Heyo, wolflets. Word of warning: do not ever do a "system refresh" on your Windows computer unless you know exactly where your Microsoft Office product key is, or you will end up locked out of all your files and have to revert back to the 2010 version of Word because it's the only one you can find. And then you will end up not being able to update or work on any of your fics for a long time. Technology's great, right?
ANYWAY. Here is the next chapter, with something that I've promised from the start. You'll see, and I hope you'll like it. Let me know your thoughts in the reviews, and enjoy the chapter.
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"Anything?" Stiles asks anxiously, hovering in the doorway. Beside him, Kira is fiddling with her necklace, needing some way to get rid of her agitation, while Scott, Ethan, and Isaac are all in wolf form, trying to track down the missing girls. Stiles wishes there was something he could do, but all the red string and riddle-solving in the world won't be enough to find Lydia and Malia. Without the super-senses of a werewolf, there's nothing he can do.
The werewolves spread out on the lawn in front of the house, trying to isolate Lydia's and Malia's separate scents. Stiles is no werewolf, but he can imagine how difficult this must be; it's not exactly a high traffic area but it still must be covered with other scents, and the wolves need to pick through and find the right ones.
"Got it!" Isaac calls suddenly. He jerks his head up, pointing down the road. "Lydia went that way."
"I think I have Malia's scent," Ethan says from the other side of the yard. "But it's… strange."
Stiles stays where he is, watching as Scott goes over to Ethan and the two of them keep tracking. After a while Scott's frown turns into an expression of clarity. "She changed," he says, glancing up at Stiles. "Malia – she changed."
The words sink in, causing Stiles to take step forward, his heart falling to the floor. "She's a coyote?" he says, feeling faint. She's been working on controlling the transformations, but every now and then she still loses control. He's not sure what set this change off – the heat of battle, maybe – but he does know they need to find her before she hurts someone. She's still got her wild instincts, and she's not quite human enough to be able to curb them yet.
Scott thinks it through for a minute, and the rest of the pack instinctively gathers around him. Stiles taps his fingers against his leg, restless, needing to do something but not knowing what he can possibly do to help. Two of his best friends have disappeared, and he can't stand to lose either of them. They've already lost so much.
"Okay," Scott says, in his human form again but still clearly in alpha mode, "Ethan, Isaac, you guys track Malia down. Try to get her to change back. Call me if you need my help."
The two werewolves nod and then sprint away, leaving behind a heavy silence.
"Kira, Stiles, you guys come with me," Scott says, his decisive voice cutting through the silence. "We're going to follow Lydia."
The three of them set off, Scott a fair way ahead because he has werewolf-speed going for him. Stiles and Kira try to keep up, but this proves more and more difficult because Scott also has supernatural endurance. But they do their best, and eventually they reach the edge of the woods.
Skidding to a stop, Stiles stares into the trees. "Why would Lydia come here?"
Scott shrugs, leading the way into the woods, and the others follow quietly. The pace is slower now, because Scott has to sift through the scents of hikers and woodland animals and about a hundred other natural scents. "It doesn't smell like she's in danger," he says over his shoulder as Stiles picks his way over a fallen log. "She wasn't panicked – it's like…"
He trails off, which makes Stiles start to feel panicked. "Like what?" she says, stumbling over a tree root in his haste to catch up. He can hear Kira behind him, skilfully navigating the mess of fallen branches and tangled roots with all the grace of a kitsune. Damn supernatural creatures.
"Like she's not really herself," Scott responds, frowning. He pauses for a moment, picking up the scent again, and then adjusts his course slightly to the left. "I don't know what it is, but it kind of smells like something's wrong…"
"Wrong?" Stiles echoes, but Scott doesn't answer.
They keep walking, occasionally calling out Lydia's name – and Malia's, although Stiles finds that it gets caught in his throat - but there's no answer. The forest seems endless, but Stiles keeps reminding himself to have hope. Lydia's been missing for longer than this before, and she was (relatively) okay when they found her. And she's so much stronger now, so much wiser, and there's no way anything bad has happened to her. Because if it has, Stiles will literally go out of his freaking mind.
Finally Scott slows right down, his eyes scanning the path ahead. "She's close," he says, "really close."
Before Stiles can ask how close, he sees her. She's in a clearing up ahead, her back to them, but he'd recognize her anywhere. He calls her name again, but she doesn't respond, doesn't even react. He and the others approach quietly, and as they do they become aware of a noise.
Kira's the first to give voice to it. "Does anyone else hear… growling?"
Stiles pauses, focusing on the sound, and he realizes what it is. "Malia," he says grimly, looking in the direction of the noise and trying to catch sight of his girlfriend (if he can still call her that). She only makes that noise when she's in full coyote form, and although wild coyotes aren't usually dangerous to humans, a frustrated and confused werecoyote might be.
They've been there almost a minute when everything happens at once. Lydia spins around, and even from a few yards away Stiles can see that something's wrong – her eyes are unfocused, no light or life in them, and it chills Stiles to the core. But there's no time to dwell on that, because at that moment he sees Malia – in full coyote form, only a couple feet away from Lydia.
Scott, Stiles, and Kira all become very still, knowing that Malia is flighty enough as a human, but as a coyote she's even more temperamental. One wrong move could set her off, and although they know she wouldn't deliberately hurt any of them, they also know that she's not in control right now. Even Stiles, who knows her better than anyone, doesn't know what to expect.
"Malia," he says cautiously, and the coyote jerks her head around to face him. But there's no recognition in her eyes, no sign that she knows or cares about him. "Malia, it's me," he says, hoping he can get through to her if he can just make her listen. "We've been through this before. You just need to take a deep breath, okay? One deep breath."
She doesn't respond, just turns back to Lydia, who's still staring ahead with a blank look. Then Lydia tilts her head, like she's listening to something the rest of them can't hear (which is entirely possible, given her unpredictable banshee powers), and before any of them can react, she starts running.
She disappears into the trees before Stiles comes to his senses, but Malia's quicker. She lets out another growl and sprints after Lydia, leaving the others scrambling to catch up. Stiles manages to end up in front of Scott and Kira, and through sheer luck he catches up to Malia. He calls out her name, but she doesn't listen, so he does the only thing that comes to mind. He launches himself at her, knocking her off her paws and landing on top of her a foot away from the path. Stiles braces himself, expecting to feel teeth sinking into his flesh, but when he opens his eyes he realizes that Malia is human.
He stumbles off her, avoiding her piercing gaze, and instinctively he shrugs his jacket off and hands it to her. She takes it without a word and slips it on, and Stiles finds himself looking at her, seeing the lean muscles and the wild look in her eyes, and suddenly he knows how this is going to end.
"What happened?" he asks as Scott and Kira catch up to them.
Malia shrugs, averting her gaze. She seems to be particularly avoiding looking at Scott, like she doesn't want to deal with her alpha right now – although, Stiles thinks, it's debatable whether Scott ever really was her alpha. She's a coyote – a solitary creature, not meant to live in a pack. She's always been just a little too wild for them.
"I don't know," she mumbles. "After the fight I just… I couldn't change back. So I ran."
"And ended up in the forest," Stiles says, looking around. He's not even sure where they are – this is far from his side of town, from those familiar forests he's trekked through a hundred times with the rest of the pack. It's nowhere near where Peter bit Scott, or where they found Lydia the first time she slipped into a fugue state; it's nowhere familiar, nowhere near where they started, and somehow that feels right. This feels like an ending, but also a new beginning, and it feels right that it should be somewhere new.
"I don't mean to interrupt," Kira says cautiously, "but shouldn't someone go after Lydia?"
"We'll go," Scott offers quickly, knowing that Stiles needs a moment with Malia.
"I'll catch up," Stiles says, and those three simple words put them all on the same page. I'll catch up, not We'll catch up. Scott gives him a grim smile, and then turns toward Malia. He hesitates, and then dips his head, silently giving her permission to do what she needs to do. Kira smiles at her, and Malia returns it half-heartedly. Then the alpha and the kitsune disappear, leaving Stiles alone with Malia.
"I was worried about you," he says, but she cuts across him.
"It's okay, Stiles." There's no anger in her voice, only a trace of sadness. "We gave it our best shot, and it didn't work."
Stiles stays silent, not knowing what to say. Finally he manages, "I'm sorry. I really did – do – care about you."
"I know," she says, with a sad kind of smile. "I guess I'm just wild at heart."
They don't say it, but they both feel it; this is the end for them. "What are you going to do now?" he asks, half-expecting her to say that she'll go back to her father or try her luck in another town.
But what she says is, "I'm going to run."
It takes Stiles a second to catch on, because he'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. But some part of him had always known it was going to end up like this. "You're not – you're not coming back?" he asks, hating how vulnerable he sounds. He may not love her like he does Lydia, but he still cares about her.
Malia shakes her head, plants a kiss on his cheek, and hands his jacket back to him.
"Are you sure?" he asks, tightening his grip on the jacket and meeting her eyes. "I mean, how do you know this is the right thing to do?"
"I can feel it," she says, echoing the words he'd said to her after the fight with the rival werewolf pack. "I know this is the right thing to do." She pauses, resting her hand against his cheek, and whispers, "I'll miss you, Stiles."
He barely has time to say, "I'll miss you too," before she turns back into a coyote, her eyes flashing steel blue before she turns away and runs off into the trees. Stiles stares after her for a moment before coming back to his senses; there'll be time to come to terms with this later, but for now Lydia's still out there in a fugue state, and he needs to find her.
To his surprise, he does. He's not sure where Scott and Kira went, because it only takes Stiles a couple minutes to find Lydia. She's not running anymore, she's just standing in the shade of a towering tree, staring straight ahead and looking like she's hardly breathing.
"Lydia?" he says, approaching her slowly. She doesn't seem to hear him. "Lydia?" he says again, more loudly, although the hammering of his heart almost drowns out his words. They've been through this before, and he can feel that familiar fear – that maybe this time she's not coming back. Lydia's a banshee, walking with one foot in life and one in the afterlife, and it only seems a matter of time before she falls into the other side for good.
But he'll be damned if he lets that happen today.
"Lydia," he calls, still walking slowly toward her. "Come on, Lyds, look at me." He reaches her, placing his hands on her shoulders, trying to catch her eye.
She stares right through him, and he can't help but think he's already too late.
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Place your bets, guys. Is Stiles too late or is there hope for Lydia? (You probably already know the answer to that one.) See you in the reviews, everyone!