Derek approached the boys. He was irritated that they had a stranger with them when he needed to talk.

As he got closer, he felt himself involuntarily tensing, and he looked around, trying to spot where this feeling was coming from. He almost felt like someone was about to attack.

"Scott, Stiles. I was hoping to get you guys alone. There are things we have to talk about."

"I'll see you guys later." Said Mal, getting up.

"Mal, you can stay. What is it, Derek? Christ, I'm at school. Can't I get a break from all this we-" Scott stopped when he saw Derek's eyes blaze. "Weird stuff?"

"Okay, my house. After school." Derek walked off.

There was definitely some drama at this school. From the edginess of their voices, it was likely serious. Mal resolved to ransack the Internet the first chance he got. He was willing to bet a fair amount that he would strike a gold mine with Derek Hale.

Mal went back to the house during lunch. No parents to worry about, it was just him. Legally emancipated as an adult after his mother and stepfather met their unfortunate accident (and a few years in foster care), and with the hefty insurance settlement, Mal was pretty much set up for life. His goal was to destroy one school each year until he graduated. Beacon Hills would be his fourth and last school. Then he would take his show on the road.

By the time he had hit his third web search and gleaned all the relevant information the Internet had to offer on Hale, Mal was hooked. He had to get to know Derek Hale better. Family mostly dead? Uncle in a hospital with severe burns? Sister torn in half? Arson? Animal attacks? He was into some crazy shit, that was for sure. Finding the location of the house, Mal grabbed up one of his favorite tools and stuck it into his bag; a police issue listening device that could pick up a conversation from 500 feet away. Mal's father had been a policeman, and a great one, killed in the line of duty when Mal was seven. His stepfather was a cop too, but the only thing he was good at was getting drunk and beating the crap out of his wife and stepson. Mal used to think of him as the Bag Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs. "Let me in, let me in.'. His mother had let him in. And then he, in his own way, started to eat them.

One day when Mal was 11, a miserable and scared kid if there ever was one, he stepped into his small bathroom. He lived in the basement of his house, the adults two floors up. They never came down here since Mal was forced to move off their floor of the large dwelling. Guess his stepfather didn't want Mal to hear all the screaming. It was a finished basement, and nice enough, but it gave him the feeling of being in a dungeon, cut off from the parts of the house that mattered.

Switching on the bathroom light, he looked around, puzzled. There were yellowish stains all over the walls, the floor. There was a strange but familiar odor too. Naïve as he was, it took him almost 30 seconds to figure out what his stepfather had done.

"Oh, no he didn't…" Mal said aloud, in denial of the disgusting truth. The sheer animal cruelty of the act stunned him. This is what fucking wolves did, for Christ's sake. His stepfather had gone into the little bathroom…and marked his territory.

In his mind, something snapped…and went dead. It might have been his soul. What years of abuse could not do was accomplished now in a single moment. A coldness settled over him. That bastard was going to pay. Mal had done nothing to earn this treatment, and he wasn't going to stand for it. Not from him, not from anyone, not anymore.

A trip to the library's automobile section gave Mal a working knowledge of modern brake systems. Mal did not check any books out, or do computer searches. Those could be traced. He selected the right tool from the workshop at home and sabotaged the brake lines in his stepfather's police cruiser. Rather than meet his end during a high speed chase as Mal had expected, both parents were killed at the bottom of their steep and curving driveway, the car flipping over several times. That his mother was in the car affected him not at all. She married him, she put up with him and failed to protect her own son. Mal would no longer suffer due to her bad decisions.

Three years later in foster care (Mal was 14), Mal was picked on by a school bully. Just some shovies, nothing personal. Mal avoided the kid for three months (to keep him from making any connection between Mal and what was to follow), then reported to the gym teacher that the boy had 'touched him in a weird way' while they were changing in the locker room. Mr. Grant had no idea what to do with this information, but Mal explained to him (with hitching breath and flowing tears) that the bully had done it to other kids and they were all afraid to come forward. Mal swore he would run away if the teacher told anyone. He refused to fill out reports. Mal explained that he had gone to Grant because he looked up to him and trusted him, and could he please find another way to handle it.

"What do you think I should do?" asked the 40 year old man of the 14 year old boy.

"His family is pretty conservative, and would probably appreciate the chance to handle this at home. Call his parents and let them stop him; if he does it again then I'll come forward and talk to whoever you want."

The whole next week, the offending bully was not seen in school. Enough time to put Phase II into operation. Mal 'acquired' a bunch of adult magazines featuring male models. Another handy book on lock picking (with lots of practice over the past few weeks) let him stash the magazines in other boy's locker, poised to fall out when he opened them. Everything was handled with gloves to prevent fingerprints.

When the bully returned to school, looking shell-shocked, he opened his locker surrounded by roughly a dozen kids during the early morning classroom rush. Out came the magazines. The gossip began that day, the beatings a day or two later, only ending a few years down the road when the bully drew himself a bath and slashed his wrists in it. Mal, expecting this, smiled faintly when he looked it up on the Internet.

Mal was not homophobic, but the people in this particular hick town were, and so he had used it to his advantage. And that was when his new plans and goals solidified. He would destroy one set of lives after another. No longer a victim, he would be the ultimate predator, free of the things that kept humans weak. Guilt, remorse, anxiety…and a conscience. The only thing that he was able to hold on to, the only shred of morality left, was that his victims had to attack him first.

After school, when Scott and Stiles took off in Stiles' Jeep (Stiles complaining that he had lost his phone somewhere) Mal followed them on a bicycle he purchased on the way back from lunch, one made for dirt roads. He actually did have a car, but engine noise would give him away.

When he spotted them in the distance standing by the burned house, Mal parked the bike and set up the microphone.

"Scott, you have to finish your training. Stop worrying about Allison Argent and her goddamned Hunter family and focus on getting control of yourself. You won't be any good to her otherwise, and might even be a danger! Not to mention the Alpha running around loose. He could come for you at any time."

Scott growled.

"Why did this freaking happen to me! I never wanted to be a damn werewolf!"

Mal almost stumbled, and a twig broke under his foot. What the hell? Werewolf?

They heard you, and they're coming. The dark inner voice that had helped him through the years to carry out his crimes and avoid capture insisted this was true, despite the fact that it should have been humanly impossible for them to hear that small snap. The voice gave him the insights into the people and the world around him that so disturbed Scott. He never failed to heed it.

Mal quickly shoved the microphone in his knapsack and zipped it shut, then unzipped his own pants and let loose a steady stream at the tree when Derek, Stiles and Scott ran up. He pretended to be startled, and made a show of zipping up quickly.

"Mal, what the hell are you doing here?" asked Scott. His eyes almost seemed to glow a feral yellow color.

Mal, who would no more have arrived without a backup excuse than Jackson arrive at school without hair product, pulled Stiles' cell phone out of his pocket (picked up when he went to see Lydia) and handed it over to him.

"I picked up your cell phone. You left it behind. Lydia might be calling you soon." All of these statements were true, and so neither werewolf picked up anything irregular about Mal's heartbeat. Mal had long ago learned this manner of speaking, though he had no idea that it saved himself from being caught just now.

"Did you hear anything? That was a private conversation." said Derek bluntly.

Mal looked at him.

"I just heard myself pissing against this tree a moment ago. Are people usually able to hear conversations from this far away?" Again, no change in hearbeat. Derek relaxed.

"Do me a favor. Don't piss in my forest. I don't like it." Derek walked off.

"I'm sorry guys. I'll mind my own business next time." Scott and Stiles rolled their eyes at the retreating Derek, before turning back to Mal.

"Ah, don't mind him. You should see him on his off days." Stiles put in.

"I'll see you at school." With a false air of hurt, Mal got on his bike and rode towards home.

When Scott and Stiles returned to Derek, he was frowning at the retreating figure.

"Who is that kid?" he asked.

"Malcolm Drake. He's new. He's a really nice guy." Stiles was feeling mildly annoyed at Derek for chasing his new friend away.

"I don't like him. He smells…different than the other kids. Don't trust him."

"Derek, I can hear a lie as well as you. He told the truth just now." growled Scott.

Derek watched until Mal had disappeared completely, then went up the stairs and shut himself into his house.

"Nice talking to you!" called Stiles.

{}{}{}

When Mal got back to his house, he pondered this new information.

Werewolves? Did he believe it?

After some more Internet searches (far more effective ones than Stiles had used) he stockpiled a cache of information that was supposed to be the truest account of these legendary creatures.

"Hmmmm…Mountain Ash….Aconitum, or wolfsbane…silver weapons…super healing? Ancient Hunter family…Argent….ARGENT?"

Another search on the Argents confirmed his thought. Allison Argent was from a family of Hunters. And Scott, a werewolf, was in love with her.

"What a tool." Mal murmured. Why did people insist on embarking on doomed relationships? Was there not enough misery in the world? He chuckled.

Could this really be true? They had heard him from so far away. Super hearing? That was bad news. He had been really lucky today. That yellow glow in Scott's eyes…

Mal began to laugh. It got louder and louder, bordering on the edge of hysteria.

"Werewolves!" Just when he had the world figured out, it threw him another curveball. He had to admire it. This would be his biggest challenge.

Mal raided the police computer files, and combined that with the lore on werewolves. Every family had an Alpha, who was the leader and the only one who could transmit the condition with a bite. Derek Hale, and his uncle Peter were the only surviving members of the family. It followed logic that the uncle must be the Alpha. Derek had also as much confirmed that neither he nor Scott were Alphas. If it was the uncle, why would they worry about him attacking, and why would he bite Scott? To get a Pack? To go after the Argents? The dead people the police were currently investigating all seemed to have a connection to the fire. This was definitely a revenge thing. It had to be the uncle.

Mal left again, this time taking his car. He had some preparations to make, and then he was going to pay a little visit to Peter Hale.