Now you're moving on and you say you're alone:
School ending is such a relief, for more than one reason. You and Isaac get your act together and actually study for finals instead of just screwing all the time, and you think you did okay. You tried to study with Lydia, but the thing about studying with geniuses is that they don't actually need to study, and by the end she was just annoyed at your inability to grasp what she considers basic concepts. Besides the stress of finals, it's good that you'll no longer be forced to spend class time with Erica and Boyd, who just glare at you the entire time and make you worry about going to the bathroom alone. Well, you're not really afraid of Boyd, who is by far the more reasonable of the two, but even after her suspension, Erica still seems like she'd like to start another fight. Hopefully she'll cool down over summer break.
Mostly, you're glad to get away from Scott. He hasn't tried to talk to you since he came to your house, even though he could at school, but he kept looking at you, like...you don't know. Like he's worried about you? He feels sorry for you? You don't get it and it's creeping you out.
Unfortunately for you, your plan to avoid Scott for the summer lasts about five days before you get a text from him saying you need to meet.
"Seriously, why can't we ever meet anywhere nice?" Stiles complains when you, Lydia, and Isaac walk up to meet him and Scott by the swings in the deserted park by the elementary school. It's just after eight and you're hoping to any observers that you look like a bunch of bored teenagers with nothing better to do on a summer night. "Why is it always parking lots and abandoned woods with you people? For once couldn't we go out to dinner, see a movie, do something fun?"
"Fun for who?" Lydia asks in disgust, looking generally as unimpressed with Stiles as she usually does. You have no idea why Stiles likes her so much when she clearly has so little respect for him.
"Look," Scott says, before Stiles can continue his pathetic quest to humiliate himself as much as possible. "I don't know if you already know, but we've got problems. Have you ever heard anything about an Alpha Pack?"
"A what?" you say, but Scott's not looking at you, he's looking at Isaac.
"Did Derek ever mention it?" he continues when Isaac just looks confused.
"Uh, no," Isaac responds, frowning in confusion.
"What's an alpha pack?" you say, feeling a little ill at the serious look on Scott's face. This can't be happening. Everything was supposed to go back to normal now.
"A pack of alphas," Stiles says, with a shrug.
"How does that even work?" Lydia asks. "I thought alphas were in charge of a pack."
"I don't know," Scott says, looking a little disappointed. "The only reason I know they're here is because I overheard Erica and Boyd talking about it. I tried to talk to Derek, but he just told me to stay out of it."
"On the bright side, he's finally stopped trying to get Scott to join his pack," Stiles offers. "But unfortunately, he still is not telling us anything."
"When you say they're here..." you say slowly, heart pounding in your chest. "You mean a bunch of alphas have come to Beacon Hills."
"Yeah," Scott says, looking weary, though that just might be the white street lights causing him to appear unnaturally pale. "Yeah, that's the impression I got from Derek."
"What do they want?" Lydia asks, while you try not to lose your composure and do something like punch something and scream.
"I don't know, Derek, maybe?" Scott says, shaking his head. "He just...he doesn't want me to get involved."
That does nothing to reassure you. If it's bad enough that even Derek is trying to protect Scott...an entire pack of alphas. What are you supposed to do against that?
"My parents don't know about this yet," you say quietly. "But they will."
"Look, we don't even know what they want yet," Scott says, holding out his hands placatingly. "We just need you to keep an eye out for anything you think might have to do with them. The sooner we figure out what's going on the better."
"Yeah, we can do that," Isaac says, surprisingly amenable to Scott's request.
"What have you done so far?" Lydia asks, crossing her arms over her chest and clutching her arms even though it's quite warm out.
"Done?" Scott frowns.
"I mean, I listen to the police scanner and my dad's calls, but besides that..." Stiles says, looking confused. "We don't know enough about them to do any research."
"What about checking all the new arrivals in town?" Lydia says, looking irritated. "Hotel rooms, car rentals, new leases?"
"Uh," Stiles says, looking at Scott in bewilderment before turning back to Lydia. "I don't...And how do you think we'd get access to this information?"
"Isn't your dad the Sheriff?"
"Are you kidding, you think he knows about any of this?" Stiles says, only now looking nervous and serious. "No way is he finding out about this! He is staying, way, way away from all this supernatural crap."
It might help if you weren't involved, you think, but you realize you're hardly the person to judge, and focus on more important things.
"County Clerk's office would have that information, wouldn't they?" Isaac says.
"Not unless they're planning on voting," Lydia says, rolling her eyes. "And even if they were, it's not like that stuff's public record."
"So there's no way to find out who's moved into town recently?" you ask, annoyed and still shaken from the idea of a pack of alphas moving into your town.
"Who's to say they're even staying in a hotel or something?" Stiles says. "If they're anything like Derek they're probably squatting in an abandoned warehouse somewhere."
You and Isaac exchange a brief look. "I don't think so," Isaac says, sticking his hands into his pockets. "But there are a bunch of empty storefronts near the forest preserve that they could probably stay in without anyone noticing. We could check them out if you want."
"Oh, yeah, sure," Scott says, the surprise you feel mirrored on his face, because Isaac had never really liked Scott before and it's weird to see him acting so helpful. The surprise fades, though, and Scott smiles at Isaac, pleased at this turn of events. "Thanks, that'd be great."
Isaac slouches a little in embarrassment, looking away from Scott almost shyly, and you have absolutely no idea what's going on here. You thought they didn't like each other. It's almost a relief to see Stiles looking just as confused as you do, though Lydia does not react at all, probably because she doesn't care.
"So, that's that, then," Lydia says, tapping her heeled shoe impatiently. "Text us if you find out anything."
"Well, I don't actually have your number, so-"
"Then text Allison," Lydia says, flatly. "Now, let's go, some of us have things to do."
"Well, we could hang out or go somewhere if that's..." Stiles tries, but Lydia is already walking away. You give Scott an apologetic look at Lydia's rudeness, but instead of commiserating with you over your friends' behavior, he's watching you with worried, unnecessarily empathetic eyes. You have to turn away and follow Lydia back to her car to avoid flinching, and even then it makes your stomach turn. You just...you just don't like it when he looks at you like that. It's so...familiar. It's uncomfortable.
"He likes you, you know," Isaac says awkwardly when you tell him this, curled up together in one of the library beanbags the next day. You're going to be a lifeguard at the public pool, but you don't start for another week, and both you are Isaac are bored out of your minds. Isaac wasn't able to get more hours over the summer, but maybe you can get him in the pool for free? Otherwise you're not sure what he's going to do. Definitely not hang out with Lydia in his free time.
You scoff. "He's too nice for me," you say, because it's true. You don't understand why he even likes you. You have very different ideas on how to deal with crisis.
It's only later that you realize that that was kind of a strange response.
Being a lifeguard is unsurprisingly just as boring as you'd thought it be. You really just spend most of your time yelling at kids to stop running and getting a horrible sunburn. You didn't used to be so pale as a kid, so you're completely unprepared for how much sunscreen you have to put on everyday. Still, it gets you out of the house and the shirtless college boys are definitely a bonus. Also shirtless Isaac when he comes to visit you. Minimum wage sucks, but you're trying to save up money for Isaac in case of emergency. You keep a balance of a couple hundred dollars in your account to avoid raising suspicion, but pretty much all of your money is in cash in your closet. If the worst comes to pass, you don't want your parents locking you out of your bank account, and Isaac can't use his because as a minor his dad still has control over it.
Lydia and Isaac come to visit when they can, which is fun, the former in an utterly scandalous bikini that makes you simultaneously judgmental and jealous, because unfortunately you're not yet at the shape to pull off a bikini. Maybe next summer. Most of the kids in your grade take the trip up to the beach if they want to go swimming, so it's mostly just soccer moms and their grade school-aged kids, but occasionally you get someone you vaguely recognize from school. Or more than vaguely recognize, like when Scott and Stiles show-up, clearly unaware that you work at the pool, and you're forced to spend most of the time awkwardly not looking at each other. Fortunately it only happens once, and they don't come back after that because Scott in a bathing suit is unfairly hot and muscular and then he gets wet, which only makes things worse you just really need to stay away from them.
The summer is mostly uneventful. You and Isaac work, hang out with Lydia, have sex in his sleeping bag, your car, or occasionally a motel room. It's the first summer in a while you've actually had anything to do other than locking yourself in your room and listening to depressing music, and, like an idiot, you start to hope that maybe there is no Alpha Pack, or they left, and that everything will be okay now.
It isn't, of course, and sure enough, in the middle of July, you find Scott and Stiles waiting outside next to your car in the parking lot after the pool closes, deathly serious looks on their faces.
"What happened?" you ask automatically, clutching your pool bag, dread spreading slowly up into your throat.
"Erica and Boyd," Scott says, misery and helplessness written all over him. "They've gone missing."
There is no sign of either Boyd or Erica. Scott and Derek search the woods while you and Isaac take the warehousing district, but you find nothing. The last time they were seen was in the morning by their parents, a full day before Derek realized they were missing, and none of them know where they were headed that day. The police have been notified and have been conducting interviews with their families, but Stiles confirms they have no real leads. Neither of them took their parents' cars and footage from the bus station shows they didn't take a bus out of town either. It's like they simply vanished into thin air.
You go home that night with cold fear weighing down your every step, your hands clenched tightly to prevent them from shaking. Please, please, let your parents be asleep already, please let them have gone to be-
"Allison, I was just about to call you, it's nearly midnight!" your mother says, coming out of the kitchen and into the front hallway when you open the door. "I know it's summer, but you still need to be home at a reasonable hour. It isn't safe driving at this time of night."
"Okay," you say quietly, looking at her as steadily as you can. You must not show any fear. "I'm sorry."
You try and make your way to the stairs without any further interruptions, but you should have known it wouldn't be that easy.
"Allison, is there something wrong?" your mother asks, giving you a strange look. She's wearing a peach-colored cardigan over her pair of silky pajamas, no earrings or makeup, but even her harmless appearance cannot convince you she is anything but what she is. "Allison?"
"Please, please don't, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I couldn't help it! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't kill me, p-please don't kil-"
"I'm just tired," you say with a noncommittal shrug, looking away from her so you don't have to remember the dispassionate expression on her face as she murdered a fifteen year old girl.
You go upstairs and flop down on your bed, holding your hands to your pounding heart. It was pretty clear that Scott and Stiles assumed the Alpha Pack was behind Erica and Boyd's disappearance, but you know that there's another far more terrifying possibility. You stare at your ceiling and try to take deep calming breaths to relieve the anxiety building up in your chest. It doesn't help.
Because the truth is, Erica and Boyd could very well already be dead, buried out in the woods somewhere with wolfsbane bullets in their heads, and if that's true, you're never going to find them. Your parents are too smart for that.
You can't stop thinking about your parents murdering Erica and Boyd. As days turn into a week and still there is no news, you only feel worse. Eavesdropping on your parents conversations reveal nothing-they don't talk about anything hunter-related- and you can't stop yourself from assuming the worst. Or imagining it.
By the time you reach day nine your anxiety has caused you to start binging on chips and chocolate again, which you haven't done for months. You have trouble sleeping and you're tired all the time. You almost fall asleep at work and even your parents notice the circles under your eyes and your general sluggishness. You haven't felt this bad since Derek turned Isaac and he stopped talking to you. You try to keep it together, to convince yourself that everything will be alright, but everything comes to a head when you go to Isaac to try and distract yourself, which ends up backfiring completely and you end up starting to cry in the middle of sex. Isaac freaks out and practically breaks his back on the warehouse concrete floor trying to get off you and you hide your face under his pillow when he won't stop apologizing. You hate yourself for your weakness and the fact that you've just made Isaac feel terrible. He already has no sexual confidence; the last thing he needs is you making him think he's hurting you to the point that you start crying. God, he'll never have sex with you again.
"Allison, are you okay?" Isaac says, kneeling next to you hesitantly, sounding like he might start crying himself. "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"I'm fine, you didn't hurt me," you tell him and reach out to drag him down next to you on the sleeping bag again and press your face into his shoulder. "I...I think my parents killed Erica and Boyd."
"What?" Isaac says after a long pause.
"It's the only thing that makes sense," you say through your teeth, clutching his shoulders as if that could save you. "They've just disappeared! Why would the Alpha Pack kidnap them anyway? It's been more than a week and no one's made any demands! But my parents...they've done this before. They know how to disappear people. Before we moved here...no one ever found any bodies, people just went missing and they were never found!"
"But," Isaac says, gripping you back tightly and pulling you into his arms. "But, you don't have any proof, right? Your parents didn't say anything?"
"No, but I can't...I can't stop thinking about it," you choke, hot tears spilling down your cheeks and onto his shoulder. "I'm so stupid, I should have realized that just because Gerard is dead doesn't mean they wouldn't stop. This is what they do and they're never going to stop!"
"Allison, we don't know anything, okay?" Isaac says, stroking your hair, probably trying to sound comforting, but he sounds scared too. "Just, just don't think about that."
It's not exactly helpful, but you take comfort where you can get it and let him maneuver the both of you into his sleeping bag, not daring you raise your head from his shoulder.
"Hey, it's going to be okay," Isaac says after a couple minutes when you can't stop shaking. "Allison."
"I...I don't believe you," you tell him tearfully, raising you head to look at him. You can't really see anything in the bad light, but Isaac can probably see.
Isaac doesn't say anything, just kisses your cheek and runs his palms down your bare back soothingly.
"Why didn't you tell anyone you thought your parents...?" Isaac asks after you lie back down, wrapping an arm around his waist. "You didn't tell Lydia, right?"
You shake your head miserably, because how could you? How could you tell Lydia, or Scott, that you were pretty sure your parents had murdered two of your classmates? That you failed? You had one job, to protect as many innocent people from your parents' crusade as possible. Erica and Boyd might have been unpleasant, but they hadn't deserved to die.
"Hey, it's going to be okay," Isaac repeats, but you can tell by the tremor in his hands that he doesn't believe that any more than you do.
"And you didn't think of mentioning this sooner?" Derek snarls furiously, pacing up and down the pavement in front of you.
"Hey, she doesn't know anything for sure," Scott says, looking between the two of you nervously. He'd been the one who insisted on you telling Derek face-to-face, which he should have known would be a disaster. You haven't seen or spoken to Derek since you killed Gerard and his mood has only worsened at Erica and Boyd's disappearance. "It's just...it's a possibility."
"They're not dead," Derek snaps irritably, folding his arms over his chest and glaring at you. "Why would your parents kill them anyway? Don't they have a code? I thought they weren't supposed to go after werewolves that hadn't hurt anyone. Especially kids."
"Oh, is that why you chose them?" you're unable to stop yourself from saying, angry at his hostility because you're trying to help.
"Will you let that go?" Derek says in annoyance, giving you a disdainful look. "I explained the risks and they said yes. The bite is a gift."
"Look, can we focus on-" Scott tries, while Isaac shifts next to you nervously. He'd been worried about you going alone, even though he's far more afraid of Derek than you are.
"'Explained the risks?'" you repeat scathingly, disgusted at his lack of understanding of what he'd done. "You took advantage of them. You went after kids you knew would say yes and now two of them might be dead because of-"
"Allison," Isaac says sharply, the first words he's said since he got out of your car.
"Why do you always defend him?" you want to say, even though he never has, not really. He just hasn't condemned him either.
"Because of me?" Derek retorts, looking furious and stepping towards you. "You mean because of your parents. What is the point of you if you can't even-"
"Okay, enough!" Scott yells, stepping between you with his arms outstretched. "Can't we just-"
"No, we obviously can't," you say, because you're too angry to stay here much longer. God, you'd just love to empty your clip into his stupid face. "I'm done. Go to hell."
You turn away before you can do something stupid and walk back across the parking lot to your car, gritting your teeth angrily. But to your annoyance, when you open your front door and get inside, throwing your purse in the back seat, you realize that Isaac has not followed you back to your car. Instead he's talking to Scott. You can't see his expression from this angle through your windshield, but Scott is nodding and looking a little relieved. Derek remains mutinous. After a couple seconds, Isaac approaches your car and sits down beside you in the passenger seat, Derek disappearing into the darkness and Scott picking up his bike next to the street light and peddling away after a brief wave in your direction.
"What were you talking about?" you ask him as you start your car, wanting get as far away from this parking lot as possible, just in case Derek's listening.
"Just about where to look next for Erica and Boyd," Isaac says, looking at his fingernails instead of you. "They really don't think your parents killed them."
"They don't know my parents," you say darkly, but strangely it does make you feel a bit better.
Isaac doesn't respond to that, or say anything at all until nearly ten minutes have gone by and you're well on your way back to the warehousing district.
"It...it wasn't like that, you know," he says finally, leaning his head against the passenger seat window. "Like you said. He didn't...he explained the risks. About the hunters."
"He picked you because he knew you'd say yes," you say flatly, trying to keep the anger out of your voice, because Isaac isn't the one you're angry at. "He picked three high school sophomores."
"He was...I thought he was trying to help us," Isaac says, but he doesn't sound very sure about it.
That does give you pause. 'The bite is a gift' he'd said. If he really believed that, maybe he thought he should give it to people who really needed it. Isaac, beaten by his father. Erica, epileptic with severe symptoms. Boyd...you don't know. Something else probably.
It changes nothing, you tell yourself, glaring out the windshield as you stop at a stop sign. It doesn't change the fact that he'd beaten Isaac for speaking up for you, or the fact that both Erica and Boyd seemed afraid of him too. He's a bully, whether he realizes that or not, and you need to keep Isaac as far away from him as possible.
"He didn't...take advantage of us," Isaac says uncomfortably, and you seal your mouth shut to stop yourself from arguing. You don't think it would do any good. You know you're right, but Isaac doesn't have that clarity, for reasons that are painful to think about. Hopefully, he will one day. "He just offered, you know, and he knew...he wanted..."
But your patience pays off, it seems. Isaac can't even finish that sentence.
You stop the car at your destination and reach over the divider to cup his miserable face.
"Hey," you say unthinkingly, tilting it towards you. "I love you."
Isaac stares at you, eyes going wide, mouth dropping open a bit in shock. You feel your cheeks burn and you drop your hand away from his face, turning back towards the road. Why did you say that? you think. You don't love him. He doesn't love you either. He thinks he does, but he's sixteen years old. Not that he would know. You don't think anyone's ever loved Isaac.
"Okay..." Isaac says carefully, after a pause. God, you hope he can't tell you lied. Does it count when you didn't mean to? "You wanna come in?"
"Yeah, okay," you say quickly, even though you should probably be going home. You actually had to jump in the pool today, after some idiot middle school boy tried to pretend to be drowning on a dare. It was actually kind of refreshing, though not as refreshing as kicking him and his stupid friends out. But as a result, you reek of chlorine. And if even you can smell it, it must be terrible for Isaac.
He doesn't seem to mind, though, you realize as he kisses you and peels your still-damp suit off, mouthing at your boobs and clutching you tightly. You close your eyes while he moves over you, gasping in your ear, and wonder what you'll do if Erica and Boyd are dead. You barely survived when your parents killed a girl you'd never even spoken to, how could you stay in that house if they murdered people you actually interacted with?
"A-Allison?" Isaac says, and you blink, realizing you'd spaced out. He's leaning over you, breath coming fast and light against your cheek, and you can't see his face in the dark, but he's gone very still. "Are you-are you okay?"
He starts to pull out, but you tighten your legs around his waist. "No, it's okay, you can finish," you tell him, feeling guilty for drifting off.
"Wh-What?" Isaac says, sounding confused.
"C'mon," you say, pulling him down to kiss you and rocking up against him.
Isaac kisses you back for a second and then pulls away to press his face in your neck, starting to thrust again slowly. You stroke the short hairs at the back of his neck and stare up at the dark warehouse ceiling as he unravels, imagining confronting them over dinner, smashing glasses, plates, bowls in a rage.
Isaac won't talk to you afterward, just curls up under the flap of the sleeping bag with only his hair sticking out on the pillow. You can't tell if he's just tired or if he's mad about you zoning out during sex.
"Okay, I'm going now," you tell him dubiously, pulling on your t-shirt and sticking your damp swimsuit into your bag.
Isaac doesn't respond.
"Isaac?" you say, peering at his mop of hair poking out from the sleeping bag.
"Mmkay," he mumbles tiredly and sniffs a bit.
"Night..." you say, getting to your feet and searching around for your flip flops a bit.
"Night," he says shortly, his voice weird and distorted from under the sleeping bag. You leave the warehouse feeling disconcerted and guilty. You guess you should stop having sex with him as a distraction when you're prone to spacing out. You're kind of surprised he cares, but maybe it's an ego thing.
But you don't have time to worry about your weird relationship drama. Because the next day Isaac finds Erica and Boyd, and all hell breaks lose.
A/N: Cliffhangers! I love them so much. And oh, yes, the Alpha Pack. I really enjoyed 3a so it was actually hard to write this part because I didn't want to change anything! But fear not, I soldiered on-there is more weirdness to come. Please review!