Stiles and I followed Scott through the woods after he came back to us claiming that Malia was the coyote that was watching us at the car wreck. I had already tried to call Derek like a million times but his phone kept going to voicemail. It wasn't like him to ignore my calls. Scott was now leading us to a den that he found on his way back to us. We walked inside and shined the flashlights across the ground, finding a dirty stuffed bear, a baby blanket and a blue jacket that would have fit a small little girl.
"It's a coyote den." Stiles said.
"Werecoyote." Scott corrected him. Stiles bent down to pick up the blue jacket.
"You see this? This is Malia's. Remember, it's the same one she was wearing in the photo." Scott and I crouched down beside Stiles to look at the jacket with him before Scott reached out in front of him to grab the stuffed bear.
"We shouldn't be in here." I said.
"What do you mean?"
"She's not going to come back now. We just invaded her home. Our scent's going to be everywhere."
"If she's not going to come back here, where's she going to go?"
"I don't know."
"Can you track her now? You think you got her scent?" I looked to Scott for that answer and he just shrugged his shoulders.
"Maybe." He answered. "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 and I sighed beside him.
"The door's still open."
"If I can't get a hold of Derek, we're gonna have to find someone else to help." I said.
"This is basically a crime scene, right?" Scott questioned me. "I think it might be a little out of my boss's league."
"And more in my dad's." Stiles and Scott nodded their heads in agreement.
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Jake came crawling back out of the coyote den with the baby blanket in his hands. He gave a quick order to Stiles' dad before walking over to Stiles, Scott and me.
"You're sure it was her?" Jake asked Scott.
"I looked her right in the eyes." Scott said. "And they glowed just like mine."
"It makes sense, Dad." I said.
"But it wasn't a girl." Jake said as the blue and red lights from the cruiser behind us played across his face. "It was a four-legged coyote, right?"
"Well, okay. But yeah, see, that's the point that we don't exactly have figured out yet."
"Okay, but if it was a full moon and she did change while her mom was driving, then anything could've happened." Scott reasoned with Jake.
"Horrible things could've happened." Stiles added. "Ripping, shredding, tearing things."
"Which is probably what cause the accident." I concluded. "Think about it, Dad, all right. They're driving, Malia starts to change, she goes out of control, the mom crashes and everybody dies..."
"Except for Malia." Scott pointed out.
"She blames herself, all right, goes off running into the woods and eventually becomes trapped inside the body of a coyote." Stiles finished.
"That makes sense." Jake said and the three of us sighed in relief. "In a Chinese folktale!" Jake raised his voice at us. "This is...this is insane. I need this kept quiet. The three of you, not a word. I don't want anyone hearing about this. I especially don't want Mr. Tate hearing about this." Sirens blared for a split second before turning off and we turned to see Agent McCall and Mr. Tatet getting out of a car and walking towards us. "Oh, hell."
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." I groaned.
"Mr. Tate." Jake greeted him but Mr. Tate ignored him as he slowly reached out and took the blanket from Jake, holding it close to him.
"It's hers." Mr. Tate whispered.
"All right, wait here." Agent McCall ordered.
"Dad." Scott snapped.
"I'll talk to you in a minute. I wouldn't mind hearing how your mom's okay with you running around in the wood this late."
"Oh, it's ok, Scott." I gloated as I crossed my arms over my chest and shot Agent McCall a bold, fearless look. "He's just jealous because his mama never let him roam around the woods at night."
"Callana, that's enough." Jake snapped at me. "Apologize."
"I ain't apologizing to him. You crazy?"
"Then go home. We'll talk about you being out here this late at night later. Go." Jake and Agent McCall began to walk to the den as Scott, Stiles and I turned out backs on them to head home.
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"All right, everyone. Let's get started." Mr. Yukimura said as Stiles, Scott and I took our seats in history class the next day. "We were just talking about internement camps and prisoners of war. There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail...Who would like to come up and read aloud for us?" The class remained silent. I didn't blame them. I mean, who would want to stand in front of the class and read. "Mr. Stilinski, how about you?" A look of horror washed over Stiles face as it went pale.
"Oh, maybe someone else could." Stiles said.
"Everyone participates in may class, Mr. Stilinski."
"Yeah, well, the last time I checked, this was history class, not participation class." I snapped, standing up for my best friend, knowing that the side effect that he was going through do to the dying and coming back to life thing was not being able to read.
"Miss Bryn, I checked your rap sheet and you started last year off with a lot of trouble. Don't start this year off the same way." I sighed and leaned back in my seat as Stiles got up and walked over to the open textbook that was laying on the podium. He clutched the sides of the podium as he stared down at the text in front of him. The grip got tighter as he began to breath heavily. Stiles looked up at the class and started hyperventilating as his face went sheet white. Scott and I stood up as he looked like he was about to faint any second.
"Stiles? You okay?" Stiles looked over at us but made no sign that he comprehended the words that I spoke to him. He stumbled but caught himself on the podium but Scott and I were already at either of his sides, supporting him. "We should take him to the nurse's office." Without waiting for an answer, Scott and I guided Stiles out of the classroom and down to the hallway to the boys locker room. Stiles broke away from us and stumbled inside, gasping for air.
"Stiles, look at me, man." Scott said. "Is this a panic attack?" Stiles grabbed the sides of the sink and leaned on it as he shook his head, still panting for breath.
"It's a dream, it's a dream." He muttered. "This is just a dream."
"No, it's not. This is real. You're here. You're here with us." Stiles' breath didn't slow; it actually got faster as it got harder for him to catch his breath.
"Okay, what do you do?" I asked him. "I mean, like, how do you tell if you're awake or dreaming?"
"Your fingers..." Stiles gasped. "You count your fingers. You have extra fingers in dreams." I held up both my hands and clutched them into fists and put up one finger so Stiles could see it.
"How many do I have?" Stiles ignored me. "Hey! Look at me. Come on, Stiles. Look at my hands and count with me." He finally turned to me and looked at my first finger. "One..." I put up my index finger.
"Two." Stiles' head dropped with exhaustion as I put up my middle finger.
"Keep going." Scott ordered and Stiles lifted his head again and looked back at my fingers.
"Three." Ring finger. "Four." Thumb.
"Five." I counted. I held up my index finger on my other hand.
"Six." Middle finger. "Seven." Ring finger. "Eight." Pinky.
"Nine." Last one.
"Ten." I kept my hands up and fingers spread apart as Stiles looked from one hand to the other, making sure he counted correctly.
"Ten." He looked at me then back down at my fingers. He breathing slowed and dropped down to the ground and leaned his back up against the wall. Scott and I crouched down in front of him.
"What the hell is happening to me?"
"We'll figure it out." Scott vowed. "You're going to be okay."
"Am I? Are you? Scott, you can't transform. Calla can't heal and lost all her supernatural abilities. And I'm straight up losing my mind. We can't do this. We can't...We can't help Malia. We can't help anyone."
"We can try. We can always try."
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"A couple of student said they saw it running across the field and back into the woods." Jake informed me. Malia was seen running through the school and almost attacking Kira but Scott was there to save her. Animal Control was now here searching the classrooms to make sure she wasn't still in the building. "Thank God, nobody got hurt."
"What happens if she does hurt someone?" I asked him as we stopped walking and turned to face each other. Jake sighed before answering.
"Most likely they'll have to put it down."
"Put her down? Dad, try not to forget there's a girl in there, one that you'll be killing. Come on, you aren't back to not believing, are you?"
"I believe there are a lot of things that I don't understand yet. But that doesn't mean that everything and anything imaginable is suddenly possible. Now, are you one hundred percent sure that this is a girl and not an animal?"
"Yes." I looked down the hallway to see Scott standing on the other end, staring at us. I turned my back to him. "Scott, have you been listening this whole time?" I turned back around to see Scott give one short nod.
"All right, let's get this figured out. Come on." Jake gently placed his hand on my shoulder and started to guide me back to the boys' locker room.
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We walked into the locker room and Jake left my side to go talk to some witnesses. Scott and Stiles were already there. I walked up to them and Stiles picked up his bookbag which had teeth marks in the side of it.
"I think I know what she was looking for." Stiles said and he opened his book bag to pull out the ragged doll from the car wreck.
"You took the doll from the car?" Scott questioned him.
"Yeah, I thought you could use it, you know, for like her scent."
"Where did you get that?" We looked to the entrance of the locker room to see Mr. Tate storm inside and snatched the doll from Stiles' hands. "Where did you find this? It belonged to my daughter. Jake came back over to us and pulled the three of us back behind him.
"Mr. Tate, I don't know how you heard about this." Jake said. "If you got your own police scanner or what... but you can't be here." Jake put his hand on Mr. Tate's side to push him out of the room but as soon as he did, Mr. Tate tensed up like Jake touched an open wound or something. Jake opened Mr. Tate's jacket just enough to see a gun in a holster on Mr. Tate's belt.
"I have a permit."
"California schools are gun free zones, permit or no permit. You need to leave, Mr. Tate. Now."
"You find that animal. You find that thing." Stiles' dad came up behind Mr. Tate and pulled him from the room.
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"Xylazine." Deaton declared as he placed three small medicine bottles with a clear liquid inside on the table in front of us. "It's a tranquilizer for horses. For a werecoyote, expect it to work within seconds. I only have three. So whoever's shooting, needs to be a damn good shot."
"Allison's a perfect shot." Scott said. "She can do it."
"If we mange to find the thing." Isaac said.
"Okay, what is the point of him?" Stiles asked. "Seriously, I mean, what is his purpose? Aside from the persistent negativity and the scarf? What's up with the scarf anyway? It's sixty-five degrees out."
"Look, maybe I'm asking a question no one here wants to ask. How do we turn a coyote back into a girl, when she hasn't been a girl for eight years?"
"I can do it." Scott said.
"You can?" I questioned him.
"We can. Me and you. You remember the night that Peter trapped us in the school? In the gym, he was able to make us turn using just his voice. Deucalion did the same thing in the distillery."
"This is a werecoyote, Scott." Deaton reminded him. "Who knows if it'll even work if you can find someone who can teach you."
"That's why you called Derek, first." Stiles concluded and Scott said.
"Yeah, we could try it on our own. But right now, Calla can't even connect with her wolf side and I'm too scared to even change into just a werewolf."
"We need a real Alpha." I looked at Stiles with a hurt expression. "You know what I mean. An Alpha who can do Alpha things. You know, an Alpha who can get it going. You know, get it..."
"Up?" Isaac suggested.
"Great." I muttered. "Well, would you look at that, Scott? Apparently we are Alphas with performance issues. Wonderful. Typical teenage life."
"Is there anyone else besides Derek who could help?" Deaton inquired.
"I wouldn't trust Peter." Isaac said.
"Maybe the twins?" Stiles suggested.
"They're not alphas anymore." Deaton said. "After what Jennifer did, almost killing them? It broke that part of them."
"Yeah, but what if they know how to do it?"
"Nobody's seen them for weeks." I said.
"Well, actually, that's not totally true."
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Lydia led us up the steps to Derek's loft and Stiles pushed opened the heavy steel door. Scott and I stood in the doorway as Stiles and Lydia walked furthur into the loft to find it empty.
"Great. We got stood up." I muttered.
"They said they'd meet us here." Lydia said. An unseen force slammed into my left jaw and I could hear the bone go snap crackle pop. Before I could see who hit me, a sharp pain shot up my back as a blow landed on my back, knocking me down the steps. I landed on the cold concrete floor beside Scott.
"Holy Hell." I turned over onto my back and groaned when I saw the twins standing on top of the steps, smirking down at us. "Oh, God. Just kill me now." I tried to climb to my feet but Aiden jumped from the steps and grabbed me by the hair, pulling me up and slamming his fist into my stomach. I groaned as every breath was knocked from my lungs and I was left feeling like all the oxygen was gone from the world. I fell back to the ground and saw Ethan, punching Scott over and over again in the face. Aiden kicked me in the face and a spider web like sensation told me that my jaw was offically broken.
"I thought you guys were gonna teach us to roar." Scott groaned as he was kicked in the stomach.
"We are." Aiden declared. "You do it by giving in."
"Giving in and letting go." Ethan added. "That's how Deucalion taught us control." Aiden grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air so my feet weren't touching the ground. I clawed at his fingers, trying to make him let go of me but I was unsuccessful.
"Hey, you know, that's funny." I heard Stiles call from the side lines. "I actually tried something like this one time using a heart monitor and lacrosse balls. But you're right, beating the living crap out of them is probably a lot better." Aiden let go of me and as I was falling, he slammed his fist into my side to bring me to the ground again. I coughed in pain and gasped for air. How was I still breathing?
"That's actually the plan?" Scott questioned me. "You kick our asses?"
"You're afraid to turn." Ethan said. "Her wolf's secluded. We're going to make you two turn. You turn. Then you kick our asses."
"And then you roar." Aiden said. He's eyes grew an electric blue color and he opened his mouth to let out a loud roar, canines sharpened. I got to my feet and wiped the blood that was dripping from my mouth.
"You don't think you can let go with us?" Aiden came over to me and pushed me back to the ground. God, this felt more like being bullied instead of helping.
"You think you're going to hurt us?"
"Come on, McCall. Give it your all." I tried to get back up but Aiden was right back there to push me back to the ground. "We can always heal." I stood up and slammed my fist into Aiden's chest but I think it hurt me more than it hurt him. He laughed and slammed his fist into my stomach again and I groaned. I heard Scott groan too as Ethan punched him.
"You're Alphas. You want to roar like one, you've got to give in full throttle. You've got to be the monster. Become the beast. Become everything you're afraid of."
"That's what gives you power. It gives you strength." Scott tried to return a punch but Ethan dodged it and elbowed Scott in the back, knocking him to the ground. "Giving into it doesn't make you the bad guy."
"So long as you can control it."
"Sometimes control's a little overrated." Aiden kicked me in the stomach and I felt like the inside of my body was on fire. I felt like I was going to burn alive from the inside out. I coughed and black blood dripped from my mouth.
"What if I can't control it?" Scott asked them. "What if I can't turn back?"
"Then it takes over." Aiden said. "You become Malia. You get further and further away from being human. You turn into an animal. Or worse."
"You turn into Peter." Ethan said. Now there's something that I do not want to happen. Scott and I stood up together and wiped the blood from our mouths as we faced the twins. I raced after Aiden and Scott charged at Ethan. Aiden punched me in the nose and knocked me back as Ethan grabbed Scott and slammed him onto the table, punching him over and over again. Aiden went up to his brother and pulled him away from Scott. "I thought we were helping them."
"You help too much." I groaned as I laid on the ground, every muscle in my body aching.
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I pulled my bike up beside Scott's bike as Stiles and Allison parked beside us. I pulled off my helmet and got off my bike as Isaac, Allison, Lydia and Stiles got out of their cars. We stared into the trees of the preserve as the sun decided to hide behind some clouds making it look even more creepy.
"Anyone else think we might be doing more harm than good?" Lydia asked.
"We're trying to keep a father from killing his own daughter." Scott reminded her.
"Actually, we're trying to keep a guy from killing a coyote who is actually his daughter, who we don't know how to change from a coyote back to his daughter." Isaac corrected him and I glared at him.
"And again with the not helping." Stiles said and Scott turned to Allison.
"Did you bring it?" He asked her and she pulled a sniper rifle from her trunk. Three gunshots one right after the other sounded from inside the woods and we exchanged worried glances with each other. Scott hopped back onto his bike and sped off into the woods. I groaned and started running after with Isaac and Allison with the rifle behind me.
"Can't we just take your bike?" Isaac yelled behind me.
"Yeah, let's do that and see if we get anywhere." I shouted over my shoulder. "Are you a special kind of stupid, Isaac? It's a motorcycle. Not a dirt bike." A gunshot sounded and I made a sharp right around a tree, sliding down a small mound and continued down the dirt path. I jumped down from another mound and something clicked under my weight. Just as I was lifting my right foot to continue running, something clamped down on my ankle, snapping. I screamed as I fell to the ground. I looked down to see a bear trap around my ankle as black blood poured from the puncture wounds.
"Calla!" Isaac jumped down from the mound and landed beside me. Allison appeared seconds later. "Go find Tate before he shoots Malia, Allison." Allison took off again and Isaac turned to me. He began to reach for the jaws of the trap but I immediately pushed his hands away, not wanting anything else touching my ankle. I choke back a sob as the pain intensified. "Calla, we have to get the trap off you." I nodded my head quickly to show him that I understood what he was saying. My hands shook violently as I reached for the jaws. I cried out in pain as I tried to pry the jaws open. I sobbed again as I let go of the jaws, making them snap back onto my ankles.
"I can't." I cried as tears flowed down my cheeks. "I can't do it."
"Yes, you can. You're a freaking Alpha, Calla. Open the damn trap. Be the Alpha!" I got a better grip on the jaws and my biceps screamed at me to stop. The jaws wouldn't move. I let go and sobbed harder as the pain grew. My whole body hurt from with Adien kicked the crap out of me.
"Isaac..." Isaac scoffed at me.
"Do you really call yourself an Alpha? What would Derek say if he was here? He would probably laugh at you. You're no Alpha. You're a Beta. No, you're weaker than a Beta. You're an Omega. Which makes the rest of us Omegas since we can't be a pack if we don't have an Alpha suitable for the job." I closed my eyes and more tears came out. Isaac was right. I wasn't being an Alpha. I was being a weak, whining Omega. And that made me angry. I felt something burning inside my chest as I placed my hands onto the steel jaws again. I clenched my teeth as I pulled against the jaws, feeling them give way as I felt my inner wolf coming back to me. My inner wolf gave me strength as it rushed to my arms. A growl rumbled loudly deep in my chest as my canines sharpened and my eyes grew a bright red. The steel jaws squeaked in my grip and tore apart from the rest of the trap. I felt a deep growl rumbling in my chest, deeper than I ever felt like an animal trying its best to get out of it's cage. I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes as a wave of power and control overwhelmed my body. The bones in my body began to shift and rearrange themselves, bending my body in ways that I didn't know I could bend. I opened my mouth to let out a roar to release the tension building up but instead of a roar, a howl came out. As the howl died down, I slowly opened my eyes to be staring at the ground with a red alpha haze around my eyesight, panting for breath. Instead of seeing two hands pressed firmly into the ground, I saw two giant white paws in place of them. I lifted each one up to examine them before looking from left and right behind me to see the body of a white wolf in place of my body. I looked to the left at Isaac to see him staring at me in shock. I lifted my right foot up and the steel trap fell to the ground. It must have shattered apart when I was evolving. I was completely healed. I looked back over at Isaac and lowered my head to him, sending him a silently thank you before racing off into the woods.
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I had started to run after Scott's scent, pushing myself to my full power now that I was connected with my wolf again and leaving Isaac in the dust behind me. It took me a while to get used to my oversized paws. It was like every other step I took I was tripping over them but now I speeding through the woods, dodging trees from left and right, running faster than any normal wolf. I heard snarling sounds to the left and I realized that I was near the car wreck. As I got closer I looked to see Scott, wolfed out, and crouched down in front of Malia who was snarling and baring her teeth at him. I stopped behind her and looked over at Scott who looked in confusion at me but after a while, he eventually realized that it had to me and nodded back at me. Inhaling deeply, we both open our mouths and the deep growls that were rumbling in our chests came out in a loud howl that echoed through the forest, causing birds to scatter everywhere. Malia immediately stopped snarling and dropped to the ground on her body. Seconds passed and the fur on the coyote grew shorter. So short it, grew into the skin of the coyote and the pink skin turned into the cream color of a teenage girl. Within the blink of my eyes, a brunette girl was laying naked in front of us.