Here is a brand new chapter. I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 38

Scott told everybody about his horrific dream, not leaving an inkling of a detail. Each person's face contorted in different ways, expressing their own disturbance toward it.

"I was bitten?" Stiles said in spooked awe. "I would never do that to you. You have to know that, Scott."

"It was a dream," Scott reminded him, jostling him by the shoulder. "One that made me realize that it's going to be okay."

"What's going to be okay?" Melanie asked skeptically.

"Me, being this."

Melanie smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"Good." The bell rang. She, Stiles and Lydia walked off toward their next class. Lydia grumbled again about being called Ginger. Stiles went on his own little rant about being evil. His voice trembled. Lydia nudged him and told him that he couldn't be evil if he tried. Melanie stayed quiet because it could happen. It wasn't just a bad dream. It was a possible future, one that didn't come to pass. That prick of a dreamwalker didn't just create a person's greatest fantasy but they could create a living nightmare. More so, they drew from the person- who they are and somehow manage to draw out a possible outcome of their life, sort of like a 'what if'. Most phycologists just called them lucid dreams.

They sat through math, but didn't think about math. Melanie was suck on the fact that she was dead in the dream. She hoped that she at least put up a fight before dying.

After school, there was practice. Besides Scott and Isaac, Melanie was able to stay ahead of the team without breaking a sweat. Her lungs burned with triumphant heaves. She enjoyed the freedom running gave her when she wasn't being chased for her life. She grinned like a happy, worn out puppy.

"You're such a chea-cheater, " Stiles wheezed, bent over and holding himself at the knees.

"Don't be a sore loser," Melanie chuckled. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

"Sore? Yes. Loser? No." Stiles said, still gasping for breath. His brows rose up into his sweat drenched hair as he looked up at her. She stood with her hands on her hips, rotating her ankles and wiggling her aching toes. She blinked a few times, clearing up her contacts which were as blurry as her glasses on a rainy day. She started wearing the stupid things after two practices and nearly watching them fly from her nose.

"Whatever you say," Melanie said, laughing. She patted him on the back then made her way back toward the bus. Danny jogged up to her side.

"How about a movie night?" He asked. "And say yes because I've already told everybody that that's what's happening."

Melanie scoffed, shaking her head, eyeing the trees. Their footsteps crunched over the leaves. They took seats toward the back of the bus. The adrenaline was fading. She laid her head back against the window.

"Seems like I don't have choice but to say yes." Melanie said.

Ethan and Aiden took the seat across from them. Scott and Isaac in front of them. Isaac sat with his back against the window and reached his long arm over the seat to hold Melanie's hand. Their hands dangled against the back of the seat, their fingers intertwined. Isaac's thumb rubbed over hers, back and forth.

"Any news on Chris?" Stiles asked, taking the empty seat in front of the twins.

Both brothers shook their heads with disappointment.

"I think I'll go by the loft tonight after stopping by the hospital," Melanie said. "Help him out some."

"I'll head to the station. It's weird that he'd go missing. Why are you going to the hospital?" Stiles asked. Scott and Isaac eyed her just as curious as Stiles sounded.

"Melissa wants to give me a check-up since I have this habit of constantly being injured in the life threatening capacity. Derek thinks it's a good idea too." Melanie shrugged.

Scott chuckled, shrugging in agreement.

Conversation anymore was about this kind of thing-living with the light implication that it was really only surviving. Parties and weekends had been put on the back burner and none of them had really noticed lately. The drive back to the school was short. Melanie didn't bother to go to the locker room to get changed. She could do it after the check-up.

Isaac held her around the waist after she tossed her gym bag onto the back seat of her car with her bookbag.

"I'll go with you," he said.

"No, it's fine. It's nothing serious. I'll be home in time for movies," Melanie said.

"Everything's okay, right?" he asked. Frown lines creased his forehead followed by the puppy dog look. She rolled her eyes, smiling. His worrying was sweet, though overbearing sometimes.

"Don't worry about me. Really," she said, rubbing his arms. "Derek's forcing her to do it. He's all worried that I'm going to mysteriously turn up dead."

"Good. I'm glad you're listening to him at least," he said then leaned down and kissed her forehead.

"I'm fine. Nobody could get to me. They'd have to get through Derek and then you and even if-IF- that was possible. I wouldn't go down without a fight," she told him, running her hands up his chest, the subtle muscle making her inner voice rumble pleasantly. She kept a simple smile rather than a taunting one, not wanting to start anything. Her arms was nearly fully extended as she stopped at the nape of his neck.

"I don't like it when you say things like that," he said.

"It's my way of saying that I'm fine."

He sighed and took her hand, kissing it. His eyes remained softened like a kid whose toy was taken away. They softened up so pitifully that Melanie tried not to giggle.

"Fine. Just quit saying things like that."

"We don't exactly live in a place where scenarios like that are fictional," she reminded him with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"I'll see you when you get home." he said, ending the start of an argument.

They parted ways. Danny gave him a lift home. Melanie got in the car and slammed the door shut. Starting the car, she let out a long, drawn out breath and pulled out of the parking lot. It wasn't that Isaac was concerned that was bothering her. He was starting to get particular lately about what she was doing, trying to protect her from danger. The whole 'mate' thing was still a working progress, but if he thought he could control her actions down to the air she breathed, he had another thing coming. She wasn't going to sit back and let her friends get hurt just so he could sleep easier at night. She'd never been that kind of girl. The others were the same way.

Derek was like Isaac, though. He didn't like the way she put herself out there either. She didn't do it on purpose. Seth…she thought he was a good person and he was…at first. Other events however, well…shit happens.

It was the whole reason for the check-up. He wanted to be sure that everything had healed correctly. He went through a whole spiel about it. He didn't keep her from fighting. In fact, his demand for her to be able to fight like them, like she just was as strong and agile was higher than the the way he expected from Scott or Cora. He had always been questionably tough on her because of that.

Thinking about the similarities and differences between them was giving her a headache.

Melanie made a left. The radio hummed the tune of Theory Of A Deadman. She tapped her thumbs against the steering wheel to the smooth, ballad-like beat.

In the rearview mirror she saw a van. It was at least a car and a half back. Flashes of the one used to kidnap her made her foot jolt on the brake pedal. It turned off on the second corner behind her. Melanie couldn't help that her heart picked up quickly, beating fast in her chest, ready to run away. Thinking about that drunken night still scared the living crap out of her. It wasn't just getting kidnapped. It was that Isaac nearly attacked Drake. It was that Stiles had been kidnapped right under their noses. It was knowing that she nearly died, trying to break free. She still had nightmares every once in a while.

Melanie pressed the gas and started driving again. Once she got to the hospital, she went through the emergency room sliding doors. Almost every night Melissa's work had become one in which she did overtime. The exhaustion was obvious regardless her perfect complexion.

Melissa greeted Melanie with a beaming smile, and they headed down the hallway, along the green line on the floor, towards an exam room. She performed the usual physical, but added x-rays and blood work. There wasn't very much talk except when Melissa asked Melanie to move or breathe a certain.

"Push my hands…Deep breath in."

After having her blood taken, Melanie got a shower then went to the cafeteria to get some dinner while she waited for the results of the extra work done. The wait was pointless, but Melissa insisted that she wait just to be sure that everything was copasetic. There wasn't much of a variety to choose from the small buffet. Some mashed potatoes, a dried out hamburger or an over boiled hotdog. She decided on chunky, strawberry yogurt and a plain bagel with a bottle of water and listened to her iPod during the wait. Melissa came to meet her about fifteen minutes later. She held a beaten up clipboard with small pen scribbles on the back. Melanie took out her earbuds as Melissa sat across from her. She set the clipboard between them, her eyebrows furrowing over her disheartened brown eyes.

"Mel," Melissa started, tucking a few stray curls behind her ear.

"What is it?" Melanie said blandly. Her face grew tight at the obvious sign of trouble. Her chest tightened and her breaths became shallow as Melissa looked at her with sympathy, confusing Melanie.

"Looking over the tests, there's some really bad scarring and tissue damage around your abdomen area."

"Okay…I've taken a few hits," Melanie shook her head slowly, waiting for the main point of this. After the constant attack during the last four and a half years, she expected nothing less.

"The damage is going to have lasting effects," Melissa said gently. "Effects that terminate any chances to have children in the future."

Melissa's voice trailed off with a strange echo suddenly, as if the volume to her voice had been turned down. Melanie looked down at her iPod's black screen, fiddling with her orange earbuds. No children. She struggled to keep a straight face. A punch to the face never hurt this bad.

"The likelihood that you'll be able to conceive is very slim, and I realize that at this age you aren't thinking about kids. I didn't want you to have to find out later when you want to." Melissa continued. She took Melanie's hand in hers. Melanie's frigid hand warmed in seconds.

A single tear fell down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly before Melissa could see. She hadn't thought about kids and if she wanted them, but now she'd never get the choice. Looking up, she smiled at Melissa and shrugged.

"Thanks," she said. "I really appreciate it. I wasn't planning on having kids anyway. Their evil little shits."

Melanie took her hand out of Melissa's quickly as if shocked by the touch and stood. She tucked her iPod into her back pocket and gave Melissa one last smile.

"Melanie, We should at least talk-"

"We talked. I'm fine. It's okay." Melanie cut her off, hurrying out of the cafeteria.

Melanie walked to her car almost breaking out into a run, but once inside she just sat there. She held the steering wheel tight in her hands and let out a few shaky breaths. Each one was more and more painful to take in. An option she never thought about was now impossible. She let out a sob, closing her eyes. Leaning forward, she laid her forehead on the steering wheel. Everything was fine, except she'd never get the choice to have a child.

After a good cry, she turned on the car.

"It's for the best," she told herself, wiping her eyes. "I can barely keep myself alive."

She pulled out of the lot and drove for the loft. It wasn't that far, but she had enough time to clean up her tear stricken face. I wonder if he found Chris yet, she thought. She reminded herself that she was only checking in. The others were expecting her at the house. Putting on a face for them was going to be more difficult. There were already texts from Danny and Stiles. Isaac had left an anxious voicemail. Tempted to call him, she didn't. She put her phone in the side pocket of her gym bag. This wasn't something anyone had to know right now.

When Melanie made it to the building, she parked beside Derek's SUV in the parking garage and made her way toward the elevator. The entire building was slightly creepy in the abandoned and possibly haunted sense, yet it was perfectly Derek.

Her flip-flops slapped loudly against the heels of her feet, echoing through the lot. She put her earbuds in and turned up the volume as she waited for the elevator. The music screamed in her ears, bringing her some semblance of peace for the short period of time and squelched her thoughts.

From behind, two sets of arms grabbed her by the arms tightly. Melanie tensed instantly and kicked her left leg up, hitting one of her attackers in the face, freeing her left arm. She swung and punched the other one out cold. They were bulky as if training to become weightlifters.

"Grab her," a male voice exclaimed hoarsely.

Spinning around, two other men came at her. She knocked one down, roundhouse kicking him. He cradled his nose as blood spurted from it through his fingers. The other two who she'd wiped out seconds before were back on their feet and had her in their grasp again.

"Stay still," the male voice told her, but Melanie wriggled harder.

The men had a tighter hold on her arms this time. A man in all black hid his face under a hood. He held a syringe in his hand; green liquid filled it and spurted out the tip of the needle a little.

"You're just going to go to sleep for a while," he said as he stuck her in the neck with the needle. Melanie shuddered from the stinging sensation. She hissed then groaned. Whatever he stuck her with was freezing cold then warm, making her sleepy. Her body slumped as she felt her body slowly lose feeling. The edges of her vision darkened until she saw nothing, not even the back of her eyelids. Have…to run, she thought.

Her head hung forward and her hair hung around her face, like a curtain. One of the men holding her, slumped her over his shoulder. Melanie could see anything but her sense of touch was still working for the time being. The man dropped her onto and hard, metal surface, and she managed a gargly groan that only made her seem like she was choking on her spit.

"Don't forget the other one." That was a different voice, not the man in charge. A stern female voice. "I need them both out of my way."

"For what you're paying? Not a problem. Usually we have to pay to get them. This is a win-win. They'll be great additions to the others." The man paused. "The girl who was raised by wolves…interesting. I hope she doesn't die too soon. It'll be nice to see her put up a fight."