Chapter Twenty: Powerless

The siblings were outside of Deaton's clinic but no one was there. Usually Deaton stayed back late, especially on full moon nights, but he was nowhere in sight. Avery huffed and then got back into the car.

"Find the nearest gas station. Let's hope they have some fishing wire." She said.

"You're not stitching your leg up on your own." Sam said flatly, raising an eyebrow.

"I've done it before. It's not like this is my first rodeo." She replied as Sam got back behind the wheel.

"We're not risking it." Sam told her, as if he was in charge.

"It's my leg, I'll do what I want to it." She gritted her teeth in response as Sam reversed.

"Why do you have to argue with everything that I say?" he slammed his fists hard onto the wheel and foot onto the brakes.

"Because. I. Can." Avery responded with a begrudged smirk.

"We're going back to Derek." Sam shook his head and continued to drive away. Avery went to argue once more, until Sam's eyes angrily fell on her. She held her tongue and put her eyes back onto the road. She didn't want to talk to him right now. She had to cool of some steam, get her leg stitched back up and then things would be calmer. She just hoped that by this time in the morning that Derek had at least calmed his young protégés.

Avery was exhausted. That was the simple fact of things. She hated it, the feeling of weakness that have overcome her entire body. She thrived in being on the ball and ahead of all her opponents. But right now she was simply powerless. The worse part was this night had almost ended an entirely different way. On any other day, had she been attacked by four human men, she would have beaten them to a pulp in all of 3 minutes. They would have run away simply because she was too much to compete with and not because she had a jaguar shape-shifting brother. When it came to war, she fought her own battles.

Her eyes fluttered to a shut and instead of the endless vision of a winding road, darkness took its place. But this was not sleep. She could hear whispering, three voices in total. She was sitting in a ball hiding from them in her bedroom closet. This was not a dream, this was a memory. It played out just as it had when she was much younger; the ominous noises of wolves sniffing the air as they caught her scent. Her heart rate rose in fright and she tried with all her might to lower it, just like her father had taught her. But by the time she got control of it, the floorboards at her doorframe creaked.

There was a crack of light from which she could see them approaching. They were just as the books described. Big, hairy and with terrifying teeth. They were advancing, so she quickly opened the shoebox sitting on her left, which housed one particularly nasty looking taser stick. All little Avery had to do was turn it on at the side and hold it in her hands like a sword. One yellow eye looked through the crack right into her own. The cupboard doors flew open and the wolf went to reach at her. She only had to lightly touch his leg to send him jumping backwards.

"Peter!" the red-eyed wolf called, stopped him from falling to the floor. Peter shook her off and got back to his feet. He advanced much faster this time, snatching the taser from Avery's grip. He snapped it in half right before her eyes.

"You little bitch!" he shouted and slashed the side of her face with his claws. She fell to the ground with a thud. She slowly turned back to face Peter, reaching to her face where he had cut the skin. When she pulled her fingers back into sight they were covered in blood. Her heart began to beat fast as the other wolves advanced. She tried to get back to her feet and run but was grasped firmly at the wrist.

"This is for Derek." Peter said and punched her hard in the gut. She yelped and screamed as the other Beta joined in. It was a frenzy of claws and teeth, tearing at her clothes and skin. She was too little to fight back, too weak. So she closed her eyes and waited until it would be over, until the wolves had torn her past repair. Then all of a sudden it stopped. There was no pain or the sound of panting wolves.

She opened her eyes and looked around. She uncurled from the ball she was in and got to her feet, in some back alleyway. Behind her were glowing set of yellow eyes, but they weren't the ones from her past. They had a warmness to them that she couldn't convey. She knew that whoever they belonged to wasn't her enemy. There was a shout and laughter as four men came into sight, they walked down the alleyway and leant against its walls, lighting up their cigarettes.

"You should really get your arm checked out." One of them said to his dark skinned companion, "I don't know what really happened by that was one hell of a trip."

"I've never been that far gone!" another laughed, "It's just funny we all saw the same thing."

Avery knew their faces. Like the three pairs of glowing eyes that had plagued her dreams, these four men would now take their place. Her nightmares weren't terrifying because of the monsters and evil that filled them, they were terrifying because she knew she couldn't fight them. Whatever state she had been in at the time, she was worthless. But now she had the upper hand.

Hate filled her every fibre. The town of Beacon Hills only brought her this kind of helplessness and for once she wanted to be on top. She just wanted to tear her fears limb from limb. She wanted to destroy them so they could never haunt her again. The yellow eyes crept from their hiding place to the attention of the four men. They stopped in disbelief, no sound coming from their mouths. At once the creature leapt forth and began to do as Avery had wished. Her fears screamed as she had as her desperation became their own. The creature tore them to pieces like she had once been. From their screams she grew in power. She could feel their roles reverse. The weakness from exhaustion lifted, like it had crawled off into a corner and died.

Then the creature was done. It's eyes shone bright into hers and then disappeared, so that she was left all alone in the bloodied alleyway.

"Wake-up." Sam shook Avery by the arm. She grunted and rolled over into her seatbelt, "Get up." She said with another shake.

"Fine, fine." She blinked and rubbed her eyes. She opened her car door and attempted to strut away but it was more of a pathetic limp. Reluctantly Sam came to her side, slung his arm around her and helped her get inside.

xxxx

It was the early hours of the morning when Sherriff Stilinski got a call. Apparently there'd been another murder, four in fact. He walked from his room, past Stiles', to see that his son was still out. Must have been at the Lydia Martin's birthday party. He threw on some half decent clothes and jumped inside his car, speeding off towards the crime scene.

He'd been suspended from the force, that much was true, but it wasn't in his nature to give up so easily. Badge or not, he was the Sheriff and he needed to solve these murders before it was too late. And while the powers that be had taken his title away, he was by no means out of the loop. Calling in on a few favours, he knew every time there was a murder that fit the MO.

From what had been described, four young men had been found bloodied and their limbs torn from their bodies. The Sheriff had a hard time believing that, but didn't entirely rule it out. Beacon Hills tended to house all the crazies; human and animal alike.

When he arrived on the scene there was a foul stink of death in the air, one he had grown quite accustom to over the past month. He plodded forward, hiding himself in the crowd from the prying eyes of Agent McCall. He didn't need to start an altercation with that douche-bag. His eyes didn't lie as he caught sight of the mess. He had almost missed it too. But as soon as he saw the forensic team loading the mangled bodies onto trundles he had to swallow and turn away. This wasn't like the other attacks. Many of them had been eviscerated, where claws of sorts dug in to the stomach and slashed up the chest. This couldn't be human. But then, how could it just be another mountain lion? Whatever it was, the Sheriff was feeling more powerless as the days went by. If he didn't solve this soon, he would never forgive himself.