I waited downstairs with Noshiko with my arms crossed over my chest, biting my index finger nail as I waited for Scott to bring Stiles down with Melissa. I was more nervous than anything but I knew that this had to be down so I knew that my pack was safe. When they appeared, Noshiko stiffened but her expression remained hard.
"Do you recognize me, hmm?" Noshiko questioned Stiles.
"Stop." Kira cried out as she barged through the back door.
"It's okay." Stiles reassured her. "I'm the one who asked her to come." Stiles was paler than usual and looked weak. Scott had to support him as he came down the stairs. His thick brown hair was a mess and with bags underneath his eyes it made his brown eyes stand out.
"You're the one who's gonna get stabbed with swords. Mom, don't do this to him."
"It's already done." Noshiko said as two clouds of black smoke appeared the two oni materlized from it. Noshiko looked from the Oni to Stiles and they immediately went to him and grabbed him by the head and stared into his soul with their glowing yellow eyes. What seemed like eternity, they finally let go of him and Stiles dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes as they disappeared. "Look behind his ear." We rushed forward and saw the backwards five behind his left ear.
"It worked." Scott said and we both sighed in relief.
"So, I'm actually me?" Stiles still wondered as he struggled to sit up with the help of me and Scott.
"More you than the Nogitsune." Noshiko said.
"Can the Oni find him?"
"Tomorrow night. It's too close to dawn now."
"Can they kill him?"
"It depends on how strong he is."
"And what about Lydia?" I asked. "Why would he take her?"
"He would only take her for an advantage."
"You mean her power?" Kira inquired.
"The power of a banshee."
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
I raced up the steps to the pent house and barged through the door without even knocking. Chris and Derek were in his office with his gun on the desk. I growled at Chris as I felt danger towards my packmate but Derek held up his hand to silence me.
"What happened?" I snapped as I took a step towards Derek.
"Nogitsune wanted a distraction and he used Derek." Chris explained. I growled at him one more time before turning my attention to Derek and softening my expression. I placed my hand gently on his cheek and stared into his gentle green and brown eyes.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Derek whispered with a half smile.
"Great. Lets go home." I led him out of the pent house with Chris right behind us. We entered the elevator but before the doors could close, Derek pushed it back open.
"You had a gun pointed at my head." My mouth dropped in shock and I felt my canines grow sharper. "You could've pulled the trigger. Why didn't you?"
"Because you're not my enemy anymore, Derek, and I'm not yours." Chris answered after a moment of thought. The answer comfort me but it still left me angry that he would threaten my pack even though Derek did try to attack him.
"The truth is, we should be out there looking for him, right now. Especially if he could do something like this."
"I'm not sure that's actually going to be necessary."
"Why not?"
"Because if he can do something like this. . ."
"Then he's stronger than ever." I finished for him.
"Which means he'll be coming for us." Derek stepped back to let the door closed but I stopped it this time and glared at Chris.
"If you ever point a gun at one of my pack's head, I'll have my claws in your head." I stepped back and the door separated us werewolves from the werewolf hunter.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
My phone rang as I walked with Derek to our vehicles. I sighed and stopped to answer to hear from Kira.
"Calla, Meridith is at the school." Kira said hastily.
"Who?"
"Meridith Walker."
"Who the hell is that?"
"Scott and Stiles didn't tell you?"
"Kira, I'm dealing with my own problems right now. I have one of my betas out looking for a banshee. Two of my other betas are god knows where and my alpha male had a gun to his head. So, yeah, I didn't have time to play catch up with Scott and Stiles."
"Calla, I just really need your help right now. Meridith is from Eichen House and the staff there are here to take her but we can't let that happen because we think she is able to help us find Lydia. I need your help." I groaned and looked over at Derek who was watching me intently.
"I'll find Aiden and Ethan."
"Thank you. I'll be there in five." I hung up and got on my bike and raced to the school.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I met up with Scott, Stiles and Kira in front of the school and located Meridith in the music room where Coach had just tazzed the crap out of one of the staff member from Eichen House. We rushed her back to Scott's house but as we entered through the door with Meridith in the middle of us we saw Raphael standing in the kitchen with Isaac at the kitchen table.
"What are you doing here?" Scott demanded.
"I could ask you the same thing." Raphael retorted.
"Free period." Stiles said. "We're doing a group study."
"And then maybe have a little foursome session." I said.
"Who's she?" Raphael nodded his head towards Meridith.
"She's my girlfriend." Stiles said, wrapping his arm around Meridith's shoulders.
"You're not my type." She said.
"Well, obviously we have a lot to talk about. Maybe we should take this upstairs." Meridith looked over at Isaac.
"He's my type." Isaac face went blank as he didn't know what to say to that.
"Okay. Isaac, you can come too."
"I guess you three can have a threesome." I said. "You guys have fun and Scott and I will stay down here and deal with dickface." I pretended to gasp in shock. "Shit, did I say that aloud?" Stiles led Meridith upstairs with Isaac trudging behind them but he stopped and looked back at me. I sighed and followed him. "You're a crybaby." We sat her on the bed and stood in front of er.
"Lydia?" Meridith questioned us. "You mean the red-haired girl."
"Yes!" Stiles praised her. "Yes! Good. Progress. Now, all you got to do it tell us where she is."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"If she tells me." I looked at her confusingly.
"If she tells you?" I repeated. "Uh, could you possibly ask her?"
"I already did."
"Perfect." Isaac said. "Perfect. What did she say?"
"She said she doesn't want to be found."
"That's good too." Stiles muttered as Isaac and I muttered in frustration.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
"I'm just saying." Isaac said as we crowded in Scott's bathroom whispering to each other as Meridith continued to sat on the foot of the bed, staring out into space.
"Isaac, we're not going to torture her." Stiles whispered.
"I mean scare her."
"We're not going to psychologically torture her either."
"Fine. How about this? You said she hears things, right?"
"Yeah."
"Doesn't that mean she's like Lydia? A banshee?"
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
"Okay, just try to focus on the sounds around you." Stiles explained to the curly short brown haired girl as he knelt down in front of her. "On what you're hearing. Focus on the silence."
"Listen to the silence." Isaac contradicted himself.
"Focusing on the silence."
"Listening to the silence."
"Isaac?" I called to him.
"Yes, Calla?"
"Shut the hell up."
"Yes, Calla."
"Stiles has more experience with Banshees considering that he's been mooning over one since he could talk."
"Yeah and mental patients."
"Shut the hell up."
"Yes, Calla."
"Isn't anyone going to get that?" Meridith asked.
"Get what?" Stiles questioned her.
"The phone."
"What phone?"
"The phone." Isaac tried to play along with it as she pointed to the phone in my front pocket and I slowly pulled it out to see if it was on silent but it wasn't. No one was calling me. I pretened to answer it.
"Hello." I said to no one on the other line. "Yes, she's actually sitting right here. It's for you." I handed the phone to Meridith and she cleared her throat as she held it up to her ear. She blinked her eyes a couple times before handing it back to me and I pushed it back down into my pocket again.
"They say Coup de foudre." Meridith recited.
"Coup de what?" Isaac tried to repeat. "What is that Spanish?"
"French." Scott's voice sounded behind us as he walked into his room. "It's French."
"It's about time you joined us." I said.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I sat in the back seat of the baby blue jeep with Isaac as Stiles drove to the old Oak Creek internment camp where we thought Lydia might be at. I kept watching every move that Stiles made. He moved slowly and carefully like he was in pain and more pain was about to be inflicted on him. He was paler than usually like when you're outside in the cold for too long and the blood started to pull away from the skin surface. The bags under his eyes got bigger and darker and he looked like he wasn't going to make it another day. Scott was watching him too, concerned for his best friend like I was.
"Hey, you okay?" Stiles asked Scott looking over at him.
"Yeah." Scott answered quickly. "Yeah. You don't have to worry about me."
"Alright, I'm going to say." Isaac spoke up. "You look like you're dying." Scott and I both turned to look at him. Scott's face was more in shock while my face was trying to hide the fact that I wanted to kill my beta for speaking out of turn. "You're pale, thin and you look like you're getting worse. And we're all stitting here thinking it.
"What happens if he gets hurt?" I asked.
"You mean if he dies, do I die?" Stiles rephrased it. "I don't care. Just so long as no one else dies because of me. I remember everything I did. I remember pushing that sword into Scott. I remember twisting it."
"It wasn't you." Scott objected.
"Yeah, but I remember it. You guys gotta promise me. You can't let anyone else get hurt because of me." We all nodded our agreement though we were thinking that that wasn't going to happen.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
We approached the Oak Creek internment camp gates where we saw Allison and Kira getting out of their car. Stiles stopped the jeep and turned it off and we got out to meet up with them, standing around in a circle.
"We've done this before, guys." Scott said. "A couple weeks ago we were standing around just like this and we saved Malia, remember? That was a total stranger. This is Lydia."
"I'm here to save my best friend." Allison said.
"I'm here to save mine."
"And mine." I agreed.
"I just didn't feel like doing any homework." Isaac added and I rolled my eyes at him and suppressed a growl. We turned to walk into the abandoned internment camp to see Noshiko standing in the center of the main entrance way with five Oni standing around her.
"Kira, turn around and go home." Noshiko ordered her daughter. "Take your friends with you."
"I can't." She denied. "When I looked at the game, I realized who I was actually playing. You."
"Go find Lydia." I told Scott and Stiles and they rushed into the building to find her as the rest of us stayed outside to deal with Noshiko and the Oni. Allison nicked an arrow on her bow and pointed it at one of the Oni.
"Call them off." She demanded.
"You think you could take him alive?" Noshiko questioned us. "You think you can save him?"
"What if we can?" Kira challenged her mother.
"I tried something like that seventy years ago. Your friend is gone."
"Are you sure? Or if Stiles doesn't have to die maybe Rhys didn't have to die either?" The oni twirled their swords in the air and took a defensive stance, pointing their swords at us.
"I see I'm no longer the fox now, Kira. You are. But the Nogitsune is still my demon to bury." The oni disappeared into black smoke and I'm assuming they went to go the other half of Stiles.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
We all stood in silence outside in the cold night air waiting for the Oni to return. As we waited, my mind wondered to Derek and the twins, wondering if they were safe or not. My gut told me they were and I felt relieved by that. I remembered when I hated feeling so protective over my pack, so responsible for everyone but now I yearn for it. It was part of being an Alpha and having your own pack. Though Derek's eyes didn't say that he was an alpha anymore, he still had the heart of one and I trusted him to take care of Aiden and Ethan. Noshiko suddenly gasped and it brought me out of my head and back into reality. She opened up her head to see a firefly lose its light and die off into a cloud of smoke. She looked up at us with fear in her brown eyes.
"Mom?" Kira called to her.
"What is that?" Isaac asked. "What does that mean?"
"It means there's been a change in ownership." A voice that I dreaded sounded behind us and we turned to see the nogitsune standing a couple yards away from us with the five Oni standing around him this time. "Now they belong to me." The oni held up their swords and charged at us and I barely had time to shift to join the fight.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
The clanking of metal against metal from Kira's sword and the oni's sword clashed in my ears as I balanced on my hind legs and bared my teeth at the Oni coming at me. He swung his sword and I ducked under it only to jump back up and bite at his hand that was holding the sword. My teeth sank into black smoke and I quickly retreated before the oni had time to make another attack. Isaac's growl filled me with worry as he fought with Allison's whistling arrows that tried to back him up but the arrow just bounced off the Oni's chest and clanked onto the ground. I looked to my left to see Isaac on the ground with an Oni standing above him, ready to kill him. I growled and let out a menacing howl and left my Oni to charge at the one who was threatening my packmate. I pushed my front paws out as I jumped. I knocked into the side of the Oni and we clobbered to the ground together. Before I could get up and away from the danger of his sword, he raked it across my side and I howled with pain as it burned through the skin. My white fur caked with red and black blood as my body tried to quickly heal itself before anymore damage could be done. Ignoring the pain, I jumped off the Oni and backed up to be side by side with Isaac and Allison.
"How do we stop them?" Isaac demanded at Noshiko as we kept our eyes on the Oni for their next move.
"You can't!" Noshiko shouted. Three Oni teamed up on Isaac and separated us and started slicing and dicing him with their swords. Before I could help, more pain was inflicted on my left side and barked as I fell to the ground. The firey pain seized my limps, not allowing to climb to my paws to defend myself. I snapped at the sword as it came down and made a new slash from my shoulder down to my hind leg. I struggled to get up but I couldn't find the strength to do so. A new cut on my neck. With every cut and slash, I felt the energy draining away until finally, I gave up. I couldn't do it anymore. I was done fighting. Aiden. . . Derek. . . Ethan. . . Isaac. . . Scott. . . Stiles. . . My pack. I was letting them down. I did my best to protect every one of them but I was still letting them down. It came to be where I didn't even feel the pain anymore when the Oni left a new amark on me. I could feel the black blood seeping through my thick white fur as it tried to heal every cut but for every cut it healed it felt like five more appeared and I could tell that my body was about to give up too. Just when I was about to lose hope, a yellow light glowed above my head and I found the energy to look up to see an arrow sticking out of an Oni's chest and the Oni dropped its sword as he struggled to get the arrow out but couldn't and finally it disappeared into black sword and it didn't come back. I looked at Allison who was standing there looking shock and proud and no one saw the Oni sneaking up beside her until the sword was through her stomach. The Oni seemed to have left the sword in her for hours but seconds later, he pulled it out and backed up to his fellow warriors before all of them disappeared along with the nogitsune. Allison stumbled back and I felt my gut twist with sorrow as she began to fall to the ground with the blood loss. I struggled to get up to go to her but I couldn't. Before she hit the ground, Scott appeared and caught her. His eyes were wide with sorrow and shock and I could smell the salt that was beginning to form in his eyes as he pulled his first love into his lap.
"Allison." Scott whispered.
"Did you find her?" Allison struggled to speak but managed to get the words out. "Is she okay? Is Lydia safe?"
"Yeah. She's okay. Yeah." Scott tried to grip Allison's hand to try to take the pain away. When it didn't work, he moved to another spot and tried but still couldn't. His voice cracked as he tried to speak to her. "I can't. I can't take your pain." Allison's breathing labored as she tried to speak again.
"That's because it doesn't hurt." I rolled onto my stomach and my head dropped to the ground between my paws as I knew what that meant. So did Scott. The salt on his cheeks became stronger.
"No."
"It's okay."
"Allison."
"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's perfect. I'm in the arms of my first love. The first person I ever loved. The person I'll always love. I love you. Scott McCall."
"Don't, please, don't. Allison, don't, please."
"You have to tell my dad. You have to tell my dad. Tell him." She started stuttering as her breathing stopped and her eyes closed. Scott held her tried as she sobbed and I let out a mournful howl with the last of my energy that echoed through the night air. My head dropped back down to my paws as I watched Allison's hand fall from her stomach and onto the ground and the thud sounded like a hundred arrows being fired at once.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE