Allison slowly climbs up to one of the boulders of the Bluffs, lying flat on her stomach. She can hear her father coming up behind her. Once she is in position, she pulls out her binoculars.

She turns on the nightvision feature of her binoculars. She sees three men...no, one man and two boys her age. She could see that they have already laid out the things they need for the ritual. There is enough light (they seem to have brought their own lights with them) that she switches between nightvision and normal view to pick up details. They used what looks like ash and some other powder-like substance to create a rather complicated arcane circle on the Nemeton stump itself. It has different colors: black, white, ochre, yellow, an electric blue and a rusty-red. There are candles and other bits like feathers, bones and clay bowls filled with some liquid.

The man was standing with a book in one hand and holding a device on the other. The device looks like a kind of arcane sextant and he seems to be using it against the sky. He's constantly checking the book as well. Allison figures he's the ritualist, and possibly the leader of this group. She almost lets out a gasp when he turns and she sees his face clearly. That tiny part of Allison, the one that isn't involved in staying alive and getting as much intelligence as she can, that part that is all-girl, can't help but notice how ridiculously good-looking he is. And rather familiar but she knows she would definitely remember that face if she met him before. She notices how focused he is, ignoring what is going around him as he concentrates on reading the book and setting up for the ritual.

She can feel her father preparing the long-range listening device so they can eavesdrop on them. In the meantime she keeps her watch on the occultists.

One of the boys, who can't be that much older than her, stands tall with his back to the Nemeton and looking out in the woods. Something about the way he stands screams 'danger' to her. He's tall and even in the thick jacket she could see that he's all lean muscle. He's carrying a hatchet and a machete in both hands. Allison absently notes that while both of those are rather dangerous weapons, they can also be excused as camping gear.

As her father places one of the earbuds into her ear she finally turns her focus on the other boy. She first thinks that it's a kid as he is so much shorter than the other two but he's also a boy her age. There's an exotic cast to his features that she can't place. She can tell that most people would just think he was Caucasian but she was trained to see details and she can see that he isn't, at least not entirely. He has a mop of curls and when he tilts his head she almost makes a noise. The light catches his eyes and it shines like molten gold.

She is so caught up in his eyes that she almost doesn't realize that unlike the other two, Goldie seems to be in pain. But when she does she notes that his face—that face!—is all scrunched up and he's holding his stomach like he's in pain. She wonders if he's a prisoner and Ritualist and Hatchet are going to sacrifice him? But she notices the lack of restraints and that the other two aren't guarding him at all so he must be there on his own free will.

She turns to her father and she signs that she sees three. Her father nods. He switches the listening device on while she goes back to watching and switching to thermal vision. There might be more of them hiding in the woods.

She doesn't spot any but she is shocked at what she sees that she passes the binoculars to her dad. He quickly looks and frowns. Ritualist and Hatchet register normal body temperatures but Goldie is white hot. She's only seen that color when looking at furnaces and other heat sources.

Chris hands her back the binoculars, she continues to watch while she and her dad listen in.

"What's taking so long, Coop?" Hatchet says testily.

"I want to make sure," 'Coop' replies without any animosity. "I've never done this before Sam and forgive me if I don't want my brother to get hurt because I got careless."

"Sorry," 'Sam' says but the tension is still apparent in his voice and in his stance. "I'm just getting a bad feeling and I want to get this done now."

Allison sees Coop—and she wonders what kind of a name is 'Coop'?—frown. "How long have you been getting the willies?" he asks. Allison takes note that Coop takes Sam's danger sense seriously.

"For a while now...maybe ten minutes?" Allison frowns as that time frame is too close to when she and her dad arrived at the Bluffs. She spares a quick glance at her dad and she sees him meet her glance. He nods, sharing her concern.

"Something is happening," Goldie says with a groan. Sam quickly runs to his side putting both weapons gently on the ground as he holds on to Goldie.

"Blaine, is it the wards?" Sam asks and he looks grim when Blaine nods. He picks him up effortlessly bridal style and quickly jumps up to the Nemeton. Allison takes note that Sam, despite the thermal readings, is definitely not normal. He quickly but carefully walks across the ashes and powders and sets Blaine gently down on the center of the circle.

"Coop we gotta do this, we have incoming and we might not get another shot," Sam says as he quickly jumps down and picks up his weapons. When Coop looks at him, Sam adds, "I trust you, man. We both do. You got this."

Coop nods and puts down the fancy sextant. He climbs up to the Nemeton but outside the arcane circle. He opens the book to a prepared page and starts to chant.

Allison puts down her binoculars and pulls the earbud out of her ear. She knows they have to do something but waits for orders from her dad. He is silent for a moment and she forces herself to be patient, she knows he's weighing pros and cons on whether to engage or retreat and once he decides that, how to go about it. She doesn't say anything even though she wants to, the more patient she is, the quicker he'll get to a decision.

"We interrupt the ritual and then disengage," he says quickly and forcefully. "Too many unknowns and we don't have back-up. You engage Sam, assume he's a wolf or equivalent, take him down but don't kill him, not unless you have to. I'll take on Coop and take the book. I don't want to mess with the circle in case something worse happens but it looks like they can't continue without the book. Once I have it, we head back to the others. Got it?"

"Got it," Allison replies and quickly stands and jumps down to the ground and breaks off running. She knows that while she's the better fighter her father is more resourceful. Taking on Sam wouldn't be harder than fighting Scott or Aiden, unless he's something completely new. She's not cocky enough to think she can beat him but she's confident she can keep him occupied while her dad deals with Coop and she hopes Blaine is as incapacitated as he looks because of the three, he is the obvious supernatural.

"Coop! I've got incoming!"

She hears Sam call out. She pulls out her bow and nocks an arrow while running towards the Nemeton. She stops long enough to fire an arrow, which she does in one graceful movement, she hopes it will get him but if not, it will hopefully throw him off-balance. As she releases her arrow she sees her dad rushing by her, crossbow presumably aimed at Coop. As he stops to fire, she drops her bow to the ground and pulls out her bangstick (she curses Stiles as she can't help but use that term now) and a ring dagger and charges Sam.

She sees Sam throw the hatchet at her dad while stepping out of the arrow's path. "DAD!" she yells out in warning. She sees her dad throw himself into a forward roll, discarding the crossbow. The hatchet whistles inches above him but the crossbow bolt goes wild, missing his target. Feeling the anger building—he could have killed him!—she doesn't allow herself to be ruled by it. Instead she channels that anger to give her strength and speed.

She thrusts with her dagger knowing he'll block it, which he does, but it leaves his side open to her kick. She snaps her leg forward and feels it connect but he just takes it. He grunts at the impact but doesn't seem to be fazed. He swings the machete around and she steps back allowing it to just miss her. She realizes that Sam means business. He's not holding back or fighting to subdue her. If she didn't yell out that warning, her father would have had a hatchet to his head and if she was a just a bit slower, he would have buried his machete into her ribs. Eyes narrowing she decides to pull out all the stops. Using the momentum of her back step, she throws her hands up in the air and executes a backflip and she feels grim satisfaction when she feels her feet connect with Sam's chin as he rushed forward to engage her.

Landing into a crouch, she hears a crackle and from the corner of her eye she sees her dad fly back. It seems they have warded the Nemeton and this time, they have warded it to everything except themselves. She needs to end this now.

She lunges forward with her bangstick, she'll over-extend herself doing this and leave herself wide-open to a counter but she's betting on being faster than Sam. She wants to take Sam out quickly and join her father to take Coop out. But to her chagrin she discovers that Sam is just as fast as he is tough and he uses the machete to parry the bangstick. He hits it with so much force that she almost drops it—Sam seems to be almost as strong as the wolves! Allison realizes she's in real danger, she underestimated Sam really badly. She made assumptions on his strength, speed, toughness and skill based on nothing and she's going to pay for that mistake with her life.

When Sam sees the sparks fly out, his eyes narrow and before Allison can do anything else he raises his foot lightning-quick and plants a kick squarely into her chest. She feels like she got hit with a sledgehammer as the air rushes out of her. As she flies back and lands hard a few feet away, Allison's afraid that Sam may have possibly cracked a few ribs with that kick.

She finds it hard to concentrate and struggles to find her breath. She forces herself to roll to the side, swallowing the pain, expecting to see the machete blade to strike where she landed but is shocked to hear a gunshot ring out instead.

Allison forces herself into a crouch, preparing to dodge out of the way. She still finds it difficult to breathe but she sees looks up and sees Sam fall to his knees and then face first on the ground, red staining his back. She looks up to see her father with his pistol out, smoke curling out of the barrel.

"Oh God no..." Allison hears Coop's soft exclamation. But she ignores it at the enormity of what she has done. Allison looks up and meets her father's eyes, and what she sees there makes Allison feel a cold weight pull at her heart. She sees steely determination but sorrow at having to do this. But Allison knows he's not to blame, she's responsible for this. She got overconfident, even cocky, and because of that, to save her, she may have forced her father to take a life. Her father would never hesitate to do this for her, which is why she is always careful never to put herself in a situation which would force his hand but she just did that tonight. She looks down at the boy in front of her as the blood begins to pool under him. He's just her age! He's just a kid! They attacked first. He was just defending his friends! What is the matter with her?

"Sam?"

Allison looks up to see Blaine standing in the middle of the circle, and the expression on his face is devastating.

"Blaine...don't..." Allison hears Coop start to beg. But Allison only has eyes on Blaine as she sees him looking at Sam's still form.

"SAM!"

Then something happens, something that makes Allison step back. Blaine's grieving expression transforms into monstrous, inhuman fury. His eyes, all of it, turn jet black, his canines lengthen into fangs, and his nails grow into talons. Veins start to pop up under his skin as if black bile is being pumped through them. He opens his mouth so wide his chin almost touches his chest and he howls his despair in a keen so discordant and painful Allison covers her ears.

Her dad recovers first and plants himself between her and Blaine. Blaine looks at her dad and his expression is no longer human, it is feral and completely alien. But she recognizes that look of malevolence warping Blaine's face when he sees the still smoking gun in her father's hand.

He turns his eyes from the gun to her father and gives him such a look of pure hatred that she knows with certainty that she will become an orphan tonight.