(EMMA'S POV)

"You need to make her remember," Joy pressed.

"How am I supposed to do that?!" I asked, done with this whole thing.

"I don't know."

"And how is making her remember going to make her the Kirin again?"

"I don't know." She crossed her arms. "Maybe she'll know something that can help."

"Joy-"

"Koda is dead," she looked at me sternly. "The Pride won't last much longer."

"I know."

"Do you?"

I stepped forward, speaking with a stern voice, "Remember your place."

She took a step closer, challenging me. "Remember your mission." Her eyes looked right through me. She was young, physically. Emotionally, she was a warrior. "You came here for her power, not your friend. If she can't give us what we need to save the Pride, then what is the point of you being here? You need to return, until we come up with a new plan."

"We're running out of time. I need to see this through."

She shook her head. "Emma-"

"She knows people that might be able to help-"

"Really?" she questioned. "I knew you coming here was a bad idea. This was supposed to be a quick mission. We don't have time for you to play house and walk down memory lane."

I retracted. "That's not what I'm doing?"

"Have you even told her what's happened?" she asked, and I didn't reply. She scoffed. "Maybe I should talk to her-"

"No!" I snapped. "Let me handle this."

"Then handle it!" She sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "You have a week; and that's being generous, because we might not have that much time. Get what you came for. Bring me the Kirin."

I sat up, rubbing my eyes. I've replayed that conversation in my head all night long. I don't think I got any sleep, which isn't good. Between what Joy said and coming up with ideas, sleep is the last thing on my mind. I pushed the covers off of me and stood. I wasn't sure what time it was, but I could hear that Kit was awake.

I walked out of the guest room and down the hall to the living room. Charlie was on the floor in the middle of about a hundred blocks, building a tower. Kit was in the kitchen. It looked like she was cleaning up after a meal. I walked over to the island and sat. She looked at me with a weak smile.

"What's that for?" I asked.

She sighed. "Nothing."

"What about the no secrets rule?"

She sat a plate in the sink and then fully faced me. She looked tired and worn. Maybe she didn't sleep, either. "I'm starting to rethink it." She went back to scrubbing dishes.

"Okay…?" I wasn't sure if I should press that more. "How'd it go with Chris, yesterday?" The plate she was scrubbing snapped in half, making quite the ruckus as the halves banged against the metal sink. "Hey." I promptly stood and walked over to her. She just froze, the water still running. "Kit?"

She seemed to snap out of her trance, picking up the broken pieces and throwing them in the trash. "I'm fine," she mumbled, as the cupboard door to the trash slammed shut. I eyed her, skeptically. She was not 'fine.' Everything was screaming the exact opposite.

"Uh, 'fine' is what you say after falling off your bike and skinning your knee," I said. "You are not fine." She didn't respond. "Hey," I spoke softly, putting my hand on her arm and turning her to face me. "Talk to me."

"That's the thing, Em," she said. "I'm done talking."

"Okay. That's fine, too. Why don't you just take the day? You know, do something?"

"Like what?"

The door bell rang a split second later. "Like…answer the door. Start there," I said. She groaned at the idea, but did it anyway. Charlie beat her to the door, trying to reach up and grab the handle. Even though she was clearly not having a good day, she was still nice to him as she asked him to move.

She held his hand to keep him back and then opened the door. I walked over to join her, hearing Scott's and Stiles' voices. Charlie walked up to Stiles and reached up, his sign that he wanted held. The boy barely makes any sounds and doesn't even try to form words.

"Hey, big guy," Stiles said, picking up the boy. "Wow! You've gotten bigger since yesterday, when I saw you last." I rolled my eyes.

"What do you guys want?" Kit asked them. Both of their demeanors changed. They knew she was off, too.

"Uh," Scott seemed to be second guessing his words. "Well, Stiles and I were going to help the sheriff and we wanted to know if you'd like to come along."

"Why would I want to?"

"Well…it's just what we did." He seemed to be making it up as he went along. "You know…before." I slightly cringed at that. Kit wasn't in the mood for talking about her past life.

Kit was quiet a minute. "What are you helping him with?"

"My dad was going over some old cases," Stiles said. "One in particular caught his eye. About eight years ago there was a car crash that killed almost an entire family."

"So?"

"So, he thinks a werewolf might have caused it. One of the bodies was never found."

Scott nodded. "He wants me to see if I can get a scent from the house and maybe find the girl."

I stepped forward. "Why would a werewolf kill a family and then take one of the bodies?"

"That's what we're hoping to find out," Stiles said. "The body was a young girl, named Malia."

I looked at Kit. She was quiet. I nudged her, and she looked at me. "I'll watch Charlie."

She cocked her head to the side, like I was crazy. "Tigers aren't really known for their sense of smell." A poor excuse, but I knew she was grasping.

"And snow leopards can't roar," I countered, "but that doesn't stop me from trying." She was quiet again.

"You don't even have to help," Scott told her. "You could just come 'cause you can."

"Yeah," Stiles agreed. "Why do you think I'm going?" Kit glared at me, giving me a look like 'I'm going to regret this, aren't I?'

(KIT'S POV)

Scott, Stiles, and I approached the porch of some guy. He's the husband/father of the family that was killed. They boys gave me more details on the way over, but I'm still not sure what help I'm going to be. We crept across the porch and to a door on the back side of the house.

The sheriff was supposed to be distracting the man while we search the girl's room. Stiles put his hand on the door knob, turning it. It was unlocked. He pushed the door open, stopping when the hinges screamed against it. He froze, then tried again. It squeaked and he stopped.

I sighed and pushed past him, shoving the door open and stepping into the room. The boys quickly followed, closing the door behind us. I looked around the room, taking in the scene. Stiles shoved a stuffed animal into me as he tossed one to Scott. Scott caught it and smelled it.

I took the animal from Stiles, fingering it numbly. My adrenaline was starting to rise at the realization of what we were doing. We just broke into a house and are now (literally) sniffing around the room of the owner's dead daughter, in hopes it will lead us to her body. How messed up does that sound?

But we were here, so I might as well try. I brought the toy up to my nose and inhaled deeply. Besides the stuffing and fabric, there was a scent I couldn't place. But it wasn't human. I handed it back to Stiles. "Anything?" he asked, returning the toy. I shook my head. He ran around me to the dresser.

"All I'm getting is some animal smell," Scott said.

"What kind of animal?" Stiles asked, picking up a plastic horse and holding it out to Scott. But Scott wasn't paying attention. I followed his gaze as a low growl filled my ears.

"Dog," Scott replied. And it was definitely a dog. A big Rottweiler, to be exact. And he was standing in the doorway staring at us with a look that said that he couldn't decide if we were lunch or dinner.

"Hi, puppy," Stiles hid the toy horse in his jacket. "Get rid of it."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Glow your eyes at it, something. Be the Alpha."

"I can't," Scott said. "I don't have control." Uh, well that was news to me. What was he talking about? I wanted to lay into him right then, but Stiles looked at me. He gave me a look like I was supposed to do something. I shrugged, giving him the 'what am I supposed to do' gesture. He sighed, turning back to Scott.

"Okay, buddy, you're gonna have to do something."

Scott stretched his hand out toward the dog, slowly stepping toward it. "Nice doggie…" The dog started barking, very loudly. I sighed. Well, that went according to plan. And the dog wouldn't stop barking. The man who lives here started yelling at it. It took a few tries, but the dog stopped barking.

The dog turned and trotted down the hall. I sighed with relief when no one came to investigate. Stiles jumped straight back into looking for things that Scott could smell. This time he handed him a book. "Anything?"

Scott sighed. "All I'm getting is that dog."

"Me, too," I said. "We need to leave. There's nothing here for us." It seemed they agreed. But before we left, Stiles took a picture with his phone of a framed photo on the desk. It was a picture of the two girls who died in the car crash. I'm not sure why that's relevant, but Stiles' ways are his own.

We made our escape from the house and walked back through the woods, the way we came, to Stiles Jeep. I walked up next to Scott. "What do you mean you can't control it?" I asked. "You're an Alpha, aren't you?"

"Yes," he said. "But, we've been having side effects from ritually dying to find our parents."

"And, that means you can no longer control your powers?"

"I don't know…I guess. It's different for all of us."

"'Us'?"

"Allison and Stiles were a part of it, too."

"They're human. What's their problem?"

Stiles whipped around, as if offended by something. Which isn't really hard to do. "Not sleeping, night terrors, hallucinations."

"And Allison?"

"She's been seeing her dead aunt. I believe that falls under hallucinations."

Both boys stopped walking and looked at me. I stared at the two of them. "What?"

They shared a look and then Stiles spoke. "Usually, we tell you stuff like this and you come up with a way to fix it." His voice was resolved. He wasn't asking for help or expecting anything from me. He was just simply stating a fact.

I eyed them, skeptically. "Why did you really bring me out here?"

"Chris called us," Scott said. "He didn't go into detail, but he said you were pretty upset when you left the cemetery."

I crossed my arms. "Yeah, thanks for that, by the way."

"The last time you were really upset," Stiles said, "we dragged you out to the Lacrosse field and you got to watch as I pelted Scott with balls."

"What?"

Scott rolled his eyes at Stiles' explanation. "He was trying to help me control my anger and shifting, not long after I was bitten."

Now I was really confused. "If that was my job, why wasn't I doing it?"

He shrugged. "You and Derek had had a fight about something. You were really depressed afterwards, so we tried to cheer you up."

"Did we break up?"

Stiles shook his head. "No, this was before you were even together." They both turned and started walking. I thought hard. That didn't make sense. They brought me out here to cheer me up, okay. But it was what they said about what had happened last time, with me and Derek.

Leaves tumbled past me as the wind blew, blowing with it the faintest of words, "Promise me…"

I opened my eyes, waking myself from the only real sleep I've gotten in the last twenty four hours. I glanced around the dark room, momentarily forgetting where I was when I dozed off. The only light that lit the room was coming from the TV across the room. It was playing reruns of Sesame Street.

I realized my breaths were labored and that my chest felt heavy. I looked down and found Charlie. He was lying on top of me, his stomach against mine, his head on my chest/collar bone area. I laid my head back and sighed. The kid was sound asleep. I don't remember if he was on me when I dozed off here on the couch.

I reached for the remote on the coffee table and muted the TV. Then was the daunting task of trying to get up. I thought about waking him up, but I knew it'd be harder to try and get him to go back to bed. I slowly sat up, sliding his body across mine to the left.

By the time I was fully sitting up, Charlie was completely horizontal across me. The side of his face was plastered on the bend of my left elbow, as the rest of my left arm went down his back. I rotated my body so my legs were now on the ground. Then I carefully got a firm grip on him and stood.

I held my breath, not wanting to wake him. But he didn't move. I sighed at a mission well done. I am successfully off the couch. And then someone knocked on the door. I jumped and nearly dropped him, my heart going into my throat. I steadied Charlie in my arms and then tiptoed to the door.

I balanced him in my left arm as I reached out with my right to unlock and open the front door. I swung it open and found Scott and Stiles. Stiles' face screwed up like he had just broken something expensive, and Scott looked at me apologetically.

I motioned then in and then walked down the hall to my room. Scott and Stiles waited out in the front room as I got Charlie situated in the bed. I backed out of the room, closing the door behind me. I sighed and then went to join the others. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Sorry, it's late," Scott said.

"Did something happen?"

"No. We were gonna go look for a body. In the woods."

I raised an eyebrow. "Um…"

"And we wanted to know if you'd like to come with," Stiles added.

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"Does this have to do with what happened earlier, at that house?" I asked.

"We wanted to take a look at the crash," Scott said. "Maybe we can find something they didn't." And before I knew it, guess what I was doing. If you said 'traipsing through the woods at an unholy hour looking for a body that's probably long gone', then you'd be right.

I had left a note for Emma when she woke up, but still, this was crazy. All of this. We were following the GPS on Scott's phone to the crash site. Only one of these turds brought a flash light. But, apparently, I had one at my house. That still feels weird. 'My house'. Like, how do I have a house?

"So," I said to break the silence. "Is this something else we did? Hiking through the woods to find a dead person, in the middle of the night?"

"Well," Stiles paused in thought. "This does seem to be a reoccurring thing. But, no, we've never included you on one of these trips."

"So you have done this before?"

"Yeah, when we were looking for Derek's sister, who we didn't know was his sister, at the time."

I tried to think. "The one who was killed by the Alpha who bit Scott…?"

"Hey, you're getting it!" he beamed. "Yeah, Peter."

"And where is he?"

"Hopefully, Hell."

A coyote howled in the distance and Stiles jumped, grabbing Scott just ahead of him. The action caused Scott to drop his phone, which tumbled down the rocks and into a puddle. The two then shared a glance. "Sorry, buddy," Stiles said. "I hate coyotes so much. They always sound like they're mauling some tiny, helpless, little animal."

Scott jumped down the rocks with ease. Stiles stumbled/slid his way down, trying to brush it off like that didn't just happen. I rolled my eyes at him before jumping down. I wasn't sure where we were, but I knew I could find my way back, if need be.

"It still works," Scott said, holding his wet phone. Stiles shone his light up ahead, walking that way. The boy peaked my curiosity way too much.

"I think we found it," he said. Scott and I followed him. Just around the bend, about forty feet away, was an upside down car. It's tires were missing and it was over grown, showing clear signs of being here for years.

"Why wouldn't they move it? Isn't it evidence?"

"Probably too much of a pain to tow out."

I hung back, watching as they moved in closer. They were obsessing over the large claw marks that slashed along the side of the car. They weren't from a normal animal, it had to be supernatural. But I fixed my eyes on the car and just stared at it.

"Hey." Scott's voice caused me to look at him. "Are you okay?" I didn't say anything.

"Oh, man," Stiles said. "I'm such an idiot. Your parents-"

"I'm fine," I told them. I walked around the front of the car, pretending like I wasn't reliving the night my parents died. I don't blame them. I didn't think this through, either. But, if I can help, I will. Scott and Stiles went back to looking at the car, ducking down to look on the inside of it.

"Hey, what is that?" I heard Scott ask. A minute later they both stood, Stiles holding a baby doll. It was old and decrepit, like the car. They both looked at it like it could solve world hunger, or something. It was a doll! What is the matter with these kids? But it got better when the doll spoke. Stiles screamed and the doll flew out of his hands, him and Scott jumping back.

"I think I just had a minor heart attack," Stiles said, seriously. I laughed. He glared at me. "Oh, you think that's funny?" But Scott hushed him. He was staring past me. I was confused by his sudden serious tone, and then I heard a growl. I turned around. Staring at us from the dark of the trees was a pair of blue glowing eyes.

"Someone please tell me they see that," Scott said.

"I see it," Stiles said. "Kit, how 'bout you? Are we both crazy?"

"Yep." I stared into the creatures eyes as mine glowed green. "But, not right now." Then it turned and ran. Scott ran past me a second later. I didn't hesitate to follow. We both Ignored Stiles telling us to stay. We tore off into the night, chasing it for what felt like forever.

Scott started to slow down. I glanced at him just as his eyes glowed red, and he got an extra boost. Which was a good thing, because two minutes later we had to jump this large canyon. Cats are good at long distance jumping, but I wasn't sure about wolves. But Scott cleared it with no problem.

We landed on the other side to find that the Coyote had stopped. It growled at us, challenging us. No one ever said what happened when we caught it. But if it attacked, I was ready to defend myself. It's eyes glowed blue. "Malia?" Scott asked. The Coyote turned and ran.

But we didn't follow this time. We turned back and went to find Stiles. We were running, again. But this time not as hard, more like a fast jog. We found Stiles and then he led us somewhere he said he found while we were chasing the Coyote, or Malia, or whatever. He took us to some large boulders, to a space between them. He and Scott crawled in first and I followed. I didn't really feel like being the leader.

"It's a coyote den," Stiles said.

"Werecoyote," Scott corrected.

Stiles moved forward. "You see this-" he grabbed a crumpled up jacket. "This is Malia's, it's the same one she was wearing in the photo."

"Well, this was a stupid idea," I said. They jumped like they forgot I was here. "She won't come back now. I sure wouldn't."

"Well, if she's not going to come back here, where's she going to go?"

Scott sighed. "I don't know."

"Can either of you track her now? Do you think you have her scent?" Stiles looked at me, first.

"I don't know," I shrugged. He looked to Scott.

"Maybe," he said. "But, I'm better at this when I'm a full wolf. And I'm still worried that if I do it, I won't be able to turn back." Stiles twisted back and looked at me.

"What?" I asked. I was really starting to get tired of his face in general.

"You were usually the one we'd go to when stuff like this happened," he explained. Again with that. I huffed.

"Not anymore. I don't know anything about werewolves. I even have trouble sometimes with my own shift, let alone others'."

"If I can't get to Derek," Scott sighed, "we're gonna have to find someone else to help." He looked at Stiles. "Hey, this is a crime scene, right? I think it may be a little out of my boss' league."

"And more in my dad's," Stiles agreed.

I sighed and backed out of the den. I stood, straightening my back. The other's came out a minute later. "Okay," I said. "It'll be hard to explain why I'm here to the cops, so I'm gonna head home." I looked at Scott. "I'll ask Emma if she has any tricks up her sleeve about the shifting thing. There's a chance she might know something." I glanced between them. "What?"

Stiles had a knowing smile. "It just felt like old times there for a second," he said. "With you taking charge and handing out orders."

I nodded, not sure how to respond to that. What do you say when someone compares you to the person you don't remember being?