shh! Hey, hey, hey, hey! It's okay! it's okay! You're okay!"

Stiles didn't seem to hear his father's words. He tried to get out of his grip. He wasn't going to be okay, it'd come back, it was going to get in and he was going to kill everyone.

He started hitting himself in an effort to wake up. It wasn't real. He had to wake up to keep it out. As he kept thrashing around and hit himself harder. The Sheriff grabbed his hands and held them to his chest.

Malia was still in shock by the sight before her. She'd comforted Stiles during bad days before but they were no way near this. She desperately wanted to help but she didn't know what she could do without making things worse. She didn't know it was this bad.

Between Stiles hitting himself and screaming she had a eureka moment. She distinctly remembered Scott talking about nightmares.

She turned to the Sheriff and interrupted Noah's coos, "He thinks he's asleep!"

He gestured for Malia to hold him and they switched places. He sat down in front of Stiles and raised his fists, "Stiles look at me, look at my hands."

He started counting slowly. With each finger, Stiles calmed more and fell silent when Noah was done.

He slowly got his hands free from Malia's grip and counted his own fingers. He had ten. It was real. He looked at his dad and Malia and thought of his unnecessary reaction.

"Oh god," he croaked and buried himself in his father's shoulder unable to stop his tears.

It was another fifteen minutes before he calmed down completely. He and Malia sat side by side leaning to the bathtub.

"I'm sorry," Stiles broke the silence.

"What happened?"

"Last time I woke up from a nightmare with someone sleeping next to me like that I got possessed."

"I'm sorry."

Stiles rubbed the aching spot on his forehead. It was slowly starting to bruise.

His father came back from the kitchen with water and a Tylenol.

"It's only four a.m."

Stiles swallowed the pill, "I can't go back to sleep."

XXX

Stiles slammed the door of his jeep and yawned loudly.

"Did you sleep at all?" Malia climbed out of the front seat.

"Yeah, just tired," he lied even though he knew Malia could tell. But there was no point in not trying.

They were greeted by Scott when they walked into the school.

"Still no news from Damon?" he asked.

"Nope," Stiles said as he went to his locker.

Scott observed Stiles for a moment, "you look terrible."

"And I still hate your tattoo," he scoffed.

"What happened to your forehead?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"So you hit yourself in the head with a baseball bat?"

Stiles laughed mockingly and changed the subject, "Maybe we should talk to Deaton. Where is he anyway? I miss his riddled answers"

"I'm not sure, I didn't see him after, you know. He might be back."

"We should check afterschool. He might actually know what we're dealing with."

"Have you heard of Derek?"

Stiles tensed at his name, "No."

"We should see him first. He probably isn't too happy that his last beta left."

"That implies that he's normally happy."

Scott observed his friend for a moment and stopped. He smelled off. The negative emotions that usually clung on to him all the time had gotten stronger. He could tell something more that happened last night

"Dude are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, I just had a bad night. It's fine."

Scott recognized this as the 'I'm lying, please shut up' tone. After the other day he didn't want to start a conversation about feelings but he could clearly see something was wrong. It was his job to help.

"Was it about the, you know, the thing?"

Stiles ignored it.

"Do you wanna talk about it? I dreamt about Allison the other day, it felt terrible. I can't imagine yours was very pleasant either."

Stiles thought back to that night, "No it wasn't. But I know it was just a dream. That's what matters"

XXX

The pack met at the parking lot once again after school. Kira and Scott left together on Scott's bike. Stiles asked Malia if she was coming with him but she chose to go with Lydia instead. He couldn't blame her. He wouldn't want to see him after last night either.

Everyone got into their cars and left to regroup at Derek's loft.

Scott and Kira made it there first. Derek groggily got up to answer the knock on the door. He smelled the teens halfway there and just told them to come in.

"What are you doing here?"

"We haven't seen you since Isaac left, we wanted to see how you were," Scott said.

"I'm doing fine, how're things with Allison?"

Both the teens looked at their feet, "We're getting over it," Kira said.

Malia and Lydia came a few minutes later. They repeated the same awkward small talk.

"Who are you?" Derek asked Malia.

"I could say the same for you," she answered.

"This is Malia Tate, she's new," Lydia said.

"The coyote girl?"

Malia growled softly.

They sat around awkwardly for another ten minutes until Derek said, "I'm assuming you're already involved in the new murders?"

The pack nodded.

"Do you know anything about them?" Lydia asked.

"I haven't really been keeping up. What do you know?"

After Lydia explained everything Derek scoffed, "It sounds like a siren."

"They're similar but I don't they are. A siren would mark you and eat you. This is different." said Lydia.

Derek looked around for a moment.

"Where's the hyperactive spaz?"

Lydia furrowed her eyebrows, "He should've been here by now."

"His jeep probably broke down again, I'll call him," Scott said and dialed his number. It went unanswered. He tried again and was once more greeted by Stiles' upbeat voice mail.

XXX

Stiles blinked into clarity when he was startled by his ringtone. He missed it by mere seconds. He couldn't help the panic building up in his chest when he looked around and saw that he was deep in the reserve rather than the parking lot he was in moments ago.

"No, no not this again!"

His mind went to the nogitsune immediately but after looking around more carefully he saw the pond beyond the trees.

"Oh my god, I'm gonna die. No, no, no!"

He turned around and started running in the opposite direction. He wasn't going to die, not today.

He took out his phone and dialed Scott. He picked up before the second ring.

"Dude where are you?"

"Scott, pond, monster!"

"Okay just focus on not getting caught, we're coming."

Stiles didn't respond.

"Stiles? Are you there? Are you okay?"

The phone fell to the forest floor.

"Okay" wasn't the first word that would come to mind to explain how Stiles felt. His initial panic was fading away and he had stopped resisting. It was like someone else was moving his limbs for him. He felt warm for the first time in ages. He was happy. The thought of getting murdered didn't cross his mind at all.

When he made it to the edge of the pond he stopped himself again. He couldn't let this happen. He tried to run away but he couldn't move. He couldn't control his own body.

As he kept resisting he felt someone touch his shoulder. It was a beautiful woman in her late thirties.

"Mom?"

The woman nodded and took Stiles' hand. He stopped resisting once more and got deeper in the water and dived. He didn't come back up.

XXX

The pack and Derek made it to the reserve as fast as they could. They followed the GPS on Stiles' phone and once again found themselves at the pond.

"No no no!" Scott said as he looked around with fear. He'd gotten so close to losing his best friend before, he couldn't go through this again, "spread out and look for clues."

"I can't find his scent," Derek walked around the pond, "there's nothing."

"Yeah, once the victim gets close enough the thing wipes out their scent," said Lydia.

Kira went back to where they'd entered the pond. She looked around the leaves for a while.

"Guys I found his phone," she wiped off the dirt with her sleeve.

Derek bent down and touched the water. It was very cool.

"Have you ever searched inside the pond?"

"We didn't think it was a good idea," said Malia.

"If the victims are drowned and this thing is anything like a siren there's a good chance there's something down there."

Scott shrugged, "We have no idea what's in there," he put his hand in the water and felt a shiver go down his spine.

"Lydia had a vision about it being filled with blood," he added.

"And you still didn't look?"

"Should we tell the sheriff about this?" Malia asked out of nowhere. After seeing his relationship with his son she genuinely thought that he had a right to know.

"Maybe we should wait," said Scott

"Malia's right, they could do a sweep of the pond," argued Lydia and sat by the water.

Scott ignored her comment and kept searching for anything he could find. They'd already been here so many times he didn't know what he was expecting to find.

Derek had followed what seemed to be Stiles' tracks in the forest. They were in a straight line at first but he could see the struggle as they got closer to the pond and eventually disappeared.

Scott sat by Lydia.

"There has to be something we're missing" he insisted and started throwing the stones next to him into the pond. They all disappeared into the dark water with a big splash.

"Obviously. Otherwise, we'd have solved this already."

"I hope he's okay."

As Scott picked up another stone he hissed in pain and dropped it.

"Are you okay?"

Scott inspected his palm, something that sliced it straight open.

"Yeah, it was probably a piece of glass or something," he said as he watched his hand quickly heal.

Lydia carefully picked up the 'glass' and held it to the sun, "This doesn't look like glass."

As Scott cleaned the blood, Malia took the unidentified object from her and looked at it closer. It was as thick, long as her index finger and snow white.

Her train of thought was interrupted by Scott's yelp.

Derek and Kira shot out of the woods, "What's going on?" he asked.

Scott gritted his teeth stretched out his arm to show them his palm. Small black lines had appeared from where the cut had once been. Scott took a sharp intake of breath as pain radiated up his arm.

"It's definitely not glass," he winced as he was hit with another jolt of stabbing pain.

Scott's eyes were taken over by a fiery red. He couldn't stop himself from shifting, it was as if the pain had overridden his basic functions. His agony persisted for another minute or so and disappeared as quickly as it came.

"What the hell was that?" Malia questioned with frustration.

"Believe me I wish I knew," Scott replied.

Kira Inspected the "glass" further, making sure her grip on it was loose.

"Maybe we should take this to Deaton? He knows this sort of stuff right?" she said.

"Yeah, that's the best we can do for now," he took the "glass" from Kira and held it up to his eye-level, "this could belong to the things killing those people."

"We haven't heard from him in a while. Is he even in town?" .

"We can't know unless we go and see," said Scott, "Derek?" he asked, wondering if he'd join them.

He nodded and followed the teens. They'd lost too many people, Stiles wouldn't be one of them.

XXX

Scott kept his eyes on his palm as they walked up to Deaton's door. He didn't feel anything anymore but the black lines still hadn't disappeared completely.

As Kira knocked on the door Malia asked," Deaton's the magic veterinarian right?"

"Yeah, he's a druid, and his sister Ms. Morrel's was an emissary for the alpha pack," Lydia answered.

"Ms. Morrel?"

"Do you know her?"

"Yeah, she used to work at Eichen."

"I mean, she was also our guidance counselor," Lydia shrugged.

A voice inside told them to come in. As they entered Deaton opened the gate to break the mountain ash seal.

"Welcome," he led them to the exam room, "Is everyone alright?"

Scott explained the situation and gave him the "glass"

After examining it for a few minutes Deaton's eyes went wide, "Wow, you've really got yourselves in a pickle haven't you?"

"Do you know what this thing is?" Lydia asked.

Deaton circled around the metal table, "Things," he corrected, "yes, I know what they are. Although I must say I haven't heard of them in a long time. Most people believe that they went extinct. I suppose they were wrong."

Derek's patience was wearing thin, "What are they?"

"They're called 'Auraturs'"

"And that thing belongs to one of them?"

"Yes, it's called a spine. They can extract them from their arms. They're not the best fighters so this is their defense mechanism."

Scott showed him his palm, the black lines were nearly gone now, "And they're poisonous?"

"Yes. You're lucky you're a werewolf, otherwise, you'd be in a lot more pain right now. You were right about the people they target. They go after people who've lost a significant person in their lives and have a deep longing for them. Some can even shift to look like that certain person and appear differently to everyone."

"What do you mean some?" asked Kira, "Do they have a system like werewolves?"

"I suppose they're kind of similar, yes. They're divided into three subcategories, 'edibles', 'feeders' and 'prayers', getting stronger and more advanced in that order. The edibles go around in packs but the others most prefer to be alone or groups up to three."

"What do they want? They must have a reason for being here," Lydia leaned against the table.

"They're most likely passing by. They weren't biologically engineered to live outside of water but they were forced to go on land when Vikings got too fierce for them. They have to harvest bits of the lung from humans to breathe on land."

"Do they go after supernaturals too?" Scott asked.

"If you aren't dealing with a prayer, I'd guess no. Very few of them exist now and they wouldn't want to hurt their population by getting overpowered."

Derek cleared his throat, "So how do we fight them?"

xxxx

Aaahh so the mystery is finally solved! I was inspired by Sirens while coming up with these guys and I just kinda mushed them together with werewolves and pufferfish lol.

That nightmare scene tho! I felt so evil writing it! Poor Stiles, he just can't catch a break.