Chapter Six: I Think About You
Malia rubs her bleary eyes as she stares at the clock on the wall. Each tick of the small hand is like the spoke of a wheel, running down the time. She wishes it would move faster. She can hear Lydia and Scott's heartbeats around her, Lydia to her right and Scott directly behind her. And then of course there's the one to her left where Kira used to sit. It was times like this that she really missed the Kitsune.
"Malia, what is the answer to the equation?" Mrs. Williams asks loudly, pulling Malia out of her thoughts.
"Um, what? Sorry, could you repeat the question?" She asks, sinking further into her chair.
"Miss Tate, you would do well to pay attention. You and I both know that your grade can't afford another downward slope." The teacher replies haughtily before calling on another student and turning back towards the board.
Malia's blood boils and she can feel her temper slipping. Her eyes flicker blue rapidly, shifting back and forth to brown like a faulty light switch. A clear growl animates from her chest and her elongated claws scratch against the bottom of her desk.
Scott grabs her hand from the spot behind her to help her focus.
"Malia, calm down, breathe. You are stronger than this." He says soothingly, rubbing small circles on the palm of her hand and running his fingers over her knuckles.
Lydia looks on with interest.
"Control is overrated"
She hears a voice, withering yet distinct that trickles in and out. She listens hard, waiting for something else to happen, but she hears nothing. She must of imagined it.
She concentrates on the beat of Scott's pulse when his hand slipped into hers. After a few moments, her claws draw back into her skin and her brown eyes focus in on the sight in front of her, his bronze skin contrasting gorgeously against hers as if they were melting together. It looks so small compared to the size of his, yet somehow they fit perfectly in a way she never expected them to. His hands were large, smooth, and a mocha tan with hypnotic veins racing down the back of them. Rough and beautiful and somehow capable of so much tenderness and compassion, she realized then that she loved his hands. And just the lingering thought makes her tingle all over and question why in the world she is noticing these trivial things about him. She looks back up at him and meets his gaze, nods her thanks, and shifts her gaze back to the front.
Has Scott always been the one able to pull her back? If so, why is she losing control now?
"It's progress"
She hears the voice whisper in her ear again, the words echoed and running away as fast as they came. Malia whips her head around and searches for the source of the sound, her wavy dark hair fluttering around her.
"Malia, are you okay?" Lydia asks concerned, eyeing her like she's lost her mind.
"Did you guys not hear that?" She asks puzzled, gauging their reactions.
"Hear what?" Scott replies, watching her with the same mild concern that Lydia had.
"The voices..." She said, looking in between the two of them.
"I'm pretty sure that if there had been any voices, I would hear them." Lydia says matter-of-fact. "I'm kind of an unwilling participant in that department. Voices love crowding around in my head."
"I know what I heard." Malia barks, clearly frustrated that they didn't believe her. She bites back the words on the tip of her tongue and takes a breath. "Sorry... I didn't mean to snap at you guys." Apologizing, she faces the front again and lays her head against the desk.
The rest of class goes by in a blur of letters mixed with numbers and Malia thinking how they shouldn't go together. Math really is the center of all evil. With a grumble, she shuffles out of her seat when the bell rings and throws her satchel over her shoulder. Her combat boats squeak against the tile and she can hear the clicking of Lydia's heels and Scott's heavy steps following behind her.
She can sense their presence before she feels a hand on her shoulder.
"What is wrong with you? You've been on edge all day and I can tell that something is bothering you, so spill it." Lydia demands, causing Malia to groan. She fidgets around with her locker before opening it and pulling out the picture that she had shown Scott.
"Look at this picture. I have a photo similar to this one with every member of the pack. And then there's this one that sticks out like a sore thumb. I'm just standing there with my arm outstretched, like I'm standing up against someone. I have no memory of taking this picture and the position I'm standing in doesn't make any sense." She explained.
"So you're losing your marbles over a picture?" Lydia retorts with a look of disbelief.
Malia fights down a snide remark. "Lydia, are you telling me that nothing feels off to you? This morning I found myself unconsciously searching through my phone looking for a name. I don't know who, but I didn't find whomever I was looking for. Something is wrong, and I think it has to do with the Ghost Riders."
Lydia quiets. "Well, I guess something did feel a little different today. I could of sworn that I was suppose to meet someone this morning. I had this feeling, like it's someone that I walk to class with every day. I figured it was either you or Scott, but we don't have first period together." Lydia says with a shrug.
"I think I felt something too... Like a tugging. I already told Malia about this but I walked by this locker the other day and for some reason I was drawn to it. I couldn't fathom why. Just something about it... called to me, like literally spoke to me. I guess I shouldn't have been as skeptical about the voices you were hearing, 'Lia." He apologizes, scratching the back of his neck. "And this morning, I stepped on a tack from a picture that fell down off my cork board. It was of me, you, and Lydia... But there's this gaping hole of empty space in the middle... as if someone else should have been there, too." Scott adds in.
"I think someone was taken from us and the Ghost Riders erased all memories of them." Malia states, chewing on her bottom lip out of nervous habit.
"I guess it's possible... But who do you'll think it would be?" Lydia ponders.
"They could be pack." Scott suggests.
"They could be a boyfriend or girlfriend." Lydia ponders.
"They could be a friend. Someone that means something different for all of us. Someone we can't lose." Malia states. "I think he may have been my anchor." She adds, her eyes falling on Scott who stared back with equal fervor and a look of disappointment evident in those dark eyes of his. She'd do anything to get him to stop looking at her like that.
Scott lets out a faux cough. "Maybe we should take some time and then regroup later after school." He says, refusing to meet her gaze. "I think we all have a lot of thinking to do and I'll try to do some research on the Ghost Riders. Maybe you two can do some investigating. The memories aren't going to come back on their own." He finishes, a frown ever-present on his before he turns and stalks off down the hall.
"Are you guys okay... Is there something going on between you two?" Lydia blurts out, facing Malia once Scott is out of ear shot.
"It's... Complicated." Malia sighs, running her fingers through her hair.
"He likes you, doesn't he?" The strawberry blonde replies knowingly, unintentionally hitting it right on the nail.
Malia is quiet.
"But the real question is, do you feel the same?" She tries again, her green eyes piercing the werecoyote with her impenetrable stare.
Malia is flustered and reserved, something that is uncharacteristic of her outspoken and brazen personality.
"I don't know what I feel, Lydia. I- I know that I care about him. And I think about him way more than I should. In ways that I shouldn't. In ways that I didn't think I was capable of." She admits, covering her face with her hand.
"Is that so bad?" Lydia points out, moving Malia's hands away from her face so that she'd look at her. There was a semblance of trust that passed between the two girls. Malia was a firm believer in personal space, at least when it came to her own, and she was always finicky about who she let in.
They pair had grown close over the past few months. Lydia never thought she could form a connection with another girl, not after Allison. And in some ways, she realized that she had held that against Malia for a long time. It had been easier with Kira. The Kitsune had reminded her of the Allison she had first met, the shy girl that could light up the room with her smile. It was comforting and warm. But the problem was that Malia reminded her of Allison, too. Her bravery, fierceness, protectiveness, and loyalty. Lydia envied the way she could take care of herself. And part of her had always been jealous of Allison because of it. But it was also what she had loved most about her. Malia embodied these qualities. Back then, she couldn't help but bitterly hold it over the other girl's head, the fact that she wasn't Allison. Now she realizes that it's okay that she isn't and that she doesn't have to be.
"Something is holding me back. I'm wasting away on cigarettes and useless boys who only make me feel emptier inside. I just want to feel something. I sit at home alone and I miss him... Scott. I dream about his eyes staring back at me, caressing me, holding me. But then there's this itch in the back of my head that says that it's wrong. I guess he is the one that I didn't see coming."
"What do you mean?"
"He... gets under my skin. He makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and he makes me feel safe. He makes me unsteady, terrified, happy, and my stomach to get tangled up in knots. When I'm with him I feel like I'm remembering a feeling that I've forgotten." Malia sighs and looks Lydia in the eyes. "Please don't tell him"
"Why don't you want him to know? You can't go through life self-sabotaging every good thing that comes your way, Mal." Lydia implores, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze.
Malia feels her heart drop to the pit of her stomach. She hadn't ever wanted to reveal this to anyone. She is a private person who prefers to keep her cards close. "After I took my mother's power, I felt... lost. I thought I'd feel relieved and..." Malia couldn't put her finger on the word she was looking for.
"Languor?" Lydia butts in.
"Lang-what?" The brunette balks, a cute confused look on her face.
Lydia chuckles. "Languor... It's like this pleasant feeling, usually coupled with tiredness. Like the feeling when you just woke up from a long nap after a hard day and you stretch your muscles and feel your body succumb to the sensation."
Malia has to grin at that. She is slowly learning all the Lydia-isms that make up her intelligent, lovable, sassy friend.
"Yeah, that." She chuckles before she sombers, remembering where she was going with the conversation. "I felt so lonely and cold. I think a part of me was hoping that there would be something redeemable in the woman who gave me life. But she was willing to do everything she could to end it. I don't know why it hurt so bad, but it did." She pauses and licks her chapped lips. "I saw myself in her. I have her hair and her eyes and her nose. I'm a slip of a girl that came from this woman that just... hated me from the second I was born. I guess those feelings all came rushing back to me when I saw her unmoving on the floor of Scott's house."
"Malia I'm so sorry..."
"It's okay, I've made my peace with it. But at the time, it was swallowing me. I was drowning in my own self-loathing. I never told anyone this but when I stole her power, I could feel chips of her soul falling away. I was connected to her and I could hear her thoughts. In her last moments, I was holding onto this hope that she would feel just a sliver of regret, any kind of lost love for the daughter she tried to murder in cold blood. But... There was nothing, just blinding, unadulterated hate."
Lydia squeezed her hand, pouring her love into her for strength.
"Anyways, after Deaton treated my bullet wounds, I found my way to one of the cliffs just outside of Beacon Hills. I was standing at the top with my toes kissing the edge with nothing beneath me but a rocky bottom fighting against crashing waves, gravity, and a long way down. And somehow, with all that distance staring me right in the face, I still felt emptier than a ghost. And just when I thought that maybe that was where I was always suppose to end up, Scott called..." She smiled, wiping a lone tear that trailed down her cheek.
"He told me how proud he was of me and that I was strong. He told me that I had more love and humanity in my finger than the Desert Wolf had in her whole body. He promised me that things would get better and that he'd never let me feel unloved again. He's kept that promise, and then some." Malia recalled, her grin growing bigger until she wore a full-blown smile that lit up her entire face.
"So why are you afraid of telling Scott your feelings?" Lydia wonders, genuinely confused.
"What if it hurts?" Malia blurts.
"And what if it does? That's love, sweetie, nothing worth it comes easy. But you guys are good together. You balance each other out."
"I'm afraid that slapping on a band-aid won't be enough if it ends badly. I know I'll mess up or say the wrong thing."
Lydia wraps her small arms around Malia's neck and pulls her into a hug.
"It may hurt at times. But it's going to hurt because it matters."
